The Briefing
Welcome to the office. Coffee's stale, the mug's a threat, and the imp on payroll wants to know if you read the file or just skimmed it. Here's what you need to know before your first shift inside Foundry.
“Listen, sweetheart. Mannus and Marlow pay me to run the office, log the complaints, and walk new hires through the magic toy-box on the screen. Some of you have done this before. Some of you haven't touched a virtual tabletop since the Bureau was still pretending it cared. Either way you're sitting here now. So sit down, shut up, and let me show you where the buttons are.”
What this file is
This dossier is a no-frills tour of Foundry VTT — the virtual tabletop we're running Utopia's Veil on. The field office lives at foundry.mannusandmarlow.com. You'll click a link, your sheet will load, you'll move a little circle around a map and shoot people with revolvers that the BAU technically didn't license. By the end of this file you'll be able to log in, find your sheet, roll a check, and at least pretend you've done this before.
Ten files. Read 'em in order, jump around, skim 'em on the can — I don't care, I'm not your mother. But if you show up to session one and you don't know how to roll initiative, I will remember, and I will mention it. Frequently.
Contents
Getting In
A door, a name, a password. Don't lose any of the three.
01Open the link
You'll get a browser link in our chat the night of the session — or just bookmark foundry.mannusandmarlow.com right now and stop waiting. Click it. No client to install, no app, no toolbar that promises to "improve your search experience." If your browser asks to enable audio or storage, say yes. We need both.
Use Chrome, Edge, or Firefox. Safari is a tragedy and we don't deal with tragedies before the session even starts.
Recommended setup
- Desktop or laptop with a real keyboard. Phones can technically connect; please don't.
- Headphones — voice is rough without them, and you'll hear Sqounk better. (You want to hear Sqounk better.)
- Close the forty-seven tabs hogging your RAM before joining. Foundry is hungry.
02Pick your name
You'll land on a login screen with a dropdown of user names. Find yours (your character's, or whatever I told you to use). Type the password I sent. Click Join Game.
Don't see your name in the dropdown? You're at the wrong damn door. Close the tab, check the link, try again. Don't make me come over there.
If it won't connect
- Refresh the page once.
- Check your wifi isn't routing through a potato.
- Try an incognito window — rules out a busted extension.
- Still broken? Ping me in our chat. Don't suffer in silence; we have a city to save.
The Squad Room
First time through the door the place looks busy. Calm down. It's five things in a trench coat.
When you join, you'll see a big map in the middle and a stack of icons running down the right side. Memorize the rooms, ignore the rest until you need it.
| Room | What it does |
|---|---|
| A · The Scene | The map. Where your token lives, where dice get thrown "on the table," where Sqounk hovers menacingly. |
| B · Sidebar | Your toolbox. Chat at the top, then combat tracker, actors (sheets), items, journal, settings. Click a tab; it opens. Click again; it closes. |
| C · Hotbar | The quick-access strip along the bottom. Drag spells, items, or macros here to fire them with a key press. |
| D · Tool Palette | Floating column on the left. Token tools, measuring, notes. You'll use it more than you think. |
| E · Players | Who's logged in. Green dot means awake. Yellow means "getting coffee." Red means they crashed and probably won't be back this scene. |
Icons aren't labeled by default — hover a second and a little tag appears telling you what it does. Foundry assumes you've memorized hieroglyphs. You haven't. Nobody has. Mouse over everything like a tourist.
Hotkeys worth knowing
On the Pavement
A token is just you in circle form. Move it like you'd move yourself: with purpose, and only when the lights are right.
01Click your token to select it
Left-click your token (the one with your character's portrait). A glowing ring means you've grabbed it. A double-click opens your character sheet — we'll get there.
02Drag it where you want to go
Click and drag, or use the W A S D keys to nudge one square at a time. Hold Shift while dragging to snap along the grid in straight lines.
Measuring before you commit
Hold Ctrl (or Cmd on Mac) and click-drag from your token to anywhere on the map. Foundry draws a dotted line and shows the distance in feet. Release without moving. You just measured. Useful before you walk into a guy with a knife.
