Matt | Inkwarren RPG

Atlanta-based indie designer currently developing Inkwarren, a dark fantasy TTRPG of woodland tactics and storybook intrigue! Header & avi by @HODAGRPG on Twitter

[ruinandrue]

Introducing Inkwarren: A dark fantasy TTRPG of woodland adventures!

Hi all! I'm Matt, and I am an Atlanta-based indie ttrpg designer currently developing Inkwarren, a dark woodland fantasy TTRPG of swashbuckling tactics and storybook intrigue. Today, I'm going to talk to you about what Inkwarren is, what inspired it, and the design goals I have for the game. Inkwarren is already in preliminary playtests, and I hope to have public playtests sometime in the near future.

What is Inkwarren?

In Inkwarren, players take on the role of woodlanders- animal wanderers of the massive Woodland, who use magick, wits, and weapons to take down foes supernatural and mundane. Your woodlanders' wandering band may be a band of mercenary adventurers, a band of high-spirited rebels, or even a band of scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells just looking for their next score.

One player takes on the role of the Voice in the Dark, a guiding force behind the story that presents challenges, describes consequences, and narrates the actions of the woodlander's foes.

Inkwarren aims to merge modern-style deep narrative rules with exciting, flashy, swashbuckling battles that emphasizes teamwork, movement, and positioning. Character creation is a deep and choice-driven process, that fully contextualizes a woodlander within the world and sets them on a path to a truly memorable story.

Inspirations

Mechanically, Inkwarren borrows from and is inspired by games like Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, Modiphius's Dishonored, ICON, Blades in the Dark, and City of Mist, mixing design trends of modern tactical fantasy games with deep narrative based trends found in other systems. Inkwarren's combat also shares inspiration with the Hades series of games, aiming to emulate the fast-paced action where movement and positioning are just as important as the attacks you use.

Narratively, Inkwarren is inspired by The Secret of NIMH, Dishonored, Redwall, Root, and Hollow Knight. When designing Inkwarren's eponymous setting, I want to evoke the gravitas and melancholy somberness of Hallownest from Hollow Knight, with magic as eldritch and strange as the Outsider's gifts in Dishonored. With this, Inkwarren is still a game about hope, and aims to capture the optimism-despite-adversity and little-heroes-against-great-foes vibes of stories like Redwall or The Secret of NIMH. I have to credit Root for originally giving me the idea to shift my game concept to one where the PCs are little woodland creatures.

Choice, Sacrifice, and Hope

Inkwarren's core mechanic emphasizes choice, intent, and narrative weight. The base 2d10 roll is modified by the woodlander's own Virtues (core strengths like Brawn, Nimbleness, or Insight), combined with a Style to define how they're using that Virtue (such as performing an action Cunningly, Quickly, or Sneakily). Difficulty is measured by Risk and Effect, that assign narrative weight to the severity of consequences a woodlander faces, and how effective they will be if they Prevail.

When woodlanders just don't roll high enough, they don't simply fail- they Falter. Faltering grants Hope, a resource that can be used to Persevere and succeed despite consequences on future challenges. With Hope, failure is never the end- it simply closes one door, and opens another.

Swashbuckling Battles

Inkwarren's Battle system emphasizes movement, positioning, and teamwork. Woodlanders interact with the battlefield through exploits, combat disciplines that have a variety of different effects to use on the field. Exploits have an at-will root effect that can be used as a woodlander's bread and butter, but more powerful effects are always within reach. By using root effects, meeting battle objectives (such as defeating enemies or reaching escape points), and continuing the fight (by ending rounds), woodlanders build Momentum, a shared resource pool by the entire band that can be used to power a woodlander's most powerful abilities. Woodlanders can spend Momentum to use an exploit's powerful bloom effect, or power a duo effect that they can use to combine their abilities with those of another ally. Momentum doesn't deplete until the Battle is over-- use it for quick bursts, or build up to unleash more powerful attacks against your foes!

Other rulesets like charging attacks, staggering mechanics for bosses, climbing on top of larger foes, environments, high ground, and ally turns (that don't clog up combat) also add gravitas, pace, and exciting tactical decisions to make Inkwarren's Battles so engaging.

