Gumshoe - Swords of The Serpentine

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Swords of the Serpentine
A GUMSHOE-powered fantasy roleplaying game of swords, sorcery, cities, and secrets
By Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner
“Serpentine! Serpentine! It may attack at any time!”
Children’s nursery rhyme, origin unknown
“Seek respite, traveler

For all with coin are welcome”
Carved into the threshold of a Dockside temple in Eversink
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CONTENTS
CREDITS ............................................................................................................................................................... 18
DEDICATIONS ..............................................................................................................................................................18
CHAPTER ONE: THE BASICS .................................................................................................................................. 22
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................................................22
CONCEPT ...................................................................................................................................................................22
ABOUT THE SYSTEM .....................................................................................................................................................22
Investigative Abilities .........................................................................................................................................23
General Abilities .................................................................................................................................................23
ABOUT THE SETTING.....................................................................................................................................................23

Eversink ..............................................................................................................................................................23
Scenes from Eversink ..........................................................................................................................................24
CHAPTER TWO: YOUR HERO ................................................................................................................................ 27
FRAMING THE GAME ....................................................................................................................................................27

HOW DID YOUR HEROES MEET? ....................................................................................................................................28
Big Damn Adventurers .......................................................................................................................................28
Bookhounds of Eversink .....................................................................................................................................28
Cabals and Covens..............................................................................................................................................29
City Watch ..........................................................................................................................................................29
Do-Gooders ........................................................................................................................................................29
Family Business ..................................................................................................................................................29
Freelance Slinks ..................................................................................................................................................29
Government Agents ...........................................................................................................................................29
Infidels ................................................................................................................................................................30
Inquisitors ...........................................................................................................................................................30
Misbegotten Soldiers..........................................................................................................................................30
Spider’s Web ......................................................................................................................................................30
Thick as Thieves ..................................................................................................................................................30
CREATING A CHARACTER QUICK REFERENCE ......................................................................................................................30

SAMPLE CHARACTER.....................................................................................................................................................31
CHARACTER PROFESSIONS .............................................................................................................................................32
Sentinel...............................................................................................................................................................32
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Sorcerer ..............................................................................................................................................................32
Thief ...................................................................................................................................................................33
Warrior ...............................................................................................................................................................33
Mixing and Matching .........................................................................................................................................33
ADJECTIVES AND DRIVES ...............................................................................................................................................33

Adjectives ...........................................................................................................................................................33
Drives..................................................................................................................................................................34
INVESTIGATIVE ABILITIES ...............................................................................................................................................35

Scale for Investigative Abilities ...........................................................................................................................35
Refreshing Investigative Ability Points ...............................................................................................................36
Initial Build Points for Investigative Abilities ......................................................................................................36
List of Investigative Abilities ...............................................................................................................................37
Social Investigative Abilities ...............................................................................................................................39
Profession Investigative Abilities ........................................................................................................................42
ALLEGIANCES ..............................................................................................................................................................53
Assigning Allegiances .........................................................................................................................................54
GENERAL ABILITIES.......................................................................................................................................................54
Scale for General Abilities ..................................................................................................................................55
Talents: Rewarding Specialization .....................................................................................................................55
Initial Build Points for General Abilities ..............................................................................................................55
List of General Abilities .......................................................................................................................................56
General Ability Descriptions ...............................................................................................................................57
MINOR, ICONIC GEAR ...................................................................................................................................................64

Examples of Character-Defining Gear ................................................................................................................64
QUICK-START CHARACTER TEMPLATES .............................................................................................................................66

Assassin ..............................................................................................................................................................66
Barbarian ...........................................................................................................................................................66
Beggar ................................................................................................................................................................66
Brute ...................................................................................................................................................................66
Burglar................................................................................................................................................................67
Church Militant ..................................................................................................................................................67
Committee Diplomat ..........................................................................................................................................67
Duelist ................................................................................................................................................................67
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Inquisitor ............................................................................................................................................................68
Leecher ...............................................................................................................................................................68
Marketpriest.......................................................................................................................................................68
Mercenary ..........................................................................................................................................................68
Prophet ...............................................................................................................................................................68
Sneak Thief .........................................................................................................................................................69
Sorcerer ..............................................................................................................................................................69
CHARACTER GROWTH ...................................................................................................................................................69

Ability Advancement after each game ...............................................................................................................69
Spending Advancement Points ...........................................................................................................................70
Allies and Enemies ..............................................................................................................................................70
Gear ....................................................................................................................................................................70
Wealth and Lifestyle ...........................................................................................................................................70
Changing Your Abilities ......................................................................................................................................70
CHAPTER THREE: RULES ....................................................................................................................................... 72
SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE 101: HOW TO PLAY .............................................................................................................72

MYSTERIES, LEADS, AND CLUES ......................................................................................................................................73
Passive and Active Leads ....................................................................................................................................74
Core Leads ..........................................................................................................................................................74
Spending Investigative Ability Points .................................................................................................................74
Refreshing Investigative Ability Points ...............................................................................................................76
Using General Abilities Investigatively ...............................................................................................................76
What If Something Is Hidden? ............................................................................................................................76
The Best Rule of Thumb ......................................................................................................................................76
ALLEGIANCE RANKS ......................................................................................................................................................77

Allies ...................................................................................................................................................................78
Favors .................................................................................................................................................................78
Enemies ..............................................................................................................................................................78
Grudges ..............................................................................................................................................................79
TESTS ........................................................................................................................................................................80
Simple Tests........................................................................................................................................................80
Full Contests .......................................................................................................................................................83
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Refreshing General Ability Points .......................................................................................................................87
COMBAT ....................................................................................................................................................................88
Order of Combat ................................................................................................................................................88
Combat Range ....................................................................................................................................................89
Initiative .............................................................................................................................................................90
Attacking a Foe ..................................................................................................................................................92
Advanced Attacks ...............................................................................................................................................95
Using a Maneuver ..............................................................................................................................................99
Cover ................................................................................................................................................................101
Armor ...............................................................................................................................................................102
Surprise ............................................................................................................................................................104
HEALTH ...................................................................................................................................................................104
Health Tests......................................................................................................................................................105
Becoming Hurt .................................................................................................................................................105
Fixed Damage...................................................................................................................................................107
Regaining Health ..............................................................................................................................................108
Healing Injuries ................................................................................................................................................108
Defeat, Death, and its Aftermath .....................................................................................................................108
MORALE ..................................................................................................................................................................109
Morale Tests .....................................................................................................................................................109
Becoming Demoralized ....................................................................................................................................110
Bolstering Morale with Sway ...........................................................................................................................113
Regaining Morale .............................................................................................................................................113
HAZARDS .................................................................................................................................................................114
Blindness ..........................................................................................................................................................114
Diseases ............................................................................................................................................................114
Drowning and Suffocation................................................................................................................................119
Falling ...............................................................................................................................................................119
Fire ...................................................................................................................................................................120
Heat and Cold ...................................................................................................................................................120
Poisons and Venoms ........................................................................................................................................120
TRAPS......................................................................................................................................................................122
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Traps That Warn STAY OUT ..............................................................................................................................123
Traps That Say DIE ...........................................................................................................................................124
Guidelines of Trap Design.................................................................................................................................125
Traps and Investigative Abilities ......................................................................................................................126
Traps and General Abilities ..............................................................................................................................128
Trap Notation ...................................................................................................................................................128
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER ..........................................................................................................................................130

CHAPTER FOUR: SORCERY AND CORRUPTION ................................................................................................... 132
SORCERY QUICK REFERENCE ........................................................................................................................................132

SORCERY 101: THE ESSENTIALS ....................................................................................................................................133
Health or Morale Damage?..............................................................................................................................133
Learning Sorcery ...............................................................................................................................................133
Sorcerous Spheres ............................................................................................................................................134
HOW SORCERY WORKS ...............................................................................................................................................145

HOW CORRUPTION WORKS .........................................................................................................................................147
Exceptional Damage ........................................................................................................................................148
Unique Spells ....................................................................................................................................................149
What Happens When You Spend Corruption?..................................................................................................151
ADVANCED SORCERY ..................................................................................................................................................155

Rituals: Time, Assistants, Astrology, Sacrifices, and Sorcery ............................................................................155
True Names ......................................................................................................................................................156
Curses ...............................................................................................................................................................157
Sorcerous Glyphs and Traps .............................................................................................................................160
CHAPTER FIVE: WEALTH AND LIFESTYLE ............................................................................................................ 160
WEALTH ..................................................................................................................................................................161
LIFESTYLE .................................................................................................................................................................162
Repute Spend Table ..........................................................................................................................................163
Low Repute .......................................................................................................................................................164
No Repute.........................................................................................................................................................164
High Repute ......................................................................................................................................................164
Describing Your Lifestyle ..................................................................................................................................165
Minimum Lifestyle ............................................................................................................................................165
ASSIGNING TREASURE .................................................................................................................................................166

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CHAPTER SIX: GEAR, BOTH SORCEROUS AND MUNDANE .................................................................................. 167
HOW MUCH CAN YOU CARRY? ....................................................................................................................................167

THE COST OF GOODS AND SERVICES ..............................................................................................................................167
WEAPONRY ..............................................................................................................................................................167
Weapon Modifiers ............................................................................................................................................167
Melee and Ranged Weapons Table ..................................................................................................................168
Firearms ...........................................................................................................................................................169
MUNDANE AND ALCHEMICAL GEAR ..............................................................................................................................169

Miscellaneous Gear ..........................................................................................................................................170
Mundane Protective Gear ................................................................................................................................172
Poisons, Toxins and Venoms ............................................................................................................................174
SORCEROUS GEAR......................................................................................................................................................178
Grimoires ..........................................................................................................................................................178
Miscellaneous...................................................................................................................................................180
Runes ................................................................................................................................................................184
Sorcerous Protection ........................................................................................................................................186
Sorcerous Weapons ..........................................................................................................................................187
Staves ...............................................................................................................................................................191
Tokens ..............................................................................................................................................................192
CHAPTER SEVEN: ADVERSARIES ......................................................................................................................... 195
CHARACTER NOMENCLATURE .......................................................................................................................................195

Heroes ..............................................................................................................................................................195
Supporting Characters......................................................................................................................................195
Companions......................................................................................................................................................195
Adversaries .......................................................................................................................................................196
Monstrosities....................................................................................................................................................196
Mooks...............................................................................................................................................................196
ADVERSARIES ............................................................................................................................................................197
Template for Building Adversaries ...................................................................................................................197
Adversary Health and Morale Thresholds ........................................................................................................197
Alertness and Stealth Modifiers .......................................................................................................................200
Malus: The Wild Card General Ability ..............................................................................................................200
Adversary Special Abilities................................................................................................................................201

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Sample Human Adversaries .............................................................................................................................208
MONSTROSITIES ........................................................................................................................................................227
Animated Statue ..............................................................................................................................................228
Buzzing Acolyte ................................................................................................................................................228
Chuggut Hunter ................................................................................................................................................229
Chuggut Swamp Shaman .................................................................................................................................229
Demonic Counsel ..............................................................................................................................................229
Denari’s Singer .................................................................................................................................................230
The Drowned ....................................................................................................................................................230
Faceless ............................................................................................................................................................231
Flock of Carnivorous Seabirds ..........................................................................................................................232
Ghost ................................................................................................................................................................232
Giant Scorpion ..................................................................................................................................................233
Giant Snake ......................................................................................................................................................233
Golem ...............................................................................................................................................................234
Hollowed ..........................................................................................................................................................234
Lich ...................................................................................................................................................................234
Lycanthrope......................................................................................................................................................235
Obsessed Cultist ...............................................................................................................................................236
Penanggalan ....................................................................................................................................................236
Rattakan ...........................................................................................................................................................237
Serpent Folk (Serpentine) .................................................................................................................................237
Serpentine Monstrosity ....................................................................................................................................238
Seskie................................................................................................................................................................239
Shadow Demon ................................................................................................................................................239
Shadow Wisp ....................................................................................................................................................240
Singer in the Swamp.........................................................................................................................................240
Skeletal Giant ...................................................................................................................................................240
Swamp Ogre .....................................................................................................................................................241
Will o’ the Wisp ................................................................................................................................................241
Winged Ape ......................................................................................................................................................242
Vampire ............................................................................................................................................................242
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Zombie..............................................................................................................................................................242
CHAPTER EIGHT: GM ADVICE ............................................................................................................................. 244
SAFETY DURING PLAY .................................................................................................................................................244

SETTING THE TONE FOR SWORD & SORCERY ...................................................................................................................244
PLAYERS HELP BUILD THE WORLD .................................................................................................................................245
CHARACTER CONSTRUCTION ........................................................................................................................................246
Analysis Paralysis .............................................................................................................................................246
Specialization ...................................................................................................................................................246
Health vs. Morale .............................................................................................................................................247
Gear ..................................................................................................................................................................247
JUDGING INVESTIGATIVE ABILITY SPENDS ........................................................................................................................247

Ask the Player, “What’s Your Goal?”................................................................................................................247
What’s a Reasonable Spend? ...........................................................................................................................247

What’s a Reasonable Effect?............................................................................................................................248
What Are the Limits? ........................................................................................................................................248
HOW TO RUN A FIGHT ................................................................................................................................................248

EFFECTIVE ADVERSARIES..............................................................................................................................................249
Mooks...............................................................................................................................................................249
Monsters ..........................................................................................................................................................249
Named Foes......................................................................................................................................................250
Single Foes........................................................................................................................................................250
High Grit and Armor .........................................................................................................................................250
Wards and Healing ...........................................................................................................................................251
Fight Locations .................................................................................................................................................251
Effective Tactics ................................................................................................................................................251
Tactical Weakness ............................................................................................................................................252
Allies .................................................................................................................................................................252
Using Enemy, Grudge and Low Repute Points .................................................................................................252
MYSTERIES AND CLUES ...............................................................................................................................................254

Core Clues .........................................................................................................................................................255
Defining Clues...................................................................................................................................................255
Using Multiple Clues .........................................................................................................................................255
Clues on the Fly ................................................................................................................................................256

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Listen to Your Players .......................................................................................................................................256
Write and Summarize Clues .............................................................................................................................256
Location and “Wild Card” Abilities ...................................................................................................................257
Start Adventures as Late as Possible ................................................................................................................257
ADVENTURE CONSTRUCTION ........................................................................................................................................258

Types of Scenes ................................................................................................................................................258
Lead-Ins and Lead-Outs (and why they’re essential)........................................................................................258
Plot Maps .........................................................................................................................................................258
Jumping Around in History ...............................................................................................................................259
The Challenge Montage: Speeding and Summarizing Travel ...........................................................................260
One-Shot Construction .....................................................................................................................................261
Series Construction ...........................................................................................................................................262
Campaign Construction ....................................................................................................................................262
Expanding the World ........................................................................................................................................262
CUSTOMIZING SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE ...................................................................................................................263

More Narrative Play/Less Randomness ...........................................................................................................263
No Melee Combat ............................................................................................................................................263
Change the Setting ...........................................................................................................................................263
Customizing Allegiances ...................................................................................................................................263
Customizing Sorcery .........................................................................................................................................264
Customizing Abilities ........................................................................................................................................268
Customizing Foes..............................................................................................................................................269
One-on-One Play ..............................................................................................................................................269
Fledgling and Sovereign Heroes .......................................................................................................................270
Playing a Ghost ................................................................................................................................................271
Designer Notes: Alternate Maneuver Rule .......................................................................................................272
CHAPTER NINE: THE CITY OF EVERSINK ............................................................................................................. 273
EVERSINK IN A NUTSHELL.............................................................................................................................................273
The Buildings are Always Sinking .....................................................................................................................273
The City and the Goddess are One ...................................................................................................................273
Statues Are Everywhere, Because Statues Represent Souls .............................................................................274
ABOUT EVERSINK .......................................................................................................................................................274
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The People ........................................................................................................................................................274
Location ............................................................................................................................................................275
Climate .............................................................................................................................................................275
Architecture ......................................................................................................................................................275
Roads, Canals and Bridges ...............................................................................................................................276
Death, Burial, and Funerary Statues ................................................................................................................278
Sports ...............................................................................................................................................................279
Language..........................................................................................................................................................279
Eversink’s Food .................................................................................................................................................280
The Menagerie: Wild Animals in Eversink ........................................................................................................281
Divinity and Divine Power ................................................................................................................................282
Sumptuary Laws (and Other Unusual Edicts) ...................................................................................................283
EVERSINK’S HISTORY ..................................................................................................................................................283

A Thousand Years of Adventure .......................................................................................................................284
Before Eversink .................................................................................................................................................284
The Founding of Eversink .................................................................................................................................285

CITY DISTRICTS ..........................................................................................................................................................287
Temple Market .................................................................................................................................................287
Ironcross ...........................................................................................................................................................294
Alderhall ...........................................................................................................................................................302
Sag Harbor .......................................................................................................................................................305
The Foreign District ..........................................................................................................................................310
Harbor Approach ..............................................................................................................................................311
The Tangle ........................................................................................................................................................316
Other Major Features in Eversink .....................................................................................................................321
EVERSINK’S GOVERNMENT ..........................................................................................................................................324

Eversink’s Powerful Committees ......................................................................................................................325
‘Sinkish Law ......................................................................................................................................................328
ALLEGIANCES: WHO MATTERS IN EVERSINK? ..................................................................................................................331

The Ancient Nobility .........................................................................................................................................331
The Church of Denari ........................................................................................................................................333
The City Watch .................................................................................................................................................334
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The Commoners ...............................................................................................................................................335
The Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers....................................................................................................336
The Mercanti ....................................................................................................................................................337
The Mercenaries ...............................................................................................................................................338
The Monstrosities .............................................................................................................................................339
The Outlanders .................................................................................................................................................340
The Sorcerous Cabals .......................................................................................................................................341
The Thieves’ Guilds ...........................................................................................................................................342
The Triskadane .................................................................................................................................................343
ECONOMICS AND TRADE .............................................................................................................................................345

What Is For Sale?..............................................................................................................................................346
The Balance of Trade Guilds, Mercanti and Ancient Nobility ...........................................................................347
Banks and Coinage ...........................................................................................................................................348
Foreign Trading Partners..................................................................................................................................348
Trade as Invasion .............................................................................................................................................349
Trade as Intelligence ........................................................................................................................................349

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL THREATS TO EVERSINK .............................................................................................................350
The Chuggut .....................................................................................................................................................350
War ..................................................................................................................................................................351
Trade Wars and Speculative Bubbles ...............................................................................................................351
Smugglers and Counterfeiters ..........................................................................................................................351
Small Gods........................................................................................................................................................351
Religious Crusades............................................................................................................................................351
Sorcery..............................................................................................................................................................351
Refugees and Immigration ...............................................................................................................................352
Supply Chains ...................................................................................................................................................352
Flood and Weather...........................................................................................................................................352
Class Warfare ...................................................................................................................................................352
Disease and Plague ..........................................................................................................................................352
Fire ...................................................................................................................................................................352
Non-human Threats .........................................................................................................................................353
Treason .............................................................................................................................................................353
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Corruption ........................................................................................................................................................353
CHAPTER TEN: THE WORLD ................................................................................................................................ 355
THE GREAT KINGDOM OF CAPRIA .................................................................................................................................356

Government .....................................................................................................................................................356
People and Society ...........................................................................................................................................356
Friends and Enemies.........................................................................................................................................356
Torith ................................................................................................................................................................357
Hohenach .........................................................................................................................................................357
REPUBLIC OF CAYM ....................................................................................................................................................357

Government .....................................................................................................................................................358
Cachain .............................................................................................................................................................359
THE VONTAVNI HORSE LORDS AND THE GREAT FLATLANDS ................................................................................................359

Government .....................................................................................................................................................359
Yrans.................................................................................................................................................................360
The Tent City of Surharnil .................................................................................................................................361
PIRATES OF MIN ........................................................................................................................................................361

Government .....................................................................................................................................................361
Min ...................................................................................................................................................................362
THEOCRACY OF EREBOS...............................................................................................................................................363
Government .....................................................................................................................................................363
Omuzaphur.......................................................................................................................................................364
Dezhakos ..........................................................................................................................................................364
THE KINGDOM OF IRILEV .............................................................................................................................................364

Government .....................................................................................................................................................365

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Luz Rech............................................................................................................................................................365
THE KINGDOM OF SENGGON ........................................................................................................................................366

Government .....................................................................................................................................................366
Mieng ...............................................................................................................................................................367
THE BORDER LANDS ...................................................................................................................................................367

Government .....................................................................................................................................................368
Milktown ..........................................................................................................................................................368
THE DESTROYED PLATEAU ...........................................................................................................................................368

Camadi .............................................................................................................................................................369
SALT MOUNTAINS OF LUT ...........................................................................................................................................369

CHAPTER ELEVEN: CORPSE ASTRAY ................................................................................................................... 370
ADVENTURE PREMISE .................................................................................................................................................370

SETTING ...................................................................................................................................................................370
TONE.......................................................................................................................................................................370
HINTS FOR RUNNING THE GAME ...................................................................................................................................371
PLOT SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................................371
PRIMARY ADVERSARIES ...............................................................................................................................................372
Antoni Valori ....................................................................................................................................................372
Uxorioth ...........................................................................................................................................................373
Donastra...........................................................................................................................................................374
The Fleshtangle ................................................................................................................................................374
INVOLVING THE HEROES ..............................................................................................................................................375

PLOT MAP................................................................................................................................................................376
EXPANDING THE CORE ADVENTURE ...............................................................................................................................376
STARTING THE GAME ..................................................................................................................................................377
SCENE 1: ABOARD THE SHINING COIN ...........................................................................................................................378
1.1 Opening the Scene......................................................................................................................................378
Pirates a-plenty (Mooks) ..................................................................................................................................379
Precia Cointongue, Captain of the Squandered Hope ......................................................................................380
Kossos, first mate .............................................................................................................................................380
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1.2 Running the Fight .......................................................................................................................................381
1.3 Following the Combat ................................................................................................................................382
1.4 Closing the Scene........................................................................................................................................383
SCENE 2: APPROACHING EVERSINK................................................................................................................................383

2.2 Travel Montage ..........................................................................................................................................383
SCENE 3: CORPSETAKERS AT THE DOCKS .........................................................................................................................383

3.2 Enter the Corpsetakers ...............................................................................................................................384
Donastra’s Minions (four of them) ...................................................................................................................384
3.3 The Real Corpsetakers Arrive .....................................................................................................................386
3.4 Clue Summary ............................................................................................................................................386
SCENE 4: INTO THE TANGLE .........................................................................................................................................386

4.2 Following the Corpsetakers? ......................................................................................................................387
4.3 Travel Montage ..........................................................................................................................................387
SCENE 5: ANTONI VALORI AND NOBLE HOUSE.................................................................................................................388

5.2 Learn about Noble House ...........................................................................................................................388
5.3 Talk to Antoni .............................................................................................................................................390
5.4 Enter the House ..........................................................................................................................................393
5.5 Explore the House.......................................................................................................................................397
SCENE 6: HORRIBLE RAMPAGE .....................................................................................................................................400

6.2 A Hideous Awakening.................................................................................................................................400
6.3 Running the Fight .......................................................................................................................................401
6.4 First Actions ................................................................................................................................................402
6.5 The Final Confrontation ..............................................................................................................................403
16
SCENE 7: AFTERMATH AND CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................404
7.1 Possible Rewards and Penalties .................................................................................................................404
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Credits
Setting Design and Development: Emily Dresner and Kevin Kulp
System Design and Development: Kevin Kulp and Matthew Breen

Based on GUMSHOE rules design by Robin D. Laws and Kenneth Hite
Creative Direction: Kevin Kulp
Editing: Tim Gray and Kevin Kulp
Sensitivity Editing: Misha Bushyager
Dedications
Emily: To my husband, Eric, who is always a font of the very best and craziest ideas.
Kevin: To Peggy, now and always. Pins, Abigail.
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Playtesters and Clever Advisors
Rob Abrazado Maxine Brimmer Scott Daniel Baby Linda “Distraction”

Henny Admoni Nathan Brimmer Lane Daughtry Fricke
Patricio Aguilera Ivan Brkic Andy Davidson Max Fricke
Heather Albano Peter Bryant Georgia Davidson Jason Fritz
Gareth Anderson Stephanie Bryant Patrick Davila Emmett Furey
Ken Andrade Vanesa Carballo Búdia Kyle Davis Diana Gamet
Karla “Ancient Nobility” Neil Burton Sean Dawson James Gardner
Andrich Ferran Cabré Chuck Dee Adam Gauntlett
Shawn Andrich Sophie Cadorette Orion Delwaterman Elizaveta Generalova
Demetris Apousianas Cal Steve Dempsey Giacomo “Jack” Gentile
Maude Applewhite Andrew Cancellieri Emily Devereaux Graham Gentz
Will Baber Wes “Montbar the Stephen Dewey Bill Gerke
Drew Bailey Exterminator” Cantrell Jim DiBenedetto Daniel Gerke
David Baker Laura Cardinale Paulinho Barril Dobrado Antonio A. Gil
Marcia Baker Stefano Cardinale Brian Dorion Max Gladstone
Warner Baker Karen (Double Tap) David Dorward Danny Godin
Finley Ballew Carrincross Joshua Drobina Hannah Gravius
Liam Ballew Sam Carter Andy Eaton Elizabeth Grech
Mário Bastos Mark Causey Stefanie Ehmke Mary Lynn Gregory
Kennon Bauman Filip Cerovecki Morgan Ellis Mat Gregory
Christine Bellemare David Chalker Steve Ellis Ian Griffiths
Scott Bennett Bucky Chappell Kaan Emirier Ollie Groß
Zak Bennetti George Chatzipetrou Liz England Avram Grumer
Ronald Sebastian Victoria Chayes Chet Erez M.H. “Goat!” Grzesiak
Bermudes Andrew Church Alex Gu
Tom Bisbee Cira Shyama Ezekiel-Fagundo Justin Gu
Don Bisdorf David Cockson Neena Fagundo Miguel Ángel Arnaiz
Jimmie Bise Jr. Mia Cockson Nicholas Fagundo Guimet
Jeb Bishop Rob Collingwood Ryan Falzon Viktor Haag
Jason Owen Black David Collins Kim Farrell Ed Hall
Andy Blanchard Storn A. Cook Jim Fauntleroy Julie Hall
Joseph Blankenship Bill Cooper Mike Fehlauer Hayes Claus Hallen
Joshua Blue Edgar Cotte Jose Felix Florentin Hallen
Antónia Bolvári Christopher Cotton Mike “Professero” Richard Hamel
Ted Bonnah Malaika Cowan Ferdinando Jarryd Hanson
Emylie Bonneville Shawn Crapo Antônio Mário Dantas John Harford
Nicole Borchert Todd Crapper Bastos Filho Dorian Hart
Huw Bowen Bill Crosbie Jeff Foley Elanor Hart
Matt Boyd Tim Crosby Adam Foster Jennifer Hartogensis
J.P. "Gianni" Brannan Finn Cullen Jesse Fowler Erica Hastings
Matthew Breen Lars Dabney Jonathon Fowler Rob Hebert
Jym Brier Neal Dalton Foxfire Fiona Heckscher
Mary Brier Neal Dalton Tim Franzen Jonathan Hegner
Christianne Briffa Dan Brian Freund Lars Heitmann-
Adam Brimmer Max Dan Ohnesorge
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John Helmuth Teri Kowiak Andrea “Panda” Christopher Robin
Kenneth Helvig Ben Kramer Mandalari Negelein
Scott Henderson Diana Kreutz-Kielwein Volker Mantel Gabe Nichols
David Heron Joshua Kronengold Lauren Marino James Nicoll
The High Tide Games Kevin Kuhlmann Marisa Nimbian
Indie Gameday group Anatoliy Kulbanskiy Victoria Marrero Christopher Noble
M. Alan Hillgrove Bruce Kwartler Matthew R. Martinez Dave Nolin
Gareth Hinds Gustavo “Tanaka” La John WS Marvin Ivan Novosel
Ian Hogarth Fontaine Ronaldo Mascarenhas Michael Nutt
Jurie Horneman Nicole La Vertue Mike Maughmer Eugenio Nuzzo
Howard Moe Lane Jacob McArdle Marcus Nyahoe
Morgan Hua Ludovica Lanzieri Kris McCosh Thurstan (Give it a Go)
Paul Hughes Duncan Law Cameron McCurry Nyg
John (Arac) Hume Sandie Law Owen McIntosh Patti O’Connell
Ayla Hurley Tony Law Ian McLean Peggy O’Connell
Tom Idleman Keri Lemoine John McMullen Paige O’Connell-Bach
Sergei Ivanov Zan Lennon Julie McNeil Christopher O’Neill
Tomislav Ivek Jamie Lennon Márcio Melo Robin Oakley
Ariel Jaffee Dave Lepzelter Members of the Erik Oberlin
Kate Jenkins Marcy Lerner Pseudopolis Yard Dawn Joshua O'Connor
Mark Jessup Sean Lesley Patrol Dimitrios Oikonomou
Will Jobst CJ Lewis Jacques Menasche Olkon
Larry Jones Frank Lietzke Frank Merten David Olsen
Scott Jones Jason Lieuallen Sarah Messer Ben Osborne
Jordan Robert Lijklema Dawn Metcalf Ian Osborne
Josh Tse Yang Lim Marina Michelini Osvaldo Oyola
Alberto Junqueira Ian Lim Michelle Lisa Padol
Ivan Juric Henry Link Tracey Michienzi Eric M. Paquette
Rachel Kahn Giulia Lisi Mike Miller Jonathan ‘Evil Laugh
Mile Karlica Andrew Lister Rich Miller Guy’ Parsons
Ray Karni Noah Lloyd Nancy Milligan Carlos Passos
Joe Kason Mike Longfritz Lara Milton Brian Paul
Dan Kassiday Igor Losev Daniël Mioque Greg Pearson
Kieffer Katz Lothwin Michele Mishko Mike Pereira
Julie Kay Stephen Loveless Avi Molder Connor Peterson
Simon Keeble Jeanna “Iekika” James Moody Lucija Petricioli
Caspar Kielwein Lundgren Scott Moore Giulia Peverini
Heather Kirby Robert “The Khanda” George Moralidis Sam Phinizy
Ian M Kirby Lundgren Max Morrice Sylvestre Picard
Jesse Klein Pepote Luvazza Alison Morris Leonard Pimentel
Arnis Kletnieks H. M. ‘Dain’ Lybarger Adam Morse Tom Pleasant
Jody Kline Jill Lybarger Denise Moxon Vic Polites
Knights of the Game Edward MacGregor Belton Myers Jenna Povey
Table Paul St John Mackintosh Simon (That’s Tracy Pressé
Alan Kohler Kristen MacLean Outrageous) Myers Nikica Puksic
Uwe Kölsch Dávid Magyari Ricardo Nacarini Mark Quinto
David Konkol Cindy Maka Alex Negelein Troy Raines
Javier Koslow Lesley Malfavon Marco Ranieri
20
Oscar Ratcliffe Mary Schmitt Liam Stevens Jennifer Walker
Sacha Ratcliffe Andy Schmoll Derek Stoelting Mitchell Wallace
Epidiah Ravachol Saul Schnitman Elisabeth Strayer Todd Ward
Maddie Reynolds Heiko Scholz James Sura lara Warford
Raena Reynolds-Jackson James Schoonmaker Ben Swinehart Noel Warford
Stephen Rider Dennis Schroeder Kathryn Swiss Nicco Wargon
Dennis Ringewaldt Derek Schubert Lawrence Szmulowicz Dave Weinstein
Andres Rivera René Schultze Gaylord Tang Ben Wellner
Norman Riveros Nikita Shalin Neal Tanner Leonardo Weyand
Kirin Robinson Daniel Sheldon Tartra Alex White
Wade Rockett Sam Sherry Paul Teece Collin White
Andrew Roddy Ekaterina Shmaylova Matt Thompson James White
Brian Rogers Cris Shuldiner Rodney Thompson Mel White
Elizabeth Rogers David Shuldiner Ruth Tillman Tim Wilde
John Rogers Steve Sigety Farkas Tivadar William
Rachel Rogers Oscar Simmons Grgo Toplak Charles Williamson
Simon Rogers Aaron Size Jenry Towle Dale Williamson
Chris Roosenraad Kristin Size Michael Towle Toby Williamson
Jodi Roosenraad Scott Slater Thomas Toynton Daniel Withrow
Kathryn Rose Rebecca Slitt Alan Traylor Luke Withrow
Betsy Rosenblatt Matt Slucas Hector Trelane witpun
Greg Rothauser Christopher Small Blake Tullo Oliver Wolf
Greg Roy Marina Smirnova Aaron Valentine Jeremy Wong
Jennifer Roy Jonathan Smith Jochem Van ‘t Hull Chihiro Yamada
Steven Roy Erik Smith Hayley Garcia Van Jeff Yaus
Zach Ruiz Alkesandr Smykin Dinther Kit Yona
Adi Rule Jay Song Rogier Garcia Van Zach
Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan Thomas Sonneberg Dinther Patrick Zammit
Max Saltonstall David South Paul Venner Ksenya Zheltova
Brenda Samler Dave Speredelozzi Viktor Vereb Zackery Zobrist
Paul San Clemente Elliot Spin Joost Vermeulen Zolzos
Kristin Sands Joshua Spin Clay Vernon
Levin Scassellati Lonnie Spin Roe Vernon
Mirin Scassellati Rebecca Spin Avi Vogel
Rowan Scassellati Steve Stanzani Artemy Volopyansky
Ralf Schemmann Lucky Starflower Mert Vuraldi
Pete “Ethain” Schlough Paul Stefko Ralf Wagner
…and people in any playtests whose names accidentally weren’t recorded. Thank you.
Special bonus thanks to Peggy O’Connell, Storn A. Cook, Matthew Breen, M. H. Grzesiak, and to
everyone in our home playtesting groups. May your canals never flood, even in rainy season, and may
you always turn a profit.
21
CHAPTER ONE: THE BASICS
Introduction
When it’s summer, you smell her before you see her. The guilds won’t have flushed the canals out yet
like they do on Scouring Day, so the smell hits you like a slap in the face. You sail up the delta of the
Serpentine River and the scent of the open sea drifts away to be replaced by the stench of low tide, of
boat tar, of rare spices spilled from a smuggler’s ship, of cooking smoke and human waste.
You can hear her, too. Bells ring out across the water and echo like the song of ghosts, loud enough to
almost drown out your sailors’ chanted prayers.
Finally, you see her. You round the bend past the salt flats and the lower fort and she’s sprawled out on
scores of islands across the sheltered water, and you gasp, and everything else falls away. Her jeweled
and crystal turrets reflect down into a shimmering bay full of hundreds of brightly colored boats.
Architecture from a dozen eras towers above a tangle of grand plazas and narrow canals. Temples to her
goddess rise above the mansions and tenements, calling her people to prayer. She may be ancient and
corrupt, slowly and inexorably swallowed by an endless bog, but she’s alive in a way most cities aren’t.
She’s a melding of faith and stone and wood and water — and mud — that’s unique in all the world.
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve come to kill a rival, earn a fortune, learn a secret or hire an army.
You’re home now, and the Sinking City will embrace you. All you need to do is survive.
Welcome to Eversink.
Concept
Swords of the Serpentine is a tabletop roleplaying game (RPG). It supports 1-7 players (with a sweet spot
of 4-5) playing fantasy heroes inspired by sword & sorcery fiction, and one Game Master (GM) who
keeps the adventure moving and plays the foes and supporting cast, also known as Supporting
Characters.
This is a game of investigation, heroism, sly politics, and bloody savagery, set in a fantasy city rife with
skulduggery and death. These rules adapt Pelgrane Press’ GUMSHOE system into a fantasy game with a
relatively loose class structure and high-action roleplaying. These rules work fine even without the
included setting of Eversink, and shine more brightly when political allegiances are closely tied to the
heroes.
About the System

In Swords of the Serpentine, following sword & sorcery-style clues while roleplaying your character
propels you headlong into mysteries and adventures filled with danger and forbidden knowledge. A clue
may let you find lost and sunken treasure, ancient jungle ruins, the lost key to a sorcerous trap, or the
identity of a charming murderer.
Your character learns and accomplishes things in the game using abilities. There are two kinds of
abilities, Investigative abilities and General abilities.
You have a rank in every ability, which gives you a pool of that many points to spend for extra benefits.
22
Spending points from any ability pool never lowers that ability’s rank. Your pool of points reduces and
increases as you spend and refresh it, but it can never exceed that ability’s rank. To use an analogy, your
ability rank is like a bucket, and the ability pool is the water currently in that bucket. You can’t overfill
the bucket, and the bucket doesn’t get any smaller as you drain the water out of it.
Investigative Abilities
GUMSHOE is all about acquiring and using information, and Investigative abilities let you find that
information by giving you key (or “core”) clues if you have the right ability for that situation. Say you’re
looking around a library. If you point out to the GM that you’re using your Research ability, you’ll find
any Research-related information automatically. You don’t need to roll for these abilities, or spend any
points to get them — you just need to ask the right questions and roleplay the right actions.
You can spend your Investigative ability points for advantages like extra information, bonus General
Ability points, or story twists. Your GM will suggest opportunities to spend points; you can also suggest
possible benefits for spending Investigative points. Spending points from an Investigative Ability does
not prevent you from using that ability to find clues.
General Abilities
General abilities represent actions in the game, and have a chance of failing.
When using a General ability you roll a six-sided die (d6) to succeed against a target number (the
Difficulty). The normal Difficulty is 4, but this may increase or decrease depending on what you’re trying
to do. You can spend pool points (p. XX) to increase your chances.
[[[Begin Designer sidebar]]]
Designer Notes: Creating House Rules

One of the advantages of a long design process is that we have the chance to select and include rules we consider
the most fun. That said, this is now your game, and you get to customize it however you like. Play it in a way that is
fun for you, and if the GM or players don’t like any of these rules, change them or leave them out. You’ll find more
thoughts on customization in Chapter Eight: GM Advice.
[[[End Designer sidebar]]]
About the Setting

Eversink
Almost a thousand years ago, the “city” of Denaria was nothing more than several dozen squalid huts
perched on a few islands in the swampy, salty river delta of the River Serpentine. The city’s patron
goddess Denari soon pushed back the swamp and raised dozens more islands from the river’s bottom.
Times have changed: close to 100,000 people dwell here now and the population soars during festivals
or major market days. Long since renamed Eversink, the city looks westward onto a rich and well-
protected sea harbor and boasts a powerful patron goddess who promotes trade and profit. Eversink is
one of the best-known cities on the continent and wields unmatched economic power.
23
In Eversink, the ringing of bells occasionally drowns out the din of endless hammering and the cries of
merchants hawking their wares. Pennants of deep blue, the crest depicting a white swan swimming
above a gold pool (or is it a coin?), flutter from rooftops and poles. Priests and merchants are
everywhere, statues adorn every building in sight, wild swans paddle beneath hundreds (perhaps
thousands) of stone or wooden bridges, and brightly painted buildings with breathtaking architecture
ignominiously stand half-sunken into the ground. Say what you want about the smell of the canals, it’s a
memorable and beautiful city.
[[[Begin Player sidebar]]]
Player Advice - “You Tell Me”

You have a responsibility alongside the GM to help create the world, so don’t be surprised when you ask
a question and they answer, “You tell me.” You will often get to customize the world unless your GM
already has something in mind, so expect to have an input into details of the setting; and to describe
where you are and what’s nearby when trouble occurs!
[[[End Player sidebar]]]
Scenes from Eversink

The best way to quickly give you a feel for the Swords of the Serpentine setting is to show you a quick
montage of what you might see within the city of Eversink. You’ll find more adventure hooks throughout
the setting chapters.
• Chanters sing prayers from the spires and gondolas of Eversink, and from the corners of narrow
streets, giving praise to the Goddess Denari as she drives the city onwards. The bells echo
overhead. There is never any doubt the Goddess is present, loving, and near.
• Marketpriests of Denari wander the beautiful and bustling Temple Market, making change for
merchants and lending money to those in need. Interest is paid with time spent volunteering,
and a default on the loan is paid with devout servitude. Few of the faithful resent their time
spent as acolytes of Denari; priests leave the church understanding the magic of coin and trade.
• A charming beggar sells “blessing stones” at a canal junction, offering simple pebbles in
exchange for a stranger’s coin. They’re just rocks, but the goddess Denari doesn’t approve of
charity — so by exchanging a pebble for someone’s kind coin, the goddess’ Blessing is
strengthened.
• Deep beneath the streets, chanting sorcerers use Corruption to burn out a priestess’ devotion to
her goddess. The priestess resists them for as long as she can, screaming defiance into a
chamber her goddess cannot reach.
• A family of ancient nobility gathers in a candlelit dining room with peeling paint and a leaky
ceiling, sitting at chairs and a table over 300 years old, surrounded by watchful statues of
relatives long dead. They eat a frugal meal of canal-fish and vegetables upon jewel-studded
plates they couldn’t possibly risk their social status to sell.
• Gondolas and barges ply the many canals of the city, scudding across filth-choked water (at least
in summer and winter) to reach many destinations that are impossible to walk to.
• An intricately carved stone bridge arches over a wide canal. At dawn, lovers pause at the edge
and throw flower petals into the water below, pledging their love.
24
• The City Watch tramps out their route, half-asleep, knowing local politics will probably prevent
them from solving the murders they’re bound to discover — and they’ll have to try regardless,
or face the Watch Commander’s wrath.
• Laughing with unbridled joy, an outlander thief scales a crystal spire, empty sacks slung across
her back. If she survives this, she’ll eat well for a year.
• In the vast courtyard of a noble estate, a mercenary army refuses to attack a neighbor and social
rival unless they’re paid in advance — with a bonus, thank you very much, or they’ll just see how
much that neighbor is willing to pay instead, won’t they?
• In the darkness of a slowly flooding tunnel, a hissing voice reveals ancient secrets to a clever
young commoner.
• An elderly woman strolls the bazaar, casually mentioning a rumor here and a rumor there,
setting wheels in motion to discredit and ruin her family’s political rival.
• A gaudily dressed and portly merchant looks up from her ledgers to learn yet ANOTHER
shipment has been hijacked, and what is she paying her guards for, anyway?
• A sorcerer stares into the spilled intestines of his foe and sees the future within them.
• Cloaked men and women pilot a shallow-draft barge through the reeking swamp, hoping this
shipment of smuggled goods will successfully bypass Eversink’s greedy and grasping reach.
• Thirteen anonymous shapes meet in a shimmering room of illusion and lies. Districts and guilds
rise and fall on a single word.
• A mighty-thewed northern warrior saunters through the Sunrise Gates, looking around in
wonder at the city before her. Her pocket is picked before she makes the first tavern. She vents
her anger on the first local foolish enough to pick a fight.
• Late at night, a tipsy noble finds himself lost without his guard in the wrong part of town — and
from the shadows, bitter commoners close in around him on every side. In the morning the
Watch will find his corpse hung from a butcher’s hook, with a sarcastic sign dangling from what’s
left of his hand.
So welcome to Swords of the Serpentine. If you want to track down foul sorcerers in a corrupt and
decadent city, clamber through underground ruins to sneak into an enemy’s home and rob them blind,
or wage a secret war against a rival political faction, you’re in the right place.
[[[Designer sidebar]]]
Designer Notes: Stream Your Game Online

Emily and Kevin here. We’ll have designer notes throughout this book to explain designer intent, point out rules
subtleties, and mention fun plot hooks.
With lots of player world-building, cinematic combat, and no battlemap required, Swords of the
Serpentine (#SerpentineRPG) works well for online play and live-play podcasts. If you want to broadcast
your game, thank you! Pelgrane Press is committed to supporting online streaming of play; see the
Swords of the Serpentine Resources page at PelgranePress.com for guidelines and advice for online
streaming.
25
[[[end sidebar]]]
[[[Begin Player sidebar]]]
26
CHAPTER TWO: YOUR HERO
Your Hero ventures out from the heart of a corrupt and tangled city. What you do in this game depends
on what drives you and who you’re allied with: you may hunt sorcerers with church inquisitors, delve
deep into flooded ruins in search of lost treasure, play politics against sly nobles to discredit a powerful
enemy, track down murderers with the City Watch, or plan breathtakingly ambitious thefts that take
place in broad daylight.
Your actions change the city, the politics, and the state of the world. You’ll learn secrets that can bring
down the mighty or raise the humble, and you’ll uncover whispers of the past that may well bring more
trouble and attention than you want. Swords of the Serpentine is more a game about power and loyalty
than it is about loot and items, and it’s a game about how your choices affect the world.
Designer Notes: What’s Most Important?

This chapter is about making your Hero. We walk you through that process and tell you everything you need
to know.
We find that creating a Hero takes ten or fifteen minutes, but we’ve made a lot of them. Most playtest groups
reported initial character creation taking about an hour for everyone, with the most time spent on thinking up
iconic gear and each Hero’s Three Best Things. To be fair, those are the most fun parts of the process.
One of the big challenges with any point-based game is analysis paralysis, trying to get your Hero just right
because otherwise you’ll be stuck with a mistake for games to come. Don’t worry about it. Not only do you
have official permission to change your Hero’s abilities after your first game when you figure out a way to
have more fun, you can just leave Build points unassigned when you start and assign them on the fly as you
play. If you want a jump start, grab an archetype from p. XX and tweak it from there.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Framing the Game

Before you make your characters, your group needs to decide what kind of game it’ll be so you’re all
pulling in the same direction. Your GM probably has an idea of the kind of story she wants to explore,
and what the tone and themes are. Discuss as a group what it will feel like, and what will it be about,
and check whether anyone has issues or concerns with the themes.
Talk to the other players about how your characters know each other. Is it through allegiances,
occupations, shared history, common goals, or something else? See “How Did Your Heroes Meet” on p.
XX for quick ideas.
27
Your character may not be particularly heroic, or they might have secrets they keep from the other
Heroes, and that’s fine. Who you and the other players choose to play will influence the type of
adventures you go on, the type of enemies you fight, and the type of mysteries you solve.
[[[begin Player sidebar]]]
Player Advice: Quick-starting Your Group’s Origin

If you want a fast and fun origin for your group of Heroes, have them act as independent problem-solvers for a
noble family (for politics), a Mercanti guild (for wealth), a thieves’ guild (for illegality), law enforcement like the
City Watch (for justice and legality), or a paid team of independent investigators working on special assignment for
the Church.. That makes your Heroes the people others come to when they need something done that can’t be
accomplished through “polite” channels, and it keeps your Heroes independent enough that they can easily strike
out on adventures of their own.
[[[end Player sidebar]]]
How Did Your Heroes Meet?

When putting together your group of Heroes, there are lots of reasons you might know each other. You
may be tied together by common interest, an employer, a shared enemy, personal history, prophecy, or
just happenstance. Your GM may decide your group is allied with a specific faction or organization
within Eversink.
Decide how you know each other, and give your characters a reason why you adventure together today.
To quickly choose your group’s origin and the tone of the campaign, pick one of the following:
Big Damn Adventurers

You’re old friends, you don’t work for anyone but yourselves, and your adventures might take you
anywhere in the city or across the world. People look at you warily because you’re an unknown
quantity; with no specialization and few loyalties beyond your own self-interest, trust from others might
be more of a challenge. Classic literary heroes from Robert E. Howard, Mercedes Lackey, or Fritz Leiber
fall into this category.
Bookhounds of Eversink
You work for, or run, a bookshop that specializes in ancient tomes of history, prophecy, and sorcery. The
Heroes act as muscle, thieves, and sages, and many of your adventures focus on finding, retrieving, or
stealing important tomes.
Alternatively, you may be the professors, staff and students of one of Eversink’s universities, researching
and exploring the city’s secrets and vast and wondrous mysteries — even as you try to procure funding
for next year. A game where the professors were from a sorcerous university would echo some of
author Terry Pratchett’s fiction.
28
Cabals and Covens
Sorcery may be the next closest thing to illegal in Eversink, but that doesn’t mean powerful and
influential sorcerers don’t have dealings there. You are master sorcerers, apprentices, and politically-
connected assistants, trying to maneuver and arrange plans in the city without being strung up by the
Inquisition. Shame you have so many other enemies here who want you dead as well…
City Watch
You are working-class officers in Eversink’s City Watch, headquartered in a selected district and focusing
on crime both there and across the city. Drawing inspiration from novels by Terry Pratchett, this type of
adventure focuses on mysteries, solving crimes, and negotiating complex politics while you try to keep
the city safe.
Do-Gooders
You’re making the world a better place. Whether you’re ensuring beleaguered commoners are fed and
housed, scouring self-interested politicians and officials from the government, or brokering peace
between warring cabals of sorcerers and their mercenaries, you specialize in doing what’s right. When
true evil rears its head, you may well be the only people worthy to fight it.
Family Business
You may be a prestigious member of the ancient nobility, the merchant princes behind a major Mercanti
guild, or even a close-knit family of commoners who have taken up a life of crime. For you, family is
everything — and when family and friends get threatened by personal or political enemies, you turn to
heroics to get your own back. This style of game deals with family politics and social pressure as much as
external threats; you may have just slipped into a rival’s office to poison their wine, but is that going to
make your mother proud of you?
Freelance Slinks
You solve other people’s problems... assuming they can pay. You’re investigators (sometimes called
“slinks”), and you’re beholden to no one but yourselves. Some difficult security work, more than a little
theft, a smattering of backmail, occasional exploration of very dangerous places, and a lot of
investigations — you handle it all. This type of game treats the Heroes like noir detectives, fighting
darkness and corruption deep in the heart of the city.
Government Agents
You’re elite government problem-solvers who chase down mysterious prophecies from state-sanctioned
seers. You work alongside members of the Black Swans, Eversink’s secret police, and you often work
directly for the secret rulers of the city themselves. Making sense of divinations helps you untangle any
number of different problems and mysteries in the city. In this type of game, you act with governmental
authority; use it wisely!
Other forms of governmental teams are also possible. If you’ve ever wanted to play a combat
accountant, leading a group of elite tax collectors who get assigned challenging scofflaws to track down
for smuggling and tax evasion, this is the game for it.
29
Infidels
Like religion but hate Denari, Goddess of Eversink? Make your adventuring team all worshippers or
initiates of a tiny cult to a forgotten small god. Or hey, declare that your Hero is an avatar of the god
made flesh. The god (more of a spirit right now, really) can be a deity of literally anything you want. It
probably dwells inside your sorcerer to give them power, and will give you blessings as long as you
venerate it. Grow their worship — and take Denari down a peg or two in the process.
Inquisitors
You belong to the Church of Denari and act as Her inquisitors, church militant, prophets, diplomats, and
agents in the world. You sniff out heresy and corruption, you expose traitors in the city, you kill
monstrosities, and you bring the word (and coin) of Denari to whomever needs it most. If you want a
game focused on religious mysteries, demon-hunting, and villainous sorcerers, this is a fun way to
arrange it.
Misbegotten Soldiers
You all belong to a mercenary company, your own or one you’ve signed up with. You get sent on
dangerous assignments for little pay, usually to kill someone who’s getting the same raw deal from their
end. Even when missions seem suicidal, it’s up to you to carry them out. This style of play lets you echo
author Glen Cook’s The Black Company.
Spider’s Web
Information is power, power means wealth, and in Eversink it’s the information brokers and spies who
know that best of all. Either you all work for an information broker, gathering rumors and blackmail
material, or one of you is the broker and has to navigate a minefield of political challenges and threats. If
you think Littlefinger or Lord Varys in Game of Thrones has an interesting job, this is a great choice for a
campaign framework.
Thick as Thieves
You belong to a thieves’ guild, either your own private guild that you run or a much larger guild you’ve
sworn allegiance to. You’ll spend your time dodging the City Watch, running cons, stealing wealth,
spying, and getting into some fascinating trouble. This style of game draws inspiration from Scott
Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora.
[[LAYOUT NOTE: Please format this as a one-page handout]]
Creating a Character Quick Reference

Once you’ve set the tone and theme for your group’s game, follow these steps for making a
character in Swords of the Serpentine.
1. Choose a character Professsion (see p. XX).

a. Sentinel: likely trained in law and the subtleties of detecting crime, you’re adept at
knowing how crimes are committed... which may well make you an expert in
committing them yourself.
30
b. Sorcerer: whether you’re possessed by a demon or you’re the heir to ancient Serpentine
secrets, you manipulate fell and forbidden magic.
c. Thief: you may be a lowly street thief or a charming con artist, but you’re skilled in
taking what other people possess — secrets, influence or wealth.
d. Warrior: you focus on dealing death through warfare, whether you’re a mercenary, an
outlander barbarian, or a suave duelist.
e. Mixture: mix and match Investigative Profession abilities to create your own
combination.
2. Note a few Adjectives to describe your Hero and write down your three favorite things in life
(see p. XX).
3. Assign Investigative Build Points according to the number of players and choose Investigative
Abilities (p. XX).
4. Decide your Allegiances (p. XX) – assign 2 Build Points to Allies (both to the same Ally, or one
each to two Allies) and 1 Build Point to an Enemy. Your Ally and Enemy can be the same
faction!
5. Assign 30 General Build Points (see p. XX) to your General abilities.
6. Assign Health and Morale (see p. XX), splitting 18 Build Points between the two, with a
minimum of 3 in each.
7. Give yourself Health and Morale Thresholds of 3; if your Health or Morale Is 10 or higher, that
threshold will be a 4.
8. If you have any ranks of Corruption, decide whether your Sorcery targets your enemies’ Health
or Morale. Pick one Sorcerous Sphere (the theme and appearance of your spells) for every rank
of Corruption you possess. See p. XX.
9. Write down 5 or more pieces of minor, iconic gear that help define who you are (see p. XX).
10. Give yourself 1 point of Grit (see p. XX). Grit helps reduce Morale damage.
11. You start with no Wealth (see p. XX) and you’ll start with No Repute (see p. XX) for the first
adventure.
12. Name yourself. Most people in Eversink have fantasy names based on medieval Italian names
(there are plenty of lists online), but there’s nothing magical about that naming scheme, so
name your Hero something you love.
You’re ready to go!
[[End one-page handout]]
Sample Character
[[Layout – please format as character sheet]]
Pallia Vitturi (sometimes called “Murk”), part-time thief

Driven, acquisitive, curious, amused, professional
Drives (what is best in life?): Doing a hard thing well; perfect timing; stealing what others don’t
appreciate or deserve
Defenses – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (handmade and tailored leather armor), Health 10
31
Defenses – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 1 (stubbornness), Morale 8
Offense – Sway: Sway 3: Damage Modifier +1 (wit)
Offense – Warfare: Warfare 5: Damage Modifier +1 (exquisitely forged long knife)
Investigative abilities: Charm 2, Command 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Nobility 1; City’s Secrets 1, Ridiculous Luck 2,
Scurrilous Rumors 1, Skullduggery 2
Allegiances: Allies: Mercanti 1, Mercenaries 1; Enemy: Ancient Nobility 1
General abilities: Athletics 8 (Dodge), Burglary 5, Preparedness 1, Stealth 8 (Where’d She Go?), Sway 3,
Warfare 5
Gear: A talent for delegation; a stream of party invitations from high society; three (!) arranged
marriages you’ve now avoided; a practical knowledge and love of weapon-smithing; an unread copy of
your family’s biography, “The Armory of Death”; clerical responsibilities for the Guild of Smiths that you
handle effortlessly; an exquisite long dagger you yourself forged (Damage Modifier +1); beautifully-
made leather armor (Armor 1); an anxious mother; a lucky finger-bone from a less-lucky thief
[[end character sheet format]]
Character Professions
Four professions are common: sentinel, sorcerer, thief, and warrior. Professions are defined by the role
you feel your Hero plays, not by the point distribution on your character sheet. These are part of your
character concept and guide your choice of abilities later on.
Sentinel
As a sentinel you may be a Church Inquisitor, a member of the City Watch, an informer for Eversink’s
secret police, a scout for smugglers, or an inspector for the Mercanti. You typically have an eye for
detail, an exhaustive knowledge of rules and regulations, and a keen sense for criminal activity (whether
you encourage it or try to stop it). Some Sentinels can sense ghosts and see into the spirit realm that
overlays the true world.
[[[Designer Sidebar]]]
Designer Notes: Sentinels

Early in the game design sentinels were called investigators, which is an awful name for heroes in a sword &
sorcery adventure. They’re as close to traditional detectives or law enforcement as this game has. Their Laws and
Traditions ability gives them lots of fun narrative control to declare something legal or illegal, and their ability to
see spirits gives them insight into ghosts and demons that no other profession can touch. A more holy version
might be similar to a paladin, infused with the power of their god to bring the unrighteous to justice; all you’d need
to change is how you describe their abilities working.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Sorcerer
As a sorcerer you may know rare and hidden secrets, know how to heal the sick (or how to kill more
quickly), be able to prophesy the future, and know the corrupt keys to sorcerous power. Sorcery may
take a hundred different forms, but tapping into your true power is dangerous to your allies and deadly
to Eversink’s patron goddess. Powerful sorcery causes Corruption, and Corruption is illegal in Eversink. If
32
you wish to avoid persecution, you may have to limit your power, keep your skills secret, or to be so
powerful and politically connected that few dare challenge you. There’s no “good” magic when it comes
to sorcery; whether true power stems from the writings of the ancient and inhuman snake-people or is a
gift from forgotten demons, the source of all sorcery is foul and corrupt.
Player Advice: When is a Sorcerer Not a Sorcerer?

It’s possible you want to play a sorcerer but prefer not to face the trade-offs that come with Corruption. If so, take
heart! It’s common in sword & sorcery novels (such as Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian) for “sorcerers” to
exercise their powers through semi-magical alchemical dusts, dread poisons, and even mesmerism. If you prefer
this approach, talk to your GM about the Thaumaturgy rules on p. XX.
Thief
You specialize in secrets. Thieves may attack with word or blade, and they’re equally treacherous with
either. You probably know the alleys and canals of Eversink better than anyone else. You may be
incredibly lucky, you’re likely skilled at gathering information through illegal means, and you are tied
into the web of gossip and scurrilous rumor that circulates throughout the city.
Warrior
You’re an expert at the art of warfare. As a warrior you primarily make your way through the world by
force of arms, whether you’re a duelist, a brute, a mercenary, or a foreign barbarian. You are likely
skilled at surviving in the wilderness, battling monsters, spotting your foe’s weaknesses, and
understanding deadly battle tactics.
Mixing and Matching

These professions are customizable and can easily be adapted to specific literary or fantasy models. If
you want to recreate your favorite magical sneak thief or outlander barbarian from movies or novels, it’s
easy to do so. Think of these four professions as guidelines instead of straitjackets when you create a
Hero. You could focus your Hero’s Investigative abilities on sorcery but still call her a thief because she’s
excellent at Burglary, she uses her sorcery to steal, and “thief” is how she thinks of herself. These four
categories are themes to help focus your choices as you create your Hero, not unbreakable constraints.
Adjectives and Drives

Adjectives
Jot down some adjectives on the character sheet that encapsulate your Hero’s personality. This provides
a fast reference for how you act when you face a difficult decision. It’s particularly useful when building
characters for one-shot games.
33
You want to play a young woman recruited by the Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers, one
of the most prestigious guilds in the city — and one with a secret. You write down:
Young, fiery, opinionated, loyal, never forgives a betrayal
You can change these later, but it’s a fast way to remember how she reacts, and knowing her
personality will help guide your choices when roleplaying or when picking abilities during
character creation.
[[[Begin Designer Sidebar]]]
Designer Notes: Drives

The game is designed so that you can pick up a new character sheet and know everything you need to know about
the Hero from their Adjectives, their Drives, and their Gear (which sounds odd, but it’ll make sense, we promise).
As a result, Drives are a really handy way to summarize the things your Hero holds most dear. They’re fun to
create, and ideally capture the most important reasons you willingly throw yourself into a life of adventure.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Drives
Once you know more about your character’s personality, answer this question from the 1982 Conan
movie: what three things are best in life?
These are your Drives. Write down the three answers to this question on the top of your character
sheet.
Invoke your Drives to emphasize your personality, and to gain a small bonus when it really matters.
Your Drives will change over the course of your adventuring career because your experiences will
change who you are and what makes you happy. Adjust your Drives whenever you need to, and let your
GM know you have.
Player Advice: Describing Your Abilities

Swords of the Serpentine pays attention to the mechanical results of your abilities, leaving it up to you to describe
how they work and what they look like. You may decide your Hero is a Marketpriest who is an extremely charming
individual, and people just like her whenever they meet her. Alternatively, you may decide your Marketpriest has
the power of the goddess Denari flowing through her, and that this divine charisma wins over anyone she meets.
In both cases, you’d represent this by starting with 1 or more ranks of the Investigative ability Charm. The
mechanical result is the same — people like your Hero enough to tell them secrets — but the two characters feel
very different because of how they’re described.
Similarly, the first character may practice their Bind Wounds ability with leeches, poultices and plenty of bandages
to keep someone up and running in the middle of a fight. The second character might describe their Bind Wounds
ability as divine healing from the Goddess. There is no mechanical difference between the two, but the ignorant or
deeply faithful you meet in Eversink may have more respect for the latter.
34
When you’re building your Hero, think about what you want them to look and sound like, and then describe their
abilities accordingly.
Investigative Abilities
Investigative abilities define what you know and how you interact with other people in the world. These
abilities always work; without ever having to roll a die, they let you discover leads and clues that push
you farther into the adventure.
Your Hero has 1 rank of the Investigative ability Leechcraft, giving you extensive medical
knowledge. When investigating the corpse of your poisoned friend, tell the GM you’re using
Leechcraft, and if there are any Leechcraft-related clues on the body, the GM will give you those
clues. It’s then up to you to interpret them.
Even one rank in an Investigative ability means you’re proficient in that field of knowledge. It’s rare to
see anyone with more than three ranks in any given Investigative ability.
You can spend points from your Investigative ability pools to gain special abilities and do remarkable
things. Details on these special benefits is on p. XX. Spent Investigative points can’t be refreshed until
the next adventure, but you don’t stop being knowledgeable in a subject just because you spent one or
more points.
Scale for Investigative Abilities

• Rank 0 in an Investigative ability means you cannot use it to gather leads
• Rank 1 in the ability makes you proficient at it
• Rank 2 makes you an expert
• Rank 3 indicates remarkable knowledge or aptitude in that area
• Rank 4 suggests you’re one of the best in the city in this area
• Rank 5 indicates you are one of the best in that ability that most people will ever meet
Without GM approval, you may not exceed rank 5 in any Investigative ability.
Designer Notes: Organizing Investigative Abilities

We like the idea of splitting up Investigative abilities into Social abilities, Profession abilities, and Alliances, even
though they all work the same way. It gives you a fast place to look when you just want to remind yourself what
your personality is; it lets you design an incredibly social Hero who seems to know everyone but who has zero
profession abilities; and it makes homebrewing new professions a whole lot easier.
[[[end sidebar]]]
35
Refreshing Investigative Ability Points
Unless the GM specifically indicates otherwise (sometimes as a story reward, or when a single adventure
stretches out for more than two sessions of play), spent Investigative pool points only refresh at the end
of an adventure. They cannot be refreshed in any other way, including by Refresh tokens.
Initial Build Points for Investigative Abilities

The Investigative ability Build Points you can spend during character creation varies based on the
number of Heroes. If there’s a Hero whose player you don’t expect to attend regularly, disregard them
for the purposes of determining the number of players.
# of players Investigative Build Points

1 14 (see p. XX)
2 13
3 12
4 11
5+ 10
As well as these, new characters also receive 3 additional Investigative Build Points which must be spent
on Allegiances — 2 for Allies and 1 for Enemies. Assigning Allegiance points is discussed on p. XX.
When creating a character, you gain 1 bonus Investigative Build Point if you choose all your initial
profession-specific abilities from the same type. You can spend this bonus point on any Social ability,
Allegiance, or for one more rank of one of your Profession abilities.
Crafting a thief for a five-player game, you start with 10 Investigative Build Points. You decide to
purchase 6 ranks of Social abilities and 1 rank each of Profession abilities City’s Secrets,
Ridiculous Luck, Scurrilous Rumors, and Skulduggery. All of your profession-specific abilities are
in the thief profession, so you gain a bonus Build Point.
Build Points don’t all need to be spent before play begins. Leaving a few points unallocated can give you
flexibility when you really need a particular ability during an adventure. You don’t even need to spend
any Build Points on Profession abilities at all if you want a Hero who focuses only on Social Investigative
abilities and Allegiances; such a Hero still gains the bonus Build Point.
Player Advice: How to Distribute your Investigative Build Points

When assigning Investigative Build Points, you can pick a balance between raw power, influence, and flexibility.
• If you spread your Build Points out between lots of abilities, not initially putting more than 1 or 2 points into
any one ability, you’ll gain tremendous flexibility. In exchange you’ll limit how much damage you can do in any
one attack, and you probably aren’t renowned for being astonishing at any one thing.
36
• If you focus your Build Points into fewer abilities, each with more ranks, you’ll gain quite a bit of power in that
area and be able to inflict considerably more damage when you’re pulling out all the stops during a climactic
fight. You’ll also develop something of a reputation. In exchange, you’re going to lack flexibility while
adventuring and have fewer opportunities to find leads and clues.
It’s the classic trade-off with specialization: is it more fun to be really good at fewer things, or solid at a lot of
things? The answer to that will change from Hero to Hero.
List of Investigative Abilities
Description Page
Ability Name Type
Number
Charm Social People like you, or find you attractive XX
You know the back streets and
City’s Secrets Profession/Thief hidden truths of cities XX
People listen to you when you give

them orders
Command Social XX
You can tap into the foul source of

Corruption Profession/Sorcerer sorcery for knowledge and power XX
You can spot warning signs of crime

and criminal behavior
Felonius Intent Profession/Sentinel XX
You know facts, legends, and trivia

Forgotten Lore Profession/Sorcerer others have long forgotten XX
Intimidation Social Others find you terrifying XX

You know legends or secrets about
Know Monstrosities Profession/Warrior non-human creatures, including their XX
tactics and motivations
You know the (often obscure) laws

Laws & Traditions Profession/Sentinel and traditions of wherever you live XX
You can diagnose ailments and know

Leechcraft Profession/Sorcerer how to cause or heal diseases, XX
injuries and poison
37
You usually know when you’re being
Liar’s Tell Social lied to XX
You fit in with the upper crust, who

Nobility Social treat you with special privilege XX
You can prophesy secrets from the

Prophecy Profession/Sorcerer past, present or future XX
You’re far luckier than most people,

Ridiculous Luck Profession/Thief and stumble on leads others might XX
miss
Bribery, gossip, and whispered

Scurrilous Rumors Profession/Thief secrets help you learn what others XX
have done
You fit in with common people, and

Servility Social tend to fade into the background XX
You can find out hidden information

Skulduggery Profession/Thief through reprehensible methods such XX
as blackmail, spying, and shadowing
You can see into the spirit realm, and

Spirit Sight Profession/Sentinel may sense ghosts or Corruption XX
You notice and exploit weaknesses in

armor, objects, and structures; and
Spot Frailty Profession/Warrior you might even see weakness in XX
people’s personalities, allowing you
to manipulate them emotionally
You can read fight scenes and

Tactics of Death Profession/Warrior understand military tactics XX
You can make people angry enough

to monologue at you
Taunt Social XX
People want to trust you unless you

Trustworthy Social give them a reason not to XX
You notice tiny details others might

Vigilance Profession/Sentinel miss, making you seldom surprised XX
You can navigate, survive, and even

Wilderness Mastery Profession/Warrior thrive outside of cities XX
38
Player Advice: Remembering How Ranks Work

The first thing everyone asks is “If I spend my point of Charm, do I get less charming?” Nope. Spending these
doesn’t make you any worse at Charm. You get leads because you have ranks of Investigative abilities. But once
per adventure for every rank you have, you can spend a pool point of Charm to accomplish something particularly
cool. Don’t be shy about spending those pool points, either; every remaining point unspent at the end of an
adventure is a lost opportunity to do extra damage or do something cool.
Social Investigative Abilities

Social Investigative abilities can be selected regardless of your profession. Each rank purchased costs 1
Investigative Build point.
Charm
Whether through flattery, flirting, or sorcerous mind control, you’re so charming or desirable other
people are willing to reveal their secrets just to get your attention.
Sample Spend: Make a supporting character trust, like, love, or be infatuated with you. The more points
you spend, the deeper their affection (or lust). For a 2+ point spend, an enemy may betray their allies for
you, or spare your life in hopes of impressing you.
Command
You know how to order others around. Mercenaries, soldiers, and guards accept you as one of their
own, and you can walk into a room and immediately act like you belong there.
Sample Spend: Get crowds to follow your orders, particularly in chaotic circumstances. Give orders to
those who believe themselves to be your subordinates, or spend 2 points to order around people who
aren’t quite sure who you are or why you’re important.
[[[Begin GM sidebar]]]
GM Advice: Best in the World

During playtesting someone made their Hero with 5 ranks of Command, something that wouldn’t normally have
occurred to us. I mean, sure, you can theoretically make a specialized Hero who only has two Investigative abilities
of 5 ranks each, but is that fun?
It sure was in this case. When a player does this, they’re saying “I want to be the best in the world at this thing.” So
let them! 5 ranks of Command meant that people looked to him to be in charge. When he gave a command no one
dared refuse. People kept hounding him to act as their general, their leader, and their spokesperson. Strangers
would gossip about his personal magnetism — was it natural? Was it from a god? Was it sorcerous? — and you can
39
bet that his reputation preceded him. His enemies were terrified of this inexplicable command and wanted him
recruited or dead.
You won’t see them very often, but a Hero like this is handing you a year’s worth of plot hooks, and the game
hasn’t even started yet. Embrace it.
[[[end GM sidebar]]]
Intimidation
You can terrify others into doing what you want or into telling you what they know. Make no mistake:
they aren’t going to be happy about helping you, because you’re intimidating them into it, but they’ll tell
you regardless.
Sample Spend: Bully a supporting character into obeying you even after you’ve left the area.
Liar’s Tell
You can usually tell when you’re being deliberately lied to, and when people are trying to distract you
from the truth. You may also be able to tell when someone is being sorcerously mind controlled.
Nearly everyone lies, and there are a lot of reasons someone might not be telling the truth. Liar’s Tell
won’t tell you what that truth is or why they’re obscuring it, but it will indicate when a deliberate lie is
being told. Certain individuals may be so skilled at lying that they never set off your Liar’s Tell. Some
people believe their own falsehoods. While Liar’s Tell will not function on everyone, it will never give
you a false positive or false negative.
Sample Spend: Gain great insight into why a person may be lying, even if it doesn’t tell you what the
truth actually is. The knowledge of the lie may allow you to manipulate them or pry out the truth.
Need to lie to someone and have it believed? Spending a point of Liar’s Tell makes it less likely other
people question your lie, because your body language and delivery are flawless. Unlikely information
may still be questioned, but others won’t believe you’re deliberately telling a falsehood.
Nobility
You fit in with the nobility and other rich and powerful people of social prominence, and you can easily
make small talk with them. They likely accept you as one of their own. You can dress fashionably for any
occasion (if you can afford or steal the clothes), recite your lineage, make your way past gatekeepers
determined to keep out the riff-raff, learn specific or relevant gossip about a rich or important person,
follow proper social conventions, and identify the best wine, liquor, and art. People won’t always like
you, but they see you as socially important. The more ranks of Nobility you have, the more important
people think you are.
Sample Spend: Manipulate others through your social status, convincing them they will be socially
humiliated if they don’t do as you suggest. Establish you’re skilled at unusual hobbies favored by the
nobility, whether hunting a commoner through a nature reserve (for fun, of course, those old illegal
hunts died out many generations ago) or singing complex hymns once taught only to the nobility.
40
Servility
People tend to forget your name. An expert at cringing, bootlicking and truckling to those of higher
station, you appear so socially inconsequential that others ignore you or disregard you as a potential
threat. You hear secrets that people don’t think you’re important enough to understand, and you’re
overlooked when enemies consider their security risks, sometimes allowing you to hide in plain sight by
taking on the role of a beggar or servant. The more ranks of Servility you possess, the less important you
appear.
Sample Spend: Manipulate an attacker into attacking someone else instead, since you seem so servile
and inconsequential. If knocked unconscious, a 1-point spend will cause your enemy to disregard you
and spare your life.
Taunt
You are an expert at infuriating others, making them so angry that they let their secrets slip while
berating you and monologuing. You can goad them through insults, sarcasm, disdain, or public
humiliation. You know when a threat against you is sincere, and you know how to drive your foes into a
furious need to explain how clever they truly are.
Sample Spend: Goad an enemy or enemies into attacking you or paying attention to you, instead of an
ally who would rather stay unnoticed. Incite a crowd into jeering insults or actual mob violence against a
person or organization you wish targeted; the larger the crowd, the more points you’ll need to spend.
You can also spend pool points of Taunt to trick two supporting characters or adversaries into arguing
with each other.
Trustworthy
You can make people trust you, and you can reassure people even in the most terrible of circumstances.
When things go poorly, others turn to you for help. People tell you secrets and give you information
because they trust you not to misuse it. (Whether you do misuse it, of course, is entirely up to you.
Trustworthy is a must-have ability for any con artist.)
Sample Spend: Pass a bald-faced lie off as the truth without anyone immediately questioning you.
People look to you for inspiration and support. A 1-point spend of Trustworthy can restore 6 points of
Morale to an ally, as long as you have at least 1 rank of the General ability Sway. If you don’t, or if you’re
trying to restore your own low Morale, a 1-point spend restores 3 points of Morale.
You and your friends tend to trust your judgment over that of others. A 1-point spend can give you or an
ally Grit 4 for one round or Grit 2 for a scene. (Grit works like Armor against Morale Damage – for more
details, see p. XX.)
A 1-point spend in the middle of a fight may get your foe to stop and talk to you for at least a moment
instead of continuing to attack. This conversation lasts until anyone attacks the reassured enemy, or
until it’s dramatically appropriate for the conversation to conclude. This use of Trustworthy is handy for
buying time when it’s needed the most and for solving misunderstandings that lead to combat. If your
GM decides that the foe isn’t going to stop and listen at all, you don’t lose the points you tried to spend.
41
Profession Investigative Abilities
Each profession has four unique abilities specific to them. These cost 1 Investigative Build Point per rank.
Starting your character with profession-specific abilities from only one profession gives you a bonus
Build Point.
[[[sidebar]]]
Player Advice: Trying the Wrong Ability

Sometimes you won’t be successful in getting a clue from a supporting character because you’re trying an ability
that doesn’t make any sense given the circumstances. The incredibly proud noble isn’t going to respond well to
being Intimidated in front of her peers; and trying to Command the head of the City Watch in front of his
subordinates is just going to earn you an enemy. Common sense should be your guide here, and don’t hesitate to
ask your GM first if you aren’t sure what a reasonable approach might be.
Don’t fret too much if this happens to you. Gaining a personal enemy or rival by staying true to your personality
might be an incredibly fun role-playing moment.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Sentinel Investigative Abilities

Felonious Intent
You have insight into the criminal and villainous mind. You can predict how nefarious activity is about to
occur, or understand how it did, and you can easily identify the guilty. You notice ambush opportunities
and see weaknesses in security. Walk into a marketplace and you spot the pickpockets, the likely
hustlers, and the thieves. If you’re planning on committing a crime, you’ll know how the Watch will try
to track you down.
Sample Spend: A 1-point spend can generate a knowledgeable and helpful contact who owes you a
favor, such as a Watch officer or minor criminal from your past.
A 1-point spend of Felonious Intent will allow you to act as a bodyguard for one attack, taking the place
of another person in Point-Blank range who is the subject of a Health attack or Maneuver. The attack or
Maneuver is instead resolved as if you were the target. Your Health Threshold and Armor applies,
instead of theirs. You may make this spend and act as a bodyguard even if you have already taken your
turn that round.
Laws and Traditions
You know the many obscure laws and traditions of both Eversink and its primary religion, the penalties
for breaking the law, and how to manipulate Eversink’s policies and procedures. When something or
someone violates the law in your presence, you notice. You understand bureaucracy and know how to
navigate labyrinthine organizations and cut through (or arrange for) red tape.
Sample Spend: Make up an obscure but applicable church dictate or city ordinance that then becomes
canon for the rest of the campaign. Spend pool points to keep someone arrested without rumor
escaping, or to pull strings from someone in government and gain a favor for your faction; the number
42
of pool points required depends on the importance of the person and the magnitude of the favor you
ask.
Spirit Sight
You glimpse the edges of the spirit world. You can sense corrupted areas of the city by seeing the
weaknesses in the barriers between the mortal and spirit worlds. You can sense ghosts if you look for
them and can tell when an area is haunted. By looking carefully, you can tell if a person is cursed or
possessed. If you know a ghost’s true name (see p. XX), you can summon and compel them to speak to
you.
You may pull back the veil and gaze fully into the spirit world, but the horror of doing so is emotionally
taxing. You will take between 1 and 8 points of Morale damage, as determined by your GM and based
on the enormity and horror of what you observe; Grit reduces this damage. You’ll see and possibly talk
to ghosts fully, and likely be able to guess how they died; you’ll see the after-images of well-loved but
long-forgotten buildings; and you’ll be able to see any insubstantial monstrosities within line of sight.
Possessing Spirit Sight can be politically dangerous. The Church of Denari considers those blessed with
(as they call it) Inquisitor’s Gaze to be hand-picked by the Goddess, and by ecclesiastical law such people
are remanded to the church for training as Inquisitors. It isn’t uncommon for people who prefer to avoid
a life of faith to keep their Spirit Sight secret.
Sample Spend: Spend 1 pool point to gain both Armor and Grit for the scene equal to your Spirit Sight
rank, effective only against sorcery attacks and attacks from adversaries with the Insubstantial special
ability.
Spirit Sight can be spent to heal the psychic pollution left by sorcerous Corruption; by reaching into the
spirit world you literally start to knit reality back together in that spot, although it’s not always a simple
process. See p. XX for details.
Spend 1 point to remove the Insubstantial special ability from a creature for a scene, but for interaction
or combat with you alone; your attacks reach into the spirit world to affect it. Spend 2 points to entirely
remove the Insubstantial special ability from a creature for a scene. It will appear ghostly but will be
solid to the touch and vulnerable to normal attacks, fully dragged into your world.
There are ever-shifting spaces in Eversink where the barrier into the spirit world is particularly thin and
you can step across, usually where Corruption has occurred. Only if your GM allows, spend a point to
fully enter the spirit world for one scene, and two points to bring your party with you. This may cause
damage to body and mind, but you’ll feel the effects with enough time to escape back to the real world
before the experience kills you. For more about the spirit world and the dangers therein, see p. XX.
Designer Notes: Seeing Ghosts

Spirit Sight started out as being called “Inquisitor’s Gaze”, but we realized early that the ability was too
interesting to limit to just church inquisitors. With Spirit Sight you can see demons and spirits, rip away
43
the mortal veil to see the spirit world that underlies reality, and gain leads by talking to ghosts. Spirits
spend most of their time in the spirit world, especially after they’ve been dead for some time, but
they’re attracted to spots of Corruption, and a newly murdered ghost may manifest and haunt the place
of their death or a place particularly important to them, instead of waiting within the spirit world for the
funerary statue that will usher their spirit to paradise.
Have fun with this. Have some ghosts be hostile and some friendly, and let Heroes occasionally solve a
murder by talking to a ghost, because sometimes the real challenge is tracking down and apprehending
the murderer and not just finding out who they are.
Heroes with multiple ranks of Spirit Sight might see and chat with ghosts all the time, or perhaps they
channel ghosts during a séance, or they allow ghosts to possess them. The player and GM should agree
on what’s fun, remembering that different Heroes can use this ability in different ways.
We think there’s an amazing adventure to be had by walking out of the living world into the spirit world,
and walking back through the ghost of the city to discover what really happened in the past. We just
haven’t written it yet.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Vigilance
Every rank of Vigilance you possess increases your Alertness Modifier by +1 (see p. XX). You have a
remarkable eye for detail and notice small and unusual details around you, seeing clues or leads that
others might miss. You spot subtleties and inconsistencies someone else might gloss over. You’re more
likely to spot hidden passages, traps, disguised imposters, and unexpected secrets.
Sample Spend: Gain an additional +3 Alertness Modifier to notice someone or something hidden. A
spend (usually prompted by the GM) will let you notice signs of an ambush before it has been sprung.
Spend a point to go first in the initiative order at the start of a fight, or to seize the initiative order from
a foe.
Sorcerer Investigative Abilities

Corruption
This ability unlocks the General ability Sorcery, and you can’t gain ranks of Sorcery without at least one
rank of Corruption. Gain one Sorcerous Sphere for every rank of Corruption you possess (see p. XX).
There’s no such thing as “good” sorcery in Swords of the Serpentine, and ranks in Corruption indicate
that you have somehow found a way to access the source of Corruption and twist it into doing your will.
The two most common methods for learning sorcery are possession by a demon and finding ancient
writings from the Serpentine empire (see p. XX). Other methods, such as speaking to the dead or striking
a bargain with a small god, are also possible.
Ranks in Corruption give knowledge of curses, rituals, ancient gods and dark traditions. You can sense
the scars in Eversink left by past Corruption spends. Knowledge of Corruption also allows you to identify
44
a faint “signature” from other sorcerers where Corruption has occurred, enabling you to recognize their
sorcery if you encounter it again.
Sample Spend: Spending even one point of Corruption creates powerful magical effects but always
allows Corruption to seep into the world. You have the choice to either internalize the Corruption
(changing your body in tiny or sizeable ways) or externalize it (polluting the area around you and
possibly terrifying your allies). See p. XX for details on how these options function.
Spend pool points to increase the power of your sorcerous spells or to use your power in
unconventional ways, such as exceptional damage and unique spells; see p. XX.
You can spend all your remaining Corruption points at once to level a Curse at a foe. See p. XX for
details.
Forgotten Lore
You’re a repository of legends and superstitions, as well as political, historical, and general lore. You
learn languages quickly and you know historical trivia, forgotten stories, old truths, and half-
remembered rhymes about the near-mythical past. This is your catch-all ability for remembering, or
being able to track down, essential information that most people just wouldn’t remember.
In addition to the normal fluency in a mother tongue that everyone has, every rank of Forgotten Lore
allows you to be fluent in two additional known languages, decided whenever it would be useful to
declare your fluency. See p. XX for more about languages.
Sample Spend: You know ancient secrets that make your sorcerous knowledge more dangerous; every
pool point you spend adds an additional die of damage to a successful Sorcery attack. Spend one or
more points to create a protective ward (see p. XX) that briefly reduces damage to you or your allies.
Use Forgotten Lore to help world-build. You can spend 1 pool point to establish a new fact about the
world. If your new fact conflicts with a truth that the GM has already established, usually she’ll either
accept your truth instead or she’ll give you your pool point back.
“There doesn’t seem to be an heir? My Forgotten Lore tells me that the family line might not
really be dead, and they supposedly changed their name and moved across the city. Let’s go see
if we can track them down!”
Note that with your GM’s permission, any player can help world-build at any time. Forgotten Lore
spends just let you do so at a time when it’s immediately advantageous to you.
Leechcraft
With 1 rank of Leechcraft you have enough experience in folk medicine to diagnose poisons and
diseases, treat illnesses (usually with disgusting poultices), and determine cause of death. When
someone suffers from an injury, disease, or poison, you can tell how sick they are and their chances of
recovering. You learn any injury-related or health-related leads from corpses you examine.
With 2 or more ranks of Leechcraft, you likely have formal training as a physician, and rely more on
known facts than on old superstitions. It’s just about as effective, but you sound much more
authoritative about your knowledge.
45
Sample Spend: Spend 1 pool point to wake up someone who is unconscious.
If you have at least 1 rank of Bind Wounds, a 1-point Leechcraft spend will restore 6 Health for an ally. If
you don’t have any ranks of Bind Wounds, or if you’re trying to heal yourself, the spend heals 3 Health
instead.
Spend points to give someone a disease or to poison them. In combat this poison can be as simple as
inflicting an extra die of damage per pool point spent, or be more complex, as described on p. XX.
If you are treating disease or poison, every pool point of Leechcraft you spend can give the victim a
cumulative +3 on their next Health or Morale test to resist the affliction, and will often give them an
immediate test to lessen their symptoms. Describe your cure however you wish, even if it has no basis
as a cure in the real world. So long as your patient makes their next Health test against the ailment, the
cure you prescribe will work.
Your ally seems to be suffering from a virulent foreign plague. You prescribe a poultice of dung
and chicken blood, moistened by a widow’s tears and held to the neck for 12 hours by a silk
cloth. You spend 2 points of Leechcraft. Your ally gets +6 on their next Health test against the
disease, succeeds, and begins to recover due to your help.
Alternatively, your Hero is very faithful to Denari, and you decide to describe your Leechcraft as
divine inspiration that triggers magical healing. When you see a plague victim, you place a coin
on their tongue and pray to the goddess. You spend 1 point of Leechcraft, you describe golden
light flowing from your fingers, and your patient gets +3 on their next Health test against the
disease.
Prophecy
You can prophesy (or interpret others’ prophecy); see glimpses of the past, present, or future; and even
use your oracular knowledge to influence future events. Whether you’re reading dreams, studying the
murmuration of 50,000 seagulls, or poking through the intestines of a gutted foe, knowledge of
Prophecy means that you can sense the location of unknown leads.
This is a handy Investigative ability in that it can provide a path forward when all else is lost. Your GM
may use it to steer you towards leads you might otherwise miss. Prophecy can also be used in a more
focused manner, deliberately looking for signs so you learn where to look for more information about a
specific lead. Some leads might only be obtainable through Prophecy, making someone else’s carefully
kept secret available to only you.
Prophecy seldom gives you out-and-out answers: it supplies leads, not solutions. Much more often it
gives you a glimpse of a location or a person and you won’t yet know why. You’ll just know they’re
important. You’ll need to head to that location, or speak to that person, to understand how they’re
connected to your adventure.
Less often, you may also see a complete scene taking place in the past or possibly the present; such
dream-like images play out as if you’re standing in the scene, but no one else can see or hear you.
Rarely, you’ll receive a poem, a riddle, or a bit of doggerel that can be interpreted to help you find out
what you wish to know. This is entirely dependent upon your GM. If you use Prophecy and the GM
46
doesn’t wish to give you additional leads (or there aren’t any available), you’ll either receive a vision of
something you already know that you need to pay particular attention to; you’ll experience a prophecy
of something unrelated (that may be foreshadowing for a future adventure); or you’ll receive no vision
at all.
Sample Spend: Your ability to foretell the future can gain you benefits including the following:
Wealth: You see the location of minor treasures, from coin-bags dropped in a sewer to lost and
hidden art. Spend 1 point to foresee the location of forgotten wealth worth Wealth 3 or
(sometimes quite substantially) more. Mind you, success isn’t automatic: you may know where
it is, but you still have to get to it...
If you let it be known that you have the gift of prophecy, strangers may approach you with both
wealth and questions. Not only might these be fun plot hooks, but you’re likely to get paid as
much or more than you’d earn from prophesying the location of lost treasure.
Stealth: You gain a vision of exactly the right time to sneak unobserved. You and allies
accompanying you all gain a +3 bonus on one Stealth test.
Preparedness: You foresee the future, and you can put a plan in place to shift the odds your
way. Gain the Preparedness Talent “Flashback” for one current or upcoming scene in this
adventure; you’ll still need a successful Preparedness test to have your flashback work. You can
also spend 1 point of Prophecy to know exactly where to look for a discarded but useful tool,
which will allow you to succeed automatically at a difficulty 4 Preparedness test or gain +3 to a
more difficult test.
Combat: There are multiple futures, and you get to pick the one you like. Spend 2 points of
Prophecy and choose any General ability. For the rest of the scene, whenever you need to make
a test with that ability, roll two dice and choose the result you prefer.
Designer Notes: Niche Protection

You’ll notice that this game has fewer abilities than many other GUMSHOE games. That’s deliberate; our
game design philosophy is to have broader and more-frequently-useful abilities, and then let players
describe those abilities however they choose.
Playtesters initially expressed some concern about niche protection. Would characters seem too similar
to one another? We haven’t seen that problem in practice. A barbarian, a hardened mercenary, a
shadowy assassin, and a noble duelist all feel very different in play even when their capabilities overlap.
If you want to guarantee some niche protection regardless, talk to the other players when you’re
making your Heroes so that everyone knows they have something they’re best at.
[[[end sidebar]]]
47
Thief Investigative Abilities
City’s Secrets
The architectural and geographical secrets of Eversink and other cities are yours to discover, and you
can uncover other secrets (such as political machinations) with relative ease. You more-or-less
understand how a city’s bureaucracy functions, you know the many districts and neighborhoods of
Eversink, and with some work you can find a particular location above or below ground when you need
to.
Sample Spend: Spend 1 point to determine entry points into sealed portions of the undercity, or to
travel across the city through shortcuts at roughly double normal speed. You may take allies with you if
you wish. If in a building or urban environment, you may also spend a point during a fight to move twice
as quickly as normal for one round.
Ridiculous Luck
Remarkable coincidences happen around you on a regular basis, and a million-to-one chance is a thing
to bet on. Gain leads by simply stumbling across them — if you’re wise enough to notice the coincidence
when it occurs.
Like Prophecy, Ridiculous Luck is a great catch-all ability that picks up on leads other people haven’t
thought to look for. Strange coincidences, useful happenstance, and unexpected good or bad luck help
you notice important details you might otherwise miss. In fact, some leads might only be noticed by
Ridiculous Luck — if you don’t stumble on it accidentally, no one will.
Don’t assume that Ridiculous Luck can replace every other Investigative ability. Luck isn’t always
pleasant, heroic, or convenient; being arrested and thrown into jail may have gotten you that clue, but
now you still have to break out of prison to pursue it.
Sample Spend: Spend 1 pool point to generate a non-lead-related lucky coincidence when you need one
most, such as an unexpected escape opportunity or a handy unlocked armory door.
[[[sidebar]]]
GM Advice: Luck May Swing Both Ways

The thing about Ridiculous Luck is that it isn’t always good luck. If you and the player are amenable,
every few adventures a particularly lucky Hero’s fortune might go ridiculously badly for a single scene:
one coincidence after another goes against them, old enemies show up at the worst possible time, the
plan doesn’t work the way they expected, they fall into a wagon of nightsoil, and suddenly they’re
framed for something they didn’t actually have anything to do with! During this scene full of bad luck,
the Hero may not spend any pool points of Ridiculous Luck.
At the end of this scene the afflicted Hero gains a bonus pool point of Ridiculous Luck as compensation
— a point that they can use to dig themselves out of what just occurred. Just don’t engineer this on a
night when the actual player has had a bad day.
48
[[[end sidebar]]]
Designer Notes: The Quintessential Ridiculous Luck

There’s a scene in the very first Conan story, Robert E. Howard’s novelette “The Phoenix on the Sword”,
where the enslaved and servile sorcerer Thoth-Amon tells a cowardly baron that he only became a slave
because a thief stole the magical serpent ring that once gave him great power. Unfortunately for the
snobbish baron who was studiously ignoring Thoth-Amon, the word “ring” makes him declare (and we
paraphrase), “Hey! I forgot all about my magical serpent ring which I bought off a thief! Let me just pull
that out!”
It is of course the same ring, Thoth-Amon pulls out a dagger and gets particularly stabby, the baron dies
messily, and our demon-summoning bad guy is back in the game.
Moral of the story? Servility is a great way to not to get noticed by nobles, and it’s seldom a bad idea to
invest in at least 1 rank of Ridiculous Luck.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Scurrilous Rumors
You have your ear to the ground. Not only can you learn rumors both fair and foul; with a little work you
can start them as well to sway opinions or undercut an enemy. You can use Scurrilous Rumors to gain
gossip about subjects you’re interested in. The gossip isn’t always useful or directly relevant, but if
there’s a clue to be gained from what people are talking about in the city, you or your network of
informers can usually track it down.
Note that this ability doesn’t reveal closely kept secrets unless used on someone who could have heard
that secret. You may find out about a noble’s secret infidelities from a house servant, for instance, but
you wouldn’t hear about them when asking a bartender in a tavern nearby.
Sample Spend: Use pool points to affect public opinion about a person, faction, idea or event. The more
points you spend, the farther your rumor spreads and the more it is believed. You can start rumors that
affect public perception either positively or negatively. Others may try to counter your rumor by starting
their own; if so, the side that spends the most total points of Scurrilous Rumors has their rumor believed
by the masses.
Skulduggery
Use Skulduggery to find leads through dishonest, illegal, or unethical means. You can learn secret
information through spying, shadowing and surveillance. You might gain clues through blackmailing a
minor supporting character, or follow a foe within the city with only a slim chance of being detected so
long as you’re tracking down a lead. You know how to stab people in the back both literally and
figuratively, and you can identify the movers and shakers in the underbelly of Eversink.
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If you’re Stealthy when you make a Warfare attack, automatically increase your Damage Modifier for
that attack by +1 per Skulduggery rank.
Sample Spend: Spend 1 or more pool points to find the general location of someone hidden in Eversink
who doesn’t wish to be found. Spend 1 point to perfectly remember an overheard and illicit
conversation. Spend pool points to blackmail a supporting character for Wealth; each point spent gains
you +1 Wealth, but woe betide you when they track you down.
Spend a point to gain a second action in one round, as long as one of those actions is used to Hide.
For every point of Skulduggery you spend on a Stealth test, gain +3 to your Stealth Modifier for that test.
This can either be a Stealth test to hide, or a test to hide something else (see p. XX).
Warrior Investigative Abilities

Know Monstrosities
You have knowledge of monstrous foes and can predict their traditional weaknesses (if any). You can
identify monstrosities when you interact with them (even ones that appear human), and you
understand their typical tactics and hunting strategies.
Sample Spend: Use pool points to manipulate such foes in combat, goading them into an action or
position you desire in order to set a trap; if you need that swamp giant to be standing right next to the
quicksand, spending a point can make sure that occurs.
Spending points allows you to increase your damage against a monstrous foe by 1 damage die per point
spent. You can also gain this bonus damage against non-monstrous foes if, when making the spend, you
describe how fighting some monster in the past might give you an advantage in this combat.
“Good thing I saved some of the venom when I disemboweled that giant snake!”
Spot Frailty
You notice the weaknesses in objects around you, from the corroded hinge on a dungeon cell door to
the small chink in your opponent’s armor. You automatically ignore an enemy’s armor by 1 point per
rank of Spot Frailty when you damage their Health.
If you prefer, you can decide when creating your character that Spot Frailty instead applies to Grit. You
instinctively sense and exploit people’s emotional vulnerabilities, and you ignore an enemy’s Grit by 1
point per rank of Spot Frailty when you damage their Morale.
When you add your first rank of this ability, decide whether your Spot Frailty applies to your foes’ Armor
or to their Grit. Once you reach 2 or more ranks of Spot Frailty, the benefit applies to both Armor and
Grit, allowing you to automatically ignore 1 point per rank of each.
Sample Spend: Spend 1 point to give this ability’s benefit to an ally for use against a single, designated
foe for one scene.
You have Spot Frailty at rank 3. You ignore the first 3 points of your foes’ Armor and Grit every
time you attack their Health or Morale. When fighting a heavily armored mercenary warlord,
50
you spend a point so that one of your allies also ignores 3 points of the warlord’s Armor and Grit
for the duration of the battle.
Spend 1 or more points to heroically smash, break or destroy something non-magical: an enemy’s shield,
a locked door, a stout chain, sturdy manacles, a pillar holding up the temple ceiling. Ask your GM: the
more narratively important the object, the more pool points are required to smash it.
[[[designer sidebar]]]
Designer Notes: Spot Frailty and Bilbo Baggins

The ability to see the weaknesses in things doesn’t at first seem like a traditional talent in sword &
sorcery novels, although there’s definitely space for a warrior who’s superb at smashing pillars,
shattering swords, and finding the weak spot in an opponent’s armor. The inspiration for Spot Frailty
comes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
The dragon rolled over. “Look!” he said. “What do you say to that?” “Dazzlingly marvelous!
Perfect! Flawless! Staggering!” exclaimed Bilbo aloud, but what he thought inside was: “Old
fool! Why, there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!”
Bilbo now has the information he needs to ignore Smaug’s armor. He can’t use it himself, though, so
later he spends his pool point of Spot Frailty so that Bard of Laketown can use this same vulnerability
against a single foe (Smaug) for a single scene.
It’s not exact, of course. But we love it enough to want it in our game.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Tactics of Death
You understand ambushes, combat tactics, particularly lethal weapon maneuvers, and the most efficient
and imaginative methods for making an enemy stop breathing. You can look at the aftermath of a fight
and understand how the battle progressed. By looking at wounds, you can tell the type of weapon that
inflicted them, as well as the approximate height and strength of the assailant.
If you ever stumble into a fight or ambush that might be lethally unwinnable, Tactics of Death may give
you enough advance warning to retreat or change your tactics.
Sample Spend: Spend a point to gain two actions in the same round, as long as at least one action is used
to attack.
You’re skilled at influencing a battle’s odds. Pick a General ability such as Warfare or Athletics. For every
point you spend, for the length of a scene all enemies suffer a 1-point penalty to their tests when using
that ability. Narrate how you are creating an interesting tactical advantage that accomplishes this. This
tactical advantage doesn’t have to come from traditional methods such as seizing the high ground or
using clever troop movement, although it certainly can.
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A company of twenty mercs corners you in a dead-end alley, angry that you killed their employer
just because she tried to poison you. Wanting to even the odds while simultaneously showcasing
your Hero’s religious beliefs, you boldly announce that the Goddess Denari disapproved of their
treacherous employer and that She will mark them and cause their blows to go astray if they
keep their tainted loyalty. You spend 2 pool points of Tactics of Death, and now the mercenaries
suffer a 2-point penalty on any Warfare attacks for the rest of the scene. The mercenaries are
likely to retreat as soon as they realize that they’re at such a disadvantage, and some may even
repent.
If you find yourself commanding troops of supporting characters (whether small units or whole armies),
spend 1 or more pool points to give your troops an offensive or defensive tactical advantage in combat,
as determined by your GM.
Designer Notes: The Clash of Armies

The Swords of the Serpentine core rules don’t include tactical mass combat, but we can easily imagine
games where the Heroes are the generals or key leaders of a fighting force — Aragorn in Tolkien’s Lord
of the Rings, Howard’s Conan as a warlord, or Cook’s The Black Company all spring to mind as literary
inspirations. It’s up to the GM to allow (or disallow) Tactics of Death to influence the result of a large-
scale clash between navies, mercenary companies, or armies. They should take both army size and
player strategy into account, incorporate any Tactics of Death spends, go around the table along with
the players to narrate (and possibly play out) a montage of the battle’s most important turning points,
and then decide which side wins and by how large a margin.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Wilderness Mastery
You can track animals and navigate trackless wastes with ease. Others may starve or die of exposure in
the hinterlands, but you thrive away from civilization. With your GM’s permission, you may even have a
mystical link with certain animals that follow you as companions.
You can train birds (usually pigeons, ravens, or gulls) as carrier animals to send and receive messages.
This is the fastest way to get a message across Eversink or from one nation to another. You may even
gain leads in this fashion.
Sample Spend: When outside, spend a point to move twice as quickly as normal for one round.
Spend pool points to stampede a herd of animals, from rats to cattle — the more points spent, the
greater the effect — or to choose the weather for an upcoming scene.
For a 1-point spend, your GM may also allow you to bond for the adventure with one or more specific
animals. This could let you see through your falcon’s eyes, have a wolf attack for you, or briefly channel
a stallion’s speed. This mystical use of the ability smacks of sorcery, and you may not wish to use it when
52
there’s an inquisitor around. Bonded animal attacks use your Warfare pool, typically inflict Damage
Modifier +1, and have their own place in the initiative order separate from your own.
[[[Sidebar]]]
Player Advice: Call of the Wild

Wilderness Mastery is probably the least-selected ability for the predominantly urban Heroes who are
based in Eversink — why in the world would anyone ever want to come face-to-face with dangerous
nature? — but it’s essential if you go on an expedition outside of the city walls or choose to explore the
world. Remember that you can spend pool points of Allies to hire a reputable guide for the duration of
an adventure.
Even if you never leave the city, Wilderness Mastery is a must for anyone who loved the old movie
Beastmaster, or who wants huge flocks of aggressive seagulls to harass their enemies. See p. XX for
more details on animal companions.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Allegiances
Allegiances allow you to wield political power in the same way a warrior might wield a sword. They help
you manipulate politics and call in powerful favors in a way you might not see in a typical fantasy game.
Allegiances are Investigative abilities tied to rival political factions in your game. Allies and Enemies are
permanent Allegiances, have ranks, and act as standard Investigative abilities. Favors and Grudges are
temporary Allegiances, never have ranks, and have pools of influence that disappear once they’re used.
Pick your Allies and Enemies from the following political factions, as well as others the GM creates.
• Ancient Nobility (p. XX): dissolute but infinitely proud, clinging to their social graces and
ancestral superiority within their crumbling mansions.
• Church of Denari, goddess of Commerce and Civilization (p. XX): every exchange of money is a
prayer to her sly wisdom and obsession with trade that defines the city itself. Her priests are
moneylenders who hunt down Sorcerers and carry out her will.
• City Watch (p. XX): these poor bastards are under-funded, under-respected, and the hardest
working employees in Eversink. They’re responsible for enforcing order, solving murders, and
bringing the guilty to the gallows.
• Commoners (p. XX): no one remembers the underclass, but the commoners look out for their
own, and there’s a lot more poor in Eversink than there are nobles. A terrifying force when
roused.
• The Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers (p. XX): despite rumors that guildmembers often
die young from disease and injury, this powerful guild ensures Eversink’s architectural stability,
and thus enjoys significant political sway within the city.
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• Mercanti (p. XX): the new-money nobility of Eversink, church-blessed families whose iron grip
on specific guilds brings in the trade that powers the city.
• Mercenaries (including House Armies) (p. XX): hard-living professional warriors who stay loyal
as long as their pay doesn’t run out.
• Monstrosities (p. XX): most people have never seen one, but there are rumors that a loose
community of non-humans live within (or underneath) Eversink. They’re unlikely to have
Denari’s best interests at heart.
• Outlanders (p. XX): an unorganized and unpredictable group of barbarians, travelers, tourists,
professional adventurers and piratical scoundrels seeking some quick coin.
• The Sorcerous Cabal (p. XX): Sorcery is considered inhuman, unnatural, and antithetical to the
grace of the goddess Denari. If one or more sorcerous cabals exist, they’re a threat to everything
right-thinking people love. A sorcerous cabal is typically headquartered and run from outside of
Eversink, and its agents typically represent sorcerers’ interests in the city.
• Thieves’ Guilds (p. XX): avoiding taxes is a mortal sin in the eyes of the goddess Denari, but
making money is a blessing, so it’s fair to say the dozens of smugglers’ and thieves’ guilds are
conflicted at best. They’re a shadowy power in the city, and they manipulate power most people
don’t even suspect exists.
• The Triskadane (p. XX): anonymous rulers of Eversink, their secret police, and the vast
government bureaucracy of committees that keeps the city functioning as well as it does.
Assigning Allegiances
Assign 2 Investigative Build Points to any political faction as Allies, and one point to any faction as an
Enemy. You can also assign any leftover Build Points from character creation into Allies.
Your GM may want all the Heroes to be associated with the same faction, and so will assign your Enemy
rank or one of your Allies ranks for you. The second rank of Allies is always yours to assign freely.
Your GM wants all the player characters to be working for one of the Guildhalls of the Mercanti.
You mark down “Mercanti 1” under Allies. You decide you were raised in the poor part of the city
and you still have a lot of friends there, so you spend your second Ally Build Point to take
“Commoners 1”. As a commoner, you probably don’t have a lot of affection for the Ancient
Nobility, and you decide a noble house (to be decided later) had your grandmother falsely
executed for sorcery and still has it out for your family. You spend your Enemy point to mark one
rank of “Ancient Nobility”.
If you ever have an Allegiance rank of 2 or more with a political faction, you gain a reputation with them,
and members of that group are likely to recognize and know about you. As your fame (or infamy) grows,
so does your reputation.
General Abilities
General abilities represent taking actions in the game. When your character wants to do something,
your GM will indicate what General ability you need to roll. You can spend one or more of your General
ability pool points and add them to your roll, typically trying to hit a target Difficulty of 4. That means by
spending 3 points from your ability, you’ll automatically succeed in most situations.
54
Each rank in an ability gives you one pool point, so Warfare 4 gives you 4 pool points to spend. Your pool
in an ability may rise and fall as you refresh and then spend points, but the rating (number of ranks in
that ability) remains the same.Larger pools give you more options and effectiveness in an action scene.
You can refresh spent General ability points throughout the game, as described on p. XX.
Scale for General Abilities

• Rank 0 in a General ability means that unless you are attacking, you may not roll the die to
attempt success unless the GM gives you specific permission to do so
• Rank 1-3 indicates that you are a dabbler
• Rank 4-7 means you’re trained and are quite competent
• Rank 8-15 indicates that you are an expert in that ability, and qualify for the special bonuses
called Talents.
Talents: Rewarding Specialization

Every General ability except for Health and Morale has a Talent, a feature that kicks in when the
character has a rank of 8 or higher in the ability. Talents exist to reward specialization, to mark the point
where “competent” becomes “expert”, and to make sure you get more bang for your buck when you
focus on a limited number of General abilities. Most Talents function constantly; you can always use a
Talent’s special benefit, even if that ability’s pool has dropped to 0.
Initial Build Points for General Abilities

When creating your Hero, split 30 General Build points between General abilities, excluding Health and
Morale. There’s no minimum spend; the maximum you can spend on any one ability is twice the rank of
the next highest ability. Each rank in a General ability costs 1 Build point.
Next, split an additional 18 points between Health and Morale, spending a minimum of 3 in each ability.
10 points or more in Health or Morale increases that ability’s Health or Morale Threshold (see p. XX)
from 3 to 4.
You use 14 Build points to buy Sorcery 14, a high rank. To do so you must have another ability at
7 points. This leaves you only 9 points to split between other General abilities. That’s not much,
so you decide to spend 10 points on Sorcery instead. That leaves 20 more Build points to
distribute freely, once you buy at least one ability at rank 5.
Player Advice: Stock Up on a Combat Ability

You’ll be most effective in combat if you have at least one combat ability (Sorcery, Sway, or Warfare) at 5 or
higher, and you’re unlikely to regret raising one of these abilities to at least 8 ranks. Taking down many Mooks at
once with your ability’s Talent isn’t just good tactics, it’s darned fun.
55
If you want to play a non-combatant but still be effective in a fight, choose Sway. You’ll have a chance to turn the
tide of battles without ever picking up a weapon or shedding blood.
GM Advice: Why Two Types of Abilities?

