Tephra is an evolutionary roleplaying experience built by gamers who enjoy an easy-to-learn system with unlimited options. You’ll feel at home in our easy to use system, with just one die (a twelve-sider), over 400 different character abilities, and a seemingly unlimited amount of character combinations. Everything’s available from level 1, and it only gets better.
Then delve into our rich and easy crafting system. Customize your razor-edged, chainsawing claymore or your electrified, steam-powered longrifle to your heart’s content. And it doesn’t stop at weapons – you can build an entire automaton, customizing its body, the way it thinks, the weapons it uses, and, when you’re done with that one, build another! And steampunk wouldn’t be complete with craftable airships, dirigibles, and locomotives. And that’s just the beginning.
From our easy character creation system to our intuitive and fast-moving combat rules to our enormous array of character abilities, Tephra will leave you building, creating, and dreaming until you can’t take it anymore. This is steampunk – the options are unlimited.
Commonly Asked Questions:
Q: In 25 words or less, why the Tephra system is awesome:
A: Tephra has an intuitive character creation process with thousands of options, an immensely customizable crafting system, and combat that encourages movement, tactics, and unique characters.
Q: I’m intrigued, but I’m wondering how a single d12 plays out.
A: The single D12 works out quite well. The system is based on tiers. You roll your D12, add the relevant statistic, then see what tier you received. Pretty much everything in the system works this way. There’s rarely ever the question of “what do I roll?” and there’s never the question of “what dice do I roll?” (for obvious reasons!). Of course, we call the system The Clockwork System, which plays well into the 12 numbers on the D12.
Q: Are there any classes in Tephra?
A: There are no classes in Tephra; Instead, we have 22 skills, and you may choose your specialties from any of those skills (mixing and matching as you please).
But let’s mention some of the cooler skills:
- Brawl, a skill entirely about grabbing opponents, throwing them around, and hitting harder.
- Resilience, a skill all about keeping yourself and your allies alive.
- Espionage, a skill that combines making assassinating attacks with keeping yourself on the down-low.
- Tactical, a skill that lets you command your allies and change the flow of battle.
- Ace, a skill entirely about piloting vehicles or, on occassion, controlling automatons and riding animals.
- Grace, a skill that would make martial art monks proud.
- Faith, a skill that allows you to draw upon the spirit of your allies to empower your attacks, your friends, and your skills.
- Luck, a skill that lets you manipulate dice rolls, the battlefield, and everything around you.
- Shamanism, a skill that lets you draw upon nature and summon swarms to fight on your behalf.
- Bio-Flux, a crafting skill that lets you manipulate the essence of your allies and mutate your enemies.
Q: Is there any magic?
A: In the traditional sense, no. However, there are a lot of abilities are that nearly magical – more miraculous, if I can use that term. In the Grace skill, you can center yourself and basically float in mid-air. In shamanism, you can control a swarm of insects to coat your body and protect you. Is that magic? Well, it’s definitely not normal.
Tephra is a game about mad science that rivals magic. So while there’s no magic, per se, there are some pretty crazy inventions. The explosives, gases, medicines, bio-zappers, trinkets, automatons, and numerous weapons will definitely keep everyone’s interest.
And, honestly, though we don’t have “magic,” there’s definitely some crazy things going on in the setting. If you want to run Tephra with a little bit more supernatural in your setting, by all means, please do so!
