1 The basics
Sacrament is played by a GM, who describes the world and speaks for everyone in it, and a few players, who each play one character. You need a d20 and a handful of six-sided dice, or the dice roller in the VTT.
Three words you will meet straight away. An ability is anything your character can do: an action, a spell or a passive. A pick is what you spend to learn one. A path is a branching group of abilities, such as Arcane, Penitent, Warden or Cantor.
The GM describes a situation, the players say what they do, and when the outcome is in doubt, someone makes a check.
2 Checks
To make a check, roll a d20, add the attribute that fits what you are doing, and roll high against a difficulty the GM sets. Meet it or beat it and you succeed.
| Easy | 8 |
|---|---|
| Routine | 12 |
| Hard | 15 |
| Heroic | 18 |
| Legendary | 22 |
There are four attributes. Strength is force and endurance. Agility is speed and aim. Wits is noticing and reasoning. Will is nerve, faith and the force of your voice.
When a check fails, the story does not stop. The GM says what it costs, or what goes wrong, and play moves on.
3 Your character
Attributes
Give one attribute each of +2, +1, 0 and −1. You can raise an attribute later by spending a pick, but no attribute can be raised above a base of +2. Some passive abilities add a bonus on top.
Picks, paths and levels
You start at level 1 with 3 picks. Each level after the first adds 2, so you have 5 at level 2 and 7 at level 3. Spend a pick to learn one ability, or to raise one attribute by 1.
Abilities sit on paths, and each path branches. To learn an ability you must already know one that it branches from, and your level must be at least the ability’s level. Move, Strike and Guard are innate: everyone has them for free.
Practice and vow
Every character has a practice (meditation, prayer, atonement or a vigil) that they use to cleanse the Looming Horror, and a vow, a line or two about what they have sworn and why they are out on the road.
The character builder keeps count of picks and paths for you, and prints a sheet you can play from.
4 Tokens and turns
You have 6 tokens each round. Actions and spells cost tokens; passives are free. Spend them in any order, and a new round refills the pool. Some abilities give a token back.
On your turn you spend tokens until you choose to stop or run out. Everyone can always do these three:
- Move 1 token Go up to Near, 30 feet.
- Strike 1 token One weapon attack, in Melee or thrown to Near.
- Guard 1 token Add +1d6 to your armour roll against the first hit, until your next turn.
Everything else you learn adds more actions, spells and passives to choose from.
Distance
Sacrament does not count squares. Distance comes in three bands, and one tile on the VTT map is 30 feet.
| Melee | 0 feet. Close enough to touch, in the same spot. |
|---|---|
| Near | 30 feet, one tile away. |
| Far | Anything you can easily see. Not a speck on a distant cliff. |
5 Gear
Weapons, armour and trinkets come in tiers, and you choose gear of a tier up to your level.
A weapon of tier n deals nd6 damage. Armour of tier n rolls nd6 against each hit and absorbs that much. Light armour has 3 durability, medium 4 and heavy 5, and takes up 1, 2 or 3 slots. A monster’s critical hit costs 1 durability, and broken armour absorbs nothing until it is repaired.
Your pack holds 10 slots plus your Strength (if positive), and some passives add more. Most items take 1 slot, and every 100 gold you carry fills one.
Starting kit: an arming sword, a quilted coat, a Chalk Ward, a Reliquary Focus, three days of rations and 35 gold.
6 Combat
Rounds and order
A fight is played in rounds. In each round every player character takes one turn, and then the adversaries take theirs. Players can go in popcorn order, where whoever has just finished chooses who goes next, or simply around the table. Adversaries always go last.
Choosing when adversaries act. The GM can spend 1 Horror Token: the Looming Horror ladder drops by 1 step, and the adversaries act now, out of turn, instead of waiting until the end of the round. They can do this at any point, even in the middle of a player’s turn between two actions.
Attacking
To hit, make a check against the adversary’s difficulty: roll a d20, add the attribute that fits the attack, and meet or beat the difficulty. On a hit, roll your weapon’s damage.
Being hit
When an adversary hits you, it rolls its damage and you roll your armour. Whatever damage gets past the armour is marked as harm. The next two sections explain magic and harm.
7 Magic and the Looming Horror
Magic has a price. Whenever a player uses a spell, or an item that draws on magic, the party’s Looming Horror climbs. It rises by the ability’s risk, and always by at least 1. There is no roll: the ladder simply goes up, on a ladder of 21.
The Looming Horror is shared by the whole party. The GM sets milestones at 9, 15 and 21, each with a d6 aftershock table. The higher the ladder, the worse things get.
Horror Tokens
The ladder is also the GM’s resource. The GM can spend 1 Horror Token at any time to drop the ladder by 1 step and activate the adversaries out of turn. Adversaries normally go last in the round. A Horror Token lets the GM bring them forward when it will hurt most, and every one spent is a step the party gets back.
Cleansing
To cleanse, spend time on a practice, roll a d6 and lower the ladder by the result. Cleanse in a safe place and you roll twice and keep the higher. Using your own practice adds +1.
8 Harm, Wounds and healing
You have 12 harm boxes, in three groups of four. Each threshold (boxes 4, 8 and 12) is a Wound: you take a Wound when harm fills that group. Once all three Wounds are complete, your character is dying.
Healing
Wounds are what get healed. Anything that cures Wounds heals 1 Wound per use. A spell that heals mends 1 Wound for each tier of the spell, so a level 2 healing spell mends 2. Each Wound healed clears four harm boxes.
9 A night in Wickham
An example of play, with the rules called out as they come up. The GM is unnamed; the players are Osric, Eadgyth and Cuthbert.
The Hart and Hallow
Rain has been falling on Wickham for three days, and the church bell has not stopped. Hild sets down three bowls of pottage and does not ask where the travellers have come from. Godric, the reeve, sits near the fire with his hat in his hands. “The sexton is a good man,” he says, a little too quickly. “He is only burying the dead.”
Leofwyn takes Eadgyth by the sleeve when Godric looks away. “My husband has been dead since Tuesday,” she whispers. “He was not dead on Tuesday.”
Cuthbert slips out to the churchwarden’s room, where the burial ledger lies open. He wants to know whether the dates in it are honest.
A check. Reading a ledger for forgery is a Hard check (15), using Wits. Cuthbert rolls a d20 and gets 13, and adds his Wits of +1 for 14. That is one short, so he fails.
The GM does not say “you find nothing.” Cuthbert sees that the last eleven burials are in the same hand and the same wet ink, and he hears Godric’s boots on the step behind him. He knows the truth, and Godric knows that he knows. That is what the failure costs.
The churchyard
By midnight the three of them stand among the graves with lanterns. Æthelstan straightens up from a hole in the ground, a spade in his hands and black veins climbing his neck. He is not going to stop digging, and he has noticed them.
Popcorn order. The players go first, in any order they like, and each player chooses who goes next. Adversaries always go last. The GM says the sexton’s difficulty is 12.
Osric goes first. He spends 1 token to Move across the wet grass, 1 to Guard, and 1 to Strike.
An attack. Osric rolls a d20 and gets 12, plus his Strength of +2 for 14. That beats 12, so he hits, and rolls his sword’s 1d6 for 4 damage. He has spent 3 of his 6 tokens and stops there, passing to Eadgyth.
Eadgyth raises her voice in a single, wrong note that makes the lanterns shiver.
Magic. Dissonant Note costs 2 tokens and has risk 1, so the party’s Looming Horror rises by 1, from 0 to 1. There is no roll for that. She still has to hit: a d20 roll of 9 plus Will +2 is 11, which is one short of 12. The note rings and misses, but the Looming Horror stays risen.
Eadgyth picks Cuthbert. He throws his hand-axe. A d20 roll of 16 plus Agility +2 is 18, and the axe bites into the sexton’s shoulder for 3 damage. He passes to no one, because everyone has gone.
Adversaries go last. The sexton swings his spade at Osric, who guarded. The sexton rolls 2d6 for damage and gets 9. Osric rolls his quilted coat’s 1d6 for 3, and the Guard adds another 1d6 for 5. Together that absorbs 8, so only 1 harm gets through. Osric marks one box.
Round two
Osric swings again and cuts the sexton open to the ribs, which bleeds black and does not slow him down. Cuthbert is next in line, and the GM does not wait for the end of the round.
A Horror Token. The GM spends 1 Horror Token, so the Looming Horror ladder drops by 1 step, from 1 to 0, and the sexton acts now, before Cuthbert and Eadgyth can take their turns.
The spade comes down on Cuthbert. The sexton rolls 2d6 and gets 10. Cuthbert’s coat rolls 1d6 and absorbs 2, so 8 harm is marked. Boxes 4 and 8 are both full, so Cuthbert has taken two Wounds. One more and he is dying.
Eadgyth does not hesitate. She spends 2 tokens on Litany of Mending, a hymn from her childhood.
Healing. Litany of Mending is a level 1 spell, so it heals 1 Wound. It has no risk of its own, so the Looming Horror rises by the minimum of 1, from 0 back up to 1. Cuthbert’s Wound clears four boxes and he is down to 4 harm, one Wound, still standing.
Cuthbert sets his teeth and finishes the fight with the axe. Osric drags the sexton’s body to the lych-gate.
The morning after
At dawn Leofwyn finds them in the church, alive, and kneels beside her husband’s open grave. Godric has not been seen since the night before. The ladder is still at 1, and Eadgyth does not like it.
Cleansing. This is a safe place, so Eadgyth rolls two d6 and keeps the higher. She gets 2 and 4, and keeps 4. It is her own practice, so she adds +1 for 5. She lowers the Looming Horror by 5, which takes it to 0.
The bell stops. For the first time in three days, Wickham is quiet.
10 Quick reference
| A check | d20 + attribute, against Easy 8, Routine 12, Hard 15, Heroic 18 or Legendary 22. |
|---|---|
| Tokens | 6 per round. Move, Strike and Guard cost 1 each. |
| Distance | Melee is 0 feet, Near is 30 feet (one tile), Far is as far as you can easily see. |
| Combat order | Players in popcorn order or around the table, then adversaries. The GM can spend 1 Horror Token (the ladder drops 1) to bring them forward, out of turn. |
| Weapon | Tier n deals nd6 damage. |
| Armour | Tier n rolls nd6 against each hit and absorbs that much. Guard adds +1d6. |
| Magic | A spell or magic item raises the Looming Horror by its risk, at least 1. No roll. The ladder tops out at 21. |
| Milestones | The ladder at 9, 15 and 21. |
| Cleansing | d6 down the ladder. Twice and keep the higher in a safe place. +1 for your own practice. |
| Harm | 12 boxes. A Wound each at 4, 8 and 12. Three Wounds, and you are dying. |
| Healing | 1 Wound per use. A healing spell mends 1 Wound per tier. Each Wound clears 4 boxes. |