Update: While the Quickstart is being finalized, the complete Basic Rules are now available to read for free on Project Hedron. They contain all the setting, mechanics, and character creation content — everything described below will build on top of them.

The Quickstart is the entry point for new players and Game Masters — a self-contained introduction to the world, the core mechanics, and a complete introductory adventure that can be run in a single session. Version 0.8 is the draft we’re working from right now.

What’s in the Box

For about thirty pages, you get:

  • The Foreword — a short framing piece from Apollo, setting the tone and grounding the world in a single voice.
  • An introduction to the four pillars — Fantasy, Urban, Mythos, and Pantheon — and what each one means at the table.
  • How to Play — a walkthrough of the core mechanics, including Objectives, Actions, Rolls, Advances, and Challenge Levels.
  • Ten Powersets — Darkness, Fire, Healing, Heightened Senses, Illusion, Invisibility, Light, Lightning, Magnetism, and Supernatural Strength. Each comes with three Tier 1 Abilities to choose from.
  • Ten Backgrounds — Student, Artist, Criminal, Mechanic, Hacker, Firefighter, Police Officer, Social Media Influencer, Boxer, and Marksman — each with a feature, ability, attribute bonus, and equipment list.
  • Four (well, five) pregenerated characters — Naomi, Daisy, Alex, Sarah, and Taylor — ready to drop into a session.
  • A complete adventure — Pulling Back the Curtain — a one-shot designed to teach the system as you play.

What Changed Recently

The biggest change in 0.8 was a clarification of the Mantle rules. The Mantle is the aura every Elysian projects — other Immortals can sense it, and it serves as both a community signal and a survival tool. In the previous draft, the rules around actively sensing other Elysians were a little murky. We’ve cleaned that up: the Mantle now operates on a simple “passive awareness vs. active roll” structure, with the Generation of the target and the presence of silver clearly modifying the difficulty.

We also split the Boons and Banes section out into its own appendix. These are minor customization options — feats and flaws, in the language of other systems — and giving them their own home makes character creation easier to navigate.

What’s Still on the Bench

A few things we’re still working through:

  • The Humanity rules could use another pass. Right now they’re functional but feel a touch mechanical. We want the moment a character starts to slip toward a God Complex to feel dramatic at the table, not bureaucratic.
  • More pregens. Five is a good start, but we want a wider spread of Powersets represented so tables can mix and match.
  • Encounter balance in the introductory adventure. The Mythborn brothers (Paxton and Evan) are tricky to tune — they’re meant to be a serious threat without being lethal to a new group.

How to Help

If you playtest the Quickstart, we want to hear from you — what worked, what didn’t, what surprised you, and what you wished was different. The best place to share that is the Discord. Even a sentence or two helps.

Thanks for reading. More soon.