Pro move: in combat, draw your whole turn first with Ctrl-drag waypoints — click each corner — then release. Foundry traces the exact path and stops at your speed. Beats getting halfway and realizing you're three feet short. Beats a lot of things, honestly. Like dying.
Other things you can do to a token
- Right-click your token — a little wheel pops up with HP, conditions, and visibility toggles.
- Drag the corner when selected to rotate (it doesn't do much mechanically but it looks cool).
- Press V while hovering a token to target it. That's how MidiQOL knows who you're shooting at. More on that in File 07.
Rolling Bones
Two ways to roll. One feels professional. The other feels like you mean it.
From the sheet (the smart way)
Open your character sheet. Click the name of an ability, skill, attack, or saving throw. It rolls. Done. Modifiers are baked in; you don't have to remember a single number.
- Click → normal roll
- Shift + click → advantage
- Ctrl (or Cmd) + click → disadvantage
- Alt + click → roll silently to the GM
From chat (the loud way)
Type into the chat box on the right. The slash commands you'll actually use:
- /r 1d20+5 — basic roll, public
- /r 2d6+3 — damage, fireballs, fistfights
- /gmr — same thing, GM only
- /w GM message — whisper me directly
- /em laughs darkly — emote, third person
Dice So Nice (3D dice)
When you roll, expect honest-to-god 3D dice tumbling across the screen. Pretty, satisfying, slightly distracting. Tweak your dice colors in Settings → Configure Settings → Dice So Nice!. Pick a set that suits the operative you're playing — the brass-and-bone look is, frankly, the correct choice.
If you forget every command in this whole damn file, remember this: click stuff on your sheet. That's 95% of the rolls you'll ever make. The other 5% is when you want to look fancy in chat. Don't show off until you've earned it.
Your Case File
Everything you can do, all in one place. Open it. Stare at it. Click things and see what happens. You can't break it. Probably.
Double-click your token to open your sheet. Or click ACTORS in the sidebar and find your character there.
The map of your sheet
| Region | What's there |
|---|---|
| Top bar | Name, class, level. HP and AC in big readable boxes. HP is your patience for getting punched. |
| Abilities & Saves | STR through CHA, plus saving throws. Click a modifier to roll the check. |
| Skills | Stealth, Insight, Investigation — the noir bread and butter. Click to roll. |
| Tabs | Features, Inventory, Spells, Effects, Biography. Each tab is a folder; flip through them. |
| Attacks & spells | Click the item name → roll attack → damage card appears in chat with an Apply button. |
Try this: pop your sheet open before session, click every single tab once, and roll a Perception check. That's it. You're now ahead of half the table. The other half will figure it out when initiative hits. Loudly. With apologies.
Short rest, long rest, regret
Look for the rest buttons near your HP (or in the Features tab, depending on the sheet). Short Rest recovers some hit dice and class resources; Long Rest patches everything. Don't long rest in the middle of a stakeout. I'll notice. So will the things watching the stakeout.
Building Your Operative
Time to make a person. We're using two tools: Plutonium for the content, and Actor Studio for the wizard that walks you through it.
“Three ground rules before you put pen to paper. One: you're human. Two: you start at level three. Three: stats — roll, point-buy, or standard array, dealer's choice. If you roll, you roll where I can see it. We clear?” — Sqounk, intake desk, ash on the form
01Make the actor
In the sidebar, click ACTORS. At the top of the panel, click Create Actor. Give it a name. Set type to Character. Click create. An empty sheet opens. Cool. Now we fill it.
02Open Actor Studio
From the new sheet, find the Actor Studio button (usually a wand or star icon in the sheet header). It opens a step-by-step wizard: Race → Background → Class → Abilities → Skills → Equipment → Spells. Walk through it. Each step lets you pick from a list with descriptions; pick, click Next, repeat.
