We bid you a warmest welcome to CORSAIR and becoming a member of an Interdimensional Response Team. You’re probably feeling excited, scared, maybe disoriented – all these feelings are perfectly normal. Bonding with a powerful artifact? Gaining immortality and the ability to move between Worlds and beyond? Changing the very fabric of reality? It can be traumatic and terrifying when the fate of everything rests on your shoulders.
We here at Administration have put together this guide to help you get oriented in your new role. We can’t cover everything you’ll encounter out there – there’s so much left to be discovered, after all – but enough to prep you for your first MISSION. You’ll learn more in the field than you ever will from some documentation.
After this, someone from Strategy will walk you through your new powers and organizations that can help you. Wherever you come from, think of Hope as your second home. You’ve taken the first step to seizing your own future and securing one for all of us. Regardless of what brought you here, we’re proud of you and we can’t wait to see what you accomplish.
Best wishes,
Wild Riot Tensel, UH10
First Chair, Administration
THE RULES
Most of the rules in this book can be used or discarded as you and the GM wish. However, there are a few general rules that the system is built around:
- Always round up.
- For any line attack, your space starts as its point of origin. You are included in that line for purposes of friendly effects.
- Everyone knows their home language, the shared written and spoken language of the Cluster, and a common sign language.
- Don’t be a dick.
What’s this game about?
In RINGS, you play a Hand, semi-immortal adventurer trying to save the shattered remains of reality. Your powers (and immortality) are granted through contracts made with magical artifacts called Rings. Together with your Interdimensional Response Team, you travel between worlds, providing aid wherever you can.
THE COLLAPSE
Ten years ago, the barrier between dimensions buckled and fractured. Most universes were devoured in that endless instant, reduced to nothing by howling iridescent winds, and all of existence collapsed into one dimension. As they were being crushed together into nothingness, ice crystallized around these dimension fragments that weren’t yet consumed and drew them together, protecting them.
What remained of them, anyways. No longer infinite and untouched, they huddle together in a group called the Cluster, connected by the endlessly-growing ice.
Whatever caused the Collapse is still out there, still gnawing, still trying to get in.
CREATION OF THE CLUSTER
The ice drew everything that remained together in a configuration known as the Cluster. While each world is separated from the others by the ice, we’ve mapped all the known ones within the cluster and have dubbed these Inner Worlds. You can get to any world within the Cluster from any other world – as long as you know the way.
While this guide contains the basic profiles on all known Inner Worlds, there are more out there. Were they always there or are they being attracted to the Cluster in some other fashion?
TENKA, THE FIRST LEGEND
The Cluster, reeling from the tragedy of the Collapse, had only a few days to tend the wounded and adapt to the changes in their worlds before another threat emerged: a hulking beast with burning fur and molten antlers, hundreds of feet tall, melting through the ice into the mountains of Anaesh. Called Tenka of the Thousand Horns, it could not be stopped. Whatever came close to Tenka died, charred to an ashen shadow. When the beast bellowed, it stunned everything in range of its air-shaking roar. No weapons seemed to harm it. As it trudged towards First House, it left ever-burning trails in its wake.
What might have been the end of Anaesh and the rest of the Cluster was stopped by a fortuitous discovery: Aii Marndoix of the Devouring White found a Ring in her pocket. It offered her a deal: bond with it and she could destroy Tenka.
She accepted and fought Tenka alone for hours, dying and instantaneously resurrecting over and over again. Others, desperate to help, found their own Rings appearing from nowhere. Together, they defeated the first Legend.
DISCOVERING HOPE
The heroes who bonded with Rings heard the whispers: they could pass through the ice between dimensions, crossing over into a new – for them – world. They explored the Cluster, finding each other and unknown civilizations until they discovered Hope.
Hope is the massive dimension at the center of the Cluster. It responds to the desires of its inhabitants in a way no other world does. CORSAIR set up shop here in Central. There, they can dispatch Interdimensional Response Teams with unmatched speed.
DEVELOPMENT OF CORSAIR AND THE IRT
Where there are people, there will be organization. Despite thousands of Hands and their immortality, they were getting overwhelmed. Furthermore, Hands need to be on the frontlines using their abilities to save reality – not stuck behind a desk. To facilitate communication and allocation of Hands across the Cluster, seven groups rose out of the chaos:
ADMINISTRATION
They handle support and documentation for CORSAIR, making sure everything gets written down and dispersed between the groups.
STRATEGY
Strategy tackles how to fix reality itself – developing procedures for the wide variety of ANOMALIES.
IMPLEMENTATION
This organization keeps track of everywhere a Hand is needed and picks the appropriate TEAM for the MISSION.
OVERSIGHT
Oversight evaluates MISSION performance and what to do when shit escalates.
COMMUNICATIONS
They have interdimensional comm networks across the entire Cluster and even some beyond. Monitoring the health of reality is a tough job, but they’re up to it.
RESEARCH
This group is constantly studying the nature of reality, Resonance, Rings, and even some things that don’t start with ‘r.’ If a new Wonderwork is developed, they’re probably behind it.
RESPONSE
You are in Response – any Hand that isn’t in one of the other groups is sent out on MISSIONS to make sure there is a tomorrow. Thank you. Truly.
FORMATION OF THE GUILDS
CORSAIR isn’t the only organization Hands can join. Exposure to all that magic has led most Hands to develop additional abilities – special powers along certain thematic lines. These powers don’t seem to come from the Ring, but the Hand themselves. Accessing and using these powers is incredibly difficult unless someone can teach you, and that’s where the Guilds come in. There’s twelve, each with a particular outlook on the universe and each with its own set of powers. Feel free to join one – it’s not required but strongly recommended.
How did YOU get here?
One day, you found a Ring. Or perhaps a Ring found you. They can turn up anywhere anytime, but have an uncanny knack to find someone who can use them.
They don’t look like much at first, do they? These bits of metal, tarnished and misshapen. Hidden in a corner of your bag, in your food, tangled in the pistils of a flower. They only reveal themselves when they want to. It speaks to you through your mind, though psychics say it doesn’t feel like telepathy.
It wants to make a deal.
Remember your World? it asks, remember the ruin and calamity? Remember how powerless you felt? What if you could change that? What if you had the chance to save everyone?
What’s the deal? Immortality and magic are yours if you bond with it forever. The power it offers is not a lie. Everything it tells you is the truth.
You don’t have to take the deal. Some people aren’t ready or will never be ready even if they have the potential. You can set the Ring down and go on with your life. No one will judge you harshly for it – the life of a Hand isn’t for everyone.
It’s easy to say that’s all it takes to become a Hand: one who wears a Ring, but it’s really just the beginning. You can cross the ice on your own and summon reality-shattering powers…and your power makes you a target for the forces trying to destroy reality.
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BHUH6.1450: Buckle up. We need all the help we can get.
OOUH7.789: She means welcome aboard.
C-SUH6.1334: Welcome to the unofficial guide, where we tell all the cool stuff we’ve learned that CORSAIR doesn’t want you to know about.
OOUH7.789: This is a living document – they have to approve every comment we leave in.
C-SUH6.1334: Not if I have admin rights.
BHUH6.1450: You do not- oh, you do.
C-SUH6.1334: Pro Tip #1: you can keep asking for food at Central cafeterias and they will give it to you.
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