Book:Introduction

This is Elysium

You hold in your hands the guide to participating in a game of friends, where players can create heroes or villains—or something in between—which embark on legendary quests or take part in humorous misadventure.

The Elysium game strives to blend classic fantasy with new ideas and genres such as mystery, science fiction, horror, humor, and history. To achieve this end, Elysium gives players the tools to forge characters, places, and events, otherwise impossible in other games. Fully customizable characters, extensive options, and vivid source material allow players to break through the molds of fighter, cleric, thief, and wizard.

This is a Roleplaying Game

Think of roleplaying like an ancient tribal council, where members of the tribe gather around the campfire and relate the stories of what has happened that day. There is a tribal Chieftain that rules over the council and keeps order. Everyone helps in telling the stories. Now put that scene in someone’s living room, or around a table somewhere. The tribesmen are the players and the Chieftain is known as the Game Master. The players have characters they create which take part in an adventurous story that the GM sets up. The GM plays the part of all the extras, builds the set, sets the scene, plays in the pit orchestra, and guides the story for the players, who are center stage, driving the events that happen.

When it's all over, a vivid, memorable story is created and the players delight in retelling their part in it. Roleplaying is a game like any other, played this time with pen, paper, dice and camaraderie.

What Roleplaying Is and Isn't

Roleplaying has been used by therapists, psychoanalysts and all kinds of self help gurus as a healthy and efficient way to relax, improve mental health, and escape the mounting pressures of the real world, if just for a few hours on the weekends.

Roleplaying involves creating an alter ego for yourself to act out around the dining room table in a game with your friends. You create a character, assign them their stats, round out their personality, and then you have someone totally different you can explore. We all wonder what things might be like if we were different and this is a safe way to explore that curiosity.

Roleplaying, therefore, is not to be confused with the real world. The world you live and breathe in now is the real one. The one in which your character exists is imaginary and completely illusory. Some people wear capes and carry swords in the real world, but they are usually magicians and circus performers.

What You Will Need To Play

A pencil.

A few ten-sided dice. All rolls made in Elysium are made using the d10. The dice should be different in color from one another.

A character sheet. One may be photocopied or scanned from the back of this rulebook. Note: This is the only part of this rulebook that may be reprinted or copied in any way, shape, or form without fear of lawsuit. (This needs to be corrected to take into account the CC-BY-SA license).

This book.

Imagination.

These are all that you’ll need. More addicted gamers might use things such as computers, calculators, extended character sheets, miniatures, maps, blunt weapons, caffeine, and pocket protectors.

Read This Book

Learn it, know it, love it. This book holds the key to a happy second childhood and a healthy adulthood. Imagination is what drives the environmentally friendly machine of human progress. Laziness and impatience are what destroy the human soul and the lovely green trees. Mmmm, look at the pretty trees. So don’t skip parts out of impatience or laziness. Then you won’t know how to play the game and your GM will resent you. And playing games and using imagination are therapeutic. This book isn't that long.

HOWEVER, if you are a player, do NOT read the sections intended only for the GM. These will be marked clearly DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU ARE A GM. Or a loser. You can read them if you want to be a loser, too.