What is Nowhere Land?
Nowhere Land (Nulle Part) is a tabletop roleplaying game set in realms between worlds—where portals open from our modern reality into infinite domains of imagination, danger, and wonder. It is the place where missing persons vanish, where Pythagoras hid, where the Bermuda Triangle leads, where dreams and nightmares take physical form.
You play as Travelers—people who've crossed through portals, either by accident or design. Your journey takes you through ever-shifting Domains, each with its own will, blessings, and curses. Navigate politics, survive hostile ecosystems, manage your own domain strongholds, and encounter the mysterious Count—a shapeshifting trickster who appears across all domains, always recognizable by a crown somewhere on his body.
Nowhere Land exists in the gaps between realities—a cosmic interstitial space where physics bends, time fractures, and imagination becomes tangible. Some domains mirror Earth's history; others defy all logic. Travelers walk roads made of frozen time, breathe air thick with memories, and barter with entities that predate language itself.
The NOWHERE System
This game uses the NOWHERE System (also called the Drop System), a universal engine for resolving challenges through tactical dice management. Unlike class-based games, characters are built as Echoes—flexible prototypes combining:
- 🎭Five Essences (Forma, Anima, Umbra, Reverie, Drift) representing body, mind, presence, imagination, and reality
- ⚒️Careers that shape your skills and grant unique abilities
- ✨Potentials (supernatural powers tied to domains)
- 🔮Le Count's Ledger (a meta-currency of debts and favors)
Core Resolution: The Drop
Every action is resolved by rolling a pool of d6 dice equal to your relevant Essence rating. You can:
- Sacrifice dice to lower difficulty (certainty over risk)
- Reach to borrow dice from your future (desperation)
- Push to reroll failures (determination)
- Upend with Imagination to upgrade dice sizes (d6 → d8 → d10...)
This creates a risk-reward economy where every tactical choice has narrative weight. Characters with negative Essences can still act—but at a cost.
What Makes This Game Different?
🌀 Living Domains
Domains aren't just settings—they have Willpower, grant Blessings/Curses, and can awaken, sleep, merge, or die. Your actions reshape entire worlds.
⚖️ Debt-Based Mechanics
Every advantage is a loan from your future self. Reach for power now, but pay with weakened future rolls. Debt creates story.
👑 The Count as System
The Count isn't just an NPC—he's a mechanical force. His Ledger tracks favors and debts that drive quests, create drama, and reshape domains.
🎲 No Dead Builds
Multiple skills solve the same problem. Weak in one area? Use Imagination, Reach, or alternate approaches. Every character can contribute.
Who Is This Game For?
NOWHERE Land works for groups who enjoy:
- ✓Narrative-heavy exploration (discovering strange worlds, solving mysteries)
- ✓Tactical combat (positioning, risk management, resource depletion)
- ✓Political intrigue (Bastion management, alliances, The Count's schemes)
- ✓Isekai/portal fantasy (modern people in fantasy realms, culture clash)
- ✓Weird horror (domains that defy logic, Lovecraftian domains)
Campaign Modes
Nowhere Land supports three distinct campaign framings, each offering unique narrative hooks and gameplay dynamics:
- Outsiders (Les Étrangers): You come from the real world. Whether you stumbled through a portal unknowingly, or sought Nowhere Land as a conspiracist, researcher, adventurer, or mercenary—you are new to this impossible realm. The mundane world's logic is your anchor, and every revelation shatters your understanding further. All Outsiders first arrive at The Passage, the liminal domain between worlds.
- Settlers (Les Établis): You were born in Nowhere Land, or crossed over long ago and made it your home. A new portal opening nearby, a domain's influence creeping into your territory, or whispers from The Count create your call to adventure. You understand the strange rules here—but even veterans can be surprised.
- Travelers (Les Voyageurs): You live between domains, wandering the impossible geography of Nowhere Land. Perhaps you're a courier for The Doctor, a merchant trading across portals, or a fugitive who can never stay in one place. You've seen wonders and horrors across a dozen domains, but every journey brings new dangers.
Choosing Your Mode
Each mode shapes the campaign's opening, the characters' relationship to Nowhere Land, and the types of stories you'll tell:
Outsiders Mode
Fish-out-of-water horror, survival, gradual revelation of cosmic truths
- A mysterious disappearance leads investigators to an abandoned building—and through a portal
- Online conspiracy theorists finally find proof of 'the other side' and organize an expedition
- Corporate mercenaries are hired to retrieve something from 'an alternate dimension'—no questions asked
- A support group for people with recurring dreams of impossible places discovers they're all dreaming of the same world
Settlers Mode
Domain politics, community defense, uncovering local mysteries, bastion management
- A new portal opens near your settlement, and strange things begin emerging
- The Count requests your community's assistance—refusal is unwise
- A neighboring domain's influence is bleeding into yours, corrupting the local reality
- The Encyclopedist sends word: a critical piece of lost lore has been located in a dangerous domain
Travelers Mode
Episodic adventures, domain exploration, moral complexity, living on the margins
- A delivery must cross three hostile domains before the next lunar shift
- You discover a route between domains that shouldn't exist—and others want to know how you found it
- The Doctor needs agents who won't be recognized in any single domain
- Something is following you through portals, getting closer each time you cross
The Passage: The Arrival Domain
All Outsiders first experience The Passage—a liminal domain that serves as the threshold between the mundane world and Nowhere Land. Here, new arrivals are tested, transformed, and judged. Some are welcomed; others are corrected. The Passage has no fixed form—it manifests according to each traveler's fears, hopes, and hidden nature. See the dedicated section on The Passage for more details.
"The portal shimmers before you. Through it, you glimpse impossible geometries, hear whispers in Partisan, smell ozone and honey. The Count stands beside you, crown tattooed on his forearm, and smiles. 'Your Ledger is empty,' he says. 'For now.' Do you step through?"
Continue Your Journey
Core Mechanics
Master the Drop System and learn how to roll dice, manage risk, and spend Imagination
Character Creation
Build your Traveler by choosing Essences, careers, and Potentials
Domains & Portals
Explore the living worlds of Nowhere Land and understand how they shape play
World Lore
Discover the history, factions, and mysteries of Nowhere Land
The Count's Ledger
Learn about debts, favors, and the meta-currency that drives drama
Quick Reference
Essential tables and summaries for quick lookup during play