ℝ𝕆𝕄𝔼 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕋ℝℙ𝔾 (author) @peilliad - Twitter Profile

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about 1 month ago

#SelfPromoSaturday It is 1922. A man named Eddison sits down and writes a fantasy novel set on Mercury — a Mercury with fjords and castles and lords who settle political disputes by challenging each other to wrestling matches to the death. C.S. Lewis reads it and calls it one of the greatest works of imagination in the English language. Tolkien reads it and has complicated feelings about it, which is the highest possible literary compliment. Then it falls into the public domain. And someone made a tabletop RPG out of it. That someone was me. And it is now available. THE WORM OUROBOROS ROLEPLAYING GAME is a complete corebook for a percentile-based TTRPG set in Eddison's Mercury — a world of five rival nations, heroic champions who are emphatically not human, sorcery so rare and costly that when it happens the table goes quiet, and duels that can end in a single decisive blow to the sword arm. Here is what the game does that most fantasy RPGs do not: It tracks damage across seven hit locations. When you fight, it matters whether the blow lands on your shield arm or your sword arm. A champion whose right arm is crippled does not just have fewer hit points — they have a problem. It has twenty Special Effects in personal combat. Winning an exchange is not just "you do damage." It is "you choose between disarming your opponent, driving them back, pinning their weapon, or delivering a blow that will not be forgotten." Fights feel like Eddison writes them: decisive, consequential, and specific. The magic system has no spell slots and no fireballs. The most powerful working in the game requires weeks of ritual preparation, costs the sorcerer enormously, and can fail catastrophically. This is not a game where the wizard solves the encounter. This is a game where the wizard is the encounter. There are five races — Demons, Witches, Pixies, Imps, and Goblins — none of them human, all of them humaniform, all of them living two to three centuries and feeling every decade of it. There are five Callings: Lord of War, Court Sorcerer, Sea Captain, Noble Duelist, and Court Intriguer. There is a mass battle system that takes about ten minutes to resolve and keeps the focus entirely on what the champions are doing inside the battle rather than on moving counters. There is a complete introductory adventure set in a Witchland port city, with a chain across the harbour mouth that needs to be lowered before the fleet arrives, a governor who has not yet decided which side he is on, and a minor sorcerer with a grudge. There is also a bestiary that includes a sea dragon described as "a colossal serpentine creature whose head is the size of a ship and whose one visible forelimb is gripping that ship's hull." The ship is not having a good day. If you have read Eddison's novel, you will find Mercury rendered faithfully and with genuine affection for the source. If you have not read it, the game will send you looking for it — and that is as it should be. DriveThruRPG: https://t.co/uegO8l3M8s Amazon: https://t.co/4sqMj2rQza The serpent turns. The feast is laid. #SelfPromoSaturday #indie #rpg #ttrpg #1d100 #mythras #BRP #OSR #OldSchoolRPG #HeroicFantasy #SwordAndSorcery #IndieRPG #TabletopRPG #TTRPG #NewRelease #FantasyRPG #DiceRoller #PercentileSystem #IndieGame #GameDesign #BookToGame #PublicDomain #Eddison #WormOuroboros #Mercury #DriveThruRPG #KDP #SelfPublishing #CoreRulebook #FantasyGaming