James Hutchings presents

 

 

 

 

 

There will be many situations which aren’t covered by the rules given so far. If it’s necessary to decide whether a player character can do something, and the GM decides not to rule that they succeed or fail automatically, the GM will tell the player to Test one of their character’s Qualities.

 

The basic mechanism for Testing Qualities is as follows:

 

i) The GM will tell the character which Quality to Test, and may tell them a number. This number will be positive if the task is unusually difficult, or negative if it’s unusually easy.

 

ii) The player should roll a d20.

 

iii) If the roll is 19 or 20, the character has failed. If the roll is 18 or less, continue.

 

iv) The player should adjust the roll by the amount given by the GM.

 

v) If the result is equal to or lower than the relevant Quality, the character has succeeded. If it’s higher, they’ve failed.

 

Bear in mind that heavier types of armour have an Agility Penalty. If the character is Testing their Agility, they use their Agility score after applying this Armour Penalty.

 

 

 

Here are a few suggestions for statistics for monsters. The GM should feel free to modify any of them.

 

Note that the ‘Damage’ given often involves a weapon. If player characters defeat a monster, they may take their weapon. However they shouldn’t expect to be able to do the same damage with it as the monster. At best, a weapon in the hands of a player character will do the same damage as a weapon of the same type which the character bought (as listed in the Weapons table). The GM may decide to apply a further penalty – for example that an orcish sabre has a different size or weight to one that player characters would use, and so they do 1 less damage with it due to their unfamiliarity.

 

The same is true for ‘Protection’ using armour – except that player characters are likely to be unable to wear a monster’s armour at all due to its different size.

 

Orc:

 

Orcs may have different weapons or armour than listed here, but will never have magic items, being afraid of magic.

 

 

 

Courage 5

 

Goblins are known for their cowardice, and so are very easy to intimidate. However, they’re also known for their treachery.

 

 

 

Courage 22

 

Ogres often coat themselves in lard for warmth. An Elf can smell an Ogre from up to 10 metres or 30 feet away.

 

 

 

Courage 25

 

 

 

Courage 10

 

Kobolds are unlikely to engage in open battle unless they have no other option. They may have some magical abilities.

 

 

 

Courage 20

 

An Elf may smell a Dragon from up to 15 metres or 45 feet away. Elves are unable to approach a Dragon close enough to fight them hand-to-hand. They may be able to fight them with ranged weapons.

 

Any character who takes anything from the treasure of a Dragon will be ‘infected’ with the strong smell. They will have 2 or 3 less points of Charisma until the end of the adventure.

 

Dragons may attack twice in a single Combat Round.

 

 

 

Unlike spells, magic items are generally useable by all classes. They often require magic words or other actions to trigger their magical powers.

 

Most magic items’ powers will only be usable once.

 

Generally, anyone touching a magic item will sense that it’s magic.

 

 

 

An All-Seeing Eye appears to be a great jewel, about the size of a child’s head, and perfectly black, but for a stylized eye which appears on its surface.

 

The jewel is magically bound to a particular place, and so can’t be moved by any means.

 

If a Magician or Elf places their hand on the Eye, and concentrates on a particular person or place, the Eye will show a bird’s eye view of that person or place. The view will last for five minutes. The Eye will then go black again, and be un-useable for the next 1 hour and 40 minutes.

 

 

 

A healing potion will allow the one who drinks it to recover a certain amount of Vitality Points (up to their maximum amount). The GM will decide on the maximum amount of points that a given potion will heal.

 

 

 

A Cornucopia may have the appearance of a bag, a backpack, a cauldron, or another everyday object. Every evening, if the correct words are spoken over it, it will fill will enough food and drink for as many as five people.

 

However, if its magic is used in a place where food and drink can be easily obtained in some other manner, the Cornucopia will lose its powers forever.

 

 

 

If a Hero’s Belt is worn, and the one wearing it speaks the correct magic words, it will increase their Strength by 7 points – even if this takes it over the usual maximum of 20. This effect will last for the duration of a combat, or five minutes. After that the belt will have no magical powers.

 

Bear in mind that a Strength of 8 or less means that the character does -1 damage, and a Strength of 13 or more does extra damage (equal to the character’s Strength -12), so the change to Strength is likely to effect the character’s damage as well.

 

 

 

This item looks like a finely-worked gold ring, set with jewels which glitter in an almost hypnotic fashion. If the ring is placed on the correct finger in the correct manner, the wearer will, for 35 minutes, appear to be supernaturally graceful and charming, regardless of their actual Charisma. Once the charm ends, the ring will have no magical abilities, and its jewels will appear decidedly less fascinating.

