The Core Kernel is designed to be easy to learn and fast to run at the table.
To keep that promise, the Kernel follows a fixed sequence each Hand, and any optional rules (“Extensions”) are only allowed to plug into specific steps of that sequence. This is called the The Contract.

The Core Rules are the always-on rules engine for resolving opposed situations using cards + real tokens (no dice).

It guarantees:
* Core stays small: you can learn it quickly and play right away.

• A single repeatable procedure for conflict resolution (Conflict → Hands).
• Deterministic outcomes with integer-only math.
• Bluff space (hidden commitments) and meaningful bet sizing (poker pressure).
• Modular stability: Extensions must “plug in” at named hook points, not rewrite flow.

• Actor
  • Any entity that can take actions in the fiction (PCs, NPCs, monsters, hazards, environments, etc.).

• The Trine
  • The three Aspects that make up an Actor: Mind / Body / Spirit.

• TA (Trine Aspect)
  • One of the three Aspects: Mind, Body, or Spirit.
  • TA determines dominance interactions, damage type, and which Attributes may be used in a Hand.

• Attribute
  • One of the nine core traits that quantify an Actor’s capabilities.
  • Each TA has three Attributes (9 total).
  • Attributes define *what* an Actor can do and how flexibly they can act within an Aspect.

• AV (Attribute Value)
  • The current rating of an Attribute.
  • AV determines:
    • How many Attribute Tokens the Actor has in that Attribute’s stack.
    • Whether an Attribute can be used at all (AV 0 = unusable).
  • AV does not determine how much may be bid in a Hand.
  • AV is reduced by Damage and recovers only through advancement or other non-core rules.

• Attribute Tokens
  • Physical tokens representing an Actor’s current AV in a specific Attribute.
  • Attribute Tokens are:
    • Used to pay antes.
    • Committed as bids during Hands.
    • Removed permanently when taken as Damage.
  • Tokens committed as bids are unavailable for other bids until they refresh at the end of the Conflict.

• TS (Trine Score)
  • A numeric value representing an Actor’s overall strength in a Trine Aspect.
  • TS is derived by averaging the three AVs in that TA (rounded down).
  • TS is the Bid cap when that TA is played in a Hand.
    • You may not bid more tokens than your TS for that TA.
    • You must still physically possess the required Attribute Tokens to place a bid.
  • TS itself is not reduced by bidding; it changes only when AVs change.

• TTS (Total Trine Score)
  • The sum of an Actor’s Trine Scores:
    • TS(Mind) + TS(Body) + TS(Spirit).
  • TTS is often used as a rough measure of overall power level.

• TD (Trine Dominance)
  • The dominance result between Trine Aspects:
    • Mind > Body > Spirit > Mind.
  • Resolved pairwise between opponents during a Hand.

• AD (Attribute Dominance)
  • The dominance result between Attributes.
  • Includes both intra-Aspect cycles and cross-Aspect matchups, resolved using the reference card.
  • AD is resolved pairwise between opponents.

• Bid
  • The number of Attribute Tokens an Actor commits during a Hand.
  • A Bid:
    • Is capped by the Actor’s TS for the played TA.
    • Is removed from the Actor’s stack when committed.
    • Does not refresh until the end of the Conflict.
  • A Bid represents exertion, focus, leverage, or commitment — not injury.

• Bid Tokens
  • Attribute Tokens that have been committed as a Bid.
  • Bid Tokens function like poker chips during a Conflict.

• Damage
  • The permanent removal of Attribute Tokens from an Actor’s stacks.
  • Damage represents injury, depletion, loss of capability, or structural harm.
  • Damage reduces AV and may render Attributes unusable.

• Hand
  • One complete resolution cycle inside a Conflict
    • (Engagement → Commit → Reveal → Resolve → Outcome → Update State).

• Conflict
  • An opposed situation resolved through one or more Hands.
  • A Conflict ends when the fiction says the objective is resolved, one side withdraws, or elimination occurs.

• Forced Withdrawal
  • Removal from a Conflict due to inability or unwillingness to continue (most commonly from being unable to ante).
  • Forced Withdrawal represents retreat, surrender, exhaustion, loss of leverage, panic, or disengagement.
  • Forced Withdrawal is not automatically death and is resolved according to the fiction.

• Wildcards
  • Special heroic tokens (PC-only by default).
  • A Wildcard adds +1 to a showdown total.
  • Wildcards refresh once per Conflict.

• ES (Edge Step / Stakes)
  • A Conflict-level value (1–5) representing how dangerous or consequential the situation is.
  • ES sets the scale for bonuses and damage.
  • Announced by the GM at the start of the Conflict.

All math is integer-only to be quick and easy for players to do in their head.

• Floor means “round down.”
  • Example: floor(3.9)=3 and floor(3.0)=3.
• No fractions: if a rule would create a fraction, use floor.
• Min-1 rule (nonnegative derived values only):
  • After flooring, if a derived nonnegative value would become 0 but at least one contributing AV is not 0, the final value is 1.

