Prisma Player’s Handbook · Prose & rules excerpts
Preface: A Warning to the Curious
The handbook opens in the voice of a world that has industrialised magic. This passage establishes its tone, social tensions and the player’s place within them. A selected background and feature below show how the setting informs its rules.
Put down the fairy tales. Forget the songs about knights who slay dragons and save kingdoms for the price of a smile. If you are reading this, you have likely just stepped off a train in Vordanne, or perhaps you’ve foolishly accepted a contract that pays in unregistered mana crystals.
Welcome to Elyxion. Try not to bleed on the carpet.
You have arrived at the end of an age and the violent birth of a new one. A century ago, magic was a whisper, a secret kept in ivory towers and sacred groves. Today? Today we shovel it into furnaces. We bottle the gods and sell them by the ounce. We have turned the weave of creation into an assembly line, and we are so very proud of ourselves.
Look around you. In the Empire, they claim order is worth any price, even as their factories choke the sky. In Azhora, they’ll sell you freedom, provided you can afford the interest rates. In the Argent Spires, the Manifold Assembly is building the future, though they seem to have forgotten that the future usually requires a soul. And in the shadows, the Withered scratch at the walls, a reminder of what happens when you consume more power than a mortal frame can hold.
You are an adventurer. In this world, that does not mean you are a hero. It means you are deniable.
From the setting to a rule
A composite selection from the background and feat sections. Original English wording.
Backgrounds of Elyxion
In Prisma, a background is more than a former occupation. It marks the institution, district, frontier, faith, or catastrophe that taught you how the world actually works.
Inquisitor’s Informant
Feat: Streetwise
You supplied information to an inquisitor, secret police bureau, newspaper, noble household, foreign embassy, or criminal patron.
Perhaps you believed you were exposing dangerous people. Perhaps you eventually realized the dangerous people were signing your expense reports.
Streetwise Origin Feat
You know how a city hides its teeth.
Urban Network. In a settlement, you can spend 1 hour gathering information to learn one reliable lead toward a black market, criminal contact, safe house, or similarly concealed local resource. This feature gives you a lead, not automatic access or cooperation.
Information without skipping the encounter
Urban Network puts a clear time cost on gathering information and promises a reliable lead. It preserves the need to earn access and negotiate cooperation. The character gains an advantage while the next scene remains something to play.
About these samples
The prose contains the first five complete paragraphs of the preface. The rules selection combines the background introduction, Inquisitor’s Informant and its Streetwise feature. Design, writing, editing and development are credited in the manuscript to Kirill Sakhin and ChatGPT. The full handbook is a separate working document.