Free League Announces Anime-Inspired Twilight Sword RPG

Free League Publishing has announced Twilight Sword, a new collaboration with Italian games studio Two Little Mice. The new game is a fantasy RPG inspired by video games like The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Ni No Kuni. Players explore the world of Radia in the game, exploring Landmarks and collecting Hope by defeating bosses. A 16-page preview of the game revealed five Kin that players can choose from, including the Huma, the cat-like Kedi, and the penguin-like Pengu. The preview did not reveal any details about the game system, but there appears to be a focus on exploration and defeating monsters.

One interesting part of this announcement is the collaboration with Two Little Mice. The Italian publisher was purchased by CMON back in 2021 to bolster that company's line of RPGs. However, CMON has had struggles this year, in part due to tariff uncertainty. CMON has sold off several IPs to other studios and has paused new game development to focus on current fulfillment, with many questioning about the publisher's future. Free League also partnered with Two Little Mice to publish Outgunned, so it's unclear whether Two Little Mice has gone independent once again or if this is an arrangement with CMON.

 

[jian]

Not to double up on the pedantry but stamina can refer to both physical and mental exertion. And feat is not contextually something you have done but also something you can do. Both terms are being applied accurately in their gaming nomenclature.

True enough about stamina. Not really about Feats; “improved dodge” or “weapon expertise” aren’t feats in any version of English, they’re skills or abilities.

 

[Reynard]

True enough about stamina. Not really about Feats; “improved dodge” or “weapon expertise” aren’t feats in any version of English, they’re skills or abilities.

I always thought "feat" was a weird word for mostly passive things.

 

[Aldarc]

True enough about stamina. Not really about Feats; “improved dodge” or “weapon expertise” aren’t feats in any version of English, they’re skills or abilities.

Either way, this is incredibly trivial when talking about Twilight Sword in a hobby that has used "feats" for these sorts of things for 25+ years.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

True enough about stamina. Not really about Feats; “improved dodge” or “weapon expertise” aren’t feats in any version of English, they’re skills or abilities.

I mean, they are feats, one is dodging better than normal and the other is wielding a weapon with greater expertise, which could both be described as impressive feats in a real world context. Yes, one could argue that these are really just mechanical expressions of martial proficiency (proficiencies being the 2nd edition term for these things when feats and skills were lumped together), so the game has supported that kind of language in the past, but 3rd edition tried to break out skills as a specific category that functioned a certain way, and feats as a different category that worked in different ways mechanically. The problem with that argument is also that the class based attack modifiers are arguably the character's combat skill, and feats that modify that skill or AC are special expressions and not universal to the growth of the skill, instead being learned as special actions only done characters have. Special feats they can accomplish, you might ssy....

I get what you are saying from a language perspective (though I disagree that the term feat is inappropriate), but from a game mechanical perspective neither of these features function like skills (and abilities are distinguished as class features) and renaming them as such would be confusing. 3E was already typologically beyond confusing for many without muddying the waters further. I would be comfortable with giving them their own unique identifier in place of the term feat, such as Talents, Advantages, Traits, Specials, or even Masteries. All of those would work. That would preserve their mechanical typology as separate from how skills, abilities and attack modifiers functioned. Tales of the Valiant did this renaming of feats and it works well.

EDIT: hmmm just remembered this thread is about Twilight Sword and not D&D. Sorry! Not trying to derail.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I always thought "feat" was a weird word for mostly passive things.

Those are passive modifiers but only work with actions.....the character has to dodge or attack to gain the benefit. It's true they are mechanically passive, but the bonuses are a result of implied action by the character. Weird though, I agree, but due to how the rules work.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Either way, this is incredibly trivial when talking about Twilight Sword in a hobby that has used "feats" for these sorts of things for 25+ years.

Thanks for the reminder. I'd completely spaced what this thread was about. For context I feel like a feat term in a LoZ stule game feels very appropriate.

 

[jian]

Either way, this is incredibly trivial when talking about Twilight Sword in a hobby that has used "feats" for these sorts of things for 25+ years.

Yes, like I said, it’s just a language niggle. “Four Minute Mile” is a feat - it’s an achievement that you either have or haven’t managed, and mechanically it would mean you have a faster running speed. “Improved Running” isn’t a feat, even if it’s mechanically identical - you haven’t achieved a feat of anything at all.

I suppose it’s relevant because Twilight Sword uses the term, and I find it annoying and derivative of linguistic clumsiness from a different game, since it’s inappropriate for most of the special abilities listed. But they already used Ability for attribute, and maybe they didn’t want to copy Fabula Ultima (which this game most closely resembles, and which uses Skill) so there you go.

Similarly, another tiny personal niggle for me is having Stealth as an Ability (next to Agility, Strength, Will etc.) since you rarely see Stealth there in games (it’s usually a skill or tucked into another attribute like Agility or Perception) but eh, it makes sense for mechanical balance.

 

[jian]

Things I do like about TS:

• Nice simple chargen
• Cool ancestries - Pengu particularly appeal, for some reason
• The alchemy and cooking systems and the fact that they’re basically identical (I don’t think it’s clear from the rules that you can scoff a blueberry cupcake to recover d8 Hearts in combat the way you can with a red potion but honestly I don’t see why not, apart from the choking hazard*)
• The fun utility spells, like Blue Bubble

*Now imagine Link coughing out cupcake crumbs while a bunch of bogoblins wait patiently for him to recover.

“Dude, I told you to have some water with those.”

 

[Sossij]

Things I do like about TS:

• Nice simple chargen
• Cool ancestries - Pengu particularly appeal, for some reason
• The alchemy and cooking systems and the fact that they’re basically identical (I don’t think it’s clear from the rules that you can scoff a blueberry cupcake to recover d8 Hearts in combat the way you can with a red potion but honestly I don’t see why not, apart from the choking hazard*)
• The fun utility spells, like Blue Bubble

*Now imagine Link coughing out cupcake crumbs while a bunch of bogoblins wait patiently for him to recover.

“Dude, I told you to have some water with those.”

Make an "eating" skill check or suffer the "choking" condition until someone can apply the Heimlich maneuver with their bonus action and permanently lose 1 charisma for looking like a dork.

(or whatever the actual Twilight Sword equivalent is)

 

[aramis erak]

PDFs are up on DTRPG for all 5 parts: core ($20), Lands of Radia ($15), Starter Set ($15), Card Chest ($15), and GM Screen ($5), individually or as a $50 bundle...
GM Screen is simple but elegant.