[[To the next: I apologize for the mess; strip it back down to the bone if you need]]

The power is ancient, harnessed long before man first conquered fire. It is rare and precious even in a world of billions, and to those without it, its effects are all but invisible. Across aeons and continents, there have always been stories of gods and spirits--of men and women whose spirit can soar from beyond their body. 

And now, you are among their number. You are one of the Untethered, a psychically gifted individual able to construct a thought-body out of strange and subtle energies that pervade the cosmos. This projection--called a Specter--may look like you or not. Their forms are myriad and wondrous: great winged heroes fit to be called angels, yes, but also serpent-folk with hair of liquid fire, dream-eyed wraiths, and great spider-folk with arms and legs to spare.

To all other humans, your Spectre is nothing more than wind and coincidence; to other Untethered--and the terrors your kind so often leave in their wake--you may be an ally, a resource, or a target. 

Fact is, the Untethered might not be a huge population, but they’re tangled up in intrigues of every sort--the US government’s Office 22 keeps a few on the payroll to investigate Spectral crime, the Battaglia family rules a criminal empire by the strength of their Specters (and their unsettling ability to steal Specters wholesale), and legendary pirate-radio maven Zuta carries on a decades-long Friday night broadcast on a psychically-attuned wavelength that catches the pulse of the latest Untethered gossip. 

There’s a world of opportunities for the Untethered and their Specters, and a world of danger. In addition to human threats, sometimes Specters don’t die with their Untethered, leaving behind dangerous psychic automata without any anchor to right and wrong. 

[The Pitch]

This is a game about action and counteraction--plans, plots, and emotional revelations that spur a hero into greater feats than he ever dreamt possible. You think the hero’s down, but he always has one more strange technique, a hidden reservoir of fighting spirit. 

That’s not to say you’ll never lose. You will! Definitely. It’s just to say that if you get into the spirit of things, there will always nominally be a way out, even if it comes with a cost. 

[System]

Each player needs a deck of cards--the usual 52. Take out any Jokers and the rules to Blackjack, and then have each player take out 5 cards of their choice, in addition to the Jacks, Queens, and Kings. There’s no reason they shouldn’t pick the lowest value cards in the suits they expect to use least--leaving them with the cards they’ll value most. Each suit represents one of the four fundamental approaches a character can take when solving a problem:

♠Aggressive - Active in the extreme, willing to risk great peril for even greater rewards. 
♦Guarded - Passive, but wary; a Guarded action is probably steely and cold.
♣Clever - Intellectual and deceptive, Clever actions often leverage external resources.
♥Gentle - Soft, honest, and peaceful; Gentle actions reach out and forge connections.

Every time a character pushes beyond their limitations (leveling up--whatever shape that takes), they remove one more card from their deck, making them more likely to draw high value cards. Alternatively, they may choose to add in a face card, which has a special meaning. 

When a character undertakes a dangerous, uncertain, or otherwise interesting action, their player should place a number of cards face down. If the contest is against some static force--the environment, or fate, or something of that ilk--the GM will announce the difficulty of the task. Alternatively, if the opposing force is a character, the GM will reveal 1-3 cards of his own, setting the difficulty at that. 

In either case, the player will reveal one or more cards, trying to match or exceed that difficulty. They may only use cards placed down, and even then, can only use cards of the same suit. Each additional card of the same suit adds +2 to the value of the highest card. Players may wish to play down multiple suits, especially against other characters, in order to provide them more options when responding to an opening gambit. 

In any resolution, it is important to remember that the results will be STRONGLY affected by the chosen suits. Aggressive actions aren’t always violent, but they are always forceful, and generally put people on edge; Guarded actions come off as cold, steely, or passive-aggressive. Negotiating this meaning with the GM is essential to the game.

At the end of the “round,” the player may select one card to return to his hand, or draw a card from his deck. 

If there’s a tie, then neither side takes a decisive advantage, or both make some headway--whichever is appropriate, at the GM’s discretion. 

Face Cards:
Using a Face Card has special effects, and tends to sidestep numerical resolution. If you have to pin a number on them, they’re 7’s--strong, but not unbeatable. Unless there’s some rule explicitly telling you different, you can never return a Face Card to your hand at the end of the turn.  

Jack: Enlightening failure. You lose whatever stakes were set for this round, but can’t take more than 1 point of damage, and afterwards you can draw until you hold 7 cards. Explain to all and sundry what you’ve realized from this setback, and how it will help you turn the tides. 

Queen: Outside intervention. Neither side makes progress this round; introduce a new element to this scene--a character, resource, event, or hazard that interrupts the natural flow of things. 

King: Power, unleashed. You tap a deep reservoir of energies, allowing you to muster terrible power; during the next round, you can return up to three cards to your hand, or draw three.  Explain whence this newfound strength comes. 

[[Example:
Adam, a newly awakened Untethered, has just been ambushed by a group of paramilitary operatives, each of them with a gun trained on him. He’s not sure whether they’re gonna come out with guns blazing, but he’s hoping for a peaceful solution--so he plays down 2 cards: the 10 of Spades (Aggressive) and the 7 of Hearts (Gentle). 

