Getting Started
Welcome to Apprentices
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.
Most tables place that academy in the world of Ersetu — often the lecture halls, House dinners, and undercity of Cyoria in Eldemar. The core rules stand alone; turn on the Ersetu edition in the sidebar when you want the full setting book.
Expectations
- Play is a conversation. The GM says what the world does; you say what your character does. Rules fire when fiction triggers them — not the other way around.
- You roll + an attribute. 10+ goes your way. 7–9 costs something. 6- and the GM makes a hard move that follows from what you just tried.
- Magic is precise and never free. You shape matrices, mark ticks on your Mana Track, and sometimes pay with wounds, attention, or debt.
- Misses change the fiction. A 6- is not "nothing happens." Something gets worse, louder, or more complicated.
If someone wants a rootless dungeon-crawler with no classmates and no consequences at home, this is the wrong game. Apprentices assumes you care about the people who share your dorm, your House, and your exam hall.
Why play?
Play Apprentices to find out who these Students become under pressure — academic, social, and magical. You will cast spells by shaping the matrix, mark strain when you push past your Calculation, and choose whether reputation, safety, or grades matter more this week.
Under the hood it is Powered by the Apocalypse: fiction first, moves with triggers, fail forward. If that language is new, start with How to Play, then Playing the Game.
The setting (optional)
Core Apprentices is academy rules only — Students, Houses, exams, and magic. When your table wants Eldemar's nations, bestiary, and academy lore, enable Ersetu beside the wiki title — that layer is Book II for this site: setting, factions, and the wider world.
How to use this book
- How to Play — primer if you have never touched a PbtA game.
- Playing the Game — how a session feels once the conversation is rolling.
- Character Creation or Quick Character Creation, then a Playbook Template.
- Keep Basic Moves and Magic Moves open at the table.
- Open Magic System when you are ready to shape spells in detail.
- GM Framework is for the GM; players may skim it so everyone shares the same agenda language.
The home page is your cover and chapter cards. This chapter is the book's true welcome.
How to Play
This chapter assumes you have never played a Powered by the Apocalypse game. Read it once before character creation — then come back when something at the table feels murky.
Review of the setting
Agree, briefly, on where you play. Core Apprentices needs only: a magical academy, students with Houses or backgrounds, and pressure (exams, rivals, expeditions). If you use the Ersetu edition, skim Eldemar Setting and pick backgrounds from Eldemar Backgrounds so everyone shares the same map.
Set expectations
Before the first session, make sure everyone wants heroes of an academy, not rootless mercenaries. Ask what content to exclude, veil, or handle carefully. Write it down. Revisit it when the campaign darkens.
Discuss tone and content
Apprentices can be witty classroom drama one scene and body-horror channel strain the next. Decide together how far injury, mind magic, and social cruelty go. The rules support fail-forward danger; the table decides what is fun.
Create characters
Use Quick Character Creation for a first night, or the full Character Creation chapter when you have time. Either way:
- Pick a Playbook Template.
- Take its attribute guidance (arrays are reference — playbook pages are display-only on the wiki; track your table's live numbers on paper or whatever sheet you prefer).
- Choose starting schools, gear, and signature moves as the playbook directs.
- Name bonds, rivals, and what you want from this term.
Intro to PCs
Go around the table. Say who you are, what House or background you claim, and one thing the others already know about you. The GM asks questions; answer in character when you can. Leave blank spaces — empty relationships are fuel.
Let the term begin
The GM frames the opening scene in media res or at the first meaningful choice of the term. You act. Fiction triggers moves. Dice fall. There is no initiative track — the conversation passes the spotlight.
After the session
Mark what Progression asks for (SP, IP, milestones). Note open threads. The End of Session beat is short: celebrate, flag trouble, and decide what next week must answer.
Playing the Game
This chapter is addressed to players, but the GM should read it too. It is about the feel of a session once How to Play is settled.
The conversation
You play Apprentices by talking. The GM says something; you and the other players respond. You ask questions. You point at the rules when fiction demands it, roll, and talk about what the result means.
There is no grid, no initiative clock, no "I use my move." You say what your Student does. If that matches a move's When you… trigger, you roll. If it doesn't, the GM simply says what happens.
Your agenda (players)
- Play to find out who your Student becomes under pressure.
