#TTRPG – Wightchester: Prison City of the Damned RELEASED!

Wightchester is a ‘city crawl’ adventure book for 5e D&D, Grimdark 5e, Mork Borg and OSR roleplaying games. Set in an alternative 17th century England where the dead have risen from the grave and one city, completely overrun, has been turned into a hellish prison for the dregs of the Kingdom’s society. Dark, bleak, challenging horror fantasy in a setting of almost unrivalled detail.

500 pages of an Early Modern walled city, packed with intrigue, mystery, horror and death.

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD

HARDCOPY

#RPG – New Stock Art Partner – Rob Necronomicon’s Dark SF&F

Welcome ‘Rob Necronomicon’ to our stable of stock artists with his two collections – Dark SF and Dark Fantasy.

These gritty, highly stylised and grim images can be yours to use in your personal and professional projects, subject to the attached license.

This art can be bought and downloaded from our POST-MORT store, or from RPGNOW/Drivethrurpg. Singles will be available on the latter site – at a higher cost than buying a bundle – on an ongoing basis.

#RPG #Dnd5e – Grimdark – Cleric

russell-dongjun-lu-priest-finish-small (1)The Cleric is – by and large – OK. Perhaps a little more combative than is strictly appropriate, but the existence of chaplains and martial orders, as well as the ability to make characters with different emphases, doesn’t make that so much of a problem.

A few changes are, however, needed. Obviously, the miraculous curing of wounds is something that shouldn’t happen – if at all – until the higher levels, but people can draw strength from faith and faith can motivate and move people. As such, what would heal normally, would now restore or grant temporary heroism.

Rather than material costs, higher level spells like resurrection would require donations or the sacrifice of experience points.

Class Features:

  • Hit Points: 5+Con Bonus.
  • Heroism: 1d8/Level

Proficiencies:

  • Light Armour, Medium Armour, Shields.
  • Simple Weapons.
  • Saving Throws: Wisdom/Charisma
  • Skills: Any two of the following: History, Insight, Meicine, Persuasion and Religion

Tools/Equipment:

Five of the following, multiples are permitted – Fine clothes, vestments, mace, club, warhammer, chain mail, leather armour, light crossbow, pistol, 20 rounds of ammunition for a weapon, priest’s pack, explorer’s pack, shield, holy symbol.

Clerics retain spellcasting and channel divinity (along with destroy undead), but with a severely limited spell list and only one domain…

To read this full article, please donate $1 a month on my Patreon to get articles like this, access to me and discounts on apparel and PDFs of RPGs. You can get many of the same perks (but fewer) by following me on Minds.com and donating 1 token a month.

#WeirdHookMonth – Gluttony

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Karakala is known for garlic, cleanliness, health and sausages. There’s just one blot on their record, the Olemerick festival. Contestants must eat as much sausage as possible. The losers disappear in the mysterious black ooze beneath the town, the winners showered with wealth.

Suggested Systems

D&D, Retroclones, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Grim’s Tales: Dark Fantasy

Dark Fantasy brings elements of horror into the fantasy genre and often blurs the lines between the heroes and the villains. A hero is as likely to be a monster as the villain is, just with something to make them more sympathetic to the reader. Characters are likely to, potentially, include traditional monsters such as vampires or werewolves or characters that are murderers, thieves or other ne’er do wells.

Many stories that wouldn’t otherwise fit the definition of Dark Fantasy do include Dark Fantasy elements. Many have anti-heroes, include sympathetic monsters or are set amongst the criminal element but Dark Fantasy tends to go a little further, presenting a dystopian, even hopeless fantasy world. One where the forces of darkness or imperious control are dominant, where bad things happen to good people, where dark gods are worshipped and appeased.

  • The feel of a Dark Fantasy setting get be invoked in many ways:
  • Open up the character options to include traditional monster races, but don’t soften them.
  • Imagine what Middle Earth would be like if Sauron won. Apply those lessons.
  • Choose a grittier, nastier system to run the game in.
  • Be less compromising and forgiving as a Games Master.
  • Throw out any morality/alignment system and put moral dilemmas of the ‘lesser evil’ variety ito the game.
  • Draw lessons from horror games, especially mythos horror games. Winning is merely a reprieve, not a victory.
  • Intelligent bad guys.

Dark Fantasy

Dark Fantasy brings elements of horror into the fantasy genre and often blurs the lines between the heroes and the villains. A hero is as likely to be a monster as the villain is, just with something to make them more sympathetic to the reader. Characters are likely to, potentially, include traditional monsters such as vampires or werewolves or characters that are murderers, thieves or other ne’er do wells.

Many stories that wouldn’t otherwise fit the definition of Dark Fantasy do include Dark Fantasy elements. Many have anti-heroes, include sympathetic monsters or are set amongst the criminal element but Dark Fantasy tends to go a little further, presenting a dystopian, even hopeless fantasy world. One where the forces of darkness or imperious control are dominant, where bad things happen to good people, where dark gods are worshipped and appeased.

The feel of a Dark Fantasy setting get be invoked in many ways:

  • Open up the character options to include traditional monster races, but don’t soften them.

  • Imagine what Middle Earth would be like if Sauron won. Apply those lessons.

  • Choose a grittier, nastier system to run the game in.

  • Be less compromising and forgiving as a Games Master.

  • Throw out any morality/alignment system and put moral dilemmas of the ‘lesser evil’ variety ito the game.

  • Draw lessons from horror games, especially mythos horror games. Winning is merely a reprieve, not a victory.

  • Intelligent bad guys.