THE COMPENDIUM

Choose a Lineage

A lineage is a type of being inhabiting the material plane of Sojourner. There are a diverse collection of lineages, each with their own specialties and traits. Choosing a lineage that compliments your preferred play-style is imperative. You might not expect a Hinfolk to be able to lift massive boulders out of the way of a mountain pass, but you could expect that from an Orcrin. That said, you need not feel limited by a lineage's strengths, this is only the beginning and it is your journey, not your origin, that will shape who your character will truly become.

Choose a Name

In many ways, a character's name can be the most important part of their creation. It can allude to their mannerisms, personal history, familial ties, trauma, ambitions, or even foreshadow their future. It's imperative that players carefully consider their character's name and choose a name that adds depth, belies hidden meanings, or is simply enjoyable to have. Whether you end up playing Avigar Flame-bearer, the paladin-in-training, or Wheatley Scrufftop, the local jokester, it's important to fashion a name that embodies who you want your character to be.

Describe your Appearance

Describe any and all details you deem relevant for yourself such as: height, eye and hair color, or preferred clothing. The more detail you provide, the more vivid an image you paint for your fellow party members. Always remember, however, to only describe your character to your and the other participants' level of comfort.

Descriptions like this help bring a character to life and create a vivid image for the other players and the GM to interact with.

Determine Behavior

Establishing how your character will behave as a baseline will go a long way in helping you play your character in plot-heavy moments. Do they have an accent or unique speaking pattern? Are they calm, cool and collected or gruff, blunt, and driven? These questions will help you play the character you want to play. Traditionally, you can define yourself in one of nine possible ways. These nine behavioral types are derived from the character alignment chart.

This chart is a representation of all the possible characteristics of a player's character that can help them decide what to do in certain situations. This table provides a visual illustration of nine general behavior types which provide a baseline for your character to expand upon. Bear in mind, people are rarely so stubborn and inflexible as to always think and act within a limited range such as depicted in the chart. Even the most static of people will be given to fits of impulse or order that might otherwise run counter to their general nature.

This is simply a quick way of describing how you will generally behave as a baseline and is in no way a limiter to how you may want to behave at any given moment. Characters are rarely static and can change mentally and emotionally throughout a campaign and extreme circumstances often bring out rarely seen sides of the best and worst of us. Be aware, however, certain alignments may prevent you from using relics that do not align with you.

Personality

Your personality is your general demeanor, habits, and social behavior. Are they charming and talkative, or quiet and calculating? Do they crack jokes in tense moments, or remain serious and focused? This trait guides how your character speaks and behaves at the table.

Drive

Your drive is your motivations, the inner goals or desires that push them forward. These might be personal ambitions like seeking revenge, pursuing knowledge, protecting loved ones, or proving their worth. Your drive gives your character direction and purpose.

Bonds

Your bonds are the emotional connections your character has to people, places, or ideals. These could include loyalty to a mentor, a promise made to a sibling, or a sacred duty to protect a village. Bonds tie your character to the world and give the GM tools to create personal stakes in the story.

Flaws

No person is without flaw and your character is no different. They might be impulsive, prideful, fearful, or haunted by guilt. Flaws give the GM something to press on, and they create the moments where a character stops being a sheet and starts being a person.

Strength

Strength is both your ability to lift and carry heavy objects and your capacity to deliver a forceful blow.

Dexterity

Dexterity is a measure of your deftness and reaction speed.

Kha

Kha is a measure of your magickal prowess and the potency of your spell-work.

Constitution

Constitution gauges how well your character can take a hit. It grants a flat bonus to your Hit Points, and can be spent through a Reaction to reduce the damage of an incoming attack.

Agility

Agility can be spent through a Reaction to boost your Evasion against a single incoming attack.

Willpower

Willpower determines your soul's fortitude and resistance to psionic score reducing effects.

Melee Attack

Melee weapons excel in close quarters combat and, with limited exceptions, typically have a range of 5 feet.

Ranged Attack

Shooting arrows, throwing knives, and casting spells all use ranged attacks. The range for these attacks comes from the weapon or spell being used. For thrown weapons, refer to the "Throw an Object" action in the Combat section.

Critical Hit or Miss

If a combatant rolls a 20 on their attack roll die, they score a critical hit. Critical hits automatically land. If a combatant rolls a 1 on their attack die, the attack automatically misses.

Multi-Attack Penalty

If you take the attack action twice on your turn, the second attack roll will have a penalty of -5. This goes for skills that use attack rolls as well.

