From the website (no longer online)
Shadow Bindings is a roleplaying mechanics system, that is meant to be a more flexible system than Fantasy Realms, with less reliance on modifying the character construction system to suit particular worldbases. It is also intended to better represent realism in combat situations than Fantasy Realms did, and to deal with those areas of genre that Fantasy Realms cannot cover currently because of its simplex structure.
Shadow Bindings takes the best elements of the Fantasy Realms mechanic, plus those of some of our previous work with the Mystic Earth RPG and some new ideas towards streamlining some parts of game play. It is designed in such a way that worlds, scenarios etc developed for it will also be usable by those who prefer the Fantasy Realms mechanics.
Shadow Bindings is a Free-To-Use Roleplaying game. This means you can use it as a basis for any game you run, are welcome to adapt it, share copies of it with your friends, print it out to paper or do anything else you want with it, except sell it for a profit.