INTRODUCTION

EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self is a role-playing game for 2-5 players. Your group
will use the rules in this book to collaboratively tell a story about the realm of the human
psyche bleeding through into reality, filling the world with surreal mysteries and absurd
action. At the heart of this phenomenon are Eidolons, manifestations of the human soul,
the true self unbound by any worldly limitations. Eidolons are extraordinarily powerful,
but they’re also raw psychic nerves; to summon your Eidolon is to fully expose yourself
to yourself, and to everyone else. This is a game about self-acceptance and
self-improvement. It’s a game about the incredible power of the individual, dwarfed only
by the power of friendship. It’s a game about standing up for your most sacred truths in
a world that’s eager to tear them apart.

It’s a game about all of these things, and it’s also a game about kickass battles fought
with magical soul powers.

If that sounds like a good time to you, then read on!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

● The 22 Major Arcana cards from a tarot deck

● Character Sheets for each player
● Scratch paper
Feel free to replace some or all of these things with digital equivalents, but please note
that if you use a digital deck of cards, you’ll need to be able to “save it” at the end of a
session; the deck and discard pile should be the same at the start of a session as it was
at the end of your previous session. You’ll also need to be able to do things like search
the deck for cards, draw from the bottom of the deck, and set cards aside.

THE BASICS

One player will assume the role of the Game Master, or GM, while everyone else will
assume the role of “players.” The GM’s job is to build the foundation for the story your
group will tell together. With input from everyone else, they’ll create the setting, the core
conflicts, and the inciting action for the plot. The players will create a party of “player
characters,” which serve as the story’s protagonists. The GM will present characters,
mysteries, dilemmas, and crises to the players, who will then have their player
characters react in character-appropriate ways. The GM will then respond, describing
how the world pushes back against the player characters’ reactions, and how it
demands further action from them. In this way, your group will construct a narrative
piece by piece, through a combination of planning and improvisation. This
back-and-forth will also be influenced by the Fate Deck, a deck consisting of the 22
Major Arcana tarot cards. These cards will introduce an element of randomness, as well
as prompt certain narrative turns for the players and the GM to work through. The rest
of this book will be devoted to rules that flesh out this basic structure, giving you a firm
foundation upon which to craft your story.

THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT RULE IN THE ENTIRE GAME

Before we get into discussing anything about cards, characters, stats, or Eidolons, we
need to explain a crucial rule, one that is foundational to everything that follows it. This
is the one rule in this book that you are never, under any circumstances, permitted to
break, and it is crucial that you keep this rule in mind and apply it to your understanding
of all of the rules that follow it.

The rule is this:

Always Play in Good Faith.

EIDOLON is a game about collaboratively creating a story with your friends, but it’s
about something else too, something that’s so fundamental that it maybe goes without
saying: EIDOLON, being a game, is about having fun. The experience of creating a
story with your friends should be an enjoyable one, and this book’s primary goal is to
provide you and your fellow players with a good time.

In order for that goal to succeed, we need your help. We need you to play this game in
good faith.

What does good faith mean? It means that, while playing EIDOLON, you always keep
these two priorities in mind:

1. Do everything that you can to ensure that everyone playing is enjoying

themselves.
2. Always play in service of creating a good, interesting, exciting story.

Nothing should ever come in the way of Priority #1, and Priority #1 is the only thing that
should come in the way of Priority #2. We’ll refer back to the concept of playing in good
faith over and over again throughout this book, and what we mean is holding these two
priorities above all else.

Depending on the situation, playing in good faith can mean many different things. If
you’re a player, it might mean something like, “don’t exploit the rules to hog the spotlight
or make your character feel unfairly advantaged.” Your goal is to tell an interesting story,
and manipulating the rules for your own personal gain could possibly undermine your
game’s narrative. It could also lead to the other players having a worse time. As the
Game Master, playing in good faith might mean something like, “don’t just try to kill all
the player characters.” Again, that’s probably not going to be fun for anyone.

However, “good-faith play” is something that can depend heavily upon context. The two
examples above are good rules of thumb, but there might be times when a character
should suddenly gain an overwhelming advantage, or where life-threatening stakes with
no room for error feels appropriately tense. Good stories are filled with moments of
triumph and moments of abject failure, and because one of your highest priorities is to
tell a good story, you shouldn’t shy away from making these moments happen when it’s
dramatically appropriate. The important thing is that you’re focused on giving everybody
a good time first and telling a good story second. As long as you center these two
priorities, playing in good faith does not forbid you from taking any particular course of
action during play.
Sensitive Content

As your group collaboratively builds your story, it’s possible that you’ll touch on fraught
or sensitive subject matter. As a player, you may want to reveal that your character has
suffered some horrible trauma in the past. As a GM, you might want to confront the
party with a particularly heinous evil to combat. Someone could conceivably be
interested in exploring sexual themes in-game.

If any sensitive subject matter arises during play, you need to make sure that everyone
in your group is comfortable exploring that territory. If anyone isn’t on-board, it needs to
be excluded from the game, no questions asked. If someone says that they’re
comfortable with something but changes their mind later, then the rest of the group
needs to find a way to remove that element from the story, even “retconning” the plot if
needed.

Whenever possible, you should consult your group before broaching any potentially
sensitive subject, and get their consent before it ever comes up in-game. To be clear,
yes, that might mean sometimes “spoiling” certain plot points, but remember: making
sure that everyone is having a good time is the one thing that’s more important than
telling a good story. If a particular subject matter makes another player feel
uncomfortable or unsafe, then the presence of that subject matter in your game will
make it impossible for them to have a good time. If talking in advance about the fraught
material you want to introduce would make you uncomfortable, then that on its own is a
strong indicator that you’re better off setting that idea aside.

Before you ever get started playing EIDOLON, it’s a smart idea to talk with your group
and establish an initial list of off-limits subjects. This list can always be added to later,
but knowing in advance what kind of material other members of your group want to
keep out of the game will help prevent conflict further down the road and ensure that
everyone is getting off on the right foot.

Look Out For Your Fellow Players

Playing in good faith means that you’re always trying to ensure that everyone in your
group is having a good time. In addition to everything else we’ve laid out in this section,
always do your best to pay attention to everybody’s needs. Role-playing games are a lot
of fun, but they can also be very mentally and emotionally taxing. Play sessions can go
on for a long time, scenarios can be tense and stressful, and taking on the role of a
character can be emotionally draining.
Make sure to take regular breaks, and don’t let your sessions last longer than what’s
comfortable for your group. Pay attention to your fellow players; someone may be too
shy to speak up and request a break or an end to the session, even if that’s what they
need. Check in with everyone regularly to make sure that they’re good to keep going,
and if you’re the GM, tailor the scenarios you present to your players so that they have
lots of natural stopping points. You should also try to make time to talk with the other
members of your group before, after, or between sessions, in order to get a sense of
how they feel about how the game is going. Always do everything that you can to make
sure that EIDOLON is a fun, positive experience for everyone involved. And remember,
that includes you too! Your needs are just as important as everyone else’s. If the game
is stressing you out, taking up too much of your time, or negatively affecting you in any
way, talk with your group and figure out what can be done to correct that.

Bending the Rules

We mentioned before that playing in good faith is “the one rule in this book that you are
never, under any circumstances, permitted to break.”

Does that imply that sometimes it’s okay to break the other rules?

We’ve put a lot of care and effort into designing this game, and in general, we think
you’ll get the best experience if you follow all of the rules, all of the time. That said, we
have no knowledge of the stories you’ll use this game to tell, we have no way of
knowing about any unique needs your group might have, and we certainly won’t be
present in your sessions to act as a referee. So yes, sometimes, it’s okay to break some
of the rules. Which rules can you break, and when can you break them? Play in good
faith! If a rule in this book is getting in the way of telling the story your group is trying to
tell, or if it’s making it harder to have a good time, then feel free to bend or break that
rule. Ignore it just once, throw it out altogether, or tweak it to your liking. This should
never be your first move when trying to resolve an issue, but if it’s the right move, then
you shouldn’t shy away from it.

Overall, we want to give you as much freedom as possible when playing EIDOLON, but
that won’t go well unless you agree to use that freedom to create a fun experience for
everyone. Because of the wide latitude this game grants its players, it can be very easy
to abuse the rules and create scenarios that won’t be fun for anyone who plays with
you, and as a result, probably won’t be fun for you either. Throughout this book, we’ll be
pointing out areas where the “good faith” rule is especially relevant, but it’s something
you should always keep in mind.

THE WORLD OF EIDOLON

This chapter is dedicated to explaining the “soft rules” of the game. We’re not going to
get into things like stats or cards quite yet (you can find all of that in PLAYING
EIDOLON). First, we’ll explain how the world of this game works. We want to lay out the
ground-rules for the fiction of EIDOLON, so that you have a greater understanding of
the context surrounding the “hard” rules of the game. More importantly, we want to get
you acquainted with these ideas as soon as possible, so that you can start thinking
about what kind of character you want to play as, and what kind of story you and your
group want to tell.

SETTING

This is a game about collaboratively telling a story, and a crucial part of any story is the
setting. Where do EIDOLON stories take place?

The Default Setting: “Here…-ish.”

By default, EIDOLON campaigns are set in a fictionalized version of reality, a place that
reasonably resembles the modern day of the world we currently live in. Your specific
story might be set in a town or city that doesn’t really exist, and you might want to tweak
certain details when creating your setting, but the baseline assumption is that the world
of your story will look like the world outside your window, with the addition of the
supernatural forces this chapter describes.

However, your group can alter that baseline assumption if you so choose.

Choose Your Setting

You’re effectively free to set your group’s story anywhere you want to. You can set it in
the past, on a sci-fi moon base, in a fantasy realm, or anywhere else, really. Decisions
regarding where and when your game is set are mostly up to the GM, but as players
you can absolutely offer input about what kind of world you want to role-play in, and as
the GM you should take player input under consideration.
There’s really only two rules when determining the setting of your game:

1. For the most part, even if your game isn’t set in the real world, the setting should
feel real. Things should feel concrete and understandable, with a certain internal
logic to how things work. Initially, there shouldn’t really be “magic” in your setting;
your story should in part be about magic encroaching on the world of your game,
and the consequences that brings with it.

2. No matter what your setting is, The Undertow has to be a part of it.

THE UNDERTOW

The Undertow is a central concept to EIDOLON, and you will always be contending with
it to some extent while playing this game. Its pervasive effects will be influencing the
events of the story on every level; in fact, the rules instruct the GM to “make The
Undertow seep through every crack of the world” (see RUNNING EIDOLON). So, what
is it?

The Undertow Is Another World

The Undertow is an alternate reality, an imaginary dimension that sort of “overlaps” the
real one. It’s a place where thought and feeling are made physical, a universe made out
of the collective unconscious. All of the thoughts and feelings that go unacknowledged
or unexpressed flow out from the human mind, weaving into the fabric of the Undertow.
When a person dies, their soul solidifies as one tiny piece of the Undertow’s bedrock.

The Undertow’s geography roughly correlates to the real world; most real places will
have some kind of Undertow Analogue. But, this world isn’t bound by physical laws, and
its spatial properties are strange and variable. The Undertow is an abstract space
defined by thought and feeling, and the definition of “reality” in The Undertow is every bit
as volatile and unpredictable as the human heart.

It’s also full of otherworldly creatures and horrors. Especially strong thoughts and
feelings will manifest in The Undertow as surreal, powerful creatures known as Shades.
The appearance and temperament of a Shade is dependent on the emotions and ideas
that it was born from. A Shade created by pleasant, happy feelings might be cute and
cuddly, while a Shade created by negative or violent emotions will be monstrous and
deadly.

There are places where the barrier between The Undertow and the real world is
especially weak, and some of the surreal effects of The Undertow can bleed over into
reality. When this happens, the laws of nature break down in the area, leading to
strange and unpredictable effects. Most often, the “bleed-through” is mild, leading to
only minor, easily-missed supernatural phenomena, which tends to form the basis for
various myths and urban legends.

If some references would help give you a better picture, the Metaverse from Persona 5
and the Red Room from Twin Peaks are solid touchstones.

The Undertow Is a Metaphysical Force

The Undertow gets its name from the way that it “pulls” on the real world. The vast
majority of people won’t ever see The Undertow, but they will feel its influence. Like the
moon, The Undertow has a sort of “gravity,” but instead of pulling on ocean waves, it
acts on the tides of the human psyche.

While there is a physical component to The Undertow, it’s a world made up entirely of a
kind of psychic energy, the collective mental power of every conscious mind. It has a
natural ebb and flow to it, one that reflects the state of the real world and the minds of
the people living in it. Someone sensitive to that energy, who knows how to read it and
what it means, can use it to learn quite a bit about the physical world (check out the
Dredge the Undertow Move in THE BASIC MOVES).

The Undertow’s influence impresses the weight of collective ideas and feelings onto
individuals, encouraging them to “go with the flow.” This isn’t inherently a malicious
force. In fact, it can even be positive: at its most benign, The Undertow can contribute to
a sense of unity and communal cohesion. But it can also compel people to submit to
and support the status quo, and depending on exactly what that status quo is, that can
be an extremely dangerous thing. The Undertow can blind people to the injustice
around them and apply a mental pressure that holds them back from doing something
about it. In more extreme cases, the “current” of The Undertow might become turbulent,
leading to mass hysteria. Everyone gets swept up in the pull of The Undertow from time
to time, and while the consequences of that might be harmless, maybe even beneficial,
they can also be deadly.
The Undertow Is What You Want It to Be

We’ve laid out some broad, high-level ideas of what the Undertow is and how it works,
and we don’t really want to go beyond that. The Undertow is intended to be something
mysterious, surreal, and amorphous, so we don’t want to pin down too many hard
details about how it works or what it looks like. Those details will be up to your group to
decide, particularly your GM.

It’s also up to you exactly how the Undertow factors into your game. It will always be
there in some regard, and play a role in certain parts of the game, like the Phantom
Clock (see PLAYING EIDOLON), but it will be up to you and your group to decide just
how central a role the Undertow plays in your story. It may only have a minor, indirect
influence on the narrative, with your game set entirely in the real world, the Undertow
confined to your setting’s darkest corners. Or, maybe your group’s adventure will kick off
with all of you getting dragged into The Undertow, and your game will be about trying to
make your way home. Or perhaps you’ll zip back and forth between the two worlds to
contend with a conflict that spans both dimensions, struggling to mitigate the ways that
the worlds affect one another. Any ideas you have about how to work The Undertow into
your narrative are completely valid approaches to telling a story in EIDOLON.

Just keep in mind that The Undertow does need to be present in some form or another.

Because The Undertow is where Eidolons come from.

EIDOLONS

As a character in EIDOLON, your subconscious mind drifts through the metaphysical

miasma of The Undertow. Your psyche is one part of the current, but it’s also swept up
in it, and to some extent the flow of those dark tides will always influence your actions in
the real world. You can never be completely free of the social and metaphysical
pressure that surrounds you; you are, to some extent, not the sole arbiter of your
actions and decisions.

At least, that’s usually true.

Under certain circumstances, you can reconnect with the vast torrent of energy flowing
out from your soul into The Undertow. You can gather that energy and will it to take solid
form, a physical manifestation of your most ideal self. Unshackled from the limitations of
the human body, from the very laws of reality, this perfect projection of your heart has
the power to swim against the current of The Undertow, to liberate you to express your
most sacred truths and stand up for your vision of justice. Most dramatically, your
flesh-and-bone body becomes a portal through which that energy can travel, bursting
forth into the real world as an Eidolon, a flawless reflection of your soul, revealing your
inner power and beauty to the entire world.

Some Notes on Subtext

Before getting too deep into explaining exactly how Eidolons work, let’s consider the
preceding paragraphs a bit more thoroughly.

You could criticize the above description by pointing out that it comes off as a bit
Randian. “The mindless masses are slaves to The Undertow, but not you. You’re
special. You have the power to rise above other people and shape the world how you
want it, and it’s right for you to do that.” Something like that.

We can’t deny that interpretation as a valid reading of what we’ve written; you could
very easily use this book to tell that kind of story, a story in which only a select chosen
few have the ability or the right to shape the fate of the world.

It will therefore be incumbent on you and your group to avoid, contradict, and subvert
those themes through the narrative you build.

Eidolons aren’t meant to represent some kind of inherent superiority over “normal
people.” Rather, they’re supposed to represent the courage it takes to assert your
values in an environment that’s hostile to them, or maybe even hostile to you. It’s not
about rising above other people so much as rising above societal inertia and toxic
norms. It’s about the value and dignity of the individual, but it’s not about individualism.
No one’s an island, not even if their soul has become a superpowered avatar of their
will. That’s why your Eidolon is strengthened through failure, and why you can only grow
alongside your companions (see CHARACTER CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT).

As a whole, the story your group creates shouldn’t support the idea that some people
are inherently better than others; you shouldn’t need an RPG rulebook to explain why
that’s a rotten idea. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t portray characters in
your story that hold that perspective; it’s certainly a great worldview for a villain to have,
for instance. The character you play could even believe that their power makes them
superior to others, though if they’re a good person, they’ll have to eventually abandon
that idea. Even if they’re a bad person, the overall narrative of the story shouldn’t
support their viewpoint.

You Are Your Eidolon, Your Eidolon Is You

Remember that your Eidolon is not a distinct entity from yourself. It has a body of its
own, but its mind is your mind, and its body is really just a projection of your soul. If your
Eidolon is injured, you’ll be injured too, and vice-versa. If your Eidolon is humanoid, then
when one of you is wounded, the other will have a wound appear on the same part of
their body. If it’s not humanoid, you’re free to interpret where and how your shared
injuries work. As a rule, your Eidolon will be a lot more capable of defending itself, so
you should generally try to make your Eidolon take hits for you (see COMBAT).

Eidolon Appearance

Eidolons can virtually look however you want them to. The powers that it has might
influence the way you want it to look, but really, the sky’s the limit. About the only thing
we’d recommend is keeping their size somewhere in the neighborhood of a human
scale. Really big or small Eidolons can represent some logistical problems that will
make creating a story with them a challenge.

...Or, hell, if your group is up for it, make every Eidolon Godzilla-sized and make your
game a kaiju adventure! We certainly won’t tell you that you’re not allowed to do that.
But, as a rule of thumb, they probably shouldn’t be bigger than a car, and no smaller
than a doll.

Eidolon Powers

As projections of your soul, the side of your heart that’s native to the Undertow, Eidolons
have incredible powers that defy all logic. Every Eidolon has a single supernatural
ability, referred to in this book as an Eidolon Power. Eidolon Powers are unique to
each Eidolon, and reflect their master’s personality. The Playbook you choose for your
character will heavily influence how your Eidolon Power works. This will be laid out in
greater detail in CHARACTER CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT, but broadly, each
Playbook uses a different sentence to describe your Eidolon Power, with blank spaces
that you can fill in however you wish. For example, The Vanguard Playbook’s Eidolon
Power is phrased as:

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by ________________.”

You can write literally anything you want in that blank. Your Eidolon might obliterate
enemies by punching them really hard, or by biting like a snapping turtle, or by tearing
open holes in space-time. As long as you fill in the blank in such a way that it creates a
complete sentence, your Eidolon Power is a valid one. If the blank is too small for your
idea, then feel free to write it out on a separate sheet of paper and keep it attached to
your Character Sheet.

While you’re free to choose anything for your Eidolon Power, we generally recommend
following these two guidelines:

1. Don’t make your power a complicated run-on sentence with lots of clauses and
caveats. Keeping your Eidolon Power simple will make it easier for the other
players to understand your abilities, as well as limiting their scope. Limits are a
good thing to have; they’ll force you to find creative ways to apply your Eidolon,
and provide a source of friction to fuel dramatic tension.

2. Don’t twist your Eidolon Power so that it reads like the Eidolon Power of a
different Playbook. For instance, don’t choose the Vanguard Playbook and then
write something like “My Eidolon obliterates enemies by transforming any part of
them it touches into dust.” At that point, you should simply choose the Alchemist
Playbook instead.

These are guidelines; in most situations, following them is a good idea. However, they
aren’t hard rules, and if you have a complicated idea for a power that you’re struggling
to simplify, or if you want to play with an Eidolon Power that straddles the line between
two Playbooks, talk it over with your fellow players and your GM. If they approve, feel
free to move forward. As always, play in good faith.

In general, the Playbooks are designed to be as broad as possible. If you really put your
mind to it, you can probably come up with some Eidolon concepts that wouldn’t be
well-suited to any of the Playbooks, but they should be fairly all-encompassing, and with
the right phrasing, you should be able to figure out how to give your character any ability
that you want.

As the GM, remember that you will also need to assign Eidolon Powers to each NPC
that you create, even if their Eidolon is sealed. This is both to help you flesh out your
characters more, and because it may be necessary for some Playbook Moves to
function properly (see for example, see the Superconductor Move in the Conductor
Playbook).

Eidolon Range

Each Playbook lists an Eidolon Range on its Character Sheet. The distance between
you and your Eidolon can never be more than this range unless it’s severed (see the
next section). Your Eidolon is free to move anywhere within that range as you see fit,
even floating up vertically, but it’s not capable of moving beyond that range. If something
tries to force it out of your range, you’ll be dragged along with it; if something
deliberately tries to force the two of you apart, you’ll find yourself getting crushed
against the invisible barrier that keeps you in range of one another. You cannot extend
your Eidolon beyond its Range anymore than you can extend your hand beyond the
length of your arm, and trying to do so will have similarly painful consequences.

