1. Overview

Each player rules a noble house and its territory. Every round represents one month of in-game time. The player receives a Turn document from the DM detailing everything that happened in their kingdom that month, and responds with the actions their character, court, and military take in response. The DM then resolves those actions and delivers the next Turn document, continuing the cycle.

The core loop is simple: read your turn, respond with your actions, repeat. But within that loop lies a full simulation of politics, economy, military strategy, diplomacy, and magic.

Golden Rule: Don’t minmax. This is a roleplaying game first and a strategy game second. Play a character, make choices that feel true to who they are, and take the good outcomes with the bad. The story is the reward.

2. Character Creation

2.1 Choose a Faction

Select a noble house (faction) to play. Each faction has a home seat city — for example, House Aggon begins the game as ruler of Aggonhold. Your character starts the game as the ruler of their territory at that seat city.

If you choose the Bone Collector faction, you play as the Bone Collector specifically, rather than creating a separate character within that house.

2.2 Build Your Character

• Come up with a name and background for your ruler.
• Find a picture to represent your character.
• Your starting territory includes your faction’s seat city, and may also include one smaller town.
  
  

2.3 Attributes

You have 100 points to distribute across seven attributes, each ranging from 1–100:

Example starting spread:

Attributes aren’t fixed — training and successfully navigating situations throughout the game can raise them over time.

3. The Turn Cycle

Each round begins when the player receives their Turn document, marking the start of a new in-game month. This document is the heart of the game and typically includes:

• Kingdom Overview — current economy, tax rate, morale, treasury, and resources in storage
• Kingdom Improvements — infrastructure or upgrades your territory has gained
• Members of Court — your retained characters and their stats
• Spells/Items — anything owned by you or your court members
• Military Units — your standing forces, their stats, and locations
• News From Court — narrative results of the previous turn’s actions, unfolding events, and consequences
• Peasant requests — issues from the common folk seeking your help as ruler
• Rumors — unconfirmed information circulating in the realm
• Letters — correspondence received from other rulers, NPCs, or your own court members
• Reports — results of prior turn actions playing out
  
  

The player reads through all of this and then submits their response: a written account of what their character does that month, addressing (directly or indirectly) everything the turn raised.

3.1 Submitting Your Turn

Your response should address the turn’s events by one of the following means:

• Doing it yourself — your character takes direct action
• Delegating — sending a member of your court to handle it
• Deploying military — sending troops to address it
• Any other in-fiction method your character has available

You are not required to respond to every single thread (some rumors or peasant requests may go unaddressed), but ignoring things has consequences that will show up in the next turn.

3.2 Action Limits

• You (the ruler): may perform several actions yourself, but you are limited to one location. If you leave your castle to go fight a monster in the countryside, that is your action for the round — you can’t also hold court and manage the treasury from the field. If you stay in your castle, you can handle multiple things at once (peasant petitions, letters, economic investment, etc.).
• Each court member: may be assigned one action per turn (one member, one task).
• Letters: you may write as many letters as you like each turn. Replies arrive on the following turn.
  
  

4. Kingdom Management

Your kingdom is tracked across a few core stats, all of which move as a direct result of your choices:

Raising taxes, mismanaging the treasury, disbanding units abruptly, or ignoring peasant concerns can all damage morale — while savvy economic investment, fair rule, and responsiveness to your people build it.

5. Members of Court

Court members are named characters — knights, spies, diplomats, wizards, and the like — who enter your service over the course of the game. Like your ruler, each has their own attribute spread (Tactics, Leadership, Melee, Stealth, Perception, Diplomacy/Arcana, etc.) and may carry their own items or spells.

You may send a court member to do things independently on your behalf, such as:

• A knight leading your army into battle
• A spy infiltrating another player’s court or an NPC kingdom
• A diplomat negotiating on your behalf
• Any task suited to their skills

Each court member is limited to one action per turn. Retaining a court member typically has an ongoing gold cost to keep them in your service.

6. Military

6.1 Standard Units

You may build your army by purchasing military units. Each has base Attack and Defense stats and costs both gold and resources to maintain:

Unit stats can improve over time through winning battles or dedicated training.

6.2 Specialty Units

Beyond the standard roster, unique specialty units may become available depending on your actions, alliances, discoveries, or story developments.

6.3 Deploying Units

Military units can be:

• Sent to act independently (e.g., patrolling the kingdom’s walls or borders)
• Led by you or a member of your court (e.g., a knight commanding an invasion force)

Units can be assigned different postures in combat — for example, one commander’s force might be ordered to fight defensively and tactically, while another’s is ordered to press an aggressive, destructive offensive.

7. Spellcasting

Characters (rulers or court members) with a high Magic attribute may be able to learn and cast spells, either in combat or out of combat. Spells and enchanted items are tracked per-character and may be discovered, taught, gifted, or won over the course of play.

8. Diplomacy & Letters

Players may send letters to:

• Other player-controlled rulers
• NPC rulers and courts

Letters sent in a turn arrive and are answered the following turn — there’s a built-in one-month delay for all correspondence, so plan ahead. Diplomacy, alliances, threats, and misunderstandings often play out entirely through this letter-writing system.

9. The Living World

The plot of the game moves independently of any single player’s actions — the world has its own momentum, driven by NPC kingdoms, rival factions, and unfolding events — but it is also directly shaped by what players choose to do. Your actions can start wars, end them, shift alliances, or set off consequences that ripple through the wider realm for turns to come.

10. Example Turn Actions

Below are examples of the kinds of actions a player might submit in response to a turn, based on the range of situations a Turn document can present:

• Royal Action: Personally investigate a mysterious rumor alongside a trusted court member, splitting the work between library research and field investigation using their stealth and perception.
• Royal Action: Issue a decree seeking to recruit a specific type of specialist (e.g., a powerful spellcaster) into your court.
• Royal Action: Commit to a major military decision — such as choosing the aggressive option of laying siege to an enemy capital rather than the cautious option of holding newly-taken territory.
• Court Member Action (military commander): Lead a combined force into an invasion, taking specific units from specific locations, with explicit orders on how aggressively or defensively to fight.
• Court Member Action (cavalry commander): Lead a separate detachment with a contrasting combat posture (e.g., offense-focused) from the main army.
• Royal Action: Invest gold and resources into training additional military units.
• Royal Action: Set aside gold and resources in advance, earmarked for rebuilding efforts in any territory successfully conquered.
• Royal Action: Invest in infrastructure, such as commissioning a new road to support trade and troop movement along a specific route.
• Royal Action: Direct a court official to integrate a group of newcomers (refugees, mercenaries, freed prisoners, etc.) into the kingdom — finding them trades and homes, and quietly screening them for potential threats.
• Royal Action: Distribute gold as gifts to towns and villages across the territory, delegating the actual distribution to trusted local leaders or family members.
• Royal Action: Pay off an outstanding debt (such as a merchant captain awaiting payment) to preserve your kingdom’s reputation and relationships.
• Letters: Respond to incoming diplomatic correspondence — clarifying misunderstandings, offering counsel to an ally, or asking pointed questions about another ruler’s plans and motivations.

Notice how these examples combine direct royal action, court member delegation, and military orders, all while only using one location for the ruler’s personal action and one action per court member — exactly as the rules specify.

11. Quick Reference