The two ability sets are handled differently because they have different jobs during an adventure. The goal of most
adventures in Swords of the Serpentine is to solve a problem — stop (or commit!) a crime, unravel a mystery,
identify a sorcerer — and then confront or manipulate the forces behind it. That confrontation must be
suspenseful, which is why General abilities have a possibility of failure. But the confrontation has to occur in order
for your players to feel satisfied, which is why investigating the problem — in order to get to the confrontation —
must succeed. A well-designed scenario rewards players for cleverly or stylishly solving the problem by making the
confrontation more exciting, more survivable, or flat-out more fun.
For more on scenario design, see GM Advice starting on p. XX.
List of General Abilities

Talent Page
Ability Name Description
Number
Athletics Covers physical You have the opportunity to dodge XX
activities such as or parry Warfare attacks.
running, jumping, and
climbing.
Bind Wounds Spend 1 point to heal Heal yourself as efficiently as you XX
someone else 2 Health heal others.
points.
Burglary Pick pockets, open Pick pockets as a free action. XX
locks, sleight of hand,
steal things.
Health How hard you are to XX
kill or defeat (and
believe us, many things
would like to kill you!)
Morale How long you stay in a XX
conflict before
surrendering.
Preparedness Roll to have what you Set up Flashbacks where, on the fly, XX
need, when you need you establish your schemes and
it. plans.
Sorcery Use your Sorcerous You may injure more than one target XX
Spheres to attack on a high attack roll.
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someone’s Health or
Morale.
Stealth You move unseen. You can disappear and pop up XX
wherever and whenever you want
to.
Sway Use fear or persuasion You may injure more than one target XX
to attack someone’s on a high attack roll.
Morale.
Warfare Use a weapon to attack You may injure more than one target XX
someone’s Health. on a high attack roll.
General Ability Descriptions
Athletics
Athletics allows you to perform general acts of physical derring-do, from running and jumping, to
climbing a wall. Any physical action not covered by another ability probably falls under the rubric of
Athletics. With a successful Athletics test, you can:
• throw a bottle of alchemist’s fire

• race after someone
• climb walls
• swim out from underneath a collapsing building
• dive for cover without using an action
• ride a horse
• pole a gondola.
Talent: Dodge
You can try to dodge or parry attacks against your Health. After you’ve successfully been attacked, but
before your foe rolls damage, spend at least 1 point of Athletics and roll an Athletics test. You must
exceed the attacker’s successful result; if their result was a 5 to attack you, for instance, your result
must be 6 or higher to successfully Dodge. If you’re using a buckler or shield, you must only meet (not
exceed) the attacker’s result to successfully Dodge.
Designer Notes: The Awkward Dodge

We thought long and hard before adding Dodge to the game. Thematically we love it — it echoes classic
swordfights and battles where a hero simply avoids an attack that should have skewered her, it chews away
steadily at your Athletics pool, and it pairs nicely with shields and bucklers — but it uses a mechanic that we don’t
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use much elsewhere, and it has the potential of slowing down the game until the player gets the hang of a fast
opposed roll. Yet it’s the kind of ability that can really save your butt at the last moment, especially if an evil
sorcerer has just flung a brutal spell at you and maybe, just maybe, you can dodge out of the way…? Playtesters
found it fun, we agreed, and so in it stays.
That said, we haven’t added the equivalent of Dodge for avoiding Morale attacks. There wasn’t a General ability
that “Laugh It Off” (the name being an excellent playtester suggestion) seemed to fit, and it felt like a solution in
search of a problem, especially since by design it’s far more efficient in the game to heal Morale damage with Sway
than it is to heal Health damage with Bind Wounds. We like the classic feel of Morale getting battered down during
a fight by insulting or terrifying foes, and then getting encouraged at a key moment by a well-timed inspirational
pep talk. Laugh It Off doesn’t quite capture that tone, so out it goes.
Take a look at our advice on Defending Against Attacks on p. XX. You may find the solution you’re looking for right
there.
[[[end Designer sidebar]]]
Bind Wounds
You can spend your action restoring Health points to yourself or others. Unlike other General abilities,
you do not roll a die when spending pool points of Bind Wounds. Instead, every point you spend from
your Bind Wounds pool restores 2 Health points to someone else who has lost Health points, or 1 Health
point to you. This is capped at their Health rank.
Healing becomes less effective once your patient becomes Seriously Wounded, at or below -6 Health.
See Healing Injuries on p. XX for additional details. Rarely, Bind Wounds tests are used for actions other
than healing; for instance, a Difficulty 4 Bind Wounds test can stabilize someone who is Seriously
Wounded. In such cases, roll a die normally and add Bind Wounds points to try to hit a Difficulty
number. Such spends do not simultaneously restore Health points.
You can describe your healing methods however you wish, whether you use leeches (as most physicians
do), poultices, or rare herbs. For instance, it’s common for those faithful to Denari to be granted magical
healing, and Sorcerers who specialize in flesh might be able to knit together wounds. You both use the
same Bind Wounds rules, but choose to describe it as miraculous or magical.
Talent: Plenty of Leeches
If your Bind Wounds rating is 8 or more, you can heal yourself as efficiently as you can heal others,
gaining 2 points of your own Health back for every point of Bind Wounds you spend on yourself. Pack
extra leeches!
Burglary
Burglary is the nuts and bolts of being a skilled thief. It’s different from Stealth, which is all about not
being noticed. Using Burglary you can go where you’re not wanted and steal what’s there.
With a successful Burglary test, you can:
• pick pockets without being noticed

• plant small objects on people
• pick locks
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• deactivate or evade mechanical traps (and even Sorcerous traps, if you have at least 1 rank
in Corruption)
• find suitable places for breaking and entering, and use them
• find relatively safe routes through dangerous but navigable portions of the Undercity.
Some locks require specialized tools that can be produced with a Preparedness test. Complex or tricky
locks and traps may have a higher than usual Difficulty to open them speedily, to avoid noise or damage,
or to relock or reset afterward. Some traps require ranks of specific Investigative abilities to bypass; the
most common of these are magical traps, wards or glyphs requiring 1 or more ranks of Corruption to
successfully bypass with Burglary.
Talent: Fast Hands
Once per round, you can try to pick someone’s pocket without taking an action to do so, even if you’re
in combat at the time. This Burglary test is usually Difficulty 4 but may be higher or lower depending on
what you’re trying to steal. If you don’t mind your target noticing you just picked their pocket, the
Difficulty is 1 point lower.
Your target must be at Point-Blank range, and you can try to pick their pocket either when they take an
action, or when you do — your choice. You can use Fast Hands to either remove something or add
something to their pockets.
Health
Your Health measures how hard you are to kill or defeat, and how close you are to perishing when foes
attempt to cause you damage.
Morale
Your Morale measures how close you are to fleeing when foes attempt to demoralize you, or otherwise
oppose you. It is also used to gauge stubbornness, measure willpower, and resist sorcerous mind
control.
Preparedness
You never know what you’re going to need on an adventure, and Swords of the Serpentine assumes
you’re packing some nonstandard gear above and beyond what you have written down on your
character sheet. Assuming you have access to your gear, you can produce whatever object you or your
allies need to overcome an obstacle.
Make a Preparedness test at a Difficulty specified by the GM, usually 4; if you succeed, you have the
item you want. You don’t need to do this in advance of the adventure: you can simply sort through your
nonstandard gear as the need arises. The rarer the item, the higher the Difficulty, although you can
typically purchase them using both your Preparedness and your Wealth (see p. XX) if you’re in a location
where such items are for sale.
You don’t need to use Preparedness to produce minor and inconsequential items proportional to your
lifestyle (such as typical dress, a knife, or a standard sword for someone focused on Warfare), or basic
tools that allow your abilities to function (such as lockpicks if you have Burglary). You have to roll
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Preparedness if you’re trying to produce a non-basic weapon, for instance, chain mail, or oddball items
that suddenly come in handy in the course of the adventure.
The sorts of items you can produce at a moment’s notice depend on narrative credibility. If the GM
determines that your possession of an item (especially a sorcerous item) would seem ludicrous and/or
out of genre for her game, you don’t get to roll for it. You simply don’t have it. Any item that elicits a
mocking laugh from the group when suggested is probably out of bounds.
Gear you acquire with Preparedness doesn’t stay on your character sheet.
Talent: Flashback
If your Preparedness rating is 8 or more you can narrate a flashback where your group prepared a secret
plan in the past, even if no one had been aware of it until now. Examples include:
• declare that a foe’s breakfast that morning was poisoned

• a portal normally kept locked and barred is left ajar
• a dagger smuggled in earlier is hidden beneath your chair
• a stolen satchel of treasure turns out to be previously switched for an identical one with
different contents
• you’ve previously bribed one of the two armed mercenaries threatening you to be your
ally.
You must have had opportunity and the means to set up the action, which can include the help of fellow
Heroes even if you haven’t filled their players in on the Flashback plan until this very moment. (This, by
the way, is an excellent reason to keep pre-adventure planning as loose as possible: you’ll have more
“blank space” available for preparation.) You must still make a Preparedness test to succeed, and you
must still convince the GM that your precaution is credible. If the action required a test (of Burglary,
Stealth, etc.) you or your collaborators must make it successfully. Depending on the result, the GM
might introduce a complication to make life interesting…
The difference between a Flashback and a standard Investigative or General point spend is twofold.
• Your plan can involve other Heroes and their abilities.

• You can present your plan to the GM as a fait accompli; you don’t need to go back and
roleplay your fellow Heroes hiding blackmail material in an easy-to-find location. You just
grab narrative control, state what occurs, roll your Preparedness test, and then each Hero
involved spends whatever points are needed, and succeeds with their rolls, to make it
happen
A suspect is fleeing from you across the densely packed rooftops of one of Eversink’s poorer
districts. It’s common to have planks of wood between buildings to act as impromptu bridges for
the locals. Using Flashback, you announce that Prophecy warned you about this, so you
previously had an ally partially saw through one of the wooden planks that hangs above a pig
pen 10 meters below. This is a complete surprise to your fellow player Karla, but she’s
enthusiastic about the plan. You make a Preparedness test, Karla makes a Burglary test for her
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Hero (since it involves a hidden trap), and your suspect falls 10 meters into a pig pen if they don’t
have the Athletics to catch themselves.
Designer Notes: Preparedness as a Combat Ability

One early playtest started with the Heroes on a small canal boat facing down three other boats full of angry
opponents. One Hero leapt between boats and attacked with Warfare; one Hero used Sway to intimidate enemies
on a second boat into backing down; and one Hero used Preparedness to attack.
Wait, what?
“I have the Flashback talent from a high Preparedness, and I knew this might happen. I’m going to say we’re right
next to a huge facility that processes the pig feces from the slaughterhouse. I’m going to whistle, and my friends up
there are going to open the valve to the high pressure outlet pipe… the pipe that’s right next to the people we’re
about to fight. Can I use Preparedness as a combat ability?”
Yes, you gloriously inventive pig-foulness-spraying tactician. Yes, you can. Just make a successful roll for your
Flashback first.
The point of this? Whether it’s using Burglary to drop a venomous snake down someone’s neck, or Athletics to
throw alchemist’s fire, allow players to use non-combat abilities as combat abilities when it makes sense. It
rewards creativity.
Sorcery
Prerequisite: 1 or more ranks of Corruption.
Sorcery is a combat ability. It’s also particularly flexible; see p. XX for details on all the ways you can use
Sorcery and Corruption. Mostly, though, you use Sorcery to attack your foes.
Using the Sorcery General ability does not cause Corruption in the area around you.
Talent: Blast
If you have Sorcery of 8 or more, you can use powerful Sorcery to automatically attack multiple foes, or
blast through many mooks at once.
• After rolling a successful Sorcery attack, your final attack result determines how many additional
foes you hit. Each three points over the target number, rounded down, allows you to hit one
additional foe. If your original target was Health or Morale Threshold 4, you need a result of 7 to
hit one extra foe, 10 to hit 2 extra foes, etc.
• Health or Morale damage against additional foes has Damage Modifier +1. Want to save time?
Instead of rolling a die, assign 4 damage (a low average) against each additional foe.
• Attacks using Blast never score a Critical Hit.
• Additional foes must be in Close range of your original target.
• Additional foes must have a Health or Morale Threshold equal to or less than that of your
original target.
• Minimum guaranteed damage from Sorcery points only applies to your initial target.
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You only spend 1 point of Sorcery when attacking your foe, but you luckily roll a 6 on the die for a
total attack result of 7. Your initial target had a Health Threshold of 4; you exceeded this by 3, so
you also hit a second foe nearby with no additional attack required. Describe what happened
and roll damage separately against each victim, or just assign the second victim 4 damage to
save time.
[[[begin GM sidebar]]]
GM Advice: Describing General Ability Use

It’s good to remember that players describe their General ability use in whatever way is coolest or most fun, but
should still use whichever General ability best applies to the action they’re attempting. This comes up most
commonly when they describe using Sorcery to do something normally resolved with Athletics. They should
absolutely describe climbing onto a roof by simply animating the rock beneath their feet to fling them upwards,
because that’s a lot more fun and cinematic. Just remember that having Sorcery is what enables them to do it this
way, and it might be the fast route — but flying through the air and landing safely still requires an Athletics test.
Stealth
Sometimes it’s better not to be seen or noticed. You’re good at noticing other people trying to be
unobtrusive, and you’re skilled at not being noticed yourself. With a successful Stealth test, you can:
• hide in plain sight within a crowd

• blend into the shadows to hide
• escape from someone following you
• spot someone trying to hide or be sneaky
• avoid being Surprised in combat
• Surprise others in combat
• follow someone without being noticed.
A Hero with the Vigilance Investigative ability might not be fooled by Stealth; see p. XX. Some Foes have
Stealth Modifiers or Alertness Modifiers that increase or lower the Difficulty of Stealth tests.
Talent: Where’d She Go?
When you succeed at a Stealth test, disappear from a location and reappear later in a physically
accessible location at a convenient time during the same scene, without worrying about how you got
there.
This means you can slide behind a pillar mid-combat and a moment later rise up behind the evil high
priest up on his pulpit. It’s okay that no one saw how you sneaked behind him; you’re that good.
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Sway
Sway is a combat ability. It allows you to attack a foe’s Morale, demoralizing or terrifying them into
surrender or flight even if you never engage in physical warfare. Your words and non-verbal behavior
can end a fight without a single blow being struck. You can also use Sway as an action to restore your
own or someone else’s lost Morale (p. XX), even impacting more than one person at once.
Talent: Play to the Crowd
Your words can sway multiple people when attacking, most useful against many Mooks at once. After
rolling a successful Sway attack, your final attack result determines how many additional foes you hit.
Each three points over the target number, rounded down, allows you to sway one additional foe. If your
original target was Morale Threshold 4, you need a result of 7 to hit one extra foe, 10 to hit 2 extra foes,
etc.
• Morale damage against additional foes has Damage Modifier +1. Want to save time? Instead of
rolling a die, assign 4 Morale damage (a low average) against each additional foe.
• Attacks using Play to the Crowd never score a Critical Hit.
• Additional foes must have a Morale Threshold equal to or less than that of your original target.
• Minimum guaranteed damage from Sway points only applies to your initial target.
Designer Notes: Sway, as Seen Through the Lens of J.R.R. Tolkien

The riddle contest between Bilbo and Gollum, deep beneath the Misty Mountains? Smaug atop his dragon hoard,
using his voice to lure out an invisible Bilbo? Éomer, Gandalf, and the Rohirrim terrifying the orcs as they charge
down the hill towards Helm’s Deep… or for that matter, the terrifying scream of the Nazgûl? Wormtongue
whispering to King Théoden, and Gandalf breaking the spell? Saruman speaking from the balcony of Orthanc in
Isengard? The one ring itself, corrupting anyone who claims it?
All Sway.
Warfare
Warfare is a combat ability. Whether fighting with ranged weapons like a bow or crossbow, melee
weapons like a sword or dagger, an improvised weapon, or even bare fists or claws, a Warfare test
determines whether you successfully hit a foe in physical combat.
Talent: Cleave
Warfare Talent: Cleave
You can quickly stab multiple people or fire multiple arrows in quick succession. After rolling a successful
Warfare attack, your final attack result determines how many additional foes you hit. Each three points
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over the target number, rounded down, allows you to sway one additional foe. If your original target
was Health Threshold 4, you need a result of 7 to hit one extra foe, 10 to hit 2 extra foes, etc. This is
most useful for attacking many Mooks at once.
• Health damage against additional foes has the Damage Modifier of your current weapon. Want
to save time? Instead of rolling a damage die, assign 4 Health damage (a low average) against
each additional foe.
• Attacks using Cleave never score a Critical Hit.
• Additional foes must have a Health Threshold equal to or less than that of your original target.
• Minimum guaranteed damage from Warfare points only applies to your initial target.
Minor, Iconic Gear

In Swords of the Serpentine, who you are is defined by the things you keep around. We don’t mean
powerful weapons and epic magical items: in a sword & sorcery game, those come and go. We mean the
small and personal trinkets that help define your life. The things in your pockets, around your neck, on
your feet. The things that you hold dear and that would tell someone investigating your corpse what
kind of a person you are. Feel free to name signature gear, particularly weapons.
Having tangible reminders of who you are and where you came from strengthens your will. Heroes with
at least five items of character-defining gear gain Grit 1 against Morale attacks.
Gear is usually physical, but it can also be emotional or mental (such as “deep longing for a time before
you joined the City Watch” or “burning envy for those who weren’t turned away from the Guild of
Architects”).
You’ll know you’ve done a good enough job when a friend can look at your Gear list and be able to tell
you what makes your Hero tick. You’re encouraged to create items that hint at a fun story or plot hook,
especially if they’re not necessarily good for your Hero (such as “wanted poster with my face on it and
an insultingly low reward amount”).
You can add to your character-defining gear at any time, or remove items that no longer tell someone
who you are. You never need to roll Preparedness for character-defining gear when it doesn’t give you a
mechanical advantage. If something does give you a mechanical or narrative advantage (such as armor
or your own dwelling), it’s probably fine, but quickly run the list past your GM for approval.
When considering your character-defining gear, give yourself an anchor to Eversink’s social structure.
Don’t be afraid to establish yourself with a residence that matches your political Allies and/or Enemies.
Gear you acquire with Preparedness doesn’t stay on your character sheet. Gear you find during an
adventure, or that you purchase using Wealth, sticks around until used up, lost or broken. Write it down
on your character sheet if you wish to keep (and carry) it. Be aware that the GM may raise the Difficulty
of Athletics tests by +1 to +4, especially while swimming, if she thinks you’re carrying an unreasonable
or awkward quantity of gear.
Examples of Character-Defining Gear

Sorcerer from Ancient Nobility
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• Family signet ring
• Noble titles that sound great and carry debts
• Beautifully tailored but threadbare clothing
• Family history bound (at her own request, according to family legend) in your great-
grandmother’s skin
• The last flawless gown remaining from your youth
• Key to your decaying family mansion
• Loyal, aging servant whose name you can never remember
Thief with the Harbor Knives, a thieves’ guild of smugglers
• Encrypted list of Harbor Knives’ safe houses

• Hidden book of blackmail information
• Bottle of mild poison
• Bottle of antidote that itself is severely poisoned
• Well-honed dagger named Blackthorn (Damage Modifier +0)
• Sturdy leather armor you stole from a rival (Armor 1)
• Empty coin purse
• Token of affection stolen from noblewoman
• Attic room with a leaky ceiling but easy roof access
Inquisitor of Denari
• Very worn holy coin of Denari

• Blessed coin pouch, full of most recent pay (not yet tithed)
• Mace of the faithful (Damage Modifier +1)
• Well-worn uniform/robes
• Chain mail crafted from old silver coins, passed down from your great-grandfather (Armor 2)
• Codex of Denari's Holy Word and Tax Code
• A Sorcerer's shriveled tongue (a constant reminder)
• Shared dormitory room attached to a dockside chapel
Outlander Barbarian Warrior
• Empty wineskin
• Empty money pouch
• Lucky knife stolen from a foolish merchant who thought he could betray you. If he comes for it,
you aren’t giving it back. (Damage Modifier +0)
• Severed and mostly-dried merchant’s hand. If he comes for it, you aren’t giving this back, either.
• Well-used axe you call by the name of the last creature you killed (Damage Modifier +2)
• Long list of dead enemies
• Short list of alive enemies
• Untameable stallion you easily ride
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Quick-Start Character Templates
Want to get started quickly? Grab one of these templates and then tweak it after your first game.
Each template is written assuming that you have 5 or more Heroes in your party, so each starts with 10
Investigative Build points. If you have fewer than 5 Heroes in your group, add a number of additional
points per the table on p. XX.
Assassin
Killing with poison or with a knife in the back, you possess enough broad knowledge to be terrifyingly
effective.
Health 11, Morale 7

Allegiances:
Ally: Thieves’ Guilds 1, Ally: Ancient Nobility 1, Enemy: City Watch 1
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Intimidation 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Servility 1
Sentinel Abilities: Vigilance 1
Sorcerer Abilities: Leechcraft 1
Thief Abilities: Ridiculous Luck 1, Skulduggery 2
Warrior Abilities: Spot Frailty 1 (vs. Health)
General Abilities: Athletics 8, Burglary 3, Preparedness 2, Stealth 8, Sway 1, Warfare 8
Barbarian
With little or no knowledge of the city and a deadly mastery of warfare, visiting barbarians are typically
placated (or manipulated) by nearby locals.
Health 12, Morale 6

Allegiances: Ally: Outlanders 2, Enemy: Triskadane 1
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Command 1, Intimidation 2, Taunt 1
Warrior Abilities: Know Monstrosities 1, Spot Frailty 2, Tactics of Death 2, Wilderness Mastery 1
General Abilities: Athletics 8, Bind Wounds 3, Preparedness 3, Stealth 3, Sway 3, Warfare 10
Beggar
Don’t let the rags or odor fool you; when information or gossip is a weapon, few are more deadly than an
informed beggar.
Health 7, Morale 11
Allegiances: Ally: Commoners 1, Ally: Thieves’ Guild 1, Enemy: Ancient Nobility 1
Social Abilities: Liar’s Tell 1, Servility 3, Taunt 1, Trustworthy 1
Thief Abilities: City’s Secrets 1, Scurrilous Rumors 2, Skulduggery 2
Brute
Big, strong, and brutally effective.
Health 11, Morale 7

Allegiances: Ally: Mercenaries 1, Ally: Thieves’ Guild 1, Enemy: Commoners 1
Social Abilities: Intimidation 2, Liar’s Tell 1, Taunt 1
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Sentinel Abilities: Felonious Intent 2, Vigilance 1
Thief Abilities: Ridiculous Luck 1
Warrior Abilities: Spot Frailty 2
General Abilities: Athletics 8, Burglary 3, Preparedness 3, Stealth 8, Warfare 8
Burglar
Take what you want, get out safely, and never let them know you were there.
Health 9, Morale 9
Allegiances: Ally: Thieves’ Guild 2, Enemy: City Watch 1
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Intimidation 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Servility 1, Trustworthy 1
Thief Abilities: City’s Secrets 1, Ridiculous Luck 2, Scurrilous Rumors 1, Skulduggery 2
Church Militant
Often clashing with less religious sellswords, you enforce the temporal will of the Goddess and the
Church.
Health 10, Morale 8

Allegiances: Ally: Church of Denari 2, Enemy: Mercenaries 1
Social Abilities: Intimidation 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Servility 1, Trustworthy 1
Sentinel Abilities: Laws and Traditions 1
Sorcerer Abilities: Leechcraft 1
Warrior Abilities: Spot Frailty 2, Tactics of Death 2
General Abilities: Athletics 6, Bind Wounds 3, Preparedness 5, Sway 8, Warfare 8
Committee Diplomat
Politically adept, connected to power, and pulling the strings.
Health 7, Morale 11
Allegiances: Ally: Triskadane 3, Ally: Mercanti 1, Enemy: Sorcerous Cabals 1
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Command 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Servility 1, Trustworthy 1
Sorcerer Abilities: Prophecy 1
Thief Abilities: City’s Secrets 1
General Abilities: Athletics 4, Preparedness 10, Stealth 4, Sway 12
Duelist
Stylish, urbane, and witty, with a blade even deadlier than your insults.
Health 10, Morale 8

Allegiances: Ally: Ancient Nobility 2, Enemy: Mercanti 1
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Command 1, Nobility 2, Taunt 1
Thief Abilities: Ridiculous Luck 1, Scurrilous Rumors 1
Warrior Abilities: Spot Frailty 1 (Health), Tactics of Death 2
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General Abilities: Athletics 10, Preparedness 4, Stealth 2, Sway 4, Warfare 10
Inquisitor
You know horrible truths about Corruption, even if you’re loathe to draw upon the power you possess.
Health 8, Morale 10
Allegiances: Ally: Church of Denari 1, Ally: Triskadane 1, Enemy: Sorcerous Cabal 1
Social Abilities: Command 1, Intimidation 1, Liar’s Tell 2
Sentinel Abilities: Felonious Intent 2, Laws and Traditions 1, Spirit Sight 1, Vigilance 1
Sorcerer Abilities: Corruption 1
Leecher
You know all about poison, disease and wounds — but it’s up to you whether to cure them or inflict
them.
Health 7, Morale 11
Allegiances: Ally: Mercanti 1, Ally: Mercenaries 1, Ally: Thieves’ Guilds 1, Enemy: Monstrosities 1
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Trustworthy 1
Sorcerer Abilities: Forgotten Lore 2, Leechcraft 2
Thief Abilities: Skulduggery 1
General Abilities: Athletics 3, Burglary 3, Bind Wounds 8, Preparedness 8, Sway 4, Warfare 4
Marketpriest
You are the friend of common people, and the bane of thieves.
Health 8, Morale 10
Allegiances: Ally: Church of Denari 1, Ally: Commoners 1, Enemy: Thieves’ Guilds 1
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Servility 1, Trustworthy 1
Sentinel Abilities: Felonious Intent 2, Laws and Traditions 2, Vigilance 2
General Abilities: Athletics 5, Preparedness 8, Stealth 3, Sway 8, Warfare 6
Mercenary
A classic freelance soldier, dedicated to fighting for those who pay for the privilege.
Health 10, Morale 8

Allegiances: Ally: Mercenaries 2, Ally: Mercanti 1, Enemy: Outlanders 1
Social Abilities: Command 1, Intimidation 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Trustworthy 1
Warrior Abilities: Spot Frailty 2, Tactics of Death 3, Wilderness Mastery 1
Prophet
You see into other realms, and pray that the things in other realms don’t see you as well.
Health 6, Morale 12
Allegiances: Ally: Church of Denari 1, Ally: City Watch 1, Enemy: Sorcerous Cabal 1
Social Abilities: Liar’s Tell 1, Trustworthy 1
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Sentinel Abilities: Spirit Sight 2, Vigilance 1
Sorcerer Abilities: Forgotten Lore 1, Prophecy 2
Thief Abilities: City’s Secrets 1, Scurrilous Rumors 1
Sneak Thief
“I shake her hand, and I’m amazing at picking pockets. What did she give me?”
Health 9, Morale 9
Allegiances: Ally: Thieves’ Guilds 2, Enemy: City Watch 1
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Servility 1, Trustworthy 2
Thief Abilities: City’s Secrets 1, Ridiculous Luck 1, Scurrilous Rumors 1, Skulduggery 3
Sorcerer
Whether it comes from a possessing demon or ancient tablets, your knowledge of Corruption can change
reality itself.
Health 7, Morale 11
Allegiances: Ally: Sorcerers’ Cabal 2, Enemy: Church of Denari 1
Social Abilities: Charm 1, Intimidation 1, Liar’s Tell 1, Nobility 1
Sorcerer Abilities: Corruption 3, Forgotten Lore 2, Prophecy 2
General Abilities: Athletics 3, Preparedness 8, Sorcery 10, Stealth 3, Sway 6
Character Growth
There are lots of ways your character can grow, both mechanically (as your character’s abilities change
over time) and narratively (as you’re affected by what happens in your adventures).
Ability Advancement after each game

At the end of every completed adventure, each player gets 1 Advancement point. The GM might award
an additional Advancement point at the end of particularly momentous and exciting adventures, or
every few sessions if an adventure lasts for 3 or more play sessions, or during a long campaign instead of
a series, to slow the progression down. They may also cap Advancement in long campaigns when Heroes
reach significant amounts of power.
When you get an Advancement point, write it down on your character sheet so you don’t forget it. You
can spend these at any time, including mid-adventure.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
GM Advice: Jumping Around in Time

Classic sword & sorcery stories often skip between the hero as a young fledgling adventurer, as an aging ruler, and
as a hero at the peak of their career. You can do this in your Swords of the Serpentine game, even turning it into a
trilogy of adventures that skip around in time. See p. XX for details.
[[[end sidebar]]]
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Spending Advancement Points
• 1 point — increase a General ability by 1 rank. If this increases a General ability rank from 7 to 8,
gain the appropriate Talent.
• 1 point — increase Health or Morale by 1. If this increases your Health or Morale from 9 to 10,
gain the appropriate Threshold increase from 3 to 4.
• 3 points — increase the rank of an Investigative ability (including those in a new profession) by 1
rank.
• 3 points — increase the rank of an existing Ally by 1, or add 1 rank of a new Ally.
• 3 points — eliminate 1 rank of an existing Enemy.
Costs for increasing 1 rank also include taking a new ability at 1 (though you may need to check with the
GM that this makes sense).
You’ve saved up your Advancement points and have 3 that you still haven’t spent. You use all 3
to increase the Investigative ability Ridiculous Luck by 1 rank, just as you’re falling off the roof of
a tall building. Good timing.
Allies and Enemies

The GM may add permanent ranks to your Allegiances (see p. XX) as you make friends and enemies in
Eversink, but is more likely to assign temporary pool points of Favors and Grudges instead. These scores
reflect obligations, favors owed, friendships, foul enemies, and debts not yet repaid – or getting caught
betraying the interests of a faction you have as an Ally.
Gear
Regularly update your character-defining gear to reflect your current personality. Your gear may affect
your Hero, especially magical items. Gear purchased with Wealth or found as treasure gets written
down on your character sheet and sticks around between adventures until you no longer want it.
Wealth and Lifestyle

The Lifestyle you choose and pay for at the beginning of every adventure affects your Repute for the
entirety of that adventure (see page XX). Keep any Wealth you haven’t spent by the end of an
adventure.
Expect your Wealth to fluctuate wildly between adventures. Just as many heroes in sword & sorcery
novels go from great riches to abject poverty between stories, these rules encourage you to have fun
blowing your treasure on an opulent lifestyle and the prestige of high repute, so that you have a good
reason to go out and adventure for even more wealth.
Changing Your Abilities

You can freely tweak your ability distribution between your first and second games. If you put 8 points in
Burglary but never had the occasion to rob anyone, you may wish to start the second game with some
or all of those points invested elsewhere, if your GM approves and it doesn’t change your core character
concept.
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If you’re past your second game and want to move your points around, you may do so only with GM
permission, and by sacrificing 1 Advancement point. It’s a small price to pay for getting the Hero you
want to play. Don’t redo your entire character concept when adjusting your points.
If you’re changing your abilities every game to try to gain some sort of unfair advantage, your GM will
laugh at you and tell you to stop.
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CHAPTER THREE: RULES
[[[Begin full page sidebar]]]
Swords of the Serpentine 101: How to Play

Already created your Hero? Here are the basics on how to play, along with page numbers to look up
more details.
The Basics:
• Use Investigative abilities you have rank 1 or more in to find leads and gather clues. (p. XX)
o Spend Investigative ability pool points to get powerful effects. (p. XX)
• You have political Allegiances who can give you information or lend you a hand. (p. XX)
• Use General abilities to take actions. Roll a d6 (before you roll, you can spend points from that General
ability’s pool) and try to match or exceed a Difficulty number (usually 4). (p. XX)
• Spending Corruption lets you cast powerful spells or inflict exceptional damage, but corrupts either your
body, or your friends’ Morale and the world around you. (p. XX)
• If you spent enough Wealth at the start of the game, you may have High Repute you can use to buy your
way out of trouble. (If you didn’t, your Low Repute might cause you some trouble!) (p. XX)
To Attack:
• To attack someone, tell the GM you’re using Warfare (to attack someone’s Health), Sway (to attack their
Morale), or Sorcery (which targets either Health or Morale). (p. XX), and whether you want to spend
points from that combat ability to add to your attack roll.
• Roll a d6. You’re trying to meet or beat your target’s Health or Morale Threshold, usually a of 3 or 4. That
means by spending 3 points from your ability, you’ll automatically succeed in most situations. (p. XX)
• If you can rationalize how spending an Investigative point might boost your attack, it gives you +3 on an
attack roll (p. XX)
• Is your attack ability rank 8 or higher, and you exceeded your roll by 3 or more? If so, you automatically
attack more than one nearby foe. (p. XX)
• You can use a teamwork attack instead of leaping in to attack yourself, giving an ally your attack’s
damage; this lets you use Morale damage when attacking Health, or vice versa. (p. XX)
To Damage:
• If your attack hit your target, you normally inflict 1 d6 +1 damage. That damage may vary a bit if you’re
using a weapon. (p. XX)
• Your minimum result on that damage die roll is the number of points (up to 6) you spent while attacking.
(p. XX)
• If your attack exceeds the target number by 5 or more, you score a Critical Hit and do an extra die of
damage. (p. XX)
• You can boost that damage by another 1 die or more by spending Investigative points, if you can explain
to the GM how that ability can help hurt your target more. (p. XX)
• The damage you inflict (and inflicted on you) is reduced by Armor (for Health) or Grit (for Morale) (p. XX)
• Use Maneuvers for combat stunts or manipulating people: the target takes damage if they don’t allow
your Maneuver to affect them. (p. XX)
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[[[end full page sidebar]]]
Mysteries, Leads, and Clues

Heroes in Swords of the Serpentine unravel mysteries, navigate politics, challenge enemies, and change
the world. There are mysteries everywhere: Why do my allies want help on this mission, and what aren’t
they telling me? Who is the hidden sorcerer who has cursed my friend? Who or what is prowling the
street at night? Mysteries mean investigation, and investigation means finding and following leads.
Leads and clues are very similar and are generally used synonymously in these rules. If leads propel you
towards adventure, clues are self-contained facts that then point towards the right path. A clue might
start you towards a sunken tower full of treasure, and you’d find a clue in an old map as to its location.
If there’s a clue to be gained in a scene, you’ll learn the information you need to move forward in the
adventure from your Investigative abilities. All you need to is be in a location where you can find out
that information, have an Investigative ability that might logically apply, tell the GM how you’re using it,
and roleplay the scene.
Of course, there may be consequences to what ability you use. If you Intimidate someone into giving
you information instead of treating them kindly, they may hate and resent you for it afterwards. If you
use Skulduggery to blackmail information out of someone, and they learn who you are, they will
consider you a threat.
Leads and clues work like in a sword & sorcery story or a mystery: the heroes learn information that
propels them into a confrontation with the villain, and only when dramatically appropriate (and when
they’ve worked their way to the right information) do they uncover the true extent of the villain’s
horrible plan.
Not every adventure is a mystery, of course. In a straightforward action story or a heist, your
Investigative abilities give you leads into danger, excitement, and rewards.
“We need money,” you say, “and I’m sure not going to work for it if I can stab someone and take
theirs. I have a rank of Scurrilous Rumors and 2 ranks of Allies: Thieves’ Guilds. Any rumors of
adventures or employment cross our ears?”
“Sure!” says the GM, making up interesting plot hooks off the top of her head. “A minor thief
turned up dead in Ironcross and his relatives are looking for someone to find and punish the
murderers before the Watch does. Also, thieves’ guilds are looking for a team to rob an
important merchant from out of town, someone to poison a bottle of wine on a ship down in the
harbor, and someone to go looking for a lost funerary statue that is apparently really important
all of a sudden. Oh, and some merchants want a “scout” for an expedition into ancient ruins
upriver.”
“What pays best?” you ask.
“The statue. Suspiciously well.”
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“Good. I also have Skulduggery; let’s find out why they’re willing to pay so much. We can
investigate our employers at the same time we’re finding their statue to sell back to them.
Assuming they don’t kill us first.”
Passive and Active Leads

Some leads would be obvious to anyone searching a scene (or asking a knowledgeable ally for
information), and the GM will give you these passive leads without prompting. After all, anyone can
notice a dead body, even if it takes Leechcraft to know what turned it into a corpse. You can then dig
deeper for active leads to find out even more.
The GM usually hands these leads out to the most appropriate Hero, the Hero with the highest rank in a
relevant ability, or just the Hero who hasn’t done anything cool for a bit.
Active leads or clues, in comparison, you need to ask for. Think about what your Hero might be able to
know, look at the situation, and ask the GM if there are any leads present that you might be able to
notice. If you don’t ask, the GM probably isn’t going to offer that information.
Scenarios and common sense suggest which leads are passive and which are active, but your GM may
adjust these in play depending on how much guidance you seem to need. On a night when you’re
buzzing with caffeine, the GM may sit back and let you prompt her for passive leads. When you’re
bogged down and confused, she may volunteer what would normally be active leads.
Core Leads
For each scene, the GM designates at least one core lead. This is the information you absolutely need to
move to another core scene, and thus to eventually complete the adventure.
The Investigative ability the GM designates is just one possibility, not a straitjacket — if you come up
with a plausible method using another Investigative ability, the GM will give out the information.
Player Advice: Note the Leads

We’ve found it’s best to have at least one player taking notes of active leads and clues found during an adventure.
If no one wishes to, the GM should write down key names and factions on index cards for the players, and be
liberal about occasionally summarizing known clues.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Spending Investigative Ability Points

If you think of your Swords of the Serpentine game as a TV series, spending an Investigative point for an
extra benefit gives your character a juicy spotlight moment. It’s a means of grabbing narrative control to
accomplish something exciting you might not otherwise have been able to pull off, telling the GM, “I
want to do something particularly cool with this, so please pay attention!”
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Your GM may offer you the chance to spend additional points from your Investigative pool during play,
but it’s also up to you to ask if it there’s anything to be gained by making an Investigative spend.
Spending an Investigative pool point doesn’t make you less knowledgeable about that subject, or reduce
that ability’s rank; it just limits the number of times you can get special benefits related to that ability
during the adventure.
You can spend an Investigative pool point to do any one of the following:
• Gain a +3 bonus on a related General ability test (including attacks).

• Gain +1 die of damage to a successful attack.
• Gain Armor 4 (which reduces Health damage) or Grit 4 (which reduces Morale damage) for
one round.
• Increase your Health or Morale Threshold by +3 for one attack.
• Give supporting characters a favorable impression of you.
• Stretch the definition of the ability you’re using, granting you a clue that would ordinarily
be gained with a different ability than the one you have.
• Create one of the special effects noted under the ability’s description.
• Create a unique special effect that you and the GM agree is balanced with others on this
table.
[[[layout note: please place this after the preceding bullet list]]]
Designer Notes: The Most Important Part of the Game!

Spending Investigative pool points for extra damage may be the most important part of this game, and it’s a big
difference from how other GUMSHOE games work. When we were designing SotS we realized early on that
combat would have to be cinematic and exciting. Exciting combat means high numbers, and GUMSHOE’s typical
“1d6+1 damage” didn’t seem to fit. And so, players can (and should) spend Investigative pool points to buff up
their attack damage. This can do real damage to terrifying Adversaries, and when combined with Critical hits and
Teamwork attacks, can let a player change the course of the battle with a single blow. If you’re hoping to model
classic sword and sorcery heroes, that matters.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Each benefit costs 1 or more points from the relevant pool, depending on what you’re trying to achieve
– the GM can tell you how much it will cost, and can give you the option of describing a montage instead
of playing out the entire scene.
“You want to rob the heavily guarded Guildhall just to steal money? That’s not a lead; to save
time you can spend 1 point of Servility to sneak in briefly as a servant during the day, 2 points of
Servility to pretty much have the run of the place overnight, or you can spend nothing and we’ll
play out the whole scene trying to infiltrate using Stealth. What sounds like the most fun?”
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If you want to make a spend in a situation where the GM has no special benefit to offer you, she will let
you know, and you do not lose the points you wanted to spend.
Refreshing Investigative Ability Points

Spent Investigative points are refreshed at the start of the next adventure. The GM may give refreshes
as a story reward, or when a single adventure stretches out for more than two sessions of play.
Using General Abilities Investigatively

In a pinch most General abilities can also function as Investigative abilities when they’re clearly the best
choice for gathering a lead. Stealth, for example, might be used as an Investigative ability to cleanly
infiltrate the temple of a heretical cult without being seen (although getting out again afterwards may
be a lot trickier). A minimum rating of 4 in the General ability, indicating you are more skilled than a
casual dabbler, is needed to gain this benefit.
What If Something Is Hidden?

Swords of the Serpentine has a fairly simple rule for noticing someone or something hidden that isn’t a
clue or lead:
You spot something hidden with the same General ability that was used to hide it.
Stealth is generally used to hide people or objects; Burglary is used to hide small objects on the body or
in a room. A magical illusion not part of a Maneuver (see p. XX) is noticed with a Sorcery test, which
means illusions are difficult for most people to detect. If you have ranks in Vigilance, every rank you
possess gives you +1 Alertness modifier (p. XX) on this test.
The GM may ask you to make a test without telling you why. If she does, it may be to see if you notice
something hidden that she doesn’t otherwise want to tell you about.
Alertness modifiers and Stealth modifiers (see p. XX) might affect the Difficulty of spotting something
hidden. Your GM may apply these modifiers if something is harder or easier than normal to spot, just
giving you a final target Difficulty.
A thief is following you because she wants to rob you. To notice her you roll a Stealth test, plus
any Alertness modifier you may have. The Difficulty is 4 plus the thief’s Stealth Modifier. If her
modifier is +2, your Difficulty to notice her is 6. If you fail, she’s able to Surprise you (see p. XX)
when she makes her move.
The Best Rule of Thumb

When you’re trying to decide how to tackle a challenge, don’t desperately stare at your character sheet
for inspiration. Instead, tell the GM what your end goals are. Together, the two of you will figure out the
best way to succeed.
[begin [sidebar]]]
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Player Advice: Encouraging Creative Solutions
You’ll notice we use the phrase “if you can rationalize it” a lot when describing what you can accomplish by
spending an Investigative point. There’s a reason for that. This game works best when you come up with creative
solutions for using your abilities. No GM is going to give you a damage bonus if you ask “Can I do extra damage by
spending a point of Nobility?”, but they will if you explain: “As a child I was trained each year by a different fencing
tutor, and I learned eight different fighting styles in eight years. I’d like to spend a point of Nobility to remember
one that does particularly painful damage. Then I want to stab this guy in the throat.”
Why the difference? The latter description helps build the world, expands your Hero’s background, and makes the
game more fun for everyone. You deserve to be rewarded for that. For her part, your GM will try to be open-
minded and default to “Yes, and…” when you make your case.
Once you’re familiar with the rules, you’ll end up creating unique special effects and creative solutions almost
every adventure.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Allegiance Ranks
Allegiance ranks define the extent of a Hero’s political Allies and Enemies within Eversink.
Investigative Build Points points can be split between different Allies, or multiple points can be assigned
to a single Ally to gain a reputation and indicate a stronger bond. In fact, the same policial faction can
include both Ally and Enemy ranks, indicating that the Hero is a member or friend of that faction, but
also has enemies in it, secretly (or maybe not so secretly) working against them.
Your Hero is an idealistic teenager from a prominent but corrupt noble family. During character
creation you assign your 2 Ally points, AND your 1 Enemy point, into Ancient Nobility. That
indicates you have loyal allies within high society (probably drawing on your family’s centuries-
old clout and influence), but other members of the nobility secretly wish to see you thwarted or
dead. You and the GM decide on something heroic or memorable you did to make those people
hate you.
When you draw on your Ancient Nobility’s influence, you’ll have to watch your back to avoid
betrayal. You have a reputation with other nobles, who will usually recognize you by sight.
GM Advice: Simplifying the Game – Politics, Schmolitics

Allegiances are one of our favorite and most fun aspects of Swords of the Serpentine, but they aren’t relevant if
your adventure takes place in the wilderness or involves no political pressure. If you want a simpler game, you can
safely ignore Allegiances.
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Allies
These are political factions you — big surprise — are permanently allied with. If you have 1 or more
ranks in an Ally, at least one person in that faction will gladly assist you whenever you need them to,
including providing details that would otherwise be hidden from outsiders. When you say something
like, “Don’t worry, I know someone who’ll be willing to help,” you’re drawing on your Allies. The faction
descriptions starting on p. XX suggest ways that your Allies might be able to aid you.
You can spend Ally pool points during an adventure to use the faction’s clout or resources to help you.
Mercenaries might supply you with troops (or withdraw their troops from one of their clients at a crucial
moment), the Mercanti might give you a ride on a fast ship when you need it the most, the Thieves’
Guilds might steal crucial evidence for you, the Church of Denari may give you access to their prophets,
the Triskadane may bend the law for you, the City Watch may briefly arrest someone you want out of
the picture, and so on. Just ask (and spend enough pool points), and they’re happy to help. Don’t be
surprised if they occasionally ask you for help in return. That’s what allies are for.
As with all Investigative ranks, spent pool points from Allies refresh at the start of every adventure.
New ranks of Allies are typically earned by spending Advancement points at a rate of your current rank
+1. If you’ve repeatedly proven your worth to a faction over time, your GM may, rarely, reward you with
a rank of Allies with that faction.
You assigned your Hero Allies: Thieves’ Guilds 2, so you have two ranks of friendship with
Eversink’s underworld. You know the movers and shakers of the criminal world, and a lot of them
know you. You can freely go to them for leads and clues, and if you need a favor, your two ranks
give you 2 pool points that you can spend if you need to have a rival’s pocket picked or acquire a
particularly rare poison, for instance..
Favors
These signify that the faction owes you favors, but once you call those in, you’re considered even. These
have a rank of 0, and are temporary pool points in a given faction. When you say “I’m going to have to
cash in a few favors for this,” you’re spending pool points of Favors to get what you want. You never
gain free leads or clues from an unspent Favor, but you can spend pool points of Favors for faction
information or assistance. Unspent Favors last between adventures, but once you spend a Favor point, it
is gone and does not refresh.
New pool points of Favors are typically earned by helping a faction during an adventure.
You have Favors: Monstrosities 1, gained after you spared a rat-thing’s life. You and the
monstrosity have a grudging respect for each other at best, but if you ask it, it’ll go out of its way
to give you information about Monstrosities or to do you a favor. Once it does, the 1 point of
Favor is spent, and the two of you no longer have a continuing obligation.
Enemies
If you have 1 or more ranks in an Enemy faction, at least one person in that faction hates you. When you
say something like, “We’ll be fine as long as no one from the Thieves’ Guilds sees us,” you’re probably
referring to an Enemy. Like any Investigative rank, you can use your Enemy ranks to find leads and clues
about that faction. However, your enemies (not you!) can spend the same number of pool points to
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complicate your life in a number of ways discussed on p. XX. As with all Investigative ranks, spent pool
points from Enemies refresh at the start of every adventure, even when you wish they wouldn’t.
Talk with the GM and decide why your enemy hates you. Make it personal, make it interesting, and
make it dramatic.
You have Enemies: Church of Denari 1, because they suspect you’re a sorcerer but haven’t yet
been able to prove it. You can use your Enemy to learn church-related leads and clues, but during
each adventure, the GM can spend that Enemy pool point to complicate your life… usually in the
form of an inquisitor who dogs your steps and threatens you in public.
New ranks of Enemies are assigned by the GM and are typically earned by thwarting a faction’s goals in
a memorable way. If you thwart a faction in a way that only leaves important members of the faction
briefly angry, you’ll receive a Grudge (below).
Grudges
These signify your obligation to someone or hostility against you, but not a long-lasting vendetta. These
have a rank of 0 and are temporary pool points in a given faction. If you say something like, “We may
not want to go to Ironcross, I’m not really popular there right now,” you’re walking around with at least
one point of Grudges from the Triskadane. You never gain free leads or clues from an unspent Grudge.
Once the faction (not you!) uses the Grudge against you to call in a favor or to thwart you somehow,
that point is spent, and the grudge is gone forever. No hard feelings, right? The GM may award you
Grudge points in any adventure where you thwart a faction’s plans.
You have Grudges: Sorcerous Cabal 1, gained when you refused to help a Cabal sorcerer animate
a surprisingly large number of corpses. The Cabal will do something nasty to complicate your life,
but once they do the Grudge is spent; survive their complication and they’re off your back until
the next time you cross them.
You never gain free leads or clues from an unspent Grudge.
Designer Notes: Strike with an Army Instead of a Sword

This is a game where who you know really matters. Just as in actual politics, you can get what you want by
threatening your foe with the wrath of important people or blocks of people. Your Allegiance Investigative ranks
represent this influence, and you shouldn’t be shy about using it to gain leads or spending it to gain favors.
The idea of Allegiances came when we asked, “How might you handle something like 13th Age RPG’s Icons in a
GUMSHOE game?” We think that game does a brilliant job of tying heroes to vast powers. In this game we’ve
lowered the default political power down from 13th Age RPG’s continent-spanning level to our city level, but the
theory still holds. Ally yourself with the powerful, and you can rely on them to aid you when you need it most.
Even more interesting to us are Heroes who spend their initial Investigative Build Points to increase their
Allegiances instead of their Profession abilities. You can legitimately play a new Hero with 5 ranks of Allies in a
single faction, letting you start off as one of the most politically powerful and influential people in all of Eversink —
with combat power identical to that of other Heroes. Just check with your GM first, because you want to make
sure they and the other players think this is as much fun as you do.
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[[[end sidebar]]]
Tests
If you aren’t looking for a clue or lead, success is tied to your General abilities, and isn’t automatic. This
is often the case when you already know where to go for your next lead, but there’s some sort of barrier
or obstacle between you and your goal that doesn’t provide you with any new information: a vigilant
guard, a locked door, a devious trap, or a hungry monster.
You’ve followed a clue to discover some missing jewels, but they’re protected by a sorcerous
glyph, a bound guardian spirit, and a locked chest. You’ll need to deal with those before you can
grab the evidence.
You still need to get out, and you’re no longer hunting for a clue when you do so. Your group
must make Stealth and Burglary tests to get out successfully, and your roleplaying makes a big
difference as to whether you can successfully fool any servants or guards who spot you. Later,
after the alarm is sounded and the house guard rushes in pursuit, you make Athletics tests to flee
across the rooftops.
Tests apply to General abilities only, and the GM should call for tests only when their failure is
consequential. You don’t need to roll an Athletics test to climb up onto the rooftops when you just
happen to be wandering around the city. If you’re involved in a chase, however, or trying to avoid a
raging flood, that Athletics test matters.
There are two common types of test: simple tests and full contests (including chases).
Simple Tests
A simple test occurs when you attempt an action without active resistance from another person or
entity. Swimming a canal, jumping across roofs, shooting a target, and sneaking into an unguarded
building are all examples.
The GM determines how hard any given action is by assigning it a Difficulty number ranging from 3 to
12.
You roll a single d6: if your result is equal to or higher than the Difficulty Number, you succeed. Before
rolling the die, you may choose to spend any number of points from a relevant General ability pool,
adding +1 for each point spent to the final die result. If you forget to specify the number of points you
want to spend before rolling, you’re stuck with the unmodified result. That’s okay. It happens.
You can keep using a General ability even when your pool drops to 0, so long as your rank in that ability
is 1 or higher. You just don’t add any pool points to your die roll, because you don’t currently have any
pool points to spend.
Difficulty Number Table
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Difficulty Number Level Example
3 Easy Sneaking past a sleeping guard
4 Normal (default) Sneaking past an awake guard
6 Hard Sneaking past an awake, alert guard
8 Very Hard Sneaking past an awake, alert guard with a guard dog
10 Exceptionally Sneaking past a well-lit watch-post full of alert guards,

watch dogs, and vigilant geese1
12 Nearly Impossible As per Difficulty 10, except they have a prophet or

they’ve been warned you’re coming
Spending points indicates special effort and concentration by your Hero. Spend enough points and you
can guarantee success, although this may leave you temporarily depleted in that ability. For normal tests
of Difficulty 4, you have a 50% chance of success without spending any General ability points, and a
100% chance of success if you spend 3 points. For a nearly impossible test, you’d need to spend 8 points
for a 50% chance of success, and 11 points to guarantee success.
Revealing Difficulty Numbers

The GM should usually not reveal exact Difficulty Numbers, but when the information would be evident
to you the GM should indicate whether they are easier, harder, or much harder than normal.
“Can I use Sway from here to talk him into surrendering?”
“He’s on the other side of the loud street on a roof, just barely in Medium range, and you’d have
to really shout. It’s possible, but much harder than normal.”
On occasions where spending more than needed is frustrating instead of fun, such as the Dodge Talent
from a high Athletics or on Health and Morale tests (see p. XX), your GM will tell you the target number.
“He’s trying to skewer you but you have Dodge. His attack result to stab you was a 5. You need
to roll a 6 or higher on an Athletics test in order to Dodge entirely. Want to spend any points?”
GM Advice: When to Reveal Difficulty Numbers

If your players are loss-averse and feel frustrated because they don’t know exact Difficulty numbers, get in the
habit of telling them the exact numbers by default. Secrecy is less important than your friends having fun, and
revealing Difficulty numbers to your players sure won’t break the game.
1 Throughout actual history, geese turn out to make superb guards, and that’s true in Eversink as well. No, seriously! Go Google
it, and see p. XX.
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General Spends
Occasionally there’s a task at which there is no reasonable chance of failure, but which should cost the
Heroes a degree of effort. To do this, the GM will simply charge your Heroes a number of points from
relevant General ability pools; 1 or 2 points per character is a reasonable General spend for most tasks.
Where tasks can be performed by a team effort, multiple Heroes may contribute points to the total.
“You want to enter the tower by the roof, and you’re willing to take your time helping each other
get up there? Sure. Spending 10 Athletics points gets everyone up there safely, and I don’t care
who or how many people they come from.”
Alertness Modifiers
Your Alertness Modifier affects whether you’ll spot hidden people and objects. You gain that modifier
on your General ability tests to notice something that isn’t supposed to be noticed, like a lurking
assassin or a secret passage. Every rank of Vigilance you have gives you a constant +1 bonus, and
spending a point of Vigilance gives you an additional +3 Alertness modifier on your next test. This usually
lets you notice hidden things automatically, even when they aren’t leads or clues.
You have 3 ranks in Vigilance, giving you a +3 Alertness Modifier. You’d normally have to roll a
Difficulty 4 Burglary test to notice that your wine at dinner has been poisoned. Your Alertness
modifier means that you notice it automatically.
A foe’s Alertness Modifier represents their ability to notice your activities when you’re the one trying to
be stealthy. Your foe’s Alertness Modifier affects the base Difficulty of your Stealth test.
The guard dog has a +3 Alertness Modifier due to keen hearing and a heightened sense of smell.
Your Stealth Difficulty to sneak across the courtyard rises from 4 to 7. There’s also a guard, but
she’s drowsy and has an Alertness Modifier of −1; the Stealth Difficulty to sneak past her is only
3. You roll a single Stealth test at Difficulty 7 to see if the dog notices you.
Stealth Modifiers
Your Stealth Modifier affects whether other people will spot you when you’re trying to be Stealthy.
Spending a point of Skulduggery or (when appropriate) Servility gives you a +3 Stealth modifier on a
Stealth test to hide.
You’re hoping to avoid that guard dog. You spend a point of Skulduggery for a +3 Stealth
Modifier, conveniently cancelling out the dog’s Alertness Modifier. The Stealth test to
successfully sneak drops back to 4.
A foe’s Stealth Modifier represents their ability to be stealthy when you’re the one trying to notice
them. Your foe’s Stealth Modifier affects the base Difficulty of the Stealth test you make to try and spot
them; a foe with a positive Stealth Modifier is harder to spot, and a foe with a negative Stealth Modifier
is easier to spot.
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A shadow demon with a +4 Stealth Modifier drifts closer to you, hoping to ambush you. The
Difficulty of a Stealth test to spot it rises from Difficulty 4 to Difficulty 8.
Retrying a Failed Test

Other than combat attacks, the test represents your best chance to succeed. Once you fail, you’ve done
your best and cannot retry unless you take some other supporting action that would credibly increase
your odds of success. If allowed to do this, you must spend more pool points than you did on the
previous attempt. If you can’t afford it, you can’t retry.
Piggybacking
When you work with other Heroes to perform a task together, designate one Hero to take the lead. That
character makes a simple test, spending any number of their own pool points toward the task, as usual.
All other characters pay just 1 point from their relevant pools to gain the benefits of the leader’s action.
These points are not added to the leader’s die result. For every character who is unable to pay this
Piggybacking cost, either because they lack pool points or do not have the ability at all, the Difficulty of
the attempt increases by 2.
You and four of your allies use Stealth to sneak into the guildhall of a notorious thieves’ guild.
You take lead. Everyone else in your group should pay 1 point of Stealth so they can piggyback
with you. Problem is, two of your allies have no points left in their Stealth pool. Your Difficulty
rises by 4 points, 2 for each of those two allies, to 8. Spend accordingly!
In most instances your group can’t logically act in concert. Two Heroes with Preparedness check for an
item one at a time instead of checking at the same time, unless they’re combining their Wealth to buy it
in a shop. Only one character at a time can pick a normal-sized lock.
Cooperation
When two characters cooperate toward a single goal, they agree which of them is undertaking the task
directly, and which is assisting. The leader may spend any number of points from their pool, adding
them to the die roll. The assistant may pay any number of points from their pool. All but one of these is
applied to the die roll.
You and your ally are trying to lift a very, very heavy portcullis enough to slip under. She takes
lead. You both spend 6 Athletics; your bonus on the test is +11.
Full Contests
Full contests occur when two characters actively attempt to thwart one another. Often, this is between
one or more Heroes and one or more Adversaries controlled by the GM.
In a full contest, each character acts in turn. The first character to act makes a test of the ability in
question. If they fail, they lose the full contest. If the first character succeeds, the second character then
makes a test. This continues until one character loses, at which point the other one wins.
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In a chase, the character who bolts from the scene acts first. Where the characters seem to be acting at
the same time, the one with the lowest rank in the relevant ability acts first. In the event of a tie, or if
the Adversary has no rank listed, Adversaries act before player characters. In the event of a tie between
player characters, the player who arrived last for the current session goes first in the contest. Hey,
punctuality counts.
A drunken argument with a noble has led to an archery competition… with the target being a
piece of fruit set atop the head of a commoner. You’re going first. If you miss, you possibly aren’t
the only person who loses.
Typically each character attempts to beat a Difficulty of 4. A notable advantage or disadvantage can
lower the Difficulty to 3 or raise it to 5 or higher for one or both of the characters.
Using the Talent from a high Preparedness ability, one of your friends establishes with Flashback
that your opponent in the archery contest has been poisoned with a drug that leaves their hands
shaking badly. Their Difficulty rises from 4 to 6, while your Difficulty stays at 4.
Chases
In Swords of the Serpentine the most common full contest is the chase. A chase occurs when one
character (or group of characters) is trying to catch up to another character or group, or when multiple
groups are taking separate routes to race to a single spot.
Characters roll a Difficulty 4 chase test against a key ability that varies based on the nature of the chase,
and any character who fails a roll is out of the chase. If a quarry fails, pursuers catch up with them and
they must surrender or fight. If a pursuer fails they may not continue the chase, and they rejoin the
group after the chase’s conclusion. The chase ends when all pursuers have dropped out of the chase, or
when all quarries have been caught up with.
During a chase, attempting any non-chase action that helps you or hinders your opponents (such as
attacking with Warfare, changing the rower on your boat, and so on) raises the Difficulty of your chase
test that round by +2 per non-chase action. It’s hard to run and kill someone at the same time! The GM
adjudicates whether an action helps or hinders. Successful actions might raise the difficulty of the other
side’s next chase test or give you a +2 bonus to yours.
You’re on foot, chasing some sort of rat monstrosity through a marketplace. It plows through a
market stall full of chickens, hoping the loose birds will confuse you. The rat-thing makes a
Warfare test at Difficulty 4 to smash open the cages while it runs past. This increases the
Difficulty of the rat-thing’s chase test by +2 this round, making it Difficulty 6.
If the chicken diversion is successful, the Difficulty of your (and your allies’) next chase tests rises
by an amount chosen by your GM, usually +2. If any of you then fail your chase test, the diversion
will have worked and that person will have to drop out of the chase.
It’s up to the loser of the chase how they respond upon being caught or losing the chase. They may
surrender, they may fight, they may try to hide, or they may try to talk their way out of trouble. Either
way, they’re probably trying it while panting from exertion.
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If a fight erupts during or at the end of a chase, move into normal Initiative (p. XX), with one of the
victors going first in combat.
Refresh tokens (see p. XX) are held back until the end of the chase. The goal of a chase is flight, not
combat, and slowing down to defeat enemies along the route shouldn’t allow Heroes to then refresh
their Athletics pool to run even faster.
Designer Notes: Chase Mechanics

There’s a tricky balance when it comes to chases. We want them to be frenetic, interesting and exciting;
we don’t want them to be a simulation that takes every factor into account. These rules assume that
you’re mostly focused on pursuit (or escape), and that anything else you or your allies decide may
distract from that.
Running away from someone? At first glance it doesn’t seem like a good idea to distract your pursuer,
because every attempt raises your chase test Difficulty by 2 and makes you more likely to be caught.
The non-obvious trade-off is that if you’re successful, you raise the Difficulty of the chase test by 2 or
more for everyone following you — and if they fail that, they’re out of the chase entirely. Is it worth
risking your own failure if it means that one or more pursuers must drop out of the chase? Maybe! And
frankly, it’s just fun to tip over a marketplace booth selling live scorpions if it means your pursuers will
then have to navigate the resulting chaos.
[[[End sidebar]]]
Racing to a Location
Some races don’t have a pursuer and quarry, and instead are multiple individuals or groups racing for a
finite duration or to a specific location. Examples might include a ten-person footrace, sprinting through
a flooding sewer for the exit, or a regatta through Eversink’s canals from one side of the city to the
other.
When groups are racing to a single location, the GM establishes the number of rounds that the chase
will last. Every round, each contestant (or group of contestants) must succeed at their chase test to stay
in the race. Where the odds of success are skewed in favor of one contestant, the GM may assign
different chase Difficulties to each side. The GM calculates the lead by subtracting each party’s chase
Difficulty from their result.
The GM keeps track of the cumulative lead for each individual or group in the race, and the contestant
with the highest cumulative lead at the end is the winner. The group with the highest lead at the end of
any given round is ahead.
Throughout the chase, everyone at the gaming table should collaborate to add flavor to each result,
explaining what you did to remain in the race. Describe slippery cobblestones, mud, inconvenient canals,
handy shortcuts, annoyed pigs, rickety rooftop bridges, surprised churchgoers, and crowded markets.
That way, instead of dropping out of the narration to talk about Difficulty numbers and Athletics spends,
you keep the fictional world verbally alive in a way that everyone around the table can picture.
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Attempting any non-chase action raises the Difficulty for that action by +2, and Refresh tokens are held
back until the end of the chase.
You’re piloting your small boat across the city at night, hoping to reach the harbor before your
enemies can set off an alchemical bomb in a ship. Your rivals are trying to arrive before you do,
so that they can steal the bomb. Athletics is the chase ability, and the GM sets this as a 4-round
race.
Because your whole team is in a single boat, you only make one Athletics test each round (with
everyone else piggybacking off your hard work rowing, and so paying 1 Athletics point each).
Your chase Difficulty is 4, and so is your opponent’s.
1st round: You spend 6 Athletics and roll a 6. Your result is 12. Your foes spend 5 Athletics and roll
a 3, for a result of 8. Once you subtract the Difficulty, your lead is 8, theirs is 4. You’re in the lead!
2nd round: You spend 4 Athletics but roll a 1. Your Result is 5, while your foes’ is 9: subtract the
Difficulty from each and your lead is now 9 (8+1), theirs is 9 (4+5). You’re tied.
3rd round: You’re almost out of Athletics so you change boat pilots to someone else, increasing
your Difficulty this round by +2. Your side spends 6 but rolls another 1, for a result of 7. Your foes
get 9. Your lead is now 10, theirs is 14. They’re in the lead
4th round: You spend a point of City’s Secrets to take a shortcut, adding +3 to your Athletics test
this round. Your side spends 5 Athletics, adds +3, and rolls a 6, for a result of 14. Your foes are
almost out of Athletics and get a result of 7. You add 10 to your Lead, and your opponents add 3
to theirs.
Your total lead at the end is 20, and your foes’ total lead is 17. You win and arrive before they do.
GM Advice: Non-traditional Chases

There’s no reason you have to use these rules only for traditional chases. Multiple sorcerers trying to
control a single magical gem might have a mental chase through its sorcerous labyrinth using the Racing
to a Location rules with Sorcery as the chase key ability. Two rival rogues trying to be the first person to
trigger a deadly but confusingly complex mechanical trap might have a 3-round “chase” using Burglary
as the chase key ability, with the winner triggering the trap against the loser.
Investigative Spends During Chases
It’s easier to consistently win chases if you spend an appropriate Investigative point to gain a +3 bonus
on your chase test for the round. No matter how many people there are per side, each side can benefit
from only 1 Investigative spend per round.
“Don’t worry,” you say as you steer your gondola into a narrow side canal, “I know the Canal
Watchers have the main canal closed.” You spend a pool point from Allies: Guild of Architects
and Canal-Watchers and add +3 to this round’s chase result.
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When you start running low on your key chase ability, remember that Investigative pool points can
always be spent for a +3 bonus on a linked General ability roll (p. XX). This means that even if you’re out
of Athletics, you can spend a point of an ability like City’s Secrets, Prophecy or Ridiculous Luck and gain
+3 on your next chase test. It may be enough to make the difference.
Piggybacking During Chases
It’s rare for a chase to involve the Piggybacking rules unless the characters have an explanation for how
they’re helping one another and staying together, such as when they’re sharing a boat. When
Piggybacking in a chase scene and one side has a member whose pool has fallen to 0, that side can
choose to leave that person behind (if the pursuers) or abandon them to be captured (if the quarry)
instead of increasing the Difficulty by 2 as normal.
You’re chasing an Outlander spy who leaps onto a gondola, shoves the pilot overboard, and
heads down the canal as fast as he can. You and your allies leap onto another gondola and give
chase. Normally everyone but you would pay 1 point of Athletics and you’d pole the boat for
everyone. One of your allies is out of Athletics and raising your target Difficulty from 4 to 6; with
him on board your gondola is just too heavy. Your other allies decide to lighten the load: there’s
a grunt, a splash, some muffled curses, and your gondola surges forward with reduced weight.
Refreshing General Ability Points

You can refresh your General ability pool points after you’ve spent them by using refresh tokens. These
are dropped into a bowl in the middle of the table when you do certain things. You could use counters,
poker chips, pebbles, boardgame pieces or something else that seems appropriate.
Refresh tokens may be drawn from the bowl and used by any player at any time, other than when
you’re in the middle of a General ability spend. It’s generally polite to ask the group— they’ll let you
know if it seems like the tokens need sharing more evenly.
Each token refreshes 1 General ability pool point (except for Health or Morale) for the player who uses
it, and a used token is discarded after use.
Unused Refresh tokens are discarded at the end of a scene. Use them while they’re there!
There are several methods of gaining more refresh tokens.
• Defeating foes. Dropping a Mook immediately creates a 1-point Refresh token that goes into a
bowl at the center of the table. Dropping a named foe or a non-Mook enemy adds 3 Refresh
tokens to the bowl; a big bad, 5 tokens; and a massive and truly memorable foe, 7 tokens.
• Solving non-combat challenges, such as a riddle or tactical problems.
• GM Discretion. Before the end of a scene where no combat occurred but significant amounts of
General ability points were spent (such as a chase or a burglary), the GM can toss 2-3 Refresh
tokens into the bowl for every player who was active during that scene.
• Off-duty time. A significant non-adventuring period of at least eight hours spent carousing,
sleeping, studying, and the like (as appropriate to your Hero) adds 5 Refresh tokens per off-duty
Hero to the bowl. This only occurs once per period of rest; a week spent carousing, for instance,
adds 5 Refresh tokens per Hero and not 35.
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• End of Adventure: Unless there are special circumstances (such as an ability-sapping disease or
curse), all General Abilities are refreshed at the end of an adventure. Note that an adventure
may span more than one session of play.
Designer Notes: Why Refresh Tokens?

You earn Refresh points for defeating enemies because you’re a big damn hero. We want you hacking your way
across a battlefield or convincing an entire gallery full of crossbowmen that they would be much better off if they
quietly abandoned their post. That’s why combat Talents allow you to attack multiple foes, and why you get
rewarded for every enemy you drop. The more we convince you to spend all of your Sorcery points at once, and
then collect Refresh tokens from those defeated foes to partially refresh your exhausted Sorcery pool, the more
exciting the game remains.
Combat
Fights are full contests that use one of the General abilities Sorcery, Sway, or Warfare.
At the start of a combat, establish where the characters are in the scene, which will enable you to assign
range (p. XX) as needed.
Combat happens in rounds. In a round, all the characters involved take a turn to do something. The
order they act is set by initiative (p. XX).
When called upon to act, you may strike at any foe within range of your weapons or abilities, hide using
Stealth, or take a different non-combat action. You may also move up to one range increment (p. XX) —
running towards a fight from Medium to Close range, for instance, or backing away from Point-Blank to
Close range.
You attack someone using Sorcery, Sway, or Warfare. A successful attack typically inflicts damage.
Combat damage subtracts from your target’s Health or Morale pool, whichever is appropriate for the
type of attack you made.
The fight continues until all combatants on one side have fallen, surrendered or fled. Remember that
you can have a combat using only Sway that takes place while seated politely around a table, and the
results are just as definitive as if the opponents were using daggers.
Order of Combat
Combat happens in the following order.
1. Determine range (p. XX)

2. Determine initiative (p. XX)
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3. Determine whether either side can be Surprised (p. XX)
4. Attack! (p. XX)
5. Calculate damage (p. XX)
Combat Range
Swords of the Serpentine uses five ranges. You may move up to one range as part of your action, either
closing or retreating — but moving between Long and Very Long range is two or more moves.
You’re farther away from a foe than you want to be. On your turn you close from Long range to
Medium range and fire a crossbow. Next round you close from Medium range to Close range and
attempt a Sway attack against your foe’s Morale. If that doesn’t seem like a good tactic, the
following round you can close to Point-Blank range, draw your blade, and try to stab your foe.
Point-Blank range
You are literally face-to-face with your foe, within easy arm’s reach.
• All brawls and knife fights occur at this range.

• Trying to use ranged Warfare attacks at this range raises the target’s Health Threshold by +2,
making them more difficult to hit.
• Moving from Close range to Point-Blank range against someone with a drawn and ready ranged
weapon such as a crossbow is risky; your foe with the ranged weapon gets an immediate free
attack on you. This bonus attack occurs outside of normal initiative order. Charging a wall of
mercenaries all aiming crossbows is a very brief, very painful experience.
Close range
You are in the same room with your foe, or within no more than 10 meters or so.
• This is the farthest range at which you can have a swordfight (or other melee fight using
Warfare), with plenty of maneuvering and circling.
• This or closer is the standard range for Sway attacks if you’re attempting to talk. (Other uses of
Sway, such as intimidating body language or a terrifying cavalry charge, may function normally
at longer ranges at the GM’s discretion.)
• This is the farthest you can throw any difficult-to-throw object (such as a barrel).
Medium range
You can see your foe distinctly, perhaps across a canal or down the street, no more than 30 or 40 meters
away.
• This or closer is the standard range for Sorcery attacks.

• This is the farthest range for Sway attacks if you’re attempting to talk. Sway attacks at this range
raise the target’s Morale Threshold by +2, making them more difficult to hit.
• This is the farthest you can throw any easily thrown object (such as a bottle, a spear, or a rock).
If throwing at a small target, the GM may raise the target’s Health Threshold by +2, making
them more difficult to hit.
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Long range
Your foe is within 100 meters. Opponents farther away than this cannot be targeted easily, and are
generally out of the combat unless taking distance penalties.
• This or closer is the standard range for attacking with a crossbow or longbow. Targeting
someone up to 200 meters with these weapons raises the target’s Health Threshold by +2,
making them more difficult to hit.
• This is the farthest range for Sorcery attacks. Using Sorcery at this range raises the target’s
Health or Morale Threshold (as applicable) by +2, making them more difficult to hit.
Very Long range

Your foe is within 500 meters. Most foes are considered out of the combat unless someone is using a
weapon with sufficient range.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Representing Combat With Miniatures

Swords of the Serpentine is usually played in your imagination: you and the GM describe the scene
together, you describe your actions, and the GM describes who’s where throughout a fight. It’s why the
rules use range zones from a target instead of specifying how many feet you can move each round. This
isn’t a simulation: like a sword & sorcery novel, combat is more interesting when you don’t worry too
much about exact distances.
If you want to use a gridded battlemap and miniature figurines, however, that’s easy and fun to do
instead, and very useful for complicated battlefields. Use the description of the combat range zones to
estimate how far you move, the range of your attacks, and where you are compared to everyone else.
Use any marker or figurine you like to represent your Hero, as long as it’s distinctive.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Initiative
The time it takes to go through the ranking order once, with each character taking an action, is called a
round. When one round ends, another begins. Each character and Adversary (or group of Adversaries, if
several act at the same time) gets to take a turn during each round.
The GM determines which Hero or Adversary goes first in the first round. Usually it’s the individual who
initiates some action or attempts to throw the first blow, but not always; some individuals may be able
to anticipate attacks. One Hero (usually the first one to mention it) can also spend an Investigative point
from a relevant ability to go first.
One of the things you do during your turn is to pick and announce the next character to go; it doesn’t
have to be announced instantly, but sooner is better than the end of your turn, because this gives the
next character’s player some time to think about their actions. It can be any character, either player or
supporting, friend or foe, so long as that character hasn’t yet had a turn in the current round. When an
Adversary takes a turn, the GM announces which character goes next.
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GM Advice: Deciding Who Goes Next in Combat

In our games, we like to choose who goes next in combat at the start of a turn because this gives players more
time to plan, and that tends to make combat go faster overall. You may prefer the tactical flexibility of choosing
who goes next at the end of a player’s turn instead. Ask your players which they prefer and use that method.
After the current character concludes their turn, the next character takes their turn, and so on until
every character in the fight has taken a turn.
Once everyone has acted, the last player to act in the round gets to choose who goes first in the next
round — which can be themselves once again. This pattern then continues, with every player in turn
picking the person to follow them, and every character getting to act once each turn.
Unnamed Adversaries often act as a group, and named Adversaries often act on their own. When
multiple Adversaries on the same initiative attack a single Hero, the GM determines their order of action
in whatever manner she finds convenient — usually the order in which she’s tracking them in her rough
notes.
Using Initiative Markers

Initiative gets even easier to manage if you have a visible marker for the combatants who have already
acted in a round. Whether it’s a card that’s green on one side and red on the other, a glass bead you
remove once you’ve gone, or an index card you flip over, it’s handy to be able to look around the table
and immediately see who still has to act.
Also useful is having a distinctive marker for the person who goes next. This can be silently handed from
one player to another to indicate who goes next in combat. With this, the game doesn’t even need to
slow down to announce who goes next. When a player is ready to nominate, they simply hand the
object to the next combatant.
Initiative Strategy
There’s some interesting strategy involved in Initiative. If you think your Heroes can defeat all their foes
in one round, you have an incentive to have your entire team act before the foes. If you try this and are
wrong, however, your remaining foes will be able to act twice in a row (at the end of the first round and
the beginning of the second round).
It’s often best to take out as many Mooks as possible as quickly as possible, even if that means risking all
of your attack skill’s pool points to do so. Mooks have a tendency to be “glass cannons”, dangerous in
combat but with only 1 Health or Morale point. If you can use your combat ability’s Talent to defeat 3, 4
or even 5 Mooks in a single attack (with an attack result of 9, 12, and 15 respectively), you’ll save your
group a lot of pain... and you’ll immediately earn 3, 4, or 5 Refresh tokens you can use to refresh your
attack General ability.
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Attacking a Foe
To attack:
• Select a target within range.

• Describe your attack.
• Spend points from the relevant General ability (if desired).
• Roll a d6, and attempt to meet or exceed your target’s Health or Morale Threshold (p. XX).
• If successful, calculate damage (p. XX).
When you successfully attack, your total damage is:
Base Damage + your Damage Modifier + Investigative Spends (p. XX) + Critical Hits (p. XX) + Teamwork
Attacks (p. XX).
Attacking with Sorcery

These attacks use magical power to damage either your foe’s Health or Morale, depending on your
choice when creating your hero.
Select a target within Medium range, or Long range with a Difficulty of +2, and describe your sorcerous
attack. The appearance of Sorcery attacks varies tremendously by Sorcerer, but it usually has some
detectable element to it that onlookers might see if they know what to look for: you may be mumbling a
chant, scribbling profane diagrams in ink, or perhaps your eyes just glow while you use it.
The base damage is 1d6 with a +1 Damage Modifier, and your minimum result on your damage die is the
number of Sorcery points you spent on your attack. This maxes out at 6 points of guaranteed damage;
you can spend more than 6 Sorcery points in an attack (perhaps to get a Critical Hit or to use the Blast
Talent (p. XX) on some Mooks), but your minimum guaranteed damage doesn’t rise above 6. If you get
to roll additional damage dice on your attack, these are rolled normally.
The damage you inflict is reduced by your foe’s Armor if you target Health, and by your foe’s Grit if you
target Morale.
You spend 4 points of Sorcery when attacking your foe, and Sorcery normally has a Damage
Modifier of +1. You roll a 1 on the damage die. Because you spent 4 points on your attack, the 1
is treated as a 4, and you inflict 5 points of damage on your foe.
You’re encouraged to describe and narrate your actions. It’s more entertaining to say “Whatever
vegetation he ate for lunch sprouts, writhing up his throat and out his nose as it grows thorns and rips
apart his flesh” than it is to say “I hit him with Sorcery,” even though the amount of damage your foe
suffers is the same.
You can’t attack with Sorcery unless you possess at least one rank of the Investigative ability Corruption.
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Player Advice: Use Two Different Colored Dice
It’s useful to have your attack’s base damage die be a different color than your other dice. That’s because the
number of points you spend when attacking sets the minimum base damage you inflict 4. If you have a different
colored die for rolling base damage, you can roll all your dice at once and just adjust damage on the fly.
Attacking with Sway

When you make a Sway attack, you’re using words, actions or body language to undermine your foe’s
confidence, bravery and willpower, demoralizing them into surrender or flight even if you never engage
in physical warfare.
Sway attacks can occur at any range where the combatants can see or hear each other, although
circumstances such as distance and competing noise may raise the Difficulty and lower the damage.
A Sway attack targets a foe’s Morale, and the damage you inflict is reduced by your foe’s Grit. Sway’s
base damage is a die plus a +1 Damage Modifier.
Your minimum damage die result (before any modifiers) is the number of Sway points you spend on the
attack. This maxes out at 6 points of guaranteed damage; you can spend more than 6 Sway points in an
attack (perhaps to get a Critical Hit or to use the Talent Play to the Crowd (p. XX), but your minimum
guaranteed damage doesn’t rise above 6. If you get to roll additional damage dice on your Sway attack,
these are rolled normally.
You spend 6 points of Sway when threatening your foe and successfully hit. You don’t need to roll
a damage die because your minimum die result is 6. Sway has a Damage Modifier of +1, so you
inflict 7 points of Morale damage on your foe.
You’re encouraged to roleplay your attack. It’s much more fun and entertaining to explain exactly why
your pathetic foe would be a fool not to surrender immediately, or to diplomatically insult them, than it
is to say “I Sway him”. Another reason to describe your attack is that some foes are more or less
vulnerable to fear, and many undead are particularly vulnerable to Sway attacks described as prayer.
Loud noise in the environment may make a spoken attack less effective.
Player Advice: The Three Uses of Sway

Sway allows you to bolster and effectively heal the Morale of your allies (p. XX), so think twice before spending
your Sway pool down to 0 while attacking an opponent’s Morale in combat. You could be caught unable to rescue
a demoralized ally after spending all your resources to attack.
In addition to combat and bolstering an ally’s Morale, you’re most likely to use Sway on Morale-based Maneuvers
(see page XX) where someone either must do what you ask or take Morale damage. They’re an elegant way to
nudge a supporting character’s decision towards the choice you want them to make.

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Attacking with Warfare
Whether fighting with ranged weapons such as a crossbow, melee weapons like a sword, or bare-fisted,
the Warfare ability determines whether you strike your foe.
Ranged Warfare attacks generally occur at Close range or farther away. Melee Warfare attacks occur at
Point-Blank range, with combatants ducking in and out of Close range as they maneuver.
Weapon attacks target your foe’s Health, and the damage you inflict is reduced by your foe’s
Armor.Warfare’s base damage is one d6, with a Damage Modifier that is based on your weapon (see p.
XX). Even impromptu weapons will likely hurt your foe more than unarmed punches or kicks will.
You’re encouraged to describe and narrate your actions. It’s much more fun and entertaining to say “I
knock off his hat with the tip of my sword before stabbing him in the belly” than it is to say “I hit him,”
even though the amount of damage your foe suffers is the same.
Putting effort into greater accuracy is rewarded. Your minimum damage die result (before any
modifiers) is the number of Warfare points you spend on the attack. This maxes out at 6 points of
guaranteed damage; you can spend more than 6 Warfare points in an attack (perhaps to get a Critical
Hit or to use the Cleave Talent (p. XX) on some Mooks), but your minimum guaranteed damage doesn’t
rise above 6. If you get to roll additional damage dice on your attack, these are rolled normally.
You spend 3 points of Warfare when attacking your foe, and roll a 3 for a total attack result of 6.
Your target had a Health Threshold of 4, so you missed triggering the Cleave Talent by 1 point.
Luckily, “Disemboweling your foes” is one of your Drives, so you invoke it to push your result up
to 7. This lets you damage a second foe within range with no additional attack required. Describe
what happened and roll damage separately against each victim, or just assign 4 damage to your
second foe.
Weaponry
Weapon statistics in GUMSHOE are simplified; differentiating most weapons is usually a matter of
narrative description, not game mechanics. Your Damage Modifier for Warfare comes from the weapon
you choose. A giant axe is going to do more damage than a sword, a sword is going to do more damage
than a dagger, and a dagger is going to do more damage than a pointy rock.
Small weapons have a Damage Modifier of +0; medium weapons have a Damage Modifier of +1; and
large weapons have a Damage Modifier of +2. Adjust these numbers and add Weapon Modifiers as
appropriate. A full list of weapons is on p. XX.
Weapons that are easy to find can be acquired for free; you can find a makeshift club almost anywhere.
Better crafted weapons, such as a sword, cost Wealth 2 or higher if they aren’t already part of your
minor iconic gear.
Whether ranged or melee, almost all weapons attack a target’s Health and are wielded with the Warfare
ability.
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Advanced Attacks
Critical Hits
You can score a Critical Hit when attacking with Sorcery, Sway, or Warfare if you exceed the target’s
Health or Morale Threshold by 5 or more. This inflicts an extra 1d6 of damage to Health or Morale (as
appropriate), and an additional die of damage for every 5 points beyond that.
Your attack will usually hit a foe if you succeed at Difficulty 4, so you get a Critical Hit for +1 die
of damage if you reach attack result 9, and your Critical Hit rises to +2 dice of damage if your
attack reaches attack result 14.
Your minimum damage from spending pool points (see p. XX) only applies to your initial damage die, not
to additional damage dice gained through your Critical Hit.
If you roll a high enough attack, you choose whether to inflict a Critical Hit or attack multiple foes (but
not both on the same attack), depending on whether you want to focus your damage or spread it about.
Attacking Multiple Foes
Surrounded by Mooks? The Talents for Sorcery (Blast), Sway (Play to the Crowd), and Warfare (Cleave)
allow you to use a single combat action to attack more than one foe at once, if you exceed the target’s
Health or Morale Threshold by 3 or more.
As always, Sorcery, Sway, or Warfare points must be announced and spent before rolling the die. After
the attack is rolled, you can choose to automatically hit an additional foe within Close range for every 3
points exceeding the target Difficulty. Damage against these additional foes always starts with base
damage (usually 1d6+1, or 4 points if you prefer to take the average), regardless of how much damage
was inflicted on the primary target.
Your minimum damage from spending pool points (see p. XX) only applies to your initial damage die and
to your initial target, not to damage inflicted on additional targets. You can only target additional foes
who have a Health or Morale Threshold equal to or less than the original target’s.
You charge forward and attack your foes, choosing one as a target. That foe’s Health Threshold
is 4, and you spend 5 points of Warfare before you roll to hit. You roll a 6, add the 5 Warfare you
spent, and reach an attack result of 11. You decide it will be more fun to Cleave than it would be
to inflict a Critical Hit.
So you hit your original target and Cleave to two other foes (the original target at 4, a second foe
at 7, and one final foe at 10). Round down to determine the number of successful targets. If any
of those foes had a Health Threshold of 5 or higher, you’d have skipped over them when
determining possible targets.
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GM Advice: Critical Hits vs. Talents
Curious why Talents from combat abilities can never trigger a Critical Hit? Those and combat Talents are both
linked to high attack results, so we want you to choose one or the other. If you could use both on the same attack,
you would target your primary enemy, spend all your pool points at once, score a massive Critical Hit, and then
trigger your Talent to also deal damage to every foe nearby. That would be awfully impressive, but it wouldn’t be
much fun for anyone but you because fights would be over long before every player had a chance to act. By
restricting your options on powerful attacks, you have to choose between taking down multiple Mooks with a
Talent or badly hurting one person with a Critical Hit.
Teamwork Attacks
Feeling generous? You can boost an ally’s damage instead of inflicting damage yourself.
Use teamwork attacks when:
• Trying to inflict only Health or Morale damage on a foe

• Working to punch through high Armor or Grit
• You aren’t close enough to attack an enemy directly,
• There’s a reason you don’t wish to directly attack.
To make a teamwork attack, select an ally, then make a Sorcery, Sway or Warfare attack against a foe’s
normal Health or Morale Threshold. If successful, add 1d6 (with no Damage Modifier) to the damage of
your ally’s next attack against that Adversary. If your attack is a Critical Hit, or if you spend Investigative
points to add dice of damage to your attack, these bonus dice of damage are also handed to your ally.
Your ally’s successful attack must occur before the end of the next round. If their attack misses or
doesn’t happen, your bonus damage is discarded.
You should describe how you’re helping your ally do more damage. Teamwork attacks are only possible
when the GM considers your description of aid to be reasonable. “I’m distracting it so it’s paying less
attention to other people” is a perfectly fine description. “It’s clumsy and it trips” isn’t because it doesn’t
reflect your action, unless you also describe pulling it off-balance so that your ally has an advantage.
Your teamwork attack doesn’t need to target the same Health or Morale ability that your ally is
attacking. Your Sway attack could distract a foe enough that your ally gets in a really good Warfare
attack, for instance, or your Warfare attack could make your ally’s Sway attack be that much more
convincing.
Your Sorcery targets Morale. You announce that your magic will alter the foe’s perception of
pain, and you successfully make a Difficulty 4 teamwork attack using Sorcery. You spend a point
of Intimidation to add an additional die of Morale damage. Then you assign both dice of shared
damage to your friend Karla’s warrior; if Karla’s Hero successfully jams her sword into the foe’s
chest, she’ll do two extra dice of Health damage from your teamwork attack as the foe perceives
great pain.
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Attacking Without Abilities
A Hero with no ranks in Warfare can still pick up a sword when a furious mercenary charges them, but
will fight hesitantly and ineffectively. Similarly, a Hero with Sway 0 has very little ability to convince
others of anything, but can still try. Note that having a rank of 0 is very different from a Hero with ranks
but no remaining pool points; that Hero suffers none of these penalties.
Using Warfare (including fists or feet) or Sway when you have 0 ranks in the ability has the following
drawbacks.
• You gain a −2 Damage Modifier.

• The GM chooses when you go in each round, inserting you into the initiative order where she
pleases.
You may ignore these penalties for one round if the situation allows you to invoke one of your Drives
(see p. XX).
You may not use Sorcery to attack if you have no ranks in Corruption. If you have one or more ranks of
Corruption but no ranks of Sorcery — a fairly rare situation unless you’re an inquisitor of Denari — you
may attack with the above penalties.
Helpful Hints: Damage Calculation Reference Table

Base Damage + Damage + Investigative + Critical Hits + Teamwork
Modifier Spends Attacks
1d6; minimum damage Sorcery: +1; +1 bonus +1 bonus Damage
is the number of points Sway: +1; damage die per damage die per given to you
spent on the attack Warfare: from Investigative every 5 points by an ally,
(max 6) weapon (usually point spent that your attack excluding
+0 to +2, see p. (see p. XX) exceeds the Damage
XX) Health or Modifiers, if
Morale you hit (see
Threshold (see p. XX)
p. XX)
Bonus targets from Corruption
combat Talents take 1 spends may
die +1 damage, with no inflict
other modifiers; or 4 exceptional
damage if you want to damage (see p.
save time XX)
Helpful Hints: Boosting Damage With Investigative Spends
Investigative Ability Spend Add to Damage

Allegiances Use the threat of your Allies’ power to demoralize your Sorcery, Sway or
foe, explaining that they’ll constantly be harassed and Warfare
97
attacked unless they do what you wish. Alternatively, you
use poison or martial resources (such as describing a
hidden crossbow-wielding soldier) obtained from your
Allies to damage their Health.
Charm You use feigned affection and physical attraction to make Sway
your words bite more deeply.
City’s Secrets You maneuver your enemy onto a slippery cobblestone or Warfare
crumbling bridge.
Command You order your foe to surrender or drop their mental Sorcery or Sway
defenses.
Corruption You weave unnatural Corruption into unique sorcerous Sorcery
effects that inflict exceptional damage or have particularly
special effects. See p. XX for damage and details.
Felonious Intent Every dirty trick your enemy is about to try is one you’ve Sway or
seen many, many times before — and you have a deadly Warfare
technique in reserve that they probably haven’t run into.
Forgotten Lore You know ancient tactics, charms and incantations to make Sorcery, Sway or
your attacks more powerful. Warfare
Intimidation You muscle in to terrify your foe. Sorcery, Sway or
Warfare
Know Monstrosities You’re knowledgeable enough about non-human foes to Sorcery, Sway or
know exactly where their weak points are, and may have Warfare
monstrous trophies such as poison to use on anyone in
combat.
Laws & Traditions You have legal backup to legitimately accuse an enemy of a Sway
crime, ruining their reputation.
Leechcraft You know poison and disease, and how to jab people Sorcery, Sway or
where it will hurt the most. Warfare
Liar’s Tell You tell a particularly believable and scandalous lie, or Sway
even worse, you tell the truth.
Nobility As a child, you had a superb fencing tutor, and you know Sway or
the most damning family gossip. Warfare
Prophecy You’ve foreseen truths about what’s going to be truly Sorcery, Sway or
effective, and what won’t. Warfare
Ridiculous Luck The fates work in your favor, making your attack Sorcery, Sway or
particularly effective. Warfare
Scurrilous Rumors You let your enemy know that you could shred their Sway
reputation.
Servility You’re experienced at communicating societal guilt, and Sway or
your humility makes it easier to get close enough to slip Warfare
your knife in someone’s back.
Skulduggery You know exactly where to sink your blade, or exactly what Sway or
secret to reveal, to bring your foe to their knees. Warfare
Spirit Sight You can channel ghosts into and through your enemy, Sorcery, Sway or
demoralizing or injuring them. Warfare
Tactics of Death You know dozens of ways to inflict crippling damage or Warfare
gain a tactical advantage.
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Taunt You make your foe so furious they let their defenses slip. Sorcery, Sway or
Warfare
Trustworthy Your enemy foolishly allows you to get within their guard. Warfare
Vigilance You see exactly the right time to attack, presumably when Sorcery, Sway or
your foe is distracted. Warfare
Using a Maneuver
When you want to achieve a non-damage effect against a foe, use a Maneuver. Your target must choose
to accept the effect you specify or take damage; the higher your attack result, the more damage they
take if they decline to suffer the Maneuver’s effect. Maneuvers only affect one target unless it makes
sense for the GM to say otherwise (like when you’re dropping a chandelier down into a crowded room).
To perform a Maneuver, roll a successful Sorcery, Sway or Warfare attack (depending on what kind of
Maneuver you want to perform) against the target’s Health or Morale Threshold as appropriate. If
successful, the attack does no immediate damage, but the result sets the Difficulty. The defender must
either accept the Maneuver’s effect, or suffer Health or Morale damage equal to the Difficulty -2: their
choice. Depending on the effect, their Armor or Grit may reduce this damage if they opt not to accept
the effect.
You want to confront your archrival privately, so you brusquely order his bodyguard to leave the
room. You succeed by spending 3 Sway and rolling a 5, setting the Difficulty at 8. Your foe
decides whether they resist your order and take 6 points of Morale damage (Difficulty 8 – 2), or
whether they slink out of the room.
If you have the Dodge Talent (see p. XX), you can try to dodge a Maneuver’s initial attack against your
Health. If you succeed, the attack misses and no Maneuver occurs.
Attackers may spend appropriate Investigative points to add +3 to the Maneuver Difficulty (and thus +3
to the damage). Defenders may spend appropriate Investigative pool points to reduce the Maneuver’s
Difficulty (and thus the damage) by 3 points per Investigative point spent.
You’re fighting atop the Opera House and your sorcerous foe tries to use a Maneuver — an
illusion, in this case — to trick you into walking off the edge of the very high roof. The Difficulty
of their Sorcery attack is 10, so you have a choice of either walking off the roof or taking 8 points
of Morale damage. You tell the GM you’re spending a point of Vigilance (because you are so
observant), reduce the Morale damage from 8 to 5, further reduce it by your 1 point of Grit, and
take 4 points of Morale damage instead of plummetting. It’s a good choice, as the fall would
probably kill you.
Note that Morale-based Maneuvers aren’t mind control; you can’t make someone love you or be
infatuated with you, although you may convince them to help you for a time. Your GM may disallow any
Maneuver if she thinks the effect you want is too powerful.
GMs decide how long a Maneuver’s effect lasts: most physical effects last at least until the end of your
next round, and most mental effects last for the scene. GMs may raise or lower a Maneuver’s Difficulty
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if they think the test is likely or unlikely to succeed. For instance, it’s much easier to slip if you’re already
standing on ice. Sorcerous items such as Tokens may raise the Difficulty (and thus the damage) on
Maneuvers, making defenders more likely to choose the effect instead of the damage.
Examples of Maneuvers
• Temporarily blind a foe with Sorcery or Warfare (they take Health damage or are blinded,
increasing the Difficulty of actions where visual acuity matters; see p. XX).
• Use a headshot or sheer terror to daze someone with Sorcery, Sway, or Warfare (they take
Health or Morale damage, depending on the type of attack, or have all test Difficulties rise by
+2).
• Disarm a foe with a Sorcery or Warfare attack (they take Health damage or whatever they’re
holding is knocked out of their hands, requiring an action to pick up).
• Unseat a foe from a mount with a Sorcery or Warfare attack (they take Health damage or are
knocked from their saddle).
• Drag or Restrain a foe with a Sorcery or Warfare attack. (They take Health damage or you
control their movement, although they may still be able to attack. They’re freed when you next
attack them or when they succeed at an Athletics test with the original Maneuver’s Difficulty.)
• Persuade someone with a Sway attack, or a Sorcery attack with an appropriate Sphere such as
emotion control (they take Morale damage or do what you’ve asked them to).
• Strangle someone with a Sorcery or Warfare attack. (They take Health damage or they are
unable to vocalize and begin to Suffocate — see p. XX. Strangle ends when you take damage or
when they succeed at an Athletics test with the original Maneuver’s Difficulty.)
• Trick someone with a Sway attack or a Sorcery attack with an appropriate Sphere, such as
illusion (they take Morale damage or they’re fooled).
• Trip or Knock Back a foe with a Sorcery or Warfare attack (they take Health damage or are
tossed back and off their feet).
Sorcerers also use the Maneuver rules when targeting foes with particularly powerful, unique spells; see
p. XX.
Alternative Maneuver rules from the playtest edition are on p. XX.
Player Advice: Why No Unconsciousness Maneuver?

You could reasonably expect “knock someone unconscious” to show up on a list of Maneuvers, but it’s
been deliberately excluded. Inconsequential supporting characters already have 1 Health, so you can
declare them unconscious as soon as you damage them at all, and the only time villains get knocked
unconscious in classic sword & sorcery novels is when they’ve been thrashed into submission first. If you
want to ring someone’s bells by swinging a sock full of coins at their head, use the Daze Maneuver
instead.
[[[rnd Player sidebar]]]
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Cover
Cover Against Sorcery and Warfare Attacks
In a typical fight you’re assumed to block and dodge, using anything nearby as cover. Deliberately
moving behind full cover can improve your Health Threshold by +1 or more, at the cost of making it
more difficult or impossible for you to attack. The GM adjudicates cover, so let them know when you’re
seeking it.
There are three Cover conditions in Swords of the Serpentine.
Exposed
You can’t dodge or evade an incoming attack, and there’s no barrier between you and the Adversary
firing at you. This is a relatively rare situation unless you’ve been Surprised, although it’s a good
reminder that enemies with bows can be dangerous when you don’t see them coming. Your Health
Threshold decreases by 1.
Partial Cover
The default assumption. You have room to maneuver in combat, or about half of your body is exposed
to incoming fire. Your Health Threshold remains unchanged. It’s assumed that you’re are seeking partial
cover by default, blocking and dodging to keep yourself safe.
Full Cover
You’re hunkered down and hard to hit, and the barrier you’re behind is largely protecting you from
incoming fire. Your Health Threshold increases by +1, +2, or +3, at the GM’s discretion, although you’re
penalized the same amount if you try to target or attack someone on the other side of the Full Cover.
Shields can provide Full Cover when used, at the cost of penalizing your combat tests by the same
amount.
Cover Against Sway Attacks

You can similarly take full cover from Morale attacks by limiting your ability to see and hear your foe.
Cover against Morale-targeted attacks uses the system above, but the nature of Cover changes
dramatically when you’re facing fear or a convincing argument.
Exposed
You are Exposed when you can’t block your ears, drown out noise, close your eyes, or otherwise protect
yourself. This is most common when drugged or captive, and occurs rarely. Your Morale Threshold
decreases by 1.
Partial Cover
The default assumption. You can see and hear your opponent, but are not particularly vulnerable to
their blandishments. Your Morale Threshold remains unchanged.
Full Cover
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Your foe’s Sway attack is somehow obscured, whether by darkness (for body language), by loud noise,
by extreme distraction, or by distance. Your Morale Threshold increases by +1, +2, or +3, at the GM’s
discretion, and any Sway attacks you make are penalized by the same amount.
When using a buckler or shield and using the Dodge Talent from Athletics to avoid an attack, you must
only meet the attacker’s success instead of exceeding it.
Shields
Shields take up one hand and act as Full Cover when you choose to use them, increasing your Health
Threshold by +1, +2, or +3 (depending on how defensive you are being). Your Warfare, Sway and Sorcery
attacks are penalized an equal amount, although only when you are gaining the Full Cover benefit of the
shield. You decide whether you default to using your shield when combat occurs, and you can freely
change this decision on your turn.
Armor
Protective clothing (such as leather armor, chainmail, and plate mail) gives you Armor of 1, 2, 3, or 4 that
protects you from attacks against your Health. Reduce damage by the protective value every time you
are injured.
See details on armor types in the Gear chapter (p. XX). Armor more protective than Leather is heavy and
cumbersome, and may give penalties to actions.
Armor derived from different sources isn’t cumulative; use the best single source of Armor when
reducing Health damage.
Note that some foes can ignore all or part of your Armor. Damage to your Health that isn’t caused by a
Warfare or Sorcery attack (such as poison damage or spending points of Health on a Health test) is not
reduced by Armor. At the GM’s discretion, damage from certain Sorcery attacks may ignore Armor as
well.
If a Protective Ward is in place (see below), subtract Armor before halving damage.
Grit
Self-assurance, Investigative spends, magical items, and sorcerous spells can provide Grit of 1 to 4 that
protects you from attacks against your Morale. Each 1 point of Grit reduces damage inflicted on you by 1
point. People with Grit often appear emotionally detached, distant, or fanatical. Note that some foes
can ignore all or part of your Grit.
Heroes who have at least five pieces of gear that define their personality (see p. XX) have Grit 1.
Grit derived from different sources isn’t cumulative; use the best single source of Grit when reducing
Morale damage.
If a Protective Ward is in place (see below), subtract Grit before halving damage.
Protective Wards
Ancient half-forgotten chants sometimes have value; pool points of Forgotten Lore can be spent to
weave lucky, religious, or magical Protective Wards that protect Health or Morale. Anyone with ranks of
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Forgotten Lore can accomplish this, not just Sorcerers. Describe what the effect of your Protective Ward
looks like when you create it.
Designer Notes: The Last-Minute Desperation of a Protective Ward

Getting defeated by a single powerful attack is a lot less exciting than almost getting defeated by a single powerful
attack and then scrambling to keep yourself alive. We like the idea of a resource spend that provides a last-minute
escape against a deadly foe, barely buying you enough time to escape or even win.
That said, you may find that protective wards make combat less exciting. If you do, completely remove them from
the game, raise the danger level of an average fight, or remove them for Heroes until you give the secret of such
protective wards out as treasure.
On your turn, spend one or more pool points of Forgotten Lore to ward yourself and possibly your allies,
as follows.
• 1 point spent: Ward yourself or another person within Point-Blank range, gain one use.
• 2 points spent: Ward everyone you choose within Point-Blank range, gain two uses.
• 3 points spent: Ward everyone you choose within Close range, gain three uses.
• 4 points spent: Ward everyone you choose within Medium range, gain four uses.
• 5 points spent: Ward everyone you choose within Long range, gain five uses.
Each use of the ward halves damage from a single source of Health or Morale damage, such as an attack
or a fall; when halving damage, subtract Armor or Grit first, and then round down. The uses of the ward
are shared between everyone who is warded. Anyone warded can choose to draw upon the ward as
needed, after they find out how much damage they would take from an attack. The ward stops working
once its power is expended or when the scene ends.
You and your three companions are under the effect of your 2-point Protective Ward, which you
describe as a sphere of gently pulsing light. After taking small amounts of damage from a series
of lesser attacks, all four of you are hit by a sorcerer’s cloud of sentient acidic mist and the GM
tells you that the deadly attack will inflict 14 points of Health damage. That’s worth using the
ward for! Only two out of the the four of you may halve that damage to 7 points (or less if a
victim is wearing Armor) by drawing on the ward, after which the ward dissipates for everyone.
You choose the two Heroes with the worst Health to take the least damage.
Last-minute Protective Wards
There will be times when the only way to save the lives of you or your friends is to erect a last-minute
Protective Ward. What happens if you haven’t yet cast a ward when an Adversary unleashes a deadly
attack?
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The answer is Flashback, the Talent from 8 or more ranks of the General ability Preparedness. Any Hero
with Flashback can declare that you have already put a Protective Ward in place, you foresighted
person, you! They then make a Preparedness test and have you spend the Forgotten Lore points needed
to provide protection for the team.
No one has a high Preparedness rank? Spending a pool point of Prophecy can gain that Hero Flashback
temporarily, as noted on p. XX.
Surprise
When Should You Roll Surprise?
Ignore Surprise unless one side or the other has the chance to be caught completely flat-footed. If the
groups can see or hear each other coming, and no one tries an ambush in the middle of a conversation,
Surprise is less likely to be a concern.
How Surprise Works

You are Surprised when you suddenly find yourself in an unexpectedly dangerous situation. Avoid being
Surprised with a successful Stealth test to notice the hidden ambush. The basic Difficulty is 4, adjusted
by your Alertness modifier (see p. XX) and the foe’s Stealth Modifier.
If you’re Surprised, you suffer a +2 increase to all General ability Difficulties for any immediately
subsequent action, and you may be exposed without any Cover (see p. XX), lowering your Health
Threshold by 1. In a fight, these penalties pertain only to the first round of combat.
You can completely avoid being Surprised by spending a Vigilance point from your Investigative abilities.
If there are special circumstances in which the GM dictates that doesn’t apply, such as your enemy
having a particularly high Stealth Modifier, spending a Vigilance point still gives you a +3 Alertness
Modifier on your Stealth roll to spot the ambush.
You can Surprise your foes by sneaking up on them with a successful Stealth test. The basic Difficulty is
4, adjusted by the foe’s Alertness Modifier and your Stealth modifier (if any). Spending 1 point of
Skulduggery gives you a +3 Stealth Modifier on this roll.
Health
Health represents how hard you are to physically defeat. Your maximum Health is determined by your
Health rank. Although your Health pool may rise and fall as you get injured and heal, your Health rank
doesn’t usually change unless you deliberately improve it with Advancement points.
Starting Heroes have a Health rank between 3 and 15 (see p. XX). A Health rank of 10 or higher raises
your Health Threshold from 3 to 4.
Health Thresholds can be raised or lowered by conditions such as shields or cover, and Morale
Thresholds can be raised or lowered by conditions such as ambient noise and darkness.
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Health Tests
Some attacks and situations, including but not limited to dropping below 0 Health, require you to make
a Health test. Do so by rolling a die and trying to reach or exceed the target Difficulty, which is usually 4.
Before you roll, you can choose to strain yourself and spend points from your Health to boost your die
roll. You can do this when your health is below 0, though obviously it’s risky. If you succeed at your
Health test, you will usually take no additional damage other than what you choose to spend. If you fail
your Health test, the GM will tell you what happens: you may fall unconscious, take more Health
damage (denoted by the term Loss, such as “Difficulty 4/Loss 4”), or something else depending on the
circumstances.
If spending points on a Health test drives your Health to -6 or below, you still only make one Health test.
If you go to Hurt and then to Seriously Wounded as a result of two separate attacks, you make two
separate Health tests.
You’ve dropped to –1 Health and want to stay conscious. The GM asks you to make a Difficulty
4/Unconsciousness Health test to do so. You decide to spend 2 Health on the roll, giving you a +2
bonus on the die. You reduce your Health pool from –1 to –3, then roll a die and add 2. As long as
you don’t roll a 1, you’ll hit or exceed the target Difficulty of 4 and will stay on your feet. If you
roll a 1, you fail the Health test and pass out from pain.
Any penalties from being below 0 Health don’t apply to Health tests. Armor doesn’t apply to Health
tests, and never reduces the amount of Health spent or lost.
Becoming Hurt
When your Health is successfully attacked by Warfare or Sorcery, or when something hurts you without
an attack (like falling off a rain-slick roof), you’ll take damage to your Health pool.
Health Quick Reference Table

Health: 0+ Health: –1 to –5 Health: –6 to –10 Health: Below –10
HEALTHY HURT SERIOUSLY WOUNDED DEFEATED
• You aren’t • Immediately • Immediately • You’re removed

physically make a Health 4 make another from the
injured in test to stay Health 4 test to conflict. The
any conscious. stay conscious. attacker decides
meaningful • Difficulties of all • Healing is only in what way you
or lasting General ability half as effective are defeated.
way. You tests increase by on you as • Investigative
may look 1 until above 0 normal. spends (when
bruised or Health. • Lose an conscious) are
battered, • Can be healed additional sharply limited.
however. normally with Health point
105
the Bind every half hour • You may no
Wounds ability. until stabilized. longer take
• Difficulties of all actions during
General ability this scene.
tests increase by • If slain, hope
2 until above 0 that your loved
Health. ones have a
• Difficulties for funerary statue
General ability crafted for you,
tests remain so that your soul
raised by 1 for isn’t denied the
the rest of the afterlife (see p.
adventure as XX).
you heal.
If your Health pool is 0 or above, you are Healthy and aren’t physically injured in any meaningful or
lasting way. You may look bruised or battered, however.
If your Health pool is anywhere from –1 to –5, you are physically Hurt but have suffered no permanent
injury beyond a few superficial cuts and bruises. Immediately make a Health test at Difficulty 4 when
you first drop below 0 Health. If you succeed, you stay conscious despite your injuries and don’t need to
make another test until additional injuries drop you below –5 Health. If you fail, you drop unconscious:
see Health Tests, below, for more information.
When Hurt, the pain of your injuries increases the Difficulty of all General ability tests by 1 (excluding
Health tests and Morale tests). In combat, this penalty effectively raises foes’ Health or Morale
Thresholds by 1. This penalty isn’t cumulative with that from a low Morale; only apply the stricter of the
two penalties.
A character with the Bind Wounds ability can help improve your condition. For every Bind Wounds point
they spend, you regain 2 Health points — unless you’re binding your own wounds, in which case you
gain only 1 Health point for every Bind Wounds point spent. If you have the Bind Wounds Talent, Plenty
of Leeches, you may restore Health to yourself as if you were tending another character.
If your Health pool is between –6 and –10, you have been Seriously Wounded and healing is only half
as effective on you until you reach Health 1. Each point of Bind Wounds spent on you heals 1 Health, not
2, and trying to bind your own wounds is equally half as effective as normal. This penalty can be ignored
for one round if the person tending you spends a point of Leechcraft.
You must make another Health test at Difficulty 4 when you first become Seriously Wounded. (If you
went directly from Healthy to -6 or below without ever stopping at Hurt, we’re really sorry, and just
make this one Health test.) If you succeed, you remain conscious and can continue to act. If you fail, you
drop unconscious. If you do manage to stay conscious, during this scene you won’t need to make
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another Health test from accruing damage until additional injuries kill you. That’s particularly useful if
you want to try to crawl away, or see who finishes you off.
If you are able to remain conscious when Seriously Wounded, the pain of your injuries increases the
Difficulty of all General ability tests (excluding Health tests and Morale tests) by 2. In combat, this
penalty effectively raises foes’ Health or Morale Thresholds by 2. This penalty isn’t cumulative with that
from a low Morale; only apply the stricter of the two penalties.
If you’re Seriously Wounded and unconscious, you will lose an additional Health point every half hour
until you receive first aid. A character with the Bind Wounds ability can stabilize your condition by
making a Difficulty 4 Bind Wounds test. This test doesn’t restore any lost Health, it just stops you from
continuing to bleed out.
Your allies can get you back on your feet, but it takes some time to fully recover. If you become Seriously
Wounded, the Difficulty of all General ability tests you make stays at 1 point higher than normal for the
rest of the adventure (or for one week, whichever elapses first).
When your Health pool dips below –10, you are Defeated. It’s up to the person who defeated you
whether you are dead, unconscious, maimed, conscious but captured, or otherwise defeated. If left
conscious, you may no longer take any actions during this scene (you can still roleplay, but not make
attacks), and you will typically start the next scene regaining consciousness but still Seriously Wounded.
The only Investigative spends you can make are from your Allegiances or Social abilities, made to
convince your foe not to slay you.
If slain, take this time to mourn your Hero and create a replacement character. See p. XX for important
details on funerary customs and the afterlife. Rarely, your GM will allow you to play your own ghost for
a short time; see below.
Fixed Damage
You may be asked by the GM to spend a fixed amount of Health or Morale. This is most common for
environmental hazards, terrifying locations, or to speed up play.
“Entering this crypt claws at your sanity; you’re not sure if its haunted, but you do know that
something very terrible happened here. If you want to enter, take 3 damage to your Morale, less
your Grit.”
“The fire begins to spread. Everyone will take 1 Health damage this round. If you stay in the
burning room and no one deals with the fire, that will rise to 3 Health damage next round. Armor
won’t reduce the damage.”
GM Advice: Fixed Damage

Use fixed damage to quickly establish tone. If you tell players they suffer 5 points of Morale damage because “ripe
fungal growths are rapidly bursting up through the old lady’s skin as she moves to attack you,” they’ll instantly
understand how horrible she is.
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Fixed damage is also a great way to remind players that externalized Corruption remains toxic long, long after the
sorcerer departs (see p. XX).
Regaining Health
You can regain lost Health pointsslowly over time, or they can be restored through the Bind Wounds
General ability, see p. XX. A spent point of the Investigative ability Leechcraft can also restore Health.
Characters generally recover 2 points of Health per day of restful, relaxed activity.
Healing Injuries
You will shake off any lingering penalty from being Seriously Wounded after 7 days of rest. You heal fully
between adventures.
During an adventure, you’re much more likely to depend on the Bind Wounds ability for on-the-fly
healing. See details p. XX; the ability’s effectiveness drops when you become Seriously Wounded. A
Leechcraft spend can also restore a significant amount of Health all at once.
You can’t use Refresh tokens to directly recover your Health pool, and you can never heal higher than
your Health rank.
Defeat, Death, and its Aftermath

You have a few options when you’ve been defeated.
Surrender and Captivity

In Swords of the Serpentine, being defeated in combat doesn’t usually mean being killed. Just as in most
Sword & Sorcery fantasy novels, villains have a strange propensity for taking you captive and then
publicly humiliating you, unaccountably falling in love with you, chaining you where you can be eaten by
a giant serpent, talking about their secret plans in front of you, or tossing you into a dungeon and
forgetting you existed. It’s not smart, necessarily, but it’s probably satisfying to any Adversary who likes
gloating.
The best part of this is that captivity is a superb place for you to pick up leads. You might even
deliberately surrender just so you have the chance to learn about your enemy’s plans. Then you can use
your abilities and Allegiances to break free, escape, gain some vengeance along the way, and continue
the adventure.
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Sometimes Heroes Die
Not everyone will take you captive; unthinking monsters, for instance, are more likely to just eat you.
You may be able to spend an Investigative point such as Servility before that happens and just be left
unconscious instead; ask your GM.
If your character is killed, you have a few options.
• Bring in a new character. If the deceased Hero had gained any Advancement points from
previous games, the new character gains those Advancement points as well. They don’t get the
old Hero’s accumulated Wealth (if any).
• Play (at least until the end of the adventure) as a ghost (see p. XX).
GM Advice: Do You Kill Heroes?

