Conspicuous Secret Doors

Recently, I’ve been thinking about tutorials. The post/OSR milieu places great emphasis on player skill, but has not been good at creating skilled players except by a potent combination of attrition and player stubbornness. My conclusion: we need more tutorial dungeons. Lair of the Lamb and Tomb of the Serpent Kings are excellent, but Lair presumes a level-0 funnel and everyone in the scene has read Tomb. Skerples' 2017 point remains relevant eight years later: "It's like all the adventures we have are Bach concertos. People keep writing amazing works of staggering genius, but someone needs to write a book on how to play the piano."

This list of conspicuous secret doors is a teaching tool. Put these in the dungeon to tell players two things:

1. Secret doors exist.
2. Secret doors can be identified and opened through environmental interaction.

If you want to conceal them further, place extra clutter in the room. Searching a room for 10 minutes identifies presence of secret doors but expends resources and risks random encounter.

• Wooden doors can be destroyed with 10 minutes of hard labor, or burned.
• Stone doors can be destroyed with 10 minutes of hard labor, but require a pickaxe.
• Metal mechanisms can be destroyed with a single attack or manipulated by characters who possess some facility with devices.

Conspicuous Secret Doors

Conspicuous components are bolded.

1. Tapestry/rug conceals door/trapdoor.
2. Bookshelf slides away when false book “The Secret Way” pulled.
3. Brick sticks out of the wall. Pushing it back in opens a hidden door.
4. Wind blows through room from an illusionary wall.
5. Furniture piled against wall, concealing regular door.
6. Discolored plaster on wall seals up former doorway.
7. Grimy statue with polished bits often moved to open a secret door behind it.
8. Obvious lever opens a secret door elsewhere. Gears, ropes, and pulleys connect the two through buried channel in floor; rat-sized creatures can traverse it with ease.
9. Lighting an unlit torch causes nearby wall to swing open. 
10. Keyhole on wall, but door is well concealed and key is kept elsewhere.
11. Secret door left open by inhabitants who recently passed through.
12. Ivy has grown over the walls and doors, concealing any difference between the two.
13. A fireplace burns, but the room doesn’t fill with smoke. Where does the chimney go?
14. Water leaks into the room from beneath a secret door.
15. Brick pattern changes to allow a secret door to hinge.
16. Carved relief with socketed gems is a secret door. Pushing gems opens door, removing gems triggers trap.
17. Raised pressure plate opens secret door, but only while plate is held down.
18. Obvious door opens to brick wall. That wall is a secret door.
19. Pool of water conceals underwater entrance to another room.
20. Dark rafters conceal door high up in room.

Facility: Esoteric Assets

 Esoteric Asset

A useful inmate, designated Eτ.

In order for Inhuman Resources to approve deployment of a Eτ Special Project, the Asset must be willing and able to:

1. Communicate productively with Facility staff.
2. Assist with everyday Facility operations.
3. Safely manage their Effects under stress conditions.

Mundane Facility employees have the right to report Eτ in violation of these tenets to either Human or Inhuman Resources. — A.O.

Qualifications
Normal -1 or less.

Saves
Weapons -2, Trauma -2, Explosions -2, Contaminants -2, Anomalies -2

Expertise
Effects (see Anomalous Abilities).

Uniform
L0 subdermal tag, white jumpsuit.

Like Attracts Like
You have 2 additional Artefact slots.

Anomalous Abilities
The Research Department refers to artefacts’ anomalous properties as Effects. Yours happen to be useful to the Facility — describe how. GM has final say. 

No roll is necessary to use minor and/or passive Effects (a pyrokinetic lighting candles, a telepath's mind-speech, bigfoot's blurriness, ooze moving through tight spaces, a cat's night vision, etc).

Whenever you make a stat roll, save, or attack to which your Effects are relevant, you may apply your Effects as an Expertise. When you Salvage an Effect roll, the result of the Salvage die (before modifiers) also triggers the corresponding entry on the Anomalous Activity table.

Inhuman Resources has ruled that anomalous auras with an effective radius of greater than 10 metres render an individual unsuitable for τ reclassification. — A.O.

In addition, choose at least two of the following benefits. You may choose the same one twice.

1. Attacks you Effect inflict +1 damage on a hit and an additional 1d6 damage on a crit.
2. +1 to a stat of your choice.
3. +2 wound boxes for a stat of your choice.
4. +3 to a save of your choice.
5. Gain an additional Expertise.
6. Start with a Bound companion entity. You cannot Unbind it.
7. Start with a Bound Artefact. You cannot Unbind it.
8. Once per session, you may reroll any die.
9. Describe an anomalous ability of a cryptid you know about. You have that ability.
10. Choose a GLOG class and gain its Template A benefits. This counts as both choices.

Anomalous Activity (1d20)

1. Suffer 2 Wounds to your Normal.
2. Suffer 2 Wounds to your Admin.
3. Suffer 2 Wounds to your Insight.
4. Suffer 2 Wounds to your Science.
5. Suffer 2 Wounds to your Physique.
6. Suffer 1 Wound to your Normal.
7. Suffer 1 Wound to your Admin.
8. Suffer 1 Wound to your Insight.
9. Suffer 1 Wound to your Science.
10. Suffer 1 Wound to your Physique.
11. For the rest of the session, take an additional -2 to saves.
12. For the rest of the session, take -2 to Effect rolls.
13. If this roll would succeed, it fails instead. If this roll would fail, it succeeds instead.
14. Everyone in the Sector learns your current location. For the rest of the session, your internal thoughts are externally audible and/or legible.
15. For the rest of the session, electronics around you short-circuit (Anomalies save prevents; immunizes).
16. For the rest of the session, the temperature around you drops 20 degrees Celsius.
17. For the rest of the session, you and nearby small objects hover.
18. For the rest of the session, immediately apply your Effects to everything within 10m, including yourself. Any Effects with a duration last 1 Shift and may be cleared early with a Break.
19. For the rest of the session, subjects of your Effects other than you must make an Anomalies save or suffer 1 Normal damage.
20. Double the impact of this roll. Its success manifests entirely through anomalous means.

Esoteric Assets also include:

1. Individuals who, through training or accident, have been permanently bound to artefacts.
2. Inmates who broke out in the Incident, according to Inhuman Resources’ triage protocols.
3. Beings that are too large, small, dispersed, etc. to make effective player characters unless the GM is prepared to include them.

— A.O. 

 

Facility: Combat, Encumbrance, and You

Combat

Despite the best efforts of Public Relations, Human Resources, and Legal, everyday operations in the Facility require a significant amount of violence. The Incident has only exacerbated this troubling tendency.

Initiative

To determine order of combat, the player with the highest unimpaired Insight makes an Insight roll. Other players with unimpaired Insight may Help. If the resulting roll succeeds, the player characters go first. If not, the enemies go first. On a Partial Success, players elect a single character to go before the enemies. Play then alternates between sides until one side is incapacitated, surrenders, or flees.

Actions

Characters can make one attack and take one other action of their choice on their turn during combat. Because players take their turn simultaneously, they may take these actions in any order.

Attacking

When a PC attacks, they describe how and roll with the appropriate stat (usually Physique, but Science and Insight are relevant for artefacts and anomalous abilities, and Normal or Admin are appropriate for social attacks). Their target number is 10 plus the enemy’s appropriate save and any other modifiers.

On a Success, the player may either inflict their weapon’s Damage or roll to Critical Hit. On a Failure, the player may accept that their attack missed or roll to Salvage.

Critical Hit Rolls
Make the same attack roll again. This roll counts as a type of Salvage for relevant rules, including Impairment. On a Success, the attack deals its maximum base damage and you may also either inflict an additional 1d6 damage or make a called shot or maneuver. On a Failure, the attack becomes a Partial Success.

Partial Success
Inflict weapon’s Damage to the target, but also suffer Damage from enemies. The PC cannot save vs. this damage, but may ablate it with any relevant PPE.

Salvaged Hit Rolls
Make the same attack roll again. On a Success, the attack becomes a Partial Success (see above). On a Failure, the attack misses and the PC suffers an additional difficulty such as damage, losing their weapon, running out of ammunition, falling prone, etc.

Example Weapons

Unarmed attack: 0 damage, but may still crit.
Improvised melee: 1 damage
Light melee: 2 damage
Heavy melee: 3 damage, requires two hands or Physique of at least +2
Thrown weapon: 1 damage
Pistol: 3 damage
Submachine gun: 1d4 damage, +2d4 on crit
Shotgun: 1d4+2 damage
Automatic rifle: 1d6 damage, +2d6 on crit
Fragmentation grenade: 3 damage, 10’ radius blast, consumable

Whenever you roll a 1 on an attack with a gun with any die, that gun runs out of ammunition and must be reloaded.

