In The Beginning

## INTRODUCTION

**From The Ashes** is a dark fantasy role playing game set in an industrial age country called Dresnos on the continent known as Zar’el. The many fantastical societies and races have begun to expand, and the magical world around them is shrinking as inventions such as trains, steamships, and flying machines make travel a breeze compared to what it once was, especially to the common folk who never had access to arcane or runic magics.

Where once, cities were known for their giant castle walls and great keeps, now they’re known for their great expanses and shady corners and alleyways. Though the many nations and empires of Zar’el still find themselves in the same conflicts, wars, and land disputes they’ve had for centuries, the weapons they play with have gone from sword and spears to rifles and cannons. Assassinations and political espionage are just an appetizer these days for the great destruction that is modern war.

Xenophobia is at an all time high, depending what country one is from and what the current political chessboard looks like determines whether one is called a nasty name, or dragged to the street and beaten. Corruption floods every government as greedy capitalists and colonizers begin to make their play into grabbing as much power as they can in this time of invention, innovation, and exploration. The common people grow more powerless and restless by the day, as the corporations and the government begin to weasel their way in and take a piece of everything they can.

The word spoken softly, barely at a whisper, from many Dresian lips is one that could easily be a death sentence if uttered in the wrong company: revolution. A large people’s movement begins to rise from the lowliest parts of the biggest cities. To combat this quietly, the companies and the government have used law and hired thugs to battle these revolutionaries in their stead. Deputies swarm meeting areas, hired mercenaries storm protests, and in kind, the revolutionaries assassinate politicians and bomb factories.

In a world where magic and mischief live hand in hand with horror and warfare, your fantasy character and their friends must navigate the rocky waters of day to day life in a world going through a violent and scary metamorphosis.

While Dresnos is the traditional setting for **From The Ashes** games, it can be used as a model for almost any fantasy setting, especially ones that are inherently (or you wish to be) more technologically advanced than a traditional high fantasy setting without dipping into modern day or science fiction fantasy.

### What You Need To Play

To start playing From The Ashes all you need are the following:

* The Player Guidebook that will teach you how to create and play your character.
* A printed character sheet.
* A pen or pencil and some scrap paper.
* At least a single twelve sided die (d12).

### The Players

Every participant in the game besides the **Game Master** will be **Players**. It is the **players** who will generate a character using the Character Creation section of this guidebook. That character will be the **player’s** avatar in the world of the game. These avatars are the central protagonists of the game and scenarios usually revolve around their actions and adventures.

### The Game Master

One of the participants in the game is called the **Game Master**, or **GM** for short. Their job is to describe the world around the characters, present them with any challenges or dangers, and take on the role of the supporting cast and the antagonists.

The **GM** creates the basic outline of the scenarios that the **players** encounter and resolve the results of their actions using the rules in this guidebook as a guideline.

### Game Overview

Games in **From The Ashes** almost always consist of the players embarking on an adventure overseen by the **GM**. The **GM** determines what dangers the characters will face, from hostile creatures beyond human comprehension, to giant beasts that block the heroes path, to booby traps littered throughout a deep dark dungeon, and even into personal intrigue, diplomacy, and deception.

The **players** choose how their characters will react and overcome these challenges and obstacles. Games can be played through either a full campaign or by a single or series of scenarios.

**Scenario:** A scenario can be a game that only takes the span of a single or a few sessions. It usually includes characters written by the **GM** specifically for that game, and is discarded afterwards.

**Campaign:** A series of scenarios, charting continued adventures of characters that are designed by the **players**. A campaign can be continuous or episodic.

In a continuous campaign, the scenarios that the **players** encounter occur immediately or very shortly after one another and the health, resources, and spirits available to the characters are carefully logged and carried over from session to session.

In an episodic game, there are longer gaps between scenarios, and each game session can focus only on the exciting and conflict-filled parts of the character's adventure. This can cut down on game elements such as optional exploring, traveling, and dungeon diving. This also usually means that character's health is returned to them at the beginning of each session, and that the **GM** can vary the **players**’ access to spirits and resources.

### Dice Rolls

**From The Ashes** uses a single twelve sided die to resolve most actions, though some situations require more dice. This section is a quick overview of terminology related to dice rolls that you'll see throughout this handbook.

**1d12/2d12**: To avoid endlessly writing "roll a single twelve sided die" throughout this guidebook, From The Ashes uses the shorthand "roll 1d12" or "roll 2d12" to signify whether one or two twelve-sided dice are necessary. Any other number followed by d12 (3d12, 4d12, 5d12, etc.) similarly just simply indicates the number of twelve-sided dice that need to be rolled.

**Dice Modifier (DM)**: This signifies a number to be applied to any dice roll before it is even rolled. This number may either be positive, therefore added to the dice roll, or negative, therefore subtracted from the dice roll. For example, on a roll if you had a DM of 2: you would add two to whatever you rolled. Similarly if you have a DM of -6, you would subtract six from whatever you rolled.

**Challenge Number (CN)**: Any action your character makes that requires a dice roll will have a challenge number. This is the minimum number that can be rolled to succeed in the task, and correlates to how difficult the task is. For example, if a task is CN7, that means the player needs to roll a seven or higher after all DMs are applied in order to succeed at accomplishing it.

**Skill Check**: To determine a character's ability to succeed or fail at any particular task, the player has to make a skill check. To do this, the player must roll 1d12 and apply whatever DM may apply to that roll. This DM can be altered by equipment, character stats, and consumables used. In most cases the skill check will have a CM of 7.

**Natural One (NAT1)/Natural Twelve (NAT12)**: Some rolls are referred to as a "natural" roll. This simply means that the number is reached by the dice roll itself and not the application of dice modifiers. So, a natural twelve would mean the player rolled 1d12 and the die landed on twelve. A natural one, naturally, would mean the player rolled 1d12 and the die landed on one.