Apprentices Web Edition

Getting Started

Apprentices is a tabletop roleplaying game about students at a magical academy. Three to five of you sit down together — one as GM, the rest as Students. You portray young mages with a Playbook Template, seven attributes, a growing Grimoire, and classmates who will remember what you did in the corridor yesterday.

Attributes

Every character runs on seven attributes — the numbers behind Core Rules rolls. Mundane attributes start at 0 (max 3 at creation). Magical attributes start at 1 (max 3 at creation). When a move says roll +Attribute, add that rating to 2d6. Your Physical attribute represents your might, speed, acrobatics, and non-magical combat prowess. Mages are fundamentally glass cannons, but a mage who can take a punch or dodge a speeding carriage is much harder to kill than one who relies entirely on magical shields. This attribute governs mundane weapons, stealthy movement, and acts of raw athleticism.

Progression

Because the Academy environment is grueling, the ultimate currency for progression is Time in fiction. Growth comes from study, danger, relationships, and hard breakthroughs — this is the advancement half of Core Rules. Every slot you spend huddled in a library or sweating in a training room is a slot not spent tracking down cultists or traversing dangerous areas.

Economy

Most TTRPGs make players count every copper, silver, and gold coin they find. Apprentices skips the coin-counting: it turns tedious fast and means nothing at the table. Wealth lives here under Core Rules as fiction-facing Funds, not a ledger. Wealth is an abstract Funds level: a character's purchasing power for a given month.

GM Framework

This chapter is for the GM. There are dozens of ways to run a roleplaying game; there is a particular way to run Apprentices. The rest of the book tells you what the Students can do; this chapter tells you how to run the Academy around them. You never roll dice — the players roll, and you make moves. Follow your Agenda and Principles and the pressure stays on.

Apprentices SRD

Quick rules for players and GMs during live play — the compact Reference sheet. Use this as table reference. For full detail, see 01 Core Mechanics, Character Creation, and Magic System. Term definitions: Glossary Index. Abbreviations: SP = Study Points, IP = Insight Points. Combat is fiction-first. No rigid initiative track. Enemies usually hit/escalate as consequences of player rolls.

Character Creation

In Apprentices, character creation is the Getting Started beat: who you are and how you plan to survive the gruelling, cutthroat Academy. Pick a playbook, set attributes, and get ready for the first session. Not everyone can use magic. The ability to sense, draw upon, and shape Mana is an innate biological trait: you either have it or you don't. Roughly one in every twenty people is born with a mana reservoir large enough to cast even the simplest spell. Of those, only a fraction ever receive the rigorous training required to become a true mage. Your character is one of those rare few who both possesses the gift and has secured a place at a prestigious academy.

Quick Character Creation

Use this cheat sheet to quickly roll up a 2nd-year student. For full details and lore, see Character Creation. Pick your class. Each playbook is a complete package — attributes, starting schools, origins, signature move, gear, and bonds. Pick 1 Origin from your playbook's table. It grants a Connection (person, organization, or access; frequency noted, e.g. 1/session or 1/arc).

Playbooks

A playbook is who you are at the Academy — a lens on fiction, not a mini-game of numbers. Pick one, follow its array and origins, and bring the character to life at the table. Playbook pages on this wiki are display-only (stats are reference). Track live numbers on paper or whatever sheet your table prefers.

Basic Moves

These are the Moves chapter — starting with the basic moves every Student shares. They rely on your mundane attributes. When a player describes an action that fits a trigger, they roll. Magic, playbook, and learnable moves sit beside this note in the sidebar. Keep the lists open at the table; jump to a single move from the sections below.

Magic Moves

These moves cover live casting, research, and support crafts — the magic half of the Moves chapter. Fiction still triggers them: declare what you do, then resolve the move. This move handles live shaping under pressure. It is not the default trigger for downtime support crafting; use Brew Alchemy and Engrave Artifice for those workflows.

Playbook Moves

Playbook moves also appear on their playbook sheets. This chapter collects the published move text in one place for table lookup. A Playbook Move for The Craftsman (optional swap, not in the core 6) When you throw an alchemical concoction as a weapon, treat it as a Projection-aligned blast and roll +Calculation.

Learnable Moves

Learnable moves unlocked through play or study (not starting playbook menus). A modular Playbook Move. Can be learned to actively resist mental assaults. When you actively brace your mind against an invasive telepathic, illusory, or psychological assault, roll +Willpower. A modular Playbook Move. Can be learned to actively resist spiritual damage.

Magic System

Purpose: Magic is the physical act of shaping geometric structures in your soul and forcing raw atmospheric mana through them. This act is called Shaping. Read this chapter as the teaching order for the table: loop → Mana Track → Glyphs → schools → support crafts. This document defines the live casting grammar, risk engine, and progression framework for Technique Glyph play.

Glyph System

Technique glyphs are the reusable shapes apprentices stack when they Shape the Matrix. Each glyph is a verb with a role: anchor glyphs fix, drive, or signal; form glyphs wrap, veil, seal, or hollow. You declare Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags, pay on the Mana Track, and live with the glyph's risk signature on a mixed success.

Grimoire

A canonical reference of live-casting Technique Glyphs under the WHA-Protocol. Mastery tiers are omitted for student safety. Consult your Master for tier-specific training. Glyph roles: Anchor glyphs deliver or hold the spell; Form glyphs shape how it manifests. See Magic System. A Mastered Spell is a declaration you have stabilized into a reliable formula — fill a pattern's 4-segment Spell Clock by casting it successfully, or research it via Research Matrix.

Glyphs Index

Technique Glyph roster. Teaching overview and three quick examples per glyph live on Glyph System. Homebrew review lives on Glyph Creation.

Formulas Index

This module tracks homebrew-ready formulas and their promotion path into canonical Technique Glyphs. The library holds both Academy-standard staples (fireball, shields, detection — the spells everyone drills) and player-invented compositions (custom stacks players design and Master). To draft a new one, use the Formula Template. Kept as prose (not a pipe table) so formula and glyph wikilinks stay intact in the Stonetop build.

Schools Lore

This document contains the deep lore, sensory details, and theoretical principles for every magic school. Live table casting uses the Technique Glyph declaration: Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags. This note provides lore and fictional context; live mechanical adjudication belongs to the active school and system rules notes.

Abjuration

Bending mana defensively to deny, protect, and isolate. Abjuration is the immovable object; structured denial and counter-control are the whole discipline. In current play, casting follows Technique Glyph declarations (Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags). Classification: Core School When you hold Abjuration in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning.

Alteration

Changing physical properties without adding or removing mass. Alteration is precision-heavy work that rewards rigorous control. In current play, casting follows Technique Glyph declarations (Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags). Classification: Core School When you hold Alteration in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning. When creating Alteration spells, respect these rules:

Animation

Infusing patterned intent into inert systems. Animation gives purpose and routine to what should remain still. In current play, casting follows Technique Glyph declarations (Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags). Classification: Core School When you hold Animation in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning. Technique identity: Animation defaults to Puls for behavior cadence and Band for command-link continuity.

Dimensionalism

Bending the space-time fabric to ignore physical distance. Dimensionalists are couriers, tacticians, and summoners who treat reality like a foldable map. In current play, casting follows Technique Glyph declarations (Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags). Classification: Core School When you hold Dimensionalism in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning.

Divination

Magic is fundamentally information. Divination does not change the world; it interrogates it. In current play, casting follows Technique Glyph declarations (Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags). Classification: Core School When you hold Divination in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning. Technique identity: Divination defaults to Hall for trace-imprint reading and Puls for active scan cadence.

Illusionism

Hijacking sensory interpretation. Illusionism does not reshape matter directly; it reshapes perception and inference. In current play, casting follows Technique Glyph declarations (Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags). Classification: Core School When you hold Illusionism in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning. Technique identity: Illusionism defaults to Schleier for concealment and Spiegel for deceptive reframing.

Projection

Projection is the brute force of the academic world. To project is to draw violent energy from pure mana. It is volatile, fast, and favored by military tacticians and elemental researchers. In current play, casting follows Technique Glyph declarations (Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags). Classification: Core School

Soul Magic

A forbidden branch. While other schools work through matter or perception, Soul Magic directly manipulates identity-level metaphysics. In current play, casting follows Technique Glyph declarations (Intent -> School -> Glyph -> Scale -> Tags). Classification: Core School When you hold Soul Magic in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning.

Alchemy

When you hold Alchemy in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning. Alchemy is currently a support discipline, not a standalone Technique Glyph school. (For sensory detail and deeper theory, see Schools Lore.)

Artifice

Artifice is the atelier craft of drawing a stabilized formula into an object. Any object. Rings, discs, foci, parchments, weapons, doors: if it can hold an inscription, it can hold a spell. A spell disc is one shape among many (see Engrave Artifice). When you hold Artifice in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning.

Divine Magic

When you hold Divine Magic in your Grimoire, you have specific fictional positioning. Divine Magic is currently a support discipline, not a standalone Technique Glyph school. (For sensory detail and deeper theory, see Schools Lore.)

Items & Equipment

Mundane gear carries new Students a long way, but these are mages: real power comes from spells and Mana. So weapons and armor stay abstracted, not rigidly simulated. This chapter covers gear and crafting — what you carry, what tags mean, and how apprentices make tools. Making new gear uses Crafting; the procedure lives beside this page in the sidebar.

Crafting

Crafting physical magical assets requires time, the correct support discipline, and raw materials (abstracted as a "Material Cache" of a Tier/Complexity equal to the desired item). Both Alchemy and Artifice use the same hybrid model. When your campaign uses the Ersetu edition, rare reagents and crystalized mana live under Magical Materials — link there for setting-specific inputs; this chapter stays the core crafting procedure.

Items Compendium

Player-facing item list for the book. Rules for funds, armor, and gear tiers live in Items & Equipment. Individual item pages remain available for deep links; this hub is what the Contents sidebar shows.

Glossary Index

The complete Reference of terms used across the rules. Each entry links to its full note; most are one or two paragraphs, so this page is the fastest way to look something up at the table. See also: 01 Core Mechanics, Progression, Magic System, Apprentices SRD

FAQ

Quick Reference answers to the questions players actually ask about the mechanics, magic system, and (when Ersetu is on) the setting — plus edge cases. A: Unstructured intent magic is raw, on-the-fly mana manipulation with no shaped matrix, handled by the Channel Unstructured Magic move. Harmless utility (warming tea, faint light, a gentle push) can be narrated freely. Anything with real stakes triggers the move, and major unstructured use (city-destroying scale, or brute force without geometry) demands explicit Wounds (Channel Strain) before you even roll. Structured Spells are specific geometric matrices built from Technique Glyphs; they cost 1 or more Ticks and trigger the Shape the Matrix move, carrying a risk of severe consequences on a mixed roll.