If a weapon specifies critical dice, it rolls those dice instead of the normal 1d6 for a critical hit.

Due to Procurement’s difficulties with finding suppliers who will sell weapons in bulk to an anonymous, secretive organization, ammunition is not interchangeable between guns unless you have managed to personally source or modify pieces that take the appropriate cartridge.

Saves & Wounds

Weapons and hazards can wound a wide variety of stats regardless of the save that they target. Wound type may not become apparent until save is failed, but players always have the chance to ablate before suffering the wound.

Physical injuries, especially to the musculoskeletal, circulatory, or respiratory systems, tend to wound Physique. Nervous system injuries that affect cognitive function and/or logical reasoning tend to wound Science. Injuries to the senses and other perceptive faculties tend to wound Insight. Social injuries, humiliation, collapses of leadership, and failures of morale tend to wound Admin. Fear, whether accompanied by other types of injury or not, tends to wound Normal. Examples (non-exhaustive) follow. 

Weapons

• Gunshot ➜ Physique
• Impact-induced concussion ➜ Science
• Deafened by near-miss ➜ Insight
• Squad pinned down ➜ Admin
• Hit by unfamiliar weapon ➜ Normal

Trauma

• Crushed by vehicle, blast door, falling object ➜ Physique
• Framework with which one understands the world undermined ➜ Science
• Distressing hallucinations ➜ Insight
• Sending comrade to die ➜ Admin
• Hunted in the dark ➜ Normal

Explosive

• Shrapnel ➜ Physique
• Lightning ➜ Science
• Flashbang ➜ Insight
• Separated from party ➜ Admin
• Fire ➜ Normal

Contaminants

• Respiratory hazard ➜ Physique
• Mind-affecting pathogen ➜ Science
• Corpse stench ➜ Insight
• Food poisoning ➜ Admin
• Bugs all over your skin ➜ Normal

Anomalies

• Bitten by absence of shark ➜ Physique
• Memory-affecting phenomena ➜ Science
• Sensory manipulation ➜ Insight
• Social phenomena ➜ Admin
• Pretty much anything in the Facility, to be honest ➜ Normal

Encumbrance

Characters have Slots in their bags and Pockets on their clothes. By default, each character starts with 2 Pockets on their clothes, and has a backpack that provides 6 Slots.

Pockets are quick inventory slots that fit small items (you know, pocket-sized ones). Characters can store and retrieve items from pockets at any time, and are assumed to have done so if they take an action that needs one.

In order to retrieve an item from a slot, a character must dig around in their bag for a minute. If they want to do so quickly (i.e. as an action in combat), this takes a Normal roll. If they try and fail to Salvage the attempt, their bag falls open and the contents spill out.

Some items like rifles, bankers’ boxes, and briefcases are Bulky. These are too unwieldy to store in a single inventory slot, and certainly not in pockets. They must be carried in a character’s hands unless a better storage solution like a sling or a handcart has been found.

Wearing Storage Items nonsensically (ask players to demonstrate!) impairs the character’s Physique.

Sample Storage Items

• Coveralls: 6 pockets. Replaces normal clothing.
• Messenger Bag: 2 slots, 1 pocket.
• Sling: Carries a Bulky item. Sheathes and scabbards for melee weapons also count as Slings.
• Fanny Pack: 2 pockets.
• Briefcase: 2 slots, Bulky.
• Toolbox: 3 slots, Bulky.

Maintenance Technician

Qualifications
+1 Science or +1 Normal

Saves
Weapons +0, Trauma +0, Explosions +2, Contaminants +2, Anomalies +0

Expertise
Choose a trade (Science)

Uniform
L1 Clearance badge, orange coveralls, work boots, work gloves, toolbox, 3 slots of Spare Parts.

Kitbash
You may Craft Device as a Research Assistant. The device cannot include artefacts, but only takes a Break to construct.

Maintenance Techniques
To use a Maintenance Technique, roll Xd6, where X is less than or equal to the number of slots in your inventory that are filled with Spare Parts. Expend one slot of Spare Parts for each 4+ you roll, or if X was greater than your Clearance level, expend one slot of Spare Parts for each die rolled. The resulting sum of all dice is referred to as [sum], as is GLOG tradition.

Maintenance Technique — Work Order
When you roll to repair or interact with Facility systems, you may use this Maintenance Technique to add [sum] to your roll.

Maintenance Technique — Dismantle
During a Break (1 hour), convert a piece of large equipment like a centrifuge, mainframe server, or boiler into [sum] Spare Parts. It cannot be repaired or reassembled.

Maintenance Technique — Barricade
Create a sturdy barrier out of Spare Parts and office debris. This takes 10 minutes alone, or 1 round of concerted activity by the whole party. The resulting barrier can suffer [sum]*10 wounds before falling apart. Its maximum height is 10’, and its maximum length is [sum]*10’. It can only take complex shapes like curves or domes if you spend at least 10 minutes erecting it. Barriers constructed this way collapse after an hour, or after 10 minutes if built in 1 round.

Maintenance Techniques — Conduits
The following Maintenance Techniques refer to the conduits that network the Facility’s walls, ceilings, and floors. The Maintenance Technician can always identify the type, presence, and direction of conduits, both exposed and hidden from view. Conduits for electricity, air, gas, water, sewage, and data are ubiquitous. Sectors with unique architecture may also contain rarer conduits such as boiling steam, sulfuric acid, pneumatic tubes, and liquid nitrogen.

Maintenance Technique — Tap
Construct a new access point to a conduit. This access point controls that conduit’s flow for [sum] in either direction. You may activate, deactivate, or alter the flow at your leisure.

Maintenance Technique — Reroute
Extend a conduit across [dice] rooms. This takes 1 hour per room and consumes 1 slot of Spare Parts per die regardless of what was rolled.

Maintenance Technique — Blast
Open a conduit and direct a discharge of electricity, flammable gas, pressurized water, or something stranger into your foes. This discharge inflicts [sum] wounds divided equally between any number of targets in front of you (save vs. Explosives halves damage). You may also break the conduit to inflict one of the following effects based on its type. A broken conduit cannot be discharged again until repaired.

• Electricity: All targets are stunned and can’t attack on their next turn. Localized blackout plunges room into darkness until repaired.
• Gas: All targets are set on fire until they put themselves out. Room fills with flammable gas until vented.
• Water or Sewage: Targets all fall prone and are knocked back 5’ per wound inflicted. Room floods 1’ per round until drained.
• Air: As water or sewage, but instead of flooding, room becomes foggy and loses temperature control until HVAC repaired.

I’m not sure how a data conduit would hurt someone. I do know that I don’t want to be nearby when someone figures it out. — A.O.

Facility: Sector Layout

This die-drop method generates a vertical map of Facility sectors. Grab a handful of dice and throw them on a sheet of paper. Note down the die sizes and face values, then draw connections between nearby dice. Prefer vertical elevators, horizontal halls, and slight inclines.

Sectors

1. Offices
2. Laboratories
3. π Artefact Storage
4. Warehousing
5. Security
6. ρ Object Containment
7. ρ Entity Containment
8. Maintenance
9. Residence
10. Hospital
11. Transport Hub
12. Reactors
13. Archives
14. Large-Scale Containment
15. Resource Processing
16. Executive Branch
17. Abandoned Sector
18. Public Front
19. Bunker
20. Lρ Artefact

If a sector you want (Reactors, Containment, Laboratories) is missing, add it in or change a sector you’re less enthusiastic about.

Determine the type of connection between sectors by the sizes of dice at its endpoints. When a vertical line can be extended such that more sectors can connect to it horizontally, do so — this becomes a Sector Elevator.

Architecture says it’s actually riskier in the long term to build access stairways alongside Sector Elevators. An unappreciated benefit of clandestine operations: we get to write our own fire codes. — A.O.