Sweeping Narrative

Inkwarren's narrative mechanics work to ensure that solving problems outside of Battle carry just as much weight as Battle itself. Inkwarren's narrative ruleset includes:

The Doubt system allows woodlanders to call upon the Voice in the Dark for aid, but at a cost: as the woodlanders build Doubt, the Voice can spend it to increase the danger of the surroundings, unlock new abilities for foes, or act as a mastermind behind the antagonistic forces of the narrative.

Narrative abilities called flourishes that woodlanders can use to interact with the world.

A special character-based tour de force that a woodlander may use to do something truly legendary, although infrequently.

Rest Activities woodlanders may use to Cook Meals, Spar, Entertain, or Pray to give themselves bonuses and restorations for use later.

Wounds to carry over how trials in-combat affect a woodlander after the Battle ends.

Rules for Tongues that establish a woodlander's knowledge of a language with several levels of fluency.

Ties, which are narrative bonds with NPCs woodlanders may use to increase their effect against them, or burn them to ask for a favor.

And So Much More!

Deep character customization for woodlanders, including a Coat mechanic that allows you to play as any little animal your heart desires, unique and evocative traditions like the ghostly historian Folklorist or the passionate Warrior-Poet, rules for mysterious and magical artifacts called esoterica, an in-depth crafting system, and more!

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! I'm so excited about this game, and I hope to share more with everyone soon!

Tìoraidh!

[ruinandrue]

Inkwarren Devlog #3: When Swords are Drawn

One of Inkwarren's core goals as a system is combat that feels swashbuckling, exciting, and tactical. Today, I'm going to ramble about Inkwarren's Battle system, the goals of this system, and show y'all some sneak peeks of how the battle system works.

Defining Our Terms

Without context, the keywords exciting, swashbuckling, and tactical don't really mean anything. They sound cool-- that's why they're in my elevator pitch! But that isn't the only reason why I am using them.

Swashbuckling battles are the type of battles you see in a lot of fantasy works- in Pirates of the Carribean, the Princess Bride, even in the Lord of the Rings films, these are the type of battles where the heroes face foes and move from location to location within the field, constantly shifting and pressing the advantage. Swashbuckling battles are battles where a) movement is important, b) terrain can shift and change as the battle progresses, and c) both sides are confident, heroic, and flashy in the way they fight.

Exciting battles are battles that the entire table can stay tuned-in and invested in, even as they take up more time within the session. The common attitude towards combat in tactical fantasy systems (predominantly towards 5e from its playerbase) is that combat is boring and takes away from both roleplay and story. It doesn't have to be like this. Battle is not a break from the story, nor is it a pause in the session to resolve a fight. It is an engaging subsystem through which characters can address certain types of conflicts.

Tactical battles are battles that require choice, consideration, and deliberate thought. If you've ever played Root (a major inspiration for Inkwarren) or Risk, you've played a tactical battle game. Tactical battles means that woodlander abilities aren't a one-size-fits-all for every Battle. To win, woodlanders need to work together, combine their abilities, and act as a team to take down their foes.

Acting in Battle

When you act in Battle, you gain two resources: two Heartbeats, and two Dashes. Heartbeats can be used to use exploits and feints, and Dashes can be used to move, interact with objects, and prepare a riposte.

The goals here? Movement happens in quick bursts, making positioning and thought about how movement plays out very important. At the same time, some characters don't move a lot-- if you're playing a Knight, your goal is to be up in the face of your enemies, and you may park there for a little bit as the Battle continues. With this system, these characters can use Dashes to prepare ripostes (triggered abilities that take place in reaction to foe abilities), or interact with objects on the field if available, like dipping a sword in burning oil or pulling the lever to a gate on the other end of the field.

Going All Out

You also have the opportunity to Go All Out on your turn. When you do so, you spend a Dash, and you gain an extra Heartbeat to use on this current turn. On your next turn, you gain only one Heartbeat, instead of the two that you would gain normally.

Using Heartbeats

Heartbeats are very synonymous with actions in other systems. Heartbeats allow you to use feints (universal abilities that can be used for minor battle maneuvers), exploits (flashy combat abilities that you get from your Tradition and Song), and even improvising abilities during your turn.