The GM makes her opening gambit, revealing a 6 of Diamonds (Guarded)--they’re all wary and wired up, just waiting for Adam to make a wrong move. If he flips his Hearts card, he’s choosing to talk things out and might get them to lower their guns, or at least give him some space to negotiate. If he chooses Spades, then they’re going to get down to brass tacks--but he’ll get in the first strike. ]]

***
Health & Safety 

Each character has three sets of health boxes: Mundane, Deadly, and Spectral. Players divide 12 points between these, but must have at least one level of each. 

Mundane levels heal slowly. Restore one level when you’ve had the chance to catch your breath, another level when you get a good meal, and all your levels after a good night’s sleep. 

Deadly levels never heal on their own--they’ll always require some active effort on your part. When you take a Deadly level of damage, write down the wound that caused it--your actions can’t flat out contradict that wound until the level’s healed. Heal a deadly level when you have time to frame a scene addressing it with at least one fellow player character. 

Spectral levels heal at the end of a conflict--your Specter reforms, fully manifest, every time you invoke it. These levels, however, can only take damage inflicted on your Specter itself--unlike Mundane and Deadly levels, which can absorb damage taken by the character or (through their psychic bond) the Specter. 

Damage doesn’t spill over between types--if you’ve got one Spectral level left and you use it to absorb a 3-damage attack, the extra damage is simply wasted. 

Whenever you take a level of damage, you may draw one card from your deck. Whenever you take a level of Deadly damage, you may draw a card OR draw until you have seven cards. 

[[Notes on Health:
Don’t let the names fool you: any of the levels can absorb any kind of damage. The difference is mainly in terms of how the damage is narrated. When you take Spectral damage, your thought-body can be as bloodied or bruised as necessary and continue fighting without incident. When you take Mundane damage, it’s physically causing a toll on you, the Untethered, but it’s not the kind of thing that’ll leave a lasting penalty. It’s only once you get into Deadly levels that things get nasty--when the gloves come off, so too might...well, arms. 

Generally speaking, damage the Untethered takes is mirrored on their Specter.]]

***
Aspects

There are a number of unique powers and abilities available to the Untethered and their Specters. These Aspects can help give unique physical shapes and abilities to Specters, or flesh out the unique psychic potential of the Untethered. 

Passive Aspects offer smaller and less disruptive benefits that require no additional work to leverage. Active Aspects are used as part of an action, and are divided between Consolations (things that happen when you lose a round) and Accolades (things that happen when you triumph). Generally speaking, Consolations have greater leeway to build towards powerful effects--there is simple but inevitable energy in adversity, and far more can be gleaned from defeat than from triumph. 

The Ravage - Passive
This very common and flexible Aspect is possessed by almost all Specters (and very few Untethered). It grants a natural weapon--either something you can conjure with great ease, a dangerous appendage, or a psychic technique. Choose one advantage for this Ravage:
●	It works at a considerable distance
●	It is powerful, dealing +1 damage
●	It affects not only one target, but those near them
●	It inflicts a -1 penalty to a type of action next turn (chosen when you take this Aspect)
●	It’s damage is unusual--hard to detect, defend against, or heal (Chose one)
You may take this Trait multiple times, creating a new Ravage each time. 

Fathomless Rage - Active (Consolation)
When you lose while using an Aggressive or Gentle action, you may give yourself over to the spirit of madness. While in this berzerker fugue, you may (and must) treat all cards you play as if they were Spades. The rage ends only when you lash out in a way that you will regret. 

Finding the Flaw - Active (Consolation)
When you are bested while using a Guarded action, you glimpse some small weakness--a chink in a foe’s armor or argument. Tell the GM what it is, and when you act upon it, give your next action +1 and if it inflicts damage, do an extra level. 

Open Hand, Open Heart - Active (Accolades)
When you reach out to someone with a Gentle action and tell them something personal and meaningful about yourself, the GM will tell you something personal and meaningful about that character. 

Always Prepared - Passive
Whenever you take a Clever action, you’ll always have something on hand that you need, as long as it’s small enough to hide on your person and no rarer or more expensive than, say, an iPhone.

Exempt from Gravity - Passive
Your Specter can fly--tell the GM how. Wings are a good standby, but don’t limit yourself; there’s a big, wide world of jetpacks, enchanted brooms, and electromagnetic repulsor bubbles out there.

Doe Eyes - Passive
If your Mundane damage track is full, you give yourself +2 to Gentle actions. 

***
For the GM

The goal of this game is to put the heroes on the ropes and help them find a way back to victory. You can’t go easy on them, but you’re not their enemy--even if you control their greatest and most terrible foes. 

The following are guidelines and suggestions for how to respond to failed actions of different types--but feel free to take things metaphorically or literally, however the situation may demand. What’s important is that SOMETHING should always happen--preferably something more than damage. That means changing the situation and introducing new stakes. 

For each round in combat, the basic damage stake is doubled. So in the first round, the losing party takes 1 damage; in the second round 2, in the third round 4...This keeps things escalating quickly. If things go too far south, remember that very few people are paid enough to fight to the death.

Responses to Aggressive
●	Escalate the danger
●	Deal collateral damage
●	Match force with force
●	Lure them into a trap

Responses to Guarded
●	Take away their safety
●	Reveal an additional or unexpected threat
●	Put them in the spotlight
●	Give them a tough choice

Responses to Clever
●	Undermine their plans
●	Intrude with chaos!
●	Show them an unforeseen cost
●	Hit them in the reputation

Responses to Gentle
●	Reveal one of their secrets
●	Display brutality
●	Betray them
●	Make them question their virtue