STILLPOINT

Chapter One

The World That Stopped

No one agrees how long ago it happened, because the thing that happened was the end of when. In a single instant — the Stilling — time stopped for almost everything and everyone. Fire froze mid-flicker. Rain hung in the air like a curtain of glass beads. A man stepping off a curb has not yet set his foot down, and may never. The world did not die. It paused.

You are one of the Quick: a rare soul who still moves, still ages (slowly), still matters in a frozen world. You can walk around the falling man. You can take the coin from his pocket. You can shelter inside the curl of a tidal wave that has hung, unbroken, above a drowned city for generations. The Quick are few. The Still are everyone and everything else — not corpses, not statues, but living people and beasts and weathers locked in their final heartbeat, warm to the touch and utterly motionless.

This is a game about being one of the living few in a paused world. You will scavenge the frozen past for food, treasure, and forgotten wonders. You will hunt for Wellsprings — the rare pools where live time still flows — because that golden, moving stuff is the only thing that keeps you Quick. And you will learn the first and last law of the Tableau: keep moving. Stand still too long and the great silence — the Hush — begins to take you too. Your fingers stiffen. Your breath slows. And one cold morning your companions find you exactly where you sat down to rest, warm and unmoving, one more figure in the frozen crowd.

A first lookThe Tableau

The known world is called the Tableau — a single frozen scene. Its geography is the geography of one terrible, beautiful instant: mountains caught mid-avalanche, a sea standing up in a wall, a sky full of motionless birds. The living gather in the few warm pockets where movement is still possible. The largest is Candlemarch, a shanty-city built inside the shell of a half-collapsed cathedral whose falling stones hang forever overhead. The Player's Guide tells you how to be one of the Quick. Your Tickwarden's book holds the rest of the world's secrets — and you should not read it.

◆

The shape of play

A session of STILLPOINT runs in a loop as old as the hobby:

Chapter Two

How to Play

Most of what you do in STILLPOINT needs no dice at all. You say what your character does; the Tickwarden tells you what happens. Dice come out only when an action is both uncertain and risky — when failure would cost you something. When that moment comes, you make the Quickening Roll.

The one ruleThe Quickening Roll

Roll a d20. You succeed if the result is equal to or under your Target Number. In a frozen world, mastery means moving cleanly and economically within the paused instant — so rolling low is good.

Target Numbers for Checks & Saves

For most actions, your Target Number is the relevant Attribute Score (3–18), adjusted by how hard the task is. The Tickwarden picks one difficulty:

Attacks

Striking a foe is the same roll with a combat Target Number. Your Attack Value is reduced by your foe's Guard (how hard they are to hit):

Perfect Beats & the Hush Stirring

• Natural 1 — a Perfect Beat. The best plausible outcome: maximum damage, a flawless pick, a leap that looks effortless. You slipped exactly between the ticks of the world.
• Natural 20 — the Hush Stirs. Automatic failure, and the frozen world notices you. The Tickwarden takes a Stillpoint (★) — a token of cosmic attention they will spend, later, to turn the world against you. A wave begins to fall. A sleeper stirs. The silence leans in.

Advantage & Disadvantage

When the situation strongly helps or hinders you, roll two d20 and keep the lower (advantage) or higher (disadvantage). They cancel one-for-one.

Saves

A save is a Quickening Roll to avoid something — diving from a thawing fire (FINESSE), resisting the creeping cold of the Hush (WILL), shrugging off poison (VIGOR), or seeing through an Echo's illusion (WITS). Same engine, every time.

Chapter Three

The Quick & The Hush

Two numbers rule your life in the Tableau. Quick is the live time you carry — your spark, your speed, your luck. Hush is the cold creeping in to take it. Spend the first wisely; hold the second at bay. When they meet at the wrong end, you become a statue.