Feints

Feints are universal minor abilities that woodlanders can use on their turns. Feints can either be simple feints (that provide a standard, set bonus), or a complex feint (that require a challenge roll to complete). Some example feints available to woodlanders are:

Change Stance: Change your active Stance to another Stance in your arsenal. Stances represent different weapons, fighting styles, or ways of using magick-- you could switch from your Sword Stance to your Bow Stance, and make a ranged shot against a faraway foe!

Disappear: Use cover or another source of concealment to hide from your foes.

Guard: Protect an ally from danger.

Intimidate: Scare a foe with a threatening gesture.

Recuperate: To Take a Breath and restore Endurance.

Shake Off: Attempt an additional Defense roll against a condition you're suffering from.

Sprint: Gain a couple extra Dashes for the turn that can only be used for movement.

Quip: Use a witty comment to distract your foe!

Wrestle: Push, grab, or pull an enemy to another position.

There are tons of feints available, making it easy for woodlanders to build an arsenal that fits them well.

Exploits

Bigger text, bigger mechanic. Exploits are the main abilities your woodlander uses during Battle. Every exploit has three effects: the root, bloom, and duo effect.

Root Effects

Your bread and butter. Root effects are at-will abilities that woodlanders can use to turn the tide of Battle to their will. Many root exploits are attacks, which is any exploit that has the attack keyword (keywords are a way for the system to attach shorthand mechanical connotations to different abilities).

Using too many attacks in one turn can be disadvantageous. Your first attack has no penalties, but subsequent attacks gain two stacks of misfortune (this imposes a -4 penalty to the roll).

Bloom Effects

Bloom effects are more powerful abilities that let woodlanders do the cool, Battle-changing things y'all came here for. Bloom effects could be your Zealot cleaving a large swath of the field with a greatsword blow, your Veteran calling out inspiring words that heals your entire team, or your Witch letting out a swarm of spectral butterflies that drain and weaken your foes. Bloom effects are powered with a special resource called Momentum.

Momentum

Momentum is a resource that your entire band of woodlanders builds and uses together during Battle. You gain Momentum in three ways:

Using a root exploit adds 1 Momentum to the band's pool.

Completing a Battle Objective (such as Defeating a foe, freeing a captive, reaching an escape point, or defending a point) adds 1 or Momentum to the band's pool.

Ending a round in Battle adds 1 Momentum to the band's pool.

Anyone in the band can choose to spend Momentum to power their Bloom exploit, but it's generally good practice to work as a team. In playtests, this has led to some cool moments of "What if you use 4 Momentum for Stab and Grab, and then I used 2 for Inspiring Tale to get everyone a little more health?", where the table works together to share the wealth and make sure everyone gets the spotlight.

Duo Effects

Duo effects are effects from exploits that can be prepared as ripostes, which are abilities that take place as a reaction to another being's actions. You can prepare a riposte on your turn by expending a Dash, and choosing a specific riposte you have access to to prepare. When used, duo effects enhance one of the actions of your ally. The Veteran's Snap Out of It! duo allows them to grant fortune (a +2 bonus) to an ally's attempt to Shake Off a condition. Other duo effects enhance other types of abilities-- you might imbue an ally's summoned beings with fiery magic, or teleport an ally away from danger just before they are hit! Some Duo effects might also require the expenditure of Momentum for more powerful effects.

Staying Alive

Staying alive is half of the Battle (heehee) in any given encounter. Vitality is the catch-all term for three mechanics that revolve around damage: those being Endurance, Armor, and Breath.

What is Damage?

Damage is the representation of wear and tear throughout Battle. When a woodlander takes damage, they aren't constantly taking stabs, wounds, and other sources of injury. Instead, they are spending Endurance to avoid injury-- by dodging out of the way, thwarting mental attacks, avoiding assaults via pure luck, and using their own fortitude to power through pain.

Endurance

Endurance is the maximum amount of damage a woodlander can sustain before being Defeated (more on that in a later post!). A woodlander's Brawn Virtue, their Tradition (the main chassis of their character abilities), and their Song (their fighting style and combat training) contribute to their Endurance maximum. When a woodlander takes damage, it lowers their current Endurance by the same amount.