Eidolon isn’t a game that uses any kind of hard rules for movement, so your Eidolon’s
Range exists purely as “flavor;” it has no direct mechanical purposes, but it does inform
the ways in which you and your Eidolon can interact with the world of the game.

Eidolon States

During play, your Eidolon will shift between a number of different states to help you track
when and how you can use it. The GM will usually be responsible for changing your
Eidolon’s state.

These states are:

Sealed- If someone’s Eidolon is sealed, it means that it’s still locked away in The
Undertow, and has yet to truly take form as an Eidolon; this is the state that most
people’s Eidolons are in. It’s extremely rare for an Eidolon to become sealed after the
first time it emerges from the Undertow.

Ready- This is the default state of someone whose Eidolon has been awoken. If your
Eidolon is ready that means that it’s alert, unburdened, and waiting to carry out your
orders.

Severed- If someone’s Eidolon becomes severed, then their ability to control their
Eidolon is temporarily disrupted. Usually, their Eidolon will fade from the world at this
point, though under some circumstances the Eidolon may begin acting independently,
or become somehow trapped or imprisoned. Once the barrier to your ability to summon
and control your Eidolon is eliminated, your severed Eidolon will become ready again.
This might mean defeating an enemy with an Eidolon-severing power, or it might just
mean taking a moment to center yourself and reconnect to your Eidolon.

EIDOLON OPTIONS

There are some crucial details about how Eidolons work that we’re leaving up to you to
decide. Your group, or in some cases maybe just your GM, should have solid answers
for each of the following questions before you start playing.

How Do People Unseal Their Eidolons?

What’s the process that leads to someone being able to summon their Eidolon? This is
a question that will most likely be up to your GM, and they might keep the answer a
secret, leaving it for you to discover through the course of the game. The method that
people use to awaken their Eidolons can be anything you want. It could happen as a
symptom of an alien virus, or the result of intense meditation and training, or, maybe
your Eidolon spontaneously manifests when you’re shot with a magic bow and arrow.

There’s one thing you need to keep in mind though: anybody can have an Eidolon. In
fact, everyone already has an Eidolon, it’s just that most of them are sealed. Remember
that you must take care to prevent the Eidolons in your story from becoming metaphors
for the inherent superiority of some people over others. This is an important part of
avoiding that pitfall. Anyone in your setting can potentially gain the power to summon an
Eidolon. Whatever causes an Eidolon to awaken in your setting, it can’t involve Eidolon
masters being some kind of special “chosen ones.”

Are Eidolons Tangible?

How do Eidolons interact with the physical world? Can they pass through walls? If so,
can they hold objects? Do they walk on the ground, or float above it? Does it vary from
case to case? Any answer you choose to these questions is fine, but everyone should
have an agreed-upon understanding as to what those answers are.

Can Everyone See Eidolons?

Are Eidolons visible to everyone? Or are they invisible to you if your Eidolon is sealed?
Do you lose the ability to see Eidolons when yours becomes severed? Can a person
“recall” their Eidolon and return it to The Undertow when they’re not actively using it, or
is it always somewhere in the physical world?

If everyone can see Eidolons, then your characters might have to spend a lot of time
keeping their Eidolons hidden, or else deal with the consequences of people seeing
them. It’s totally fine if that’s the direction you’d like to go in, but keep in mind that if you
don’t want to deal with that, it’s okay to say that they’re just invisible to most people.

How Smart Are Eidolons?

Eidolons share a mind with their masters, but how exactly does that look in action? Are
they mindless drones that do what their masters tell them, or do they have a degree of
autonomy? Can they talk? If they can, their personalities should be reflective of their
masters, since they still ultimately share the same mind.

Again, any answers to these questions work, and it’s even okay if the answers are
different for each person. It’s just important to set some ground rules, since it’ll inform
how people role-play.

Are Eidolons Themed?

Is there some kind of cohesive theming that every Eidolon follows? For instance, is
every Eidolon based on a figure from mythology? Or maybe each one is inspired by
their master’s favorite band? Your Eidolons certainly don’t need to have a theme, but it
can be a fun way to add a sense of aesthetic cohesion to your game. But, if everyone
just wants to go their own way when coming up with their Eidolon, that’s of course
completely okay.

Relatedly, feel free to call them something other than “Eidolons” in-game. Depending on
how and why they’re discovered, it’s possible they’re given some other name in-fiction.
Feel free to choose any term you want to stand in for “Eidolon,” if you think it’ll better
suit the persona of your story.

PLAYING EIDOLON
This chapter covers all of the “hard” rules of EIDOLON, the concrete
numbers-and-cards stuff that will give structure and limitations to how you build your
story.

STATS

Stats are an important part of what defines a player character. They don’t provide a
complete picture of who you are, but they’re a useful snapshot of what you’re good at,
and what aspects of your personality stand out more strongly than others.

In most RPGs, stats can represent just about anything about a person, from their
intelligence, to their physical reflexes, to their hardiness against things like poison. Stats
work a little bit differently in EIDOLON. In this game, every stat reflects an aspect of
your character’s psyche. Because an Eidolon is a reflection of its master’s heart, your
character’s internal qualities are going to be more relevant for our purposes than how
fast they can run or how much they can lift.

The Stats

Here are the five stats that every player character has. Each stat is usually abbreviated
with its first few letters.

POWERFUL- Your assertiveness and force of will. Someone with high POW will be
tenacious, stubborn, and forceful. Someone with low POW will be meek and passive.

ELEGANT- Your grace and subtlety. Someone with high ELE will be efficient,
quick-witted, and confident. Someone with low ELE will be awkward and vacant.

GENIUS- Your brilliance and mental fortitude. Someone with high GEN will be
perceptive, insightful, and inventive. Someone with low GEN will be incurious and
impulsive.

GLAMOROUS- Your allure and social charm. Someone with high GLAM will be
exuberant, charismatic, and leave a big impression on others. Someone with low GLAM
will be reserved and asocial.

BIZARRE- Your… “you-ness.” The things that make you unique and unlike anyone else;
the things that make you “weird.” Being weird is a good thing! It gives you a unique
perspective and opens you up to possibilities that others might not consider. Someone
with high BIZ will be eccentric, intuitive, and approach problems from unique
perspectives. Someone with low BIZ will be literal-minded and unimaginative.

For each character, numbers are assigned to each of these stats, ranging from 1 to 3.
The higher the number, the stronger that element of the character’s personality is, and
the stronger their Eidolon is as a result.

Stats Are Interrelated

Your character’s stats aren’t completely independent from one another when it comes to
defining their personality. For instance, having low POW makes you meek and passive,
but if you also have high ELE, that means you’re graceful and confident. That seems
contradictory, but that’s okay: people often are contradictory. Those two aspects of
yourself will blend together to create a unique identity, and exactly how they blend
together is up to you. You might be confident in your passivity, or you might be more
passive in some contexts and more confident in others. Follow your gut and play in
good faith when deciding how to role-play. Your stats should inform what you do and
say, but they don’t need to fully dictate your behavior.

Stats Represent the Interior Self

Relatedly, you might notice that the name of each stat is very… intense. That’s by
design. The stats are meant to represent ideal, undiluted aspects of your personality,
aspects which then translate directly into the power of your Eidolon, which exists as an
ideal, undiluted version of you. So, you’re not “odd,” you’re BIZARRE. You’re not
“smart,” you’re GENIUS.

Now, having said that, you don’t need to feel pressured to play your character as
someone who behaves with maximum intensity at all times. A high-GLAM character will
tend to be extroverted and loud, while a low-GLAM character will tend to be quiet and
shy, but they don’t need to be that way all the time. Your stats are about your attitude
and psychology, how you are on the inside. Exactly how those extreme attributes
express themselves in your outward behavior is up to you. Maybe your outward
personality is completely at odds with who you are on the inside! That would suggest a
complex character who may have some intense internal conflict, which is rich territory
for role-playing and storytelling.
Stats Transcend the Physical

Because your stats describe your heart and mind, and not your body, you don’t need to
worry about whether your stats “make sense” with your physical attributes. POW
doesn’t represent physical strength, but determination and tenacity. Someone with high
POW might also have big muscles, but it’s by no means mandatory that they do.
Someone might have high GLAM even if they aren’t conventionally attractive, or high
ELE even if they’re not particularly agile or dextrous. Again, the ways that your stats
manifest themselves physically is completely up to you. The stats are meant to embody
your psychology, or say, the “aura” that you project. Your stats are who you are, not
what you do or how you look.

NPC Stats

The GM should assign stats to each NPC that they create during the course of the story.
Oftentimes you may need to invent a new character on the fly, and might now have a list
of stats handy for them. That’s completely fine; you’ll just need to go back and give
them stats later.

While all NPCs should have stats, they’re much less important than the stats of players.
Other than providing a quick snapshot of the character, they primarily exist because
players may need to reference them for some of the benefits of having a Tie to that
character (See TIES). As the GM, you’re never drawing from the Fate Deck, which is
why the stats of the characters you play are less central.

THE FATE DECK AND PLAYER MOVES

Back in the INTRODUCTION, we described the basic flow of a play session: the players
act as their characters, describing their actions and voicing their dialogue, and the GM
describes the ways in which the greater world reacts to them. Then, the players decide
on the next course of action their characters will take, and things continue going back
and forth in this manner. The Fate Deck is an important part of that interaction, one
which adds an element of randomness to keep things exciting and provide some
guidance for the GM when portraying how the world reacts to the players. Any
significant player action takes the form of a Move, and Moves almost always involve
drawing and playing cards from the Fate Deck.
The Fate Deck

The Fate Deck is a deck of the 22 Major Arcana tarot cards. Each card has a Polarity
and a Forecast.

A card’s Polarity is either positive, negative, or neutral. Polarity is directly tied to a card’s
Forecast: positive Polarity represents good outcomes, negative Polarity represents bad
outcomes, and neutral Polarity represents outcomes that can be positive, negative,
neither, or both, depending on how and when the card is played.

A card’s Forecast is the outcome that the card represents, and in most circumstances,
the effect it will have when played. Forecasts are derived from the card’s traditional
symbolic upright meaning in tarot fortune telling. For instance, The Tower’s Forecast is
“Something terrible happens,” while The Sun’s Forecast is “You are given cause to
celebrate.”

Below is a table of each of the cards, along with their Polarity and Forecasts:
 Number Title Polarity Forecast

0 The Fool Neutral You become who you are needed to be in this moment.

1 The Magician Positive You achieve the impossible.

2 The High Priestess Neutral The supernatural acts through you.

3 The Empress Neutral You create something.

4 The Emperor Neutral You break something.

5 The Hierophant Neutral You discover something.

6 The Lovers Neutral You are faced with two paths.

7 The Chariot Neutral You exceed your own limits.

8 Justice Neutral The situation becomes more fair.

9 The Hermit Neutral Your actions isolate you.

10 The Wheel of Fortune Neutral You are at the mercy of the fates.

11 Strength Positive You triumph through force.

12 The Hanged Man Negative You must make an impossible choice.

13 Death Neutral Something ends, and something else begins.

14 Temperance Neutral You are met with an equal and opposite reaction.

15 The Devil Negative You get what you want at a price you can’t afford.

16 The Tower Negative Something terrible happens.

17 The Star Positive A new path reveals itself.

18 The Moon Negative Something unknown or unknowable interferes.

19 The Sun Positive You are given cause to celebrate.

20 Judgment Negative Your past failures catch up to you.

21 The World Positive For a single moment, the world bends to your will.

Forecasts are deliberately vague; exactly what each of them means will vary depending
on the circumstances and on how the GM chooses to interpret them. If you play the
Empress and “create something,” that could mean creating a weapon, a work of art, an
opportunity, or a problem. You can find more in-depth information on interpreting
Forecasts in RUNNING EIDOLON.
10 out of 22 cards in the Fate Deck have neutral Polarity. During character creation,
each player will choose one neutral card from the deck to be your character’s resonant
card, and one to be your dissonant card. During play, you’ll treat your resonant card as
though it were positive, and your dissonant card as though it were negative, but only
when you’re playing them. These cards will also have special Forecasts and effects,
based on which Playbook you use. See CHARACTER CREATION AND
ADVANCEMENT for more information.

Non-player characters should also be assigned resonant and dissonant cards, but like
stats, these are not directly used by the GM, existing only for flavor and for certain Tie
bonuses (see TIES). Also like stats, you do not need to feel pressured as a GM to
assign a new character dissonant and resonant cards as soon as you introduce them,
and can go back and do so in between sessions.

Making Moves With the Fate Deck

The vast majority of Player Moves will involve interacting with the Fate Deck. Usually,
that will come in the form of instructing you to “draw [stat].” This means that you draw a
number of cards from the Fate Deck equal to the specified stat and lay them out in a
horizontal row for everyone to see. This set of cards is referred to as your spread.
Unless the Move specifies otherwise, you’ll choose one card from your spread to play,
at which point The GM will take over, interpreting the card’s Polarity and Forecast as it
applies to the current moment and using that to guide their narration of the scene .Then,
you put the card you played face-up into a discard pile, and put the rest of your spread
on the bottom of the Fate Deck, starting with the leftmost card. If the Fate Deck is ever
exhausted, or runs out of cards, shuffle the discard pile and set it face-down to refresh
the deck.

When you have a spread of more than one card, you’ll need to make a decision about
which card you play for the Move you’re making. Usually, you’ll want to play a positive
card if possible, or at the very least a neutral card. However, remember that any time a
card is played, it gets discarded, and won’t be seen again until every card in the deck
has been played. Playing a positive card now means that neither you nor anyone else
will be able to play it later. It may sometimes be wise to forego the best available card in
your spread, so that it has a chance of coming up on a more crucial Move down the
road. Neutral or even negative cards might also just feel more appropriate in the
moment, and when that happens, don’t shy away from choosing what feels right!
Picking a “sub-optimal” card could lead to more compelling drama, and you’ll add 1
Experience to the XP Pool for your choice (see DOWNTIME, TIES, AND LEVELING
UP).

Any time your dissonant card appears in a spread, you must play it, unless your
resonant card is part of the same spread. Additionally, you may not Push Yourself
when your Dissonant card is in your spread.

Every Move is different, and while most of them involve drawing cards to form a spread
and then playing one card from it, many introduce their own variations and wrinkles on
this core concept.

Types of Player Moves

Player Moves come in two different varieties:

● Basic Moves are Moves that anybody can use at any time. They represent broad
categories of action, and will be used frequently by all the players. The next
section is a complete list of Basic Moves.

● Playbook Moves are Moves specific to a character’s Playbook (see

CHARACTER CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT for more on Playbooks).
These are further broken down into three categories: Starting Moves, Advanced
Moves, and Master Moves. A player character can use their Playbook’s Starting
Moves at any time, while Advanced and Master Moves must be earned through
character progression (again, see CHARACTER CREATION AND
ADVANCEMENT). Some Playbook Moves are “passive,” and have continuous,
ongoing effects, or effects which happen automatically when certain conditions
are met. These Moves don’t require a draw.

● Downtime Moves are special Moves that two or more players make as a group.
These Moves can only be made during Downtime, and work a little differently
from other Moves. See DOWNTIME for more information.

Not Every Action Is a Move

Remember that you only need to make a Move if at least one of the following criteria are
met:

● The action you’re taking is risky

 ● You are opposed by some other force
● Both success and failure have interesting dramatic outcomes

The final entry in that list is the most important one. GMs, if you’re asking a player to
draw on a Move, then you need to be prepared to have something interesting happen
no matter what card they play. If failure would do nothing but slow the game down, then
there’s not much point in making a player draw. It is ultimately up to the GM to
determine when an action can be made freely and when the player must make a Move
for it.

You Don’t “Use” Basic Moves

Keep in mind that you don’t use Basic Moves, the way you might use an action in a
video game or some tabletop games. Instead, you just describe what you do, and the
GM decides which Move suits the action you’re taking.* Then, you draw from the Fate
Deck and choose which card represents your action.

As a rule, this also applies to Playbook Moves, but there are definitely exceptions.
Sometimes you do explicitly choose to use one of your Playbook Moves, usually in
cases where the action you take is very specialized and specific to the Move in
question. However, you should generally act first, and make a Move second. GMs: if a
player slips up and just says that they want to use a Move, it’s not a big deal; ask them
to describe what it looks like for their character to make that Move before having them
draw.

*If you disagree with the GM about which Move suits your actions, feel free to discuss it
with them. But also, try not to hold things up too long. Play in good faith!

Forward, Ongoing, and Hold

Three more concepts occasionally come up in the description of various Moves:

“Forward,” “Ongoing,” and “Hold.”

Forward is a bonus that you get to apply to a follow-up Move. If a Move says “gain +1
Forward,” then you’ll draw an additional card on the next Move you make. Sometimes
there’ll be stipulations attached, and you’ll only draw another card on the next Move you
make that meets those requirements. The GM may also sometimes reward you with
Forward to reflect an advantage that you’ve gained in-fiction (see RUNNING
EIDOLON). Forward can also be negative; if a move gives you -1 Forward, you’ll draw
one less card on your next Move.

Ongoing is similar to Forward, but it applies multiple times. As long as someone has
“+1 Ongoing,” they’ll continue to draw an extra card on their Moves. Like Forward,
Ongoing might have conditions attached to it that you have to meet in order to get the
bonus. As with Forward, the GM can award you with Ongoing to reflect a continuous
advantage that you’ve obtained. Like Forward, Ongoing can also be negative, and may
be used by the GM to portray situations that have you at an inherent disadvantage.

You can think of Hold as a kind of currency that you earn from certain Moves, which you
can spend at any time for various effects. It’s basically a way to delay the benefits
received from a successful Move. If a Move says, for instance, “Hold 3,” then that
means you have 3 Hold to spend on the Move. Hold is specific to the Move you earn it
from, so you can’t earn Hold from one Move and then spend it on a different one.

It’s a good idea to jot down any time you earn Forward or Hold so that you don’t forget
to use it later. It’s also courteous to make sure the other players are tracking their Hold
and Forward as well. Part of playing in good faith means making sure that everyone is
getting the full benefits of their successful Moves!

The Solitary Penalty

The solitary penalty is a form of permanent negative Ongoing that affects all player
characters. When the Phantom Clock is at 8:00 or less (see THE PHANTOM CLOCK),
you will take -1 to any draw when acting selfishly or against the group’s best interest.
When the Phantom Clock is at 9:00 or higher, you will take -1 to every draw, unless
another player character provides tangible, material assistance with the action you are
trying to perform.

In the INTRODUCTION, we stated that EIDOLON is a game about the “incredible power
of the individual, dwarfed only by the power of friendship.” Individuals are unique,
beautiful, and strong, but only by reaching out to others can they tap into their full
potential. This is what the solitary penalty represents: without the backing of your
friends, you are weaker than you could be.

Before the Phantom Clock has struck 9:00, the solitary penalty is less harsh; it is
assumed that your friends are providing some kind of material, emotional, or psychic
support for your actions, so long as you’re not acting selfishly or doing something that
will cause them harm. Emotional bonds are a real, tangible force in EIDOLON, an
energy that connects you to those close to you through the Undertow. When you act,
you are drawing on that energy. So long as at least one other player character supports
the course of action you’re taking, the solitary penalty does not apply, even if your
character is physically isolated in the scene.

Once the Phantom Clock reaches 9:00, stress and negative psychic energy begin to
clog the channels of the Undertow that connect you to your friends. You can no longer
draw strength from their immaterial support, and will apply the solitary penalty to every
Move you make, unless another player character directly helps you. Exactly what
constitutes “tangible, material assistance” will depend heavily on context. In some
situations, it may be impossible for anyone to meaningfully help you, making the solitary
penalty unavoidable.

Drawing 0

Negative Forward or Ongoing, or the solitary penalty, may at times reduce the number
of cards you draw to 0. In these situations, you will have no choice other than to Push
Yourself in order to have a card to play (see the following section for more information
on Pushing Yourself). Penalties to your draws cannot put the number of cards you draw
below 0; if you have 1 point in a stat and take -3 on your draw, you will still draw 0 cards
and Push Yourself to complete the Move.

Keep in mind that even if the Phantom Clock has hit midnight and a Phantom has been
summoned (see THE PHANTOM CLOCK), you will still need to push yourself if the
number of cards you can draw has been reduced to zero. This is the only circumstance
under which you can Push Yourself during a battle against a Phantom.

THE BASIC MOVES

● Challenge Fate: When you act under pressure, struggle to triumph over failure, or
attempt something difficult that no other Move accurately describes, you are
Challenging Fate. The GM chooses which of your stats is most applicable to your
action; draw that stat and play one card.

Challenging Fate is sort of a catch-all Move, and as such it’s one of the Moves you’ll
use most frequently. Anytime you attempt something which has a reasonable chance of
failure and which no other Move is a good fit for, you are Challenging Fate. Depending
on context, that could mean anything from winning a carnival game to outrunning an
avalanche.

Remember that you only need to make a Move when your success or failure isn’t
guaranteed. It’s up to the GM’s discretion when an action can be taken without drawing
and when it requires you to Challenge Fate, but, they should save this Move for
meaningful, significant actions, where both success and failure have interesting
outcomes. Keep in mind too that the GM can decide that an action is simply impossible,
and not allow you to try to Challenge Fate to make it happen. Because EIDOLON is a
game about magic and heightened, exaggerated action, the scope of possibility is much
larger than what might exist in more grounded genres, but there are still limitations to
what can reasonably be accomplished, even by an Eidolon master. The GM should use
this option sparingly, and primarily to maintain the narrative integrity of the story being
told.

