Swords of The Serpentine - Hardcover Role Playing Game Book, Pelgrane Press

Product Information

There’s value in seeing how a hero you know translates into Swords of the Serpentine, especially when that hero changes over time. Swords of the Serpentine, by Emily Dresner and Kevin Kulp, is Fantasy GUMSHOE as seen through a lens of classic swords and sorcery. That means different things to different people, though, so we wanted to share with you the set of collected guidelines we’ve used when writing the game.

After all that? You might have fun skimming the blog posts here at https://pelgranepress.com/category/products/swords-of-the-serpentine/; there you’ll find a number of free SotS resources for the game. Also head to the free SotS tools (including a hero generator and adversary generator) by contributing author Matt Breen, found at http://monstar.co.nz/matt/sotstools/ This is a game of investigation, heroism, sly politics, and bloody savagery, set in a fantasy city rife with skulduggery and death. These rules adapt Pelgrane Press’ GUMSHOE system into a fantasy game with a relatively loose class structure and high-action roleplaying. These rules work fine even without the included setting of Eversink, and shine more brightly when political allegiances are closely tied to the heroes.Chapter 9: The City of Eversink. Enough rules, let’s look at setting! We start off with the most important city features that everyone should know. When building the living and bustling city of Eversink, Emily and I kept asking ourselves, “could this feature be the hook for an adventure?” Almost everything that couldn’t got tossed. We want the city to feel comprehensive but to have a huge amount of space for your own factions, neighborhoods, and design. As a result, ignore the details at first; read this chapter the first time to just get the feel and tone of the city. Understand what it looks like, smells like, and sounds like, and maybe what neighborhoods you’ll find where, and reading it later for details later will be even more fun. As such, read up to Eversink’s History (p. 238) carefully, then skim the districts for now. Then skim the Allegiances; you want to know who the politically powerful groups are, sure, but save the details for your second pass. Drives (what is best in life?): To stand alone against danger, to gain another’s wealth, to buy respect with blood and steel Created by the disease wetlung, the Drowned are humans who can be puppeteered and possessed by Colony, an underwater fungal hivemind somewhere beneath the city. They can instantly communicate with each other when Colony wishes and use this hivemind communication to focus on and efficiently eliminate one enemy at a time. The Drowned seek to put themselves in positions of influence and power, all the better to promote the fungal intelligence’s inscrutable plans. Going into SotS, it had a few elements going in its favor and a few strikes against it. Against it was the Gumshoe system, which I’d never quite synced with. I genuinely love how it handles investigation and clues, but for more mundane actions it uses a pool system combined with hidden difficulties, which is a combination I don’t enjoy. However, Gumshoe has also gone through numerous iterations since the last time I looked at it, so I had hope.

Scurrilous Rumors represents your fungal hivemind’s link to sources of gossip from multiple locations throughout the cityThe preparedness general ability allows you to roll to see if you have the right tool for the right job, without trying to plan for every eventuality up front The Drowned don’t have their own culture, but they do have a shared understanding; you always feel loved, and you never feel lonely or alone. When you wish you may mentally exchange understanding with any and all other members of the hivemind. While this doesn’t go as far as exchanging words or recognizing specific identities, you know roughly where they are located and their current emotional state and intent. You recognize other Drowned on sight. That is the effect that dragon-talk has on the inexperienced. Bilbo of course ought to have been on his guard; but Smaug had rather an overwhelming personality. Ideas for Dungeon World Moves, from Rob Donoghue – Troy Press on Dungeon World: The Tale of Old Dogan