Welcome to Kingsmark!
⚔️ Your Adventure Begins Here
Welcome to 👑Kingsmark, a medieval heroic fantasy tabletop role-playing game of dangerous adventures, desperate battles, ancient magic, and hard-won survival. Imagine entering a world where ancient ruins conceal forgotten treasures, monsters stalk the wilderness, kingdoms struggle for power, and supernatural forces threaten the living. You might become a fearless warrior, a cunning Thief, a wandering Ranger, a mysterious Witch, or a Wizard whose magic could mean the difference between triumph and disaster. Your choices determine what happens next.
Kingsmark is powered by ⭐Jack’s Cinematic d12 (JCd12), a tabletop role-playing system designed to bring cinematic action, meaningful character development, and dangerous consequences to the gaming table. You don’t need expensive equipment, acting experience, or previous knowledge of role-playing games to begin. All you need is imagination, a twelve-sided die, a few fellow adventurers, and someone willing to serve as the Game Master.
Better still, the complete 👑Kingsmark Player’s Handbook is available to read online for free, one chapter at a time. You can learn the rules as you play rather than spending days studying a book before your first adventure. Whether you’re a veteran Game Master or someone discovering tabletop role-playing for the first time, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re ready to begin, the 🕯Introduction is an excellent starting point.
🎭 What Is a Tabletop Role-Playing Game?
A tabletop role-playing game, or TTRPG, is a collaborative storytelling experience in which players become fictional characters living in an imaginary world. Unlike a traditional board game, there isn’t a fixed path to victory. Unlike a video game, your choices aren’t restricted to whatever actions a programmer anticipated. You describe what your character wants to do, and the Game Master describes what happens.
Perhaps you’re exploring an abandoned fortress when you discover a locked wooden door. You could try picking the lock, smashing the door, searching for another entrance, or calling out to determine whether someone is on the other side. You might even decide that opening the door is a terrible idea and walk away. Each decision changes the developing story, creating possibilities that no one at the table may have anticipated.
One participant serves as the Game Master (GM), who describes the world, portrays its inhabitants, introduces challenges, and interprets the rules. The other participants are Players who portray the principal characters, often called Player Characters (PCs). The Game Master might describe a threatening stranger entering a tavern. One player attempts to intimidate him, another discreetly watches his companions, and a third tries to make friends with him, hoping to learn something useful. Nobody knows exactly how the encounter will unfold.
When the outcome of an action is uncertain, Kingsmark uses a twelve-sided die to help determine what happens. The result is a story that nobody could have written completely in advance—a story shaped by decisions, imagination, luck, courage, and occasionally spectacular mistakes. For a more detailed explanation of how tabletop role-playing works, read the 🕯Introduction.
🎲 How Does Kingsmark Work?
At the heart of Kingsmark is a twelve-sided die, commonly abbreviated 1d12. Whenever a character attempts something challenging and the outcome is uncertain, the Game Master can call for a Test. The basic idea is straightforward: roll the die, apply the appropriate character abilities, and compare the result with a Target Number (TN). Many Tests use a combination of the character’s 🌈Attribute PRISM and relevant ⚒Skill. The Target Number represents the difficulty of the attempted action.
Consider a Ranger attempting to follow a trail through a forest after a rainstorm. The GM determines the appropriate Test and its Target Number. The player rolls the die, adds the appropriate modifiers, and discovers whether the Ranger manages to follow the trail. Or perhaps a Thief attempts to move unnoticed through a guarded corridor. A successful Test could allow the character to continue without attracting attention, while failure may create an unexpected complication. Sometimes a single die roll can change the direction of an entire adventure.
Kingsmark also features an exploding d12 mechanic. Under the appropriate circumstances, rolling a natural 12 allows the die to be rolled again, creating the possibility of extraordinary results. This allows exceptional accomplishments without requiring players to roll handfuls of dice or perform elaborate mathematical calculations.
💪Attributes, 🌈PRISMs, and ⚒Skills
Characters aren’t defined by a single number representing how good they are at everything. Kingsmark uses 12 💪Attributes, organized into five 🌈Attribute PRISMs, alongside 24 ⚒Skills. Together, these represent a character’s physical, mental, social, and other capabilities.
A skilled warrior might be physically formidable but lack patience or diplomatic ability. A Wizard might possess remarkable intellectual and spiritual capabilities while struggling with demanding physical activities. A clever Thief could overcome obstacles through subtlety that a heavily armored warrior would approach through brute force. These differences influence how characters interact with the world and what they contribute to their adventuring party.