Your living sparkQuick

Every Quick carries a small reserve of live time, measured in points of Quick. Your maximum is 4 + your WILL modifier (minimum 2), and it grows as you level. It cannot exceed that maximum — drink a dropglass while full and the live time simply runs out through your fingers (a vial of concentrated time that would overfill you is wasted past your cap). You may spend Quick at any time, even when it isn't your turn, to do remarkable things:

Refilling Quick

The cold that takes youHush

The Hush is the silence of the stopped world pressing in to claim you. It is tracked from 0 to 10. At creation your Hush is 0. It rises through the hazards below, and it is far easier to gain than to shed.

Shedding Hush

Your body's tollGrit

Grit is how much punishment your body can take — your hit points. At 1st level you take the maximum of your Calling's hit die + your VIGOR modifier (so a Marcher begins with 8 + VIGOR; minimum 3). At every level after, roll another hit die and add VIGOR mod (minimum 1 gained). Hurt damage lowers Grit; Chill raises Hush instead. (Even a frail Horologist thus opens with 4 + VIGOR — fragile, but no longer one-tapped by the first blow.)

Chapter Four

Making a Character

Your character is one of the Quick — a survivor with a trade, a scar, and a reason to walk out into the frozen world. Build one in eight steps. Roll honestly; the Tableau is not kind, and a flawed hero is a memorable one.

1. Roll your four Attributes.
2. Choose a Calling (your class).
3. Note your Prowess, Saves, and starting features.
4. Roll Grit.
5. Set Quick and Hush.
6. Buy or roll starting gear.
7. Roll your Quickening — how you came to be Quick.
8. Name yourself and take your first step.

Step OneThe Four Attributes

Roll 3d6 for each Attribute, in this order: VIGOR, FINESSE, WITS, WILL. (For a slightly bolder party, your Tickwarden may let you swap any two scores, or roll 4d6 and drop the lowest.)

Steps Two–FiveCalling, Grit, Quick & Hush

Choose one of the six Callings in Chapter Five. Each lists a hit die, a prime Attribute, Guard rules, starting gear, and the features you begin with. Then:

• Grit = maximum hit die + VIGOR mod at 1st level (minimum 3); roll the die at later levels.
• Quick maximum = 4 + WILL mod (minimum 2). Begin with it full.
• Hush = 0.
• Prowess = +0 at 1st level (it climbs with your level — see Chapter 10).
• Saves = use the relevant Attribute Score; your Calling notes which saves it is especially good at (a +2 bonus to that save's TN).

Step SixStarting Gear

Take your Calling's listed kit, then add what every traveler carries. You may also begin with 2 dropglasses, 3 doses of salt, and 2d6 Still-coin. See Chapter Seven for the markets of Candlemarch.

Step SevenYour Quickening

Why are you Quick when the world is Still? Roll d20 (or choose). This is your secret and your edge — note any small benefit your Tickwarden grants from it.

Step EightNames of the Quick

The Quick take a given name and a march-name — a place, deed, or moment. Roll, mix, or invent.

Chapter Five

The Six Callings

A Calling is what you do in the frozen world, and how you survive it. There are six. Three echo the old roles — the warrior, the thief, the scholar, the keeper — and two belong only to the Tableau: the Echo, who was Still and woke, and the Quickling, born in a place where time runs fast.

Each Calling lists its Prime Attribute, Hit Die, Strong Save, starting gear, and the features it gains. Features marked (L3), (L5), etc. are gained at that level; all others you have at 1st.

Calling IThe Marcher

Marchers are the warriors of the Quick, and they have learned the deepest truth of the Tableau in their muscles: momentum is life. A Marcher fights moving, always moving, turning the frozen battlefield into a dance only they can perform. Where others ration their steps, the Marcher spends them like coin and earns them back in blood.

Starting gear: chain shirt or shield, a martial weapon of choice, a spare blade, a marching cloak, 50 ft. rope, iron rations, 3 dropglasses.

Calling IIThe Picker

The frozen world is the richest treasure-house imaginable: every pocket, every vault, every outstretched hand holds something, and its owner cannot stop you. But taking from the Still is perilous — pull too hard, too greedily, and you risk a Thaw, waking the scene into sudden, lethal motion. The Picker is the artist of the careful theft, the silent step, the disarmed trap.