03Ability scores — three ways
Pick the method that suits your stomach. All three are on the table:
- Roll. 4d6, drop the lowest, six times. Arrange to taste. If you roll, do it where I can see — either at the table or in Foundry chat with /r 4d6kh3 (six times). The "kh3" means keep the highest three. The Bureau audits everything.
- Point buy. The Actor Studio wizard has a built-in calculator. 27-point standard.
- Standard array. 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 — arrange to taste.
Point-buy and standard array don't need my sign-off — just pick the option in Studio and go. Only the rollers have to perform for the camera.
04Class & background
Any official 5e class is on the table. I've pre-modernized every class and background for the Veil — you'll see Veil-flavored names and descriptions in the Studio dropdown, with the mechanics intact. A "Cleric" might be a Rift-touched ex-priest. A "Paladin" might be a beat cop with a strict moral code. A "Warlock"? Someone the Rift made a deal with who didn't read the fine print.
You don't have to write anything up unless you want to.
If you do want a custom background that isn't on my list — an idea I haven't covered, a personal hook you want baked in — DM me before session zero. We'll workshop it together. Don't show up with a homebrew background nobody's seen.
05Equipment — with modern reskins
The Studio's equipment list is the standard fantasy locker. I'm providing a modernized item table separately — revolvers, sawn-offs, lockpicks, ward-keys, BAU-issued mace cans, a beaten-up trench coat with hidden pockets. Until I drop that table on you, pick the mechanical equivalent in the wizard and we'll relabel it together.
| Old name | What it actually is |
|---|---|
| Longbow | Hunting rifle, scoped |
| Light Crossbow | Snub-nose revolver |
| Heavy Crossbow | Pump-action shotgun |
| Rapier / Shortsword | Switchblade or trench knife |
| Mace | Louisville Slugger |
| Studded Leather | Reinforced jacket, kevlar inserts |
| Holy Symbol | Rift-touched relic, lapel pin, family heirloom |
Houserules at intake
- Race: Human only. The Cataclysm narrowed the field. Anyone non-human you meet is an NPC, a Fey holdout, or worse.
- Starting level: 3. Pick a subclass at character creation; don't wait.
- Stats: Roll (4d6 drop-lowest), point-buy, or standard array. Only rolls have to be witnessed.
- HP: Max at level 1, average rounded up thereafter (Actor Studio handles this).
- Magic in plain sight: Unlicensed casting is a felony. The world doesn't know about you. Cast subtly in public or get noticed by the wrong people — usually the BAU, sometimes worse.
- Reflavor everything. Mechanics stay 5e; vibes are modern noir. If it makes the table laugh, it's probably correct.
Don't agonize. Pick a thing that sounds fun, hit Next. We can adjust details before session one. The Bureau accepts revisions — the Rift, in my experience, does not.
Reflavor everything. A "longbow" is a hunting rifle. A "rapier" is a pearl-handled blade your grandmother gave you the night before she vanished. Mechanics don't care; the vibes do, and so do I.
When you're done
Save the sheet. I'll handle dropping your portrait onto the token before session. Take a screenshot of your stats and DM it to me — the office keeps a copy. We're insured. Probably.
House Tools
The mods MMI runs. You don't have to install anything — they live on the server. You just need to know what they do so when something flashy happens you don't startle and shoot the printer.
| Tool | What it does for you |
|---|---|
| MidiQOL | Automates the attack-roll → save → damage → effect chain. Click an attack: Midi rolls to hit, prompts the target's save (if relevant), rolls damage, and offers an Apply button. Target before you fire. Press V. |
| Dynamic Active Effects (DAE) | The reason "Bless" actually adds +1d4 to your rolls without anyone remembering. Buffs and debuffs apply themselves and tick down. |
| Levels | Multi-floor maps. When you walk into an elevator or up the stairs, the view changes. Look for a small floor selector when you're in a building — click a number to switch floors. |
| Monk's Little Details | Pretty things: HP bars that animate, sound cues, condition icons that don't look like 1998. Background magic. Just enjoy it. |
| Monk's Active Tile Triggers | Why doors open, alarms blare, lights flicker, walls shoot you. If you step somewhere and stuff happens, that's this. C'est la noir. |
| Plutonium | Source of all official 5e content — spells, items, monsters. You won't touch it directly; you'll see its results inside Actor Studio. |
| Actor Studio | The character-creation wizard from File 06. Turns "I want to play a human warlock" into a filled-in sheet. |
| Combat Carousel | A horizontal initiative strip across the top of the screen during fights. See whose turn is up, who's next, HP at a glance. Click your portrait to jump to your token. |
Combat, in practice
- When initiative kicks off, roll your own. Click the d20 next to your portrait in the combat tracker, or click "Roll Initiative" on your sheet. I do not roll for you. YOUR JOB
- The Combat Carousel at the top shows the turn order. Your portrait glows on your turn.
