Rotgobs for Tunnels and Trolls

Rotgobs are essentially undead goblins, returned to life by a nekromancer or a particularly goth goblin teenager. They share the same mind - the mind of the conjurer (the nekrobrain) and do her wishes. If the nekrobrain dies, the rotgobs go completely insane and even more murderous.

Rotgob
MR 24 (3+12)
Spite 2/ brain munch - do an extra d6 damage if the target fails a L1SR-DX. Ignores armour. Also reduce IQ by 1.
Special: For every other Rotgobs attacking the same target, increase the number of dice you roll in combat by one.

Some rotgobs are raised with innate magic still festering in their veins.

Rotgob magician
MR 28 (3+14)
Spite 2/ cast TTYF or Freeze Please
Spite 3/ cast Protective Pentagram
Special: the nekrobrain may optionally siphon the magic from the rotgob. If so, they gain 2d6 spell points on their turn, but the Rotgob cannot act on its next turn. After 20 total points have been taken, no more can be spared.

The most common method of creating a rotgob is through enchanted jewelry - talismans, rings, bracelets etc. The nekrobrain must have a matching piece of control jewelry to command their minions. If someone else tries to wear it, they may spend 10 spell points to become the new nekrobrain.

The Three Witches of the Dreadoak

In the times before the wizard wars, when magic was raw and untamed, the Hidden God created the Weavespider who spun together the first milky strands of fate between the two quartz trees. His web sang a hymn to the breeze, a melody that attracted the attention of three witches who lived in the branches of the towering dreadoak where they had existed since the second sun was ignited by Hod.

The most courageous of the witches, whose name causes men to suffocate, plucked one of the strands and heard the Harmony of the Web and at once was captivated. After years of strumming, the three realised the song was directly tied to the machinations of the young beings who walked the land - the Eck Dwarves, whose lamps would burn long after the suns faded; the Shade Elves, whose gods crawled in the earth; and the realm of man, who had mastered the skies with Smoothdrakes.

The witches played the symphony of the threads, watching savage queens perish and titan wretches spawn as the notes of fate sang in the hills of Ormun. The Hidden God was displeased - the witches had become as gods. In a dream he visited the warrior Aleena, who had slaughtered the host of the Everskull just the previous month and bore the axe legend calls Direwatch. Aleena was instructed to destroy the web.

She travelled to Ormun, having fought the greybeard ghasts and scarlet seraphim along the way. When she reached the witches, they saw what she wanted to do and intervened, promising to play a melody that would give her great power and riches. Aleena agreed and true to their word, the witches strummed a sweet tune. Aleena would become the high empress of men and all would bow to her. She declared war on the Hidden God who would have the web destroyed. The god became mortal to face her in battle, but was slain and his Godhead taken. After drinking his blood, Aleena ascended to brcobethe new Hidden God.

The song of the weave continues to ring out to this day while the spiders dance.

Quill paperback available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Quill is finally out there in the wild in paperback form. Yay!

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Vote Trollish Delver Games for fan favourite publisher at the ENnies

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Some things you can do with SHATTER6

SHATTER6 is designed to be flexible so I wanted to talk a little about some things you can do with it.

Imbue items with shatterdice

Shatterdice help you achieve the impossible, but your pool is limited. So why not have magic weapons with shatterdice? These could be refreshable daily, or one-use only. For example, a sorcerer uses starlight to forge the Celestial Hammer. The GM says that the hammer is so awesome that it has 5 shatterdice assigned to it, but once the dice are used they don't replenish for another week as it recharges.

Include hordes as single enemies

SHATTER6 is all about cinematic coolness, so having a warrior cut through hundreds of demonspawn is just the type of thing it should be enabling. Create a horde as a single enemy, like:

300 demons
TR: 18
Damage: 4
A horde of 300 slavering winged demons weilding sickles.

Make cutting through them a real challenge - it may take a few really good successes to destroy them all.

Escape from the otherworld 

Losing all wounds doesn't necessarily mean death. In fact, death should only come if the player is cool with it being an integral part of the story. But what if you do die? Maybe the GM decrees that your soul is trapped in the otherworld and it must fight its way out. Failure means it's gone forever, but therest a chance you could cheat death in am awesome way.

Go big or go home

Bigger is better in SHATTER6. The GM has license to go completely epic to challenge the players to come up with novel and exciting ways to tackle them. They should battle giant gods, ride city-sized dragons and attempt to cut planets in two.

Make magic volatile

Having a freeform magic system means players can pretty much do anything they dream of with it. But don't be afraid to make it backfire if the player is unsuccessful in casting. Come up with novel ways of making things go wrong.

SHATTER6 available to download

SHATTER6 is a new system I cooked up early one morning after my cat woke me up by jumping on my back. I've been thinking recently about creating a new open system that encourages players to do really awesome things. SHATTER6 is now live on Drivethurpg as a PWYW PDF.

What is SHATTER6?

SHATTER6 is a totally open roleplaying system, free for anyone and everyone to use. The mechanics are lite and designed for collaborative roleplaying where the golden rule is the Rule of Cool.

How does it differ from other systems?

SHATTER6 isn't about book-keeping and the minutiae of combat. Rather, the game is about telling mind-blowing stories and empowering players to do really awesome things. Enemies don't have hit points, whether they perish or not is up to how much effort players put into their actions. There are no classes, so players are free to concoct wild characters with few restraints. NPCs are easy to create on the fly, meaning those who value less prep time will get to the table quicker. The shatterdice let players attempt the impossible to create memorable gaming moments that you will be able to talk about for years to come.

The tag system

In SHATTER6 the players are encouraged to build their own classes by mixing and matching tags, skills that provide broad bonuses to their actions. For example, mixing the charming, crafting and streetwise tags might give you a Forge Thief who specialises in crafting thieves tools and sweet talking their way into the houses of the rich and famous before stealing their stuff. Invent your own tags for truly infinite possibilities.

Flexible combat that puts awesomeness first

If you want to fire off three burning arrows into the eyes of the demonlord while backflipping out of danger, you're free to do it with a roll. Using abilities, tags and shatterdice, SHATTER6 empowers players to dream up awesome actions and carry them out. This isn't about how many hits an enemy can take - the greater the challenge, the greater the reward.

A system that begs to be hacked

As an open system, anyone is free to take SHATTER6 and do what they like with it. Create new settings or alter the rules and publish for others to play.