This term is used to describe how one Aspect or Attribute has advantage over one other, but is weaker than one other, just like Rock-Paper-Scissors. This is the core concept in the game that is used over-and-over.

• Mind > Body > Spirit > Mind

Mind over Body. Body is the Vessel of the Spirit. Spirit inspires the Mind.

• Mind: REA > KNO > QUI > REA
  • “Think → Know → Quick → Think.”
• Body: STR > FIT > AGI > STR
  • “Smash → Last → Dash → Smash.”
• Spirit: WIL > PRE > INT > WIL
  • “Grit → Aura → Gut → Grit.”

When the compared Attributes come from different TAs, use the Cross-Aspect Attribute Dominance reference

TS always uses a 3-slot construct (even if some Attributes are absent).

For a TA with AV triplet (x/y/z):

• TS = floor( (x+y+z)/3)
• Apply Min-1 rule if TS would be 0 but at least one of x,y,z is nonzero.
• Absent Attributes (“-”) count as conceptual 0 for TS math.

Examples:
An Actor with Reason 4, Knowledge 5, and Quickness 7 has Mind TS = 5
An Actor with STR 10, FIT 9, AGI - has Body TS = 6 (and cannot move)

• TTS = TS(Mind) + TS(Body) + TS(Spirit)

• PCs have WR (Wildcard Rank) and gain that many Wildcard tokens per Conflict.
• Wildcards refresh once per Conflict, not per Hand.
• Anti-nuke rule: you may spend at most 1 Wildcard per Hand (unless an Extension changes this).
• NPCs have WR=0 by default (an Extension may grant WR to Featured/Boss NPCs).

Wildcards:

• Add to any Attribute bid.
• Do not count against the AV cap.
• Are not transferred to opponents (they are not “poker chips”).

At the start of a Conflict, the GM determines Stakes from the highest Rank Actor present:

• ES = min(5, 1 + floor( (R_max − 1)/5))

GM announces the Stakes name + number (without revealing Rank):

• ES1 “Low Stakes”
• ES2 “Hot”
• ES3 “High Stakes”
• ES4 “Deadly”
• ES5 “Mythic”

Extensions must plug in to one of these named steps:

• Engagement → Who is in the Conflict, what’s at stake, what ES is.
• Commit → Hidden choices and token commitments.
• Reveal → Reveal cards/tokens.
• Resolve → Apply TD/AD rules and compute winners/margins.
• Outcome → Damage/DoS/loot/pot awards.
• Update State → Persistent AV changes, eliminations, refresh rules.

No Extension may introduce special-case flowcharts that bypass the Contract. It must modify variables at a named step.

Most unopposed actions resolve inside a Scene without starting a Conflict.
When opposition or sequencing matters, the GM declares a Conflict.

A Conflict is made of one or more Hands.

Each Hand follows these steps in order.

During the course of role-playing a Scene, a Player or the GM states an Action an Actor they are controlling will take that is opposed by another Actor. This sets up a Conflict that must be resolved by playing one or more Hands.

Whoever took the initial Action is Under the Gun (UTG).

The GM identifies which Actors are actually involved with each other this Hand.
In big chaotic fights, the GM may split the Conflict into smaller interaction groups (clusters) so the table doesn’t bog down.

GM:

• Confirm participants, and who is opposing who (for future Dominance outcomes).
• Confirm Stakes (ES) for this Conflict.
• Reminder: Conflicts should end as soon as the fiction says the goal is resolved (escape achieved, objective taken, surrender offered, retreat succeeds, etc.). Do not grind to total elimination unless the fiction demands it.

Beginning with the UTG Actor, each involved Actor:

• States their intent (role-playing).
• Pays the required ante of one Attribute Token of their choosing into the Ante Pot.
  • The ante token is placed face down into the pot.
  • Any Actor who cannot (or will not) ante is removed from the Conflict by Forced Withdrawal (they retreat, surrender, fall back, lose their nerve, run out of leverage, etc.).
• Chooses and plays one face down Trine Aspect (TA) Card (Mind / Body / Spirit).

Everyone:

• Reveals what TA Card they played.
• Resolve Trine Dominance (TD) pairwise against all opponents, and count each Actor’s TD Wins.

Pay the Ante Pot (random, no picking):

• Keep the Ante Pot tokens face down.
• Pay the pot token-by-token to the Actor(s) with the most TD Wins first:
  • If tied, pay round-robin in table order among the tied leaders until the pot is empty.
• After payout is complete, the received ante tokens may be turned face up and added to the receiving Actor’s appropriate Attribute stacks.
• Any unpaid tokens become a Jackpot and carry over into the next Hand’s Ante Pot.
• Tokens awarded add to an Actor’s AV stacks for the remainder of the Conflict (or until removed by Damage).