- On your turn: target an enemy (V), click an attack on your sheet. MidiQOL handles the rest.
- Apply damage from the chat card. End turn (button on the tracker, or just say "done").
Roll. Your. Own. Initiative. I'm not your goddamn secretary. If a fight breaks out and you're still typing slash-commands, the bad guys go first. The bad guys love going first.
And the single biggest mistake new operatives make: forgetting to target before attacking. No target, no automation. Press V over the bad guy. Then fire. Then look smug.
Office Etiquette
A few habits that separate the pros from the schmucks.
Do
- Show up on time. Foundry loads slow when six people pile in at once.
- Mute when you're not talking. Especially during monologues. Mine, mostly.
- Roll publicly unless I tell you otherwise. Trust is the foundation of this office, allegedly.
- Use /em for actions in third person ("Quinn lights a cigarette and stares out the window"). Looks great in chat.
- Ping the map with Spacebar when you want to point at something instead of describing it.
Don't
- Don't open every menu. If you don't know what it does, leave it alone. Foundry has settings that will ruin your night.
- Don't drag tokens you don't own. You can only move yours. Stop trying.
- Don't refresh mid-combat. It works, but you'll lose your spot in the carousel for a hot ten seconds and everyone will hear about it.
- Don't whisper Sqounk. He'll see it. He always sees it.
When things break
| Symptom | First thing to try |
|---|---|
| I can't see the map / black screen | Press Z to reset zoom. Still black? Refresh. |
| My token won't move | You're selecting the wrong token, or none at all. Click once, then drag. |
| I rolled but nothing showed up | Check the chat tab in the sidebar — sometimes you're on a different tab. |
| No 3D dice | You probably joined mid-roll. Next roll will show. |
| Voice is robotic / cut out | Refresh. We use a separate voice channel anyway (Discord) — check there. |
| Sheet says I have 0 HP and I don't think I should | Yell at me in chat. I'll fix it. Probably. |
Nine out of ten Foundry problems are solved by refreshing the page. The tenth is solved by yelling at the GM. Don't refresh during your own turn unless you want to redo it — and trust me, nobody else wants to watch you redo it.
Session Zero
The night before the night. We don't roll for keeps. We get the paperwork done, the dice clattering, and the table calibrated. Tick the boxes below and you'll save us all about forty-five minutes of fumbling.
“If you show up to session zero without your character built, congratulations — you are session zero. The rest of the table gets to watch.” — Sqounk, clipboard, no patience
AHomework — before the night
Three things, in this order. None of them take long. All of them spare the table.
Pre-session checklist
BWhat to bring to the table
Tech
- Desktop or laptop on a real keyboard
- Stable wifi (or a friendly word with your router)
- Two tabs open: Foundry + Discord. That's it. Close the rest.
- A scratch pad or notes app for cool ideas you want to remember later
Vibes
- A snack within reach so you don't disappear into the kitchen mid-scene
- Water. Real water. Not a slow rotation of energy drinks.
