Appendix — Quick Reference
The one-page-ish cheat sheet for the table. Every number here is drawn from the chapters; where you need the full rule, the parenthetical points you to it. Merretia runs on the standard d20 core (SRD 5.2) — this appendix lists only what is ours.
1. The Colour Law
Section titled “1. The Colour Law”Faith is the substrate of all magic; to shape it you run it through one of nine channels on a single spectrum from purest Order to purest Chaos. Order channels emit (lit from within, bloomed). Chaos channels absorb (matte, inked-in, never a glow). When you cast, your eyes flash your channel’s colour — everyone can see it (see §7).
| Discipline | Side | Colour | Emit / Absorb | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Binding | Order | yellow | emit | structure, oaths, seals, contracts; can bind even light |
| The Weight | Order | blue | emit | gravity, density, mass, foundations, permanence |
| The Current | Order | cyan | emit | electricity, plasma, lightning; the most versatile reach |
| The Unmaking | Order | orange | emit | fire, rust, entropy, dissolution |
| The Growing | Chaos | green | absorb | life, body, vitality, healing |
| The Knowing | Chaos* | magenta | absorb | mind, pattern, fact, memory, illusion (*sits on the divide) |
| The Heart | Chaos | red | absorb | emotion, will, bond; the self reaching outward, moving a crowd |
| The Dream | Chaos | indigo | absorb | the unconscious beneath all selves; the deep, transmuting current |
Off the spectrum:
- Unshaped Faith — gold. Pure substrate, no channel; the miracle anyone can spend (§3).
- The Hollow — voided black. The forbidden tenth way. Eyes go empty — not a colour, a hole. Costs you nothing you can see; the bill is paid by the world. Always the wrong answer.
- White / Black are reserved for the Archons (Order = all four Order channels at once as white; Chaos = all four Chaos as black).
2. The Cost of Magic at a Glance
Section titled “2. The Cost of Magic at a Glance”You do not track spell slots. You track two clocks, and which half of the spectrum you channel decides which one fills.
| STRAIN (Order) | FRAY (Chaos) | |
|---|---|---|
| Paid by | the body (heat, nerve, spent tissue) | the self (vitality, memory, identity) |
| Filled by | Binding · Weight · Current · Unmaking | Growing · Knowing · Heart · Dream |
| Cap | 10 + (proficiency bonus × 2) — so 14 at 1st level | same: 10 + (proficiency × 2) |
| Short rest | clears completely | does not clear |
| Long rest | (already cleared) | heals half if the rest is genuine, still devotion; a quarter if broken |
How a cast bills you. A Working costs its Tier in points (Tier = legacy spell level; cantrip-tier is free). Roll your Faith Die (§3) and subtract it — you always add at least 1 — then add the remainder to Strain (Order) or Fray (Chaos).
The four thresholds (identical shape on both clocks):
| Event | STRAIN (Order) | FRAY (Chaos) |
|---|---|---|
| Pass 75% of cap | next Order Working also costs 1 level of exhaustion | next Chaos Working triggers a d6 vs your Loss Menu |
| Would exceed cap → Overchannel or stop | Overchannel = cast anyway, take 1 level of exhaustion | Overchannel = name, on the spot, one small permanent thing your character loses (no roll) |
| Push past Overchannel → the Break | collapse at 0 HP and start dying | an Unraveling — the GM removes a defining trait, no save |
The Loss Menu. Every Chaos caster writes six small, specific things their character could lose their grip on (a name, a taste, a fear, a scruple). You author them at creation; the dice only decide when they surface. “Chaos does not damage you — it spends you.”
ACCESS vs COST. Your Calling sets the highest Tier you can attempt; your Conviction sets what the attempt costs you. Two different dials — never collapse them.
3. Universal Rules
Section titled “3. Universal Rules”- Save DC (for your Workings / features) = 8 + proficiency bonus + [the relevant ability modifier].
- Faith Die is set by Conviction (1–5):
1→d4 · 2→d6 · 3→d8 · 4→d10 · 5→d12. Roll it and subtract before you write to a clock. When a Working sits dead-center of your Tenet (your one-sentence belief), roll the Faith Die twice and take the higher. - Conviction does NOT rise with level or training. Everyone starts at 1 (d4). It rises only when the GM judges you held your faith at genuine cost. Belief is earned in the story, not bought on the sheet.
- Unshaped Faith — the everyone-gift. Anyone, caster or not, may spend 1 point from either clock to grant a creature they can see advantage on one roll OR one extra Hit Die of recovery. No Tier, no roll, no failure. No one in Merretia is magically mute.
- Ability Score Improvement or feat at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, 19.
- Path (subclass) chosen at 3rd level; Path features at the levels each Calling names (most: 3 / 6 / 10 / 14; some martials run 3 / 7 / 10 / 15 / 18). Capstone at 20th.
- Proficiency bonus: +2 at 1st, +3 at 5th, and up the standard ladder.