 

 

 

This key will open any door, even one that is magically locked. However it sticks forever in any lock it’s placed in, rendering the door permanently open and the key unable to be used again.

 

 

 

This item appears to be a lady’s hand mirror. It will answer any question put to it, with perfect truth and perfect knowledge – provided that the question can be answered with either ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

 

 

 

This ointment, when applied to a weapon, will give it the appearance of one freshly forged. It will also render the weapon unbreakable, and increase its Damage Add by 1. The effect of the ointment will usually last for one adventure.

 

 

 

This ointment, when applied to its victim either by being coated on a weapon, or by trickery, will send them instantly to sleep. They will normally sleep for 35 minutes. They may be attacked, however the first successful blow will wake them up.

 

 

 

This ointment will drive a person into a state of insane fear, similar to the Rabbit’s Panic spell. It will generally last for 35 minutes.

 

 

 

This ointment will reduce the victim’s Attack, Defence, Courage, and Protection. These factors will all be halved (rounded up). If the victim hits, their damage is likewise halved (and again rounded up), due to the feebleness of their blows in the case of hand-to-hand weapons, or their inability to hit vital spots in the case of ranged weapons.

 

 

 

Each of these potions is designed to raise a particular Quality. Once drunk they will raise that Quality by 7 points, for 35 minutes.

 

Bear in mind that a Strength of 8 or less means that the character does -1 damage, and a Strength of 13 or more means the character does extra damage (equal to their Strength -12), so a Potion of Strength may effect the character’s damage as well.

 

Also bear in mind that an Agility of 8 or less means that the character has -1 Attack or Defence, and an Agility of 13 or more means the character has +1 Attack or Defence, so a Potion of Agility may effect the character’s Attack or Defence as well.

 

 

 

This potion will, once drunk, transform the one who drinks it into a rat, mouse, or similar small creature. Unlike the Butterfly’s Transformation spell, it will change the character’s scores – for example they can’t carry around the same weight or use the same weapons. The effect will last for 35 minutes.

 

 

 

If the GM wants to randomly generate the type and value of a jewel, they can do so as follows:

 

Firstly, roll a twenty-sided dice. The result is the weight of the stone, in carats. A carat is one eighth the weight of a coin.

 

Secondly, roll two six-sided dice and take the total. Then consult this table:

 

 

Thus for example a Topaz weighing 11 carats would be worth (8 x 11 =) 88 silver coins.

 

 

 

At any time, a Dwarf may ask the GM whether they sense either treasure, or a secret door nearby (they may only ask one at a time).

 

The Dwarf then rolls 3d6.

 

If there is a feature nearby of the relevant type, the GM will have assigned it a difficulty in the range 6-16. If the Dwarf’s roll is equal to or higher than this number, the GM will tell them that they do sense a treasure or secret door (as applicable) nearby.

 

If the roll is higher than the difficulty, or if the feature isn’t there at all, the GM will answer that they don’t.

 

If the Dwarf does sense a feature nearby, they may ask the GM (for example) “is it in the west wall?”. The GM will answer yes or no, and if ‘no’ give an idea of how close the Dwarf is. This process will continue until the Dwarf finds the feature, or they’re interrupted (eg by a monster passing by).

 

If there’s no chance of the search being interrupted, the GM may skip this process and simply say, for example, “eventually you find a secret door in the west wall.”

 

Members of other classes may of course search for secret doors or treasure, but have no way of knowing that one is there, nor any guarantee of finding it.

 

 

 

 

Player characters begin with 0 Adventure Points. They gain Adventure Points by, as the name applies, going on adventures.

 

If they survive, and gain enough Adventure Points, they can increase their level.

 

 

Each enemy that the player characters meet will have a Monster Level. If the players defeat an enemy, they gain Adventure Points equal to the Monster Level. These points are shared between the characters: for example, if five characters defeat a monster with Monster Level 100, they each gain 20 Adventure Points, not 100.

 

If the characters face more than one enemy at a time, they gain Adventure Points for each one. For example, if five characters defeat eight monsters, each with a Monster Level of 20, they will gain (8 x 20 =) 160 Adventure Points between them, making 32 Adventure Points each.

 

The GM should give Adventure Points for other achievements, such as clever thinking, playing a character well, and especially for successfully completing an adventure. However they should be careful not to be too generous.

 

When a character’s total Adventure Points reach a certain amount, the character increases their Level.

 

 

 

When a character accumulates 100 Adventure Points, they reach Level 2. When they reach 300 Adventure Points, they reach level 3, and so on, until the character either dies, retires, or reaches the maximum possible level of 21.

