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When they finally found little Jacob Shelby, he was huddled in the shadow of a rusted-out tractor in a
field overgrown with weeds. Only days before, he had been a well groomed, if husky child, prone to
exuberant outbursts of violence. Now he was thin as a famine and his hair hung down his back in dirty
snake-like clumps. The Police and psychologists surmised from the bruises and scars on his back, that
Jacob had been brutally abused by some demented stranger. They tried every trick in the book (and a
few that would have made the book's author blanch) to get him to tell them where he'd been, but at
best, he would only shuffle his feet, gaze sullenly at his toes, and whisper "among the beautiful
creatures".
DISCLAIMER
This game is about an impossible place. The reader must beware the questions why and how.
In this place, things happen because they are in some way appropriate to the story. From time to time,
they may resemble the way things really would happen but this is really just a coincidence and may
safely be ignored. Where reasons and explanations are given, they speak to the impossible and only
mirror reality vaguely. More so, the reader must be wary of symbolism and allegory for these are no
more than the defensive rationalizations employed by those who fear imagination and the fantastic.
FOREWORD
I’d like to thank Alkzndr, James Hargrove, Chaos Voyager, Damia, Egil, and many other
RPG.net denziens for their input and interest in the project.
I must confess to not having play-tested these rules myself, since my group is completely
disinterested in playing anything that doesn’t have dwarves, dragons, and brutal critical tables.
INTRODUCTION
You are a grotesque thing. A patchwork of fur, scales, and scabrous skin cover your twisted
frame from which ungainly limbs sprout at unlikely angles. Blood drenched claws burst from your
many hands and feet and your mouth is full of razor sharp teeth. Yesterday you had a shell and bulging
muscles. But tomorrow, tomorrow you will be beautiful. The Innocent has promised you that
tomorrow you will be beautiful.
All things that dwell upon the expanse are constantly in a state of change, moving, like you,
from one state to the next. The base, un-speaking animals change their form to match their changing
needs and environment. Legs growing long to flee the predator. Teeth growing sharp when green
food grows scarce. Those who still can speak change to meet their needs and also to reflect their
moods and desires. Those who think and see more deeply change at will.
All things change, in the face of the irresistible will of the Innocents.
All things, even you.
THE EXPANSE: The world is forever ending
Before the advent of the Innocent we were without form or self. Mewling, we ate of ourselves
and spread, numerous in the eternal light of the dawn.
And it came to pass that a lost child wept, alone upon the expanse. Among devouring horrors
unnumbered it looked upon one and commanded: “Be mother to love and console.” Unto another it
commanded, “Father protect and provide.”
The Beginning, source of all light, fades into the distant Dawnward skies. We stand in the
twilight. The end of the Expanse is drawing near. It hangs in the Endward sky, black and writhing.
The faceless ciphers march back out of the lands swallowed by the cold darkness. Each cipher wears
the same blank and featureless form, drained of self. Guided and marshaled by an implacable and hate-
filled will, they make war upon us all. The united armies of the endless city fight a creeping retreat
against their ever-growing numbers.
The ciphers overrun the chill Endward lands. In colonies of insects we see the pattern of them.
Perhaps they grasp desperately at life through efficiency, sacrificing self for survival. The Nandrian
aeronauts have overflown the last of their hives and charted the barren lands of ice and madness that lie
beyond them. In the end, all shall march back, faceless, seeking the warmth of the dawn.
It is said that there are three thousand, thousand, thousand, speaking beings in the last city. Its
outer walls spread between the oceans, engulfing the inland sea and the mountains of the spine. The
outer regions of the city have broad paved avenues lined with trees. Deep canals manage the flow of
water and trade goods. Ornate fountains spout in the opulent estates of the Wealthy, vying in
decadence with baroque temples. As one passes inward, the city changes, estates giving way to
blockhouses and factories. Finally, the paved roads pass into the crumbling, twisting, claustrophobic
lanes and ruined buildings at the city’s heart. It takes no less than six marches to cross the endless city
on foot.
It is no coincidence that the newest buildings in the endless city lie on its Dawnward edges. Yet
there is no escape in this, for strong young empires flourish in the warm croplands. Beyond these, our
aeronauts have charted vast deserts and jungles inhabited by primeval creatures and beyond those are
dawn baked primal realms, where no innocent ever spoke shape or thought to the endless seas of flesh.