Maximum Damage

Should your attack roll be greater than the target's current evasion by 10 or more, your attack will deal maximum damage. Instead of rolling the damage die, you deal the maximum possible damage the attack could deal.

Critical Damage

When landing a critical hit, double the total amount of damage the attack is doing.

Non-Lethal Damage

When dealing damage, you may declare that this is "non-lethal damage". When subtracting the damage dealt from the combatant's hit points, should that combatant's hit points be reduced to 0, they are knocked unconscious and gain the "unconscious" condition.

Area-of-Effect

Sometimes, you will cast a spell, use a gadget, or encounter an environmental hazard that does damage in an Area-of-Effect (AoE). Each combatant within the radius is affected by the action and the effects listed in its description. In some cases, a combatant may be elevated in some manner. To determine if that creature is effected, the AoE should be treated as a cylinder with a height equal to its radius unless otherwise stated.

Damage Types

Damage comes in different forms, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. It is important to know and differentiate between them as a combatant may be resistant or vulnerable to a specific type of damage. Below is a list of all damage types present in Sojourner.

• Slashing. Cutting winds or blades leave long gashes in the skin.
• Blunt. Impacts from rock, metal, or wood leave dents in whatever is struck.
• Piercing. Deadly spears of ice or razor sharp arrows digging deep into armor or flesh.
• Thrusting. Primarily delivered by rapiers and spears, impale your foes upon your weapon.
• Fire. Flames and lava scour the field of threats.
• Cold. Chilling frost and creeping mist shatter all that would oppose you.
• Radiant. The power of the sun, in the palm of your hand.
• Abyssal. A rare source of damage that targets psionic score instead of Hit Points.
• Necrotic. Decay in motion to wither away your enemies.
• Pure. This damage is dealt straight to your HP bypassing all defenses.
• Thunder. Audible destruction leaves deafening sounds in its wake.
• Lightning. Potential energy converted to hair-raising kinetic power.
• Force. Impact of a veritable source such as falling an imminent height.
• Acid. A burning fluid that dissolves fabrics and flesh.

Evasion

Your Evasion can be increased by other effects, such as armor. A Reaction can also be spent to add your full Agility to your Evasion.

Evasion = 8 + half Agility + other effects

Cover

Keep your surroundings in mind. Rubble, rocks, trees, buildings, and more can serve as cover in combat. Cover comes in two forms, full and half.

Full Cover

While in full cover, such as a full wall, you cannot be targeted by ranged attacks that are opposite of your cover and creatures lose line-of-sight of you. Melee attacks are made at disadvantage unless the attacker has you pinned against your cover by putting themselves directly opposite the cover with you in the tile in-between.

Half Cover

While in half cover, such as a fallen pillar, ranged attacks against you are made at disadvantage.

When Cover Applies

Should an attacker be at an angle of forty-five degrees or more to the cover another character is hiding behind, the cover invokes disadvantage on the ranged attacks.

Obscurity

Obscurity applies when you are hidden from sight. Hiding in smoke, diving into opaque fluid, or in complete darkness all count as obscurity. Using visual cover to veil your movements can be critical to turning an out-matched scenario to your advantage. Obscurity comes in two forms, complete and partial.

Complete Obscurity

While completely obscured, melee attacks are made at disadvantage and ranged attacks against you automatically fail.

Partial Obscurity

While partially obscured, ranged attacks made against you are made at disadvantage.

When Obscurity Applies

Should a defender be within any amount of visual obscurity, partial obscurity applies. Obscurities like campfire smoke, dense brush, or a creature between you and a target will provide you partial obscurity. Complete obscurity is when you are within complete darkness, successfully sneaking, or contained within an opaque fluid or extremely dense fog.

Constitution Reaction

Reduce the incoming damage of this attack by your Constitution score.

Agility Reaction

Temporarily add your Agility to your Evasion against this incoming attack only.

Willpower Reaction

Reduce the DC of a save you are attempting by your Willpower score.

Hit Points

Hit points are derived from your class. Your initial HP and additional HP from leveling is located on your class page. If your HP falls to zero or less, you will enter the Downed state and start making death checks.

Add your current constitution to your maximum HP by multiplying your constitution by 5 and adding it to your maximum HP.

Temp HP

This is a separate value from your HP total. It is mainly gained from magickal effects, items, or abilities. When taking damage, if you have temp HP, then the damage will be done to that value before your HP. If your temp HP is not greater than the total damage taken, then the remaining damage will be subtracted from your HP.

