How cultivation works
From the Codex, Chapter V
You do not grind your way up. You live, and the living teaches you.
- Earn Comprehension in play, from the moments that change you (below).
- Fill the track. With 5 boxes marked, you may attempt a Breakthrough.
- Meet the Requirement. Each Realm asks something of you in the story. The GM (solo: you) puts it in reach, but you have to go and get it.
- Make the Breakthrough Check. Success lifts you. A Partial Success lifts you with a Flaw. A Failure costs you.
- Face Heaven. From Realm III on, a Tribulation follows the Breakthrough. You hold the new Realm only if you live through it.
Comprehension
From the Codex, Chapter V
Comprehension is your grasp of your own Dao. It has 5 boxes. Each source below gives you 1 box, at most once per Session. A Critical Success has no limit.
| Source | You gain 1 Comprehension when... |
|---|---|
| Critical Success | you roll a natural 20 and choose Comprehension as your extra. No limit. |
| Bond or Grudge | your Bond or your Grudge costs you something real. |
| Code (Fist) | you keep your Code and it costs you. |
| A loss that teaches | you write a Learned line in your Journal that comes from a Failure, a Wound or a lost Duel. With a GM, say it aloud instead. |
| A higher Realm, close up | you see a Realm Signature or a Tribulation up close, or you live through a Duel with a foe that Outranks you. |
| A Scene of practice | you spend a Scene on your Dao with something new in it: a manual, a master, a ruin, a fight you keep replaying. Make a Hard Insight Check (Fist: Force). Success: 1 Comprehension. Partial Success: 1, and a price. Failure: nothing, and the GM makes a GM Move. |
No grinding. The same act twice teaches you nothing new. A Scene of practice needs something you have not studied before. "I meditate for a month" earns nothing unless the month changes something in the story.
Losing Comprehension. A failed Breakthrough clears 3 boxes. Nothing else takes Comprehension away.
How fast. Most Sessions give 1 or 2 boxes. A Breakthrough every 3 to 4 Sessions is the usual pace.
What each Realm gives you
From the Codex, Chapter V
Each Realm you reach changes your sheet. The numbers are on the Realm ladder.
- Realm Bonus: +1 at Realm I, rising by 1 every Realm, up to +6 at Realm VI. It adds to every Check.
- Ward and Qi: +1 each per Realm. Fist has no Qi.
- Techniques known: 1 more per Realm. Learn the new one from a manual, a master or a defeated foe.
- Realm Signature: a capability you always have from now on, such as Spirit Sense at Realm II or Flight at Realm IV.
- 1 Attribute +1, on a Success.
- How the world treats you: the last column of the Realm ladder. Sects, towns and tally-houses act on it.
- A longer life: see Lifespan and time.
Heavenly Debt: the ledger
From the Codex, Chapter VI
Every Check a cultivator makes draws on qi that belongs to Heaven. Most of that is a small loan, and Heaven lets it ride. Debt is the part Heaven has written down.
- 10 boxes. Seal and Hunger start with 1 Debt marked. A Fist starts with 0 and always has 0.
- Only you fill the last box. The GM can never make you mark the 10th. You fill it yourself, by Borrowing or by a Breakthrough.
- A full track calls a Tribulation at the worst moment the GM can find, within the Session. Only 1 Tribulation can begin per Session.
- Past the 10th box. If a Breakthrough would take you past 10, tally the extra beside the track. Every extra Debt still sizes the storm.
- Survive a Tribulation and the ledger is clean. Clear all your Debt.
Where Debt comes from
From the Codex, Chapter VI
| Source | Debt | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Borrow from Heaven: Raise a result | 1 | 2 while Outranked, against a Boss, or in a Tribulation |
| Short of Qi for a Technique or a Qi Burst | 1 per Qi you lack | - |
| Break Suppression (Outranked by 1) | 1 | 1 Hit deals full harm |
| Borrowed Finisher (Outranked by 2 or more) | 2 | a Finisher without Momentum |
| Survive a Hit (Outranked by 2 or more) | 2 | 1 Wound instead of Taken Out |
| The Collector, on a Partial Success | 1 | instead of the price; once per Scene; never the last box |
| A Breakthrough | +2 to +6 | by the Realm you rise into |
Seal: every one of these may be Obligation instead, except Breakthrough Debt.
The Tribulation
From the Codex, Chapter VI
When it comes
- After a Breakthrough into Realm III or higher, when the Breakthrough's time ends. You hold the new Realm only if you live through it.
- When you fill the 10th Debt box. The Tribulation begins at the worst moment the GM can find, within the Session. Solo: at the end of the current Scene.
No town allows a Tribulation inside its walls. The tally-houses own the safe ground outside, and the Ashfield is the largest. A plot there costs money, and a warded plot costs more.
Wards. A warded plot gives 1 extra Ward in every wave, like the sect's wards. Wards add up, but never past +2: a Seal on a warded plot has 2 extra Ward, and a 3rd ward does nothing more.
The procedure
- Set the clocks. Start from each wave's base clock. Add your Debt 1 segment at a time, in turn: The Reckoning, The Weight, The Strike, and round again. Then add 1 segment to each wave for each Realm above I you hold. The Clocks table has it worked out.
- Which Realm? Until you live through it, you hold your old Realm. Use its Realm Bonus, Ward and Qi, and count its segments.
- Roll for a variant if your Omen is 3 or more (with a GM: if your Debt is 6 or more). Roll d20 on your Path's Variant table. It changes 1 wave.
- Play The Strike, then The Weight, then The Reckoning. Each wave is a Duel against the sky (Fighting the sky, below).
- Between waves: your Ward refills (a Seal: +1, the sect's wards) and your Momentum empties. Wounds, Strain and Qi stay as they are.
- Break all 3 waves and you live through it (After the storm). Taken Out in any wave, and the Tribulation has beaten you: roll on the Ashes table.
The Fist: owing nothing
From the Codex, Chapter V
The Unsigned never opened their dantian to Heaven. They temper the body instead.
- No Debt, no Tribulation. Heaven does not strike at someone who owes it nothing. From Realm III, a Fist faces the Trial of the Body instead: the same 3 waves, sized as a heavy Debt, because the body is the limit.
- Force, not Insight. A Fist's Breakthrough Check rolls Force.
- The price is flesh. A Fist pays Strain and Wounds instead of Debt. It pays after a Success or Partial Success: rising is what costs it, not trying. The night's rest before the Trial clears the Strain; the Wound stays.
- A lower ceiling. A Fist stops at Realm V, the Unbroken Body. There is no Fist Realm VI.
- A shorter life. The body wears out. A Fist lives longer than a mortal, never as long as a cultivator.