As the GM, the stat you should have your player draw with when Challenging Fate
should usually be fairly obvious: if their action is about brute force or tenacity, then they
should draw POW. If it’s about coming up with a clever solution on the fly, they’d draw
GEN. If you’re unsure about which stat to apply, then use ELE as a catch-all. ELE
represents a character’s composure and grace, which will pretty much always be tested
when Challenging Fate. Your players might be angling to draw a specific stat that their
character is proficient in. Listen to them, and take their cue when appropriate, but if you
strongly feel that a different stat fits better, your opinion overrules theirs. Don’t abuse
that fact to force players into unfairly disadvantageous situations; that’s a textbook
example of failing to play in good faith.

● Investigate: When you carefully study a person or situation to glean new

information, you are Investigating. Draw GEN. For each card you draw, play it
and ask one of the questions below. The GM will answer the question based on
the Polarity of the card; positive cards will yield thorough, useful answers, neutral
cards will yield vague but potentially useful answers, and negative cards will yield
answers that you won’t like. You must ask a question for each card you draw.
○ What’s hidden here?
○ What happened here recently?
○ What weaknesses can I exploit?
○ What poses the biggest threat?
○ Who’s in control?
○ What complications should I be wary of?
Investigate is an important and versatile Move. It can provide you with crucial clues
when pursuing a mystery, and in combat it can help you figure out how to crack open
the defenses of a particularly tough enemy.

As the GM, you very frequently won’t have a good answer prepared for each question a
player asks while Investigating. That’s totally fine. Consider the situation you’ve
presented your players, any additional information you have that the players have yet to
uncover, and what the player could reasonably discover through the investigation, and
come up with an answer that feels organic in the context of all this information. You’re
only required to tailor your answer to a card’s Polarity, but you’re encouraged to take the
card’s Forecast into account as well whenever possible.

● Scrap: When you throw yourself into the heart of a conflict and strive for victory
through force, you are Scrapping. Draw POW, and if you play a negative or
neutral card, advance your Damage Track and discard the top card from the Fate
Deck.

Scrap is a Move for when you’re in direct conflict with someone else. It represents a full
exchange of attacks, rather than a single attempt to inflict harm. If you only partially
succeed, then you took some hits yourself during your assault.

If you sneak up on a target or ambush them such that they wouldn’t have the chance to
defend themselves or counter-attack, then you don’t need to Scrap; instead, you simply
carry out the attack successfully, without drawing. Getting into this position likely
required making a Move, such as Challenging Fate to sneak up on your target, so
making an additional Move to attack them would be redundant.

Notably, while Scrapping will usually be used in the context of a physical fight, it can
also be applied in situations other than combat. An aggressive chess opening, a forceful
argument, or a power-serve in tennis could all potentially call for a Scrap draw,
depending on the circumstances and the GM’s discretion.

● Bombard: When you launch a projectile at an enemy to strike a blow without

putting yourself at direct risk, you are Bombarding. Draw ELE. The GM applies
one of the following outcomes, based on the Polarity of the card you play:
○ Positive Card: your shot hits perfectly.
○ Neutral Card: you only land a glancing blow, and your nerves get rattled.
Gain -1 Forward on your next Move.
 ○ Negative Card: you miss, drawing attention to yourself and putting yourself
into a compromised position.

Bombarding is for ranged attacks, when you want to do something harmful to someone
from far away. “Far away” here is a little open-ended, and should be defined by context.
If the enemy needs a ranged weapon of their own to launch a counter-attack against
you, then you’re Bombarding and not Scrapping.

Unlike Scrapping, you have to Bombard even if you’re ambushing the enemy. The
challenge of lining up your shot and successfully hitting them from a distance means
that you might miss even an unaware target.

For more information on fighting in EIDOLON, see COMBAT.

Bombard is an example of a type of Move which disregards the Forecast of the card you
play. Instead, the Move provides custom outcomes tailored specifically to the situation.
This limits the scope of what can happen when you make this type of Move, giving you
a better idea of what to expect. This type of Move is often used to represent a specific,
specialized type of action; you’ll see this type of Move frequently on the lists of Playbook
Moves. Like with Investigating, The GM is still encouraged to draw on the Forecast for
inspiration when possible, but should prioritize the stated outcome based on the Polarity
of the card played.

● Dazzle: When you try to charm someone into doing or believing something
they’re not inclined to, you are Dazzling them. Draw GLAM. You always convince
the other party when playing a positive card, in addition to the effects of its
Forecast.

Dazzle is a Move you can use to get something you want without having to resort to
violence. Many situations can be dealt with just by talking things out, and some
characters will be more adept at using charm and nuance to get their way instead of just
punching through every problem. Bear in mind however that you can’t Dazzle someone
who’s unwilling to listen to you, or who you can’t communicate with.

As a note, while a positive card will always result in a successful Dazzle, a neutral or
negative card could still mean that you convince someone, but the card’s Polarity will
influence exactly what that means. A negative card might mean that the person doesn’t
believe you or won’t listen to you; it might mean that you completely convince them, but
that this has disastrous unintended consequences. That would be an obvious way to
apply The Devil’s Forecast, for instance.

● Threaten: When you have someone at a disadvantage and try to coerce them
with violence, you are Threatening them. Clearly state what you want them to do
and what you’ll do to them if they don’t comply, then draw POW.

Threaten is a Move for when you would rather make someone do what you want
through force, rather than through charm. Keep in mind that you need to be able to
follow through on your threat. If you’re bluffing, then you’re trying to get them to believe
something they’re not inclined to, which means you’re Dazzling them.

● Reveal Your Master Plan: When you enact, or reveal that you've already
enacted, a clever plan to nullify a threat or put yourself at an advantage, you are
Revealing Your Master Plan. Draw GEN from the bottom of the deck.

At its core, this Move is a way to enable the thinkers and strategists in your group. Any
time you try to do something to give yourself an edge by using smarts and clever
planning instead of brute force, you’re Revealing Your Master Plan. It can sometimes be
a little ambiguous when a given action counts as Revealing Your Master Plan and when
it counts as Challenging Fate with GEN. Generally speaking, Revealing Your Master
Plan is more proactive and aggressive, while Challenging Fate with GEN is more
reactive and defensive. This Move requires some thought and consideration not just on
the part of the character, but the player, because you draw from the bottom of the deck
for it. As a rule, people will be sending negative cards to the bottom of the Fate Deck,
which means that you need to carefully pick your moment for Revealing Your Master
Plan. That, or just embrace the chaos that’ll come from drawing poorly on a mis-timed
reveal!

There’s also something a little tricky about Revealing Your Master Plan: you can do it
retroactively, announcing that you’ve actually been preparing to enact a plan for some
time now and are only just now pulling the trigger on it. Revealing Your Master Plan in
this way can be a little bit complicated, and while you should feel free to do it as often as
you like, you of course need to play in good faith when doing so.

Retroactively Revealing Your Master Plan is for situations like at the end of an action
movie where everyone thinks the hero was shot and killed, only for her to reveal that
she’d been wearing a bullet-proof vest all along. Or when the villain finally gets
possession of the magic artifact, but the hero reveals that they swapped it out for a fake
before the villain even arrived on the scene. It’s exciting and dramatic, but it’s also
explicitly retroactive, adding details to the story that weren’t there before, and that can
sometimes feel “cheap” if not employed correctly.

Your master plan should be plausible in the context of the fiction, and usually you should
do your best to avoid actively re-writing events that took place in your game. Instead, if
you’re retroactively Revealing Your Master Plan, you should reveal that you’ve been
doing things “off-screen” to bring about your plan, during some point in the past when
your time wasn’t explicitly accounted for. You might also reveal that you’ve been doing
something subtle for a while that wasn’t worth directly commenting on until it was time to
Reveal Your Master Plan.

● Dredge the Undertow: When you meditate on the realm beyond the physical in
order to ascertain a hidden or significant truth, you are Dredging the Undertow.
Draw BIZ; treat every member of your party’s resonant card as positive, and all
of their dissonant cards as negative. If you play a negative card, tick the
Phantom Clock.

This Move allows you to channel The Undertow, to allow the vast psychic energy of that
world to seep into your mind and give you insight that would be impossible for you to
learn otherwise. It’s somewhat similar to Investigate, but it allows you to see beyond the
physical to get at truths that no amount of investigation could reveal. Dredging the
Undertow is for when you try to gain knowledge through intuition, rather than through
study.

Your connection to the Undertow is interwoven with your connections to your

companions, so the Polarity of their dissonant and resonant cards will apply when you
draw to Dredge. You’ll still use the cards’ normal Forecasts, but the GM will use the
altered Polarity to inform how they interpret the card you play. Because of this, Dredging
the Undertow is more likely to lead to more extreme outcomes, for better and for worse.

Keep in mind that opening your mind to The Undertow might draw attention from certain
supernatural forces, and your GM might use that when interpreting your Forecast.

See EIDOLONS AND THE UNDERTOW for more information, or THE PHANTOM
CLOCK to learn more about the additional consequence listed here.

● Hinder: When you do something to actively interfere with another player

character’s Move, you are Hindering them. Tick the Phantom Clock, and then
 have them draw for their Move. Choose one of the cards in their spread and
discard it. They then choose one of the remaining cards to play; if you discarded
the only card they had available, they must Push Themselves.

This Move is for when you want to oppose another player’s actions. If the player is
doing something against the group’s interests, then the solitary penalty will already
decrease the amount of cards they draw, but if you want to limit their options further, you
can Hinder them on top of it. Alternatively, so long as they’re receiving support from at
least one other player character, the solitary penalty doesn’t apply, and you may want to
interfere with them anyway; this would also be a situation in which you’re Hindering
them. If two player characters fight one another, one should choose a Move to make,
while the other Hinders them.

Hindering inherently represents conflict among your group, which is why you must tick
the Phantom Clock when doing it. There’s many reasons why conflict might arise
amongst you, but consider the story you’re telling and play in good faith when
determining whether Hindering is an appropriate action.

● Face Death: When your Damage Track reaches Defeated, you Face Death.
Draw BIZ. The GM will apply one of the following based on the Polarity of the
card you play:
○ Positive Card: you pull through, and you’re rendered unconscious until
others can tend to you.
○ Neutral Card: the forces of the Undertow will offer you a choice: release
your grip on life and let your soul sink into the Undertow, or return to the
land of the living in exchange for paying a cost or doing a favor for the
beings on the other side.
○ Negative Card: you will likewise be offered the opportunity to return to life,
but the cost will be much higher. Maybe even something you value more
than your life.

Everyone dies sooner or later, and the dangerous circumstances EIDOLON characters
frequently find themselves in means it might come sooner for them than most. Luckily,
their connection to The Undertow means they have a path back to life. Unluckily, that
path is gated off by the things that live in The Undertow.

Because of the way Face Death works, your character is never forced to die. You will
always have the option to let them keep on living for as long as you want to play as
them. However, sometimes character death is dramatically appropriate. Anytime your
character Faces Death, put some serious thought into whether it’s time to let them go.

● Push Yourself: When you absolutely need to succeed at something and force
yourself beyond your normal limits to make that happen, you are Pushing
Yourself. When making any other Move, if you are unsatisfied with the cards in
your spread, you may instead describe what you do to over-extend yourself and
try to force the situation to go your way. Tick the Phantom Clock and play the top
card from the Fate Deck, without looking at it first.

This Move is for when you’re in a difficult situation where success is critical, and none of
the cards you’ve drawn are sufficient to make that happen. It’s a risky move, as you
have no way of knowing what card you’re playing until you play it, but in some
circumstances, it may be your best option. Keep in mind that if the solitary penalty or
any negative Forward or Ongoing has reduced the stat you’re drawing to 0, you must
Push Yourself in order to draw with that stat. Additionally, remember that you may not
Push Yourself if the Phantom Clock is at midnight, until the manifested Phantom is
defeated (see THE PHANTOM CLOCK).

● Patch Up: You can only use this Move if your Eidolon Power can somehow heal
wounds. When you use your Eidolon’s healing abilities on another player
character, you may reverse their Damage Track once for each time you tick the
Phantom Clock.

Some Eidolons may have healing abilities, and this Move is the means by which those
abilities are applied, drawing on the bonds that connect you to your friends to heal their
wounds. This process drains the energy of those bonds, advancing the Phantom Clock
as a result.

Your character may be adept at non-magical forms of healing. That’s all well and good,
but painkillers, stitches, and casts won’t significantly improve someone’s health
immediately, and as a result, will have no impact on their Damage Track.

THE DAMAGE TRACK

Each player character’s health is represented by a Damage Track, located on their

character sheet. The Damage Track has 6 states: Invigorated, Fresh, Winded, Battered,
Desperate, and Defeated. When Uptime begins (see DOWNTIME), each player’s
Damage Track is set to Fresh; this is considered the “default” state for your Damage
Track, and it can only ever reach Invigorated through special circumstances, such as
certain Downtime Moves or Playbook Moves.

Any time harm comes to a player character, they advance their Damage Track, moving
it one space closer to Defeated. A few Moves will explicitly outline when a player must
take damage; for example, anyone who plays a negative or neutral card when
Scrapping advances their Damage Track by 1. Otherwise, the GM will declare when a
player should advance their Damage Track, using the Damage Tiers outlined later in
this section.

Crucially, the Damage Track represents more than purely physical damage. Damage
can take three general forms in EIDOLON:

Physical Damage: punches, kicks, gunshots, and anything else that can wound your
body.

Psychic Damage: damage to your morale, your confidence, or your ability to think
straight. Anything that causes emotional or spiritual distress could be considered
psychic damage.

Metaphysical Damage: harm inflicted upon your place in the universe. Terrible luck,
assaults on your identity, or shifts in The Undertow that weaken your position in the
world are some examples of metaphysical damage.

Your resilience against all three forms of damage are represented by your Damage
Track, and receiving any of these kinds of damage can potentially cause it to advance.

Damage Tiers

The steps of your Damage Track are not equal. Instead, you can think of them like a
pyramid, with each step sturdier than the last. Every time your Damage Track advances,
it is more difficult to make it advance again.

When Fresh or Invigorated, your Damage Track may be advanced as the result of any
significant negative consequence.

When Winded, your Damage Track may be advanced any time you are subjected to
any targeted violence or serious source of harm.
When Battered, your Damage Track may be advanced any time you are inflicted with
any severe, potentially debilitating harm.

When Desperate, your Damage Track may only be advanced if you are subjected to
potentially lethal sources of harm, in a situation with sufficiently high dramatic stakes.

These tiers of damage are loose, and ultimately, what counts as sufficient harm to
advance your Damage Track is up to the GM; for example, it is up to them to decide
what counts as a “significant negative consequence” or “sufficiently high dramatic
stakes.” Examples of what could qualify for each tier of damage can be found in
RUNNING EIDOLON.

The GM may also elect not to advance your Damage Track, even if you’ve received
sufficient harm. That might sound counterintuitive, but instead of being a literal
representation of how much punishment your character can withstand, you should think
of your Damage Track more like a means of measuring the dramatic stakes that your
character is confronting. Taking damage hurts your character, but it also means that the
stakes have raised; if the stakes haven’t raised, then the harm received isn’t significant
enough to advance your Damage Track.

Keep in mind too that, with a few very rare exceptions, your Damage Track never
advances more than once as the result of a single hit. Even if you receive harm severe
enough to count as Damage while Battered, if you’re Fresh, you’ll only advance to
Winded. The only exceptions are a few Playbook Moves that can advance your
Damage Track multiple times at once, or set it to a specific spot. The party also all sets
their Damage Track to Battered when a Phantom appears (see THE PHANTOM
CLOCK).

When your Damage Track reaches Defeated, you immediately Face Death (see THE
BASIC MOVES).

THE PHANTOM CLOCK

The Phantom Clock is an element of the game that tracks your group’s overall
relationship with The Undertow. Channeling The Undertow through your bodies is how
your group summons and controls your Eidolons (see EIDOLONS AND THE
UNDERTOW), so keeping a positive, disciplined grasp on the energy flowing through
your souls is essential. Every time a player fumbles their control over The Undertow’s
power, it collectively brings everyone closer to a disaster. The Phantom Clock is in
essence a measure of your group’s overall morale, imbued with supernatural
significance by your link to The Undertow.

You can keep track of what time the Clock is set to however you’d like: tally marks, a
digital counter, or anything else. At the start of your first play session, the Phantom
Clock is set to 1:00 PM. As it progresses, a sense of dread and malaise slowly
overcomes your team.

The Phantom Clock ticks, or advances by one hour:

● When someone plays a negative card while Dredging the Undertow. The player
tapped into the dark forces that exist beyond the physical world, and the
advancing clock represents the psychic blowback that happened as a result.

● When someone Pushes Themselves. Driving yourself beyond what you’re

normally capable of has mental, emotional, and spiritual consequences, which
the advancing clock reflects.

● Any time someone Hinders another player

● As a consequence of certain Playbook Moves, each of which has their own

justifications that are similar to the two listed above.

● Twice when most players play a negative card during the Debrief (See
DOWNTIME).

The Phantom Clock has a variety of effects, which compound as the clock advances:

● When the Phantom Clock reaches 3:00 PM, the next negative or dissonant card
anyone plays is sent to the bottom of the deck, instead of being discarded. Only
apply this effect once for each time the Phantom Clock hits 3:00 PM.

● When the Phantom Clock reaches 6:00 PM, then the Phantom Clock ticks each
time the Fate Deck is exhausted, and the discard pile is reshuffled.

● When the Phantom Clock reaches 9:00 PM, The Solitary Penalty becomes
harsher (see The Solitary Penalty). Players will take -1 on every Move they
 make, unless another player offers direct, material assistance to help them
complete the action they’re attempting.

● When the Phantom Clock reaches midnight, all previous effects become inactive.
The party experiences a violent blast of energy from The Undertow, and
everyone’s Damage Track is immediately set to Battered. Whoever ticked the
Clock last temporarily loses control of their Eidolon. It becomes severed and
transforms into a Phantom, a berserk Eidolon whose form is inspired by its
master’s Greatest Fear (See CHARACTER CREATION for more on Greatest
Fears). No player may Push Themselves until the Phantom is defeated, unless
they draw 0 cards when making a Move (see Drawing 0).

A Phantom’s Crash Limit is decided by the GM (see the next section for more info).
Additionally, it no longer shares a Damage Track with its master, so it’s possible to hurt
one without hurting the other. Defeating it will change it back to normal and cause it to
become ready again. When a Phantom has been defeated, set the Phantom Clock to
1:00 PM if it’s still at midnight.

If the same Eidolon transforms into a Phantom more than once, it will likely evolve and
become more powerful, and if its master’s Greatest Fear has changed since last time,
its form will reflect that. The specific ways that Phantoms develop over time is left up to
the GM.

Fighting your Phantom is a massive event in your character’s personal arc. Phantom
fights represent a moment when a character’s internal struggles violently overtake the
narrative and demand immediate attention. A character’s fight against their Phantom
should be a symbolic expression of their struggles with their Greatest Fear. Notably, a
character is never weaker than when facing their Phantom. They can’t call on their
Eidolon for help, and they’re being directly targeted by a monster designed to strike at
their greatest psychological weaknesses. Reaching out to friends for assistance is going
to be the only reliable path toward victory in a Phantom fight. Triumph over a Phantom
is an incredible achievement, and therefore defeating one adds a full 3 Experience to
the XP Pool (see CHARACTER CREATION AND ADVANCEMENT). Because a
Phantom fight is a literalization of grappling with your Greatest Fear, you will likely also
conquer that fear through the course of the fight, gaining additional Experience.

COMBAT
We’ve mentioned before that one of the things EIDOLON is about is “kickass fights with
magical soul powers.” If we’re going to follow through on that, then we need some rules
to define how fighting works in this game!

For the most part, combat isn’t particularly different than any other activities you might
engage in: you describe what you do, the GM asks you to draw for the appropriate
Move, and then describes what happens before asking you what you do next.
Scrapping and Bombarding are the two Moves with the most obvious applications for
combat, but hypothetically any Move could be relevant in a fight.

It should generally be clear from context whether “combat” is beginning or ending. If

someone instigates a conflict with someone else, then those two characters have
entered combat. Once the conflict is resolved, combat is over. Go with your gut and play
in good faith to determine when exactly combat has “officially” started or finished. As the
GM you may want to signal to your players when you consider combat to be initiating so
that they can use any relevant Moves.

Keep in mind that, much like how Scrapping does not need to be literally attacking
somebody, “combat” does not need to be a literal fight. It probably will be the majority of
the time, but any intense conflict could potentially be thought of through the lens of
combat.

Turn Order

There’s no concrete turn order in combat, but the GM should be making sure that
everyone has equal opportunity to participate. If someone hasn’t spoken up about what
they’re doing for a little bit, the GM should prompt them to take a “turn.” The GM might
want to implement a loose turn order just to make sure everyone’s getting to contribute
equally, but if someone wants to “pass” or someone else wants to “cut the line” (with the
permission of the people they’re cutting in front of), then that should be allowed. The
rule of thumb as a player is that you shouldn’t try to take another action in combat
before every other player has gotten to do something.

The Flow of Combat

Combat in EIDOLON is focused on building an exciting dramatic arc, with tension and
stakes continuously rising until a final climactic moment. The combat systems are built
in such a way that building a satisfying dramatic arc is prioritized over “realistically”
modeling what a fight might look like between a group of combatants with
superpowered astral projections. Instead, enemies will present a series of escalating
threats that must be addressed and neutralized. Often, the player characters won’t be
able to successfully deal with these threats on their first try, which will lead to their
Damage Tracks advancing. As the threats are dealt with, they’re replaced with more
dangerous ones, ratcheting up the stakes of the battle as the enemy grows
progressively more desperate, until they are finally defeated.

