Spout Lore

When you consult your accumulated knowledge about something, roll+Int. ✴On a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the subject relevant to your situation. ✴On a 7–9, the GM will only tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful. The GM might ask you “How do you know this?” Tell them the truth, now.

You spout lore any time you want to search your memory for knowledge or facts about something. You take a moment to ponder the things you know about the Orcish Tribes or the Tower of Ul’dammar and then reveal that knowledge.

The knowledge you get is like consulting a bestiary, travel guide, or library. You get facts about the subject matter. On a 10+ the GM will show you how those facts can be immediately useful, on a 7–9 they’re just facts.

On a miss the GM’s move will often involve the time you take thinking. Maybe you miss that goblin moving around behind you, or the tripwire across the hallway. It’s also a great chance to reveal an unwelcome truth.

Just in case it isn’t clear: the answers are always true, even if the GM had to make them up on the spot. Always say what honesty demands.

Fenfaril: The floor was illusory? Damn those gnomes. Damn them straight to wherever gnomes go when they’re dead.

GM: Heh, yep. You’re in a murky pit, and there’s a shadowy humanoid shape, mottled and eyeless, moving towards you, mumbling.

Fenfaril: Mumbling shape, huh? What is that thing? Is it going to attack me? I’m sure I’ve read about them somewhere before, maybe at school?

GM: Could be. Spout lore!

Fenfaril: Bestow your knowledge upon me, brain. I rolled an 8.

GM: Well, of course you know of these things—the name escapes you but you definitely remember a drawing of a creature like this. It was in a hallway, standing guard over something. You know there’s a trick to get it to let you pass but you can’t quite remember. Why not?

Fenfaril: Obviously I was hungover that day. I was a terrible student. A trick, you say? Hmm

Vitus: I got a 10 on my spout lore about this gilded skull.

GM: You’re pretty sure you recognize the metalwork of Dis, the living city.

Vitus: and? I did get a 10!

GM: Right, of course. Well, you recognize a few glyphs specifically. They’re efreeti, marks of a fire spell, but they’re different, a kind of transmutation magic. I bet if you cast a spell into the skull, it’ll turn it into a fire spell.

Vitus: Magic missiles of fire—hurrah!