The icons are the movers and shakers in the world of 13th Age—the rulers, the warlords, the supernatural powers. At lower levels, the PCs interact mainly with the organizations and followers attached to the icons; later on, they’ll meet the icons themselves on close to equal footing.

Each player has three relationship dice to assign to up to three icons, allocating them however they choose. A relationship can be positive (you’re allied with that icon), negative (you’re an enemy of that icon, and ally yourself with others who also hate that icon), or conflicted (things between you and the icon are… complicated). Starting out, stick with mostly positive or conflicted relationships; page 36 of the core rulebook explains why, but you don’t need the full explanation yet.

When a player picks icons for their character, they’re telling the GM the sort of adventures they want to play. Negative relationship with the Lich King? Expect to be fighting lots of undead! Conflicted with the Great Gold Wyrm? That suggests they want stories about the consequences of duty, and how hard it is to live up to the ideals of lawful goody-ness.

Here are the 13 icons. We envision specific icons as being either heroic, villainous, or ambiguous, but it can be fun to let the players decide that for themselves. Maybe your Lich King is a reasonable fellow who’s content to rule his undead subjects, while your version of the Elf Queen is a wicked monarch out of a fairy tale.

The Archmage

has preserved the Empire for centuries and created astonishing new lands. He has also threatened the fabric of reality with experiments you’d have to be brilliant or hugely arrogant to attempt.

The Crusader

is the armored fist of the Dark Gods. So long as followers of the Gods of Light stay the hell out of his way, the Crusader turns his wrath against the demons that would destroy the world his own gods want to rule. Follow the Crusader if you must win at any cost.

The Diabolist

controls fiends and tampers with forces even the Archmage avoids. She likes her victims screaming and her chaos pure while claiming that the demons she summons would otherwise overwhelm the Great Gold Wyrm who seals the Abyss. There are two differences between her and her demons: First, she likes keeping destruction personal rather than universal. Second, she’s capable of kindness, so long as it comes as a great surprise.

The Dwarf King

is lord of Forge, the dwarves’ new homeland beneath the mountains. He’d love to reclaim the dwarven Underhome lost to war against the dark elves and the creatures of the deeps. But now that the Empire is stumbling, the dwarves find themselves manning the mountain walls that shield the Empire from the orcs and monsters of the north.

The Elf Queen

rules the Court of Stars, the one place where wood elves, dark elves, and high elves come together as peers and allies instead of as rivals or enemies. Honed by centuries of experience, the Queen’s innate magic at least equals the Archmage’s spells.

The Emperor

rules the world’s greatest human kingdom, known as the Dragon Empire for the mounts of its mightiest warriors. All the signs suggest that the age is turning, but will the Empire fall or shift to a new balance?

The Great Gold Wyrm

is the world’s protector and the inspiration for holy orders of paladins and independent heroes. Although the Gold Wyrm’s physical form seals the gap and prevents the Abyss from erupting into the world, his dreams and the agents he employs still move through the world, helping those who will fight and even die for what’s right.

The High Druid

is the champion of the resurgent Wild, and the spiritual and magical leader of spirits of nature and the elements that were chained by the Empire but are now working themselves free. She might be the great force that shakes the Empire to pieces or the hero who destroys the destroyers and points to a new way to live.

The Lich King

is the lord of the undead, a fallen tyrant who intends to conquer the Dragon Empire and restore his ancient kingdom. He’s not entirely insane and mostly understands that ruling a kingdom is not the same as destroying it.

The Orc Lord

is a figure of legend. The last time he walked the land the Lich King fell, in part because of the Orc Lord’s attack. Who will fall before his hordes this time? Who won’t?

The Priestess

hears all the Gods of Light and speaks for those who please her. She is part oracle, part mystic, and part metaphysical engineer, since she created the Cathedral, an ever-expanding temple with rooms or entire wings for each of the faiths she favors.

The Prince of Shadows

is part thief, part trickster, and part assassin. To some he is a hero; to others a villain. He has squandered the riches of the dwarves, murdered the hopes of a dragon, and plundered the dreams of a god. His exploits have changed the world, but none can tell you his ultimate goals or motives.

The Three

were among the first dragons to walk the world. The Red is a living engine of destruction. The Blue is a sorceress, perhaps even the original mother of all sorcery. The Black is queen of shadows and assassins. Unlike the Great Gold Wyrm, who must fight alone, the Three have learned to join forces.

Using Icon Advantages

Wade Rockett wrote Crown of Axis with sections that give new players direct ways of using icon advantages in specific encounters and negotiations. If you are running Crown of Axis first, using icon advantages will be simple.

If you’re not running Crown of Axis, and you are running 13th Age for the first time, you may consider skipping this section for now: players of most d20 games might be unfamiliar with the kind of collaborative storytelling and worldbuilding that the icon advantage rules provide, and some groups find it easier to introduce icon relationship advantages in the second or third session. However, they are a powerful resource for both GMs and players, and we encourage you to make them a part of your game.

Storytelling resources: The idea is that relationships with the icons give the player characters storytelling moments where something about the icon’s power or organization works out in the player character’s favor.

If you’re happy to introduce indie-style storytelling options in the first session, read on, but if you want to keep things one touch simpler in the first session, skip ahead to the Running 13th Age section.

Icon Relationship Rules: Once the players have assigned their three icon relationship dice, determine if anyone gets any icon advantages this session. Each player rolls 1d6 for each relationship. On a 5 or 6, that character gets some benefit from the corresponding icon; or in the case of a negative relationship, possible assistance from the icon’s enemies! Have the player make a note of the storytelling resource they have available, or give them a token that will remind them during play.

The GM can also use these results as inspiration to customize the adventure based on the characters’ icon relationships. For example, if the players rolled 5s or 6s for the Emperor, Archmage, and Lich King, the adventure might deal with the themes of power and magic. The GM could make some NPCs servants, allies, or enemies of those icons; or even improvise an entire adventure where the Archmage has fallen under the magical control of the Lich King, and the Emperor calls on the heroes to help save him. The GM might also choose to ignore the results entirely! They’re a creative tool, not shackles.

If the GM chooses not to use an icon advantage to benefit a character, the player could choose to “spend” the result as a resource to find help among the icon’s followers (“I use my relationship with the Archmage to gain an audience with the wizard”), produce a needed item via a flashback (“I just remembered that before we left town, I stopped by the temple of the Priestess and picked up healing potions”), and bend—or even break—the rules of the game by using their connection to this demi-godlike being (“I go into a mystical trance and tap into the power of the Elf Queen to increase the effect of my spell.”)

When an icon advantage is used by either the player or GM, the player rolls a d20. On a result of 1-5, that icon advantage comes with a complication of some kind. Maybe the icon’s help comes at the price of a side quest, a personal sacrifice, from allies of the icons who are suffering from their own interesting problems! The best complications spring out of the story the player started for the advantage. Ideally, a complication is about making the game more interesting for the players and the GM.

The “roll a d20 to find out” method of determining whether an icon advantage comes with a complication is different than the method described in the 13th Age core rulebook. In the original version, every result of a 5 on an icon relationship roll leads to a complication. We found over time that this makes some players reluctant to use their advantage, because they know it will come with a downside. This alternate method, which we introduced in 13th Age Glorantha, makes it so that any advantage might come with a complication—but the chances of it happening are low.