The sword & sorcery approach to character death is that a Hero shouldn’t ever actually die without their player’s
express permission, although the Hero may be defeated and captured many times. That’s how classic fantasy
stories handle it, right? It’s primarily about the story, and you can lose badly without losing your life.
In comparison, the “gaming approach” to character death is that enemies are hostile, chance is random, and once
in a while Heroes get slain. This approach focuses more on risk and danger; some players enjoy a game more when
the spectre of death is always a possibility.
These rules assume the latter, but you should talk to your players about how you want to handle death. Either
method works well, so pick the approach you and your players prefer.
Morale
Morale measures willpower and represents how strong-willed and brave you are. Your maximum
Morale is determined by your Morale rank. Starting Heroes have a Morale rank between 3 and 15 (see
p. XX). A Morale rank of 10 or higher raises your Morale Threshold from 3 to 4.
Only sentient creatures and objects have Morale. A human foe would have Morale (and so you could
talk them into surrendering), but a reinforced doorway you want to get through would not. Don’t expect
much progress if you try to use Sway to talk your way through a closed and locked door.
Morale Tests
Some attacks and situations, including but not limited to dropping below 0 Morale or resisting mind
control, require you to make a Morale test. Do so by rolling a die and trying to reach or exceed the
target Difficulty, which is usually 4.
Before you roll, you can choose to strain yourself and spend points from your Morale to boost your die
roll. You can do this when your Morale is below zero, though obviously it’s risky. If you succeed at your
Morale test, you will usually take no additional Morale damage other than what you chose to spend. If
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you fail your Morale test, the GM will tell you what happens: you may get to choose for yourself why
you’re out of combat, but under other circumstances you may panic, take even more Morale damage
(denoted by the term Loss, such as “Difficulty 4/Loss 4”), or something else.
If spending points on a Morale test drives your Morale to -6 or below, you still only make one Morale
test. If you go to Unstable and then to Panicked as a result of two separate attacks, you make two
separate Morale tests.
You’ve dropped to –1 Morale (Unstable) and want to stay active in the scene. The GM asks you
to make a Difficulty 4 Morale test to do so. You decide to spend 2 Morale on the roll, giving you a
+2 bonus on the die. You reduce your Morale pool from –1 to –3, then roll a die and add 2. As
long as you don’t roll a 1, you’ll hit or exceed the Target Difficulty of 4 and can continue to act in
the scene. If you roll a 1, you fail the Morale test and tell the GM why your Hero is no longer
active (due to fear, distraction, unconsciousness, or something else you choose).
Any penalties from being below 0 Morale don’t apply to Morale tests. Grit doesn’t apply to Morale tests,
and never reduces the amount of Morale spent or lost.
Becoming Demoralized
When your Morale is successfully attacked by Sway or Sorcery, or when something demoralizes you
without an attack (such as fear emanating from a cursed altar), you’ll take damage to your Morale pool.
See below for how you can recover that damage.
Morale Quick Reference Table

Morale: 0+ Morale: –1 to –5 Morale: –6 to –10 Morale: below –10
RESILIENT UNSTABLE PANICKED BROKEN
• Able to • Immediately • Immediately Choose one:

think make a Morale 4 make another
• If you don’t
and act test to stay active Morale 4 test to
become
as in the scene. If remain active in
Treasonous (see
normal. you fail, tell the the scene. If you
below), you’re
GM why you are fail, tell the GM
removed from the
no longer active why you are no
conflict. Develop
(fainted, afraid, longer active
mental and
etc.). (fainted, afraid,
spiritual
• Difficulties of all etc.).
instabilities that
General ability • Using Sway to plague you going
tests increase by bolster your forward.
1 until above 0 Morale is only
• Investigative
Morale. half as effective
spends (when
• Morale can be as normal.
bolstered
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normally with the • Difficulties of all conscious) are
Sway ability. General ability sharply limited.
tests increase by • You are forever
2 until above 0 more vulnerable
Morale. to possession by
• Difficulties for ghosts.
General ability
tests remain
raised by 1 for the
rest of the
adventure.
If your Morale pool is anywhere from –1 to –5, you are Unstable. Immediately make a Morale test at
Difficulty 4 when you first drop below 0 Morale. If you succeed you stay active despite your low morale
and don’t need to make another test until additional Morale damage drops you below –5 Morale. If you
fail, tell the GM why you are no longer active during this scene (you may fall unconscious, flee,
surrender, be captured, or something else).
When Unstable, your rising panic increases the Difficulty of all General ability tests (excluding Health
tests and Morale tests). In combat, this penalty effectively raises foes’ Health or Morale Thresholds by 1.
This penalty isn’t cumulative with that from a low Health; only apply the stricter of the two penalties.
A character with the Sway ability can help bolster your Morale. For every Sway point they spend, you
regain 2 Morale points — unless you’re trying to talk yourself into being brave, in which case you gain
only 1 Morale point for every Sway point spent.
If your Morale pool is between –6 and –10, you are Panicked, and bolstering your Morale is only half as
effective as normal until you reach Morale 1. Each point of Sway spent on you restores 1 Morale, not 2,
and trying to bolster your own Morale is equally half as effective as normal. This penalty can be ignored
for one round if the person tending you spends a point of Trustworthy.
You must make another Morale test at Difficulty 4 when you first become Panicked. (If you went directly
to Panicked without ever becoming Unstable, make only this one Morale test.) If you succeed, you can
continue to act. If you fail, as above, tell the GM why you are no longer active during this scene.
When Panicked, the Difficulty of all General ability tests (excluding Health tests and Morale tests) is
increased by 2. In combat, this penalty effectively raises foes’ Health or Morale Thresholds by 2. This
penalty isn’t cumulative with that from a low Health; only apply the stricter of the two penalties.
Your allies can restore your confidence, but it takes some time to fully regain your composure. If you
become Panicked and then subsequently you’re brought above 0 Morale, the Difficulty of all General
ability tests stays at 1 point higher than normal for the rest of the adventure (or for one week,
whichever elapses first).
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GM Advice: Panic and Participation

It’s not fun for players to sit out of half a combat, and no one likes having narrative control taken away from their
Hero. That’s why players get to dictate the result when they are below 0 Morale and fail their Morale test.
When your Morale pool dips below –10, you are defeated and become Broken. Decide why you are no
longer a part of the conflict. You develop mental and spiritual instabilities (such as fears, guilt, or self-
doubts) that might plague you in future adventures until you address them through roleplaying.
If you prefer, you can instead become Treasonous, either publicly or privately allying with your foe or (if
they’re now deceased) your foe’s cause. This will likely change your Allegiances somewhat and may put
you secretly at odds with your Allies. Talk to your GM about this, and make sure you both agree on how
becoming Treasonous might work.
The only Investigative spends you can make when Broken are from your Allegiances or Social abilities,
made to convince your foe not to slay you.
You may no longer take any actions during this scene (you can still roleplay, but not make attacks), and
you will typically start the next scene conscious but still Panicked. Your allies can then use Sway to
restore your Morale with the same penalties listed under Panicked, but it takes some time to fully regain
your composure. Difficulties of all General ability tests are 1 point higher than normal for the rest of the
adventure.
Becoming Broken permanently cracks and scars your psyche in a way that some sorcerers and all hostile
spirits can take advantage of. Attackers using the Possession Maneuver against you (see p. XX) gain +1
for every time in your adventuring career that you’ve been Broken.
Your Morale has been Broken three times in your adventures, and now a hostile ghost tries to
possess you. They roll a Sway attack with a result of 7, add +3 because you’ve been Broken three
times before, and end up with a final result of 10. You choose between taking 8 points of Morale
damage (result – 2) or being possessed. If you had never been Broken, you’d choose between
taking 5 points of Morale damage or being possessed.
Player Advice: “You Can’t Talk Me to Death!”

When looking at the effects of low Morale, it’s good to remember that you don’t become Panicked or Broken
because you lost a minor argument with someone. Your Morale drops because a foe is terrifying you or
browbeating you with their antithetical beliefs, and you’re finding yourself believing them despite yourself. That
can strain or break deeply held beliefs, and it’s this strain that a low Morale represents. Have fun roleplaying this
clash, which can lead to some character-defining moments.
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GM Advice: Demoralizing the Adversary

In a large fight the Heroes may demoralize their primary Adversary, defeating them through a loss in
Morale. It’s up to you whether the Adversary then surrenders on behalf of all their troops, or whether
the fight rages on but without the defeated foe participating. Which you choose depends on the
circumstances, whether the bad guys have a strict chain of command, how the foes think the Heroes will
treat them if they surrender, and (mostly) what’s most fun for both you and the players. In general, the
more independent your villains are, the more likely they’re going to continue to fight even when their
leader drops.
If you really aren’t sure, have remaining Adversaries make a Morale test to keep fighting.
Bolstering Morale with Sway

You can use Sway as an action to restore your own or someone else’s lost Morale, even impacting more
than one person at once. Restoring Morale requires you to describe how you’re boosting yourself back
up, or give a brief inspirational speech to your friends, bolstering their waning self-confidence and
bravery. Every point you spend from your Sway pool restores 2 Morale points to someone else or 1
Morale point to you, split up however you want among the people listening to your short speech.
Bolstering lost Morale becomes less effective once your target becomes Panicked at or below -6 Morale.
See p. XX for additional details.
Regaining Morale
Your Morale rank determines the maximum amount of Morale that you can possess at once. Although
your Morale pool may rise and fall as you get demoralized and then recover, your Morale rank doesn’t
usually change unless you deliberately raise it with Advancement points. You can never regain Morale
higher than your rank.
Heroes naturally recover 2 points of Morale for each full day of restful, relaxed activity. You recover fully
between adventures unless you and the GM have a reason why you wouldn’t.
During an adventure, you’re much more likely to depend on Sway for on-the-fly bolstering of your
Morale. See details above and on p. XX, and remember that your ability to regain Morale drops when
you become Panicked. A Trustworthy spend also restores a significant amount of Morale all at once.
You can’t use Refresh tokens to directly recover Morale.
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Hazards
There are all sorts of ways to get hurt that don’t involve being stabbed. This section covers many of
them, including disease and the all-important (in Eversink, at least) poison.
Blindness
Partial blindness (such as losing one eye or degenerating eyesight) doesn’t affect your Hero
mechanically, although under certain circumstances (usually dim light or long distances) the GM may
slightly penalize your Alertness Modifier or the Difficulty to use ranged weapons accurately.
Temporary full blindness (such as a sack over your head, which you’ll need to spend an action to
remove) and permanent full blindness (such as losing your sight to a curse) raise the Difficulty on tests
where visual acuity matters. The size of the Difficulty change varies from +1 (attacking a foe who is
touching you) to +3 (trying to pick a lock by touch alone) to +5 (your foe is still and silent, and their
location cannot reasonably be guessed). The GM adjudicates the modifier based on circumstances and
your senses.
GM Advice: Heroes with Disabilities

If a player wants to play a badass Hero with a disability, talk with them about what that means during play. A blind
swordsman with Vigilance 3 is much more interesting than a generic soldier with a sword, and a blind elemental
Sorcerer with the Earth sphere who sees the world through vibrations in her bare feet (like Toph in Avatar: The
Last Airbender) is a distinct and novel concept. How they perceive the world may give them both advantages and
disadvantages. For instance, a deaf thief might have a very high Grit against Sway attacks (since they can’t hear an
enemy’s voice), but no Grit at all against Morale attacks using sorcery, body language, and fear. Find a fair,
interesting balance with the player.
Diseases
Swords of the Serpentine isn’t a game about disease — at least, not usually — but disease may be a
significant story element in an adventure or a campaign. As you’d expect, disease can be a problem in a
crowded city that’s surrounded by stagnant swamps.
Sudden outbreaks of disease terrify people. If you ever need to get a city district blocked off so that no
one can get in or out, spreading the rumor of a terrible disease is an awfully effective method of getting
others to do your dirty work for you. The Triskadane isn’t shy about quarantining entire districts of
Eversink in order to control the spread of contagious diseases and, historically, districts have been
burned down to the waterline with the inhabitants still in them to stop the spread of a plague. The fact
that these districts are almost always the poor sections of the city is surely coincidental.
In real world history, the spread and severity of disease has shaped the course of empires. A GM who
wants to shake up a campaign can introduce a plague that kills both allies and enemies alike, and an
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adventure that prevents (or spreads) a virulent illness can have huge stakes for millions of people that
the heroes have never met.
Disease Mechanics
Diseases are physical, mental, parasitic, or spiritual maladies that may be contagious. They aren’t limited
to diseases that exist in the real world, and might be fantastical (with magical symptoms) or
transformative (turning the victim from a human into something else). The onset time, symptoms,
communicability, and virulence vary by disease. A disease’s symptoms can be wide-ranging, and may be
noticeable and inconvenient without necessarily becoming crippling or deadly. A paralytic disease may
affect Athletics; a disease that steals the ability to speak might lower Sway as it progresses.
Diseases are organized into stages. Although each disease has suggestions for a typical case, the speed
and conditions for any disease to move from one stage into another is up to the GM; diseases move at
the speed of plot. The GM may ask you to make a Health or Morale test to recover from a disease, or to
avoid passing from one stage into another. The Difficulty of that test might rise significantly (to Difficulty
8 or higher) for easy-to-catch or hard-to-cure diseases.
A disease is first noticeable in either the first or second Stage, depending on its severity and initial
symptoms. You can’t resist or treat a disease until you suspect you have it, or someone else does.
Leechcraft will allow you to identify a disease, and for each point of Leechcraft you spend, a disease
victim will gain a +3 bonus on their next Health or Morale test to resist or recover from the disease.
GM Advice: Disease Symptoms

When designing your own diseases, don’t create symptoms that completely sideline an infected Hero. No one
wants to show up for a game session when their sick Hero is going to spend the entire adventure unconscious.
Additionally, be respectful when designing diseases with symptoms similar to real-world conditions
Known Diseases in Eversink

With outlanders arriving daily, and long-forgotten crypts accidentally being stumbled into by explorers,
new (or ancient) diseases can crop up at any time. Create additional illnesses, but you only need to
create game stats for diseases that have a meaningful impact on heroes. Anyone might get a cold or the
flu, for instance, but you’d only need to create game mechanics for a severe flu that kills people or guts
a mercenary company on the eve of battle.
Scabral
Scabral is a rare magical disease of the soul that slowly turns you into a rat monstrosity known as a
rattakan (see p. XX). Since most people don’t know that the rattakan even exist, it is typically overlooked
or misidentified as bad luck or a curse. This disease is automatically contracted from the bite of a
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rattakan, and ties directly into Denari’s Blessing (see p. XX). Many rattakan suffer from scabral at Stage
5.
Scabral worsens or heals slowly, usually advancing or recovering by one stage per adventure. It is
virulent and difficult to resist, typically with a Difficulty 8 Morale test required.
• Stage 1: You look different under Spirit Sight, mottled and sickly.
• Stage 2: Any business deals you try to make go sour on you.
• Stage 3: You begin to affect your environment with sorcerous Corruption, weakening Denari’s
Blessing in your vicinity and Corrupting the area around you (see p. XXError! Bookmark not
defined.) when you stay in one location for more than one scene.
• Stage 4: Your flesh starts to slowly dissolve into black vapor whenever you are in an area of
Denari’s Blessing (i.e. most of Eversink). Lose 1 die of damage from your Health pool at the start
of every Scene that takes place within Denari’s Blessing. This damage can be healed normally.
• Stage 5: If you enter a temple, shrine, marketplace, or any area particularly sacred to Denari,
you die and dissolve into black greasy vapor. You sense this before you step into danger.
Special: It’s common for people infected with scabral to not notice until in Stage 3 or 4. Rarely, virulent
and fast-moving strains of this disease worsen or improve every scene instead of every adventure.
Swamp Rot
Swamp rot is a common ailment that often afflicts the poor (or those afraid of leechcraft). A fair number
of the beggars in Eversink have lost their feet to Swamp Rot. It worsens or improves by one stage per
adventure and has clear symptoms, so most people afflicted have time to seek treatment. Swamp rot is
resisted by Health, usually with a Difficulty 6 Health test.
Swamp rot usually follows people who have had to trek through mud and muck, and it’s believed that
swamp spirits are claiming payment for their kindness in not drowning you. Before you ever catch
swamp rot, propitiate the spirits by tossing Wealth 2 into the depths of the swamp. They say that if you
do so, you’ll never need to fear swamp rot again.
• Stage 1: Your feet begin to smell like low tide on a hot day.
• Stage 2: The flesh on your feet aches and begins to bruise easily. Athletics tests to run, climb
and chase are at Difficulty +2.
• Stage 3: The flesh of your feet begins to dissolve and turn to swamp mud and slime. Walking
without crutches triggers a Health 4 test from the pain: if you fail, become Dazed. Athletics tests
to run, climb and chase are at Difficulty +4.
• Stage 4: One or both feet rots away entirely below the shin, leaving raw stumps.
• Stage 5: You begin to dream of throwing yourself into the swamp and sinking out of sight.
Special: If you survive Stage 5, the disease automatically passes. Victims pass from Stage 5 directly to
cured — although you’re still missing your feet, of course.
Soaking your feet in swamp mud at least once a day gives you a +2 bonus on your next test to resist the
disease.
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Throat Leeches
Amongst the more disgusting of conditions, throat leeches are picked up when drinking infected water.
Don’t go gargling swamp water if you can avoid it. They’re a truly horrible way to die.
Throat leeches worsen or improve by one stage per day, and are resisted by Health, usually with a
Difficulty 6 Health test.
• Stage 1: You have a slight tickle in your throat, and your voice is hoarse.
• Stage 2: You have trouble swallowing and you crave swamp water to drink. Your throat begins
to bulge.
• Stage 3: You suffer from coughing fits. Once per scene, usually at the least convenient time, you
cough live leeches out of your mouth.
• Stage 4: Along with the symptoms of previous stages, you begin actively planning how to infect
others with throat leeches (usually by getting them to drink liquid you have spit in.) This desire
isn’t rational, and can be resisted with a Difficulty 4 Morale test.
• Stage 5: A truly revolting number of throat leeches bursts out of your neck, killing you.
Tidal Plague
This lethal, fast-moving plague comes in from the sea during a storm surge. It can leave the canals
choked with corpses in a matter of days.
Tidal Plague worsens or improves quickly, advancing or recovering a stage at each high tide. Tidal Plague
is resisted by Health; the Difficulty of the Health test is normally 8, but rises to 10 when high tide
coincides with dawn or dusk.
• Stage 1: A fever that waxes and wanes with the tide; when the tide is high, the fever is worst.
The skin between your fingers and toes itches.
• Stage 2: Bulges appear on your neck beneath the jawline. You hallucinate that you’re
underwater. You may walk into canals because you erroneously believe you can breathe water.
Hint: you can’t.
• Stage 3: Your body erupts with boils and blains, seeping with clear fluid that smells like
saltwater. You start suffering hallucinations, often accompanied by confused ranting and violent
behavior. You’ll need to make Morale 5 tests to tell friends from foes.
• Stage 4: You suffer an irresistible compulsion to be underwater. You’ll harm others, even loved
ones, to achieve this goal.
• Stage 5: You die by drowning as your lungs fill up with internal fluids.
Special: The priests of Denari deny that tidal plague is the curse of an ancient ocean god who craves
blood sacrifice. In fact, they deny it fairly emphatically. The only god who holds sway in Eversink is
Denari, even at high tide.
Wetlung
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Wetlung is resisted by a Difficulty 10 Health test once you’re infected, but isn’t traditionally contagious;
the disease is only spread by infected water uness the spores somehow become airborne. Wetlung
worsens or improves slowly, usually advancing or recovering by one stage per adventure.
Wetlung is a parasitic fungal infection that connects victims to a secret colony of psychic fungus growing
in a near-flooded underground chamber beneath Eversink. The huge inhuman entity, which weighs over
50 tons and thinks of itself as “Colony”, can influence people via the parasitic spore colonies growing in
their lungs. The true nature of wetlung isn’t understood by Eversink’s physicians.
• Stage 1: You may show pale skin and bluish lips, faint symptoms of having been recently
drowned. You suffer pleasantly hallucinogenic visions for several hours, as if drugged, and you
can’t remember the incident that infected you.
• Stage 2: You are subject to subliminal psychic suggestions from Colony if you have no Grit: not
anything dramatic, just small nudges here and there via a Difficulty 3 Persuade Maneuver (so
obey Colony or suffer 1 Morale damage). You are not aware that you’re being manipulated. You
occasionally cough wetly.
• Stage 3: The fungal infection grows in your lungs, and you cough often. The Difficulty for holding
your breath or to resist any respiratory infection is 2 higher than normal. If Colony wishes, you
are connected to its hivemind. You don’t find this odd at all.
• Stage 4: Your body has adjusted and you seldom cough. You are connected to Colony’s hivemind
whenever it wishes, and this seems normal and natural to you. Colony can attempt to take you
over entirely for a scene through a Difficulty 8 Persuade Maneuver (obey Colony or take 6 points
of Morale damage). It prefers not to do so, as most people suffering from wetlung are more
useful as pawns and spies, and the consequence of successfully resisting it is not in Colony’s best
interests (see below).
See p. XX for combat stats for the Drowned.
Special: The most likely vector for infection is through spore-infested water entering the lungs directly.
Anyone who suffers a near-drowning in any of Eversink's waterways runs the risk that the water was
contaminated (Difficulty 4 Health test to avoid being infected). Most of Colony’s victims are the result of
a person being forced to aspirate deliberately infected water (Difficulty 10 Health test to resist).
Wetlung’s victims aren't zombies; they're simply susceptible to subliminal nudges towards outcomes the
hivemind desires. They won't retain the memory of their abduction and infection, nor will they realize
that some of their decisions are coming from an outside agency. If they notice at all, it will seem
completely normal to them that their internal organs are slowly being suffused with fungus.
The Consequences of Resistance: Colony is the human equivalent of the Cordyceps fungus (do a quick
web search if you aren’t familiar with it). You will take Morale damage if you resist a command or a
suggestion from Colony. If this Morale damage defeats you, you will experience an irrestible urge to
head to the highest location you can easily access (usually a tall building’s roof). You will violently resist
anyone who tries to detain you.
Once in this high location, you will spend all your Athletics pool grasping onto a railing or similar object
so that you are difficult to move. You will remain there for the remainder of the scene while Colony’s
fungus grows uncontrollably within your body. It will grow a unicorn-horn-like fungal rhizome out the
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top of your skull at the end of this scene, killing you. Next scene the rhizome will spread airborne spores
(similar to how a dandelion spreads its seeds) on the wind, infecting nearby humans as if they had a
near-drowning (Difficulty 4 Health test to resist). Other infected hosts will soon arrive to remove and
destroy your now-crumbling body.
Identification of an infected host can be tricky without at least 1 rank of Leechcraft. Wet coughing can
be an identifier, as can extraordinary strength. If their induction event was recent (Stage 1), they may
exhibit some symptoms of near-drowning, such as pale skin and bluish lips. Most infected at Stage 3 and
higher are also particularly susceptible to respiratory ailments like pneumonia as a result of fungal
growth in the lungs. Alternatively, a pattern of inexplicable behavior might point towards Colony's
mental influence at work.
Colony asks its hosts to blackmail and murder in order to maintain tight secrecy, but the few folk who
have become aware of the mold and its infected hosts refer to them collectively as "The Drowned". It's
dangerous to let it be known that you know anything about what's going on; that tends to make one a
target for infestation. With many hosts in positions of substantial power within the assorted political
factions, Colony also has other ways to make life uncomfortable for those getting too close to the truth.
Drowning and Suffocation

In Eversink, there’s nearly endless opportunities to suffocate and die. Swamp mud, quicksand, murky
canals, smoke-filled tunnels, an assassin’s garrote… think about the possibilities!
You can hold your breath if you have advance warning before being denied breathable air. Holding your
breath gets you three rounds (or one minute if not in combat or a chase) before you start suffocating. If
you can’t hold your breath, you start suffocating immediately.
When suffocating, roll a Health test every round. Your first failure means you become Dazed (the
Difficulty of all tests rises by +2); your second failure means you fall Unconscious. The Difficulty of this
test starts at Difficulty 2 in the first round of Suffocation, and rises by 1 each subsequent round you
cannot breathe. Any round in which you’re active (struggling, fighting, swimming), the Difficulty of the
Health test rises by an additional +2. If you somehow gain a gasp of air and then start suffocating again,
the base Difficulty resets to 2 and begins to rise each round as normal.
Once you fall Unconscious, you are defeated and start dying. Lose 1 die of Health every round until you
can breathe again.
Lost Health points can be restored normally with Bind Wounds if you’re rescued and resuscitated before
you die. You cannot resuscitate yourself with Bind Wounds or Leechcraft while suffocating.
Some weapons (such as a monster’s strangling tentacle) may inflict Health damage in addition to
suffocation damage.
Falling
If you’re falling in Eversink, it’s usually from a building. Falling inflicts 5 Health damage per building story
(roughly every 3 meters) you plummet onto cobblestones. If you were prepared to fall, a successful
Athletics test reduces damage by 5 points. Falling into water or something reasonably soft that breaks
your fall (mud, hay, or a cart full of night soil) also reduces damage by 5 points. Falling onto spikes raises
damage by an additional 5 points or more.
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The GM can give you the opportunity to have Success at a Cost (see p. XX) if a fall would otherwise kill
you.
Fire
Damage from exposure to fire varies according to how much of your body is exposed to flame, and
repeats for each round (or, outside of combat, every few seconds) you remain exposed to it.
Minor exposure, most often to an extremity like a hand or foot, carries a Damage Modifier of −2.
Partial exposure, to your face or to up to half of your surface area, carries a Damage Modifier of +0.
Extensive exposure, to half or more of your body’s surface area, imposes a Damage Modifier of +2.
The GM will often give you a chance to avoid being set on fire. The difficulty of extinguishing a flame
varies depending on the substance; if your clothes are simply on fire, the flames are easier to put out
(Difficulty 3 Athletics test as an action, or dive into water; fire out in 1 round) than if you are covered in
alchemist’s fire (Difficulty 5 Athletics test as an action; fire burns for 2-7 (1 die +1) rounds unless it is
smothered or sorcerously suppressed).
Characters in a burning building or a heavily burning forest also run the risk of smoke asphyxiation,
which uses the drowning and suffocation rules above.
Lava isn’t something you’ll typically find in Eversink, but sooner or later in your adventures you’re going
to end up dueling on the rim of an active volcano. That’s just the way adventuring works. Your GM may
give you the opportunity to try to cling to safety with an appropriately difficult Athletics test, but if you
fall in lava you die spectacularly. Lesser exposure to lava, such as to a limb, inflicts Extensive fire damage
and acts as alchemist’s fire.
Heat and Cold

It can be difficult to move or think in extreme heat or cold. If you’re suffering from either, you’re treated
as Hurt (see p. XX) regardless of your current Health. Your GM may also assign a small amount of fixed
damage every scene, or more frequently, depending on the severity of the heat or cold.
Spending 1 point of Wilderness Mastery will stave off this penalty for one scene for the Hero who
spends the point. Spending 2 points (which can come from different Heroes) will stave off the penalty
for at least one scene for the entire team and their companions, up to 20 or so people. That’s enough to
keep your crew safe when your ship sinks and everyone plunges into cold water, but not enough to
survive a full trek into the frozen North to battle giants without bringing any warm clothing.
Poisons and Venoms

If there’s one thing the nobility of Eversink loves, it’s their poisons, and that traditional method of
solving problems has become a mainstay of ‘Sinkish culture. If you need a poison, you can find someone
to sell it to you. Buying the antidote, however, might be a little more challenging.
Poisons and venoms are one of two types: an effect created by your Investigative spend and then
described as a venom or poison; or an object such as a poison vial, found during play or purchased
independently. These latter are typically rarer and more powerful.
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Designer Notes: So Much Poison, So Little Time

We like to think the game of competitive poisoning is practically a sport amongst certain Ancient Nobility. Imagine
a Hero with Leechcraft (to create poisons), Burglary (to slip those poisons into food and drink), and a high
Preparedness (to use Flashback and just declare that the supporting character was poisoned two hours ago).
But it’s tricky. We want Swords of the Serpentine to include expensive, deadly, obscure, rare poisons with strange
effects that Heroes must struggle to cure at the last minute, but we don’t want Heroes to automatically have easy
access to these. We also want Heroes with Leechcraft (or the Poison sorcerous sphere) to be able to produce their
own less esoteric poisons and antidotes on the fly, without needing to plan ahead or spend Wealth.
That’s why we divide poisons up between the rare weird effects, which you typically need to plan ahead for and
spend Wealth to buy, and less virulent poisons that a Hero can whip out on the spot just by spending points of
Leechcraft. It’s an artificial divide, sure, but it helps you understand what you can reasonably create on the fly. And
hey, if you want a multi-point Leechcraft expenditure to produce really rare poisons, that seems like a perfect
balance.
Onset Time
Poison onset times in the real world tend to be relatively slow, measured in minutes or hours. That’s less
common in sword & sorcery novels, where a poison’s effect starts to occur almost instantly, or just
quickly enough for the victim to know exactly how much trouble they’re in should they not obtain an
antidote. Poisons in Swords of the Serpentine follow this latter model: if the goal isn’t a slow and hard-
to-trace assassination, poisons are assumed to take effect within the scene and to become detectable at
the most dramatically appropriate time. For poisons that don’t already have a stated onset time, players
may suggest an onset time which might then be sped up or slowed down at the GM’s discretion.
Antidotes
Leechcraft spends will provide you with poison antidotes, with every Leechcraft pool point spent able to
delay, lessen, or in some cases negate one ongoing effect of a poison. The antidote may not take effect
instantly, at the GM’s discretion, or may not work at all if too much time has passed.
You can also purchase antidotes to specific poisons, and purchased poisons may come with a small vial
of antidote attached. These antidotes are effectively Leechcraft spends, but only for this specific poison.
Poison as Effect
Pool points of the Investigative ability Leechcraft can be spent to poison someone or to produce poison.
Name the poison and describe what it feels like as it takes effect, and suggest an onset time. For every
point of Leechcraft you spend, generate one die of either Health or Morale damage (as on p. XX) that
immediately takes effect — or you can agree with the GM on one special effect per pool point spent.
Here are some possible special effects coming from poison.
• Inflict 3 Health or Morale damage per round for a certain number of rounds.
• Raise the Difficulty on a specific type of Maneuver, such as Persuade or Daze.
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• Increase by 1–2 points the damage taken from all other sources.
• All General ability tests increase in Difficulty by 2 for the remainder of the scene.
• Any healing during the scene is at half effectiveness, or is impossible if two Leechcraft points are
spent.
• Immediately give a victim the penalties of being Hurt or Unstable, regardless of their current
Health or Morale.
• Temporarily affect memory.
Flashback (the Preparedness Talent) can establish that an individual is already poisoned. If you prefer,
you can announce that you’re using slow-acting poison that can take effect in future scenes instead.
Poison as Object
Not all toxins are created through Leechcraft spends, and these more powerful poisons (while illegal)
can typically be purchased if you know where to look. See p. XX for a sample list of what’s commonly
available: the more virulent or effective the poison, the higher the cost. When your GM wants to
introduce unique poisons that can’t casually be duplicated by Heroes, expect to buy them instead of
creating them yourself. Your GM will raise or lower the suggested Wealth cost of purchased poisons
based on supply and demand (and by how much fun they think it will be for you to use it).
Purchased toxins and poisons can vary widely in lethality and nature, and don’t need to adhere to the
guidelines used when poison is treated as an effect. A powerful sleeping draught may only trigger a
series of three successive Health tests to stay conscious, while a truly deadly venom from a rare snake
might have a Damage Modifier ranging from +6 to +12. Damage or effect might be parceled out in
increments, such as 4 Health lost a round for four rounds, and it isn’t unusual for poison to reduce or
eliminate the effectiveness of Bind Wounds while the poison is active.
The GM will ideally give you a chance to avoid exposure, likely via Leechcraft, Vigilance, Skulduggery, or
Burglary (if the ability was used to hide the toxin). Once you have been exposed, some poisons allow a
Health test (listed as Test in the examples) for half damage or some other lesser effect (under Minor in
the examples). If you fail the test, the Severe result occurs. The Investigative ability Leechcraft can be
used to create antidotes.
Traps
Traps are common when adventuring in forgotten tombs or robbing well-secured vaults. They may be
natural (such as an unstable stone bridge perilously close to collapse) or deliberate (such as pit traps,
scything blades, sorcerous glyphs, or hidden poison). Use your Investigative abilities to identify the
existence of a trap. Once you do, it’s up to you to figure out how you’re going to avoid or disarm it with
your General abilities.
A trap is nothing more than an attack, a spell, or a Maneuver that someone left behind. When you think
of them in this way, you realize how incredibly creative you can be when designing new traps.
In Swords of the Serpentine, traps aren’t usually a casual distraction. They either provide important leads
in themselves (such as a sorcerous glyph that reveals information about the sorcerer who cast it), act as
an action set-piece (such as a rolling ball trap you must outrun), or reveal that something very important
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indeed is being hidden. Traps are intended to trap you, discourage you, or kill you, and there are some
key differences between them.
Traps That Warn STAY OUT

These traps often use Maneuvers and non-deadly techniques to channel or trap intruders. They may be
designed to delay you. Warning traps often scream “This is a trap!” to anyone paying attention, under
the theory that you’ll decide proceeding just isn’t worth the bother. When your trap involves
deafeningly loud scything blades or a glowing, pulsing sorcerous glyph, your trap is telling people to go
away. Such traps may also inflict a small amount of fixed Morale damage by inspiring hopelessness and
discouragement, enough that supporting characters never choose to approach.
• Typically simple to spot, and as intimidating or terrifying as possible.

• Often designed to delay, re-channel, embarrass, or discourage.
• Often rolls an attack against anyone coming within range, instead of requiring a Hero to dodge
with Athletics.
• May use Maneuvers (or a similar simplified mechanic), giving you a choice whether you take
damage from the trap or retreat back to safety.
• Might use poison or disease with an onset time that encourages you to immediately leave and
find medical help instead of proceeding.
• Glyphs might use Sorcerous transformation or persuasion.
• If the trap is any good, it may be the work of a famous trap-maker, knowledge of whom can
reveal secrets of the trap.
• May have hidden access tunnels that bypass the trap for repair, resetting, cleaning, and
maintenance. These typically lead away from important areas, in the hopes that any thieves
who find them get distracted or lost.
• Lean more towards the frivolous than the brutally effective in terms of effect.
• More likely to target Morale than Health.
Warning traps skew towards the following effects, although this list is far from comprehensive.
• Architecture: corridors and rooms shift, redirect, become blocked, swivel, or have ceilings that
slowly lower.
• Showy devices of death: obvious death-traps (such as swinging blades) designed to discourage
you from moving forwards, possibly using Maneuvers.
• Visible barriers: razor walls or open pit traps, designed to be easy to avoid or escape from if
you’re leaving, but difficult if you’re proceeding.
• Teleportation: redirects you out of the complex or into another trap.
• Guardians: hostile animals, people, monsters, or non-living creatures (such as animated statues)
attack you only if you are pushing deeper into the complex.
Interestingly, some trap complexes use this structure in reverse, and this works well with GUMSHOE’s
rule that says it’s easy to enter a place when you’re following a lead, but possibly hard to depart. Such
dungeons are particularly simple to enter but exceptionally difficult to leave, trapping adventurers
forever in their depths. And really, is your treasure truly stolen if the thief can never escape?
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Traps That Say DIE
These traps have one purpose, and that’s to defeat you before you pass them. They seldom provide
deliberate hints as to their presence or nature and may include a system to clean up any bones or
corpses left behind. If your pit trap includes a secret falling ceiling block to turn the victim into meat
paste, your trap is trying to kill people.
• Notably hard to spot, and when you do spot them, it’s likely due to the remains of a previous
victim.
• Often inflict automatic damage unless a Hero dodges with Athletics, instead of rolling an attack.
• Death traps vary in quality from extremely precise to a bit shoddy, with mechanics and
effectiveness to match.
• If the trap is any good, it may be the work of a famous trap-maker, knowledge of whom can
reveal secrets of the trap.
• May have hidden access tunnels that bypass the trap for repair, resetting, cleaning, and
maintenance; these may lead deeper into the complex, giving Heroes a chance to bypass the
deadly trap entirely.
• Lean more towards the brutally effective than the frivolous in terms of effect.
• More likely to target Health than Morale.
Deadly traps lean towards the following effects, although this list is far from comprehensive.
• Sharp blades or spikes: these might swing, pop up, scythe, impale, or spin.
• Heavy weights: these might swing to knock you backwards (using a Maneuver), crush you, trap
you, or immovably block your path for a time.
• Poison gas: most often used in small spaces with limited air flow, acting as any other poison of
your choice. Holding your breath may be an effective defense until you begin to suffocate.
• Sorcerous glyphs: see p. XX. These can hold any Sorcery attack, Maneuver, or unique spell
effect.
• Magical fire: the trap tries to incinerate you using unnatural fire or another exceptionally deadly
hazard.
• Guardians: hostile animals, people, monsters, or non-living creatures (such as animated statues)
attack you with an intent to kill.
Designer Notes: Traps vs. Leads

We have a conflict here between the very fun fiction of “Traps are designed to stop you from getting to your goal!”
and the GUMSHOE philosophy of “When following a lead, your appropriate Investigative abilities speed you on
your way.” So ask yourself what makes a better adventure. If you and your group think that traps are fun, partially
ignore the GUMSHOE philosophy when facing down a trap: your Investigative abilities can tell you how a trap
works, no roll required, but it’s still up to you and your General abilities to get past the darn thing (and, like Indiana
Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, back past it on your way out).
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Guidelines of Trap Design
When you’re designing traps, consider a few basics.
• What’s the Theme? Describe traps in a way that emphasizes and hints at the structure they’re
located in, or the person who paid for them. In the same way that Sorcery must stay within
specific Spheres, the traps in an ancient jungle pyramid may feel quite different than traps in an
Eversink moneylender’s basement, and a high society poisoner’s traps will be quite different
than the trapped temple of a small god of disease. Find one or two themes, and stick to them.
• What’s the Trap’s Purpose? As noted above, is this trap meant to warn “Stay out!” or is it meant
to say “Die!”? The appearance and effect of traps will be strongly shaped by this choice. You
may even want to point this out to the Heroes, so they know how cautious to be.
• What Does the Trap Target? As with the purpose, does the trap focus on harming Health or
Morale? Does it roll an attack, or does it automatically hit unless the Hero avoids it with
Athletics? You can assign small amounts of fixed damage just from being within close range of a
trap: an ancient altar saps your Morale by 2 points per round, or the blistering heat of magical
fire burns you for 3 Health every time you approach. Such fixed damage underscores the trap’s
purpose in a really immediate way.
• Does the Trap Have Style? Make traps that your players will remember. You can combine
mechanical traps with sorcerous glyphs to create almost any unusual effect you can imagine
within a theme. Then assign it an attack bonus to see if it hits (or to calculate the Maneuver
Difficulty) and think about ways to make it interesting enough to be worth spending fifteen
minutes of precious game-time on.
• Is the Trap Boring? If it is, don’t spend a lot of time on it. You don’t want to get bogged down in
micro-management unless everyone at the table finds that fun! You’re better off saying “You
find a series of three pit traps with strange grooved pillars under a series of murderholes, but if
you’re willing to take your time, you can bypass all three with a General Spend of 8 Athletics for
the whole group.” Then, of course, you hit them with the excitingly guarded pit traps and
lightning pillars on their way out.
• How Deadly is the Trap? Avoid insta-kill; they aren’t fun for anyone but the GM. Instead, use
Maneuvers so that the Heroes can make a difficult choice between taking damage or finding
themselves flung, off-balance, rerouted, or trapped.
• Does the Trap Make Sense? Briefly think about where and how the trap was built. An architect
without much money is going to have embarrassingly basic traps (unless she constructed them
herself as a labor of love), while the Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers is going to have
traps of breathtaking subtlety and sophistication. A sorcerer will rely mostly on magical runes.
Use traps that make sense for the building they’re in, and remember that it’s just as valid for
Heroes to bypass or deactivate a trap as it is for them to fall prey to it.
• Does Strategy Help? Do you want a trap solved in a particular way, or with particular speed? If
so, reward that. You can used timed traps that get harder the longer you wait. You can reward
the brave and penalize the cautious: in the same way that the crumbling stone stairway in Peter
Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring started disintegrating when the Balrog approached, every Hero
who bypasses a trap might raise the Difficulty by +1 for the Heroes who come afterwards.
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• What’s the Solution? If a trap is just an attack or effect someone else left behind, defeating a
trap means getting past it without getting hit by that attack. Think through how the original trap
designers (or current inhabitants!) got around the trap, then encourage players to do the same.
They can then use their Heroes’ abilities to find or use that solution, or just brute force their way
past it.
• What’s the Reward? Traps let the thief shine, especially if they don’t use their Burglary very
much otherwise. Just as if they defeated an Adversary, successfully bypassing or disarming traps
earns Refresh tokens. The harder the trap or more elegant the Heroes’ solution, the more
tokens, from 1 to 7. That will let the thief refresh their Burglary pool, so they can tackle more
traps to come.
Designer Notes: The Philosophy of Traps

You won’t find too many traps in Eversink itself outside of Mercanti treasure vaults, but they litter every haunted
jungle tomb or forgotten Serpentine burial mound you run across. We struggled a bit to make traps fun until we
nailed down the Maneuver mechanic. Being able to say “The swinging blade is coming right for you, and hits! You
have a choice: take 10 Health damage or leap backwards to where you started” is exactly the right feel for traps
that protect an area by actually keeping people out. Those are different from death traps that are only designed to
kill intruders, sure, but remembering that a trap is nothing more than an attack or effect someone left behind
makes the mechanics much easier.
We have particular fun designing themed traps. Think of the temples of heretical small gods: an ocean temple
might use mechanical and sorcerous traps that all involve salt and water, for instance, and a god of the hunt might
use traps that involve archery, running, and vigilance. You can use themed traps anywhere; the traps guarding the
Butchers’ Guild treasure vaults must be freakin’ terrifying.
Traps and Investigative Abilities

Most profession Investigative abilities (and a few Social ones) can be useful when adventuring and
looking for traps. Suggestions are below, but this list is certainly not exclusive. Be creative when hunting
for, and disarming, traps.
Social Investigative Abilities

Command: Some guardians may be susceptible to forcefully presented orders, especially if they think
you’re their master.
Liar's Tell: If you’re in the presence of people who know about existing traps, their nervousness may
warn you of upcoming danger.
Nobility: You’re familiar with the general types of traps that were once fashionable for nobles to install.
Servility: When traps require access to hidden alcoves and back rooms to reset, you’re familiar with the
types of hidden doorways used by servants and trapsmiths.
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Sentinel Investigative Abilities
Felonious Intent: If a trap is designed to prevent theft — a dropping cage, clamping manacles, severing
blades — this ability helps you predict how the trap might operate.
Laws & Traditions: Just like everything else, traps become fashionable and then fall out of fashion at
certain points in history, and you may be able to predict traps based on a building’s age and style. You
know when a trap is illegal, not that it usually matters at the time.
Spirit Sight: If a trap is in any way tied into the spirit world or tied to ghosts, demons or small gods, Spirit
Sight can alert you to the presence of those entities and indicates that the trap is more than might meet
the eye. You can help someone with Burglary disarm or bypass sorcerous glyphs.
Vigilance: Tremendously useful when searching for triggers and subtle signs of traps, each rank of
Vigilance gives you a +1 Alertness modifier to notice signs that others might walk past and ignore.
Spending a pool point gives you an additional +3 Alertness Modifier for the scene.
Sorcerer Investigative Abilities

Corruption: If you concentrate you may be able to sense the unnatural emanations given off by
sorcerous wards. You gain a feel for what may be required to avoid or disarm magical traps, whether
that’s knowing a command phrase, proving sorcerous power, having a specific appearance or identity, or
something else. You can help someone with Burglary disarm or bypass sorcerous glyphs.
Forgotten Lore: You know obscure details about trap-making and the sorcerous wards used in traps,
including possible procedures and techniques for disarming them (if possible).
Leechcraft: You can analyze and identify poisons, venoms, and diseases delivered by traps. When
someone is poisoned, you can gauge the severity and onset time of the poison.
Prophecy: It isn’t unusual for you to gain a vague premonition of disaster before you blunder into a trap
that might kill you or your friends; your Alertness Modifier rises by +1 per Prophecy rank when you’re
searching for traps.
Thief Investigative Abilities

City's Secrets: Your knowledge of architecture may indicate sliding walls, hidden portcullises and
disguised pits. If there’s a way for workers to get into the trap’s inner workings, you may be able to
identify the location of that path.
Ridiculous Luck: It’s unwise to depend on Ridiculous Luck to find traps — you may set off a trap in such a
way that it destroys your friends but leaves you unharmed — but you may stumble onto an obscure clue
about the trap’s presence or solution. Spending a pool point of Ridiculous Luck may get you and your
friends out of an otherwise lethal trap with relatively little damage.
Scurrilous Rumors: If the trap is recent or is related in any way to gossip (such as an architect or
trapsmith talking publicly about constructing it after the fact), you may have heard about a clue that
gives away the trap’s existence or solution.
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Skulduggery: You have a good sense for how traps are designed, and when you stop to consider an area
you can usually predict the most effective type of trap for that space. You can often gauge the lethality
of a trap.
Warrior Investigative Abilities

Know Monstrosities: If a trap uses venomous animals or monsters, you’re familiar with their signs and
general behavior.
Spot Frailty: You notice weaknesses, flaws, and deliberately sabotaged supports. You’re likely to see a
collapsing ceiling or false floor.
Tactics of Death: If you can observe the corpses or signs of previous victims, you can usually make an
educated guess as to how the trap killed them.
Wilderness Mastery: You understand the triggers and causes of natural traps, such as flash floods,
avalanches, and rockslides.
Traps and General Abilities

Use General abilities to bypass or disarm traps that you’ve identified. Some traps will injure or
inconvenience you regardless of your roll, but success will generally reduce or lessen the risk.
Athletics: Running, jumping, lifting, dodging, and climbing around traps.
Bind Wounds: Disable poisons and other toxins on traps.
Burglary: Essential for spotting hidden traps, especially when accompanied by a high Alertness modifier
from Prophecy or Vigilance. Useful for unlocking and manipulating locks, hidden panels, trap machinery,
and possibly sorcerous glyphs.
Preparedness: Helps ensure you have what you need to deal with a trap, or (using Flashback) that the
trap is never a problem in the first place.
Stealth: Sneaking past traps that only trigger when you are spotted.
Sorcery: Used to trigger traps or destroy them from a distance.
Sway: May affect traps that function with command words or that require living people to set them off.
Warfare: Physically smashing or destroying trap components.
Trap Notation
If writing an adventure, record traps in the following format. Categories that aren’t needed are omitted
from the stat block.
Trap Name
Physical description of trap
Obvious/Hidden Mechanical/Sorcerous Trap

Trigger: Instructions on what sets off the trap, if applicable
Deactivation: Instructions on how to deactivate the trap, if possible
Offense — Warfare: +X; Damage Modifier +Y, plus special instructions
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Offense — Sorcery: +X; Damage Modifier +Y, plus special instructions
Offense — Sway: +X; Damage Modifier +Y, plus special instructions
Misc: Stealth Modifier for finding it, if not 0; any unique advice needed to adjudicate the trap
Refresh Tokens: 1, 3, 5 or 7, as a reward for dealing with it
Description: Details of the trap
As an example, the following simple “Die!” trap might drop a stone block on your head.
Deadly Crushing Block

A massive stone block falls from the ceiling when triggered by a pressure plate, before slowly rising back
up on a counterweighted chain to reset.
Hidden Mechanical Trap

Trigger: Weight of more than 25 kg on the pressure plate sets off the trap; 5 minute reset
Deactivation: Turning a torch sconce deactivates the trap for 5 minutes; once triggered, a Difficulty 4
Burglary test will prevent the mechanism from resetting
Offense — Warfare: Damage Modifier +8; Difficulty 8 Athletics test avoids damage entirely
Offense — Sway: If the trap successfully defeats a target, all who view the occurrence automatically
take Morale damage with Damage Modifier +4.
Misc: If the target has ranks of Leechcraft or Vigilance, just before triggering the trap they note the faint
coppery scent of old blood. This slight warning reduces the Athletics test to dodge from Difficulty 8 to
Difficulty 4.
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: This is likely to catch most Heroes unaware, although once set off once it can easily be
avoided. If the falling block successfully defeats someone, the Morale of their fellow adventurers suffers
from the experience.
Similarly, the following sophisticated “Stay out!” trap might fill a hallway with whirling blades.
Whirling Blades of Denial

Spinning, moving blades that demoralize Heroes and force them backwards to safety
Obvious Mechanical Trap

Deactivation: Hidden mechanical key shutoff; Difficulty 8 Burglary test to jam each blade
Offense — Warfare: +2 per blade; Damage Modifier +3, or Hero flinches backwards to safety and must
try to pass that blade again
Offense — Sway: Fixed Morale damage 3 to the Hero any time a Warfare attack succeeds, whether or
not the Hero takes Health damage from the attack
Misc: Stealth Modifier –3
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Heroes must get past three consecutive blades whirling in an unpredictable pattern. Each
blade attacks when a Hero attempts to pass it. The Hero may only move forward to the next whirling
blade if the blade’s Warfare attack is unsuccessful, or if the Hero voluntarily accepts the Health damage
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from the successful Warfare attack. Any successful Warfare attack also inflicts 3 Morale damage,
whether or not the Hero takes Health damage.
Increasing your Health Threshold (see p. XX) is an efficient way to pass with little damage.
Designer Notes: Whirling Blades of Death!

This sample trap models the classic complicated spinning blade trap that forces a Hero to edge forward, duck down
to avoid a huge blade, and then leap forward once the timing is exactly right… getting more and more nervous with
every near-miss. It’s not particularly realistic, but it is a huge amount of fun.
Putting It All Together

The following example illustrates combat, Initiative, Armor, Grit, spending Investigative points, and
defeat.
You’ve slipped by yourself onto a huge sailing ship moored in Eversink’s harbor, hoping to find
and steal back an ancient songbook of magical hymns before it’s smuggled out of the city. You
aren’t looking for a clue — after all, you know where the songbook is and who has it, you just
have to get it back — which means that your ranks of Skulduggery don’t give you an automatic
success. Instead you’re relying on your ranks of Burglary and Stealth to sneak in, find the book
and get out undetected. You have 10 Health and 8 Morale, and you’re confident you’ll be fine.
Of course, nothing is ever easy. You’re in the Captain’s cabin pulling the book from his previously
locked chest when an orderly enters the room. There’s no time to hide, and really no room to
hide even if you had time. The orderly sees you, neither of you are Surprised, and the GM gives
the orderly the first action for Initiative. She attacks you with a Sway Maneuver — “You’re not
allowed in here. Surrender, or you’ll be killed!” — and hits with a result of 8. You now have the
choice to surrender or to suffer 6 points of Morale damage. You aren’t about to surrender, so 6
points of Morale damage it is. Luckily you’ve filled out your Gear list with the mementos that
help you feel secure, so you have 1 point of Grit. Your Morale pool drops by 5 points, leaving you
with 3 Morale. She then turns and runs, screaming at the top of her lungs for the ship’s marines.
You glance at the porthole — too small to slip through — so you run after her, hoping to either
silence her or escape before the soldiers arrive. She’s halfway up the ladder to the main deck
when you flip a knife at her. You spend 2 Warfare points and roll a 2, successfully hitting her.
Your minimum damage is 2 points but you roll a 4. She’s just a Mook (she isn’t particularly a
combatant and your GM never bothered to figure out her name) and has only 1 Health, so
you’ve defeated her. You tell the GM she falls off the ladder unconscious with your dagger in her
back.
Unfortunately, her screaming worked and the GM adds new combatants to the combat. They go
last in the round, which means they can go first in the second round of combat as well if they
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choose. A sailor holding a club bursts out of a cabin behind you, and a single armed guard slides
down the ladder from the deck above.
Both close on you (moving from Close to Point-Blank range) and attack. The GM gets lucky with
her dice, and both enemies successfully hit. Luckily they’re attacking your Health, considering
that you already took a bad hit to your Morale.
You ask the GM if you can spend a point of Skulduggery to gain Armor 2 for the rest of the fight.
She asks how Skulduggery lets that happen, and you make up something about your childhood in
Eversink’s thieves’ guilds, learning to avoid damage when you were repeatedly forced to flee
across a crowded training room while goons tried to club you down. Your GM agrees, so instead
of taking 5 and 7 points of damage (for a total of 12 lost Health), you take 3 and 5 points for a
total of 8 damage, leaving you with 2 Health. You’d be at –2 Health if you hadn’t established
your Armor.
That’s the end of the first round, however, and the guards choose to go again. One hits, rolling
damage of 6 points. With your Armor you take 4 points of additional damage, dropping your
Health to –2. This leaves you Hurt, and you need to make an immediate Difficulty 4 Health test to
stay conscious. You spend 2 points of your Health to boost your roll, so you only need to roll a 2
or higher to stay conscious. Instead, you roll a 1. You aren’t seriously injured, but the pain from
becoming Hurt causes you to collapse unconscious on the ship’s lower deck. That may be okay;
you were planning to surrender anyway.
You’re sure they’ll take prisoners — and your friends back on shore will soon wonder why you
haven’t returned.
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CHAPTER FOUR: SORCERY AND CORRUPTION
[[[full page sidebar]]]
Sorcery Quick Reference

Playing a Sorcerer? Here’s a quick summary of the Sorcery and Corruption mechanics.
To start:
• Decicde whether your Sorcery attacks your foe’s Health or Morale (p. XX)
• Decide how you learned Sorcery (p. XX)
• Decide what your Sorcerous Spheres are (p. XX)
Sorcery (p. XX) is a combat General combat ability that targets either Health or Morale. You can:
• attack with it normally (Damage Modifier +1) (p.XX)

• describe any unopposed, regular activity that most people could do as coming from Sorcery
• use any Investigative ability, or spend any Investigative pool point, and describe the standard
effect as coming from Sorcery
• create standard Manuevers (p. XX)
Corruption is the Investigative ability that gives your magic its true reality-bending power. The more
ranks of Corruption you have, the more powerful a Sorcerer you are.
Spend pool points of Corruption to:
• affect lots of targets or do exceptional damage (p. XX)

• trigger target area damage (p. XX)
• create non-standard unique spells (p. XX)
• create Maneuvers (p. XX) that aren’t covered by an ability you already possess.
• level a Curse at a foe (p. XX)
Every time you spend a point of Corruption, you must address it either by:
• internalizing it (p. XX):

o Make a Health test, Difficulty 3 + Corruption points spent
• externalizing it (p. XX):
o All allies nearby must make a Morale test of Difficulty 3 + Corruption points spent; they
each lose 4 Morale if they fail.
[[[end full page sidebar]]]
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Sorcery 101: The Essentials
Eversink is steeped in ancient magic, and using Sorcery and Corruption carries both risk and power.
Magic in this world is innately unnatural and corrupting. It comes from a fell space between worlds.
Corruption despoils the flesh and character of the person who calls it forth, and it eats at the very nature
of reality in the area where it is summoned.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming magic in Swords of the Serpentine is usable for good as well as evil.
Good people may (and do) call upon Sorcery, but they do so with the knowledge that this act eats away
at reality and slowly boils away the essence of what makes them human.
To use the Sorcery General ability (p. XX), you must possess at least one rank of the Corruption
Investigative ability (p. XX). If your Hero has one or more ranks of Corruption, you have three choices to
make when creating your character:
• whether your Sorcery attacks your foe’s Health or Morale,

• how you learned Sorcery
• what your Sorcerous Spheres are.
Health or Morale Damage?

The first time you purchase a rank of Corruption, choose whether your Sorcery damages a foe’s Health
(implying a physical or energy Sphere) or their Morale (implying a mental, spiritual, or fear-based
Sphere). That decision is permanent — but during an adventure, spending a point of Corruption allows
you to choose freely between affecting Health and Morale for the duration of that scene.
Learning Sorcery
Sorcerers in Eversink learn their power from one of two sources: ancient secrets of the long-dead
Serpentine empire, or by having their body and soul inhabited by a demon, small god, or spirit. There
are no other known sources for learning how to manipulate Corruption.
Serpentine
You heard hissing whispers in the dark of a sunken basement, and you chose to take on a sorcerous
mentor who would never show its face; or you read ancient snakelike scribblings on a decayed stone
tablet that have wormed their way into your brain and refuse to depart.
Either way, the lines of power in your head writhe and coil, demanding they be set free by you invoking
Corruption.
Demon, Small God, or Spirit

You have bargained with, or fallen victim to, a fell and foreign intelligence that now inhabits you. It may
be a small god, an ambitious nature spirit, a ghost, or a conniving demon. It has no true power while it is
inside of you, other than to give you (often biased) advice and to fuel your understanding of Corruption.
Your demon stands above you and within you, and its rasping voice reminds you how much power you
will gain if you just draw on it for strength.
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These entities can typically be seen and heard by others who have any ranks of Spirit Sight. Their
appearance usually has something in common with the Sorcerous Spheres you choose; if you chose the
Sphere of Spiders, for instance, you can guess how your demon might appear.
Sorcerous Spheres
Create your own Sorcerous Spheres or borrow and customize one of these. You gain one Sphere for
every rank of Corruption you possess. When you use Sorcery, you’ll describe the effect based on your
Spheres, and any spells or effects you can’t rationalize within one of your Spheres are barred to you.
Don’t make your Spheres too broad or too specific; it’s most fun when your Sphere gives you clear
guidance for thematic special effects, along with wide latitude to come up with creative uses for
Sorcery. You’re going for flavor instead of scientific rigor. It’s fine for Spheres to overlap (Swamp and
Water, for instance) unless the GM prefers a more rigid separation.
You have one rank of Corruption, and you chose Health damage, so you get to choose or create a
Sorcerous Sphere that affects an enemy’s Health. You pick fire. That means you can describe
yourself as leaving burning footprints, or torches flaring as you walk near them, and cooking fires
turning to look at you almost as if they were alive. Whenever you inflict damage with Sorcery
you describe it as being somehow fire-related, such as burning your enemies alive or setting their
tongues on fire. You’ll need to spend a Corruption point for unique Sorcerous tactical effects that
do more than just cause damage, such as quickly setting an entire house on fire or allowing your
group to walk through flame unharmed.
Player Advice: Spheres Are Special Effects

Spheres don’t set your Sorcery’s raw power; they’re basically just your magic’s special effects, a visual shorthand
for how you describe your power. When you choose a Sphere you get to describe your Sorcery in any way you
want within that theme, with as much visual spectacle and as many cool flourishes as you can imagine, but the
actual power of your Sorcery is still determined by your Corruption and Sorcery pools.
Possible Spheres include but aren’t limited to the following.
Sphere Affects Page number

Aging Health, Morale XX
Air Health XX
Animal (pick a specific animal type) Health, Morale XX
Blades Health XX
Blood Health XX
Chaos Health, Morale XX
Curses Health, Morale XX
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Death Health XX
Decay/Entropy Health XX
Demonology Health, Morale XX
Disease Health, Morale XX
Earth Health XX
Fear Morale XX
Fire Health XX
Flesh Health XX
Ghosts and Spirits Morale XX
Ice Health XX
Illusion Morale XX
Lightning Health XX
Love Morale XX
Luck Health, Morale XX
Memory Morale XX
Music Morale XX
Necromancy Health XX
Plants Health XX
Possession Health, Morale XX
Secrets Morale XX
Serpents Health XX
Shadow Health XX
Statuary Health XX
Swamp Health XX
Transformation (Physical) Health XX
Transmutation Health XX
Transportation Health, Morale XX
Trickery Morale XX
Water Health XX
Worship Morale XX
Aging
Affects: Health, Morale
The passage of time spins forwards and backwards, and you are sought by those who think you hold the
secret to eternal youth. You cripple your foes with arthritis and frailty, and you can turn defeated
enemies into squalling babies instead of killing them. The dust of ages rises and falls around you as you
walk through the world.
Spending Corruption might permanently increase or decrease a person’s or object’s age. If news gets out
that you can help old people become younger, expect a lot of bribes and kidnap attempts.
Air
Affects: Health
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Wind whips and swirls around you, stealing breath and lifting you from solid ground. You control the
gales enough that sailing captains will pay good money to have you on board their ships, and you
commonly blast your enemies with frigid winds and knock them around the battlefield. Others see you
constantly buffeted by a wind that grows with your anger.
Spending Corruption might drop a tornado onto a house or blow enemies hundreds of feet away from
you.
Animal
You have an invisible bond to a specific type of animal or insect, from beetles or spiders, to rats or
seagulls, to cats, to horses, up to and including sharks and whales (which is a lot more useful for a
shipborne Sorcerer). Your focused will controls them, summons them, lends you their abilities, or
changes you into one. You likely remind others of this animal, and such creatures follow you unbidden.
It’s up to you whether such animals fight for you in a battle (as your normal Sorcery damage), or
whether you briefly channel their essence to do damage.
Spending Corruption might allow you to control dozens or hundreds of the animals, or speak to them to
use them as spies.
Blades
Affects: Health
Sharpened metal sings to you, and sharp surfaces wish to please you by offering up the blood of others.
Weapons sharpen or dull their edges at your command, and you can conjure blades from thin air. Others
see light glint off any metal you carry, and you can use even the dullest metal as others would a knife. In
a fight, swords and daggers fly around you, slicing any target you indicate.
Spending Corruption might rip enemies’ swords away from them, or cause their weapons to disintegrate
into rust.
Designer Notes: This Hero is Played by Cate Blanchett

If you’ve seen the movie Thor: Ragnarok, think of the goddess Hela as a very, very powerful Blades sorcerer whose
Spheres also included Death. The god Loki had a portfolio that included Illusion and Trickery. We bet you can guess
Thor’s spheres.
And that brings up a very interesting point. Your Sorcery looks like whatever you want it to, so long as there’s some
detectable effect. You don’t need to chant and gesticulate in order to manipulate power unless that’s how you
picture Sorcery working for you.

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Blood
Affects: Health
You hear the quick, vital rush of blood in those around you, a river of life that you can choke off or
increase as you desire. Others feel their hearts quicken while they are near you… unless they displease
you. The control of blood can daze others or cripple them with pain. Just be warned: vampires are rare,
but if one ever learns of your existence, they will spare no effort to make you their thrall.
Spending Corruption might trigger Maneuvers that daze multiple foes, or save a dying ally’s life by acting
like Leechcraft and restoring their blood.
Chaos
You are the rock thrown into the placid pool, and the spanner tossed into the gears: where you go,
systems break down and rules fall apart. You incite riot and disloyalty, and your Sorcery brings about the
utterly unexpected. Chaos Sorcerers may wish to invest in one or more ranks of Ridiculous Luck, so that
when everything goes to hell in a handbasket around them, they still end up on top.
Spending Corruption might make enemies begin to in-fight, make a nearby building collapse, or have an
implausible and unlucky chain of causal events lead to disaster for your foes.
Curses
Any sorcerer can cast a curse (see p. XX), but your curses are more flexible and you can use Maneuvers
to simulate minor curses. If you want to make your foe unlucky in love, or curse a master burglar into
becoming the clumsiest criminal in Eversink, this Sphere is for you.
Spending Corruption allows you to curse your foes without using all your Corruption points at once.
Death
Affects: Health
You have sway over death. You can hasten it, delay it, control the recently dead, and create the
symptoms of impending mortality. People sense the pall that hangs around you, an aura that many will
instinctively flee. Others, especially the dying, will flock to you in the hope that you can stave off their
death for one more day.
Spending Corruption might bring the dead back to life, even for a short time — or make it seem like you
have.
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Decay/Entropy
Affects: Health
Everything falls apart, and you can hasten the process. You make metal rust, stone flake, flesh decay,
and wood rot. The Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers will likely put a contract out for your
assassination if they learn of your power — either that, or hire you to help with urban renovations.
Spending Corruption can collapse buildings and bridges, often onto the heads of your foes, or can make
weapons disintegrate into dust.
Demonology
The swamp is riddled with stone altars to forgotten demons and lost gods. You call them, beseech them,
learn their names, and bind them to your will. Demons likely fear and resent you, as does any right-
thinking citizen who learns of your power.
Spending Corruption might allow you to summon or banish supernatural entities and small gods, gain
hidden knowledge and true names, send a demon to kill a distant foe, and even place a demon inside of
someone — briefly giving them an unwanted rank of Corruption.
Disease
You can inflict or cure diseases, either mental or physical; and you can speed up or slow down the
effects of diseases that already exist. Just don’t be surprised if you aren’t particularly popular at parties.
Most plague sorcerers are shunned or summarily executed by scared locals who are afraid for their
health.
Spending Corruption might allow you to duplicate the effect of Leechcraft for diseases, to significantly
speed up the course of a disease, or to create your own diseases as a weapon.
Earth
Affects: Health
Dirt and rock (and perhaps even the slurry of the swamp) respond to your will. You can use the earth as
a weapon, bludgeoning your foes or trapping them in stone. You can turn swampland into a walkable
path, and navigating the under-city is easier for you than for most others. Many an earth Sorcerer has
been blackmailed into helping thieves reach hidden vaults of coin and contracts.
Spending Corruption might allow you to open up a stone building like a piece of wet parchment, or to
imprison someone bodily in stone.
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Fear
Affects: Morale
You conjure the images of your foes’ worst fears, amplifying their phobias and even bringing those
terrors to life. Small children can’t stop crying in your presence; when you stand before an enemy army,
the front line crumbles and breaks. You will often use Maneuvers to show others the taste of fear.
Spending Corruption might allow you to panic a large group of people at once, or to draw away fear to
vastly improve a fighting force’s Grit.
Fire
Affects: Health
Exceptionally well-suited as a combat Sorcerer, your soul burns within and without. Flames dance at
your command, you can turn burns into a mere nuisance, and you have to consciously remember not to
burn down nearby houses when blasting your foes. One thing is for sure, though: your Sorcery is
anything but subtle.
Spending Corruption might allow you to blast a truly horrendous number of people at once, or to draw
an out-of-control city fire into captivity within a small bottle.
Flesh
Affects: Health
For most people, “my skin is crawling” is just an expression. Not for you; you instinctively sense and
control flesh both living and dead. You can strangle foes with their own intestines, steal a foe’s face
(quite literally), and animate dead tissue.
Spending Corruption might allow you to wrap a corpse around your own body and use it as armor, or
disguise a corpse as a living being for a brief amount of time.
Ghosts and Spirits

Affects: Morale
You walk between our reality and the spirit world, and you can see and command ghosts and spirits. If
you’re lucky, they’ll tell you what they know. Even if they don’t, you can direct them to bedevil the living
or scout areas that you couldn’t otherwise reach. People might come to you to learn what a vengeful
ghost wishes, or to lay a spirit to rest.
Spending Corruption might allow you to deliberately possess an enemy for a time with an allied spirit, or
to pass from our world to the spirit world at a corrupted point (see p. XX).
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Ice
Affects: Health
If this whole adventuring career goes sour, you can always find a fortune making ice for the rich of
Eversink who want cold drinks. Your Sorcery centers around cold, chilling your enemies’ life-blood and
freezing water around them. People shiver when they are near you, and the temperature drops when
you smile.
Spending Corruption might allow you to freeze part of a canal solid, possibly with people still trapped in
the water; or form a temporarily sentient snow-creature out of ice and your distilled hatred.
Illusion
Affects: Morale
Why would you look like yourself, when you could summon a glamour and look like literally anyone else
in the world? Your Sorcery creates illusion, either false images that anyone can see or phantasms that
only appear in specific people’s minds. You can make people accidentally fall into canals, prey upon their
fears, and disguise people and things around you. You’re probably wanted by the Watch just on general
principle… but they’d have to identify you first.
Maneuvers (see p. XX) are useful when you have this Sphere, as they can help adjudicate whether
someone is fooled by your casual illusions.
Spending Corruption might allow you to craft an entirely fake reality that others believe to be real, or
allow you to impersonate someone specific for an entire scene.
Lightning
Affects: Health
Also known as a Storm Sphere, electricity crackles around you and may even provide a ward that injures
anyone who touches you. It is easy to Daze others with your attacks, and you fear no storm.
Spending Corruption might allow you to summon massive storms, call down lightning, or charge the
ancient arcane pumps that help drain portions of Eversink’s undercity.
Love
Affects: Morale
You specialize in mending (and breaking) hearts, manipulating when and how someone falls in love. You
may or may not be lovable yourself, but expect strangers to fall in love with you and take risks for you
they’d never otherwise consider.
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Spending Corruption might allow you to manipulate the heartstrings of two other people, or stop an
enemy dead in their tracks when they realize you’re the person they’ve spent their entire life waiting
for.
Player Advice: Love Magic

Love potions and charm spells may be inextricably linked to fairy tales and sword & sorcery, but there are some
very uncomfortable issues surrounding magical compulsions and willing consent. Talk to your gaming group about
this before you use it, and make sure you, the other players, and your GM have the same expectations about
charms and love magic before selecting this as a Sorcerous Sphere.
Luck
While Luck is normally the domain of the Ridiculous Luck ability, picking Luck as a Sorcerous Sphere
means that your magical effects appear as incredible happenstance, and you can manipulate odds with
your Sorcery. Inflicting damage often expresses itself in the form of bad luck for your target.
Spending Corruption might allow you to create particularly lethal (or fortuitous) coincidences. Note that
while many such coincidences could be duplicated with a Ridiculous Luck spend, spending Corruption on
this Sphere gives you access to exceptional damage (see p. XX) and more pronounced and powerful
effects.
Memory
Affects: Morale
Even when you can’t read the memories of others, you can blindly dredge up their secrets or traumas
and use those to batter your enemy’s Morale. You can implant false memories, sharpen or cloud
memory, and even help relieve those who are tortured by their past.
Learning memories or implanting memories isn’t mind reading. You must talk to your target to learn
leads, compelling them to tell you about the memories you are stirring up in their mind’s eye. In this
regard, it isn’t functionally different from using Social abilities to learn clues and information.
Spending Corruption might allow you to make someone remember a completely false event; strip the
memory of an event completely from someone else’s mind; or temporarily give yourself enough eidetic
memory to remember every word of a quickly read book.
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Music
Affects: Morale
You create astonishing music with nothing more than an act of will; mundane musicians likely hate you
and wish you ill. If you wish, you are surrounded by a cloud of music that echoes your own emotional
state. You use music to affect others’ Morale, whether to distract, terrify, or intimidate them.
Spending Corruption might allow you to create theme music that will warn you of a scene’s emotions,
effectively warning you just before an ambush or attack; or could grant you Grit by drowning out
enemies’ Sway attacks. You can torture your foes by filling their brains with a repetitive tune that never
ceases.
Necromancy
Affects: Health
For you, the unbreachable gulf between life and death is more of an inconvenient roadblock. You can
animate dead flesh and have the dead attack for you. You can often pluck secrets from the memories of
the dead. Even if your smell is seldom pleasant, others come to you when they need services that only
you can supply.
Spending Corruption might allow you to raise the dead into unlife, pluck memories from a corpse’s
brain, or prevent dead flesh from ever rotting.
Plants
Affects: Health
Flora bends to your will — literally. Whether they talk to you or kill a foe by sprouting inside her
stomach and growing out of her throat, you can speed up, slow down and control plants. Your attacks
manifest as plant growth, and you may gain advantages in heavily overgrown areas.
Spending Corruption might allow you to reanimate a wooden building and let it walk off its foundations,
or cause sudden sprouting vines to grow and catch your foes. You can spend points of Corruption to
create some fairly remarkable plant-based poisons.
Possession
Your spirit can exit your own body and assault others, briefly taking over their flesh to do things they
otherwise wouldn’t wish to occur. You can guide spirits and demons into the bodies of hosts, leave your
body briefly to travel in spirit form, and see through the eyes of people or animals you possess.
Spending Corruption might allow you to possess someone for a lengthy time, to remove the memory of
possession from a victim’s mind, or to drive a demon out of its unwilling host.
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Secrets
Affects: Morale
Even when you can’t pull secrets from the thoughts of those nearby, you can make your foes think you
already have, shattering your enemy’s morale by threatening to expose the secrets and the shames they
keep locked away. You may find that strangers approach you to confess their deepest secrets, or to brag
about achievements that they can’t tell anyone else.
Spending Corruption might allow you to steal secrets from a foe against their will, learn someone’s true
name, or broadcast someone’s secret into the dreams of hundreds of sleeping people at once.
Serpents
Affects: Health
Really falling under the category of Animals (above), the Serpentine Empire has left behind enough
writings that the Serpent Sphere seems more common than most; perhaps Sorcerers just like conjuring
serpents in people’s bellies and watching the snake slithering upwards and out of their mouths. See
Animals for further details.
Shadow
Affects: Health
Darkness is your ally. You can slide between shadows, form shadows into allies (or weapons), and even
trap your enemies in darkness. Shadows near you animate at your whim, moving as if alive. Perhaps
they are.
Spending Corruption might allow you to walk through shadows from one place to another, to attack
someone from afar by animating their shadow, or to rip away an enemy’s shadow as you hurt them
tremendously.
Statuary
Affects: Health
Eversink is full of funerary statues, monuments to the dead. You can animate statues, speak with them,
merge into them, and ask them to fight for you.
Spending Corruption might allow you to steal a statue by making it stand up and walk off with you. With
this Sphere you could turn a living person into a statue temporarily, step inside of a statue, or animate a
statue from afar to use as an assassin.
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Swamp
Affects: Health
The swamp is your ally, and it will work to shelter you or keep you safe. You might walk across the
swamp as if on a cobblestone road, and your enemies might find their lungs unaccountably filled up with
mud and marshland creatures. People smell the rich, peaty scent of the bog when they are near you.
Spending Corruption might make the swamp close in around the ankles or boats of multiple enemies, or
suddenly dissolve part of a stone building into cascading mud and water.
Transformation (Physical)
Affects: Health
Your sorcery transforms your own body. You may stretch, change your appearance, grow gills, or any
number of other changes — and your attacks take advantage of these changes. Your flesh is malleable,
and the first time you kill someone by plunging your hand into their chest and extending your twelve
razor-fingers down into their organs, people will remember that.
Spending Corruption might allow you to survive in a foreign environment (such as underwater or poison
gas), to squeeze your body through tiny cracks, or to fly for a scene.
Transmutation
Affects: Health
Form is more of a mere suggestion than it is a rule, and you alter animate and inanimate objects through
ancient magic. Usually your enemies are but briefly changed, but woe betide any who cross you; “The
Frog Prince” is a fairy tale in Eversink, too. People see your face always subtly changing, as if you can’t
decide on your true appearance.
Spending Corruption might allow you to transmute a locked door into water, curse an enemy into an
innocuous form until a condition is met, or transform a swimmer’s clothing into lead.
Transportation
The dimensions open themselves up to you, and you can cross them as easily as sailing across a canal.
No one understands how you appear and disappear in rooms. Normal distances shorten or lengthen as
you desire, affecting combat ranges and travel times. Your form seems strange to others, impossibly
foreshortened and elongated both.
Spending points of Corruption might allow you to pass into the spirit realm (or other realities
determined by your GM), teleport to a place you’ve studied well, instantly move an enemy 20 meters up
in the air, or make your enemies’ attacks happen at long range while your group’s attacks occur
normally.
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Trickery
Affects: Morale
You delight in misdirection and can create nearly any effect so long as it fools others. Minor illusons,
convincing lies, and convoluted schemes are your stock in trade so long as others suffer and you don’t
get caught.
Spending Corruption might allow you to use a Persuade maneuver on many people at once, or change
reality in a way that makes your scheme more likely to succeed.
Water
Affects: Health
Expect to be forcibly recruited by sea-borne Mercanti, or by the Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers.
You move and control water on a whim, raising and lowering it through sorcerous will. Your enemies
find themselves drowned or battered by deep-sea pressure.
Spending Corruption might raise or lower floodwaters, keep a ship safe on stormy seas, allow you and
your friends to breathe underwater for a time, or permanently waterproof a leaking wall.
Worship
Affects: Morale
Others naturally look to you for leadership and protection, and the weak-willed have a natural tendency
to worship you as god-made-flesh. That’s good for your ego but bad for your relationship with Denari,
and it’s likely to anger any small gods you come across as well. Invest in ranks of Command to take
fullest advantage of your power, and use this Sphere to turn your enemies into your lackeys.
Spending Corruption might temporarily shatter someone’s connection with the god they worship, or
cause others to follow you loyally and blindly even when they previously hated you.
How Sorcery Works

Without spending any points, you can:
Use Sorcery to describe any unopposed, regular activity that most people could do and that doesn’t
require a test. These are typically special effects with no conflict or game mechanics involved.
• Your sorcerer has seven eyes moving around beneath a heavy, shadowed hood (possibly a
dangerous look in a city where sorcery makes people suspicious, but you’re sticking with
tradition). This has no game effect, so you can describe your Hero like this freely.
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• Most people can open and close an unlocked door, carry a serving tray, or light a torch. If it’s
coherent with your Sorcerous Spheres, you can open and close doors or light torches with a
wave of your hand, or have serving trays float around a room
• Most people in Eversink have no way to make ice. You can’t create ice with Sorcery either unless
it fits within your Sorcerous Spheres, at which point you can make minor amounts of ice as a
special effect.
Use any Investigative ability, or spend any Investigative pool point, and describe the standard effect
as coming from Sorcery. This does not include the Corruption ability, and it does not create Corruption.
• Charismatic people can use Charm to make a supporting character like them, or spend a point of
Charm to make that Supporting Character become enamored with them. You can do the same
but describe it using one of your Sorcerous Speheres, such as magically increasing your personal
charm, or as casting a love spell.
• Characters can gather gossip with Scurrilous Rumors, and spread gossip by spending a point.
With 1 rank in Scurrilous Rumors, you could describe magic as carrying a hundred rumors to
your ears; if you spend a point, you can describe as the wind picking up your whispered
insinuation and carrying it to the dreams of everyone in the city who is asleep.
Make standard General ability tests and just describe the results as coming from your Sorcerous
Spheres. The game mechanics and results remain the same, only the visuals difer.
• Climbing a wall requires a Difficulty 4 Athletics test. You also need to make an Athletics test to
climb a wall, but you can describe it as if you were using Sorcery, such as levitating or making
your fingers sticky.
• Non-sorcerous thieves pick pockets using Burglary. You must also roll a Burglary test to pick a
pocket, but if you succeed, you can describe it as literally teleporting their purse from their belt
to your hand. If you fail, they notice the magical attempt.
Use Sorcery as a combat ability to attack someone, as described on p. XX.
• You use your Ice Sphere to attack an enemy’s Health. You describe their blood and eyeballs
freezing, and they take Health damage.
• You use your Memory Sphere to attack an enemy’s Morale. You describe flipping through her
memories and making the worst ones more vivid. She falters as she takes Morale damage.
Use Sorcery to create standard Maneuvers (p. XX), tactical effects that inflict damage or change the
situation.
• You can use Sorcery to attack Health with a Maneuver, and trip a foe in combat with your
Sorcerous Sphere of Stone, raising a flagstone just enough to unbalance your enemy.
• You can use Sorcery to attack Morale with a Maneuver, tricking a foe into running down the
wrong alley with your Sorcerous Sphere of Illusion.
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GM Advice: Wait, That’s a Lot of Stuff!
Sorcery is flexible for a General ability. It’s meant to be fun and showy, with great personal danger accompanying
dramatic power. In part, this is compensation for the penalties accompanying Corruption. A Sorcerer in Eversink is
always at risk of being spotted and stalked by suspicious inquisitors; internalized Corruption changes your
appearance (and maybe the nature of what you truly are); and externalized Corruption is illegal because it creates
pools of foulness that can damage both the Goddess and Eversink’s economy.
Outside of Eversink, Corruption is still dangerous but is less of a concern. Sorcerers in other lands tend to have a
place of greater prominence and respect… or they’re surreptitiously ganked by threatened Thieves, Warriors and
even Sentinels who fear the source of a Sorcerer’s power.
We’ve designed the Sorcery system to feel like Sorcery. It should seem wondrous and mysterious, full of flavor and
rewarding to the imaginative player, but it should be on par power-wise with the damage that other Heroes can
do. That’s why you can describe anything you like as coming from Sorcery, but truly unique spells are always tied
to Corruption spends, and Corruption spends have consequences.
How Corruption Works

Corruption spends are more powerful than other Investigative spends and produce superior Sorcery
effects, but their benefits come at a price. They open you to the foul, unclean source of magic that lies
behind Sorcery, and the risk that accompanies this power, corrupting either your own flesh or the world
around you.
You do not need to spend Corruption on a spell whose only purpose is to gain you a lead, such as
allowing your group to fly when that’s the one method for reaching the cloud-based adventure the GM
has planned.
Spend pool points of Corruption to:
• trigger exceptional damage

• trigger target area damage
• create non-standard unique spells
• create Maneuvers (p. XX) that aren’t covered by an ability you already possess.
• level a Curse at a foe (p. XX)
• create sorcerous glyphs and traps (p. XX)
You and the GM will agree on how many Corruption pool points you must spend to create a desired
effect. If you are specifically targeting an Adversary, they have a chance to resist, so the effect is
structured like a Maneuver (see p. XX).
Designer Notes: Evolution of a Corruption Spend

In the playtest rules for this game we didn’t specify what happened when you specifically targeted a foe with a
Corruption spend. It just automatically worked with no way to resist. Which is fun until you realize that it
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potentially turns every major confrontation into a non-event, or until you yourself are targeted by an evil sorcerer
who has plenty of Corruption to spare.
Three or four iterations later, we really like where we landed. Powerful Corruption-powered spells always have at
least some cool effect, they give the target a say in their own fate (even if the choice isn’t a particularly palatable
one), and they’ll inflict some damage as a consolation prize if your target doesn’t make the choice you prefer.
Exceptional Damage
There are times when you’ll wish to unleash epic, memorable spells that shake the very nature of reality
around you. For those, describe the appearance of your spell, including the influence of your Sorcerous
Sphere, make a successful Sorcery attack and then spend Corruption.
Exceptional damage generated by Corruption spends affects all people, both friends and foes, within
line of sight of the target and within the indicated range. You only roll to attack your primary target.
Corruption Additional Or total Or total Or total Or total

Spend Damage to Damage to all Damage to all Damage to all Damage to
your single within Point- within Close within all within
Target Blank Range of Range of Medium Range Long Range
Target Target of Target of Target
1 +1 die +3 3 damage — — —
damage
2 +2 dice +3 1 die +3 3 damage — —

damage damage
3 +3 dice +3 2 dice +3 1 die +3 3 damage —

damage damage damage
4 +4 dice +3 3 dice +3 2 dice +3 1 die +3 3 damage

damage damage damage damage
5 +5 dice +3 4 dice +3 3 dice +3 2 dice +3 1 die +3

damage damage damage damage damage
This means that you could injure a single target with your normal 1 die +1 damage, and then spend 4
points of Corruption to add exceptional damage of 4 dice +3 damage, for a total damage of 5 dice +4
against that one person; or you could injure your single target and then spend 4 Corruption to inflict 3
points of damage to everyone within line of sight of that target within long range, possibly hundreds or
thousands of people; or something in-between for Point-Blank, Close, or Medium ranges to the target.
Your Sorcery targets Morale, and one of your Spheres is Time. You climb to a steeple overlooking
Eversink’s Temple Market and — with thousands of people in line of sight of you — spend 4
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points of Corruption. You inflict 3 Morale damage on everyone within Long range, which defeats
just about every single unnamed supporting character in sight. You describe this as slowing down
their thought processes, leaving them motionless and trapped in time for the duration of the
scene. Let it never be said that you don’t know how to leave a lasting impression.
Area Damage
Want to affect a smaller area? You can limit the exceptional damage effect of Corruption spends by
spending an additional point of Forbidden Lore or Corruption. Effectively, you’re using lost and obscure
knowledge to modify your spell and make it safer. When you do so, you can choose who within range is
and isn’t affected by your spell.
Your con artist friends are trying to convince some rich merchants that you’re a demigod of time,
all part of some elaborate scam they talked you into. The con wouldn’t work if those merchants
were affected as well, so you spend one point of Forbidden Lore to exclude them from the 3
points of Morale damage.
GM Advice: “Wait, did you just kill everyone on board this ship? Because we still need
someone to work the oars.”
The damage for Corruption spends, in both amount and effect, is a little bit like the effect of explosions in other
GUMSHOE games. The goal is to create the opportunity for players to inflict massive damage with spectacular
spells, but to limit the frequency by tying such spells to the relatively rare commodity of Corruption points. In the
same way that you wouldn’t want to throw a hand grenade into the same room you’re standing in, exceptional
damage in Swords of the Serpentine has a nasty habit of affecting both friends and foes. You can limit the effect to
specific targets by spending points of Forbidden Lore or even additional Corruption.
As GM, make it memorable when Heroes break out a heavy Corruption spend. They’re going to feel amazing for
thwarting a single villain or wiping out lots of enemies at once (at least, all the ones within line of sight), they’ll
create lots of Corruption (with all the consequences and plot hooks that entails), and they won’t feel like they
wasted their Corruption points. If knowledge of their astonishing spell becomes public, consider adjusting Grudges
or Enemies (and the Reputation that comes with multiple ranks of one Enemy) accordingly.
Unique Spells
Sometimes, you’ll want to cast a momentous spell. Maybe you want to conjure a floating whale, or
freeze a canal into ice, or trap a foe in a floating box made of pure force. When this happens, you’ll
spend Corruption points to cast a unique spell.
Describe the spell effect (within the realm of your Sorcerous Speheres) to your GM, along with the
suggested cost. The GM will accept your suggestion or give you suggested changes; it’s up to you
whether to accept the GM’s recommendation. If you don’t, you may choose a different action or
propose a different spell. You and the GM are partners in finding the most exciting possibility within the
number of Corruption pool points you’re willing to spend.
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Affecting the Environment
Unique spells that target objects or the environment, or that are unopposed, are resolved without a roll.
Their power is only determined by your Corruption spend.
You want to use your Earth Sphere to literally rip away the side of a stone tower, revealing all the
rooms inside (and making sure that the rival thieves’ guild knows not to cross your guild in the
future, thank you very much!). You’d also like it to do damage to people inside. Checking the
Exceptional Damage chart above, you see that you could do 3 points of damage to everyone in
Close range of a target — basically, collapsing the tower and injuring everyone currently inside
— if you spend 3 points of Corruption. That doesn’t include the special effect of ripping the tower
in two, however, and 4 points is more than you’d like to spend. You and the GM agree that a 2-
point Corruption spend makes sense for just ripping open the tower (which will probably send
people fleeing) without causing any damage to those inside. Alternatively, for just a 1-point
spend you could rip away the gatehouse at the entrance, giving you access past the portcullis.
In the above example, a 1-point Corruption spend rips away the gatehouse in an incredibly showy
display of power, but all it functionally does is give you and your friends an entrance — not all that much
different than picking a lock. That’s why it’s a 1-point spend instead of something more expensive.
GM Advice: Setting the Cost of Corruption

Always look at a unique spell’s effect, not at its description, to see how powerful it really is. This isn’t nearly as
intimidating as it sounds, thank goodness; you’re fine using gut feel and common sense when considering
Corruption costs. To judge a spell’s cost, look at its effect (including damage it inflicts, with more damage or more
targets requiring a greater cost), aiming for an effect per spent point slightly more powerful than an Investigative
spend with some other ability.
Want a world where powerful sorcery creates epic spells? Err on the side of leniency for costs. Want a world where
sorcery is more constrained? Err on the side of being more conservative. If you want to encourage a particular
tone, such as “most powerful sorcery is showy and terrifying,” encourage this by offering your players a 1-
Corruption discount on any unique spell that would dramatically drain the FX budget of your game’s movie.
Your main job is to make sure your players have fun, so ask yourself “What would be both cool and fun?” when a
player proposes a spell and a Corruption cost. In playtests we’ve found that the results of Corruption definitely
come back to haunt the Sorcerer, so the epic and unique spells tend to be saved for when they matter the most.
You don’t have to have it perfect right out of the gate, either. Take a game or two to get the feel for what’s
reasonable, and then talk to your players if you want to adjust the baseline expectation for what a Corruption
spend can accomplish. That’s a reasonable trade-off in a flexible and cinematic spellcasting system.
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Affecting an Adversary
Unique spells that target Adversaries are framed as Maneuvers, with a full effect (what you ideally want
to happen when you’re successful) and a partial effect (what should happen along with damage if they
resist the spell).
The one restriction is that the partial effect can’t take the target out of the rest of the fight, or have the
same functional impact as the full effect. For instance, there’s no functional difference between a full
effect that knocks your target 100 meters off a roof, and a partial effect that knocks them 3 meters off
the roof. Pick a different partial effect in such cases.
To cast a unique spell affecting an Adversary,
• Describe the full effect

• Describe the partial effect
• Agree Corruption costs with GM
• Spend Corruption points, adding +3 for each to your Sorcery attack
• Roll Sorcery against your target’s Health or Morale Threshold; your attack result is the
Maneuver’s Target Number.
The defender gets a choice: they must either accept the spell’s full effect, or suffer the partial effect
along with Health or Morale damage equal to the Maneuver’s Target Number – 2. If available, defenders
may spend appropriate Investigative pool points to reduce the Target Number by 3 points per
Investigative point spent. Armor or Grit may reduce the damage accompanying a partial effect.
For example:
You want to use your Transmutation Sphere to semi-permanently turn your foe into a chicken as
the full effect (at least physically; mentally, they remain themselves). You and the GM agree that
this should last until someone tries to slaughter the chicken, because that scene would be
hilarious. This longer-lasting full effect should require spending at least 2 Corruption, and for a
partial effect, your foe takes damage and turns into a chicken only until the end of next round.
You cast your unique spell of transformation, putting all 8 of your Sorcery points into it because
you want it to succeed. You roll a 3 and spend 2 Corruption, turning the Corruption into 6 more
points of Sorcery). This easily exceeds the opponent’s Health Threshold, and sets the Target
Number at 17, which is huge. Your foe decides whether they resist your spell and take 15 points
of Health damage (Difficulty 17 – 2) along with a brief transformation, or whether they turn into
a chicken semi-permanently. They pick the latter. You now have a very angry and intelligent
chicken to catch. The GM awards you Refresh tokens, which you use to partially refresh your
Sorcery pool.
What Happens When You Spend Corruption?

Corruption is the inhuman essence of impossible and hostile realities, leaking out to twist and erode
your world every time you spend Corruption points.
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Corruption is either internalized (mutating your body) or externalized (polluting the world around you).
It can’t be avoided: every time you spend points of Corruption, you must choose one of these two
choices.
Internalized Corruption
You choose to contain the Corruption within your own body. When you spend one or more points of
Corruption, make an immediate Health test with a Difficulty of 3 + 1 per point of Corruption spent (so
Difficulty 4 when spending 1 point of Corruption, Difficulty 6 when spending 3 points, etc.)
If you succeed at the Health test, choose and write down on your character sheet one small thing that
has changed on your body. These changes – a toenail falls off, a wart appears –are not easily noticeable
by others and have no mechanical effect on your Hero. The changes to your appearance add up over
time, however, gradually transforming you physically into someone who looks quite different than you
looked when you began your adventuring career.
If you have learned Sorcery from ancient writings, the changes tend to move you closer to the shape and
nature of a snake. If you learned Sorcery by sharing your body with a demon or small god, the changes
might be more random or less themed, or they bring you closer to the appearance or nature of the
entity inside of you. Only one thing about you will change, no matter how many points of Corruption
you have just spent at one time.
If you fail the Health test, this change is noticeable to an observer. Perhaps your pupil narrows to a slit,
your tongue becomes forked, or one of your feet changes to a hoof. While this has no mechanical game
effect, it’s certain to affect your interactions with superstitious supporting characters.
You spend 2 pool points of Corruption and internalize the effect. You succeed at a Difficulty 5
Health test, so you tell the GM that snakelike scales have appeared down your spine. You write
down the change on your character sheet.
Bloodlines and Corruption
With the help of forbidden rituals, it’s theoretically possible for a Sorcerer to internalize Corruption in a
blood relative (usually a child) instead of in their own body. Particularly heinous (or vain) Sorcerers have
been known to do this to keep their unnatural power a secret despite extensive use of Corruption. Using
a blood relative to avoid Corruption is a capital crime in Eversink, one guaranteed to get you tortured
and executed if caught.
Externalized Corruption
If you don’t internalize Corruption, it leaves you untouched, but affects the world around you. In the
short term this terrifies your allies; in the long term it spiritually scars the area around you, causing
sickness and insanity in the population, and in Eversink, actively harming Denari’s Blessing (see p. XX),
causing building foundations to weaken and towers to topple.
Spreading Corruption not only brings the law’s wrath, it brings the Church’s as well. Sorcery is where the
Church’s Inquisitors and the civil legal system meet.
Terrifying Your Friends

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When you externalize Corruption, allies (and only allies) within Medium range or closer must make a
Morale test with a Difficulty of 3 plus 1 per Corruption point you spent. If they succeed at the Morale
test, there’s no further consequence. If they fail the Morale test, they lose 4 Morale.
Scarring a Location
Externalized Corruption pollutes and sickens the world around it, and there’s only so much that the
Church of Denari can to do mitigate the effects.
Corruption normally affects the single location where the sorcerer was standing when they spent
Corruption points. It is measured in stages, with the initial stage equal to the number of Corruption
points spent. The Corruption slowly spreads outwards in a radius from that spot, lessening one stage
with every range. Stage 5 Corruption will be at stage 5 in Point-Blank range from where the Sorcerer was
standing, stage 4 at Close range, stage 3 at Medium range, stage 2 at Long range, and stage 1 at Very
Long range.
Stage Effect Heals itself naturally Spirit Sight spend

by one stage in… needed to reduce Effect
by one stage
1 Denari’s Blessing is temporarily burned Approximately one 1
away, detectable by Spirit Sight or month, but can be
Corruption (or poor profit from business restored sooner
transactions). Nearby cows give sour through multiple
milk, chickens lay stones instead of eggs, business transactions
and babies cry non-stop.
2 Causes disquiet in anyone passing Approximately one 4 (min 2 at a time)
through, encouraging people to hurry on decade
their way. Those who deliberately linger
in the area suffer 1 point of Morale
damage after several hours. This may
drive Mooks and other narratively
unimportant supporting characters into
emotional breakdowns or panic attacks.
3 Weakens building foundations, softening Approximately one 9 (min 3 at a time)
stone and eroding mortar. Causes fear or generation
temporary obsession in anyone passing
through the area, triggering an
immediate Loss of 2 Morale (Loss 4 after
dark). Supporting characters are filled
with dread, and the area soon becomes
known as haunted. The barrier between
worlds is weakened; determined ghosts
can pass through from the spirit realm.
4 Entering this area automatically causes 4 Approximately a 16 (min 4 at a time)
points of Morale loss, and the area reeks century
of sadness and terror. Those who live
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nearby may be driven to paranoia or sly
murder. The area might be (but is not
always) cloudy and lit from within, and
spirits might be seen or felt within this
area. This acts like a beacon, subtly
drawing the evil and the unnatural to it.
5 Entering this area triggers the Possession Never heals 25 (min 5 at a time)
Maneuver; take 6 points of Morale
damage or become possessed by a ghost,
demon, or other spirit drawn to the fell
energies. The spirits of those who die
nearby are trapped here. This is a
sucking, writhing rip in reality that warps
physical spaces around it. Unnatural
creatures such as demons or something
worse might come through, either in
mortal or spiritual form. Animals nearby
often twist and mutate.
6+ This sanity-blasting rift in reality pierces Never heals, and 36 (special, min 6 at a
the world and can theoretically corrupt slowly spreads unless time); may be less if
an entire nation if allowed to spread long sealed from the other sealed from the far side
enough. Effects are as Stage 5, but the side as part of a unique
affected area spreads. adventure
Fixed Morale damage from externalized Corruption doesn’t hurt you more than once per scene. Your
Morale won’t keep eroding if you run into and out of an affected room multiple times, but depart and
come back later in a different scene and you’ll suffer the fixed Morale damage once again.
Your Sorcery leaves a unique and hard-to-describe signature when you Corrupt a location. There’s no
way to immediately tie this signature back to you, but anyone with ranks of Spirit Sight (such as a Church
Inquisitor) will recognize your unique signature if they encounter it more than once.
Multiple acts of Corruption in a single location aren’t cumulative. The single largest Corruption spend in
a location sets the Stage, although smaller spends in the area might reset the time before Corruption
heals itself. This means that if your enemy lets loose with a 3-point Corruption spend and pollutes the
area nearby, you can also externalize Corruption without making the effect worse. (Mind you, doing so
is still illegal in Eversink.)
Curing Corrupted Locations
Eversink is dotted with cursed corners, areas where forgotten sorcery has forever scarred the spiritual
landscape. Some of these have been healed by Church Inquisitors. Some locations have just been walled
off, and the Church hopes for the best. Many they haven’t yet found.
People who can see the spiritual rift can help fix it. Corruption is healed by spending pool points of the
Investigative ability Spirit Sight, and it takes an amount specified in the chart above to heal a Corrupted
spot one level. Spirit Sight spends made to heal the Corruption can come from multiple people working
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together. The Inquisitors of Denari work tirelessly to heal or seal corrupted areas in Eversink; they
consider any corrupted area to be an open wound in the Goddess.
Corruption heals faster in flowing water than it does on land, disappearing as if it were two stages less
than its actual stage. Stage 1 Corruption in flowing water heals by itself in approximately a week.
Although Corruption heals more quickly in running water, the number of points of Spirit Sight needed to
reduce Corruption does not change from the above chart.
Advanced Sorcery
Designer Notes: Starting the Game? Read This!

The Sorcery rules from this point until the end of Chapter 4 —Rituals, True Names, Curses, and Glyphs —are all key
components of Sorcery in Swords of the Serpentine, especially true names and curses, but aren’t necessary to
know when you’re starting the game. Your players will have enough to keep straight the first few games without
worrying about these as well. Integrate these rules gradually as plot hooks from one adventure to the next.
If this is your first read-through, feel free to skip this part and come back to it later.
Rituals: Time, Assistants, Astrology, Sacrifices, and Sorcery

Unless noted otherwise, invoking Corruption and attacks using Sorcery takes only one action, just like
any other attack. There are occasions when that isn’t appropriate for Corruption spends, however. As a
GM, you may want villains to need long (even multi-day) rituals to complete a particularly terrible spell,
a spell that’s only possible when the stars or tides are right, or a spell that can only occur if you have
enough chanting cultists assistants. Similarly, you may decide that an effect is only possible when one or
more sacrifices occur first, either simultaneously or over time.
In these cases, use time, assistants, astrology, and sacrifices as a mitigating factor. Given a foul tome,
enough cultists, stars in the correct configuration, the right incense, and sufficient time, an otherwise
unimpressive Adversary may be able to trigger a fairly horrible effect from spending Corruption. There’s
no conversion table showing the relationship between Corruption spends, chanting assistants and time:
GMs should allow or disallow such adjustments on a case by case basis, primarily based on what will be
most fun for the game.
Such tactics are usually the province of villains rather than Heroes, but there may be times when you
want Heroes to access power beyond their normal means. On these occasions, a fell tome of sufficient
Forgotten Knowledge may allow a Hero to know what they could do to stretch their normal boundaries
— at a cost.
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True Names
Most people know they have a true name but don’t know what it is, although Sorcerers and prophets
can learn theirs easily. Your true name is how the gods remember and think of you. It has a unique
pronunciation and defines the essence of who you are; anyone who knows it can manipulate the
essence of your identity. You can draw on your true name for a boost of resources when you need it
most, and knowing an enemy’s true name gives you great power over them.
Learning Your Own True Name

You can learn your own true name if you have at least one rank of Corruption, Prophecy, or Spirit Sight.
You may seek the knowledge within yourself through introspection, or it may appear to you in a dream
or vision; just tell your GM you want to learn it. Learning your true name can be the focus of an
adventure. You and the GM get to decide what the nature of true names are; they can be as simple or
complicated, poetic or unpronounceable.
If you have no ranks in those Investigative abilities, someone else can divine your true name for you, but
only with your permission. This can be risky, as this person also learns your true name. Only trusted
friends, spiritual advisors, and family members are usually called on for this task. You may wish to spend
Investigative pool points (such as Charm or Trustworthy) to turn this person into a firm ally you can
trust.
Once you know your true name it resonates through your soul, reminding you of who you truly are. This
self-knowledge provides strength in times of need.
Benefits of True Names

Once per adventure, you or an ally who knows your true name (and who speaks it loudly enough for you
to hear) can audibly call on it to grant you extra resources. Doing so doesn’t take an action but must be
done as part of a turn.
Calling on your true name gives you one of the following benefits (your choice).
• Immediately gain 5 Refresh tokens, usable by you alone.

