The Memory Palace

Five Pillars

Your mind is a fortress built from who you are. Each of its five Pillars holds one Memory: a single vivid sentence you can Spark for strength in a desperate moment. Life rewrites them as you go, and when the Current takes its price, these are what burn.

The wound that defined you.

The Memory that broke you, and in breaking, shaped who you became. It comes from your Tragedy, which also grants +1 to one Attribute. Spark it when drawing strength from old pain, channeling rage or grief, or refusing to let history repeat itself.

The Betrayal

+1 SAVVY

Someone you trusted absolutely turned on you.

“The dust from his boots as he walked away with everything.”

The Debt

+1 SWAY

Your family owed more than they could pay. The Consortium took everything.

“The Baron's gold ring as he signed the papers.”

The Duel

+1 QUICK

You killed someone. The weight of that death sits in your chest.

“The surprise on my brother's face when he fell.”

The Illness

+1 GRIT

Sickness nearly took you, or someone you loved.

“The taste of bitter medicine and my mother's tears.”

The Miracle

+1 ECHO

You witnessed something impossible. It changed you.

“The blue light in the darkness that shouldn't have been there.”

The Raid

+1 IRON

Violence came to your home. You survived. Others didn't.

“The smell of burning pine and my sister's scream.”

A sensory detail of home.

One vivid impression of the place that made you, tied to your Origin. Spark it when navigating home terrain, understanding people from your background, or drawing on skills learned in childhood.

Consortium City-Born

The smoke never clears in Brimstead. You learn to breathe soot before you learn to walk. But at least the gas lamps keep the shadows away.

“The hiss of steam pipes in the walls.”

Dust-Born

Walls make you weak. The wind teaches you which way the predator is coming. Walls just blind you.

“The silence before a sandstorm.”

Rail-Rider

Home is where the train stops. I've seen the whole Frontier through a boxcar door. Keep moving, kid.

“The rhythm of wheels on endless track.”

Veil-Touched

My mother said the stars looked wrong the night I was born. She said the Current was pooling under the floorboards.

“The hum that only I could hear.”

Why you keep fighting.

Your purpose, tied to your Calling. Where the Scar is about what happened to you, the Drive is about what you’re going to do about it. Spark it when pushing through exhaustion or refusing to abandon your purpose.

Mundane

The Gunhand “The weight of the badge in my pocket.”
The Muck-Raker “The shape my hands took after twelve hours in the seam.”
The High-Roller “The smell of cigar smoke and stacked Scrip across a winning table.”
The Shepherd “The first life I saved. The first one I couldn't.”
The Rail-Jack “The lock that wouldn't open. And then did.”

Psionic

The Psy-Slinger “The first shot I made that shouldn't have been possible.”
The Mindweaver “The first time another mind's thought reached me, and I reached back.”
The Seer “The vision of my own death that hasn't happened yet.”
The Flesh Shaper “The wound I closed with my fingers when there was no kit.”
The Bastion Soul “The day the Psy-Slinger's bullet stopped against my chest.”

Who you love.

A person whose existence reminds you that you’re still human: living or dead, near or far. The Anchor matters mechanically. The Anchoring recovery method, which clears 2 Erosion during Downtime, needs a meaningful scene with someone connected to this Memory. If the Anchor burns, Anchoring is unavailable until you Harden a new one.

A spouse, lover, or former flame whose face you still see when you close your eyes
A child, yours by blood or by choice, whose future you’re fighting for
A mentor who believed in you when no one else did
A sibling who still writes letters you can’t bring yourself to answer
A dead friend whose voice you still hear giving advice
A stranger you failed to save, whose memory drives you to save others

What you hide from others.

Something true about you that you don’t want known. Consider sharing it privately with the Game Marshal and keeping it from the other players: at some point in the campaign, it will threaten to surface.

A crime you committed that someone else was blamed for
The truth about your origins: who your parents really were, or what you really are
Something you witnessed that powerful people want kept quiet
A deal you made with someone (or something) you shouldn’t have trusted
A connection to a faction you’ve publicly rejected
A death you caused that wasn’t as justified as you’ve told yourself

Spark: Once per session per Memory, during active play. The Blaze: sum your three highest dice instead of two on a relevant roll. The Ember: recover 2 Mettle instead.
Bulwark: Intact Memories steady you against Fear and psionic intrusion: +2 with all five, +1 with three or four, +0 with two or fewer.
Burn: When your Erosion track fills, you Break: choose a Memory, strike it from your sheet, and reset Erosion to 0. Miracles and severe Backlash can burn Memories too.
Harden: 8 XP, during Downtime, never in the same Downtime the Memory burned. The new Memory comes from recent pain and takes the Hardened or Tempered register.
Turn: Life-changing events rewrite a Pillar without emptying it. Chosen Turns (your Drive fulfilled or abandoned, a Legend threshold) are optional. Forced Turns (your Anchor lost, your Secret exposed, a brush with death, home destroyed) must be Accepted with ECHO + Resilience at TN 13 or Denied for 2 Erosion. Every Turn grants a Watershed; a Denied Turn does not.
Watershed: Gained whenever a Pillar Turns or is Hardened. Spend one alongside XP to raise an Attribute to Rank 4 or 5, and say how the change made it possible.
Registers: Hardened (loss that broke something) Sparks for survival, violence, grief, and vengeance. Tempered (loss you endured) Sparks for protection, oaths, endurance, and costly mercy. Either one adds +1 Step to a successful Blaze within its register.
Hollow: When the last Pillar empties, the character is gone. The body walks on as an NPC, and something else may move in.