SPACE ORDIMAN - RULEBOOK ABRIDGED

 

About Space Ordiman

The Space Ordiman RPG plunges players into a universe of espionage, occultism, and psychological horror. In it, characters are agents of Ordo Lux, a secret, millennia-old order that has operated in the shadows since Sumerian times to protect humanity from hostile cosmic forces.

Agents infiltrate cults, governments, and corporations to sabotage rituals, dismantle conspiracies, and contain entities that threaten the balance of the world — a mission that exacts a price in sanity, faith, and sometimes the soul itself.

The current threat emerged in 2021, when the creature Nocthyl, from the Underworld, managed to pierce the barrier between worlds, marking the final stage of the Great Reset, a plan aimed at human extinction. From that moment on, corrupted leaders and cults proliferated, placing the agents in clandestine operations filled with both physical and psychological dangers.

In Chapter 2, players create their Ordo Lux Agent, the “lens” through which they will experience the plot. The process involves three pillars:

1. History – origin, motivations, traumas, and beliefs;
2. Role – the character’s function within the team;
3. Attributes – numbers that represent body, mind, and spirit.

The game encourages each character to have narrative depth, making them believable, human, and memorable. This construction enriches the campaign and allows the Game Master to use personal details to connect the story with conflicts and future revelations.

Each player starts with 50 points to distribute among Physical, Mental, and Social Attributes, defining the Agent’s abilities, limits, and style. These choices shape both mechanical performance and the character’s narrative identity.

Example Builds

• Field Operative: Strength 8, Constitution 9, Dexterity 7 – ideal for combat, infiltration, and physical endurance.
• Occult Strategist: Intelligence 9, Observation 8, Mental Defense 8 – excellent in investigation, analysis, and psychic protection.
• Silver-Tongued Master: Appearance 8, Persuasion 9, Intuition 8 – a specialist in social manipulation and secret gathering.

Players may follow or mix these concepts to craft unique profiles.

 

Attributes

Physical

• Strength – muscular power; essential for melee combat and physical effort.
• Dexterity – agility and reflexes; affects stealth, dodging, and firearms.
• Initiative – reaction speed; determines who acts first and avoids ambushes.
• Constitution – vitality and resilience; protects against injuries, toxins, and fatigue.
• Appearance – physical presence and visual impact; can attract allies or unwanted attention.

Mental

• Intelligence – logical reasoning and technical knowledge; useful for decoding and planning.
• Observation – attention to detail; detects traps, clues, and suspicious behavior.
• Mental Defense – psychic resilience; resists manipulations, horrors, and supernatural assaults.
• Intuition – instinctive perception; recognizes lies and hidden dangers.
• Projection – psychic and astral abilities; interacts with non-physical forces and entities.

Social

• Charisma – personal magnetism; inspires, leads, and calms.
• Persuasion – ability to convince and negotiate; extracts information or avoids conflict.
• Rapport – genuine empathy; builds trust and keeps the team united.

 

System Philosophy

Building a character is treated as a narrative ritual: each point distributed reflects who the Agent is, their fears, and their personal price. There are no right choices, only decisions with consequences that shape the Agent’s fate and interpretation.

In addition to Attributes, each Ordo Lux Agent receives 50 points to allocate in Specific Knowledges, representing technical training, field experience, traumas, and occult studies.

This distribution defines the character’s profile:

• Versatility – points spread across many areas, useful in various situations but lacking mastery.
• Specialization – points concentrated in fewer areas, granting expertise and extraordinary feats but leaving gaps elsewhere.

These knowledges are more than mechanics: they are life history and scars.