Starting gear: dark leathers, two daggers, a sling, lockpicks & fine tools, 10 ft. of silk cord, chalk, a velvet-lined "still-bag," 4 dropglasses.

A Pluck is a FINESSE check — like everything else, roll d20 ≤ your Target Number (low is clean). Your TN is your FINESSE score adjusted by the lift's difficulty; read the margin for the result.

TN adjustments to your FINESSE score: loose / unattended +0; held or worn −3; large or load-bearing −6; in a DRAG/RUSH zone −3; take a full careful minute, risking the Hush +3. Greed compounds: every Pluck after the first in the same scene takes a further −2 (cumulative) — the Still grows restless the more you take.

Calling IIIThe Horologist

If time can stop, it can be pushed. Horologists are the scholars and meddlers who study the seams of the Stilling and learn to reach into them. Their magic — called Workings — speeds, slows, freezes, or briefly rewinds small slices of the world. It is delicate, dangerous work; every Working risks a Backlash that bleeds time the wrong way.

Starting gear: a coat of gears & lenses, a focusing chronometer, an ink-stained casebook, a dagger, 5 dropglasses (Horologists burn through them).

Calling IVThe Warden

Wardens carry the flame — sometimes literally. They are the keepers of warmth, movement, and living time, devoted to the simple creed that the world must wake. Through Tendings they heal wounds, drive back the Hush, and shelter their companions in a bubble of stubborn life. Some serve a temple; some serve only the people beside them.

Starting gear: warded robes or scale, a warm everflame lantern, a hafted weapon, a salt-pouch (10 doses), holy reliquary, 3 dropglasses.

Calling V · of the TableauThe Echo

You were Still. For a year, a decade, an age — you stood in the frozen crowd. And then, somehow, you woke: never wholly, never safely. An Echo walks with one foot in each world. You can pass among the Still unnoticed, hear what the frozen remember, and weather cold that would freeze the others solid — but your own Hush is always closer than theirs, a tide forever at your ankles. Yours is the Calling of risk repaid in secrets.

Starting gear: the worn clothes you were frozen in, a memento from your Still years, a curved blade, a fistful of salt, 2 dropglasses (you need fewer — and that frightens people).

Calling VI · of the TableauThe Quickling

Somewhere in the Tableau, time did not stop — it sped up. In those howling fast-thaws, a few children were born and raised in a single blistering blur, living a lifetime of motion in a season. Quicklings cannot bear to be still; stillness is, to them, a kind of suffocation. They are the fastest things the frozen world has ever seen — and the hardest to keep alive past thirty.

Starting gear: fluttering rags & wraps, two light blades or a quick bow, climbing claws, a whistle, an unhealthy number of trinkets, 3 dropglasses.

Chapter Six

Workings & Tendings

Magic in the Tableau is not fire and lightning — it is time, pushed and pulled in the broken places the Stilling left behind. Horologists wield Workings that bend the clock; Wardens offer Tendings that nurse the living spark. Both are paid for in Quick.

For HorologistsWorkings

Each Working has a Tier (1–4) equal to its Quick cost. You may cast a Working as your action; some can be cast "Out of Tick" by spending +1 Quick. After casting, roll the Backlash die (d6); on a 1, time misbehaves nearby. Higher-Tier Workings unlock as you level (Tier ≤ half your level, rounded up).

For WardensTendings

Tendings are acts of devotion to warmth and motion. You may perform a number per rest equal to your level; most cost 1 Quick and an action.

Chapter Seven

Gear & the Frozen Market

In a world full of frozen riches, gold is nearly worthless and time is everything. Three things change hands in Candlemarch: Still-coin (old money, good for bread and beer), Ticks (drops of live time, the only true wealth), and salt (which wards the Hush and never spoils).