• If you have been transformed through Sorcery (other than the physical changes that come from
internalizing Corruption), that condition ends and you may immediately return to your true
shape.
• If you are currently possessed, mind-controlled, or mentally enchanted in any way, that
condition ends and you can immediately think for yourself once again.
You may not be able to say your true name if you are physically transformed or mentally controlled.
Write down who you have told your true name to; it’s up to you whether the risk of having a trusted
friend know your true name is worth the benefit of their intervention when you are incapacitated. Note
that receiving this aid might make you vulnerable in the future, if enemies who survive the battle are
canny enough to overhear and remember it.
True names can provide other benefits.
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• A promise sealed by exchanging true names is considered unbreakable, believed to transcend
even death itself. Marriages are often solemnized in this way. Breaking such a promise might
result in a curse determined by the GM.
• Someone who knows your true name can use Prophecy to learn roughly where in the world you
are (although this information might be unclear or couched as a riddle).
• Knowing a spirit’s or demon’s true name may allow you to summon them to you.
• You’re considered to have 1 rank of Liar’s Tell when listening to someone whose true name you
know; as a result, you can almost always tell when they are telling the truth.
Learning Another’s True Name

Learning the true name of another person, living or dead, is exceptionally difficult. You may be lucky
enough to be told a person’s true name, either because they trust you or you’ve extorted it out of them.
If not, bargaining with fell powers is generally your only recourse.
The currency of true names is secrets, both those you give up yourself and those you learn about others.
If you learn some hidden shame that your victim keeps others from knowing, a malign entity such as a
demon, spirit or small god might give you your victim’s true name — but only if you also give the malign
entity your own true name as part of the bargain. This exchange requires a profound and personal
sacrifice on your part in order to gain true power over someone else. It’s a decision not made lightly.
If you’re unwilling to give up your own true name, the malign entity might give you a portion of your
victim’s true name — usually a syllable at a time — requiring you to provide two to four momentous
secrets in total to learn your victim’s entire true name. This requires less sacrifice and far more research
and adventuring on your part, and it takes much longer. The more often you bargain with fell entities for
true names, the greater and more dangerous their demands become.
True Names as Weapons

If you know someone’s true name, they are tremendously vulnerable to your influence. Their Health or
Morale Threshold is treated as 4 less than actual against your Sorcery attacks, making it much easier for
you to score Critical Hits and almost impossible to miss them in combat. If you spend an Investigative
point to influence or attack someone whose true name you know, the effect of your spend will be
greater than normal. Your victim will sense that their true name is being invoked and will likely be
furious — and terrified.
Some enemies are too puissant to oppose normally; they may be nearly invincible or far too important.
Learning their true name helps even the odds, even if it means that you become their most important
enemy.
Curses
Curses are usually cast by Sorcerers releasing all of their Corruption potential in one fell swoop, although
curses can also come from objects, places, and supernatural entities. A dying Sorcerer may have the
opportunity to utter a powerful Death Curse before they perish.
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Curse Mechanics
The more Corruption points are spent in the curse, the more powerful and interesting the curse
becomes (approximately as powerful as an attack using the same points). Certain circumstances can
raise or lower the curse’s power.
Circumstance Effect on Curse’s Power

Cannot see the intended victim -1 point (less powerful)
Do not know the identity of the intended victim -1 point (less powerful)
Have a lock of the victim’s hair +1 point (more powerful)
Know victim’s true name +1 point (more powerful)
Death Curse (kills Sorcerer to cast) +2 points (more powerful)
You curse a hated Sorcerous rival, releasing all 3 remaining pool points of your Corruption ability
at once. You can’t see your target when you utter the curse. Normally the curse would be as
powerful as if you’d spent 2 Corruption instead, but you’ve stolen a lock of your victim’s hair.
Your curse is at full power.
Your Sorcerous rival doesn’t know who cursed them, but they swear revenge and curse you back.
They spend their remaining 3 points of Corruption but don’t know your identity and can’t see
you. Their curse has the approximate power of a 1-point Corruption spend.
Curses are usually narrative instead of mechanical, in that they create horrible story penalties for the
victim, instead of killing them or hampering their abilities. You should tell your GM what you say when
you utter your curse, but remember that curses are notoriously shifty and untrustworthy forms of
revenge, and the curse vary in power or have a different effect than the one you intended. Your curses
usually, but not always, manifest in a manner congruent to one or more of your sorcerous Spheres.
You utter the curse, “You will find no sleep until you return what you have stolen!”
If your sorcerous Spheres attack Morale, nightmarish insomnia may plague your victim. For
instance, if one of your Spheres is Time, the cursed victim might obsess over growing old every
time they try to sleep.
If your sorcerous Spheres attack Health, they may instead be woken by physical trauma every
time they try to sleep. For instance, if one of your Spheres is Water, the cursed victim might feel
like they’re drowning when they try to sleep.
Either way, they’ll dream of what they stole. Their Morale begins to plummet as a lack of sleep,
and fear, begin to catch up with them.
Judging a Curse’s Power, Effect, and Duration

Certain powerful curses can have such a long duration that they affect entire generations of families,
and other curses may come and go in the space of hours or days. A curse’s power varies with the
number of Corruption points spent. The more points spent, the more effective and remarkable the
curse. 5-point curses are the sort that are talked about for centuries, and that affect entire generations
of families.
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Whether leveled against the Heroes or their enemies, curses are most interesting and fun when they’re
cinematic and memorable. Classic “fairy tale” curses are appropriate when they fit the campaign’s tone;
if you’re powerful enough (and have the right Sorcerous Spheres) you can set the inhabitants of a tower
to sleep for a hundred years, or make someone’s nose grow every time they lie. A curse may instead be
subtle; “May your family never know wealth” might reduce the cursed Hero’s treasure or raise their
lifestyle expenses, and take a few adventures to even be noticed.
The point of curses is usually to teach someone a lesson, not to kill them outright, and the curse recedes
or abates when that lesson is shown to be learned. Players and GM should work together to fashion
interesting, effective curses. It’s in no one’s best interest if a combative GM deliberately minimizes the
effect of a Hero’s curse, because that just tells the player that they should never try to curse anyone
again — and that’s no fun for anyone.
A cursed character can typically learn the details of their curse by speaking with someone who possesses
1 or more ranks of Prophecy. Someone with 1 or more ranks of Spirit Sight can tell, by looking carefully,
whether a person is cursed — but not the details.
It’s common for curses to worsen as they progress. For instance, a cursed liar may have a stone appear
in their mouth every time they lie. If they continue to lie, the stones get larger, possibly choking off air
and causing suffocation with every lie. If the curse worsens further, at its most virulent stages the liar
might take 1 die of Morale damage with every lie, and listeners hear the truth instead. A curse’s
progression is handled solely by the GM, based on whether the victim is ignoring the curse or trying to
avoid its effect.
The rule of thumb for a curse’s effectiveness is “How effective would it have been if those points of
Corruption had been used in an attack instead?” While curses are usually spread out over time, the
effectiveness should be comparable. If the victim avoids taking actions that trigger the curse, it may not
manifest (such as the liar mentioned above starts telling the truth), but the curse does not disappear
unless the victim triggers the escape clause.
The Escape Clause

Curses must have a condition that frees the victim from the curse. In general, this escape clause is
attainable, even if it is difficult or apparently impossible to achieve. The escape clause should be stated
as part of the curse, but that doesn’t always happen (especially if the sorcerer is dying, or if the player
forgets), in which case the GM decides it. In the example above, if the person returns what was stolen
the curse dissipates and they can sleep normally again (though admitting to being the culprit may have
other consequences).
Heroes can discover a curse’s escape clause by speaking with someone who has 1 or more ranks of
Prophecy. An escape clause may be simple (such as apologizing to the Sorcerer who cast it), or may
seem impossible or nonsensical when first heard (such as swimming in dry air when low and high tide
occur at once), but it must be possible to achieve — whether literally, symbolically, or through a clever
technicality.
Death Curses
A dying Sorcerer can channel their life force into a curse to make it more powerful. Death Curses occur
when a Sorcerer is below 0 Health but remains conscious. Casting a Death Curse immediately kills the
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Sorcerer, and the Curse that results is treated as if the Sorcerer had two more points of Corruption than
they actually had. Such strengthened Death Curses are notoriously dangerous.
Sorcerous Glyphs and Traps

You can spend Corruption to leave sorcerous glyphs that trigger at a later time. Describe the type of
glyph you wish to set, specify a condition for activation, and spend points of Corruption; the glyph
triggers when the criteria you specify occur, and no matter where you are you automatically know when
a glyph you have created has been set off.
Exceptional Damage or unique effects occur at a level one less than the number of Corruption points
you spend. Suffer the effects of Corruption when the glyph is created, not when it is triggered. If the
glyph delivers an attack or Maneuver, roll your Sorcery attack when you create the glyph, and then
make a note of the result.
Sorcerous glyphs vanish and unravel at the end of each adventure. If you want your sorcerous glyph to
last until discharged, even across adventures or across whole centuries, spend a point of Forgotten Lore
when inscribing the glyph to lock it in place.
You’ve created a glyph to trap your enemy, an assassin named Celestina Avanti. You want her to
fall into a deep sleep when she sets off the glyph, with a full effect of “sound asleep for 24 hours”
and a partial effect of “groggy and Dazed for the scene”. You make a Sorcery attack when you
create the glyph, spending and dealing with 2 Corruption; only one of those Corruption spends
will apply +3 when calculating the Target Number (see p. XX). Your Maneuver’s total Target
Number (after rolling and adding your Sorcery spend) is 11, so when Celestina sets off the glyph
she’ll choose to either take 9 Morale damage and become Dazed, or fall sound asleep for a day.
Your triggering criteria can be whatever you wish, and you choose “when Celestina Avanti passes
under this portal.”
Spotting and Disarming Glyphs

You must make a Difficulty 4 Burglary or Sorcery test (your choice) to spot a typical glyph. Your Alertness
modifier applies, and some tiny or glowing glyphs might be harder or easier to spot.
You can use Burglary to temporarily bypass or disarm sorcerous glyphs. You or someone working with
you must possess 1 or more ranks of either Corruption or Spirit Sight. Attempting but failing to bypass or
disarm a glyph might set it off, depending on its activation criteria.
The Difficulty to temporarily bypass a glyph with Burglary is 4 + the number of Corruption ranks spent in
its creation; the glyph remains inactive for the duration of the scene. The Difficulty to fully disarm a
glyph with Burglary is 8 + the number of Corruption ranks spent in its creation.
CHAPTER FIVE: WEALTH AND LIFESTYLE

Sword & sorcery novels are full of heroes who find vast treasure in one story and are penniless again in
the next, because they’ve squandered all their money on magnificent creature comforts. Swords of the
Serpentine is aiming for the same feel.
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As a result, this isn’t a game about buying and selling gear, or about saving your loot to buy legendary
weapons that increase your personal power in a fight. It is a game about increasing and leveraging your
influence with other people. In a city like Eversink, spending your wealth opens doors. You can use that
influence to further your own aims during adventures.
Wealth
When you adventure, you’ll gain Wealth. You’ll spend Wealth on your Lifestyle every adventure, as
noted below. Unspent Wealth carries over from adventure to adventure.
Wealth isn’t measured in coins. Instead, when you find treasure or gain a reward you’ll track pool points
of Wealth from 1 (a piddling reward) to 5 (enough wealth to live a luxurious lifestyle for an adventure) to
10 or higher (truly wealthy, able to live at the highest level of society for two adventures or more). An
average adventure gives you 2-5 Wealth per Hero, although rewards are most fun when they fluctuate
dramatically. You can’t squander all your riches on unneeded luxuries unless you first have riches to
squander!
You have 0 Wealth when you start your first adventure, as it’s assumed you’ve spent it all wisely or
squandered it carousing, as Heroes do.
Your Wealth includes the number of coins and valuable items you possess, along with less physical
assets: debts others owe you, the influence you can wield to acquire something you desire, even secrets
you can trade on. None of these are tracked separately.
Each Wealth point can be turned in for a pool of 3 General ability points usable when you’re in a
situation where it might matter (such as a Preparedness test in a marketplace or bribing someone during
a Sway test), but Wealth points are more effective when channeled into Lifestyle points (see below).
In the Night Markets beneath Sag Harbor, you finally find a sorcerous charm you’ve been
hunting for — one guaranteed to turn any curse back at the caster, and who cares if it’s made
with a hanged man’s tongue, anyway? Problem is, it’s so rare that the Preparedness test to
acquire it is Difficulty 16. You have Preparedness 8, so the best result you could normally achieve
is 14. Instead, you turn in 2 Wealth for 6 pool points of Preparedness. Now you have 14 points of
Preparedness to spend, so you hope you roll a 2 or higher on the die.
Although accumulated Wealth isn’t usually tracked on a per-treasure basis, there may be times you wish
to make an exception. Memorable items and glorious art objects might be useful to list separately.
You stole a legendary ruby the size of a baby’s fist from the eye socket of a massive demon
statue. The ruby is worth 75 Wealth, a king’s ransom, but you can’t use that Wealth until you sell
it — and selling it will be an adventure in itself.
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Designer Notes: Coins in Eversink
Eversink has a ridiculously complicated system of currency, with coins in circulation from dozens of kingdoms. As a
result, merchants typically weigh or alchemically assay coins to determine their value in gold. Here are the
standard coins minted by the Triskadane.
• 3 bits = 1 iron tripenny

• 3 tripennies = 1 iron penny
• 13 pennies = 1 copper halfeel (Wealth 1; enough to live a life of Squalor between adventures)
• 2 halfeels = 1 copper eel
• 13 eels = 1 silver fish (Wealth 2; enough to live a Struggling lifestyle between adventures)
• 3.5 fish = 1 silver cygnet
• 7 cygnets = 1 silver bridge (Wealth 3; enough to live a Comfortable lifestyle between adventures)
• 8 bridges = 1 gold halfswan
• 2 halfswans = 1 gold swan (Wealth 4; enough to live a Wealthy lifestyle between adventures)
• 9 swans = 1 quill (handcrafted by artisans as standardized works of art)
• 4 quills = 1 bell (handcrafted by artisans as unique works of art, each coin made singly and studded with gems)
(Wealth 5; enough to live an Opulent lifestyle between adventures)
Bank script = variable (custom written by each banking house in town, representing the total of stored funds for a
customer)
Don’t Memorize the Coin Table

Obviously, this conversion chart is unworkably complicated — and that’s by design. One of the reasons is that this
coin chart delights us. But the real reason is that the mechanical systems in Swords of the Serpentine, from
Preparedness to Lifestyle to Repute, run on Wealth and not coins. Wealth isn’t a linear progression (spending 5
Wealth is much, much more expensive than spending five instances of 1 Wealth) so we want you to think twice
before handing out specific quantities of treasure. This matches classic fiction, where heroes fnd overflowing
treasure chests of coins and jewels but never bother to count the damn things.
In any case, Eversink natives turn out to like “unworkably complicated”. Unscrupulous moneychangers take
advantage of the ridiculous complexity to skim a few coins for themselves every time they make change.
If this doesn’t work for you, just simplify or streamline the coinage to something that is easily memorable without
unbalancing the game. Just remember that by awarding treasure in Wealth you’ll seldom if ever need to hand out
exact coinage. If you hand out Wealth to Heroes and accidentally describe the coinage in a way that doesn’t match
this chart, the total amount of Wealth you specified is what’s important. Discrepancies can be caused by clipped
coins, counterfeits, ancient and valuable coinage, and the like.
Lifestyle
Have you blown all your money and you’re living in squalor, or are you incredibly rich and spending
coins like water?
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There are five different levels of Lifestyle you can choose at the start of each adventure, and the one you
choose affects how the world sees you. Wallow in your Weath and gain High Repute to impress the
people around you; spend little Wealth and your Low Repute will be used against you by the GM.
GM Advice: Simplifying the Game Part II – Eliminating Repute

We love Repute because it models how folks might respond to (or discriminate against) adventurers when they get
hold of some money, and because the Lifestyle rules give players a great reason to spend Wealth every adventure.
If you’re running a one-shot adventure or don’t particularly care about Wealth acquisition by the Heroes, though,
you can simplify the game by completely ignoring the Lifestyle and High/Low Repute rules. This won’t affect your
combat balance at all.
New Heroes have No Repute for their first adventure. At the start of each adventure after the first,
choose the Lifestyle you’ve lived since your last adventure, and mark down your Repute. The Low or
High Repute you gain lasts until the end of the current adventure.
Repute Spend Table
Spend Lifestyle Penalty or Benefit
1 Wealth Squalid Low Repute 2
2 Wealth Struggling Low Repute 1
3 Wealth Comfortable No Repute
4 Wealth Wealthy High Repute 1
5 Wealth Opulent High Repute 2
You must spend a minimum of 1 Wealth on your Lifestyle each adventure (as opposed to each game
session; a long adventure might incorporate multiple game sessions). You may spend as much Wealth
on your Lifestyle as you want, especially if you want people to be talking about you in wonder and awe
for years to come, although there’s no mechanical benefit for spending more than 5 Wealth.
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Low Repute
Low Repute represents the social challenge faced by those who can’t or won’t spend money on their
lifestyle. Squalid or struggling Heroes may be discriminated against by the upper classes and social elite.
You’re living a squalid lifestyle when you use Skulduggery to shadow someone into a restaurant.
“You can’t come in here!” says the restaurant owner loudly, using one of your 2 Low Repute
points to make sure the person you’re following notices you. The GM uses your other point of
Low Repute to summon the City Watch, who will then dog you the rest of the adventure
whenever the action slows down.
You may use Low Repute as an Investigative ability to gain leads when speaking with the poor or
disenfranchised, who are less likely to misjudge you or treat you with disdain.
No Repute
A comfortable lifestyle gains you No Repute for the adventure. You have neither penalties nor
advantages due to your lifestyle. You start with No Repute during your first adventure.
High Repute
High Repute represents the social privilege and reputation you gain for spending large amounts of
money on your lifestyle, garnered from your impressive clothing, fine lodging, legendary parties,
philanthropic donations, and trustworthy servants. Other wealthy or socially prominent supporting
characters may acknowledge and accept you as one of their own; you may use your pool points of High
Repute to influence or bribe those who might be impressed by your Wealth.
Prophecy shows you that your enemy is about to escape from Eversink in a sailing ship and you
won’t be able to get there in time to stop them. You spend both of your High Repute points to
hire the fastest messenger in the city to rush there with a message for the harbormaster,
indicating that it will be very much worth their while if they find “irregularities” in the shipping
manifestos that keep the ship in port for another few hours. The ship (with your enemy on board)
is still anchored when you reach the harbor. You never actually have to pay the harbormaster the
bribe; that’s included in spending the 2 points of High Repute points for a significant benefit.
The GM may use High Repute against you when you are speaking with the poor or disenfranchised, who
are likely to scorn you.
[[[begin designer sidebar]]]
Designer Notes: Literary Loot, and The Lies of Locke Lamora

You know what’s a pain? Creating an economy system when Heroes can already get much of what they
need through Preparedness spends, that’s what’s a pain. And don’t get us wrong, we love Preparedness,
but it definitely makes a fantasy game’s economy trickier. How to avoid too much finicky bookkeeping?
Inspiration came from Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora, where his protagonist thieves have a vast
treasure room jam-packed with treasure that they can’t spend or they’ll get caught cheating the
Thieves’ Guild. In Swords of the Serpentine terms, the con artists in the story are living a struggling
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lifestyle (and paying out 2 Wealth per Hero each adventure) even as they bring in 25 Wealth or more per
scam. All that unspent money keeps piling up, so they just use it to keep score and continue their
delightful lives of low repute.
It feels just right to us for the sword & sorcery genre. In this sort of Wealth system your barbarian
doesn’t need to track every coin but can, in time-honored fashion, spend all of their accumulated loot
on ridiculously extravagant things and still get a great mechanical benefit from that largesse… even as
they quickly need to seek out more treasure so they aren’t sleeping in a gutter at the start of next
adventure.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Describing Your Lifestyle

You’re encouraged to narrate how you’ve spent your time since your last adventure, and how you’ve
blown — err, wisely spent — your treasure and savings.
You finished your last adventure with 7 Wealth, and you decide you want to blow all of your
money buying drinks for friends and making really poor life choices. At the start of this adventure
you spend 5 Wealth to live an opulent lifestyle. You wake up at the start of this adventure hung
over and with your belly full of deliciously exotic foods, your rented mansion filled with items you
don’t want or need, with influential social climbers desperate to see you and do favors for you,
but with only 2 Wealth in your pocket. You will enjoy the benefits of High Repute 2 for this
adventure, but you can only maintain this incredibly wealthy lifestyle if you raise some money.
Time for an adventure...
Minimum Lifestyle
If you want to fall back on your Allegiances (in other words, make someone else pay), you can ask your
Allies to support you for a time at a comfortable level. Doing this incurs 1 point of Grudges in that same
Ally until you pay off that debt in deed or Wealth, as roleplayed and decided upon by the GM.
Completely out of money and not wanting the social stigma of becoming dissolute, you decide to
use your Allies: Mercanti 1, and you roleplay out a deal with one of the guilds. They’ll support
you at a comfortable lifestyle until the end of this adventure, no Wealth spend needed, but you
now add Grudges: Mercanti 1 on your Grudges list until you fulfill your promise to stop some
extremely annoying smugglers.
GM Advice: Guaranteeing a Minimum Lifestyle

If you think that a Hero’s family or business contracts would support them at a given lifestyle level — no sure thing
when they’re Heroes instead of full-time Mercanti or bankers! — you may allow them one or more free Lifestyle
pool points each adventure, starting them off at squalid, struggling or comfortable before they ever spend Wealth
points on Lifestyle. This is for Heroes with significant business concerns or hidden resources that help to handle
Lifestyle expenses even when the Hero is adventuring. It's rare, however, and players (except perhaps for Mercanti
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and members of some Sorcerous Cabals) usually have to earn this benefit as a roleplaying reward during your
campaign.
Alchemists also have a method for obtaining a minimum lifestyle. See p. XX for details.
Assigning Treasure
If Heroes are going to put their lives on the line, they deserve rewards! Occasionally having them wallow
in wealth is one way to make them feel like big damn heroes, especially if the Wealth drifts away as
quickly as it is discovered. To make treasure interesting, make it memorable. Describing a shattered
funerary statue with jeweled eyes and teeth, lying on a bed of ancient coins and religious offerings from
600 years past, is much more interesting than simply saying “You find Wealth 30.”
When assigning treasure from an adventure, GMs should think about how they want the Heroes to live
until the start of their next adventure, per the table on p. XX. Rich as Mercanti, swimming in loot?
Desperate and on the streets, scrabbling for coin? Dole out total wealth accordingly. Your Heroes might
not choose a Wealthy lifestyle, and that’s fine; next adventure, they’ll roleplay the results of whatever
lifestyle they did choose.
The GM thinks the Heroes deserve to feel triumphant, and so should earn enough loot during this
adventure to remain Wealthy through to the end of their next adventure. There are five Heroes.
She sets the vast amount of treasure available this adventure to 20 (cost 4 x five Heroes = 20),
and then adjusts it slightly upwards to 23. She splits up these rewards into different
opportunities throughout the adventure, dividing it between coins, jewelry, expensive goods, and
promised favors from a major mercantile guild.
The value of any goods, jewelry, gems and the like is included in the total Wealth. If the GM chooses to
assign 15 Wealth to the Heroes as treasure, they might describe that as barrels of rare wine and crates
of exotic spices. The value of these goods is based on the fair and realistic price that the Heroes can get
for them. If Heroes come up with a particularly clever plan for selling items in a way that should make
them more money, the GM is justified in increasing the total value of Wealth gained by an amount that
seems fair.
Unique gear, such as magical weapons that can’t easily be bought or sold, should be excluded from
these totals.
Heroes (particularly those allied with the Mercanti) may work hard to establish ongoing sources of
Wealth, such as trading agreements, business concerns or even lucrative blackmail. Encourage this if it
makes your game more fun, and use Minimum Lifestyle to represent it instead of just granting extra
Wealth.
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CHAPTER SIX: GEAR, BOTH SORCEROUS AND MUNDANE
While this isn’t a game about buying and selling gear, it’s useful to know what sort of equipment you can
buy or produce with Preparedness and Wealth.
How Much Can You Carry?

Most of the gear you need during an adventure you’ll produce using Preparedness, and only if you
consider a piece of gear iconic does it stick around between adventures. If you tend to use the same
gear every adventure (always the same shield, for instance), it should be added to your standard gear
list so you don’t need to perfunctorily roll for it every game.
The amount of gear and sorcerous items you can carry and use at any one time is left to common sense,
as filtered through your GM. If you look at your character sheet and think “that seems unrealistic”, pare
back what you’re carrying or expect to suffer Athletics penalties when swimming, jumping or climbing.
You can’t use two sorcerous shields at once, for instance. Items that work in specific locations (head,
body, primary- or off-hand) are limited to one item per location. Sorcerous items are rare enough that
that’s seldom a concern.
A heavy pack is reasonable, although people in Eversink will look at you oddly; anything more than that
may encourage you to hire a servant to carry your excess belongings for you.
The Cost of Goods and Services

Most goods and services are inexpensive enough to be handled with a Preparedness test, or as part of
the benefit from a wealthy or opulent lifestyle. This isn’t a game about “How much you spend on a
guide,” so GMs won’t charge Heroes for unexceptional and unmemorable transactions.
Some gear can’t realistically be produced suddenly with Preparedness. In these cases, such as when
purchasing unique poisons, you must be in a location that sells the item before you can make a
Preparedness test. You may spend Wealth points to boost your roll, with each Wealth point spent giving
you +3 on your roll. Heroes may pool their Wealth together for this purpose.
Weaponry
Weapons that are easy to find can be acquired for free; you can find a makeshift club almost anywhere.
Better crafted weapons, such as a sword, cost Wealth 2 or higher if they aren’t already part of your
minor iconic gear.
The range is determined by the weapon type. Melee weapons can only be used on a foe within Point-
Blank range. Ranged weapons cannot be used on a foe within Point-Blank range (unless stated
otherwise in the table on p. XX), and their accuracy diminishes with distance.
Weapon Modifiers
Armor-piercing
This weapon ignores the stated amount of Armor, adding to ranks of Spot Frailty (if any) when
determining its effectiveness.
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Loud
Using this weapon creates significant amounts of noise (apart from the screams of the person you’ve
just injured).
Obvious
This weapon is difficult or impossible to conceal, requiring a difficult Stealth test to do so, and usually
has a Damage Modifier of +2. It’s tricky to hide a greatsword in the back of your ballgown.
Reload
Once this weapon is used, an action must be spent reloading it before it can be used again. Such
weapons are often used once and then tossed aside as enemies close into range.
Stun
Instead of inflicting regular damage, this weapon causes the Daze Maneuver to be more likely to
succeed, by raising the Health test Difficulty by the noted amount (see p.XX). It does not stack with
bonuses from other gear, such as the Token of Blackjacks.
Melee and Ranged Weapons Table
Name Size Range Cost Damage Other

Modifier Modifier
Axe Medium Point-Blank +1
Club (standard) Small Point-Blank Difficulty -2 +0
Club (heavy) Medium Point-Blank +1 Obvious
Crossbow Long Difficulty +2 +2 Armor-
piercing 1;
Obvious;
Reload
Dagger Small Point-Blank +0
Flail Medium Point-Blank +1
Greataxe Large Point-Blank Difficulty +2 +2 Obvious
Horse Lance Large Point-Blank Difficulty +3 +2 Obvious
Improvised weapon (large) Medium Point-Blank Free +1 Obvious
Improvised weapon (small) Small Point-Blank Free +0
Knife Small Point-Blank Difficulty -1 +0
Knife (thrown) Close Difficulty -1 +0
Leather sack full of iron shot Small Point-Blank +0 Stun 1
or metal coins
Longbow Long +1 Obvious
Mace Medium Point-Blank +1
Maul Large Point-Blank Difficulty +2 +2 Obvious
Polearm Large Point-Blank Difficulty +2 +2 Obvious
Quarterstaff Large Point-Blank Free +1
Rock (pointy) Small Point-Blank Free -1
Rock (thrown) Close Free -1
Shortbow Medium +1 Obvious
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Spear Large Point- +1 Armor-
Blank/Medium piercing 1;
Obvious
Sword (standard) Medium Point-Blank +1
Sword (terrifyingly large) Large Point-Blank Difficulty +2 +2 Obvious
Warhammer Medium Point-Blank +1
Firearms
Eversink doesn’t have firearms, but that’s a stylistic choice, not one based on mechanical balance. If you
prefer, add firearms to the game using the following rules.
Name Size Range Cost Damage Other

Modifier Modifier
Light pistol Small Close +0 Loud;
Reload
Heavy pistol Small Medium Difficulty +2 +1 Armor-
piercing 1;
Loud;
Reload
Light rifle Long Difficulty +2 +1 Loud;
Obvious;
Reload
Heavy rifle Long Difficulty +4 +2 Armor-
piercing 1;
Loud;
Obvious;
Reload
GM Advice: Lethality and Firearms

If you wish to increase the Damage Modifier on firearms to +3 to make them more dangerous, increase the reload
time to two rounds. This will encourage both Heroes and Adversaries to use a firearm as their first action before
wading into combat and will in general make the game deadlier.
This optional rule can also apply to crossbows.
Mundane and Alchemical Gear

This list is far from exhaustive and is meant as a starting point. If you want something not on this list,
describe it to your GM and agree on a Preparedness Difficulty needed to obtain it. Particularly rare items
are seldom if ever available through a Preparedness test unless you are in a market where they are for
sale.
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Miscellaneous Gear
Alchemist’s Fire
Cost: Wealth 1
Alchemical
Clinging fire in a bottle, alchemical fire burns briefly even underwater and requires smothering to be
extinguished. Throw it with an Athletics test; a successful hit inflicts a die of damage each round for 2-7
(1 die +1) rounds or until extinguished. Putting alchemist’s fire out requires a Difficulty 5 Athletics test as
an action. Rumors persist of alchemist’s fire that lasts longer, is much harder to extinguish, or burns
hotter; if such variants exist they would be notably more difficult to obtain.
Badge of Office
Cost: Gift or loan only
Mundane
Location: Body or Off-hand
The more organized factions of the city — the City Watch, the Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers,
the Triskadane, the Church of Denari, and the like — have official sanctioned badges that they
sometimes lend to those on their missions. These badges carry the weight of the organization behind
them, so others usually defer to people who wear them.
Badges of Office hold 1 or more pool points of Favor with the organization that created them; the Favor
points can be spent normally. Heroes who hold such a badge can temporarily wield influence in the
name of an organization they might not normally be allied with. Using one of these without the faction’s
authority gains you multiple Grudge points as soon as that faction finds out.
Cestino’s Cameos
Cost: Wealth 2 to 5, depending on rarity
Mundane
These are a collection of several dozen antique cameos whose display conveys sentiments ranging from
bland disinterest to mild contempt to scathing insult (but only to those who can interpret the cultural
code). Used properly, Cestino’s cameos can create the effect of a Taunt or Intimidate spend.
An artist of middling talent named Cestino turned out hundreds of these a few centuries ago as
collectible sets for preteen girls of the noble houses. The joke insults associated with each design were
just naughty enough to appeal to the children, and it became a short-lived fad.
Ten generations later, the insults are treated as deadly serious by noblewomen and conveyed by the
original jewelry passed down from mother to daughter over several hundred years. One can only signal
using the designs in one's possession — complete sets are rare and highly valued, and it’s considered
extremely gauche to use anything but an original Cestino. The code is completely opaque to anyone
outside of the aristocracy. Ranks in the Investigative ability Nobility or Allies: Ancient Nobility are
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required to recognize and translate the cameos, and a Nobility spend is required to utilize the code for a
specific effect.
Denari’s Book of Truths and Tax Code

Cost: Free - Wealth 5, depending on how beautiful the book is
Mundane
This holy text is a highly annotated and abridged version of the equally common but lengthier Book of
Truths. It recounts the holy word of Denari through parables and prophecy, along with the correct tax
and tithing amounts for different times of year. Family copies of the complete Book of Truths and the
Glorious Covenant are often filled with gold illumination and gorgeous hand-painted illustrations; these
will always be far more expensive (and meaningful) than the hastily made copies of the Book of Truths
with appended tax code distributed for free at churches across the city.
Dogbane
Cost: Wealth 1
Alchemical
This is only useful when being hunted by dogs, but if you are, it’s really useful. Sprinkle it behind you
when making a Stealth test. Any dogs that try to track you past that location will suffer a –3 penalty to
their Alertness Modifier for the rest of the Scene, making it much easier for you to hide.
Nightstones
Cost: Wealth 1 per five stones
Alchemical
These rocks are alchemically coated to extinguish small flames such as torches or lanterns, making them
handy for sneaking through darkness without being identified. Throw one into a torch or lantern and
you’ll douse the light, causing it to need relighting. Toss one into a bonfire and you’ll reduce its size,
reducing its Damage Modifier by -2 for the scene. Multiple nightstones aren’t cumulative on the same
fire.
Theatrical Disguises
Cost: Wealth 1
Alchemical
These dyes, glues, fake beards, and other tools help you disguise yourself. When using the kit, make a
Stealth test; if successful, increase your Stealth Modifier by +2 when others are trying to recognize you.
The effect lasts for one scene.
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Mundane Protective Gear
Protection items help keep you safe. These include armor, shields, and protective charms.
Buckler
Cost: Wealth 1
Mundane
Location: Off Hand
When you wear a buckler, you only have to meet the Difficulty (instead of exceeding it) when blocking
or dodging attacks using the Dodge Talent for Athletics (see p. XX).
Chainmail Armor
Cost: Wealth 1
Mundane
Location: Body
Chainmail is an effective deterrent to swords, but it can be dangerous in a city that regularly floods.
While you wear your chainmail you have Armor 2, but the Difficulty on any Athletics tests to swim rises
by +4.
Designer Notes: Armor Penalties

You’ll notice that only heavier armor provides penalties, and those penalties are only to swim instead of to sneak
and climb. We thought about a more complex set of penalties for heavier armor but they were finicky, hard to
remember, and not fun. They got tossed.
GMs, if you find that all your Heroes are wearing heavy armor and it feels out of genre, consider adding a
situational penalty back in (or occasionally pushing the the heavily armored Hero into a canal). Otherwise, such
penalties aren’t worth the trouble.
Leather Armor
Cost: Wealth 1
Mundane
Location: Body
Leather armor, whether boiled leather or reinforced with cunningly placed chain link, is the most
common form of armor in the city — mainly because it’s the only armor that won’t immediately drown
you when you’re shoved into a canal. While you wear it you have Armor 1.
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Plate Armor
Cost: Wealth 3 to 10 or more
Mundane
Location: Body
Plate Armor is usually custom fitted and beautifully decorated; the best such armor is an announcement
that you have style, wealth, and deadly enemies who are terrible at killing you. While you wear your
plate armor you have Armor 3, but the Difficulty on any Athletics tests to swim rises by +6.
Occasionally the most expensively decorated plate armor is tied to a particular faction or organization,
whether that group makes the armor for your Hero as a reward, or you’ve found long-lost armor made
for another hero who died long ago. In those cases, 1 or more pool points of Favors for that faction is
attached to the armor, and wearing the armor will earn you the attention of the faction it is associated
with.
Scorpion Shield
Cost: Wealth 2
Mundane
Location: Off Hand
Fashioned from the carapace of extremely rare and aggressive giant scorpions, this item acts as a
standard shield. Once per adventure, you can brandish the shield and be treated as if having spent a
pool point of Intimidation, usually scattering your enemies away from you. Others will see the shield and
believe that you have a reputation for being deadly in combat. Whether you can live up to that
reputation is then up to you.
Shield
Cost: Wealth 1
Mundane
Location: Off Hand
Shields are often decorated with coats of arms, sigils, guild symbols, and other identifying marks. If you
use a shield from an organization you aren’t allied with, expect them to take umbrage.
Shields take up one hand and act as Full Cover when you choose to use them, increasing your Health
Threshold by +1, +2, or +3 depending on how defensively you are using the shield. Your attacks are
penalized an equal amount, although only when you are gaining the Full Cover benefit of the shield. You
decide how you are using your shield when combat occurs, or if you’re using it at all, and you can freely
change this decision on your turn. If a weapon or action requires the use of both hands, you can’t use it
while your shield is equipped.
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When using a shield and using the Dodge Talent from Athletics to avoid an attack, you must only meet
the attacker’s success instead of exceeding it.
Snake’s Eye
Cost: Wealth 1
Mundane
Most societies have a ritualistic charm that gets put up by the front door to ward off bad fortune — a
horseshoe, a prayer tablet, and the like. In Eversink, this traditional charm is called a snake’s eye. It’s a
small coil of wire and glass, a central round mirror set within a spiral. These don’t do anything, but snake
eyes are a ‘Sinkish tradition, and nearly every home has one hanging beside a door jamb. They’re
frequently turned into art objects, and are often given out as housewarming presents when people
move into a new home.
If you’re a GM, see p. XX for additional information about this tradition.
Watch Whistle
Cost: Wealth 1
Mundane
Location: Off Hand
Watch whistles are shrill, piercing, and they carry across water and through twisting alleys. Blowing a
watch whistle will summon a member of the City Watch in 1-6 minutes, sometimes sooner. If the
whistle was blown but there’s no emergency at hand, expect some annoyance.
Before whistles came into vogue, the City Watch used loud rattles. You may still stumble over these now
and then, but the sound didn’t carry as far and they have fallen out of use.
Poisons, Toxins and Venoms

The following examples are only a small fraction of the vast number of poisons available in Eversink, and
almost all will reliably kill or disable supporting characters who aren’t essential to the narrative.
If a victim is exposed to the poison (there may be a test to avoid this), they suffer minor effects if they
manage to pass the test to resist, and severe effects if they succumb fully. See p. XX for more details.
Cadia Juice
Cost: Wealth 2 per dose (illegal but not hard to find)
Onset: Fifteen minutes to mere seconds (depending on dose)
Test: Difficulty 4 to 8 Health (Difficulty 3 + the number of doses, up to 5)
Minor: In a relaxed situation, drop into a deep and natural sleep during the scene
Severe: Feel sleepy for 3 rounds, become Dazed for 3 rounds, then fall Unconscious
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This ingested poison is alchemically purified from the sap of a hard-to-find jungle vine that grows in
abandoned Serpentine ruins. It’s a bright purple, which tends to limit its use to dark liquids or a non-
transparent container. Cadia juice is one of the most reliable sleeping draughts used in Eversink. A small
amount (one dose) can help correct insomnia, but a more substantial amount (3 or more doses) can
drop someone into sleep within a moment.
Fallow Weed
Cost: Wealth 4 (highly illegal)
Onset: Approximately two minutes
Test: Difficulty 6 Health
Minor: The Target Number of Morale-based Maneuvers meant to trick or convince the victim rise by 4
Severe: The Target Number of Morale-based Maneuvers meant to trick or convince the victim rise by 8
Fallow weed is an ingested drug that puts the victim into a state of extreme suggestibility for a short
time (approximately five minutes), making them believe suggestions (such as Morale-based Maneuvers)
that aren’t even remotely realistic. People who are taught lies under the influence of fallow weed don’t
register as lying when using Liar’s Tell because they believe the lie completely. The weed has a peppery
taste that is best disguised with strong spices. People retain their sense of right and wrong when under
the influence, but can easily be tricked into thinking they are doing the right thing.
Fallow weed leaves a lingering sense of light euphoria that lasts for several hours, usually making people
laugh more easily than normal, and can stain the tongue slightly gray until the next day.
Feasting
Cost: Wealth 2 (illegal)
Onset: One hour
Test: Difficulty 6 Morale
Minor: Compulsive urge to eat to satiation, followed by a Health test 5 to remain conscious
Severe: Compulsive urge to eat until stomach ruptures; after 1-6 hours of non-stop consumption (GM’s
choice), Health drops to Seriously Wounded
This rare insect venom causes an uncontrollable compulsion to consume. When stung in the wild, prey
animals consume anything they can find and then pass out or die, providing the insect with a convenient
body to lay eggs in. Within Eversink, it’s used as an amusing way to murder or embarrass an enemy.
Floodlung
Onset: Immediate
Test: Difficulty 6 Health (Difficulty 3 if holding breath to avoid inhaling mist)
Minor: Suffocate for 3 rounds
Severe: Suffocate for 6 rounds
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This illegal mist, usually kept in sealed ceramic containers that are thrown and shattered, is derived from
alchemically modified swamp water. Floodlung magically drowns its victims by transmuting air to water
within their lungs. It affects everyone in Close range to where it is released, dissipating in three rounds
(or faster if there is strong ventilation). Victims use the Drowning rules on p. XX.
Gluggut
Cost: Wealth 2
Onset: approximately 15 minutes, lasting more than an hour
Minor: Compulsive urge to drink any potable liquids nearby, and will seek out other potable liquids when
those are gone
Severe: Compulsive urge to drink any potable or non-potable liquids nearby, and will seek out other non-
potable liquids (no matter how foul) when those are gone; Health drops to Seriously Wounded
This alchemical poison slowly makes the imbiber thirsty, and drinking liquid does not abate their thirst.
While it causes no damage itself, people poisoned with gluggut may die from alcohol poisoning or from
drinking other liquids that poison them.
Gutsplash
Cost: Wealth 2
Onset: 3–6 hours
Minor: No damage, moderate intestinal distress
Severe: Extreme intestinal distress for 24 hours
When you want to make sure someone stays home and in bed — or near the chamberpot — there’s no
better poison than the boiled swamp herb known as gutsplash. If you’re planning on stealing a noble’s
identity, this can help ensure you don’t accidentally bump into them at the worst possible time.
Hollowing
Onset: 30 seconds
Minor: No apparent effect; if given a second dose within the next hour, the test Difficulty rises by +2
Severe: Your soul is separated from your body for a period of time chosen by the GM
This injected poison is formulated from the crushed and alchemically treated bones of freshly-killed
corpses. It ejects your soul from your body for one or more scenes and prepares your body for easy
possession by ghosts and other spirits. When your soul is separated from your body, the GM may allow
you to play your own disembodied ghost (possibly restricting you to the spirit realm that overlays
Eversink), or play the ghost that is now steering your body. If the former, you have no knowledge or
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control over what your possessed body does; if the latter, your GM may hand you revised abilities for
your new ghostly personality.
When returning automatically to your body after a period of time chosen by the GM, you must make a
Difficulty 8 Morale test to remember your time as a ghost (although during future adventures you may
recall small horrific flashes of your experiences, if the GM allows). If your body is possessed by a ghost
when the drug’s effect ends, you automatically expel it. It is likely to resent this.
Sea King’s Blessing

Cost: Wealth 3
Onset: Immediate
Minor: For the scene, take 1 point of additional damage every time you suffer Health damage.
Severe: Breathe either water or air for the duration of the scene. For the scene, take 2 points of
additional damage every time you suffer Health damage.
This slimy contact poison allows you to breathe fresh and salt water for a time, but slowly dissolves your
organs into seawater every time you take Health damage. As such it’s a mixed blessing; if you take it to
adventure underwater, try not to get hurt. It’s often used by assassins to kill their victims more quickly.
Snapback
Onset: 3 rounds
Minor: Muscle contractions causing 2 points of Health damage per round for 6 rounds
Severe: Massive muscle contractions that leave the victim nearly helpless while they die, inflicting 1 die
of damage each round for 6 rounds, and penalizing General ability tests by -2 for the duration
This venom causes extreme and nearly immediate convulsions, usually lethal enough to cause the victim
to snap their own spine. It’s traditionally used for very public assassinations that are meant to send a
message.
Trembleroot
Onset: 2 rounds
Minor: Whenever making a test involving physical precision (usually an Athletics, Burglary, or Warfare
test) for the next three rounds, roll two dice and use the lower of the two.
Severe: Whenever making a test involving physical precision (usually an Athletics, Burglary, or Warfare
test) for the remainder of the adventure, roll two dice and use the lower of the two.
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Alchemically derived from plants grown within an area of severe Corruption, trembleroot disrupts fine
motor control and causes pain and uncontrollable muscle spasms for days. It has a sweet, almost cloying
odor, and is usually administered as a contact poison.
Sorcerous Gear
It’s rare, but not unheard of, for sorcerous items to be available for sale. Sometimes you just need to be
at the right Night Market or find the correct little market stall that you’d somehow never noticed before.
Sorcerous items aren’t often seen in Eversink, and more powerful items have a tendency to disappear
on their own after a time serving their master. They’re rarely dependable.
Grimoires
Most sorcerous grimoires are written in the ancient Serpentine tongue. Sorcery doesn’t like being
written down, and the writing has a bad habit of becoming sentient. Grimoires are books of magical
theory and knowledge that are only usable by someone with 1 or more ranks of Corruption. Grimoires
grant bonus Corruption points that can usually only be used with specific Spheres or spells; these
Spheres either attack Health or Morale, but never both, and can only be used with the Corruption points
granted by the grimoire. The books also have a tendency to try to possess the sorcerer when they are
used, something that should be avoided when possible.
To establish a grimoire for their own game, GMs should select the following:
• The amount of bonus Corruption pool points the book grants

• The Sorcerous Spheres associated with the book (typically one per point of Corruption)
• The book’s personality and method for interacting with the Sorcerer
• Whether or not the book contains any true names or special abilities
• The Difficulty for resisting its Possession Maneuver (see p. XX Error! Bookmark not defined.) the
first time you try to use it each adventure.
Grimoire: The Calcifex Manuscript

Cost: Unique
Sorcerous
Location: Primary and Off Hand
The Calcifex Manuscript is a surprisingly heavy, large tome with covers made from sheets of petrified
wood. Its unwieldiness requires you to hold it in both hands or (more commonly) place it upon a lectern.
The Manuscript grants you 2 bonus Corruption points, usable only with the bonus Sorcerous Spheres of
Stone and Statues. It is evil and antithetical to flesh, desiring to turn all living creatures near it into
statues that then praise it and offer it obeisance. It communicates with the sorcerer by speaking through
the mouths of all nearby funerary statues. If no statues are nearby, it cannot communicate.
When first opened each adventure, the Calcifex Manuscript attempts to possess you with a Difficulty 8
Maneuver; take 6 points of Morale damage or become temporarily possessed. If you are possessed, the
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grimoire will temporarily turn you into a living statue, piloting you and drawing on your Sorcery to do its
own bidding (which usually involves settling scores against the families of long-dead enemies). You lose
control of your actions and gain the Adversary special ability Stony (see p. XX) during the possession.
You may make a Difficulty 8 Morale test to throw off the possession every time you take Health damage.
You may spend your Morale to do so even when possessed. Afterward, you retain no memory of your
actions.
Grimoire: The Ophidius Parables

Cost: Unique
Sorcerous
Location: Off Hand
This slim volume is a scroll written on shimmering, nearly indestructible snakeskin. The writing in the
Ophidius Parables seems to coil and squirm when read. The scroll recounts a pre-human legend of
sacrifices made to a primeval serpent-god, including methods for summoning it (something the book
advises you not do unless you have an abundance of sacrifices handy to appease it).
The scroll grants you 1 bonus Corruption point, usable only with the bonus Sorcerous Sphere of
Serpents. It seems to have a predilection for conjuring snakes in the stomachs of enemies, snakes that
then damage foes as they crawl up their esophagus and out their mouths. It cannot communicate but
has a tendency to wrap itself around your arm, much like a coiling snake.
When first opened each adventure, the Ophidius Parables attempts to possess you with a Difficulty 6
Maneuver; take 4 points of Morale damage or become temporarily possessed. If you are possessed, you
will attempt to summon the primeval serpent-god and beg it to devour you. Make a Difficulty 6 Morale
test to throw off the possession every time you take Health damage.
Grimoire: Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection

Cost: Unique
Sorcerous
Location: Off Hand
This slim, leather-covered book contains far more sketched illustrations and diagrams than words. In
fact, at first glance it appears that there are no words at all; but further examination shows text hidden
in the illustrations of flayed corpses, anatomical drawings, and ritual circles. The book is a meditation on
death, corpses, afterlife, and how Corruption seems to have a predilection for entering and animating
dead flesh.
The notebook has one truly useful function: studying the text can teach you how to eradicate even the
most powerful and ancient patches of externalized Corruption, causing them to vanish through simple (if
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horrific) human sacrifice. The notebook doesn’t explicitly say that Corruption is channeled into nearby
corpses, creating unusually powerful undead, but that can be reasonably assumed.
This grimoire is unspeakably powerful and grants you 3 bonus Corruption points that target Health,
usable only with the bonus Sorcerous Spheres of Death, Decay, and Flesh. Over several weeks, dead
flesh placed near the notebook slowly merges into one horrific flesh-tangle of merged skin, hair and
bone. Spending and externalizing the bonus Corruption, and then using a human sacrifice to channel the
Corruption into the flesh-tangle, will animate it and give it terrible purpose. The fleshtangle thus created
gains (usually) 1 Health per corpse used. See p. XX for details.
The notebook doesn’t communicate directly, but its owner will experience terrible epiphanies and
insights that actually come from the grimoire. When first opened each adventure, Zelgrieb’s Notebook
attempts to possess you with a Difficulty 10 Maneuver; take 8 points of Morale damage or become
temporarily possessed. If possessed you will be obsessed with gathering corpses from whatever source
you can find and leaving them near the notebook (or leaving them in a heap for later exposure to the
notebook). This overwhelming urge lasts for the length of the adventure, or until the notebook has
possessed someone else. While possessed you gain temporary Grit of 1 to 6, in proportion to the
strength of the urge.
Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection is fickle, and seldom stays with a single individual for more than one
adventure.
Miscellaneous
Plenty of Sorcerous items aren’t easily categorized. These are usually unique, with only one existing at a
time unless a Hero makes their own. This list is for the sake of example and is far from exhaustive.
Beggar’s Rags
Cost: unique (cannot be purchased)
Sorcerous
Location: Body
These filthy and shredded clothes were once taken from a beggar’s corpse as an object lesson in turning
haughtiness into humility. While you wear them, any ranks of Nobility you possess are treated as if they
were ranks of Servility instead. At the GM’s discretion, getting recognized while wearing these may
affect what people think of you (positively if noticed by Commoners, negatively if recognized by Nobles
or Mercanti.) Regardless of your actual Lifestyle this adventure, people treat you as if you have Low
Repute 2.
Deliberately washing Beggar’s Rags with soap destroys their magic.
Earring of Truth
Sorcerous
Location: Head
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This emerald earring was commissioned by Patrizia Ridolfi to avert her appalling luck at cards. In the
presence of falsehood, it emits a faint chime audible only to the wearer. While the intent was to allow
Patrizia to read her rivals’ bluffs at the card table, subsequent owners have discovered it to respond to
any lie.
The wearer enjoys the benefit of one rank of Liar's Tell; they are, however, compelled to participate in
any wager offered in their presence.
Fiella’s Ring of Terrible Distraction

Sorcerous
Location: Primary or Off Hand
This silver ring has been used to cause guards to abandon their duty post, and to terribly embarrass
nobles about to fight a duel. The ring is engraved with images of various swamp plants; anyone with 1 or
more ranks of Wilderness Mastery will notice that each plant is used in folk medicine as an emetic or a
laxative. As an action, the wearer may use the ring to undetectably trigger a Difficulty 5 Health test in
one person per adventure. Spending a Wilderness Mastery point allows a simultaneous second target. If
the targets fail their Health test they start to feel their guts roiling, as if from food poisoning, and will
immediately abandon their current location in favor of finding a toilet. The GM may assign the target
penalties to other actions (such as resisting Persuade tests) due to the distraction caused by such
urgency.
Designer Notes: Create Sorcerous Items That Delight You

The Ring of Terrible Distraction is both potty humor and a really good way to distract a supporting character. It also
makes one of your authors happy because it’s a callback to 1981 when a friend advised, “You need to come join
the after-school gaming club. The teacher who runs it has a ring that causes diarrhea!” I never did find out what he
was talking about, but that club started a life-long love affair with gaming and swords and sorcery, so the ring
shows up in every campaign I run.
Embrace your inspirations. If the tone of your game allows, create sorcerous items that are inspired by iconic
weapons from your favorite pulp novels and movies, and magical artifacts filled with mystery that echo what you
see in your imagination. Your players will have nearly as much fun with them as you do.
The Head of Goffredo Zetticci

Cost: unique (cannot be purchased; illegal)
Sorcerous
Location: Off Hand
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Goffredo Zetticci was a notorious sorcerer who operated in Eversink over two hundred years ago until
Inquisitors caught and executed him. His skull was removed from the crow’s cage after his body rotted
and was promptly stolen by his apprentice. Zetticci now remains as a spirit inhabiting his elaborately
carved skull.
For a sorcerer in possession of the skull, Zetticci can act as an advisor and mentor (though he’s inclined
to sulk if his advice is ignored). For a 1-point Charm, Command or Intimidation spend, the skull will
permit access to the Curses or Disease Spheres for the rest of the adventure, targeting Health.
Zetticci also has a Sorcery pool of 8 he can lend to his possessor. For every point of Zetticci’s Sorcery
pool borrowed, the sorcerer loses 1 point from their Morale pool. Nothing can stop or reduce this loss,
although it can be healed like any other Morale loss. Zetticci’s Sorcery pool can be recharged with
Refresh tokens, as normal.
Note that mere possession of the skull is illegal and is considered sufficient evidence of guilt for any
Inquisitor to convict.
Nolio's Coin
Sorcerous
Location: Body or Off Hand
Usually referred to in stories as “the luckiest man in the ‘Sink,” Nolio the Bold is a legendary local folk
hero who is one part trickster, one part fool, one part Commoner, and many parts a way to tell stories
that tweak the nose of the rich and powerful. In his stories he inevitably gets into conundrums where he
is far out of his depth, but his natural wit and supernatural luck save him every time, usually with
hilarious consequences.
A magical coin circulates its way around the city that embodies the best of the Nolio tales. It’s large for a
coin, gold and heavy, supposedly a coin stolen from the hoard of Denari Herself. One side of the coin
shows a swan, the other side shows Nolio in profile, although the face that he’s making usually changes
over time.
Invoking the coin creates incredible (and often embarrassing) luck for a scene, as if having spent 2 pool
points of Ridiculous Luck — but only if the invoker acts in a trusting and foolhardy manner. You could
leap blindly through a tower window and be lucky enough to land safely in a cart of night soil, but try to
carefully climb out the window and the coin is unlikely to function. In combat, it isn’t uncommon to see
owners of Nolio’s coin fighting blindfold. If you trust the coin, the coin repays your trust.
To recharge the coin, freely donate Wealth 3 to ‘Sinkish Commoners, usually in the form of food and
housing.
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Oracular Knife
Cost: Wealth 5 (illegal in Eversink)
Sorcerous
Location: Primary hand
This knife is ancient, made of razor-sharp but jagged obsidian (Damage Modifier +1). Its hilt is little more
than an old leather thong wrapped around the bottom of the obsidian shard. When this knife is used to
kill a living creature, its intestines can be used by the wielder to prophesy the near future. The clarity
and usefulness of the prophecy depends on the victim: a large animal (ram, hog or larger) is treated as
Prophecy 1, an unconscious human as Prophecy 2, and a conscious human as Prophecy 3.
An oracular knife can be used at most once per adventure. Once a wielder receives a prophecy of their
own death, the knife stops functioning for several months if that death does not come to pass as
predicted.
Potion of Fluidity
Cost: Wealth 2
Sorcerous
Drinking this potion briefly turns you into sentient water, handy for getting under doors but definitely a
shock to your system. Gain the Adversary Special Ability Fluidity for up to 5 rounds. When you revert
back to your normal state, make a Health 5 test or drop Unconscious.
Reputation Charm
Sorcerous
Location: Head
A small and unassuming pendant causes you to be viewed as far more important than you actually are.
Anyone who looks at you knows, without doubt or conscious thought, that you’re one of the most
important people in Eversink. They will treat you accordingly, usually with servile deference. If your
Allegiances are obvious, it will be assumed that you’re one of the leaders of that faction; if they aren’t,
most people will assume you’re a member of the Triskadane.
Barring unusual circumstances, this pendant can be used for one day only once activated, from the time
of activation to the next midnight, before vanishing and appearing somewhere else within the city.
There is no known way to stop it from vanishing.
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Tabriel’s Favor
Cost: As a gift, or Thieves’ Guilds Allegiance spend 3
Sorcerous
Location: Body
The Harbor Knives is a Thieves’ Guild. Their Guildmistress Tabriel definitely plays favorites, and it’s said
that her patience is short even at the best of times. She has several pairs of boots that she gifts to her
best-earning thieves, or to those with whom she wishes to curry favor. The boots vanish when Tabriel’s
favor shifts, usually stranding you in danger somewhere in an unfamiliar part of the city. The boots
blend in perfectly with whatever else you wear, appearing beautifully polished or filthy and scuffed as
appropriate. When not being worn they appear to be made from dark and supple leather with
stitchwork to fine for the eye to see.
Activate the boots by spending a pool point of Allies: Thieves’ Guilds or Favors: Thieves’ Guilds. For the
rest of the scene, the boots allow you and your companions to move across Eversink in less than half the
time it usually takes. While you don’t seem to teleport, city landmarks flow oddly around you: a door to
a hall may lead to a rooftop instead, and a trapdoor in the roof then leads to the sewers. If you keep
your destination in mind, you’ll end up there quickly. These won’t let you walk to an end destination you
haven’t seen, but they’ll usually get you close.
Runes
Runes are small, ancient stones with a sigil carved into them. You must grasp the rune tightly in one
hand for its magic to take effect. When you do, the rune appears within your thoughts, and you can
draw on that rune to improve or influence a Sway attack. In this regard runes are comparable to how a
magical weapon affects physical combat.
Runestones predate humanity and are considered corrupting by the Church. They are extremely rare but
can sometimes be purchased if you know the right people.
Runes work five times before losing their magical effect for several years. Their use leaves a slowly
fading sorcerous brand on the victim that can be seen by those with ranks of Corruption or Spirit Sight.
Rune of Belief
Cost: Wealth 5
Sorcerous
Location: Off-hand
This ancient rune is shaped like a humanoid snake and makes your words particularly sinuous and
believable. Once per scene after triggering the rune with a successful Sway attack, you can tell a lie to
the person you just successfully attacked. No matter how outrageous the lie, your target will firmly
believe that you believe the lie to be true — and they may believe it as well, depending on the
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circumstances. Other people within earshot are under no compunction to believe the lie, but they will
be unable to convince your target that you’re lying.
Your target will tend to obsess over your lie. Over the course of several days it will gradually consume
them as they dream of it and go over and over it. They will take 2 Morale damage per day; if this loss
drives them below 0, they may break and come to you begging to be shown that what you said was true.
Either way, the certainty (and any obsession) ends at the end of your adventure.
Rune of Fury
Cost: Wealth 5
Sorcerous
Location: Off-hand
Shaped like a spiraling fire, this rune incites anger and jealousy in others. Once per scene after triggering
the rune with a successful Sway attack, you can make your target utterly furious at a third party. You can
incite murderous envy, extreme jealousy, or incandescent anger — often enough to incite someone to
murder. Your target will remember your conversation but will typically be too busy obsessing about the
third party to think it unusual.
As soon as your target spills the third party’s blood or takes other hostile actions against them (including
compromising them socially), the effect of the rune quickly fades, typically leaving them filled with
remorse.
Rune of Generosity
Cost: Wealth 5
Sorcerous
Location: Off-hand
Shaped like a coin, this rune causes exceptional generosity. Once per scene after triggering the rune
with a successful Sway attack, your target decides that their wealth is best off with people who need it
more than they do, and they’ll offer a portion of their wealth (up to Wealth 5) to those who they think
need it the most. Whether or not this is you depends on how convincing you are. Once they come to
their senses in following scenes, they will remember their rush of unexpected philanthropy and may
seek to regain their wealth by any means possible.
Rune of Humiliation
Cost: Wealth 5
Sorcerous
Location: Off-hand
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Shaped like a twisting circle, this rune triggers humiliating social faux pas in your target. Once per scene
after triggering the rune with a successful Sway attack, your target is primed to utterly humiliate
themselves in public during either this or the following scene. They ignore proper social conventions, act
rudely, and engage in spectacular forms of self-sabotage. As the effect of the rune fades, they will have
no memory of the conversation that triggered their social downfall.
Sorcerous Protection
Protection items help keep you safe. These include magical armor, shields, and sorcerous wards.
Amulet of Spiraling Agony

Sorcerous
Location: Head or Body
This ancient snake-shaped amulet is a remedy against Sorcery; when you take damage from Sorcery, the
caster of the spell immediately loses 1 Health and 1 Morale as the magic recoils. Armor and Grit does
not prevent this. It’s meant as encouragement for the sorcerer to leave you alone and go attack
someone else, and sorcerers tend to destroy every single one they find.
Endless Prayer
Cost: unique (must be freely given)
Sorcerous
There are many ancient, primal prayers to Denari that only one person can recite at a time — but
reciting each prayer is obsessively all-consuming and constant, distracting you while awake and filling
even your dreams. You seem distant and emotionally detached. While an endless prayer echoes in your
head, gain Grit 2. If you permanently give the prayer away to a priest or official in the Church of Denari,
gain Favor: Church of Denari 1.
The prayer may change hosts once per scene, usually because the previous host wants to think about
something else for a change. No one knows what happens to Denari if someone dies while reciting the
prayer.
Saint Velendo’s Reliquary

Cost: Wealth 7 (more commonly found for free by those who need them most)
Sorcerous
Location: Any location (your choice)
Whether it’s a tooth, a fingerbone, or a small lock of hair, the fragmented remains of Saint Velendo’s
corpse are considered a sovereign remedy against disease. If you carry one while making a Health or
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Morale test to resist a disease, gain a +6 bonus on the first such test. The second Health or Morale test
you make against a disease is at +4, the third is at +2, and then the reliquary disappears to be found by
someone else. You are left with a golden coin worth Wealth 3.
If you own a Reliquary for three adventures and it is never used, don’t be surprised if it disappears and is
replaced by a golden coin worth Wealth 5.
Warding Charm
Cost: Wealth 2
Sorcerous
Location: Any location (your choice)
Instantly invoke a Warding Charm to take half damage from any one Health or Morale attack, decided
after you learn what the normal damage would be. The Warding Charm is destroyed once used, and you
may only trigger one Warding Charm per adventure.
Sorcerous Weapons
If it’s used to hurt someone with the Warfare ability, it counts as a weapon.
Anchor Knife
Cost: Wealth 5
Sorcerous
Location: Primary Hand
An anchor knife is used to briefly stop a moving object in its tracks, whether it’s a person, a ship, a
wagon, or a gondola. To do so, use Warfare to successfully attack the target and roll damage normally
(Damage Modifier +0). Leave the knife in the wound. Every round that you stay within Close range and
pay 1 point from your Sorcery pool, the target cannot move from their current location. A person can
talk, attack, scream, and flail, but they can’t easily leave their current spot and they can’t remove the
knife from their wound until you fail to pay a point of Sorcery. Extreme effort (a Difficulty 8 Athletics
test) will allow someone to move for one round.
If used on a moving vessel or vehicle, the craft will stop abruptly but the people and goods on it may
not. Depending on speed, a GM may ask for Athletics tests from people on board to keep their feet.
An anchor knife doesn’t suspend people or objects in mid-air. If used on something falling (which usually
requires you to fall as well), it will continue to fall and then be unable to move from its landing spot as
long as you’re in Close range and paying the cost each round. If this is underwater, the results can be
unfortunate.
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Chantry (heavy mace)
Sorcerous
This ancient weapon is useful for inquisitors and those who must confront spirits. Through sheer force of
will, the heavy mace (Damage Modifier +2) allows the wielder to spend points of Social Investigative
pools (Command, Intimidation, and the like) and treat them as if they were spent points of Spirit Sight
instead. In this way, insubstantial spirits can briefly be forced into physical form and Corruption scars
can be healed.
Eel Blade (saber)

Sorcerous
This blade crackles with electricity and has a hilt shaped like a coiling eel, with Damage Modifier +1. If
you use a Maneuver to Daze a foe, the Maneuver’s Difficulty to resist is raised by +2. If you have one foe
Dazed and attempt to Daze a different foe, the first foe regains their senses.
The Falcon’s Eye (crossbow)

Cost: Wealth 2
Sorcerous
Location: Primary and Off-Hand
This crossbow (Damage Modifier +2) is exceptionally stable, aided during precision shooting by the
faintest amount of sorcery. The Critical Hit step is reduced from every 5 points above the Health
Threshold to every 4. It’s illegal for anyone to own one who isn’t a member of the Black Swans (the
Triskadane’s secret police), or who doesn’t have a special permit.
Hunger (greataxe)
Sorcerous
The haft and blade of this axe (Damage Modifier +2) are inscribed with miniature scenes depicting the
foes it has vanquished, but it always hungers for more. After a successful Warfare attack roll, the wielder
can unleash its power to add +6 to the result, which can improve a Critical Hit by +1 die or add an
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additional two Cleave targets. Once this power has been discharged, it is unavailable until recharged by
spending 8 Refresh tokens.
When Hunger defeats an enemy worth 5 or more Refresh tokens, a scene illustrating the new victory
joins the others.
Lament (sword)
Sorcerous
When it slashes into a foe, this ancient longsword (Damage Modifier +1) emits the sounds of lament and
sorrow the target’s loved ones will make once they learn the target is dead. In addition to inflicting
normal Warfare damage to Health, the target must make a Difficulty 4/Loss 4 Morale test when hit. If
the GM determines that no one will mourn the target once they are dead, no Morale test is needed.
Leech (short sword)

Sorcerous
This short sword (Damage Modifier +0) is vaguely sentient and always hungry. On a successful hit, the
wielder instinctively knows that they can sacrifice their own Health to do more damage. If they decline,
nothing happens. If they agree, they may choose any amount of their own Health to sacrifice to the
sword: it then drinks an equal amount of Health from the foe being stabbed.
Once Leech has drunk 10 points of Health total during a day, it becomes even hungrier and the wielder
no longer has the option to decline sacrificing at least one point of their own Health per hit.
Lifedrinker (mace)
Sorcerous
Every time you slay a foe with this mace (Damage Modifier +1), heal one point of Health. The corpses
you leave behind appear twisted and withered, and continue to groan or scream for the rest of the
scene despite being dead.
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Slaughterer’s Sword (greatsword)
Cost: Wealth 5 (illegal in Eversink)
Sorcerous
When the City Watch hears about hideous mass murder, they always fear that someone with a cursed
slaughterer’s sword (Damage Modifier +2) is to blame. There’s a demonic rage spirit captured within the
blade, and it glories in the actions of weak-willed humans. Even if left behind or locked away, it will
somehow follow its chosen wielder, appearing conveniently nearby when a fight breaks out.
This greatsword forces you to go berserk for the remainder of the fight if you fail a Difficulty 4 Morale
test any time you are injured. You may also go berserk voluntarily.
While berserk, roll damage for your Warfare attacks as normal. Now deal damage as though every die
were a 6, and take the difference as Morale damage. Nothing can stop or reduce this loss, although it
can be healed normally.
Your normal damage is 1 die +2. You roll a 4 on the die. You deal 8 damage (6 + 2), but take 2
points of Morale damage (8 – 6).
You roll a 2-die Critical Hit from a very high attack roll (you spent more than 6 Warfare when
attacking, so the minimum damage on your first damage die is 6), and you also have +1 die from
a teamwork attack. Your damage is 3 dice +6 +2. You roll 5, 3, 1 — you deal 26 damage, and
take 9 points of Morale damage.
If your Morale hits zero, you continue to fight but you no longer get to select your targets rationally, and
you won't stop until you’re put down or everyone else in sight is.
If you wish to leave your berserk state early, you may do so by succeeding at a Difficulty 6 Morale test
(at least until you’re damaged again and once more need to resist berserking).
GM Note: Be cautious about putting this in the hands of a powerful Adversary, especially those with the
ability to increase their weapon damage through Special Abilities or Investigative spends. It has the
potential to defeat most Heroes in one or two shots if they get too close, and that’s not necessarily a
desirable tactic for a fun fight.
Swordbreaker (rapier)
Sorcerous
This thin sword (Damage Modifier +1) is supple and flexible. It is engraved with one prayer to Denari
etched over and over again in tiny, precise letters: “Taxes and faith are stronger than steel.” Holding the
sword makes you easier to strike in combat, lowering your Health Threshold by 1.
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Holding Swordbreaker grants you mystical sight, showing your enemies limned in golden light except for
the portions of their anatomy that are weakest and most vulnerable. You gain a partial benefit of Spot
Frailty 3, allowing you to ignore 3 points of a foe’s Armor when attacking. You do not gain this benefit
against your foe’s Grit.
These pool points of Spot Frailty cannot be spent for the normal benefit, but you can spend all 3 pool
points at once to instantly shatter a foe’s magical or mundane weapon when that foe successfully strikes
you. Damage from their attack is applied to them as well, and they’re left holding only the broken shards
of their weapon. Swordbreaker is equally effective against natural weapons such as claws or teeth;
shattering such a natural weapon triggers a Difficulty 6 Morale test or the attacker retreats.
Unlike your own Investigative abilities, Swordbreaker’s Spot Frailty pool points refresh at a rate of one
per scene.
In rare cases an attacker’s weapon is not permanently destroyed by Swordbreaker, usually because it’s
an important plot hook or because the attacker is loaded down with ridiculous luck. Even then, the
affected weapon needs repair and likely remains useless for the rest of the adventure.
Thirst (knife)
Sorcerous
Location: Primary or Off-Hand
This wicked stiletto (Damage Modifier +0) appears to be fashioned from transparent crystal. For a short
time after it takes a life, however, the blade is blood-red, no matter how carefully it is cleaned.
If Thirst drops a foe as the result of a Critical Hit, the usual Refresh token reward is tripled. If Thirst is left
unsated for too long, the wielder will gradually become more and more restless and distracted. A
longing to hunt and feed starts to intrude on their dreams and eventually their waking thoughts.
Staves
Sorcerously imbued staves contain no reservoir of Corruption but add specific Sorcerous Spheres to your
repertoire. These Spheres target either Health or Morale; you can use that Sphere regardless of what
your own Sorcery targets. Staves can only be used by someone with one or more ranks of Corruption.
More powerful staves contain two Sorcerous Spheres instead of one and have a Damage Modifier of +2
instead of +1.
There are a huge number of possible staves, as their themes are only limited by imagination. Several
sample staves follow.
Staff: Demogogue
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Sorcerous
Location: Off-hand
Demogogue appears as an attractive, highly polished ebony cane. It grants access to the Worship Sphere
which targets Morale. It’s usually found in the hands of someone who appears tremendously popular,
and who is surrounded by slavishly devoted toadies.
Staff: The Shambling Staff

Sorcerous
Location: Off-hand
This staff is constructed of fused bones, with a small skull atop it that could easily be human. Holding the
Shambling Staff grants you access to the Necromancy and Flesh Sorcerous Spheres, both of which target
Health. The Damage Modifier is +2. Be warned; if the Shambling Staff is found unattended, it’s usually in
a graveyard or mausoleum, and it surrounds itself with unquiet dead.
Staff: Stormtoss’d
Sorcerous
Location: Off-hand
Stormtoss’d appears as an old, long, gnarled piece of driftwood used as a walking stick. Holding
Stormtoss’d grants you access to the Ocean Sphere which targets Health. When dipped into salt water,
you may transform it into a luminescent ghost ship of a size that holds between 4 and 20 people, or
larger if the GM allows.
Tokens
Tokens are lucky charms that affect or influence Maneuvers. Tokens usually have a physical
manifestation, such as a lucky seagull’s foot that’s been mummified and spangled with small beads, but
not always; it’s quite possible for a Token that affects Morale-based Maneuvers to simply be something
that a Hero can do, without needing a physical manifestation of the ability. In these cases, such a Token
is usually the temporary gift of a small god or some other power.
Unless of unusual power, Tokens can be used once per scene and stop working for a few years after
being used five times. Particularly weak Tokens only work three times or fewer.
Token of Blackjacks
Cost: Wealth 2
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Sorcerous
Location: Any
A Token of Blackjacks makes it easier to Daze someone with a blow to the head or with shocking or
terrifying news. If you use a Maneuver to Daze a foe, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is raised by +2. If
someone tries to Daze you, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is reduced by –2.
Token of Broken Rules

Cost: Wealth 2
Sorcerous
Location: Any
A Token of Broken Rules makes it easier to convince someone to do something reasonable that they
wouldn’t normally allow, such as sharing confidential documents or giving you access to a locked room.
If you use a Maneuver that includes a convincing argument designed to change someone’s mind about a
minor choice, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is raised by +2. If someone tries to convince you to do
something against your better judgment, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is reduced by –2.
Token of the Constricting Serpent

Cost: Wealth 2
Sorcerous
Location: Any
A Token of the Constricting Serpent makes it easier to prevent a foe from moving. If you use a Maneuver
that restrains someone physically or mentally, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is raised by +2. If someone tries
to restrain you, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is reduced by –2.
Token of Grease
Cost: Wealth 2
Sorcerous
Location: Any
A Token of Grease makes it easier to trip someone or shove them from place to place. If you use a
Maneuver that moves someone or knocks them off their feet, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is raised by +2.
If someone tries to trip or shove you, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is reduced by –2.
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Token of Misdirection
Cost: Wealth 2
Sorcerous
Location: Any
A Token of Misdirection makes it easier to trick someone, whether with a sorcerous illusion or a well-
crafted lie. If you use a Maneuver that tries to fool someone, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is raised by +2. If
someone tries to use a Maneuver to trick you, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is reduced by –2.
Token of the Scampering Blade

Cost: Wealth 2
Sorcerous
Location: Any
A Token of the Scampering Blade makes it easier to disarm a foe. If you use a Maneuver that knocks
whatever your enemy is holding out of their hands, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is raised by +2; make a
Difficulty 4 Athletics test to then catch it in your spare hand. If someone tries to disarm you, the
Maneuver’s Difficulty is reduced by –2.
Token of Spiraling Darkness

Cost: Wealth 2
Sorcerous
Location: Any
A Token of Spiraling Darkness makes it easier to temporarily blind an enemy. If you use a Maneuver that
prevents a foe from perceiving their surroundings, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is raised by +2. If someone
tries to blind you, the Maneuver’s Difficulty is reduced by –2.
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CHAPTER SEVEN: ADVERSARIES
Character Nomenclature
Different characters in the game world are referred to by different names to help you keep their
capabilities straight.
Heroes
A player character is referred to in the rules as a Hero. This is true even if they don’t necessarily act
heroically; you can easily have Heroes who are only looking out for themselves. If you think about your
adventures as sword & sorcery stories, they’d be on the cover of the novel or collection of short stories.
Supporting Characters
Supporting Characters are people in the game world who the Heroes won’t likely fight. They seldom
have combat statistics. If they are unimportant to the narrative, they likely have 1 Health and 1 Morale,
can’t resist Maneuvers without being defeated, and are defeated by a single successful attack.
Supporting Characters don’t provide Refresh tokens when defeated in a fight.
Companions
A Companion is a highly specialized Supporting Character who accompanies your Heroes on an
adventure. They may be a torchbearer, a faithful family servant, a paid henchman, or a semi-tame
bonded animal companion. Give Companions a fun or interesting personality. Companions are usually
only good at one or two things, so you should introduce a Companion to make up for an important
ability that the Heroes otherwise lack. Specialties such as guiding, healing, prophecy, protocol,
wilderness survival, cooking, or even fighting are all fair game for a Companion.
GM Advice: Building a Companion

Bonded animal and human Companions are staples of sword & sorcery novels. Whether they’re only
around for a single adventure or they have a recurring role, Companions use their limited and
specialized abilities in the best interest of the Heroes until they’re betrayed, treated badly, or there’s a
very good reason for them not to stay loyal.
Companions don’t have full character sheets like a normal Hero; that’s more record-keeping than
anyone needs. Instead, construct a Companion with a normal stat block like an Adversary (see p. XX)
giving them enough Health and Morale to survive a fight, a fixed attack bonus (often +0 or +1), 10-15
points of Malus, and specific Special Abilities as appropriate. Companions may also get up to 3
Investigative ranks in the abilities they specialize in. If they choose, they can spend these pool points to
assist Heroes.
A Hero can often turn a Supporting Character into a Companion for one or more adventures by spending
a point of High Repute or an appropriate Social Investigative point. A Hero can sometimes turn a hostile
animal into a Companion for one or more adventures by spending points of Wilderness Mastery.
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Adversaries
Any named non-player human character that the Heroes are likely to fight is an Adversary. Most
Adversaries have combat statistics and provide Refresh tokens when defeated in a fight. Powerful or
narratively important Adversaries may have ways to (briefly) reduce the amount of damage they suffer
in a fight.
Monstrosities
A Monstrosity is a non-human Adversary. Most foes in Swords of the Serpentine are human, but
monstrosities exist in the undercity, the swamps, and the outer world at large. Monstrosities have
unique abilities you generally won’t see in a human foe and may be uniquely horrific or challenging to
defeat. While they’re known to exist, most ‘Sinkish citizens live their entire lives only seeing a few
Monstrosities – and even then, usually stuffed and displayed in a sideshow or museum.
Mooks
Mooks are Adversaries who are particularly easy to defeat. Narratively unimportant and intended as
cannon fodder in a big fight, Mooks have 1 Health and 1 Morale. They can’t resist Maneuvers without
being defeated, and in combat they are defeated after being hit with a single successful attack unless
their Armor or Grit protects them. What defines a Mook isn’t their strength or hardiness (or the lack
thereof), but rather their importance to the plot. If they’d be played by an extra in the movie of your
game, and they don’t have a name, they’re probably a Mook.
While they may not matter narratively, Mooks aren’t necessarily a pushover in combat. Sure, they go
down in a single hit, but they can be quite lethal before that happens. Heroes shouldn’t ever take them
for granted in a fight, and it’s usually good tactical sense in a confrontation to take out as many Mooks
as possible as quickly as possible.
GM Advice: Making Mooks Matter

Every once in a while you want your adventure’s final confrontation to have the feel of an epic screen battle where
the heroes defeat all the minions before coming for the primary villain. The original Conan movie comes to mind,
as does the House of Blue Leaves scene in Kill Bill Vol. 1. If you ever want to achieve this in your own game, just tell
the players that the villain only takes half damage until all the Mooks are defeated. Trust us, they’ll prioritize their
attacks accordingly.
If you do this, just don’t make it a surprise for the players. They’ll have much more fun if they can plan tactically.
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Adversaries
Template for Building Adversaries
Every non-player character, whether bystander, Mook, Monster, or Adversary, uses the same basic stat
block. Categories that aren’t needed are omitted from the stat block.
Name
Roleplaying adjectives
Defense – Health: Health Threshold, Armor, Health

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold, Grit, Morale
Offense – Warfare: +X; Damage Modifier +Y
Offense – Sorcery: +X; Damage Modifier +Y
Offense – Sway: +X; Damage Modifier +Y
Abilities: Investigative abilities (if any); General abilities; Malus
Special Abilities: special ability (cost, if any)
Misc: Alertness Modifier if not 0, Stealth Modifier if not 0; any unique advice needed to run the
creature
Refresh Tokens: 1, 3, 5 or 7
Description: Who they are and what they look like
Variations: Very similar variants that don’t need their own stat block
Adversary Health and Morale Thresholds

For most Adversaries, Health and Morale Thresholds are calculated the same way they are for Heroes:
10 or more ranks of Health or Morale gives a Threshold of 4 instead of 3.
You are always encouraged to tweak and customize an Adversary’s game statistics if an Adversary is
more or less vulnerable than their Health or Morale ranks might suggest, or to make a fight more fun,
interesting, or challenging. An easy-to-kill insect monster with only 1 Health might be very fast and thus
have a Health Threshold of 4, 5 or 6; a relentless swamp giant with high Morale might be very
superstitious or gullible, with a Morale Threshold of only 3.
Adversary Survivability and Effectiveness

Use the guidelines below to adjust the length and danger of a battle. As the GM, you should alter and
tweak Adversary stats as you see fit; they are benchmarks and guidelines, not hard-and-fast absolutes.
You have four main methods of adjusting an Adversary: their survivability (by changing their defenses),
their combat effectiveness (by changing their likelihood of hitting and doing extra damage), their unique
abilities (by adding to or removing their special abilities), and the combat balance (by determining how
many and what kind of foes threaten your Heroes).
Combat Survivability
Unlike Heroes, all foes are defeated when their Health or Morale reaches 0 — it’s just simpler to keep
track of. Narratively important foes who are losing a fight often try to escape if they believe they’ll be
defeated.
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• Easy foe (mook): Health 1 and Morale 1; usually no Armor or Grit.
• Moderate foe (named adversary): Health and Morale up to 12; Armor and Grit up to 2.
• Hard foe: Health and Morale 12 or higher, or (for fights that last multiple rounds) can be
calculated at 10 per hero; Armor and Grit 2 or higher, may possess the special abilities Warded
(Malus cost 6) and/or Defense Boost (cost 6).
• Deadly foe: Health and Morale calculated at 15 to 30 or more per Hero; Armor or Grit may be 3
or higher (usually not both); likely possesses the special abilities Warded (Malus cost 6) and/or
Defense Boost (cost 6).
Combat Effectiveness
If you find that fights initially seem easier than they should be, be sure that you’re using Malus to trigger
crits, Maneuvers, and special abilities when it’s fun or exciting to do so. This can make a large difference
in the amount of threat the Heroes perceive.
• Easy foe: Set attack bonuses to -1, 0, or +1; never add any Malus to attack rolls.
• Moderate foe: Set attack bonuses to +1 or +2; add up to +1 Malus on important attack rolls, or
more on Maneuvers.
• Hard foe: Set attack bonuses to +2; add up to +2 Malus on attack rolls (makes a hit very likely,
makes a critical hit possible), or more on Maneuvers.
• Deadly foe: Set attack bonuses to +3; add up to +4 Malus on attack rolls (makes a hit certain,
makes a critical hit very likely), or more on Maneuvers.
Unique Abilities
• Easy foe: Remove all but the most basic of Special Abilities, with enough Malus to trigger it
once.
• Moderate foe: Use any of the foe’s Special Abilities whose effect you can remember without
looking it up.
• Hard foe: Use any of the foe’s Special Abilities, and look up the less common ones before the
fight. Remove or add Special Abilities to match the foe’s personality.
• Deadly foe: Feature the most impressive Special Abilities early in the combat, leading with
memorable strategies that might scare the Heroes (and which will remind them that they might
want to use defensive tactics to stay alive and triumph). Look up Special Abilities before the fight
and customize them as needed to make this enemy feel unique.
Combat Balance
• A small number of Mooks will likely fall to a single hero’s attack.
• A crowd of Mooks (3 or more per Hero) will be diminished quickly if the Heroes have initiative,
but might inflict surprising amounts of damage if the Mooks go first in the fight.
• Waves of Mooks (2 to 4 per Hero, per wave) provide a satisfying multi-round fight, but can get
out of hand quickly if the Mooks are Moderately Effective or better in combat.
• Several foes with Moderate to Hard Survivability, accompanied by several waves of Mooks,
provides a very satisfying fight.
• A single massive foe, with no Mooks to distract the heroes, needs Deadly Survivability to last
more than a round or two of combat. Create single massive foes with the ability to attack more
than one Hero per round.
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Scaling Health and Morale for Climactic Battles
The final fight of an adventure tends to have very high damage output from Heroes because there’s no
reason for them not to spend their remaining Investigative points as bonus damage with each successful
hit. That’s a good thing; it helps the players feel heroic and effective, it encourages cinematic
Maneuvers, and it steers combat towards ending an adventure with a bang instead of a whimper.
This can be a problem, however, when combats end too quickly or without enough threat because you
haven’t scaled the climactic encounter to the size of your group. With Mooks, you can easily use waves
of them each round to continue challenging a larger group of Heroes. With named Adversaries and
monsters, though, a six-player gaming group is going to end a fight against a single terrifying Adversary
much more quickly and efficiently than a three-player group might.
The solution is linking a climactic Adversary’s Health and Morale to the number of Heroes in that fight. If
you want a fight to last three rounds, for instance, and the average Health or Morale damage per round
when Heroes pull out all the stops is 10 points per Hero, you might set a single climactic Adversary’s
Health or Morale at 30 points per Hero. You might go higher in either ability if the Adversary is
notoriously healthy or strong-willed, or lower if they’re particularly sickly or fearful.
This isn’t an exact equation. Defense Boost, Armor and Grit make an Adversary harder to defeat, as does
Healing and the Warded special ability, as does the breakdown of how many Heroes primarily attack
Health or Morale (or use Teamwork); and any other targets on the battlefield siphon off attacks against
the primary foe, usually allowing it to survive for longer.
Your job as GM is to make the game fun and challenging, so you may vary these numbers mid-fight if
you wish. Always let Heroes be defeated by bad luck or bad tactics, but if you significantly under- or
over-estimated how difficult a monster would be to fight, make that correction on the fly to make the
game more fun for everyone. You also have control of deciding when in a fight a villain triggers the
Defense Boost or Warded special abilities, which may buy your Adversary an additional round or two for
trying to escape.
Finally, don’t panic if you made your Adversary too strong and the Heroes are defeated. Defeat doesn’t
usually mean death in this game, but rather capture, and that just gives the Heroes a later opportunity
for a heroic escape.
Adversary Armor and Grit

Armor and Grit vary tremendously from one Adversary to another. A knight might be incredibly well
armored and have a shield, making them hard to hit and hard to hurt, but will drop quickly once injured
because they only have 5 Health. When you want to customize an opponent, increase or reduce their
Armor and Grit to make them an interesting and fun challenge for the Heroes. This also provides a
satisfying victory for Heroes who have invested points in Spot Frailty.
The Armor and Grit of some Adversaries will vary depending on how players describe their attack. For
instance, many undead lose their Grit when players describe their Sway attacks as being a prayer, and
vampires lose their Armor and Grit when confronted by a bane. This technique can be fun and highly
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flavorful, allowing Heroes to bypass significant defenses, and Heroes with ranks in Know Monstrosities
should be given this information whenever it might be useful.
Alertness and Stealth Modifiers

Some Adversaries may be unusually wary or may be particularly adept at noticing movement, heat, faint
sound, life signs, or any other appropriate sensory data. Give them a higher than usual Alertness
Modifier. Every point of bonus increases the target number that a Hero must reach when being stealthy.
Lowering an Adversary’s Alertness Modifier makes it easier for a Hero to be stealthy.
Similarly, Adversaries may have Stealth Modifiers higher than 0; each point of bonus raises the Difficulty
for a Hero to detect them. Lowering an Adversary’s Stealth Modifier, even below 0, makes them easier
to notice.
Malus: The Wild Card General Ability

Malus (pronounced almost like “malice”) serves as an Adversary’s stand-in for any number of other
Abilities. The more Malus an Adversary has, the greater and more flexible their capabilities are. Spend
Malus when you want an Adversary to appear particularly stylish or competent.
When running an Adversary or Supporting Character, you can:
• Trade Malus for any General ability (e.g. Athletics during chase scenes) on a 1 for 1 basis
• Supplement your static attack bonus by using Malus as Warfare, Sway or Sorcery points
• Spend Malus when you want to score a critical hit
• Spend 3 points of Malus to gain a temporary Investigative pool point in an ability you consider
appropriate
• Use Malus to trigger Special Abilities (p. XX)
• Spend Malus to create more powerful Maneuvers
Chases
GMs should determine the appropriate size of an Adversary’s Athletics pool and convert it from Malus
before a Chase begins. That prevents an Adversary with a large Malus pool from always winning a Chase.
It’s up to the GM how much Malus to convert; 10 points puts them on par with most Heroes, so adjust
upwards or downwards from there depending on how fast and wily the Adversary is. For well-prepared
Adversaries, Malus could also be turned into Preparedness as a Chase key ability.
Attacks and Damage

Most Adversaries have static attack bonuses, ranging from -1 (for an Adversary who is truly dreadful at
accuracy) to +3 or higher (for a very dangerous Adversary or Monstrosity who reliably hits with every
attack). Malus may be used to supplement it, with each point spent increasing the static attack bonus by
+1 for that attack. An Adversary with a +1 static Warfare bonus who spends 4 points of Malus (giving
them a +5 attack bonus for that attack) rolls a minimum of 4 points on their damage die. Adversaries
using Malus to supplement their static attack bonus may score Critical Hits, as described on p. XX, if the
result is high enough.
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Damage Modifiers
Adversary damage is usually listed as a Damage Modifier, the amount added to or subtracted from a
damage die. The nature of the damage, and if relevant whether the attack targets Health or Morale, is
also specified.
Fixed Damage for Mooks
Mooks usually have a fixed damage amount instead of a Damage Modifier, such as Damage 2 (rusty
knife). When using fixed damage, any successful attack does this much Health or Morale damage as
appropriate, with no damage roll needed. This is done to speed up combat when using Mooks and to
limit the amount of damage that weaker foes inflict. if you prefer to roll a damage die instead of taking
the set amount, you should do so.
This is also true for Mooks whose attacks use fixed damage: Damage 2 (rusty knife) would rise to
Damage 4 (rusty knife) if the Mook spent 4 points of Malus to supplement her normal +0 attack. (The
point spend is the minimum, not an addition.)
Investigative Abilities on the Fly

An Adversary’s on-the-fly Investigative abilities are most useful for effects linked to their roleplaying
adjectives that describe their personality. For instance, if a military officer is described as commanding,
you shouldn’t hesitate to spend 3 Malus for the effects of an Investigative Command spend. If a noble is
described as gossipy, you should feel confident spending 6 Malus for the effect of an extraordinarily
adept Scurrilous Rumors. Use these ad hoc Investigative abilities when they’re needed, just not in
combat. You can also ignore this capability if it’s more detail than you need or want.
GM Advice: Choosing Adversary Investigative Abilities

Only very rarely should you use an Adversary’s Malus to power Investigative abilities that they’ll use in combat for
extra damage, such as Tactics of Death or Corruption. That’s what the “Extra Damage” or “Spellcasting” special
abilities represent. It’s a great surprise against overconfident Heroes, but this tactic can change a balanced
encounter to one with dead Heroes unfairly scattered around the battlefield. When an Adversary has the expected
ability to regularly inflict extra damage, this is specified under their Special Abilities.
Adversary Special Abilities

Special abilities that aren’t constantly active usually have either special conditions when they activate or
a cost in Malus. Special abilities that are constantly active don’t have a Malus cost.
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Choosing Special Abilities
Once you have the general shape of the Adversary in mind, choose special abilities. Our advice?
When building an Adversary from scratch, simplicity works in your favor. Resist the urge to add so many
special abilities that you can’t remember what they do. Do not build Adversaries by starting with a point-
buy budget and selecting abilities: this list isn’t balanced in such a way, and doing so will create an
overpowered, confusing villain.
Adversaries should be built on a theme, and should underscore what makes that foe unusual,
memorable, or effective. Instead of going through the list below and saying, “Oh, this looks cool, as does
this, as does this…” it’s most effective to give some thought to what your Adversary might be capable of
without any game rules in mind. A conniving noble might use Venom and be a Mastermind, while a
murderous barbarian lord might have Strength and move incredibly quickly in a fight.
A foul sorcerer, unsurprisingly, will have the ability to manipulate Corruption and do extra damage, but
individual sorcerer’s spells vary tremendously by Sphere, and Sway attacks can be anything from
convincing whispers to hideous supernatural fear.
It’s always easier to add an ability on the fly than it is to have to juggle a half-dozen different capabilities
written down in your notes. Never feel bad about adding abilities on the fly, either; if you need your
Adversary to fling a Hero across the street, but you forgot to write down Strength as a special ability,
just describe the throw and cross off 2 Malus from the Adversary’s pool.
Don’t forget that Special Abilities can change any foe’s tactics. A sunken room of mutated spiders may
be Mooks, but they certainly have Spider Climb and Venom. A Mook guard may still be able to Summon
allies if she can only get to her warning gong before she’s struck down.
GM Advice: Choosing Adversary Special Abilities

In the interest of good GMing, no Special Ability should ever be instantly lethal to the Heroes it affects.
Teleportation is rare even in sorcerers and monstrous opponents, as it doesn’t occur often in classic sword &
sorcery stories. As a result, it has a high cost. If you decide it should be more common, or even rarer, adjust the
cost accordingly.
Designer Notes: The Power of Good Allies

Scott Lynch’s novel The Lies of Locke Lamora features the Bondsmages of Karthain, a mage’s guild with an
unbreakable promise to the world: kill one of our wizards, and we will systematically destroy everything you love
before we destroy you. Everyone lives in fear of crossing their members for very good reasons. It’s an excellent
example of how a guild of close allies can drive future adventure.
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List of Special Abilities

This list is far from comprehensive. If you think of a new, balanced, fun ability while designing an
Adversary, just assign a Malus cost (usually 3 for single-target offense, 6 for multi-target offense, or 6 for
defense), and you’re ready to go. Several abilities (such as Spellcasting or Monstrous Ability) are a catch-
all for any number of other effects. Point costs optimize offense over defense, because it’s more fun to
fight an opponent that does a lot of damage than it is to fight one that’s extremely hard to hurt.
Name Malus Cost Description

Allies 3 The Adversary has powerful allies who they can call on for help. If the
Adversary is killed or seriously injured, the Allies will try to get revenge.
Such Allies are seldom secret from the Heroes trying to destroy the
Adversary.
Armor- 3 Attacks against an enemy’s Health ignore 3 points of Armor for 1 round.
Piercing
Bodyguard 3 per attack By deciding before damage is rolled and interposing themselves, a
blocked bodyguard can take all Health damage inflicted on a single selected ally
in Point-Blank range from weapons and sorcerous attacks, as well as
Maneuvers. A bodyguard can’t block damage from Conditions such as
disease or curses, or Morale damage.
Bolster 2 per 1 Morale Spend Malus to restore Morale to an ally, similar to the General ability
Morale restored Sway. Usually found in servitors and lackeys whose job is to encourage
the main Antagonist.
Death Curse Remainder of This triggers automatically upon the death of a sorcerer, targeting their
Malus killer with a Curse equivalent to the sorcerer’s remaining Malus. It
cannot be used at any other time. The Curse typically takes several
adventures to manifest.In a one-shot adventure, ignore this ability.
Defense 6 At any time, the adversary fights defensively for the round, raising
Boost Health and Morale Thresholds by +3. Health and Morale Thresholds
return to normal at the end of the round unless triggered again.
Disguise 1 for disguise or 3 The Adversary can change their appearance to look like someone else,
for impersonation either through illusion, mundane makeup or shape-shifting. Some
highly talented Adversaries can accurately impersonate a particular
person; doing so costs 3 Malus instead of 1.
If a Hero deliberately tries to penetrate the disguise, treat it as a Stealth
“Spotting Hidden Things” test on p. XX. The Malus spend acts as a
bonus to the Adversary’s Stealth modifier when avoiding detection.
Extra Action 3 Move quickly enough to gain an extra action in one round, which may
be spent attacking. Most Adversaries can only use this once a round,
and choose whether to take both attacks at once, or (more powerfully)
gain a second place in the initiative order. The Adversary can target the
same enemy more than once.
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Extra 3 per die of bonus After successfully hitting, spend 3 Malus to gain a bonus die of Health
Damage damage or Morale damage, describing the action cinematically. Particularly
dangerous Adversaries can spend 6 Malus for 2, or 9 Malus for 3, extra
dice of damage. Most Adversaries can only use this once a round.
Fear 3 against one foe, In addition to your normal action, automatically inflict 3 points of
or 6 against many, Morale damage (or higher) without rolling by doing something
in Close range terrifying. A single target costs 3 Malus; multiple targets costs 6.
Fearsome 3 per combined As one action, perform a Sway attack at the same time as a Warfare
Blow attack attack. Apply Health and Morale damage separately, as appropriate to
the attacks used. For instance, this could be a large monstrosity with a
particular attack that looks devastating.
Flashback 5 per Flashback Like Preparedness, the Adversary has retroactively arranged a plan. The
cost for activating this includes any Malus cost for Preparedness the
Adversary would normally have to make to put their plan in place. Feel
free to describe the Adversary’s Flashback for your players.
Flight 0, or 3 for Using wings or sorcery, the Adversary can levitate or fly. This requiries a
occasional fliers 3-point Malus cost if flying is an unusual activity for the Adversary. The
speed of flight depends on the means used. Less mobile Adversaries
may only be able to levitate, hovering unerringly at any height.
Constant flight, such as a bird’s, does not require a cost in Malus.
Fluid 0, or 6 The Adversary is an amorphous being, such as an ooze, sentient fluid or
a swarm of tiny insects or worms. All physical wounds simply flow
closed, and the Adversary has Armor 5 for attacks against Health.
Attacks against Morale work normally if the Adversary is sentient. They
may move anywhere a fluid can go.
Healing 2 per 1 Health Similar to Bind Wounds, the Adversary can spend Malus to restore
healed Health to an ally who has taken Health damage. It’s most often found in
servitors whose job is to keep the main Antagonist alive.
Hivemind 0 Instantly share knowledge and conversation with other members of the
hivemind. With some time and effort, outsiders can be indoctrinated
into some hiveminds. Creatures in a hivemind can perfectly coordinate
their attacks on enemies: for each extra member of the hivemind in a
combat, one foe’s Health Threshold decreases by 1.
Infection 0 The Adversary is able to spread disease through touch or mere
interaction. Anyone exposed must make a Health test (usually Difficulty
4) to avoid being infected (See p. XX for some example diseases).
Insubstantial 0, or 6 Whether made of smoke or sentient thought, the Adversary is out of
phase and can only touch other insubstantial things, passing through
solid objects as if they were not there, and taking no Health damage
from material sources, including sorcery. If the Adversary isn’t innately
insubstantial, they must pay 6 Malus to activate it.
Invigorate 1 for 1 transfer Restores another’s Malus pool by 1 point for every point of Malus put in
up to a maximum of the ability’s rating, effectively transferring Malus
from one creature to another. This is usually used by servants of a
primary Adversary, minions who willingly drain their own power to
maintain their master’s.
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Invisibility 0, or 6 Some Adversaries can amplify Stealth enough to make themselves
effectively invisible, increasing their Stealth Modifier and Health and
Morale Thresholds against targeted attacks dependant on what the
Adversary is doing each round, from +1 (e.g. covered in flour or
touching a Hero) to +5 (being still and silent). If a Hero spends 1
Vigilance, they gain a +3 Alertness Modifier for the duration of the
scene that acts against your Invisibility’s Stealth Modifier and Health or
Morale Threshold increases. If the Adversary isn’t innately invisible (as a
ghost might be), they must pay 6 Malus to activate it.
Lightning 3 per round The Adversary is incredibly quick, increasing their movement (but not
Speed their attack rate — for that, see Extra Action) to 2 range increments
instead of 1 and still attack, or they can move 3 range increments
without attacking. Their Health and Morale Thresholds rise by +1 for
the round. When used during a foot chase, Lightning Speed adds +2 to
the Adversary’s die roll on a Chase test.
Linger 0 The Adversary is only defeated when both their Health and Morale drop
to 0 (or for more powerful Adversaries, -10). This is particularly
common in undead, which require a prayer (Morale damage) to unbind
the spirit once the corpse has been destroyed with Health damage.
Magical 3 If a target fails a Difficulty 5 Morale test, the Adversary convinces them
Charm that they are confidants, making the target do anything they’d do for a
trusted friend.Upon waking every day, or if the target is damaged or
given self-destructive orders, they can try a Difficulty 4 Morale test;
success frees them from the Charm. Charmed subjects may not even
realize that they are charmed until after it wears off, although they
typically suffer from terrible nightmares.
Mastermind 0 Masterminds are exceedingly rare, designating the most dangerous
Adversaries. The GM is encouraged to pull out all the rat-bastardly,
sneaky, underhanded stops when it comes to a Mastermind’s complex,
subtle plans and tactics, as these Adversaries can find out everything
the GM knows. Masterminds should be used as long-term personal
nemeses, ongoing foes, or extremely memorable villains.
Mind 3 The Adversary can read someone’s mind against their will. If the victim
Reading fails their Morale test, the Adersary can rifle through their recent
memories and read their surface thoughts for the scene. The victim is
usually unaware that the Adversary is doing so.
Monstrous 3 Trigger a monstrous power of the GM’s choice, such as sprouting
Ability tentacles to climb walls or being able to breathe under water. Some
monstrous abilities, like venomous claws, may be used in combat. A
monstrous ability’s effect is comparable to what a player character
could achieve with an Investigative spend.
Oracle 3 The Adversary has visions of the past, present, and future. Many oracles
are “recruited” (because institutional kidnapping is such an ugly word)
by the Church or by Sorcerous Cabals as soon as their prophetic power
reveals itself.
Persuasive 3 Attacks against an enemy’s Morale ignore 3 Grit for 1 round.
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Possession 3 The Adversary can possess a living creatue’s body. They must pay 3
Malus and roll a successful Sorcery or Sway attack, which sets the
Difficulty. The defender must either allow the Adversary to possess
them, or suffer Morale damage equal to the Difficulty –2. The target’s
Armor or Grit reduces this damage if they opt not to accept being
possessed. The Difficulty is raised by +1 for every time in their heroic
adventures the defender’s Morale has dropped to –10 (Broken). In
cases where possession is a strain to maintain, the Malus cost may need
to be paid every round, minute or scene to keep the possession active.
Regenerate 0 The Adversary can regenerate, usually due to supernatural vitality.
Regeneration is a free power that doesn’t require a combat action. The
GM can decide on the type (e.g. some, half, or all), extent (Health
and/or Morale damage) and speed (e.g. immediately, at the beginning
of the next round, between scenes, or (for undead) when killing a foe)
of the regeneration. Regenerating all damage immediately makes it
very hard to kill or demoralize the Adversary unless the Heroes have the
ability to inflict massive amounts of damage in one single attack.
Regenerating damage at the beginning of the next round or longer
allows a coordinated assault by the Heroes to take the Adversary down
to 0 Health or Morale before they can recover. Some Adversaries with
powerful regeneration simply can’t be killed by traditional means, and
Heroes will need to find a craftier way to destroy them.
Seize 3 The Adversary can jump into the initiative order wherever desired,
Initiative often thwarting a player’s best-laid plans.
Shape-Shift 3 The Adversary can reshape their body into a non-humanoid form, such
as a chair or a carpet, or to form rough weapons from body parts.
Shape-Shift is most effective when used with Disguise, assuming the
Adversary doesn’t want their “carpet” to look like a flattened
Adversary.
Spellcasting 3 per effect The Adversary can trigger a magical effect within one or more
Sorcerous Spheres. Spellcasting abilities are comparable to what a Hero
could achieve with a Corruption spend, or can be combined into more
dangerous or impressive effects. The GM should decide ahead of time
how many times this ability can be used; an Adversary with 12 Malus
and the Spellcasting ability shouldn’t turn all their Malus at once into 4
Corruption effects unless they’re already established as a great
sorcerer.
Spider Climb 0 The Adversary can clamber effortlessly up walls and across ceilings.
Stony 0, or 6 The Adversary is made of stone or some similarly hard matter. They
gain Armor 4, and are immune to normal fire, but possibly vulnerable to
acids or other alchemical attacks. Falls that inflict damage might
shatter, crack or chip the Adversary. They sink in water and can’t swim,
but likely do not require breath. If the Adversary isn’t innately made out
of stone (as a possessed statue would be), pay a cost of 6 to activate it.
Strength 0 or more The Adversary is incredibly strong and does +1 (stronger than normal)
to +3 (preternaturally strong) more Warfare damage than normal, for a
cost of 0. Rare monsters such as giants might inflict even more bonus
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damage. Any impressive feat of strength (such as battering down a
bolted door) costs 3. For Adversaries with variable strength or attack
ability, use the Extra Damage ability instead.
Summoning 3 Summoning allows the Adversary to summon help — armed guards,
attack dogs, the City Watch, a team of highly officious and bureaucratic
scribes, and the like. This can typically be used only once per encounter,
unless the fight is particularly climactic.
Swimming 0 The Adversary can swim effortlessly and move as well (or better) in
water as they do on land, and may be able to breathe underwater.
Telepathy 0 or 3 The Adversary can communicate silently, mind to mind, with creatures
they can see for zero cost, or creatures they know but can’t see for a
Malus cost of 3. To read someone’s mind against their will, see Mind
Reading above.
Teleport 3 or 6 Instantaneously move from one location to another, either within Long
range (cost 3) or outside of Long range (cost 6). Most teleportation
prevents the Adversary from accidentally materializing in a solid object.
Whether turning into a horde of scattering rats or sublimating into mist,
teleportation takes a Sphere. It is up to the GM whether other people
can be teleported as well, if it can be tracked using Investigative
abilities, and what limits, if any, the Sphere imposes on the
teleportation.
Universal 6 Through blazing speed or an area effect, the Adverary can attack
Attack everyone they want within range during one round, making separate
Sorcery, Sway or Warfare attack rolls for each.
Venom 3 Monstrous Adversaries may be venomous, and the ‘Sinkish often use
poisons to thwart their foes. See pp. XX and XX for sample ways in
which poison and venom might affect a victim.
Warded 6 Narratively important Adversaries may rely on sorcerous charms, well-
made shields, tremendous agility, or some other means of protection,
but they take only half damage from all Health or Morale damage for
one complete combat round. This protection, as well as whether it's
protecting Health or Morale, is usually obvious to any attackers.
If they have armor, it reduces incoming damage first, and then any
remaining damage is halved by the ward. The Warded special ability
starts at the beginning of a combat round and ends at the end of the
round, and does not use up an action to initiate. Warded might also be
activated at the very beginning of a fight if the Adversary is expecting
trouble or has Flashback. If they have enough Malus, they can use
Warded for more than one round in a row.
Note that this is deliberately more powerful than the Protective Ward
(see p. XX) available to Heroes; it’s meant to keep an important
Adversary active in a fight for a bit longer without artificially inflating
their Health or Morale ranks. If you want to give your Adversaries a
similar ability that isn’t nearly as powerful, give them a Protective Ward
(protecting against one attack) instead.
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GM Advice: What Do You Mean Everyone’s Dead?

Be cautious about combining Extra Action and Universal Attack during the same round. The former lets the
Adversary take a second attack action, and the latter lets the Adversary attack as many people as they like within
range. Taken separately, they’re great for letting a single Adversary or two challenge an entire team of Heroes.
Combining the two, however, allows the Adversary to attack everyone nearby twice in one round, resulting in very
injured Heroes and very irritable players who may consider it unfair. If you use this combination, save it for only
the most dangerous of foes, and make sure there’s a good in-game reason why they possess this power.
Sample Human Adversaries

The following Adversaries are sorted into factions for easy reference, but feel free to select and
customize the most relevant archetype from any faction.
In classic sword & sorcery tales, non-humans (such as elves or mer-people) who aren’t monsters are
rare. That shouldn’t stop you for adding them into your game if they make sense or are fun.
All-purpose Background Characters

Inconsequential supporting characters don’t need combat stats, and will instead be based on the All-
Purpose Background Character template below. Such nameless supporting characters who aren’t might
include:
• Boat pilot
• Cheerful urchins
• Common Merchants
• Conscripted Sailors
• Desperate Beggars
• Household Staff
• Mute Messengers
• Mysterious Soothsayers — add Special Ability: Oracle (cost 3)
• Newly-recruited Cultists
• Officious Bureaucrats
• Sleazy Politicians
• Sniveling Lackeys
• Superfluous Scions
• Untrained Soldiers — add Armor 2
• Wide-eyed Tourists
When you need stats for such a supporting character, start with the following and customize them to
match what you need. For instance, you might give an Officious Bureaucrat Morale Threshold 4 and Grit
3 to make them more difficult to influence with arguments.
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All-Purpose Background Character
Pick a few words about their personality and capabilities
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 0, Health 1

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 0, Morale 1
Offense – Warfare: +0; Fixed Damage 3
Offense – Sway: +0; Fixed Damage 3
Abilities: Malus 3
Refresh Tokens: 1
Ancient Nobility
The Ancient Nobility have manipulative elders, loyal servants, and paid house guards.
Crafty Matriarch
Calculating, proud, snobbish, so noble it hurts
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 4 (one round only — magical charm), Health 14
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (accurate sense of own self-importance), Morale 10 per
Hero
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (cutting politeness)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — Ancient Nobility), Flashback (cost 5), Mastermind, Persuasive (cost 3),
Summoning (cost 3 — house guard or servants), Warded (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: To lead a noble family you just need to be well-bred. To lead a noble family well, and to
triumph at social warfare, you need to be well-bred… and also clever, haughty, manipulative, and
ruthless. The most successful heads of noble families know how to manipulate the people around them
and set their enemies against each other.
Haughty Duelist
Easily offended, overconfident, snobbish
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Health 15

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (extreme self-confidence), Morale 10
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (rapier)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Defense Boost (cost 6), Extra Action (cost 3), Extra Damage (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: When you’re over-privileged and under-worked, there’s little to do but drink and duel.
Dissolute young nobles can be incredibly dangerous to insult.
House Guard
Bored, competent, paid to be loyal
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4 or 5 (shield), Armor 2 (chain mail), Health 10
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Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 1 (family loyalty), Morale 6
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (longsword)
Abilities: Malus 9
Special Abilities: Extra Damage (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: A noble family’s house guard are often Mercenaries who are only loyal when their pay is
steady, but a few families have extremely dedicated house guards who maintain high morale. A typical
guard force includes an equal number of men and women.
Sniveling Lackey
Gossipy, servile

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 3 (cringing acquiescence), Morale 8
Offense – Warfare: –1; Fixed Damage 2 (poorly-wielded knife)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (sly gossip)
Abilities: Malus 8
Special Abilities: Bolster Morale (cost varies), Invigorate (cost varies)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Sniveling lackeys typically insinuate themselves into the nobility as advisors or sidekicks.
They are sly, clever, and as gifted with words as they are ultimately untrustworthy.
Superfluous Scion
Condescending, dangerous when bored
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 2 (chain shirt that was tremendously stylish 120 years
ago), Health 6
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Morale 6
Offense – Warfare: +0; Damage Modifier +1 (great-grandmother’s rapier)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (snide remarks)
Abilities: Malus 10
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: With little interest in anything but high society, rumor, and politics, this wastrel typically
spends their day hunting, eating, courting, condescending to commoners, and waiting for their parents
to die.
City Watch
The City Watch solves crimes and keeps Eversink safe, even if the inhabitants don’t want them to. They
know the law better than anyone outside of an Ironcross magistrate.
Watch Commander
Canny, commanding, and superb at her job
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 2 (hand-me-down chain mail), Health 18

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (righteous sense of justice), Morale 15
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Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (truncheon) or +2 (crossbow)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (tired but certain authority)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — City Watch), Seize Initiative (cost 3), Summon (cost 3 — other Watch
Officers)
Misc: Alertness Modifier +2
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: The Watch Commander runs a District Watchpost and is responsible for the training and
discipline of the Watch Officers stationed at that post. They have a tendency to stick their nose deep
into trouble, are usually far less corruptible than their Officers, and report to a Triskadane committee on
law enforcement.
Watch Investigator
Sneaky, knowledgeable, and usually law-abiding
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 1 (city-issued leather, dyed black), Health 8
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (disdain for authority), Morale 10
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — City Watch), Extra Damage (cost 3), Summon (cost 3 — other Watch
Officers)
Misc: Alertness Modifier +2, Stealth Modifier +3
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: A Watch Investigator is usually a reformed thief, someone knowledgeable enough about
Eversink’s underbelly to provide the Watch with leads no one else can get. They’re stealthy, clever,
deadly with a hidden weapon, and often hunted by their former underworld colleagues.
Watch Officer
Stalwart, exhausted, doing their best
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (city-issued leather), Health 10

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 1 (self-righteousness), Morale 8
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — City Watch), Seize Initiative (cost 3), Summon (cost 3 — other Watch
Officers)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: The typical Watch Officer is well-meaning but demoralized from the enormity of their job.
They aren’t all corrupt enough to take bribes (especially when anyone is watching), and good leadership
can make a huge difference in the quality of a Watch Station’s personnel. Watch Officers retain the
authority to arrest anyone who has committed a crime, from a high priestess to a lowly beggar, and they
retaliate harshly against anyone who attacks them.
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Church of Denari
The Church of Denari includes the religious structure of the church, the Church Militant that applies
Denari’s will through force, and the Inquisitors that deal with sorcery, demons, spirits and sin.
Street Preacher
Filthy, fervent, inspiring

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (fevered certainty), Morale 10
Offense – Sway: +0; Fixed Damage 4 (convoluted diatribe)
Abilities: Malus 5
Special Abilities: Bolster Morale (cost varies), Persuasive (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Street preachers may be wild-eyed and shouting from a canal bridge, or kind and gentle,
but if they’re too poor to have their own church or even a shrine there’s a pretty good chance that a
street preacher isn’t officially recognized as a minister of Denari. The Goddess accepts even those who
haven’t joined the bureaucracy, however, and so (assuming they aren’t heretics) will bless all those who
spread her word.
Parish Priest
Humble, honest, kind

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (quiet faith), Morale 10
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (convincing scripture)
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Bolster Morale (cost varies)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Parish priests (more commonly priestesses, really) are distributed across Eversink in every
single district. There are hundreds of places to worship, with multiple priests per location. The size of
the shrine, chapel, church, or cathedral may vary tremendously by wealth and location — but in each,
the local minister is responsible for guiding the spiritual well-being of their faithful on a day-to-day basis.
Divine Prophet
Distant, mysterious, prophetic
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 2 (supernatural foreknowledge), Health 5

Offense – Warfare: –1 (or +2 if they close their eyes, activate Oracle, and trust to their prophetic sixth
sense); Damage Modifier +0 (improvised weapon)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (annoyingly unclear yet accurate prophecy)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — Church of Denari), Flashback (cost 5), Oracle (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 3
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Description: Divine prophets tend to have a tenuous hold on reality, something not surprising for people
asked to prophesy all day, every day, in the service of their church and city. Even if their prophecies and
predictions don’t always make the most sense at first, they retain an uncanny sense of what is
immediately about to occur.
Impressive Cleric
Respectable, conservative, pompous

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (protective faith), Morale 10
Offense – Warfare: +0; Damage Modifier +0 (improvised weapon)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (divine charisma)
Abilities: Malus 12
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — Church of Denari), Bolster Morale (cost varies), Summoning (cost 3 —
Church Militant soldiers)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Rising in the Church’s hierarchy means more responsibility, more bureaucracy, and less
contact with common people. An older member of the clergy might be impressive, draped in rich fabrics
and preaching with astonishing charisma, but they are seldom as humble as when they were younger.
Inquisitor
Suspicious, self-confident, righteous
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4 or 5 (shield), Armor 2 (bloodstained chain mail), Health 15
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (obsession), Morale 12
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (flail made from sharpened coins)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (church doctrine)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — Church of Denari), Healing (cost varies), Warded (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: A typical Inquisitor is dedicated to rooting out heresy by hunting down demons and rogue
sorcerers across the city. They use divinely granted senses like Spirit Sight to identify and track sources
of Corruption. While they are advised by the Church not to harass sorcerers who haven’t broken the
law, Inquisitors tend to be strict and inflexible, and showing mercy to a suspect sorcerer doesn’t come
naturally.
Inquisitor Bodyguard
Selfless, loyal, fearless, observant
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4 or 5 (shield), Armor 2 (customized chain mail), Health 18
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (loyalty), Morale 10
Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (longsword) or +2 (crossbow)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 – Church of Denari), Bodyguard (cost 3 per attack), Warded (cost 6)
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Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: An Inquisitor Bodyguard is assigned by the church to keep someone else safe, or even to kill
them if they transgress Denari’s will. Bodyguards are excellent at noticing trouble before it starts,
hopefully giving them enough time to get their charge to safety — and if they can’t they’ll throw
themselves in the way of any incoming damage, giving their charge a chance to avoid harm. Some
Bodyguards memorize ancient Warding prayers, giving themselves or their charge protection from some
damage for two rounds. A good Bodyguard is fearless and will willingly give their life for another... but
frankly, they’d rather kill their enemy and live another day.
Inquisitor-Mage
Tormented, knowledgeable, disliked
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 2 (leather lined with coins), Health 8
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (obsessive faith), Morale 16
Offense – Sorcery: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (attacks either Health or Morale)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Death Curse, Extra Damage (cost 3), Spellcasting (cost 3 — 2 uses), Universal Attack
(cost 6), Warding (cost 6)
Misc: Sphere tends to be either Coins or Fear
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: If you find a dead heretic with their stomach full of coins, they’ve likely been visited by an
Inquisitor-Mage. Such sorcerers always internalize their Corruption, upon pain of execution, and are
typically accompanied by an Inquisitor Bodyguard whose other job is to execute them the moment they
step out of line. Their knowledge of Corruption helps them track less ethical Sorcerers.
Soldier of Faith (Church Militant)
Traditional, regimented, faithful
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4 or 5 (shield), Armor 2 (shining chain mail), Health 15
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (faith), Morale 10
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (polished longsword)
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Healing (cost varies)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: A soldier in the Church Militant can pray for your soul just before she cuts you down — all
at the Church’s bidding, of course. She’s fervent in her faith, and her faith rewards her.
Commoners
There are far more Commoners in Eversink than any other faction. They’re usually politically
unorganized, ordinary people just trying to live their lives and make enough money to survive. If the
Commoners ever get angry enough to rise up, Denari help the Ancient Nobility.
Back-Alley Leech
Disreputable, smarmy
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Offense – Warfare: –1; Fixed Damage 3 (bloody scalpel, or jar full of leeches)
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Healing (maybe) (cost varies)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: The quality of medical care can be dubious in poorer parts of the city, and people who can’t
afford anywhere better to go usually go to a back-alley leech before they die. In fact, those two actions
are usually related. If you’re lucky, you find a leech with a smattering of knowledge about folk remedies
and healing. If you aren’t, your corpse gets slid into the swamp or into a canal when no one is looking.
Bartender
Dependable, trustworthy, gossipy

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 2 (practices indifference), Morale 8
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (convenient club)
Abilities: Malus 10
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Someone needs to pour drinks, spread rumors, and provide somewhere safe to hide out
between adventures. Tip your bartenders, folks. They deserve it.
Common Laborer
Sturdy, frustrated, just getting by

Abilities: Malus 9
Special Abilities: Summon (cost 3 — other Commoners)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: The average laborer is strong enough to hurt you, but wise enough not to open the can of
worms that would come from a public brawl. The City Watch aren’t always sympathetic to commoners,
so they’d rather investigate and punish their own crimes than get the Watch involved.
Diseased Beggar
Scrofulous, wheezing, observant

Offense – Warfare: +0; Fixed Damage 3 (rusty knife)
Offense – Sway: +1; Fixed Damage 4 (wheedling entreaties)
Abilities: Malus 5
Special Abilities: Infection
Refresh Tokens: 1
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Description: Plague in Eversink is dealt with quickly and brutally, but there are still plenty of commoners
too ill to survive on anything other than charity. Since actual begging and charity is forbidden by Denari,
they typically sell “blessed rocks,” normal pebbles that they exchange for a coin and a kind word. No one
ever notices a beggar but beggars notice everyone, so they make superb spies if you’re willing to pay.
Hedge Witch
Wise, intimidating, stern

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 1 (stubborn resolve), Morale 8
Offense – Sorcery: +1 vs Health; Damage Modifier +1 (Spheres of Disease and Luck)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (common sense wisdom)
Abilities: Malus 12
Special Abilities: Death Curse, Healing (cost varies), Spellcasting (cost 3 — 1 use)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Hedge practitioners are healers who have learned a few old traditions and swamp magics,
just enough to cure (or cause) disease, heal a bit, and cause others to have good or bad luck. They’re
often looked to for advice by others in the community and feared by those outside their neighborhood.
Rabble-Rousing Firebrand
Charismatic, angry, passionate, natural-born leader

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (fiery certainty), Morale 20
Offense – Warfare: +0; Damage Modifier +0 (emphatically-waved torch)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (astonishing charisma)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — Commoners), Persuasive (cost 3), Summon (cost 3 — Commoners)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: When the Common folk rise up against the Mercanti, Triskadane and Ancient Nobility, a
rabble-rousing firebrand will be at their head. Able to ignore up to 3 points of Grit while making Sway
attacks, a firebrand is uniquely suited to inspiring and leading others towards change. Wherever they go,
a crowd gathers.
Flock of Watch-Geese
Aggressive, territorial, loud
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 8 (Armor 0 vs. Sorcery), Health 4

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 8 (Grit 0 vs. Sorcery and Fear), Morale 8
Offense – Warfare: +0; Fixed Damage 2 (pecking beaks)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Flight, Universal Attack (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 3
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Description: Trained geese make superb watch-animals: inexpensive to feed, double as a food source,
mean as anything, and both loud and territorial when predators approach. Both in commoner homes
and mercenary camps, you’ll hear hissing and honking watch-geese more often than barking watchdogs.
Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers

The Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers is a secretive, close-knit organization that keeps the city’s
buildings upright and the canals open. How they do so is a closely kept secret they’re willing to kill to
protect.
Architect’s Engineer
Responsible, artistic, martyr

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (oaths of secrecy), Morale 10
Offense – Sorcery: +1 vs Health; Damage Modifier +1 (elemental sorcery)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (boring architectural details)
Abilities: Malus 21
Special Abilities: Death Curse, Spellcasting (cost 3), Warded (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Architect’s Engineers are incredibly talented and well-trained craftsfolk, but they’re also
secretly sorcerers who have Spheres of Air, Stone, Water, or sometimes something esoteric like
Construction or Architecture. Specially schooled in construction techniques, they have official (if secret)
legal dispensation to practice sorcery in the interest of their profession, and are forced to swear that
they will always internalize Corruption. Engineers are often assigned their own personal Inquisitor to
watch and manage them. The best Engineers also have a background in art and an appreciation for
geometry and beauty.
The disfigurement that comes from internalizing Corruption is usually explained to the public as the
scars from a construction accident, or as a disease. When they can no longer legitimately pass for
human on the surface, the Guild moves Engineers to a secret undercity compound and treats them
kindly in exchange for help stabilizing foundations.
Guild-Certified Architect
Hardworking, entitled, observant

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 2 (smug knowledge of self-importance), Morale 6
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (officious expertise)
Abilities: Malus 15
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Architects have the difficult job of inspecting, repairing, stabilizing, and improving the
buildings of Eversink. Most aren’t particularly fierce combatants, but they have a fierce will and the
sense of entitled authority that comes from the certain knowledge that anyone who treats them poorly
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will be blackballed by the guild. Architects have a sharp eye, an encyclopedic memory of the city’s
neighborhoods, and the authority to order changes in private and public buildings.
Canal Watcher
Corrupt, hardworking, patient
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (leather armor you can swim in), Health 10
Offense – Warfare: +0; Damage Modifier +1 (sharpened grappling hook on light rope)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (self-assurance)
Abilities: Malus 5
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Canal Watchers keep the canals flowing. They manage locks and pumps, fish out refuse and
dead bodies, repair damage to canals, and manage boat traffic. It’s not the world’s most interesting or
creative job, but it pays well: Mercanti want to get their goods to Temple Market as quickly and
efficiently as possible, and that means bribing Canal Watchers constantly.
Guild Troubleshooter
Convincing, intimidating, stubborn
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (worn leather), Health 10

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 1 (confident authority), Morale 8
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +2 (Crossbow or greatsword)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (cheerfully descriptive threats)
Abilities: Malus 20
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Guild troubleshooters typically clear hostile dwellers from buildings under construction,
whether those dwellers are human or otherwise. A troubleshooter is selected for being deadly enough
to survive angry squatters while being diplomatic (or threatening) enough to solve problems without
ever shedding blood. Their relatively large pool of Malus allows a troubleshooter the flexibility to use
Persuade Maneuvers on stubborn holdouts.
Retired Engineer
Secretive, earth-shakingly powerful, content, nostalgic
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (mutated skin), Health 15

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (inhuman detachment), Morale 20
Offense – Sorcery: +2 vs Health; Damage Modifier +2 (elemental sorcery)
Offense – Sway: +0; Damage Modifier +1 (Sorcerous croakings)
Abilities: Malus 30
Special Abilities: Death Curse, Extra Damage (cost 3), Spellcasting (cost 3 — 5 uses), Warded (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: The hidden Undercity refuge of retired Engineers is perhaps the most beautiful architecture
in Eversink — not that it’s permissible for most people to even learn of its existence without being killed
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for possessing that knowledge. The Guild guards its secrets carefully, and a village full of deformed and
immensely powerful sorcerers who specialize in stone and water (along with air and obscure
construction Spheres) is a secret worth keeping. The Guild works hard to get retired engineers anything
they wish in order to keep them happy and complacent. No one wants the old engineers to rise up in
open rebellion against Guild rules.
Mercanti
Many Mercanti aren’t combatants, being far more interested in making money than in risking death, but
more adventurers than you’d think try to beat merchants with the items they were just about to buy.
Mercanti are more than just shopkeepers; they’re also craftspeople, artisans, trading ship captains and
guildmasters.
Bodyguard
Brave, observant, professional

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (loyalty), Morale 10
Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (longsword) or +2 (crossbow)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Bodyguard (cost 3 per attack), Extra Action (cost 3), Extra Damage (cost 3), Warded
(cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: A good bodyguard puts their own life at risk to save their patron, and they’re rewarded
extraordinarily well for it. They’ll notice trouble before it starts, get their charge to safety, and use their
Warding (usually particular toughness instead of a sorcerous effect) to buy themselves some time.
Common Merchant
Convincing, charming, tenacious

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 2 (Stubborn), Morale 6
Offense – Sway: +0; Fixed Damage 3 (experienced bargaining) or the Persuade Maneuver
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Summon (cost 3 — guard, or nearby member of the City Watch)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: With long-ingrained ability to recognize someone trying to cheat them, a standard
shopkeeper is much more likely to call a guard than to mount their own defense. They’ll typically use
their Malus on Persuade Maneuvers to try to get a higher price.
Rich Merchant
Confident, ostentatious, observant, persuasive
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 2 (specially blessed lucky amulet), Health 1
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 2 (entitled), Morale 9
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Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (undeniable confidence)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Summon (cost 3 — Bodyguard, Guard, or City Watch)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Whether deserved or not, success in business has led to confidence and riches. These
merchants are typically dressed in rich fabrics and might be dripping in jewels worth up to 10 Wealth. As
such they typically engage bodyguards and armed guards to accompany them, and they are always
canny and aware of their surroundings unless they’re someplace they feel they can relax.
Mercenaries
They’re the most visible line of defense protecting Eversink from foreign attack. They’re a fashion
statement for the ancient nobility, armed guards for the Mercanti, inadvertent missionaries for the
Church, and a constant threat to the commoners. Whoever controls the Mercenaries controls Eversink
— and the people with the money control the Mercenaries.
Mercenary Officer
Competent, commanding, tactical, well-traveled
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 3 (well-worn plate), Health 16

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (nearly fearless), Morale 12
Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (well-honed sword)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Bolster Morale (cost varies), Flashback (cost 5), Summoning (cost 3 — soldiers)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: A Mercenary Officer commands any number of troops, from a handful to hundreds. If they
don’t come home from battle, it’s the officer who’s at fault; they’re expected to use their tactical
knowledge and strategy to win the combat and bring their soldiers back. As a result, they demand high
prices for their troops and deliver (or claim to deliver) the best.
Military Sorcerer
Pompous, showy, deadly
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 2 (beat-up chain mail), Health 10

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (deadpan wit), Morale 15
Offense – Sorcery: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (two Sorcerous Spheres that attack either Health or Morale)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Death Curse, Extra Damage (cost 3), Oracle (cost 3), Spellcasting (cost 3 — 3 uses)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Outside of Eversink, mercenary companies worry much less about sorcery (especially if
Corruption is internalized so that it doesn’t destroy the Morale of other soldiers nearby). It’s common
for companies to have pompous, well-paid sorcerers in their ranks. Sometimes, those sorcerers even
earn their pay.
Rank and File Soldier
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Long-suffering, well-trained, dangerous

Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Extra Damage (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: The typical warrior is competent but not exceptional in battle, chopping their way through
foes with brute force.
Veteran Soldier
Battle-scarred, well-respected, superstitious, tactical
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4 or 5 (shield), Armor 3 (plate mail), Health 20

Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3), Extra Damage (cost 3), Summoning (cost 3 — soldiers)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: A veteran soldier often knows more about tactics than their commander, just by dint of
surviving so many fights. They make good leaders and dangerous opponents, able to quickly surround
themselves with soldiers. If they’re attacked or slain, they’re usually popular enough that their troops
will seek vengeance.
Outlanders
If you’re not a native of Eversink and a worshipper of Denari, in local parlance you’re an Outlander. You
may be a northern barbarian, a pilgrim from the Salt Mountains of Lut, a trader from Caym, or a rider
from the Great Flatlands, but to a native of Eversink you’re an Outlander just waiting to honor Denari
with your coin.
Drunken Sailor
Inebriated, foul-mouthed
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 2 (drunk), Morale 6
Offense – Warfare: +0, Fixed Damage 3 (belaying pins) or the Daze Maneuver
Abilities: Malus 10
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Loaded down with all the courage that excessive alcohol can deliver, these sailors use their
belaying pins to “recruit” new sailors into their crew.
Foreign Spy
Suave, unflappable, conniving

Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 1 (leather), Health 9
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Offense – Warfare: +0; Damage Modifier +0 (subtle dagger)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (practiced arguments)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Disguise (cost 1 or 3), Venom (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Easy to trust and as dishonest as the tide is high, a spy is usually in Eversink to engineer an
assassination or steal information they can’t obtain any other way. They use their Malus to gain
whatever Social ability they need to pass in society.
Raging Barbarian
Muscled, naïve, resentful

Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (stolen from a foreign soldier), Health 12
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 2 (frothing rage), Morale 8
Offense – Warfare: +1, Damage Modifier +2 or +4 (massive spear)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Armor-Piercing (cost 3), Strength (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Annoyed by the city and ready to take it out on anyone nearby, this barbarian can be
deadly in hand-to-hand combat.
Wide-Eyed Tourist
Awe-struck, Lost
Offense – Sway: +0; Fixed Damage 4 (kind-hearted babble)
Abilities: Malus 5
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: A complete stranger to Eversink, they’re wandering around wide-eyed and trying not to
admit that they’re lost.
Sorcerous Cabal
Just because sorcerers are hunted and persecuted in Eversink doesn’t mean that they and their minions
aren’t nearby. Very nearby. Possibly standing behind you right now.
[[Begin sidebar]]
Sorcerous Spheres for the Cabal

For the supporting Cabal character variants below, assign Sorcerous Spheres as follows:
• Animal-related cultists have Spheres of Animal, Physical Transformation, or Serpents (which is an animal but
deserves a Sphere of its own, and is appropriate for sorcerers who learned their Corruption from ancient
Serpentine writings).
• Elementalists have Sorcerous Spheres of Air, Fire, Earth, or Water.
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• Necromancers have Spheres of Aging, Blood, Death, Decay, Disease, Fear, Flesh, Ghosts and Spirits, or
Necromancy.
• Eversink’s Mercanti Ship-Sorcerers have Spheres of Air, Illusion, Transportation, Water, or Weather.
• Mind controllers have Spheres of Illusion, Love, Memory, Possession, Secrets, or Worship.
[[End sidebar]]
Sorcerous Apprentice
Cautious, thorough, cruel

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (haughty disdain), Morale 12
Offense – Sorcery: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (pick Sphere below)
Abilities: Malus 18
Special Abilities: Extra Damage (cost 3), Spellcasting (twice only — cost 3), Warded (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Neophyte sorcerers are still canny and incredibly dangerous. They often travel with a
servant and a bodyguard, so that they never have even the temptation of privately creating Corruption
when spellcasting. (That’s a lie: they’re always tempted, and it’s rare that they internalize Corruption.)
Variants: Assign one Sorcerous Sphere, or two for advanced apprentices. Choose whether Sorcery
attacks Health or Morale.
Cruel Sorcerer
Disdainful, stylish, even crueller

Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (scintillating power), Health 15
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (unworldly focus), Morale 15
Offense – Warfare: +0; Damage Modifier +0 (spare sacrificial dagger)
Offense – Sorcery: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (pick Spheres below)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (obsessive monologuing)
Abilities: Malus 25
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — Sorcerous Cabals), Death Curse (cost: all remaining Malus), Extra
Damage (cost 3), Spellcasting (three times only — cost 3), Warded (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Operating with the equivalent of 3 Corruption, a typical Sorcerer may have a very public
persona (typically dwelling outside of Eversink, sometimes on a boat in the outer harbor) or a very
secret identity where their sorcery remains hidden. They’re usually haughty and obsessive, but that
doesn’t make their scheming any less dangerous.
Variants: Assign three Sorcerous Spheres. Choose whether Sorcery attacks Health or Morale.
Master Sorcerer
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Powerful, social, earth-shaking, efficient
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 3 (uncanny resilience), Health 15 per Hero
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 3 (self-righteous certainty), Morale 15 per Hero
Offense – Warfare: +0; Damage Modifier +1 (well-used sacrificial dagger)
Offense – Sorcery: +3; Damage Modifier +1 (pick Spheres below)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (honeyed voice)
Abilities: Malus 40
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3), Death Curse (cost: all remaining Malus), Extra Damage (cost 3),
Flashback (cost 5), Oracle (cost 3), Mastermind, Spellcasting (up to five times — cost 3), Warded (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 7
Description: Operating with the equivalent of 5 Corruption, a Master Sorcerer is unutterably deadly.
They’re well-connected socially, impeccable planners, and can rip apart a human being with a wave of
their hand. Worse, they’re usually surrounded by servants, bodyguards, and their own apprentices —
and even if you survive their death curse, their allies will hound you mercilessly. Master Sorcerers tend
to be foes you confront through proxies or social manipulation, because engaging them directly is what
you do when you’re tired of life.
Variants: Assign five Sorcerous Spheres. Choose whether Sorcery attacks Health or Morale.
Puppetmaster
Manipulative, sociopathic, charming

Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 2 (mind-controlled slaves who try to interpose
themselves), Health 25
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (narcissism), Morale 25
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +2 (mind-controlled slave with a large axe)
Offense – Sorcery: +2 vs Morale; Damage Modifier +1 (unexpected loyalty)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3), Death Curse (cost: all remaining Malus), Magical Charm (cost 3),
Spellcasting (two times only — cost 3), Summoning (mind-controlled minions — cost 3), Warded (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Puppetmasters typically have Spheres of Love, Secrets, or Worship. They thrive on the
attention of others, and spend their time building networks of charmed slaves who dedicate their lives
to making the puppetmaster happy.
Thieves’ Guild
Assassin
Professional, courteous, cautious, efficient

Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (poisoned sword or poisoned crossbow bolts)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Armor-Piercing (cost 3), Disguise (cost 1), Defense Boost (cost 6), Extra Action (cost 3),
Extra Damage (cost 3), Lightning Speed (cost 3), Seize Initiative (cost 3), Venom (cost 3)
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Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Assassins are fast, brutally efficient combatants who thrive on dodging blows and escaping
before they’re seriously put at risk. They have a wide range of offensive and defensive powers but lack
the stamina to use them for long. Eversink’s assassins have a reputation for being particularly courteous
to their victims on the rare occasion that conversation occurs.
Brute
Unimaginative, violent
Offense – Warfare: +1, Fixed Damage 4 (club)
Abilities: Malus 10
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Ill-smelling and far from clever, this brute will never pass for nobility, but they’re handy
when you need a violent goon who doesn’t think too hard.
Common Footpad
Fast, hungry, foolhardy

Defense -- Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Morale 1
Offense – Warfare: +0; Fixed Damage 3 (knife)
Abilities: Malus 8 (typically used on Burglary and Athletics)
Special Abilities: Extra Action (cost 3), Seize Initiative (cost 3)
Misc: Stealth Modifier +2
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Cowardly but dangerous, footpads make their living by taking your things away from you.
They’re fairly indifferent as to whether they have to hurt you in the process.
Brutish Lieutenant
Mean, smart, brutish

Offense – Warfare: +1, Damage Modifier +1 (club)
Offense – Sway: +1, Damage Modifier +1 (threats)
Abilities: Malus 15
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Smarter than most brutes, the lieutenant is adept at tactics and knows how to best position
their people for deadly combat.
Gang Boss
Clever, intimidating, heartless, greedy

Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 2, Health 5 per Hero
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 1 (stubborness), Morale 10
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Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +2 (wickedly sharp sword)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Extra Damage (cost 3), Summoning (cost 3 — thieves)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Typically found running a gang of thieves, the gang boss is a dangerous leader who keeps
them organized, intimidated, and efficient.
Guildmaster
Feared, intimidating, rich, clever

Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (custom-made sharkskin leather), Health 15 per Hero
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (confidence), Morale 20
Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (poisoned dagger) + poison
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (confident swagger)
Abilities: Malus 35
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — Thieves’ Guilds), Disguise (cost 1 or 3), Flashback (cost 5), Venom (cost
3 — any rare and unusual poison)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: A survivor and master of flexibility, the guildmaster’s high Malus score lets them use
whichever Investigative ability they need on the fly. They are masters of their neighborhoods, with
scores of thieves at their command and most officials in their pocket.
Master Thief
Risk-averse, shadowy, calculating, witty

Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (just plain lucky), Health 20
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (distrust), Morale 12
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (anonymous but poisoned dagger)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (persuasive)
Abilities: Malus 20 (often used on Maneuvers, burglaries, and escape)
Special Abilities: Disguise (cost 1), Defense Boost (cost 6), Seize Initiative (cost 3), Spider Climb, Venom
(cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Master thieves are accomplished at getting into where others don’t want them to be,
getting the goods, and getting out again. They’d rather avoid detection and definitely prefer not to get
into a fight along the way.
Triskadane
Sleazy Politician
Corrupt, charming, ingratiating, reputable

Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (convincing rhetoric) or the Persuade Maneuver
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Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Allies (cost 3 — clerks), Warded (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Politicians are almost never combatants, but they rely on using the Persuade Maneuver to
win people over to their way of thinking. They’re well connected, and often serve as fronts for more
nefarious power groups.
Secret Police Investigator
Forgettable, secretive, fearsome

Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 2 (subtle and beautifully made chain), Health 15
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (steely resolve), Morale 15
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +2 (Falcon’s Eye crossbow, p. XX)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (whispering voice)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Disguise (cost 1 or 3), Fear (cost 3), Mind Reading (cost 3), Persuasive (cost 3), Warded
(cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Empowered by Denari to read people’s minds, the Triskadane’s secret police force the
Black Swans move through the city rooting out treason, counterfeiting, tax evasion, and important
murders. They have a long-standing feud with the City Watch, the Mercenaries, and the Church
Inquisitors, none of whom like them. Their reputation is not a good one, and they deliberately use fear
as a weapon.
Elite members of the Black Swans are rumored to utilize Memory magic, so that their face is never
remembered and so they can pull the memory of their questioning from the subject’s mind.
Monstrosities
Most monstrosities in Eversink are inhuman. Sometimes, though, you get creatures that are close
enough to human to pass, or who live in that in-between half-world that bridges human society and the
secret city known by creatures who only survive in darkness.
Most monsters will prefer to keep a low profile while in Eversink, as they (or their human handlers)
won’t want a mob trying to track a rogue monstrosity through the streets and canals, so they’ll try to
eliminate any witnesses to a monster’s existence before they can spread the word. There’s a
demimonde in Eversink where humanoid monstrosities can exist almost like a human: a network of
dubious pubs and extremely shifty night markets where a disguised intelligent monster can get a drink
and quietly confer with other non-human creatures. Humans who enter these places by mistake are
quickly ushered away if at all possible instead of being killed.
Indoors, underground, or in the wilderness outside of the city, monsters are a very different story.
They’ll have territory that they defend viciously, and they’ll use this territory to their advantage when
stalking and killing prey.
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Designer Notes: When Is a Monster Not Just a Monster?
Sword & sorcery monsters tend to serve a different role than monsters in other fantasy games. They’re
often a symbol of some aspect of the city or setting, whether that’s a shadowy conspiracy (the
Drowned), crime and corruption (rattakan), child and new mother mortality (penanggalan), terrifying
dark magic and ancient history (serpent folk), mortality (any undead), or barbaric savagery (swamp
ogre). Their appearance in a battle tends to be important and momentous. It’s rarer that they’re used as
an inconsequential throwaway monster.
Carefully consider using monsters who can carry a mystery or an adventure. Even a giant scorpion could
be linked to a mystery, if it turns out to be behind a series of unexplained deaths in a crowded and
poverty-stricken district, but the best monsters in a Swords of the Serpentine game are those who can
think, plot, and plan. These become the creatures who actually create mysteries and adventures instead
of just becoming the defeatable roadblocks to solving them.
Animated Statue
Powerful, beautiful, strong
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 4 (and see Stony), Health 20

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold nil or special, Morale nil or special (see below)
Offense – Warfare: +1, Damage Modifier +3 (stone fist)
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Regenerate (regenerates at end of scene), Stony, Strength; possibly Flight (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Animated statues may be set into motion by sorcery or through ghostly possession. If the
former, they cannot be injured by attacks against their Morale. If the latter, they use the possessing
ghost’s Morale defenses (usually Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 but Grit 0 vs prayer, Morale 16).
Animated statues shaped like gargoyles may also have the ability to fly. Animated statues shaped like
angels have the unsettling tendency to only move when no one is looking at them.
Buzzing Acolyte
Fevered, off-putting, inhuman
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 1 (flesh briefly dissolves into flies when hit), Health 8
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (fanatical), Morale 12
Offense – Sorcery: +0; Damage Modifier +1 (clouds of biting flies that attack Health)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (buzzing secrets)
Abilities: Malus 12
Special Abilities: Fluid (cost 3 — turn into a cloud of flies for one round), Spellcasting (cost 3 — fly- and
decay-themed — 2 uses)
Misc: Alertness Modifier +1, Stealth Modifier –1
Refresh Tokens: 3
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Description: The buzzing acolytes of Yil’uk are worshippers of a fly demon who have been “blessed”
with its power. They congregate around filth and ordure, mostly in Sag Harbor, and even in human form
speak with a buzzing voice.
Chuggut Hunter
Subtle, savage, superstitious

Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +2 (festering spear)
Offense – Sorcery: +0 vs Health; Damage Modifier +1 (Sphere of Swamp)
Abilities: Malus 18
Special Abilities: Spellcasting (cost 3 — Swamp Sphere only, one use)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: People live out in those swamps and probably have for a thousand years or more, displaced
when Denari pushed back the marshes and drew the islands from the riverbed itself. They hate Eversink
and just about everyone in it. People think the different tribes of Chuggut have a somewhat toadlike
cast about them. They are fiercely territorial and almost universally hostile. Their hunters seem to blend
into the swamp, attacking with Surprise as they leap toad-like into battle.
Chuggut Swamp Shaman

Nimble, predatory, spiritual

Offense – Sorcery: +2; Damage Modifier +1 (Spheres of Darkness, Insects, Plants, or Swamp that attack
Health)
Abilities: Malus 24
Special Abilities: Extra Damage (cost 3), Monstrous Ability (cost 3), Spellcasting (cost 3 — 4 uses)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Not all of the semi-human Chuggut swamp dwellers are fierce warriors. They breed their
own type of sorcerer out there in the reeds and brine, a shaman who specializes in swamps, plants,
insects, and darkness. They’re terrifying to face and used by parents as bogeymen to scare young,
entitled Eversink children.
Demonic Counsel
Persuasive, needy, malicious
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 3 (also, see Insubstantial), Health 20

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (infernal anger), Morale 25
Offense – Warfare: +2 (only when possessing a victim), Damage Modifier +3 (bare hands and
supernatural strength)
Offense – Sway: +2, Damage Modifier +2 (supernaturally convincing)
Abilities: Malus 26
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Special Abilities: Insubstantial, Invisibility (cost 3 — possibly visible to Spirit Sight), Possession (cost 3),
Strength (cost 0 — only when possessing a victim); can grant humans forbidden knowledge and the
ability to access Corruption in exchange for a bargain
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: As insubstantial and mostly spiritual creatures, demonic counsels (often just called demons)
are much easier to drive away temporarily than they are to kill. Each is unique, with its own name and
own Spheres of power. These spirits are typically summoned by those seeking personal power, such as
access to Sorcery. Until a deal is made the demons come across as incredibly calm, misunderstood, and
helpful beings. Their true nature isn’t evident until after a deal (such as exchanging your soul for access
to Sorcery or other power) has been struck. Demons may be able to use the senses of any sorcerer
beholden to them, which makes them excellent sources of secret information… if you’re willing to pay
the price.
Denari’s Singer
Memetic, unforgettable, divine

Offense – Sway: +1; Persuade Maneuver to teach the hymn to all nearby. If Persuaded the target finds
the hymn inhabiting their thoughts, and they suffer 1 die of Morale damage whenever they do not begin
a new scene using a Persuade Maneuver to publicly sing the hymn
Abilities: Malus 6 (used on Maneuvers)
Special Abilities: Hivemind (while the hymn is being sung)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Somewhere in Eversink there is a particularly beautiful hymn to Denari that’s self-aware
and alive. As long as at least one person is singing it, it survives. Each instance of it dies whenever a
singer stops humming it or leaves Denari’s Blessing, so it reproduces itself memetically and virally, trying
to get itself heard and sung by as many people as possible as often as possible. Once heard by a
receptive host it stays inside the singer for as long as it can, making itself impossible to forget, making
the singer repeat it again and again until they break, join the hive mind and sing it constantly, or leave
Denari’s Blessing (such as in a Corruption scar). While the hymn is being sung, all the singers share the
same emotional state, which is usually euphoric, and can share surface thoughts.
Those who survive knowing the hymn whisper that a day will come when enough people in Eversink will
sing the hymn at once, and the world will change.
Considering that the hymn is intimately but mysteriously tied to Denari, it’s surprising that the Church of
Denari is utterly opposed to the hymn and to those who sing it. They will take extreme sanction on areas
that are compromised by singers, attempting to isolate the singers or to stop the spread of the hymn in
whatever way is kindest. The hymn, meanwhile, tries to get itself sung by the priests who sing prayer
across the city.
The Drowned
Believable, ordinary, unconcerned, surprisingly fungal
230
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 3 (fungal indifference), Morale 8
Offense – Warfare: +0; Damage Modifier +2 (fungal strength)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (utterly reasonable normality)
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Infection, Hivemind, Strength
Misc: Stealth Modifier –1 (occasional wet cough)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Anyone will tell you that “the Drowned” is a ridiculous conspiracy and that the rumors
aren’t true. Often, the person telling you this is already a member of the Drowned.
Created by the disease wetlung (see p. XX), the Drowned are humans who can be puppeted and
possessed by Colony, an underwater fungal hivemind somewhere beneath the city. They can instantly
communicate with each other when Colony wishes, and use this hivemind communication to focus on
and efficiently eliminate one enemy at a time. The Drowned seek to put themselves in positions of
influence and power, all the better to promote the fungal intelligence’s inscrutable plans.
See the disease description for more information about the Drowned, including their most common
method of death.
The Drowned are surprisingly strong, mostly because the fungus that controls them has little concern
about ripping apart an infected’s muscles after they’ve revealed themselves.
Faceless
Mutable, empathic, sociopathic
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (mutable body), Health 20

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (dual personalities), Morale 20
Offense – Warfare: +1, Damage Modifier +1 (whatever the assumed form would use as a weapon)
Offense – Sorcery: +1 vs Health, Damage Modifier +1 (sliding flesh)
Offense – Sway: +2, Damage Modifier +1 (supernaturally convincing)
Abilities: Malus 21
Special Abilities: Disguise (cost 3), Mind Reading (cost 3), Monstrous Ability (cost 3), Shape-Shift (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Faceless are doppelgangers who can disguise themselves flawlessly as a specific person by
ripping the person’s face off (typically done once the victim is unconscious or completely demoralized)
and placing it over their own. This gives them access to the victim’s shape, manner, memories, and
voice.
If the faceless can be convinced to return the person’s face, or assumes a new victim’s face, the curse
dissipates and the original victim’s face magically returns and heals. If the faceless is killed while wearing
their victim’s face, the face dies with the faceless.
The usually unconscious victim is left with a blank face with only a tiny nose-slit available for breathing;
similarly, their fingers are merged together. It can be an adventure in itself to identify a victim. It’s
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rumored that some faceless actually rip off their victim’s skin, leaving a raw and bloody mess behind,
but that’s less common.
As masters of moving flesh, most faceless can easily disguise themselves as any random person, even
creating the appearance of clothing. Some faceless keep old faces so that they can turn themselves into
non-human forms, or even twist and morph their bodies to create horrific and unique abilities.
Faceless tend to hate dogs and animals with a keen sense of smell. While their appearance can change
as they shapeshift, their odor typically does not.
Flock of Carnivorous Seabirds

Raucous, hungry, airborne
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 8 (Armor 0 vs. Sorcery), Health 10

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 8 (Grit 0 vs. Sorcery and Fear), Morale 10
Offense – Warfare: +2, Damage Modifier +0 (many sharp beaks)
Abilities: Malus 30
Special Abilities: Fear (cost 6 — all targets), Flight, Universal Attack (cost 6)
Misc: Alertness Modifier +2; Stealth Modifier –2
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Trained by air burials to crave human flesh, flocks of seabirds sometimes find it desirable to
hunt live prey. They may even be controlled by a Sorcerer or a Warrior who can speak the language of
birds. Either way, being attacked by a flock of carnivorous gulls is an experience few forget. They’re
almost impossible to injure with normal weapons due to their numbers, and shouting at them does
nothing. Intense fear can chase them away or scatter them after enough repetition, and sorcery or fire is
usually effective in getting their attention. …Then again, you may not want their attention.
Ghost
Abandoned, angry, confused, hostile
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor Special (see Insubstantial), Health 8

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (Grit 0 vs prayer), Morale 16
Offense – Sway: +2, Damage Modifier +2 (bone-chilling fear)
Abilities: Malus 18
Special Abilities: Fear (cost 3 or 6), Insubstantial, Invisibility, Possession (cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Ghosts usually manifest when a funerary statue is broken (see p. XX) and the soul is forced
out of paradise. Some souls simply fade away into nonexistence; others, particularly those that are
angriest about their broken statues or who left something unfinished in life, become undead such as
ghosts and are drawn to spots of Corruption.
Ghosts have no physical attacks. They attack Morale, primarily through Fear or terrifying Sway attacks.
Once they have terrified someone into insensibility, they possess their body (see Possession, p. XX) and
walk amongst humanity once more. What they do with the body, or if they ever give it back, depends on
the ghost. Such spirits are almost always angry and irrational, so their plans to avenge wrongs done to
them in life seldom end well for mortals involved.
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It’s easier for ghosts to possess you if you’ve previously cracked under severe emotional stress; the
Difficulty of the Morale test to resist Possession rises by 1 for every time you have dropped below –10
Morale during your adventuring career. This means that ghosts are more likely to be successful when
possessing the survivors of severe mental trauma, such as war or natural disasters.
Note that not all ghosts are human. It’s believed that ghosts of long-dead Serpentine Sorcerers (and
worse) are largely responsible for passing on the secrets of forbidden Sorcery. Such entities never have
humanity’s best interests in mind, and use living humans as pawns in bringing about their obscure and
perilous schemes.
Giant Scorpion
Predatory, huge, aggressive
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 4 (hardened carapace), Health 18

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 3 (see below), Morale 8
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +2 or the Restrain Maneuver (massive pincer); and +1; Damage
Modifier +1 plus venom (huge venomous tail — Range Close)
Abilities: Malus 25
Special Abilities: Extra Action (cost 3), Lightning Speed (cost 3), Spider Climb, Venom (cost 3 — tail only;
Difficulty 5 Health test vs unconsciousness each round for 3 rounds)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: The giant scorpion doesn’t live in Eversink except when someone is stupid enough to
import one for use in pit fighting or as a guardian. They attack by snapping with one or both pincers to
immobilize their foe (using the Restrain Maneuver to do so), then jabbing with their tail at anyone else
within range. Good luck if you’re poisoned by their venom; after three Difficulty 5 Health tests in three
subsequent rounds, you’ll be lucky to stay conscious.
Giant scorpions don’t understand speech and thus are immune to language-based Morale attacks, but
scare them enough and they’ll typically retreat. Their thick carapace can be turned into an impressive
shield with some skilled craftsmanship.
Giant Snake
Hypnotic, hungry, coiled
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 2 (hardened scales), Health 25

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 4 (cold-blooded indifference), Morale 15 (takes no damage
from language-based Morale attacks)
Offense – Warfare: +1; the Restrain Maneuver (coils), or Damage Modifier +2 plus venom (fangs)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Extra Damage (cost 3), Fearsome Blow (cost 3), Spider Climb, Strength, Venom (cost 3
— Daze)
Refresh Tokens: 5
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Description: Giant snakes typically act through instinct, stalking and ambushing their prey. They Daze
their prey with venom before choking the life out of it with their coils. They don’t understand human
languages, and are largely resistant to fear.
Golem
Implacable, unstoppable, a walking objet d’art
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor 4 (see Stony), Health 30

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 10 (implacable as stone), Morale 12
Offense – Warfare: +2, Damage Modifier +3 (massive stone fist)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Regeneration (cost 0 — regenerates at end of scene), Stony, Strength
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Golems are implacable clay or stone creations crafted by astonishing artists and animated
by a divinely powerful coin embedded somewhere in their heads. They do not feel, or breathe, or get
bored, or even really think: they just exist, and when needed, they destroy. Not only are they difficult to
hurt with weapons, they’re almost immune to any Morale-based attacks.
Only two groups of people are reputed to have affected a golem’s Morale. One was a group of priests
who combined all their Sway attacks by singing prayers (see p. XX), with one member then unleashing
that powerful faith like a mental bludgeon. The other was an artist so overcome by the golem’s sheer
artistic beauty that she praised it instead of attacking. At least one of these reports is highly unlikely.
Hollowed
Bitter and empty in the truest possible way
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (no internal organs), Health 14

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (focused hatred), Morale 14
Offense – Warfare: +1, Damage Modifier +2 (sorcerously strengthened attacks)
Offense – Sway: +2, Damage Modifier +2 (heretical and insidious teachings)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Regeneration (cost 0 — regenerates 2 Health and 2 Morale each time it damages or
demoralizes a living creature)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: The Hollowed are priests of Denari whose faith has been hollowed out — quite literally —
and ripped away by multiple sorcerers, turning the priest into a hollow and murderous mockery of what
they stood for in life. A Hollowed seeks out the faithful and destroys their Morale, telling them
blasphemous untruths about their goddess before strangling the life from them. Although Hollowed
look human, only their shell of flesh remains, and there’s nothing inside them but emptiness and hatred.
Lich
Plans within plans within plans, the most dangerous monster you’ll briefly meet
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 5, Armor 3 (undead vitality) + Warding, Health 15 points per Hero
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 5, Grit 3 (iron willpower) + Warding, Morale 15 points per Hero
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Offense – Sorcery: +3 vs. Morale, Damage Modifier +3 (Obedience, Illusions)
Offense – Sway: +1, Damage Modifier +1 (whispering certainty)
Abilities: Malus 30
Special Abilities: Extra Damage (cost 3), Fear (cost 3 or 6), Mastermind, Regeneration (cost 0 —
regenerates entirely at the end of an adventure if the hiding place for the lich’s soul has not been
destroyed), Spellcasting (cost 3 — 5 uses total; add up to 3 additional Spheres); add up to two other
Special Abilities to make each lich unique
Refresh Tokens: 7
Description: Liches were powerful sorcerers in life. They continue into undeath by hiding their soul in
the funerary statue of someone who was important to them in life. A bitter rival, a dead lover, a trusted
mentor, or a late parent — as long as the person inspired exceptionally strong emotions in the sorcerer,
their statue is fair game as a soul repository. Defeating a lich permanently usually requires the Heroes to
investigate who the lich was in life. That can be tricky; liches definitely bear grudges.
After a lich has been slain but before it has reformed, there is usually some sort of guardian monstrosity
protecting the area around its soul-repository statue. These seldom give away the statue’s location, but
act as a last-ditch attempt to keep it safe. Subtle and deadly traps are common.
Liches are politically active in Eversink, hiding behind human catspaws to manipulate and control huge
amounts of influence and wealth. They often skulk in sunken basements, rising to offer advice to their
descendants or to their allies. A Hero might finish numerous investigations before they begin to realize
that there’s a single mastermind manipulating events.
Lycanthrope
Howling, agile, and hungry for fresh and panicked meat
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 5 (Armor 0 vs silver weapons), Health 20

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 3 (feral focus), Morale 12
Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +3 (sharpened claws)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Extra Action (cost 3), Fear (cost 3 or 6), Monstrous Ability (cost 3), Shape-Shift (human
to animal or half-form — cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: When a human becomes possessed by an animal-related small god or demon, they
occasionally become a lycanthrope. The type of animal may vary from rat to wolf to even a meat-eating
seabird, but all lycanthropes are extraordinarily dangerous and take great joy in the bloodlust of a hunt.
Quite often the human doesn’t realize that they are cursed, and so continues to live their normal life as
well. Lycanthropy sometimes occurs from Corruption linked to an Animal Sorcerous Sphere.
Some lycanthropes are triggered by the moon. Other, more dangerous lycanthropes are triggered by the
tides. Lycanthropes only pass on their curse if they also have the Infection Special Ability, at the GM’s
discretion. Some lycanthropes also have Summoning, allowing them to summon and control animals
matching their nature.
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Obsessed Cultist
Crazed, faithful, unstable

Offense – Warfare: +0; Fixed Damage 4 (sacrificial dagger)
Offense – Sway: +1; Fixed Damage 5
Abilities: Malus 5
Special Abilities: Bodyguard (cost 3 per attack), Magical Charm (cost special; requires 7 cultists working
simultaneously, each paying 1 Malus)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Driven into madness by exposure to entities whispering out of a scar of Corruption,
obsessed cultists labor ceaselessly to carry out their patron’s wishes within the true world. They may
magically convert others to their cause, give their life away to protect a more important personage, or
speak with spirits or other entities to learn of possible futures (as if gifted with Spirit Sight). Cultists are
unpredictable and dangerous if you oppose their goals.
Penanggalan
Vigilante, nightmarish, just trying to get along in the world
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 2 (sorcerous resilience), Health 15

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (unbreakable hunger), Morale 12
Offense – Warfare (monstrous form): +2, Damage Modifier +3 (fanged maw and blood-slurping
sharpened tongue)
Offense – Sway (human form): +1, Damage Modifier +1 (convincing)
Abilities: Malus 18
Special Abilities: Fluid (cost 6), Monstrous Ability (cost 3), Flight, Regeneration (cost 0 — regenerates
entirely at the end of a scene if her headless body has not been destroyed)
Misc: Alertness Modifier +2 (scents blood and sin only), Stealth Modifier +2
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: A penanggalan is a cursed woman who can monstrously detach her head from her torso,
flying through the night with her stomach and entrails dangling beneath her, the organs twinkling like
fireflies in the darkness. When she does so she leaves her headless body behind.
In other countries it’s said that these creatures hunt mothers and newborn children. In Eversink,
however, the penanggalan hunts wickedness — and the more dire the sin, the tastier her meal. She
squeezes herself up through the floorboards, moves around the room using her intestines as tentacles,
and slurps her victims’ fresh blood through her long, sharpened, tube-like tongue. She gains memories
and secrets from these victims, and she may bargain with those secrets if her life is put in danger.
Upon returning to her home, she must soak her organs in vinegar to let them shrink enough to fit back
into her body. In human form, most penanggalans carry a faint scent of vinegar. The Church of Denari
stringently denies that any of their Inquisitors work with penanggalans in the hunt for sin.
Male versions exist as well, often called manananggals.
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Destroying a penanggalan’s head in combat only inconveniences her briefly. The only method for truly
destroying a penanggalan is to place broken glass into her body’s neck cavity while she is away, or by
burning her headless body so that she has nowhere to return to.
Rattakan
Rodent-like, skittering, greedy and untrustworthy

Offense – Warfare: +1, Damage Modifier +1 (gnawing fangs plus Infection)
Abilities: Malus 18
Special Abilities: Armor-Piercing (cost 3), Disguise (cost 1), Defense Boost (cost 6), Infection, Shape-Shift
between rat and rattakan (cost 3), Summoning (cost 3 — rat swarm); dissolve into greasy black vapor
when slain
Misc: Alertness Modifier +1, Stealth Modifier +3. Injured or slain by places of worship (see p. XX)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: The rumor is that Rattakan are nothing more than shadows seen by inebriated City Watch.
Certainly no one has ever seen a body. And people would notice if black-furred, bipedal, humanoid rats
walked the city, don’t you think? Of course they would.
And yet, babies keep disappearing from the poor sections of the ‘Sink, and people disappear when
they’re infected with the disease Scabral.
Rats are always a problem in Eversink, and where there are rats, there are the Rattakan. They shift
between rat-sized and the size of a human, are sly and territorial, and they both figuratively and literally
gnaw away at the religious and architectural underpinnings of Denari. They spread quiet terror as they
ruin the things that humans love. The church works to wipe them out without ever letting knowledge of
their existence reach the population as a whole. There would be terrified riots if that occurred, and no
one wants to be the person who pushes the Commoners into a rebellion.
The Rattakan dwell deep beneath Alderhall and Ironcross in long-forgotten sunken stone palaces that
haven’t entirely collapsed or flooded. The bloated rat queens lair there with thousands of their
squeaking, naked young. It’s said that those linked Rattakan palaces are maintained by nothing more
than pure, concentrated faith in the Rattakan god; should that faith ever falter, the lairs would flood and
collapse, taking a sizeable portion of Eversink’s buildings with them.
Rarely, transformed Rattakan can fully pass as human. These are carefully fostered, trained, and
inserted as spies, gang leaders, or the leaders of thieves’ guilds. More horrifying, naturally born Rattakan
changelings are occasionally swapped for human babies without the parents knowing for years.
Rattakan carry the late-stage disease Scabral (see p. XX). It is transmitted through their saliva (so usually
through their bite, although we don’t recommend you spend time kissing one, either). It’s painful for
Rattakan to move through Denari’s Blessing, and they are unable to enter sacred spaces without being
destroyed.
Serpent Folk (Serpentine)

Ancient beyond measure, sorcerous, the true masters of humanity
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Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 3 (hardened scales), Health 25
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (utter disdain), Morale 18
Offense – Warfare: +2, Damage Modifier +1 plus Venom (bite) or the Restrain Maneuver at +2 Difficulty
(coils)
Offense – Sorcery: +1 vs Morale, Damage Modifier +1 (Spheres of Memory Control and Mind Control)
Offense – Sway: +0, Damage Modifier +1 (hypnotic whispers)
Abilities: Malus 30
Special Abilities: Disguise (cost 1), Extra Action (cost 3), Lightning Speed (cost 3), Monstrous Ability (cost
3), Oracle (cost 3), Spellcasting (cost 3 — 2 uses), Venom (cost 3 — Daze)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Serpent folk lived in Narissimanitellikul, here in the delta of the great River Serpentine, for
thousands of years before humanity first fled down the river and tried to cross the mud. The serpent
people built unnatural temples within the bog, raised idols to their demonic gods, and — in conjunction
with the great Serpentine Empire upriver — tore the rules of sorcery from the starlight above. Most had
departed by the time that Eversink was founded, and Denari drove many of the remaining serpent folk
far away.
Everyone knows that serpent folk died out long, long ago, and there’s no risk at all of ever encountering
serpent folk within Eversink. Even if they still existed, they would not worship in the flooded and
abandoned depths of the city, nor would they walk the streets pretending to be normal humans. That
sounds unlikely at best, don’t you think?
Truly, their extinction is a blessing. Stone carvings show them to have been long and deadly, with poison
fangs and a coiling body atop which sat a human-like face. Faster than thought they were, and their
sorcery affected... affected... eh. It doesn’t matter, because they don’t exist. This discussion is boring.
Let’s talk about another Adversary instead.
Snake’s Eye: as mentioned on p. XX, the ‘Sinkish often mount a small mirrored charm on their door
jambs to ward off evil. Almost no one remembers the truth any more (2 ranks of Forgotten Lore or Laws
and Traditions needed), but legend has it that a properly made charm wards off serpent folk. It catches
their eye and repels them; serpent folk take 5 Morale damage if they attempt to pass a Snake’s Eye
charm on a door or window frame, and are restrained for at least a round if they try. Sometimes,
strange old traditions happen for a reason.
Serpentine Monstrosity
Hulking, unthinkable, terrifying

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 5, Grit 3, Morale 15 per Hero
Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +3 (curved blade or fangs), and the Restrain Maneuver (coils)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +4 (terror)
Abilities: Malus 50
Special Abilities: Fearsome Blow (cost 3), Monstrous Ability (cost 3), Spider Climb, Strength, Summoning
(cost 3 — snakes), Universal Attack (cost 6), Venom (cost 3 — Daze)
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Refresh Tokens: 7
Description: Serpentine Monstrosities are massive human-ish serpents more than 10 meters long, giants
of hunger and hatred that will gleefully destroy any human that wakes them from their long torpor.
They are often worshipped as near-gods by sorcerers and other superstitious humans. They’re far from
intellectual and operate at almost a primal level, but they rarely need to think more clearly than that.
Seskie
Luminescent, driven, inhuman

Offense – Sorcery: +1 vs Health, Fixed Damage 4 (Sphere of Ocean)
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Fluid (cost 3), Seize Initiative (cost 3), Swimming, Telepathy
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: The seskie are ocean spirits given flesh for a brief amount of time — usually the length of a
tide, or a single moonlit night. They have pale skin and eyes the color of ocean waves, and in moonlight
they glimmer like phosphorescent tides. They are animated by the ocean’s powers and can swim upriver
or walk upon land until their allotted time expires or they are slain. In either case, their body bursts into
sea water and no sign of the seskie remains.
Seskies are usually sent for a particular purpose, such as capturing a certain person, learning a certain
fact, or recovering a certain item. They may come in the hundreds or thousands when they do, or just a
handful may come into Eversink seeking their goal. They avoid temples of Denari; simply crossing a
threshold is usually enough to burst their bonds of flesh, so they recruit human allies if what they need
is within a holy space.
It’s rumored that seskies far more powerful than the rank and file — true ocean sorcerers — exist as
well but find Eversink distasteful.
Shadow Demon
Lurking, evil, amused
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 6, Armor 2 (and often Insubstantial), Health 15

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 2 (hissing persuasion), Morale 15
Offense – Sorcery: +1 vs Health, Damage Modifier +3 (boiling blood)
Offense – Sway: +2, Persuade Maneuver
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Spellcasting (cost 3 — 1 use), Insubstantial (when not in direct sunlight), Possession
(cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Shadow demons are the shredded remnants of a long-dead god. They’re made from living
shadow and bad ideas, and they exist solely to trigger lethally poor choices. They appear to be toddler-
sized shreds of shadow; although they can literally boil the blood from your veins, they vastly prefer to
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use the Persuade Maneuver. Success results in the victim doing exactly what the shadow demon tells it
to do, without knowing it has been manipulated.
Their preferred victims are children. More than one parent has been murdered in their sleep by a 6-
year-old who has no recollection of why she’s suddenly standing in a pool of blood.
Shadow demons leave a stink behind them that smells of old blood. Church Inquisitors claim greater-
than-average success in tracking their movements.
Shadow Wisp
Starved, evil, hidden

Offense – Sorcery: +0 vs Health, Fixed Damage 4 (vitality drain)
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Insubstantial (when not in direct sunlight)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Shadow wisps are shadows stolen from children. They do the bidding of the shadow demon
that created them. Most dissipate naturally if their progenitor is destroyed, but rarely one or more
grows sufficiently in strength to eventually become self-aware and a shadow demon itself.
Singer in the Swamp

Eerie, clinging, undead

Offense – Warfare: +0, Fixed Damage 4 (sharpened fingerbones) or Restrain Maneuver
Offense – Sway: +0, Fixed Damage 5 (paralyzing fear)
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Linger, Regenerate (1 Health per round until defeated)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Singers in the swamp (sometimes called bog singers) are reanimated skeletons of those
who drown in swamps. They’re typically imbued with necromantic energy and a fell purpose; they
delight in hiding under muck and brackish water, then using the Restrain Maneuver to pull passers-by
down to their doom. They sing as they do, their eerie voices echoing across the swamp.
To be truly destroyed, a bog singer both must both be damaged physically and have a few words of
prayer said over it (a Sway attack) during the same turn.
Skeletal Giant
Ancient, driven, hunting

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 8 (0 vs prayer), Morale 3
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Offense – Warfare: +2, Damage Modifier +3 (tree trunk)
Offense – Sway: +1, Damage Modifier +3 (paralyzing fear)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Fearsome Blow (cost 3), Lightning Speed (cost 3), Linger (can’t be defeated until both
Health and Morale reach 0), Regeneration (cost 0 — Morale regenerates fully at the end of each round),
Strength, Universal Attack (cost 6)
Refresh Tokens: 7
Description: A necromantic hulk of the storm-torn North, this giant skeleton is ancient and deadly. To be
truly destroyed, a skeletal giant cannot be killed unless both Health and Morale are below 0. Morale
regenerates at the end of each round. Using prayer for a Sway attack against it ignores Grit.
Swamp Ogre
Fetid, dripping, insatiably hungry

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 2 (fear only), Morale 10
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +4 (massive spiked club)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +3 (terrifying roar)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Strength
Misc: Alertness Modifier –1, Stealth Modifier –1
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: 3 meters tall and bestial, swamp ogres stalk the far reaches of the bog taking whatever they
need by dint of their strength. When they invade human lands, livestock vanishes just barely before the
commoners do.
Will o’ the Wisp

Flitting, beautiful, murderous
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor Special (see Insubstantial), Health 1

Offense – Sorcery: +1 vs Morale, Fixed Damage 4 (unquenchable curiosity) or the Persuade Maneuver
Abilities: Malus 9
Special Abilities: Insubstantial, Invisibility (cost 3), Regenerate (cost 0, next scene), Summoning (cost 3
— monsters or humans of some kind, not necessarily hostile)
Misc: Alertness Modifier +4, Stealth Modifier –3 (when lit)
Refresh Tokens: 1
Description: Will o’ the wisps appear both in the swamp and in Eversink’s undercity. No one is quite sure
what drives them; they’re impossible to hurt with physical weapons, easy to disrupt with sorcery or
prayer (using Sway), damn near impossible to kill, and seem to take great delight in luring people into
danger. They do this with a sorcerous attack against Morale that creates great curiosity, encouraging
victims to follow them long past the point of safety.
These creatures often appear in groups of up to 10 individuals, with usually only one wisp lit and acting
as lure at any given time.
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Will o’ the wisps are said to love music. Sing songs of haunting beauty to them, and you might be lured
to lost treasure instead of to your doom.
Winged Ape
Ancient, ferocious, debased

Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (massive clawed fists), or +2 (fanged maw)
Offense – Sway: +0; Damage Modifier +0 (terrifying howl — usable at Very Long range)
Abilities: Wilderness Mastery 2; Malus 20
Special Abilities: Extra Action (cost 3), Flight, Strength
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Winged apes may grow as large as three meters tall. They are only found deep in jungle
ruins, usually guarding ancient fallen cities with savage ferocity. Rumors persist of winged apes with four
or six arms instead of the normal two, and of apes who know rudimentary sorcery and who worship
fallen Serpentine idols.
Vampire
Thirsty, varied, amused, loathsome
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 5 (0 when confronted by bane), Health 10 per Hero
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 3 (0 when confronted by bane), Morale 10 per Hero
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +3 (crushing grip or sharp fangs)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +3 (insinuating voice)
Abilities: Malus 25
Special Abilities: Fearsome Blow (cost 3), Insubstantial (cost 6), Monstrous Ability (cost 3), Magical
Charm (cost 3), Regenerate (fully by next dusk if not fully destroyed), Strength
Misc: Blood is life. Any Health damage inflicted to a Dazed, Charmed, Unconscious, or Paralyzed target
heals the vampire’s Health by 1 point for every damage point inflicted. Sunlight, however, acts like Fire
(see p. XX 120) to a vampire. Vampiric Armor and Grit are reduced to 0 by the use of the vampire’s bane,
which varies by vampire and is typically tied to something they loved or feared in life.
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: There are near-endless varieties of vampires, from classic Bram Stoker bloodsuckers, to
deathly cold creatures who devour Corruption and radiate death, to ancient stone plinths hosting alien
vampiric spirits that someone foolishly used for bridge construction materials. These stats show a classic
“social” vampire that preys on humans for blood and who may wish to mix with Eversink’s social elite.
The vampire can use Monstrous Ability to recreate any appropriate vampiric ability, including turning to
mist when badly injured, and it heals by drinking blood from immobilized or willing targets.
Some vampires are also sorcerers, able to manipulate Corruption and cast horrendous spells. Such
vampires are also often Masterminds, making them unspeakably dangerous.
Zombie
Rotting, terrifying, slow
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Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Health 1 + Special (see below)
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold Nil, Morale Nil (zombies are immune to Morale attacks)
Offense – Sway: +1; Fixed Damage 4 (fear)
Abilities: Malus 5
Special Abilities: Summon (more zombies — cost 3)
Misc: Can only be destroyed by a Critical Hit. A normal hit creates the appearance of superficial damage
and causes the zombie to lose its action for the next round (only one round regardless of number of
hits).
Zombies use their Sway attack at a distance, groaning and moaning in a terrifying way as they slowly
advance.
Unless it Summons more zombies, it typically uses all of its Malus at once and adds it to a single Warfare
attack, briefly giving it a +5 attack and a 50% chance to score a Critical Hit on its target. If it scores a
Critical Hit, it rips into the target’s skull in search of brains. The target and any human observing loses
Morale Fixed Damage 4 out of horror.
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: A particularly tenacious form of undead, zombies are typically created by a disease that
uses Corruption to hollow out a living being.
Variations: Fast zombies gain the Special Ability Lightning Speed and have Malus 12. Infectious zombies
have the Special Ability Infection and can create more zombies if their victim survives. Stealth zombies
gain a Stealth Modifier of +3. Sea or Swamp zombies gain the Special Ability Swimming.
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CHAPTER EIGHT: GM ADVICE
Safety During Play
RPGs go in unexpected directions, and no one wants to accidentally make other players uncomfortable
or scared. We recommend you use an RPG safety tool such as the X-Card while playing. Such tools make
sure everyone at the table has a way to easily avoid issues that would otherwise stop your game cold.
Here’s how to use an X-Card.
• Place a card with an “X” or “Let’s Not” on it somewhere on the table where everyone can reach
it.
• Anyone can tap or hold up the X-Card while playing, and the group will edit out or adjust the
scene’s content, no questions asked.
The X-Card was created by John Stavropoulos. Search the internet for “RPG safety and calibration tools”
for more information on RPG safety tools.
Setting the Tone for Sword & Sorcery

Swords of the Serpentine cleaves to the ideas of classic sword & sorcery, such as the following. If you’re
building an adventure or planning a game, you won’t go wrong if you start with these rules.
• Adventures are episodic. Months or years may pass between when adventures are set, and a
Hero’s fortunes may rise or fall from one adventure to the next. Adventures may occur out of
chronological order.
• The actions of Heroes change the world around them in fundamentally important ways.
• A Hero’s own abilities are far more important than their gear. Equipment gets lost, abandoned,
and stolen, but when you’re shipwrecked or taken captive you can always rely on yourself.
• The gear that’s most important is the gear that’s named.
• Sorcery is rare and dangerous, and can’t be trusted. Sorcery corrupts, and has a cost. Its rules
and origins are little-known.
• Not all secrets in the world should be, or need to be, known.
• There are few, if any, non-human societies. Those that exist tend to be horrific or alien.
• A Hero’s motivations may start out simple: survival, vengeance, and wealth. Motivations and
Drives likely grow more complex and sophisticated over time.
• The world is hard and seldom fair. All too often, “justice” varies based on your wealth and
importance.
• The world (and Heroes) are filled with moral shades of gray and are seldom black and white.
• The great Heroes carry their reputation before them.
• The phrase “mighty thews” shows up way more often than you would probably expect.
• Quests tend to be small, personal, and centered around self-interest and small groups instead of
saving a nation or the world.
• Wealth is transitory. Heroes live for today; they may find great wealth, but they’re impoverished
again before you know it. Money slips away or is squandered, and Heroes must seek risks to
capture more.
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• The sly and clever villain is not necessarily puissant in combat. That, of course, is why they hire
protection.
• Villains linger, as do their plans.
• The unknown conceals horror and is seldom safe.
• The boundaries of kingdoms are fluid and are seldom set in stone. They vary based on the
actions of the strong.
• The world is old and crumbling, and lost history abounds.
• Whimsy lurks in unexpected places, and cleverness is everywhere.
You can (and should) use this game’s rules in a way that is most fun for you and your players, but you’ll
find that published setting and adventures cleave towards a classic sword & sorcery approach.
Players Help Build the World

Far more than in many games, players in Swords of the Serpentine are responsible for world-building
and description. When a player asks you a setting-related question and you don’t already have an
answer, consider saying, “You tell me.” This stretches player imagination, gives players tremendous buy-
in to the setting and campaign events, empowers players to co-create fun locations and events, and
over time, trains players in improvisational GMing. Some examples:
• “How tall is the building?” “You tell me. How tall do you want it to be?”
• “I go and talk to the bartender.” “Sure. What’s his name, and what does he look like?”
A typical way of starting a new adventure is going around the table, asking each player in turn a question
about the world at the start of the adventure.
• “What time of year is it?”

• “What’s the weather like right now?”
• “What time of day is it?”
• “Is it high tide, low tide, or somewhere in between?”
• “When was the last time you slept in your own bed?”
• “Why are you starting this adventure on the run from the City Watch?”
• “What has changed in the city since the last adventure?”
This last question may be one you want to ask more than one player. It’s then up to you to work some
or all of their statements into the adventure and the campaign. Sometimes you’ll find this easy, and
their world-building may take a major role; sometimes it will be difficult and won’t even be mentioned
in the following adventure; and sometimes it will contradict something you already have planned, and
you will need to gently ask the player for something else (perhaps giving them a hint as to the nature of
their coming adventure).
Note that two Investigative abilities allow explicit worldbuilding from the players at times when it
particularly favors the Heroes. Pool points from Forgotten Lore (Sorcerer) and Laws & Traditions
(Sentinel) can and should be spent to declare something in the world to be true. If you think the effect
of their spend is too powerful, consider allowing it if 2 or more points are spent instead.
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You’re under no obligation to accept statements that you think change the tone of the game or the
nature of the world, unless you want to -- as GM you always have final say over anything, including
these rules.
Character Construction
Advice on building Heroes can be found in Chapter Two. Here’s a look behind the scenes, with some
GM-specific advice.
Analysis Paralysis
A danger of character creation in any type of point-buy system is analysis paralysis, where players
become overwhelmed by choice and don’t understand the best way to optimize their Heroes. This game
avoids this in several ways:
• A detailed character creation checklist, walking through the process step by step (see p. XX)
• A set of quick-start examples of how Heroes might know one another (assuming they don’t want
to decide on their own) (see p. XX)
• Quick-start archetypes that are ready to play (see p. XX)
• Permission to leave some Investigative points unspent before the first adventure
• Permission to freely redistribute points after the first adventure
• Permission to redistribute points after any subsequent adventure, with the GM’s approval and
at a small cost.
Specialization
The most flexible Heroes are ones that pick and choose Investigative abilities from more than one list of
Profession abilities. The players don’t get the bonus Build point for specializing, but they have complete
freedom to customize their Hero. The trade-off may well be worth it.
Some players may decide to be highly specialized, putting 5 ranks into Command or 4 points into City’s
Secrets. This is the player’s way of telling you “This sounds really fun, and I want to do lots of this,” so
reward it. Supporting characters will acknowledge the Hero as an expert at their specialty, and they may
develop a wide reputation due to their skill. Make this fun, and don’t punish a player for specialization. If
they discover that they haven’t left themselves enough flexibility, they can always redistribute their
points after the first adventure.
Players may want to specialize in an Allegiance instead. Someone who puts extra Investigative points
into their Allies is telling you that they want a leadership role (or a lot of influence) in that faction.
Reward them, allowing them to draw on that influence to solve otherwise difficult problems. A Hero
with 3 ranks of Mercenaries can legitimately call out her Mercenary troop to fight alongside her or clear
out a dangerous building, so long as she’s willing to take responsibility for any injuries or political fallout.
Heroes with 5 ranks of Triskadane may actually be one of the thirteen secret leaders of Eversink, or
perhaps used to be when they were younger, but they still know where all the government’s secrets are
buried.
Specialization in General abilities is limited somewhat by the rule on p. XX, but it’s still possible for a
Hero to start play with 15 ranks of a single General ability. If they do, give them plenty of opportunities
to use it frequently and don’t feel bad about making encounters fun and challenging. A barbarian
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warrior with 15 ranks of Warfare is itching to win a fight that might take down any number of less
puissant heroes, and that deserves to be recognized and rewarded with epic battles.
Health vs. Morale

Character creation rules are designed so that you can start with either a Health Threshold of 4 or a
Morale Threshold of 4, but not both. In just two adventures, players who want more protection can use
their Advancement points gained from adventuring to increase both Health and Morale to rank 10.
Pay attention to whether Heroes focus on damaging their enemies’ Health (with Warfare or Sorcery) or
Morale (with Sway or Sorcery). This will tell you what sort of opponents they’ll have the most fun
fighting, and what type of encounters they’ll most enjoy.
If players seem frustrated that their ranks of Sway or Warfare aren’t useful for the sort of enemies
they’re fighting, remind them of the Teamwork Attack rule on p. XX.
Gear
Remind players that Heroes can use Preparedness at any time to establish what gear they have. With
the Flashback talent, Heroes can even say “Good thing I was wearing that chainmail!” and use newly
established chainmail to save their own (or an ally’s) life from an incoming barrage of crossbow bolts.
That’s not cheating; it’s good and clever play.
Rarer items can be gained as part of a wealthy or opulent lifestyle, or purchased in markets or from
particular vendors by spending a high number of Wealth points.
Encourage players to name their signature gear that they use in every adventure. In the style of literary
heroes such as Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by author Fritz Leiber, naming weapons in particular helps
define who that sword & sorcery hero is.
Judging Investigative Ability Spends

A core mechanic of Swords of the Serpentine is encouraging players to make Investigative spends to do
bonus damage. You’re going to ask yourself: what’s a reasonable spend? What’s a reasonable effect?
What are the limits? Use these guidelines.
Ask the Player, “What’s Your Goal?”

When a player offers a spend, or if they’re staring at their character sheet instead of telling you their
action, ask what their goal is. By telling you what they want to achieve, you can help them make the
most fun or efficient choice. This is most important for new players and new campaigns.
What’s a Reasonable Spend?

If it’s to gain information that is a clue or a lead, give them the information they’re looking for with no
spend or die roll required.
Investigative spends are used to give a Hero a moment in the sun. Every time a player wants to try
something that seems unrealistic or improbable to you, ask for an appropriate spend instead, with your
guideline being “Could a hero in a sword & sorcery story accomplish this?”
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Outside of combat, spending more than one pool point to achieve a goal is uncommon. Ask for a multi-
point spend when the player wants to achieve something particularly difficult or improbable.
What’s a Reasonable Effect?

For a 1-point Investigative spend, a Hero can automatically succeed at (or bypass) a standard Difficulty 4
General ability test. A 1-point spend can engineer a reasonable coincidence, pull strings to arrange a
favor, gain a big advantage for a round, gain a small advantage for a scene, or make life harder for a
supporting character. Encourage players to be creative and imaginative; if they can rationalize how one
of their abilities helps them achieve the effect they’re seeking, you should agree.
See p. XX for examples of typical effects from spends.
What Are the Limits?

You’re the ultimate arbiter of what’s possible and what isn’t. When the player wants an Investigative
spend to achieve something that’s flatly impossible, that makes the game less fun for everyone, or that
runs counter to the game’s tone, you should decline the spend.
You may decide to allow more lenient limits in exchange for success with consequence. For instance,
you may allow a player’s unlikely attempt to collapse the ancient temple’s ceiling, because the Heroes
would then have to make a desperate Chase to survive the collapse and because it might allow the
villain to survive and take revenge later.
GM Advice: Success at a Cost

Failure is boring and consequences are interesting. Consider making a failed roll into a moderate success along
with some sort of devil’s bargain that has the player making hard decisions.
This is particularly useful when the Heroes are trying to reach a core scene. The question stops being “Will they
succeed?” and starts becoming “How much trouble are they in?” This keeps the game moving towards a climax,
but never becomes an auto-win in a dangerous confrontation and does not protect Heroes from Health or Morale
loss. You’re encouraged to give players a difficult choice in these circumstances, and then let the players decide for
themselves what is most important.
You can’t confront your enemy because you can’t batter open or pick the lock on a locked door, and no one
has a point of City’s Secrets to spend for the special benefit of a hidden passage. You try one last Athletics
test and fail. Your GM says, “It depends on how much shoulder you put into it. Are you willing to do what it
takes?” You say yes. Your low roll becomes a success but you dislocate your shoulder, raising the Difficulty
of Warfare attacks for the next scene. The heavy door slams to the ground, echoing down the corridor.
Now he knows you’re coming.
[[[end sidebar]]]
How to Run a Fight

Combat works best when it runs quickly. The initiative system helps reduce analysis paralysis by giving
players a few minutes’ notice before it’s their turn so that they can plan out their action. When it comes
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down to blows (whether verbal or physical), encouraging players not to dither usually results in more
fun for the entire table.
Let the players describe the combat area and any setting detail other than those facts you’ve already
established. That lets them help create the environment and battlefield, makes it simpler for them to
picture the scene, and frees you up to respond to their world-building with your own villains. A nice side
effect of this is that you get to react to other peoples’ creativity instead of having to create everything
from scratch yourself.
It’s important to remember that fights end when people are defeated (or when they flee), not when
they’re necessarily dead, and it’s up to the attacker to describe what happens to a defeated foe. They
could be left unconscious, dead, stunned, cowering, transformed by sorcery, or something even more
creative.
Effective Adversaries
Mooks
Tactically powerful Mooks are a “glass cannon”, able to strike hard before being easily defeated. This
matches genre convention where heroes cut down the faceless minions before engaging with the true
villain. Encourage Heroes to use their combat Talents to take down as many Mooks as they can as
quickly as possible. They may learn the hard way that not doing so can be dangerous in a fight.
As such, consider deploying Mooks in waves — instead of 20 Mooks attacking simultaneously, have 10
attack in the first round, 5 attack in the second round, and 5 attack in the third round. You should tweak
this distribution and add to or subtract from the quantity of Mooks to give your players a fun fight at
whatever level of challenge you prefer. Just remember that if all the Mooks go before a single player in
the initiative order, you may accidentally defeat the Heroes before they ever get an action. Split Mooks
up into separate initiative groups so that they don’t all necessarily act at once.
A nameless Mook is usually easily differentiated from a named Adversary. If the Heroes ask, don’t be
reluctant to let them know which is which. It’s no fun for anyone if your player spends 6 Warfare to
eviscerate a lone, nameless minion with a Critical Hit (unless that’s what they deliberately want to do).
Rarely, a Mook is worth promoting to a named Adversary. This happens when they survive improbable
odds, are surprisingly effective in combat, or someone asks you their name.
Monsters
Deadliness varies tremendously from monster to monster. Some are easy to defeat if you know their
secret; some are robust but not terribly deadly; some are lethal and should be feared. The monster’s
appearance (and the Investigative ability Know Monstrosities) will give hints to which is which.
A single monster against an entire group of Heroes will die relatively quickly. If you want it to put up a
longer fight, give monsters the Warding special ability or supplement monsters with additional human
or non-human foes. Mooks are particularly useful for this purpose.
While it’s become a cliché nowadays, many monsters (particularly supernatural ones) in traditional
sword & sorcery stories are “load-bearing monsters” whose death triggers a collapse of the structure or
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area they lair in. You can use this implausible but dramatic tactic in an adventure as well, with the
monster’s death triggering a chase (see p. XX) to safety.
Named Foes
Just as in a movie, the most dangerous foes are the ones important enough to have names. They’re
typically cannier, harder to kill, and more deadly than nameless enemies.
Some named foes only appear once and are no more powerful than an average Mook, but are harder to
defeat and possess more than 3 Health and Morale. These mid-difficulty combatants survive longer in
combat but are less likely to pull out truly unique tactics when fighting Heroes.
When a named foe should be memorable and truly dangerous, don’t hesitate to use them to their fullest
potential. Spending 3 Malus can produce the same result as a Hero’s Investigative spend, and named
foes with the capability to do so will seize initiative, obscure a lie, do extra damage, try to resist a
Maneuver, heal themselves, and any other clever tactic they can think of to win. They’ll use the law and
government bureaucracies to their advantage, try to get a Hero’s allies to turn against them, and
threaten (and follow through) dire consequences if the Hero doesn’t do as they wish. Whenever
possible, a named foe will try to arrange a confrontation on grounds that are most advantageous to
their own cause.
One caution: if foes use high-Difficulty Morale-based Maneuvers to try to get a Hero to do something
objectionable, remind the player that they can make an appropriate Investigative spend to reduce the
Maneuver’s Difficulty. You always want players to feel like they have a choice when a foe tries to
persuade them, trick them, or possess them.
Single Foes
Whether it’s with a monster or a particularly deadly human, not all fights involve more than one enemy.
If designing a single foe for a momentous battle, make it flexibly deadly, terrifying to observe, worryingly
robust, and clever in its tactics. Extra damage from well-organized Heroes with lots of Investigative
points to spend means that a single foe, no matter how dangerous, may be defeated with surprising
speed. Single foes are most interesting and challenging when they have a way to attack more than one
Hero per round, either with Extra Action, Fear, Universal Attack, or multiple actions; and last longer in a
fight when they have ways to mitigate damage for a time, such as Armor, Grit, Defense Boost, and
Warded.
High Grit and Armor

Some enemies are easy to hit but hard to hurt. Foes like this favor Heroes with the Spot Frailty ability,
and are best defeated by using Teamwork Attacks or Investigative spends to boost damage enough to
get through the protection.
Add high Grit or high Armor to existing Adversary stat blocks to make encounters tactically interesting so
that Heroes must try different strategies to take down a foe.
When Heroes have high Grit or Armor, foes who are aware of it will respond accordingly, thinking out of
the box and trying a Maneuver or an unconventional attack if possible. Only a foe with no other options
will attempt attacks that have no chance in damaging a Hero. In such a situation, most foes will instead
attempt to escape.
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Wards and Healing
Heroes (and some villains) have the ability to unleash true pain on their foes by spending every General
and Investigative point they have on an attack. It isn’t unheard of, for instance, for a specialized sorcerer
to inflict over 30 points of damage on a single momentous attack. That’s hard for anyone to survive —
and it should be.
When you need a foe to survive a little longer than normal, give them the Warded special ability (see p.
XX) that allows them to only take half damage until the end of their next turn. You may also wish to give
them higher-than-normal Armor or Grit, even if you do so with a special ability that causes it to last for
only a round. This will help keep a single Adversary on their feet longer when facing off against an entire
group of Heroes.
An often-overlooked tactic is for the Adversary to have minions with the Healing or Bolster Morale
ability, using their Malus to restore the primary villain’s Health and Morale.
Fight Locations
When staging a fight, make the fight scene as interesting as possible by using the environment to your
advantage. Think of the fight location like the scene of a movie; why is it memorable and exciting, and
what additions might make it more dynamic and fun? A duel on a slippery stone bridge during a storm is
more interesting than a duel in the middle of a plaza… unless that plaza is a Market Square, it’s the
middle of a holy festival, and there are hundreds of carts and stalls to tip over, run through, and climb.
Whenever you have two options, pick the one that will make a more interesting story or action scene.
When in doubt, go around the table and ask your players to each tell you something interesting about
the location or what’s nearby. Then incorporate their suggestions into the fight scene.
Effective Tactics
Regardless of their competence, Adversaries in an adventure are usually doing their best to succeed at
their goals. Your goal as GM, however, is for everyone at the table (including both you and the players)
to have fun. Sometimes that means villains are embarrassing pushovers who are being manipulated and
who drop like bowling pins, and sometimes it means they’re deadly, clever, and terribly effective.
Adversaries who aren’t smart or experienced enough to show good tactics may charge blindly into battle
without thinking twice about their strategy. Cleverer opponents have a sense of self-preservation and
may well prefer to keep themselves safe to fight another day — they’ll summon minions, engage their
hired mercenaries, call the City Watch if they have plausible deniability, and use Sway attacks rather
than Warfare to defeat enemies without putting themselves at risk of bodily harm.
Mechanically, here are methods for improving Adversary tactics.
• Mooks with missile weapons (such as armor-piercing crossbows), standing in locations that are
physically difficult to reach and that are far enough apart for Heroes’ combat Talents to be less
effective. A second Mook behind each archer, cocking a second crossbow each round, makes
them even deadlier.
• Crowds of Mooks can be extremely deadly, and can overwhelm Heroes if not targeted and
defeated quickly.
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• Use Malus spends, Investigative spends and special abilities for Adversaries to increase damage
or accuracy, just as Heroes might.
• Use Adversary special abilities or Maneuvers to add complications such as tripping and
disarming into a fight.
• Seize Initiative, Extra Action, and Universal Attack can allow an Adversary to attack whenever
they choose, and then attack more than one person at a time.
• Fear (the option that affects more than one target) is efficient at threatening Morale reserves.
• When an Adversary runs low on Malus, Mooks with Invigorate can help keep them in the fight.
• Allies of the primary Adversary may be able to use Healing to heal them, or use Bolster Morale
to restore their Morale.
• Armor, Grit and (particularly) Warding help powerful Adversaries stay alive longer by limiting the
amount of damage they take in a round of combat.
• Use societal pressure along with combat; sure, you can cut down that captain of the guard, but
isn’t she the younger sister of someone near the top of the Triskadane’s secret police?
• Adversary Sorcerers who aren’t trying to maintain secrecy might use the environment to their
advantage in the flashiest manner possible, pulling down buildings and floors, or summoning up
flood waters.
Tactical Weakness
You can make an otherwise deadly foe defeatable by giving it a tactical weakness, just as you can make
otherwise ineffective foes relevant in battle by giving them a tactical strength. Two such examples are a
horse-borne warrior who is far less effective off her mount, or a silver-tongued blackguard who shyly
panics when talking to those he’s strongly attracted to.
Similarly, a highly effective fighter might be terrified of social confrontation and have low Sway or a low
Morale. When confronted by Maneuvers targeting their Morale, they may remove themselves from the
situation as quickly as possible… or they might attempt a more violent solution.
Allies
If there’s one thing that can be said about Eversink, it’s that people know each other by reputation and
that debts last until paid with interest. Political and family alliances are extremely important, and it isn’t
uncommon for blood feuds to span centuries. As a result, confronting an Adversary with the Allies
special power (see p. XX) or with a strongly established social position may end up with Heroes biting off
more than they expect.
Use this to your advantage when running games in Eversink. Ask each Hero what famous or notable
person (if any) they’re related to, and tell Heroes with ranks in Nobility the possible consequences of
thwarting or killing socially prominent citizens. Write down the answers so you can use them in later
games. Doing so will slowly weave a network of interesting supporting characters around the Heroes,
and will make sure your group’s adventures ripple far beyond the ruins they’re exploring or the treasure
they’re robbing.
Using Enemy, Grudge and Low Repute Points

Keep a handy list of each Hero’s Enemy and Grudge factions, and of how many Enemy ranks and Grudge
points they have acquired, using the chart on p. XX. Do the same with points of Low Repute.
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Enemies Hero 1 Hero 2 Hero 3 Hero 4 Hero 5
Ancient Nobility -1 -1
Church of Denari -1
City Watch -1
Commoners
Guild of Architects
Mercanti
Mercenaries -2 -1
Monstrosities
Outlanders
Sorcerous Cabal
Thieves’ Guilds -1
Triskadane
Grudges
Ancient Nobility
Church of Denari
City Watch -1
Commoners -1
Guild of Architects
Mercanti
Mercenaries -1
Monstrosities
Outlanders -1
Sorcerous Cabal
Thieves’ Guilds
Triskadane -1
Low Repute -2 -1 -1
Work to use Enemy and Grudge points against the Heroes whenever plausible, particularly when
encountering supporting characters who are also enemies or allies of that faction. If action gets slow
during an adventure, consider spending an Enemy pool point to complicate the Heroes’ lives in some
way. In Eversink, when in doubt, an old enemy shows up to even the score.
Possible uses of Enemy points to sabotage Heroes, complicate their scenes or thwart their plans
include:
• Suborning or bribing supporting characters to secretly spy on or work against the Heroes
• Closing off buildings, streets, canals, or other rights of way just to spite the Hero
• Planting false information or minor red herrings in an investigation (recommended only if the
adventure is otherwise straightforward)
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• Reducing the Difficulty of a Hero’s Maneuver by 3 or more, making it easier to survive
• Hiring an assassin or street gang to ambush the Heroes at a time when the adventure might hit a
slow spot
• Spreading false or damaging rumors about the Hero or an organization they support
• Setting the law on the Hero for a trumped-up charge
• Making a particular item (such as poison or exotic weaponry) difficult, expensive, or impossible
to obtain
• Adding +3 to the Difficulty of a Maneuver used against the Hero
• In a fight, inflicting an extra die of bonus damage against the Hero.
• Giving one of their foes the opportunity to escape.
At its heart, ranks in an Enemy ability gives you a built-in excuse to complicate a Hero’s life, to tie them
further into the web of Eversink’s political factions, and to let a particularly egregious enemy become
that much more dangerous.
More than one rank in the same Enemy indicates that the Hero has a reputation as a notorious foe of
that faction. The Hero will usually be recognized on sight or by their reputation, and their enemy will
seek them out and stalk them to even the score.
You can crowdsource the use of Enemy or Grudge pool points by asking your fellow players for advice on
how a Hero should be inconvenienced. Players might suggest a narrative downturn, or create a
particularly galling rival in the enemy organization. It’s our experience that players often suggest worse
consequences for Enemy or Grudge spends than the GM will ever think of.
Low Repute pool points give you a method for thwarting a Hero any time money, status, or appearance
is involved. Use your pool points of Low Repute to thwart the Heroes socially when they interact with
people who think of themselves as rich, important, or snobbish.
Mysteries and Clues

Sword & sorcery adventures are full of mysteries, leads and clues. Here are some examples.
• You hear rumors of (cursed?) jewel-eyed idols, hidden in ancient jungle temples to a fallen
snake-god, and you want to track them down.
• Anonymous blackmailers are trying to force your mentor to betray you against his will. Who,
and why?
• Mysterious beasts (or monsters?) are murdering people on mist-shrouded city streets. Where
do they lair, and how did they get here?
• You stumble onto ruins with well-carved statues of a long-dead people. Are the statues more
than they seem, and are they safe to sleep near?
• Trained birds are brutally ripping the jewelry from the necks and ears of ancient nobility. Who’s
behind the crimes, how are they training so many birds, and where are all those jewels ending
up?
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• You suspect there are hidden secret passages in a long-abandoned mansion. How do you find
them, and how do you get past the traps?
• A noble’s murder sets off a civil war — who killed her, and why? Can you stop the war? And
equally important, who will pay the most coin for the truth?
• You suspect a prestigious rival family is hiding a secret history that they’re willing to kill to
protect. What could be so bad, and can you use it to engineer their downfall?
• A shapeshifting monstrosity seems to be moving from home to home, feeding as it goes. How
can you find it to stop the murder spree, and who is it imitating right now?
Even simple questions — how does that trap work? Is this merchant lying to us? — can be considered as
a mystery, a lead, or a clue to greater adventure. This is a category where GUMSHOE games excel. With
Investigative abilities that always reveal a clue if you’re in the right spot for one to be found, Heroes
move through adventures across many different paths, uncovering the action in whichever way they
choose.
A classic challenge of mysteries in roleplaying games, however, is “What do I do if the players never
think to look for the clue?” Perhaps they forget to check a corpse’s moneypouch, or never follow up on
a promising clue because it slips everyone’s mind. Here are our recommendations when designing and
running adventures.
When assembling a mystery or an adventure, think about how clues lead from one scene to the next.
Leads and clues can come from Heroes using their Investigative abilities, or from using the knowledge of
their Allegiances.
Core Clues
The core clue is a special kind of clue that points the way to the next scene. They link the scenes of the
story together, and they ensure that Heroes can progress from one scene to another. Core leads always
get found.
Note that two Investigative abilities, Prophecy and Ridiculous Luck, can always provide core leads. If the
Heroes have no idea where to go because they haven’t yet put their clues together properly, both
Prophecy and Ridiculous Luck are easy ways to point them towards the next scene.
Every scene in the adventure has one or more core clues leading away from it, so that Heroes always
have at least one clue to follow.
Defining Clues
To work out the possible clues that Heroes can find, make a list of all the possible Investigative abilities
(see p. XX).
Run through this list and note down which abilities reveal useful information. You don’t need to do this
for every ability; when you’re done, delete from the list any abilities or Allegiance that won’t provide a
clue in this scene. See the sample adventure at the end of this book for an example.
Using Multiple Clues

It’s easiest for Heroes to track down mysteries when multiple core clues point towards the next scene,
and when those core leads are tied to different Investigative abilities. Multiple clues help players make
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the distinction between “This is a coincidence” and “This is important,” and tying these leads to
different abilities helps ensure that one player won’t be responsible for missing the one core clue.
Giving multiple clues shouldn’t hand players the solution to a mystery on a silver platter. More than one
clue might not provide much clarity as to why something is happening, but it provides indications that
there’s something there to venture out and investigate after all.
Clues on the Fly

When making up adventures on the fly, don’t worry about pre-planning clues. Instead, just picture the
scenario and consider what logical clues might arise from it. Then tell them to players on the fly as their
Heroes investigate. So long as you’re consistent, this is the easiest method of running an adventure with
little or no preparation.
You didn’t plan an adventure, so you decide on the fly that one of the Heroes’ allied factions is
going to hire them to investigate, and eradicate, the problems of a haunted house. You aren’t
sure whether the house is actually haunted or not, and you decide to leave the question open for
as long as possible. When the players start investigating, you tell them these clues.
• (City’s Secrets) This mansion stands on roughly the same site as Calieri Manor, a long-
sunken thieves’ guild that was scoured by an angry sorcerer several centuries ago. If they
can get into the basement, they should be able to see if anything from Calieri Manor has
burrowed upwards. (This points the way to the next core scene, so this is a core clue.)
• (Spirit Sight) The pavement here squirms and boils when seen in the spirit world. If there
isn’t Corruption here now, there sure was once. Maybe some of it remains.
• (Felonious Intent) The location of the mansion would make it ideal as a smuggling
waystation, except it’s owned by an elderly and cantankerous retired commander of the
City Watch who everyone thinks would never break the law.
It will be up to you what the actual truth is, guided by the players’ expectations and by what seems the
most fun. You can continue to make up clues on the fly that help point the Heroes to the adventure’s
excitement deep below ground, with a lot of danger and mystery along the way. Ideally, the truth
catches the players off guard by being more complex or interesting than they might have expected.
Listen to Your Players

If they’re facing a mystery, your players are going to have multiple theories about what’s going on in the
adventure. Listen to them, and if their suggestions sound better than what’s actually going on, just
change your plot on the fly. You’ve learned what your players love, and they’re going to feel particularly
clever. For even better results, combine one of their theories with your own plotting to make your story
even more interesting.
Write and Summarize Clues

It’s easy for players to lose track of who’s who, as well as of what clues they’ve discovered. Thinking
they’ve hit a final dead end might lead your Heroes to “turtle,” hunkering down to exhaustively compare
theories instead of venturing forth to find the truth. Not everyone finds longer strategy sessions fun or
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exciting, so when necessary you should help the players remember details that their Heroes wouldn’t
have forgotten.
To do so, write down names of supporting characters on note cards and encourage players to write
down clues or leads as they are discovered. When needed, give the players a quick factual summary of
the clues they’ve uncovered. When doing so, try not to editorialize or draw conclusions for the players;
there’s great fun for your players in putting together the clues and uncovering the truth for themselves.
Location and “Wild Card” Abilities

Investigative abilities require you to be in the correct location, or with the correct person, before they
can help you get clues.That makes plenty of sense; you can’t learn the desperately needed nugget of
information from a rare book until you can get your hands on that book and pore over it with Forgotten
Lore, even if Forgotten Lore has told you what book you need to find.
As the adventure progresses, Heroes can get stuck on where to go next for more clues. They may have
discounted a lead, or not spoken to a supporting character. This is okay; it’s traditional for Heroes to
return to previous locations to find additional details or gossip they missed.
Ridiculous Luck and Prophecy are the two “wild card” abilities that circumvent this. In this regard they
can be the GM’s best friend. Ridiculous Luck doesn’t tend to provide specific answers and clues, but can
point Heroes to the correct location or contact through an entirely fortuitous chain of coincidences.
Similarly, Prophecy (which can trigger any time you choose, even if the player doesn’t think to ask) gives
Heroes a clue towards a location or a person where important clues or information lie. Prophecy doesn’t
reveal those clues — it’s far more fun for Heroes to explore dangerous sites and talk to supporting
characters, instead of having clues handed to them on a silver platter — but using Prophecy means that
Heroes spend less time debating and more time adventuring to follow leads.
As such, don’t discourage the use of Prophecy. You always have control over how clear and reliable the
visions are, and you’ll use those visions to give Heroes yet another avenue for exploration. That expands
their fun and their possible decision tree while helping them avoid gridlock. Better yet, if you’re running
an adventure on the fly and haven’t decided how it resolves, you may even wish to ask the player to
describe their own vision and base a portion of the adventure’s climax on that!
Start Adventures as Late as Possible

Few classic sword & sorcery adventures start with the Heroes debating at length what to do and where
to go next, especially at the start of the story. Embrace this. Start your adventures as late in the story as
possible, even if that means beginning with the Heroes in the process of delving underground or
breaking into someone’s house or in the middle of a fight, and then use flashbacks to establish how they
got there and what information they’ve researched before they started the action.
When players then ask, “Why did we take this job?” you then respond, “You tell me. What led to you
being here?”
Different groups of players have different levels of appreciation for this approach. Talk to yours, and
make sure everyone finds this “late start” approach fun. If not, scale back its use substantially. If you’re
running an Open World campaign where adventures are wholly driven by the Heroes’ actions and
decisions each game, you may want to avoid it nearly completely.
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Adventure Construction
Types of Scenes
Adventures are constructed of several types of scenes.
• INTRO: The first scene of the adventure, this starts the Heroes on the path to adventure.
• CORE: This scene must be played for the adventure to progress. Core scenes are linked by core
clues.
• MONTAGE: When the Heroes are traveling from one location to another (over several hours or
several days), run a fast montage scene to emphasize that the journey had challenges that were
surmountable. Go around the table and have each player describe one challenge they faced
during their travels, and then the same player describes how the challenge was solved. For an
example, see p. XX.
• ALTERNATE: Alternate scenes are additional ways to get the Heroes excitement or information,
but they’re not necessary to completing the adventure.
• SUBPLOT: If using both an A plot and a B plot, a subplot scene focuses on advancing knowledge
of the secondary plot.
• DRAMATIC: Dramatic scenes focus on the Heroes interacting with other characters, and often
play to the Heroes’ backstories. Provide dramatic foils for your Heroes — a rival, an estranged
child, a former lover — so that the players have someone to play against.
• FLASHBACK: Use flashback scenes to establish how the Heroes got to where they are now, or
how their Adversaries put an evil plan into action.
• ATMOSPHERIC: Atmospheric scenes don’t provide any new information, but help ratchet up
tension by hinting at the horror or adventure to come.
• HAZARD: Scenes where the Heroes must bypass or avoid some sort of risk to life and limb.
• ANTAGONIST REACTION: The villain is reacting to the actions of the Heroes, and they might take
steps to stop them in their tracks. This sort of scene may be triggered by what the Heroes have
done in the adventure.
• FINALE: The climactic encounter of the adventure.
Lead-Ins and Lead-Outs (and why they’re essential)

When designing an adventure, always note Lead-ins (the scenes that can lead to the current scene) and
Lead-outs (scenes that can be directly reached from the current scene). Along with the plot map, Lead-
ins and Lead-outs will help you keep track of what happens when, and of how the Heroes can progress
through the adventure. Without them, things get confusing fast.
Plot Maps
Figuring out how an adventure might flow — especially one where you feel like you need to keep track
of clues! — can feel intimidating until you’re used to it. One easy way to picture the core adventure
structure is to create a dungeon map where you use scenes instead of rooms. It’s basically a flowchart
where rooms and door placement help you quickly see how plot threads might be related. This helps
you visualize how Heroes might get from one scene to another.
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As an example, here’s the scene map for Corpse Astray, the sample adventure included in this rulebook.
Beware spoilers! If you’re a player who will be playing this adventure, skip forward until after you’ve
played the adventure.
[[[Layout – Please format as Plot Map]]]
Scene 1:
Aboard the
Shining Coin
Scene 2:
Approaching Eversink
Scene 3:
Corpsetakers at
the Docks
Scene 4: Into the Tangle
Find Noble House

Follow the Corpsetakers?
on your own
Scene 5:
Antonio Valerio and Noble House
Learn
Talk to Enter the
About
Antoni House Explore the
Noble House
House
Fight!
Scene 6:
Horrible Rampage
Track & kill the fleshtangle!

Scene 7:
Aftermath and
Conclusion
A plot map flowcharts the adventure to show what scenes are accessible from what other scenes. For
instance, in Scene 5 of the map for Corpse Astray, it’s quickly obvious that the Heroes can talk to Antoni,
learn about Noble House, or enter Noble House in any order, but they can’t get to Scene 6 until they’ve
explored the house. Similarly, depending on what happens they can reach Scene 7 but bypass Scene 6.
Your adventure isn’t constrained to just these scenes, and the adventure might go wildly and delightfully
off the rails as Heroes pursue an approach you had never thought of. That’s usually to be encouraged.
Jumping Around in History

The rules for Fledgling and Sovereign Heroes (see p. XX) mean that your adventures don’t need to
happen in linear time. You can, for instance, run a three-game series where the first game has your
normal Heroes butting up against a thorny problem; your second game set a decade earlier, when the
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Fledgling Heroes accidentally cause or create that problem; and the third game using your Sovereign
heroes, as they finally track down their recurring enemy and solve the problem once and for all.
You can even run more than one time frame in the same adventure, following this same pattern,
jumping forward and backwards between scenes to show the cause of events or the consequence of
difficult choices.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you need to run one type of adventure, or an adventure set in
only one time. Heroes can be ageless, and players immediately seeing the result of their actions can be
the best reward of all.
The Challenge Montage: Speeding and Summarizing Travel

Whether Heroes are traveling across the city in a few hours or across untrammeled jungle wilderness in
a terrifying expedition into the unknown, establish the flavor of challenge and adventure without
spending a great deal of time on multiple hostile encounters. This is especially true for shorter game
sessions or one-shot adventures. In these cases, go around the table and ask the first player to describe
a threat or challenge. Ask the second player to then make it worse. Finally, ask a third player how the
group solved it, and whether there were any consequences.
Such challenges can be interpersonal, diplomatic, combat, logistical, bureaucratic, or any number of
other possibilities; the only rule is that they be enough fun to be worth mentioning. Two or three
montage sets are usually enough to capture the feel of a long journey in just a few moments, but adjust
the quantity as you like.
As GM, you can also contribute to the challenge montage if you wish to. If you do, establish the
challenge (or make a challenge worse) and let the players describe how their Heroes solve it.
Resources aren’t typically lost in challenge montages unless both GM and players agree it makes sense.
GM: “How many days of trekking does it take you before you find the ruins?”
Player: “Six.”
GM: “Okay, describe a threat for me!”
Player 1: “On day 3 we have a disagreement that almost leads to the group splitting up and
going two separate directions. We spend a surprising amount of time screaming in anger at each
other.”
GM: “Great. Someone make it worse.”
Player 2: “We had just drawn our weapons when we realized that the huge flowers we were
camped next to were sentient, poisonous, and enticing us to murder one another. And that’s
when all the grass came alive, too.”
GM: “Someone else tell me how you resolved it.”
Player 3: “There’s a reason we carry lamp oil. We burned them just in time, but the fire we
started was still burning when we left. We’re not sure if any of the flowers survived or not.”
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One-Shot Construction
To save time, a one-shot game may work best with wholly or partially pregenerated Heroes. If you
create Heroes for your players, be sure to use Adjectives, Drives and Gear to tell the players who those
Heroes really are. Consider leaving one Investigative rank open on every Hero, so that players can fill
those in on the fly during the game.
We recommend you don’t explain the game’s rules extensively before you start. Instead, give players
the basics and then rely on the player cheat-sheets in the back of this book (and online at
www.pelgranepress.com) to help fill in rules on the fly. Don’t pre-explain more obscure rules that may
not come into play during the adventure, unless those rules are immediately relevant.
The following guidelines work best for your first few one-shots.
• Strong Premise: Pick an exciting and adventurous plot hook for the adventure.
• Start with Action: Starting with a short action sequence immediately helps new players focus,
and teaches them combat rules in just a few moments.
• Clear Goals: Give the Heroes specific goals for the adventure. Whether that’s “find the idol,”
“blackmail the noble,” “uncover the Sorcerer,” or “rob the treasury,” starting with a clear goal
gives a one-shot momentum.
• Ignore the Lifestyle Rules: Unless there’s a particularly compelling reason to include them, one-
shots don’t need the Lifestyle and Repute rules. Ignore them.
• Few, if any, Red Herrings: If your one-shot involves a traditional mystery, work to keep
deliberate red herrings to a minimum. They eat up time with little return, and new players may
have a tendency to create their own red herrings and distractions anyway as they adventure.
• Strong Roleplaying Opportunities: A complex network of social and political connections helps
define Swords of the Serpentine. Take advantage of that and give Heroes interesting and
challenging supporting characters to interact with, both as allies and enemies. Center
adventures around social and political needs, as well as traditional adventure hooks such as
greed and vengeance.
• Common Allegiances: The Heroes have a reason to work together when they all have at least
one rank in the same Allegiance, either as Allies or Enemies.
• A Plot and B Plot: The best adventures have both an A plot — the main goal of the adventure —
and a B plot, a secondary plot thread that is likely unrelated. This might be about someone’s
family, about personal growth, or about a foe or rival who keeps interfering. Having A and B
plots allows you to shift the adventure focus from one plot to another any time play starts to
slow down, and quite often the B plot can provide leads to help solve the A plot as well.
• Focus on Needs, not Greed: The acquisition of treasure is usually more important in an ongoing
campaign. In a one-shot, emotional motivations, lurking danger, and infuriating mysteries often
provide greater motivation for Heroes than does the promise of loot.
• Change the World: It’s a one-shot, so encourage Heroes use their influence to literally change
the world around them. Unbalance power structures, seize power, and bring about societal
change for good or ill. Why not? In a game where influencing others is a core mechanic,
affecting the world around you in permanent ways is a fun way to show off the game’s
strengths.
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Series Construction
Like a season of television, a series involves 3 to 10 adventures that lead to a satisfying conclusion of
themes or plot arcs that run through the series. Like chapters or individual stories in a sword & sorcery
novel, adventures in a series can jump forwards and backwards in time to uncover secrets and establish
interesting foes.
One particularly effective way to link adventures in a series is through B plots (see above). While every
individual adventure has a unique A plot as the focus of that adventure, include at least one reference or
lead to an ongoing but less urgent B plot adventure or crisis as well. Effectively you’re spreading leads to
the B plot adventure out over three to ten individual episodes, allowing the Heroes to finally put them
together and solve the B plot in the final adventure or two. The slow rise in tension helps keep players’
interest, and the gradual roll-out of the plot allows your villains to learn and adapt to the Heroes’ tactics.
It’s useful and fun to use the Lifestyle rules in a series. This helps show how the fortunes of the Heroes
vary across adventures, and it gives Heroes a reason to quest for treasure and wealth.
A series lets you involve recurring villains (particularly if you use organizations as Adversaries, giving you
more villains even if the Heroes kill their prime Adversary) along with more complicated politics.
Enemies have time to strike at the things that Heroes love, instead of just at the Heroes themselves.
They also allow you to create more complicated mysteries, as the players will be able to slowly piece
together leads from multiple game sessions.
Campaign Construction
Campaigns are typically made up of two or more series. Heroes grow, evolve, change their enemies and
their goals, and both establish and consolidate their power. Old friends return, and so do old enemies.
With additional power comes more responsibilities and more vulnerability; sure, your Hero might be a
member of the Triskadane, but that means she’s responsible for the welfare of the entire city. Your Hero
might be one of the most popular Commoners in Eversink, but that means your head will be the first on
the chopping block when a noble wants to make an example.
Particularly in campaigns, encourage the Heroes to change the world around them. Throw away aspects
of Eversink that don’t fascinate you and help your Heroes put other organizations, power structures or
geography in their place. Let them travel and expand the world; embroil them in foreign plots.
You can control the speed of Advancement by slowing down the frequency with which you give Heroes
Advancement points. If it feels like you’re having trouble challenging your Heroes, start giving
Advancement points every other adventure or every three adventures instead.
Expanding the World

Swords of the Serpentine is set in a world where most of the map is deliberately not filled in. There are
scores — possible hundreds — of city-states and small kingdoms not shown. You can use the supplied
political boundaries and descriptions when you wish, and add your own kingdoms, empires, landmarks
and history whenever you’re excited to create.
Similarly, there are islands and Districts in Eversink we’ve deliberately not yet detailed. If you don’t like
creating your own Districts, ignore them; either they’re part of existing Districts or Denari sank them
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three generations ago. If you do like to world-build, take these Districts and make them your own,
adding in new neighborhoods full of plot hooks. Better yet, ask your players to help.
Customizing Swords of the Serpentine

This is a game designed to be customized, adapted and tweaked by you. Here are a few suggestions that
are far from exhaustive.
More Narrative Play/Less Randomness

You may have one or more players who are highly loss-averse and who dislike the possibility of spending
points on a roll and then failing. If that’s the case, simply declare that players add General ability points
to a roll after the die is rolled. This approach represents the Heroes using their exceptional competence
(spent points) to overcome any vicissitudes of bad luck (the die roll). This also makes Heroes more
capable, so you may want to nudge the effectiveness of enemies up to compensate.
Such games have a more narrative feel to them, but that doesn’t make adventures any less fun or
exciting. This approach is definitely better than having a player at the table who wouldn’t otherwise
enjoy themselves.
No Melee Combat
Create a game where traditional violence isn’t an option for the Heroes, and where all arguments are
settled through words and posturing instead of bloodshed. The Dungeons & Dragons™ television
cartoon you might have grown up on is one example of how such bloodless play might appear; more
commonly, a game without combat injuries focuses on conniving politics and intricate cons,
manipulation and blackmail, with Heroes as clever non-combatants who have to talk their way out of
their many problems instead of resorting to murder. Allegiances feature prominently because problems
often get solved with the threat of force and blackmail even if the Heroes never touch a blade
themselves.
To run such a game, remove the Warfare General ability but keep the number of starting Build points at
30. Sorcery can no longer inflict Health damage. To raise pressure on the players, you may wish for some
or all Adversaries to retain the ability to inflict Health damage.
Change the Setting

There’s no reason Swords of the Serpentine has to be set in Eversink; in fact, when Heroes travel, many
times it won’t be! Create your own campaign world and setting, adjusting gods, Adversaries, and
mythology accordingly. Just be sure to create appropriate factions for the Heroes to ally with.
Customizing Allegiances
If you want to change Eversink or set your game elsewhere, customize the factions available for
Allegiances.
Don’t simply add a new faction, however. More than a dozen possible Allegiances are hard for players
(and for you) to keep track of. If you’re tempted to add a new faction, first see if there’s an existing
faction that you could legitimately include them within. A new smugglers’ guild, for instance, falls under
“Thieves’ Guilds” and doesn’t need a new entry. This helps keep the Heroes’ Allegiances relevant even
when they aren’t dealing with that one specific group of smugglers.
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If you decide that the new faction doesn’t fit under an existing category, replace an existing faction with
the new one. We suggest you remove the faction that has seen the least use in your game. These people
are still out there — monstrosities don’t cease to exist if you’ve replaced their faction with another —
but they are no longer politically relevant at this point in your game. Ideally, pick a faction to remove
that no player has chosen as their Ally or Enemy. If you can’t do that, allow this player to select new
Allies or Enemies for free, because the old ones are no longer important enough (at least for now) to aid
or harm them.
You may decide (especially when starting a new series or campaign) that the standard Allegiances are
too general and non-specific. For instance, you may wish “The Harbor Knives,” “City Watch House on
Gallows Drop,” and “Carlotta’s Company” instead of the standard Thieves’ Guilds, City Watch, and
Mercenaries. Doing this makes Allegiances personal, but you run the risk of relationships not having
enough importance as the Heroes move about the city. When needed, start small and personal, and
expand to the more general category as the Heroes’ influence and fame begins to spread.
If you’re creating your own unique campaign setting, keep the total number of factions to approximately
twelve or fewer. Their uniqueness depends on the type of game you’re running. If you decide that all the
Heroes are thieves and your setting is gang- and crime-focused, you may focus on thieves’ guilds and
decide that a full half of the possible factions are different criminal organizations. If you decide that the
Heroes are pirates sailing the Green Expanse, most factions might be different nations and city-states. If
your Heroes are diplomats navigating a religious schism between many gods, the factions may each be a
different religion. Either way, the factions you choose to include should represent groups that wield
temporal, spiritual, and political power over the Heroes.
You can and should swap out factions when the Heroes leave Eversink. Their old Allegiances don’t go
away, but they gain an equal number of ranks to apply to the possible Allegiances in each new land they
venture into. This allows them to play politics wherever they go, without affecting their original
Allegiances, all of which return once the Heroes return to their home.
One of your players has a sentinel with ranks in Allies: Church of Denari 2, and Enemies:
Sorcerous Cabal 1. The Heroes leave Eversink and head out to sea, eventually docking at a
Tahoran floating city. No one in the floating city gives a damn about Eversink’s religion or
sorcerers, so the Sentinel’s existing Allegiances are set to the side. Instead, the sentinel’s player
gets 2 free ranks of Allegiances and 1 rank of Enemies to apply as they meet new political
factions among the Tahorans. These new ranks are likewise set to the side when the Heroes
return to Eversink, although they may still come in handy if the Heroes run into any Tahorans
there at home.
Customizing Sorcery
The default level of Sorcery in Eversink is that it’s known and uncommon, dangerous and thoroughly
feared. Sorcery comes either from demons or ancient Serpentine secrets, and few people trust either.
Any Sorcerer can create Corruption, and it’s assumed they probably will at any moment. For the average
person, there’s no such thing as a “safe” sorcerer.
It’s common for most adventuring groups to have at least one Sorcerer, however. As GM, you can
customize Sorcery however you like. The most common adjustment is to specify or restrict Sorcerous
Spheres. For interest, you could run a game where Sorcery is entirely elemental and almost no Sorcerer
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has access to more than one elemental magic (air, earth, fire, or water) — while all other rules would
remain the same, the tone of such a game would be completely different than a game where a hero can
select Necromancy as a Sorcerous Sphere.
Another common adjustment is to bring Sorcery and Corruption spends down to a power level equal to
other attacks and Investigative spends, although this reduces magic’s cinematic and game-shifting
power.
A third common adjustment is to make Sorcery more attractive by removing or lessening the effects of
Corruption. If you do so, consider either adding a new drawback, using Thaumaturgy (p. XX), or reducing
Sorcery’s power, or else you may end up with an adventuring group where everyone has at least one
rank of Corruption. That can be quite fun in its own right, but make sure it’s the tone you want in your
game.
Lower Magic
In Eversink, sorcery is unusual because sorcerers are distrusted and feared. If you want to run a game
with lower magic or even no magic, however, that’s not difficult to do.
• Remove any sorcerous and fantastical items from the setting that don’t fit your vision.
• Remove the Corruption Investigative ability from players, allowing the Thaumaturgy
Investigative ability (see p. XX) instead.
• Keep true Sorcerers and Corruption for Supporting Characters and Adversaries only.
Thaumaturgy: an Alternative to Corruption

You may be a player who likes the idea of Sorcery, but who doesn’t like the trade-offs intrinsic with
Corruption. If that’s the case, this alternative rule is for you.
GM Advice: Sorcerers Without Corruption

One of the tenets of Swords of the Serpentine is that it’s sword & sorcery, and that means — at least for us — that
magic is dangerous and hard to control. Sorcerers need to deal with Corruption, and if you want magic without
that cost and risk, you can use Thaumaturgy and be an alchemist, a mesmerist, or an expert in rare magical
poisons. You won’t have as much power or miraculous special effects as true Sorcerers would, because
Thaumaturgy spends are on par with every other Investigative spend, but neither will you have the risk.
As GM, it’s up to you to decide the nature of your game. If you want to increase the power of Thaumaturgy to be
equal to that of Corruption, consider putting in other trade-offs for those characters so that taking ranks of
Thaumaturgy isn’t a no-brainer for every player. Similarly, if you want to limit or eliminate the negative effects of
Corruption in your game, remove the Investigative ability Corruption entirely and use the less extreme power level
of Thaumaturgy instead (possibly allowing access to all Sorcerous Spheres).
Unless you want a Sorcerer-heavy game, we don’t recommend you remove the negative consequences of
Corruption while keeping the ability’s power level intact; if you do, you may find that all your players want to be
Sorcerers, and who could blame them?
[[[End GM sidebar]]]
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In classic sword & sorcery novels such as Conan, or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, sorcerers aren’t
necessarily wizards the way we’ve learned to think of them in modern fantasy. For one thing, they
almost never cast spells. They instead twist magical rings, blow rare and poisonous powders into their
foes’ faces, uncork flasks that contain fire or something worse, and use intense gazes to send enemies
into a hypnotized stupor that may last for hours or even days. In taking these actions, they’re possibly
called warlocks or magicians or sorcerers, but they aren’t necessarily using true magic — or as we call it
in Swords of the Serpentine, they aren’t creating Corruption.
There are some sharp constraints to playing a character like this, but you won’t need to worry about
creating Corruption when drawing on your knowledge and power. Thaumaturgy is a substitution for
Corruption that isn’t more powerful than any other Investigative ability, so Thaumaturgy spends in
combat have the same sort of effect that a Tactics of Death spend might have.
The following changes occur if you want to forego Corruption in exchange for Thaumaturgy.
• You may no longer choose ranks of the ability Corruption. Instead, you have access to a unique
investigative ability named Thaumaturgy. You’ll only see Thaumaturgy included in the game if
you or another player prefer this version of the Sorcerer.
• You choose one Sorcerous Sphere for every rank of Thaumaturgy you possess, from a short and
specific list below. The themes of these Spheres reflect “near-magic” effects such as alchemy,
mesmerism and rare poisonous powders or drugs.
• There’s no penalty (narrative or mechanical) for spending pool points of Thaumaturgy.
• Thaumaturgy spends allow standard bonus damage (usually one d6 per Thaumaturgy pool point
spent) and unique but non-miraculous special effects and Maneuvers. A Thaumaturgy spend
might duplicate another ability; for instance, feeding a captive a truth serum and spending a
pool point of Thaumaturgy might duplicate the effect of Liar’s Tell for the scene.
• You can also use other abilities and describe them as coming from your Thaumaturgy. If you
wanted to increase your alertness, for instance, you could spend a point of Vigilance and
describe that effect as coming from a rare alchemical concoction. If you wanted to be viewed as
nightmarishly terrifying, you could spend a point of Intimidation and describe the effect as
coming from your Mesmerism.
• You can use Sorcery as normal using these specific Thaumaturgy-based Spheres. Just as a
Sorcerer may cast a spell, your Alchemist may describe flinging a glass beaker of an unnatural
liquid at someone; in both cases you make a Sorcery attack and inflict 1 die +1 base damage.
The difference is in the Sphere description, and the effect when optionally spending
Investigative pool points to strengthen your attack or damage.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Thaumaturgy (Sorcerer Investigative ability)

Thaumaturgy is a replacement for Corruption; you may not take any ranks in this ability if you have ranks of
Corruption, and you may not take any ranks of Corruption if you have ranks of Thaumaturgy. This ability unlocks
the General ability Sorcery, just as Corruption normally would, and you can’t gain ranks of Sorcery without at least
one rank of Thaumaturgy.
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Gain one Sorcerous Sphere for every rank of Thaumaturgy you possess, but you are limited in your choices to
Spheres specifically permitted to Thaumaturgy (such as Alchemy, Mesmerism and Poisons). Your GM may add
additional Spheres on a case by case basis. Hey, you should ask them, you never know.
Ranks in Thaumaturgy give knowledge of alchemy, rituals, hypnotism, poisons and venoms (including mind-
controlling effects), ancient gods and dark traditions.
Sample Spend: Use pool points to increase the power of your Sorcery attacks or to use your power in
unconventional ways, such as an additional die of damage or unique effects dependent on your spheres. See text
for suggestions.
Your Thaumaturgy spends do not create Corruption.
[[[End sidebar]]]
Sorcerous Spheres in Thaumaturgy
When using Thaumaturgy instead of Corruption, the Sorcerous Spheres you have access to are limited to
ones that can approximate magic without being definitively supernatural. This sets them aside from
standard Sorcerous Spheres that are powered by Corruption. Your GM may add additional Spheres for
Thaumaturgy.
Here are the basic Thaumaturgy Spheres.

Alchemy
You stink of chemicals and reagents, and delicate flasks poke from your pouches like inquisitive cats. You
are teaching yourself the secrets of the universe, transforming matter into fluids and fogs that affect
those around you. You transform elements, create acid and fire, produce gases that control others,
customize food and drink, and manipulate similar semi-magical effects. You can affect the taste of food
and the growth (and nature) of plants, and you have a penchant for poisons.
Keep in mind that creating gold from base metals undermines the money supply, a sin that will get you
executed or exiled by the church of Denari — so you may want to avoid that. Alchemists can somewhat
transmute gold out of base metals, however, if the GM allows. This is a game about adventure instead of
about economics, so transmutation automatically sets your Minimum Lifestyle (see p. XX) instead of
giving you additional Wealth; you can then spend the wealth you’d otherwise have spent on your
lifestyle to buy other things. If you make this spend you must do so at the beginning of an adventure
(using up a portion of your Thaumaturgy pool points for the adventure), and you may mix and match
this with spending your Wealth to reach your final Lifestyle level.
• A 1 point Thaumaturgy spend for transmutation sets your Lifestyle for this adventure at squalid.
• A 2 point Thaumaturgy spend sets your Lifestyle at struggling.
• A 3 point Thaumaturgy spend sets your Lifestyle comfortable.
• A 4 point Thaumaturgy spend for transmutation sets your Lifestyle at wealthy.
• A 5 point Thaumaturgy spend sets your Lifestyle at opulent.
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Spending Thaumaturgy might produce particularly virulent acid or alchemist’s fire, or allow
Thaumaturgy to be treated like Leechcraft for the purposes of healing someone.
Mesmerism
Affects: Morale
You have mastered hypnotism and semi-magical mind control, and you can put people into trances
almost instantly. Your eyes are deep, whirling pools that feel almost magnetic, and by evoking your
power you can sap will, suggest actions, program future events, and send others into sudden sleep
where they’ll remember only what you specify.
Spending Thaumaturgy might turn an enemy into an ally, if only briefly, and may allow you to hypnotize
an unwitting accomplice into aiding you by programming their actions.
Poisons
You use rare powders from distant lands, vile fluids, and mystic vapors to influence or affect the people
around you. Powder blown in the face might allow suggestibility, salves might briefly animate a corpse
before rotting it utterly, and special incense might kill a foe or knock them unconscious. If you can
rationalize it as coming from a rare plant or substance, it fits within this Sphere.
Spending Thaumaturgy allows you to duplicate the poison possibilities of Leechcraft, as well as creating
longer-term effects that you can use to terrify someone into doing your will in exchange for an antidote.
Customizing Abilities
Adding New Abilities
You may find that your game requires additional Investigative or General abilities, such as adding
Research or Languages as Investigative abilities for games that focus on reading ancient texts. Do so only
if you can’t rationalize adding that skill under the aegis of an existing ability. As written, for instance,
both of these proposed abilities currently fall under Forgotten Lore. You’d likely want a highly focused
game to justify their addition as separate abilities.
For every two Investigative abilities you add, increase by +1 the number of Investigative Build points
that new Heroes receive. In a five-player game, for instance, new Heroes would receive 12 Investigative
Build points instead of 10 if you added four new Investigative abilities. Round down if adding an odd
number of abilities; new Heroes would receive 11 Build points if you added three new abilities, or the
standard 10 points if you only add one new ability.
For every two General abilities you add, increase by +4 the number of General Build points that new
Heroes receive. For instance, new Heroes would receive 34 General Build points instead of 30 if you
added two new General abilities. Round down; new Heroes would receive the standard 30 Build points if
you only added one new ability.
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Temporary Investigative and General Abilities
Occasionally, unique and temporary Investigative or General abilities become useful but aren’t needed
after a particular scene or adventure. For instance, the Heroes have briefly taken to the sea as pirates,
and there’s no “Sailing” Investigative ability that allows you to know at a glance how ships, cargos,
manifests, and navigation work.
If you need a new temporary ability, create a pool of limited Ranks that your Heroes can add to their
character sheet. These new ranks are in addition to any Investigative ranks the Heroes already possess,
and disappear when you decide they’re no longer needed in the game. Players may apply ranks out of
these pools as needed, so that they have the flexibility of only applying ranks when they’re useful.
You want your next adventure to take place at sea. You tell your group that you are adding one
new temporary Investigative ability (Seamanship) and making two ranks available; and adding
one new temporary General ability (Sailing) and making 12 ranks available.
Soon they’re at sea, and one of the Heroes needs to make a Sailing test or wreck on a reef. There
are 7 ranks of Sailing remaining in the pool you provided them. She claims 2 ranks and writes
them down in pencil on her character sheet, then spends her 2 pool points to hopefully avoid the
reef. She can refresh these as normal, and this leaves 5 ranks for the group to continue to claim
as needed.
When the adventure is over, these temporary abilities are no longer relevant and can be erased
from character sheets.
Changing Existing Abilities

As GM, you have carte blanche to customize, expand or reduce the scope or focus of any existing ability.
Just be sure to communicate this to players before they create their Heroes, or give them the freedom
to redistribute their points between sessions if you change an ability after the first game.
Customizing Foes
For advice on customizing Adversaries, see p. XX.
One-on-One Play
You can play Swords of the Serpentine with one player and one GM, with the following suggested
changes.
• The player should create their Hero with 14 Investigative Build Points (see p. XX), and add 1
additional rank of Allies (for a starting total of 3 Ally Investigative ranks instead of 2). Encourage
the player to draw on their Allies for help in any situation where they need assistance, extra
muscle, or backup.
• Remember that a Hero in a one-person game starts with 14 Build points, as opposed to 10 Build
points in 5-player game. That means a Hero built for a solo game can dish out more total
combat damage than a Hero built for a group ensemble, and is more capable than you might
expect.
• A solo Hero’s flaws and weaknesses won’t be compensated for by another member of the party.
Consider adding a supporting character sidekick, which can be fun for the GM to play while
covering some abilities the Hero is lacking.
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• Remember that 8+ points of Preparedness allows the player to pull out surprises even when
everything seems bleakest.
• Reduce the number of enemies in combat, especially Mooks (limiting Mooks to approximately
4–5 or fewer per wave).
• Remember that defeat in combat doesn’t need to mean death. Great heroes in fantasy
literature are defeated all the time; they then wake up, break out, and teach their captors an
unfortunate lesson. It’s worth having a conversation with your player about this possibility.
• Similarly, it’s worth the player remembering that temporary surrender (and thus capture) is
sometimes an option when faced with overwhelming odds, especially when it makes the
adventure you’re playing more exciting.
Fledgling and Sovereign Heroes

Classic sword & sorcery stories often flip back and forth between the hero as a raw and naïve
adventurer, a hero in the prime of life, and a sovereign and established master of their craft. If your GM
wants to do this, after you’ve created your Hero, she’ll ask you to create two more versions.
The characters need to be recognizable as the same person, but you have free rein to change aspects of
your Hero substantially between versions. Perhaps your Fledgling Hero is brash and foolish, with few if
any social skills. Perhaps your Sovereign Hero is missing a hand and an eye, is saddled with a legendary
Reputation, and has exchanged adventuring abilities for others that help you rule kingdoms. Just as
Robert E. Howard’s Conan went from thief to warrior to king, you can create a long-term arc in your
Hero by increasing, decreasing, or trading out abilities to show character development. If you’re a
Sorcerer, describe your accumulated Corruption.
As you adventure, you’ll reflect permanent or long-lasting changes to one character by updating your
Sovereign character’s sheet. If your regular Hero loses an eye and covers it with a patch, for instance,
update your Sovereign Hero to also note the loss of an eye — although it’s up to you whether it’s still
covered with a patch, or replaced by a gemstone or something else even more interesting.
Fledgling Heroes
A Fledgling Hero isn’t necessarily young, just inexperienced. To create a Fledgling Hero, make the
following changes.
• Health and Morale share 15 Build Points, not 18, with a minimum of 3 in either ability.
• Subtract 5 from the number of starting General ability Build Points, from 30 to 25.
• Subtract 3 from the number of starting Investigative ability Build Points.
Sovereign Heroes
A Sovereign Hero isn’t necessarily old, just incredibly experienced. To create a Sovereign Hero, make the
following changes.
• Health and Morale share 20 Build Points, not 18, with a minimum of 5 in either ability.
• Add 5 to the number of starting General ability Build Points, from 30 to 35.
• Add 3 to the number of starting Investigative ability Build Points. These additional points can
also apply to ranks in Allies.
• Add 1 rank to an existing Enemy, and add an additional Enemy at rank 1.
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• If your GM tells you to, give yourself a single Sorcerous item or piece of exceptional and unique
gear.
Playing a Ghost
Eversink isn’t exactly short on ghosts, and a fallen Hero’s spirit is going to be loose and wandering until a
memorial funerary statue is carved or crafted for them. If a Hero just died but the player wants to finish
the adventure as a very annoyed revenant, they can possess a living person long enough to finish the
adventure.
Generally, the character won’t return as a ghost during the same scene in which they died, unless the
GM makes an exception, such as if they deliberately sacrificed their Hero to have a chance of bedeviling
your Adversaries from beyond the grave.
• Start the ghost character with a new body of the GM’s choosing. The character can jump bodies
from there if they wish, by possessing other people using their Sway and a Morale-based
Maneuver to possess others (see Possession on p. XX), but they cannot possess more than one
new body per scene.
• The ghost’s Investigative abilities remain a they were in life, including the record of any
Investigative pool points that the player has already spent.
• The ghost’s Health and Morale ranks stay the same, unless the GM raises or lowers their normal
Health rank based on who the ghost is possessing.
• The ghost’s Morale pool is the same as when they died (which is how you get angry and
unreasoning ghosts, if they died while Broken or Treasonous).
• The ghost’s Health pool is that of the person they are possessing.
• The player can pick 15 ranks of General Abilities out of their current ranks. These ranks will
always travel with them to a new body. The GM asssigns 15 points of new General abilities
based on the body she decides the ghost possesses. These may be in entirely new abilities, or
may bolster existing abilities.
• If the ghost’s Health or Morale drop below 0 while in a host body, they are forced out of the
body and cannot possess anyone for the remainder of the scene. In future scenes, they must
possess someone else to interact with the living.
• The ghost may lift memories or secrets from their host body; if opposed by its spirit, they must
use a Morale-based Maneuver to learn what they wish to know.
• The ghost retains the knowledge and (General abilities aside) capabilities they possessed in life.
• The host host retains memories of the time when the ghost possessed them.
When a funerary statue is constructed for the ghost, it will be time for them to pass on to the afterlife,
even if this is against their wishes. Their identity must be known for the statue to actually be meant for
them.
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Designer Notes: Alternate Maneuver Rule
The Maneuver rules give the defender a simple choice: take some damage, or suffer an effect. We really
like this because it speeds up combat, requires only one die roll (the attack), and feels cinematic.
This has less tactical complexity than the original playtest rules, however, so use the rules you prefer:
these rules aren’t in play unless the GM decides to use them.
You’ll notice that damage is far more variable using this rule: if the target rolls well on the Health or
Morale test, they may take little or no damage and still avoid the effect. On the other hand, it’s possible
for someone to spend Health or Morale points, roll badly, and also experience the Maneuver’s effect.
This variant “double jeopardy” rule is swingier and slower to resolve, but puts more control in the hands
of the defender.
Alternative Maneuver Rule:
To perform a Maneuver, roll a successful Sorcery, Sway or Warfare attack (depending on what kind of
Maneuver you want to perform — see the examples below). Your attack result sets the Difficulty. The
defender must succeed at a Health or Morale test (see p. XX) to resist the Maneuver, something that
can be quite difficult if you spend enough (or roll well enough) to set a high Difficulty. If doing so makes
sense, both the attacker and the defender can spend Investigative pool points to add +3 per spent point
to their Results.
You want to kick your foe into a canal. You spend 4 Warfare and roll a 5, setting the Difficulty at
9. You spend an additional point of Tactics of Death to add +3 to this, for a total Difficulty of 12.
Your foe must make a Difficulty 12 Health test to not get knocked into the water. They choose to
spend 8 Health, but only roll a 1, for a result of 9. You watch the bubbles as they start to sink.
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CHAPTER NINE: THE CITY OF EVERSINK
Eversink in a Nutshell
Before you understand the detail of a setting, you need to understand the big picture. Here are the
three most important things to know about Eversink.
The Buildings are Always Sinking

…and no one knows why.
The city was founded almost a thousand years ago, and since that time most buildings have sunk into
the soil or stone by about 8 centimeters a year (although iconic buildings sink much more slowly and
unmemorable buildings sometimes sink more quickly). That works out to most buildings losing their
bottom floor underground every fifty years. Some buildings sink slower than this, some sink faster, and
rarely one drops several stories in a single afternoon, but just about every building eventually settles out
of sight. No one knows why. The Church claims it is Denari’s will, but theological scholars don’t
necessarily believe that. Over the 40+ generations that Eversink has been settled, huge numbers of
buildings have entirely vanished. They’re still down there somewhere, most of them. Know the city well
enough, and maybe you can find their ruins.
The City and the Goddess are One

Except when she takes on human form once a year, the buildings and islands of Eversink are the body of
the goddess Denari herself. You literally live inside the Goddess. As the patron of commerce and
civilization, Denari blesses the trade that occurs within her borders. Every coin exchanged is a prayer,
and every transaction a sacrament. Worship her with soft words in the honeyed darkness of a garden at
a masquerade ball, whispered to a fetching stranger; worship her by outwitting a dullard who wouldn’t
know the best place in the world to live if it invited him in.
Denari’s Blessing is what you feel when you literally live inside of a goddess. It is the name given to the
Goddess’ contractual promise to keep the city safe for a thousand years, pending negotiated renewal
and review within term limits. It is the firm and unshakable promise of her love and protection, along
with maximum profit (the holier your worship, the higher your profit!) so long as you pay your taxes and
tithes. And whether it’s true or not — for it sits in your brain as an unimpeachable fact that can only be
challenged when you are outside of her Blessing — it is the knowledge that you are currently in the best
damn city in the world, and you’re lucky to be there. This is why people stay when they come to visit
Eversink: the surety and lack of doubt makes people feel like they have finally found the home they’ve
looked for their entire life.
Stepping out of Denari’s Blessing into a hole caused by Corruption is like plunging into icy, uncertain
water. Most people feel horribly alone, and lost, and afraid. Corruption burns away Denari’s Blessing,
and She cannot hear you while you are there. Enough Corruption, and Denari could die. There’s a reason
it’s one of the Church’s most serious crimes.
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Designer Notes: Why Denari’s Blessing?
It isn’t traditional sword & sorcery, but a favorite book of ours from the last decade is Max Gladstone’s Three Parts
Dead, in which a large fantasy city’s patron god suffers a most unfortunate downturn. We wanted to give Eversink
a similarly powerful patron goddess, one whose blessing was also her biggest weakness, just so someone playing
this game could find a way to arrest Her eventual murderer.
Statues Are Everywhere, Because Statues Represent Souls

Burial in Eversink has always been a problem; you can’t bury your dead below ground when floods are
commonplace, not unless you want coffins and corpses floating downstream. Nowadays the poor slide
corpses into one of the swamps and the rich opt for air burial on stone plinths upriver. But what
happens to the flesh isn’t nearly as important as what happens to the soul. As long as a funerary statue
is made for someone deceased, whether a tiny statue out of clay or a huge magnificent statue out of
cast bronze, the departed’s soul is guaranteed a place in Denari’s heaven. If that statue is ever
destroyed, either the soul disintegrates and ceases to exist — or it returns to the spirit world as a ghost.
This means that in Eversink, statues are everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of statues. They’re in
canals, on roofs, filling homes and staring out from niches in walls. It’s illegal to destroy a funerary
statue, because that could destroy a soul, so families put the statues of their dead anywhere they can
find space. A surprising number of crimes in Eversink involve funerary statues.
About Eversink
The People
Eversink is full of families who have immigrated over many centuries, often intending to visit for a few
weeks and choosing to settle there instead. Appearance varies amongst the population, with taller
stature and darker skin tones prevailing in Eversink’s oldest families and its Ancent Nobility. Eversink
takes great pride in considering itself cosmopolitan — the citizens may pay close attention to the
appearance of wealth and social class, but discrimination based on skin color or gender identity is
considered heretical by the church and is strongly discouraged by the community.
‘Sinkish organizations tend towards a matriarchy, especially in the church; as a rule of thumb in Eversink,
women are in positions of prestige and power as much as or more than men.
GM Advice: Racism, Sexism, and Class Structure

A fair number of classic sword & sorcery tales are steeped in the endemic racism and sexism of the times in which
they were written, but those aren’t elements we want to put into Swords of the Serpentine.
Eversink includes people of all gender expressions, skin colors, and sexual orientations. There are few taboos
regarding what might constitute a “traditional” relationship, and there are centuries of law and ecclesiastic
tradition that support same-sex and polyamorous relationships. This is a society that cares little about skin color or
gender preference, but cares deeply about social status. Players may play any sort of Hero they desire and feel
comfortable in doing so.
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As a result, many of the adventures in Eversink are triggered by individual personalities and social class hatreds
(including rebellions, invasions, blackmail, and assassinations). While all races, genders, and sexualities are
welcome in Eversink, other rivalries, tensions, and intrigues abound.
Location
Eversink stands where the vast Serpentine River flows west into the Bay of Coins, north of the Great
Kingdom of Capria and south of the ruins of Camadi. The city rises from the Serpentine’s wide river
delta, now shaped and sculpted by a millennium of human engineering and divine attention. The land
here is flat and swampy, and great salt bogs stretch for days to both the north and south of the city.
Climate
Eversink is temperate. Spring in Eversink is usually rainy, with thunderstorms rolling in every afternoon
and during the pre-dawn hours; especially during high tides, Spring is known as the Flood. Summer is
usually hot and humid, making locals pray for a breeze off the Bay of Coins. Autumns are lovely except
for occasional rain; the temperature during the fall swells the number of visitors to the city, especially
for Harvest Festivals. Winter is mild with cold drizzling rain and lots of mist, and about once a decade it
gets cold enough for a thin layer of ice to form on the canals. The canals don’t usually freeze solid except
when there’s supernatural influence, such as from a peeved godling of winter having an argument with
Denari.
Architecture
The city is full of color. It’s a jumbled mess of stone spires, wooden shacks, brightly painted manor
houses, grand open plazas, teeming marketplaces, roof gardens, harbors, and soaring bridges over
omnipresent canals. The tallest noble towers are decorated with ancient jeweled windows of
breathtaking beauty, but that doesn’t necessarily distract from the unevenly sinking hovels of the poorer
districts that house many common families in a small amount of space. There are even a few remaining
buildings above ground from ages of sorcerous wonders, made from unbreakable crystal or other
unspeakably beautiful substances.
Eversink's architects have a taste for the classical. Columns project strength, and strong foundations
distract from sinking edifices. Among the clean lines are overwrought gothic windows accompanied by
exquisite stained glass. The swan motif is everywhere, jumbled in among gargoyles and thousands upon
thousands of funerary statues. Embossed swans decorate stone pathways between marketplaces,
enormous stone swan statues grace the apex of Mercanti rooftops, and Commoners scratch swans into
their shacks hoping for a small taste of Denari’s Blessing.
With land at a premium, locals take advantage of height. Laundry lines dangle from rooftops 80 feet in
the air. The outsides of solid stone towers become a warren of rickety wooden ladders, hand-built
platforms, and cantilevered walkways as people try to conjure up more space from thin air. Too many
Commoners live in these precariously placed wooden shacks, hoping not to crash to the ground during
one of the many storms that sweep in from the ocean. Similarly, there are those who take advantage of
depth. Those with the least coin often live in moldy and leaking sub-basements below ground,
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clambering up five or six stories each morning just to reach street level. Collapses, floods, and fires in
such dwellings are usually deadly.
Public and private gardens are a symbol of wealth and power. Those who can afford it prefer roof
gardens of rare and exotic flowers, but you’re likely to come across small hidden (and well-defended)
vegetable gardens grown on other people’s roofs by those who need the food most. Hedge animals are
currently fashionable on the estates of the rich; hedge mazes are so last generation. More than one
small island is entirely given over to public gardens, with any building within their borders deemed
illegal.
Buildings normally lose about 8 cm to the sink each year, but a sudden sink is not an unheard-of
phenomenon; if you’re tremendously unlucky, a laundry line a comfortable story up today might lie on
the ground tomorrow. Sinking buildings add complications, with sidewalks of varying heights and stairs
leading up to (or down to) a building’s current front door. Architects work constantly to repair, modify
and reinforce buildings.
All but the most recent buildings reach deeper underground than they do vertically above street level.
Descending through usually flooded basements brings you back through the building’s history one
generation at a time. Many such levels are flooded with mud and murky water, but sometimes good
drainage, watertight construction or ancient pumps keep most of the water out. Anything might be
forgotten down there, and it isn’t unusual to discover that your supposedly secure basements are being
used as an underground highway by smugglers. Paranoid homeowners pay architects to seal off their
basements and then live in a state of denial, trying to forget that those basements even exist.
Roads, Canals and Bridges

Many cities are planned around a central point like a fort and a castle, resulting in clean districts, wide
avenues, and logical building placement. Not Eversink. Eversink simply happened as Denari haphazardly
raised one island after another from the riverbed.
As a result, no one planned roads that cross logically from island to island. Small canals and winding
water sources separate communities, and alleys spin out in chaotic directions. When they don’t have the
money (or the paperwork) for a beautifully crafted stone bridge, the people of Eversink plop makeshift
wooden bridges wherever it makes sense and extend roads into hard jags and turns. This is fine for
people but terrible for horses, and it all but guarantees overturned fruit carts and goods will go flying
during a high-speed chase. You don’t see very many horses in the city at all.
Bridges stitch the city together, and when they aren’t makeshift they’re often a work of sculpted art.
Most bridges are stone, as wooden bridges seem to keep burning down. Bridges may be wide or narrow;
they may have stores and money lenders and food stalls cantilevered off their sides, have two or three
vertical stories to allow people of varying social stature to travel without seeing one another, have
breathtaking frescoes or sculptures commemorating events in Eversink that most people no longer
remember, or feature art that will fill you with delight. They may arc high above the canal, or squat so
low that gondoliers need to duck as they pass underneath. Bridges might be associated with gallows, or
particular churches, or sporting events, or heroes, or saints. They’re the perfect place for a fistfight or a
duel. If you’re trying to get directions from one place to another in Eversink, expect the bridges to be
given as landmarks. Honor them as you’d honor the Goddess, for they make the city one whole out of
many pieces.
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Due to the original small and chaotic road plan, today most of Eversink’s districts are still a warren of
tiny alleyways hooked together in an incoherent maze. Eversink has her share of broad, grand avenues
and sweeping gardens in districts that have been swept by deadly and destructive fires, but you’ll most
often be confronted with a bewildering tangle of one-lane roads. Some streets in the poor Outlander
slums are only 1 meter wide, and it’s easiest for thieves and urchins to leap from roof to roof as they use
the tops of the buildings as natural roads.
Canals are a major architectural feature of Eversink. Roads are nice if they aren’t too bumpy or choked
with traffic, but canals are faster and more convenient for anyone who can afford to own or hire a boat.
The canals are so important to the economic prosperity of the city that most markets must have both
foot and water access to be viable, and merchants fight as much over their position near a dock or quay
as they would over proximity to Denari’s nearest shrine. (Some astrologers and other prognosticators
sell desperate merchants maps showing the ideal location for a stall that has both water accessibility
and maximal blessing coverage. They’re highly coveted and usually inaccurate.)
The richest palaces and main government buildings have entrances with access to both their own
private gondola docks and the street. This causes issues as the grand buildings slowly sink. The next floor
up must constantly be reconfigured with street and gondola access, while the floor below becomes
noticeably less useful once it disappears underground. Every generation, the staff bricks one entrance
up while tearing another hole in the wall.
Overcrowding and New Building

The city is in a constant struggle for space. Eversink’s success and fame causes people to constantly
migrate to the city, which puts pressure on already scant housing. Land prices in the most desirable
areas like Alderhall or Ironcross are completely unaffordable.
Commoners build vertically above and below ground, but they also build horizontally to create new
space out of thin air. Typically, shops are on the first floor while subsequent floors are living space. To
make more room for more families, second and third floors are cantilevered out to extend over the tiny
alley-like streets, creating a sort of arched roof. Walking through these boroughs can be a
claustrophobic experience.
Designer Notes: Extended Buildings

Eversink has limited land, so the only way to make more space is to build up and out. Many of the alleyways and
winding roads see little sun on the ground as residents have pushed the floors of their second and third stories
outward to create more square footage literally out of thin air. Between the laundry lines, the balconies, and the
extended upper stories of most buildings, some stretches of road and canal are always in dusk.
The most recent architectural trend for buildings too beautiful or expensive to let sink is to use powerful
jacks to immobilize a building, demolish the sinking first story, then using the jacks to raise the building
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(now without a first story!) higher in the air before building a new first story that will sink instead. It’s
risky, as the jacks slowly sink as well, but the most talented Architects have had some luck with the
technique.
People often take advantage of the combination sinking and building horizontally to let roads go straight
through homes. Should a second floor end up a first floor, people relocate upstairs, build road space
right through their living rooms, and convert their new first floors into new shops. In their minds, if
customers are going to waltz through ex-living rooms, perhaps they will spend a few moments checking
out a nice selection of perfumes or trying on a new hat.
Meanwhile, merchants place market stalls everywhere the law will allow, including sidewalks and
bridges. To keep Eversink beautiful, the Triskadane long ago prohibited erecting a building, stall, or
market within designated public spaces. This deters no one. Every dawn when the markets open,
unlicensed portable tents and wandering market stalls open on the public spaces. The City Watch chases
them out, but usually not before merchants have sold all their wares for the day and camped a new
spot. Nothing — not fines, beatings, imprisonment, or even threats of exile — deters illegal markets.
Impromptu markets on boats often open on public waterways, and when dispersed by the Watch simply
return to their spot after the officials have moved on.
Death, Burial, and Funerary Statues

With an ocean to the west and swamps to the north and south, compounded by a thousand years of
inhabitants, Eversink lacks the room for cemeteries. That’s for the best; a traditional cemetery would
send caskets floating down the canals the first time it was badly flooded. While some mausoleums
remain from previous generations, Eversink disposes of corpses in a fairly direct manner. The current
tradition is an air burial for those who can afford it (see p. XX), with corpses opened up on stone plinths
upriver to be consumed by carrion birds. For those of lesser means, bodies are just slipped into one of
the swamps.
To remember the dead, Eversink’s people use funereal statues. The church teaches that you deserve a
statue in your honor after your death. As long as your statue remains intact, your spirit is ensured a
place in the afterlife. If the statue is broken or destroyed, either your ghost returns from heaven to
haunt the nightmarish spirit world, or it dissipates entirely. The ‘Sinkish believe that it is their holy duty
to care for the statues of their ancestors, whether they are tiny handmade clay figurines or 15’ tall
bronze monstrosities from a reclusive master sculptor. The ‘Sinkish place these statues everywhere.
Some place the statues in decorated shrines within their homes, some leave their stony deceased
outside their doors to watch for thieves, some take their statues into their sales stalls to help bless
trade, and some leave their statues on flooded lower levels of their home and hope to forget them.
Ancient Nobility reserve special rooms in their vast vertical palaces for grand collections of their
ancestors.
On the plus side, Eversink’s sculptors are renowned as the greatest in the world.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
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True Names and Funerary Statues
Statues with true names inscribed on them are much more difficult to destroy than a standard statue, gaining
Armor 10 against damage. Families or friends often hide the true name of their loved one on the statue to ensure
the soul’s place in Denari’s heaven. There’s a risk to this, however. Those who know a ghost’s true name can
summon it and force it to speak — and it isn’t unheard of for sorcerers to illegally shatter a statue and then compel
information from the statue’s ghost once the furious spirit is dragged out of paradise.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Sports
Popular sport varies by social class, although many sports involve boats and the canals. The nobility
prefer fencing, riding, and hunting upriver; any rumors that some families hunt Commoners are surely
just propaganda from the underclasses. The middle and lower classes compete in roof-running or
climbing, easy to do in Eversink but less convenient for spectators to watch.
Boat races are tremendously popular, with almost every neighborhood fielding their own competitive
team. Scouring Day (when the Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers flushes debris from the canals)
occurs twice a year, and the most exciting races occur during these festivals because that’s when the
river’s current moves most quickly.
A popular team sport is eelball, a game played in canals with every player in their own small boat. The
floating head-sized ball (made from waxed, inflated pigskin) can be touched only with paddles, and
teams work against each other as they flip it towards bridge arches used as goals. Championships are
played every year during the Eel Run (see below), when fatalities just add excitement to the game.
A popular competition in Eversink is competitive profit-taking, where both combatants start with a
single coin and a useless item (such as a worn shoe or a chicken bone, the more useless the better), and
the winner is the one who uses multiple trades, wiles and connections to turn the greatest profit within
a set amount of time.
If you want more gruesome injury, blood-sports such as shark-dancing, pit-fighting, and sorcerous duels
can be found if you know where to look and pay off the right people.
The best-attended sporting events occur at the Arena, a centuries-old sunken gladiatorial space (at least
the third in the city’s history) on the edge of the Tangle that remains open to the sky due to exceptional
engineering on the part of the Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers. Battles occur here between
human contestants, between beasts, and with human vs. beast; and the arena floor can be removed to
reveal flooded basements for fights against sharks, aquatic monsters, and scale model war ships. It can
seat thousands.
Language
Languages from dozens of cultures fill the air in the Temple Market, because that’s where Outlanders
from around the continent arrive to buy and sell wares. The common and accepted tongue of Eversink is
Vulgar Caprian, a debased form of Low Caprian that includes a smattering of words from Caym, Min, and
even some phrases dating back to the forgotten language of the Great Serpentine Empire. Vulgar
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Caprian is often nicknamed “Coinish” when spoken with an Eversink accent, and is the defacto trade
language of the west.
Just as in classic sword & sorcery stories, language differences in Swords of the Serpentine are generally
ignored unless it would be fun and interesting to do otherwise. All Heroes are assumed to speak and
understand Coinish unless they choose otherwise, and may choose whether or not they are literate. The
GM may allow fluency in other languages on a case by case basis according to a Hero’s background. For
instance, a barbarian from the far north would also be fluent in Caymic, but might speak Coinish only
haltingly. A Hero with ranks of Forgotten Lore is fluent in two additional languages per rank.
Other languages are native to Eversink, although used less often. For instance, the Church of Denari has
a unique and fairly secret language named “Cygnini” that is supposedly the divine language spoken by
Denari herself, and which is now understood only by those with at least 5 ranks split between Forgotten
Lore and Allies: Church of Denari. For a period of 700 years all official church proclamations and records
were written in Cygnini, although that hasn’t been the case now for several centuries. The number of
people fluent in Cygnini has dropped precipitously over recent generations, and there is a very real fear
that the church soon won’t be able to understand its own history and contracts.
In fact, Eversink has used three or more distinct languages since its founding, and it’s rare to find
scholars nowadays with enough ranks of Forgotten Lore to know them all. The oldest language once
used in Eversink is the writhing, nameless tongue of the long-fallen Serpentine Empire.
Eversink’s Food
Eversink opens to a sea that’s rich with fish, eel, shrimp, squid, and razor clams. Seafood from the Bay of
Coins is the core staple of the Eversink diet: fish cakes, fish stew, fish soup, smoked fish on a stick, and
so on. The lagoon and harbor alone can feed all Eversink and, in times of war and pestilence, has.
The other thing Eversink has natively is salt. Ancient Noble families made their fortunes on salt, and the
brackish salt lagoons of the Serpentine’s delta ensure a ready supply. After Eversink finishes salting all
the fish it catches, it sells salt to its neighbors.
Designer Notes: Salt

Salt is an immensely valuable resource. Salt is so valuable that it can stand in place of coins for payment. Salt
preserves food, and humans die without salt in their diet. And yet, edible salt is only found under specific
circumstances.
Eversink, surrounded by lagoons at the edge of vast swamps, has the right geography to capture lightly salted
water in brackish pools. Those who own the pools own the underpinning of Eversink’s economy.
Private and community vegetable gardens are common, even in the city’s poorer areas. As a city always
building up, uninhabited roofs are ripe for small vegetable plots. Eversink’s citizens grow everything
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from pole beans to various root vegetables to herbs. Rice is grown at the edges of the swamps, although
most of that is eaten by Commoners instead of finding its way to market.
Under normal market conditions, Eversink brings food from the few remaining farms upriver or imports
food from its neighbors. Eversink’s biggest imports are grains: wheat, soybeans, and sorghum. The
powerful Bakers’ Guild is the biggest morning buyer. The bakers turn grains into the morning loaves that
feed Eversink’s workforce, as the Tangle’s staple food is sardines on a heavy black bread. A good
percentage of the grain imports after the bakers are done gets turned into alcohol.
Eversink also imports beef, mutton, and chickens — although illicit chickens also wander the streets of
the Tangle and find their ways to dinner tables. Cattle are kept on farms upriver and butchered in the
slaughterhouses of Sag Harbor. Beef and mutton are both expensive: they grace middle class and rich
dinner tables but are a once-a-year treat for the poorer end of the common class. Pigs are everywhere,
and salt pork is a secondary staple to fish.
To alleviate meal (and fish) boredom, residents are clever with the many spices and herbs that flow
through Eversink’s harbor and into her Grand Marketplace; there’s a reason that the exclusive Guild of
Spices has made the Ridolfis one of the richest families of the Mercanti. Roasted garlic squid is a popular
street food. Restaurant dishes are heavy in imported pepper, cinnamon, and cardamom. Sardines in
raisins and onions seasoned with vinegar are popular. The upper classes would use spices even more if
they weren’t used so frequently to hide the taste of poison.
Eversink’s population has a sweet tooth. Especially on feast days, the restaurants sell light dough
confectioneries sweetened with molasses. Sugar is quite rare; chefs tend toward the easily available
molasses and honey. When sugar is available, the city goes sugar-mad for sweets; there’s an ever-
popular true confectioner in the heart of Alderhall who sells candies and treats flavored with true sugar.
As a nod to Eversink’s trade, Outlander dishes are everywhere. Nominally restricted by law to the
Foreign District where Outlanders build restaurants featuring their home cuisine, Outlander dishes
inevitably leak out into the Grand Marketplace via food carts. This would cause suspicion, but food cart
merchants are the most cunning merchants in Eversink. They simply substitute fish wherever the recipe
calls for some other meat, and shove it on a stick. Voilà, an Eversink original with a touch of Outlander
flavor!
The Menagerie: Wild Animals in Eversink

Folklore claims that Denari’s ancient enemy and rival is the spirit of a gigantic rat, and rats are enough of
a problem in Eversink that there are official city ratcatchers. The Triskadane puts a bounty on rats in
times of plague, but this usually leads to people deliberately breeding them so as to make more money.
Instead, official or deputized explorers working for the Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers lay traps,
put down poison, and hunt nests within hostile sub-basements. It’s a dangerous job, so they’re
surprisingly well paid... including guaranteed funeral expenses.
Ratcatchers are often snake-catchers as well, eliminating infestations of serpents that slither in from the
swamp and find Eversink’s many basements to their liking. The cleverest catchers sell any vipers to
alchemists and poisonmongers for a little extra wealth.
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Beautiful white swans are common enough that many people secretly consider them a nuisance, even
as they consider them sacred. Legend says that Denari sees through the eyes of every swan, but if true,
that doesn’t seem to make them better company. They’re protected by church law, and injuring (or,
heaven forbid, eating) a swan is always investigated and severely punished. The problem is that swans
tend to be large, territorial, entitled, and aggressive. The city’s rare black swans are even more
dangerous and are given a wide berth.
Eversink is host to a variety of seabirds, including flocks of carnivorous gulls that have learned to feed on
human flesh through the custom of air burials. Gulls, ravens, and pigeons are often trained by those with
Wilderness Mastery to deliver messages to specific locations. It’s against the law to kill a messenger
bird, not that this stops people who are hungry enough not to care.
During times of migration, the sky above Eversink can be darkened for days by flocks of wild birds in the
tens of millions passing overhead, like redwing swordbills and clumsy, large, honking birds named
catchbeaks. Such migratory birds pick rooftop gardens and fishmonger stalls clean, but they’re usually
gone within days. Good thing, too; flocks of that size effectively become avian locusts until they move
on. One nice thing about the passing birds is that they also feed on the omnipresent insects that breed
in the swamps, briefly clearing the air of biting flies and the appallingly large mosquitos called
bloodneedles.
And then there’s the pigs. Pigs have all kinds of uses as both meat and walking trash disposals. They stay
on an island, they feed the people, and they’re straightforward to keep. The Sisterhood of Swineherds is
a Guild taken seriously. Hogs are not allowed everywhere: the Government Committees have passed
numerous ordinances about the keeping and management of pigs, so that the streets don’t swarm with
swine. Mind you, there are many in Eversink who claim that’s the natural state of rival city districts.
There are plenty of fish in the bay, and like salmon, fish may swim upriver to spawn. This fills Eversink’s
canals with lost fish for a few days a year. The huge migratory event, however, is the Eel Run. There’s a
particular type of sea eel that breeds and is born in the freshwater pools of the Serpentine River, and
every year there is a period of a week when the river and canals are clogged with huge eels heading
home to breed. The noise made by the vicious eels is unforgettable, much to most people’s dismay. It’s
a good time to fish, but a very, very bad time to go swimming.
Divinity and Divine Power

This is a world where demons, spirits, and small godlings abound. A spirit might claim to be the god of a
legendary sword, a cause such as a crusading mercenary band, an emotion such as vengeance or love, a
constructed feature such as a town, or a natural feature such as a river or swamp. Usually the spirit
drinking in human worship, fear, and prayer doesn’t grow powerful enough to influence more than a
shrine or a small hamlet, and they generally fall into a state of torpor when their last worshipper dies
(only to reawaken when anyone remembers them or pays their long-forgotten altars the least bit of
attention). This means that there can be many “gods of the air”, for instance, and a self-proclaimed
“god” might well be inflating their actual stature. When rival gods or godlings meet, they either ally with
one another or battle through their worshippers, and the winner may well absorb a portion of the
power and prayer once given to the loser.
More than one self-proclaimed god has been defeated not through battle, but through the clever use of
the ability Scurrilous Rumors to erode their base of worshippers.
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Denari Herself was once a minor swan spirit of the River Serpentine, but contractually mandated
worship from a millennium of humanity has turned her into a true and powerful goddess, albeit one
with weaknesses of her own.
Sumptuary Laws (and Other Unusual Edicts)

There are plenty of odd laws on the books in Eversink, and which ones get enforced at any given time
depends on how knowledgeable the city official is and how much they hate you. If an official considers
you unpleasant or a danger, you might get any number of implausible laws, local ordinances, or illegal
sins brought to bear against you. On a different day, you may get lucky and literally get away with
murder thanks to a corrupt or inexperienced member of the Watch. Either way, look out for sumptuary
laws that are generally designed to oppress the lower classes (such as only nobility can wear particular
types of fur, Outlanders aren’t allowed in certain districts, or certain foods may not be eaten by those
who don’t belong to the church) that the rich and powerful may use against you. Likewise, you may well
be able to use these laws against your enemies.
Heroes can announce laws and traditions on the spur of the moment by spending a pool point of the
Investigative ability Laws and Traditions. While the player may be creating these on the spot, in Eversink
they’ve existed for years and just haven’t previously been mentioned in the game. Keep track of these;
while players inevitably create laws to get themselves out of a fix or to bedevil their enemies, it’s always
fun when those laws make repeat appearances in later games.
When you or the other players create laws, don’t worry too much about these being unrealistic. Actual
history is full of improbably ludicrous decrees. Around the world, it’s been illegal to wear stripes, wear
purple, wear fur, wear ribbons, have shoes extending by more than 9” (the long toes made it hard to
kneel to worship!), to have a large gravestone, to knock off someone’s hat, or to not wear a wool cap.
Bad laws generally stay on the books but get ignored until it becomes convenient.
Eversink’s History
Conveniently for GMs, Eversink’s sinking buildings mean that you don’t need to describe the
architectural remains of a millennium. At worst you have a few hundred years to deal with, much as if
you were in any fairly well-established historical city. Older historical remnants have mostly been
swallowed up by the earth beneath your feet.
Whether as a player or a GM, create the history you need to see. Describe ruined and sunken buildings,
help map the existing city, explain what your Hero remembers about long-forgotten floods and armed
conflicts, and give your GM and fellow players plot hooks to then exploit. Swords of the Serpentine gives
you the authority and responsibility to help world-build (especially when spending points of Forgotten
Lore or Laws and Traditions), creating ideas from which the GM can then expand.
To make this possible, GMs should encourage you to create historical events. It’s okay if you don’t know
exactly where in the timeline this new event or historical artifact fits; that’s something that can be
decided over time. Just be aware that the history you think is true, and which is commonly believed,
may not be the history that actually happened.
Look for snippets of Eversink’s purported history in adventures, supplements, and web essays. As with
all history in the sinking city, the truth of those events is up to the GM.
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A Thousand Years of Adventure
Almost a millennium has passed since Eversink was first founded. A thousand years is a very, very long
time. As you’d imagine, what’s considered the history of the city is impossibly far from complete.
There are three types of history in Eversink.
• Commonly accepted history that everyone thinks they remember accurately: scandals,
demagogues, murderers, fires, plague, war, notable floods, brilliant leaders, golden ages, and
dark times. These are historical events that have made themselves into myth or that people use
to mark time. “Knowledge” of these events may be based on historical record, on truth that has
since been embroidered, or may be entirely made up now that so much time has passed. People
in Eversink make up history all the time, and within a few generations, who is to say what was
and wasn’t true?
• True history that almost no one remembers today, but which can be understood if you know
how to look. Funerary statues, engravings on commemorative monuments, spirit sight,
prophecy, ancient tomes, archeological evidence in long-sunken basements: all of these can
reveal history’s actual truth. Whether anyone believes your revelations is then up to you.
• Lost history that may well stay lost and misunderstood. A huge city over many, many centuries
has an untold number of events and influential people whose stories disappear soon after their
death, even if their actions still linger today.
You’ll find pieces of Eversink’s history recounted in Swords of the Serpentine books and adventures.
Whether that history is true or not, or whether it’s just what people commonly think is true, depends
entirely on you and your players. Official timelines are dubious in a game that relies so heavily on
players co-creating the world. We advise you to not worry too much about exact dates and precise
historical timelines unless that’s what everyone at the gaming table loves. This is a game about heroes,
not memorized dates, and exact timelines can get murky in an age of wonders. And hey, if you decide to
add a nearly forgotten golden age of wonder and magic (or even a terrifying era of death and plague)
that isn’t otherwise mentioned in published adventures, you’re handling this setting’s history exactly
right.
Before Eversink
Before there was Eversink, there was Narissimanitellikul, or Narissi for short, ancient Serpentine for “the
emptying of the river into the endless flood beyond”. The half-human traders and soldiers of the great
Serpentine Empire built their spiraling forts and coiled towers here, harvesting the magnificent fishing
while building fleets of warships meant to conquer the world. What happened to those fleets has been
forgotten, and what happened to those people is unknown; but the towers of Narissi had already fallen,
and the demons of their people fled into the great swamps and grown tiny from lack of belief, by the
time the refugees who founded Eversink came down the Serpentine River in search of a refuge. No
humans in Eversink remember this today2.
2Other than one woman in Temple Market who just stopped aging 1800 years ago and still doesn’t know why. But good luck
getting her to talk.
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The Founding of Eversink
Eversink’s founding history is a soupy mix of pre-historical legend and truth. No original documents
about Eversink’s founding remain except the Golden Contract itself. Orenzio the Marketpriest wrote the
first historical account generations after the city’s Founding when Eversink was already an established
city and port named Denaria. Records from the original Church Fathers were incorporated into religious
texts. Archeological remains have long sunk into the undercity of the marshy islands, lost under layers of
stone and wood. Little remains of the Founding except for some grand statuary, the original stones of
the Cathedral first laid when settlers arrived on Temple Market, and the long memories and longer
genealogical records of the Ancient Noble families.
Designer Notes: Eversink’s Origin Story

Every great city needs an origin story, and Eversink is no exception. People a thousand years ago settled on a chain
of islands in a river delta and fished for clams and eel. Over time and with the blessing of geography, Eversink
became a great trading port. But that story doesn’t explain Denari or her Church. Nor does it give the people of
Eversink a touchstone for how and why their city is special.
And let’s face it, people need an excuse to throw giant, loud, garish festivals. Founding stories, with their tapestry
of prominent historical figures, provide terrific excuses.
The best-respected story of Signing Day is from Lord Sergio Caputo, a 4th century prominent historian of
the ancient Caputo Family, who scoured sources in unpublished private and Church collections to
untangle the truth behind the tales, legends, and assorted lies. Caputo takes his version from the
originals written by Orenzio the Marketpriest, but perhaps adds some interpretation and artistic license
of his own in the translation.
In the Darkest Times, before Eversink even had a history, a Calamity befell the world. The
Calamity swept through town and city. It left dead the poor, the rich and the powerful. The kind
and mighty Old Empire that cared for us, fed us, and clothed us burnt to ashes.
The world died.
Dirty, wet, cold and hungry, our ancestors traveled far and cast up in these swamps, where they
waited to die. The swamp protected them from the Calamity and the slinking things that hunted
them, but it held its own horrors. Our ancestors faced starvation, or worse, and hope fled from
them. Desperate, the refugees fell to their knees on the river’s edge and prayed to any who
would listen.
Denari heard, and answered.
The great Swan appeared before them in a golden pool, under a starry sky. “With my blessing,”
she said, “you will build a new empire. This bay will protect you. It will give you fish and salt. You
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will launch your ships into the ocean, and you will trade. I will make you richer than you can
dream. Your mortal realm is safe in my hands. Forever. With certain legal conditions.”
For her protection and blessing, Denari demanded eternal devotion, that their souls enter her
Heaven, and a concise list of achievements, growth metrics, and holy deliverables over a
mandated yet specific timetable.
She offered the survivors a Golden Contract for a Thousand Years, Subject to Periodic Term over
Term Renewal and Review.
The refugees — now called the Signers or the Founders — penned their names to the contract.
When Denari counter-signed, the swamp retreated and Denaria’s islands rose from the muck
and the riverbed. “Build my city on these islands I created for you,” she said. “Name it after me.
On the grandest island, Temple Market, build my church.”
The refugees constructed rafts and floated out to the new islands. On Temple Market, they laid
the church’s foundations. Within the new church’s Inner Sanctum, St. Matteo the Founder
gingerly laid the Golden Contract. Then, they sealed the Holy of Holies away from people with
smart ideas about riders and addendums.
Every winter the Church celebrates Signing Day, Eversink’s biggest holiday. They mark it with a city-
consuming Festival in the Grand Marketplace to remind the people of the Holy Signing and the Coming
Renewal. On that day, when Denari’s blessing is strongest, Eversink’s citizens exhibit massive and
ostentatious financial largesse, settle legal cases, and frantically close thousands of contracts in the
Church’s Golden Cathedral of Haven.
On the Holiest of days to come — not too long, now! — the Holy Renewal Day, when the Thousand Year
term is up, the contract will be up for renewal and renegotiations between all parties. Then, Denari will
judge the city against all milestones and growth metrics and either deem it worthy of another thousand-
year term or leave Eversink to sink back into the swamp.
The official histories of Eversink tell the nobility’s children that the Golden Contract renewal requires
their blood for the Great Resigning. It’s in the fine print. When the last Golden Contract family dies, the
contract unravels, renewals do not roll to a new term, and Eversink’s islands disappear beneath the
waves. The buildings will fall. All will perish in the new cataclysm. So their families must persist, the
matriarchs claim, or Eversink will cease and the ancient calamity will return. With it comes chaos,
poverty and death. So eat your dinner, be proud of who you are, and pass on your family’s name and
bloodline, else the contract unravels on the Great Resigning.
Is it any wonder the Ancient Nobility consider themselves important?
This is Denari’s Blessing. She walks among her children on the streets of Denaria, now called Eversink,
and ensures they keep their side of the bargain. She expects greatness. Sometimes, people say, she
passes out her benediction to those who adore her and embody the Golden Contract’s true spirit. It is
fair to say that others in the city have… different beliefs as to how the city should be run.
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City Districts
Eversink is divided into districts. These generally encompass one or more islands (or sometimes quite a
few very small islands), and there are usually multiple neighborhoods within one. Districts tend to be
linked geographically, thematically (“church” or “mercenary companies” or “commoners”), and socially.
This book deliberately doesn’t try to name or detail every single district or neighborhood. This lets you
create your own, with whatever features or population you want within it. You might even wish to ask
your players about the neighborhood and district they live in, and place that on the map in one of the
undetailed islands, so that you and your players can then bring it to life.
[[[Cartography – City Map]]]
Temple Market
[[[Cartography – closeup of Temple Market]]]
Temple Market is Eversink’s largest island, the first island settled a millennium ago by refugees from the
crumbling Serpentine Empire. The city was officially founded here on the site where Haven, Denari’s
largest cathedral, now stands. The cathedral’s vast stone and crystal dome towers over the sprawling
marketplace that gives this district its name, and perhaps it’s both faith and money that causes this
cathedral to sink more slowly than any other building in the city.
Temple Market is known for the best business deals in the world, for sunken mausoleums filled with the
remnants of Eversink’s founders, for green-ish parks open to all, and for astonishing restaurants tucked
next to sprawling religious complexes. While physically larger than most other districts, Temple Market
is claustrophobically filled with people during the day. Between priests and the Church Militant,
Outlander traders and local citizens, there are close to thirty times more people in Temple District
during the day than at night.
Wide and narrow canals run everywhere within Temple Market, and they’re the most efficient way to
bring goods in from the harbor. Stone bridges arch across canals to connect the Cathedral’s massive
plaza with the rest of the city. Where and how canals and bridges interconnect is a bit of hedge wisdom;
a tout will happily guide an Outlander for a bit of coin. The busiest crossing is the grand Silver Bridge, a
massive stone archway lined with stores that connects Temple Market with Ironcross.
Few have or ride horses or any other draft animal in Temple Market. The streets are choked with
humanity and there is nowhere inexpensive to keep animals in the tangle of the Grand Marketplace.
Instead, everyone but naïve Outlanders ties their horse up at the Waiting Tree near the district’s
western edge, and merchants hire teams of strong men and women to drag or carry their goods from
barges to shops. Residents mostly use the readily available gondolas and barges to travel within Temple
Market.
The Church owns almost all of Temple Market’s land, making it the district’s primary landlord. If you’re a
member of the clergy and don’t live in a specific chapel elsewhere, you probably live in Temple Market.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
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Plot Hooks: Temple Market
• If you want your campaign to stress the busy lifeblood of the city, with people filling the streets and adventure
lurking on every corner, set it in Temple Market. This section of Eversink seldom sleeps, and there’s always
someone needy from any social stratum who’s willing to hire some Heroes to help — even when the cause
isn’t necessarily noble.
• When foreigners picture Eversink, it’s Temple Market they’re thinking of. When foreigners visit Eversink, it’s
Temple Market they get hopelessly lost in. Lend a hand and find yourself embroiled in foreign plots, mischief,
and adventure.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Haven and Founders’ Square — Home of the Church

Haven (often nicknamed “The Nest”) is the name of the cathedral and its religious complex. Standing in
the center of Temple Market, Haven is a grand structure of soaring swan imagery, shining domes,
impossibly perfect spires, and painstakingly detailed crenellation. Its foundation stone marks the oldest
solid structure in Eversink.
Haven’s exterior is stone, crystal, and stained glass. The interiors are stone, imported marble, lacquered
wood, and gold. A holy fountain within is said to rise from the original waters that Denari stood upon
when she first accepted the worship of the city founders a millennium ago. Between the main cathedral
and the many side chapels, Haven can accommodate tens of thousands of worshippers at once.
It’s said that Denari hears every single prayer uttered within Haven, although She certainly doesn’t deign
to answer all of them. Holy services here carry Her blessing across the city and ensure profit and success
for any who make deals in Her name. As thanks, the interior of Haven is filled with treasures beyond
imagining from across the world, all but the most beautiful and tasteful hidden deep in the vaults below.
There are also thousands of ancient funerary statues in Haven, some displayed prominently, and it’s
whispered that in times of need Denari could open the gates of Heaven and flood the cathedral with the
vengeful ghosts of every single faithful whose statue lies within.
An ancient tradition allows criminals who reach Haven and pay a fee to seek sanctuary from the law for
a period of three months. During this time they may not leave church property and are expected to
worship daily, but are exempted from legal persecution until their three months ends. At that point
they’re usually frog-marched out of the cathedral and into jail, unless they’ve found someone to legally
exonerate them during their sanctuary. There are members of the Watch whose sole job it is to try to
trick such criminals into leaving Haven’s grounds, so that they can be arrested.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Haven

• An accused criminal seeking sanctuary hires the Heroes to find the real criminal — or, more likely, to
manufacture and plant false evidence that gets them off the hook.
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• Con artists make humble pilgrims believe they’re addressing Denari Herself. What are the pilgrims willing to
do as a result, and what might make Denari take notice?
• The treasures hidden beneath Haven are beyond imagining, a millennium’s worth of tribute. What kind of
brave but foolhardy individuals would actually take a job stealing some of them?
• The vast library of scrolls and tablets hidden here, including the Golden Contract itself, contain lost truths
about the founding of Eversink. Unfortunately, most are written in Cygnini (see p. XX), a holy language that
only a few scholars can now read. What happens when a translator turns out to have been making it up all
along?
[[[end sidebar]]]
Haven’s complex sits in the center of Founders’ Square, the largest paved square in Eversink, itself
surrounded by a wide circular canal. It’s illegal to set up a tent or shop on Founders’ Square, but that law
hasn’t been enforced for fifty years, so the plaza is now covered with incredibly prestigious and
profitable merchants. Permanent stone church buildings look onto Founders’ Square from across the
canal. These include the Church’s library, an extensive business complex, church housing, an educational
center, a monastery, the Church Militant’s original armory, and a museum to Church and Eversink
history. Highly prestigious and ancient stone mansions, some eclectic storefronts, and a few restaurants
also surround the Square.
Haven’s above-ground complex is extensive but is tiny compared to the under-cellars, tombs, and vaults
beneath the cathedral. As the oldest building remaining in Eversink its basements have generally been
kept clean, dry, and architecturally reinforced. An extensive warren of guarded underground libraries,
mysterious locked rooms, interrogation complexes, deadly architectural traps, and long-forgotten
secrets sits beneath the cathedral. No one is allowed there unless they’re a member of the priesthood
or a temple guard from the Church Militant, and even then, only if they’ve attained the right level of
clearance and trust. Somewhere down there amidst unthinkable riches are holy relics, including the
Golden Contract itself.
The Mausoleum
The Mausoleum was an early fixture of Temple Market, built many centuries before the Ancient Nobility
moved en masse to Alderhall. Architecturally influenced by Haven, morticians at this ornate stone and
marble building once invited the most storied of Eversink’s population for yearly visits and riotous
celebration of the honored dead. Now the Mausoleum is no longer actively used and is falling rapidly
into ruin. Binding contracts ensure that it never fully sinks underground, but it is added to only
grudgingly by the government, and upper levels lack the beauty and architectural wonder that lower
levels are said to have possessed. An average citizen nowadays would be surprised that the best revels
in the city were once thrown here.
The Mausoleum is full of corpses from the olden days before air burials came into vogue, and is filled
with funerary statues alongside or even built into each coffin. A few guards and elderly church
morticians still live here, by ancient decree that’s never been revoked. While there are famous heroes
and military commanders buried here, most of those interred are long-forgotten early church leaders
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and city notables; many noble lines buried here are long gone. There are long-forgotten secrets hidden
in the Mausoleum, carved into walls and left within tombs, but even the modern Church scholars don’t
remember what they are.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Mausoleum

• A prominent socialite announces a party to be held in the Mausoleum, but she neglects to dedicate the revelry
to the honored dead. What happens at the party?
• Con artists need the likeness and true name of a long-dead noble in order to pull off a magnificent scam, and
hire the Heroes to enter the Mausoleum to find and steal their statue. How are they going to pull this off
without getting caught?
• When getting buried in the Mausoleum oddly gains new social status, the workers hired to clean it discover a
hidden passageway that appears trapped. The Heroes can pull strings to get the contract if they wish, but who
needed a secret passage in a tomb?
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Monastery
The monastery attached to Haven brings a new meaning to “monastic life,” and not only because it
welcomes both male and female members and has a distillery and brewery attached. It’s a vast above-
ground complex with the front entrance opening onto Founders’ Square. The Monastery is warm,
comfortable, bright, clean, and well-appointed. It has servants and an excellent wine cellar, and the
dinners are five-course affairs. The Church claims the Monastery is an educational institution and a fine
option for the very wealthy who wish to retire in devotion to Denari. The most devoted have given their
lives to finding and making coin; if Denari did not want to give them ultimate comfort so they can study
Her complex tax laws, then why did She bless them with all this wealth in the first place?
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Monastery

• An entire party of Heroes might be made up of members of the Monastery, elderly and comfortable and set in
their ways, who are then forced out of their normal habits by a terrible threat that only they know about or
can deal with. Such a set-up can be ideal for a humorous one-shot in the tone of fantasy authors like Pratchett.
• The Monastery is an excellent source for secret societies that stretch back centuries, as generations of
members’ wealth and power may have been used to commit great crimes or hide terrible secrets.
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[[[end sidebar]]]
The Grand Marketplace

The Grand Marketplace is a breathtakingly enormous and complex maze of shops and stalls. It runs
across Temple Market edge to edge, densest near cathedrals and churches. Anything and everything is
for sale in the Grand Marketplace if you know where to look: cloth, gems, spices, property, armies,
illegal poisons, and visions of dark fates. It is a crush of tents, flags, spectacle, noise, and barter.
Merchants jockey endlessly for Grand Marketplace position. Those furthest out are the poorest and the
worst connected: Outlander goods, highly questionable food stands, tents of trinkets and memorabilia.
Tinkers and vendors push their carts into the outermost ring — often without a permit — and hope to
sell out before the City Watch catches on. The poorer tents nearest the outer edge mostly sell common
home goods — pottery, pans, everyday household items, homespun clothes.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Grand Marketplace

• There is no better setting for a massive, tumultuous chase than the Grand Marketplace. Carts get trampled,
pack animals stampeded, and vast tables of valuable and fragile pottery shattered. You could have an entire
adventure right there.
• Merchants jockeying for the best and most profitable position can get incredibly territorial and vicious about
their sales location. As they say about academia, the politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.
Many a merchant is eager to pay a team of adventurers to intimidate, terrify, or investigate a competitor.
• Trying to find a particular merchant in the marketplace can be as simple as simply asking “Who has ranks in
City’s Secrets?”, but rarely, tracking down someone who doesn’t want to be found can make for a gripping
adventure as you talk to multiple people and stumble across hidden resentments and needs.
• Illegal goods get sold in the Grand Marketplace, and sometimes the purveyors of those goods are
exceptionally dangerous. How do you convince such a person to give you the information or items you need,
especially when they think you work for the Watch or the Church?
• If the villains have a plot requiring many thousands of victims, the Grand Marketplace is where they’re likely to
go.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Moving past the first tent ring and into the riotous madness opens a magical ecosystem of rare imports
and rarer smells. One long line of tents only sells exotic spices found nowhere else in the city, while
another alley has tents filled with exceedingly strange animals. You’ll find maps and fine printed goods,
glorious silks and printed cottons, and alluring weapons with their steel glittering in the warm sun. The
closer in, the more tax the Church charges, but it’s worth it for the status.
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The Parks
The original inhabitants designated areas of Temple Market as green and leafy respites from the hot sun
and briny lagoon, and forbade anyone from building in these parks. They erected statues to Denari and
the Church Founders in their centers, added beautiful funerary statues over time, and installed little
marble benches for people to come and rest tired feet. Narrow canals now separate most parks from
the rest of the bustling district, even if the canals are symbolic and small enough for a good athlete to
leap over.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Parks

• With no permanent buildings on the parks, that means they’re one of the few areas of the city without a vast
tangle of sunken basements beneath them. Whether this is the reason for their riotous greenery or not, exotic
plants — including poisonous varieties — seem to spontaneously sprout in moonlit parks.
• Parks at night can be a remarkable spot for romantic assignations, bitter duels, or secret deals. Privacy is easier
at such times, but is never assured.
[[[end sidebar]]]
At night the parks are calm ponds in a bustling city, but during the day most are full of illegal, unlicensed
food carts. The City Watch tries valiantly to throw the squatters out, but the squatters simply return. It’s
entrenched park warfare that more than once has resulted in burning and bloodshed. Between the
vendors and the foot traffic, the parks are in poor shape. With their turf destroyed, statuary defiled, and
benches broken, the most popular parks today are less an oasis of calm and more a small sea of mud.
Groundskeepers do their best to keep up.
A few smaller, less obvious parks are harder to find or harder to enter; some are sunken, behind walls,
or raised above the street. These are more peaceful and pristine, and remain free to anyone who can
find them. Seek a hidden park if you’re in Temple Market and need somewhere beautiful to catch your
breath.
Old Mansions
Before the Ancient Nobility built their homes on Alderhall, most lived in Temple Market. Many old
mansions have sunk into the mud long ago and disappeared, but a few still stand. There’s Midblossom
House, once home to the Devino family, now converted into a Church school for the very rich. Chaldall
Manor still stands, and the Ancient Vero family continues to live there to this day.
The owners rent the few standing ancient mansions to other entrepreneurs — local restaurants, some
Grand Marketplace shops, and one, Drisherd Manor, is now an upscale inn. The owners plow the profits
from the rents into continuous maintenance and rebuilding new roofs as the lower floors sink.
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[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Old Mansions

• These mansions are warrens of secrets. Forgotten rooms, sealed basements, hidden libraries, evidence of
ancient murders, historical artifacts that could rewrite the official history of Eversink if anyone could just
understand their relevance — the old mansions of Temple Market contain archeological truths that others
would kill for if they ever even knew to look for them.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Temple Market Restaurants

With easy access to canals, fresh food vendors, and rare spices, Temple Market hosts the best (and
sometimes most expensive) restaurants in the city. Places like Aroma, the Locket, Chiavacci’s, and The
Pillar are local institutions. There’s not much room on the ground for outside seating, since the Divine
Partnership rents out almost every square centimeter of the street, so prosperous restaurants rent the
few stone mansions around Founders’ Square and build up and out onto second and third floor
balconies. When their restaurant sinks, they move the entire operation up a new level.
Designer Notes: Divine Partnership

One of the many names for the Church is the Divine Partnership. Since the people of Eversink are joined in a divine
partnership with Denari through the Golden Contract, some citizens extrapolate that relationship out as the name
for the Church as an organization.
We like the idea that there have been multiple offshoots, cults, splinter religions, saints, and variants of Denari’s
worship over the years. As time and fashions change, so does what the Church considers heretical or iniquitous.
People fight civil wars over tiny differences in official canon. If this sounds fun to explore, consider different names
for the Church — like the Divine Partnership — and then have each of those represent a different sect that’s
competing for Denari’s favor.
Temple Market City Watch House

The beleaguered Watchmen and Watchwomen of the Temple Market City Watch House start their day
by kicking illegal vendors out of the parks, and end it with kicking thieves out of the Grand Marketplace.
They also run out of an old stone mansion, but not on Founders’ Square proper. They’re on a cul-de-sac
off the Grand Marketplace that the Watch can actually afford. They’re usually so busy with the
makework of civil management that there’s not much time left over for solving theft, blackmail,
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burglary, or murder. The best way to get justice in Temple Market is to be well connected politically or
know someone who is.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Market City Watch House

• Occasionally a new Watch officer is transferred in who is determined to shake up the complacency and
exhausted cynicism of the Temple Market Watch. Rarely — and with enough ranks in Command — they’re
able to do so, disrupting the normal routine for months. Those they cross usually try to use their political
authority to get the officer in question promoted elsewhere in the city and out of Temple Market, after which
things gradually return to normal. If such an officer takes charge during a complex illegal operation, however,
politics and law enforcement get very interesting in the district.
• There are a handful of the Temple Market City Watch who care about common crimes and common people. In
order to get problems solved without destroying their career, they often turn to other Heroes to follow up and
solve these crimes, making sure they’re well compensated for their effort. This kind of partnership benefits
everyone, but is usually looked upon poorly by officials who think it makes the City Watch look weak.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Ironcross
[[[Cartography – closeup of Ironcross]]]
Ironcross is the second largest of Eversink’s islands. It’s the home of Eversink’s government, courts,
bankers, money changers, and Advocates’ Guild. Ironcross is where the business of Eversink happens,
where the contracts are signed, the money changes hands, and where fortunes grow and fall.
Amidst the soaring stone and marble government buildings are blocks of neat and tidy storefronts. Most
are walk-ups with quiet notary offices on the bottom floor and spare middle-class apartments upstairs
for those who work the machinery of commerce but don’t directly profit from it. If you work in Eversink
for the Triskadane, work in a Mercanti guildhouse, or work as a private investigator of any repute,
chances are you have your headquarters in Ironcross.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Ironcross

• In Temple Market, thieves may steal dozens or even hundreds of gold drakes. In Ironcross, however, thieves
may steal thousands or even hundreds of thousands of such coins. Elaborate con jobs, financial scams, and
perfectly legal maneuvering can make or break fortunes that would stagger a commoner. As you can imagine,
people are willing to kill for such wealth.
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• If you want your adventures to feel more like fantasy detective noir instead of classic sword & sorcery,
consider setting your Heroes up in Ironcross. People are loaded down with secret needs and desires, fair
veneers hide foul truths, and just about anyone might backstab you to get ahead in the world.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Interspersed between government buildings and blocks of quiet neighborhoods are wide squares, parks,
restaurants, and grandly triumphant public monuments from earlier eras. This district is surprisingly
clean despite the constant bustling of business, with little rubbish and almost no graffiti. The City Watch
is especially busy here, and they’re willing to eject so-called troublemakers from Ironcross at the
slightest provocation; due to their notably stern (and effective) Commander, they’re much less corrupt
than elsewhere.
The Silver Bridge connects Ironcross and Temple Market.
The Hermitage and Court Houses

The largest building in Ironcross is the Hermitage, home of the courts, committee business offices, and
the Triskadane. This ancient and majestic building fronts onto Effigy Square and backs onto the canals
for easy water access to Alderhall and the Grand Marketplace. The Triskadane’s edicts are officially read
to the public here. During the day, notaries and clerks spill through the statue-filled courtyards as they
rush to their next meeting or engagement. The Hermitage is guarded by the Church Militant and by
nameless secret police.
It’s believed that the Triskadane, the thirteen secret rulers of Eversink handpicked by the Goddess
Herself, meet somewhere within the Hermitage. Either the room keeps changing locations or no one can
agree on which room they truly use.
The Halls of the Cabinet are sweeping, beautiful, painted and gold-bedecked rooms where the most
powerful committees meet, where Eversink receives foreign heads of state, and where the Triskadane’s
edicts are first announced. These rooms commemorate Eversink’s greatest military and political
victories, real and imagined.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Hermitage

• Rumor has it The Disaster, a soaring ceiling mural painted by the fabulous Pizzimenti, was stolen as part of an
elaborate plot to bring down the City but was later discovered in the sub-basement beneath a Tangle
tenement building. It has since been properly restored. Rumor also has it that the mural hides a coded map to
a vast and wonderful treasure. If anyone has found it yet, they’ve managed to keep quiet about the discovery.
• The Triskadane actually meet in a dripping cellar near Harbor Approach. Or they meet in the dome of the city’s
third largest cathedral. Or they meet in a spare conference room here in the Hermitage that no one can ever
remember how to find. The Thirteen secret rulers might be anywhere, and only one who holds one of their
heavy golden coins knows for sure.
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• A huge number of adventures can come from those unjustly (or correctly) accused in the courts who need
evidence found, or illegally placed, before they can be set free. Some Heroes may find themselves a patron
within the courts who’s willing to pay them regularly for their non-traditional assistance.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Finally, the Hermitage contains the private and public Court Rooms. These rooms are paneled in rich
wood and leather and are large enough to hold a judge, the defendant, the City’s prosecutors, and the
City Watch; public Court Rooms also have room for a sizable audience. Eversink has no jury of peers —
the judge’s decisions are final.
The Well of Tears

A squat and unmarked building stands across from the Hermitage, on the other side of a small canal. It’s
solid and well-defended, with dozens of basements that descend deep underground. The Well (as it’s
called) is a holding prison where the City Watch keeps prisoners due to be seen by a judge. The Bridge of
Tears connects the Hermitage to this medium-sized prison. Some people claim the bridge has that name
because, in Eversink’s early days, judges carried out sentence right there on the bridge, and that the
ghosts of the condemned cry enough tears into the lapping water to make it almost briny.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Well of Tears

• Jails usually hold people waiting for their court date, not those who have already been convicted, since
convicts are usually executed, exiled, branded, or conscripted. When they suspect their upcoming trial isn’t
going to go well, many prisoners in the Well’s holding cells would gladly pay through the nose to arrange their
escape.
• Rumors persist that there are people deep in the Well who have been awaiting trial for more than seven
decades, political prisoners being kept out of sight until they die. If this turns out to be true, especially if
they’re one of the incredibly charismatic Commoner rebels who disappeared several generations ago, the
city’s entire balance of power could be upset.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Revelation Belltower

Standing on the corner of Effigy Square’s center is the Revelation Belltower. This tall, thin structure
towers over the Hermitage. It counts the hours in the day and keeps the flow of commerce moving
through Ironcross. The belltower is tall enough that workers can hear the ringing bells in the Grand
Marketplace and the Arsenal. The bell-ringer climbs 215 rickety stairs to reach the bell pull; tradition
insists that if the bell pull’s rope was any longer, it would knit itself into a noose overnight.
Ironcross’ government workers are suspicious of the Revelation Belltower. Some won’t walk near it and
believe it’s cursed. Before the current building, Swan’s Hall Tower stood in its place until it burned down
a century ago in a mysterious act of arson. Today, those who believe the tower is cursed say standing
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beneath the Revelation Tower when the bells ring marks a victim with a curse that shrivels the body and
shreds the soul. Most people believe this is silly.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Revelation Belltower

• Historians maintain that acts of horrible cruelty and carnage occurred in the Swan’s Hall Tower that once
stood on this site, although little can be proved nowadays due to an anonymous records purge two
generations ago. For whatever reason, Church acolytes with Spirit Sight who attempt to see the ghost of
Swan’s Hall typically suffer ghostly possession and near-crippling terror and amnesia from viewing the site in
the spirit world. Doing so has been declared improper by the Church, and there is now a law that declares this
act to be a heresy.
• The architecture of Revelation Belltower never seems to be quite right. The tall, thin tower leans oddly when
seen from the ground, and angles slip in and out of sight in a way that encourages viewers to look elsewhere.
Regardless, the tone of the belltower’s bells is believed to be the most perfect and beautiful in the entire city,
perhaps in the world, and many tourists stop in amazement the first time they hear the tower ringing out the
time.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Guild Houses

Standing next to the Hermitage are the city’s grandest Guild Houses. These stately, multi-floor buildings
rival the mansions of the Ancient Nobility and Mercanti in Alderhall. Faced with rare marble and stone,
covered in arches and swans, they tower over Effigy Square.
These Guild Houses are business buildings as well as dwellings. Each has a grand meeting room where
guildmasters make their strategic decisions, and where the guild throws massive holiday banquets. Guild
Houses also host each guild’s financial, contracts, legal, and logistics offices. Many have their own
libraries, training and testing rooms, and sub-basement mausoleums full of the statues and mouldering
corpses of ancient Guild founders.
The two most ostentatious Guild Houses in Ironcross are the Guild House of Architects and the
Advocates’ Guild House. Of the two, the Advocates’ Guild House is busier during the day. Located next
door to the Hermitage, some claim the Advocates dug a tunnel between the two so they can pop up
whenever they hear someone in the Hermitage’s hallways complaining they need contractual or legal
assistance.
The Guild House of Architects and Canal-Watchers was gifted to them by the Triskadane in exchange for
preferential treatment on government construction. There’s said to be more secret passages and hidden
rooms in this building than in any other structure in Eversink’s history. The Guild House is an
advertisement for the guild’s power and reach; some claim it to be the most beautiful building in the
entire city, although they don’t usually claim that anywhere a priestess of Denari can overhear them.
297
Less prominent guilds can’t yet afford headquarters in Ironcross, but the district also hosts Guild Houses
for several merchant shipping guilds, a few prominent and well-established thieves’ guilds, and the Black
Swans, an infamous Mercenary company.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Guild Houses

• Trade secrets worth millions of Swans — whether trade routes, supply sources, the identity of spies, or the
only extant copy of valuable exclusive contracts — are hidden within guild houses. Such houses usually have
their own series of waterproof vaults to hold gold, papers, and other valuables. Thieves caught trying to raid a
guild house seldom make it to trial; guilds have a quiet tradition of administering their own immediate justice.
• By tradition, each guild throws at least one massive ball each year for clients and nobility; using the
opportunity for a gratuitous and confident display of wealth and power. Getting on the guest list is a must for
anyone hoping to embarrass the guild through inside sabotage, or for anyone seeking access to the city’s elite
social class.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Counting House Row

A few blocks over from Effigy Square is Counting House Row. These purpose-built walk-ups and
townhouses hold the essentials of day-to-day business throughout all Eversink: law offices,
apothecaries, leechers, accountants, scribes, alchemists (usually at the end of the row, where explosions
will put fewer buildings at risk), and other educated professionals. It’s a bustling street full of people
shaking hands, making deals, and getting business done. They say one can rent a warehouse, pay for
shipping across the sea, arrange a shipment of foreign carpets, and land a storefront to sell the cargo in
less than four hours on Counting House Row. Whenever an entrance sinks below street level, businesses
move one floor up and the Architects add new floors.
Counting House Row also holds the Counting Houses — the various banks and non-Church lending
institutions. In the mornings, the bankers put their red-clothed benches out onto the cobbled sidewalks.
They change money, store and retrieve cash, pen contracts, and give out loans right there on the street.
One can finance an entire voyage at quite reasonable rates on Counting House Row before most people
get out of bed.
In the evenings, the benches disappear back inside the townhouses and Counting House Row becomes a
well-patrolled ghost town with shutters down and doors locked.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
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Plot Hooks: Counting House Row
• Recently, a shadow counting house has sprung up along the Row — only open from midnight to 4am and
managed by heavily hooded men and women of unknown provenance, the shadow bank provides financing to
incredibly illegal deals. The interest rates are punishing and the default terms are lethal, but if you need capital
for a smuggling mission or to pay an assassin you can borrow the money here with few questions asked. It’s
believed that a Sorcerous Cabal finances the operation, and pays officials to stay away.
• The bankers on Counting House Row are always in need of dependable agents who aren’t afraid to get their
hands dirty. Important deals require constant investigation and enforcement. If the Heroes require a
dependable patron to provide a constant stream of difficult challenges, they’ll be able to find such an
employer right here.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Imperator University
Over the centuries Eversink has been home to a score or more of universities, all of which have
eventually failed. No one is quite sure why, although theories abound, and their sunken or repurposed
campuses can be found by those who know where to look. The latest university is less than a century old
and was founded by a defecting Caprian General and sage who sought greater academic freedom. Once
she and her followers agreed to teach Denari’s theology and train new Marketpriests as part of their
curriculum, the Triskadane granted the military scholars both citizenship and a collection of buildings in
Ironcross on Monument Avenue. Imperator University has taught students at that location ever since.
The university has widened its degree offerings from military science to include theology, contract law,
astronomy, divination, alchemy, philosophy, medicine and rhetoric. It’s known for brilliant tacticians,
academic freedom, and intellectual daring. Conservatives across the city consider the university
heretical and want it gone, but the university’s tithes to the Church and government — and its
contributions to the city’s military defenses — have so far countered any such pressure.
The University is open to anyone who applies, pays the hefty admission fees, and passes its rigorous
admission examinations. It is rumored that there’s a secret curriculum exploring the causes and
consequences of Corruption and Sorcery, but that’s never been proved.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Imperator University

• You could easily set an entire campaign at Imperator University, mirroring fiction by authors such as Pratchett
and Rowling, playing either students or professors at the university in times of hardship.
• Given its origin, Imperator University arguably holds the greatest store of military history in Eversink. In times
of armed conflict, a bidding war may occur for the University’s expertise — and that military knowledge may
well be declared a state secret. What are rivals willing to offer to gain the University’s tactical expertise?
299
• The University’s Forbidden Book room contains librams and grimoires that are literally chained to the shelves
to keep librarians safe. What lost secrets are hidden therein?
• Rebellious students may well delve into forbidden topics. When student projects inadvertently threaten the
city, how can Heroes navigate the bureaucracy and tradition to prevent catastrophe?
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Sages’ Guild

The Sages’ Guild controls an ancient library much more extensive than Imperator University’s collection.
Originally an enormous and ornate storehouse for the Church’s canonical and legal texts, the library now
includes non-religious texts and serves as a government document reference for the Advocates’ Guild.
The Guild Library does host galleries of other works: local and foreign books of philosophical and
scientific thought, an extensive map reference room, and a brand new (and quite exciting!) fiction shelf.
Some say that unspoken Eversink truths and sorcerous texts lie hidden among the dry treatises on
shipping law and accounting books about sheep. They’re correct.
The Library is not open to the public and is accessed by appointment, with a hefty fee (2 Wealth per
visit) paid to the Sages’ Guild. Visitors are always accompanied through the stacks by one or more sages,
although a small number of visitor passes that allow unlimited access are held as family heirlooms in
Ancient Noble vaults. The post of High Librarian is hereditary.
Designer Notes: Church Canon

An idea we had for the Church was one whose canon was literally an infinitely growing law library. Commerce is
governed by laws, and the Church is all about Commerce, so in a thousand years the Church wrote down every
ruling, every rule, and every passing thought for what was or wasn’t a law. The only complete copy of this activity
is kept in the Sages’ Guild on many, many, many library shelves. But very few if any have ever read the entire
corpus, so no one is quite sure what the Church’s laws actually are.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Sages’ Guild

• There’s old and terrible Corruption in the lower levels that the sages have been covering up for centuries.
There’s a book shelved near it that they need, however, and no one is willing to risk their own life to approach.
Will the Heroes handle it, and why don’t the sages just ask the Church, anyway?
• A sage discovers a terrible secret in one of her books, comes to the Heroes for help, but is killed or cursed
before she can tell them — the classic murder mystery set-up. What’s the secret, and who cares enough to
keep it quiet? Is she really dead, or faking it to manipulate the Heroes?
300
• Cartographers make a tidy sum selling copies of ancient maps to those who want to navigate the undercity.
They slowly realize that several sections of the undercity are so dangerous that no one who ventures near
them ever returns. The Church is willing to pay well — including funeral expenses — to anyone willing to
investigate why.
• A shelf of library books has become sentient due to ancient Corruption in the floors below, and starts running
a crime ring out of the Sages’ Guild by possessing librarians and then wiping their memory of any illegal
activity.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Ironcross’ Housing and Restaurants

Ironcross houses an extensive army of advocates, notaries, and clerks. It also has rowhouses and
apartments for middle-class guild merchants and high artisans. While government and business
buildings dominate most of Ironcross’ streets, a turn can take a visitor down quiet alleys and canals alive
with the common sounds of middle-class life.
Most of the apartment buildings are tall stone towers. Landlords maintain contracts with the Guild of
Architects and Canal-Watchers to continuously build new roof levels. When basement level leases come
up, the residents are offered an opportunity to move to the newest top floor at a premium.
A few apartment buildings are ancient converted fortified towers, old palaces, and other eccentric,
trendy old buildings. Apartments in these buildings come at a premium for their excellent locations,
upscale addresses, and interesting interiors. Those living in here are up-and-comers: merchants hoping
to become Mercanti, rich advocates, and even some rich Church notables who want to live in quiet away
from the Grand Marketplace and outside the Church’s dormitories.
Ironcross doesn’t have the cachet of a great eating or shopping destination outside of core business
services, except for some notable locations. Timmer and Rice Clothiers, around the corner from the
University, has been dressing the rich and famous for 223 years — having been rebuilt now twice.
Lankows’ Cabinetmakers furnishes the various government and clerical offices around Ironcross. Cook’s
Weapons and Fashionable Metals commissions custom-made swords, daggers, dirks, and knives. And
Eversink’s first tourist company, Mayweather’s Ships, sits on the corner of Monument and Jubilee
Streets.
The Iron Bridge leads to Sag Harbor and the meatpacking district. Standing next to the bridge is
Gunther’s Chophouse, excellent for its steak menu, wine cellar, port selection, and discreet tables.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Ironcross’ Housing

• Reputation and social standing are important for almost anyone living and working in Ironcross; the locals
definitely feel that they have a certain standard to maintain. Any adventure involving blackmail, financial
betrayal, and social embarrassment can easily be set here.
301
• For years, an unknown sorcerer embezzled fortunes by cursing bureaucrats and only removing the curse once
they funneled coin to her. She’s been inactive for decades, but that’s bound to change once her ill-gotten
funds run out.
• A plethora of demons and small gods dedicated to wealth, coin, and self-importance seem to spring into life in
Ironcross every year. Most are exorcized by Inquisitors or absorbed by Denari, but a few inevitably escape
when they’re protected by people who crave wealth. The godlings’ plans and dreams almost always involve
get-rich-quick schemes and plots to subvert or weaken the Church’s influence, and they like using Heroes as
catspaws to do so.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Alderhall
[[[Cartography – closeup of Alderhall]]]
Alderhall is the district of prestige. The wide, perfumed lanes wind along gardens, parks, theaters,
museums, and past the Ancient Nobility’s towering and gated estates. The main street known as the
Promenade of Swans wends its way past hedge animals, wandering musicians, peacocks, jeweled
towers, lovely exotic flowers, gurgling streams and elegant bridges. The air is lyrical with soft music, and
the smell of the swamp is far away. Thanks to Alderhall’s low hills, this district is the last in the city to
flood during vicious storms — and well-staffed gates keep out undesirables.
The Mercanti try frantically to buy their way into this status and wealth, but it isn’t easy. Land in
Alderhall is scarce and has been built up since the early days of Eversink. The stately mansions and
towers are old; the only real way in is to mortgage an existing building’s roof or to buy out a failing
Ancient Noble family, and these aren’t sold to just anybody. The locals join forces to keep out the wrong
sort of people, which they define as everyone who doesn’t have as much social prestige as they do.
The graceful mansions constantly sink despite the district’s hill and firmer soil, a fact that confirms sages’
belief that Eversink’s slow descent isn’t natural. The Ancient Nobles with the most money can best keep
their towers built up. It’s a tell on which families are succeeding and which are failing. Cunning Mercanti
can choose a victim simply by counting the remaining stories. The Vesco mansion has a full twelve
luxurious stories, while the poor Garibaldis are down to a mere five. Maybe a quick infusion of neo-riche
cash will get them to a sixth, in exchange for future favors…
Meanwhile, a warren of back alleys and canals behind the mansions lead to the servants’ quarters and
the mercenary garrisons. Deliveries from the Grand Marketplace never saunter up the Promenade.
They’re carried by gondola along the many canals winding through Alderhall to the mansions’ private
docks. Goods are unloaded discreetly and brought up back stairs. Many Alderhall bridges rise and lower
so they can hang picturesquely over the water in the day and rise for frantic commerce at night. This has
the additional advantage of controlling access to the neighborhood.
The City Watch patrols Alderhall’s streets aggressively. Anyone looking the slightest bit suspicious is
stopped, questioned, patted down, harassed, and escorted toward the nearest bridge leading them out
of the District. Visitors, tourists, Outlanders, and under-dressed Eversink citizens are not welcome.
Alderhall’s City Watch House is the largest in Eversink, not counting the City Watch presence in the
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Hermitage, and has the largest staff. It also has the justified reputation for raw corruption; Watch
Officers who serve here gain the majority of their income from nobles demanding special favors.
On the rare occasion that you need a Watchman and there are none around, almost all noble families
maintain their own small private army of mercenaries. A family is considered weak if they don’t, and
social status is sometimes derived from the size of a house’s militia — even if those soldiers do little
more than act as bodyguards and stand up impressively straight in public.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Alderhall

• When you want an adventure to focus on the Ancient Nobility, chances are the Heroes will be making a visit to
Alderhall — assuming they can bribe or talk their way past the gate guards, who may want something unusual.
A meal from the best food cart in the Tangle is much more popular than simple coin.
• Nobility tend to forget about their servants, merchants, and guards. For anyone with ranks of Servility, the
“secret population” who service Alderhall families have a robust gossip network and relatively private canals
or lanes to move on. Whether you’re saving a servant’s career or a noble’s reputation, the people who actually
do the work in Alderhall may have an important role to play.
• Alderhall towers may often be neglected, but you’d never be able to tell from the outside, even if the upkeep
is bankrupting the noble family who owns it. That means carpenters and stonemasons are common in the
district. They sometimes find inexplicable or remarkable things when working on noble towers: rooms or
items they’d rather ask the Heroes about than show to the family who owns them.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Opera House

A gem of the gilded age of architecture, the Opera House was built on pilings so that it would withstand
the ravages of time and swamp. A few more generations and it will finally sink into the ground, but its
coiled and polished marble steps lead up from a grand plaza to an acoustically perfect performance
space. Hundreds of statues grace the Opera Hall — and legend says that they move about and change
places to hear the best performances.
Many marriages happen in the plaza and on the steps, and the view of the bay from the highest towers
is unmatched. Inside, the main performance hall (and there are smaller theaters) seats more than a
thousand. Balconies and back stairs make for a bewildering but beautifully decorated navigation
experience. The Triskadane have a box that is always left empty, as does the Goddess herself — just in
case. Nobility’s boxes are passed down through families, paid for in perpetuity when the Opera was
built. The wait for the Mercanti to buy a box is decades, and bidding is ridiculously high.
Opera companies vie and compete for the best stages. The graft to be accepted as a featured company
is astonishing. The church decries companies that use sorcerers for illusory effects, and have Inquisitors
on-site to check for Corruption, but few sorcerers are ever that stupid.
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[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Opera House

• It’s said that a statue somewhere in the Opera House has the Sultana’s Ruby hidden inside it, a stolen gem the
size of a seagull’s egg with a supposed curse and a long and storied past. If it’s there, legions of thieves have so
far failed to find it — and it’s possible that the City Watch spreads that rumor just to set up a successful thief-
trap.
• When commoners and artisans wish to humiliate members of the nobility or members of government, they
typically do so by producing seditious or humiliating plays that are full of allegory, performances that stay just
this side of plausible deniability. Mechanically, this is represented by spending pool points of Scurrilous
Rumors. The flurry of duels that erupt from such performances seldom stop reputations from rising or falling.
It’s an excellent method of undercutting nobles too powerful to attack otherwise. You won’t usually find the
Church attacked in such a manner, though; heresy isn’t something the Opera House tolerates as “artistic
expression”.
• Despite the best efforts of the Church’s Inquisitors, the Opera House remains haunted. There’s a sizable
reward for anyone who can fix this problem.
• If you want a cinematic location for a dramatic encounter, you can hardly ask for a better location than the
roofs of the Opera House. Astonishing views, lethal falls, multiple levels, and an eager audience of patrons
who watch from the ground below.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Glass Garden

The Glass Garden is a massive, multi-floored glass-enclosed hothouse dedicated to growing and
exhibiting rare, exotic, and alchemically enhanced flowers. Inside, paths wind between elegant
manufactured waterfalls and along constructed cliffs. Small charming streams and ponds filled with
ornamental fish gurgle among ferns. Hidden stairs and ladders take flower enthusiasts through “secret
passages” and into unlabeled rooms with botanical delights. Quarterly, the staff moves plants to
different rooms so there’s always something new to amaze and delight. Only once (but memorably)
have the exhibited plants been carnivorous, sentient, and motile.
The Alderhall Botanical and Adventurers’ Society runs the Glass Garden. It charges a hefty “donation” (1
Wealth) at the door for a quiet stroll through the rare botanical joys, and hosts a High Society Gala every
year. Special exhibits from artists appear regularly.
The largest challenge facing the Society is theft. Visitors, botanists, and even hired guards smuggle out
every extra seed and bulb they can filch. Many of the rare plants are used in the manufacture of banned
alchemical reagents and highly addictive substances. It’s up to the buyer to grow their own supply from
the stolen seeds, but most buyers seem to be successful; the City Watch traced breakouts of new
virulent drug addictions in the Tangle and Sag Harbor to the Glass Garden’s back door. The Alderhall
Botanical and Adventurers’ Society refuses to acknowledge this as a problem, as bad press would ruin its
reputation and the carefully planned annual gala.
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[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Glass Garden

• A generation ago, one of the exotic plants turned out to be remarkably effective for mind control when dried
and powdered. All of the Garden’s samples were seized and burned, but if any seeds survived, they should be
flowering any time now.
• There’s little doubt that some members of the Society will buy any rare plant presented to them. This opens
them up to charges of receiving illegal and smuggled goods, making them vulnerable to blackmail. Heroes
might need to defend them — assuming they’re not the ones perpetrating the blackmail themselves.
• In recent decades members of a guild of Eversink’s assassins have challenged one another to complete their
assignments at the annual High Society Gala, without getting caught. Security at the Gala is now ridiculously
high — as you’d expect at a party where every year guests seem to keel over unexpectedly — which makes
the challenge that much more interesting.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Sag Harbor
[[[Cartography – closeup of Sag Harbor]]]
The swampside docks off the upriver end of the city are in the worst industrial section of town. This is
the area where the unmentionable businesses are: the tanneries, the slaughterhouses, the nightsoil
collections. It’s where sludge from dredging finds a temporary home, mostly because there’s a
surreptitious market for people who want their enemies’ homes filled with the stuff. Claimed (usually by
being branded) and feral pigs root around in refuse piles like mobile trash disposals, and pigs are
notoriously good at disposing of unwanted bodies. The district is called Sag Harbor because many
buildings are canted, leaning into other buildings at crazy angles as their foundations slip. The Architects
have been paid not to fix these; they’re just marking time until urban renewal.
Sag Harbor itself is shallow and badly silted as river mud washed downstream piles up against Eversink’s
easternmost islands. Smugglers dock here, as do people who don’t want to pay the dock fees of the
good docks downriver in Harbor Approach or the Waterfront. People come to Sag Harbor for the
anonymity; there’s a local tradition that noticing a stranger’s face is likely to get you shivved. The poor
live here alongside orphans, dockworkers, and those who are taboo or hope to hide. Bodies are dumped
here to float away, be eaten by hogs and rats, or disappear into the stew pots of the truly starving.
The Goddess’ Blessing keeps most of the water in Eversink clean, but not here. Water flowing into Sag
Harbor is quickly polluted, and canal locks shunt this pollution towards the swamp instead of into the
city center. Drinking from the canals and harbor here leads to a swift and terrible death from throat
leeches or something worse. Instead, the local citizens employ rain barrels for fresh water. Rarely is
enough water left over after cooking and drinking to bathe; most of Sag Harbor reeks. The very lucky
find ancient wells drilled in the sub-basements under their tenements, but once outed, local gangs of
thieves move in quick to control the water supply. In Sag Harbor, clean water is power.
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The Sag Harbor City Watch House is a building under siege. Most Watchmen here are corrupt and on the
take from one, two, or sometimes five local crime families simultaneously. They’re paid well to look the
other way and they couldn’t care less about Outlander-on-Outlander violence out in the slums. A few
brave Watchmen take a stand against the endless criminal tide but all too often they end up floating
face-down in the brackish harbor, or they burn out and are transferred up-harbor. If you need a crime
solved in Sag Harbor, you may be better off going to a private Sentinel or an honest Watch officer in a
different District who’s willing to bend the rules on territory.
Sag Harbor hosts numerous small chapels and shrines, as well as one larger local parish church and a
parish Marketpriest, Leo Montalbo. He is a good man in a bad town. His mission is to treat the hopeless
addicts and homeless criminals who end up on his stoop, one painful victim at a time. Frustratingly, his
faith forbids him charity: he cannot treat the desperate without extracting a blood price.
The inhuman rattakan have routes to the surface in Sag Harbor. So do other things too horrible to
mention, and even the many thieves’ guilds headquartered here use caution. People disappear at night
and no one is the wiser.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Sag Harbor

• There’s a secret war going on between a band of local orphans and a nest of rattakan. It’s just a matter of time
before the monstrosities catch and devour the children, but the ones who still survive have become
remarkable at keeping themselves safe while trying to get adults to believe them about the rat-folks’
existence.
• Some people believe that this District is riddled with underground spots of buried Corruption, open sores that
attract ghosts and lead to nightmares or insanity. Only the bravest of Inquisitors go looking, and they usually
hire local help to do so.
• There’s a movement on to dredge Sag Harbor, knock down the sinking tenements, and have Mercanti guild-
families claim the islands as their own once they rebuild the streets for their own use. No one has thought
about where all the poor would go, but it’s a serious threat that some would kill to stop… or kill to have it
happen.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The House of Broken Wings

While the Hospital in the Tangle holds the broken in body, the House of Broken Wings hosts those with
broken minds and little wealth. The House of Broken Wings is a surprisingly bright and clean building
where Eversink locks away the poverty-stricken deranged for the safety of themselves... and others.
Eversink calls the mad “Broken Wings,” and the House is their home.
The Church and government both take madness extraordinarily seriously. Madness is cracks in the mind
that Corruption and spirits can exploit. If the mad aren't locked away, no one knows who, or what, will
wind up in charge of the body in the end. The Church has its asylum, and plenty of private sanctuaries
exist, but the House is the only major facility focusing on the poor.
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The Governess of the House, Valentina de Prefetti, is colloquially known as the Silent Swan, or the
Broken Swan by the impolite. In her youth Valentina was a messenger for the Triskadane and, as is
customary, her tongue was removed. Despite her inability to speak, she runs the House professionally
and well, and all the Broken Wings are well cared for. Valentina possesses a gift of serenity — a soothing
presence, an aura of calm — and even violent inmates are less agitated when she is nearby.
In spite of her saintly reputation, rumors persist in certain circles that Valentina is not as pure as she
appears. While all of the Broken Wings are demonstrably damaged or disturbed, the whispers maintain
that not all of them were that way prior to being remanded into the care of the House.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The House of Broken Wings

• Someone has taken great care to excise the history of the House from any official documents and government
records. It was used for something before Valentina arrived, but no one seems to remember what.
• Occasionally someone kidnaps broken people from the House. When this happens, it’s usually because the
kidnapper needs a host for a possessing ghost — a crime the Inquisitors take seriously and punish harshly,
even if they seem to care far more for catching the criminals than helping the victims.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Rospo’s Fight Club

Four hundred years ago, Eversink built an elaborate colosseum. It sank.
Nunzio Carbone is a mid-level boss in one of the city's criminal fraternities. He is universally known as Il
Rospo, “The Toad”, because of his gross corpulence and amazing collection of warts. He has been
investigated by Inquisitors on suspicion of sorcery on no fewer than five occasions, and they have
concluded that either he is a practitioner of surpassing subtlety, or else he really is that ugly.
Il Rospo has something of a reputation as an information broker, but his primary income is from the
Underground (literally) Fight Club he runs in the sunken ruin of the old colosseum. Mercenaries, local
thugs, fantastic beasts, and coinless Outlanders compete in mortal combat for the delight of spectators
and, more importantly, gamblers.
There are two unbreakable rules for attendees of these gladiatorial events: 1. Cash only, no credit; and
2. Everyone wears a domino mask issued at the door. While Il Rospo is scrupulous about tithing for any
profits he garners from his enterprise, he leaves it to the discretion of his patrons as to whether they
report their winnings to the Church. The Rules permit him to claim ignorance with at least a veneer of
plausibility should anyone ever make official enquiries as to the identities of his customers.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
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Plot Hooks: Rospo’s Fight Club
• Death and spilled blood attract unsavory attention from the spirit world, and Il Rospo has no idea that his
simple fights are weakening the veil for something to push through.
• It’s become fashionable for slumming nobility to attend and — Goddess forbid! — actually fight in the
gladiatorial combat. Il Rospo doesn’t forbid it, but he hates the idea. If an important noble gets snuffed, he’s
going to have to call in a lot of favors to have the whole thing shushed up.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Underground Night Markets

Daytime Sag Harbor is a sprawl of slums and unsavory neighborhoods. Nighttime Sag Harbor (at least
along the edges of the District) is a riot of Night Markets. Every night when the sun goes down, the
lanterns light and market tents pop up intertwined with the harbor docks and the sprawls of
fishmongers, tanners, dyers, outlanders, and other low-lives. Roving pubs pitch their tents and tap their
kegs.
They say anything is for sale in the Sag Harbor Night Markets: items of great magic, forbidden alchemical
reagents, banned sorcery books, contract hitmen, taboo alcohols. Vendors roll out stalls with offal soup
and platters of deep-fried crickets, centipedes and silkworms. Thieves pop up mobile casinos with rigged
games of chance. Raucous musicians battle on corners for Sag Harbor musical supremacy. The Tangle
might be where many common families live, but Sag Harbor’s Night Markets are where they go for
entertainment.
This is all an elaborate ruse. The surface Night Markets are for the rich (and brave) tourists trolling for a
good time while slumming. The real Night Markets are underground among the sunken foundations of
Eversink's tallest buildings.
Accessing the Underground Night Markets isn't for casual visitors. The path requires connections,
knowledge, bribes, and an accurate map. The way down changes almost every night and it’s extremely
dangerous. The Night Market’s denizens don’t welcome visitors.
Down there, in the Underground Night Market, disfigured masters from the Guild of Architects exchange
sorcery, maps, ancient and recently procured knowledge. Crime bosses meet with aged and horribly
disfigured sorcerers. Alchemists purchase still-warm organs for their concoctions. Rattakan bribe
mercenaries to look the other way. Everything imaginable can be had — drugs, real magic, souls, lives,
deaths — for a steep price. Unlike the surface Night Market, these items are the real deal, not wax
facsimiles.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Night Markets

• Someone claims to have an honest-to-Goddess Triskadane coin to sell, one that when owned allows you to co-
rule the city. Everyone who is anyone is descending on the Night Market to buy, steal, or claim the once-in-a-
308
lifetime opportunity, and the confrontation is bound to be messy. But who’s selling the coin, how did they get
it, and is it even real?
• A new poison vendor has come to the Night Market, one who sells concoctions of such unthinkable lethality
that even the antidotes are usually poisonous. Unfortunately, she’s the only link to an assassination that needs
to be solved. Is there any way to convince her to help?
• Alchemists get short shrift in the city, but their power can be astonishing — unique and beautiful plants,
astonishing new flavors and colors in exotic dishes, and the possibility of new addictive drugs to impress one’s
friends. A decadent Mercanti has demanded an alchemist work exclusively for them, and isn’t going to take no
for an answer. You’ve been sent to the Night Market, either to protect the alchemist or to convince them to
hire on before things get really ugly.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Downwind Warehouses
Far from the well-tended world of the Harbor Approach warehouses, Sag Harbor warehouses are home
to Eversink’s messier industrial output and production. These men and women work daily in muck up to
their knees. These warehouses, and people who work in them, carry a distinctive stench. The
warehouses were placed so the smell doesn’t carry across the island to the elites of Alderhall or
Ironcross. Thus they’re called the “downwind” warehouses.
One cluster of warehouses is dedicated to slaughter, butchery, and meat packing for the Grand
Marketplace. Cattle and pigs enter one end via flatboat before the sun rises, and out comes packaged
meat fresh for the day’s market... along with rivers of blood. Organized crime bosses dispose of their
victims in those meatpacking houses and no one is the wiser. Don’t ask about the lagoons holding fecal
matter and slurry from the livestock; when you really anger someone important, being drowned in those
lagoons is the worst possible death most people can think of.
Worse than the meat-packing warehouses are the dyers, fullers and tanneries. While finely worked
Eversink leather and wool are major exports, no one wants to live near the production. The stench
inside those warehouses at the height of summer is so intense the tanners no longer have a sense of
smell. Some dyers, working next to the tanners and fullers, are also in the poison production business
for the Thieves’ Guilds. The work horror provides a cover for delicate alchemical science. No one is going
to inspect a dyer’s chemicals.
The warehouses are guild shops run like criminal sweatshops. Orphans scurry to and fro, getting into
corners where adults cannot reach. Guild strongmen “Masters” own and operate these warehouses.
They maintain order with club-wielding enforcers and they tolerate no issues on their work floors. An
interloper sneaking in on the sly to make a bit of under-the-table coin in the morning is often found
floating face-down that evening.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
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Plot Hooks: Downwind Warehouses
• There are numerous small gods who battle over the stockyards, begging butchers to offer prayers and growing
infinitesimally stronger with each animal sacrificed to them. Denari sends Inquisitors and the Church Militant
in every few months to exorcise whatever foreign cults are starting to take hold.
• Trying to chase an enemy through the Downwind Warehouses is an adventure in itself. Just hope they don’t
set off a stampede of released livestock, sending thousands of cattle, hogs or goats flooding across bridges
into neighboring districts while they try to run fast enough to give you the slip.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Foreign District

The best way to avoid invasion is to welcome Outlanders in, tax them, give them a neighborhood full of
people they’ll understand, and before you know it the invader is just another tax-paying citizen with an
odd accent and some weird food preferences. Outlanders fleeing distant wars and oppression, or simply
seeking economic opportunity, usually settle near their countryfolk in the Foreign District. The
government generally doesn’t forbid the worship of non-Denari gods if proper permits are first
obtained, and Outlanders are encouraged to wear their native dress in order to spark the occasional
fashion trend and resulting sales boom.
Over the centuries Outlanders from multiple nations have built vibrant immigrant communities within
the Foreign District. Immigrants bring their cultures with them, but different cultures seldom
intermingle successfully. People being people, immigrants subdivide themselves into different
communities with loosely defined borders. Turn a corner in the Foreign District and it’s like stepping into
another country with a riot of foreign languages, smells, tastes, building architecture styles, markets,
and faiths. Foreign temples tower (and sink) over tiny winding avenues full of unfamiliar markets and
street vendors. Turn another corner, pass some gates, and you’ll stumble on another burst of foreign
civilization from a completely different nation. There’s even a military neighborhood here, where
unemployed mercenaries barrack and drill.
These blocks are also healthy power centers of foreign gangs and organized crime. The Outlanders
brought their cultures, and they also brought their rivalries and political loyalties. Criminals escaping
foreign justice often set up in their neighborhood’s warehouses and tenement buildings, happy for the
chance to start anew. It makes for a complex and exciting mix of local politics and adventuring
opportunities for anyone brave enough to challenge the local power structure.
When Outlanders settle into their designated district, they also might bring their old grievances with
them to implant into new soil. They carry centuries of historical wrongs and sworn vengeance. When
news of two distant countries declaring war on each other reaches the Foreign District, local gangs play
out miniature versions of the same war in the streets “for honor.” It consumes blocks and innocent
bystanders. Usually the City Watch just throws up its hands, erects barricades around the affected
blocks, and warns locals away until the street fighting burns itself out. Once everyone involved is dead,
new immigrants move into newly emptied buildings.
310
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Foreign District

• Archeological evidence you need (whether it’s a forgotten funerary statue, a Corruption-filled site of ancient
mass slaughter, or a long-dead criminal’s bank vault) is in the same building as a foreign god’s local shrine, and
it’s a religious week of festival and feasting for the locals. Can you get what you need and get out without
getting caught, and without angering the local spirits for being disrespectful?
• In a riff on Romeo and Juliet, a same-sex couple from two prestigious families in feuding nationalities have
fallen in love. Their families don’t know, or don’t care in their determination to take each other down, and it’s
up to the Heroes to make sure they survive without their families’ rivalry burning down the Foreign District
around them.
• The Heroes’ favorite restaurant in the Foreign District has had its chef kidnapped, possibly by the Mercanti
family who had already tried to hire them away. Is it really that simple, or is there more at stake… and judging
from the remnants of poison you found in their home, are they actually involved in murder?
[[[end sidebar]]]
Harbor Approach
[[[Cartography – closeup of Harbor Approach]]]
Harbor Approach is often referred to as the Upper Docks. This swamp-adjacent District is the home of
Eversink’s military capabilities and works as a general goods storage bay. It is a long, rough, and
somewhat undifferentiated stretch of harbor island, boat launches, boat repair, boat storage, bars, run-
down inns, smuggler refuges and the occasional pleasure-house. This working-class district is where
many laborers toil during the day before returning to their home district in the evening.
The main feature of Harbor Approach is the warehouses. Almost all warehouses have a harbor jetty out
front and a canal in the back for quicker routing and logistics. Goods are unloaded from ships in huge
barrels and rolled into storage and examination by tax officials, before stamp and transfer via gondola or
flat-bottomed canal boat to the Grand Marketplaces. Pigs are sometimes offloaded here from bountiful
cargo holds before being ferried to the Sag Harbor slaughterhouses and tanneries. The fish arrives
before the sun comes up and is whisked to Eversink’s fish markets. Even mercenary companies unload
here in Harbor Approach and pass through harbor inspection before entrance to more populous
districts.
The second biggest feature of Harbor Approach is the ship builders. While most shipbuilding happens in
the Arsenal under the city’s watchful eyes, private companies prefer Harbor Approach. The local non-
military shipbuilders sell everything from rich pleasure craft to huge ocean-going shipping vessels. They
also produce the gondolas and flat-bottomed boats so essential to the city’s economy.
Outside of the trendy new community Stormhall, few people live in Harbor Approach. It’s a passthrough,
a government installation, and a taxation office. Most who work in Harbor Approach live in the Tangle or
Sag Harbor across town, and overladen ferries carry workers back and forth all day. Lower-class
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tenement buildings are tucked in and around the oceans of warehouses, and those who do live in this
district like it quiet and lonely.
Harbor Approach is all business during the day and all pleasure at night. Stretches of sailor bars hang out
their lights and open their doors once the sun goes down. They fill quickly with sailors in for the day and
out the next morning. Thieves wander from bar to bar putting together jobs and looking for easy marks.
Smugglers sit in tavern back corners and game out their next move right under the watchful eye of the
taxman. The comfort men and women start walking the boardwalk looking for lonely sailors with a bit of
coin at twilight, and disappear when the City Watch shoos them away in the morning. More than one
optimistic coup has been hatched in a shadowy corner of a Harbor Approach bar.
Harbor Approach has a few famous taverns in and around the jumble, like Bertha’s Mussels, the best
tavern in Eversink. And then there’s the Horse You Came In On Tavern, all the more ironic because no
one in Harbor Approach comes in on a horse.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Harbor Approach

• When someone is angry at the Mercanti, it’s their warehouses in Harbor Approach that get burned first. The
island is full of charred remains that have sunk beneath street level, and not all those ruined and buried
warehouses are necessarily empty. There are unlooted valuables and smuggled rarities, sure; but somewhere
down there is also a collapsed warehouse trapping the sorcerously reanimated corpses of thousands of angry
hogs. At the time the Triskadane found it most expeditious to solve the problem by burying it. That might not
have been a good idea in the long run.
• If you’ve stolen something large, like a huge cargo shipment or thousands of Wealth worth of spices from a
very angry guild, Harbor Approach is usually the easiest place to hide it. Local freelance investigators tend to
see which law enforcement officials get bribed, then work backwards from there by finding the stolen
shipments and selling them back to the original owner for a price. They’ll often hire on additional muscle for
these recovery ventures.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Arsenal
The Arsenal is a complex of former shipyards and armories clustered together at the western tip of
Harbor Approach, alongside a huge lighthouse. It’s an industrial compound dedicated to projecting
Eversink’s naval military strength over her neighbors far and near. The laborers of the Arsenal can
assemble a complete fighting vessel from rope, rigging and boards in a single day if necessary.
A huge wall surrounds the Arsenal to shield it from public view and keep unauthorized people out of the
shipworks. Guards stand on ramparts at evenly spaced intervals keeping an eye out for intruders. As a
priority, the government pens contracts with the Architects and their subcontractors to ensure they
continually replace the Arsenal’s wall as the building sinks. Every six months, a new crew comes out to
312
build a layer of brick and mortar to replace the lost centimeters of protection around Eversink’s main
military production complex.
Inside, different areas produce different parts of a ship: rope, rigging, sails, or wood planks for hulls in a
raw assembly line. Management dedicates groups of laborers to each step in the process. At the line’s
end, sailors sail a ship into the harbor ready for gunboat diplomacy, commerce, or war.
Working in the Arsenal is a hard job with few breaks, long hours, and oppressive conditions under war
footing, but it is Eversink’s biggest single employer of the poor. When one laborer dies in an accident,
five are standing in line ready to take their place. For an Outlander or a Commoner coming out of Sag
Harbor, there are not many other dependable employers who pay a consistent wage.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Arsenal

• It’s rumored that vaults beneath the Arsenal contain enough weapons to arm a citizen army, and they’re
waiting there for the day when Eversink needs to defend herself in actual hand-to-hand combat. That makes
subverting the Arsenal a priority for any foreign power hoping to conquer Eversink. It’s also possible that the
Triskadane spreads this rumor precisely so hostile entities will make conquering the Arsenal a foolish priority
they waste time on.
• Someone anonymous in Harbor Approach is letting it be known that they have important secrets to sell about
the Armory to one buyer only, and they aren’t too fussy about who that is as long as they’re willing to pay.
That’s treason, pure and simple (unless this is the Triskadane’s secret police trying to trap foreign agents), and
potential customers are killing each other for the privilege of buying the information.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Old and New Foundry

Eversink isn’t a big iron town because iron rusts in salt air. It must import 100% of all its metals from
abroad. But Eversink does have a need for high-quality iron and steel weapons, armor, fittings,
tableware, pots, pans, and horseshoes. It is far cheaper to import raw material, craft it onsite, and sell in
the Grand Marketplace than it is to import finished items.
Eversink’s settlers built the Old Foundry soon after the city’s Founding. It still squats at the edge of the
harbor for easy metal and water intake. This large, ugly, rectangular building is heavily scarred inside
and out by dozens of fires. It’s been rebuilt both from sinking and fire dozens of times. It doused its
furnaces when the new Foundry opened a century ago.
Today, the rat-infested Old Foundry is the home of the Government’s Harbor Committee. The building is
now a warren of cubicles, offices, paper, pens, notaries and government functionaries all handing out
berths and collecting import taxes. They say that while the Triskadane decides on Eversink’s economic
direction, the Harbor Committee out of the Old Foundry executes the Triskadane’s whims through a
bureaucracy of papers and arcane stamps.
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Eversink still needs metal goods. The New Foundry is an upgrade on the Old Foundry in every way. It has
dedicated docks for metal imports. An Architect-designed waterwheel feeds constant intake from the
lagoon and drives the bellows. New furnace technology heats metal up to highly tempered steel
temperatures. Water-powered automatic hammers beat hot metal into shape much faster than a
human ever could. Metallurgists and Alchemists aren’t experts in metals but in creative thinking; they’ve
been at the forefront of metal-based experimentation right there in the New Foundry’s offices.
Work in the New Foundry is hot, dirty, and dangerous. People trip, fall, and disappear into the vats of
steel all the time (something to be discouraged, as it can ruin the steel). Guild bosses run the floors in
here — the work pays too well for just anyone wandering off the street to pick up a hammer. You’re not
working here unless you’re a member. As you’d imagine, the slowly sinking foundation makes keeping
the building stable and in good repair the highest priority, lest the furnaces explode and burn down half
the city.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Old and New Foundry

• The alchemists and metalworkers in the New Foundry are occasionally willing to take on hand-crafted side
projects for a patron, such as meteorite-iron swords or glorious suits of armor. There is a fortune of trade
secrets locked in the foundry’s offices and vaults, and rumors persist that evil sorcerous items that just can’t
be destroyed get trapped in cubes of solid iron before being locked in the Foundry’s basement, where they
can’t do any harm. Presumably.
• The rattakan have thoroughly infested the Old Foundry, where they spy on the Harbor Committee and send
word to smugglers when valuable cargos are being shipped. The time is ripe — overripe, really — for someone
to root them out and destroy their network of spies.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Old Summer Palace

The Old Summer Palace was originally the home of the Morello family, an Ancient Noble line tracing
their blood heritage back to Eversink’s founding. The building was the belle of the City long before the
rich concentrated in Alderhall and before Eversink land sold for a premium. The Morellos entertained
and awed the people with their massive displays of wealth. Debts and the palace’s upkeep eventually
bankrupted them; the Morellos sold the Old Summer Palace to the Zunino family, and they sold it to the
Modicas, and then the Modicas simply vacated the huge, rambling building when it became too much.
Instead of allowing the land to consume the old, noble structure, the City claimed eminent domain over
the Old Summer Palace and converted it to a prison.
Today, the Old Summer Palace holds Eversink’s most notorious criminals — the ones too dangerous to
exile and too politically well-connected to execute — in its deep, sinking, dripping bowels. They say
those who go in don’t come out. At least, not sane.
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The richest and least dangerous prisoners live in relatively posh cells on the upper levels. They receive
two meals a day, occasionally cleaned chamberpots, and sunlight. Illegal sorcerers (usually with tongue
and hands removed), city traitors, and scammers are left to rot in underground cells.
The building has fallen on hard times. The City doesn’t invest in repairs beyond basic maintenance to
keep the old building from sinking entirely. They don’t see the point in making a prison comfortable and
safe. Inside, the Old Summer Palace is a ghost of its ancient finery with rotting hangings on the walls,
broken furniture, and rusted fittings.
A small crew of City Watch employees run the prison. The Warden is Commandant Fazio Ugolini of the
Ugolini Family of Alderhall. Some say his position is punishment for some dark family crime, but none
know what it is. All anyone knows is Warden of the Old Summer Palace comes with a nice fat paycheck.
The rest of the guards are working stiff City Watch out of Sag Harbor and the Tangle, probably corrupt to
the bone but still trying to make a difference.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Old Summer Palace

• Secrets riddle the old building. Old tunnels let people sneak in and out — if they’re willing to crawl through
Harbor Approach’s fetid sewers and wander through unlit underground passages filled with horrors. Some
lucky prisoners use their cells as a place of safety, continuing to run criminal enterprises, and leave when they
please.
• Thieves hide their take in forgotten Old Summer Palace treasure vaults, long sunken under the city and
accessible only through convoluted passages. They take a particular delight in using a supposedly secure
building full of prisoners for their own illegal purposes. No one wants to break out a prisoner, though; rumor is
that Curses are involved for anyone who frees an inmate.
• Some say the Inquisition runs dark operations out of the prison’s basement. But no one has proved this. Yet.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Stormhall, the New Alderhall

The Mercanti, frustrated with their inability to buy into Alderhall, aren’t so easily stopped by something
as simple as money or legacy or a lack of space to build. Calissa Sarti, the Queen of Copper, already
owned concerns at the Upper Docks and the New Foundry. Believing that Alderhall needed a little
market competition, she sank her vast profits into buying up warehouses gone dormant, tracts of
housing, and storefronts. She gentrified the neighborhood and pivoted from metals to real estate. The
result was a six-block area Sarti christened “Stormhall.”
Sarti sold out of her first round of units in a week.
In a jarring stretch of landscape against the bellowing clamor of the foundries, the warehouse stench,
the harbor salt, and the constant hammering of the Arsenal, Stormhall is a spot of shiny cleanliness. New
glittering mansions tower over manicured lawns and pleasant avenues. Musicians play violins on brightly
paved sidewalk corners while white horses pull open carriages up and down their admittedly short
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promenades. Sarti is rumored to be building Stormhall’s first exclusive park on a recently procured block
she intends to level first.
Stormhall feels like an up-to-date Alderhall with some small, pointed improvements. The buildings were
built on sunken pylons so they sink more slowly. Street level has been raised enough that it’s unlikely to
flood during storms. The architectural tastes are more modern. Stormhall feels more fashionable and
young compared to the aging ancestry of Alderhall. Art, fashion, music, it’s really happening in
Stormhall. And, of course, the entire six-block area is gated, walled, and viciously guarded around the
clock.
With the success of Stormhall, Sarti plans to buy up other neighborhoods all over Eversink. Real estate is
much more lucrative than selling copper. Sure, the little people might feel a pinch as she displaces them
from their homes, but isn’t it worth it so the new rich have places to live?
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Stormhall

• When the Commoners rise up in rebellion, Sarti expects that she’s going to be one of the first against the wall.
As a result, she pays a sizable force of mercenaries to keep Stormhall — and herself — safe, almost to the
point of paranoia. Clever con artists might try to use that fear to acquire some of her vast fortune.
• You can level blocks and build on top of them, but ancient sunken buildings still exist deep down beneath.
Mercanti living their dream life in Stormhall do so with their basements regularly inspected or bricked up, and
with a constant nagging fear of what may lie below them.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Tangle
[[[Cartography – closeup of the Tangle]]]
The poorest part of native Eversink was once the upriver harbor. The ships of immigrants arrived, and
people too poor to afford land housing packed their ships next to one another and settled in, sure that
they would never sail again. Some were deliberately scuttled, but most became a forest of masts and
rigging that spawned aerial housing. Over generations the ships turned slowly into buildings, and what
used to be open water turned into a nearly-impossible-to-navigate slum. Delve down deeply enough and
you can still find the husks of those original sailing vessels that literally created new land between
islands.
Not all the cargos were unloaded. Not all the valuables were removed.
Lack ranks in City’s Secrets and you’ll find that navigating the Tangle by foot or boat takes twice as long
as you expect it to. It is full of blind alleys, closed courts, narrow canals, leaning buildings, and
bewildering curves. Gangs of thieves control districts and wage war, but they prey on the rich elsewhere
in town — not on the Commoners who dwell here. The Tangle looks out for its own.
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Visitors are strongly advised to pay a tout. These guides cluster around the bridges into and out of the
Tangle. They’re cheap, only a few coins a day, and more or less guarantee getting you where you want
to go... even if they might pick your pocket in the meantime. It’s still probably cheaper than the
alternative.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Tangle

• Denari help the drunken rich noble who decides to wander into the Tangle while slumming it… because no
locals are going to help him, that’s for sure. There’s an undercurrent of bitterness and anger in the Tangle that
usually stays buried, but the entitled would be fools to taunt commoners in their own turf.
• It’s hard to get people to trust you in the Tangle, especially if you come from money. This is one area of town
where High Repute works against you, and Low Repute works in your favor. People here try to look out for
their own.
• Never underestimate people in the Tangle: great warriors, folk heroes, and near-legendary adventurers have
come from here, even if you haven’t heard of them. Genius might be hidden right around you; the teenaged
girl trying to barter a cart of day-old fish she stole somewhere may be one of Eversink’s greatest artists in
centuries, if only she’d have time to sit and sculpt. The most valuable people in the Tangle are those who can
recognize that hidden potential and make it possible to fulfill it. Just remember that other more established
artists might push back in very illegal or unorthodox ways.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Living in the Tangle

Slums and hard, working-class neighborhoods make up the Tangle. It’s a mess of tenement buildings,
hanging laundry lines, winding back alleys, and various half-empty establishments all in various states of
half-sunken decay. No one here has the scratch to pay Architects. When buildings sink, the locals
hammer another wooden floor on the rooftop and carry on.
Animals and children play in the street. Gang members linger in dark alleys and count their day’s take.
Prostitutes stand on street corners doing what prostitutes have done since streets developed corners.
The homeless lurk on stoops and watch the workers trudge to the forge as the morning sun rises.
It’s a hard life, but the Tangle’s residents pull together as a community. They look out for each other.
They worship the Goddess together. They’re born, get married, and die together. Gang member,
haberdasher, Marketpriest — they’re a proud part of the Tangle and their local culture. The rich are out
there in Alderhall or the Grand Marketplace. The Tangle is here. The Tangle is real.
An overworked City Watch House sits up on Bell Avenue. The Tangle’s City Watch are more interested in
shooing thieves away from the warehouses and businesses than stopping any crime. They know they’ll
never make a dent. The entire Tangle is crime. The only way to stop it is to burn the place down and
317
start over. It’s a little nihilistic, but those who work for the Tangle City Watch are community-focused
and dedicated to making life better in the slums.
St. Zizzo’s the Leper is a small parish church deep in the Tangle, one of many too small to be
remembered uptown. Assignment down here is punishment up in Haven, but the current pastor,
Marketpriest Evandro, believes in social justice. Sure, there’s crime and death outside, but the Goddess
blesses us all, even the hardworking Tangle laborers. Marketpriest Evandro ministers to the poor
population as best he can while reminding the locals that the core of life is commerce. He’s popular, and
the religious appear like clockwork for services.
The Tangle feels like chaos to a new visitor, but it makes internal sense to established residents.
Different blocks tend to attract specific products or crafts. One block are leathermakers. The next block
over are weavers. Over there are stonemasons. One up and to the left are the tailors who produce
specialty silk trousers for the very rich. Around the corner are the artists. It’s not perfect, but memorize
the crafts and you memorize the route through the Tangle.
Homes, crafts, and markets have easy access to canals. These canals whisk finished crafts from Tangle
workshops at night to Grand Marketplace tents in the early morning. The canals are more than ways to
move people and commerce: they’re also the Tangle’s sewers. The Tangle smells better in the spring and
autumn than the summer and winter, but only slightly.
Bridges across canals are rarely permanent fixtures. They’re often only a few planks of wood shoved
across the water to make a pseudo-bridge and then pulled back to allow gondolas and flat-bottomed
boats through. Boats flow through the Tangle at all hours of the day — commerce, legal or otherwise,
never stops.
The best helmsmen and gondoliers in Eversink come from the Tangle, and the Pilots’ Guild knows it. Not
only can locals navigate at night, they can memorize complex maps and directions through switchbacks
of confusing watery passageways.
Lesser Guild Houses and Chapterhouses

In the Tangle, everyone comes together in communities — communities of trade, or crime, or craft.
Most thieves’ guilds, trade guilds, and mercenary brotherhoods keep their special meeting places down
in the Tangle. People need a place to be, an organization to belong to, a team to root for, and a color to
wear. The guilds fill this need, and sponsor some of the most exciting (and vicious) athletic events in the
city.
For small thieves’ and trade guilds, the meeting places are catch-as-you-can: someone’s living room, an
abandoned storefront, a small parish shrine, a back table at Amone Barra’s Bar and All-You-Can-Eat Fish
Fry. These are fly-by-night organizations with similar locations.
The Tangle is also home to more established, richer guilds. Ones with traction and not a little political
power. It hasn’t escaped the notice of the locals that there’s no difference between the Bakers’ Guild
wanting “tax” on grain shipments and the local Mob running protection rackets. These guilds have
infested the last of the older, larger buildings in the Tangle that have not yet sunk. They have money
extracted from dues to pay for pylons and new floors on their sinking buildings. As they gain prestige
and money, these organizations grip harder on the Tangle while renovating their plush meeting rooms.
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Most Guild Houses and Chapterhouses are somewhere in between. They possess small, established
buildings. Inside is a meeting room, a few rooms for members down on their luck, and a shrine to the
Goddess. When they sink, the Guild abandons the building instead of fixing it and finds a new place to
rent.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: Guild Houses

• Guild wars can be legendary in their no-holds-barred sabotage and subterfuge. If two rival guilds run up
against each other, expect skulduggery and economic backstabbing that rises to an art form until one of the
guilds submits and is either disbanded or absorbed.
• Knowing a craft means belonging to a guild, and belonging to a guild means prestige and better wages. Guild
Houses in the Tangle often act as impromptu community leaders and judges, navigating tricky neighborhood
issues and adjudicating problems that no one trusts to the Watch or the Triskadane. Guild Houses often hire
independent investigators or adventurers to scout problems, strongarm someone who needs a gentle
reminder of their loyalty, or to solve problems when the guilds can’t be seen as impartial.
[[[end sidebar]]]
The Hospital and the Orphanage

The rich of Alderhall can afford to have doctors attend to them in the comfort of their homes. For
serious illnesses that local folk remedies can’t help with, the poor of the Tangle have no choice but the
Hospital.
The Tangle’s hospital is less a place of healing than a gateway to death. Overcrowded wards fill this low
and squat building sitting on the corner of Bell Avenue and Copper Street. Leechers trained by the
University in Ironcross perform surgery without anesthesia here — and not for free. Everything in
Eversink costs coin, and the leechers expect contracts signed upon admittance to the Hospital and later
payment in full, regardless of treatment. Harried nurses move between patients and keep them from
screaming too loud.
Most die of infection in the Hospital. But, given the choice of people rotting in the Tangle’s streets or
dying screaming in the Hospital, the Tangle’s poor drop the injured, the bleeding, the sick, and the dying
off at the Hospital’s door. The poor simply cannot afford people dying in the streets, not if they’d risk
entire blocks dying from disease. Unlike most hospitals, the Tangle’s Hospital is not a charitable
institution, and the staff will turn away the truly destitute at the door.
The Orphanage is not much better than the Hospital, and it sits several doors down on Bell Avenue. This
building was a mansion in an earlier life when the Tangle was still a harbor, but now is a dilapidated,
rotting, sinking wreck. Most orphaned in the Tangle at an early age find themselves adopted by thieves’
guilds, the Church, older siblings, other relatives, even neighbors. Anyone who can pitch in and help.
Only those children unfortunate enough to find themselves without anyone end up in the Orphanage.
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The Orphanage provides food, shelter, clothing, and some minimal education to its unfortunate
boarders. The scant education provided prepares the orphans for lives as dockworkers, tanners,
servants or childminders. Children at the Orphanage are subject to malnutrition and neglect, even as
they run up a bill that they must start paying off the moment they matriculate and leave for the streets
at age 17. Many who leave the Orphanage carry this financial burden the rest of their lives as they pay
off their childhood in installments.
Both the Orphanage and the Hospital are nominally run by the Church. Marketpriests fill the
administrative posts. While the Church does not believe in charity, it does believe that commerce in the
eyes of the Goddess is best executed by healthy bodies who can carry out work for their betters.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
Plot Hooks: The Hospital and the Orphanage

• If there are any monstrosities or spiritual entities out there that feed on pain, sadness and hopelessness,
they’d find great strength at both the Hospital and the Orphanage. The question is: if they exist, why hasn’t
the Church taken steps to exorcise or destroy them?
• A local thieves’ guild pays the Orphanage excellent money to identify children with good potential for
becoming thieves, and those children are “adopted” silently in the night with little fuss and no paperwork.
Even more interestingly, at least one Mercanti family pays the Orphanage director to identify children who are
naturally trustworthy and charismatic… and at least one sorcerous cabal tends to “adopt” random children as
well, although as agents or sacrifices no one is quite sure.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Famous Pubs, Inns, and Food Carts

The best food and pubs, hands down, in Eversink, are in the Tangle. Nothing else holds a candle to them.
Alderhall has elegant and expensive dining establishments with famous chefs. The Grand Marketplace
has fresh food and patio eateries. But the Tangle has authenticity.
The Tangle is home to Eversink’s brewers, bakers, and fishmongers. It’s where the real “Eversink” cuisine
lives. Want a terrific beer? A mind-blowing sandwich off a nondescript food cart? A bun filled with crab
meat? That delicious-smelling greyish thing out of the old woman’s pot? The Tangle is the place.
The restaurants are hidden among the jumble of tenements, workshops, and corner markets. It takes a
local to find the best places. Sometimes, it takes a local even to find the mediocre places.
For example, everyone knows di Bacco’s corner bar brews this heavy wheat beer that pairs perfectly
with this off-menu lamb and black bread sandwich and he’s only open for two hours around noon — but
no one is quite sure where di Bacco’s is, other than at least two blocks away up the street. But di Bacco’s
is not to be missed!
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Designer Notes: The Tangle’s Food Carts

The best food in Eversink is in the Tangle. Period. But food is also an intensely personal expression. The chefs of
the Tangle can make something delicious from the most substandard ingredients. They will overcome the greatest
personal and economic adversity to wear the crown of the Tangle’s Best Food Cart.
The Tangle’s residents are the poorest in Eversink but they’re the richest in culinary delights, and they’re proud of
this fact. When it comes to food, the Ancient Nobility and the Mercanti might spend a fortune on a spread, but for
taste none holds a candle to the Tangle’s best eel on a stick.
Other Major Features in Eversink

The Goddess’ Isle
There’s a heavily wooded island in the city that seems to move around randomly, even if its current
location always seems like the only possible place it could be. This land is contractually deeded to Denari
Herself. Nearing the island uninvited is a great heresy punished by exile and excommunication, and
those who swim to the island without permission are never heard from again. There is a golden domed
pavilion just barely visible over the small island’s trees. People assume that this is the house or true
shrine of their Goddess.
If you could speak to those who vanish, perhaps they could tell you that there’s an entire continent
hidden on that island, and pushing through the ring of trees you find yourself on the shore of a vast
unknown land many thousands of kilometers across. Or perhaps they would tell you that they emerge in
an adjacent world inhabited only by gods and spirits, where humans’ health and sanity inevitably fail but
where true shapes and entities can be seen. Or perhaps they find themselves literally in Denari’s
heaven, doomed to forever swim while the blessed dead fly on white wings overhead in the endless
vault of sky. Sadly, we’ll probably never know.
People whom Denari wishes to reward find themselves drawn to the island instead. With Denari’s
permission, pushing through the ring of trees brings them to anywhere in the city — anywhere,
including locked vaults and forgotten secrets. Those who try to talk of what they saw on the island start
coughing up coins as their words turn to currency; too many words and those coins fall inwards, into the
lungs and stomach, instead of outwards. A gift squandered can be a curse.
Eversink’s Lighthouses
One cannot have a maritime city without lighthouses. These lighthouses are universally made of stone
to withstand the pummeling of storms and weather; because buildings sink here, the lighthouses are
mostly towers of old beacon rooms that have been built on top of one another over the long years. One
lighthouse is located in the Arsenal, one in the outer fort that guards the lagoon, one upriver to guard
the city’s approach and to warn about swamps, and two are located on islands in the lagoon.
Lighthouses are typically two to five stories on a round base that acts as the lightkeeper’s home,
although with a very large lighthouse the lightkeeper’s home is an adjacent building. The lanterns
shining through the night are continuously lit.
321
The Pillars of Flight
Upriver on the Serpentine, a series of tall jagged stones rise up out of the slow-moving river. Ten to fifty
meters high, mostly flat-topped and covered with natural niches and crevices in the stone, these pillars
were once thought to be the ruins of some great construction. Nowadays they’re used by the Church for
air burials. Assuming you wish it and can afford the nominal cost, it’s believed that your spirit reaches
Denari faster if your corpse is brought to the pillars and opened up by funerary priests. You are then
gradually consumed by flocks of seabirds who roost here. Outlanders often consider the tradition
barbaric, but the faithful believe that it returns the body back to nature without the risk of a swamp
burial.
The Salt Lick

The salt lick is a marshy wasteland hugging the coast between Eversink city proper and the lagoon. Tiny
wooden ramshackle huts line the solid areas of the Salt Lick. That’s where the salters live, those who
work in the thrall of the Ancient Noble Salt Houses. They tie their flat-bottomed boats to tiny docks and
ferry their precious salt output between the cultivated salt ponds and Eversink’s Sag Harbor.
This outskirt of Eversink is crushingly poor, but quiet and peaceful. The salters who work the lagoons
have pride in their craft. Many families have lived on their lonely marsh islands for generations.
Extracting good, pure, edible salt from the salt marshes and brackish water is a trade with its own
secrets passed down from parent to child.
The salt lick is home to unique salt-resistant plants and rare species of fish and fowl. They say dolphins
come so close to the shore that the locals form friendships with stable schools. Sometimes, strangers
arrive in the night and search the islands for rare plants, herbs, and tree bark. Once they find a rich area
of moss or lichen, they quickly strip the supply clean — taking the local ecosystem with it. But the
delicate ecosystem is key to salt production, so whenever the herbalists pop up the locals chase them
off the salt lick with yelling, curses, and torches.
There’s a small parish church here, with a single Marketpriest. She pretends not to know about the
strange shrine out near the salt pools, or the serpents it seems to venerate.
The Swamps
Denari pushed back the swamps to the north and south when she first raised Eversink’s islands from the
bed of the River Serpentine. Ever since they have bordered the river but not extended into it, leaving a
surprisingly clear delineation between river and fens. Those swamps don’t contractually belong to the
city, and the swamps act like they know it; they seem surprisingly hostile to ‘Sinkish residents who
venture into their depths for smuggling, hunting, or exploration.
Most of the fiercely territorial Chuggut tribes (see p. XX 229) live in the Golden Swamp to the south, a
particularly primal and unchanging bog full of surprisingly ancient plants that have never died out like
they have elsewhere. Naming it the Golden Swamp hasn’t changed it from the dismal, miserable morass
of mud and water and quaking bogs that it is. There are ancient Serpentine ruins in the Golden Swamp,
almost all hidden by tall marsh grass or still pools of black water. Tiny gold coins washed down the
Serpentine from an unknown source tend to find their way to the Golden Swamp, tempting brave
children to go diving for treasure. Not all return.
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Calcia’s Reach to the north is named after a famous mercenary company who all died there defending
the city several centuries ago, but prior to that was called the Grasping Bogs. It’s full of quicksand, giant
toads, surprisingly pernicious insects and some of the best fishing you can ask for (assuming you survive
the trip). Demon stones squat here, unthinkably ancient altars to dead gods who only require a prayer
or two to spring back to life. Not everyone who enters Calcia’s Reach comes back the same.
In Eversink, most people don’t even think of the swamps as a survivable location. That means people
fleeing the law may be able to use them as an easy refuge, assuming they can find safety before they
succumb to environmental dangers and local fauna.
[[[begin sidebar]]]
The Spirit World

When someone smashes a funerary statue and ghosts return to the world, they have to go somewhere. But
where? Similarly, people with Spirit Sight — if they’re powerful enough — can walk out of our world into a spirit
world where the ghosts of ancient buildings rise and fall around them as they walk through history. What’s going
on here?
Scholars don’t agree. Official orthodoxy claims it’s another plane of existence that overlays our own, where ghosts
abide and where Eversink is reflected as if in a cloudy mirror. Current thinking (considered heretical) is that dead
souls don’t return, and what does return is Denari’s memory of the departed person. Similarly, there’s no actual
“spirit world”, but some humans can literally see or walk into Denari’s memories of the city itself. When they see
ancient buildings rising and sinking as they walk through time, they’re actually walking through the Goddess’
memories of the city across different eras.
No one is sure. Many people hate the “memory” theory because it means that their loved ones are gone forever
other than a barely remembered wisp recalled by the Goddess, but some religious scholars (usually on the run
from Inquisitors) claim to have proof.
Either way, gazing or walking into the spirit world is dangerous to sanity and health. If you immerse yourself there
and start feeling confused or short of breath, get out quickly. You’re probably in the process of dying.
If you risk it, you can use the spirit world to effectively walk backwards in time, seeing the city as it appeared in the
distant past. The ghosts of buildings rise and sink as you traverse ghostly canals, and you may be able to talk
directly to small gods and powerful but long-lost ghosts.
[[[end sidebar]]]
Swan’s Vault
The name of Swan’s Vault is a misnomer; there’s no vault, and indeed no buildings at all. The string of
small islands near Harbor Approach have been used as a final resting place for funerary statues that
people no longer want. Perhaps it’s a statue you found, or uncovered, or hate, or simply don’t have
space for; since it’s illegal and a mortal sin to destroy it, instead take it to Swan’s Vault and leave it with
the thousands of other funerary statues big and small that have been left there over the centuries.
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They’re packed together in a mish-mash of styles and ages, occasionally rearranged by secret artists to
tell stories or create wonder. More than one stolen statue has been hidden here, under the theory that
the best place to hide a stolen book is in a library.
Eversink’s Government
Eversink is an anonymous oligarchy. The city-state is ruled by the Triskadane, thirteen anonymous
citizens of any age or social class who rule through summary judgments, decrees, the Church,
intelligence services, and a dense, committee-laden bureaucracy. All thirteen anonymous rulers are
usually handpicked by the Goddess Herself on Signing Day, the one festival a year when she’s known to
walk the city in human form, and members serve the city for 13 years unless the Goddess chooses to
replace them sooner. The disguised Goddess hands them a heavy gold coin embossed with Denari’s
swan on one side and a crown on the other, and grasping the coin imparts knowledge of the role, the
government, and any state secrets Denari wishes them to understand. Thirteen coins are always in
circulation, no more, no less, and membership in the Triskadane travels with ownership of the coin and
not the person; stealing a coin or (more rarely) inheriting one can give someone membership for as long
as they own the coin.
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Player Advice: Join the Triskadane!

With your GM’s approval, there’s no reason you can’t be one of the secret 13 members of the Triskadane. In fact,
because even the Triskadane doesn’t know each others’ identities (at least ostensibly), multiple heroes in the same
group could be members. Perhaps you stole someone else’s coin, or the Goddess picked you herself, but the city’s
future is in your hands.
You’d model Triskadane membership by having ranks in Allies: Triskadane, with more ranks indicating more
influence amongst the other members and within the city itself. One rank means that few people will go out of
their way to help you; three ranks means that you have sway on the council and can easily influence city events;
five ranks makes you a master influencer within the city and the council.
This sort of game can be incredibly exciting, dodging assassins while influencing policy within the city itself, but
make sure the GM is entirely on board before you go this route. They may have another style of game in mind than
one focused on kingdom-building.
If you do become a member, remember that the Goddess might (and probably will) take away your coin at any
time if your GM thinks it would make for a good story and adventure — and that you’ll probably make a lot of fun
enemies during your tenure as secret ruler.
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Most government business is handled by bureaucrats, commissions, and far too many pages of rules and
rulings. The Triskadane assembles when Eversink faces a major crisis such as a war, financial calamity,
sorcerous intrusion, or government-shaking judicial decision. They supposedly assemble at the
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Triskadane Hermitage, located in Ironcross’ heart, but that hasn’t been confirmed in several
generations.
The Triskadane’s decisions are both secular and religious. They issue judgments that range from
appointing a new Church Leader or declaring a Mercanti’s actions treason, to invading a coastal
neighbor or setting elaborate import border taxes on ship-quality wood. They decide on major criminal
matters facing the state. They take the country to war and back out again. Their decisions are final,
absolute, and canon law. When their decisions are made public, the Great Swan Bells in the Sanctuary’s
belfry ring out over the city and criers are sent forth to announce their edicts.
Designer Notes: Triskadane’s Decrees

The Triskadane issues decrees on whatever matters interest it. It does not publish any sort of agenda or telegraph
what matter it is considering. It can consider matters of any size, from war to an issue affecting a single person.
The Triskadane simply does.
It’s up to the committees and the bureaucracy of Eversink to enact these edicts however these committees see fit.
As powerful citizens of Eversink sit on these committees and they also have their own interests, the absolute
nature of the Triskadane’s rulings often become more subjective. The Triskadane’s edicts are always enacted
within a matter of interpretation. Rarely, official decrees are bitingly specific in order to ensure that there is very
little room for improvisation when enforcing the law.
Eversink’s Powerful Committees

A powerful city-state cannot be run by only 13 people. Eversink must collect harbor taxes, execute wars,
write laws, toss a few sorcerers into crow cages, hang a pirate or two as an example, and pay the City
Watch. Individual power consolidates in the hands of the various factions, but the state must run. Under
the Triskadane is built a complex and undocumented warren of ministers, cabinet posts, councils,
committees and bureaucracies.
The Committees are where the day-to-day temporal power of Eversink’s government lies. The
Committees were originally established to carry out the Triskadane’s wishes after an issued decree; over
many years the Committees grew, multiplied, and became ministerial power bases with their own
private mercenaries and secret police.
Some Committees — like the Taxation Committee, the Harbor Committee, and the Intelligence
Committee — are old and powerful, and function like the Triskadane’s Cabinet. They write and pass
mundane laws, stamp decrees with the Triskadane’s seal, have the power to tax and spend in their
respective areas, and hold judicial powers with the ability to imprison, exile, or execute at will.
Mercenaries on official business who hold loyalty to different committees regularly battle over
jurisdictional disagreements; more than one short-lived “civil war” was just mercenaries loyal to
different committees settling their differences very, very publicly.
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The government maintains no formal approved list of committees. Large committees create working
groups, and those smaller committees then wield bureaucratic powers over their narrow scope of
governmental function. For example, the Taxation Committee oversees a Committee on the Taxation of
Seashell Imports, originally formed to deal with a rash of highly illegal purple “dyes” that did not dye,
but no one ever dissolved it and its members like getting paid — so they find other bureaucratic ways to
justify their existence.
The problem is, without a clear and documented list of who has what Triskadane-approved
governmental and legal powers, anyone can pop up a committee and start issuing new laws and decrees
claiming Triskadane-approved powers. A group of young Mercanti heirs can meet in a pub and claim
powers as the Committee for Standardization of Sufficiently Red Hats3 or the Committee for Proper
Pickling Barrels. Thieves steal old underwear off laundry lines for papermills and claim they’re
government bureaucrats in the employ of the Rag Paper Committee. The Judiciary commonly finds itself
dissolving, combining, or admonishing government committees. Seasoned con artists use “official
government committee” as their trusty, reliable cover story, and far too many people fall for it because
they’ve been conditioned to do so. Most normal citizens try to stay out of the government’s way, and to
let the committees do their job and move on.
Designer Notes: Government Standardization

The people of Eversink simply don’t have the interest or time to make a nice, neat, orderly and predictable
government. Government gets in the way of commerce, and commerce is what Denari is all about. Outside the big
cabinet committees, any efforts to make navigating the government sane or simple have been thwarted, over and
again, by the government itself.
The Cabinet Committees

Dozens of committees derive their power from the Triskadane to effectively govern Eversink, but a few
are more powerful than the rest. Their word carries the force of law and they wield resources to back up
their power.
Taxation Committee
The Taxation Committee is the ultimate hand pulling the levers of Eversink’s economy. The committee
meets twice a month in the Hermitage to review requests to change Eversink’s enormous and
convoluted taxation code. They have the power to collect taxes, to set and remove tariffs, to set taxes
on goods or services, or to remove taxes. They also oversee the books on the city’s treasury and manage
city coffers.
3
"And about damned time, too!" - Lorenzia Crimson-Bonnet
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Intelligence Committee
The Intelligence Committee controls the secret flow of information into, and out of, Eversink. It works
closely with the Defense Committee to protect the City, and meets daily to review the newest whispers
from the homeless buskers, trader reports, external and internal threats to the City, and City Watch
reports. People quite correctly fear this committee, but members are remarkably good at sniffing out
treason and disloyalty within their own ranks.
The Intelligence Committee has its own army of spies, enforcers, and saboteurs known as the Black
Swans. No one wants a 3 am visit from one of the Swans. These secret police are rumored to use
memory-altering alchemical and sorcerous devices on their informants, which means you wouldn’t
remember even if they did pay you a visit. Their calling card is a quill made from a long black swan
feather. According to rumor, any secret you write down with the quill will somehow be read by the Black
Swans. If you wish to inform on someone, there’s a reason that cowardly or anonymous informers are
sometimes called “quillkeepers”.
Eversink Defense Committee
While Eversink has no formal standing army or navy, the Triskadane entrusts the Defense Committee
with the protection of the City and the protection of trade routes from external threats. It makes
decisions from information given by the Intelligence Committee, hands final orders to the City Watch
and the Church Militant, and coordinates with the powerful rich families of Eversink to leverage private
armies. The committee may tap into the treasury to raise mercenaries for the city in times of danger.
Committee for Law and Diplomacy
The Committee for Law and Diplomacy is Eversink’s diplomatic arm, comparable to a Department of
State. They speak for the Triskadane and greet powerful rulers and religious leaders from outside
Eversink. The Triskadane charges the Law Committee with writing treaties and steering the City away
from war entanglements. Some say the Triskadane staff the Committee with rapacious Mercanti who
spend their time leveraging treaties into business deals to enrich themselves and their families. If it
glorifies the Goddess and doesn’t get Eversink into a war, does it matter?
Harbor Committee
The Harbor Committee literally controls the harbors. The Committee meets once a month in the Old
Foundry at the Arsenal in Sag Harbor, where it apportions berth assignments around the city. This is
surprisingly powerful — a good berth assignment improves profit by controlling the dockable ship size,
the price of labor, the speed of unloading and loading, and the ease of access to the Grand Marketplace.
The Harbor Committee coordinates with the Defense Committee and the City Watch to protect berthed
ships at night. It’s common knowledge that the Harbor Committee is incredibly corrupt and is easily
bribed.
Committee for the Courts
The Committee for the Courts oversees the docket of ecclesiastical and secular cases brought before the
Courts in the Hermitage. This Committee also works closely with the Guild of Advocates to support the
Judges who sit on the bench. Since they have a writ from the Triskadane to staff the Courts, and the
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Triskadane rarely takes a personal hand in placing or removing a Judge itself (not never, rarely), this
Committee has the far-reaching power of deciding who oversees justice in a city full of litigious trade
houses. That means that the Committee for the Courts has indirect power over the winners and losers in
Eversink. With a change of membership in this committee, a Mercanti House can go from unimaginable
wealth to scrabbling for housing in the Tangle almost instantly. Committee membership is tightly
controlled, and if the membership of the committee is corruptible, the cost of the bribes they’d demand
would be truly astronomical.
Designer Notes: Incite Rebellion!

Every few centuries someone manages to overthrow the bureaucracy for a time and declare themselves King or
Queen. They usually do so with a vast military backing and the support of a corrupt church leader. This hasn’t
worked out too badly overall: the monarchy is crushed within a few generations by the city’s heroes; the
Triskadane (which usually calls itself a Parliament during the illegal rule) stops using a royal figurehead and returns
to secretly running the government on its own; and the allure of all those disenfranchised princes and princesses
brings a surge of wealth into the city from curious Outlanders looking for royalty to marry. Denari herself usually
stays quiet on the subject unless the new royal family tries to bring the worship of a different god onto Her turf;
that doesn’t end well for the usurpers at all.
If Eversink’s government as written here isn’t to your taste, burn it down. Burn it all down! And replace it with a
King or Queen, good or wicked, whose family has managed to topple the bureaucracy at least temporarily. You’ll
have a huge amount of fun thinking through the changes, and you can customize the city to fit your own
campaign’s exact needs.
‘Sinkish Law
Swords of the Serpentine isn’t going to give you a laundry list of laws in Eversink, because those laws are
incredibly mutable and inconsistent. That’s what you get when you’re adventuring in a city with a
millennium of conflicting legal rulings and regulations. The law remains fairly straightforward and
common sense, except when it would be fun for players and GMs to dictate otherwise. There are parts
of the city where a murder will be closely investigated by multiple authorities until the perpetrator is run
down; there are other parts of the city where a person can get shivved in the middle of the street in
broad daylight, and everyone looks the other way as the nameless corpse is loaded onto a mortuary cart
or tossed into a canal. Similarly, what one can legally wear for clothing (including color, cut, and type of
fabric) is very different in Alderhall than it is in the Tangle.
This is complicated even more by the fact that Heroes with one or more pool points of Laws and
Traditions can literally make up new laws on the spot, regulations that (at least at that moment) are
currently in effect and enforced by local constabulary. There are probably exceptions and loopholes that
will eventually be found, but players get to build the world along with the GM, and that means helping
establish the laws by which everyone must live. This is actually more realistic than you might think;
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throughout history sumptuary laws and ridiculous legal rulings have annoyed people all over our world,
lasting until they’re forgotten, or mutually ignored, or until another lawmaker thinks to annul them.
GMs are encouraged to tell players what’s reasonable and what isn’t, and then let them violate those
laws and face (or manipulate) the consequences. How strictly laws are enforced depends a lot on the
social class and allegiances of the Heroes in comparison to the social class and allegiances of the law
enforcers.
Law and Advocates

Eversink is an incredibly litigious city. With a goddess who defines her religious obligations by contract,
the law is as much the blood of Eversink as fish, salt, trade, and backstabbing. Because the law is not
strictly codified, no one entirely knows the fine details of what is legal and what isn’t — except one
guild, the Advocates’ Guild, whose remarkably ornate Guild House stands proudly in Ironcross next door
to the Hermitage.
Eversink is the city-state of opportunity, trade, contracts, and Byzantine, half-understood legal codes. In
steps the Guild of Advocates. These glib, charismatic bonded guild members offer their services to the
rich and poor to help navigate the twisting paths of the nearly infinite canon law. No matter what the
situation is, from “caught casting spells in the High Church Foyer” to “found clipping or otherwise
debasing coinage,” advocates can at least avoid a prisoner’s exile and cajole the judge into giving a lower
sentence.
The common people are confident on broad strokes of the law, but the fiddly parts elude those who
don’t keep up with the constant changing decrees. This doesn’t help the City Watch who are charged
with keeping the peace and enforcing the ever-changing law. They figure if they know the big items, like
“murder is bad” and “people shouldn’t steal” they can enforce the law they know.
Most of Eversink’s law practices are not concerned with criminal law. Instead, they expend most of their
time with civil and contractual law. In the bright daylight of Ironcross’ iron and stone bridges, Eversink’s
richest go to war with one another, not with ships or guns but with advocates, words, documents, and
agreements. Ironcross hosts a thriving scribe-and-notary-and-legal industry to keep pace with the
constant change in law and lawfare that no one outside the very wealthy completely pays attention to.
It’s not unusual for Eversink’s most blessed and silver-tongued advocates to find themselves wealthy
and appointed as a Judge to Eversink’s bench by the Committee for the Courts, where the corruption
merrily trickles down.
Designer Notes: How the Rich War

While the rich will occasionally sic their mercenaries and goons on an opposing party, that’s a route of last resort.
Bodies lead to questions and inconveniences. The rich prefer to bleed their enemies dry, tangle them up in knots,
ruin their reputation, and wrap them up in blackmail, bribery, and extortion complaints through the legitimate law.
No reason to get blood on anyone’s hands when penury works equally well. Ask them, and they will say that going
the legal route is the Eversink way of doing business.

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The Language Crisis
Eversink’s existence, and the charter and contract that lets the city flourish, is based on the Golden
Contract signed by the founding nobility of the city and by the Goddess herself. It’s unfortunate, then,
that there are few people nowadays who could read it. Language changes, and over a millennium
language changes a lot, both in terms of calligraphy, writing style, and vocabulary. The original Golden
Contract was written in the language Cygnini, a divine language originating with Denari herself. The
common tongue has changed several times over the centuries, and there are few scholars nowadays
who are fluent enough in Cygnini to understand the legal subtleties in the Golden Contract and in other
contracts and charters from this era. The number of forgers and con artists who attempt to use this to
their advantage has risen steadily over the centuries.
See p. XX for more detail on languages.
The Most Heinous Crimes of Eversink

Even with the loose (although large) definition of law in Eversink, the city still has a clear set of the worst
criminal crimes and misdemeanors. These are crimes so terrible in Eversink that they not only involve
the government but also the Church’s Inquisition.
Sorcerous Corruption
Sorcery is not technically the worst crime anyone can commit in Eversink, but spreading Corruption (p.
XX) without any thought to the consequences is.
Sorcerers found guilty gain a punishment in direct relation to the seriousness of their crimes, and how
well-connected they are. While one truly guilty sorcerer might have her hands and tongue removed
before being put in the crow cages overhanging the harbor, another better-connected (and less
offensive) sorcerer might be quietly exiled or extensively fined.
Note that sorcery and casting spells is not technically illegal (at least usually), but externalizing
Corruption is. Known sorcerers are treated with suspicion by the Inquisition and the City Watch, but a
sorcerer usually faces no legal consequences until they actively cause external harm.
Counterfeiting
Everything in Denari’s Blessing is about equal contracts. These contracts might use tricky language, and
Advocates might use language to lay traps, but contracts and the exchange of coin are prayers to the
Goddess, and those who make false contracts are committing heresy. The worst are the coin
counterfeiters, since they put fake currency into circulation and adulterate the downstream transactions
to force innocents into heresy. Counterfeiters and those who knowingly create false contracts are
typically branded and exiled, if they aren’t imprisoned or executed.
Long-Con Scam Artists
Long-con scams aren’t welcome in Eversink. At their core, those scams make promises and contracts
with unwitting innocents in deliberate bad faith. Fake contracts are equally as bad as counterfeit scams.
Long-con scam artists make deals knowing full well they don’t intend to honor the deal at the end.
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Denari and the Authority preach that salesmen can write tricky contracts, contracts with confusing small
print or random escape clauses, but they cannot directly scam people.
Typically, con artists first annoy the local thieves’ guilds because they’re not tithing to the local
brotherhood. Then, they’d infuriate the nobility because no one likes to wake up and discover they’re a
mark. Finally, the Inquisition comes calling because fraudulent contracts are intrinsically a heresy. A
clever con artist pays their tithe to the Church, though, so at least their soul is more secure.
Everything else
Serial killers are heinous, as is sexual assault. Perpetrators are not welcome in Eversink. Casual murder
isn’t acceptable either. But the law deals with offences as offences come, based on the commonly held
order of severity and punishment, and many law enforcement officials have a soft spot for vigilantes and
heroes who actually make their jobs easier by defeating criminals.
Theft is serious but is considered a crime instead of a heresy if the thief pays their tithe to the Church.
How important the theft is largely depends on who the victim knows, and how much trouble they’re
willing to stir up until the crime gets solved.
Outlanders are not exempt from Eversink’s ideals of law and order. Outlanders running afoul of the
city’s laws can find themselves standing before the judiciary in the Hermitage as quickly as any citizen,
but usually with a lot more confusion.
Allegiances: Who Matters in Eversink?

At its heart, there are twelve main factions with powerful political sway within the city. These groups
vye for control of Eversink’s power, whether overtly or subtly. Heroes start play with at least one of
these groups as an ally, and with one of these groups as an enemy. It’s up to you and the GM
(influenced by how many ranks you have in Allegiances) as to how prominent a role you play in the
faction, and how that faction operates politically. If you agree, it’s perfectly possible in the rules for you
to lead a faction or a group within a faction (such as a Merchant House, a Mercenary company or a guild
of thieves)… and the more ranks you have in those Allies, the less your political foes will be able to limit
your influence.
See p. XX for details on Allegiances.
The Ancient Nobility

Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Ancient Nobility, you’re either from a minor noble family, a trusted ally of
nobles, or you have close and influential friends who are nobles.
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Ancient Nobility, you have significant sway among the city’s social
elite. You’re either very prominent in a minor noble family, a member of an already well-known and
socially influential family, or you’re known among the nobility as “the right kind of person” who can be
depended upon.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Ancient Nobility, you’re considered an untrustworthy enemy of
the upper class because of something that you, your allies, or your family (including long-dead
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ancestors) have done. Any noble who gives you the polite time of day is probably doing so expecting to
be betrayed, and has already taken that into account.
Use your Ancient Nobility ranks to gain leads about social status, ancient history, and high society
events.
Description
The ancient nobility are the original aristocracy of Eversink, some families dating back to the signing of
the Golden Contract nearly a thousand years ago, and the nobility believe that they are essential to the
very survival of Eversink (see p. XX). They know that they’re important, and they insist on being treated
as such. Once wealthy beyond comprehension, most families are now rich only in social status — not
that they would ever admit this. With no consistent military power (other than a family’s hired
mercenaries) and less political and economic power every passing year, reputation and nobility is
everything. Their status informs how they act, how they dress (usually in beautiful clothes several
hundred years old, because such well-made clothing is still perfectly elegant and serviceable, thank you
very much), and with whom they deign to speak. Every action they take is informed by the knowledge
that they have generations of ancestors whose reputations they need to live up to. For some families
with skeletal advisors or extremely elderly great-grandparents, the burden of history is very real indeed.
Designer Notes: On the Golden Contract

The Golden Contract is a direct nod to the Golden Families of Venice who claimed descent from the city’s original
founders.
Denari’s power flows from the heartbeat of commerce, so we decided the city’s founding moment was the signing
of a literal contract between Herself and a small band of bedraggled refugees in a stinking swamp long ago. The
Ancient Nobility built this singular event up to one of epic proportions because their ancestors were in position to
take economic advantage and were first to capitalize on the new city. Therefore, these ancient noble families feel
entitled to the citizenry’s enduring obsequiousness. But Eversink doesn’t work that way. Ever.
Most noble families built their family’s ancestral tower or estate in the district of Alderhall, where most
families spend what little money they have on upkeep and appearances. The nobility tends to have the
best ancient libraries in the city, even if no one has bothered looking at them for several generations,
and children learn to read by memorizing the family tree and family history (along with the family’s long
list of rivals and old grudges). It’s exceptionally rare for members of the ancient nobility to not have
ranks in the Nobility Investigative ability; after all, good manners matter.
Being a member of the Ancient Nobility carries privileges and burdens. Anonymity becomes more
challenging; if you have 2 ranks or more of Allies: Ancient Nobility, and you’ve decided that you’re a
member of the nobility yourself, your family is socially prominent enough that you’ll regularly be
recognized or identified. Mind you, they may be rivals or ancient family enemies, but at least you’re
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being noticed. You can use this status to insinuate yourself into the most important and prestigious
events in the city. With that benefit is the knowledge that public mayhem or (goddess forbid) visible
signs of poverty will start rumors and possibly lower your family’s social status. Members of the nobility
are saddled with the knowledge that they are always representing their family’s honor and lineage with
everything they do, even when that’s the last thing you may want.
Take this faction as an Ally if you want old, deep ties to the city of Eversink and its social structure of
secret influencers. You should take it as an Enemy if you think that those stuck-up, rude fops deserve to
be put in their place — or if you’ve accidentally crossed some people who are very important socially.
The Church of Denari

Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Church of Denari, you’re either a working member of the church, are known
to represent church interests, or you have close and influential friends who are members of the church
bureaucracy.
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Church of Denari, you have significant influence within the
church’s bureaucracy. Important officials in the church trust you, and indicate to their subordinates that
you are worthy of this trust. The church expects that you will consistently act in its best interest, and
rewards you with information and advantage accordingly.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Church of Denari, you’re probably considered an infidel or a
heretic of some sort. The church worries about the state of your immortal soul and will not trust you for
church business. Inquisitors pay far more attention to you than you’d like them to.
Use your Church of Denari ranks to gain leads about the Goddess, religion, foul sorcery, history,
prophecies, funeral statuary, or the spirit world.
Description
There are more than 200 individual churches to Denari in the city, from humble neighborhood shrines in
the poorest districts to the cathedral Haven in Temple Market, and each is supported by a neighborhood
or community. Denari holds sway in Eversink, and foreign religions and cults are tolerated only if they
pay near-crippling taxes. There are branches of the religion with slightly different dogma, although
congregations who stray too far from official orthodoxy are quickly identified and labeled as heretical
cults if they can’t be quietly re-educated.
The church and the Goddess are part of everyday life in Eversink. You can’t paddle down a canal without
seeing and hearing constant reminders of Her power around you. There’s no separation of church and
state here, and anyone who agitated for it might well be exiled as a heretic. The citizens generally
support this: the church teaches that true civilization and culture springs from the Goddess, so the
government helps ensure that Eversink has the best music, the best festivals, and the greatest success in
trade.
Most priests are Marketpriests, attached to a particular place of worship and responsible for the
spiritual well-being and wealth of parishioners. They have local responsibilities but great freedom to run
their church, shrine, or market as they see fit. Other priests are assigned as Trade Missionaries, sent
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into the city and the lands beyond to observe, act as diplomats, encourage trade, and to spread the faith
of Denari.
Designer Notes: Marketpriests

The title Marketpriests describes the priest’s role within the Denarian Church — of literally protecting markets and
marketplaces in the Goddess’ name. As Denari is a goddess of commerce, and commerce often happens in the
market, the market is as holy a place as any Temple. Marketpriests encourage their parishioners to work, sell, and
spend so money circulates and nothing is ever accepted for free. This is how they minister to the souls of the flock.
The mother church retains its own collection of divine prophets and oracles who have generally
managed to separate themselves from the stigma of sorcery. The official church-sponsored Guild of
Prophecy gives daily recommendations to the Triskadane and will prophesy for other people as well, for
enough money. Just don’t practice unsanctioned prophecy if you don’t wish to be forcibly recruited.
The Church Militant are the enforcers, investigators, and soldiers of the religion, the ecclesiastical
equivalent of the City Watch. Both Inquisitors and pious warriors make up these troops, and they stand
forth to represent the strength of Denari (or to deliver punishment) when it best serves the Goddess’
purposes. Church Inquisitors often have a special knack for sensing Corruption; the Church Militant is
known to forcefully recruit non-ecclesiastical members who show the same gift of Spirit Sight.
Take this faction as an Ally if you want close ties to the vast and influential religious bureaucracy or to
Denari Herself. Take them as an Enemy if you worship someone other than Denari, if you have crossed a
church bureaucrat in some way, or if you are a known or suspected sorcerer.
The City Watch

Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: City Watch, you’re either a past or present member of the Watch, someone
with enough dirt on Watch officials that you can blackmail them into giving you information, or
someone that the Watch sees regularly and trusts.
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: City Watch, you have significant influence over the City Watch.
You may be a member of the government who controls their funding, or an important Watch officer.
Either way, the City Watch knows and trusts you, and you’re likely to be given the benefit of the doubt if
(when!) you’re caught breaking the law.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: City Watch, try not to get arrested, because the Watch has it in
for you. You may be wanted for a crime, be considered untrustworthy and unethical, have someone in
your family who is already a notorious criminal, or be a bullying member of a rival law enforcement
organization such as the Intelligence Committee’s Black Swans or the Church’s Inquisitors.
Use your City Watch ranks to gain leads about crime, known criminals, safety, city locations, prisons,
disease, and social unrest.
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Description
Charged with keeping the city safe — an impossible job, given their low manpower and nearly
insignificant political status — and reporting directly to representatives of the Triskadane, the City
Watch do the best they can in a city that frankly doesn’t give a damn. They lean on the law and the
authority that’s been vested in them, even if no one else seems to pay much attention. The Watch
maintains that no one is above the law, and they tread the damp and uneven streets and canals of the
city to prove it.
The Watch works out of Watch Houses, of which there’s at least one per District. The richer and more
prominent Districts tend to boast the more politically important (and well-funded) Watch Houses, and
there’s clearly rivalry between Districts. Guard in more prominent Watch Houses tend to look down
their noses at the Guard in more dangerous, poorer areas of the city. Certain thieves’ guilds have
agreements with local Watch Houses to help protect local neighborhoods, though nothing officially
recognized.
On the plus side, few criminals want to directly assault a Watch officer: they know that the Watch looks
after its own, and if they do every City Watch officer in Eversink is going to be hunting for them. You can
often spend pool points of Allies: City Watch as if they were points of Intimidation when confronting
lawbreakers or someone threatening to hurt you.
Take this faction as an Ally if you want to be a current or former member of the City Watch, if they owe
you a favor, or if you’ve helped them solve crimes in the past. Take them as an Enemy if you’re currently
wanted by the law for past crimes, or if you’ve deliberately worked against them to undercut their
prestige, influence, or funding.
The Commoners
Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Commoners, either you’ve been born poor in a poverty-ridden part of town,
or you’re a trusted friend of a local folk hero who will vouch for you.
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Commoners, your neighborhood will look out for you and yours.
You’re probably a local folk hero, someone who nearby kids pretend to be when fighting each other with
sticks in alleyways, or you consistently treat Commoners with kindness and respect even when you don’t
have to. Many Commoners will recognize you when you pass them (especially in your own
neighborhood), and they look up to you as a source of hope and respect. Even some Commoner
criminals get treated like minor royalty by their own people, especially if their so-called crimes are
against the Ancient Nobility.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Commoners, you may not want to go wandering around the
Tangle or Sag Harbor by yourself. You’re considered a traitor to the common people, or an oppressor,
and Commoners assume you look down your nose at them whether that’s true or not. Decide why
Commoners dislike and don’t trust you, then make sure to remind them of it every chance you get.
Use your Commoner ranks to gain leads about servants, working-class neighborhoods, regular people,
beggars, folk heroes, and good honest labor.
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Description
Riches are traditionally gained on the backs of the workers, and no one works harder in Eversink than its
commoners. These are the poor, the disenfranchised, the laborers and craftspeople who turn the
wheels of religion and commerce. Rarely they can rise above their station for a time — but far more
often, someone of a higher social status steals what’s theirs and slaps them back down.
No wonder many commoners — the ones in a position to afford to, at least — are dangerously bitter
and seething with rebellion. If a true leader arose, someone trustworthy and charismatic with a number
of ranks of Allies: Commoners, it wouldn’t take much for them to raise an army and incite rebellion.
Unfortunately for the commoners, there are a lot of other people in Eversink who try to corrupt or co-
opt anyone from the lower classes who shows leadership potential.
Most Heroes with ranks of Allies: Commoners also have at least one rank in the Investigative ability
Servility. Knowing how to be humble goes a long way when interacting with people who are often
treated unfairly by those richer than they are.
Take this faction as an Ally if you come from the poor or lower classes, or you treat them like people and
like friends. Take them as an Enemy if you wish they’d go away, or if you’ve taken steps to keep them
poor and biddable.
The Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers

Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers, you’re someone whom the Guild’s
membership looks on favorably. You may have a friend who works there and isn’t afraid to let a few
Guild secrets slip, you may be influential in making the Guild’s job easier, or you may be a member of
the Guild yourself.
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers, you are knowledgeable
about Guild business and know how to pull strings to direct the Guild’s business. That means you’re
either a trusted member of the Guild (likely specializing in either construction or waterways), or you’re
someone the Guild turns to regularly when it faces challenges. The Guild has an extensive bureaucracy,
and you know how to use it to your advantage.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers, the Guild considers
you a risk to either their Guild business or to Eversink’s architecture. You may have knocked down a
building, threatened an architect, or stolen secrets. If you need something built, don’t expect quality,
and certainly all those canal closures when you needed to be somewhere five minutes ago are just
coincidence, right? Say what you want about the Guild, they know how to raise passive aggressiveness
to an art form; their revenge is usually in the form of long and grinding inconvenience instead of
bloodshed.
Use your ranks with the Guild to gain leads about accurate maps, neighborhood politics, city locations,
building and demolition plans, road and canal closures, and in-depth details about what’s been found in
otherwise sunken and forgotten basements.
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Description
The most powerful mercantile guild in the city, this guild keeps its secrets hidden behind a close-knit
organization that resembles a secret society to outsiders. The guild engineers keep canals clean and
safe, plan and organize construction, handle demolition, and keep existing buildings from collapsing.
Their mechanical or (rarely) sorcerous pumps help keep a structure’s sunken levels (relatively) dry, and
they shore up buildings and demolish those that need removal. The maps of the Canal-Watchers go back
for many centuries and are known to be the most accurate maps of the city as it once stood, including
secret underwater passages and the location of now-vanished buildings. Any rumors that the guild is
paid handsomely by thieves’ guilds for access to this information are surely false. Any rumors that the
guild is actually responsible for the constant sinking, and could stop it if it wished, are even less likely.
The guild wields huge economic power, even if its leaders are reluctant to throw their weight around.
They seldom need to do so. Most other factions are quick to appease their requests, and no one wants
to face the consequences of getting on their bad side.
In the past there have been rumors that some members of this guild practice sorcery, but Denari must
not approve of such rumors, because those who believe them seem to find an early accidental death.
They aren’t the only ones. Architects and canal-watchers have remarkably dangerous jobs, and their life
expectancy is low.
Take this faction as an Ally if you want direct ties to people who know Eversink’s architectural secrets.
Take them as an Enemy if you’ve learned a terrible secret about the Guild that they want silenced, or if
they have wronged you (or you’ve wronged them) in some way.
Designer Notes: A Sleeping Power

Want to feel important? Be the person in charge of unilaterally deciding whether a historic building stays upright
or whether goods can freely travel to market through the city’s canals. The Guild’s current leadership is
conservative and responsible, but change is in the air, and a corrupt Architects’ Guild would have an economic
stranglehold on the city that puts all other organized crime to shame. Greed is going to push a guildmaster over
the edge sooner or later, and it isn’t going to be pretty when it happens.
The Mercanti
Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Mercanti, you have friends or informants in at least one minor or major
guild, or you’re a member of that guild yourself.
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Mercanti, you have significant sway among the guilds and
Eversink’s new money. You’re either very prominent in a minor guild or business, a member of an
already well-known and particularly prosperous guild, or you’re known among the rich (in money, if not
in social prestige) as a person who can be depended upon. Members of guilds you’re involved in will
typically recognize you on sight as someone important, and may attempt to curry favor.
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If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Mercanti, Eversink’s rich and powerful consider you a risk, an
enemy, or a threat. They’ll devote resources to tracking you down and making your life miserable if you
so much as hint at confronting them, and your involvement may ruin otherwise successful business
deals until you are removed. Chances are they’re angry because you’ve cost them profit or success in
the past.
Use your Mercanti ranks to gain leads about trade, the guilds, the richest people in Eversink, and
international dealings or diplomacy.
Description
These are the up-and-comers, the guild-leaders and the master architects of commerce who are carrying
Eversink into its next gilded age. Their money and influence might be relatively new (in Eversink terms,
that’s within the last few hundred years), but they’re systematically stealing political power and even
respectability away from the ancient nobility as they forge Eversink’s future. If you ask a Mercanti,
there’s nothing this city needs more. As Eversink changes and transforms, the Mercanti will be leading
the way... assuming the rest of the city can’t stop them.
Arranged in guilds and with each guild typically led by a family, the Mercanti spread Denari’s worship as
much as they betray, connive, and double-deal to earn more money and power. Their largest frustration
is Eversink’s problem with smuggling, and they often feel beset by enemies on every side. The Mercanti
are seizing political power, but often lack the social clout and social graces that should come with it.
As a result, there are huge opportunities for ambitious Heroes in the Mercanti. High rewards usually
require high risks, and adventurers love risks, right? So hitch yourself to whichever Merchant Prince
seems like your rising star, keep your eyes open for opportunities, and make audacious adventures pay
off in the best possible way.
Take this faction as an Ally if you want to immerse yourself in the political and economic skulduggery
that money and trade guilds bring. Take them as an Enemy if you’re actively working against them, if
you’re of the Ancient Nobility, or if you’ve crossed each other in the past.
The Mercenaries
Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Mercenaries, you are a former Mercenary, or you have employed
Mercenaries in the past (and paid them!), or you have a friend who is influential with Mercenary
companies.
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Mercenaries, you’re a known and respected figure among the
Mercenary companies. You may be an officer in a Mercenary company, a popular or reputable employer
of Mercenaries, or someone reliable who soldiers can come to when they need a favor. Mercenary
soldiers will often recognize you or your armor on sight, and may know your reputation in battle.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Mercenaries, you’re probably considered a traitor, a coward, or
someone who doesn’t pay his bills. Mercenaries won’t work for you and will go out of their way to
accost you or ruin your plans. They typically consider you a disgrace or a threat; you can decide which,
and why.
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Use your Mercenary ranks to gain leads about war, armed security, military threats, military history, and
about the sort of people who hire mercenaries to do their dirty work.
Description
With no standing army other than the Church Militant, everyone in Eversink who needs protection hires
mercenaries, and those sellswords stay exactly as loyal as they’re paid to stay. Noble houses hire them
for private armies, and merchants hire them for protection against smugglers or for when debts need to
be paid. They protect the city (paid by the Triskadane, much to the City Watch’s annoyance) and guard
the docks. They get drunk and start brawls, they stick together in an unwritten code of honor and loyalty
shared with other mercenaries, and occasionally they die horribly on old stone altars deep in the swamp
when they’re lured there by conniving cultists and sorcerers. Mercenaries are the arm of martial power
in Eversink, and the city couldn’t function without them. It’s just a shame no one can ever tell how loyal
they are at a glance.
Bands of mercenaries typically have their own flag, unique name, color, and coat of arms. They vary
tremendously in size, and either freelance to anyone who will pay them, or specialize in a particular
social class of client. Mercanti, Ancient Nobility, and the Triskadane are their largest clients. The Church
Militant can’t stand them, and usually looks at them as troublemakers unless a war is on.
Most mercenaries live in their own neighborhood of Eversink’s Foreign District when they aren’t on duty
or on campaign. It’s one of the safest parts of the city, except for assaults committed by bored and out-
of-work sellswords. Mercenaries typically group people into the categories of “fellow soldier”, “potential
client”, and “never a client.” If you’re in that last group and aren’t willing to pay, it’s hard gaining a
merc’s assistance or trust.
Take this faction as an Ally if you want to serve or command a troop of mercenaries, or if you’ve done so
in the past and left on good terms. Take them as an Enemy if you’ve cheated them out of their pay, or
been involved in a battle where they thought they were cheated or betrayed.
The Monstrosities
Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Monstrosities, you’re aware of the secret demimonde that exists at the
edges of human civilization in Eversink, and you have at least one informant who lives in that world.
Perhaps you did them a favor once, or maybe you were raised there and are technically non-human
yourself. Best not to let the Church know either way, eh?
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Monstrosities, you get along well enough with the non-human
communities living hidden beneath Eversink that they consider you a useful asset. Or maybe a friend?
It’s hard to tell, but either way, chances are you can spend pool points of Allies: Monstrosities to stop a
fight dead in its tracks because the monstrosity doesn’t want to risk harming you. It’s even possible that
these creatures treat you as part of their own world, giving you access to hidden communities that
seldom have humanity’s best interests in mind.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Monstrosities, one or more communities of inhuman predators
have it out for you. They likely consider you a risk, or a pest, or a tool to be easily manipulated. Good
luck convincing anyone of what you think you know! Humans are notoriously willfully ignorant when
some bit of information threatens their comfortable little worldview. And if you try, everyone you speak
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to may have a bad habit of ending up dead, and who do you think is going to get framed for their
murders?
Use your Monstrosity ranks to gain leads about sorcery, inhuman threats, forgotten history, ancient
power, and ridiculous conspiracies.
Description
Don’t be silly! There are no non-humans living in Eversink. Fabled creatures such as the Rattakan, the
fungal Drowned, or the snake-like Serpentine were created in the Age of Monsters and died out long
before mankind ever came into its own. They’re tales told to scare children and the gullible. Your home’s
deep basements are safe. Perfectly safe. What a ridiculous idea. Forget you ever had it. It’s easiest to
forget when you lock and board over the door to the basement stairs.
You may not want to venture too far out into the bogs, though. Who knows what lives out there? There
are rumors of toad-people, of dead things beneath the water, and of lost and confused small gods.
And really, people would notice if monstrosities lived right alongside (or beneath) humans in Eversink.
You can’t hide whole societies of predators who keep their own markets, their own politics, and their
own secret sources of power. The Inquisition would announce a purge and would wipe them out. Unless
the Inquisition was willfully turning a blind eye, that is. And what’s the chance of that?
Take this faction as an Ally if you are a traitor to humanity, if you crave inhuman power, or if you have
some sort of tie to a whispering voice in the deep shadows under your childhood bed. Take them as an
Enemy if you know the truth about how tenuous humanity’s existence and safety really are.
Designer Notes: The Monstrous Demimonde

The humans in Eversink live in a state of active denial, desperately trying not to think about those
centuries and centuries of basements and sunken buildings honeycombing the earth beneath their feet.
Monsters live there, and you can bet they aren’t all content to squat in a muddy hole when there is
music, light, and food so tantalizingly nearby. As a result, there are two or more civilizations living right
on top of each other, and only one is aware of the other. Good luck if you accidentally stumble onto the
secret nightlife of the near-human monstrosities; that’s information they’d much rather keep hidden,
and they’ll kill to keep it to themselves.
The Outlanders
Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Outlanders, you have access to information and rumors about local
Outlander politics and important foreign events. Either you have trusted seafaring friends, or you’re an
immigrant yourself and you maintain ties to the old country. Pick a foreign culture (see p. XX) as your
primary point of contact.
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If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Outlanders, you either immigrated to Eversink as a member of a
prominent family, or you hold an influential social role in one or more of the Outlander communities
within Eversink’s Foreign District. It’s possible you have diplomatic ties to foreign locales, or you
regularly came into contact with many foreign visitors to the city. You may even be a local folk hero in
your community. Either way, most Outlanders know you by sight or reputation. Pick one or more foreign
cultures (see p. XX) as your primary points of contact.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Outlander, you may want to think twice before leaving Eversink
(why would anyone want to do that?) or even before wandering the Foreign District. You’re considered
a spy or traitor to any political nation that isn’t Eversink; whether it’s true or not (and you should discuss
this with your GM), rumors have gotten around, and there are plenty of people ready to even the score
for what they think you did.
Use your Outlander ranks to gain leads about trade, war, foreign politics, cultures, and international
travel.
Description
They come from outside Eversink, foreign freelancers unbeholden to any traditional faction within the
city, and the city doesn’t always know what to do with them. They can ally with or work for anyone; they
can be assassinated to prove a point, and probably only the Watch will notice or care. Charge them
more money, point them towards the Foreign District, and treat them with caution.
An Outlander may be a tourist, a new immigrant, a visiting merchant, or a wandering adventurer. They
lack most local knowledge and contacts, and may have fewer rights than citizens (depending on who
they speak to and how much they bribe).
Take this faction as an Ally if you’re new to Eversink, if you have a reputation as a friend to people new
to the city, or if you have many friends who are Outlanders. Take them as an Enemy if you’re hated
outside of the city or if you make a habit of taking advantage of Outlanders you meet.
The Sorcerous Cabals

Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Sorcerous Cabals, you have the means to contact one or more cabals and
petition them for wisdom or favors. It’s wise to do so respectfully, mind you, and not when the
Inquisitors are watching. You may even be a low-ranking member of a sorcerous cabal yourself.
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Sorcerous Cabals, it’s extremely likely that you’re a sorcerer
yourself or that you somehow serve one. The cabal has likely initiated you into at least some of their
inner mysteries, and you have met other known and hidden sorcerers. You know your cabal’s secret
signs of recognition, which bureaucrats in Eversink can be trusted to be sympathetic, and how (or
where) to best channel Corruption so that it serves your cabal’s secret interests. Other members of
sorcerous cabals are likely to have heard of you, by reputation if not by appearance.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Sorcerous Cabals, you have a much higher chance than normal
of coming down with a nasty curse when it’s least convenient. You have crossed a sorcerer somehow,
and their cabal is just biding its time. It’s good that most revenge schemes are convoluted, interesting,
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and diabolical, instead of simply an ambush and a fast death. Most cabals prefer to make examples of
their enemies, instead of just having them disappear mysteriously in the night.
Use your Sorcerous Cabal ranks to gain leads about sorcery, unnatural power, conspiracies, Corruption,
spirits, and ancient artifacts of power.
Description
It isn’t illegal per se to be a sorcerer in Eversink, but sorcerers create Corruption, and that’s very illegal.
Sometimes chained-in-a-cage-with-your-hands-and-tongue-cut-off-overhanging-the-harbor-until-you-
die illegal. So powerful Sorcerers often have their minions in Eversink run errands for them, and they
flex their political muscles behind the scenes. The Sorcerous Cabals cleave together for mutual
protection and power, and their representatives guard their interests without (usually) having much
sorcery themselves.
Cabals tend to inspire paranoia. No one knows who could be a sorcerer and who isn’t. Neighbors turn
each other in, and the Church Inquisitors come a-calling. Are the Inquisitors sorcerers themselves? Are
church officials? How can one tell? And if you have crossed them, how could you possibly hope to
survive?
Cabals are tightly organized but keep their secrets from other, rival cabals; memories might even be
erased to ensure that sorcerers can’t remember more than one or two contacts in their own
organization, just to keep the cabal safe. That said, when someone shows up on the Sorcerous Cabal’s
list of enemies, word is somehow passed from member to member and the enemies don’t survive
particularly long.
Sometimes confident (or politically well-connected) sorcerers act as figureheads and guild
spokespeople, attracting the attention and ire of the inquisitors, hoping to shine so brightly that their
fellow practitioners can sneak past in the shadow. It’s all about misdirection and power.
Two primary traditions exist in Sorcerous Cabals: those who learned their sorcery from the teaching of
forgotten demons or small gods, and those who learned it from the ancient and forgotten lore of the
Serpentine snake-folk. They differ considerably; in particular, cabals centered around small gods and
demons tend to take on the characteristics of those entities. A cabal who learned their sorcery from a
small god of deception, for instance, will have different traditions than those who learned their sorcery
from a small god of rot and decay.
Take this faction as an Ally if you are a sorcerer yourself, or if you’ve chosen one as an employer or
mentor. Take them as an Enemy if you have acted to root out or inform on sorcerers, real or imagined.
The Thieves’ Guilds

Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Thieves’ Guilds, you have friends or informants who are guild thieves,
you’re a low-profile guild thief yourself, or you’re someone known for being sympathetic or helpful to
the underworld.
If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Thieves’ Guilds you have power and influence with at least one
thieves’ guild. You may be a trusted ally of truly powerful guild leaders, a notable thief yourself, a feared
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enforcer, or a respected former thief who maintains their friendship even in retirement. It’s even
possible you’re a local legend due to jobs you’ve pulled in the past, so that new thieves look up at you in
awe before they’re stupid enough to try to steal your purse.
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Thieves’ Guilds, you’re considered a danger to the thieves’
guilds for something you’ve done. They have a tendency to stay clear of you unless they have no choice,
but individual thieves might be foolish enough to try to thwart you when given the opportunity. If
they’re truly angry at you, beware; the guilds have eyes everywhere, and there’s no shortage of would-
be assassins willing to risk their life for a healthy reward.
Use your Thieves’ Guilds ranks to gain leads about poisons, illegal goods, thefts, burglary, blackmail,
smuggling, and corrupt or bribed officials (especially in the City Watch and Triskadane).
Description
Attempting to infiltrate thieves’ well-trapped guild halls is notoriously a death sentence, and there are
scores of illegal thieves’ guilds within the city, big and small. Perilously few of them can be trusted.
Guilds often specialize, with one guild marshaling scores of urchin pickpockets, another specializing in
challenging assassinations, a third in smuggling goods through the swamps, and so forth. Guild hall
locations vary: some thieves may have elite social clubs where blackmail secrets, rare wines, and rarer
forms of poison are bartered or traded, while others gather in a repulsive sewer, debating which noble’s
house to ransack at the new moon. Many guilds maintain specific territories, and woe betide any thief
who picks a pocket in another guild’s territory without giving them a cut.
Thieves and smugglers might be of any age. Orphaned children are apprenticed to thieving schools who
train them — often brutally — how to be incredibly effective in crime. Ancient, toothless beggars still
pick pockets, pass rumors, and act as nearly invisible spies. Almost anyone you meet might have
allegiances within a thieves’ guild, and gang wars between them over real or imagined slights aren’t
unknown. Every decade or two a Lord of Thieves brutally carves their way to the top of the heap and
makes all other guilds pay obeisance to them; then someone takes them down in a bloody fight, and the
scramble for power begins again. The City Watch frankly prefers the organization and understanding
that comes with a Lord of Thieves, because at least that way taxes get paid and fewer people actually
get hurt.
You’re encouraged to work with your GM to create the primary guild that you’re allied to (or hated by).
The more interesting you make them, the more fun you’ll have later when everything goes to hell and
you’re caught in the turmoil.
Take this faction as an Ally if you have underworld contacts who trust you, or if you belong to a thieves’
guild yourself. Take them as an Enemy if you have betrayed or abandoned a guild, if you’ve made
enemies with thieves, or if you’ve acted to have criminals exiled or arrested.
The Triskadane
Ranks
If you have 1 rank of Allies: Triskadane, you work in a government position or you have friends on one
of the many government committees that manage the city.
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If you have 2 or more ranks of Allies: Triskadane, you’re either involved in the government yourself or
you can manipulate people who are. You have an information source who can find out varied
confidential rumors and facts for you, and you can pull enough strings to have the bureaucracy work in
your favor now and then. With enough ranks you might actually be a key minister in the bureaucracy or
a secret member of the Triskadane yourself, one of the city’s true rulers who anonymously decide its
fate!
If you have 1 or more ranks of Enemies: Triskadane, the government — from the legal system to the
permitting committees to the tax collectors — seems to have it out for you. Expect inconvenience and
lost paperwork when interacting with government officials. Most likely you made an anonymous
government enemy somewhere along the way, and they apparently delight in complicating your life
with bureaucratic red tape and inconvenience. Hopefully they don’t dislike you enough to try to arrange
your death, but that’s certainly a possibility.
Use your Triskadane ranks to gain leads about city history, politics, permits, legal matters, the Black
Swans (the secret police), taxation, government committees, city planning, traditions, and any sort of
civil disputes. In a city where knowledge is power, this is where the real money lies.
Description
Thirteen women and men control the city of Eversink. No one knows who they are, as their identities are
traditionally kept secret, and they rule over Eversink with exactly as much or as little of an iron fist as
they wish. If you wish to report treason or heresy, you can whisper a secret into one of the many stone
swan sculptures carved into buildings throughout the city. No one knows how, but those secrets are
heard and acted upon. People who report secrets are rewarded. The Triskadane seem focused on
maintaining wealth and control of Eversink, and most other concerns are relegated to their many
committees.
Traditionally there is one member of the Triskadane from every faction in the city, but that is highly
variable based on the politics of the moment and the Goddess’ choices. When the goddess Denari walks
the city in a disguised mortal form one day a year, she occasionally chooses one or more people to join
the Triskadane, a fact that replaced members of the Council tend to resent.
Far more commonly encountered than the Triskadane themselves, this category also includes the
bureaucracy of city government and the myriad committees that keep Eversink running. Any time you
run up against a snooty and officious bureaucrat, or a sinister assassin attempting to eliminate a threat
to city infrastructure, you’re butting heads with the Triskadane.
Designer Notes: Government by Random Selection

Eversink is a form of oligarchy called a demarchy: a government by the randomly selected. Although, and this is the
important thing, no one has proof Denari selects citizens to serve among the Triskadane randomly. It simply
appears random to Eversink’s citizens. Throughout Eversink’s history, the Triskadane have uncannily been the right
people at the right time and in the right place.
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What’s tricky about the Triskadane is the secrecy and privacy around their membership — even to each other. The
Goddess desires that none of the members recall the identity of any other member, and that generally holds true.
To effectively rule the city, the Triskadane must work through people who can carry out their rulings, and those
people must both be well-known and run well-known government offices. This makes Eversink’s government
entertainingly bureaucratic and byzantine.
Take this faction as an Ally if you have close ties to any branch of government, or if you’re friends with
someone who can pull a few strings for you. Take them as an Enemy if you’ve ever worked against the
government or tried to thwart a bureaucrat, or if you have been accused (justly or not) of treason or
other significant crimes.
Economics and Trade

Eversink is a city of motion and faith. It seems like everyone is on the take; if there’s a buyer, it’s
probably for sale, no matter what it is.
Everyone has something going on: a business, a job, a side-job, a way to get paid. Someone is firing and
someone else is hiring. The suspicious guy at the end of the bar has a naggingly illegal job for whomever
wants to make quick coin. Walk up and ask: the job might pay out big. Or walk up and hire him for your
own job. If he can’t do it, he’ll know someone who can.
Most don’t worry about the law. For those making a living in the Tangle or Sag Harbor, laws are for rich
folk; just don’t get caught or piss off someone important. They’ll betray you to someone nasty right
quick: the Watch, the Inquisitors, the Triskadane’s secret police, a Mercanti’s private army, or a crime
boss’ goons. If you’re seriously unlucky, the City Watch will find you floating face-down in a canal the
next morning. You’d be a fool to cross the Church, though. It’s particularly unhealthy to anger the
people who hold dominion over your immortal soul and your profits.
While fraudulent contracts are heresy, the city’s economy is a free and open market. The government
doesn’t regulate truth-in-advertising on products sold in Eversink, and sales are reputation-backed. Yes,
a sword is a sword. But that miracle cure for sale in the Grand Marketplace might be either an actual
cure or bone-eating acid. How much do you trust that vendor?
Meanwhile, the rich have knives out for each other’s cash flow. Once a good is in the Grand Marketplace
there’s no stopping it. The rich war with each other through their advocates and sue each other with
open abandon. They bribe the Committees to pass monopolistic, protectionist laws and tariffs to halt
each other at the harbor berths. They pay adventurers to light each other’s shipments on fire. And while
that’s all going on, the common people gleefully set up tents selling cheap knock-offs and bad
reproductions to Outlander tourists right outside their homes.
Money is cheap, easy, and everywhere. The Church aggressively offers secured loans, big and small,
where you offer them servitude if you can’t pay them back. Merchants with red-draped tables sit in
Ironcross’ squares and offer banking and coin-changing services for a small change fee. Brokers sit in
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bars, pool their capital and sell shares to build far-away caravans. Buy in for a price! Cheap! It will pay off
big this time, really!
The government doesn’t recognize patents or intellectual property, so inventors typically guard their
creator rights with swords, pain, threats, overpaid advocates, and freelance arsonists. An invention is
only yours as long as you protect it.
Designer Notes: Eversink’s Trade Power

Eversink is, as designed, a great trade city whose biggest power is her economic prowess and reach. While she has
a mighty naval fleet to allow her to project force worldwide, Eversink will never mount grand land armies that
march majestically over mountains and lay siege to cities. Instead, she’ll give loans to those armies to buy weapons
and charge those armies ridiculous interest. Trade is Eversink’s lifeblood and it’s also her deadliest weapon against
her enemies.
While most of the stories about Eversink are conceived on Eversink’s streets, some stories are about Eversink and
the world, and they’re born in foreign lands. With her wealth she can build up a nation, or tear it down again.
What Is For Sale?

Eversink’s wide harbor and the deep, protected bay is perfect for shipping. Boats cram into every
available berth. Little single-masted fisherman skiffs float next to enormous foreign caravels that haul
tons of goods from exotic locales to Eversink’s markets.
Eversink’s merchant fleet focuses on lightning speed and nimble maneuverability over size. Rare and
exotic spices, gemstones, and dyes, with their high price tag and small footprint, don’t require enormous
vessels to make profits. And smaller ships slip out of port, past enemies and pirates, much easier than
slow and hulking ships of the line. The great Mercanti families and trading houses have no problems
crewing their ships. Eversink’s locals have always traded by water.
Eversink is a bonanza of trade. Everything is here if it’s for sale anywhere in the known world. In the
Grand Marketplace, here are things an enterprising buyer can find, on any given day.
• Staples: Salted seafood, salt pork, wine, beer, exotic spices, gold, silver, jewelry, uncut
gemstones.
• Raw Materials: stone, granite, marble, and wood cut and delivered from the mainland.
• Fashion: Peacock feathers, furs, silks, printed cotton, pearls, heavy brocades, and perfumes.
• War: Leather goods, exquisitely crafted metal weaponry, personal armor, contracts for siege
engines, and steel ingots.
• Medicine: Salt, drugs, dyes, and alchemical reagents.
• Navigation: Paper, maps, navigation supplies and books printed in a dozen languages.
• Craftwork: Clockwork and delicate porcelain plates.
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• Services: For the body, the mind, and the soul.
This is a small sampling. If it can get through Harbor Approach (or be smuggled through the swamps or
down the River Serpentine) and into the Grand Marketplace, it’s for sale. Here, gold is the great
universal communicator. Merchants speak any language. They cross any class boundary if the cash is
good, the item is for sale and the transaction completes with a handshake.
The Balance of Trade Guilds, Mercanti and Ancient Nobility

Eversink’s trade is carefully balanced on the edge of a knife, a deliberate choice by the Triskadane to
play different factions against each other for the greater good of the city. Three power centers control
most of the trade into and out of Eversink’s harbor:
• The Ancient Nobility, who desire stability and the status quo
• The Mercanti, who want neither stability nor the status quo
• The Trade Guilds (at least the ones who aren’t Mercanti-owned), whose Commoners control
raw material production and transportation.
Trade guilds work with whoever gives them a contract, and they become homicidally irritable when
contracts disappear. To the Ancient Nobility and Mercanti, they’re “paid labor.” The trade guilds supply
the manpower to support the city’s economy. Without them, the Ancient Nobility and Mercanti would
be forced to hire Mercenary or Outlander labor — expensive and unreliable. With them, the trade guilds
keep the other two power centers of trade vulnerable. No labor, no goods. No goods, no sale. No sale,
no money. They’re in the position to negotiate and extract concessions from their masters.
This is also true for the Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers, which is important and skilled enough to
be a power unto itself. That’s because this guild effectively controls architectural investment and the
most efficient routes through the city. Without its approval, travel to Eversink’s markets becomes slow
and undependable. The trade guilds and the Mercanti both court the Architects, hoping for their favor.
The Ancient Nobility want the world to stay static. They’re willing to put all their political and financial
muscle behind making it so. They’ll bribe harbor officials, finagle tariffs passed, orchestrate Mercanti
goods seizures, sue, and harass their younger competition while greasing the skids for themselves and
their like. They’re a constant drumbeat of subtle corrupt pressure on the entire city. It’s good for Trade
Guilds who rely on the Ancient Nobles never changing, but not good for new and unusual circumstances.
The Nobles are slowly losing their battle and drifting toward extinction.
The Mercanti are forces of chaos in an otherwise stable system. Some are taking over the dying Ancient
Nobility’s old business, but most take huge risks for possible huge gain. They are investing in new and
dangerous ventures, and letting people give them money in exchange for a share of the prize. They’re
the first to equip their ships with new inventions, ride to new lands, and bring back new, unknown
goods. Every once in a while, one Mercanti is wildly successful and kicks off a new craze that bubbles,
bursts, and falls over. It’s difficult for Trade Guilds to build their business solely on Mercanti boom and
bust cycles, but they must as the Ancient Nobility fade. They do anything and everything they can to find
leverage — without them, Mercanti discoveries cannot get to the Grand Marketplace.
This is Eversink’s pumping economic heart, always driven forward by the Goddess’ inspiration. A fading
stability, a growing chaos, and scrabbling trade guilds left picking up the pieces.
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Banks and Coinage
As Outlanders from across the known world come to buy, trade, and sell in the Grand Marketplace,
Eversink needs a universal monetary language. Merchants cannot simply accept any random coinage —
who knows what it’s worth unless it’s made of gold? And gold is the thing. Eversink’s cunning bankers of
Ironcross have worked out their answer. Bank script! Of course!
Eversink does have an overly complex system of coinage only Denari could love (see p. XX). It involves
convoluted random coin denominations, a religious ceremony, the Church’s mint monopoly and,
sometimes, a fish. (A 3 and a half? A 3 and a half what?) But that system is for the pious and the poor,
not for the up and coming elite businessperson with overseas trade agreements.
Eversink’s bankers exchange gold for their own paper script for a small exchange fee. The bankers will
hold onto the gold in their vaults (until they invest it in some small company scheme and lose it all).
They will then give the investor a piece of paper good for the equivalent gold. The investor then uses
that script to buy goods and services throughout Eversink. The merchant later returns to the banker for
the equivalent gold, and the entire process is ostensibly protected against fraud and theft.
This is great for Outlanders wandering around with a pocket of foreign currency no one accepts. The
banker will weigh the foreign currency right there as the Outlander watches — no highway robbery
here! — and hand out script for equivalent gold weight. And this system is terrific for merchants who
don’t want to cart around wheelbarrows of gold through Eversink’s streets.
What it’s really great for are the bankers who make a mint on exchange fees. But Eversink lacks a central
bank. Instead, Eversink has a dozen bankers in Ironcross whose script is worth subtly more or less than
the others depending on the time of day and flow of business. More than one con artist has been paid
by business rivals to ruin a bank’s reputation at exactly the right time to destroy an important deal.
Eversink’s merchants, especially the ones who trade in large goods like ships, are inured to the
randomness of Eversink’s free market. They keep enormous books of banker rates and banknotes
behind their counters. During the day, runners dash from the Grand Marketplace to Ironcross and back
with the newest exchange rates. Merchants update their logs. Whenever a customer makes a purchase
with script, merchants haul out their books and make a gold-to-script conversion to work out pricing.
The merchants would insist everyone goes back to using ‘Sinkish coinage, except they’d lose out on
kickbacks.
Foreign Trading Partners

The political stance Eversink projects to its trading partners is a blend of political neutrality and ‘Sinkish
selfishness. In foreign politics with trading partners, Eversink is out for Eversink and her goddess.
Eversink wants the entire world to sell in her marketplace, change money with her bankers, and take
loans from her Church.
These political pressures keep the city out of most wars. Direct conflict with equal powers makes a dent
in trade. Unless the City sees a clear, positive profit-motivated outcome from fighting a war, Eversink
avoids foreign entanglements. War jeopardizes trade relationships, contracts, and balanced treaties.
This doesn’t keep Eversink from playing her enemies off each other. If Eversink’s enemies are busy
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fighting each other, Eversink owns all the trade routes. Strategic diplomacy is an essential trade, and
there’s a solid living to be had in encouraging overseas war without being caught and hanged for it.
Eversink has gotten tangled up in wars in her past when it served her purposes. If she sees profit in
colonial expansion or if a trading partner purposefully undermines the flow of money into the city,
Eversink will enter a hot conflict to protect its rights. And as always, when the Triskadane declares war
it’s because the Mercenaries are getting their cut (along with a little side looting).
Trade as Invasion
The Mercanti of Eversink have their fingers in everything: trade, diplomacy, duplicity, intelligence, and
banking. The Mercanti dream of colonizing and controlling foreign markets with a light financier’s touch.
They find an outlander ruler in financial trouble or two small cities at war. They arrive on foreign shores,
evaluate the current war in progress, and offer the local ruler a little cash. Mercenaries are expensive.
Sieges more so.
The Mercanti offer the Outlander ruler a Church of Denari-backed loan with completely reasonable rates
(the Church of Denari is good for it). In exchange, they ask the Outlander government to put up
something useful, like grain stores, high-quality dyes, or gold mines, as collateral. The Mercanti throw in
their own mercenaries to help win the local war completely free.
The local ruler, bankrupt from war, takes the deal. They have no choice lest they lose their seat. The
Outlander ruler hires mercenaries with Mercanti money. Mercenaries fight.
The Mercanti wait the conflict out in comfort.
After the fighting, the Mercanti call in the debt. When the Outlander government defaults on the loan
(and the Outlander ruler always defaults), the Mercanti make understanding noises. Surely, the
Outlander ruler simply needs more cash. This time, the Mercanti demand a meatier service as collateral.
They’re taking over local tax collection. Local security? Now manned with the Mercanti’s private
mercenaries.
The end comes fast. The Mercanti use mercenaries to oust the broke local government under the aegis
of debt collection and collateral seizure. The Mercanti crown themselves the new rulers and declare
Denari the new state goddess to be venerated by all during business transactions. All outstanding
conflicts end swiftly. Church Actuaries arrive and cajole the locals into building a satellite Church to
guarantee Denari’s Blessing. The Church serves as a new banking center for ‘Sinkish merchants. Goods
flow to Eversink’s Harbor Approach warehouses for processing and sale in the Grand Marketplace.
Eversink’s borders quietly expand without Eversink formally expanding.
Some outlander realms throw off the financial yoke after a while. Uprisings happen. If the place is
unsafe, the Mercanti leave for the next opportunity. The Mercanti are quick to dump an unstable
property and colonize someone else’s holdings through carefully applied finance, especially if they can
make a profit during the transition.
Trade as Intelligence
Trade doesn’t merely carry goods along its routes. It carries a wealth of geographical, economic, and
demographic information about foreign targets. A smart trader knows they cannot sell cheese into
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foreign markets during religiously mandated dairy-free months, but they can sell olive oil as a butter
substitute at a substantial markup.
This kind of intelligence informs more than market conditions, although foreign market conditions are
Eversink’s top interest. Trade carries information about who is at war with whom, who is experiencing
famine, or drought, or foreign invasions simply through the amount of goods to market and migration
levels. If a country supplying substantial silver to the market suddenly stops, then either the mines dried
up or the country collapsed. This presents an opportunity to either invade the silver-supplying country,
invade the country’s friends, or hire mercenaries, invade a neighbor with a silver mine, steal the raw
ore, and get the silver to market before someone else equally ruthless fills the void.
Mercanti and Ancient Nobility spend a lot of money installing spies in the Grand Marketplace and
foreign markets to bring them market reports (the Scurrilous Rumors ability becomes a must-have in
such informants). Oracles with Prophecy, usually hired from the Church, help point them to the right
places. The spies gather this exact information so rich merchants get notice of where and when a market
floods or shrinks. Then the merchants can place big financial bets with some expectations they’ll pay off.
This methodology expands to the Eversink Government Committees who also spend on spies for the
exact same reports to inform the Triskadane on foreign political conditions based on market conditions.
The jockeying between political spies and market spies creates a lively environment for double-dealing,
backstabbing, and falsified reports. More than once, Eversink has sent an exploratory fleet away from a
lucrative market while merchants raid it based on carefully placed “bad” reporting.
GM Advice: Do I Need to Use This?

You may be reading this economics and trade section and be thinking, “Oh my gosh. Am I out of my depth? I
thought this was a game about barbarians raiding decadent nobles and thieves hiding in sunken ruins, stabbing
people in the back to steal their purse!” And it can be! Sword & Sorcery novels have some astonishing cities in
them to act as the focus of adventure. You can use Eversink as an anonymous background for your northern
barbarian to stalk through; you can embroil Heroes in local politics; or you can have Heroes literally change the
way the world works by manipulating wars, markets, and governments. Take what you love, ignore the rest.
Internal and External Threats to Eversink

Sometimes you’ll want to challenge both your Heroes and the city itself. A few suggestions, far from a
comprehensive list, follow.
The Chuggut
A hostile and reclusive swamp people known as the Chuggut live out in the vast fens that surround
Eversink. They have a swamp cast to them, and people often describe them as appearing (and acting) as
toadlike as the swamp god they supposedly worship. Their sorcery affects swampwater, darkness,
plants, and insects. It’s unclear how primitive they actually are, and their deadliness and sophistication
may vary between tribes.
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The Chuggut are usually hostile to outsiders — not surprising considering how many times Eversink has
tried (and badly failed) to wipe them out over the centuries. While they’ve never directly attacked the
city, they are known to help smugglers, imprison captives, and work actively against Eversink’s wealth,
safety and success. Few ‘Sinkish residents trust them.
War
Eversink pays a great amount of money to make sure that it never goes to war directly. It will purchase
the loyalty of mercenaries, use negotiation and trade to make sure allies get highly preferential prices
(and enemies get ruinous price increases or supply shortages), and use propaganda to skew public
opinion against any country that opposes it. Small invasion forces periodically attack Eversink regardless,
and the city must adapt or be overrun.
Trade Wars and Speculative Bubbles

Prices for a particular commodity occasionally rise absurdly high — whether there’s a shortage due to
disease, such as a hog parasite several generations ago that raised pork prices; a shortage due to a trade
war with a former trading partner, such as when forest-folk upriver stopped sending down timber; or
investor speculation, such as when certain rare spices saw their prices skyrocketing thousands of times
higher than normal before collapsing. Such occurrences can leave great merchants destitute and shuffle
the balance of power, tremendously disrupting the city’s merchants for a year or two.
Smugglers and Counterfeiters

In a city where every business exchange is a prayer, anything that devalues the economy or the money
supply (such as smuggled goods and counterfeit coins) is literally heresy. The Triskadane have no
hesitation in responding to such miscreants with exile or death. Priests in the country of Caym believe
that Denari’s stranglehold on trade can be weakened with enough counterfeit coins, so Eversink’s
moneylenders are alert for their sabotage.
Small Gods
Whether nature spirits or forgotten demons, unlicensed small gods constantly attempt to establish a
foothold in the city in the hopes of gathering their own believers. Accumulating enough power may well
turn them into a credible threat. Even more dangerously, already strong small gods sometimes enter
Denari’s domain for reasons of their own.
Religious Crusades
There are religions in the world who decry Denari as cold, unloving, and profit-focused. Such infidels
have sworn to overthrow the goddess and liberate her people. As you can imagine, the Church Militant
persecutes and exiles missionaries from these religions without a trial, and takes strong steps to prevent
them from ever establishing a following amongst Eversink’s commoners.
Sorcery
Corruption literally burns away Denari’s essence. There are few crimes in the city more serious than
creating Corruption. Deliberate attempts to injure the Goddess are few and far between, but would be
disastrous if not caught in time.
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Refugees and Immigration
When war or harsh environmental conditions threaten nearby populations, Eversink gladly welcomes
new citizens, usually for a fee. The Church trusts that Denari Herself will raise more islands from the
riverbed if more space is required. As a result, extreme immigration seldom causes more than a
momentary disruption in housing; the city isn’t going to turn away new worshippers and taxpayers.
This becomes more of an issue when new immigrants bring challenging new religious or cultural views
that locals won’t accept. The Church preaches inclusion and acceptance, however, and if there isn’t
crime and aggression involved, only those who have something to lose from the new arrivals end up
bitter and afraid.
Supply Chains
Eversink’s survival depends on fresh water flowing down the Serpentine, and on food and supplies
arriving daily. If ports are shut down for more than a few days due to bad weather, war, plague, or
another reason, the poor begin to run the risk of starvation. There are a great many bureaucrats and
church prophets whose job is to make sure this never happens; if they see even a hint of it, specialized
troubleshooters are dispatched to solve the problem before it ever actually occurs. The Goddess never
benefits from plague and starvation.
Flood and Weather

As a low-lying coastal city, Eversink is highly vulnerable to storms and high tides. Abnormally cold
weather can freeze the waterways, and drought can drive animals out of the swamps and dramatically
lower the water supply. Denari’s Blessing results in gentle weather for most of the year, but any number
of exceptions (conveniently, most solvable by adventurers) exist that could put the city at risk.
Floods, storms, and particularly high tides sometimes entice monsters up out of the ocean. When that
happens, people who don’t stay inside and lock their doors tend to disappear.
Class Warfare
Class warfare (whether subtle sabotage or all-out civil war) threatens to break out constantly,
particularly in bad weather or in times of scarcity. Commoners, Ancient Nobility and the Mercanti vie
with each other for power and prestige, with the Mercenaries pulled into the struggle as paid muscle
and the Commoners used as pawns.
Disease and Plague

If you want to panic an entire district, show signs of a communicable disease. The Triskadane takes
plague seriously and would rather seal off an entire district, possibly burning whole neighborhoods, than
let the plague spread. The Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers seals entrances and exits, bricking
them up if necessary, and the City Watch has strict orders to shoot to kill anyone trying to escape from a
sealed neighborhood.
Fire
Over the centuries, out-of-control fires have remained one of the most effective tools for wholesale
urban renewal. If there’s a part of Eversink you don’t know what to do with right now, burn it down
during an adventure and have your Heroes deal with the aftermath. Fires also kill hundreds or
thousands of people and destroy Districts without any proper respect for avoiding the houses of the
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rich. When the bells of Denari call out the alarm for fire, it’s all hands on deck to stop it before it grows
out of control.
Non-human Threats
The Inquisitors of Denari strive to destroy demons, all while keeping the risk of ghostly possession under
control in a way that won’t drive down profits. Any monstrosities who dwell in the undercity may be
hatching secret plans, something that’s difficult to combat when the Triskadane won’t even officially
acknowledge the existence of non-humans.
Treason
It’s rare for Eversink’s residents to try to betray the city of the Goddess Herself, but it does happen:
some fool opens the way for foreign gods, foreign navies, or even more underhanded schemes intended
to disrupt and ruin what makes Eversink unique. When this occurs, criminals are punished without
mercy or pity, and the city comes together against outsiders in a way that’s never seen at any other
time.
Corruption
As noted on p. XX, powerful sorcery can leave Corruption that lasts for centuries unless the Church is
brave enough — or foolhardy enough — to try to seal it. Not only does such Corruption injure the
Goddess and lower profit from transactions, it attracts spirits and opens portals between the physical
world and the spirit realm. Foreign sorcerers try to kill Denari by creating Corruption in key locations,
and the Church pays handsomely for Heroes who are willing to seal such rifts before they grow out of
control.
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CHAPTER TEN: THE WORLD
Heroes need vast overland (or seaborne) treks to distant wilderness ruins and mysterious foreign cities;
it’s practically a tradition. This chapter gives you a glimpse of the world outside of Eversink.
You can and should change aspects of this world map as your Heroes explore the world. National
borders shift, new countries spring up overnight, old countries are conquered, and cartographers have a
nasty habit of missing whole continents, countries, cultures, and island chains that you might want your
Heroes to explore.
Designer Notes: Describing the World

These descriptions of foreign powers aren’t extraordinarily subtle, detailed, or differentiated. That’s deliberate.
We’re leaning towards classic tropes and painting with broad strokes here, because we want to give you easy
hooks to latch on to when you think about the world beyond Eversink. You can safely assume that every location in
the world is potentially as interesting and full of adventure as Eversink itself, so if you set your own campaign there
you’ll know just where to start.
[[[placeholder cartography]]]
[[[placeholder cartography – note that country names on the map no longer match the text, and must
be changed in art]]]
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The Great Kingdom of Capria
A classic, diverse fantasy nation on the brink of change
Capria is an old kingdom of high and low nobles, factions, land armies, heraldry, and knighthoods. Its
rolling hills, old-growth forests and vast farmlands host many different cities, municipalities, and peoples
all tied together under the King’s banner. Walking along the leafy roads, travelers might come upon a
quaint village, a trade town, an armored knight, or a peddler on her way to the nearby fair.
Government
Capria is a monarchy. From his seat in Torith, Capria’s sprawling capital city, King Ceolwulf XIV’s
uncompromising iron rule forces competing factions in the Kingdom to bend to his will and keep the
enduring peace. The King’s reach stretches from the Moonlit Sea in the west to the Dancing Run River in
the eastern lands commanded by the distant trade center, Hohenach. In the north, Capria’s might
stretches almost to the Serpentine itself.
The Kingdom is a patchwork of duchies, trade cities, and powerful consortiums. It delegates the King’s
rule directly through his Dukes and Barons. The hereditary nobility wields temporal control over wide
swaths of peasant-inhabited land. Meanwhile, city mayors and powerful trade guilds have power over
their populous trade-minded cities. Mayors and Dukes are often in contention in Court, where they
argue over lines of control and jurisdiction.
While King Ceolwulf is mighty and has reigned long and peacefully, the great King grows old. Spies
report the King is becoming feeble and forgetful. Political enemies are plotting and scheming. When the
King dies, Torith will elect a new King from among the peers and high nobility instead of hereditary
succession. The peers are already sharpening their knives for the coming election.
People and Society

No one kind of “people” defines Caprians. The realm is so large, and the people here are diverse. They
worship thousands of small gods and genius loci that have tremendous power in one location and
almost no power beyond it. The most popular local gods improve weather, farming, and fertility. Class
better distinguishes Caprians from one another. Most of the population are land-holding free peasant
farmers who never stray far from home. Capria's powerful but thinly populated noble class are rich in
land, gold, and military might. The people believe rigidly in class hierarchy and don't dare cross
boundaries.
However, a new class is rising in Capria. The realm is urbanizing. The trade cities grow in population,
wealth and power. Her urban citizens are cosmopolitan and politically inclined. The cityfolk are fond of
free thinking and education, with a keen sense of scientific discovery and their own destiny. Money and
sophistication are the signs of a Caprian trader working their way through the ports and marketplaces of
the world to sell their eclectic wares.
Friends and Enemies

Torith is Eversink's trade rival on the Moonlit Sea. They are at each other’s throats economically and
politically, and see each other as an existential threat. Whenever something suspicious happens on the
international stage, both are quick to blame the other (even when Min is likely at fault).
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The Theocracy of Erebos and Capria outwardly have a friendly trade relationship. However, the Caprians
resent Erebos trying to convert people to their Fire religion on Capria’s border, as they’re steadily
swinging towns under the Theocrat’s control. Should Hohenach convert en masse, that friendly trade
relationship will turn into hostilities and war.
The Caprians want to retake the Destroyed Plateaus on their northern border. They send a stream of
heavily armored platoons into the wastes to recover destroyed cities. Only a few ever return.
Torith
Torith is Capria’s elegant and sprawling capital, and the seat of the King at Whitehaven Palace. This great
city occupies Capria’s westernmost reach on the coast of the Moonlit Sea. Boasting an extensive trade
fleet, Torith is an active rival to Eversink’s trade might.
The city wins international acclaim for her sprawling University and library complex. The University of
Torith, known for its research capabilities, draws researchers and the intellectually curious from all over
the world. Torith’s librarians claim to have tomes stretching back to the time of the Serpentine Empire.
They pay well for rare books.
Power is in the grip of Torith’s mayor and its autocratic city council. The city chafes at Kingdom rule. The
King’s spies are concerned the city may one day revolt and demand its independence from Capria.
Recent disappearances from the University faculty staff are chalked up to accidents and not sudden
death at the hands of the King’s agents.
Hohenach
Hohenach, on the world's edge, is a rough, dusty, dirty trade city on the far eastern border of the
Kingdom where the green grass and rolling hills turn into salty desert at the foot of the Salt Mountains.
Situated on a fork of the Dancing River, the city is a hub of trade with the Theocracy of Erebos and
various mountain trade caravans. Hohenach is also a hub of active alchemists who fuse the thinking of
East and West to create something not quite sorcery and not quite science.
Beyond Hohenach, they say there's nothing but the empty Salt Mountains full of marauders and half-
civilized highwaymen until one reaches Omuzaphur. Those who brave those empty wastes come back
richer but fundamentally changed people — and carrying rare reagents for alchemists willing to pay
chests of coin. There’s fear that the Fire God’s missionaries fill Hohenach’s streets and soon the city will
declare independence from Capria or, worse, declare for the Theocracy.
Republic of Caym
Cold, hard lands of terrifying warriors, with a surprising amount of steampunk technology
The Republic of Caym inhabits the cold and hard lands in the north. Caym’s original founders were
various criminal elements exiled from the Serpentine Empire to freeze, starve and die in snow and ice.
Instead of dying, the people of the northern reaches built a fiercely independent state. The Caym are
never good at doing what they’re supposed to do but quite good at doing what they want to do.
While modern Cachain in the south has a cold elegance, the true north is still wild. Neat, tidy and empty
paved roads connect coastal fishing villages like a string of lights. The Caym interior is empty except for
the hunters, the reindeer herders, and the monsters (such as giants) they’re trying to avoid. The
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northern mountains are loaded with active volcanos which are very pleasant when they produce
mountain hot springs, and deadly when they erupt.
Steam is everywhere in Caym, where water often comes out of the ground boiling hot and has to be
cooled before drinking. The three resources Caym has in abundance are coal, iron and caribou. Cold
desperation has led to the use of steam for heat and even primitive pneumatics, but only in Cachain.
Northern towns cleave to the old ways.
GM Advice: Steampunk Swords of the Serpentine

The default technology level in Swords of the Serpentine doesn’t assume machinery much more complex than
siege engines and clockwork. If you want to use these rules in a steampunk setting, however, you could easily set
your game in a world where the Alchemists and Sorcerers of Caym have harnessed steam to make truly marvelous
devices. Add “Tinkering” to General abilities and treat remarkable mechanical devices as Sorcerous Spheres,
describing them on the fly as you exercise your power, and have fun with it.
Government
The Republic of Caym is a true parliamentary republic. No King or Emperor shall ever rule over them.
They feel everyone’s views should be represented and monarchies are ludicrous. The Caym have a
strong anti-authoritarian streak and spend more time taking power away from their government than
granting it.
The Caym Parliament is led by a Speaker, effectively a Prime Minister. They hold elections for
parliamentary seats every four years or whenever they lose confidence in their Speaker, whichever
comes first (the latter can be quite often). The Caym do have a party system, with parties encompassing
the range of Caym political views.
People and Society

The Caym have acquired a reputation as fierce, nigh-insane, warriors. They also have a reputation as
hard-nosed traders and cunning accountants. They’re a precise, methodical people who never allow a
penny to escape their double-entry bookkeeping pens, while always having a very sharp knife handy.
Precision and planning keep them alive.
The Republic has never truly shaken its reputation as a penal colony, although no one has shipped
criminals to Caym in thousands of years. They are proud of this reputation and often boast of their far-
off criminal ancestors who murdered this or that near-legendary famous person in history. Even the
thinnest bespectacled Caym accountant keeps the family axe hanging, polished and sharp, over the
mantelpiece.
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Friends and Enemies
Caym and Eversink would be at each other’s throats if the Serpent’s Neck didn't separate them. But it
does, so instead they focus on mastering their own domains. The Caym and the Vontavni war over
control of the Serpent’s Neck isthmus. They both believe whoever owns that piece of land controls the
world, both in a mythic and tactical sense.
The Caym toy with the idea of developing enough alchemical and steam technology to reclaim the
Destroyed Plateau. They haven’t had any major breakthroughs but they believe with grit, technology
and steam, they can make inroads to claiming the former Serpentine Empire. It’s not that they want it;
they just don’t want anyone else to have it.
Cachain
Cachain is the ancient capital and home city of the Caym. Surprisingly elegant, this city has come a long
way since the days as a dirty prison colony. Now it is a city of prim little row houses and brick-paved
roads on the mouth of the Serpent Sea. Steam is everywhere in Cachain. From heating kitchens to
running steam-belching mechanized passenger transports down the center of its main street, the coal-
fired furnaces and underground steam vents are unavoidable.
Despite its small footprint, Cachain is an important trade and banking hub and growing bigger by the
day. Cachain’s banks have led the way in novel monetary innovations and new ways to gamble on trade.
Some fear that Cachain will soon rival Eversink’s sheer might for trade in the Serpent Sea. Luckily, the
city also has the reputation of being run by criminals, whether that’s still true or not.
The Vontavni Horse Lords and the Great Flatlands

When you need endless plains and notoriously independent mounted troops, come to the Great Flatlands
The Great Flatlands is a grand vista prairie of the west that runs for a thousand miles in all directions
before reaching a city or an ocean. One can ride for weeks without seeing another person. It’s a land of
huge skies, oceans of high grass, and very suspicious horselords who detest or scorn nearly everything
about Eversink.
The Vontavni Horse Lords are a wandering, warring, herding and trading society that lives out of large
round tents. They don’t believe in material society. Their armed horsemen are terrifying. They use
flocking tactics and they’ve been known to overrun a city in a matter of hours.
Government
The Great Khathor is the Center of the Universe. They are the middle of All. All roads in the world lead to
their tent. All will bend the knee to their might.
The first Khathor rose from the cattle herders and the sheep herders. From a single horse and a single
bow, she brought together the clans. From the clans, she forged a people. The people are called
Vontavni. All who live within the clans, regardless of where they came from at birth, are Vontavni. They
care not from where one came, but where one is going. As such the Vontavni have a poor memory of
history, an unusual sense of time, and their prophets are particularly skilled in seeing the future.
The Great Khathor delivers their words to the Okat, the clan-leaders, and the Okat deliver the words to
the Clans. The Clans deliver the words to the people. The people then live as one, the Vontavni.
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When the Great Khathor passes into moonlight, the Okat fight with bow, knife and fist at the center of
the Tent City of Surharnil. All are invited to come and watch — it’s a great spectacle! Whoever survives
is the one the Gods blessed. They become the new Great Khathor, and the newly appointed Okat swear
allegiance to them.
People and Society

They say the Vontavni are born astride horses and are deadly shots with a bow. These long, tall, fierce
people live their lives on the move taking only what their horses can carry in a complex net of
saddlebags and containers. They’re known for their harmony with the land and their ability to create a
home wherever they are on the steppes.
Men and women are more equal here than in other societies, even enlightened societies like Eversink
and Caym. Constant travel, hunting, herding and war leaves no breathing room for one to be greater or
lesser than the other. The Great Khathor is traditionally a woman, but men have also achieved that
honor, and no one particularly thinks twice because the selection process ensures that their leader is
not weak.
Families live together in small tent cities where the hunting is good. When the herds move with the
seasons, the Vontavni pull up stakes and follow the herds across the steppes. Few Vontavni are
interested in settling down and pursuing agriculture. They’d prefer to trade or take from neighbors if
they have a need.
Immediate family, the Clan, is the most important organizing influence. Clans fight each other for
hunting grounds, and grudges are carried for centuries. When it’s time for war, clans put their historical
feuds and animosity aside. One clan at war is terrifying; a thousand clans together is an unstoppable war
machine.
Friends and Enemies

The Vontavni’s biggest enemy is the Caym. They’ve been in perpetual war with the former outlaws over
dominion of the Serpent’s Neck for an age. They are blood enemies. Even meeting in bars in far-off
cities, the Vontavni and the Caym are immediately at each other’s throats.
They’re also keen to destroy the Min who lurk on their easternmost shore. The Witch-Queens of Min are
a blight who will bring another age of Darkness to the world. As long as the Witch-Queens live, the
Vontavni will never stop trying to end the pirates.
For all else, all roads lead to Surharnil, no matter where it stands. The Vontavni guarantee the safety of
all traders who come to their glorious tent city.
Yrans
A council of three ancient kings, immortal and undying, rules the haunted Sorcerer City of Yrans. They
trace their rule to before recorded time, and do not consider themselves part of the Vontavni. Yrans
remembers the Serpentine Empire well but speaks nothing about it except that what was once lost can
be found again.
Situated on a long, thin mountainous outcropping over the Moonlit Sea, Yrans is a city of great sorcery
and unsettling architecture. People travel thousands of miles to learn the ways of sorcery and magic in
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Yrans’ academies. They accept few and turn away everyone else at the gate. A small city surrounds the
academies and caters to sorcerous needs.
Known mainly as a hub of black magic and oily alchemy, the people of Yrans also supply well-trained
horses to the Vontavni and craft the world’s finest leatherwork.
The Tent City of Surharnil

All roads end at the Great Tent City of Surharnil, home of the Great Khathor. All are welcome to come,
to worship, and to give supplication to the Center of All.
Surrounded by thousands of tents, the Great Khathor holds court in the cavernous central pavillon.
Surharnil has no fixed location; the entire city of a hundred thousand (or more) horse warriors picks up
and relocates to somewhere new on the Great Flatlands with the seasons to follow the hunt. When it re-
establishes itself, Surharnil transforms into a giant, multi-year long open-air marketplace and fair. The
Vontavni Horse Lords cart back goods from their conquests across the world and deposit them for sale
next to roasted goat and yak-hair coats. Mercanti agents from Eversink make their way to Surharnil to
find unearthed gems found and discarded in heaps.
Pirates of Min
We’d call these backbiting, suspicious, lawless pirates rabble if they didn’t effectively control the seas
The Min are pirates, mobsters, smugglers and fishers living in a loose confederation. They live in pirate
settlements, fishing villages, and flotillas thrown up along the rocky coastlines and islands of the Moonlit
Sea. Treacherous crags and shallow mountains protect the Min from Vontavni Horse Lord raids,
otherwise they’d have been wiped away centuries ago. Their home city — and only city — is Min, a vast
flotilla of sunken and still floating naval craft bobbing in a protected cove.
The Pirates of Min are surprisingly pro-trade when they find nations to trade with them. They’re also
pro-theft when they find nations who are resistant to the idea of open trading with bloodthirsty pirates.
Government
Min is an autocratic government of tyrants. Whoever wins the most sea battles, kills the most people,
stockpiles the most gold and forces the most cities under their flag gets to set the rules, and the rules
are inevitably “you follow the rules of the current autocratic tyrant.” Currently, the winner of the Most
Ruthless Pirate in Min is the ancient Witch-Queen and her coterie of storm sorceresses on board the
ship Rose Lust. The Witch-Queen claims to originally hail from Mieng of Senggon and wields the kind of
terrible sorcery not seen on the Moonlit Sea since the Serpentine Empire. It’s not clear if that’s true, but
the Pirates do fear her and the sea seems to obey her. Don’t call her “ancient” if you’re unfortunate
enough to meet her; she maintains the illusion of glorious youth by draining vitality from those who
displease her. It’s rare that she looks older than twenty.
Under the Witch-Queen’s withering gaze, exiled kings, infighting petty lords, pirate captains, rogue
sorcerers fleeing ‘Sinkish justice, and anyone with a criminal gang gobbles up power at a local level. They
tussle among themselves for fishing village and pirate fleet control. They plot and scheme while trying to
not draw the Witch-Queen’s gaze, since she runs a network of sorcery, spies, murder and fear. Those
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who grow too powerful often disappear, and someone more palatable to the current regime replaces
them.
People and Society

