Urchins: Eyes of the Undercity
A Fantasy RPG for Cortex Prime
We watch. We see. Your secrets are ours to sell.
Track Your Character
Click HERE To view the Character Table and track your resources, like PP and Hero Dice, or look at your character sheet or another's for reference.
PRIMARY TRAITS
The Primary Traits for this game are Approaches, Roles. and Distinctions. In any test or contest requiring dice, you get to roll one die from each of your 3 primary traits as well as applicable assets, knacks, etc.
Approaches
Rather than measurable individual character attributes such as Physical | Mental | Social, this game will use Approaches, broad goals that an action is aimed at achieving. Approaches represent HOW you are trying to accomplish a given task. Approaches are the first of your three Prime Traits to be included in each roll along with, Roles, and Distinctions.
Your Approaches each start at but you can step an approach up if you step another back to a max of and a minimum of 
If you have done your maths right your total should add up to 32.
- Savagery - The savage approach has you tackling a task or problem with viciousness and an utter lack of mercy.
- Cunning - The cunning approach has you tackling a task or problem with razor intellect and shrewd reason.
- Finesse - The finesse approach has you tackling a task or problem with subtlety, subterfuge, and misdirection.
- Rapport - The rapport approach has you tackling a task or problem with empathy and concern.
Roles
Roles are the second Prime Trait, along with Approaches and Distinctions that should be included in every roll you make. If Approaches describe how you tackle a problem, the role you choose describes WHAT you are attempting to do.
Urchins are required to fill multiple roles in their daily struggle for survival, but as happens, each Urchin tends to develop more in certain roles, becoming top tier skilled in one, highly skilled in another, competent in most of the rest, and abysmally less competent at that one role that just eludes them.
Assign your primary Role the value of || Assign your secondary Role the value of
Assign your lowest Role the value of || Assign your remaining Roles the value of
- Fixer: Repair, fabricate, and maintain stuff. Sometimes even people.
- Infiltrator: Sneak about, get into places you weren't meant to get into.
- Runner: Run messages, contraband, supplies, etc.
- Saboteur: Destroy strategic targets, really strategy is secondary to the destroying.
- Scrapper: Get into it. They ain't made the fight you didn't want a piece of.
- Tracker: Track shit down. Locate people, resources, and rumors.
- Trickster: Experts at misdirection and the use of words, gestures, and props.
Knacks
Knacks
- Knacks are specific specialties under a given role that the Urchin is just a natural at. Starting knacks are worth an extra
to the roll it applies to but can be stepped up as outlined below.
- Each player gets to assign one free
knack and one free 
knack to their Character's Primary Role, one at and one at
- Each player gets to assign one free knack to their Character's Secondary Role.
- Each player gets to assign four additional knacks at to any role rated or higher or step up an existing knack at a one-for-one exchange rate not to exceed the rating of the Role the rank is attached to.
- Knacks cannot be assigned to a character's
role.
- No knack can be stepped up higher than the dice value of the role it is assigned to.
Distinctions
Distinctions are unique personal traits or tropes that set characters apart from one another beyond the pure mechanics, and are the third of the prime traits that should be added to every roll along with Approaches and Roles.
If approaches tell HOW, and roles tell WHAT, Distinctions give us a look at WHO is acting. [pp50]
There are three categories of distinctions for this game and you must choose one of each: Background | Quirk | Free.
All distinctions default to a rating of except when engaging the Hinder SFX.
Background Distinction
Urchins are orphans, forgotten and unseen, scraping by in the streets and sewers of Rattown and the Labyrinth and in the wretched depths of the undercity. Despite sharing a similar fate with their fellows, however, each Urchin followed their own unique path to get where they are. Sample Backgrounds might include Abandoned Royal, Kidnapped, Born in the Deep, Storm Rat, etc . . .
Quirk Distinction
Urchins are a hardy lot of survivors with their own bizarre coping mechanisms. Sample Quirks might include Obsessive Guar Chewer, Wears Clothes Backwards, Speaks in Rhyme, Kindness Tourette's, etc . . .
Free Distinction
A free distinction is exactly that. You are free to come up with any distinction that makes sense for the character and the setting.
Distinction SFX
Each of your three distinctions comes with the Hinder SFX active:
Hinder: Sometimes your distinction works against you. Gain 1 plot point when you roll a instead of a
After that, each Urchin starts play with two more SFX related to their distinctions. You decide how you want to arrange those. [pp61]
Relationships
Relationships represent an optional trait set. Relationships won't always apply to a roll, but when they do there is good reason. Urchins don't have much, and very often in their lives it is that one other soul who really matters to them or motivates them. Add a relationship die when the person or group it is attached to is affected by or affects the action in question.
Each urchin will start the game with a relationship to another urchin [GMC], one street vendor, shop keeper, innkeeper, artisan, guild, etc, and one free pick that cannot be a Faction at start of game.
Rate one relationship at one at and one at
Factions
Player Characters are all rated at with all guilds at start of game.
Resources
1 d6 1 d8 1 d10
Lair - 3 dice - 1 per day
Caches - 4 dice - 2 recovered per day
Grundle - 5 dice - all recovered per day
Signature Assets
Heirloom + 1 sfx
Keepsake
Customization
Bump Resource die type
step up number of dice for resource
Add 1 SFX DIST
aDD 1 sfx ASSET
