SCARLET HEROES BY KEVIN CRAWFORD ILLUSTRATED BY LUIGI CASTELLANI ERIC LOFGREN NATE FURMAN DYSON LOGOS EARL GEIER IAN MACLEAN RICK HERSHEY JOYCE MAUREIRA DAVID L. JOHNSON MIGUEL SANTOS ©2014, SINE NOMINE PUBLISHING ISBN 978-1-936673-50-6 A WORLD IN NEED OF HEROES... The cities of men are few in these accursed days. Ever since the demon-haunted mists of the Red Tide exiled a scattering of desperate survivors from their ancestral lands, all that remains of humanity are those peoples who cling to survival in the distant Sunset Isles. Their refuges remain perched upon wild shores, men and women gathered together in city-states grown fearful of their neighbors. The Mandarin of Xian broods in his many-towered city as the blood sorcerers of Tien Lung scheme and the Shogun of Hell dreams the red dreams of his masters. The grim pikemen of Hohnberg turn away from their former allies in the east, and in the ancient halls of his Gate Citadel the dwarf-king dwells uneasily upon the change of days. In the west, the Shou howl for vengeance. Driven from their lands by the human exiles, locked in never-ending war against the hated interlop- ers and their own rival neighbors, they lack only a leader to make an irresistible tide of their warriors. Even now their raiding parties harry the western borderlands and thrust deep into once-safe territories. Their savagery lights the midnight skies with the flames of burning villages and make pillars of smoke from the homes of men. The decay festers even within the hearts of the people as the dreams of the Red Tide win fresh cultists to its alien cause. It forever seeks to open a way into the haven of the Isles, to draw closer to the shores that denied it the last and most delicious of its prey. These cultists trade their reason for auspicious madness and pleasing delusion, until their very flesh rebels against sanity and their rites bring in the red fog of their lords. How long can the ruling powers suppress knowledge of the cult’s hideous spread? No foul sorcery is needed to explain the pirates and the bandits and the rapacious border lords who are more brigand than protector. The common people groan under the troubles of these days, and many give up all hope of honest gain in favor of a sharp spear and the plunder of their neighbors. These bandits are a scourge upon honest men. Too many lords lack the strength to suppress them, even if they had the will. Yet even in these dark days the hours are not without hope. Among the legions of the bitter, the resigned, and the desperate there are those with the potential for greater things. There are those with the iron thews or razor wits or unquenchable faith that is required for a greatness beyond ordinary men. These are the heroes of the Sunset Isles, the men and women destined to light legends with their deeds. With courage, cunning and the dauntless fury of a soul born for glory these few chosen may yet be the salvation of a land that trembles on the brink of bloody ruin. Many will fall. Many will perish in nameless and terrible ways, brought down by the dooms they so often face. Yet not all will fail, and from these few heroes may come a new and better age. ...AND THE TALES TO MAKE THEM Scarlet Heroes is an old-school RPG designed to support classic Many of the hardy grognards reading this will be scoffing into their sword and sorcery adventuring by a single valiant hero. While many beards right now, insisting that you can already turn any old-school RPGs work best with a group of fearless adventurers, Scarlet Heroes adventure into a single-player experience without using any special allows a single player and a GM to play existing old-school adventure tools. And it’s true. You can. But is it fun? Is it really a great use of modules and use materials from their own favorite games in a session your creativity? Wouldn’t it be easier to just pull out Scarlet Heroes, for just one or two players. grab your character sheets and modules, and just play? Scarlet Heroes is a stand-alone game with everything you need to Slide this slim game into your pack or load it onto your tablet and build suitably heroic exploits for your daring freebooters, but it can you’re fully equipped to handle those nights when gaming turnout also serve as a rules overlay for other old-school games. By using is low or those occasions when you want to show a friend the fun of the mechanics provided here you can play your existing materials old-school adventuring without the need to corral 4-5 other players. without changing character sheets or editing adventures to make Play with your spouse, your kid, or your gaming buddy who has them survivable by a lone hero or an adventuring pair. half an hour to kill waiting for something else. You can pack a lot of adventure into a