Glossary

Every word the game will throw at you, defined once. Pronunciations included where the word is old or odd — tap 🔊 in the card below to hear them out loud.

How to say it

Old words for old things. Tap 🔊 to hear one — or just say it your way; the Stones answer anyway. Full definitions: the glossary.

AntiphonAN-tih-fon— call-and-response chant — your voice, then its voicedictionary audio ↗
the Caesurasih-ZHUR-uh— the three generations of silence — a break in the music, not the end of itdictionary audio ↗
CantorKAN-ter— you — the one who leads the call; the Colossus answers
Colossikuh-LOSS-eye— the war-giants (one Colossus, many Colossi)
the Precentorsprih-SEN-ters— the See's ruling council of seven
the TacetTAH-set— Vael's cathedral-engine
Carneliankar-NEEL-yun— the Stone of water and motion — Guilt into Flowdictionary audio ↗
MalachiteMAL-uh-kite— the Stone of air and the heart — Grief into Vulnerabilitydictionary audio ↗
MenhirMEN-heer— a standing stone; Granite's Song-Move takes its namedictionary audio ↗
MonodyMON-uh-dee— the empire that would have one voice only — a single line, no harmonydictionary audio ↗
SarnSARN— the world you stand on (rhymes with barn)
VaelVAYL— the Oath ossified — the antagonist who held a virtue past its verse (rhymes with veil)
VespertideVES-per-tide— the evening bell, and the tide that comes with it

The Call — the core loop

AntiphonAN-tih-fon: Call-and-response chant. The name of the game and its heart: your voice, then the Colossus's voice. It answers only as strongly as you call.
CantorKAN-ter: You. The one who leads the call. A Cantor bonds one Colossus and wakes it back toward what it was.
Resonance: The power your bond builds during a scene, climbed by acting in your Stone's way (holding, moving, committing, speaking…). The band fills toward your current reach-tier. Not heat, not mana: attention.
Overcharge: Your band tops its reach-tier (your highest unlocked Oath + 1) and spills; the note is too loud. Your Fracture manifests on your next turn unless you clear. Early in the campaign the reach is 4; it climbs as you unlock higher Oaths.
Fracture: The wound in your Colossus's song, surfacing as a status when you Overcharge — each Stone breaks its own way (Lock, Drag, Sputter, Closed Air, Distortion, Glamour, Silence).
Bond Move: One honest line, in character, to someone present. It costs your whole activation, Move included. Clears the Fracture, spends the band to 0 (invoking any oath empties it, at every tier), swears your Oath, grants your Bond Token the first time. You never disclose anything real — fiction-first, always.
Oath: Each Stone's nine-rung ladder (Resonance 1 to 9), climbed over the campaign. Rung 1, the Catalyst, is not sworn — it happens to you. Rung 2, the Binding ("I will change"), is the oath every Cantor speaks to receive a frame. The path forks at 3, where the Guardian oath (Courage, Trust, Worthiness, Compassion, Truth, Clarity, Surrender) is your Stone's own first rung, sworn by a Bond Move; higher rungs unlock as you reach them. Anchor rungs give a standing benefit; the rest you invoke and spend.
Bond Token: Earned by the Bond Move (cap 1, keeps to mission end). Spend it when it matters most.
Choir Moment / Crescendo: Several Oaths sworn inside the same window — the whole squad in tune. Powerful, and the enemy answers it (the Crescendo).
Cooldown: Drop one Resonance band without a Bond Move. First one each scene is free; the second costs 1 Stress; every one after costs 2. Survival over grace.
Song-Move: A Stone power — the abilities your frame sings (Drum, Sway, Watch, Command…).
Awakening: A frame remembering more of what it was — the big unlocks a Cantor works toward.
Ideal: Your career-scale ladder: four rungs, each lived before it is sworn. Rung 4 is discovered through play.

The World

the Caesurasih-ZHUR-uh: The three generations of silence between the day the Colossi knelt and the day the first one answered again. A caesura is a break in the music, not the end of it.
Colossus / Colossikuh-LOSS-us / kuh-LOSS-eye: The war-giants sung awake from stone. Every one of them woke from the Caesura wrong — off-key, a fraction of itself.
the Silenced: The dormant giants — the ones that knelt and have not yet answered.
Voices: The presences trapped inside the Colossi. What the living owe them is the campaign's question.
the seven Stones: Granite, Carnelian, Pyrite, Malachite, Lapis, Obsidian, Quartz — root to crown. Your Stone is your tradition, your frame, and your way of building Resonance.
the Unsung: What rises when a voice is lost instead of freed. The campaign's ghosts.
the Refrain: The part of the song you return to — your characters' home between sessions (the My Cantors page).