You don’t need to memorize every Attribute or Skill before playing. The Player’s Handbook explains how they work, and your character’s 📖Character Bible records the information you’ll need during the game. To explore the underlying mechanics, begin with Chapter 1 — 💪Attributes, continue through Chapter 2 — 🌈Attribute PRISMs, and examine how characters apply their abilities in Chapter 3 — ⚒Skills.
🫀 Who Will You Become?
One of the most enjoyable parts of tabletop role-playing is creating a fictional person and discovering what happens when that person enters a dangerous, unpredictable world. Kingsmark offers 17 🎭Character Classes and five 🫀Human Types, providing an extensive selection of possibilities for developing unique adventurers. Your Character Class represents your character’s general profession, training, and approach to adventure.
Perhaps you want to become a Man-at-Arms who relies on disciplined combat training, a Beast Master who develops extraordinary relationships with animals, or a Priest whose spiritual practices are central to their identity. You could become a Ninja who favors stealth and precision, a Barbarian who confronts danger with ferocity, a Healer dedicated to preserving life, or a Monster Hunter who specializes in confronting terrifying creatures. Each class provides different opportunities for character development, and you can examine all seventeen in Chapter 9 — 🎭Character Class.
🫀 Five Human Types
The peoples of Kingsmark include ordinary Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Qatan, and Gibborim. Each Human Type has its own characteristics and place within the fantasy world. Your choice can influence your character’s physical capabilities, limitations, cultural background, and personal story.
A Qatan adventurer experiences the world from a different physical perspective than a Gibborim. A Dwarf Ranger might approach an adventure differently from an Elven Wizard—not merely because of their Human Types, but because of their individual training, experiences, personalities, and ambitions. You can explore these distinctions in Chapter 8 — 🫀Human Type.
✍️ Creating Your Character
Character creation follows six steps, guiding you through the choices and calculations needed to bring your adventurer to life. You’ll establish your character’s abilities, develop their background, select appropriate equipment, and determine what motivates them to leave the relative safety of ordinary life.
Your character might be searching for a missing relative, pursuing wealth, fleeing a dangerous enemy, investigating a mystery, or simply attempting to survive in an unforgiving world. These motivations can become the foundation for remarkable adventures, giving your character personal reasons to pursue opportunities and confront dangers. Once you have explored the available Human Types and Character Classes, Chapter 17 — ✍Character Creation will guide you through creating your first adventurer.
⚔️ Combat Is More Than Rolling to Attack
In Kingsmark, combat isn’t simply a contest to determine whose collection of hit points reaches zero first. Battles can involve movement, positioning, defensive maneuvers, desperate attacks, coordinated tactics, and unexpected improvisation. Kingsmark provides approximately 108 example Actions, giving Players and Game Masters a substantial collection of possibilities to draw upon. Characters have Action Points (AP), which govern how much they can accomplish during a Turn. Different activities require different amounts of time and effort.
Imagine that your adventuring party is fighting a powerful monster inside a ruined fortress. One character might attempt to hold the creature’s attention while another moves toward a more advantageous position. A third might use magic, while a fourth attempts to assist a wounded companion. The battlefield becomes more than a place where characters stand still exchanging attacks.
Perhaps someone attempts to overturn a table, climb onto a balcony, or use the environment against an enemy. Kingsmark encourages creative decisions, and the Game Master interprets actions that aren’t specifically described among the examples. The rules governing these situations are introduced in Chapter 11 — ▶️Action Scenes, while Chapter 12 — 🎬Example Actions provides an extensive selection of possible actions and their mechanical requirements.
🩸 Wounds Matter
Kingsmark does not use conventional hit points. Instead, characters suffer specific 🩸Physical Wounds that represent the actual harm they experience. Injury has consequences. A character might survive a terrible battle but emerge seriously wounded, requiring treatment and time to recover.
The game also includes 🧠Mental Trauma, reflecting the psychological effects of terrifying experiences, supernatural horrors, and other traumatic events. Together, these systems encourage players to consider the risks of combat rather than treating every violent encounter as an opportunity to exchange attacks without lasting consequences. Victory can be glorious, but survival can also be costly.