Those who have explored perpendicular to the movement of the expanse report that after journeying for
lengths on end, they came to dark and frozen lands too far from the dawn to support life.
The lark flies free above the woes of the Expanse.
The embodiment of music it sings the praises of the dawn.
So too shall we fly and sing freely.
Losing ourselves in the song of the lark we shall at last fly free.
The Litany of the Lark from the temple of song
Three Great Nations
Nandrian Empire:
The brazen towers of noble Nandria have stood inviolate since before the endless city. Their
clockwork legions and scientific mastery have made them great above all other nations. Guided by the
principles of the Rational Orthodoxy, their society has prospered. Since Rational Orthodoxy eschews
religion and superstition in all their forms, Nandria has a long history of war with the god kings of
Charn.
The Nandrian High Council For Scientific Measures has defined the Standard Length as the
time it takes for the shadow of a stick one Linear Stride's length to double in length. A Standard
March is one three hundred and sixtieth of a Standard Length. There are Three Hundred and Sixty
Chronological Minutes in a Standard March and Three Hundred and Sixty Chronological Seconds in a
Chronological Minute. These values being laid out in accordance to the angles of the clock. All
makers of instruments of measurement and time keeping in the Exalted Empire of Nandria shall abide
by these units with all due precision or suffer death by gearing.
The Sacred Kingdom of Charn:
Amidst the smoke, the hiss of hot pokers, and the screams, the magus raised his voice, “ The
Innocents have brought upon us this plague, this church of Jesus. Simplistic and contradictory, it
spreads among the lower castes like a plague. Devoid of doctrine or dogma, it takes root easily in the
minds of the ignorant. Our children delight in tales of Oblat the Inane and few among them could not
tell you some of them. I am certain that it is the same with the Innocents and this Jesus. The idea that:
if you are good you will go to heaven when you die is a fable for fools. So confess it and recant or
burn. Admit that you are not a witch. Repent and live.”
Oblat the inane
a hunting came.
From shape to shape,
never the same.
Seeking fair
romantic game.
That stump of a tree
may its father blame.
Charn, is a primitive nation, riddled with endless cults and superstitions. It has been said that
no accurate count can be made of their beliefs because three will pass away and five rise in their place
in the time it takes to count them. The highest and most ancient Charnal religion is found in the
temple-mausoleums of the kings, where the armies of the dead await the End of all things. The people
of Charn are masters of sorceries and curses and unmatched in their pursuit of forbidden lore.
Indeed, in Charn, people who have died are often consumed in mystical rituals invoking the sinister
Candle Bearers and worse entities.
For this cause are the humble potters of Charn held in greater respect than all other craftsmen: The
kings of Charn have been buried with their armies of terra cotta warriors, with bones and joints of brass
and living hearts, in preparation for the end of days. These were men picked for their unswerving
loyalty and courage, for the Dead still serve their own ambitions. These phalanxes of the ancient dead
now march alongside the clockwork legions of Nandria against the ciphers.
At the heart of each temple of Charn sits a great stone god, with joints and bones of brass. These
massive statues are the final resting place of the Charnial god kings. And, it is said, that like the
ancient dead of the catacombs beneath the temples, the gods of Charn are wakeful.
Finnian Houses:
In the counter crosswise oceans, float the living castles of the Finn.
These great clans are home to savage but cunning warriors. Once, before their prophet arose
from the depths, the Finnian clans mostly fought among themselves for glory and herds of fish. Now,
they have formed a great conclave and are gathering in the shallows off the Nandrian shores.
What little metal the folk of Finnia use is gold or copper hammered into shape without the heat
of a forge, but they are master craftsmen in bone, ivory and all the resources of the sea. In battle,
poisonous living nets and biting fish are hurled at their foes with primitive torsion catapults.
Their fortresses are all but unassailable. For having learned the arts of breathing the very water,
only the least parts of their living castles lie above the surface. The mighty Nandrian navies often find
it more worthwhile to buy peace and passage than to battle with the Great houses of Finnia, for they
have little that is worth plundering.
For the most part the water breathers are smooth and slick of skin and given to the growing of
fins and flukes from whence we draw their people’s name. It is hinted that beneath the waves, are
many who eschew bones to float soft and free with the currents. Others are claimed to grow to
monstrous sizes only possible with the buoyant support of the deep water, by gorging themselves on
the plentiful sea life.
