Arkhane Asylum’s Gods RPG has finally landed, lost in Kickstarter sludge for a number of years (I think). The game has a Quickstart on DrivethruRPG, and will become more generally available in February.
An early, first pass read, looks very promising. It’s a D10 dice pool game with varying difficulties and thresholds for success (called ‘Handicap’ in the translation, which will need a rename, such as ‘Complication’). Trait, Skill and a possible speciality, provide your base pool. Skill provides both a bonus to the pool and a potential re-roll of one or more dice. You also have some more resources that you can spend, including Nerve (extra dice into a pool, capped by the level of the trait you are using), and Grit (extra re-rolls, similarly capped). The group also have access to somethnig called a ‘Party Pool’ (yeah I have the same image – will rename to Group or Company), which provides bonus dice for shared actions depending on the morale of the group as a whole.
There are other factors, drawing on the core theme of the game, which is the journey that each hero has as they become a trusted chosen of their god. Pools of Humanity and Divinity can be used, Shards of power and Divine Favours from your god.
Combat looks fun, with you picking the difficulty of your attack (depending on your weapon expertise), setting the opponent’s difficulty for defence. Damage is increased by unopposed successes and absorbed by armour. Damage that gets through needs to beat one of three ascending thresholds to deliver one of three types of wound.
NPCs use a simplified structure for fast play.
This mechanical quick look doesn’t touch on the rich sword and sorcery world that the game is set in. The Wildlands look lush and packed with adventure potential.
I have constructed a simple Foundry VTT dice roller for online play. Once again, I’m using the Custom System Builder to create simple functional sheets, that at least work, if nothing like as pretty as a properly developed system.
Here’s an example monster, using the NPC Template. The stats are simlified to ‘attack’ and ‘action’ and action using identified specialities. They will be quick to deploy in sizable numbers!
I have some more reading to do, diving into the Wildlands, where the game is set. There are ready to face antagonists, not least from the Empire of Lox, who will stand in your way as you act as a ‘Chosen One’, a unique avatar of one of the old gods, who are seeking to return. I’ll certainly post more as I get up to speed.
I think the fevered development of a practical way to play the game online, using the core of Foundry’s capabilities, reflects an excited rush to get some actual play in. It would be fair to say that I have overdone the VTT preparation, as you could easily play the game with paper sheets, maybe a dice roller, and (preferable for me) webcams. Well, there we are and it is done now, at least to a level that my rudimentary skills in the Custom System Builder module will allow. I’m happy to share the templates with anyone who might find them interesting. You might also improve on them and share back!
More to come as I develop some sessions on Foundry and play the game.