Two-Way Connections

d20-d20: Tramway, station locked.
d20-d12: Tramway, path obstructed.
d20-d10: Tramway, tram broken.
d20-d8: Tramway
d20-d6: Cargo elevator
d20-d4: Tramway, thru cavern
d12-d12: Hall, locked
d12-d10: Hall, cargo sized
d12-d8: Maintenance stairwell
d12-d6: Personnel elevator
d12-d4: Cavern, bridge
d10-d10: Roadway, locked
d10-d8: Roadway
d10-d6: Cargo elevator
d10-d4: Roadway, thru cavern
d8-d8: Maintenance access, locked
d8-d6: Maintenance elevator
d8-d4: Maintenance access, thru cavern
d6-d6: Elevator, locked
d6-d4: Elevator, thru cavern
d4-d4: Cavern, locked

Locked connections have a Security Checkpoint that requires level (2d3) clearance level to unlock. Checkpoints deeper into the facility or protecting higher-value sectors tend to have higher requisite clearance levels (3d3).

Sector Elevators have Security Checkpoints at every floor and will not stop at locked floors unless appropriate clearance is presented.

Trams can be called and taken along any clear tramway path, but will not stop at locked stations and will crash into broken trams or other obstructions unless the emergency stop is pulled.

Anomalous Sector Connections

Some connections won’t make sense; a tall vertical roadway, a tramway short enough to walk. Convert them to Anomalous Sector Connections.

1. Transporter. High power requirements, continuity of consciousness not guaranteed.
2. Portal highway. Requires transit through hazardous gatespace; denizens may be displeased by increased traffic.
3. Tramway, choked with anomalous growth and/or entities.
4. This connection is a stub, you can help by expanding it.
5. Capsule elevator swallowed and regurgitated by peristaltic tube. Grows new fleshy connections when left to its own devices; regularly pruned by heavily-armed Maintenance task force.
6. Gravity lift. Requires regular cleaning due to nausea and coffee spills.
7. Backroom labyrinth. Exit doors are clearly marked, though paths through the junction never repeat. Traversal always takes 1d6 hours. Complimentary cucumber and lemon water has been cleared for staff consumption.
8. Submarine tram. Aquifer repurposed as containment for anomalous ecosystem including predatory megafauna.
9. Antimemetic effect erases memory of transit through connection. Each traveler must make an Anomalies save or suffer an Insight wound and emerge with d3-2 random items.
10. Structural collapse has created a deep ravine. Cave walls open into multiple sectors.
11. Employees are permitted to establish temporary sector connection through Pπ ritual. Instructions and materials for ritual are stored separately.
12. One-way zipline.

Sector-Wide Hazards

Roll at least one per sector. Players can fix these; the GM can introduce new ones. Additional hazards will appear at smaller scales within the sector, but these are relevant in every room and hallway.

1. Radiation leak.
2. Power outage. Emergency lights offline.
3. Gas leak. 2-in-6 chance it’s flammable, 4-in-6 chance it’s toxic.
4. Power surge. Electrifies conductive surfaces and water supplies, discharges at random.
5. Flooded (1-3. water, 4. sewage, 5. acid, 6. anomalous material)
6. Dense fog. No visibility beyond current room, minimal visibility within it.
7. 40 degrees C. Save vs. heatstroke each Shift without protective gear.
8. -40 degrees C. Save vs. frostbite each Shift without protective gear.
9. Structurally unstable. Collapsed passages are common, sudden moves may cause further damage.
10. Awful smell or noise; impairs Insight without proper PPE.
11. Hostile faction, demanding tribute.
12. Hostile faction, killing on sight.
13. Hostile factions, ongoing firefight.
14. Oπ spore contamination, pending E reclassification.
15. Oρ containment failure, entire sector within effect radius.
16. Ongoing manifestation of PΔ event.
17. Colonized by Lρ anomalous ecosystem.
18. Eρ entity/ies, territorial claim.
19. Eλ entity, Κ designation pending.
20. None. Right?

Facility: Clearance, Redaction, and You

Clearance

Every employee, from the lowest test subjects and janitors to the most dangerous Kappa operatives and Esoteric Assets, are issued identification with a Clearance Level (or just Level) between 0 and 9.

Oversight does not have or need Clearance Level 10. — A.O.

Admin is often forced to issue day passes to Rival Agency liaisons or to Security and Maintenance teams resolving specific issues. These badges are large and clearly marked with a red expiry time stamp 24 hours from issuance.

Many doors, vaults, cabinets, and machines require a passcode that (1d6):

1. Changes daily.
2. Is incredibly difficult to type (roll Admin to input correctly).
3. Pokes fun at a specific employee.
4. Is written somewhere nearby.
5. Hasn’t changed from factory settings.
6. You already know.

L5+ IDs are linked to biometrics in the Facility database. L5+ locks require a number of the following biometric samples equal to their level minus 4.

1. Speech sample
2. Palm print
3. Facial scan
4. Retinal scan
5. DNA sample (saliva)
6. DNA sample (blood)

If you suspect that your biometrics have been compromised due to artefact exposure, please report to Inhuman Resources for a full scan and/or autopsy. — A.O.

L0 — A dog tag, blinking subdermal chip, or visitor sticker.
L1 —  An employee ID and a keyfob, typically worn together on a lanyard. Includes location tracker, can be loaded with vending machine bucks.
L2 — An ID badge, typically carried in a wallet. Easily mistaken for local government agency.
L3 — An employee ID issued to team leaders. Still tracked, but has unlimited vending machine bucks.
    
A privilege, not a right. — A.O.

L4 — A nonreactive metal ID card. Etched to maximize legibility in case of severe mangling. Tracked for your safety.
L5 — Biometric ID card issued to Division Chiefs. Isn’t tracked.
L6 — Biometric ID card. Role and department are redacted.

Admin just doesn’t want to admit that some secretaries need to have the same clearance level as moonshot researchers and Kappa team grunts. — A.O.

L7 — Biometric ID card issued to Departmental Directors. Awarded alongside a small congratulatory plaque.

Bugged by Internal Affairs, naturally. — A.O.

L8 — Matte black ID card. Probably legible under UV or something.

If someone flashes this at you, run. They need the exercise. — A.O.

L9 — Biometric ID card issued to the Facility Director.

Redaction

Lots of media in the anomalous containment space leans on redaction as a tool to build horror. This doesn’t work in the tabletop RPG space, or at least, it has to work differently.

If you redact out any amount of information, players will want to know what’s behind it. In a story, video game, or an SCP-style database entry, the best a reader can do is infer the scariest thing they can think of given the space constraints established by the redaction. In tabletop games outside of the storygame milieu, a GM needs better answers than “you tell me”.

Most tabletop RPGs already presume an amount of redaction due to the vast information asymmetry between players and the GM. Therefore, redaction is useful as a visual signifier of information that can be discovered with further effort. The only difference between a monster’s stat block and an anomaly’s case file is the amount visible to the players; the latter is far more transparent.

If the party knows about an object’s perilous aura, but its effective range is redacted, they can take actions to identify that range and act accordingly. If a player approaches an entity without yet having untangled a large redaction in its file, they will be more understanding when it paralyzes them, emits a roomful poison gas, or fades from their memories. Partial documents become valuable loot. Black boxes become a quest log. A feel-bad moment becomes a successful scouting mission.

At the table, use redaction as a puzzle that generates gameplay. Hand your players your prep, liberally marked up. Let them play smart, metagame, and sneak peeks behind the screen. If any place is appropriate to gain extradimensional insights through creative malfeasance, it’s the Facility.

For examples of productive use of redaction, highlight this page.

Janitor

Qualifications
None.

Saves
Weapons +0, Trauma +0, Explosions +0, Contaminants +2, Anomalies +2

Expertise
Cleaning (Normal), Sneak (Physique)

Uniform
L1 ID, blue coveralls, janitor’s cart (buckets, mundane cleaning supplies, push-broom, mop, vacuum, toiletry refills).

Sanitize
With appropriate cleaning agents and ten minutes of vigorous scrubbing, you may roll Normal to remove all hazardous materials from a room. If you fail, you may Salvage the attempt at the risk of becoming exposed to one of those hazards. Whether you succeed or fail on the Salvage attempt, you must save vs. a hazard you cleaned.

You may spend a Break (1 hour) cleaning to automatically succeed at cleaning 1d6 rooms.

This cleaning process produces a bucket of hazardous sludge that inflicts 1d3 wounds to everyone in the splash zone and may cause additional effects based on the originating hazards. You will also have to clean the resulting mess up again.

Nondescript
You are always the lowest priority target for hostile action. 

Facility: Jobs

Characters in the Facility start with one of several jobs. Most jobs require specific Qualifications. All jobs provide baseline Save bonuses, starting Uniform (including a badge with a Clearance level), Expertises, and abilities.