Armor

Armor is the physical protection a woodlander has against damage. Armor is represented by a pool of points determined by your Song. When you take physical damage (which is damage without the mental or spiritual keywords), you can spend any number of Armor from your pool to reduce the damage by 5 x the number of points you spent. For example, if you took 8 damage, you could spend 1 point of Armor to reduce the damage by 5 (taking 3 damage instead), or spend 2 points of Armor to reduce the damage by 10 (taking no damage).

When you run out of Armor, your Armor breaks and you become broken until you regain Armor once more. The broken condition has no effects on its own, but different features in the game may interact with it in unique ways, such as dealing bonus damage to broken creatures. Armor can be restored outside of Battle with the Tend to Gear ritual.

Shield is a form of temporary Armor that lasts for a limited amount of time. Points of Shield might have a temporary duration (such as 1 round), or no specified duration. When Battle ends, all points of Shield are lost. Shield can be spent to reduce damage just like Armor can, but it does not count towards your Armor total for the purposes of avoiding the broken condition.

Breath

Breath is the ability of woodlanders to recover from the wear and tear of Battle. Every woodlander has a pool of Breath that restores when they finish a long rest, and a Breath value equal to 1/3 of their Endurance maximum (rounded down). Some abilities: like the Bandage Up out-of-Battle ritual, the Recuperate feint, and some healing exploits allow a woodlander to Take a Breath. Whenever a woodlander Takes a Breath, they expend one Breath from their pool, and regain Endurance equal to their Breath value.

And More!

I would love to talk more about Battle mechanics, but that's all stuff for the public playtest! I've got so much more I'm excited for y'all to see: rules for climbing on top of and battling on the backs of larger creatures, different Battle Objectives that change the way the Battle is won and how Momentum is gained, rules for Defending against conditions that has them get progressively less powerful as you shake them off, and so much more! As always, thank you for reading. A lot of these posts have really picked up, which makes me so glad! I really appreciate all of the interest, and I can't wait to show y'all more of Inkwarren very soon. If you're interested in a certain aspect of the system, don't be afraid to leave a comment and let me know so I can talk about it in a later post!

[ruinandrue]

Inkwarren Devlog #2: Welcome to Cairnadal!

The trees around your village are tall, and they are old. As you linger on the edge of the cobblestone path, you consider the forest beyond. You have heard of what lurks in the Deeper Wood- old beings, older than Inkwarren, and pale things that hate the things that lurk in the light. You look back to the flickering golden light of your village's tharian, admiring briefly the iron-wrought and rune-laden shape of the lamppost. The Abbey says tharians are shields against the deep and the dark, but doubt lingers at the back of your mind. What if they're wrong about the Wood?

Hello again, y'all! Sorry for a little while with no updates, it's been a crazy and long week in Matt World. I'm here for another update for Inkwarren, my in-development dark fantasy TTRPG of swashbuckling tactics and storybook intrigue, to talk about the game's setting: the ancient and magical woodland of Cairnadal.

Cairnadal

Cairnadal is a massive, realm-spanning woodland that encompasses all of the Known World. Ancient and beautiful, Cairnadal carries with it an odd and bewitching beauty. Woodlanders, the intelligent animal inhabitants of Cairnadal, most often live amongst the roots of the tall trees that make up the woodland around them. Sunlight comes in narrow beams that gracefully dance across the forest floor, and the soil is rich and fertile after centuries of greenery and other things that live amongst the woodland.

Woodlanders

Cairnadal is primarily inhabited by woodlanders, a society of intelligent animals that have built stone cities and little villages that dot much of Cairnadal's breadth. Woodlanders are small mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles, that form into societies and communities amongst each other where they create art, research knowledge, wage war, and consolidate power. There's good and bad in woodlanders, just as there is in us. The current society of the woodlanders is the vast and expansive kingdom of Inkwarren (oh look, the game's title!), which spans across five of Cairnadal's great six regions.