"Once, while the Ambassador of the Finnian League of Great Houses was befuddled from
inhaling larsh, he did whisper to me in the deepest of confidence that the oceans are not bottomless -
that there are horrors rising from below to match any that descend upon the Last City from the End-
blighted wastes."
-- Excerpt from the journals of Admiral Pipschrile
"It had floated in the depths alone and cold for untold life spans. Absorbing smaller sea
creatures through its permeable skin and seizing the larger ones with barbed filaments, it had grown
vast and wise in the ways of the endless depths. Now the waters were growing dark and cold. Food,
though painstakingly nurtured and wisely conserved was growing scarce.
Having learned the songs of the Finnian wanderers it sometimes ate, it knew land and air were
not impenetrable barriers, nor was form an unsolvable limitation.
By driving water from its membranous inner cavities; it could both move and become a smaller,
stronger thing. Hard structures could be grown, to support its weight, as could bundles of long,
muscular tissue that would still allow it to bend and flex. The journey of change was long and harsh
beyond its wildest imaginings, yet, at last, it reached the shallows and breached the surface to stare,
for the first time upon the sky, prepared at last to seek the answer to the End."
-- Excerpt from “The Song of the Prophet” a prose translation from the Finnian
Lesser Nations
At the last counting, thirty-seven Lengths ago, there were two hundred and forty three lesser
nations lying on the dawnward limits of the three empires. The endward war now drains the resources
of the endless city to the extent that these new empires cannot be conquered and absorbed.
Solemnity of Averon:
The people of Averon prefer short, six limbed headless bodies. Their lands are covered in
factories and canals. Such is their obsession with efficiency, that no tree grows untended nor wild in
the whole of their lands. Technology is pursued relentlessly in Averon and indeed they may soon
match Nandria in this but they lack the creativity to question and invent, so they steal what secrets they
can. Should they were ever to capture and disassemble a perpetual motion machine, they would surely
become as unstoppable as the ciphers.
The Eternal Exodus:
In the face of the End, many find fleeing to be the only rational option.
Small streams of refugees are common in the lands Dawnward of the endless city. As they
encounter impassible neighbors and geography, these small streams meet and combine into the ever
growing river of those fleeing the End. The hunger and despair of the refugees caught up in the flow
seems to do little to dissuade others from fleeing. From careful measures, carried out by the Nandrian
Bureau of Statistics, in has been proven that the pilgrims of the Eternal Exodus only manage to slow
the approach of the End, and cannot average a great enough pace to escape it.
Grey Dancers:
In the depths of the dawnward deserts, a dour people are growing in number. Following a creed
that eschews pleasure and beauty, they hate all the other peoples of the Expanse. It has been suggested
by Nandrian morpopologists that they are capable of extreme leaps of emotion that give them a
reputation for insanity. Grey clad bands of dancers prey on their neighbors, distracting the eye with
graceful and fluid motions before striking a deadly blow.
Eslealate Legions:
War is the only acceptable way of life in Esleal. After years of war, a brutal caste system has
emerged, that forces each caste into specific physical forms. Magic and technology are equally
employed as weapons by the legions. Every citizen is a soldier from the youngest child to the eldest
cripple. The legions are directed by the peculiar method of counting the wishes of the citizens and
taking the most popular course of action. Other nations find this lack of true leadership makes the
Eslealate people impossible to bargain with.
The Devourers:
In the Dawnlands, where the air is warm, plants and animals grow to massive sizes unseen in
cooler climes. Tribes of giants rule the Jungles with little more than thrown rocks and clubs. Yet the
magics of their shamans are potent and their warriors all but immune to weapons smaller than a
cannon.
The Carnival:
Mad piping and dancing cover the starving masses of this lawless region where music is the
only currency and anything else they can just kill you for. If there is any rule of law in the Carnival, it
flows from the asylum, a ruinous stone building that overlooks the shantytowns from the top of a high
hill. Wherein, there lurks a presence, insane but feared by all, which issues commands to the
Abominable Jesters of its court, whom few dare defy.
The Institutions
The Armies:
The watch groups that patrol the streets of the endless city are both peace keepers and
recruiters. Criminals, peace breakers, and loiterers are rounded up, chained together, and marched off
to training camps. Since officer ranks are inherited positions, the highest honor a soldier can aspire to is
the rank of petty officer. The life of a common soldier is hard, and few ever live to become petty
officers. A petty officer who serves in the Nandrian army is permitted to retire after ten lengths of
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