Glossary

30 terms across system, setting, and play.

The glossary mirrors docs/system_design.md § Terminology. System terms cover the dice mechanic, domains, tiers, pools, and stress; setting terms cover the Shattered Lands, the Paths, Solace, and the Guide; play terms are standard TTRPG vocabulary calibrated for this system.

Solace house style sometimes uses bureaucratic alternatives in published rulebook text — Aptitude for Domain, Field Surveyor for Path-walker, Pocket for World, Field Director for GM. The plain-language terms above are what people actually call them in private.

§ System Terms

5d6-keep-N: The dice mechanic. Players roll five six-sided dice and sum a number of them based on their tier in the relevant domain (Trained = keep highest 3; Proficient = keep highest 4; etc.).
Background: A character archetype that shapes a starting character's flavor, +1/−1 tier modifier, signature item, hook, and mechanical perk. Eleven core Backgrounds.
Base Tier: The character's permanent, written-on-the-sheet tier in a domain. Set at character creation, modified by Background, advanced through play. Stable.
Broken: A pool full of Stress. The character is Impaired in that domain. Still able to act, but at brutal disadvantage. Pushing past Broken triggers a serious narrative consequence.
Crit: Shorthand for Critical Success. In combat, doubles damage.
Domain: One of six broad areas of competence — Body, Mind, Voice, Hand, Heart, Spirit. Domains replace skill lists.
Effective Tier: The tier the character is currently operating at, including all situational modifiers (Stress, world effects, equipment, ally support). Volatile. This is the tier used for the dice roll. Capped at ±2 from Base.
Opposed Roll: Both sides roll; higher result wins; defender wins ties.
Outcome Bands: The five possible results of a roll — Critical Success (beat T by 7+), Success (meet T to T+6), Mixed (miss by 1–4), Failure (miss by 5–9), Catastrophic Failure (miss by 10+).
Pool: A character's resource reserve in Body, Mind, or Spirit. Sized by Base Tier (1/2/4/6/8). Holds Stress.
Push: Spending 1 Stress to reroll a failed roll. Universal mechanic across all three pools.
Stress: The currency of pressure. Accumulates in Pools from external pressure (damage, fear, cosmic strain) or from voluntary spending (push). Tracked as filled bubbles.
T-number: A target number to beat. Written T11 (Standard), T14 (Hard), etc. Difficulty bands are T8 / T11 / T14 / T17 / T20+.
Tier: A character's level of competence in a domain. Five tiers — Impaired, Untrained, Trained, Proficient, Expert. Determines how dice are kept.

§ Setting Terms

Anomaly: Both the Background classification for an uncategorizable Surveyor, and the cosmic term for a thing that breaks pattern (a Path that shouldn't exist, a world that doesn't appear on maps). The dual meaning is intentional.
Path: A doorway between worlds. Takes whatever physical form fits the world it appears in.
Path-walker: Anyone who travels between worlds via Paths. Company-speak — Field Surveyor / Cartographic Associate.
Solace Applied Sciences: The ambiguous corporate employer of most Path-walking parties. Polished, professional, vaguely too cheerful. Tagline — Every world. One company. Often referred to in conversation as just "Solace." Something is wrong with it.
The Core: The cluster of well-connected, modern worlds where most Path-walkers come from and where Solace is based.
The Frontier: Everything beyond the Core. Less regulated, less safe, less mapped. Subdivided into Settled Frontier, Wild Frontier, and the Unmapped.
The Guide: The reference object every Path-walking team carries. Functions as documentation, navigation tool (Log Pose), and team-authored canon.
The Shattered Lands: The setting. A multiverse of worlds connected by Paths.
Things to Discover: Questions the rulebook intentionally does not answer. Each table builds its own truth.
World: A self-contained reality. Sizes vary from a single waiting room to multi-planet galaxies. Internally consistent; externally arbitrary. Company-speak sometimes uses "pocket" instead.

§ Play Terms

GM: Game Master. The person running the game. Working candidate term for our system — Field Director.
NPC: Non-Player Character. Anyone in the fiction not controlled by a player.
PC: Player Character. A character controlled by a player.
Scene: A unit of play with a defined location, participants, and stakes. The GM signals when scenes begin and end. Most rest and recovery rules operate on a per-scene basis.
Session: A single sitting of play, typically one evening. Many mechanical effects (Background perks, the Anomalous Comfort Object's recovery, etc.) reset per session.
World arc: One or more sessions spent in a single world, typically bounded by the Guide locking on to the next Path.