- Caster Reaching curve (max Working Tier): 1 @ L1–2 · 2 @ L3–4 · 3 @ L5–7 · 4 @ L8–10 · 5 @ L11–14 · 6 @ L15+. Half-Reachings run one band lower. Player Callings top out at Tier 6 (Tiers 7–9 are legendary/story-tier).
4. Skills
Section titled “4. Skills”Merretia uses the standard eighteen skills, each tied to an ability. You gain proficiencies from your people (Chapter 3), your origin/background (Chapter 5), and your Calling; a proficient skill adds your proficiency bonus, and a passive score = 10 + the modifier. A handful carry world-specific weight, noted below.
| Skill | Ability | In Merretia |
|---|---|---|
| Athletics | STR | climbing the Spire ladders and deep shafts, forcing a grid-door |
| Acrobatics | DEX | rooftop runs over the Warrens, footing on a pitching deck |
| Sleight of Hand | DEX | cutpurse work, palming a sun-cell, planting a writ |
| Stealth | DEX | moving unseen in the tunnels, the frontier, a House’s halls |
| Arcana | INT | the disciplines and their Workings, focus stones, buried-sun tech — the “how magic works” skill |
| History | INT | the Founding, the Great War, House and guild lineages |
| Investigation | INT | reading a scene, a ledger, a Working’s residue |
| Nature | INT | biomes, beasts, weather, the frontier’s dangers |
| Religion | INT | the Eight, the Zar’ir cosmology, the Temple, the Heralds |
| Animal Handling | WIS | drays, coursers, and the beasts of yard and wild |
| Insight | WIS | reading intent — load-bearing in a debt-and-oath city |
| Medicine | WIS | mundane healing, distinct from Heart/Growing Workings |
| Perception | WIS | the watch you keep; noticing the seam-cold in time |
| Survival | WIS | the Waste-Lands, the deep, tracking, finding safe ground |
| Deception | CHA | the con, the false face, the covered lie |
| Intimidation | CHA | the enforcer’s lean, the guild threat |
| Performance | CHA | the stage, the crowd, the Heartstring’s trade |
| Persuasion | CHA | the envoy’s work, calling in a debt, moving a room |
Expertise (from some features and the Master’s Hand feat) doubles your proficiency bonus in one skill. Tools & kits (tinker’s, thieves’, a trade kit) work the same way but aren’t skills.
5. The Thirteen Callings
Section titled “5. The Thirteen Callings”Seven hold a Reaching (they cast, on the two-clock economy); six stand on their own steam (no weaker for it).
| Calling | Die | Plays like | Reaching (discipline) | Signature engine | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowbound | d10 | Paladin | the Binding | Oaths & Sealing Strikes (Sealing Charges) | caster |
| Hearthwarden | d8 | Druid | the Growing | Vitality Dice | caster |
| Cindermarch | d8 | Sorcerer | the Unmaking | Heat (a boil-over gauge; any discharge = +1 Strain) | caster |
| Cipherwright | d6 | Wizard | the Knowing | Threads & Filaments | caster |
| Zar’ir Adept | d8 | Cleric | a paired half-Reaching (Order + Chaos) | Consecration (pooled devotion) | caster |
| Heartstring | d8 | Bard | the Heart | Heartstring Dice | caster |
| Stonewright | d8 | Artificer | half: Current or Binding (choose at L1) | Field-Settings (from Schematics) | half-caster |
| Duelist | d10 | Fighter | — none — | Form Points & maneuvers | martial |
| Ironclast | d12 | Barbarian | — none — | Grit (Grit Points) | martial |
| Verge-Tracer | d10 | Ranger | half: Current or Weight (choose at L1) | Quarry Dice & Quarry Strikes | half-caster |
| Warrens-Runner | d8 | Rogue | — none — | the Clean Line | martial |
| Relic-Bound | d10 | Warlock | — (a relic, not faith) | Relic Charges + the Debt Clock (0–6; Overdraw to opt in) | relic-pact |
| Hollowmarked | d8 | Monk | half: the Dream | the Wound Die (fuels Edge-Surges; steps up each Draw) | half-caster |
Twofold Faith — holding a Reaching in both an Order and a Chaos discipline — is the prophesied cross. Not available at creation; only via the Twofold Faith feat-chain, along one of four canonical pairings (Binding–Knowing, Weight–Growing, Current–Heart, Unmaking–Dream). The Zar’ir Adept is the one sanctioned, pre-paired, half-strength version taught as doctrine.