Beginning with the UTG Actor, each involved Actor:

• Chooses and plays one face down Action Card (it lists the Attribute that must be Bid).
  • The Action Card must list an Attribute from the TA played in Step 2.
  • The Action must plausibly reflect their Statement of Intent from Step 2, after a post-reveal justification is made.
• Chooses how many Attribute tokens to commit as their Bid, and places those tokens on top of their cards.
  • Bid Cap: Your Bid may not exceed your current TS for the TA you played this Hand.
  • You also cannot bid more tokens than you physically have available in that required Attribute’s stack.
  • Bid tokens are normally played face down to bluff, but may be played face up to “chip bully.”
  • Bid tokens are removed from your stack when committed, and do not refresh until the end of the Conflict (see Step 6).
• (Optional) Plays one Wildcard Token that adds +1 to their showdown total (PCs only by default; does not count against the Bid cap).

Everyone:

• Reveals what Action Card they played and what Attribute Tokens were bid.
• After cards are revealed, the acting player may role-play one brief “justification line” to align the revealed TA/Action with their Statement of Intent (see Table Culture Rules / Bluff Space Rule).
• Resolve Attribute Dominance (AD) pairwise against all opponents.
• Check for Sweep against each opponent (an Actor wins both TD and AD against that same opponent).

GM: Pairwise Advantage Awards (scoped by opponent)
For each opponent pair (X vs Y):

• If X wins AD against Y, X gains +ES to their showdown total against Y only.
• If Y wins AD against X, Y gains +ES to their showdown total against X only.
• If AD is a tie, no AD bonus is awarded for that pair.
• If X scores a Sweep against Y, X gains a Sweep bonus of +floor(Bid/2) to their showdown total against Y only.
  • Here, Bid means X’s committed bid tokens for this Hand (before AD/Sweep/Wildcard bonuses).
• (Same logic applies if Y Sweeps X.)

For each opponent pair:

• Compute each side’s Showdown Total (scoped to that opponent):
  • Showdown = Bid + (AD bonus +ES, if any vs that opponent) + (Sweep bonus, if any vs that opponent) + (Wildcard, if used)
• Higher Showdown wins that pair.
• Margin = Winner Showdown − Loser Showdown

For each opponent pair:

Calculate Damage:

• If Margin ≤ 0 → 0 Damage
• If Margin > 0 → Damage D = ES + floor(Margin/5)

Determine Damage Type:

• Damage is typed by the winner’s TA Card (Mind / Body / Spirit).
• Damage reduces the defender’s AV(s) in that TA (persistent).

Assign Persistent AV Damage:

• The damaged Actor chooses how to distribute damage among Attributes in the damaged TA (all to one AV, or spread across two or three).
• AVs cannot go below 0.
• Damage may not be applied to AVs listed as a dash (-) representing the Actor does not possess that Attribute.

Partial TA Damage (missing Attributes)

Damage is dealt to the Aspect, not to empty slots.

• If an Actor has no Attributes at all in the damaged Aspect, they take no damage.
• If the Actor has all three Attributes, apply the full damage.
• If the Actor is missing one or two Attributes in that Aspect, less damage gets through:

• 2 Attributes → ~2/3 of the damage is applied to the remaining 2 Attributes
• 1 Attribute → ~1/3 of the damage is applied to the remaining Attribute

• If any damage gets through, it always applies at least 1 damage.

Assign the final damage among the Attributes that actually exist.

• Apply Damage: reduce Attribute Values by removing those tokens from their stacks (persistent).
• Check for Attributes reduced to 0:
  • Such Actors are seriously impaired and may not play any Action Card in future Hands that would require a bid of that AV.
• Check for Forced Withdrawal:
  • Actors who cannot ante on a future Hand are removed from the Conflict by Forced Withdrawal (they retreat, surrender, disengage, are cornered, lose leverage, etc.). This is not automatically “death.”
• Check for TA elimination:
  • An Actor is removed from the Conflict if all three Attributes in any one TA are at AV 0 (unless the fiction says they can continue).

• Committed Bid Refresh (end of Conflict):
  • Committed Bid tokens do not refresh at the end of each Hand.
  • At the end of the Conflict, all committed Bid tokens that were not removed by Damage return to their owners’ stacks.

• Continue to the next Hand, or end the Conflict immediately if the fiction says the objective is resolved (escape, surrender, withdrawal accepted, goal achieved, etc.), or if only one side remains willing/able to continue.

• Roleplay-first, double-blind preserved: before reveals, no one (including GM) may interrogate “how” to narrow a player’s hidden choice.
• Spoken narration before reveals is non-binding “table talk.”
• After reveals, the acting player may add a brief justification to align narration with revealed TA/Action tag.
• If the tag reasonably fits, it stands (“Bluff Space Rule”).

• TA cards: Mind / Body / Spirit
• 9 Core Action/Attribute cards (one per Attribute) listing broad intent tags
• Attribute Tokens (chips), one per AV
• Wildcard tokens (PCs only by default)
• TD reference card (Mind>Body>Spirit)
• AD reference card (intra-loops + cross-aspect 27 matchup table)