Prima Materia is an alchemical oracle for solo role-playing

Prima Materia is an alchemical oracle for solo role-playing, for worldbuilding, and for creative inquiry. Most important of all, it is for you.

At its heart are three dice: Sol (light), Nox (shadow), and Syzygy (alignment). Each facet is etched with potent sigils, all personally fished from the river of the collective unconscious by Man Alone (and lovingly chiseled into being by DiceNest). Both novice and expert alike can tap into these tools and utilize the results at any level they choose. They work equally well for creating a protagonist's revenge arc, as they do deciding what shoes said protagonist will wear whilst seeking their revenge. They are prismatic; capable of becoming something completely new through nothing more than a subtle shift. That is all it takes to change the angle and catch new light.

Every aspect of the dice and accompanying booklet was agonized over, with the goal of creating an oracle system that did as much as possible with as little as needed. From the very beginning, Prima Materia was intended to be as beautiful as it was minimalist, as mystical as it was essential, as complex as it was approachable, as obvious as it was vexing, and as luxurious as it was practical.

The end result? An elegant treasure that is equally at home in a display case as it is in a sweatshirt pocket.

Though Prima Materia can be used by anyone (and for any creative purpose), it is put to best use for solo role-playing. The system is intentionally compact, and its purpose is to keep you inside your story rather than flipping through pages. At its foundation is a simple belief: you already possess everything required to tell the story unfolding before you. The best oracle is one that can guide, clarify, and inspire, then promptly gets the hell out of your way.

That’s not at all to say you’re “on your own.” To the contrary: the 25-page guide offers a variety of ways to put the dice to work. With clear instructions and loads of tables and examples, it can be put to use right out of the box with very little preparation.

Used alongside the player’s guide, the three dice form a simple but powerful grammar: light and impulse meet shadow and condition, joined through relationship. The 20-sided Sol and Nox dice offer a particular arrangement of fundamental human concerns such as self, nature, society, unity, and division. The six-sided Syzygy die brings them together, causing all manner of alchemical reactions that might catalyze, accelerate, invert, create, destroy, remake, obliterate, elevate, resurrect, or even a little of each.

Whatever happens, the goal is to allow a player not only to “fill in the blank,” but to draw from the ultimate creative source and weave from it whatever needs weaving.

In the end, the combinations — and therefore the possibilities — are endless. Such is the wonder of drawing from the primary source, the prima materia, the raw substance from which meaning is shaped.

The print edition includes the complete guide and three physical dice cast in obsidian, tiger’s eye, and white jade. These stones were chosen not only for their symbolic resonance, but for their long associations with reflection, focus, vision, and inspiration. The booklet and dice work together, and although each may be interesting enough on their own, each half’s true potential cannot be realized without the other.