Books as Treasure - SS&SS 2e Preview

Time for another quick preview of what is coming in Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells.

I always liked the concept of questing for knowledge. Trying to rob that forbidden tome from the Tower of Scrolls to learn the secrets the powerful want to keep hidden from our eyes. So I made a tool to transform Books into treasure and making them useful in the game!

Books

Books are a great treasure, both for those who seek wealth and for those who want knowledge and secrets. They can contain all kinds of information and knowledge, from the records of past civilizations, to recipes, to magical formulas written by the powerful Sorcerer-Kings. The table below helps determine what the book contains.

d66	Book Subjects	d66	Book Subjects
11	Astrology	41	Jewelry
12	Astromancy	42	Prophecy
13	Biology	43	Laws
14	Biomancy	44	Art
15	Herbalism	45	Demonology
16	Beasts	46	Witchcraft
21	Ancient Civilization	51	Battles
22	Archeology	52	Poetry
23	Geography	53	Traditions
24	Legends of a Region	54	Diary
25	Religions	55	Monsters
26	Necromancy	56	Empire’s Conquests
31	Architecture	61	Pornography
32	Alien Technology	62	Anthropology
33	Psionism	63	Linguistics
34	Elemental Magic	64	Illusions
35	Death	65	Lost Places
36	Forbidden Cults	66	Music

Using Books in Game

Books can be used as a source of information and a resource that can be depleted with use. Each tome usually have a Durability score of 2 or 3, and each time the players seek an information inside it, a Durability Roll is made. If it’s a succesful roll, they find an answer to a question (even though that might not be as clear as they want). A failure on the roll reduces the Durability score by one and the answer is not there, as the author of the book rambles about a pointless subject.

If you like what you've just read, check out my books over DriveThruRPG and Lulu.

The Faithful - An Optional Archetype for Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells Revised Edition

Work on the revised edition of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells is moving along. This will be a hefty tome, with a LOT of tools and new options to customize your campaign, keeping the style, simplicity and flexibility of the original game. Today I come to present my lateste addition to the draft, a new Archetype for those that want to insert some elements of more tradiotional fantasy into the game. The Faithful is an archetype inspired by the Cleric of more popular RPGs, but with some twist to fit SS&SS better. Following it, there is a sample "God" to use with it. The Faithful The gods have chosen you to represent them in the mortal realm, or at least that’s what you believe. Most of the priests, monks and shamans perform their rituals without any hope to get an answer from their patrons, but you know you are being listened to. Your patron, your god or your ancestors help you and those that they deem worthy through you. Your faith can actually operate miracles. ...

How to never describe a dungeon!

Artwork by Luigi Castellani I've heard it a thousand times. You probably heard it too. Some people , I don't know why, say that dungeons , especially large ones, are boring . The endless repetitions of rooms and corridors and having to choose to go left, right, north or south depresses them. I don't know why. Actually, I do know why. Because they don't really know how to run a dungeon in play. It seems easy, effortless. Just say what's in the room the PCs are in and where the passages going out of it go. But it's not. They get bored with the "you get to a intersection and there is a door to the north and two passages, one going east and one going west" because that's a terrible way of describing a dungeon environment and gives nothing really useful to the players to choose from. You never describe a dungeon like that . There's a lot more going on that we can initially see. A good referee will take all the context of what the dungeon w...

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets - Complete Game Text

November was NaGaDeMon (National Game Design Month), and I decided to create an Action Horror RPG using my system (updated with all the modifications of Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells). Inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, X-Files, The Chilling Tales of Sabrina, Grimm and many more TV Shows, comics and books, I quickly worte Dark Streets & Darker Secrets . It is written in a very direct and simple way, similar to Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells originally was, but with uodated rules and a lot of tools and tables to assist the Referee in creating adventures, NPCs, locations, artifacts, monsters and much more. The book itself will eventually be release in partnership with Gallant Knight Games , but the text is already written and ready to be used, so I am sharing it here with you all! There is no official character sheet yet. I am working on it. But a simple Index Card will work just as well! So here it is: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QlFYafvxv...

Old Skulling

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