Beasts

Arthropods, fish, mollusks, and other animals are called beasts, and take the place that animals do in our world that we live in as humans. Woodlanders fish for food, ride stag beetles from city to city, send messages via trained dragonflies, and keep ladybugs and rollie-pollies as household pets. Wild beasts, like large hunting spiders or common crabs to be found on beaches, are approached with some measure of caution or respect for Cairnadal's many lifeforms.

Other Beings

Other beings inhabit the vast woodland of Cairnadal. Dead things return to life as lyches, animated by the weird magicks of the Deeper Wood, and massive, gentle stone giants with no name wander the wood, a remnants of the unknown civilization of That Which Came Before. Other animals, massive things known as the Old Masters of the Wood, can be found deep within the Deeper Wood. They have different languages, different gods, and different conceptions of the world than woodlanders do, and rumors are that they abound in a strange and ancient magick at their command.

Inkwarren

Inkwarren is the massive kingdom that spans most of Cairnadal, established over nine-hundred moons ago after a massive, woodland-spanning conflict known as the War of Red Flowers. Inkwarren is ruled by House Greyfell, a house of cats currently led by Alys II, who has served as King Crowned of Inkwarren for thirty-nine moons.

Inkwarren is made up of five major wards, each led by a powerful noble house called a High House. These wards are the Aerie, the Heartlands, the Yawning Roads, the Waterways, and Winterreach. Culture and language varies from region to region, and the High Houses often clash with each other while skirting the edges of violence.

Daily Life in Inkwarren

Every settlement in Inkwarren is protected by a magical lamppost called a tharian. Tharians glow with a light akin to faint sunlight, and ward away magicks and other beings that come from the Deeper Wood. The Abbey, the principle religious entity that dominates most of Inkwarren, professes that tharians are necessary for the peace and safety of Warrenish settlements, but there are those who would whisper and say otherwise. No one knows exactly where tharians came from, and the art of creating them has been lost to history.

Each settlement in Inkwarren is often governed by a noble house, represented by a reeve (which is somewhere between a mayor and a sheriff). It is common to have small chapels for the Abbey in many settlements, where the tharian lies at the center. Most woodlanders carry common professions such as smiths, scaleworkers, weavers, farmers, or messengers between settlements.

The Five Great Regions

Inkwarren is made up of five massive regions of Cairnadal, each governed by a High House, with their own languages, religions, and cultures.

The Aerie is a massive section of woodland where the towns and settlements are built from wooden platforms around the trunks of trees, with bridges or simple ropes connecting each platform-town. The tharians of the Aerie grow their wrought-iron poles around the trunks of trees, twisting into the platforms that settlements are built around. The Aerie is mostly inhabited by flying woodlanders, although climbing coats of woodlanders such as squirrels or possums have been known to make their home amongst the trees. The Aerie is ruled by House Ddur-Adain, a vulture house.

The Heartlands are the largest region of Cairnadal, built between the massive roots and tall trees that make up the woodland proper. The Heartlands is the home of Inkwarren's capital city, Gwydir, and is a center of commerce for the rest of Warrenish society. The Heartlands are the seat of House Greyfell, the cat house that rules all of Inkwarren.

The Waterways are river-laden hills and marshes where the trees of Cairnadal become fewer and farther between (but still cover most of the land). The Waterways are dotted with settlements populated with woodlanders that make their homes near water: ducks, otters, frogs, and snakes that hunt, fish, and forage for their daily living. The Waterways are ruled by House Wynne, an snake house.

Winterreach is a vast region of pine-covered mountains and snowy bluffs. Winterreach is scarcely populated, and its few settlements are made up of woodlanders comfortable with the cold and ice of that realm. Winterreach is ruled by House Castledown, a snowy owl house.

The Yawning Roads are a massive network of caverns that spans under most of Inkwarren, where cities are carved out of rock and stone. Here, strange 'roots' of the tharians above light caverns and protect from things that lurk under the dirt. The Yawning Roads are inhabited mostly by burrowing woodlanders such as moles, voles, or rabbits, as well as bats, salamanders, and burrowing owls that are commonly found underground. The Yawning Roads are ruled by House Sare, a salamander house.

