No classes.
The tower marks you.

01 / AETHER

The power that runs Caelwick.

Aether is crystal that grows where the tower's magic pools, and it comes only from the tower. Most of it is Gray: common, and on its own good for little more than light. Every street lamp in Caelwick burns a chip of plain Gray.

Rarer are the ten typed aethers, in five opposed pairs: Fire and Water, Earth and Air, Light and Shadow, Life and Death, Force and Mind. Cut into a device as runes, a type tells the Gray what to do: Fire runes heat a forge, Force runes turn a mill. In a fight, each type has a character of its own.

02 / THE MARK

Three of ten, one of them first.

The newly woken arrive in Caelwick with no aether at all. A trial inside the tower marks a person with three of the ten types: one primary and two secondary. The mark takes the place of a class. You are not a Warden or an Elementalist; you might be Fire-marked with Earth and Mind behind it, or Life first with Shadow and Force.

Being marked is a choice. Not everyone in Caelwick takes the trial, and the unmarked have their own way into magic.

03 / THREE POOLS

Spend the Fire, and fight on with the rest.

A marked person carries health and one pool for each of their three types. There is no single mana bar, no stamina and no spell points. An ability spends its own type, so when your Fire runs dry your fire abilities are gone and the fight goes on with the other two. Your basic attack is always free.

Spend the Fire now to break the line, or hold it for whatever comes through the door next?

Strength comes from a pool's size, not from what is left in it. Worn enchantments draw on their wearer, taking a share off the top of every pool: room to spend, not strength.

04 / THE SOUL TREE

A map with you at its centre.

Every marked person has one dense map of nodes in their soul. Ten starting points sit on a ring, each type across from its opposite, and you begin at the three your mark gave you. A circle grows around each start as that aether grows, the primary's largest, and you may take any node inside a circle that connects back to its start.

Nodes follow what a type stands for, so they improve everything you do, and the ground between your circles is always worth reaching. The tree changes your abilities; it never hands you new ones. Items sit on its outer edge and open keystones of their own where your circles reach them.

05 / GROWING

Feed what you spend.

Aether grows by being used. Defeating monsters gives experience in the types you spent, and tower monsters carry cores of their own type. A core is clean to those who were there at the kill and dirty to anyone else, bought cores included, so you cannot buy your way up.

Power and rank grow separately. To climb a rung, you need enough of every marked type and then a passage through the tower. Passing it lets your circles grow further, and lets you reshape your tree for free.

06 / SAME RULES FOR EVERYONE

The delver and the baker share a sheet.

Everyone in Caelwick has the same character sheet: six attributes, skills earned by practice, sixteen traits, pastimes and the gods they favour. Abilities ask for a rank in their skill, the same for everyone. The unmarked can still use magic by drawing on a core they carry; the marked spend their own aether and grow their tree on top.

Four defenses answer every attack: Evasion for whether a blow lands, Body for poison and knockdown, Mental for fear and charm, and Soul for anything that would change what you are.