- Be a fan of the other PCs — set them up; don't shut them down.
- Think dangerous — magic, Houses, and exams all bite.
- Look for moves in what you already said, not for an excuse to roll.
Flow of play
- The GM frames a scene — classroom, street, delving site, House dinner.
- Players act. Fiction triggers moves. Dice fall.
- 10+ — you push the story your way.
- 7–9 — you succeed and accept a cost, choice, or complication.
- 6- — the GM makes a hard move that follows from what you just tried.
Whoever is in the spotlight acts; the conversation passes the ball.
Dice and moves
Roll + attribute. Outcomes live on the move (see Moves below). On a 7–9, take the listed cost or the GM's offered pair. On a 6-, expect escalation: harm, exposure, lost time, an enemy's move, a Mana crisis, or matrix collapse.
Your principles (players)
- Say what your character does; don't invent the world's secrets.
- Ask questions; leave blank spaces.
- Accept that a miss means the fiction changes.
- When magic is involved, name scale, school, and risk — then shape.
Your character
Your playbook is a lens, not a character sheet minigame. Stats on playbook pages are reference. Track your live numbers on paper or whatever sheet your table prefers. Advance through Progression between sessions.
Magic
Casting spends Mana Track ticks and can inflict channel strain. Overreaching Calculation, shaping non-ready glyphs under pressure, or abandoning structure for raw power raises the price. See Magic System and Shape the Matrix.
NPCs
Classmates, professors, and prefects are people with wants. Talk to them. Pressure them. The GM will use your 7–9 and 6- results to let them bite back. Ersetu edition adds named students and teachers when you want a full cast.
Moves (basic and magic)
A move is a named rule that fires when the fiction matches its trigger. You do not "activate" it from a menu — you say what your Student does, and if that matches a When you… line, you roll.
Every move works the same way:
- Trigger — the fiction matches the move (forcing a door, reading a room, shaping a matrix under pressure).
- Roll — usually + an attribute named on the move.
- Outcome — 10+ goes your way; 7–9 succeeds with a cost, choice, or complication the move (or GM) names; 6- is a miss and the GM makes a hard move that follows from what you just tried.
Three places moves live — all under the Moves chapter:
- Basic moves — every Student shares these (force, fight, notice, persuade, recall…). See Basic Moves.
- Magic moves — every caster uses these for live shaping, research, and support crafts. See Magic Moves (start with Shape the Matrix).
- Playbook moves — extras unique to your archetype; they sit on your playbook page.
Keep the move lists (or the Apprentices SRD) open at the table so you can find the right trigger when fiction gets sharp.
Items
Gear matters when the fiction cares — a focus in hand, a salve after a duel, a House token that opens a door. See Items & Equipment and Crafting. Ersetu materials live under the Ersetu edition.
If you want to…
When fiction gets sharp and you need the right chapter:
- Force a door, win a fight, dig for truth — open Basic Moves.
- Cast, research, brew, or engrave — open Magic Moves.
- Grow between sessions — open Progression.
- Shape a new formula — open Magic System.
- Spend coin or commission work — open Economy.
Between scenes
Downtime is for research, craft, and spending SP/IP. Moves like Research Matrix, Brew Alchemy, and Engrave Artifice belong in protected study — not mid-duel improvisation.
Core Mechanics
Welcome to Apprentices. This chapter is the rules spine: how moves resolve, what attributes mean, and how harm and healing land on body and soul.
Core Resolution Mechanic
Apprentices runs on a Player-Facing system built around mental struggle, magical precision, and the human body pushed to its absolute limits.
The Move
When your character does something in the fiction that matches a Move's trigger (e.g., "When you strike an enemy in close combat," or "When you shape a spell matrix"), you roll the dice. You roll two six-sided dice () and add the relevant Attribute.
- 10+ (Strong Hit): You succeed completely. You get what you want, and often get to choose a bonus from the Move's list.
- 7-9 (Mixed Success): You succeed, but there's a cost, complication, or compromise. The GM will offer you a hard choice or an enemy will retaliate.
- 6- (Miss): Things go wrong. The GM will make a "Hard Move," altering the fiction to introduce danger, damage, or an unexpected setback.
