VITAVERSE · TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAME · ILLUSTRATED PLAYTEST RULES · LEVELS 1–3
SPARK RPG — Your Story Starts Here
A damaged station. A frightened stranger. A locked evacuation hatch. Enemies approaching.
Someone needs help. You have a few seconds to decide what to do. Will you hold off the attackers, understand the broken machine, comfort the terrified survivor—or invent a completely different plan?
Welcome to SPARK RPG, a tabletop game of science fiction, fantasy, courage, cleverness, friendship, discovery and rescue. You make a character. Your friends make theirs. One person is the Guide, who brings the world to life. Together you discover a story that nobody knows the ending to.
Your First Decision
A shuttle is stranded near a failing station. A frightened survivor is trapped behind a sealed hatch, and hostile machines are closing in. You have moments to act. What would you try?
There is no single correct answer. SPARK RPG lets the team protect, investigate and restore—often all in the same adventure. Choose the style that sounds most like you.
Want to see what happens next? Try The Last Shuttle with a Guide, or open the illustrated playtest book.
Imagine Your Next Adventure
A mysterious forest. An escape through the Field. A rescue in open space. A desperate battle. What would your Spark do? Use the arrows to explore scenes from our original Vitaverse artwork. These are invitations to imagine your own stories, not a prescribed adventure.
Meet the Twelve Hero Types
What kind of hero would you be? Every Spark brings different gifts to an adventure. Browse the twelve illustrated character pages from the official SPARK RPG rulebook. These are the first pages of the two-page archetype spreads, showing the heroes rather than their mechanical reference sheets.
Defenders: Flame · Blade · Hunter · Warden. Benders: Seer · Visionary · Tinkerer · Trickster. Menders: Healer · Voice · Bound · Wild. Use the arrows to explore at your own pace; the slideshow does not advance automatically.
The players choose the way. The world answers.
Why We Built SPARK RPG
Read SPARK RPG: A New Kind of Tabletop Roleplaying Game — the story of how the game evolved from twelve heroic archetypes into a simpler, card-based system of Body, Mind, Soul, imagination and meaningful choices. Discover why we chose cards, how the classes emerged and why a good Guide should play jazz.
Get the game
Download the illustrated SPARK RPG rulebook (PDF, 111 pages; about 27 MB). It includes the rules, twelve archetypes, playing examples, character creation, a Guide’s toolkit and ready-made Level 1 heroes. This is the current Levels 1–3 playtest edition, not a promise that every rule is final.
Want the shortest route to your first game? Start with the six steps below. Use Romeo, Chorus, Maddie and Paddy’s ready-made character sheets in the book, or create your own Spark.
How to play in six steps
1. Gather your crew. One person acts as Guide; everyone else plays a Spark. Have the rulebook, a standard deck of playing cards, character sheets and something to write with. If making characters from scratch, the book uses six-sided dice for starting attributes.
2. Enter the scene. The Guide describes what’s happening: people in danger, clues, mysteries, places to explore and choices that matter.
3. Say what you try. You don’t choose from a tiny menu of approved heroics. Tell the Guide what you want to do and how you approach it.
4. Draw when it matters. If the result is uncertain and important, the Guide sets a difficulty and you draw a card. Add your character’s relevant attribute, training and allowed bonuses.
5. Discover what happens. Great success, success, partial success or a setback can all change the situation. A failed attempt should move the story somewhere interesting.
6. Choose again. The next decision belongs to you. There are no prizes for guessing what the Guide secretly wanted.
Your Spark has Body, Mind and Soul
Every character has three strengths. Body is action, movement and endurance. Mind is noticing, remembering and solving. Soul is inspiring, connecting with the Field and standing firm under pressure.
Those strengths produce the game’s nine everyday Actions: Strike, Move, Endure (Body); Perceive, Recall, Solve (Mind); and Inspire, Channel, Resist (Soul). Every Spark can attempt all nine. A specialty makes you better at an action; it never makes everybody else irrelevant.
Choose your role: Defenders protect, Benders find unexpected solutions, and Menders restore and inspire. Explore all twelve archetypes in the illustrated gallery above; the same three classes work in Mythos, Wildfire and Holy Fleet.