The mechanics governing physical injuries, armor, defense, and psychological consequences appear in Chapter 13 — 💥Damage & Defense. Recovery is also an important part of the game, with Chapter 14 — ❤️Healing Scenes explaining how characters recover through medical treatment, rest, magical assistance, and other restorative experiences.
🗨️ Not Every Adventure Is About Fighting
Some of the most memorable moments in a role-playing game occur when nobody draws a weapon. Imagine entering a crowded tavern in search of employment. A merchant offers you a dangerous contract, a suspicious stranger watches your conversation, and two rival adventurers accuse one another of theft. What do you do? You could investigate the accusation, negotiate for better payment, challenge the stranger’s intentions, or attempt to persuade the rivals to settle their dispute peacefully.
Your words, personality, reputation, and decisions can influence what happens next. Kingsmark gives social interaction its own place within the rules through Chapter 10 — 🗨️Dialog Scenes. These encounters provide opportunities for diplomacy, deception, negotiation, intimidation, persuasion, and other forms of character interaction.
You don’t have to be a professional actor to enjoy these encounters. You may speak in character, describe what your character says, or combine the two approaches. Perhaps your character speaks with a commanding voice that you cannot imitate. Perhaps your character is more persuasive, charming, or intimidating than you are in ordinary life. That’s part of the pleasure of role-playing: you get to portray someone whose abilities and experiences are different from your own. Sometimes the most important victory in an adventure comes from a conversation rather than a sword.
🪄 Discover a World of Magic
Magic is an important part of Kingsmark, but it isn’t something that characters should necessarily use without considering the consequences. The complete magic system features 24 Schools of Magic and 219 Spells, presented in the companion volume, 📜The Spellbook. Magic can influence combat, exploration, healing, communication, protection, and countless other situations. Different magical traditions and character abilities allow adventurers to approach supernatural challenges in different ways.
Some characters study magical knowledge. Others employ spiritual practices, supernatural gifts, or forms of magic associated with their particular Character Class. However, magic also has consequences. Powerful spellcasting can produce 🧠Mental Drain, making the use of supernatural power a meaningful decision rather than an unlimited resource. The fantasy world of Sylva also contains dangerous supernatural forces, including the sinister influence of 🪱The Gloom.
Players who enjoy magical characters can begin with the rules and sample Spells provided in the Player’s Handbook. The separate 📜Spellbook expands these possibilities with the complete collection of Spells and more extensive magical material. You don’t need to understand all 24 Schools before beginning your first adventure. If you choose a magical character, learn the abilities relevant to that character first and explore the rest as your adventures unfold.
The foundations of supernatural abilities, spellcasting procedures, and magical consequences are explained in Chapter 15 — 📜Magic System. Readers interested in the darker supernatural dangers of Sylva can continue into Chapter 16 — 🪱The Gloom.
🗺️ Explore the World of Sylva
Kingsmark’s adventures take place in Sylva, a medieval fantasy world of kingdoms, wilderness, ancient peoples, dangerous creatures, political conflicts, supernatural mysteries, and unexplored places. Not every danger is a monster, and not every adventure begins in a dungeon. You might escort travelers through hostile territory, investigate strange disappearances, pursue an outlaw, recover a stolen treasure, or become entangled in a struggle between powerful factions.
Some adventures may take place entirely within a settlement. Others could lead your party across vast wilderness regions, through forgotten ruins, or into places where few travelers have returned alive. Sylva provides the setting in which your character’s personal ambitions encounter a larger and more complicated world.
The game’s peoples and cultures draw inspiration from many historical traditions. Kingsmark also makes the distinctive choice to use actual languages from Earth for its civilizations, allowing interested players to explore real languages, history, and cultures through fantasy role-playing. For example, Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic are among the principal languages associated with the Elyonim, the Elves of Sylva.
You can simply enjoy the adventure, or use your character as an opportunity to learn something about history, geography, languages, wilderness survival, or other subjects that interest you. The Player’s Handbook introduces the peoples of Sylva in Chapter 8 — 🫀Human Type, while the broader world provides the possibilities for countless adventures. Your adventuring party determines where the story goes.
🎬 Begin Playing Without Creating a Character
Want to experience Kingsmark before spending time creating an original character? You can begin with one of the four ready-made Player Characters included in the Player’s Handbook. These characters provide an opportunity to learn the game by making decisions and experiencing the rules in action. Rather than beginning with a long character creation process, choose a character that interests you, become familiar with their capabilities, and start playing. You can always create your own character later.