People & Powers

the Choral See: The church-state that runs Sarn: liturgy, quarries, and the Vigil. Not a cartoon of evil — an institution that made peace with a terrible arithmetic.
the Precentorsprih-SEN-ters: The See's ruling council of seven — one seat per Stone-Tradition on paper, six seated for three generations, one chair empty.
the Sevenfold Choir / the Lithic Orders: The See's knightly orders — one per Stone. Their pilots are Stoneknights (a See rank, not a synonym for Cantor).
the Vigil of Voices: The See's recruitment machine: quotas, slates, and 'self-offered volunteers.' Ask your Cantor what the quotes are doing in that sentence.
the Hushed: The faction that keeps a vow of silence. Not the same thing as the Caesura.
the TacetTAH-set: Vael's cathedral-engine. Tacet is the musical instruction for 'be silent.'
Spirit (Companion): The pre-written presence riding your frame — two per Stone, you bond one (Anvil, Murmur, Mirage, Clamor, Spill…). On Discord, they answer when you say their names.

At the table

Structure & Stress: Your survivability tracks (Cantors only). 0 HP costs Structure, not death; Stress 0 is Stressed Out. Enemies just fall at 0 HP.
Stone / frame: Your Colossus's tradition and its frame (the Menhir, the Riptide, the Darkglass…). Frame cards carry the full kit.
Discipline: A talent — the Lancer word wears an Antiphon name.
Quartz & the Invitation: The crown Stone is never picked at creation. It invites.

On the board — the words the VTT uses

Grit: The flat bonus you add to an attack roll or a save. It is the number after the d20 on every line the board writes for you.
Overshield: A temporary buffer that absorbs damage before your HP does, and is spent doing it.
High ground: An elevated zone. A ranged shot fired from inside one at a target outside it gains +1 accuracy die.
Blast N: On a hit, everything adjacent to the target takes half the raw damage minus its own Armor, allies included.
Umbral Veil: Obsidian's Full action, once per scene: up to six hexes of black smoke, +1 cover behind each, sightlines broken. It thins over about three rounds.
Orbital Lance: Granite's Full action, once per scene, when a Granite ship is in orbit: mark a seven-hex zone and 3d6 Armor-Piercing Energy lands on it at the top of the next round. It does not check faction.
Held / Break grip / Freed: Held is caught in a grapple or tractor: no moving, no rotating. Break grip spends a Quick and all your movement to roll 1d20 + Grit vs 10. Success makes you Freed, and for one round the same thing cannot re-lock you.
Captured: Stowed inside an enemy prison hull: no actions, untargetable, unmovable by your own side. Freed by cracking the prison open or by the relief fleet arriving.
Named / Screened: Support-field marks. Named takes +1 damage from every source; Screened gains +2 Evasion and +2 E-Defense.
Taunting: You have called the enemy out: anything that shoots someone other than you takes +2 Difficulty, out to the greater of 5 spaces and its own weapon range.
Off-Balance: Knocked out of your stance by a weapon's rider. The board flags it; the GM calls what it costs.
Stabilize: A Full action inherited from Lancer: it clears one condition and lowers your Resonance by 1. It does NOT restore HP. The Bond Move occupies the Stabilize slot, so walking through a Fracture costs your Full action for the turn — and a Cantor who has lost their Quick can still take it.
Overwatch / Graze: Overwatch declares that you are holding your Reaction for a runner. The Graze is the swing it can produce: front arc, within 3, target not Disengaged, half damage. Speed 4+ gets there on reflex; declaring Overwatch gets there however slow you are.
Orienting: A unit in its first round after a warp-in. It can move; it cannot fire until the round after.
Escalated: A boss past its damage threshold and onto its harder pattern. New weapons, no more warning shots.
the tow clock: A captor dragging hooked cargo 6 spaces toward the exit at every round advance. Three tows and it is off the map. Ram the tug (a Quick, no roll) to knock it Prone and stall the clock.
sandbox: A room the GM has opened for practice: no action pips, no rate of fire, no movement budget. Nothing is enforced.

Deeper rules live on the combat & conditions reference; the loop in plain language is on How it plays.