Roll Modifiers
Sometimes a Move or situation will grant you a mechanical modifier to your roll:
- +1 Forward: You get a flat +1 bonus to your very next relevant roll.
- Advantage: You roll and keep the highest two dice.
- Disadvantage: You roll and keep the lowest two dice.
Ready Glyphs & Joint Casting
- Ready Glyphs: You can hold many formulas in your Grimoire, but scene pressure assumes a limited preloaded set. At scene start, mark Ready Glyphs = 2 + highest of (Calculation, Memory). Shaping known but non-ready glyphs in tense scenes adds one extra mixed-result pressure.
- Joint Casting: Two players can work together using the Joint Casting move. When you assist another mage, you choose to either provide Advantage to their roll through mental coordination (using your Calculation) or shoulder the Mana cost (Ticks) of the spell yourself.
Narrative Action Flow
Apprentices has no rigid initiative system or turn order. Action flows from the fiction.
- The Conversation: Play is a conversation. The GM describes the situation and asks, "What do you do?"
- Player Action: A player describes their action. If it triggers a Move, they roll.
- The Roll Dictates the Flow: The GM does not usually roll. Enemies deal damage and act as a consequence of a player's 7-9 or 6- rolls.
The 7 Attributes
Every character in Apprentices runs on seven attributes. "Skills" and "Traits" have been collapsed; if your character ought to be good at something (like Lockpicking), they simply take the relevant Playbook Move (e.g., Thief in the Night).
Magical Attributes (The Soul's Shaping)
These represent the inherent power, processing speed, and physical mana capacity of the Student's magical mind. Base: 1. Max: 3.
- Memory — Capacity for retaining pre-calculated spell architectures. Contributes to your scene-ready glyph limit and sustained formula recall under pressure.
- Calculation — Mental RAM. Represents your comfort level with concurrent tags. Pushing beyond your Calculation score means you are Pushing the Matrix and invites channel-strain harm during casting.
- Finesse — Delicate exactness of weaving multiple glyphs. Used for subtle, precise, or defensive shaping.
- Willpower — Raw force of intent. Used for pure destruction, channeling unstructured energy, and brute-forcing reality.
Mundane Attributes
These represent your physical and intellectual capabilities. Base: 0. Max: 3.
- Mental — Knowledge, academics, logic, perception, and crafting.
- Social — Charm, deception, intimidation, and reading people's intentions.
- Physical — Might, agility, acrobatics, and non-magical combat prowess.
Harm and Healing
When Students get hurt, the fiction changes — limping to class, bleeding in the Dungeon, shaking after a bad channel. Use the tracks below; the GM turns marked boxes into Conditions and hard moves.
Injuries (Physical Health)
Physical Health (The Body State)
Every character typically has 7 Physical Health Boxes (unless altered by a Playbook Move). As you take damage from attacks or hazards, mark off these boxes. Instead of abstract math penalties, damage imposes Conditions (see Conditions) that the GM uses to alter your fictional positioning or make Hard Moves.
Wounds (Channel Strain & Harm)
There is no abstract "mana bar" to track. Instead, whenever you push magic beyond your safe limits or roll a 7-9 on Shape the Matrix, your organic channels tear. This strain inflicts actual Wounds on your Physical Health track.
- A partial rest (sitting quietly) gives you time to focus and can heal 1-Wound caused purely by magic.
- Using unstructured magic or casting at city-destroying scale costs explicit Wounds before you even roll.
Death and Dying
When you mark Incapacitated, you are unconscious and bleeding out. Untreated, you die at the end of the scene. Allies can stabilize you with fiction (first aid, salves, Medical Magic) — the GM says what that costs and whether you wake with Conditions.
Sanity & Morality
Erosion Trigger Move
When facing trauma or committing atrocities, roll the Resist Erosion Move. Roll + Memory (you anchor yourself in who you are) or + Willpower (you defy the horror) — the player chooses which fits the fiction.
- 10+: You steel your mind. No ill effects.
- 7-9: You are shaken. The GM will offer you a choice: take 1 permanent Sanity damage, or take a temporary condition (Paranoia, Tremors) until the end of the quest.
- 6-: The horror breaks you. Lose 1 permanent Sanity, and the GM makes a Hard Move concerning your mental state.
At 0 Sanity, your character becomes a "Hollow".