Dying

When your HP is reduced to zero, you will gain the "unconscious" status. If your HP is less than zero, you will start performing death checks. On three successful checks, you will set your HP to zero but remain unconscious. With each failed save, you will permanently lose ten psionic score. At zero psionic score, you will permanently perish. To perform a death saving throw, roll a d20. On a ten or higher, you save against losing psionic score. No attribute is added to this save. Critical successes or failures do not affect saving throws.

Your willpower will subtract from total psionic score loss potentially reducing the loss to zero.

Injuries

When in a combat encounter, should you ever be downed as a result of losing HP, you must roll a 1d10 and gain an injury. This is a permanent effect that can occur multiple times during an encounter and can only be removed by skilled healers. Below is the roll table to determine what injury you will gain and what effect it has.

Proficiency Bonus

As you progress, you become more skilled and experienced. This is captured by your Proficiency Bonus (PB) — a single track shared between your Class and Profession, rather than two separate ones. PB starts at 2 and increases by 1 every other level.

Attribute Save

When you perform a save against a DC, you will need to roll a 1d20, add the attribute of the DC, then add your Proficiency Bonus to that roll.

Attribute Save = 1d20 + attribute

Skill Difficulty Check

Skill DCs are incurred when a combatant is the target of a maneuver, gadget, or spell. To avoid the effects of some of these skills, the target may need to succeed on an attribute save against a character's Skill DC:

Skill DC = skill offensive attribute + 8

Class Difficulty Check

Class DCs are incurred when a combatant is the target of a class feature. To avoid the effects of some of these abilities, the target may need to succeed on an attribute save against a character's Class DC:

Class DC = Primary Attribute + Proficiency Bonus

Which attribute counts as your Primary Attribute depends on your class archetype — see the Occupations page for the full breakdown.

Profession Difficulty Check

Profession DCs are incurred when a combatant is the target of a profession feature. To avoid the effects of some of these abilities, the target may need to succeed on an attribute save against a character's Profession DC:

Profession DC = Primary Talent Category + Proficiency Bonus

Which talent category counts as your Primary Talent Category depends on your profession archetype — see the Occupations page for the full breakdown.

Impairing

Impairing terrain includes dense foliage, swampland, and vines. When attempting to move through this type of difficult terrain, you must succeed on a Strength save against the Situational DC or lose the rest of your turn and gain the restrained condition.

Unsteady

Unsteady terrain is typically used for slick surfaces such as frozen water, oil spills, and mud. When attempting to move through this type of difficult terrain, your character must succeed on an Agility save against the Situational DC, or lose the rest of your turn and gain the prone status.

Idle Effects

Regardless of the type of difficult terrain, you will have disadvantage on agility checks while under the effects of difficult terrain.

Interfered

When a creature is directly between you and a target creature, or if a hostile creature is within 5 feet of you, your ranged and throwing attacks have disadvantage.

Downed

While downed, you will gain the "Unconscious" condition and roll to receive an injury. The only way to not be downed is to return your HP to zero, or greater.

Elevated

When 10 feet or higher than a target within range, ranged attacks will have advantage and every 20 feet will add 5 feet of range to the weapon until you reach an elevation equal to the initial maximum range of the ranged weapon.

Flanking

When a creature that is a hostile of the target creature is on the opposite side of it, they will give you advantage on melee attack rolls against the target creature.

Prone

You have dropped, fallen, or been knocked onto the ground. While prone, you can only move 5 feet. Melee attacks made against you have advantage but ranged attacks made at 10 feet or farther have disadvantage. This condition can only be removed by taking the Stand movement sub-action.

Initiative

When a combat encounter begins, all combatants roll a d20 and add their Agility to the roll. In the case of a tie, the creature with the highest Agility goes first. If both combatants have the same Agility, they roll against each other until one rolls higher than the other. If a combatant rolls a "20" on their Initiative roll die, they gain a bonus action on their first turn. If a combatant rolls a "1" on their Initiative roll die, they lose an action on their first turn.

The Round

Combat encounters are split into rounds. Each round starts at the top of the turn order with the creature that rolled best on their Initiative roll. The round will then proceed down the turn order until the last combatant has taken their turn. At that point, the round ends and a new round begins at the top of the turn order.