 

The Adventure Points required to reach the various levels are as follows:

 

 

 

 

When a character gains a level, three main things happen:

 

i) they gain extra Vitality Points. Magicians or Elves may choose to gain Astral Energy Points instead.

 

ii) they can raise one Quality by one point.

 

iii) they can raise their Attack or their Defence.

 

Adventurers and Dwarves might also be able to become Warriors.

 

Note that, if a character gains enough Adventure Points to gain a level, they gain the benefits of the level immediately. They don’t need to wait until the end of the adventure.

 

 

i) Extra Vitality Points.

 

Adventurers, Warriors and Dwarves roll 1d6 and gain that many Vitality Points upon gaining a level.

 

Magicians and Elves can choose to do the same, or to gain Astral Energy Points instead.

 

This gain increases both the current score, and the maximum score. For example, a Level 1 Dwarf will have a maximum Vitality Points of 35. If they’ve been reduced to 10 Vitality Points, and gain enough Adventure Points to move to Level 2, they roll a d6. If the result is 4, the Dwarf will now have 14 Vitality Points, and their maximum Vitality Points will raise to 39, meaning that if they get a chance to rest and heal between adventures, they will start the next adventure with 39 Vitality Points.

 

 

ii) Raising a Quality.

 

All characters can raise any Quality by 1 point. However, no Quality may be raised over 20.

 

This will, obviously, make the character more likely to succeed when Testing that Quality. It may also have other effects:

 

Strength: If a character has a Strength of 8, they do -1 damage in hand-to-hand combat. If they have a Strength of 13 or more, they do extra damage in hand-to-hand combat (equal to their Strength – 12).

 

Agility: If a character has an Agility of 8, they have a -1 penalty to either Attack or Defence. If they have an Agility of 13 or more, they have a +1 bonus to either Attack or Defence.

 

 

iii) Raising Attack or Defence

 

Finally, the character may raise either their Attack or their Defence by 1 point. However, Attack may never be raised over 18, and Defence may never be raised over 17.

 

If a character chose to raise their Agility in step ii), and if it went from 8 to 9 or from 12 to 13, this would have meant they increased their Attack or Defence by 1 point. If so, in step iii) they must raise the other of Attack or Defence. Thus a character might gain 1 point in both Attack and Defence, but can’t gain 2 points in the same one.

 

iv) Changing Class (Adventurers and Dwarves only)

 

If an Adventurer or a Dwarf has at least 12 in both Courage and Strength, they can change their class to Warrior.

 

They gain the ability to wear knightly armour, and to use weapons which are 'only Warriors'.

 

If a character changes to Warrior, their Level advances as normal rather than starting again at 1. For example: a 5th level Adventurer gains a Level, and decides to become a Warrior. They will be a 6th Level Warrior, not a 1st Level Warrior.

 

Dwarves who become Warriors keep many of the advantages and disadvantages of other Dwarves:

 

 

All player characters will normally be able to rest and heal back to their starting Vitality Points between one adventure and the next.

 

Magicians and Elves can normally recover their Astral Energy Points in the same manner. Recovering Astral Energy Points requires that the character can spend time alone, as well as rest.

 

Magicians can also increase their starting Astral Energy Points in between adventures. They’re considered to buy extra training from the Magicians’ Guild. One Astral Energy Point costs 49 silver coins. For example, if a starting Magician (with 30 Astral Energy Points) found a hoard of treasure on their first adventure, they could spend 98 silver coins worth of it, and begin their next adventure with 32 Astral Energy Points rather than 30. Elves can’t do this, as they’re considered to have been born with their magical abilities, rather than having studied them.

 

Magicians of at least Level 2 can try to increase the level of their magic wand. They can only try to do this once per adventure. They can only do this if their magic wand is less than the maximum 4th level.

 

The Magician should roll 2 twenty-sided dice, and look at the total.

 

If they’re trying to enchant the wand from 1st to 2nd level, they don’t adjust the total.

 

They succeed if the total is lower than or equal to the total of their Intelligence and Charisma.

 

 

 

From the 2nd to the 3rd level costs 5 Astral Energy Points.

 

From 3rd to 4th again costs 7 Astral Energy Points.

 

 

The benefits of the various levels of wand are as follows. Note that only these powers only ‘work’ when a Magician is holding the wand. If any other character holds the wand, they can only use it as a normal club.

 

level 1: this is the starting level for wands. The only magical ability the wand has is that it’s unbreakable.

 

level 2: the Magician with a level 2 wand pays 2 Astral Energy Points less than normal for their spells, and is still unbreakable.

 

level 3: the wand transforms into a torch which never runs out.

 

level 4: the wand transforms into a 10 metre long rope which, when thrown into the air, will tie itself around firmly around any available projection.