 

Key Knowledges

• Hacker – digital intrusion, technological sabotage.
• Languages – tongues and codes; essential for negotiations and arcane texts.
• Survival – living in hostile environments, extracting resources from nature.
• Poisons – crafting, analyzing, and applying toxins or antidotes.
• Self-Defense – unarmed combat and silent neutralization.
• First Aid – emergency medical care in the field.
• Aircraft/Drones – light piloting, aerial espionage, and transport.
• Hazardous Driving – chases and high-risk escapes.
• Bombs and Explosives – tactical use and disarmament.
• Firearms – precision, maintenance, and tactical use.
• Knife Combat – stealthy and silent attacks.
• Symbolism & Cosmic Communication – interpreting rituals, signs, and arcane patterns.
• Acting – assuming identities and deceiving targets.
• Mental Projection – action on astral planes and against entities.
• Mediumship – contact with spiritual presences.
• Cults & Occultism – recognizing symbols, predicting rituals, and cult motives.
• Crisis Management – maintaining calm and leading under pressure.
• Disguise – concealing identity, altering appearance and voice.
• Silent Infiltration – lockpicking, climbing, and covert entry.
• Advanced Mechanics – repairing and adapting vehicles in the field.
• Escape – evading prisons and pursuits.
• Advanced Persuasion – bluffing, negotiation, refined manipulation.
• Climbing – overcoming vertical obstacles and accessing alternate routes.
• Psychology – understanding, predicting, and influencing human behavior.
• Cosma Tales – occult cosmology and ancestral legends of the Space Ordiman universe.

 

Physical and Mental Health

All characters begin with:

• 50 Physical Health points – bodily vitality against injuries, toxins, and exhaustion.
• 50 Mental Health points – psychic resilience against cosmic terrors and occult forces.

Both are survival thresholds: when depleted, the Agent succumbs to death or madness.

The combination of Attributes, Knowledges, and Health defines the strengths, weaknesses, and story each Agent carries to confront the darkness of Space Ordiman.

Physical Health

Represents the body’s integrity: bones, muscles, resistance to impacts, cuts, gunshots, and falls.

• 0 points: immediate death, unless saved by exceptional narrative intervention.
• Recovery:
• First Aid: stabilizes and restores a little.
• Medical Treatment: fuller restoration.
• Rest: each safe day restores points.
• Examples: gunshot to shoulder (–8), nearby explosion (–15), three-story fall may kill.

Mental Health

Measures stability of the mind when facing cosmic horror.

• 0 points: irreversible collapse; character becomes an NPC.
• Loss: failed mental checks or exposure to supernatural events.
• Recovery:
• Therapy/Rest: partial recovery.
• Ordo Lux Base: mandatory below 10 points; requires at least one downtime adventure for rehabilitation.
• Insanity Points: 50 – Current Sanity = Insanity Points (narrative reference, no mechanical effect).

 

Hunger, Thirst, and Sleep

Agents are still human and suffer from deprivation:

Hunger

• 1 day without food: fatigue, –2 on physical checks.
• 2 days: weakness, penalties to Strength and Constitution.
• 3+ days: risk of fainting, Physical Health loss.

Thirst

• 12h without water: difficulty concentrating.
• 24h: –1 Physical Health/hour.
• 48h+: collapse and imminent death.

Sleep

• Sleeping restores 1d6 Physical + 1d6 Mental Health per day.
• Nightmares, messages, and influences may reduce recovery or trigger insanity.
• 24h awake: –2 Observation and Intuition.
• 48h: tremors, –4 Intelligence and Mental Defense.
• 72h+: risk of nervous collapse and hallucinations.

Sanity

Score starts at 50. Sanity tests are made when facing traumas or horrors.

• Losses range from 1d6 to 3d20, depending on the gravity of the event.
• Symptoms by levels:
• 26–30: anxiety, tremors, anger, insomnia.
• 20–25: extreme panic, paranoia.
• 15–19: delirious fits, catatonia, seizures.
• 10–14: constant delusions, aggression, loss of social sense.
• 1–9: fragmented mind, must be evacuated to Ordo Lux base within 48h for treatment.

Central Balance:

• The body bleeds and wears out; the mind shatters and goes mad.
• Surviving physically is hard; keeping sanity is a miracle.

 

Difficulty Levels

• Easy (7+): simple but not trivial tasks (hiding in shadow, cracking a basic code).
• Moderate (11+): challenges requiring skill (picking advanced locks, resisting mental blackmail).
• Hard (15+): near-impossible actions (escaping handcuffed during freefall, resisting a cosmic ritual).
• Epic (19+): superhuman feats, reserved for narrative climaxes (banishing a greater entity, manipulating the Psychosphere).