Crashing

Unlike player characters, the enemies the GM throws at you don’t have Damage Tracks.
They have a similar but notably different way of tracking the harm you’ve done to them:
their Crash Count.

Enemies in EIDOLON are conceived of as a series of escalating threats to the player

characters. For example, an enemy might attack with a weapon, and when that proves
insufficient, summon their Eidolon. They might hold back on using their Eidolon’s Power
at first, and then reveal what it can really do when the heroes force their hand. If the
heroes continue to push the enemy to their limits, they might then risk everything on a
powerful but risky final attack.

We would say that the enemy above would have a Crash Count of 4. Each time the
threat they present is neutralized, the enemy crashes; the player characters
momentarily take the upper hand in the fight, until the enemy has the opportunity to
regroup and adjust their course, coming back with a greater threat.

Enemies are assigned Crash Counts by the GM, with higher Counts corresponding to
more powerful enemies. The example enemy described above might look something
like this in the GM’s notes:

JIMMY BADGUY
POW 3 ELE 1 GEN 1 GLAM 2 BIZ 2
Resonant: The High Priestess Dissonant: Temperance
EIDOLON: MONSTER MASH
“My Eidolon warps reality by making it more like an old monster movie.”

CRASH 0: Jimmy attacks the party with a switchblade; Jimmy must be disarmed.
CRASH 1: Jimmy summons MONSTER MASH, a giant mummy, and attacks the party
with his Eidolon’s brute force; MONSTER MASH must be physically subdued.
CRASH 2: MONSTER MASH activates its ability, making the world black-and-white and
silent, and unleashes powerful mummy magic; MONSTER MASH must either be
escaped or subdued, using the logic of a monster movie, while Jimmy tries to interfere.
CRASH 3: Jimmy digs deep, unlocking a new form for MONSTER MASH: instead of
just a mummy, it is now an entire gang of classic movie monsters: a vampire, a
wolfman, and a swamp monster, and they all attack the party together; either the
monsters or Jimmy himself must be defeated once and for all.

Each Crash both describes the threat being posed at this stage of the fight, as well as
the specific thing that must be neutralized in order to successfully crash the enemy. This
is crucial: crashes can only occur when the players have successfully triumphed over
the current threat posed by the enemy. There may be times when you play a Positive
card, maybe even The World, when trying to Scrap against a powerful foe; if that foe
can’t be crashed just by beating them up, then that Move won’t advance the fight. It is
ultimately the GM’s responsibility to decide when an enemy has been successfully
crashed. They should be open to a broad range of player responses to the challenges
they present, with a particular eye toward creative or dramatically fitting actions. GMs:
You can find more information on constructing compelling enemy encounters in
RUNNING EIDOLON.

The final Crash for every enemy is always “Defeated.” Once this Crash has been
reached, the players have achieved victory over that enemy, and if that was the final
enemy standing, victory in combat.

Most enemies will have their own and Crashes, but sometimes it might make sense to
treat multiple enemies as a single entity. Maybe it’s a swarm of shadow monsters, or a
pair of Eidolon masters who fight as a duo. In these cases, the GM is free to give these
groups a single set of Crashes, and have every member of the group Crash together.
The party will only earn a Crash if they wound, overwhelm, or nullify the threat of all of
the enemies who share the same Crash Limit.

Restoring your Damage Track

When combat is over, regardless of whether you won or lost the fight, you have an
opportunity to rest and recuperate. Each player character that was in the fight reverses
their Damage Track by one, and anyone who Faced Death regains consciousness
(unless they chose to die), and their Damage Track is set to Desperate.This represents
the release of dramatic tension, as well as your characters having the opportunity to
draw upon their connection of The Undertow to heal themselves; Eidolon masters will
generally recover from injury much more quickly than those with sealed Eidolons.

DOWNTIME, TIES, AND LEVELING UP

Time in an Eidolon campaign is divided up into two broad categories: Uptime and
Downtime. “Uptime” is any period where the player characters are embarking on some
kind of mission, actively combatting an enemy, exploring dangerous territory, or
contending with an imminent threat of danger. In other words, Uptime is any time that
the party is dealing with a short-term conflict that demands action and attention. There
may be short moments of rest during this period, but the campaign is still considered to
be in Uptime until the present conflict has been fully resolved.

By contrast, “Downtime” is any time in which there is no imminent threat, and the player
characters are in a place where they are free to spend their time as they wish. There
may be some looming threat on the horizon, or an overarching conflict at play, but
nothing that demands immediate action on behalf of the players. Downtime is a period
for relaxing, developing your relationships, and preparing for future battles.

TIES

Ties represent your character’s important relationships. They’re short, one-sentence

statements that sum up your understanding of the other character and your relationship
to them. Necessarily, these single-sentence summaries will be incomplete, to say the
least. They should capture your character’s gut feelings about the other characters and
provide a rough outline of your relationship. Keep in mind that your relationship does not
necessarily have to be a positive one, and negative Ties can serve as signals to the GM
or other players that you want to explore some interpersonal conflict with that character.
Below are some example Ties:

“Harvey only cares about himself.”

“Chris is like a younger me.”
“Virginia is good at her job, but kind of cold.”
“Sloane is a danger to everyone around her.”
“James is trustworthy.”
You should ask the GM to create a Tie anytime you feel that you’ve built up a
meaningful relationship to another character. Remember that Ties can be made to both
player characters and NPCs alike.

As we’ll explain shortly, one of the actions you can take during Downtime is to perform a
Tie Scene, a one-on-one scene with another character you have a Tie to. When a Tie
Scene is completed, the Tie develops. You’ll erase what you had previously written, and
write a new Tie for that character, reflecting the ways that your relationship has
advanced and matured. Below are some examples:

“Harvey only cares about himself, but that’s because he’s afraid of getting hurt.”
“Chris is like a younger me, but he’s better than I was at his age.”
“Virginia seems cold, but she cares in her own way.”
“Sloane’s a bigger danger to herself than anyone else.”
“I’d trust James with my life.”

When you develop a Tie, put a tally mark next to it to denote the Tie’s current level.
Each time you develop a Tie, you gain a benefit based on the Tie’s level:

● Level 1: Take +1 Forward the next time you make a Move in support of the other
person in this Tie.

● Level 2: Hold 1. You can spend this Hold at any time to give 1 additional Hold to
any player that currently has Hold.

● Level 3: Hold 1. You may spend this Hold to use the other person in this Tie’s stat
instead of your own when making a Move.

● Level 4: Hold 1. You may spend this Hold to use one of the Starting Moves of the
other person in this Tie.

● Level 5: Hold 1. You may spend this Hold when playing the other person in this
Tie’s resonant card to use their Playbook’s Resonant Effect instead of its normal
Forecast.

When you develop a Level 5 Tie, erase the marks you’ve made for it and reset it to
Level 1.
SWITCHING BETWEEN DOWNTIME AND UPTIME

It should usually feel fairly obvious when Uptime and Downtime each start and
conclude. Uptime starts as soon as the players begin directly engaging in a conflict.
That might mean diving into The Undertow to explore, getting ambushed by an enemy
Eidolon master, breaking into a guarded compound, or anything similar. Downtime starts
as soon as the overt threat or conflict has been dealt with, at least for the time being,
and the players have found themselves back in a relatively stable state of safety.
Exactly what this looks like will vary from game to game, but if it feels like you’ve
switched from Uptime to Downtime or vice-versa, you most likely have. As a rough rule
of thumb, the GM will usually be the one to declare when Downtime has begun, while
the players will be the ones to declare when they want to head back into Uptime.

Most of the rules we’ve described in the book so far largely govern Uptime. This is the
time when you’ll be engaging in battles, investigating mysteries, and making material
progress toward your group’s long-term goals. On the other hand, Downtime is there to
give you space to develop your character’s relationships and prepare for your next
Uptime. Mechanically, Downtime is also the period during which you can level up your
character, increasing their stats and adding new Playbook Moves to their repertoire.

THE DEBRIEF

Whenever Uptime ends, you must begin Downtime with a Debrief. All player characters
will gather at a meeting place of their choosing. Maybe everyone goes out to eat, or
someone invites the others into their home. You’ll play out a scene in which the party
celebrates their successes, bemoans their failures, discusses their next moves, and
develops a sense of where everyone’s at mentally and emotionally following the last
Uptime.

At the beginning of this scene, the GM will deal each player their Resonant and
Dissonant cards from the Fate Deck. If your character is happy with how the previous
Uptime went, you’ll place your resonant card face-down in front of you. If they’re
unhappy, you’ll do the same with your dissonant card. Once each player has placed a
card down, everyone will flip their cards face-up. If most players played their Resonant
card, set the Phantom Clock back 2 hours. If most players played their Dissonant card,
tick the Phantom Clock twice and add 2 Experience to the pool. Nothing happens in the
event of a tie.
After the vote, the players will act out the scene, using the vote to inform their roleplay.

If the Phantom Clock hits midnight as a result of the Debrief, the GM will choose one of
the players that played their Dissonant card, and their Eidolon will become a Phantom.
GMs: should this situation arise, you should take it as an opportunity to give some
spotlight to a player who perhaps hasn’t gotten as much of it lately. Phantom fights
represent major turning points in a character’s story, and this is a great way to give a
player a chance to shine.

Although the Phantom will technically bring things back to Uptime, do not do another
Debrief after it’s defeated. Consider the Phantom fight to be part of a surprisingly
action-heavy debriefing, and proceed into Downtime once the scene concludes.

LEVELING UP

Leveling up in Eidolon is a collective action; your entire party gains a level at the same
time. Individual actions you take throughout play will add Experience to a collective XP
Pool.

● 1 Experience is added each time anyone plays a negative (or dissonant) card.
● 1 Experience is added each time someone plays a neutral card when they had a
positive card in their spread (unless they are Investigating).
● 1 Experience is added any time a player feels that their character has fully
conquered their Greatest Fear. When this happens, they should also write a new
Greatest Fear on their character sheet.
● 2 Experience is added when a majority of players play their dissonant card
during a Debrief.
● 3 Experience is added when a player character’s Phantom is defeated.

After you complete a Debrief, if your XP pool has 12 Experience or more in it, your
entire group levels up! Deduct 12 Experience from the pool, then, each player can do
one of the following:

● Increase a Stat by 1 (to a maximum of 3)

● Add an Advanced Move from your Playbook to your Character Sheet

Once you’ve reached Level 5, add these options to the list:

 ● Add a Master Move from your Playbook to your Character Sheet
● Change Playbooks. Your character evolves to a point that their Eidolon gains an
entirely new set of abilities. Choose a new Playbook and set your level back to 1.
Add your old Playbook’s Eidolon Power, Starting Moves, and 3 Advanced or
Master Moves to your Character Sheet. If the Moves you choose have
requirements, add them to your new sheet as well. When taking this Move, your
Downtime Move should reflect a significant shift in your character’s outlook,
personality, or priorities, as a reflection of their changing Eidolon. Also, if you’re
shifting from a human character to The Beast or The Inhuman or vice-versa,
there probably needs to be some weird kind of magic involved.
● Retire. Your character exits the story and stops being an active protagonist. They
might come back some day, but if they do, change their Playbook to The Veteran
and set their level to 1. If you’d like, you can also relinquish control of them to the
GM. If you choose this option, you should use this Downtime to have a big,
dramatic goodbye for them!

Once the Debrief has been completed and your group has leveled up (assuming you
have the Experience), Downtime proper begins.

DOWNTIME

Downtime is divided into two basic types of action: Tie Scenes and Downtime Moves.

Tie Scenes are one-on-one scenes between a player character and someone they
have a Tie to, usually another player character. These are scenes for
relationship-building, difficult confrontations, romantic confessions, and any other major
dramatic moments between the characters. Any player can recommend or ask to do a
Tie Scene with any other character, at which point they establish when and where the
scene takes place and act it out. After the scene is complete, all players involved update
their relevant Tie.

Each player can do as many Tie Scenes during a Downtime session as they’d like, but
you should put an eye toward involving all players equally. Additionally, you should be
mindful that, because Tie Scenes are one-on-one actions, most of your group will have
nothing to do during them other than observe. There’s nothing wrong with this in short
bursts, but be careful not to drag Tie Scenes out too long, or you might bore or frustrate
other members of your group. Each scene only gives the spotlight to 1-2 players, but all
the Tie Scenes together should give roughly equal spotlight to everyone.
Downtime Moves are opportunities for you and your group to take advantage of the
current lull in the action to influence the future direction of the narrative. While Tie
Scenes are “inwardly” directed, focusing on your group’s interpersonal bonds,
Downtime Moves are outwardly directed, focusing on your group’s relationship to the
world around you. Each Downtime Move gives you the opportunity to make a bold,
proactive decision, one which could give you either a major advantage or a huge
impediment moving forward.

One player decides to make a Downtime Move, and invites any number of other players
to participate in it with them (each Downtime Move must include at least 2 players).
Then, the “lead” player draws the relevant stat and plays a card. Strictly speaking, only
the Polarity of the card played matters for Downtime Moves, but the GM is both allowed
and encouraged to incorporate the card’s Forecast when possible.

Every Downtime Move made must include at least one player character who hasn’t
made a Downtime Move during the current round of Downtime; once everyone has
made at least one, or no one else wants to make one, you’ll need to return to Uptime
before you can make any more. Each Downtime Move provides narrative hooks that will
offer natural “on-ramps” back into Uptime, and the GM is encouraged to incorporate the
consequences of Downtime Moves into the next chapter of the story whenever possible.

The Structure of Downtime

Once The Debrief has been completed, the rest of Downtime can proceed in whatever
order your group would like. You can do all the Tie Scenes you want to do and then
proceed into Downtime Moves, or vice-versa. Or, you can jump back and forth between
Tie Scenes and Downtime Moves as you see fit; one may often suggest the other.
Downtime continues until no one wants to do anymore Tie Scenes, and no one is
capable of doing any more Downtime Moves. At this point, the GM takes things back
into Uptime, either building off the consequences of one of the Downtime Moves made
or else introducing some new element that puts the story back into a state of dramatic
tension.

DOWNTIME MOVES

Below is a list of all Downtime Moves:

● Live It Up: Do something reckless, irresponsible, and fun. Draw POW:

 ○ On a positive card, you have a great time and make some excellent
memories. Describe a new friend you make along the way, and what you
did to kickstart your friendship.
○ On a neutral card, you have a good time, but you take things a bit too far.
Describe something you break or ruin.
○ On a negative card, you make a nuisance of yourself and attract the
wrong kind of attention. Describe someone who you and your friends have
made an enemy of today.

● Hatch a Scheme: Spend time preparing for what’s next by creating a plan, setting
a trap, or leaving yourselves a cache of supplies in a hidden location. Draw ELE.
○ On a positive card, you lay the groundwork to turn the tables at a critical
future moment; during the next Uptime, each of you takes +1 Ongoing
whenever you Reveal Your Master Plan and incorporate your preparations
into that plan.
○ On a neutral card, your planning pays off, but only to a limited extent. Take
+1 Forward if you Reveal Your Master Plan and incorporate your
preparations.
○ On a negative card, you fall into someone else’s trap while setting up your
own plans, as described by the GM. This may briefly force the game back
into Uptime.

● Gather Information: Scout out a person or location you and your friends might
confront or make use of in the future. Draw GEN and play 1 card.
○ On a positive card, each person making this Move can ask any one
question regarding the object of investigation, and the GM must answer
each question honestly.
○ On a neutral card, only the player who drew for this Move may ask a
question.
○ On a negative card, you learn nothing useful, and someone or something
takes notice of you snooping around.

● Call in a Favor: Meet up with an NPC in order to ask them for a favor of your
choosing. If the favor is too extreme, the GM may ask you to make a more
reasonable request. Draw GLAM.
○ On a positive card, the person happily helps you out.
○ On a neutral card, the person will only do your favor if you do a favor for
them as well.
 ○ On a negative card, they somehow talk you into doing a favor for them for
nothing in return.

● Commune with the Undertow: Meditate to mentally expand your

consciousnesses into the Undertow to get a glimpse of the future. Decide on
some minor victory that all of you want to achieve, and which could reasonably
be attained in the near future, then draw BIZ.
○ On a positive card, you see good fortune. Describe a minor victory you
could conceivably attain in the near future; the GM will ensure that you
achieve this victory at some point during the next Uptime.
○ On a neutral card, you see the possibility for success, but the path is
obstructed. Describe a minor victory you could conceivably attain in the
near future; the GM will provide an opportunity to achieve this victory
during the next Uptime, but seizing the opportunity will be up to you.
○ On a negative card, you get a vision of yourself doing something that you
don’t want to do, as described by the GM. One or all of you must fulfill this
vision at some point during the next Uptime, or else tick the Phantom
Clock twice at the beginning of the next Debrief.
This move may only be used once per Downtime.
CHARACTER CREATION

If you’ve read the previous three chapters, then you’re ready to create a player
character and start playing EIDOLON! If you haven’t read the previous chapters yet,
then you can still start creating a character, but you might be flipping through the book a
lot while you do!

CHARACTER CREATION

We’ve listed out all of the steps involved in creating a character below. This is the order
that makes the most sense to us, but a lot of these steps are pretty interchangeable,
and can be done in any order. Some of these steps will require you to talk with your
fellow players and your GM. If you’d like to go through all of the steps of character
creation together as a group to make everyone’s characters, then great! You can also
feel free to work on your character by yourself, and save the steps that require the full
group until you get together for your first play session. Do whatever works best for you!

Come Up With a Concept

What kind of character do you want to play as? What kind of person are they, and what
kind of things do they want? By this point, your GM may have already given you some
rough ideas about the setting or premise of the story you’ll be telling; if they have, how
does your character fit into that? What is their Eidolon, and how do its powers reflect
their personality? You don’t need to answer all of these questions right away, and in
fact, discovering the answers to them might be a big part of your game. But you do
need at least a rough sketch of who your character is, so that you know how to role-play
them. Don’t forget to give both them and their Eidolon a name!

You should also figure out how your character and their Eidolon look at this point. In
particular, you should have a solid description for the appearance of your Eidolon, since
it can look like literally anything and the rest of your group will need a good idea of how
it looks in order to imagine it. If you feel like it, it might even help to draw a picture of
your Eidolon to show the others. Even if you’re not a great artist, it will help to solidify it
in the other players’ minds. Toss in a drawing of your character as well if you’d like!
Choose a Playbook

Once you know who you’re playing as, look through the Playbooks in the next chapter
and decide which one suits them best. You might need to tweak your Eidolon’s abilities
so that it can properly fit your Playbook’s Eidolon Power. Talk to the rest of your group if
you’re struggling with that, and find a solution that works for all of you. Once you have a
Playbook chosen, go ahead and fill in your Character Name, your Eidolon Name, and
your Eidolon Power.

For more information on Eidolons and Eidolon Powers, see EIDOLONS.

Choose a resonant and dissonant card

Select one neutral card from the Fate Deck to be your resonant card, and one to be
your dissonant card. When you and you alone play your resonant card, it’s treated as
if it’s positive, even though the card itself is neutral. When you play your dissonant
card, it’s treated as if it’s negative. You can choose any of the ten neutral cards you’d
like for these, but your choice should say something about your character. Their
resonant card should represent a concept that they relate to or that means something
positive to them, while their dissonant card should represent something they struggle
with or that they have a negative relationship to. For example, a flirtatious, extroverted
character might choose The Lovers as their resonant card and The Hermit as their
dissonant card.

No two characters in the same game can have the same resonant or dissonant card.
The cards you choose should be unique to your character, and add their unique flavor to
the Fate Deck. However, one character’s resonant card can be another character’s
dissonant card; maybe the flirtatious extrovert above has a friend who’s reserved and
introverted, who takes The Hermit as their resonant card and The Lovers as their
dissonant card.

It may be a good idea to save this part of character creation for when everyone is
together, so that you can make sure you’re not picking the same resonant and
dissonant cards.

Assign Your Stats

Each Playbook has default starting stats that we’ve set based on which ones are the
most useful for the Playbook’s abilities. However, you are by no means beholden to
what’s on your sheet. Your stats are one of the ways that you express who your
character is, so you should feel free to adjust them to your heart’s content. To set your
own stats, assign one of the following numbers to each of your five stats:

● 1
● 1
● 2
● 2
● 3

For more info on stats, see STATS.

Take Care of Playbook-Specific Creation Rules

Some of the Playbooks will have special instructions for you to carry out “at creation.”
Go ahead and do those now. If you have any questions, talk about them with your GM.

Every book also has a question that it asks as part of the character creation process.
Think about this question, come up with a good answer that suits your character, and
share it with the rest of your group during your first play session.

Assign Your Greatest Fear

Everyone has a Greatest Fear, a spot of intense psychological vulnerability. Decide

what your character’s Greatest Fear is and write it down on your Character Sheet. This
can be anything you want, but in general it’s going to work better if it’s something
personal and psychological as opposed to, say, “spiders” or “heights.” That said, it’s
your character! Write in the fear that you think suits them best.

Your Greatest Fear will determine the form of your Phantom, if and when it appears.
See THE PHANTOM CLOCK for more information.

