Calythera is built to be played as well as heard. Eight classes, five peoples, and a world where the gear you carry is a character in its own right — it advances, it degrades, and keeping it working is part of the game.
Everything here is free. The full handbook opens with an account.
Eight operatives, each running a different resource under a different kind of pressure — aether forced through a body, a shield charge that pays for everything, a stealth gauge everyone at the table can watch fall.
Five peoples shaped by what happened here — the ones who adapted, the ones who stayed, and the ones the Wastes changed outright. Every one of them carries it visibly, in Marks written on the skin.
Starting Relics for all eight classes. Two options per slot, chosen once at creation — every card Dormant until one Calibration Event wakes what it's actually capable of.
Aether density, resources, the shape of a session, and what a table needs to run Calythera.
There is no magic in Calythera. There is aether — a visible gas that burns violet with a blue core, and the substrate every machine draws from. What people do with it, they do through built things: etched weapons, resonance plating, pressurised launchers, instruments a whole coalition treats as a cultural treasure.
Every class pays for its power out of something that runs down. An Ironbreaker floods their own body with raw aether and loses control of themselves doing it. A Bulwark spends the same charge on protecting the party that keeps them standing. A Pulsant's chemistry rots overnight, so nothing is ever saved for later. There is no class here that simply swings.
And your gear is a character. Relics advance through Calibration Events, carry properties you choose or roll for, and are registered to a single holder — the holder's mark struck into the metal, the entry made in the register. Carrying a rack of weapons gets you nothing. See the wiki for how the world handles all of it.
Every page in the Compendium is open to read. The full rules — level progressions, feature text, subclass mechanics, relic cards — sit behind a free account, so we know who's reading and you get told when something changes.
No payment, no card, no tier. A print edition will follow later for anyone who wants the object.
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