Adventure Beyond the Familiar.

Everyone · Begin here

Play in ten minutes

Briarbound is a fantasy adventure game about capable people making consequential choices in a strange, inviting world. Say what you want to do. Use your abilities, your surroundings, and your wits. Roll only when the outcome is uncertain and failure would change the situation.

1. Choose a Guide to play the world and its people. Everyone else makes a hero.
2. Give your hero a name, an Ideal, a Trouble, and two specific Knacks.
3. Begin with 10 HP, 10 Adventure Points, and two Tier 1 abilities. Choose freely from the six classes.
4. Take the ordinary weapons and equipment your hero would reasonably carry.
5. Light a lantern if you have one. The Guide opens with a problem already in motion. Ask questions, make a choice, and see what follows.

The whole engine

Every uncertain moment in Briarbound turns on the same twenty-sided Fate Die.

Roll one d20. A Knack means roll two and keep the higher; Trouble means keep the lower. If both apply, roll once. Extra Knacks or Troubles never add more dice.

A Haggle never quietly becomes a failure. “You get across, but leave the rope or alert the guards” is a choice. “You do not get across” is not.

Everyone · Choose your hero

Make your hero

Start with a person you want to play. Where are they from? Who needs them? What do they want badly enough to get into trouble?

Ideal: a belief that changes your choices. Trouble: a flaw, fear, or habit that can interfere with what you attempt. Knacks: two specific areas of experience, such as rooftop courier routes, repairing small machines, or calming frightened animals.

Knacks help when that experience genuinely matters. Trouble gives the lower of two dice when your stated Trouble interferes. A task being difficult does not itself create Trouble. Ordinary flaws and personality need no extra statistics.

Three Pillars and six classes

Pillars organize what abilities do. Classes are ability trees you can mix, not restrictions on your identity.

Rogues handle practical disguises and stage tricks. Mesmers use psychic perception, telepathy, mental influence, and telekinesis; Wizards wield elemental and arcane magic.

Take two Tier 1 abilities from any classes. A Fighter with Telekinesis is a perfectly normal hero.

Explore your class options

Fighter at range: Bows, crossbows, slings, and thrown weapons work with Power Strike, Disarm, Counterattack, and Pin Down. Twin Shot, Volley, Crushing Shot, and Arrowstorm carry the ranged path through higher tiers. Paired techniques share one ability choice and AP cost; choose a technique each time. Ranged attacks need a ready weapon, a clear shot, and ammunition; multi-target attacks need one projectile per target. One roll resolves the whole attack, and a Triumph grants 1 AP total.

Champion paths: Build a bulwark with Protect, Ward, Bulwark Stance, Stand Together, Radiant Wall, and Last Stand; build a spellsword with Aether Strike, Radiant Strike, Spellcleave, Spellbreaker Strike, and Dawnblade. Mix both freely. Weapon spells require a melee weapon and deal their listed damage instead of adding it to normal weapon damage. Multi-target attacks use one roll; a Triumph doubles damage to each target and grants 1 AP total. Bulwark Stance is physical; the listed weapon spells and healing, Ward, Radiant Wall, Last Stand, and Restore Life are magical.

Wizard elements: Each tier offers three different elements with different uses. Tier 1: Stone Ward (earth protection), Firebolt (fire damage), Light (illumination). Tier 2: Gust (wind movement), Frost (ice restraint), Scrying Pool (water divination). Tier 3: Windstep (wind travel), Fireball (fire area damage), Icebridge (ice terrain). Tier 4: Wall of Fire (fire barrier), Fly (wind flight), Quenching Veil (water counter-magic). Tier 5: Tidegate (water portal), Lightning Storm (lightning damage), Earthshaping (earth construction). Choose spells freely; you do not commit to one element. Each spell grants only its stated effects. All are magical; multi-target attacks use one roll and grant 1 AP total on a Triumph.

Ordinary competence belongs to everyone

You can sneak, bargain, disguise yourself with clothes and makeup, pick a lock with tools, track footprints, and attempt other plausible actions without buying an ability. Roll when there is risk. An ability gives a specific reliable permission, a stronger effect, or a way to do the impossible.