 

Rolling System (2d20)

• Roll 2d20 whenever the action involves risk.
• Success: at least 1 die ≥ difficulty.
• Extraordinary success: both ≥ difficulty (generates narrative bonuses).
• Failure: no die ≥ difficulty.

Examples:

• Infiltration (11+): rolls 12 and 4 → success.
• Combat (15+): rolls 16 and 19 → devastating success.
• Mental Projection: rolls 3 and 5 → failure, penalties, and possible insanity.

 

Narrative Balance

• Players choose actions, but results are not guaranteed.
• The GM proposes challenges, not choices.
• Each roll defines the thin line between triumph and disaster.

 

Action Structure

• Predominantly uses D20, but the GM may apply other dice (D6, D10, D12) for special effects.
• Setting: 2025–2030, Ordo Lux agents confront the cults of the Great Reset that threaten humanity.
• The GM announces difficulties, adjusts obstacles, creates tension, and improvises unexpected events.

 

Simultaneous Actions

• Resolved by Initiative: the highest acts first.
• If the first fails, the next attempts, preserving narrative logic and tactical realism.

Narrative Flow

Every roll decides more than numbers: it shows the struggle between order and chaos.

1. Player declares intention.
2. GM sets difficulty.
3. Dice decide fate.

Success or failure drives the plot forward, creating new challenges and consequences — each action echoing in the destiny of the Great Reset.

 

Combat

Overview: Combat is rare, lethal, and not the game’s focus. Fleeing, negotiating, or retreating is often the best choice.

Combat Structure

• Turn: an individual’s moment to act.
• Round: once all act, cycle resets.
• Action: attack, move, interact, or use magic.
• Reaction: out-of-turn response (e.g., counterattack, parry).
• Damage: reduces health, may incapacitate or kill.
• Resistance: some creatures have immunities or reductions (fire, poison, etc.).

 

Order of Action

• All roll a Dexterity (DEX) check.
• Highest acts first; ties → higher DEX wins; if equal, roll 1d20.

 

Defense

• Dodge: avoids the strike, no counterattack.
• Counterattack: attempts to avoid and retaliate; if higher than attacker’s roll, deals damage to them.

 

Maneuvers (Brawling)

• Trip: unbalances and knocks down.
• Disarm: removes enemy’s weapon.
• Grapple: immobilizes the target.
• Difficulty depends on Body difference (Strength + Size) between combatants.

 

Combat Resolution

1. Attacker rolls attack.
2. Defender chooses to dodge or counter.
3. Compare results → higher success wins.
4. On a hit, calculate damage by weapon or skill.

 

Damage Weight & Cosmic Horror

• Each wound is dangerous, potentially incapacitating or killing.
• Damage is physical and narrative — leaving scars, fear, and urgency.
• Combat must create extreme tension, reinforcing that violence is risky and rarely heroic.

Survival in Space Ordiman depends as much on the mind as on the body. The human body is fragile, and any injury may be fatal.

• Health Points (HP): each character has 50 HP. If damage exceeds this limit, instant death.
• Damage Types:
• Physical attacks (punches, kicks) → 1d12
• Melee weapons → 1d20
• Small firearms → 3d20
• Long firearms → 4d20
• Explosives → 5d20
  (If total exceeds remaining HP, character dies.)
• Defense: attacker and defender both roll 1d20; equal or higher defense negates attack.
• Resistance Check: 1d6 + Constitution bonus may reduce or nullify damage and complications.
• Consequences: major wounds require Sanity Checks; combat is lethal and should be a last resort.

 

Mental Health Damage (Summary)

The mind is even more vulnerable to cosmic horror. Losing sanity reshapes perception, creating phobias, hallucinations, or breakdowns.

• Sanity Loss:
• Common trauma → 1d6
• Entity appearance → 1d12
• Mental projections/possessions → 1d20
• Hostile hybrid creatures → 2d20
• Access to lower layers of the Psychosphere → 3d20
• Effects:
• Light losses: anxiety, insomnia.
• Medium: panic, phobias, distrust.
• Severe: hallucinations, hysteria, loss of control.
• Critical State:
• <10 Sanity: character withdrawn from field, sent to Ordo Lux (Antarctica) for treatment.
• <5 Sanity: risk of irreversible madness, may become unstable NPC.
• Recovery: treatment lasts one full adventure; return only next session, often with aftereffects.

Mental Defense Test (after Ordo Lux treatment):

• Success: character returns stabilized, but shaken.
• Failure: may relapse, suffer grave aftereffects, or be removed from the campaign.

 

Irreversible Madness

• <5 Sanity points: high risk of permanent madness.
• Even with Ordo Lux aid, the mind may fragment beyond repair.
• Character may be lost permanently or turned into an unstable NPC controlled by the GM.

 

Recovery Scars

Even recovered, the character is never the same:

• Recurring traumas: phobias, insomnia, paranoia, disorders.
• Occasional crises: panic attacks, blackouts, fits of rage.
• Mission restrictions: may not participate in operations tied to psychological triggers.

These scars should be actively roleplayed to enrich the narrative.

Example: An agent survives a possession ritual but returns terrified of mirrors, suffering occasional breakdowns that limit missions.

 

Accessing the Mental Plane (Summary)

The Psychosphere is the plane connecting all consciousnesses in the Cosmos.

Basic Access:

• Any player may attempt to enter as a spectator, remaining in vibrational layers equal to or above Earth’s.
• Requires 10 Projection Points to enter, but without interacting with beings — though they may perceive you.
• Layers near Earth are more dangerous, with hostile beings and energy vampires.

Active Interactions:

·         With 20 Projection Points, the player can engage in dialogue, exchange information, and alter the environment.

Mental Attacks:

·         These can come from physically present individuals or entities of the Psychosphere.

·         They range from subtle influences to attempts at total mind annihilation.

Possible Mental Actions (30 Projection Points):

·         Interfere with sleep, insert dreams, drain energy, implant thoughts, or influence decisions.

Defense in the Mental Plane:

·         To detect attacks, a minimum of 5 Projection Points is required.

·         Higher scores increase the chance of resisting, blocking, or even redirecting interference back to the aggressor.

 

Game Tests (Summary)

Tests are used by the Game Master to decide whether a character’s action results in success or failure. They are not fixed in number; they arise naturally from the narrative and the uncertainty of situations.

Nature and Difficulty:

·         Represent meaningful actions that can alter the course of the story.

·         Difficulty depends not on the number of rolls, but on the minimum threshold required.

·         Basic levels:

o    Low: result >7

o    Medium: result >11

o    High: result >15

·         The Game Master may establish additional levels for unique threats.

Modifiers (5x1 Rule):

·         For every 5 attribute points tied to the action, the player adds +1 to their D20 roll.

·         Example: 10 points in the attribute → +2 on the die.

Outcome:

·         Success occurs if the die result + modifiers exceeds the difficulty threshold set by the Master.

Master’s Flexibility:

·         The Game Master adapts rules and difficulty as the story unfolds, maintaining coherence within the universe and ensuring unique challenges in every session.

 

Common Tests cover frequent challenges outside of combat: traps, puzzles, social interactions, exploration, and investigation.

They allow characters to rely on senses, cunning, and perception to face dangers, making the experience more dynamic and immersive than brute force alone.

 

Special Adventures

There are territories of the game that belong neither to Earth nor to the time we know. They are not cities, nor ruins, nor echoes of a human past — they are distorted reflections of a millennial future, forged after the Great Reset of 2030.

It is within this temporal abyss that the Special Adventures unfold, set nearly a thousand years later, inside the colossal and indecipherable Colony of Ordiman.

These narratives are divided into two distinct settings, bound together by the same sense of imprisonment and cosmic dread:

1. The Simulation of Ordiman

Here, the player awakens in a grotesque world — a distorted reflection of Earth, consumed by aberrations that should never have existed. Every shadow hides something pulsating, every wall seems alive, every step feels like walking on raw nerves.

The objective is clear, though nearly impossible: escape the simulation. You already know you are trapped by your own consciousness, bound as a human spirit since the Reset. Only hidden points scattered like riddles can grant release.

This is a journey of survival horror and relentless action, with abominations that defy reason and mysteries that fracture the mind. Yet here lies a disturbing detail: within the simulation, the spirit possesses extraordinary mental faculties — projections, magic, distortions of logic itself. Anything is possible, but each use exacts a price, eroding the fragile line between sanity and madness.

 

2. The True Ordiman

If escaping the simulation is torment, awakening in the true Ordiman is plunging into something far worse.

Ordiman is not a planet. It is a cyclopean structure, larger than Earth, suspended like a ring around Saturn. Its endless metallic corridors stretch for weeks, its titanic halls dwarf all human comprehension. It was built with purpose — but no mind of our kind could fathom it.

Here, there is no aid. No whispers from the Triquetosphere. No divine hand. You (or your group) are utterly alone, a spirit torn from the simulation, trapped now in the cold steel and unyielding dark of Ordiman itself.

The sole objective: escape. But unlike the simulation, escape here does not come through manipulating the mind — only by liberating the very essence of the self, through Spiritual Projection.

Every step becomes a battle against the indifferent vastness. Every chamber echoes with metallic dread, as if unseen eyes follow you through the abyss.

These Special Adventures embody the most unsettling face of Space Ordiman — journeys meant for those willing to tear through the limits of consciousness and existence, to brush against the frozen bones of what lurks between worlds.

 

Character Sheet

Each player must fill out their character sheet individually, distributing points as instructed.

NAME: ___________________________

PROFESSION: _____________________

ORIGIN: _________________________

AGE: ____________________________

SEX: ____________________________

HEALTH POINTS (HP): ___ / 50

SANITY POINTS (SP): ___ / 50

 

ATTRIBUTES (Distribute 50 points):

Physical:

·         Strength ( )

·         Dexterity ( )

·         Initiative ( )

·         Constitution ( )

·         Appearance ( )

Mental:

·         Intelligence ( )

·         Observation ( )

·         Mental Defense ( )

·         Intuition ( )

·         Projection ( )

Social:

·         Charisma ( )

·         Persuasion ( )

·         Rapport ( )

 

SPECIFIC SKILLS (Distribute 50 points):

·         Hacking ( )

·         Languages ( )

·         Survival ( )

·         Poisons ( )

·         Self-Defense ( )

·         First Aid ( )

·         Small Aircraft / Drones ( )

·         Dangerous Driving ( )

·         Bombs & Explosives ( )

·         Firearms ( )

·         Knife Combat ( )

·         Symbology & Cosmic Communication ( )

·         Acting ( )

·         Mental Projection ( )

·         Mediumship ( )

·         Cults & Occultism ( )

·         Crisis Management ( )

·         Disguise ( )

·         Silent Infiltration of Complex Buildings ( )

·         Advanced Mechanics of Vehicles & Aircraft ( )

·         Escape ( )

·         Advanced Persuasion & Deception ( )

·         Climbing ( )

·         Psychology ( )

·         Histories of Cosma ( )

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WEAPONS & AMMUNITION INVENTORY

The player may carry 1 long weapon, 1 short weapon, and 1 melee weapon. Fill in weapon type and ammunition (or additional items if melee).

·         Knife _____________________

·         Pepper Spray ______________

·         Taser _____________________

·         Pistol ____________________

·         Shotgun ___________________

·         Submachine Gun ____________

·         Explosive Drone ___________

·         Bomb _____________________

·         Others: __________________________________________

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GENERAL INVENTORY

The player may carry up to 10 items in their backpack.

·         Cellphone ____________________

·         Spy Camera ___________________

·         First Aid Kit _________________

·         Pliers ________________________

·         Rope _________________________

·         Duct Tape ____________________

·         Others: __________________________________________