Surprise Round

Sometimes, a group of combatants gets the drop on another group and initiates combat without their knowledge. When this occurs, the ambushing party is granted a "surprise round" or a round where only the ambushing party may act. Certain abilities, such as the Chronafer's "Temporal Awareness" can negate surprise rounds and allow an ambushed combatant to act during an opponent's surprise round.

Turn Progression

Combatants' turns progress in a specific way: Start, Action 1, Action 2, and End.

• Start. At the start of each combatants' turn, they resolve any statuses that take effect "at the beginning of your turn..."
• Action 1. Combatants choose an action to perform. A detailed list of actions can be found in the "Actions" section.
• Action 2. Combatants choose another action to perform. A duplicate action may be chosen.
• End. At the end of a combatant's turn, some effects may need to be resolved. These effects will state "at the end of your turn" or "until the end of your next turn."

Attack

Using either your main-hand or off-hand weapon, attack a target within range. Some skills will incorporate an attack action. Using two attack actions will cause you to have a multi-attack penalty.

Climb Up/Down

When attempting to climb a vertical surface, if the distance is more than 1.5x your height, you must successfully perform an athletics or acrobatics check against a Situational DC and may climb up to 10 feet without tools.

Delay an Action

You may choose to delay an action until certain conditions are met. Should you wish to delay an action, choose an action and tell your GM that you wish to delay until something specific happens. Then, tell them what will trigger your delayed action. For example, you may delay an attack action until a creature enters the attack range of your weapon, causing you to attack before the creature can act.

Go Prone

Drop to the ground, lying on your stomach or back. While in this state, you have the prone condition. While prone, ranged attacks against you have disadvantage and melee attacks have advantage against you.

Grapple

Attempt to grab a creature within melee range. Perform an athletics DC save against the creature's agility. The creature gains the "grappled" condition on a success. This action requires one hand free.

Help

Aid a creature you can touch to remove the "Unconscious" condition from them if they have zero or more HP. That creature will remain prone unless they take the "Stand Up" movement sub action.

Interact with the Environment

Interact with an object within melee range. You must have a free hand to add items to your inventory but do not need a free hand to interact with a mechanism like a chest or door.

Leap

If met with a crag, gap, or pool, it may be necessary for you to leap across it. You may leap 10 feet in a straight line. If you have five or more strength, you may jump 15 feet instead. If you moved at least 10 feet before jumping, add 5 feet to the total jump distance. You may leap over small creatures.

Move

Move a number of tiles up to your maximum move speed to an un-occupied tile. You may break up the movement into segments to allow the usage of another action if one is available.

Perform an Active Talent Check

Choose a talent from the list of talents to perform such as looking for traps in a dungeon or trying to intimidate an enemy combatant.

Perform a Feature

Use a feature from your class, archetype, profession, background, or lineage that has the phrase "as an action" detailed in the description.

Perform a Skill

Perform a skill from your prepared skill list.

Equip Gear Piece

Equip a piece of gear or put away an equipped non-armor item into your inventory and equip an item into an empty size-appropriate slot.

Take Aim

Take a moment to line up a shot giving your next attack with a ranged weapon or item with the "thrown" property double the range listed until the end of your turn.

Throw an Object

Throw an object, or weapon with the "thrown" attribute you can touch. Perform an attack roll with no bonuses, unless otherwise specified, at a target within the range listed on the weapon or within 10 feet if a range is not specified. Thrown objects do not suffer the "threatened" condition's disadvantage.

Slide

When on an incline, you may perform a slide movement action. During the slide action, you will move your max movement plus 5 feet, however, you must succeed on a Agility save against a Situational DC to avoid becoming prone after sliding.

Stand

While you have the prone condition and are not impeded by any force, stand up, removing the prone condition.

Use an Equipped Item

Use an item equipped in an equipment slot or contained within an equipped container such as a belt of potions.

Vault

If an obstacle is at most half your height and between you and your destination, such as a banister or table, you may vault over the object a distance of no more than 15 feet. If you end the action still on the obstacle, you will be considered prone until you either stand or move off the obstacle on your next action.

Multiple Sources

On rare occasions, there may be a case where you have multiple instances of advantage, disadvantage, or both. In these cases, it is easy to think of each instance of advantage as adding a "positive" die and each instance of disadvantage as adding a "negative" die. Remove sets of "positive" and "negative" die until you have only advantage, disadvantage, or neither. Each remaining instance of advantage, or disadvantage, will add a die to the roll. Choose the highest or lowest from the die, or dice, if you have advantage or disadvantage respectively.