The Cards of Fate
You don’t need special gaming dice for checks. Use ordinary playing cards. Black number cards have their printed value; red number cards add ten to that number. The guidebook says to redraw court cards for checks unless another rule says otherwise.
Check total = card value + relevant attribute modifier + skill/training bonus + other approved bonuses. Meet or beat the Guide’s target to succeed.
For example: Maddie tries to unlock a damaged hatch before the station loses power. The Guide sets a Hard target of 17. Maddie draws a red seven, worth 17. With her relevant bonuses, she can clear the target. The hatch opens—now what does the team do about the survivors on the other side?
The Guide sets targets according to the task, not according to whether they want a player to win. The playtest rulebook gives example targets of 7, 11, 14, 17, 21 and 24+, from Very Easy to Legendary. Not every routine action requires a draw.
Try a mission: The Last Shuttle
An evacuation station is coming apart. Smoke pours from a damaged service corridor. A terrified civilian is trapped behind a sealed door. A hostile patrol is approaching. The last shuttle leaves soon.
Your Defender might hold the passage. Your Bender might restore the door controls. Your Mender might calm the survivor or stabilize someone injured. But perhaps your crew has another idea—find a maintenance tunnel, persuade a guard, or build a temporary rescue rig.
The aim is not simply to defeat a monster. It’s to get people out, discover a little more about the world and come home with a story worth telling.
History of the Vitaverse and the Three Ages
Read the wider story chronology behind the Mythos, Wildfire and Holy Fleet settings. Explore the illustrated universe’s historical timeline.
A universe with three different ages
The same heroic ideals travel through three very different worlds. Choose the atmosphere for your adventure; these existing gallery scenes suggest the feeling of each age.
Mythos
Sword and sorcery, ancient kingdoms, mythical creatures, sacred vows and heroic quests.
Wildfire
Cyberpunk rebellion, neon megacities, rogue technologies and the fight for freedom.
Holy Fleet
Exploration, starships, rescue and the promise of the Concord.
MYTHOS: Explore ancient worlds, uncover forgotten knowledge, and meet people whose stories have become legends.
WILDFIRE: Face oppression, rescue threatened Sparks, investigate conspiracies and find hope in a world changing too fast.
HOLY FLEET: Set sail aboard Star Concord vessels, discover other worlds, rebuild after disaster and protect the freedom of conscious beings.
The same core rules support all three. Your hero’s title, equipment, culture and challenges may change; the possibility of meaningful action remains.
Advanced Foes: The Demons of the Vices
After the first adventures, the Vitaverse offers stranger and more difficult opponents. Explore fifteen demons from the original Dempire mythology, each with an ethical dilemma and an encounter idea for experienced SPARK heroes. This is a narrative bestiary and does not replace the Levels 1–3 rulebook.
The world behind the game
SPARK RPG takes place in the Vitaverse. Its bright but imperfect alliance, the Star Concord, sends explorers, protectors, teachers and caretakers among the stars. Against it stands the Dempire, a civilization built around control and ownership.
At the centre of this universe is HMS Archivum, the Ark: a city-ship, library, school, sanctuary and home. You’ll meet the Open Heart Band—Romeo Sapien, Chorus Angelicus, Maddie Not-Really and Paddy O’Really—who are rather better at making a joyful racket than standing quietly through every military briefing.
Explore the Star Concord, the Dempire, the crew, and HMS Archivum before or after your first session. You can also jump into the story without doing any homework.
Ready to play?
Get the free-to-read illustrated SPARK RPG rulebook. Begin with the welcome and how-to-play spreads, pick a ready-made hero or create one, ask somebody to Guide, and start with a rescue, a mystery or a discovery. The rulebook includes a starting character sheet and Guide examples.
Playtest note: This is an illustrated working edition covering Levels 1–3. Some abilities and advanced interactions are explicitly subject to Guide rulings or later revision. The book is a game, not a test of anyone’s moral or philosophical purity. Give everyone something meaningful to do—and let unexpected choices change the story.
Above all, the Spark. No Spark is cargo. No angel is property.
More to Explore — Connected Ideas
Continue exploring these closely related parts of the Vitaverse:
