Kickstarter Medieval Tales (Kickstarter)

[PA_Gamer]

Medieval Tales

Fantasy role-playing in war-torn 15th century France, where superstition, folklore, and fairy tales are all very real.

The Kickstarter campaign for Medieval Tales is live as of today. We are looking to fund an initial print run of 100 for the 400+ page rulebook, with additional supporting books and supplements available as digital downloads.

Check out our Kickstarter campaign here: Kickstarter Campaign

Guiding Principle
Medieval Tales is a medieval-themed TTRPG. The guiding principle is that what medieval people believed in is real. Demons guide the actions of evil men, witches fly by night to sabbats in the forests or atop storm-ravaged hilltops, and the Devil in dragon form marauds about the countryside, adding misery to an already despairing land. In the forests and mountains dwell fairies and goblins, whose mischief plagues the common folk. Ghosts and other restless spirits lurk in cemeteries, by the waterways in which they drowned, or continue to walk the corridors of ruined castles. Strange animals, ogres, and dog-headed cyanocephali live on the fringes of the known world.

Magic - from the rustic charms of peasant "cunning folk", to the rituals of invokers who pronounce the names of angels over intricately-drawn circles, to the scientific formulas of alchemists or the more malevolent spells of "maleficia" - is faithfully portrayed as medieval man believed in it. Every spell or ritual available to practioners of the "Art" in Medieval Tales is drawn from historical accounts, including witchcraft trials and contemporary folklore, making the game's magic feel grounded and somehow more "real". The miraculous, too, is possible. Those who are pious enough, whose reasons are just, can call upon the "Holy Helpers" (saints) to protect them from harm, from injustices, or to aid in their fight against demonic influences.

 

[dead]

How crunchy are the rules? What type of characters can you play?

It's interesting to see it is written by Dominic Covey, author of Darwin's World.

 

[PA_Gamer]

How crunchy are the rules? What type of characters can you play?

It's interesting to see it is written by Dominic Covey, author of Darwin's World.

Beneath the hood Medieval Tales is a traditional TTRPG that utilizes the standard dice: D4, D6, D8, D10, D20, D00, as well as rulebooks and physical character sheets. Dice rolls are used in character generation (everything from determining what star a character was born under, to generating attributes, birth order, and the social rank a character is born into). Dice are also used in the making of skill checks, and in resolving actions in combat.

Players play characters struggling to survive during the violent era of the Hundred Years War. Characters can be peasants, commoners, nobility, or clergymen. They begin as relatively obscure men and women, but through experience they can not only better their skills and financial situation - and secure better gear - but they can also earn "Achievements" in the form of glory, position, service, or study. Achievements open doors for characters and provide access to better professions. They can also be used to earn "Honors", which are special rewards that range from being given benefices (monetary rewards), to a grant of arms, the ability to design their own coat of arms. Other honors include being dubbed into knighthood, buying a patent of nobility, or attracting an entourage of minor NPC followers.

Most combat actions are based on contemporary fighting techniques (for example, many of the maneuvers described in the 15th century Le Jeu de la Hache are actions combatants can take during a round of combat). Instead of a single hit point track, Medieval Tales uses the "four humors" (based on medieval concepts of the body and health) to track injury, self-control, the effects of poison, and resistance to demonic possession. The mechanics are not based on any pre-existing system, per se; however, many elements are certain to be familiar to seasoned players.

The second book, Bestiarium Vocabulum, is a GM resource that is filled with creatures from medieval legends. This includes many creatures most gamers will be familiar with (e.g. basilisks, dragons, demons), but being based on French folklore, many will likely be new, such as the shapechanging birette, the hag chauchevieille, the age-like simiots of the Pyrenees, the vampiric fausserole, and a race of trickster demons known as crieurs.

While there are an abundance of magical creatures and monsters with which to challenge characters and populate adventures, this is a relatively low-magic setting. In keeping with the theme of "what medieval men believed in is what is real", the kind of magic available to characters is based on medieval concepts of magic. Every spell or formula in the third book, The Grand Grimoire, is drawn from actual sources (that is, grimoires that existed in the 15th century such as Albertus Magnus, the Cipher of Roger Bason, Corpus Hermeticum, Donum Dei, Heptameron, etc). Alchemy is a legitimate "science", and the power of amulets and charms is a matter of fact. But there are also forbidden invocations that call on angels (or demons) to produce fantastic effects or bind spirits to service, and darker maleficia, as well as peasant magic, "theurgy", which deals with the breaking of curses and the making of folk medicine.

 

[PA_Gamer]

Additional information in response to past questions:

On Skills
Skill checks are based on a specific quality, plus the number of ranks a character has mastered in the skill, and a difficulty assigned by the GM. Many skills are also broken down into "sub-skills", which are basically special or specific uses for that skill. For example, Acrobatics is a skill, with Balancing, Tightrope Walking, and Escape Artist being its sub-skills; another example is Medicine, under which are sub-skills such as Bloodletting, Cupping, Medicinal Potions, Tabula Cirurgica, Trepanning, and Uroscopy. Certain sub-skills only become "unlocked" (or available) when a character buys higher ranks in that skill.

On Combat
Combat was designed to incorporate fighting techniques described in manuals from the era. This is represented by the maneuvers characters can use. In combat, each turn characters get a number of points to spend on both aggressive and defensive actions. All characters start with 1 Aggressive and 1 Defensive action point. Having ranks in the skill, Fighting Style, gives a character an additional action point that the player can either add to their aggressive or defensive action points (representing the character's focus on either an aggressive or defensive fighting style). Individual actions have a cost in either aggressive or defensive action points. For example, the "Hew" action (the basic attack) costs 1 Aggressive AP; "Arriere Main", which allows a "backhand blow" with a pommel or haft, costs 2 Aggressive AP. "Parry" costs 2 Defensive AP; "Deboutter" (merely pushing a foe back to create some distance) just 1 Defensive AP. No action may be performed more than once by a character in a given round, however.

A wide variety of weapons are presented, from peasant weapons such as sickles, billhooks, threshing flails, and mattocks, to military weapons such as battle axes, maces, swords, warhammers, etc. However, the 15th century is very much the age of the pole arm, and as such there are 30+ variations of pole arm, from sword-staffs to oxtongues, couteau-de breche to the English bill. Bows and crossbows are present, as are the earliest firearms including the baton a feu (aka "tiller guns"), handgonnes, the harquebus, petronel, and pot-de-fer.

Each melee weapon's measure indicates the distance at which it can be used to engage an enemy; thus pole arms have a wider measure than daggers or unarmed attacks. Weapons also have intrinsic traits, which have special effects. Traits include Bludgeon, Edge, Gunpowder, Heavy, Pierce, and Snag. Combat tends to favor melee combatants, as ranged weapons such as crossbows and gunpowder weapons tend to be slow, requiring multiple actions to use. For example, depending on the mechanism it uses, a crossbow will require several "Span" actions before it can be "Loosed").

On Faith
Medieval Tales has a storytelling mechanic with which characters can do cinematic feats (think "fate" or "edge" in other games). A PC gets a limited number of these to use in a campaign, and their uses can range from saving the character's life in combat, to activating special abilities the character buys during character generation (such as special traits linked to their birth planet). These points also allow characters with a high degree of Piety to use the Hagiography skill to call on the Christian saints (a function of the sub-skill known as "Intercession"). The cost to do this is based on the "order" of the miracle in question (based on St. Thomas Aquinas' definition of the Orders of Miracles). Third order miracles produce effects that are entirely possible and not necessarily "remarkable" (an example might be a fever breaking after hours of prayer). Second order miracles produce effects that are understood to be possible, albeit the onlooker may not know how it came to be (for example, a blind person is restored to sight, or a lame person regains the use of his legs). First order miracles are clearly the hand of the Divine at play. Examples of this last order include the sun reversing its course through the sky, or the appearance of angels in a display that can clearly be seen by all present.

The basic rules cover only those saints most widely celebrated in the 15th century, the "Fourteen Holy Helpers"; they include Sts. Achatius, Barbara, Blaise, Christopher, Cyriac, Denis, Erasmus, Eustace, George, Giles, Katherine, Margaret, Pantealon, and Vitus. Each saint's story, and how they can be called upon (i.e. what types of miracles are attributed to them) are included.

A planned supplement, Liber Divinorum Operum, will cover over 100 additional saints. This book will also cover concepts such as a character's state of grace (including how being in a state of sin affects attempts at Intercession, for example), atonement, the effects of confession and the assigning of penances, and the acquiring of indulgences (from the buying of letters of indulgence to indulgences gained from pilgrimages). It also presents eighteen monastic orders of the era (Ambrosians, Augustinians, Benedictines, Camaldolese, Carmelites, Carthusians, Cistercians, Crosiers, Dominicans, Franciscans, Hieronymites, Jesuati, Mercedarians, Olivetans, Poor Clares, Premonstratensians, Servites, and Trinitarians) and the vows they are expected to take, as well as in-game benefits for being a member of a given order. It also expands on the Rituals skill, adding the sub-skills of Revocation (the negating of evil artifice), Castigation (essentially "turning"), Baptism (being baptised grants one access to a "resistance roll" against evil magic), Blessing (which increases the chances of success before or during an undertaking), and Unction (a form of blessing that potentially aids in recovery from disease or otherwise fatal wounds).

The final part of this supplement will also introduce optional rules for introducing "charism", which are points gained for repeated acts of selflessness, humility, kindness, mercy, etc. As Charism accumulates the pious character can gain access to saintly abilities or traits that, while functioning like the special abilities a character can get from their birth planet, are truly supernatural. They include having an incorrupt body, stigmata, the ability to cure wounds, walk among wild animals unharmed, experience revelations, etc.