Nobody trained you. You just kept showing up to the next fight until your body stopped asking your permission.
Named for the old-world doomsday system that used to fire back automatically once nobody was left alive to give the order — because that's what a Deadhand is. Somewhere between the second employer and the fourth war, the thinking stopped being necessary. You don't decide to parry anymore. You don't decide to close distance, or drop low, or put the barrel of whatever's in your hand exactly where it needs to be. The body already knows. It knew before you did, most days. What's left of the person who used to make those choices mostly just watches, and counts.
Your subclass, chosen at 1st level. Grants a feature again at 7th; every Trade's mid-tier feats (§5, 12th level) become open to all four once unlocked.
Somebody has to be the reason the line doesn't break, and you got tired of watching it happen to other people. Free Haven militias and caravan-guard contracts fight over Bulwarks by name — the kind of soldier a whole convoy survives because of.
Two-handed, overbuilt, and built to end an engagement in the first exchange. Yankee Combine siege details keep Breakers on retainer specifically to open doors that were never meant to open.
Named for Dixie Territories dueling custom — the second who's supposed to just carry the blade home if their duelist falls, and instead keeps ending up the better fight. Precise, patient, contemptuous of anyone who needs two weapons to make a point.
You stopped being the best fight in the room a while back and started being the reason the room wins anyway. Mercenary contractor guilds groom Cadre soldiers into officers, because a unit that trusts its Cadre outlives one that doesn't.
Tally fills at 1 when you drop a foe, at 2 when you eat a critical hit and stay upright, and at 1 per turn spent fighting below half health. Cap starts at 5, rising to 6 at 7th, 7 at 11th, 8 at 14th, 9 at 18th. Redlining spends any amount at once for a scaling bonus — more damage, a save you shouldn't have made, a hit you shouldn't still be standing after. The first Redline in any given fight is clean. Every Redline after the first requires a roll on the table below.
| d10 | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Torn Something — the strain itself costs you moderate damage, no bleed, no drama. |
| 2 | Locked Joint — a knee, elbow, or shoulder seizes up; you're slowed until you spend an action working it loose. |
| 3 | White Noise — your ears are still ringing next round; initiative and Perception checks suffer. |
| 4 | Old Wound Wakes Up — persistent bleed damage until someone treats it properly. |
| 5 | Overextended — your stance is wide open; you're flat-footed until your next turn. |
| 6 | Bent Steel — the gear you redlined with takes a permanent −1 penalty until a proper armorer sees it. |
| 7 | Blackout Flicker — you lose your next action outright, mid-motion, gone. |
| 8 | Friendly Fire — the follow-through clips whoever's nearest, ally or not, for weapon damage. |
| 9 | Buckled Frame — armor or shield loses its item bonus until repaired. |
| 10 | Redlined Out — your body simply shuts off. Prone, unconscious, 1 round. Somebody better be covering you. |
| Lv | Class Features |
|---|---|
| 1 | Trade chosen, Tally, The Answer, Trade Focus (two weapon groups at Blooded), Green Standing all weapons/unarmored |
| 2 | Skill feat, Deadhand feat |
| 3 | General feat, skill increase, expert Class DC |
| 4 | Deadhand feat |
| 5 | Ability boosts, ancestry feat, skill increase, Blooded Standing in all weapons |
| 6 | Deadhand feat |
| 7 | General feat, skill increase, master Reflex, Trade feature II, Tally cap +1, second free Redline per encounter |
| 8 | Deadhand feat |
| 9 | Ancestry feat, skill increase, expert Fortitude, Slip Ward (reroll one Slip result/day) |
| 10 | Ability boosts, Deadhand feat |
| 11 | General feat, skill increase, Tally cap +1, Veteran Standing in Trade weapons, Muscle Memory unlocked |
| 12 | Deadhand feat |
| 13 | Ancestry feat, skill increase, master Will |
| 14 | Deadhand feat, Tally cap +1 |
| 15 | Ability boosts, skill increase, Trade capstone, master Fortitude, Veteran Standing in all weapons |
| 16 | Deadhand feat |
| 17 | General feat, skill increase, Undying Standing in Trade weapons |
| 18 | Deadhand feat, Tally cap +1, Slip Ward improves (ignore the worst result once/day) |
| 19 | Skill increase, Nothing Left to Learn |
| 20 | Ability boosts, Deadhand feat, The Last Contract |
A representative loadout, not an exhaustive list. Steel bar = general access. Rust bar = Trade-flavored but open to all once unlocked.
The Answer stops costing your reaction entirely and can trigger any number of times in a single round. There's no more decision happening in there to slow it down — a foe hands you an opening, and it's already been taken.
Choose one, permanently. Outlast — once per day, the hit that would kill you instead leaves you standing at 1 HP, and you Redline for free as your body refuses on your behalf. One More War — once per day, spend your entire Tally pool in a single Redline for a devastating strike against every foe you can reach, with no Slip roll at all. The body that's kept you alive this long gets exactly one truly reckless swing left in it, and it's spent making sure it counts.
New to Cinderfall: the mercenary economy Deadhands actually live inside, and the one code that travels with them across every banner they've ever fought under.
Older than most of the factions it currently sells soldiers to, the Standing Order is the reason a Yankee drill company and a Dixie warband and an Aristocratic Republic house guard can all end up fielding veterans who trained the exact same way. It doesn't care who wins. It cares that its people keep working. Standard contracts are unremarkable — wages, terms, an exit clause. The infamous one is the Continuance Clause, offered quietly to soldiers who've outlived enough contracts to stop flinching at the offer: die under a Standing Order banner, and your soul doesn't linger loose or go looking for a petty god's attention. It gets bound directly into your kit, or into whatever war-machine you died defending, so the job still gets finished. The Foreman (Dossier 01, §7) is on record hating these bindings specifically — a soul that signed away its own afterlife out of professional obligation comes back resentful in a way an honest ghost-machine doesn't, and Continuance-bound war-engines slide toward raging-spirit instability faster than anything built clean.
No chapter house, no oath ceremony, no enforcement beyond the fact that everyone who's earned it recognizes everyone else who has. The Iron Vow is just three things, passed soldier to soldier regardless of which banner either of them currently flies: never let a green recruit die alone if you can put your body between them and it. Never trust a contract that pays better than the job should. Always carry one piece of gear that isn't yours — a reminder, every time your hand closes on it, that the person who carried it first didn't get to keep carrying it. Deadhands who've kept the Vow recognize each other by the tally-notches filed into a stock or a pommel, and by the specific, unhurried way they check a room before anyone younger does.