Everyone can make a basic attack. A Wizard whose AP is low can use a staff or bow. Common weapons deal 2 damage, unarmed attacks deal 1; write useful verbs such as hook, cut, brace, or distract.

For players · Growth

Learn and level up

Every new ability is a road your hero chose to walk.

Every class has five tiers, with three abilities at each tier. All six classes begin with Tier 1 open. Count how many abilities you have learned in a class to see which tiers are open.

Spend one ability choice to learn one new ability from an open tier. Count it only in its own class. Each ability can be learned once. You may pick an unchosen lower-tier ability; there are no individual prerequisites.

At the end of a session

1. Gain 5 AP.
2. Gain one ability choice. Spend it now or keep it for later.

Both starting choices count toward tiers. If you start with Power Strike and Brace, Fighter Tier 2 is open for your next choice. If you start with Power Strike and Telekinesis, Fighter and Mesmer each have one learned ability; learning Mind Whisper next gives Mesmer two learned abilities and opens Mesmer Tier 2.

With steady specialization, Tier 5 opens after your eighth ability in that class. Starting with two in one class means six completed sessions to open Tier 5, then the next session can buy its first ability. Mixing classes trades that speed for a broader set of tools.

Tier 5 is part of ordinary advancement. Maximum HP and weapon damage do not rise automatically. Once all tiers are open, you can keep learning unchosen abilities. At 90 learned abilities you have the whole catalog; further sessions still grant AP.

Changing your build

Between sessions, agree with the Guide to rebuild. Keep your total earned choices: two plus completed sessions. Choose again in legal tier order, preserving the fiction of what your hero has done. Prepared mixtures expire and any unfinished batch is abandoned; already spent AP and supplies are not refunded. Cleanup is still required if the kit was cooling. Do not rebuild mid-scene to solve the current problem.

For players · Action

Take action

In danger, heroes act in any order, then the Guide’s active characters take their turns. If enemies have an established ambush or are already acting, the Guide explains why they go first. Each turn gives you a move and one thing. Split your move around the action if you like; you cannot trade it for another action.

Distance

In reach: touch or strike from where you stand. Nearby: somewhere you can move this turn. In range: a clear ranged shot this turn. Too far: get closer first. A ranged effect needs a clear route unless its text says otherwise.

Four useful choices

Parley: change someone’s mind. Improvise: change the room. Retreat: change position or get out. Clash: change things by force. These are examples, not a menu that limits you.

Attacks and ability rolls

Roll once for a basic attack against resistance. On success, deal weapon damage. On a Haggle, the hit lands and the player chooses a price: exposure, broken gear, a counterattack, or a fitting complication. A Triumph doubles the damage of that roll. A failed attack deals none.

For an ability marked Roll, pay AP and roll once, applying the same outcome bands. On a hit (9 or higher), its stated damage and effects apply; a Haggle adds a chosen price. A Triumph doubles damage to each named target, never the number of targets or duration. On 1–8 the stated effect does not happen, AP stays spent, and the scene changes. Do not add a second resistance roll. Brewing techniques instead use the preparation and brewing outcomes in “Brewing, inventions, and equipment.”

A genuinely helpless target offers no resistance: a basic attack lands without rolling for double damage. Roll abilities used against helpless targets also land without rolling and double their stated damage. Automatic abilities never double damage. Being Hidden gives a Knack; it does not make an alert enemy helpless.

Triggers and limits

Automatic: pay and follow the effect without rolling when its conditions are met. Reaction: use only at its named trigger, even outside your turn; one reaction per hero per round. It does not use your next action. A Free ability costs no AP but still uses your action unless it explicitly uses your move.

Concentration: sustain one concentration ability at a time. Starting another ends the previous one. You can still move and take actions unless the effect requires your action to direct it. Becoming Incapacitated ends concentration. Taking damage ends it only when the ability says so.

Repeated copies of the same effect do not stack. If two effects reduce the same damage, use only the strongest reduction; do not combine a reduction with halving. An ability can make you stronger without giving additional turns. Helpers act through your action unless their text explicitly says otherwise.