Facility jobs do not have standard advancement procedures. Instead, advancement occurs through acquisition of new artefacts, equipment, clearance levels, expertise, and titles. Some titles have Qualification prerequisites; some directly replace and upgrade starting jobs.

A “high-level” Facility character wears many hats. A character that started as a lowly Research Assistant may end up as a Team Lead, Entity Handler, Certified Professional Accountant, Third-Rank Adept of the Night, and Research Director.

Under special circumstances such as continuity of administration protocols or blatant nepotism, unqualified candidates may receive high-level positions. — A.O.

Field Agent

Delta Team operatives, External Affairs liaisons, and Public Relations triage teams all wear the traditional black suit and silver tie clip. In the aftermath of the Incident, Agents must adapt their training for a far more dangerous Field: the Facility.

Qualifications
+1 Physique, +1 Insight

Saves
Weapons +2, Trauma +2, Explosions +2, Contaminants +0, Anomalies +0

Expertise
Firearms (Phys), Running (Phys)

Uniform
Agent badge (Clearance 2), field agent suit, 9mm pistol, earpiece radio, tinted glasses (PPE, Rating 1 — Anomalies).

Research Assistant

The Facility runs on an endless succession of bright-eyed recent graduates who want to leave their mark on the world. That mark usually turns out red and sticky.

Qualifications
+2 Science

Saves
Weapons +0, Trauma +0, Explosions +1, Contaminants +2, Anomalies +2

Expertise
Choose one (Science)

Uniform
ID card (Clearance 1), lab coat, lab goggles, surgical mask, latex gloves.

Artefact Analysis
Start with an additional slot for a bound Artefact. You may Bind artefacts with Science rather than Insight.

Craft Device
You can attempt to combine items in your possession into a new device with novel capabilities based on the properties of its parts. Describe this new item to the GM, who sets a difficulty. Spend a Shift crafting the device, then make a Science roll. On a success, you create the desired item. If you fail, save or suffer 1d6 Wounds, and you may consume the items to Salvage the attempt. On a partial success, you create an item with unknown properties. If you fail to Salvage, save or suffer 1d6 Wounds again.
The nature of the save is up to the GM.

Crafting Guidelines

• Base difficulty: 12
• Includes power source: +2
• Large: +2, takes additional Shifts to craft (only roll at the end)
• Modifying a mundane item: -2
• Bound artefact: +2
• Unbound artefact: +4
• +X, where X is the total number of artefacts in the final device
• Weapon: +X, where X is its maximum Damage
• PPE: +1 for each point of Rating and each point added to saves
• Anything else the GM thinks is relevant.

Security Guard

You have a patrol route, a list of duties, a kevlar vest, and a gun. None of these have prepared you for what you’ve seen or what comes next.

Qualifications
+1 Physique

Saves
Weapons +1, Trauma +1, Explosions +1, Contaminants +1, Anomalies +1

Expertise
None.

Uniform
ID card (Clearance 1), security helmet, security vest, submachine gun, walkie-talkie.

Resilience
Add an additional box to each of your stats’ Wound Capacity.

Administrative Assistant

Grease the wheels of bureaucracy by providing real decision-makers with copious amounts of coffee and an outlet for their rage. Maybe learn a thing or two in the process.

Qualifications
+2 Admin

Saves
Weapons +0, Trauma +2, Explosions +0, Contaminants +0, Anomalies +0

Expertise
Choose one (Normal)

Uniform
ID card (Clearance 1), business casual (PPE Rating 1 — Trauma, Contaminants).

Declassify Document
When you encounter a new redacted document, you may roll with Insight. The target number is 12 plus the document’s Clearance. On a success, fill in all the blanks. On a partial success, fill in one blank of your choice. You cannot attempt to Declassify the same document more than once.

Turn Employees
To force Facility staff to follow protocols or browbeat them into compliance, make an Admin roll. On a success, roll 2d6 to determine the total Clearance level of staff that follow your orders until the end of the scene. On a partial success, roll 1d6 to determine the total Clearance level of staff that follow a single order you gave them during the Turning attempt.

You cannot attempt to Turn employees that you have previously failed to Turn until your Clearance increases or you gain a new Title.

Lab Rat

An unkind term for the expendable test subjects demanded by less reputable researchers and containment teams. Not usually a literal rat.

Qualifications
None.

Saves
Weapons +0, Trauma +0, Explosions +0, Contaminants +0, Anomalies +0

Expertise
Sneak (Phys), Climb (Phys), Hide (Phys)

Uniform
ID tag (Clearance 0), grey coveralls, high visibility vest.

Test Subject
Whenever you fail a Save, mark it. At the end of a session, you may erase all marks on one of your marked saves and choose one.

• If you removed one or more marks, gain +1 to that save (to a maximum of +3).
• If you removed three or more marks, gain an Expertise in that save.
• If you removed five or more marks, gain an additional slot for a bound artefact.

Opportunist
When you hit a creature unaware of your presence with an attack, you inflict an additional 1d6 damage.

Binding Artefacts

Wielding artefacts is dangerous. In order to reliably control an artefact’s effects, one must understand both its properties and its interactions with the world around it. This becomes exponentially more difficult when artefacts interact with each other, as experimental conditions diverge further and further from established physical laws. The process of understanding an artefact well enough to use it in a personal capacity is called Binding.

To Bind an artefact, spend a Shift performing scientific analysis and/or occult rituals while making any requisite offerings. At the end of the Shift, make an Insight roll and suffer a Wound to your Normal. On a Success, you Bind it and gain a modicum of control over its anomalous capabilities. On a Failure, you may upgrade that Wound to a Scar to Salvage the roll.

• Gain +2 to the roll if you have the artefact’s fully declassified containment file. Expertise will not help you here, only specific knowledge.
• A Bond gives you more leeway to make creative use of an anomaly without needing to roll, and allows you to benefit from its passive effects at all times.
• Binding yourself to a large, powerful, or intelligent artefact is dangerous. A Bond is a two-way street, and powers one believes they can wield often end up wielding them instead.

By default, a character has two slots for Bound artefacts. When a character is at capacity but wants to Bind a new artefact, they must Unbind an old one, which can be Bound again at a later date. Unbinding is instantaneous, but not without difficulty: make an Anomalies save to avoid Backlash.
The nature of the Backlash is up to the GM, but typically includes several Wounds.
Some Jobs and Titles provide additional artefact slots.

Oπ — “Jar of Wounds”: This glass mason jar is stoppered with a large stained cork and filled with damaged flesh. A damaged label reads “WHOOP-ASS // bottled 12-08-19[illegible]”.

The jar can store up to three points of Wounds and/or Scars. All injuries associated with the wounds disappear into the jar as if poured like a liquid; careful examination of the jar’s contents can identify the wounds contained within. If the jar is opened while full or broken at any time, the wounds and scars escape onto the nearest creature.

A character who has Bound the Jar of Wounds can immediately dump wounds that they would suffer into the Jar until it’s full. The character might direct emptied wounds to small animals crawling on the jar, dump them onto a corpse until the corpse disintegrates, or fire them at an enemy (treat as a Science attack vs. target’s Trauma save).

We don’t have reclassify an artefact to τ just because you Bound it. We have the Special Projects division for a reason — binding the Haunted Tape is impressive, but Legal is never going to sign off on using it to populate break room entertainment cabinets with media pirated from your subconscious. You’re going to watch re-runs of Heritage Minutes like everyone else in the Facility. — A.O.

Further artefacts:

https://archonsmarchon.blogspot.com/2025/07/some-artefacts-first-dossier.html

https://rosepulp.wordpress.com/2025/07/14/36-artefacts-for-facility-core/ 

Facility Core

 A tabletop game for playing in a strange modern megadungeon inspired by Abiotic Factor, CONTROL, Triangle Agency, Prey (2017), Delta Green, and the SCP Foundation.

You are members of an Organization that identifies, captures, contains, and neutralizes supernatural threats. Everything has gone wrong, and the Facility is in total lockdown. Hold out for as long as you can.

1. Rolling Dice

To accomplish an interesting, dangerous, or complicated task, roll d20 and add your relevant stat bonus. Meet or beat 12 (or a higher number, at the GM’s discretion) to succeed.

• If you have a relevant Expertise, add an additional +2.
• If you have help from another player character (declared before the roll), they may also roll with a relevant stats, and on a success they give you an additional +1. Helpers are also exposed to dangers associated with the task. You cannot Salvage a Help roll.

On a failure, you may attempt to Salvage your roll (at the GM’s discretion) and make the same roll again. If you meet or beat the original target number, you get a Partial Success that is less effective, more time/resource consuming, and/or exposes you to more harm than initially expected. If you fail to Salvage, the consequences above still occur.

• Before the Salvage roll, other PCs may chip in and attempt to help.
• You cannot Salvage a Salvage roll.

2. Stats

To generate your stats, roll 3d6 down the line for Physique, Science, Insight, Admin, and Normal, and consult the Employee Competence Scale to get each stat’s bonus.

Employee Competence Scale
3-4: -3        5-6: -2        7-9: -1        10-11: 0    12-14: +1    15-16: +2    17-18: +3

After generating your stats, you may undergo On-the-Job Training and do one of the following:

• Subtract 1 from the bonus of a stat of your choice to gain an Expertise in a different stat.
• Subtract 2 from the bonus of a stat of your choice to gain +2 to the bonus of a different stat.
• Swap two stats.

These cannot take stats below -3 or above +3 (and so you can't subtract 2 points from a stat that's already -2 or less). A stat with a bonus of -3 or below is permanently Impaired (c.f. 3(a) “Wounds & Impairment”).

Stats with bonuses of +2 or higher provide additional benefits, such as Expertise and improved saves. 

(a) Physique

Roll Physique to run, climb, jump, lift, shove, sneak, and make physical attacks.

• +2: Gain a Physique Expertise.
• +3: +1 to your Weapons and Contaminants saves.

(b) Science

Roll Science to understand, remember, treat wounds, utilize the mundane and anomalous principles that govern the Facility, and attack with crafted and/or anomalous weapons.

• +2: Gain a Science Expertise.
• +3: Gain +2 to your Contaminants save.

(c) Insight

Roll Insight to connect the dots, perceive the imperceptible, detect impending ambushes, unravel interpersonal dynamics, and make psychic attacks.

• +2: Gain an Insight Expertise.
• +3: +1 to your Explosions and Trauma saves.

(d) Admin

Roll Admin to search databases, comprehend documents, fill out forms, organize, pull rank, navigate bureaucracy, and make social attacks.

• +2: Gain an Admin Expertise.
• +3: +2 to your Trauma saves.

I’ve stopped finding the jokes funny, thank you very much. The Eχ0001.001 “Nominative Determinism” label sticker someone left on my badge was pretty good. But if anything like this happens again I’m going to HR! And I’m keeping the sticker. — Administrative Assistant Anne O’Malley

(e) Normal

Roll Normal to perform mundane tasks, keep a clear head, navigate social situations, and attack with improvised mundane weapons.

• +2: Gain a Normal Expertise.
• +3: +2 to your Anomalies save.

3. Saves & Harm

Facility characters also have five Saves, which are determined by their job and modified by their stats. Saves can be further improved with PPE, beneficial artefacts, certain job abilities, and delta templates. To make a Save, roll 1d20 and add the relevant save, then compare it to the target number set by your GM (usually 12). Saves cannot be Salvaged, but failed saves can be Ablated with PPE.

Weapons — bullets, blades, claws, fangs, punches, sledgehammers, beam weapons
Trauma — stress, verbal harassment, falling damage, spontaneous dismemberment
Explosions — fire, electricity, grenades, cave-ins, opening a shaken pop bottle
Contaminants — toxins, gas, disease, radiation, mutagens, carcinogens, corrosion, expired break room coffee creamer
Anomalies — reality distortions, anomalous compulsions, adverse teleportation, spaghettification, anything else otherwise unclassifiable

(a) Wounds & Impairment

When you fail a save, you suffer some number of Wounds to a relevant stat. Each stat has a Wound Capacity of 3 plus its bonus. When a stat has suffered Wounds equal to its Wound Capacity, it becomes Impaired. If a stat’s Wound Capacity is ever 0 or less, it is always treated as Impaired.

1 wound is a bad sprain. 2 wounds is a second-degree burn across your entire hand. 3 wounds is a shot from a 9mm pistol to a non-vital area (a headshot inflicts at least 15). A facehugger successfully latching onto a human inflicts 6 damage.

Mercifully, facehuggers are confined to the silver screen. Which is safely contained in the Oπ block, so if you stay out of its cell you’ll be fine. — A.O.

Physical injuries damage Physique. Stress, concussions, and lack of sleep damage Insight. Loss of morale, dignity, and composure damages Admin. Exposure to reality-altering effects and seeing That Which Should Not Be damages Normal. Wounds to an Impaired stat can spill over into any other — the human body is too complex to isolate despite the diligent attempts of τ Special Projects.

I wish Internal Affairs had gone with my suggestion. τ Special Projects? Still ominous. — A.O.

You cannot Salvage rolls with Impaired stats, you cannot use Expertise linked to Impaired stats, and when you suffer Wounds to an Impaired stat, those wounds spill over into another non-Impaired stat. You do not get another chance to Ablate.

If three or more of your stats are Impaired, your character is Incapacitated and cannot act until healed. If all five of your stats are Impaired, your character dies, unless they have made alternate and/or anomalous arrangements for this eventuality.

(b) Healing

An Organization-mandated Break is 1 hour. You may spend a Break resting. Roll a stat; on a Success or Partial Success, remove 1 Wound.

During a Break, a character may Heal another character by rolling Science. On a Success, remove a Wound from a chosen stat. On a Partial Success, move that wound to a different stat.

An Organization-mandated Shift is 8 hours. At the end of a Shift, if you did not engage in any strenuous physical or mental activity and sustained no additional Wounds, remove 1 Wound from each of your stats.

Medical says that the guidelines laid out in this document are wholly insufficient for long-term healing. I’d love to survive to prove them right. — A.O.

(c) Scarring

If one of your stats is Impaired, you may convert all of your Wounds in that stat into a single Scar on that stat. The Scar cannot be healed and reduces that stat’s Wound Capacity by 1.

Scars can be incurred through other means as well. Some Scars have additional narrative and/or gameplay effects — not always negative.

(d) Personal Protective Equipment

Vital for everyday work in the Facility. Under breach conditions, demand far outstrips supply. A vacuum-sealed pack of latex gloves is worth lives.

PPE has a rating and a save. When you fail a save vs the listed hazard, you may Ablate that piece of PPE and mark it to succeed instead. Once a piece of PPE has marks on it equal to its Rating, it loses all its protective qualities, including any save bonuses, but may still be worn as clothing. Some PPE may be repairable; most must be disposed of instead.

Wearing PPE nonsensically (i.e. two stacked hats, nested sets of boots) negates the bonuses from all pieces worn wrong.

A surgical mask only works if it’s over your nose and your chin. — A.O.

1. Hazmat Suit. Rating 3 (Contaminants). Impairs Normal while worn.
2. Hard Hat. Rating 1 (falling objects).
3. Welding Mask. Rating 2 (Explosions, Weapons).
4. Earmuffs. Rating 1 (Explosions). +2 to Explosions saves and saves vs. sonic hazards.
5. Surgical Mask. Rating 1 (Contaminants). +2 to Contaminants saves. Disposable.
6. Respirator. Rating 2 (Contaminants). +2 to Contaminants saves.
7. Gas Mask. Rating 1 (Explosions). +3 to Contaminants saves, impairs Normal.
8. Lab Goggles. Rating 1 (Explosions). +2 to Explosions saves.
9. Security Helmet. Rating 1 (Weapons, Trauma).
10. Security Vest. Rating 2 (Weapons).
11. Lead Vest. Rating 1 (Weapons), +3 to saves vs. radioactive Contaminants.
12. High Visibility Vest. Rating 1 (Anomalies), visible even in minimal light conditions.
13. Body Harness. Rating 1 (Trauma). With time to rig a safe belay, you do not take fall damage.
14. Plate Carrier. Rating 3 (Weapons, Explosions). Without Armor Expertise, impairs Physique.
15. Field Agent Suit. Rating 2 (Weapons). Fashionable.
16. Lab Coat. Rating 1 (Contaminants, Anomalies). +1 to Contaminants and Anomalies saves.
17. Latex Gloves. Rating 1 (Contaminants). +1 to Contaminants saves. Disposable.
18. Work Gloves. Rating 1 (Trauma). +1 to Contaminants saves.
19. Slippers. Rating 1 (things on the floor).
20. Work Boots. Rating 1 (Trauma, things on the floor). +2 to saves vs. electricity.

Facility: Departments & Factions

On a good day, everyone in the Facility is in the same org chart and on the same payroll. Today is not a good day.