short time when you only need to track one player. Character creation is fast, play has the speed of classic old-school gaming, and the tools in this book are built to support the GM in And for those nights when you have a full house, you can use the creating the kind of adventures beloved of true sword & sorcery pulp tools here to fashion adventures and excitement for full parties, heroes. The resources here focus on fast content generation, quick swapping in other old-school rules with seamless ease, without adjudication of heroic situations, and the tables, tags, and support editing character sheets or tweaking adventures. You’ll find a wide material that you can use in your own home game, whether or not sweep of exotic new foes and ineffable sorcerous mysteries contained you play it with the mechanics given here. in these pages, and adventure tags to help you brew up excitement for a group of one or many. Aside from all the parts you’d expect from a full-fledged S&S game, Scarlet Heroes also provides a solo adventure section for creating Scarlet Heroes was made to help you play the game you want to play entirely single-player gaming sessions. Whether urban intrigues, with the people you want to play it with. It’s built to take the stress exploring deep wilds, or plumbing the depths of some lost prehuman off the GM, and let both them and the player focus on the fun of the temple, the rules here let you play a GM-less adventure of your own. game. Now let’s get started; I’ve got some things to show you.... TABLE OF CONTENTS CREATING YOUR HERO 4 A BESTIARY OF FOES 54 ROLL YOUR ATTRIBUTES ............................ 5 MONSTERS OF THE ISLES ........................... 57 CHOOSE A RACE ..................................... 6 ENCOUNTERS ........................................ 78 CHOOSE A CLASS .................................... 7 ENCOUNTER TWISTS ................................ 79 CHOOSE TRAITS .................................... 10 FINAL TOUCHES ..................................... 11 TREASURES BEYOND PRICE 80 EQUIPMENT .......................................... 12 TROVE TYPES ....................................... 82 QUICK CHARACTER GENERATION ................. 14 INDIVIDUAL TREASURE GENERATION .............. 83 MAGIC ITEMS ........................................ 84 PLAYING THE GAME 16 POTIONS ............................................. 86 CHECKS ............................................. 17 SCROLLS ............................................. 87 SAVING THROWS .................................... 17 WANDS .............................................. 87 COMBAT ............................................. 18 MAGICAL RINGS .................................... 88 DEFYING DEATH .................................... 19 MAGICAL ARMOR ................................... 89 INJURY, DEATH, HEALING, AND HAZARDS ...... 20 MAGICAL WEAPONS ................................ 89 TURNING UNDEAD ................................... 20 MISCELLANEOUS MAGICAL ITEMS ................. 90 TRAVEL AND ENCUMBRANCE ....................... 21 SHIPS AND SEA COMBAT .......................... 21 CREATING ADVENTURES 92 ADVANCEMENT ....................................... 22 ADVENTURE TAGS .................................. 96 CONVERTING EXISTING MATERIAL ................. 24 MAPS ...............................................109 SCARLET HEROES QUICK REFERENCE ............ 25 QUICK NPC CREATION ...........................113 RED SORCERY 28 SOLO GAMING 114 SPELL PREPARATION PER DAY .................... 29 GENERAL ORACLES ...............................115 CLERIC SPELLS ..................................... 30 ACTORS, RELATIONSHIPS, AND REACTIONS .....116 MAGIC-USER SPELLS .............................. 35 URBAN ADVENTURES ..............................118 URBAN ADVENTURE SCENES ......................120 THE WORLD OF THE RED TIDE 42 WILDERNESS ADVENTURES .......................122 THE PEOPLES OF THE ISLES ....................... 44 WILDERNESS TERRAIN AND FEATURES ...........123 THE NATIONS OF THE ISLES ....................... 47 WILDERNESS EVENTS ..............................124 THE MANDARINATE OF XIAN ....................... 48 DUNGEON ADVENTURES ...........................125 THE SHOGUNATE OF THE NORTH .................. 49 DUNGEON TYPES, SIZES, AND INHABITANTS ....126 THE MAGOCRACY OF TIEN LUNG .................. 50 DUNGEON PLACES, LOOT, AND DANGERS ......127 THE HOHNBERG PACT ............................. 51 DUNGEON FEATURES ..............................128 THE UNTAMED LANDS .............................. 52 LAWS, RELIGIONS, AND CUSTOMS ................ 53 INDEX 131 CREATING YOUR HERO Your hero is no ordinary man or woman. Your hero is a legend in Your hero needs to have a purpose before he or she will be ready for the making, a