Take an Advanced Move

You’re starting out at Level 1, which means that you’ve already earned an Advanced
Move! Look through the list of Advanced Moves in your Playbook and check the box
next to it to denote that you can use it. Remember that some of them have prerequisites
that you need to meet before you can take them, which means they’re off the table for
Level 1.
Create Your Starting Ties

This is the point where you need to get everyone else involved. Each player is going to
write down 3 initial Ties for their character. Unless you’re playing with only a single
player and a GM, then at least one of your Ties must be with another player’s character,
and one of your Ties must be with a GM-controlled character. What you do with your
third Tie is up to you.

These Ties serve to establish your character’s place in the world at the start of your
story, the relationships and priorities that they’ve cultivated prior to the events of your
game. Talk through your character’s history with the others in your group in order to
figure out which starting Ties make the most sense for you, and to establish a shared
history with other player characters that you have Ties with. Remember also that just
because you have a Tie with someone, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they also
have a Tie with you. If you’re playing with a bigger group of players, it’s probably wise to
avoid establishing mutual Ties at the start, to ensure that the web of connections
between the group’s characters is broad and interconnected. That’s just a rule of thumb
though; do whatever makes the most sense for your group!

Depending on the circumstances of your specific game, it might make sense to hold
back on this step until after your first session. For instance, if your story is going to start
with some or all of the characters not already knowing each other, then it would make
sense to hold off on your starting Ties until all the player characters have gotten
acquainted.

Have Fun!

With that, you’ve created your character! Once everyone has finished character
creation, you’re ready to begin playing! Schedule a time for your first session, or just roll
right into it from your character creation session!

THE PLAYBOOKS
Here you can find all of the Playbooks for the different types of characters you can play.
Each Playbook contains a Character Sheet {or they will in the final version}, a list of
Starting, Advanced, and Master Moves, a brief rundown of how the Playbook is meant
to function, and a few example Eidolon Powers to give you an idea of how you might
use the Playbook. Read through CHARACTER CREATION and then check this section
out to see which Playbook best suits you!

THE VANGUARD
Your Eidolon is very good at, well, fighting other Eidolons. It’s not the fanciest power in
the world, but so what? As far as you’re concerned, words like “finesse” or “nuance” are
synonyms for “waste of time.” Sometimes you might be a little reckless, but you will
never stop fighting for yourself or for your friends. You have an incredible strength of
spirit, and will always push as hard as possible to win the day. Stand up, make a fist,
and hit ‘em where it hurts.

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by ________________.”

Range: 10 Feet
Default Stats: 3 POW 1 ELE 1 GEN 2 GLAM 2 BIZ

At creation, describe what strength means to you and why you value it.

When you play your resonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You power through
all obstacles to seize the moment for you and your friends.” Turn the Phantom Clock
back 1 hour.

When you play your dissonant card, apply the following Forecast: “Your brash actions
cost you or your teammates something valuable.” You may not Break Through anything
else as long as your dissonant card remains in the discard pile.

Starting Moves

Break Through: When you use your Eidolon’s power to force your way through a
physical obstacle, draw POW, but ignore the normal Forecast for the card you play.
Instead, use the following:
● Positive card: You force your way through with finesse and ease. Nothing is
permanently damaged and no attention is drawn to you.
● Neutral card: Either the obstacle is permanently damaged or attention is drawn to
you, your choice.
● Negative card: Either the obstacle is permanently damaged or attention is drawn
to you, GM’s choice.
Actually, I Meant For You to Kick My Ass: When you play a negative card when
Scrapping or Challenging Fate, you can explain how any negative consequences
actually help you in the long term, and Reveal Your Master Plan by drawing POW
instead of GEN.

Advanced Moves

Bloody Knuckles: Scrap viciously, with no regard for your own safety. If you play a
neutral or positive card, choose one of the following consequences, in addition to the
card’s forecast:
○ You create an opportunity for your allies.
○ You impress, surprise, or intimidate your target.
○ You take control of the situation.
If you play a negative or neutral card, advance your Damage Track twice instead of
once.

Light a Fire: When someone is caught in the clutches of despair, draw GLAM to give an
inspiring speech about why they matter and why they can't give up. If you play a neutral
or positive card, GM-controlled characters will be inspired to keep going, and
player-controlled characters receive +1 Ongoing for the rest of the scene. If you play a
positive card, GM-controlled characters will return your kindness sooner or later, and
you receive +1 Ongoing for the rest of the scene.

Hope for the Hopeless: If at any time you draw nothing but negative cards when making
a Move, you may choose to shuffle your spread and the discard pile into the Fate Deck
and draw a new spread. Tick the Phantom Clock.

Longshot: If you use your Eidolon Power to launch an attack at an enemy that would
normally be out of your effective range, Bombard them with POW instead of ELE.

Sucker Punch: Take the “Quick-Draw” Move from the Virtuoso Playbook.

Unstoppable: If your Damage Track would advance to “Defeated,” explain why this fight
is too important to you to lose. Keep your Damage Track at “Desperate,” but take -1
Ongoing for the rest of combat. If you take damage again, advance your Damage Track
as normal. Advance your Damage Track to “Defeated” as soon as combat ends. You
can only use this Move once per session.
Never Fight a Stranger: After fighting someone, take +1 Ongoing any time you attempt
to Dazzle them in the future.

Bad Reputation: When you meet someone who might have heard of you, draw POW. If
you play a neutral or positive card, they'll know you're a serious threat and hesitate to
confront you; take +1 Ongoing when Threatening them. If you play a neutral or negative
card, they'll know about your Eidolon Power and have a plan to fight against it.

Unflappable: If a GM-controlled character tries to threaten or intimidate you, show them

that you can’t be intimidated and draw GLAM. On a positive card, they'll believe you,
and treat you with a higher degree of respect moving forward. On a neutral or negative
card, they’ll buy your bluff, but they definitely got to you. Draw one less card when
acting against them.

Overdrive: You can Push Yourself or use Hope For The Hopeless by advancing your
Damage Track instead of ticking the Phantom Clock.

Battle Bond (Requires Never Fight a Stranger): After Scrapping with someone, you
can attempt to grasp some deep truth about them. Draw BIZ. On a positive card, you
will have a vision of a past memory that has turned your opponent into who they are. On
a neutral card, you'll still have the vision, but you'll also need to describe the vision they
see about you. You can’t use this Move on the same person twice.

Force of Personality: Once per session, when you are in the Undertow, you can make
any one-sentence statement and draw GLAM. On a positive card, that statement
becomes true for as long as you’re in the Undertow. On a neutral card, it becomes only
sort of true, as described by the GM.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

My Friends Are Behind Me: Set your Damage Track to “Desperate,” and summon the
Eidolon of every friend you have a Tie with. You can only use this Move once, ever.

Punch Parade: When you deliver the finishing blow to an Eidolon master, you can strike
with such force that you destroy their connection to The Undertow. Draw POW. On a
positive card, their Eidolon is sealed. On a neutral card, their Eidolon is severed.
This Isn’t Even My Final Form (Requires Unstoppable): When you take this Move, fill
out the Eidolon Power listed below. When using Unstoppable, use it instead of your
normal Eidolon Power.

“My Eidolon obliterates _____________ by drawing on the bottomless power of my

heart.”

ABOUT THE VANGUARD

Like the name suggests, Vanguards usually stand at the forefront of their group. They
excel in combat, with lots of Moves that expand their options when fighting. Many of
their Advanced Moves hinge on building a roller coaster-like flow of risk and reward,
opening themselves up for more severe consequences in exchange for the chance to
hit enemies harder and heal themselves in the process.

Outside of combat, Vanguards tend to be forceful and direct, since they usually want to
have a high POW stat. This can mean they’re stubborn and stand-offish, but it can just
easily mean that they’re a stalwart friend who’ll never stop fighting what they believe in.
This is a Playbook for players who want to engage in high-stakes combat and role-play
someone with an open but forceful heart.

EXAMPLE VANGUARD EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by punching extremely hard and extremely fast.”

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by crushing them in its giant crab claws.”

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by stopping time and beating the crap out of them
while time is stopped.”

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by flowing through my veins as pure energy, giving me
super speed and strength.”

“My Eidolon obliterates enemies by conjuring fire.”

THE INFILTRATOR
You’re really not one for the “direct approach.” There’s always a shortcut, a workaround,
an angle that no one else considered. A way to slip through the cracks and take out
your target with surgical precision, without anyone even realizing you’re the one who
pulled the trigger. You know, metaphorically. Or not? Whatever. Blend in, slip by, and
aim carefully.

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by _____________________, and attack
from hiding by _____________________.”
Range: 50 Feet
Default Stats: 1 POW 3 ELE 2 GEN 2 GLAM 1 BIZ

At creation, answer the following question: “What’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told?”

When you play your resonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You slip into position
to take the perfect shot.” Choose a card that’s still in the Fate Deck and place it in the
discard pile. Shuffle the Fate Deck afterward.

When you play your dissonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You tripped the
alarm, and now all the spotlights are trained on you.” You may not Vanish for the
duration of the current scene.

Starting Moves

Vanish: When you use your Eidolon’s cloaking power while no one’s watching, draw
ELE. On a positive card, Hold 2. On a neutral card, Hold 1. Spend 1 Hold any time you
use your Eidolon to make a Move, or anytime someone thoroughly searches the area
your Eidolon is cloaking in. Your Eidolon cannot be located as long as you have at least
1 Hold.

Pick Locks, Hack Consoles: When you attempt to disarm a security system, pick a lock,
or otherwise use finesse and subterfuge to get somewhere you’re not supposed to be,
draw ELE, but use the following instead of the normal Forecast:
● Positive card: You sneak in without being detected.
● Neutral card: Something is damaged or an alarm is raised, your choice.
● Negative card: Something is damaged or an alarm is raised, GM’s choice.
Advanced Moves

Natural Charm: When you successfully Dazzle someone in an attempt to gain entry to
somewhere you shouldn’t be, take +1 Forward in that location.

Escape Artist: Take the Noclip Move from the Inhuman Playbook.

Dead Drop: When you Push Yourself, you may choose one card from your original
spread to discard instead of sending to the bottom of the Fate Deck.

Run Silent, Run Deep: When you Vanish, gain an extra Hold on a neutral or positive
card.

Excellent Work: When you have accomplished a task behind enemy lines, you may
draw GEN to ascertain the shortest path to a safe exit.

Ambush: When you attack an enemy from hiding, you may choose a card from the
discard pile to play instead of drawing from the Fate Deck.

Call an Ambulance, But Not For Me (Requires Ambush): When you successfully Dazzle
someone into thinking that you are defenseless, vulnerable, or otherwise unable to
harm them, you may Ambush them while in plain sight for the duration of the scene.

Pickpocket: When you attempt to take something from someone without them noticing,
draw ELE, but ignore the Forecast of the card you play.
● If you play a positive card, you successfully steal the item without drawing
suspicion.
● If you play a neutral card, you successfully steal the item, but its owner notices
something is wrong.
● If you play a negative card, the item’s owner immediately notices you doing
something suspicious.

Fade Away: Your Eidolon can cloak you as well as itself. You become uncloaked if you
make a Move independently from your Eidolon, or if your Eidolon becomes uncloaked.

I’m Supposed to Be Here (Requires Natural Charm): You can put together a disguise of
your choosing out of any available materials you have. Draw GLAM to determine the
quality of your disguise. Choose a card already in the discard pile and set it aside. As
long as you maintain your disguise, you may play and discard this card instead of
drawing for an action. Discard this card if your disguise becomes compromised or you
remove it.

Smuggle: When your Eidolon Vanishes, it can cause anything smaller or equal in size to
you that your Eidolon is touching to become cloaked along with it. Draw ELE; on a
neutral or negative card, they will only become cloaked if they want to be. Your target
uncloaks only when your Eidolon does.

Shadow Heist (Requires Pickpocket): When Pickpocketing a target, focus your mind on
one object you know the target owns, but which isn’t currently on their person; that
object is now in their pocket. You can only use this Move once per session.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

Soul Shot: When you Bombard an enemy Eidolon master and play The World, sever
their Eidolon.

Take Your Heart (Requires Shadow Heist): Once per session, you may draw GEN to
steal something intangible from someone–a memory, a relationship, etc. When you use
this Move, the last thing you stole with it is returned to its owner.

Everything Fades (Requires Smuggle): You can cloak any inanimate object your Eidolon
is touching, regardless of size. If you attempt to Smuggle something larger than
yourself, draw BIZ instead of ELE. You may only use this move once per session.

ABOUT THE INFILTRATOR

The Infiltrator is a Playbook for people who want to be on the front lines, but don’t want
the attention or risk that The Vanguard brings with it. The Infiltrator’s Moves are all
about sneaking and subterfuge, avoiding danger while lining up deadly attacks and
supporting the team through reconnaissance and espionage.

Keep in mind that your Eidolon Power doesn’t necessarily mean that your Eidolon (or
you, or anything else you cloak with Smuggle or Everything Fades) becomes invisible,
just undetectable.

EXAMPLE INFILTRATOR EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by merging into the shadows, and attack
from hiding by attacking their shadows with its cool sword.”

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by turning into a puddle of water, and attack
from hiding by launching sharks out of itself.”

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by dissolving into soundwaves, and attack
from hiding by blasting enemies with bone-shattering bass.”

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by unraveling into invisibly thin but extremely
strong wire, and attack from hiding by slicing anyone that it touches.”

“My Eidolon can cloak itself from detection by turning invisible, and attack from hiding by
just punching them, because it’s invisible and what are they gonna do about it.”
THE NAVIGATOR
You’d describe yourself as more of an… ideas person. What good is power without the
right planning? When you’re not rambling on about your pet interests, you prefer to sit
back, gather data, and put together an undefeatable strategy for your comrades to
execute. Study up, prepare your vessel, and chart the course.

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense _______________ in the area around it.”
Range: 25 Feet
Default Stats: 1 POW 1 ELE 3 GEN 2 GLAM 2 BIZ

When you play your resonant card, apply the following Forecast: “For an instant, you
understand everything, and know exactly what to do next.” Set the card aside; this
counts as a Ready for Anything card, regardless of whether you already have any cards
set aside for Ready for Anything. When you play it using Ready for Anything, treat it as
a normal Neutral card and not your resonant card.

When you play your dissonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You’re too certain
that you’re right, and you miss something important as a result.” Discard half of the
Ready for Anything cards you have set aside (rounded up).

At creation, choose an Area of Expertise, a topic about which you know everything
there is to know. What is it that fascinates you about this subject, and how have you
come to be so knowledgeable about it?

Starting Moves

Ready for Anything: At the beginning of Uptime, draw GEN and set all cards in your
spread aside. At any point during this Uptime, you can play one of these cards instead
of drawing. Discard any remaining cards you have once you return to Downtime.

Information War: Draw on your Area of Expertise to state a fact about your current
situation that no one but you would notice, then draw GEN.
● On a positive card, continue by explaining how you’re exploiting this fact to your
advantage.
● On a neutral card, the GM will explain how anyone could potentially exploit this
fact.
 ● On a negative card, you are mistaken, and your mistake will leave you
vulnerable.

Advanced Moves

Dredge Your Mind: When you search your memory for relevant information regarding
your current situation, draw GEN. Ignore the usual forecast of the card you play, and
instead use the following:
● On a positive card, you remember useful and relevant information regarding your
situation.
● On a neutral card, you remember something that might be useful, but the details
are vague.
● On a negative card, you remember incorrect information.
The GM may ask you how and why you know the information you’re remembering;
answer them.

Play the Long Game: Once per session, when you make a Move, you may choose to
return all unplayed cards in your Spread to the top of the Fate Deck, instead of sending
them to the bottom.

Expert Investigation: When Investigating, add “what does my Area of Expertise tell me
about the situation?” to the list of questions you can ask.

Signal Repeater: You can move your scanning ability to center on anyone or anything
you have a Tie with, allowing you to sense the area around them instead of the area
around your Eidolon. Your scanning ability will stay with them until you call it back to
yourself.

Tagging Shot (requires Signal Repeater): When your Eidolon has wounded someone or
something, then until that wound is healed you can use Signal Repeater to move your
Scanning Radius onto them, regardless of whether you have a Tie with them.

Coordinated Assault: When another player makes a Move to enact part of a plan that
you’ve explained to them, you can give them one of the cards you’ve set aside with
Ready For Anything for them to play instead of drawing.

Undertow Astrolabe: Your Eidolon Power works both within your immediate
surroundings and within the equivalent space in The Undertow, or if you’re in The
Undertow, within the equivalent space in the real world.
Ferryman (Requires Undertow Astrolabe): You can draw BIZ to attempt to pull
something you sense in one world into the world you currently inhabit.

Brain Radio: You can broadcast your thoughts from your Eidolon. Anyone within your
immediate vicinity that you have a Tie to will hear the thoughts you transmit this way in
their head, and they can also transmit their thoughts to you.

Braintap (requires Brain Radio): You can draw BIZ to try to telepathically eavesdrop on
someone within your immediate surroundings.

Soul Spyglass: When you play a positive or neutral card to Dredge the Undertow, you
can ask any one question about one of the characters in your immediate vicinity. The
player of that character must answer your question as truthfully as they can, possibly
even revealing information that the character themselves does not know. If you play a
neutral card, they also get to ask you a question about your character, and you must
answer truthfully.

Threat Detection: Take the “Fight or Flight” Move from the Beast Playbook.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

Astrologic Clock (Requires Undertow Astrolabe): Once per session, you may draw BIZ
to overcharge your Eidolon to see what it will sense one minute in the future.

Eureka: Just before an enemy advances your Damage Track to “Defeated,” you have a
flash of inspiration about how to beat them. State a critical weakness the enemy has;
whatever you say is now true, and always has been. Draw GEN. Ignore the usual
Forecast of the card you play, and use the following instead:
● On a positive card, you have a brief instant to exploit this weakness before you're
defeated.
● On a neutral card, you have a brief instant to either shout out the weakness,
alerting the enemy that you’ve discovered it, or else leave behind a cryptic clue
that will reveal the weakness if your allies interpret it correctly.
● On a negative card, draw one less card when Facing Death (to a minimum of 1);
if you die, the enemy's weakness dies with you.

Perfect Deduction: When you play a positive card when Investigating, answer the first
question you ask yourself, rather than having the GM answer it; whatever you state as
the answer to your question is true. You can only use this Move once per session, even
if you draw more than one positive card during a single Investigation.

ABOUT THE NAVIGATOR

The Navigator is a Playbook that excels at supporting the rest of the team. Their abilities
let them gather information and impart various bonuses to their teammates, giving them
an edge in battle. The Navigator’s Advanced Moves enable them to be the team
coordinator, managing communications, scouting for enemies, and generally providing
aid. This is a Playbook for players that want to support their friends and focus more on
strategy and information-gathering than head-on confrontation.

EXAMPLE NAVIGATOR EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense the temperature in the area around it.”

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense all ghosts in the area around it.”

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense the romantic tension in the area around it.”

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense evil intentions in the area around it.”

“My Eidolon can perfectly sense the safest path forward in the area around it.”
THE ALCHEMIST
You deeply understand that everything is connected, and that the categories people
divide the world into are ultimately arbitrary. Naturally, your Eidolon is able to transcend
these boundaries. It can change the shape and structure of things, giving you nearly
limitless creative potential when it comes to solving problems. Take a deep breath,
consider the world around you, and figure out how to change it.

“My Eidolon can transform any _________________ it touches into _______________.”

Range: 10 Feet
Stats: 1 POW 1 ELE 2 GEN 2 GLAM 3 BIZ

At creation, answer the following question: What ideal do you hold most dear?

When you play your resonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You identify what
must be changed in this moment, and you change it.” You may swap two of your stats
for the rest of the session.

When you play your dissonant card, apply the following Forecast: “you try to change
something that should not be changed.” The GM will swap two of your stats for the rest
of the session.

Starting Moves

Revert: If you or your Eidolon touches something you've transformed, you can make it
turn back to its original form.

If Cars Are Frogs: At the beginning of each session, Hold 2. You may spend 1 Hold
when Challenging Fate; you interpret the Forecast of the card you play, instead of the
GM (you must still respect the Polarity of the card).

Advanced Moves

Delayed Reaction: When your Eidolon touches a valid target of its power, instead of
making the transformation take place right away, you can instead choose to Hold 1. You
can spend this Hold at any time, and the transformation will only take place once you
do.
Transformative Vision: You may transform something that your Eidolon has line of sight
with, regardless of whether it’s touching it. If you do this with the intent to cause harm,
treat it as Bombarding.

Reject Reality: When you would interpret a Forecast with If Cars Are Frogs, you may
instead choose the Forecast of a different card of the same Polarity - interpret that
Forecast instead.

Suffering is Optional: When you would advance your Damage Track, you may instead
choose one of your stats with a value greater than 1; set that stat to 1. It returns to its
normal value at the beginning of the next Downtime.

Metamorphosis: When you Face Death and do not choose to embrace death, you may
change something about yourself when you come back. You may permanently swap
two of your stats, or choose one advanced move you’ve taken and replace it with
another advanced move you meet the requirements for. Describe how this change is
reflected in the appearance of your Eidolon, and optionally, in your personality or your
physical appearance.

Just Go With It: Take the Faulty Meter Move from the Conductor Playbook, but instead
of warping reality, someone you successfully Dazzle will not think anything is amiss
when your Eidolon transforms something.

I’ll Give You Everything: Only take this Move if you can use Healing Touch. When
another player’s Damage Track advances to Defeated, you can imbue your Eidolon with
a burst of energy to give them your life energy. Swap your Damage Track with theirs
and immediately Face Death. You can only use this Move once per session.