Min is a huge melting pot and a society of immigrants. It’s the kind of place people fleeing the law and
exiles on the lam end up. People from every nation, nationality, religion, and disposition live among the
Min. No one asks too many questions. Asking questions isn’t healthy.
Min is a rough place. You’re either climbing the social pyramid on a pirate ship or living as an exploited
but quiet peasant fisherman in a coastal village. People try hard for the quiet life because living as a
pirate is a notoriously brutish and short existence. But Pirate Lords need crew, and quiet peasants know
how to sail, so it’s not uncommon for pirates to go raiding their own coasts — along with everyone
else’s coasts — for crew to press into service.
For those who achieve status among the pirates, life is good. Unlike Capria’s strict hierarchy or
Eversink’s Ancient Nobles, anyone can become a Pirate King if they’re ruthless and murderous enough.
Until they draw the Witch-Queen’s gaze, that is, and then it’s all over.
Friends and Enemies

The Min pirates have no international friends. They’ve been a thorn in Eversink’s side for hundreds of
years, if not longer. The Caprian city of Torith sends a stream of patrols to hunt Min pirates and sink
their ships. The Min once shot down a Caym airship over the Serpent’s Neck and have yet to hear the
end of that incident. They’re constantly under threat of a Vontavni raid from the west. Their closest,
weakest ideological allies are those who flee from the Border Towns, but even then the Destroyed
Plateau separates them.
But the Min are useful. They make terrific mercenaries in international proxy wars. They’re superb foils
when covering up big international crimes (the Min are always at fault!). Everyone wants to defeat
them... but not to the point of actually defeating them, because that would take away their usefulness.
The Min continue to survive in a world of much stronger, more aggressive enemies.
Min
The “city” of Min wasn’t so much founded as it accreted over time, like barnacles on a ship’s hull. A trick
of rocky coastal geography and a run of notorious storms rammed pirate ship after ship against the
deceptively hidden shoals in an otherwise protected cove. The cove gained notoriety as a dangerous
place to sail and a good place to hide from pursuers, especially from Eversink and Torith. After a while,
pirates started deliberately anchoring their prizes in the cove over the shallows. Eventually, Min was
born.
Min is thousands of anchored and sunken ships lashed together with chain and rope, almost a mile
wide. It’s a chaotic maze of decks, broken ship interiors, dinghies, rafts, hidden treasure rooms,
forgotten secrets and nighttime floating markets. The locals build homes from driftwood, broken ship
slats, abandoned sails and whale bone. Enormous docks shoot out into the bay at crazy angles. At night,
whale oil lamps burn bright and float in the darkness like fireflies.
The city is currently in the hands of Pirate King Calhoun “Shifty” Xander and the bloodthirsty mobster
crew of the Cruel Howl. He walks a careful edge between a merciless grip on Min and not irritating the
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Witch-Queen and her sorceresses. Meanwhile, Shifty Xander is scheming both to destroy the Witch-
Queen of Min and to date her. He’s not sure which he would prefer.
Theocracy of Erebos
A distant land of astonishing learning and culture, so long as you’re willing to worship their god
Erebos is a far-off desert country on the far eastern side of the Salt Mountains of Lut, where they speak
liquid tongues rarely heard in Eversink. Erebos is a land of plenty known for its gold, grapes, gems, red
wine, and unusual weapons. Here, the nameless God of Fire and Flame holds absolute power.
Erebos is also a land of contradictions. To the west are the dusty and deadly Salt Mountains of Lut which
cough up endless metals and gems from the mines. Meanwhile, the southeastern coast is a vast
rainforest full of exotic animals, mythical beasts, rare reagents, and small gods desperately trying to find
followers to believe in them.
Government
Erebos is an absolute theocracy and worships the God of Fire and Flame, whose only true name sounds
like the crackling of burning flesh. The Great Malik sits at the head of a religious hierarchy that stretches
through a complex weave of priests, missionaries, scholars, judges, sorcerers and religious police.
Everyone follows the dictate of the Great Malik absolutely, attends religious service, and never speaks
out against their Priest-King or their God. The Great Malik fashions himself as a father of all the people.
He hopes to be the father to all the people of the world. His many children travel the continent in
disguise, spying for their father and acting as diplomats and missionaries. Each of his children makes it a
point of pride to visit Eversink at least once.
People and Society

While religious, the people of Erebos are nowhere near as rigid as their government. While everyone
worships the God of Fire and Flame, they also keep little shrines to the Gods of Jaguars, Elephants,
Crocodiles, and other smaller gods. They are a spiritual people who remember their old Gods before the
zealots came. They are mentally flexible in private where their government demands absolute
obedience in public.
The people are warm and welcoming. They love to sell their wares to strangers and they enjoy the thrill
of striking the difficult bargain. They also aren't big on paying taxes and know every way to cheat the
local tax collectors — information they're happy to pass on for a small bribe.
Some people of Erebos serve in the long-range travel caravans that wander the long roads from
Dezhakos to Hohenach. Others wander the dangerous rainforests in search of that one rare reagent or
gem, or know the secrets of the Salt Mountains of Lut. Others still become sorcerers in the
government's service.
Friends and Enemies

Erebos is quietly, aggressively expansionist while espousing peace through open trade. The Great Malik
wants all the people of the world to worship his God and come under his banner. Eversink has expelled
more than a few Erebosian missionaries from their city for proselytizing and sorcery. By sending his own
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children into the world as spies and diplomats, the Great Malik trusts that they will be granted greater
leniency than less important missionaries would.
The Great Malik has also riled up the Caprians and the King of Irilev, who have their own gods and don't
need another. While the Caprians do active trade with the Theocracy of Erebos through Hohenach,
they’re concerned their city will “flip” its worship and allegiance to Erebos. If that happens, the Caprians
will declare war.
Omuzaphur
Omuzaphur is a great, ancient walled city sitting on the crossroads at the foot of the deadly Salt
Mountains of Lut. The dusty roads head in all cardinal directions: north to Irilev, west to Caym, south to
Capria and east to the Theocracy of Erebos.
All sorts of people wander through Omuzaphur to buy and sell at its enormous central marketplace. The
market nearly rivals Eversink’s for its sheer variety of goods for sale, from exotics to furs, spices, cloth,
and rare weapons. As a crossroads city, it buys and sells the best and worst the world has to offer. If it’s
for sale, it’s findable in Omuzaphur’s booths for a price.
Also as a crossroads city, Omuzaphur is as corrupt as they come. Everyone is on the take, from the tax
collector assessing tariffs at the city gate to the religious police to the local politicians to the local
bartender. If you come to the crossroads of the world to trade in exotics, you’d better be prepared to
pay a little extra on the side.
Dezhakos
Dezhakos is a port city in the heart of a rainforest, the home of the Great Malik, and a massive religious
complex. The city smells of lily and honeysuckle.
The Bet Hurasu, an enormous ziggurat dripping with hanging gardens and vines, stands at the city
center. Leading up to the Bet Hurasu are wide boulevards festooned with statuary and greenery.
Smaller, lesser temples and religious buildings surround the Bet Hurasu like they’re supplicants coming
to pray. Religious functionaries rush to and fro, randomly scolding random bystanders before rushing off
to their next obligation.
The people are as remarkable as the locale. They wear brightly dyed silks, woven grasses, animal skins,
and loops upon loops of gold. They trade in the world’s most exotic goods — bananas and other fruit,
black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, handfuls of rare glittering gemstones, and furs — from their stalls along
the roads.
The Kingdom of Irilev

A frigid land of terrifying legends and folk tales, most of which are probably true
Irilev is where it’s cold, icy, dark, and strange. The Grand Prince of Irilev rules over vast, far-eastern,
near-mythical lands known for witches riding flying bowls, dark old gods, gigantic wolves, and anxious
soul-hungry undead. Sorcerers practice in the open. The people believe Irilev is big, empty, and trying to
eat you. They’re probably not wrong.
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Irilev has long, hard winters and painfully short summers. Vast, empty tracts of land separate the cities
(called Rechs). Most people live in small, close-knit villages on the edges of civilization, and stay away
from the trees. Irilev is far from Eversink, but huge, fur-wearing, big-laughing traders show up to sell rare
furs, metals, gems, and alchemical reagents in Eversink’s Grand Marketplace. The locals don’t trust
them.
Government
Prince Stepan I Zhurov (Zhurov Stepan Artemesovich) is the current Grand Prince of the Irilev. He’s
young and recently ascended to the Princedom after his mother, Grand Princess Teresa II, came to a
sudden and violent end at the hands of dark things in the forest.
The Irilev rule their kingdom more through the expansion of thinly populated land than through iron-
fisted military rule. It is a loose confederation of small principalities loyal to the Grand Prince. The Grand
Prince’s strength waxes and wanes. Sometimes he’s a Prince among Princes and the Dukes run their
own Rech (seat) autonomously. When all is threatened, he acts as a King.
The people are not serfs or slaves — they are free to move around and settle at will. Normally, the
Irilevian people stay where they’re born since it’s safer, but occasionally some will break off to form a
new village out on the periphery.
People and Society

The Irilevian people are big, easy-going and friendly once they consider you trustworthy. They are
mostly farmers and traders, with some professionals like local witches and small-time alchemists. Most
live in small, close-knit villages outside the Rechs. Because of the terrors outside in the forests, they
have ready hospitality for visitors on tap — eat, eat, eat! Food, drink, warm beds — they open their
doors and homes to strangers. It’s part of their culture, their religion, and their internal philosophy.
But the Irilevian people are extremely superstitious. Anything can bring evil spirits and dark gods out
from the forests or from under the floorboards. They festoon their clothing with amulets and cards to
ward away the evil eye. They cover their homes in statues, prayer niches, candles, and holy relics to hold
the monsters at bay. They are careful how they talk because even loose comments bring doom.
Always watch what you say or do around the Irilevians — they take evil seriously.
Friends and Enemies

Irilev is a bit isolationist. It will sit politically dormant for centuries and then a Prince decides he wants to
raid the Borderlands or take land from Erebos. Armies appear, gobble up more territory, and move
people in. Then it goes dormant again and returns to its isolationist ways.
The Kingdom does most of its trading with the Caym. Rumor has it the Caym have started mapping and
mining Irilev for their own special steam-and-coal projects.
Luz Rech
Luz Rech is Irilev’s cold capital city on the River Ilys Illan. Known for its furs, metals, and alcohol, Luz Rech
is also home to the Red Tower, a place of wizardry and sorcery. The Grand Prince lives in marvelous
Zolotoy Palace, built on the Ilys Illan.
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For a place so isolated from the rest of the world, one wouldn’t expect the kind of culture Luz Rech
offers. High culture is here: the ballet, the symphony, writers, artists, great food and better drink. The
buildings are architectural marvels and the roads are paved. The Grand Princes invested heavily in Luz
Rech and it paid off in this glittering ice gem.
But Luz Rech is also incredibly corrupt. It requires bribes to get anywhere or to get anything done. While
the people are universally hospitable, the government expects payment for any service. But they’re nice
people here, so they expect to get paid with a smile.
The Kingdom of Senggon

Insular and ancient, with astonishing art and little patience for new ideas
The Kingdom of Senggon is on a far-off island continent accessible only by ship across the icy cold
Wasting Deep. It is an ancient empire with history going back thousands of years. Senggon is unique
among all the known world’s societies as it was untouched by the Serpentine Empire and the Demon
Wars.
This exquisite land is known for its elegant architecture, bilateral symmetry in buildings and town layout,
tall temples, and upturned roofs. Senggon has crowded towns and peaceful misty mountain tops,
alchemists and sages, terraced rice paddies, water buffalo and industrialized fishing. It’s a place where
the people’s dearest and most important cultural unit is their town, and people strive for understanding
and inner peace in the midst of violent wars.
Government
Senggon’s God-Emperor and God-Empress are the Center of the Universe. They and their children are
descended from the Gods. They translate the Divine Will of Heaven into the will of the people.
Upon hearing the Divine Will of Heaven, the God-Emperor or God-Empress consults the Mages of
Senggon, a powerful inner circle of courtiers. They offer the ruling couple their best learned opinion on a
matter from watching the stars, consulting gods, and speaking with ghosts. Then, the God-Emperor and
God-Empress issue a decree.
When the Center of the Universe speaks, a sprawling bureaucracy acts. The bureaucracy reaches from
the highest governors through the military and down to the towns. Like a perfect wind-up music box,
the bureaucracy moves with precision and speed. The God-Emperor’s and God-Empress’ dictate touches
all. The Will of Heaven is the will of the people of Senggon.
Should the Embodiment of the Gods block trade with a country, or enter war, or refuse a diplomat, this
is the Will of Heaven. And it is so and is how it shall ever be.
In some faint ways, the Kingdom of Senggon looks and acts disturbingly like the ancient Serpentine
Empire. No one ever lays eyes on the God-Emperor, the God-Empress, nor their Mages. Some Eversink
traders spread the rumor that the Divine Will of Heaven and their inner circle of Mages are Serpentine.
It’s not a safe rumor to repeat if you don’t like assassins.
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People and Society
The people of Senggon are rigidly bureaucratic but not rabidly inflexible. They’re always aware of their
place in the vast pyramid between themselves and the God-Emperor and God-Empress, from the
highest diplomat to the lowest peasant. This is how they frame their lives. They’ll pay careful deference
to those they believe are above them and throw scorn on those below.
It is impossible to change one’s place in society or one’s fate unless one studies hard, understands the
writings of the Sacred Ancestors and the Thoughts of the Gods and passes governmental exams.
Through meditation, inner strength, and proving one is worthy, one can rise from any place in society to
the feet of the Divine Will. Why, Governor D’eng came from lowly buffalo herders.
While society is neat and orderly to those of Senggon, it is frustrating for foreigners. For example,
Senggon traders will make a deal with Eversink traders to sell a rare tea. Then, a message from the God-
Empress’ bureaucrats arrives. That day, the trader closes shop. A military escort sends the foreigner to
their ship. No one hints why. It just is.
Mieng
Tucked up between a lake and the sea, Mieng is a great, powerful, sprawling city of art and chaos. It is
broken in two — the Inner City and the Outer City.
The Inner City is centered around the thrones of the Divine Family, the Imperial Ebony Palace. No
expense is spared for the Palace, for it takes up multiple city blocks. Enormous crenelated walls
surround the tall, bright yellow buildings with the gabled roofs. Elite Palace Guard watch every entrance
around the clock. No one enters or leaves the Ebony Palace without the God-Emperor’s or God-Empress’
personal and explicit knowledge. Only the Divine Family, their children, the personal household staff and
the Mages of Senggon live within the Palace. Everyone else, even the most powerful courtiers, lives in
the Imperial Quarters of the Outer City.
The Outer City is a mad riot of people, buildings, sound, noise, the calls of barkers and the smells of
cooking food. Crowded and busy, Mieng is a prosperous port city trading on the far side of the world.
One moment, one is walking down a packed market street jostling shoulder to shoulder with hagglers,
and the next, one comes upon a tall, graceful temple pagoda in a circle of quiet and peace. At the next
corner hulks an ugly government taxation building. The city has its own rhyme and reason, but one must
be Senggon to understand it.
The Border Lands

If you’re setting out to conquer a kingdom or carve out your own empire, here’s where to start
The Border Lands are a lawless place of savages, barbarians, wanderers, thieves, and murderers
bordering the Destroyed Plateau. Endless scrubland stretches for hundreds of miles between the
Plateau and the dark old-growth forests of Irilev.
Travelers consider the Border Lands as a crossing place between the civilized empires and the Destroyed
Plateaus left behind by the Demon Wars. Thief Kings have carved out small single-town kingdoms for
themselves through sheer grit, and forced civilization on the population.
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Government
The Border Lands has no organized government. Out here, it’s everyone for themselves. The strongest
rule. It’s a land of people who live by strength, wits, bribes, and open naked graft.
A few established towns — notably Milktown — have strong crime bosses who carved out minute
kingdoms from the endless waste. These places sustain themselves on local food, fresh water, and fear.
The rest pop up, scrabble for survival for a while, and then collapse again.
Outside the stable city-states it’s pure anarchy. No laws. No one to help you. No one to save you. Good
luck.
People and Society

The kind of people who live in the Border Lands are the kind of people who will not and cannot live
anywhere else. These people are attracted by lawlessness. They’re outcasts and exiles. They think Min is
too controlling and too lawful, and that should tell you something.
There aren’t any laws. People live by their wits. The few cities are lawless hellholes. People do what they
want out here.
Milktown
Milktown is a run-down town on the edge of the Border Lands, run by the iron fist of “Mayor” Viltevar
Kearel and his band of enforcers. It’s a hard place mostly known as a trade crossing, whorehouse, drug
bazaar and local saloon for adventurers and mercenaries crossing through to the Destroyed Plateau in
search of treasure and death. No one settles in Milktown, at least not for long.
Rumor has it Mayor Kearel’s brutes like to kidnap adventurers passing through and make them fight in
the Death Pits for entertainment. He posts the odds in the local saloons. Bookies collect after every
fight.
The Destroyed Plateau

Deadly beyond imagining, with lost riches incomparable, and uninhabitable until someone brave proves
otherwise
The Destroyed Plateau was the seat of the Great Serpentine Empire. Currently dotted with destroyed
cities, monstrosities, and roaming demons still chained to their summoning zone, nothing lives here
anymore. Nothing but death.
The Destroyed Plateau is a blight in the center of the continent. It is vast and empty. Nothing grows in
the soil except lichen and some twisted shrubs. The water here is contaminated. Twisted mutant
creatures wander in endless pain looking for a victim. Ghosts howl and feast on the souls of the living.
The land gets sicker as one approaches one of hundreds of tethered demons still wandering its sorcery-
mandated path on the plateau.
But such riches hide here! The secrets of the Serpentine lurk below the surface waiting for the brave,
the bold, and the foolish. To the adventurer go the spoils — at least those who escape deadly water,
soil, air, demons, monsters, and undead.
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Camadi
Camadi is one of the many ruined cities that dot the destroyed and blighted plateau. It was a wealthy
and powerful trading metropolis of nearly a million souls. Human slave labor built its white boulevards,
gleaming palaces and towering temples for the Serpentine Empire’s greater glory.
Now Camadi is nothing but miles of rubble. The winds howl through broken arches. Half-human
scavengers and mutated animals inhabit the few functional buildings left. The water and air are poison.
Death emanates from the soil. Demons lurch along broken streets, following a path forced on them by
their sorcerous masters thousands of years ago.
Despite the danger, Camadi lures adventurers. The books tell lurid stories of the spectacular Fall of
Camadi and artifacts of power left behind. Sorcerous mysteries lie hidden in that city somewhere. But
no one has plundered the Serpentines’ darkest secrets and survived.
One Serpentine artifact will make an adventurer richer than their wildest dreams, so people still come to
this place of death. Few escape.
Salt Mountains of Lut

Isolated mountain-folk in quiet lands where gods still walk
The Salt Mountains of Lut form a range extending like a ridge between Capria, Irilev and Erebos. The
range has the world’s highest peaks, eight more than 24,000 ft high. The world’s major freshwater
rivers, including the Serpentine and the Ilys Illan, have their beginnings as spring flows high up in the Salt
Mountains; some salty rivers even flow from this range, although they’re quickly diluted by rainfall. The
mountains have a profound effect on climate, breaking up the monsoons and hurricanes during the
rainy season.
Tens of thousands of people live in the valleys between the peaks, separated almost entirely from
outside civilization. These migratory people have created their own place in the Salt Mountains, with
their own local cultures and beliefs. They say the gods still wander the mountains like they did in the
Ancient Days, before the Serpentine. They aren’t wrong.
Sacred areas abound. The Temple Complex Mulgai is a holy place and a destination for pilgrimage and
meditation. The Shining Father, God of the Peaks, lives within. Another is the Parshan Grove, where the
Serpent Gods dwell. Many come here in search of inner peace.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN: CORPSE ASTRAY
an introductory adventure
Corpse Astray is an introductory adventure that has fairly uncomplicated investigation, interesting
negotiation, and a very memorable fight. It’s designed to show you how to read and run scenes, how
investigating leads in the game works, and how fights are designed. It can be played in 3–4 hours.
Adventure Premise
An embittered (and ensorcelled) Commoner named Antoni Valori seeks vengeance for how the nobility
mistreated his late mother, but he’s being manipulated and encouraged by his confederates to strike
back in a way that’s far out of proportion to the offense. Will the Heroes pull him back from the brink
before he does something unthinkable? Will his conspirators put his plan into effect, even if he recants?
One thing is for sure: if Antoni’s plan goes through and no one stops it, hundreds of people will die in a
sorcerous assault that then invites retribution upon the Commoners, probably killing thousands more
and even triggering a civil war. If the Heroes step in to stop it, they may be able to make their mark on
Eversink in a way that people remember.
GM Advice: It’s Okay to Go Big

Not every adventure should shake the city, but it’s great fun to thrust the Heroes into situations where they’re
bound to offend or draw the attention of at least one faction. It’s also fun to have adventures that in some way
destroy or change the physical infrastructure of the city: houses sink, neighborhoods catch on fire, or (in this case)
a massive undead monstrosity crawls across the city destroying everything in its path unless the Heroes and others
stop it.
If you don’t want to go big in this adventure, make the fleshtangle more difficult for Antoni to successfully
animate. The Heroes can have a chance of stopping him before things get really bad. Then they’ll just have to
decide what to do with 60 or so hideously merged corpses.
Setting
This adventure takes place in Eversink, although it starts on a ship headed for Eversink’s harbor. The
primary confrontation will likely occur in the Tangle, Eversink’s primary working-class neighborhood full
of close-knit, tight-lipped Commoners.
Tone
Corpse Astray leans towards classic sword & sorcery, focusing on gritty fighting and investigation mixed
with a horrific undead monstrosity that the Heroes may have to fight. Unless the Adversary rallies his
Commoner neighborhood against the Heroes, any political manipulation from Allegiances is likely
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triggered by the Heroes themselves. The goal is to introduce the game while focusing on the core rules;
if you’re already familiar with Swords of the Serpentine, you may wish to expand the adventure using the
suggestions provided.
This adventure can accommodate Heroes allied with any factions. Heroes with ranks in Allies:
Commoners will find some advantages; Heroes who have ranks in Enemies: Commoners will find the
adventure more challenging.
Hints for Running the Game

Players are soon going to get confused whenever you have multiple supporting characters and
unfamiliar names. Use index cards to write out known leads or clues, people’s names, and to identify
factions within Eversink that the Heroes are encountering.
Plot Summary
At the start of the adventure, the following things are true.
Antoni Valori is a Commoner with an unusual Noble lineage: his late mother was from a prestigious
family but had been disowned when she eloped with a Commoner. Antoni was recently spurned by
his grandparents when he attempted to have his mother buried in the family crypt, and it hasn’t
been good for him. His plan for justice (as he sees it, anyway) is well underway.
Antoni has turned from diplomacy to sorcery to accomplish his misguided goal. He invited a weak
small god named Uxorioth into him, planning to use that sorcerous power to change his
grandparents’ minds — but he’s also found a fabled sorcerous libram (Zelgrieb’s Notebook of
Dissection — see page XX) that has leached away his good judgment and filled him with obsession.
Antoni’s new plan is to construct a fleshtangle, a monstrosity made of corpses, and use it to kill
every other member of his bloodline. Once they’re dead, he figures, interring his mother in the
family crypt should be simple.
Look, we didn’t say it was a good plan.
Antoni’s obsession has taken over his common sense, much to Uxorioth’s frustration and
annoyance. The small god is using every trick at its disposal to distract or stall Antoni from animating
the fleshtangle, but its effectiveness is failing.
Antoni hired a dangerous and unprincipled woman named Donastra to obtain corpses for him.
Donastra and her minions have also stolen three Valori family funerary statues from the church
niches where they’ve been for decades — statues that will be used to set the fleshtangle on a hunt
for members of the Valori family. Donastra and her minions have also been stealing or purchasing
corpses from everywhere they can find them. Donastra has hired pirates to prey on incoming
vessels, she has her gang steal corpses from legitimate morticians, and she and her gang even
manufacture a few corpses themselves. Antoni doesn’t know about these murders and would be
appalled if he did.
Donastra’s gang pretend to be official corpse-collectors (much to the frustration of the local
morticians), and they gather bodies in tarp-covered carts, load them into canal boats, and sneak
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them into Antoni’s home in the Tangle once it gets dark. They then toss the corpses over a balcony
railing down onto the lower floor, where the corpses slowly merge into the fleshtangle. Locals in this
block of the Tangle notice a foul smell, but Antoni is using sorcerous persuasiveness to make any
investigator or rabble-rouser forget entirely about the odor.
If the Heroes do nothing, within a week Uxorioth’s stall tactics will fail and Antoni will sacrifice
someone to power the fleshtangle. He will shatter the three funerary statues he’s stolen, and the
scent of those spirits will guide the monstrosity through sewers and canals and streets towards
Alderhall, killing everyone it meets along the way. If not stopped, it will rip apart the Valori tower
and kill Antoni’s blood relatives. Then it will disappear into the undercity and become free-willed.
Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection will disappear soon after the fleshtangle is animated, eventually
showing up elsewhere in the city in some future time and place.
Over time (likely many adventures), the horror and slaughter caused by a successful revenge scheme
will cause the Commoners to be persecuted by almost every other faction in the city. That in turn
will raise political tensions enough that civil war might erupt. Any Heroes or factions associated with
publicly defeating the fleshtangle will receive acclaim and recognition as city heroes, whether that’s
deserved or not.
If successful, Antoni will eventually inherit the Valori fortune and (shattered) estate if no one
identifies him as the perpetrator (unlikely at best; he’s bad at hiding evidence). Once he inherits,
Donastra will murder him, steal his newly acquired wealth (less than she’d expected), and flee.
Primary Adversaries
Antoni Valori
Antoni Valori is the son of a woman named Lady Salia Valori, a member of Eversink’s Ancient Nobility
until 25 years ago when she defied all proper protocol to fall in love with (gasp!) and marry a Commoner
stonecarver named Bellari. Her family disinherited her, of course, but Salia didn’t mind. She was drawn
to art, and her marriage to Bellari brought her tremendous joy. Antoni was their only child and he grew
up in loving but meager surroundings in their beautifully carved home in the Tangle. His whole life he
has not-so-secretly resented his grandmother’s cruelty in cutting his mother off from her birthright. He’s
popular in his neighborhood, and the locals remember both of his parents fondly.
Antoni is now 24. His father died a decade ago and his mother just passed away a few months ago. He
wanted only one thing from his grandparents: for his mother to be interred in the family crypt on their
estate in Alderhall. His grandmother, Lady Ansala Valori, refused and had her guards throw Antoni off
the family property. No Commoner (and here her words dripped with spite as Antoni was dragged away)
was part of her family.
Okay, thought Antoni, after he recovered from the misery and depression of his broken morale. We’ll do
this the hard way.
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He could have gotten his friends to break into the Valori crypt and smuggle in his mother’s corpse; who
would have noticed? But that was no longer good enough. The Valoris needed to be punished for their
pride and haughtiness4.
So Antoni sought power anywhere he could find it. He bargained with an immortal entity that now
shares his soul, a coldly smiling small god named Uxorioth who Antoni incorrectly thinks of as a demon.
He fell in with Donastra, who is bad company and is riding his coattails to power. And he unexpectedly
came across Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection, an ancient book — oh, such a book! — that promises to
give him exactly the sort of revenge for his mother that he now craves. With all of his new allies’ help, he
will soon create an unnatural and horrific undead monstrosity that will seek out and destroy every other
member of his family.
This is, unquestionably, an awful idea that will inflame hostility towards the Commoners and the Nobility
both, and possibly start a civil war if it occurs. The worst part is that the small god giving Antoni
sorcerous powers knows it. It had settled into Antoni’s soul expecting a lifetime of growing power and
manipulation, and now it’s stuck inside someone who won’t listen to it and who wants to do something
that is going to get them both very, very destroyed by Denari’s Inquisitors. The small god Uxorioth is
thus actively working against Antoni and delaying his plan for revenge by turning Antoni into a
perfectionist, so that he can’t move forward until the fleshtangle is “just right”. This sudden tendency
towards being a perfectionist is driving his unstable confederate Donastra into fits, and she’s at the
point where she is considering killing Antoni and just animating the damn fleshtangle herself.
If Uxorioth gets destroyed or cast out while Antoni lives, possibly by the Heroes themselves, Antoni’s
tendency towards perfectionism will disappear and he can move forward with his plan again. The results
might be very bad indeed.
But from Antoni’s twisted perspective, the memory of his mother Salia has suffered a mortal insult and
the remnants of their ancestral family are going to pay. Technically, they’re all going to die. And then
Antoni will inherit the estate, and he can reward his friends and inter his mother wherever he wants. He
thinks of himself as a dutiful son doing what is right and proper, not as a villain with a huge mound of
twitching corpses in his basement.
Antoni works out of his childhood home in the Tangle, a gorgeously carved building nicknamed “Noble
House” by others on the block of stone-carvers and sculptors. It’s one of the most beautiful buildings in
the neighborhood and is a landmark that will be immediately recognizable by anyone familiar with this
part of the Tangle. For more on Noble House, see p. XX.
Uxorioth
Originally a small god of unctuousness and persuasion who has nearly been forgotten in Eversink,
Uxorioth grants its host sorcerous abilities that attack an enemy’s Morale. It can chat silently with
Antoni and make him more persuasive, but only another person with the Investigative ability Spirit Sight
can hear or see it directly inside his body.
4 Don’t be shy about finding inspiration in your favorite cultural sources, even when they’re seemingly unrelated to classic
fantasy. Corpse Astray’s starting premise (up to this footnote, at least) is deliberately drawn from the wonderful movie Kind
Hearts and Coronets (1949), starring Dennis Price and Alec Guinness.
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The relatively weak small god has no physical form, but appears to Spirit Sight as an entity made of
yellow light with no facial features other than a wide and smiling mouth. Its form overlays Antoni’s real
body for those that can see it. If somehow driven from Antoni, it will be unable to possess another
mortal unless invited in. It will fade in days if it goes without daily prayer and will eventually vanish into
forgotten memory when no one remembers to venerate it. It may even try to bribe the Heroes into
honoring it with prayer as well.
Uxorioth will gladly converse with someone who can speak to it (typically using Spirit Sight) and is
extraordinarily convincing. That’s one of the reasons it’s so frustrated that it can’t pry Antoni away from
Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection: it’s convinced it could solve his problem on its own without any other
outside help if Antoni would just trust it.
Donastra
This wild-haired thief is as morality-free as they come. She’s a Commoner who hates the Ancient
Nobility (and the Mercanti, and the City Watch, and the Mercenaries, and the Guild of Architects and
Canal-Watchers… okay, she likes dogs, but she hates pretty much everybody else) with every bone in her
body. This is the latest and most interesting scheme she’s come across and she loves its temerity.
Donastra is canny and cruel, and gladly directs her team of 20 minions that is scouring the streets for
corpses. She figures the faster they get corpses, the sooner Antoni can put his plan into action and she
can steal his newly acquired money. She has no loyalty to him, and Antoni’s reluctance to animate the
fleshtangle and put his plan into action is stretching her very short patience to the limit. Donastra is
highly interested in keeping herself alive; if someone crosses her and she can’t immediately kill them,
she’s most likely to retreat and catch them off guard later.
The Fleshtangle
The sorcerous grimoire Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection (see p. XX) has possessed Antoni and is
instructing him to gather the ingredients for a fleshtangle. This horrific monstrosity is a Corruption-
powered amalgam of merged flesh and unliving hatred. It gains 1 Health from every human or animal
body within it; currently it is made up of roughly 45 human corpses and 15 dead pigs (increase or
decrease this quantity based on the size of your group; for a longer and particularly fun fight, its Health
should average 15 Health per Hero in your party, or 20 Health per Hero if you want a greater challenge
for your group).
At the adventure’s start, the fleshtangle is immersed in the Notebook’s aura and the flesh of all the
corpses has merged into a revolting tangle of naked torsos, limbs, and partially exposed heads. It
twitches and shifts but is not yet sentient or able to move.
Thanks to the influence of Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection, Antoni treats the fleshtangle like a close
friend or a member of his family and sees nothing odd in this (his revolted confederates more or less
humor him). He plans to train the fleshtangle to sorcerously seek and destroy other members of the
Valori family by attuning it to the smell of their souls. His minions have stolen several funerary statues
from the Valoris, and Antoni will shatter them and use the scent of the souls they’re associated with to
guide the fleshtangle’s hunger.
To fully animate and launch the fleshtangle, Antoni will have to follow the instructions in the notebook.
He’ll need to spend all points of Corruption at once and externalize that Corruption so it can be
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channeled into the twitching heap of merged corpses through a human sacrifice. If he can do so, the
fleshtangle will animate. It’s worth noting that what a “sacrifice” consists of isn’t especially specific; if
the Heroes kill Antoni or anyone else after he externalizes the Corruption, that’s enough to awaken the
fleshtangle.
Involving the Heroes

The Heroes may pursue the adventure out of vengeance for almost being killed by pirates in Scene 1,
annoyance at missing out on the reward for capturing or killing Captain Precia Cointongue if her body
goes missing in Scene 3, or out of a sense of doing what’s right. If that fails, they will be hired by the
corpse-taking morticians whose corpses keep getting stolen by Donastra and her gang.
If these leads don’t catch the Heroes’ attention by the end of Scene 3, you can use their Allegiances to
recruit them into the adventure. Here are some options.
• Ancient Nobility or Church of Denari: The Valori family have had three funerary statues stolen
and they think they know who is responsible: their estranged grandson. Since they want this
solved without being embarrassed, they want to hire discreet strangers to assist and mediate.
• Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers: The Guild is receiving reports of a foul smell in the
Tangle and no one has been able to find it (actually, Antoni is sorcerously convincing them this
isn’t a problem). The Guild suspects something odd is afoot and wants more muscle to track
down the minor problem.
• City Watch: The undermanned Watch is getting multiple reports of stolen corpses, probably all
stolen by the same people, and they’re trying to track the thefts down but don’t have enough
officers right now to follow up leads. They’re willing to hire some temporary deputies for field
work.
• Commoners: Antoni Valori’s best friend Pietro is worried. Ever since Antoni’s mother died he’s
been distant, and now he’s just acting strangely: weirdly charismatic, smells bad, and he’s
hanging out with really the wrong type of people. The friend has been shunned by Antoni, but
perhaps the Heroes, as strangers, can intercede?
• Sorcerous Cabal: A mysterious sorcerer (possibly a patron of one of the Heroes) gains an inkling
that something is wrong in the Tangle, and the Heroes are hired to track down the trail of
missing corpses before some neophyte damages the Cabal’s reputation even further.
• Triskadane: Prophets working for the Triskadane have determined that there’s an undefined
problem with some stolen funerary statues that’s worthy of following up. Bored bureaucrats are
willing to hire the Heroes as agents, and the Heroes are referred to the Valori family.
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Plot Map
Scene 1:
Aboard the
Shining Coin
Scene 2:
Approaching Eversink
Scene 3:
Corpsetakers at
the Docks
Find Noble House

Follow the Corpsetakers?
on your own
Scene 5:
Antonio Valerio and Noble House
Learn
Talk to Enter the
About
Antoni House Explore the
Noble House
House
Fight!
Scene 6:
Horrible Rampage
Track & kill the fleshtangle!

Scene 7:
Aftermath and
Conclusion
Expanding the Core Adventure

This adventure is more linear than an average adventure, with no red herrings and fewer branches than
normal. That’s by design in case you want to fit this into a 3–4-hour game session or use it as a one-shot
adventure to learn the rules. If you’re interested in expanding Corpse Astray, here are a few ways to do
so. Pick and choose the options that sound fun.
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• Before the Heroes even reach Eversink, follow Captain Precia Cointongue’s treasure map to dig
up buried and cursed pirate treasure from a mysterious island in the Bay of Coins.
• Precia’s personal sorcerer, a withered and bitter weather manipulator who is wanted by the
law, has sworn to avenge Precia’s death. He gathers his apprentices and minions and tracks the
Heroes through Eversink, complicating their actions and thwarting them whenever possible.
• Scene 3 becomes a combat scene when Donastra herself joins the four corpsetakers. Once her
cover is blown she’ll try to do as much damage as possible before she escapes by diving into the
bay and swimming for it. They’ll meet her again at Noble House if she survives, but this time
she’ll be ready.
• The use of Prophecy steers the Heroes to talk to Antoni’s grandparents, Lady Ansala Valori and
her young third husband Tellio. She’s an elderly, bitter old woman who still feels personally
betrayed that her favorite daughter (whose name she’s still too angry to speak after 30 years)
abandoned her birthright to run away with some commoner. Lady Ansala will hire the Heroes to
reclaim family funerary statues that she’s sure her grandson (whose name she also refuses to
speak) recently stole. He did in fact steal them, planning on using the statues to steer the
fleshtangle towards the Valori estate before killing everyone else of his bloodline.
• Encouraged by his “demon”, Antoni seeks out the Heroes to chastise them for killing his
employees. The irony and sheer stupidity of this is lost to him, purely because Uxorioth is
keeping him as confused as possible. Antoni is fun to roleplay with, and Heroes might somehow
exorcise Uxorioth (with terrible consequences), befriend him (causing him to invite them to
Noble House), kill him (leaving Donastra to take over immediately and put the plan into
immediate action), or have him imprisoned. If the latter, Antoni and Uxorioth will talk their way
out of jail nearly immediately so that the Heroes can encounter him again.
• If any of the Heroes create externalized Corruption in Eversink, a dogged Church Inquisitor will
start tracking them down as a personal nemesis.
• Antoni is being used. A different (unsavory) political group has heard rumor of the fleshtangle,
and wishes to pay the Heroes to steer it towards their assassination target instead of Antoni’s.
To do so, the Heroes will merely need to swap out Antoni’s stolen funerary statues for some
that this organization will provide, then sit back and do nothing. Will the Heroes accept this evil
but profitable bargain? If the Heroes won’t help, the organization will just have to go around
them… or through them.
• The Heroes can turn the fleshtangle to their own advantage once they learn about it, by
allowing it to be animated and steering the monstrosity to a trap in a public place, where the
ensuing combat will be observed by the most important groups in the city. If they are brave (or
foolish) enough to do this, the Heroes might garner massive fame from their heroics.
• Worshippers of the dead Sorcerer-King Zelgrieb want his notebook back — yeah, that can’t be a
bad thing at all — and aren’t looking at the Heroes as allies in this process.
Starting the Game

Start the game by going around the table and having the players introduce their Heroes. This generally
has them also describing what their Heroes look like. Establish which members of the group have
previously met.
Then go around the table again, asking questions like:

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• What time of year is it?
• What time of day is it?
• What’s the weather currently like?
• Why are you currently on a ship returning to Eversink?
• You’re currently on a ship named The Shining Coin. Do you like the captain and crew?
• What sort of cargo is this ship carrying, and for whom?
• Why are you working together as a team?
Questions like these set the tone for the adventure’s start and remind the players that they have
significant narrative control over the world. Scene 1 might occur in the dead of night, in a snowstorm,
while the streets are flooding during an especially high tide, or at high noon on a beautiful day.
If you prefer, you can establish certain facts. Perhaps the Heroes are the guards for the ship, or
passengers, or are on a special mission for the ship’s Mercanti owners. Set the boundaries, and then
allow the players to world-build within that.
Once you’re ready, proceed with Scene 1.
Scene 1: Aboard The Shining Coin

1.1 Opening the Scene
Scene Type: INTRO
Lead-In: None
Lead-Out: Scene 2
The Heroes are on a ship named The Shining Coin, a 20-crew cargo vessel bound for Eversink. Its master
is Captain Otto Barani, a competent Mercanti tradesman. It’s a solid ship and a reasonable crew.
Unfortunately, few of them are warriors.
The game starts in medias res, with a pirate attack already underway. The Shining Coin has been
boarded by the bloodthirsty pirate crew of the Squandered Hope, a ship captained by an infamous Pirate
of Min named Precia Cointongue.
• Felonious Intent: Precia Cointongue, the Captain of the Squandered Hope, has a price out on her
head (Wealth 5), dead or alive. She’s infamous for always putting a coin under the tongue of
those she kills, just before she slips their corpse into the waves. People say it’s a tithe to
unknown ocean gods.
The ships have been bound to each other with grappling hooks. Some crew members have already been
killed, as have a few pirates. The Heroes start the fight at full Health, Morale, and capabilities. As the
game starts, three nameless pirates are on deck for every Hero, but may be scattered across the deck in
the melee.
Ask each player where on their ship they wish to be, and how many pirates they wish to be close to as
the fight starts. It’s fine if they say “none”, especially if you ask them to roll a Difficulty 4 Stealth test to
have not yet been noticed; they’ll be spotted by pirates as soon as they start making a difference in
combat, and subsequent waves of pirates will target the most effective Heroes.
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• Tactics of Death: There are a lot of pirates, and more still on the pirate ship. Killing or defeating
them as quickly as possible is the best way to avoid being overwhelmed.
• Sense Frailty: Defeating their Captain or First Mate is likely to demoralize the rest of the pirates,
causing most of them to retreat.
• Ridiculous Luck (requires a spend): Precia Cointongue turns out to be a childhood friend of the
Hero. She’ll spare her old friend’s life and is willing to talk, but she’s reluctant to stop
slaughtering everyone else.
Use the pre-game questions to set the scene (including weather and light level) and describe the roar
and chaos of the battle. Then pass out Initiative cards (see p. XX 91) to players and set them out for the
groups of Adversaries, explaining that players might not want to let a group of Adversaries go last. Pick a
player to go first; one with ranks of Vigilance or Tactics of Death is a good choice.
In this scene, tell your players flat-out that unlike most encounters, if they survive they’ll get all their
General ability pools refreshed before the next scene (not the Investigative pools, however, which don’t
refresh until the end of the adventure). Narratively that’s because time will pass before they reach
Eversink, but really it’s because we find that new players have the most fun when they don’t start off
hoarding their points. The goal of this scene is to teach players how the Talents (see p. XX) for 8+ ranks
of Sorcery, Sway or Warfare can defeat more than one foe at once, so don’t feel bad encouraging
players to take out Mooks with big spends before collecting Refresh tokens.
Here are some rules reminders.
• The number of pool points you spend on an attack is your minimum damage rolled on the die.
• Any Health or Morale damage at all will defeat a Mook.
• If your result is 3 or more over the Target Number, and you have the combat Talent for the
ability you’re using to attack, you will also hit another foe within range.
• When fighting foes who aren’t Mooks, you might instead want to spend enough to Critical Hit by
reaching a Difficulty 9 Target Number (see p. XX). This inflicts an extra d6 Damage.
• You can spend Investigative ability pool points to inflict an extra d6 damage per point spent, or
to create fun special effects, but those points are then spent for this adventure.
• Every Mook defeated immediately gives the table one Refresh token that can be claimed and
used to refresh a General ability by 1 point. Every named enemy defeated provides 3 tokens,
except for the Captain who provides 5 tokens when defeated.
Pirates a-plenty (Mooks)

Bloodthirsty, stereotypical
Offense – Warfare: +0; Fixed Damage 3 (filthy saber)
Abilities: Malus 3 (used for Athletics or added to their +1 attack modifier for greater accuracy in a pinch)
Refresh Tokens: 1
The pirates are a surly, murderous lot from a dozen different countries. The ship holds more than 40,
but not all will attack at once (and some are dead or attacking other sailors). While the fight goes on,
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waves of 1–4 pirates per Hero (depending on how challenging you wish the fight to be) swing or leap
over the rail to board The Shining Coin.
Don’t let this combat drag, and keep the fight moving — two waves of pirates are about right before
encountering Captain Precia Cointongue or her first mate Kossos. If Precia and Kossos are both
defeated, surviving pirates suffer 1 point of Morale damage and are defeated; they will retreat,
surrender, or flee. Heroes might spend Investigative points to announce previous relationships with
Precia or Kossos, and this might stop the fight in its tracks or delay it during parley.
Precia Cointongue, Captain of the Squandered Hope

Charming, swashbuckling, sarcastic
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (handmade and very stylish leather), Health 20
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (delighted self-assurance), Morale 12
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (dagger) or +2 (rapier, cleverly customized for her own
hand)
Offense – Sway: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (suggestive taunt)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Defense Boost (cost 6), Extra Action (cost 3); Precia is lucky, and will somehow survive
if knocked overboard
Misc: Precia loves to use her Malus to score Critical Hits and to raise the Difficulty of particularly stylish
Maneuvers.
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: If Precia finds a man or woman attractive, she’ll flirt with them through sword fighting.
She’ll use witty rejoinders for Sway attacks and Maneuvers to disarm, trip, or otherwise gauge her
opponent’s skill. She’s not stupid, though; if her opponent is trying to kill her and has a chance to
succeed, she’ll sigh, buckle down, and do her best to break their heart literally instead of figuratively.
Precia is originally from Eversink, exiled for crimes more than a decade ago. She’s in her late thirties, and
the life of a pirate definitely agrees with her: even with all the murder and the plundering, she seems to
be having a great time. She believes that having great personal style is equally as important as being
deadly, and her reputation reflects this. Precia carries a sack of small copper coins to put one under the
tongue of every corpse she and her pirates create.
Kossos, first mate

Stupid, cruel, intimidating
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 2 (battered chainmail), Health 12
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 1 (stupidity), Morale 10
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +2 (heavy maul)
Abilities: Malus 10
Special Abilities: Strength (cost 3 to knock someone back and double Damage Modifier for 1 round)
Misc: Kossos’ armor gives him a –4 penalty to Athletics tests while trying to swim
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Kossos has a square head, pretty much no neck, and his biceps are the size of most people’s
thighs. Originally from Caym, he has pale skin, pale cropped hair, and some remarkably obscene tattoos.
He’s good at following orders and knows how to sail a boat or whip a sailor, but cleverness or
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independent thinking are not his strong points. He’s particularly prone to humiliation; ignore his Grit if
an attack against his Morale humiliates him in front of the crew.
1.2 Running the Fight

If a Hero has a combat Talent for 8+ ranks in Sorcery, Sway or Warfare, encourage them to try spending
many (or all!) points at once when fighting Mooks. The Hero will kill or defeat one Mook with an attack
Result of 3, two with a Result of 6, three with a Result of 9, and so on. That means spending 8 points in a
single attack can take out three or four unnamed pirates at once, immediately gaining the table one
Refresh token for each pirate defeated. It’s a great way to improve the odds before the enemy even has
a chance to attack. As always, the player gets to describe how they defeated their foes.
Remember that in a pinch, Investigative pool points that are thematically linked can be turned into a
pool of 3 General ability points. This can boost an attack enough to take out an additional Mook; not
usually worth it, but useful in an emergency.
Maneuvers (see p. XX) can be used to disarm or shove pirates about, and Mooks are automatically
defeated if they resist a Maneuver’s effect.
Unnamed pirates or crew knocked overboard are assumed to drown or get eaten by sharks. Any Hero
knocked overboard can make a Difficulty 4 Athletics test to try to cling to the rail; failure means falling
into the ocean. The Difficulty of Athletics tests to swim back to the ship depends on how the players
have described the weather and may vary between Difficulty 3 and 6. Note that chain armor incurs a
penalty to Swimming tests.
The fighting is chaotic and swirls around the deck, with pirates fighting both the surviving crew members
and the Heroes. Don’t bother to roll attacks for any melee a Hero isn’t directly participating in, as the
pirates will win if the Heroes do nothing. It’s up to the Heroes to win the day and rally the crew. The
pirates will leave the most dangerous-looking Heroes to Kossos and Captain Precia herself if they can
possibly manage it.
If the Heroes are captured by the pirates (unlikely but possible; remember that –10 Health means that
you’re defeated, not dead), the remaining crew will largely be killed. Following roleplaying, any surviving
Heroes and a few crew members will be set back on the now-raided Shining Coin and allowed to
proceed to Eversink. The pirates will load the ship with the corpses of everyone, pirate and crew, killed
in the battle. They won’t explain why.
• Scurrilous Rumors: Captain Precia Cointongue built her entire reputation on killing people and
then pushing the corpses overboard. How come she hasn’t been doing that, and instead has left
all corpses onboard the ships she’s been attacking?
It’s most likely that the Heroes will win the combat. For simplicity’s sake in this adventure, it’s easiest if
the Heroes don’t get distracted with an extra ship en route to Eversink5. If it is captured, Captain Barani
can put crew aboard the Squandered Hope to sail it back to port. It may not be captured, however; if the
Heroes are winning, the pirates still aboard the Squandered Hope will abandon their Captain and first
5Alternatively, your Heroes may want to partner with Precia or seize the Squandered Hope themselves and embark on a life of
piracy. Yarrr! Have fun, read about the Pirates of Min on p. XX, and save the rest of this adventure for another group of Heroes.
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mate to try to escape, cutting the grappling lines and sailing away. There are still roughly 20 or more
pirates aboard when this occurs; any Hero with Tactics of Death knows that their chance of success if
they chase the pirate ship are not particularly good. Should they pursue regardless, make the resulting
combat a memorable and exciting one.
If Captain Otto Barani perishes during the fight, the Heroes don’t inherit his ship. It belongs to the
Mercanti family who sponsored the voyage. He also has official ownership of the pirate ship if it is
seized, although when it is sold the Heroes and all of Barani’s crew will receive shares (Wealth 3 each,
awarded at the end of the adventure).
The Squandered Hope currently has an empty hold; they recently buried their accumulated treasure on a
deserted island. (Which sounds like tremendous fun to seek out, but is beyond the scope of this
adventure. Feel free to provide the Heroes with a difficult-to-decipher treasure map to fuel a future
adventure.)
1.3 Following the Combat

In the aftermath of the combat, the Heroes can rest, question surviving pirates, and notice some odd
inconsistencies. Core leads point to other core scenes.
• Charm (core lead): If she feels like she’s in a position of power, the captain of the Squandered
Hope might find a Hero attractive. The first person to use Charm will cause Precia Cointongue to
give them kinder treatment, and in private she’ll reveal secrets to impress them. She’ll brag that
she’s been hired by a ‘Sinkish woman named Donastra who wants a lot of corpses, fast, and
doesn’t want to do the dirty work herself. Precia was happy to oblige, although it bothers her
not to sink the corpses instead. As far as she knows, Donastra has some way of collecting the
corpses herself.
• Command (core lead): Useless on the Captain, but any other pirate commanded to confess will
admit that they’ve been hired to kill as many people as possible on in-bound ships to Eversink so
long as the ships can still make it back to port. Rumor says that they were hired by a thief named
Donastra.
• Intimidation (core lead): If threatened by someone who knows their actual mission, and who
has power over her, the Captain or her pirates will reveal that she was hired by a notorious
street enforcer named Donastra to produce corpses… fast. She doesn’t know why, but she’s
having fun with the assignment.
• Prophecy: In a sudden vision they hear the squeak of cart wheels and smell both the docks and
the strong stink of death. Remind them of this prophecy when they see the corpse cart in Scene
3.
• Servility: Someone servile can get close to any captive pirates without being noticed and will
overhear that they expect someone named Donastra to orchestrate their rescue and escape
once they’re back in Eversink.
• Taunt or Trustworthy (core lead): The same information found through Charm or Intimidation
can be discovered by making a pirate furious enough to talk, or by being someone they feel they
can trust to help them escape.
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1.4 Closing the Scene
The scene ends once the Heroes have survived the pirate raid and questioned any survivors. If no one is
alive for them to question, don’t worry; leads in future scenes will point towards Antoni Valori’s plans.
Scene 2: Approaching Eversink

Scene Type: MONTAGE
Lead-In: Scene 1
Lead-Out: Scene 3
2.2 Travel Montage

Travel montages (see p. XX) underscore two things: the hazards and dangers of travel, and how your
Heroes are more than competent enough to overcome them. Go around the table. Have one player
detail a risk or threat when sailing back to Eversink, have the next player tell you why the threat is
actually worse than that, and have a third player narrate how their group overcame the crisis. You don’t
need to play these out or roll any dice, although you may want brief roleplaying when appropriate.
These challenges might involve bad weather, sea monsters, a supernatural effect, piratical vengeance, a
traitor, mutineers, illness, a sorcerous curse, or something different. Once players have established and
resolved at least two threats during the journey back to Eversink, move to Scene 3.

When the players have narrated the challenges overcome during their travel montage, move to Scene 3.
Scene 3: Corpsetakers at the Docks

Scene Type: CORE
Lead-In: Scene 2
Lead-Out: Scene 4
If the Heroes haven’t already done so, enough days have passed that they should completely refresh
their Health, Morale, and all General ability pools. Spent Investigative pool points are not refreshed until
next adventure.
Whether The Shining Coin returns to Eversink victorious, or it limps into the docks with a skeleton crew,
the Heroes and any surviving crew will return to the city several days after the encounter with pirate
captain Previa Cointongue. Chances are that their hold is filled with corpses from the pirates and crew
members who died in the pirate attack, but even if not, the fake (and real) corpsetakers show up
anyway.
The purpose of this scene is to give the players their first glimpse of Eversink and, most importantly, give
them a clue that someone is stealing large numbers of bodies; if the payoff doesn’t happen as below,
the Clue Summary on p. XX explains how to proceed.
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Ask the players what time of day it is, and what the weather is like, when The Shining Coin sails into
Eversink’s outer harbor at the base of the River Serpentine. Describe the city accordingly, with sensory
details added where they make sense. Scents (swamp, smoke, cooking odors, unwashed humanity),
sounds (bells rung from steeples, sung prayers, shouts from eager vendors on shore and in small boats),
and the clear excitement of the crew will underscore the importance of their return.
The Shining Coin will dock along one of the long piers extending from the harbor quay. As usual, the
Harbormaster and tax assessor will be the first people on board, officiously asking to speak with Captain
Barani, and with whoever is in charge if the Captain is not. The Captain will release the remaining crew
once the goods (whatever they are, as decided by you or the players) are hauled off the ship with ropes,
wooden cranes, and hours of labor. The Heroes will probably depart before that’s decided.
3.2 Enter the Corpsetakers

Before the Heroes disembark, a group of four menial laborers with a creaky-wheeled cart hail the ship
from the pier. They explain that they’re here to collect the bodies of anyone who passed away during
the voyage. They’ll express humble sympathy and will promise to get the dead to a local mortuary
before any funeral services are conducted or funerary statues get made. They won’t ask for a list of
who’s who, claiming that their boss who can read and write will be by shortly to gather that information
and keep everything straight.
• Felonious Intent: These corpsetakers seem nervous, like they’re watching for something. They
also don’t have the correct permits nailed to their cart or boat. They’re probably not legitimate.
• Liar's Tell: The corpsetakers are trying to sound legitimate, but they don’t seem to be telling the
truth.
• Prophecy: Upon seeing the corpsetakers’ cart, the prophecy from Scene 1 will recur. Something
about those corpsetakers isn’t proper.
These corpsetakers aren’t official, of course; they are the confederates of Donastra, attempting to
gather more corpses for Antonio Valori’s revenge scheme. They want to get away quickly because they
know the official corpsetakers who actually work for the mortuary are probably half an hour behind
them. They want to be well away before their ruse is discovered. The Harbormaster knows that they
aren’t the normal group, but he’s been bribed to look the other way, so he tries not to get involved (and
not to incriminate himself for bribery if he is).
If the Heroes mention that Captain Previa Cointongue is worth a sizable reward, the laborer from the
mortuary will worriedly explain that dock bylaws require every corpse to be transported, but that they
can come by the mortuary for a receipt as soon as they’re back on shore. They won’t insist if the Heroes
prefer to keep the body, however. Their priority is to get as many corpses as possible away from the ship
and into their smaller canal-boat. The weighed-down boat full of covered corpses will then make its
escape back into the Tangle. Once darkness falls, the corpses will be delivered to Antoni Valori at Noble
House (scene 5).
Donastra’s Minions (four of them)

Nervous, servile, odiferous
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Offense – Warfare: +0; Fixed Damage 3 (long dagger)
Offense – Sway: +0; Fixed Damage 3 (brutish insistence)
Abilities: Malus 5 (usually used to boost attacks)
Refresh Tokens: 1
They’re outclassed and probably outnumbered as combatants and they know it. They do not wish to
fight to the death; if threatened they’ll bluff as long as they can, and then surrender and try to escape
later. They’ll try not to lose the corpse-cart or their boat if they can avoid it, and will try to avoid being
arrested by the City Watch (possibly trading information for their freedom). If any of them try to lie, a
Hero with ranks in the Investigative ability Liar’s Tell will notice it.
• Command or Intimidation (core lead): The fake corpsetakers work for a woman named
Donastra, and they figure she’s going to kill them if she finds out they talked, so they’ll want to
escape, please. There’s about 20 people gathering corpses for her, total. Donastra works for and
lives with some Commoner named Antoni Valori, but they try not to ask too many questions. He
lives in a building in the Tangle named Noble House. It’s pretty famous because it’s carved all
fancy.
When they come back with corpses they’re paid for each one, and they just dump them over an
interior balcony onto a big pile in the basement below. They’ve stolen and dumped three or four
dozen corpses so far. They don’t know why he wants them. To feed some animal, most likely.
• City’s Secrets (core lead, after hearing the name of Antoni’s home): Noble House is a
beautifully carved stone building deep in the Tangle in the block of stonecutters. It’s a landmark,
so they should be able to find it easily. “Noble House” is called that because it’s a normal stone
house sarcastically carved to look like a noble’s mansion.
• Nobility: The name “Valori” is a well-known name in Eversink. The Valori family made their
fortune many centuries ago by mining and farming salt. For a long time the Valoris maintained a
near-monopoly, but their star has faded in the past two centuries, and now the Ancient Nobility
family has far more social prestige than it does wealth.
• Allegiance: Ancient Nobility or Scurrilous Rumors: A generation ago, the Valori family
disinherited their daughter for marrying a commoner. It was a big scandal, and she hasn’t been
heard from socially since.
If all the fake corpsetakers are killed before they are questioned, the following leads might be useful.
• Vigilance (core lead): The Heroes might notice that there’s a large amount of stone grit on the
floor and in the crevices of the corpsetakers’ boat, the kind that accumulates when you move
stone for years or moor a boat near somewhere near where stone is shaped. Other than that,
the boat is well maintained and patched carefully, as if by someone without much money but
with skill.
• City’s Secrets, Forgotten Lore, or Allegiance: Mercanti (core lead): There are a huge number of
places in the city where stonemasons and sculptors practice their trade, but most of those
would be able to afford a newer boat. For Commoners with a skilled trade, the number of likely
locations is ten or fewer. The most likely location is in the Tangle, in the neighborhood of stone-
workers.
• Spirit Sight (core lead): One of the ghosts of the dead corpsetakers is still present in the world.
Three of the four have vanished into the spirit realm, but one remains nearby. He’s furious
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about being murdered, and the Hero will need to use Servility, Trustworthy, or something
similar to coax information out of him.
The ghost whispers that he worked for a woman named Donastra, who works for and lives with
some Commoner named Antoni Valori in a building named Noble House. He begs that they not
bring his body there. With that, he fades away deeper into the spirit realm.
3.3 The Real Corpsetakers Arrive

The actual corpsetakers will arrive shortly after the fake ones have left or been defeated. They’ll be
angry and frustrated that someone is poaching corpses from them with no possible value, and they
know that this isn’t the only group. If the Heroes are at all friendly to them, they’ll offer to pay the
Heroes Wealth 1 each — not much, but as much as they can afford — to track down and stop the thefts.
3.4 Clue Summary

At this point the Heroes might know all or part of the following. If needed, help the players summarize
the information they’ve learned.
• The pirates who tried to kill them were hired by a much-feared woman named Donastra, who
works for someone named Antoni Valori.
• They are collecting corpses as quickly as possible for an unknown purpose.
• The 20 Commoners working for them are dumping these corpses each night into the basement
of Antoni’s home.
• Antoni lives in a poor part of town that’s hard to navigate, The Tangle, in a well-known landmark
named Noble House.
• Antoni might be related to a Valori family in Eversink’s Ancient Nobility.
If your Heroes accidentally haven’t picked up on the adventure leads, use Allegiances to involve them
further in the plot. See “Involving the Heroes” above.

The scene ends when the Heroes have learned that the corpsetakers who wanted the bodies are not the
people who should have the bodies, and when the Heroes decide where to head next. If they do
something clever, such as spending Investigative pool points to establish an existing relationship with
Donastra or Antoni, congratulate them and run with it.
The Heroes may head to a tavern or an inn to find somewhere to stay for the night. If they’re not sure
where to go, encourage them to rely on their Allies for a location to bed down. Roleplay this as desired,
describing the nature of whatever part of the city the Heroes find themselves in, including bridges,
sinking buildings, swans, street vendors, funerary statues, and crowds. If you have time, make the tavern
visit memorable, even if that means Donastra tracking them down. Who doesn’t love a good bar-fight?

Scene Type: MONTAGE
Lead-In: Scene 3
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Lead-Out: Scene 5
See p. XX for descriptions of the Tangle. Summarizing this for players will help set the mood as they try
to find Noble House.
4.2 Following the Corpsetakers?

It’s possible that one or more of the Heroes surreptitiously follows the false corpsetakers into the Tangle
to see where the boat full of corpses ends up. To do so without getting caught, one or more Heroes
must have 1 or more ranks of Skulduggery or make a successful Stealth test using the Piggybacking rules
on p. XX. If no Heroes have Skulduggery and the Stealth test isn’t successful, they can still follow the
boat but the false corpsetakers will be aware that they’re being followed and will lay a trap for the
Heroes.
4.3 Travel Montage

Getting into the Tangle when you’re not from there is confusing and dangerous. If the Heroes aren’t
trying to follow anyone without being seen, ask one of your players to describe a challenge your group
faced, ask another player to make it worse, and ask a third player how the challenge was solved. The
challenge doesn’t have to be hostile, but it should be interesting enough to remember. One or two of
these is plenty for flavor.
If this is your first game of Swords of the Serpentine, this becomes much more difficult because players
don’t know the setting yet! You’ll benefit from tossing out some examples. These challenges might
involve:
• Pickpockets
• Getting lost
• Flooded canals
• Bad weather
• Physical threats
• Enthusiastic moneylenders
• (Soon to be) recurring enemies
• Enticing taverns
• Encounters with interesting strangers
• Over-eager members of the City Watch.
You don’t need to play these brief scenes out or roll any dice, and each player has responsibility for
stating both the challenge and the solution. You can decide solutions cooperatively if the player framing
that solution wishes.
If the Heroes are surreptitiously following the boat of corpses piloted by the false corpsetakers,
examples might include:
• Almost getting spotted

• Stealing a boat
• Losing your boat
• Blocked canals
• Gate guards
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• Poor weather
• Congestion
• Hostile strangers.
Only run montage scenes when you and your group find it fun. They’re an excellent way to quickly
summarize a long or dangerous journey, and don’t use up party resources, but they should be limited to
one or two occurrences per adventure.
Scene 5: Antoni Valori and Noble House

Scene Type: CORE
Lead-In: Scene 4
Lead-Out: Scene 6 or 7
Noble House is deep in the Tangle, but it’s easily recognizable once you get to the stonecutters’
neighborhood. The tenement is expertly carved to look almost a dead ringer for the Valori mansion in
Alderhall, an insult immortalized in stone. With craftsmanship of this nature it’s no wonder that the
house serves as a landmark for the neighborhood. It’s also clear the Valori noble family has never
deigned to enter the Tangle; if they’d seen the similarity they’d move heaven and earth to have the
house condemned and destroyed by the Guild of Architects.
Heroes investigating Noble House have several tasks ahead of them. They might wish to learn about
Noble House, talk to Antoni, enter the house, and explore the house.
[[[ART NOTES: Insert map of Noble House]]]
5.2 Learn about Noble House

The Heroes can learn about Noble House by chatting with other people in the neighborhood. This block
is where many stonecutters have set up shop (there’s dust in the air and blocks of stone or funerary
statues nearly everywhere you look), but there are also food carts, bars, and a small chapel to Denari.
The locals will be rude to anyone using Nobility to communicate with them, as well as to anyone with
ranks in Enemy: Commoners. They’ll be friendly to anyone talking to them using Servility or Trustworthy,
or who has ranks in Allies: Commoners. They’ll be cautious with anyone else. The following information
can come from one particularly chatty person or a number of individuals, as long as the Heroes aren’t
acting socially superior and aren’t being hostile to the locals. If the locals are friendly, a Hero doesn’t
need the specified ability to gain the lead.
• Scurrilous Rumors or Trustworthy: Antoni Valori had a father named Bellari who was a
stonecutter and a mother who left the nobility to follow her heart. Antonio’s father carved the
outside of Noble House to look like the Valori mansion where his wife had grown up. Isn’t it
beautiful? It’s nicknamed Noble House because the carving mimics the towers of the nobility, a
tribute to his wife Salia and a poke in the eye to the Valori family.
• Scurrilous Rumors: Antoni’s a Commoner, of course. His mom Salia Valori was disinherited and
apparently caused a huge scandal. She’s dead now, poor thing. Antoni tried to have her buried
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with those nobles, and apparently they threw him out on his ear. The nobility are awful people,
aren’t they?
• Charm: Everyone likes Antoni. He used to be a stonecutter and sculptor like his father, but he
doesn’t seem to be doing that much anymore. Nowadays he mostly sits in his front garden,
drinks, and talks to people walking by. He did have a few funerary statues brought in recently,
though.
• Scurrilous Rumors: No one likes that Donastra woman who’s staying with him, and they have
workmen in and out of the house at all hours with all sorts of loads and burdens to deliver.
• Trustworthy: Antoni used to be really shy, but he’s definitely blossomed over the past few
months. He’s had a falling out with his best friend Pietro, though. They used to be inseparable
and they haven’t talked in a month.
• Vigilance: There’s definitely been the smell of something rotting in the area, but it’s not coming
from Noble House. (No one knows why they believe this, but they’re convinced of it, and it
doesn’t seem odd to anyone that they carry this belief. Antoni’s supernatural persuasion has
convinced anyone who has complained to him.)
Other leads can be learned through observation.
• City’s Secrets: It looks from the outside like the ground floor has mostly sunk below ground
level, but there are two more stories left before the house sinks below canal level completely.
The house is well constructed; even if no one builds onto the roof, it’ll probably be above-
ground and upright for several score of years to come.
• City’s Secrets or Vigilance: There don’t appear to be many ways into Noble House. Currently,
the only clear ways to enter the building are by a 2nd story canal-side door with an outdoor
balcony that’s reachable from the dock by improvised stairs (Burglary 6 to unlock); and probably
by a locked trapdoor on the roof (Burglary 4 to unlock). There used to be a ground level door
opening into the street, but this has sunk below ground and is no longer accessible. If one could
gain access to the cellars or sewers nearby, a Hero with City’s Secrets could probably find a way
into the house’s sub-basement as well.
Several boats are usually tied up alongside the canal-side stairs. (These are used to bring in
corpses and are owned by Antoni, Donastra, or their minions.)
• Corruption: Although there’s no noticeable whiff of spent Corruption from inside of Noble
House, something unnatural and very bad is inside of there. You can feel it, throbbing like a
rotten tooth. (This is Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection.)
• Vigilance: If this adventure takes place in summer, there is a noticeable problem with flies near
the house. There are also noticeably fewer feral pigs in this neighborhood than in other blocks
of the Tangle. (That’s because Antoni and his confederates have been secretly killing them and
adding them to the fleshtangle, although this isn’t known to anyone outside of Noble House.)
In addition, there is definitely a smell of putrefaction coming from Noble House, as if some large
animal is rotting inside.
• Felonious Intent: Antoni spends most of his days outside, sitting in the tiny garden in front of
the house, very slowly working on a funerary statue for his mother that he keeps in the garden,
and chatting with anyone who strolls by. The Heroes are welcome to speak with him — and he
may come to say hello to them either way, just to be friendly.
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5.3 Talk to Antoni
Antoni is easy to approach; he spends much of his days (in good weather, at least) in his front garden,
working on the funerary statue of his late mother (“It has to be perfect!”) and chatting with passers-by.
He wears clean but shabby workman’s clothing. The statue of his late mother that he’s carving looks like
it will be a masterwork, but it is far from done. Antoni’s “demon” Uxorioth delays him in part by making
him into a perfectionist, so that he can’t move forward until a project is just right.
Antoni Valori
Popular, obsessed, charming, talented, persuasive
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (father’s worn leather), Health 18

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 6 (happy and confident indifference, only while possessed
by Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection; 1 otherwise), Morale 6
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +0 (untrained flailing)
Offense – Sorcery: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (vs. Morale in Persuasion Sphere, or vs. Health in Death,
Decay, and Flesh)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (extraordinarily persuasive)
Abilities: Malus 30
Special Abilities: Special (Persuade others within earshot, cost 6), Spellcasting (equivalent of Corruption
4; cost 3 — Persuasion or Death, Decay, and Flesh Spheres), Universal Attack (cost 6), Warded (cost 6)
Misc: When Antoni uses his special Persuade ability, anyone within earshot must take 3 points of Morale
damage or believe what he has just said, their choice. This costs him 6 Malus.
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Antoni is handsome in a quirky sort of way, skinny and neatly dressed with a good smile.
He’s also shy, making it difficult for him to use his recently acquired sorcerous powers of persuasion. He
finds it easiest to interact in small groups. He’s bright and tends to be kind, but he is currently fixated on
getting justice for his mother by obsessively acquiring scores of corpses to animate. His sudden quirk of
perfectionism may stop him from completing any project he doesn’t think is good enough. He’s popular
in his home block of the Tangle; in an emergency when he’s somewhere his neighbors could help,
Antoni will use his Persuasion to rally the neighborhood to his defense.
Uxorioth, small god of Unctiousness

Frustrated, desperate, persuasive, convincing, needy
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 3, Armor Special (see Insubstantial; Health cannot be injured),
Health 3
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 3 (egotistical), Morale 15
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (smoothly convincing)
Abilities: Malus 15
Special Abilities: Insubstantial, Magical Charm (cost 3), Possession (cost 3 — must be a willing volunteer)
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Although Uxorioth can grant access to Corruption in those it possesses, along with the
Sorcerous Spheres of Persuasion and Doubt, it can’t cast spells or manipulate Corruption itself. As a
nearly forgotten small god of Unctiousness and Persuasion, it interacts purely through Sway and
manipulation (such as the Persuade Maneuver and the Magical Charm special ability). Uxorioth is furious
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and terrified that Antoni has been possessed by the Notebook, but it is unable to break the Notebook’s
thrall to convince him to abandon this. Uxorioth does whatever it can to obviously “help” Antoni while
secretly working against him and trying to destroy Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection.
Uxioroth is most interested in its own survival, and that means finding someone who can stop (and help)
Antoni without hurting him.
GM Advice: Roleplaying Antoni and Uxorioth

Talking to Antoni is a fun interaction because even though Antoni is the Antagonist, he’s initially friendly and not at
all hostile. Antoni doesn’t want to hurt anyone, he just wants to create a horrible undead monstrosity from stolen
corpses and use it to take revenge on his grandparents while killing dozens of people along the way. Is that so
wrong?
The following things should be remembered when roleplaying Antoni.
• Antoni used to be a genuinely nice person, but is manipulated by multiple entities and is obsessed by grief and
vengeance.
• Antoni is possessed by Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection, and it drives his need to create a fleshtangle.
• Antoni doesn’t know that Donastra has hired pirates to provide him with corpses more efficiently, and he’ll be
furious if he finds out.
• The Notebook gives Antoni an almost impossibly high Grit 6, protecting him from many Morale-based attacks.
Heroes will quickly know that something is odd if they try to Sway him.
• Antoni has also become an obsessive perfectionist due to Uxorioth’s attempts to counter the Notebook’s
influence.
• Antoni is supernaturally persuasive when he wants to be.
• Antoni is an ineffective combatant, and knows he can’t put his plan in play if he’s dead — so he’ll let others do
his fighting for him, and will do whatever he can to retreat instead of fight.
• Uxorioth can only be trusted when keeping its promises is in its own self-interest, and it is delighted to scuttle
Antoni’s plans if doing so keeps Antoni alive, safe, and out of jail.
Antoni may seem distracted to talk to; that’s because he is. The obsession caused by Zelgrieb’s
Notebook of Dissection keeps him focused on acquiring corpses, and he’s always half-watching the canal
landing to see if more have arrived.
• Felonious Intent or Vigilance: Antoni seems distracted and keeps glancing back at the canal
landing by his front door. This seems like an ingrained nervous habit that he isn’t aware of.
• Leechcraft: Antoni has a cut on his forehead, as if from broken glass. If asked about it, he’ll
brush it away and claim to be clumsy. (He’s lying; Donastra lost her temper at him last night and
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told him to finish his plan for revenge now. She emphasized this with thrown crockery, which
was probably better than stabbing him out of impatience, which is what she wanted to do.)
• Spirit Sight (core lead): When Antoni speaks, there’s a strange echo, as if two people were
actually speaking at the same time. One of those voices is Antoni’s, and the other is deep,
charming, and particularly persuasive. No one else can hear it other than the Hero with Spirit
Sight. If the Hero opens up their sight to the spirit realm (see p. XX), they will take 4 points of
Morale damage and will see Uxorioth superimposed on Antoni’s body, a small god of yellow
luminescence whose only facial feature is a wide and smiling mouth. The Hero can now talk
directly to Uxorioth. Everyone will hear the Hero speak, and Uxorioth will reply through Antoni’s
mouth. Antoni won’t remember these exchanges.
Apart from Uxorioth, there is a squirming coil of oily vapor connecting Antoni’s soul to
something inside Noble House. This is the spiritual manifestation of Zelgrieb’s Notebook of
Dissection.
• Corruption or Forgotten Lore: This clue is available if Spirit Sight has been used by a Hero. The
luminescent creature sharing Antoni’s soul is likely a demon, a small god, or some other sort of
spirit. It means that Antoni is a sorcerer. The coil of squirming vapor suggests that his soul is
connected to something else as well.
If the Heroes are kind or polite, Antoni will gladly chat with them about any number of topics. He’ll
discuss the house, his assistant and workman Lugo, his friend Donastra (he’s a little vague on their
relationship), and the like. He doesn’t mention corpses.
• Trustworthy: Antoni will discuss his childhood and his late parents, including how his
grandparents were so cruel to his mother’s memory.
• Spending Charm or Trustworthy: A 2-point spend in either or both abilities (these can come
from multiple Heroes) along with a friendly demeanor will make Antoni more pliable to their
suggestions, including explaining that he needs to get vengeance for his mother, and even
inviting them inside (only if he thinks they might be interested in his pet project).
Certain topics will cause Antoni to become particularly (and sorcerously) persuasive if asked by someone
he doesn’t consider trustworthy.
• Asking about why the house smells will cause Antoni to respond, “No, that’s something else. It
doesn’t smell at all.” He spends 6 Malus. All within earshot must either take 3 points of Morale
damage (reduced by Grit) or stop smelling the stink of decay. Heroes with Spirit Sight will hear
both Antoni’s voice and a deeper, richer, more persuasive voice saying the same thing at the
same time. Other Heroes detect nothing odd whether they succeed or fail. Antoni doesn’t seem
to think he’s done anything wrong, odd, or supernatural.
• If asked about corpses or anything he has done that’s illegal, Antoni and Uxorioth will both say
“No, I’m sorry. This has nothing to do with me.” He spends 6 Malus. All within earshot must
either take 3 points of Morale damage (reduced by Grit) or realize that they’re mistaken, their
choice. Antoni will begin to fade in their memory as if he wasn’t important. Heroes without
Spirit Sight detect nothing odd whether they succeed or fail. Heroes with Spirit Sight hear
Uxorioth and Antoni speaking together, and will remember this even if they fail their Morale
test. If a Hero looks into the spirit realm, follow the guidelines on p. 43.
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• Liar’s Tell: Antoni is genuinely surprised to hear about pirates and knows nothing about this. He
thinks all the corpses are being acquired from already-dead people, and doesn’t realize that
Donastra has arranged to mass-produce corpses she couldn’t otherwise obtain. Learning
otherwise will make him furious, and he’ll resolve to chide her — even as he’s guiltily pleased
that her plan was so successful.
If Heroes resist his persuasiveness and continue to be kind to him, Antoni may continue to treat them in
a friendly manner; he’s used to his Persuasiveness automatically working. He’ll be less forthcoming if
they are rude or hostile, and will retreat to safety (either inside his own house or into a neighbor’s) if
threatened. He won’t attack them; it’s not really in his nature, and he’s saving his Corruption to animate
the fleshtangle.
Antoni thinks he has a demon inside of him, and he’ll deny it poorly; he’s ashamed of turning to
heretical actions while in search of power, and he wishes he could get rid of Uxorioth entirely. For its
part, Uxorioth thinks Antoni is a gullible fool who makes a poor host, especially when he still doesn’t
understand that Uxorioth is the god (albeit a small god) of unctuousness and persuasion.
There is a reasonable chance that the Heroes might converse directly with Uxorioth. The entity —
speaking through Antoni’s mouth with its unctuous, smooth voice — will explain that its master is
trapped by a horrible sorcerous grimoire and needs help. Use Uxorioth’s information on p. XX to
roleplay this interaction. If the Heroes try to exorcise Uxorioth, allow any reasonable plan (probably
using Forgotten Lore, Spirit Sight, or Corruption) to succeed. Antoni will be freed of Uxorioth’s influence,
will stop being a perfectionist, and will immediately put his fleshtangle plan into effect once the Heroes
have departed.
Should the Heroes try to remove the influence of Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection from Antoni in the
same way, it will immediately choose Donastra as its new host, and she will immediately head to the
basement and animate the fleshtangle.
If the Heroes threaten violence, Antoni will raise his persuasive voice and call out his neighbors to come
help him with these hostile interlopers. Dozens of unarmed neighbors (all good people, more or less)
will come out to defend one of their own, and the Heroes will quickly be surrounded by Commoners
who suggest that this might be a good time for them to move along and not come back.
• Laws and Traditions: Attacking the neighborhood commoners who come to Antoni’s aid is
murder, pure and simple.
• Tactics of Death: The Heroes are probably strong enough to kill all the Commoners surrounding
them, but the protective mob includes children, the elderly, men and women; if the Heroes
retreat without attacking Antoni, it’s unlikely the mob will attack.
5.4 Enter the House

The Heroes can sneak into Noble House, be invited in by Antoni, or fight their way in.
5.4.1 Sneaking In
There are three entrances to Noble House: the main entrance, the roof, and the sub-basement. Since
they’re seeking leads, Heroes with Skulduggery (and the Heroes who accompany them) may not need to
make Stealth or Burglary tests when first sneaking into the house so long as they use their Investigative
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abilities to describe how they’re dealing with the barriers in their way (such as the armed guard on the
balcony).
The Main Entrance
The main entrance is a 2nd story door leading in from an outside balcony; that balcony overhangs the
canal and has a set of makeshift stairs leading up to it from the canal dock. There’s also a makeshift
winch to haul any heavy loads (currently corpses, previously sculpting or stoneworking supplies) up into
the house.
It’s possible to reach the canal dock and these stairs from the cobblestone lane in front of Noble House,
but only by navigating a makeshift bridge fashioned from a plank (Difficulty 5 Athletics test to cross if
moving quickly). This second story door is normally locked with a solid lock. Heroes without ranks in
Skulduggery (or not pursuing a lead) require a Difficulty 6 Burglary test to open the door without alerting
anyone inside.
If the group lacks any Heroes with Skulduggery, or the players fail to explain how they distract Antoni, a
Difficulty 6 Stealth test is required to sneak in by this route without Antoni noticing if he is outside in the
garden. Piggybacking the Stealth test (see p. XX 83) is allowed.
Even with Skulduggery, sneaking in by this route is almost impossible if Lugo is guarding the door from
the balcony; Heroes may need to describe how they first lure him away. The door is unguarded when
Lugo isn’t there. The easiest way to sneak past Lugo is to pretend to be carrying one or more corpses
that need to be brought inside; a Morale-based Persuade Maneuver can easily trick him.
The Roof
The roof of Noble House has a wooden trapdoor leading into an unfinished attic. The roof is flat, and
Heroes must climb up with a Difficulty 4 Athletics test if not using Skulduggery. The lock on the trap door
can be opened with a Difficulty 4 Burglary test, or automatically with Skulduggery, but a large funereal
statue is propped directly underneath the trap door to impede access. Heroes must make a Difficulty 4
Stealth test to enter before the statue has been moved; failure means they knock the statue over and
alert the house to intruders. The statue can be moved without risk by two Heroes working together and
a 4-point Athletics General Spend.
The Sub-Basement
A Hero with City’s Secrets, or a Sorcerer with Corruption and the Stone sphere, can find a route through
the sewers into Noble House’s sub-basement. This route is unguarded, but it’s disgusting, and requires
some quiet chiseling to tunnel through a retaining wall into the sub-basement. This approach avoids
both Lugo and Antoni, as well as any Mooks on the upper stories. Still, when they arrive the Heroes
won’t be the worst-smelling thing in the basement…
The Lookout
Lugo is an elderly man who acts as lookout and guard. He’s not the brightest person you’ll ever meet,
but he’s unobtrusive. He sits out on the balcony all hours of the day and night, sipping from a bottle and
greeting the boats poling by, looking like nothing more than a nosy neighbor. He knows almost everyone
on the block without anyone really knowing him.
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In a pinch, Lugo is a capable combatant — good with a crossbow and able to hold his own with a club —
and if trouble arises, he knows enough to warn anyone inside before drawing attention to himself.
Lugo
Bitter, greedy, loyal
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (club) or Damage Modifier +2 (crossbow)
Abilities: Malus 5
Refresh Tokens: 3
Description: Lugo is a wiry old man who worked his whole life gathering dried salt in the salt pools
owned by the noble Valori family. He’s bitter and ready for anything that pays that family back for taking
his whole long exhausted life and leaving him with pennies. He’s not particularly loyal to Antoni, but he’s
grumpily enthusiastic about any plan that injures the Valoris.
The Enforcers
Donastra has a crew of Mooks who collect corpses, haul things, and fight for her (and for Antoni, more
or less). The number varies; there are about 20 men and women total, usually moving about in five
groups of four when sent out to gather corpses. Most commonly two or three groups (8–12 Mooks) are
at Noble House at any one time to act as guards. If Heroes raid Noble House, these Mooks attack in
waves as they rush to the combat from wherever in the house they were. Donastra keeps these minions
ignorant: they know there’s a big pile of corpses in the basement, but they don’t know why. They’re paid
well enough not to ask.
Donastra’s Minions (20 total)

Servile, tough

Offense – Warfare: +0; Fixed Damage 3 (long dagger), or Fixed Damage 4 (crossbow)
Abilities: Malus 5 (usually used to boost attacks)
Refresh Tokens: 1
5.4.2 Getting Invited In

If the Heroes are able to forge enough of a friendship with Antoni (possibly with the aid of Uxorioth,
assuming the small god thinks that the Heroes can prevent the fleshtangle and defeat Donastra without
harming Antoni), Antoni will simply invite them in. He doesn’t comprehend how disgusting the smell and
appearance of the merged corpses truly are, so he’s less hesitant than one would assume. He treats the
mass of merged corpses as if it were an old family friend.
Lugo and the minions treat the Heroes suspiciously, expecting them to turn and attack at any moment.
Antoni isn’t as suspicious — if he trusts the Heroes enough to invite them inside and introduce them to
his fleshtangle, he must be certain that they’re safe.
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Once inside, Antoni will give them a tour with the minions following closely behind, with Uxorioth
making sarcastic commentary. Antoni will be surprised by any negative reaction to the fleshtangle. Don’t
his new friends understand that this is the perfect tool for revenge?
5.4.3 Fighting Your Way In

When stealth and friendship fail, force of arms might prevail.
If Lugo sees attackers, he’ll shout back inside to alert the 8–12 confederates in the house, and he’ll try to
hold the attackers off with his crossbow. When that fails, he’ll retreat inside and lock the door. They’ll
send four guards up to the attic to watch, and the rest will cluster around the main doorway, waiting to
shoot the first person who appears.
If Antoni is caught outside when this happens, he’ll summon his friends and neighbors to help defend his
home; this will give him a force of about 20 Mooks, although they’ll take 1–2 minutes to all gather.
Antoni will trust to his persuasiveness and other magic to get back into his home safely. Once home,
he’ll sneak downstairs to try to animate the fleshtangle. With luck, Donastra won’t have seized control
of the Notebook and have done it first. If she has, the monstrosity will kill Antoni first before it goes after
his family in Alderhall.
5.4.4 Other Ways to Get Inside

Your players are endlessly inventive and might consider options like the following. If they are struggling
with tactics, discussing these strategies with them will help them understand what their Heroes are
capable of.
• Using Flashback and spending an Investigative point to make one of the people inside Noble
House (perhaps Lugo, perhaps one or more of the minions, perhaps even Donastra) a friend, a
spy, or a hired associate. They might even establish Antoni or his parents as old family friends.
• Spending a point of City’s Secrets to announce that there’s a secret door no one else knew
about.
• Spending Corruption to literally rip the building open (or perhaps something more subtle),
assuming they have appropriate Spheres.
• Pretending to be inspectors from a city agency, such as the Guild of Architects and Canal-
Watchers.
• Spending Allegiance points to literally have their Allies help them or open the way for them; this
might mean summoning a squad of Mercenaries for backup, having the Triskadane order
everyone out of the building on some bureaucratic technicality that will likely be solved in a
week, having the thieves’ guilds help blackmail Antoni, or (in the case of Allies: Monstrosities)
having non-human denizens of the city tunnel upwards into the basement and show the Heroes
in. Options are only as limited as the players’ imaginations and the number of Allegiance points.
As always, default to saying “Yes, and…” If the player suggests a tactic that you think is
unrealistic or overpowered, charge a spend of more than 1 pool point for it.
Also remember that any ranks of Enemies: Commoners should be used against the Heroes at every
opportunity. The Adversaries and locals will spend these points to inconvenience, harass, or hurt the
Heroes who have these ranks. If you need an unfavorable coincidence for the Heroes during the
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adventure (such as someone appearing at the worst possible time), this is a perfect reason to spend a
Hero’s Enemy pool point.
5.5 Explore the House

Noble House is laid out as follows, from top to bottom.
Attic: This unfinished space is used for storage and is covered with dust. In a few decades when the
building has sunk too far, it will probably be converted to living space and another few stories will be
built on top of it. Hundreds of large, black, slow-moving cluster flies buzz about the space and the floor
is scattered with dead flies. A large funerary statue of Bellari’s great-great-grandfather blocks easy
access to the roof trapdoor. There’s an old brass church bell up here, lying forgotten in the corner.
Third Story: This is the sleeping space for Antoni, Donastra, Lugo, and whatever minions are in the
house. A toilet feeds down into the sewers through a vertical pipe. There used to be Lady Salia’s art
studio here (the room gets beautiful light in the early morning), but it has been converted to a large
rough bunkroom. At least 8–12 of Antoni’s minions will be biding their time here, technically on guard
duty but actually sleeping, eating, playing cards, complaining about the smell, or lying to each other.
Heroes might need a Difficulty 4 Stealth test to sneak past them without being discovered; piggy-backing
is allowed. Locking the minions into this room requires a Difficulty 5 Burglary test, and will delay them by
two minutes (the length of time it will take them to batter down the door) once they realize they’re
locked in.
• Leechcraft: Food and alcohol supplies are easily accessible. It would be simple to poison these
people, most easily by spending one or more pool points of Leechcraft.
• Tactics of Death: There’s been a disagreement in Antoni’s and Donastra’s bedroom. Someone
lost their temper enough to throw many ceramic vases, plates, or cups at the other person,
shattering them on the floor or in the hearth. Based on their pattern and the height of the
assailant, Antoni was the target.
• Wilderness Mastery (core lead): This many flies and the stink of putrescence means that
nothing is eating those corpses that must be downstairs. They’re just rotting.
Second Story: This floor, with its high ceilings, is now the main living space. A kitchen, a dining hall, a
common room, a parlor, and a mostly empty library are arrayed around a central octagonal balcony
overlooking the first floor. A toilet feeds down into the sewers through a vertical pipe. If Lugo and
Antoni aren’t outside, they’ll be on this floor. If the alarm is given, eight minions or more will spill down
the stairs from the third floor.
• Nobility or Allegiance: Ancient Nobility: A beautiful portrait of Antoni’s mother Salia Valori,
costumed as if a Queen, hangs over the fireplace.
• Forgotten Knowledge: There is a small shrine where odd sacrifices — a lady’s handkerchief, a
few coins — have been made to some spirit or small god. The shrine is not holy to Denari.
• City’s Secrets (core lead): A rough and almost unintelligible map drawn on parchment in the
library turns out to be a route between this block of the Tangle and the Valori estate in
Alderhall, with a detour through some highly inhabited areas such as Temple Market. Oddly, it
appears to vary between streets and canals and underground passages, and ignores bridges
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entirely. (This is the route the fleshtangle will take, with detours to pick up as many new corpses
as possible.)
The canal-side door to the outside opens onto the balcony on this level. It is locked. Lugo and Antoni
both have a key, as does Donastra. The minions don’t. When corpses are delivered, Antoni has his
minions simply toss them over the balcony railing, down into the darkness of the sunken ground floor,
where they land in a heap and are later dragged into a rough circle around Zelgrieb’s Notebook of
Dissection.
Everyone who looks over the edge of the balcony loses 4 Morale (minus their Grit) the first time they
see this. The first floor below appears clogged with many dozens of human and hog carcasses. It’s a
good thing the area is so poorly lit; you can hear the buzzing of flies devouring the many dead.
• Laws and Traditions: A giant pile of rotting, stolen corpses? Yeah, that’s not legal. That’s
definitely not legal.
• Corruption or Forgotten Lore: The corpses appear to be deliberately interwoven in some sort of
unspeakable pattern that sanity shies away from.
• Corruption: There’s terrible power down there, but no externalized Corruption yet.
• Felonious Intent: If Antoni is with the Heroes, this doesn’t seem odd or disgusting to him at all,
nor will it seem odd to anyone he has sorcerously persuaded.
• Leechcraft: Weirdly, in this light it looks like there aren’t distinct bodies down there, but instead
all the corpses have somehow merged into one connected form. That can’t possibly be true.
The stairs down to the first floor are blocked by a locked door, Difficulty 4 Burglary test to open.
First Story: Once an entrance hall and workspace with smaller rooms off it, now the sunken ground floor
is covered with at least 60 corpses of humans and pigs. The corpses have merged into one another,
creating effectively one huge mass connected by skin and sinew and bone. It is crawling with flies and
occasionally twitches and shifts, sending all the insects on it swarming upwards into a buzzing mass
before settling back down.
It is not yet sentient or dangerous. However, any Heroes who did not lose 4 Morale while seeing it
upstairs will do so now, unless offset by Grit.
• Corruption: You can feel it trying to greedily drink Corruption from you; any externalized
Corruption in the area will probably feed it and bring it to life.
• Forgotten Lore (2+ ranks): There’s a legendary grimoire from a long-dead sorcerer that is
rumored to be able to create monstrosities like this. You’ve never seen it, nor has anyone you
know.
• Know Monstrosities: This is called a fleshtangle, and they were first created as weapons of war
by a Sorcerer-King named Zelgrieb. They’re most dangerous in large crowds because they heal
by absorbing dead bodies. That’s unfortunate, because they’re incredibly hard for a small group
to destroy. It’s likely to be resistant to Morale attacks that aren’t prayers.
• Leechcraft: It’s almost certainly carrying horribly infectious diseases.
• Prophecy: You gain a vision of this rampaging through Temple Market, killing hundreds or
thousands, before heading to the Valori estate in Alderhall. Hidden somewhere within it, you
gain an image of a thin leather-bound book.
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• Scurrilous Rumors: Defeating this somewhere that other people can see will bring the victors
tremendous prestige and reward. Defeating it somewhere there are no witnesses won’t bring
these benefits, but is definitely safer.
• Tactics of Death: Try to stay out of its reach by putting barriers between you and it. Something
this size is probably very hard to dodge and very dangerous. Hit it as hard as you can from a
distance, working as a team and thinking creatively, and you may survive.
In the same room are three funerary statues stolen from a Valori mausoleum. They will get shattered
when the fleshtangle is animated, giving the monstrosity a psychic scent to seek out. It won’t attack its
creator, however, so Antoni is only in danger from it if Donastra is the person who finally brings it into
existence.
A small alcove off the main room holds the respectfully displayed (but rotting) remains of Antoni’s
mother Salia, awaiting interment in the Valori family crypt when all this is over. It sure would be an
ironic pity if her corpse was accidentally absorbed into the fleshtangle, wouldn’t it?
In a different side room blocked by a heavy black velvet drape, Donastra is reading and attempting to
bargain with Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection. One of her minions is sitting with her and acting as her
guard. As you prefer, she will either sound the alarm (by ringing a bellpull), attack the Heroes along with
her allies, or try to animate the fleshtangle herself. If the Notebook feels threatened, it will teleport
Antoni to it (or teleport itself to Antoni) regardless of his wishes.
Donastra
Sadistic, conscienceless, efficient, stylish, cautious
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Armor 1 (stolen leather), Health 25

Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 4, Grit 1 (deep unresolved hatred for pretty much everyone),
Morale 15
Offense – Warfare: +1; Damage Modifier +1 (jagged, splintery blade or well-worn shortbow)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Armor-Piercing (cost 3), Defense Boost (cost 6), Extra Damage (cost 3), Seize Initiative
(cost 3)
Refresh Tokens: 5
Description: Donastra is an obnoxious blur in combat, launching herself off walls and ledges and
generally striking hard while keeping herself just out of others’ reaches. She’s an excellent swimmer, and
often dives into canals rather than be captured. She has no interest in dying for her cause, figuring that if
she escapes she can always return when her enemies least expect it.
GM Advice: Controlling the Finale

Donastra’s presence allows you to control the climax of this adventure.
Want the fleshtangle to animate, forcing the heroes to fight it either in Noble House or in a public space like
Temple Market? Either Antoni overcomes his perfectionism and animates it himself (perhaps crediting the Heroes
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for his new-found resolution), or Donastra seizes the loyalty of the Notebook and animates the fleshtangle herself
while the Heroes are arriving; all she’ll need is to sacrifice her bodyguard.
Prefer to end the adventure with horror instead of a brutal fight? Donastra and Antoni assault the Heroes as they
explore Noble House, realizing that their cards have been seen and it’s now or never. They will try to use a death
or deliberately sacrifice someone to animate the fleshtangle, but this gives the Heroes a chance to disrupt the
ritual before it is completed.
Pick whichever of these options seems like the most fun to you, deciding on the fly and based on how roleplaying
goes with Antoni.
Sub-basement: Ignore this room unless the Heroes enter Noble House through the sewers. The sub-
basement is partially flooded and muck-filled, and was emptied of anything but stone rubble a
generation ago. The Heroes can find their way to stairs rising upwards to the first floor where the
quiescent fleshtangle waits. In Scene 6, the fleshtangle will flee by this route.

This Scene ends either when the fleshtangle animates, or when the Heroes have defeated Antoni,
Donastra, and the rest of the Adversaries without having triggered the fleshtangle.
Scene 6: Horrible Rampage

Scene Type: ALTERNATE
Lead-In: Scene 5
Lead-Out: Scene 7
This scene only occurs if the fleshtangle has been animated by Antoni or Donastra during the end of
Scene 5. Adjust this description based on how your game plays out.
6.2 A Hideous Awakening

The fleshtangle wakens after someone (either Antoni or Donastra) externalizes 3 or more points of
Corruption, almost certainly while creating a hideous spell that focuses on the Spheres of Death, Decay,
and Flesh, and then kills a sacrifice. That sacrifice will most likely be one of Antoni’s minions, but could
even be Antoni himself if he feels driven to suicide. The fleshtangle swallows and absorbs the
Corruption, becomes sentient and mobile, and shudders horrifyingly to life. Anyone who views this
process must make a Difficulty 6/Loss 6 Morale test. It’s worth reminding players at this point that they
can use Sway to bolster their own or someone else’s Morale (see p. XX).
Upon the fleshtangle’s awakening, Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection teleports to the hands of the
sacrifice, and the sacrifice becomes the heart of the fleshtangle, sitting within the mass of squirming
corpses like a King or Queen upon their (hideously undead) throne. This corpse cannot be injured and
will be the last remaining body before the fleshtangle is fully destroyed. If the book can somehow be
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wrested out of this corpse’s bony clutches, the fleshtangle’s 6 Grit (0 vs. Prayers) will drop to 3 Grit (0 vs.
Prayers).
If they didn’t already learn them, give the Heroes with relevant abilities any leads about the fleshtangle
listed above at the end of Scene 5.5.
Fleshtangle
Horrifying, squamous, shrieking, mind-breaking
Defense – Health: Health Threshold 4, Health 60 (adjust as needed to total approximately 15 Health per
Hero)
Defense – Morale: Morale Threshold 3, Grit 6 (0 vs prayers), Morale 40 (adjust as needed to total
approximately 10 Morale per Hero)
Offense – Warfare: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (flailing limbs and teeth while trapped beneath its crushing
weight)
Offense – Sway: +2; Damage Modifier +2 (mind-numbing horror of this monstrosity bearing down on
you, ready to absorb you)
Abilities: Malus 20
Special Abilities: Infection (cost 0 — infects any victims who survive with a rotting disease that won’t
show up until a future adventure), Lightning Speed (cost 3), Monstrous Ability (cost 3), Regeneration
(cost 0 — heal 1 Health and 1 Morale for every human defeated and absorbed), Special (cost 0 — uses
Fearsome Blow and Universal Attack every round, attacking everyone within Point-Blank range with
both a Warfare and Sway attack), Spider Climb, Strength, Swimming.
Misc: Stealth Modifier –3, mostly due to the screaming; depending on how many corpses it comprises,
the Fleshtangle is massive and takes up an area equal to a large room. It can reshape itself (with much
bone-cracking) to fit into smaller areas. As the fleshtangle takes damage, its corpses are gradually
sloughed off and destroyed.
Refresh Tokens: 7
Description: Take four or five dozen mostly naked corpses, have their flesh grow and merge together in
horrifying patterns, then animate it and have all the heads simultaneously shrieking in horrified
awareness and pain as its hands, teeth and feet tear into trampled victims. At the center of the
fleshtangle, the sacrifice — the creature whose death finished the incantation — directs the creature
and clutches Zelgrieb’s Notebook of Dissection. That individual corpse remains invulnerable until all
other individuals in the fleshtangle are destroyed.
6.3 Running the Fight

6.3.1 Heroes’ Strategy
When fighting pirates back in Scene 1, the goal was for Heroes with a combat Talent to take out as many
pirate Mooks as possible as quickly as possible. The goal now is different. With only one very hard foe,
the goal is to gain Critical Hits and to pump as much damage into it as possible. See p. XX for detailed
suggestions, a few of which we’ll summarize here.
Critical Hits occur when an attack exceeds a Health or Morale Threshold by 5 or more. For the
fleshtangle, that means attacks reaching 9 or higher are Critical Hits and add an extra die of damage. It’s
good for players to remember their Heroes’ Drives, because getting a +1 bonus from one of their three
favorite things in life might be the difference between a Critical Hit and a normal attack. As always, the
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number of points spent on the attack is the minimum possible damage that can be rolled on the damage
die.
Teamwork attacks are another way to boost damage, allowing Heroes to assign their Morale or Health
damage to another Hero in a single high-damage attack.
Where bonus damage really comes from, however, is spending Investigative pool points; each one adds
+1 die of damage to a successful attack. Only one type of Investigative point can be added to any given
attack, but if you have 3 ranks of Tactics of Death, you might as well spend all three to inflict +3d6 on
the fleshtangle. Heroes get to describe their attacks once they know how successful they are.
Heroes with 8+ ranks in Preparedness have access to the Flashback ability, and this can be tremendously
effective at saving a friend’s life or at laying a trap for the fleshtangle.
The Heroes will need to be brave to close with it; it attacks everyone in Point-Blank range with both a
Warfare and Morale attack each round, with an attack modifier of +2 to hit on both. It won’t be missing
a lot, so the average Hero will be taking on average 5–6 Health and 4–5 Morale damage every round
they’re in range. That adds up quickly. Heroes will need to use Bind Wounds and Sway to keep their
Health and Morale above 0.
A clever Hero might spend Investigative points to hamper the monster somehow, such as restricting its
movement or making it more vulnerable.
And when worst comes to worst, remember that –10 Health and –10 Morale doesn’t kill a Hero, it
defeats them, and that doesn’t always mean death.
6.4 First Actions

Once awoken, the fleshtangle reacts as follows.
• It automatically destroys the nearby funerary statues when it awakens. If Antoni woke it, it uses
its Lightning Speed special ability to burrow into the sub-basement and from there into the
sewers.
• If Donastra or a Hero woke it instead of Antoni, destroying those funerary statues puts it on
Antoni’s trail first. It surges towards him, wherever he might be, and kills him first. It then
absorbs him and sets off after his relatives in Alderhall via the most direct route.
• If not prevented from doing so, it will try to follow the path on the map found in the old library
in Scene 5.5. This gives the Heroes an advantage, because they know where it will appear.
• If a Hero has at least 1 rank in City’s Secrets, the Heroes can move more quickly across the city
than it can underground, so they can clear people from its path or ambush it at a point when it
must surface. Ask your players to describe this spot, along with any environmental advantages
or disadvantages they might have while attacking it there.
• The monster will defend itself when attacked. If blocked from its route, it will attack and
attempt to kill anything living in its way. Each absorbed corpse heals 1 Health and 1 Morale.
• Heroes may spend their Allegiance points to aid them in the battle; as long as they can
rationalize a way to ask for help, each spent Allies pool point can gain them an advantage such
as an evacuated area, military backup, barrels of flammable oil, priests to help with prayers or
402
healing, and the like. Show the players that spending points of Allegiances can provide
significant advantages, although doing so then draws that group’s attention to the Hero.
If it sets off after Antoni’s family, and he is still alive, the obsessive daze placed on him by Zelgrieb’s
Notebook will vanish. He will suffer massive Morale loss and likely become Broken unless Heroes try to
help him using Sway. Donastra, however, will either escape or try to kill the Heroes, whichever makes
the most sense.
6.4.1 The Fleshtangle’s Strategy

It mostly ignores Sway attacks (thanks, Grit 6!) unless Heroes narratively describe those attacks as
prayers; doing so bypasses the monstrosity’s Grit entirely. The fleshtangle will always try to defeat
people using prayers as quickly as possible. Once it reaches the streets it will use the environment to its
advantage, scuttling up buildings and into canals to move most effectively. It rears up, uses Lightning
Speed to charge into people who thought they were a safe distance away, and remains genuinely
terrifying.
When injured, the creature changes its focus to kill as many nearby Mooks as possible as quickly as
possible. It absorbs each dead Mook into its mass, healing Health and Morale by 1 point per dead victim.
This can help it stay alive even after being battered, even as it makes the Heroes feel a little guilty that
they weren’t able to save those people.
It’s worth noting that anyone who is injured but survives (and this likely includes the Heroes) is infected
with a slow rotting disease. You can use this as the basis for a future adventure where the Heroes seek a
cure, use it as background color where scarred survivors turn to crime to survive, decide that this
triggers a plague that wipes out half the city because you really want societal change, or simply ignore it
because disease isn’t necessarily fun or heroic (especially when it comes to the Heroes being infected).
There’s no wrong way to handle it.
6.5 The Final Confrontation

As guided by you, the players can decide where the final confrontation against the fleshtangle occurs. If
it has had time to find and kill innocents en route, it will have healed from all or most Health and Morale
damage that it took when escaping Noble House (see its Regeneration special ability).
Make this as cinematic as is appropriate, describing environmental effects and nearby architecture (or
asking your players to describe them instead). It’s worth remembering that the scars of this combat will
mar the city for adventures to come, so go all-out when describing the massive destruction the huge
fleshtangle inflicts. Crumbled buildings, ripped-up streets, screaming and broken inhabitants, the works.
Describe its anguished keening and the nightmarish sound of its many fingers and toes skittering its bulk
along the side of buildings. If the Heroes are going to get credit for leading the attack against the
fleshtangle, they should be accomplishing something memorable.
By the time it’s down to a Health or Morale pool of 0 or below, the ground will be covered with portions
of twitching and crawling corpses, and only the one remaining sacrificial victim holding Zelgrieb’s
Notebook of Dissection will be fully standing. Destroying them will shatter the binding and release all of
the dead corpses from their enchantment. The scattered flesh will harden into something approaching
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iron and fix itself to the spot where it lies. For years to come, this area in the city will be marked by the
petrified remains of the defeated fleshtangle, and locals will eventually name this square or street after
the heroes who defeated it.
If the Heroes can’t or won’t stop it, the fleshtangle gets to Alderhall and levels the Valori estate. After
devouring and absorbing everyone on the property, it will burrow into the undercity, hide, and gradually
become fully sentient. It will appear in future adventures as a prime mover in Eversink’s Monstrosities
faction.
If you think it would be fun and interesting for a Hero to possess the Notebook for up to three
adventures (after which it disappears), the Heroes may recover and deal with its Corruption themselves.
If not, the most interesting resolution may be for the Church or the City Watch to seize the book, as this
lets you corrupt the new owner in a future adventure. Otherwise Zelgrieb’s Notebook simply disappears,
to reappear somewhere else in the city when or if you choose.

This scene ends when the fleshtangle has either been destroyed or it achieves its goal and escapes.
Scene 7: Aftermath and Conclusion

If the final confrontation with the fleshtangle was in a public location, the aftermath is likely brutal and
filled with the dead and broken. If it wasn’t, or if the fleshtangle was never animated, the aftermath will
be much easier to keep quiet.
Go around the table and ask each player to say one thing that will change in the city based on this
adventure. Then write these changes down and weave them into the next adventure you run for these
Heroes.
Grant each Hero 1 Advancement point to improve their Hero, or 2 points if the game’s conclusion felt
particularly momentous and meaningful.
7.1 Possible Rewards and Penalties

• Help Captain Barani bring the Squandered Hope back to Eversink (unlikely but possible): Wealth
3 per Hero.
• Claim the reward on Precia Cointongue: Wealth 4 (total).
• Help the actual corpsetakers and their Mortuary stop the fake corpsetakers: Wealth 2 (total).
• Keep Antoni alive: Wealth 2 per Hero (arranged by Uxorioth’s persuasiveness).
• Kill Antoni: Wealth 2 per Hero (a reward from Antoni’s estranged grandmother). (Figuring out
how to claim the rewards for both situations? Priceless.)
• Kill Antoni: Each Hero adds Grudges: Commoners 1.
• Lead a public attack on the fleshtangle, whether or not it was destroyed: Wealth 3 per Hero
(civic and church reward for heroism).
• Lead a public attack on the fleshtangle, and it was destroyed: Each Hero adds Favors: Triskadane
1.
• Lead a public attack on the fleshtangle, and it wasn’t destroyed: Each Hero adds Grudges:
Ancient Nobility 1.
404
The adventure ends when you’ve awarded treasure, discussed what’s changed in the city due to this
adventure, and settled any loose ends. Congratulations — and welcome to Swords of the Serpentine.
405

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Ke

By Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner

“Serpentine! Serpentine! It may attack at any time!”

Children’s nursery rhyme, origin unknown

“Seek respite, traveler

Carved into the threshold of a Dockside temple in Eversink

General Abilities .................................................................................................................................................23

ABOUT THE SETTING.....................................................................................................................................................23

Scenes from Eversink ..........................................................................................................................................24

CHAPTER TWO: YOUR HERO ................................................................................................................................ 27

FRAMING THE GAME ....................................................................................................................................................27

Bookhounds of Eversink .....................................................................................................................................28

Cabals and Covens..............................................................................................................................................29

City Watch ..........................................................................................................................................................29

Family Business ..................................................................................................................................................29

Freelance Slinks ..................................................................................................................................................29

Government Agents ...........................................................................................................................................29

Spider’s Web ......................................................................................................................................................30

Thick as Thieves ..................................................................................................................................................30

CREATING A CHARACTER QUICK REFERENCE ......................................................................................................................30

Mixing and Matching .........................................................................................................................................33

ADJECTIVES AND DRIVES ...............................................................................................................................................33

INVESTIGATIVE ABILITIES ...............................................................................................................................................35

Refreshing Investigative Ability Points ...............................................................................................................36

Initial Build Points for Investigative Abilities ......................................................................................................36

List of Investigative Abilities ...............................................................................................................................37

Social Investigative Abilities ...............................................................................................................................39

Profession Investigative Abilities ........................................................................................................................42

Talents: Rewarding Specialization .....................................................................................................................55

Initial Build Points for General Abilities ..............................................................................................................55

List of General Abilities .......................................................................................................................................56

General Ability Descriptions ...............................................................................................................................57

MINOR, ICONIC GEAR ...................................................................................................................................................64

QUICK-START CHARACTER TEMPLATES .............................................................................................................................66

Church Militant ..................................................................................................................................................67

Committee Diplomat ..........................................................................................................................................67

Sneak Thief .........................................................................................................................................................69

CHARACTER GROWTH ...................................................................................................................................................69

Spending Advancement Points ...........................................................................................................................70

Allies and Enemies ..............................................................................................................................................70

Wealth and Lifestyle ...........................................................................................................................................70

Changing Your Abilities ......................................................................................................................................70

CHAPTER THREE: RULES ....................................................................................................................................... 72

SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE 101: HOW TO PLAY .............................................................................................................72

Core Leads ..........................................................................................................................................................74

Spending Investigative Ability Points .................................................................................................................74

Refreshing Investigative Ability Points ...............................................................................................................76

Using General Abilities Investigatively ...............................................................................................................76

What If Something Is Hidden? ............................................................................................................................76

The Best Rule of Thumb ......................................................................................................................................76

ALLEGIANCE RANKS ......................................................................................................................................................77

Full Contests .......................................................................................................................................................83

Combat Range ....................................................................................................................................................89

Attacking a Foe ..................................................................................................................................................92

Advanced Attacks ...............................................................................................................................................95

Using a Maneuver ..............................................................................................................................................99

Becoming Hurt .................................................................................................................................................105

Regaining Health ..............................................................................................................................................108

Healing Injuries ................................................................................................................................................108

Defeat, Death, and its Aftermath .....................................................................................................................108

Becoming Demoralized ....................................................................................................................................110

Bolstering Morale with Sway ...........................................................................................................................113

Regaining Morale .............................................................................................................................................113