6. The Eighteen Guilds
Section titled “6. The Eighteen Guilds”Each holds a charter over one industry and rules one of the eighteen provinces (and its mirror Quarter in Sulamir). Every member swears the Universal Guild Oath.
| Guild | Sphere |
|---|---|
| Alum-sidek Alliance | the magnerail — inter-provincial transit & rail |
| the Masons | construction & building |
| Emphemere | high-noble society |
| Torrus Ectos (the Red Octopus) | shock enforcement, brawler markets |
| Order of the Blue Cross | death rites & dying-care |
| the Red Dragons | the martial academy |
| Temple of the One | religion — the one guild that cannot fuse (authority from ordination) |
| the Iron Coin | banking & the sovereign currency |
| Multani | diplomacy |
| Abyssal Fires | intelligence & archives |
| Bavit-vita | medicine & agriculture |
| Alyu’amare | marriage & alliance-brokering |
| the Core | mind disciplines & mediation |
| the Sulamir League | civic memory |
| Prodigus Group | engineering & logistics |
| Order of the Spider | espionage & sanctioned assassination |
| the White Legion | entertainment & celebrity |
| the Hand | luxury trade & high-wealth finance |
(Two outlaw orders operate outside the Council. A guild’s three officers are the Leader, the Right Hand, and the Left Hand.)
7. The Great Houses & the Government
Section titled “7. The Great Houses & the Government”Sulamir’s politics run on three stacked layers:
- The Senate of Great Houses (public, sovereign) — ~36 seats, each held by a House head for life; issues edicts, taxes, treaties, armies. This is “the government” to a citizen. A two-thirds vote can strip a senator or call an OCTA probe of any institution.
- The Eighteen Guilds (public, operational) — run the visible economy (§5).
- The Council of 18 (secret) — the eighteen senior guild figures, coordinating as a shadow government; officially dismissed as conspiracy.
- The fusion / Fused House. For seventeen of the eighteen, the guild’s ruling line is the House’s ruling line — same people, two names, two audiences. A head who bundles guild Leadership + the province’s dominant Senate seat + the Council seat is a Fused House. (The remaining ~19 Senate houses are affiliate Rival Houses.) The Temple of the One is the deliberate exception that cannot fuse — the wild card.
- The Absent King. The whole government is built around a permanent vacancy of the crown. After Zar Valareth (the Last Zar) fell, the Senate refused to appoint a new monarch, so power is split across eighteen suspicious hands. Publicly reaching for that crown is taboo — proven, it unites the other seventeen against you.
- OCTA — the Office of Containment and Threat Assessment (“octa,” funded by the eight temples). Empowered across all eighteen provinces to hunt Hollow practitioners; its Readers can assay a person/stone/site for where a Working’s cost fell, and it may execute without trial once Hollow practice is confirmed. Also a favored political weapon — it burns legitimate dreamwalkers as often as it catches real cultists. It is the crown’s orphan: chartered under the ancient Zars, temple-staffed, uncheckable.
Named Great Houses (each fused to its guild): Corveliss (Alum-sidek / Tonja) · Stoneheart (the Masons / Hakkar) · Vartiovaara (Abyssal Fires / Nolekkelon) · Esteban (Order of the Blue Cross / Antodinera) · Asantewa (the Hand / Bolanbi) · Mihran (Multani / Sahthan) · Summer (Emphemere / Yisk) · Bilegt (Order of the Spider / Udlimill).
8. Conditions & the Bespoke Clocks
Section titled “8. Conditions & the Bespoke Clocks”Standard SRD conditions apply as written — grappled, prone, restrained, frightened, unconscious, and the rest are unchanged (use the core rules). Frightened is worth flagging as central: in a world where a stranger’s eyes going bright can end a fight, fear is a weapon, and several disciplines and peoples wield it directly.
Merretia-specific states (the extensions to the ladder):
| State | What it is |
|---|---|
| Strain | the Order clock (body). Cap 10 + prof.×2; clears on a short rest (§2). |
| Fray | the Chaos clock (self). Same cap; does not clear on a short rest; long-rest stillness heals half (§2). |
| Conviction | belief depth 1–5, sets your Faith Die; rises only when the story earns it (§3). |
| Overchannelled | you cast past your cap — took the exhaustion (Order) or named the loss (Chaos) (§2). |
| Broken | you pushed past Overchannel — Order: dying at 0 HP; Chaos: an Unraveling, a defining trait gone, no save (§2). |
| Corroding | from Unmaking effects — a stacking −1 to AC as rust eats gear; cleared with a short rest’s maintenance. |
| The eye-flash (the tell) | casting flashes your channel’s colour in your eyes — bright, gone the instant it lands. A watcher gets advantage to identify what you’re about to do and may react (ready, dive, interrupt). To cast unseen: break line of sight, cast from cover/dark, or wear an eye-shroud. Hollow-work flashes voided black — the most feared thing on a battlefield, and always the wrong answer. |
Per-Calling clocks you may also see at the table: Cindermarch Heat (discharge = +1 Strain) · Relic-Bound Debt Clock (0–6) · Hollowmarked Wound Die (steps up each Draw) · Zar’ir Consecration/Communion. Each is detailed on that Calling’s sheet (§4).
Not a condition, but table-relevant:Coil-jam — fire an arc-lock more than once on your turn and each shot after the first jams on a natural 1–2 (an action to clear). A focus stone can be sundered as a called shot, dropping you to cantrip-tier until you rebond one over downtime.