Pound of Flesh: When anyone plays a card, you may transmute a piece of your soul
into raw energy to fuel a greater success. Use the polarity and forecast of The World
instead of the card that was played, then describe what you gave up to make that
happen; an important memory, a skill you possess, a significant aspect of your
personality, etc. Additionally, describe how your Eidolon’s appearance changes to reflect
this. You may only use this Move once per session.

Remember What You Were: When you transform something with your Eidolon, you can
make it retain a single attribute of what it used to be–its size, its weight, its viscosity, etc.
Social Transmutation: Give an impassioned speech about how the status quo is
unacceptable, and your vision for how to change it for the better. Draw GLAM. If you
play a neutral or positive card, all player characters that heard your speech take +1
Forward to the next Move they make to enact your vision. Additionally, when you play a
positive card, any GM-controlled character who hears your speech will buy into your
vision (though they may remain hostile to you personally). You can only use this Move
once per session.

See it My Way: Once per session, you may draw BIZ to change someone else’s Eidolon
Power. If successful, rewrite that power to include one of the materials from your own
Eidolon Power.

Mindscaping: Once per session, while you are in the Undertow, you may draw BIZ to
call upon your Eidolon’s transformative power to reshape your physical surroundings as
you see fit. Describe how your changes to the Undertow affect the real world.

Master Moves (Require Level 5 or higher)

Something From Nothing: Instead of transforming the usual base material into what you
want to create, you can attempt to conjure it out of thin air by drawing BIZ.

Transform the World: When you achieve an incredible victory against impossible odds,
your Eidolon radiates raw transformative power. Declare one change you want to see in
the world. This change occurs immediately. You can only use this Move once, ever.

Everything Changes: Change your Eidolon’s ability to the following, and fill in the
blanks:

“My Eidolon can transform any _________________ it touches into _______________,

and it can change THAT into _________________.”

ABOUT THE ALCHEMIST

The Alchemist has one of the most versatile Eidolon Powers in the game, and most of
the Playbook’s Moves are dedicated to letting you make full use of that versatility. It’s
especially important to keep in mind though that when you have a power this
open-ended, you need to limit yourself somewhat. “My Eidolon can transform any thing
it touches into anything else” is technically a valid Eidolon Power for The Alchemist, but
it’s also extremely broad to the point of being a little… much. The Playbook will
generally be a lot more fun if you impose some restrictions on yourself when creating
your Eidolon Power, though of course you’re free to do whatever you’d like as long as
the group you play with is cool with it. This Playbook is for players that want a more
off-the-wall ability, who like solving problems by thinking outside the box and finding
clever, unique solutions.

EXAMPLE ALCHEMIST EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon can transform any broken thing it touches into a repaired version of itself.”

“My Eidolon can transform any inanimate object it touches into any living thing.”

“My Eidolon can transform any part of my body it touches into computer circuitry.”

“My Eidolon can transform any written word it touches into what that word represents.”

“My Eidolon can transform any thing it touches into a pillar of salt.”

THE VIRTUOSO
You are a person who has achieved an extreme level of mastery in a particular
profession or hobby, so much so that your Eidolon isn’t some abstract being but rather
the primary tool of your trade, imbued with the power of your soul. Using it enhances
your talents to a level that can only be described as supernatural. Choose your weapon,
tune it up, and bring the house down.

“My Eidolon is a real, physical ________, and through it, I can push my mastery of
_________ beyond physical limits, allowing me to __________.”

Range: Infinite
Stats: 2 POW 3 ELE 1 GEN 2 GLAM 1 BIZ

At creation, answer the following question: “What drew you toward mastering your chosen
skill? Why is this the thing you’ve dedicated yourself to?”

When you play your resonant card, apply the following Forecast: “The world is your
instrument, and it’s time for your solo.” Describe how your Eidolon transforms into a
larger, more powerful version of itself and Hold 2. You can spend this Hold to draw 1
additional card when using your Eidolon to make a Move.

When you play your dissonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You’re thinking too
literally, and miss something that’s immaterial but crucial.” Your Eidolon is severed for
the rest of the scene, becoming an ordinary object.

Starting Moves

Recall: When you do not have possession of your Eidolon, you can draw ELE to call out
to it to make it return to you.

Everything a Nail: When you try to overcome an obstacle by applying the skill you’ve
mastered, draw ELE and use the following instead of the card’s Forecast:
● Positive: Your skill maps to this situation perfectly.
● Neutral: Describe a complication that prevents your skill from fully translating to
this situation. Take -1 Forward. The GM will describe how the complication
hinders your success.
● Negative: Your skill doesn’t map to this situation at all. You fall flat on your face.

Heirloom: Your Eidolon’s concrete form means that it can outlive you. When you die,
name the person you choose to inherit it. They become the Eidolon’s new master, and
once per session they can use any one Move from your character sheet.

Advanced Moves

Stellar Performance: You are an artist with your Eidolon. When someone watches you
do something spectacular with it, take +1 Forward the next time you Dazzle them.

Chameleon: You can draw BIZ to will your Eidolon to change into any object of
comparable size.

Forged in Friendship: Once per Uptime, you may choose someone you have a Tie to;
change the third blank of your Eidolon Power to something that reflects their own.
Change your Eidolon Power back to normal at the beginning of the next session.

Second Swing: Once per session, when you use Everything a Nail and draw no Positive
cards, you can describe what you’ve done to train yourself specifically to apply your
mastered skill to this situation, and Push Yourself without ticking the Phantom Clock.
Legendary Treasure: When you take this Move, you and the GM will describe a
powerful magical artifact which has the same form as your Eidolon. This artifact exists
deep in the Undertow, where no human could ever find it. Once per Uptime, you may
ask the GM one of the following questions about it:
● How was it made?
● Who owns it now?
● What effect does it currently have on the real world?
● What does it empower its wielder to do?

Here, Try Mine: Once per session, when you use your Eidolon to provide material aid to
another player making a Move, they may choose to forego drawing and instead apply
the neutral Forecast of your Resonant card.

Swiss Army Knife: Take one of the following moves:

● Break Through, from the Vanguard Playbook
● Pick Locks, Hack Consoles from the Infiltrator Playbook
● Information War, from the Navigator Playbook, using your mastered skill as your
Area of Expertise

Ceasefire: During combat, throw away your Eidolon and make a call to negotiate with
your enemies. Draw GLAM, and use the following instead of the Forecast of the card
you play:
● If you play a positive card, all Eidolons involved in the conflict become severed
until you pick up your Eidolon again.
● If you play a neutral card, no Eidolons become severed, but the enemy will stop
attacking long enough to hear you out.
● If you play a negative card, nothing happens, except that you’ve thrown away
your Eidolon.
You may only use this Move once per session.

Quick-Draw: Permanently take +1 Ongoing when using your Eidolon to Scrap or

Bombard someone who doesn’t believe that you can or will attack them.

Reverse Recall: Instead of calling your Eidolon to you, you can draw BIZ to call yourself
to your Eidolon.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

Soul Transfusion: Your Eidolon becomes an ordinary object. A new object in your
possession becomes your Eidolon. You may only use this Move once, ever.

Cursed: If your Eidolon comes in contact with someone else, you can draw BIZ to
attempt to make your Eidolon take control of them.

Realizing the Legend (Requires Legendary Treasure): Once per Uptime, you may draw
BIZ to make your Eidolon switch places with your Legendary Treasure, until the end of
the session.

ABOUT THE VIRTUOSO

The Virtuoso is a somewhat odd Playbook. A Virtuoso Eidolon doesn’t behave like any
other kind; instead of being an ethereal spirit that represents the soul of its master, it’s
an inanimate object that its master has to wield in order for it to do anything. Even if
other Eidolons are invisible to those with sealed Eidolons, a Virtuoso Eidolon is visible
and tangible. It just… seems like an ordinary object.

Even so, it is alive, and still channels the spirit of its master to do incredible things.
Because a Virtuoso Eidolon can be literally any physical object, the Playbook is really
versatile, and the role you serve in your story depends heavily on the form your Eidolon
takes and the mastered skill you use it for. This is a Playbook for players that want to
play as experts with impossible levels of skill, whose craft is fundamental to who they
are.

EXAMPLES OF VIRTUOSO EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon is a real, physical gun, and through it, I can push my mastery of
marksmanship beyond physical limits, allowing me to redirect bullets in mid-air.”

“My Eidolon is a real, physical laptop, and through it, I can push my mastery of coding
beyond physical limits, allowing me to hack reality itself.”

“My Eidolon is a real, physical violin, and through it, I can push my mastery of music
beyond physical limits, allowing me to make objects dance to my songs.”

“My Eidolon is a real, physical spice rack, and through it, I can push my mastery of
cooking beyond physical limits, allowing me to make dishes with magical properties.”
“My Eidolon is a real, physical prosthetic arm, and through it, I can push my mastery of
boxing beyond physical limits, allowing me to punch holes in space-time.”

THE VETERAN

You… sorta thought you’d retired from the whole Eidolon thing, but apparently people
still need you. You and your Eidolon aren’t quite as fit for action as you used to be, but
you’ve figured out how to channel what you still have into a more supportive role, which
can be invaluable when combined with your wealth of knowledge and experience. Plus,
maybe once you shake the rust off you can still pull some of the stunts you used to be
known for. Get back up, rediscover your power, and show ‘em how it’s done.

Use the Eidolon Power and Range from your Former Playbook.

Stats: 1 POW 1 ELE 3 GEN 2 GLAM 2 BIZ

Refer to your Former Playbook for your resonant and dissonant card effects.

At creation, choose a Former Playbook. If you’re creating a new character, choose any
Playbook and fill in its Eidolon Power. If you’re changing Playbooks to make an existing
character into a Veteran, use your actual former Playbook and add any out-of-Playbook
Moves you had. Do not add any Moves from your previous Character Sheet to your new
one. If you’re creating a new character as a Veteran, do everything listed under “At
creation” in your Former Playbook. Additionally, answer the following question: “what
made you retire?”

Starting Moves

In addition to the Moves below, you can use your Former Playbook’s Starting Moves.

Like Old Times: At the beginning of a new session, Hold 1. You can spend this Hold at
any time to use an Advanced Move from your Former Playbook. After spending this
Hold, you can still use Advanced Moves from your Former Playbook, but advance your
Damage Track once each time you do.

Seance: You can understand and speak to Shades and other supernatural beings, even
if they usually cannot or do not talk.
Flirt with Death: When you Face Death and do your best to endear yourself to the forces
of the Undertow that have come to claim your soul, you may draw GLAM instead of BIZ.

Advanced Moves

Always Prepared: If you know the power of an enemy Eidolon, take +1 Ongoing when
Revealing Your Master Plan to counteract its power.

World Traveler: When you arrive somewhere that you’ve been before, you can draw
GLAM to ask a favor of the friends you have there.

Accumulated Knowledge: Take the Dredge Your Mind Move from The Navigator
Playbook (if The Navigator is your Former Playbook, you no longer need to use Like Old
Times to Dredge Your Mind).

Just Something I Picked Up: You’ve learned a lot of odd skills and techniques
throughout your life. When you make a Move attempting something no one watching
has seen you do before, you can explain when and how you learned to do it to draw
with GLAM instead of the relevant stat.

Tell ‘Em It’s Just Something You Picked Up (Requires Just Something I Picked Up):
When you make a Downtime Move with another player character and use it as an
opportunity to teach them a new skill, then anytime they attempt that skill in the future,
they can forego drawing for it and instead apply the Neutral Forecast of your Resonant
Card.

Protector: When you or your Eidolon throw yourself in harm’s way to defend someone
you have a Tie with, they take +1 Forward when retaliating against the source of harm.

Grandpa Always Cheats: Once per session, you may draw from the bottom of the Fate
Deck instead of the top when making a Move.

Second Wind: Hold 2 for Like Old Times at the start of each session, instead of 1.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or Higher)

Don’t Call It a Comeback: Take 2 Advanced Moves and 1 Master Move from your
Former Playbook; you no longer need to use Like Old Times to make these Moves.
Go Out With a Bang: Attack an enemy with everything you have left within you.
Advance your Damage Track to Defeated and Face Death. Immediately Crash an
enemy twice. You can only use this Move once, ever.

ABOUT THE VETERAN

The Veteran is for characters who’ve had Eidolons for a long time, but who’ve gone so
long without using them that their skills have faded. This can be for any number of
reasons. Maybe they finished whatever mission they set out on, and enjoyed a long
stretch of peace before being called back to adventure. Maybe they suffered a serious
physical or psychological trauma at some point that had-long lasting effects on their
mind and body. Or, maybe they just got old!

To be clear, just because some or all of those possibilities describe your character
doesn’t mean that you have to play as a Veteran. Remember, your physical body
doesn’t have a direct impact on your Eidolon or your stats. The kind of changes
described above should only turn your character into a Veteran if you feel like they were
coupled with a significant shift in their psychology that the Veteran Playbook accurately
reflects.

The only time you’re required to turn a character into a Veteran is if you’ve retired them
previously, and are now interested in playing as them again. This Playbook limits how
much you can rely on all the abilities you racked up before, while also giving you some
new abilities that reflect all the experience and know-how your character has built up
over time. This is a Playbook for players who want to primarily take on a mentor role for
the rest of their team.

EXAMPLE VETERAN EIDOLON POWERS

There aren’t any!

THE BEAST

You’re an… animal? Well, technically, we’re all animals I guess. But you’re, y’know, not
a human. Can animals even have Eidolons? I mean, you have one, so… yeah, I guess
they can. Awakening to your Eidolon has vastly expanded your mental faculties, but
you’re still fundamentally a creature driven by instinct. Maybe we all are, but you’re
more honest about it. Spread your wings, bare your teeth, and do what comes natural.

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by ______________.”

Range: 20 Feet
Stats: 3 POW 2 ELE 1 GEN 1 GLAM 2 BIZ

When you play your resonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You silence your
conscious thoughts and let instinct guide you to victory.” The GM will either describe
how your action fulfills your Instinctive Desire, or will tell you how you can easily fulfill
your Instinctive Desire in this situation.

When you play your dissonant card, ignore the card’s usual Forecast and apply the
following instead: “Your animal mind overtakes your higher intellect.” You cannot use
Beast Tongue to communicate with humans or other animals until the end of the scene.

At creation, answer the following question: what is it about the human world that you
understand the worst?

Then, choose one of the following Animal Qualities based on what kind of animal you
are, and take the related bonus:
● Ferocious: When Scrapping, treat any negative card you play as though it has
neutral polarity.
● Thick Hide: The GM must treat the “Fresh” space on your Damage Track the
same as the “Winded” space when determining whether to advance your
Damage Track.
● Massive: treat “Invigorated” as the default position for your Damage Track,
instead of “Fresh.”
● Perceptive: Set your Range to 100 Feet.
● Tenacious: Once per session, you can Push Yourself without advancing the
Phantom Clock.
Retain these bonuses even if your Eidolon is severed.

Also, take one of the following Instinctive Desires:

● Food
● Shelter
● Dominion
● Freedom
Starting Moves

Beast Tongue: You can talk to any non-human animal. You can understand human
speech, and anyone with an unsealed Eidolon can understand you.

Fulfillment: When you satisfy an Instinctive Desire, gain one of the following benefits,
depending on which desire you satisfy:
● Food: Reverse your Damage Track by 1.
● Shelter: Your Damage Track cannot advance as long as you remain in your
shelter, unless the source of damage is also in your shelter.
● Dominion: Take +1 Ongoing to Dazzling or Threatening.
● Freedom: Turn the Phantom Clock back 1 hour.

Advanced Moves

Voracious: Take one more Instinctive Desire.

Apex: Take 1 more Animal Quality that accurately describes your species.

Survival Instinct: Gain +1 Ongoing while your Damage Track is at “Desperate.”

Shadow Tongue: As long as your Eidolon isn’t severed, you can speak to Shades and
Phantoms, even if they normally can’t or don’t talk.

Pack Mentality: When you’ve satisfied an Instinctive Desire, you can share your food,
shelter, dominion, or freedom with someone else. If you do, they gain the same benefits
from it as you.

Wild: Take the “Forbidden Memories” Move from The Inhuman Playbook, but instead of
knowledge of the Undertow, Reveal Your Master Plan with BIZ if you use knowledge
derived from your animal perspective on the world.

Dog Ate My Homework: Once per session, when you play a negative or neutral card
while Scrapping, you may discard the top 5 cards of the Fate Deck instead of just the
top card.

Play Dumb: If someone begins to suspect that you’re not an ordinary animal, you can
draw GLAM to try to act like one to throw them off your trail. Ignore the Forecast of the
card you play, and instead apply the following:
 ● On a positive card, they’ll dismiss their concerns and ignore you.
● On a neutral card, they’ll buy into your act, but also decide that you’re being a
nuisance, and try to remove you from the area.
● On a negative card, they’ll believe you’re a normal animal, but will react violently
to your presence.

Unrestrainable (requires Ferocious or Tenacious Animal Quality): You can force yourself
out of any restraint, advancing your Damage Track by 1 to break out of it instantly. If you
have an Instinctive Desire for Freedom, this counts as satisfying it.

Bloodhound (requires Perceptive Animal Quality): Take +1 Ongoing when Investigating

using any animal senses you have that are sharper than a human’s.

Impenetrable (requires Massive or Thick Hide Animal Quality): When someone else is
directly in harm’s way, you can advance your Damage Track to shield them with your
body.

Fight or Flight: At any time, you may ask the GM if you are currently in danger. The GM
will always answer honestly, but will not provide any details about the source of the
danger.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or Higher)

Howl for Backup: During combat, you can cry out for any creatures in the area to
support you. Draw GLAM, and take +1 Forward if you’ve satisfied an Instinctive Desire
for Dominion in the area. Ignore the Forecast of the card you play, and use the following
instead:
● On a positive card, larger, more dangerous animals will answer your call.
● On a neutral card, only smaller and weaker animals will respond.
● On a negative card, every animal that hears your call will come, but will not
actively fight alongside you.

Role Reversal: You may draw BIZ to suppress the higher intellect of a human target
within range of your Eidolon for the remainder of the scene. If successful, their animal
instincts take over, and they must choose an Instinctive Desire that they will exclusively
pursue until the effect wears off.
Evolution (requires Apex): The energy constantly flowing through you from The
Undertow has caused your body to mutate. Take an Animal Quality that didn’t used to
describe you, but does now.

ABOUT THE BEAST

The Beast is a Playbook all about playing as an animal. It has a very open-ended
Eidolon Power, to give you plenty of freedom when figuring out an Eidolon that makes
the most sense for the animal you’re playing. This is a Playbook for players who want a
more offbeat character that brings a weird perspective, flavor, and skillset to the team.

As an animal, you’re driven towards goals that will most likely be irrelevant to the rest of
your group, which is represented by your Instinctive Desires. You should role-play your
character faithfully to fulfill their desires whenever possible, but don’t go so far with it
that you regularly drag the game off-track. Your Instinctive Desires are meant to give the
Playbook a unique flavor, not give you tools to annoy the rest of the group. “Play in good
faith” is, as always, the most important thing here.

Keep in mind that your Instinctive Desires need to be something external to you. For
example, if you’re a turtle, you can’t satisfy an Instinctive Desire for Shelter by
withdrawing into your shell. You still need to find a safe place to take shelter in if you
want to be completely safe. Also, keep in mind that fulfilling your Desire will only trigger
the related bonuses a single time. For instance, say you’re playing as a grazing animal;
you can’t heal infinite amounts of damage by just eating grass nonstop. The entire
opportunity to graze is what represents your desire being satisfied. Again, play in good
faith; if it feels like you’re cheating the system, you probably are. The GM has final say
over whether something you do satisfies one of your desires.

EXAMPLE BEAST EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by shape-shifting to suit my needs.”

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by conjuring water so that I can swim
through the air.”

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by making any wound it inflicts bleed
catfood instead of blood.”
“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by generating any smell I want to attract
prey.”

“My Eidolon helps me pursue my animal urges by hypnotizing people into taking me for
walks.”

THE INHUMAN
You are a Shade, a creature from The Undertow, which means you have broken the
rules. Your kind is not supposed to live in this world, let alone have an Eidolon. Do you
have an Eidolon? If so, it’s not really clear where it ends and you begin. Regardless,
sooner or later all of this is gonna come back to bite you. Ah well! No sense dwelling on
it now. You’re here, and you’re you, and you’re not about to let anyone forget that. Fade
in, take form, and assert your truth.

“My Eidolon can _______________________________________________________.”

Range: --
Stats: 1 POW 2 ELE 1 GEN 2 GLAM 3 BIZ

At creation:

Describe the Force of The Undertow that wants to reclaim you, and set The
Countdown to 4.

When you play your resonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You make the world a
stranger and more wonderful place.” Name one law of any kind; for the remainder of the
session, this law no longer applies.

When you play your dissonant card, apply the following Forecast: “Your actions send
dark ripples through The Undertow.” Reduce The Countdown by one.

Starting Moves

Anomaly: When The Countdown reaches 0, an agent of the Undertow Force that’s
after you will appear to capture you. After either the agent is defeated or you escape
from them, reset The Countdown to 4.
Facade: You can make yourself look like a human being, and revert back at will. If The
Countdown goes down while you are in your human form, draw GLAM, but ignore the
usual Forecast of the card you play and do the following instead:

● Positive card: you maintain your disguise.

● Neutral card: you slowly begin to revert to your true form.
● Negative card: you instantly revert to your true form.

Advanced Moves

Unpredictable: When making a Move against a human target in a way that no human
could predict, you can Push Yourself by reducing The Countdown by one instead of
advancing the Phantom Clock. You may not use this move again until after The
Countdown has been reset.