The Deeper Wood

The Deeper Wood is the section of untamed woodland of Cairnadal not dotted by Warrenish settlements or protected by tharians. Strange things are said to lurk within these woods, magical things that existed before Inkwarren existed as a kingdom. Both the Crown and the Abbey forbid travel into the Deeper Wood, but braver wanderers have been known to wander off the cobblestone path, and your mind lingers on what might be out there...

That's All For Now!

Thanks for reading! I'll be back soon with another devlog to talk about Battle and how Inkwarren approaches its philosophy to combat and violence. Thanks for reading!

[ruinandrue]

Introducing Inkwarren: A dark fantasy TTRPG of woodland adventures!

Hi all! I'm Matt, and I am an Atlanta-based indie ttrpg designer currently developing Inkwarren, a dark woodland fantasy TTRPG of swashbuckling tactics and storybook intrigue. Today, I'm going to talk to you about what Inkwarren is, what inspired it, and the design goals I have for the game. Inkwarren is already in preliminary playtests, and I hope to have public playtests sometime in the near future.

What is Inkwarren?

In Inkwarren, players take on the role of woodlanders- animal wanderers of the massive Woodland, who use magick, wits, and weapons to take down foes supernatural and mundane. Your woodlanders' wandering band may be a band of mercenary adventurers, a band of high-spirited rebels, or even a band of scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells just looking for their next score.

One player takes on the role of the Voice in the Dark, a guiding force behind the story that presents challenges, describes consequences, and narrates the actions of the woodlander's foes.

Inkwarren aims to merge modern-style deep narrative rules with exciting, flashy, swashbuckling battles that emphasizes teamwork, movement, and positioning. Character creation is a deep and choice-driven process, that fully contextualizes a woodlander within the world and sets them on a path to a truly memorable story.

Inspirations

Mechanically, Inkwarren borrows from and is inspired by games like Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, Modiphius's Dishonored, ICON, Blades in the Dark, and City of Mist, mixing design trends of modern tactical fantasy games with deep narrative based trends found in other systems. Inkwarren's combat also shares inspiration with the Hades series of games, aiming to emulate the fast-paced action where movement and positioning are just as important as the attacks you use.

Narratively, Inkwarren is inspired by The Secret of NIMH, Dishonored, Redwall, Root, and Hollow Knight. When designing Inkwarren's eponymous setting, I want to evoke the gravitas and melancholy somberness of Hallownest from Hollow Knight, with magic as eldritch and strange as the Outsider's gifts in Dishonored. With this, Inkwarren is still a game about hope, and aims to capture the optimism-despite-adversity and little-heroes-against-great-foes vibes of stories like Redwall or The Secret of NIMH. I have to credit Root for originally giving me the idea to shift my game concept to one where the PCs are little woodland creatures.

Choice, Sacrifice, and Hope

Inkwarren's core mechanic emphasizes choice, intent, and narrative weight. The base 2d10 roll is modified by the woodlander's own Virtues (core strengths like Brawn, Nimbleness, or Insight), combined with a Style to define how they're using that Virtue (such as performing an action Cunningly, Quickly, or Sneakily). Difficulty is measured by Risk and Effect, that assign narrative weight to the severity of consequences a woodlander faces, and how effective they will be if they Prevail.

When woodlanders just don't roll high enough, they don't simply fail- they Falter. Faltering grants Hope, a resource that can be used to Persevere and succeed despite consequences on future challenges. With Hope, failure is never the end- it simply closes one door, and opens another.

Swashbuckling Battles

Inkwarren's Battle system emphasizes movement, positioning, and teamwork. Woodlanders interact with the battlefield through exploits, combat disciplines that have a variety of different effects to use on the field. Exploits have an at-will root effect that can be used as a woodlander's bread and butter, but more powerful effects are always within reach. By using root effects, meeting battle objectives (such as defeating enemies or reaching escape points), and continuing the fight (by ending rounds), woodlanders build Momentum, a shared resource pool by the entire band that can be used to power a woodlander's most powerful abilities. Woodlanders can spend Momentum to use an exploit's powerful bloom effect, or power a duo effect that they can use to combine their abilities with those of another ally. Momentum doesn't deplete until the Battle is over-- use it for quick bursts, or build up to unleash more powerful attacks against your foes!