Encumbrance — Slots

You can carry 10 + VIGOR mod slots of significant gear. Most items are 1 slot; armor and big weapons are more. Carry over your limit and you are Slowed: you cannot Quicken, and you gain 1 extra Hush per watch. The frozen world punishes the greedy.

Your Guard = armor value + FINESSE modifier, and never falls below 0 (a robed, clumsy Quick is hard to defend, but the world isn't helping attackers). A shield adds its bonus on top.

Adventuring Gear & Specialties

Chapter Eight

Combat & Danger

Fights in STILLPOINT are short, sharp, and dangerous. There are no long slugging matches — a single bad round can end a hero. Run, talk, trick, and ambush before you ever draw a blade. When you must fight, fight moving.

The order of thingsThe Stutter

Initiative in a world of unstable time is unstable too. At the start of each round, each combatant rolls their own d6 (the Stutter die); highest acts first, then the next, and so on. Ties: higher FINESSE goes first, then the Quick before the Still. Re-roll every round — time keeps no steady beat. You may spend 1 Quick to act Out of Tick: interrupt and act now, before whoever was about to go (you still take your own turn on your count, if it hasn't passed). The Quickling's Blur lets them act first regardless; a Regulator never rolls and always acts on Stutter count 4.

A Combat Round

On your turn you may move and take one action (attack, cast a Working, use a Tending, Pluck, help an ally, etc.). To attack, make the Quickening Roll against your Attack Value minus the target's Guard (Chapter Two). On a hit, roll your weapon's damage — + VIGOR mod for melee; ranged and finesse attacks add no attribute mod — and reduce the foe's Grit.

Critical Hits — Perfect Beats & the Hush Stirring

A natural 1 on any attack is a Perfect Beat: it hits, and you roll one extra damage die (e.g., a longsword deals 2d8 + VIGOR). It is a sharp spike, not an instant kill. A natural 20 always misses and the Hush Stirs — the GM banks 1★. Monsters use the same rule for their attacks (a monster's natural 1 adds an extra damage die), except a monster's natural 20 is simply a miss and banks the GM nothing — only the Quick draw the world's attention.

Damage: Hurt & Chill

Common Conditions

Chapter Nine

Exploration & Tempo

The heart of STILLPOINT is the journey through frozen places. Every region and every room has a Tempo — the speed at which time runs there — and reading it correctly is the difference between a clean haul and a lethal mistake.

The speed of timeReading the Tempo

The Tumult — roll d6 at the start of each round in a TUMULT zone

The marchCrossing the Tableau

Travel is measured in watches (four-hour blocks; six to a day). Each watch the party: moves one region, or explores one site; one character may take a watch action (forage, scout, ward the camp, tend the wounded). The Tickwarden checks for encounters and for the Hush. Keep moving and keep warm.

Resting

Light, Sound & the Still

The Still cannot see you — but some things half-woken can, and they hunt by movement and sound. Loud actions, bright everflames, and clumsy Plucks all risk drawing the Lurching, the Echo-wraiths, and worse. Quiet movement is the Quick's truest armor.

Chapter Ten

Advancement

You grow stronger not by killing, but by winning back time. Experience is measured in Grains — grains of the great hourglass — earned chiefly by recovering live time and wonders from the frozen world and banking them at a Wellspring or the Quickhold.

How you earn GrainsWinning Back Time

Old-school note: you gain far more from recovered time and clever survival than from combat. The bravest thing in the Tableau is to come home.

The ten levelsThe Ladder of the Quick

*From 7th level on, you stop rolling hit dice and simply add +2 Grit per level. The Prowess, Quick Max, and Save Bonus columns show your TOTAL at that level, not an amount added each level — e.g., a 6th-level character has Prowess +3 and Quick max = 4 + WILL + 3, full stop. Save Bonus adds to the TN of your saves. Each level also grants the next feature of your Calling (Chapter Five) and one more known Working/Tending where relevant.

ReferenceGlossary & Quick Reference

Glossary

◆

Keep moving, Strider. The world is patient, and the world is cold, and the world has all the time that is left. — the last line of every Candlemarch send-off