Shadow & Fae

Death & Divinity Artist Unknown Look upon the world, how rain falls, trills down the hillsides, pours into the rivers and seas, and rises again as mist in the air. If our world is so careful to conserve the stuff of rivers and seas, how careful shall we suppose it to be with the stuff of souls? And yet, as one can never step in the same river twice, it is known that no being is ever truly reborn. The stuff of their soul melds into the great Will of all things, blending with the immaterial essence, the Materia Animae, of all other souls, and from this great sea, new souls are drawn. And they are born into the world we leave them. Our lust for divinity will not lead to life, but to an eternal lingering death, in which nothing is renewed, and all things fade. The Fault of Eternity Immortality is not agelessness.  All things fade, crumble, and give way in time. Though some have achieved immortality through binding their souls to arcane constructions known as “Bastions”, even those grea

You're Hex-Crawling.  Each night and day the Referee rolls a handful of dice, waiting for the opportune moment... There it is! She rolls the d12, because  bell-curves are for cowards , and peers down a sheet of notebook paper to see which  interesting encounter  she's about to throw at her fatigued, over-encumbered party on their way back from her dungeon . She rolls a few dice, smiles, and announces: "As you walk through the flowered woods, sunlight streams through the branches. You climb over a fallen log in the path. Just then, you hear an odd sound—the squealing of a pig followed by dozens of unmistakably goblin voices shouting screaming threats and insults from behind it. The noise is headed directly toward you." A Model for Regional "Scene" Tables You may grab the Google Doc for the above example  HERE .  Save a copy by clicking file > Make a Copy, and edit to your heart's content. How do I use it? Once per day, roll a d6 for weather and a d4 to

  GLoGtober continues! The first challenge I rolled, but second I've now completed, is "Anime-Inspired Content".  While I watch a little anime, I've never considered writing anything strongly inspired by it.  I wrote about 3 half-baked generic systems before giving up and watching an anime I've never seen before. The show is about an MMO guild-master who finds himself pulled into the game after the servers are shut down. The NPCs his guild has created to fill their guildhall spring to life and bow to his every command. But what if he was just gone, and those generals were left to themselves? Thus was born the premise for  DARK POWERS: ARISE!

By Harikayu The second challenge I rolled for GLoGtober 2024 (but the first one I've finished) was a 300 word hack. I give you:  Winter Wyrm Tiny GLoGhacks have been my jam for a while now. I've written 2 or 3 over the years, the most notable one being MiniGLoG , but even that game is 1100 words long. Winter Wyrm  was nuts. It's probably horribly broken, but it is a complete GLoG in exactly 300 words. It even has three 4-Step classes! I did want to do something slightly different, so I switched abilities from d20-based to SWADE's tiered dice chain, with every 4 points being a success. Vivanter  got an early first look at this, and suggested an additional little challenge: Write a 4 step GLoG class of your own in 30 words or less. I dare you to try!

 It's (Almost) GLoGtober! TitleKnown This year's challenges have all been posted over on Glass Candles , and I've decided to take them on! The rules officially state that you can roll or choose on each of the challenge tables, so I made a little game of it. I would roll each challenge in order, but I gave myself two "Picks". After each roll, I could pick something else from the list if I wanted to, but only immediately after the roll, and only twice. Without further ado, here's how it went: Anime Inspired Content [[ Dark Powers: Arise! ]] 300 Word Hack [[ Winter Wyrm ]] A downtime activity you do in real life, but have never seen rendered in a game.  No ideas at all came for this, so I instead chose to combine 2 other options, and do an encounter table for domain level play, inspired by real world artwork . Death & Divinity [[ Bastions, Faith, and Clerics ]] Race-as-class , I'm really not very excited about Race-as-Class right now, so I'll switch t

  Art by Eric Belisle You are not fully yourself until you realize your place in the wider universe, your connection to the leaves, stones, sun, moon, and all other things. You are the universe. Reach out your hand, and the mountains shall shatter. The Monk: A Class for Shadow & Fae 2e , and Other GLoGs With each Chapter, gain Combatant, and... One, Lesson of Water Lesson of Earth Lesson of Air Lesson of Fire Starting Gear : Staff (d6, 1b, 2H, Light, Shatter d4), Incense (1b), Flint & Steel (1/3b), d4 rations, 2d6 GP. Starting Skill : Cantor | Spirits | Herbs | Brewing Combatant : Gain 2 HP and +1 to Hit and Damage each time you take this. If you take this feature 3 times, you may take an extra action in combat, which may be an attack. If you are Mortally Wounded, roll a d6 instead of a d8. One : You are at your best when you realize your place within the universe. By meditating for at least an hour, you may restore a pool of Ki dice equal to your Monk Chapters. Ki dice are d6.

I got a great question on my Itch page today, and it got me thinking quite a bit about why I built the game I did, and what I learned along the way! I've reposted my answer below, for posterity, and anyone interested. Hello! Always exciting to hear that someone's had fun with my games. Shadow & Fae was my first complete game, which I wrote to bring a group of players familiar with 5e into a simpler but still diverse game. It works with a unified d20 roll-high mechanic for most things, and has classes with similar features and names to the modern giant games, like PF2e and D&D 5e. I wanted S&F to be a game I could explain quickly, run smoothly, and most of all—create new content for quickly. If one of my players asked, "Can I play a cat?" I wanted to be able to say "Yep! Here's how that could work." Goblin Tales was inspired by a dice mechanic, originally. The blackjack roll. Instead of having modifiers and scores, players just want to roll