When all hell breaks loose, the Facility splinters along departmental and sectoral lines. Off-shift Research personnel in Residences band together with Facility Services to barricade the doors and wait for outside rescue; Kappa teams raid Archives to identify priority targets and start cleaning house, Lambda Containment Research abandons their rampaging experiments and rushes to the eyewash stations, then the bunkers, with covering fire from Security. Under the Facility’s full-scale lockdown protocols, paranoia sets in immediately, resource scarcity soon after, and mad science competes with occult ritual for third place.

Roll at least twice on the Departments list to populate a faction, then again on the Common Cause list to determine their highest priority.

When populating factions with characters, include at minimum an overall leader, and one key NPC from each constituent department. If the same Department appears on multiple factions, you have a good old-fashioned intradepartmental schism.

Departments (d66)

1. Administration
1. Executive
2. Accounting
3. Human Resources
4. Procurement
5. Archives
6. Legal
2. Operations
1. Dispatch
2. Public Relations (REMINDER: circulate memo re. “cover-up” vs. “conspiracy”. while we perform the former, we are NOT the latter)
3. Internal Affairs
4. External Affairs
5. Field Operations “Delta Teams”
6. Kinetic Field Operations “Kill Kappa Teams”
3. Research
1. λ Containment Research
2. Theoretical Research
3. ΧΨ Off-Site Monitoring
4. Facility Architecture
5. Entity Research
6. τ Artefact Exploitation (I’ve scheduled a brainstorming meeting in D-04 at 9:15 EST. The extension is -0451 for anyone who wants to call in and pitch a less ominous department name.)
4. Facility Services
1. Canteen
2. Medical
3. Custodial Services
4. Warehousing
5. Maintenance
6. Information Technology
5. Containment
1. μ Facility Security (Just let the mundane guards have a letter like the real artefact security teams. I know it’s not in ACID, but we have enough turnover in the security department already.)
2. π Artefact Security
3. ρ Dedicated Containment (ATTN Research: Medical won’t give their sign-off on team-wide blinding, even if you call it a team-building exercise. Procurement has sent over a crate of blindfolds instead. Optical hazards are a solved problem. Please stop asking.)
4. Entity Handling
5. Subject Management
6. Inhuman Resources
6. Other
1. Joint task force between Facility and a rival agency
2. Test subjects, human
3. Intern pool (Not to be confused with the contents of Lρ3211.001, the “Intern Pool”, until IHR clears it for Tau reclassification)
4. Rival agency task force, organized incursion
5. PΧ organized Entity incursion
6. Oversight (I finally got permission to include them on the org chart. Please clap.)

Common Cause (1d20)

1. Allocating scarce resources.
2. Contacting outside world for aid.
3. Contacting another Facility for rescue.
4. Contacting another Agency for cleanup.
5. Contacting an Entity for inadvisable reasons.
6. Containing a dangerous artefact.
7. Protecting the outside world from further breaches.
8. Returning the Facility to working order.
9. Re-establishing pre-Incident chain of command.
10. Performing forbidden research.
11. Under the effects of an artefact.
12. Started a cult dedicated to an artefact.
13. Infiltrators from (1. a rival agency, 2. the local government, 3. conspiracy message boards, 4. an artefact liberation front, 5. an artefact cult, 6. another world)
14. Escaping the Facility at all costs.
15. Escaping the Facility with as many survivors as possible.
16. Escaping the Facility once everything has been contained.
17. Leader maintains control over fractious group with pre-Incident credentials.
18. Leader maintains control over fractious group with access to scarce resource.
19. Leader maintains control over fractious group with artefact.
20. Silencing all attempted escapees, both mundane and anomalous.

Sample Factions

Foodbank
In order to generate enough food for the population of the Facility while under indefinite lockdown, a special project team (36) has teamed up with the canteen staff (41) to identify, mass-produce, and distribute (1) the byproducts of nutrient-dense artefacts. So far, they’ve converted a laboratory into a hydroponic garden for anomalous flora and produced ludicrous quantities of a nutritious anomaly they call The Stew, which they trade for the ammunition they need to prune their garden.

Rho Containment Team WDH “We’re Done Here”
A dedicated containment team for an escaped Rho artefact (53), having suffered horrific losses during the breach, has defected to Rival Agency forces that are storming the upper levels of the Facility (64). The Rho team is providing the Rival Agency with insider knowledge on artefacts and layouts in exchange for the tools to avenge their fallen team members during the cleanup effort.

Director Forthright
Immediately in response to the breach, Director Annabel Forthright of External Affairs (24) assumed control of the Monitoring team (33) to use their satellite surveillance tools to assess the scope of the incident. She now leverages her credentials (17), the loyalty of the remaining External Affairs personnel, and the Monitoring team’s fears of reprisal to monopolize all data going in or out of the Facility to make herself the logical choice for Facility Director once the breach is resolved.

E4 (Emergency Executive Entity Enterprise)
Members of the Facility’s Executive branch (11) have identified specific entities under the purview of the Entity Handling department (54) as critical to enforcing their authority (9) against rival agencies, dissident elements within the Facility, and the most dangerous artefacts in the Facility’s depths. They’re now engaged in a high-stakes game of Pokémon; attempting to recapture and weaponize every anomalous entity they can find in their files.

UTILITY
In response to incursions from within and without the Facility, Accounting (12) has decided that an ongoing partnership between a Delta Team and a rival agency’s counterpart (61) is the model for a new era in artefact containment. By demonstrating the efficacy of inter-Agency intelligence sharing, reasonable bipartisan consensus, prudent spending, and common-sense containment regulations, the UTILITY framework sets out principles for an agile, small-Facility era of global security (7). Now they just have to build it.

The Party
The few survivors of the epicentre of the breach (the Lambda laboratory sector) have formed a motley gang of liberated test subjects, Esoteric Assets, and disgruntled maintenance workers. Despite their average Clearance level of 0.5 out of 10, lack of scientific or administrative expertise, and minimal weaponry, their broad variety of expertise across mundane and anomalous fields may just be enough for them to reach the outside (2) and contact their grieving loved ones — if there’s any outside left to reach. 

Facility: Artefact Classification

 The Facility is a megadungeon that contains a wide variety of anomalous artefacts and player characters. At approximately the start of the campaign, an incident occurs and reliable containment can no longer be guaranteed. Once lowly assistants, security guards, maintenance workers, and test subjects, the player characters must explore, salvage, improvise, negotiate, and kill to survive until rescue arrives.

Artefact Classification Identifier (ACID)

The Organization likes to think it takes paperwork seriously. Within the Facility, artefacts are assigned an identifier based on their Mode, Status, and a unique two-part numerical designation (for example: Oρ0255.018, LΔ0023.001, Eτ0994.999). This identifier is listed on all associated paperwork, both the outside and inside of the artefact's containment cell, as well as label stickers on all samples, byproducts, and research team files regarding the artefact in question.

Mode

The Mode is a Latin letter that describes the artefact’s scope and mobility. The Organization currently recognizes five Modes
O: Object
The most common classification. Some objects can be left in a properly secured box (consider: radioactive waste); some objects are world-ending threats (consider: a dinosaur-killer asteroid). Most are somewhere in between.

E: Entity
Anomalous creatures, swarms, people, ghosts, etc. When there’s debate between what’s considered an Entity or an Object, Research considers its nutritional requirements, mobility, and stimulus responses. For the GM: if you’d stat it up as a monster, it’s an Entity. If not, it’s an Object.

L: Location
A physical space with anomalous properties. Some are very small and can be cordoned off without much trouble; larger locations require extensive Public Relations disinformation campaigns and/or the construction of specialized Facilities. While alternate dimensions are Locations; their entry points are sometimes classified as Objects, Phenomena, or even Entities.

P: Phenomenon
Anomalous events occur that are not related to specific Objects, Entities, or Locations. A spontaneous anomalous gathering, a UFO sighting, a memory hole, a disease with no known vector but anomalous symptoms, an unnatural weather pattern — these are all different Phenomenon artefacts. Correctly identified and unfairly lambasted as a wastebasket taxon.

C: CLARAA (CLAssification Requires Additional Analysis)
Correctly identified and fairly skewered as a wastebasket taxon, but one that fulfills an essential function: a placeholder in the Mode field on forms while no one knows what they’re dealing with.

Optimistic researchers regularly submit proposals to reclassify the Organization’s entire artefact catalogue into a novel series of ostensibly-more-rational Modes. These proposals are regularly rejected by tired administrative staff.

