Rules
How the war is fought. These six chapters are the engine of Bolt & Blade: the roll that decides everything, combat that respects cover, the Fate that keeps you breathing, the Corruption that keeps score, the wounds you carry out, and the price of touching the Warp.
The Rules codex holds the procedures of play — how to roll, fight, survive, and pay for it. Attributes and proficiencies are defined in Core Rules; class features live with the class that grants them under Classes; power lists — psychic disciplines, acts of faith, rites, and litanies — are archived under Powers; and every weapon, armor pattern, and item trait lives under Wargear. Chapters are transcribed into full rites one at a time; the rest remain working drafts.
Chapters of the Rites
06 ChaptersCore Rules
One die, six attributes, and everything you are about to lose.
The basic d20 engine: attributes, proficiencies, checks, saves, attacks, Defense, Vitality, and turn structure.
Combat
The numbers you need every time violence starts.
Cover, movement, fire lanes, reactions, suppression, overwatch, and brutal far-future firefights.
Fate
The Emperor protects. The dice do not.
The thin and failing thread between a character and the grave: spend it to defy the dice, burn it forever to survive the impossible.
Corruption
Not damage. Evidence.
The stain left by the Warp: exposure, temptation, six stages of taint, Fall Tests, and cleansing that is never casual.
Wounds, Scars & Death
Survival is not the same as being fine.
Vitality runs out. Fate runs thin. The body remembers what the battlefield did.
Psychic Powers & Perils
You can be powerful. You cannot be safe.
The Warp answers when called. Sometimes it answers too loudly.
Conditions
The states that turn a fight — named, numbered, and nailed down.
Every status a character or enemy can suffer, from Prone and Bleeding to Warp-Touched and Possessed: what it does, how long it lasts, and how it ends.