From the introduction: The Palace is Your World. Stagnation threatens to bring down its towers. Chaos threatens to crumble its walls. The cast-offs rot the floors from below. And the art of politics and warfare distract from the true danger. And yet, these four are your only weapons to save the Palace. User summary: Characters have four Attributes, each with an associated dice pool (the number of dice is distributed from a point pool at creation). The character has varying strengths associated with specific Attributes, such that different types of dice (e.g. d4, d6, d8) are used in the pool for different Attributes. Characters also select a Guild to which they belong, that gives access to various Traits (in game abilities or resources) as well as determining their social capabilities. The game is heavily depended on the well-developed and unusual setting.