Hidden, prone, pinned, or blinded describe real circumstances. They change what you can do and may grant a Knack or apply your Trouble when appropriate. There are no hidden numeric modifiers. Use each ability’s stated end condition.

When the room attacks

A falling beam or spreading fire has no attacker. Each affected hero rolls once to escape. Success or Triumph gets clear; Haggle avoids the worst at a chosen price; Failure suffers the hazard; Catastrophe suffers it and a related complication. A reflexive roll uses a fitting Knack or Trouble and does not consume the hero’s next turn.

For players · Recovery

HP and Adventure Points

Begin with 10 maximum HP and 10 AP. Damage reduces HP to a minimum of 0. Healing stops at maximum HP. At 0 HP, a hero is Incapacitated: unable to take normal actions or reactions until healed or able to Regroup. Enemies return to their agenda rather than continuing to attack a downed hero.

NPCs at 0 HP are Defeated: unconscious, captured, fleeing, or surrendering. Their defeat should answer the scene’s question.

Recovering

AP carries over and has no maximum. It cannot go below 0. You cannot use an ability you cannot afford. Pay when the ability is used; missing or being interrupted does not refund AP. Story awards can grant resources when the Guide clearly names them.

A scene is one continuous situation with a meaningful question. Stepping outside and back does not reset it. The Guide decides when the situation has genuinely changed.

If you choose lethal stakes

Agree before play and confirm again when death becomes possible. A hero at 0 HP is still Incapacitated. If they suffer further harm before rescue, that player decides whether it means death or a lasting change with comparable weight. Never remove a hero through an unagreed rule. Restore Life is available at Champion Tier 5, with its stated time limit and consent requirement.

For players · Brewing and engineering

Brewing, inventions, and equipment

Alchemists experiment with aether, reactions, and ingenious machines. Their brewing techniques make unpredictable mixtures; their engineering abilities make specific devices. You must learn the technique you use. Learning a higher-tier technique does not require a particular lower-tier recipe, but the normal class tier rules still apply.

Your field kit

A brewing kit starts with three supply charges, plus ordinary bottles, reagents, and tools. Each batch attempt consumes one charge and the technique’s AP cost. Supplies are a separate resource from AP. Refill to three charges only when the Guide confirms access to a stocked settlement or workshop; pay any price established by the story. Regroup, a new scene, session end, and full rest do not refill supplies. Transmute cannot create supply charges.

Engineering uses the ordinary tools and plausible parts in your kit, without spending brewing charges. An ability names what a device can do and how long assembly takes. Reusable devices do not charge AP again for each listed operation. They cannot grant extra turns; helpers and guardians act through your action or their stated reaction.

Make a batch

1. Find safe working time. Choose a brewing technique you know. You need a supply charge, enough AP, a clean kit, and room in your two prepared-mixture slots. Brewing cannot be squeezed into a combat action.
2. Commit the resources. Pay the technique’s AP cost and one supply charge when you start. Work for ten uninterrupted minutes. If you know Careful Distillation, you may take fifteen minutes instead and gain a Knack on the brewing roll; a fitting Trouble cancels it as usual.
3. Roll for success. After preparation, roll the Fate Die with any fitting Knack or Trouble. Use the brewing outcomes below.
4. Discover the mixture. On 9 or higher, roll one d6 on the table for the technique’s tier. Record that flask’s name and exact effect. You cannot choose its result or substitute a different tier’s table.
5. Let the kit recover. After an attempt, even a failed or interrupted one, spend ten minutes safely cleaning and cooling the kit before starting another batch. This cooldown cannot be skipped by changing scenes or Regrouping. A full rest cleans the kit.

If preparation is interrupted or abandoned, it produces no usable mixture. The paid AP and supply charge are lost, and cleanup is still required. In the Character Vault, Start batch commits resources; finish or abandon that batch only when the corresponding time or interruption has happened in the story. Its buttons do not make time pass.

Two prepared mixtures

Carry up to two single-use prepared mixtures at once, including potions, bombs, and other flasks. A batch in preparation reserves an empty slot. A bottle given to someone else still occupies its brewer’s slot until used or expired. Unused mixtures survive Regroup and become inert at their brewer’s next full rest, with no refund. Mixtures already applied last for their stated duration.

Anyone can drink, administer, throw, or apply a finished mixture with their action unless its text requires a longer treatment. Pay no additional AP and make no second roll: the brewing roll already determined whether it works. Bomb damage is automatic and cannot Triumph. Beneficial effects require a willing recipient, except that a healing or treatment mixture may be administered to an Incapacitated creature when its text explicitly allows it.

Resolve only the flask’s written effect. Duplicate effects do not stack; when reductions overlap, use only the strongest. A flask cannot supply extra turns, restore AP, or substitute for an unlearned ability. Devices and engineering abilities are not prepared mixtures and cannot be bottled or handed off as though they were potions.

Gear that matters

Record notable, magical, bulky, limited, or story-important things. Ordinary pocket clutter needs no accounting. In a friendly settlement, routine food, clothing, tools, and lodging are normally available. Scarcity matters when the situation establishes it. Trade valuables, favors, work, or promises for special things.

Any hero can carry plausible weapons. Common weapons deal 2 damage; magic equipment can grant exact exceptions. A spell scroll or unusual item says what it does, whether it is consumed, and who pays any AP. Never invent extra attacks from an item’s flavor.

For players · Shared challenges

Trials, chases, and long roads

Use a Trial for a mountain crossing, a midnight chase, or a race against the rising tide, whenever the whole party can contribute in different ways. State what winning achieves and what losing changes.

Choose how long the road is. Short Trial: 3 successes before 2 failures. Extended Trial: 5 successes before 4 failures. Each hero contributes a distinct approach and rolls once with a fitting Knack or Trouble.

Success, Haggle, and Triumph each add one success. Resolve a Haggle’s chosen price as well. Failure adds one failure and changes the situation against the group. Catastrophe adds one failure and changes the terms: a route closes, a threat arrives, or the group splits. A Triumph can add a useful edge but does not count as two successes.

Every Trial contribution is rolled. If an ability genuinely solves the whole danger, end the Trial instead of demanding unnecessary rolls. Otherwise let its effect establish a useful approach and roll for the remaining uncertainty.

Outside Trials, a helper who can meaningfully assist and accept the consequences can grant a Knack to the acting hero. This does not stack with an existing Knack. Failure should lead to a playable new situation, not an instruction to repeat the same roll. Every road still leads somewhere.

Everyone · Table agreements

Keep the table together

Agree on tone and boundaries before play. Anyone can say Pause to stop, Rewind to replace a moment, or Fade to skip details. Agree on a nonverbal signal too. Anyone may step away without explaining.

Share the spotlight and leave room for quieter players. Harming, stealing from, restraining, or controlling another hero requires that player’s consent. Separate player knowledge from hero knowledge. Briarbound belongs to everyone at the table. No story, however grand, matters more than the people dreaming it together.

For players · Ability reference

Choose your next trick

All six classes are open to every hero. Read the abilities you know and browse the rest when you have a choice to spend. Your class does not limit who you are or what ordinary actions you can attempt.

Browse all 90 abilities

For the Guide · Running the game

Guide the adventure

Show what the heroes plainly notice, what feels strange, and what demands a decision. Play people who want things. Telegraph danger before it lands. Let clever solutions work even when they skip your prepared fight.

Before calling for a roll, ask: Is the action possible? Is the answer obvious? Would both success and setback be interesting? Does a Knack or Trouble apply? What changes afterward?

Leave room for wonder

Give every place one detail nobody asked for: a song drifting from an upstairs window, a door with no handle, a star that wasn't there last night. Wonder is what makes the heroes want to keep walking.

Psychic powers and player consent

Keep the Mesmer’s psychic powers distinct from practical Rogue tricks and the Wizard’s spells. Use only each power’s stated information and limits. A psychic suggestion cannot override another player’s consent. Mind Shield is a psychic defense; Quenching Veil applies to magical abilities, not psychic ones. Telekinesis and Greater Telekinesis belong to Mesmer.

When updating an older hero, prior Wizard choices for Telekinesis and Greater Telekinesis become Stone Ward and Wall of Fire at the same tiers. Prior Mesmer choices become Mesmer powers at their original tiers. Earned ability choices and progression are preserved; a between-session rebuild remains available with the Guide.

Make room for experiments

Tell the Alchemist when safe preparation time is available and when danger will interrupt it. A kit carries three supply charges, not an endless pantry; make stocked workshops and settlement resupply clear. Apply a fitting Knack or Trouble to the brewing Fate roll, never the random d6 result. On a Haggle, offer a price that changes the situation while leaving the successful mixture usable. A failed batch costs resources and cleanup time; its mishap should open a playable complication.

Track a handed-off flask against its brewer’s two slots until used or expired. Let an invention perform its listed function without inventing extra attacks, independent turns, or free AP. Older heroes’ previously prepared fixed potions keep their earlier written effects until used or their next full rest; their learned Alchemist abilities now follow this revised progression.

Fast opponents

Write four things: want, tell, trick, and break. What does this person need? What reveals them? What can they do that changes the scene? What makes them surrender, flee, or bargain?

NPC attack rolls

Roll in the open. On 20, deal double damage and gain an edge. On 15–19, deal full damage. On 9–14, the targeted player chooses half damage rounded up or a lesser positional effect you offer. On 2–8, miss and shift the situation toward the heroes. On 1, deal no damage; offer two disastrous outcomes for the NPC and let the players choose.

Knacks and Trouble govern hero rolls, not a modifier on the Guide’s die. A hero’s reaction can still reduce damage. Opponents do not automatically gain more HP and damage because the heroes learn abilities; change their plans, positions, and tools. End combat once the conflict is settled.

Prepare moving parts

Know the truth, the pressure, and what each person wants. Give a location three useful things to interact with. Place required clues where looking makes them available. Rolls decide cost, speed, and risk—not whether the adventure is allowed to continue.

Guide only · First-adventure spoilers

Tallowmere and the first adventure

Guide only — adventure spoilers: these notes reveal the opening adventure’s secrets. If you are playing a hero, stop here and discover these people and hidden places during play.

The briar is the tangle at the edge of the familiar: shifting roads, old magic catching on ordinary places, and truths that refuse a straight path. Its mysteries should invite exploration, humor, danger, and kindness.

Westbridge Post

Elira Vale gives the heroes a courier job: carry the Dawn Lantern in its silver-trimmed brass case to Mayor Rowan Bellweather in Tallowmere. She loans the courier her matching key and asks for its return. The Mayor has the other key; either opens the case. The Mayor normally lights the Lantern, but anyone can light its wick.

The FoXXXin’ Flagen

Elaine Thistle runs the tavern with flamboyant humor and fierce protectiveness. Pip is an ordinary red fox wearing a green ribbon and a brass tag with the tavern’s name. MNO, Elaine’s eleven-year-old relative with a small psychic gift for moving objects, begins hidden in the pantry.

Four goblins wear human glamours. Mayor Bellweather is captive in the ordinary kitchen cellar, reached by the kitchen hatch. Nib Knucklebone wants the Dawn Lantern and a way out through the rear window. Someone names the Lantern too early; a claw print marks spilled flour; Pip distrusts a familiar-looking regular. Lantern light peels glamour away.

Keep the two entrances distinct: the kitchen hatch leads to the Mayor’s storage cellar. A separate thin brick infill inside an older stone arch behind the cold fireplace conceals a stair to the Echo Landing in the Catarynths. The heroes can discover and breach it in the first session.

Beyond the tavern

The Catarynths are ancient chambers sleeping beneath Tallowmere. (Despite the name, they are places, not creatures.) Their greater purpose remains unknown. The Hollow Crown is the banner behind Nib’s smugglers and the enchanted glamour pins; its maker is not yet named. Couriers bound for Briarwatch Tower have a habit of never arriving. Where the road took them is a door left open for a later adventure.

When Nib is trapped, Defeated, or gone, the remaining goblins can fold or flee. Ask where the Lantern, the Mayor, MNO, and the smugglers are now, and what each wants. Let the players’ actions determine how the scene resolves.

Credits and copyright

Credits

Briarbound’s setting and original writing are © 2026 NeonWindmill.