The ready-made adventurers are provided in 📎 Appendix C — Characters, allowing Players and Game Masters to begin exploring the game without completing the character creation process themselves.
🍺 Gather Your Adventuring Party
A typical Kingsmark group consists of several Players and one Game Master. The GM describes the world and the situations the characters encounter, while each Player determines what their character attempts to do. For an introductory session, the Game Master can use the ready-made characters and the available introductory adventure material to help everyone become familiar with the game.
You can play around a physical table with paper, pencils, and dice, or gather online using voice communication and a virtual tabletop. Miniatures, maps, illustrations, and props can make the experience more immersive, but imagination remains the most important ingredient. If you are preparing to Game Master for the first time, 🍺Adventurers’ Tavern introduces the experience, and 📎 Appendix D — Dungeon provides an introductory adventure.
📖 Learn Through Play
You don’t have to learn every rule at once. Begin by understanding how ordinary Tests work, then learn the rules that become relevant when your character explores, negotiates, fights, or uses magic. When someone attempts an unfamiliar action, consult the appropriate chapter. When a character suffers an injury, look up the damage rules. When a magician casts a Spell, consult its description.
Over time, the most frequently used rules become familiar. This is how many people learn tabletop role-playing games: not by memorizing hundreds of pages, but by participating in adventures and gradually gaining experience. You can begin with the ready-made characters in 📎 Appendix C — Characters and the introductory adventure in 📎 Appendix D — Dungeon, learning new mechanics as the situations arise.
📖 The Complete Player’s Handbook Is Free Online
Kingsmark is designed to be accessible to anyone interested in exploring its rules and world. The entire 👑Kingsmark Player’s Handbook is being made available as individual webpages, allowing you to read the game chapter by chapter. You don’t have to purchase the book to discover how its rules work, and you don’t have to read the entire book before deciding whether Kingsmark interests you.
If you want to learn how characters are created, go directly to Chapter 17 — ✍Character Creation. If you want to investigate the combat system, explore Chapter 11 — ▶️Action Scenes, Chapter 12 — 🎬Example Actions, and Chapter 13 — 💥Damage & Defense. If you’re curious about magic, begin with Chapter 15 — 📜Magic System.
If you want to understand how characters advance through their adventures, explore Chapter 4 — ⭐Experience Points and Chapter 5 — ⭐Action Star Level. The full book also covers additional subjects, including Chapter 6 — 🕊Favor Points, Chapter 7 — 💰Earnings, and the rules for social interaction, recovery, and other aspects of adventuring. This chapter-by-chapter structure allows you to explore subjects according to your own interests and experience.
👑 Own the Player’s Handbook
For readers who prefer having the entire book in a single convenient volume, the professionally formatted 👑Kingsmark Player’s Handbook is available for purchase as a downloadable PDF. The PDF edition contains 556 pages and brings together the core rules, character creation material, examples, reference information, and resources needed to begin playing.
The Player’s Handbook provides everything necessary for Players and Game Masters to start playing Kingsmark. Five additional companion books expand the game with extensive equipment catalogs, the complete magic system, monsters, world lore, and Game Master resources. These supplementary volumes are not required to begin playing, but they provide additional material for those who want to expand their adventures.
⭐ Your Story Is Waiting
Every great adventure begins with a decision. Perhaps your character seeks fortune, justice, revenge, knowledge, redemption, or simply a place to belong. Perhaps you’ll become a legendary hero whose deeds are remembered for generations—or an unfortunate adventurer whose first expedition ends in disaster. What matters is that the story belongs to you and your fellow players.
You will make decisions, confront dangers, form alliances, face consequences, and discover what kind of person your character becomes when tested. You don’t need to master a 556-page book to begin that journey. The game offers several ways to get started, depending upon whether you want to explore character options, create an adventurer, or begin playing immediately.
To discover your character, explore the seventeen professions in Chapter 9 — 🎭Character Class and learn about the peoples of Sylva in Chapter 8 — 🫀Human Type. When you’re ready to create an original adventurer, Chapter 17 — ✍Character Creation provides everything needed to begin. Alternatively, you can choose one of the ready-made adventurers in 📎 Appendix C — Characters and begin exploring the introductory adventure in 📎 Appendix D — Dungeon.
Whether you prefer to create your own character, learn the mechanics, or simply gather some friends and begin playing, the world of Sylva is ready to explore. Welcome to Kingsmark. Your adventure begins now.
