The bow stays. The elven eyes stay. Corvus absolutely stays — and for the first time, nothing in the rules can take him away from you.
When Maena acts, you ask: “Which of my tags apply?” Every tag that fits gives +1. Roll two normal six-sided dice. Add. Done.
It happens, clean. Loose the arrow, describe the impact.
It works, but the story twists. The best scenes live here.
Josh makes a move. Trouble, not punishment.
That's the entire vocabulary. No modifiers, no thresholds, no "is 14 passing?"
Short phrases that describe what Maena is. They replace stats, skills, spells — and Corvus's entire stat block. If a tag plausibly helps, it counts.
What Maena is chasing. Quests replace XP — she grows when her story moves: the relic, the cairns, the walls she keeps around herself. Even weaknesses earn growth when they complicate her life.
No hit points. You pick up tiered conditions like winded-2 that subtract from rolls they'd plausibly hinder, then fade with rest. One number. No subtraction chains.
Everything here is something you've already done at the table — and one card holds a story off your own sheet that nobody's told yet.
Session 2 — Rizka jumped Mara outside the bar, and you made the shot of the campaign. Here's that exact moment, both ways.
And what stays:
You said it at the table: every time you've played a character with a companion, they ended up severely injured — until it stopped being fun to bring them. In this system, Corvus isn't a creature with 5 hit points standing in moonbeam range. He's a theme — three tags and a Quest called "This time, Corvus comes home safe." Nothing can grind him off the board, because there's no board-piece to grind. The only thing that can ever threaten him is a story — one you'd get to play, not just watch.
And one more secret, from your own sheet: Wayfarer. Thieves' tools. A worn set of dice. A street kid who learned to need no one — now hunting an ancient relic. Where did that lead come from? Tell us whenever you're ready. There's a card waiting for it.