Other rulesets like charging attacks, staggering mechanics for bosses, climbing on top of larger foes, environments, high ground, and ally turns (that don't clog up combat) also add gravitas, pace, and exciting tactical decisions to make Inkwarren's Battles so engaging.

Sweeping Narrative

Inkwarren's narrative mechanics work to ensure that solving problems outside of Battle carry just as much weight as Battle itself. Inkwarren's narrative ruleset includes:

The Doubt system allows woodlanders to call upon the Voice in the Dark for aid, but at a cost: as the woodlanders build Doubt, the Voice can spend it to increase the danger of the surroundings, unlock new abilities for foes, or act as a mastermind behind the antagonistic forces of the narrative.

Narrative abilities called flourishes that woodlanders can use to interact with the world.

A special character-based tour de force that a woodlander may use to do something truly legendary, although infrequently.

Rest Activities woodlanders may use to Cook Meals, Spar, Entertain, or Pray to give themselves bonuses and restorations for use later.

Wounds to carry over how trials in-combat affect a woodlander after the Battle ends.

Rules for Tongues that establish a woodlander's knowledge of a language with several levels of fluency.

Ties, which are narrative bonds with NPCs woodlanders may use to increase their effect against them, or burn them to ask for a favor.

And So Much More!

Deep character customization for woodlanders, including a Coat mechanic that allows you to play as any little animal your heart desires, unique and evocative traditions like the ghostly historian Folklorist or the passionate Warrior-Poet, rules for mysterious and magical artifacts called esoterica, an in-depth crafting system, and more!

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! I'm so excited about this game, and I hope to share more with everyone soon!

Tìoraidh!

[greekedtext]

Ah! Ah! (Bouncing and grinning) I noticed the Root vibes before I read far enough to learn you were partially inspired by Root!

Another game in the world inspired by Root, yaaaaay!

[ruinandrue]

I love Root more than words!! :) I’ve got some posts coming up about the setting and Battle mechanics, stay tuned!!

[ruinandrue]

Inkwarren Devlog #1: Magick, Incantations, and Creativity

What's the appeal of magic in a fantasy setting? Is it that magic broadens the possibilities of storytelling by removing the limitations of our world? Do the limits on magic provide an interesting question of what is now possible, if the answer isn't anything? Is it just cool? Well, yeah. All of these! At least I think.

Hi all, Matt here, and I'm back to talk about Inkwarren, and how magick works in my game: what it is in the fiction, what it is in the mechanics, and how magick changes when you try to fit it into tactical combat.

Magic in the Woodland

Magick in Inkwarren is strange, dangerous, and poorly understood. It doesn't inhabit the same realm as other heroic fantasy games-- there are no wizard academies or +1 swords being sold in cities. Magick isn't taboo (your Witch isn't going to be run out of town), but it isn't normal or safe. Magick also requires incantations, which is what 'spells' are in Inkwarren-- echoing words of power that shift reality to your will.

It's best to think of magick like you would a tide. There is push, and there is pull. When you speak an incantation, you are using words of power to harness magick and change reality to your will- but magick always wants something in return. Magick requires sacrifice.

Now, sacrifice isn't always as dramatic as it sounds. Magick-users in the Woodland learn to sacrifice things to magick reflexively when they speak an incantation, because if they don't, the magick bites back and feeds on them instead. A lower strength incantation, like one that senses heartbeats, protects your skin from injury, or hides you from sight for a short while only require something small: a minute of your time, an unimportant memory, a bit of your blood, and similar offerings are very common across the incantations you'll see in the book. Bigger things require bigger sacrifices: if you want to implant a new memory you have to give one of your own of equal or greater importance, if you want to bring back a life you must give yours in return, and the enemies of the woodlanders might perform rituals that take many lives in order for them to take many lives in the same fashion.

So, magick takes time. Unless you've got an incantation down pat (more on that later), you likely can't cast it quickly and without fuss. You have to think about it, because if you rush blindly into an incantation, it could have permanent and devastating effects on your woodlander.

The Six Arcana

Despite magick being poorly understood, there are commonly known to be six important power sources for magick to draw from: these are called Arcana. The Arcana are as follows:

Blood magick manipulates the life force and bodies of living creatures, allowing the user to speak to animals, control plants, and shift their shape.