Status

The Status is a Greek letter that corresponds to the artefact’s current containment requirements. I have listed ten, which leaves 13 more for enterprising GMs to fill out. Status does not directly correlate to danger. The combination of uppercase and lowercase is intended to maximize the difference between Greek and Latin shapes given the choice of letters.

π Pi
Reliably contained with passive countermeasures. It’s in a box — maybe a big one, but not one that anyone has to check on unless something goes wrong.

ρ Rho
Reliably contained with active countermeasures. Active guard rotations watching a portal, entities that need to be regularly fed and watered.

λ Lambda
Temporarily contained; research into reliable containment underway. Lambda labs are the throbbing heart of most Facilities.

τ Tau
In active use by the Organization. Locations converted into Facilities, artefacts critical to the containment of other artefacts, entities on payroll.

Δ Delta
Containment efforts are ongoing; situation subject to rapid change. Field agents handle Delta artefacts until they’re handed off to a Lambda team. During a containment breach, all artefacts on site are subject to Delta procedures until a Research Lead signs off on paperwork confirming successful recontainment.

Κ Kappa
Cannot be safely contained, monitored, or left alone. Disposal is necessary. Heavy weapons are authorized.

β Beta
Contained by another Organization. Secondary classifications are occasionally awarded to Beta artefacts, but due to significant political and ideological conflicts between Organizations, data is usually insufficient.

Ψ Psi
Externally monitored, uncontained, further containment efforts unnecessary. UFOs are Psi until they crash or start abducting people.

χ Chi
Not contained, but containment is not a priority. Cryptids are Chi until they start eating more people than Public Relations can explain away.

Ω Omega
Disposed of, dead, finished, gone. Records are stored in Archives in case it shows up again.

Class

When combined, Mode and Status are referred to as a Class. For example:

• Eτ Esoteric Assets are under the purview of Inhuman Resources; this is where anomalous individuals on payroll are siloed — alongside various other useful entities, like the Anti-Radioactive Barnacles and Digit the Numbers Station Dog.
• The Organization’s largest containment sectors are warehouses for Oπ artefacts, which require minimal personnel after setup. Some O-Pi artefacts don’t even need bespoke containment cells; they just need to be isolated until they arrive at their temporal origin point, their legitimate owners come to claim them, they finish dissolving into inert mundane chemicals, the Organization figures out how to weaponize them, or the heat death of the universe.
• PΩ refers to events and phenomena that have ended and are not expected to recur. After the mandatory 18-month monitoring period (subject to change based on established periodicity), everyone involved is more than happy to shove another case file into the capable hands of Archives Division.
• Lρ location artefacts often necessitate the construction of on-site Facilities due to an observed tendency for other artefacts to manifest nearby or within their confines. Some are even reclassified as Lτ if their anomalous properties are useful in further containment efforts.
• CΚ artefacts are Research’s worst nightmare. Uncontainable due to their level of danger, unclassifiable due to their uncontainability, handed off to Operations’ ludicrously well-equipped and violent Kappa Teams. Archives has entire bankers’ boxes of CΩ files with incident and cover-up reports that are mostly black marker by volume.

Admin hates the concept of “secondary classifications”. Researchers who insist on marking up new files with meaningless Status strings like τΨρ or χΔ  are reprimanded and forced to attend mandatory classes on how to not waste Oversight’s time.

Numerical Identifier

The first part of an artefact’s numerical identifier is a unique four digit number that distinguishes the artefact from others in its class. When an artefact is reclassified, its ID number may have to change to avoid conflicts, and tracking ACIDs across multiple reclassifications (especially if a new artefact fills its previous slot) is a well-known administrative headache.

The second part of an artefact’s numerical identifier is a unique three digit number that tracks the instance of the artefact. For example, if a flock of thirteen anomalous birds is contained, they receive IDs XXXX.001 through XXXX.013. If one lays three eggs, the eggs become instanced as .014 through .016, and retain those designations after hatching. If one of the birds dies, its instance ID is not reused.

Some artefacts end up with more than 999 instances. The paperwork to add additional digits to an identifier requires sign-offs from Archives and IT, and so many artefacts end up with dozens or hundreds of instances sharing 999. Researchers regularly raise the alarm that this will lead to catastrophic breaches, but so far no administrative action has been taken.

Research teams nickname their artefacts, because the ACID is a mouthful intended for databases rather than human speech. There are no formal conventions or best practices for artefact nicknames, which causes all the problems you would expect — nickname duplication, inappropriate names (disciplinary action recommended), fist fights in the sector canteen (disciplinary action taken), and misleading nicknames that have nonetheless stuck (latest casualty report for Eρ0443.001 “Li’l Buppy” is on file in Operations).

Designer Notes

Everyone has tried to come up with a new classification system, or fairly decided that it’s a bad idea. I wrote the ACID with an eye towards gameplay; to provide players with actionable intelligence but leave details to further research. A π artefact is not going to end up on a random encounter table while its containment holds, so players can probably rest near it without incurring additional dangers. An empty containment cell marked “Eρ” lets the players know there’s something on the loose, though they’ll have to do proper legwork (or get jumped by it) to figure out what. Several of the stranger Status classifications raise immediate questions:

• Beta — “Whose is this, and how can we contact them to learn more?”
• Kappa — “Where is it right now, and how do we get as far away from it as possible?”
• Tau — “What were we using it for, and can we get it back under control?”
• Omega — “What do the old files say about it, and how do we get to Archives?”

Tarot Wizardry

Character Creation

To generate a character, draw six tarot cards and lay them out as follows.

Place the first card in the middle of the spread. This card represents your character’s personality, attitude towards the world, and present state of mind.

Place the second card horizontally across the first card, and interpret it upright. This card represents an obstacle in their life that is so great they believe only magic can address it.

Place the third card to the west of the first card. This card represents why and how your character became a wizard. Write down a skill associated with this part of your character’s life.

Place the fourth card to the east of the first card. This card represents your character’s near future if they do not act to prevent it.

Place the fifth card to the north of the first card. This card represents what your character uses magic to achieve, or how they channel their occult prowess. Write down a skill associated with this part of your character’s life.

Place the sixth card to the south of the first card. This card represents their equipment, trappings, and resources. Write down a skill associated with this part of your character’s life.

Once you have established your character, build your character’s magical Practice. For each suit of the tarot, choose an aspect or element of the world associated with that suit. When your character casts a spell with a card of that suit, their spell manifests as an effect in that chosen medium. For example, a character with the Swords aspect of Perception could use Swords cards to obscure themselves from others, create illusions, scry over great distances, or identify the nature of magical effects.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: See Aspects & Practices below to get ideas. There is no comprehensive list.

Finally, designate one of your character’s Aspects as their Prime Aspect (also called their Home Demesne, Favoured Sphere, Chosen School, etc.). Your character has a special affinity for this aspect of reality, which empowers their spells in that suit.

Play

At the start of each session, each player draws 5 cards from the shared tarot deck. The cards in each player’s hand represent the spells that they can cast this session. The GM draws 7 cards, which represent the challenges they can bring to bear against the player characters.  Whenever the GM runs out of cards in their hand, they draw back up to 7.

To cast a spell, play a tarot card from your hand and interpret its meaning in the context of your character’s magic abilities. After determining the outcome of your spell, put it in the communal discard pile. Magic always affects the world unless explicitly counterspelled, so use magic wisely (or at least prepare yourself for the consequences of failure).

AUTHOR’S NOTE: If you can't narratively apply a card's meaning to a challenge, you can't use it to overcome that challenge. Don’t let this discourage you: twist meanings and wield wordplay to make your will manifest.

When you cast a spell, if the difficulty of the challenge has not already been set, the GM plays a card from their hand or reveals the top card of the deck to determine the task’s challenge rating. If you play a card in the Minor Arcana, you succeed if your spell’s value meets or beats the challenge’s rating (Court cards are 11s, Aces are 12). If you play a card in the Major Arcana, it always succeeds unless opposed by another Major Arcanum, but you suffer a Wound for channeling such a powerful magical effect.

Challenges have a visible rating between 0 (utterly inconsequential) and 15 (impossible without the strongest magic). If you have a relevant skill, whether chosen at character creation or acquired during play, reduce the CR by 2. To achieve a difficult task with mundane efforts, roll 1d10. You succeed if you meet or beat the challenge’s rating. If you fail, the GM narrates the consequences of your actions. You may attempt to save yourself from mundane failure by taking a Wound to cast a spell before the consequences take full effect.

