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. You have a number of abilities. Your rank in these abilities is expressed as a pool of points you can spend It really is thematic to Sword and Sorcery fiction that the people that are driven by greed and selfishness often end up being worse than the person that initially was the villain, and that sorcery often unleashes a dangerous monstrosity way beyond what any of the antagonists really wanted. This is a solid introduction both to the rules and to the tropes of the genre. The Iconic Hero: Fantasy Classics in Swords of the Serpentine– Kevin Kulp looks at modelling classic fantasy heroes, such as Robert E. Howard’s Conan.

At fledgling power, we have is a Conan who is more thief than warrior. He’s adept at breaking and entering, good in a fight (especially if he fights unconventionally) but without tactical mastery. He’s young, and only knows how to relate to others through posturing and insults. The Eversink Post Office– Emily Dresner with an article about The Great and Distinguished Eversink Guild of Letter Deliverers (aka the Post Office). As in other GUMSHOE games, you can also spend Social Investigative abilities to manipulate the supporting characters around you. Want people to trust you so you run a scam? Spend a point of Trustworthy. Want people to ignore you while you slip into their mansion? Spend a point of Servility. You get the idea. Investigative abilities: Intimidation 1, Taunt 1; Skullduggery 2, Spot Frailty 1, Vigilance 1, Wilderness Mastery 1 The other three elements are more conceptual — they’re related ideas which together form the main engines that drive interactions throughout the city. They are a foundation of commerce, the expectation of law, and the presence of divinity.

Fledgling

Beyond explaining how to frame adventures, this section also introduces many of the rules that were used in the playtest as alternate rules to those presented in the book, for those that want to try them out. They aren’t just presented in a vacuum, however, as there is often commentary on what the alternate rules do to a game, as well as why they removed them from the final version of the core rules. The Setting

There are also magic items. They are, by and large, colorful and fun. Well, something like fun, but a bit darker. The reason these are all related is that they are all rooted in contracts and agreements, which are the metaphysical and metaphorical foundation of the city. Trade and commerce are forms of worship. This has interesting implications, like the beggars selling stones or the fact that churches are run like banks. Literally – churches are big-time moneylenders, but the vig takes the form of acts of devotion rather than more cash. This idea that everything can be (and should be) bought and sold in a fair and open way is foundational to almost all interactions in the city. Beyond my issues with Gumshoe, I probably have only one criticism, and that is that I’m not entirely sure how this rSocial Combat in Swords of the Serpentine When words cut as sharply as a knife, you don’t actually need to carry a knife. 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. Sample Allegiances Chapter Eight: GM Advice (examining tropes of the genre, how to structure mysteries, and allow for player improvisation and shared world building) Going into SotS, it had a few elements going in its favor and a few strikes against it. Against it was the Gumshoe system, which I’d never quite synced with. I genuinely love how it handles investigation and clues, but for more mundane actions it uses a pool system combined with hidden difficulties, which is a combination I don’t enjoy. However, Gumshoe has also gone through numerous iterations since the last time I looked at it, so I had hope.

It conveys the presence of the goddess in a non-blatant way. Because this is a thing which is done, it conveys its taken seriously, which in turn suggests that the goddess’s opinion/dictates carry real weight even when there’s not necessarily an enforcement mechanism. It is rare to see religion conveyed as important in a setting with anything approaching a light touch. One of my favorite ways to utilize these pool spends comes from examples in Laws and Traditions, where a character can spend points from this pool to declare obscure laws that people have forgotten are on the books. I won’t go into too much detail, but this reminds me of the great “the police can’t arrest you at a waffle house until you have finished your meal” law that my group came up with in a Monster of the Week game.Swords of the Serpentine guidelines– Collected guidelines Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner used when writing the game.