Bone magick enhances a user's physique and battle capabilities; conjuring protective shields, forming weapons out of force, and protecting the skin with sigils of occult magick.

Chaos magick (which differs from the real world tradition of chaos magic) focuses on energy and natural forces of the world-- turning fire into lightning, water into stone, and using these forms of energy and matter to accomplish a woodlander's goals.

Night magick focuses on shadows, silence, and the mind. Incantations that call upon night magick use shadows as a weapon, invade the mind to read thoughts and push a target's will in a certain direction, and steal voices and ideas from others.

Silver magick focuses on the boundaries between realities, allowing woodlanders to move between locations without travelling, divine the future, and call things from other states of existence.

Spirit magick focuses on the soul, emotion, and the spirits of the dead. Spirit incantations can be used to heal spiritual wounds, communicate with spirits of the dead and of the past, and to sense emotional impressions on beings and objects.

Great! We get how magick works (sort of, but that's the point)

Magick in Gameplay

There is a juxtaposition in how exactly magic should function in tactical fantasy games. Tactical combat requires tactics, which implies some level of thought and choice-- but if magick can do anything, what tactic is there in that? What ends up happening is magic is made into abilities-- you can cast fireball and entangle, but if you want to use fire to heat up a doorknob or use vines to create a bridge, you're out of luck. This makes sense- we want gameplay to flow well between states, and having the tactical, ability-like implementation of magic extend to all aspects of gameplay is good and fine.

But it doesn't have to.

Improvising Magick

Several traditions in Inkwarren are capable of improvising magickal effects: these being the folklorist, goetia, rook, warrior-poet, and witch (roughly half of the total 12 traditions). These traditions will also have special flourishes (narrative abilities) representing rote incantations they know by heart and don't have to improvise, but they may wish to improvise at other times. Before we get into how improvising magick works, let's recap our points from above:

Magick requires sacrifice.

Magick takes time and concentration.

Magick is dangerous.

When you wish to improvise an incantation, you will draw a pentacle, and go through each point to choose five different descriptors:

Your Intent. What you want to happen when you create the effect- unlock the door, hide my footsteps, change my face.

Strength. The Strength of the incantation directly correlates with Effect used for challenge rolls: limited, normal, great, and legendary effect. During the Origin phase of play, your woodlander will be more inexperienced with more powerful magick, and will incur more sacrifices and consequences for incantations that aren't limited strength. That isn't to say they can't attempt-- it'll just be much more dangerous for them.

Sacrifice. What you will give. The higher the Strength, the more you sacrifice. Time, blood, memory, sanity-- whatever you want.

Major Arcana. The primary Arcana you draw from when using the effect. Unlocking a door sounds like chaos, as you pull on the metal to change and unlock, and changing your face might be night, as you shift your features to look like someone else.

Minor Arcana. The secondary Arcana you draw from, which can be the same as your Major Arcana. Unlocking the door might be chaos/night as you tug on shadows to bend the door to your will, and changing your face might be night/blood.

After you decide these five descriptors, you will attempt a challenge roll to create your effects, rolling your dice directly onto your pentacle. Prevailing causes your incantation to go off as intended, but Persevering or Faltering could cause things to go slightly different than what you planned or not right at all. Voila! You have improvised a spell!

Magick in Battle

Magick in Battle is a lot simpler because, well, I didn't reinvent the wheel a whole bunch here! Magick exploits are exploits just like any other, with Root, Bloom, and Duo effects that can the woodlander can use at will. In the fiction, woodlanders can call upon this magick so easily because they are rote incantations, similar to magical flourishes-- in the heat of Battle, a woodlander doesn't have time to improvise, pick sacrifices, and focus their intent. They just rely on what they know! They sacrifice small bits of energy, prepared components, and other minor things they are assumed to have prepared because they're the heroes, and they know what they're doing.

TL;DR in battle, you may not have time to improvise magick and get creative, but outside of battle, you have time to get weird and wacky with the incantations you speak-- if you can pay the cost.

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! I'll be posting on this blog semi-regularly as I develop this game, and I appreciate your interest and support!