When a player runs out of cards in their hand, their magic is temporarily exhausted until the next session. During the session, if they rest for at least an in-game day and have cleared all of their Wounds, they draw a new hand of 5 cards.

If the deck runs out of cards, you have strained magic itself to a breaking point. Call the session, even if you’re in the middle of something important.

Wounds and Scars

A player character can suffer 3 Wounds before becoming Incapacitated. Any Wound past the third also immediately incapacitates the character. An Incapacitated character cannot make rolls or cast spells until the end of the scene.

If you have 1 Wound, you need a day of rest to clear your wounds. If you have 2 Wounds, you need a week of rest instead. If you have 3 or more Wounds, you need a month of rest to clear your wounds, and one Wound is converted into a permanent Scar. Scars cannot be healed and count towards your total Wounds for the purpose of Incapacitation (but not rest durations). When you take your third Scar, you die.

Removing a wound without resting is a rating 9 challenge. If you fail to remove a Wound, it immediately becomes a Scar.

Wounds and Scars can be physical, mental, occult, spiritual, or even reputational. With cosmic power comes cosmic vulnerability — hexes, curses, and geases all function within the Wound and Scar system.

Enemies

Mundane enemies are represented with static challenge ratings and are handled through narrative play.

Supernatural enemies are represented by a pile of up to 3 face-down cards. When a supernatural enemy threatens a character or a character attempts to overcome the enemy, if that enemy has no face-up cards, the GM reveals the top card of the pile. That card sets the rating for a challenge associated with that enemy. Once all of the enemy’s cards have been overcome, the enemy is defeated.

An enemy wizard has their own hand of 5 cards, their own practice and aspects, and can suffer up to 3 Wounds just like a player character.

Spells

When you play a tarot card to solve a problem, describe how you work magic to address the situation. This description must take two things into consideration: the meaning of the card itself, and your character’s Aspects.

Your character associates an aspect of reality with each suit. When you play a card of a suit, your magic expresses itself through that aspect. Minor Works in your Prime Aspect are called Prime Works, and count their value at +2.

Minor Works

When you play a card in the Minor Arcana, perform a Minor Work. Describe the spell that you cast by interpreting the meaning of the card you played through the lens of your aspect for its suit. For example, if your aspect for Swords is Fire, when you play the Two of Swords, interpret its meanings (such as Avoidance) through that lens. Perhaps you erect a barrier of flame between yourself and an enemy, or you temporarily quell a raging inferno.

Minor Works cannot last longer than the scene, though their effects on the mundane world may linger.

Court cards (traditionally the Page, Knight, Queen, and King of each suit) are part of the Minor Arcana, but share a value of 11 and have an additional suit based on their seat at Court. The Page is associated with Earth, and therefore with Pentacles. The same is true for Knights with Fire and Wands, Queens with Water and Cups, and Kings with Air and Swords. Spells cast with Court cards are Prime Works if either their printed or associated suit match your Prime Aspect.

Furthermore, as Court cards are often used to represent people, they are an effective tool to influence, target, or even summon beings represented by the card in question.

When two Minor Works oppose each other, the spell with the higher value wins out and its caster narrates the ultimate result. Resolve ties between Minor Workings of equivalent value by referencing the suits’ respective elemental dignities.

Support (Wands vs. Swords, or Cups vs. Pentacles): Combine. The spells synthesize into a greater whole. If only one of the constituent spells is a Prime Work, that caster gains control of the gestalt spell; if neither or both of the spells are Prime, the spell becomes uncontrolled.

Weaken (Wands vs. Cups, or Swords vs. Pentacles): Counterspell. Both spells fizzle in their casters’ hands, and inflict damage

Neutral (Wands vs. Pentacles, or Swords vs. Cups): Ships passing. If only one of the spells is a Prime Work, its caster wins. Otherwise, both spells take effect but cannot affect each other.

Strengthen (A suit vs. itself): The Price of Hubris. The spells combine into a Major Work with value equal to their sum and run Rampant. Roll on the Magnum Opus table. This is only possible if a card is played against itself, which shouldn’t happen if you’re only playing with a single deck, but magic oft refuses such mundane strictures.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: These only happen on ties. Don’t worry about the mechanical effects of elemental dignities in other circumstances.

Major Works

When you play a card in the Major Arcana, perform a Major Work. Major Works obviate any mundane challenge and surmount any Minor Work. Furthermore, Major Arcana do not have suits — their effects are so powerful that they can only be channeled through your Prime Aspect. They are not, however, Prime Works — they are something greater.

Major works cannot last longer than the session, and their effects on the mundane world will reverberate.

    A Major Work is also taxing on its caster. To cast a Major Work, you must suffer a Wound. The nature and narrative impact of the Wound are dictated by the card’s meaning and your ultimate intentions for the spell.

When two Major Works clash, roll 2d6 on the Magnum Opus table. An even result means that the Major work with the higher value wins; an odd result means that the Major work with the lower value wins. Before the work resolves, the Magnum Opus result takes effect.

Magnum Opus

12. Projection (As Above). All of your Minor Works for the rest of the session are Prime Works, regardless of their suit or aspect.
11. Exaltation. An angel of your Prime Aspect arrives to deliver your spell in person. It will hang around until the end of the scene.
10. Congelation. Choose one of your non-Prime Aspects. Until the end of the session, that Aspect becomes your Prime Aspect.
9. Multiplication. Until the end of the scene, Minor Arcana may be played as previous Minor Arcana that have been played (and resolved) this scene.
8. Conjunction. Reveal the top card of the deck.
7. Cibation. Draw a card.
6. Dissolution. Discard your hand, then draw 3 cards.
5. Calcination. The spell sets everything it touches on fire, even and especially things that are impervious to mundane flames.
4. Separation. Your skin splits with uncontainable magic power. Take a Wound, and your spell runs Rampant.
3. Putrefaction. Everything nearby begins to wilt, wither, and rot. Everyone in the scene suffers a Wound.
2. Sublimation (So Below). For the rest of the session, all cards are played reversed.

Rampant spells become NPCs under the GM’s control. They may take the form of elementals, spirits, demons, daemons, daimons, or other supernatural beings with inscrutable and orthogonal goals. While they dissipate at the end of the scene or session in accordance with their power, they may return of their own volition or be summoned by an enterprising practitioner.

Aspects & Practices

A practice is a set of correspondences between tarot suits and aspects of reality. These are not mandatory (you can always modify, mix-and-match, or wholly ignore them), but cultural contexts and established occult orders make it easier to find people who use these combinations of aspects.

A Practitioner may select any Aspect of their Practice as their Prime Aspect. A Daemonic practitioner focused on Commanding will behave very differently from one whose Prime is Contracts, Communing, or Calling; while their Minor workings are similar, their Major workings are entirely different.

Practice: Technomancy
Swords — Machines
Wands — Creation
Cups — Data
Pentacles — Money

Practice: Daemonic
Swords — Calling
Wands — Commanding
Cups — Communing
Pentacles — Contracts

Practice: Elementalism
Swords — Air
Wands — Fire
Cups — Water
Pentacles — Earth

Practice: Psychic
Swords — Perception
Wands — Instinct
Cups — Emotion
Pentacles — Memory

Practice: Traveling
Swords — Motion
Wands — Impulse
Cups — Time
Pentacles — Resistance

Practice: Witchcraft
Swords — Hexes
Wands — Animation
Cups — Divination
Pentacles — Healing

Practice: The World
Swords — Weather
Wands — Growth
Cups — Dreams
Pentacles — Flora & Fauna

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I referenced the Rider-Waite-Smith deck when writing this system due to its ubiquity, but these rules should work for even nonstandard decks — homebrew as necessary.

Advanced Workings

With an hour of proper preparations and focus, you may discard a card to perform Divination and look at the top card of the deck.

You may use an evening without distractions or discomfort to Meditate. At the end of your Meditation, discard a card of your choice and draw a replacement. You cannot Meditate in this way more than once a day.

With a night of hard work, concentration, and precise preparations, you may perform Ritual Magic. Describe the spell you are preparing to cast, then draw a card, then play a card from your hand. If the card you play does not have an appropriate meaning for the spell, the spell will act unpredictably even on a success.

When several wizards work together, they may create a spread of multiple cards that imparts greater meaning, versatility, and/or specificity to the resulting spell. Each wizard may only contribute a single card to a spread, and the spread’s value is the highest value of a minor arcana within it. Spreads cannot be Prime Works, but spreads comprised of exclusively Major Arcana are some of the most powerful and dangerous Workings a wizard can wield.