- An idea of how your character talks — even just a vibe
- Patience for the one person still figuring out where the chat box is
CWhat we'll cover on the night
| Block | What happens | ~Time |
|---|---|---|
| 01 · Hellos | Brief introductions. Pronouns, dietary preferences for the New York pizza I'm probably ordering. | 10m |
| 02 · Sheet check | I look at your characters, ask one or two questions, fix anything that needs fixing. | 20m |
| 03 · Foundry shakedown | Everyone moves a token, rolls a Perception check, targets the dummy NPC, fires once. That's it. You're trained. | 20m |
| 04 · The City | I walk you through the world — the Cataclysm, the BAU, MMI, who Sqounk is, who Graham Steele is, what "the Rift" actually feels like. | 25m |
| 05 · Table contract | Safety tools, schedule, expectations, the things adults talk about so nothing's weird later. | 15m |
| 06 · Cold open | A short opening scene to test the engine. Low stakes. Probably involves Sqounk handing you a folder you'd rather not open. | 20m |
DIntegration questions
Answer in a DM, a paragraph, or a shrug. The point is to give me hooks — pieces of your character I can pull on during sessions to make the city feel like yours.
Three questions
- How did you end up working with MMI? Did Mannus owe you? Did you walk in cold? Did Sqounk threaten you with a clipboard until you signed?
- One person who matters — not a coworker. Family, a regular at the diner downstairs, an ex you still answer the phone for. Name them. I'll bring them in.
- One secret you don't share at the table. Something the other characters don't know. It can be small. It can be cosmic. I'll keep it; I'll use it.
ETable contract
We're adults, we know each other, we trust each other. Still — saying it out loud is how we keep it that way.
- Lines & Veils. Anything that's a hard no for you in fiction? Tell me in a DM before the night. I'll route around it. No questions asked, no follow-ups, no big deal.
- Pause button. Anyone at the table can say “Sqounk, take five” (in or out of character) and we hard-stop a scene. We come back to it when we come back to it — or we don't.
- Punch up, not down. The Bureau is the punchline. Graham Steele is the punchline. Each other? Off limits unless we've cleared it.
- Phones face-down when scenes are happening. Glance at them on combat downtime; that's fair.
- Show up or send word. Plans change. A heads-up the day before saves the table.
FSchedule expectations
| Item | How it works |
|---|---|
| Cadence | Every other week (we'll lock the night at session zero). |
| Length | 3 to 4 hours, hard out at the four-hour mark unless we're mid-scene. |
| Break | One 10-minute mid-session break. Refill, stretch, pet the cat. |
| Missing a session | Tell me >24h ahead if you can. We can run with one absence; two is a tougher call. |
| Between sessions | I'll post recaps and any homework on the site. Optional reads. Encouraged. |
Tick the boxes above. Send the screenshot. Answer the three questions. Show up sober-ish and on time. Do that and we'll have one of the smoother session zeros this office has ever logged.
Don't do that and you'll be the cautionary tale I tell the next intake. Your call.
Pocket Card
Print this. Pin it to the corkboard next to the unpaid invoices. Pretend you don't need it.
The 5 things you'll do every session
- Click your token, drag to move.
- Hover an enemy, press V to target.
- Open your sheet (double-click your token).
- Click a skill / attack / spell to roll it.
- Type stuff in chat. Use /em for flavor.
The keys worth knowing
| Spacebar | ping the map |
| Shift+Space | draw pointer |
| V | target hovered token |
| T | measure |
| Ctrl+drag | measure from a token |
| Z | reset zoom |
| Esc | close menus |
Chat commands
| /r 1d20+5 | public roll |
| /r 4d6kh3 | roll stats |
| /gmr 1d20 | roll to GM only |
| /w GM hi | whisper |
| /em winks | emote |
| /ooc | out of character |
Click modifiers on rolls
| Shift+click | advantage |
| Ctrl+click | disadvantage |
| Alt+click | roll silently |
Houserules at a glance
- Human only · Start at level 3
- Stats: roll / point-buy / standard array — only rolls get audited
- Roll your own initiative
- Reflavor freely; modern noir vibes mandatory
- Unlicensed casting is a felony — the BAU is always watching
You've reached the end of the dossier. Congratulations. You're now technically qualified to operate inside the Veil. Try not to embarrass the firm.
Now close this and go build your character. The city's waiting, and the city doesn't wait long.