Forbidden Memories: When you Reveal Your Master Plan, and your plan involves
exploiting knowledge of The Undertow that is unknown or unknowable to human beings,
you may draw with BIZ instead of GEN.

Facsimile of Charm: You’ve figured out how to act in your human body to come across
as more charismatic. Draw an additional card on attempts to Dazzle while wearing your
Facade.

Otherworldly Horror: Draw an additional card when Threatening someone who’s never
seen a Shade or Eidolon before. This Move doesn’t work if you’re wearing your Facade.

Noclip: You can draw BIZ to disappear from the real world by moving into The
Undertow, and when you reappear, it can be anywhere within twenty feet of where you
disappeared from.

Reversal of Fortune: Once per session, when you successfully Dredge the Undertow,
you may swap the discard pile with the Fate Deck; shuffle the discard pile and set it face
down, then discard all cards in the Fate Deck.

Psychometry: You can feel the years of Undertow presence in an area. When
Investigating, instead of asking “what happened here recently?,” you may ask “what has
happened here?”
Empty Facade: Instead of using your Facade to disguise yourself, you can tick the
Phantom Clock to split it off from yourself entirely, controlling it as a second body. If The
Countdown advances while the Empty Facade is in use, it disappears immediately.

Strange Journey (Requires Noclip): You can create a temporary portal to the Undertow.
Draw BIZ. In addition to the card’s Forecast, choose two of the following if you play a
Positive card and one of the following if you play a neutral card:
● The other side of the portal is in a safe location.
● The portal can only be seen and used by those who you permit.
● You can close the portal whenever you want.
Once closed, the portal can only be re-opened by using Strange Journey again.

Soul Hacker: You can draw BIZ to try to reprogram someone’s Eidolon to carry out a
task of your choosing, as long as it doesn’t involve directly harming someone.

Shadow Reading: Take the “Soul Spyglass” Move from The Navigator’s Playbook.

This IS My Beautiful House: When in your Facade and pressed for details about your
human life, you can attempt to conjure physical evidence to back up your answers.
Draw GLAM. In addition to the card’s Forecast: when you play a positive card, the
physical artifacts of your life appear as you describe them; when you play a neutral
card, something about them is strange or unsettling, as described by the GM.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or Higher)

Conditional Surrender: Immediately set The Countdown to 0, and surrender yourself to

the agents of the forces trying to take you back to The Undertow that appear. In
exchange, you may ask your captors to do something to help your friends, and they will
do everything within their power to fulfill your request.

Scapegoat (Requires Strange Journey): When you have utterly defeated an enemy, you
can summon a portal to The Undertow and send them there, tricking your pursuers into
thinking that they’re you. Set The Countdown to 4. You may not use this move again
until after The Countdown has been reset.

Drag Out the Darkness (Requires Soul Hacker): When using Soul Hacker, you can
program the Eidolon to carry out explicitly violent actions. If your Move succeeds, the
Eidolon transforms into a Phantom based on its master’s Greatest Fear; if your Move
fails, tick the Phantom Clock three times, in addition to any other effects of your played
card’s Forecast.

ABOUT THE INHUMAN

You know like, the fun cutesy mascot character in an anime, who then turns out to have
some really off-the-wall superpowers at some critical moment, and really deep ties into
the lore of the story? That’s kind of what The Inhuman is. If you take this Playbook then
your character is a Shade from The Undertow who’s crossed over into the real world for
some reason. In doing so, they’ve become a fugitive from whatever enigmatic
authorities enforce cosmic order.

The Inhuman’s nature allows for them to have the single most open-ended Eidolon
Power, and in fact it’s so open-ended that we really can’t make any presumptions about
how yours might work. Because of that, this Playbook’s Moves largely focus instead on
the kinds of things that you can accomplish as a Shade, and the ways that your mere
presence has an effect on the world around you.

Because of how this book’s Eidolon Power works, it’s especially important to not go too
overboard during character creation. Remember to play in good faith and get
permission from your group before giving yourself some wildly overpowered ability, and
don’t be afraid to introduce limitations to how your Eidolon Power works.

There are Moves in this Playbook that suggest your character might not quite have a
tight grasp on human morality; keep in mind that you’re under no pressure to play your
Inhuman that way. This Playbook is for players who want maximum freedom when
creating their character, and who want to push at the outermost boundaries of their
game world’s internal logic.

EXAMPLE INHUMAN EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon can eat anything, and I mean anything.”

“My Eidolon can conjure real life versions of video game power-ups.”

“My Eidolon can teleport from any cat it touches to the next nearest cat in the world.”

“My Eidolon can throw a BANGER of a party.”

“My Eidolon can turn off gravity.”

THE WILDCARD
You contain multitudes. Your Eidolon is never any one thing for long, constantly shifting
and changing. Maybe you’re just too complex and brilliant to define concretely. Maybe
you’re a disorganized mess who can’t quite figure themselves out. Or maybe you just
DON’T LIKE LABELS, OKAY?! Shuffle the deck, deal the cards, and go all in.

“My Eidolon is.”

Range: —
Stats: 1 POW 2 ELE 1 GEN 2 GLAM 3 BIZ

At creation, answer the following question: what is the most you have ever lost to
random chance?

Your Eidolon’s Range is always equal to the Range of your Active Playbook. Anytime
you get a new Active Playbook, fill out its Eidolon Power and describe what it looks like
to the rest of the players.

When you play your resonant card, apply the following Forecast: “Every card turns up
in your favor.” A spirit embodying the concept of Luck will emerge from The Undertow,
as described by the GM, and bestow a blessing upon you; draw 1 additional card the
next time you make a Move. The Luck spirit will remain in this world until you play a
neutral or negative card.

When you play your dissonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You go all in and
lose it all.” A spirit embodying the concept of Luck will emerge from The Undertow, as
described by the GM, and bestow a curse upon you; draw one less card the next time
you make a Move. The Luck spirit will remain in this world until you play a neutral or
positive card.

Starting Moves

Deal In: Automatically use this Move at the start of every new play session, or when
instructed to do so by one of your other Moves. The GM will choose 3 Playbooks, other
than the Veteran and the Wildcard. Choose one of them, and make it your new Active
Playbook.

Make a Play: Any time you get a new Active Playbook, Hold 3. You can use any of your
Active Playbook’s Starting Moves, and you can spend 1 Hold to use any of its Advanced
Moves. Immediately Deal in when you run out of Hold.

Card Shark: If you Scrap or Bombard using your Eidolon, you can draw BIZ instead of
POW or ELE.

Advanced Moves

Poker Face: Take the Unflappable Move from the Vanguard Playbook.

Pair of Aces: Once per session, when you Deal In and choose an Active Playbook that
matches the Playbook of another player, you both take +1 Forward.

Mulligan: Spend 1 Make a Play Hold to rewrite your Eidolon Power, maintaining your
Active Playbook’s template. You cannot use this Move if you only have 1 Make a Play
Hold.

Double or Nothing: Once per session, when you Push Yourself, you can Push Yourself a
second time on the same Move, but tick the Phantom Clock twice the second time.

Fold: Lose any remaining Make a Play Hold you have and Deal In. Draw one less card
than usual the next time you make a Move. You can only Fold once per session.

Deal From the Bottom: Once per session, when you make a Move, you can look at the
bottom card of the Fate Deck, and draw from either the bottom or the top of the deck.

Insurance: Once per session, when you run out of Make a Play Hold, you can choose to
immediately gain 3 Make a Play Hold instead of Dealing in.

Friend of Fortune: When a Luck Spirit has appeared before you, you can ask them a
single question. They’ll answer to the best of their ability, drawing on knowledge
unknowable in the material world, but if they appeared because you played your
dissonant card, you won’t like the answer.
Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

Joker's Wild: When you have utterly defeated an enemy Eidolon master, you can sever
their Eidolon and switch your Active Playbook to the one that most closely matches their
abilities. Your Eidolon transforms to look exactly like theirs until you Deal In, and their
Eidolon remains severed until you do.

High Roller: You can spend 2 Make a Play Hold to use a Master Move from your Active
Playbook. You can only use High Roller once per session.

ABOUT THE WILDCARD

The Wildcard is… well, a lot like its name implies. Their Starting Moves semi-randomly
assigns an Active Playbook to them, which transforms their Eidolon and allows them to
use any Move they want in that Playbook. Since they theoretically have access to any
Move in the entire game, The Wildcard has fewer Playbook Moves than normal. This is
a class for players that want to try a little bit of everything, and who enjoy improvising
around random circumstances.

Note: we do not recommend using this Playbook if you’re new to EIDOLON, or to

RPGs in general. The Wildcard could hypothetically cycle through every single
Playbook in a single session, and in order to keep from dragging down the pace
of the game, anyone using this book needs to be very familiar with every
Playbook.

Also, keep in mind that you don’t have to use the same Eidolon Power for each
Playbook every time. When you change Playbooks, you can introduce a brand new
power, even if you’ve used that Playbook before. For the sake of maintaining the pace
of the game, it’s a good idea to have at least one Eidolon Power for each Playbook
planned out in advance, but feel free to improvise when it feels right.

One final thing: The Inhuman and The Beast are Playbooks that lean a lot more heavily
on the Eidolon master’s attributes and abilities, rather than their Eidolon’s. It might seem
odd for your character to transform into a Shade or an animal. Decide at character
creation if you’d like to exclude these Playbooks from the pool you draw your Active
Playbook from, or if you’re good with some of the stranger effects Dealing In might
have.
GMs: When proving players options for Dealing In, make sure you’re offering a good
variety of Playbooks and not just sticking to the same handful.
THE CONDUCTOR
You’re the life of the party. You instantly change the energy of any room you walk into,
and the world seems to just… play by different rules when it comes to you. And that’s
before we talk about your Eidolon, which literally warps reality around you. You’re so
damn charming that sometimes it can be a little hard for you to turn it off, and that can
lead to… complications. Still, anyone looking to have a good time should stick close to
you. Plug in, switch on, and let the power flow.

“My Eidolon warps reality around me by ________________.”

Range: 15 Feet
Stats: 1 POW 1 ELE 2 GEN 3 GLAM 2 BIZ

At creation, answer the following question: “Why does everyone you meet like you so
much?”

When you play your resonant card, apply the following Forecast: “You raise your baton
to strike up the band.” Issue one command: everything currently in your zone of
influence must follow it, until the assigned task is complete or the scene ends.

When you play your dissonant card, apply the following Forecast: “Life is a stage, and
you’ve forgotten all your lines.” For as long as your dissonant card is in the discard
pile, any time you Dazzle someone, do not draw; instead, the GM will act as though you
played The Moon.

Starting Moves

Positive Charge: Anyone who has a Tie to you is immune to the effects of your Eidolon
if they choose to be and you want them to be.

Static Shock: When you Scrap, if you pair your physical attacks with an insult that hurts
worse than them, you may draw GLAM instead of POW.

Bermuda Triangle: When you Face Death, your Eidolon immediately begins warping
reality if it wasn’t already, and continues to do so until you wake up or come back to life.
If you choose to embrace death, you may declare one location; your Eidolon moves to
this location and never moves again, continuing to warp reality in perpetuity.
Advanced Moves

Load Transfer: When you successfully Dazzle someone, your Eidolon will warp reality
around them in the same way it does around you. You may draw BIZ to transfer your
zone of influence back to yourself.

Faulty Meter: When you successfully Dazzle someone, then until the end of the scene,
they will not think anything is amiss when your Eidolon warps reality.

Short Circuit: Take the Ceasefire Move from the Virtuoso Playbook, but you activate it
by turning off your Eidolon’s power instead of throwing your Eidolon away.

Lightning Rod (Requires Load Transfer): Declare the name of one person who has at
some point been under the influence of your Eidolon. You may draw GLAM to have your
Eidolon warp reality around them instead of you, regardless of where they are. You may
draw BIZ to have your Eidolon resume warping reality around you.

Vibe Check: When Dredging the Undertow to acquire information about the relationship
between two or more people, you may draw GLAM instead of BIZ.

Faraday Cage: When in the Undertow, you may draw BIZ to turn your Eidolon’s zone of
influence into a space in which reality is stable and reflects the real world, instead of a
space in which reality is warped.

Dipole (Requires Faraday Cage): When in the real world, you may draw BIZ to turn your
Eidolon’s zone of influence into a space that reflects the corresponding area in the
Undertow.

Insulation: You may draw POW to transform the border of your zone of influence into a
solid barrier. On a positive card, choose 2 of the following. On a neutral card, choose
one:
● The barrier is sturdy, and impervious to nearly all attacks.
● The barrier is transparent.
● Your allies can move back and forth through the barrier freely.
You may dismiss the barrier at will.

Sealed Room: Once per session, you can designate one person inside of your Eidolon’s
zone of influence. They may not leave the area, and you cannot turn off your Eidolon’s
power until you both give the other something they want.
Devil Pact (Requires Sealed Room): When you take this Move, describe a “Devil,” a
Shade that dwells in the Undertow. Once per session, you may draw BIZ to summon it
into your Eidolon’s zone of influence. They may not leave the area, and you cannot turn
off your Eidolon’s power until you both agree upon a contract with each other.

Superconductor: Once per session, you may choose one character that has a Tie to you
and that you have a Tie to. Then, each of you temporarily rewrites your Eidolon Power
to something that evokes the Power of the other. Your Eidolon Power reverts to normal
at the beginning of the next scene.

Called Shot: When making a Move, instead of drawing, you may declare what you think
is the top card of the Fate Deck. Reveal the card. If you were right, apply the Forecast
of The World to your Move. If you were wrong, apply the Forecast of The Tower. Discard
the card in either case.

Master Moves (Requires Level 5 or higher)

Center of Attention: The range of your Eidolon’s reality-warping ability changes from 15
Feet to the distance of the furthest person in your line of sight that’s actively paying
attention to you.

Electromagnetic Pulse (Requires Short Circuit): Once per Uptime, when using Short
Circuit, your Eidolon Power does not switch off, leaving you as the only person in the
scene with access to your Eidolon Power.

Rewards Program (Requires Devil Pact): Every third time you summon your Devil, you
may draw BIZ to have them act at your behest without requiring anything in return.

ABOUT THE CONDUCTOR

The Conductor’s Eidolon amplifies the natural charm they exude to such a high level
that it has a physical effect on the area around them. It might be that their “magnetic
personality” has an actual influence on the local magnetic field, or their “hot temper”
causes the temperature to rise as they get angry.

This is also in some ways a more “passive” ability than most Playbooks; a Conductor
Eidolon is always warping reality by default, and deactivating its power requires active
concentration and the cooperation of Fate itself. When someone plays a card with
negative Polarity, you could say it “ruins the vibe,” causing Conductor Eidolons to
become more erratic and harder to control. Because of that, the Conductor can often
find themselves in difficult situations, where their powers turn themselves on at
inopportune times. This is a Playbook for players that want to play charismatic, social
characters, but who also enjoy having to handle surprise curveballs.

Generally, anything altered by your Eidolon’s ability should change back to normal when
your power turns off, or when the target leaves your zone of influence, which by default
extends in a radius around you equal to your Range. However, depending on the
specifics of your power, it may sometimes leave permanent or lasting effects. Talk
through these kinds of nuances with your GM and fellow players during character
creation to ensure everyone’s on the same page.
EXAMPLE CONDUCTOR EIDOLON POWERS

“My Eidolon warps reality around me by making plants grow rapidly.”

“My Eidolon warps reality around me by filling the air with swords.”

“My Eidolon warps reality around me by allowing anyone to bet their soul on a game.”

“My Eidolon warps reality around me by making any lie true.”

“My Eidolon warps reality around me by opening all locks.”

RUNNING EIDOLON
If you’re a player, then you’ve read as much of this book as you need to in order to play!
Only the GM needs to read this final chapter. You’re certainly welcome to keep reading
if you’d like, but from here on in it’s completely optional for all but one member of your
group.

If you’re the GM: hi! Let’s talk!

GMing any RPG is a big undertaking. You need a comprehensive understanding of the
rules to help straighten out any confusion or disputes that arise among your players,
and you need to put in a lot of prep-work so that you can bring the world of the game to
life. It can be a difficult task, but it can also be really rewarding. When everything goes
right, you get to set the stage for a fun and dramatic story, and create an environment
that lets your players’ characters do exciting, hilarious, dramatic, and awesome things.

Let’s talk about how GMing works in EIDOLON specifically.

AGENDAS

As the GM, you’re going to make a lot of the “first moves” in telling the story of your
game. You’ll be introducing the setting and providing the inciting action for most of the
adventures your players encounter. With no guidance or structure, it can be hard to
know where to even start. Agendas are the big picture ideas that you should always
return to when planning where things are going to go next. The three Agendas in
EIDOLON are:

● Build a world of surreal mystery and audacious action.

● Thrust the characters into extreme situations that reveal who they really are.
● Play to find out what happens.

Build a world of surreal mystery and audacious action.

Like we discussed in EIDOLONS AND THE UNDERTOW, EIDOLON isn’t a game that
comes with a set genre or setting. Creating the world that your game takes place in is
going to be up to you and your players. The default assumption is that EIDOLON takes
place in a fictionalized version of the real, contemporary world, where the only major
difference is the presence of The Undertow. But, if you want to deviate from that, you’re
more than welcome to. Your story can take place anywhere and be a part of any genre,
as long as The Undertow is a major feature of the setting.

You can check out THE UNDERTOW for a more thorough description of just what The
Undertow is, but to summarize, it’s a shadowy parallel world built out of the dark,
suppressed regions of the collective unconscious. Your story will to some extent involve
the Undertow bleeding into the real world, which will create surreal and bizarre
mysteries for your players to investigate. When the quest for answers leads to
dangerous situations, the ensuing action should completely smash through the
boundaries of the possible or the logical. The game should explode into a cacophony of
strange and absurd powers clashing against one another. Your players will provide a lot
of that, but you need to make sure that the world you build is ready to match them.
Thrust the characters into extreme situations that reveal who they really are.

The protagonists of EIDOLON aren’t chosen heroes. They’re ordinary people who
through sheer happenstance have gained access to incredible power. What does the
nature of that power say about them? What kind of person will that power turn them
into? Deep down, what kind of person have they always been? Part of your job is to
force the player characters into situations where they can’t escape these kinds of
questions. Then, sit back and let the players figure out the answers through their
characters’ words, choices, and actions.

Play to find out what happens.

EIDOLON is a game about building a story collaboratively. As the GM, you have a lot
more on your plate than the players: you have to create and play as a lot more
characters, for one thing, and you’re largely responsible for laying the foundation for the
story. But what you’re not here to do is dictate the events of the plot. A session shouldn’t
be about revealing your meticulously crafted narrative. It should be about creating that
narrative. Don’t write plot lines or script sequences for your players to run through.
Instead, create places, characters, complications and secrets. Introduce these things to
your players, let them react organically, and let their reactions form the driving force of
the plot. Bring pieces of narrative into each session, then mix them together with the
pieces the players bring with them, in the form of their characters, and work together to
build a good story out of them.

If you’re ever stuck and not sure where to take the story next, ask the players!
Encourage them to have their characters do something to drive things forward, or take
suggestions from them on where they’d like to see things go.

PRINCIPLES

The GM Agendas are useful, but they’re also very broad. The Principles are a bit more
specific and directed, and give you a stronger sense of how you should be running your
game. You can’t necessarily fulfill every Principle all of the time, but you should strive to
fulfill as many of them as possible at any given moment.

Here are the 9 GM Principles:

● Make The Undertow seep through every crack of the world.

 ● Name everyone. Every person matters.
● Blur the line between the literal and the figurative.
● Give enemy Eidolons silly powers and sillier names, then make them terrifying.
● Stack the odds against the player characters, then root for their success.
● Address the characters, not the players.
● Ask the players questions, and use their answers.
● Weave the Fate Deck’s Forecasts together with the narrative.
● Play as the whole world, not just the parts the players can see.

Make The Undertow seep through every crack of the world.

Even if your game isn’t set in the real world, it should feel real. The setting should
mostly be mundane, concrete, and rational. But, there should also be seams in the
fabric of your world’s reality, places where things just don’t quite fit together the way
they ought to. In the margins and corners of your world there should be strange, surreal
things happening, places where The Undertow has bled into the real world and eroded
its internal logic. These spaces should be obscure enough that most people don’t notice
or think about them, but common enough that you could accidentally find yourself in one
at any time.

Name everyone. Every person matters.

Anyone who your players interact with should be a complete person. EIDOLON is a
game about the unique beauty and power of each individual, which means there are no
“faceless henchmen” or “generic NPCs.” Sometimes, circumstances might call for you
to come up with a character on the spot, without time to come up with a strong idea of
who they are. That’s okay. Start by giving them a name, and let their details be filled in
organically. If you have a hard time coming up with names, there’s no shame in relying
on one of the dozens of random name generators you can find online. Keep it pulled up
on your phone or laptop in case you need it!

Blur the line between the literal and the figurative.

This is fundamentally a game about big, blunt metaphors. Eidolons themselves are
physical manifestations of a character’s psychology, with strengths and weaknesses
that map directly to their masters’ hearts. The Undertow is a kind of collective
unconscious, and can represent a lot of different things depending on how it’s used:
suppressed feelings, peer pressure, mob psychology, or communal trauma, just to
name a few. Lean into the idea that all of the fantastical elements of your story are loud,
unsubtle metaphors for the character drama underpinning the narrative. Every surreal or
absurd element should be a literalization of the emotional story that your group is telling,
even if you don’t go out of your way to call attention to it.

Give enemy Eidolons silly powers and sillier names, then make them terrifying.

An Eidolon is a manifestation of the human heart, presented to the world shamelessly

and without pretense. Very often, that means it’s going to seem a little goofy or
embarrassing. Don’t shy away from making characters whose Eidolons seem silly on
their face. Instead, lean into it, and demonstrate how even seemingly goofy abilities can
be useful, deadly, or even unstoppable. Make your players respect even the most
outlandish concepts.

Stack the odds against your players, then root for their success.

Hit the player characters hard. Drive them into corners, take away things they care
about, and give them no way out. Then, empower them to fight back. Allow them to
surprise you with the ways they overcome the hardships you pile onto them. Let them
make a way out, seize what you’ve taken from them, force their way out of the corner
and hit back even harder than you hit them. Your job is to give them antagonistic forces
to push back against, not to completely crush them. Exactly how hard you should push
your players is going to vary from group to group; this is an example of how the GM
needs to play in good faith just as much as everyone else.

Address the characters, not the players.

While playing, you want to do your best to create the illusion of a living, breathing world.
To that end, you should do everything you can to stay within the fiction you’re
establishing, and when you’re speaking to a player about something in-fiction, you
should address them by their character’s name to help them maintain the illusion and
stay in-character.

Ask the players questions, and use their answers.

Eidolon is a collaborative story-telling experience, so make sure to provide opportunities

for the players to contribute to the story. “What do you do?” is probably going to be your
most common question, but find ways to ask other ones too. If you ever hit a point
where you’re not sure where to take the story next, ask the players to drive things
forward.
Weave the Fate Deck’s Forecasts together with the narrative.

Each time a player makes a move, they’ll introduce a new Forecast into the scene. As
the GM, your job will be to come up with ways to manifest those Forecasts as
consequences that flow sensibly from the narrative that produced them, and which in
turn drive the narrative into new directions. This isn’t always easy! Some Forecasts
have obvious, intuitive interpretations for a given action, and some don’t. Feel free to
interpret the cards as broadly as possible, and if you’re really stumped, see if any of
your players has a good suggestion for the best way to make a card work. The next
section will revisit the cards of the Fate Deck, and provide some more in-depth
suggestions and guidance for how to interpret them.

Play as the whole world, not just the parts the player characters can see.

The player characters have only a limited window into the world of your game. You
should be honest and up-front with them as often as possible, but there are times when
important events take place that they have no reason to be aware of. You should keep
track of things that are happening beyond your players’ periphery. The players shouldn’t
be the only force influencing the events of your story, and you should occasionally have
the player characters discover that the world can move independently of them, for good
and for ill.

INTERPRETING THE FATE DECK

While the GM is responsible for setting up the background details of the world, the main
way you’ll influence the story moment-to-moment during a session is by interpreting the
Forecasts of cards your players play from the Fate Deck. Forecasts are intentionally
very broad and vague, in order to give you as much latitude as possible when
interpreting them, and to make them applicable to as many situations as possible.
However, that might leave you a little unsure of exactly how to apply a given forecast. In
this section, we’re going to go through each of the 22 cards in the Fate Deck in a little
more detail, explaining our intentions behind each of the Forecasts and offering some
examples of the different ways you could apply them in-game.

Remember That Polarity Comes First

When interpreting a card, always keep its Polarity in mind: negative polarity represents
a bad outcome and positive polarity represents a good outcome. Some Forecasts could
be interpreted in ways that run counter to their Polarity, but you should consider those
options off-limits.* A positive Polarity should result in the player of the card receiving a
positive benefit, and that core fact should guide how you interpret the Forecast. You
have more leeway with neutral Polarity cards to interpret them as you wish, but keep in
mind that as a rule, the results of a neutral card should be neither as bad as a negative
card nor as good as a positive card. It’s a neutral result and its effect on the scene
should reflect that.

*In some very rare circumstances, you and a player might both be on-board with
interpreting a positive card negatively or vice-versa. If it suits the narrative and feels
right, you are allowed to do this. Make sure you’re playing in good faith anytime you
want to interpret a Forecast in a way that runs counter to the card’s Polarity, and never
do it without group consensus.

Damaging Players

Sometimes, your interpretation of a card will logically result in harm being inflicted upon
the player, and if that harm is severe enough, you should make that player advance
their Damage Track. Remember, however, that no card demands you deal damage. It
should happen somewhat commonly with negative cards, infrequently with neutral
cards, and almost never with positive cards. Follow your gut and play in good faith when
deciding whether to inflict damage upon a player as the result of a card. Remember as
well that a player always advances their Damage Track when Scrapping with a negative
or neutral card.

Additionally, remember from THE DAMAGE TRACK that each step on the Damage
Track requires more severe damage to be inflicted before the Track will advance again.
Below are some examples of the kinds of things that might cause the Damage Track to
advance for each level of damage. These lists are in no way exhaustive, and the
borders between different tiers of damage are deliberately a bit fuzzy, but they should
help give you a better idea of when and how to damage your players. Remember as
well that anything that would count as damage on a lower tier also counts as damage
on every tier above it.

Invigorated/Fresh
“Any significant negative consequence”
● Being shot a dirty look
 ● Being aggressively shoved
● Losing an important coin flip
● Being insulted by someone you respect
● Making a frustrating, inconvenient mistake
● Being targeted by an attack that only just barely misses

Winded
“Any targeted violence or serious source of harm”
● Being burned
● Being injured by an enemy attack
● Being booed off of a stage
● Getting dramatically chewed out in front of other people
● Losing an important game
● Falling under the effect of an enemy Shade or Eidolon’s power

Battered
“Any time you are inflicted with any severe, potentially debilitating harm”
● Taking repeated hits, or one serious hit, from an assailant
● Being betrayed by someone you deeply care about
● Having your mind invaded by a malicious supernatural force
● Cosmically bad luck that puts you or someone you love in serious danger
● Losing all of your earthly possessions
● Finding yourself abandoned and alone when you most need help

Desperate
“potentially lethal sources of harm, in a situation with sufficiently high dramatic
stakes.”
● A powerful villain strikes a killing blow
● The last ember of hope in your heart is snuffed out
● Your mind is fully destroyed by a powerful psychic attack
● You put yourself in inescapable mortal peril to rescue someone else
● A Shade with terrifying power over the Undertow erases you from existence
● You willingly sacrifice yourself to take someone or something else down with you

Crashing Enemies

As your players make Moves and play cards against the enemies you pit against them,
you should always ask whether a given Move warrants a Crash. Not every success
necessarily demands a Crash, but every successful action should certainly raise the
question. Remember that an enemy Crashes any time the current threat they pose has
been undermined or overwhelmed by the players. If a player is actively making a move
to combat an enemy, then positive cards should result in a Crash more often than not,
and neutral cards should result in a Crash fairly often as well.

0. The Fool
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: You become who you are needed to be in this moment.

The Fool represents potential and adaptability, and as a result it’s a very open-ended
card. When played, the player character is shifting who they are in order to suit the
needs of a situation. This might mean that a loudmouth manages to keep quiet while
sneaking, or that an honest person successfully sells a lie. The Fool is a neutral card,
which means that sometimes this can have negative unforeseen consequences, or give
someone else an unanticipated advantage. For instance, maybe the honest person lies
too well, and ends up stuck in an awkward or risky situation as a result.

1. The Magician
Polarity: Positive
Forecast: You achieve the impossible.

The Magician represents raw power and inspiration. While all positive cards mean
beneficial outcomes for their players, there’s still a range to just how good they can be,
and even among the positive cards, The Magician is among the very best. It allows not
just for success, but impossible success. Whatever the player is attempting, if they play
The Magician then it should go better than they ever could’ve reasonably expected it to.

2. The High Priestess

Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: The supernatural acts through you.

The High Priestess represents a connection to the divine, and as a card in the Fate
Deck it can be a little tricky. When played, The High Priestess causes some
supernatural force to “act through” the player. This force could be some being from The
Undertow, the influence of an enemy Eidolon, the player’s own Eidolon, or any other
supernatural agent. The force uses the player as a means of achieving its own goals,
and those goals may or may not coincide with the player’s own. It might imbue the
player with some of its power, whisper a suggestion in the player’s ear, or advance them
as a pawn on the board of some cosmic chess game the player has no direct
knowledge of.

3. The Empress
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: You create something.

The Empress represents artistry and the beauty of creation. Precisely what a player
“creates” when playing The Empress will vary significantly depending on context. If
they’re trying to bake a pie, then the Forecast can be taken very literally. If they’re
fighting a monster, then what they create might be an opening for an ally or an
opportunity to escape. Remember that The Empress is a neutral card, which means that
playing it can go badly sometimes; just because you create a pie doesn’t necessarily
mean it’s any good, and you could just as easily create an opportunity for an enemy as
you could an ally.

4. The Emperor
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: You break something.

The Emperor is the opposite of The Empress; it represents destruction and dominance.
Like with The Empress, the thing you break with The Emperor can be either literal or
figurative. When fighting, The Emperor might result in a broken bone (and since it’s
neutral, there’s no guarantee of who that bone belongs to). On the other hand, maybe
you’re a journalist, and you use The Emperor to break a story!

5. The Hierophant
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: You discover something.

The Hierophant represents wisdom and study. Its Forecast is an obvious fit for
Investigating and Dredging the Undertow, but a discovery can happen in the course of
any action. For example, if a player tries to Dazzle someone with The Hierophant and
fails to convince them, what they discover might be a reason why their target is unwilling
to listen to them. Or, when played while Scrapping, you might have the player discover
a weakness in their enemy’s defenses.

6. The Lovers
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: You are faced with two paths.

The Lovers represents plurality and divergence. When someone plays it, you should
give them two different options that both have their own advantages and drawbacks,
and let them decide which way they want things to go. For example, if someone Scraps
with The Lovers, you might give them the following choices: hit the enemy as hard as
possible with no regard for collateral damage, or pull your punches to ensure you don’t
harm any bystanders. The choice shouldn’t be too excruciating, and no matter what the
player picks, they should both be getting and losing something of some value.

7. The Chariot
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: You exceed your own limits.

The Chariot represents determination and perseverance. Its Forecast suggests a

success that a player would not typically be capable of, but “exceeding their limits” may
come at a cost. They might be feeling whatever they’ve done in the morning, or they
might be advancing their Damage Track in the moment, depending on the context.

8. Justice
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: The situation becomes more fair.

Justice represents fairness and equality. Whether its Forecast is beneficial or

detrimental depends heavily on context. If Justice is played while the player is at a
severe disadvantage, then the Move should result in giving the player a meaningful leg
up. If it’s played while the player is already ahead, it could lead to negative
consequences that kill their advantage.

9. The Hermit
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: Your actions isolate you.

The Hermit represents solitude and introspection. When played, it may isolate a player
character physically or emotionally; it could mean that they’re the only one that slips
through a closing barricade fast enough, or it could mean that they do something that
drives their friends away from them. Interpreted more positively, it could mean escaping
a powerful enemy, or successfully sneaking away from a group without being followed
10. The Wheel of Fortune
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: You are at the mercy of the fates.

The Wheel of Fortune represents randomness and unpredictability. It effectively

functions as a “wildcard;” when a player plays The Wheel of Fortune, what happens
next is up to you and you alone. Keep in mind that The Wheel is a neutral card and the
limits of how you interpret it should reflect that, but that’s the only restriction. For the
next beat of the scene, you are in complete control of the narrative. Do something cool
with it!

11. Strength
Polarity: Positive
Forecast: You triumph through force.

Strength represents tenacity and power. When played, the player gets what they want
through brute force. While Strength is a positive card, it’s arguably the “least positive”
positive card; triumphing through force can sometimes be exactly what’s necessary, but
in other situations it can lead to collateral damage, hurt feelings, or other unintended
consequences. Still, the positive Polarity should limit any negative knock-on effects that
Strength brings about, and the vast majority of the time the triumph should be
unmitigated.

12. The Hanged Man

Polarity: Negative
Forecast: You must make an impossible choice.

The Hanged Man represents dilemmas and contradictions. The first negative card in the
deck, on its face its Forecast isn’t too different from that of The Lovers: both cards put
you into a situation where you have to make a decision. The word “impossible” in The
Hanged Man’s Forecast, coupled with its negative Polarity, should encourage you to
make the choice much more extreme than you would with The Lovers, with more severe
costs and less appealing benefits on all options. For instance, a player character might
succeed at their attempted Move when playing The Hanged Man, but you might make
them decide which of their friends is hurt by the collateral damage of their actions.

13. Death
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: Something ends, and something else begins.
Death represents finality and the cycle of life. It’s a neutral card, which means that it
shouldn’t be taken as ominously as its name might imply. You can have just about
anything end when the Death card is played: an ongoing threat, a rainstorm, an
advantage in a fight, or, of course, a life. The thing that begins should generally be
something that logically follows from the first thing ending. So if an ongoing threat is
ended, then maybe what begins is an opportunity to strike back. The language of the
Forecast also very naturally meshes with the idea of Crashing an enemy and moving on
to their next Crash.

14. Temperance
Polarity: Neutral
Forecast: You are met with an equal and opposite reaction.

Temperance represents moderation and balance. When played, the player can expect
to experience the same kinds of consequences that they’re trying to inflict; if they’re
trying to Dazzle an NPC, they might find themselves being taken in by the NPC’s own
charisma and charm. In some situations, the “equal and opposite reaction” might also
just be interpreted as a no-frills success; the expected consequence of the player’s
actions come to pass, nothing more and nothing less. Be careful when interpreting the
card this way that you don’t let it drain the momentum from a scene, and that you
provide a solid hook for the players to respond to next.

15. The Devil

Polarity: Negative
Forecast: You get what you want at a price you can’t afford.

The Devil represents temptation and the unbound id. Its Forecast is a bit of an odd duck
among the negative Forecasts, because it explicitly states that the player gets what they
want. However, their success comes coupled with a negative consequence, which in
most cases should hurt more than the success helped. When possible, the “price” paid
should be directly tied to the player’s action, as an unintended consequence of their
success. It may be a price extracted from the player themselves, or from someone or
something they care about.

16. The Tower

Polarity: Negative
Forecast: Something terrible happens.
The Tower represents disaster and prideful folly. It’s not just a negative card, it’s the
negative card, with arguably the single most deleterious Forecast in the entire deck, and
the consequences for playing it should be severe and damaging (often literally; if a
source of harm is present in the scene, then The Tower should pretty much always
advance at least one person’s Damage Track). That said, remember that your primary
goal as the GM is the same as everyone else's, which is to tell a good story and have
fun telling it. Play in good faith when making something terrible happen through The
Tower, and don’t hurt the players so severely that things become un-fun. This line will be
different for every group, so it’s important that you understand where it lies well before
The Tower comes into play.

17. The Star

Polarity: Positive
Forecast: A new path reveals itself.

The Star represents hope and innovation. It is something of a positive counterpart to

The Lovers and The Hanged Man. The Star is less an opportunity for you to put the
player in a bind and more a chance for you to give the player a clue or hint, or offer a
suggested course of action that they hadn’t considered. If they take your advice or put
your clue to good use, they should see a very favorable outcome.

18. The Moon

Polarity: Negative
Forecast: Something unknown or unknowable interferes.

The Moon represents mystery and illusion, and in the Fate Deck it functions somewhat
like a negative counterpart to The High Priestess. It asks you as the GM to introduce
some new element into a scene, something the players had no prior knowledge of,
which confounds their attempts at success. This could be anything from a trap door, to
an unseen conspiracy working against them, to a Shade sabotaging them from The
Undertow.

19. The Sun

Polarity: Positive
Forecast: You are given cause to celebrate.

The Sun represents joy and celebration, and functions as The Tower’s counterpart.
When played, something good happens, maybe just for the person who played it,
maybe for the entire group of players, or maybe for the entire setting. The full extent to
which The Sun’s Forecast causes a positive result will vary depending on context, but
any time it’s played, things should take a massive swing in the player’s favor.

20. Judgment
Polarity: Negative
Forecast: Your past failures catch up to you.

Judgment represents guilt and divine punishment. It enacts a delayed consequence to a

past mistake or sin. Like any card, this can be interpreted very broadly: your “past
mistake” might be an old injury that acts up, an impulse purchase that’s left you broke,
or a person you slighted enacting revenge at an inopportune time. The specific ways
that Judgment manifests will be highly character-dependent, and figuring out how to
implement it may be a little difficult in some scenarios, especially early on in a
campaign. Feel free to ask the player who played Judgment to provide a past mistake
their character made that might have some bearing on their present circumstances.

21. The World

Polarity: Positive
Forecast: For just a moment, the world bends to your will.

The World represents completion and connection to the universe, and it is the single
most positive card in the deck. The player not only succeeds, but events conspire to
make them succeed. For a singular, critical moment, they become the author of reality,
and everything lines up perfectly for them to achieve their goal. The enemy’s gun jams,
or a bird happens to fly past their head and throw off their aim. Playing The World puts
the player character in touch with the world and turns it into a temporary extension of
their body.

CREATING ENEMIES

EIDOLON is a game with a large focus on combat, and that means that you’ll need to
create enemies for your players to contend with. The enemies you make will largely
come in two varieties: enemy Eidolon masters, and enemy Shades.

Enemy Powers

If a human enemy is going to pose any kind of serious threat to your players, then they
most likely have an Eidolon. Most Shades will also have powers that are functionally the
same as Eidolon Powers, and really powerful Shades might even have Eidolons of their
own, like a hostile version of The Inhuman Playbook. You should have a concrete idea
of how the powers of the characters you control work, and you should stick to it during
play.

If you’d like, you can phrase enemy abilities like Eidolon Powers when you’re drafting
them, but keep in mind that you’re not limited to using the Eidolon Powers from the
Playbooks. Your character’s abilities might look like a Vanguard or a Virtuoso, but
they’re not limited in the same way; functionally, all of your characters have an Eidolon
Power like The Inhuman’s: “My Eidolon can _________.”

Shades are creatures created out of powerful ideas and emotions that drift into The
Undertow. If they’re hostile, then they’re probably made out of violent ideas and
emotions. It can be a good idea to use that as a starting point for how their abilities
work.

Like with player Eidolon Powers, it can frequently be more fun to impose stricter
limitations upon your characters than the game demands. Try building explicit
weaknesses into your enemy powers, or making them hyper-specialized and then
figuring out how to make them dangerous and threatening despite that. Remember that
you want to give your Eidolons silly powers that are nevertheless terrifying.

Building an Enemy Encounter

For every enemy that you prepare in advance, you need to decide on an appropriate
Crash Limit for them. Think of Crash Limits this way: they represent the number of
dramatic twists and turns a fight is going to take. An enemy with a Crash Limit of 1 will
generally go down really quickly, and by definition won’t have any surprises they can
spring on the party. On the other hand, an enemy with a Crash Limit of 10 is going to be
an extremely long and involved battle, full of constant surprises and reversals. You
should tailor the number of Crashes an enemy can take to the kind of experience you’re
trying to make. As a rule of thumb, a Crash Limit of 3 works pretty well as a baseline; an
enemy with a Crash Limit of 3 can provide a sort of “three-act structure” to the
encounter, and provide some exciting twists without dragging out too long. Feel free to
play with different Crash Limits and find what works best for you and your group.

You want to be as prepared as you possibly can for a combat encounter. In order to do
that, you should come up with ideas for how the enemy or the encounter will change
every time there’s a Crash. With a Crash Limit of 3, you need two different ways to
increase the enemy’s threat level (since the third Crash will end the encounter). It might
be helpful to write out an enemy’s information like this in your preparation notes:

[Enemy Name]
“This enemy can…”
Crash Limit: X (fill in any number here)
Crash 0: [Describe the initial conditions of the battle, and the strategy the enemy uses
against the party]
Crash 1: [Describe what happens to raise the stakes after the party strikes their first
blow]
Crash 2: [Describe what happens to raise the stakes after the party strikes their second
blow]
.
.
.
Crash X: Defeat

By planning out your Crashes in advance, you can seamlessly transition the fight
through its various stages, without having to take time to figure it out mid-game and
possibly slow things down.

Now, that said, while you should have a plan in mind for each Crash, this information is
private to you as the GM, and you don’t have to use it. If an intriguing opportunity arises
during play, or if the fight takes an unexpected turn that renders a preplanned Crash
moot, feel free to substitute it with something you improvise on the fly. The point of
planning out the Crashes is just so that you always have something to fall back on.

Keep in mind too that Crashing an Enemy is a GM Move, and as such, you don’t
announce when you use it. When a player successfully strikes a blow on an enemy,
simply describe how the enemy temporarily loses control of the encounter and then
comes back more dangerous than ever.

Sometimes, situations may arise when you have to improvise an entire enemy
encounter. Players are free to do what they want during a session, and while you might
provide narrative prompts to nudge them towards the encounters you’d planned, they
can and will occasionally veer off in unpredictable directions, and initiate combat with
characters you hadn’t prepared anything for. This can be a tricky situation! The best
weapon against it is thorough preparation. Do your best to anticipate the different
directions your players might take, and have at least a rough concept of how any
encounters that lie down those various paths might go. Maybe even come up with some
“stock” Crashes that you can employ in a pinch if you have to throw together a combat
encounter on the fly. As you continue to play and become more familiar with the game,
the setting of your campaign, and your players, you’ll get a stronger sense of what goes
into a fun encounter, and will be able to fully improvise enemies more easily. Even if you
are feeling confident in your improvisational skills, plan out as many encounters as you
can anyway. Giving a combat encounter the proper care and preparation will make it
shine much brighter than if you always try to come up with it on the spot.