Kriegsmesser (Troika) [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

KRIEGSMESSER

Kriegsmesser (ZineQuest Edition, 2021) Written, designed and laid out by Gregor Vuga Alchemy, Caladea & Fournier typefaces used throughout. Art is taken original 16th century woodcuts. † I would like to thank: Nina for always believing in me and supporting me in all my nonsense. My friends for all the love & games (and being my unwitting playtesters). All the backers on Kickstarter for making Kriegsmesser possible.

I. The carriage coach is on fire and there’s no driver at the reins. It is the Long Sixteenth Century, somewhere in Europe, or a place much like it. Plague stalks the land, people are rioting against widespread corruption while a monetary crisis is making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Perhaps it doesn’t matter which century it is. Time is a flat circle. Or perhaps it’s not. The old systems are crumbling, the Old World is being reborn. It’s having a renaissance if you will. Religion is being reformed. A new emerging class of burghers and mercenaries is displacing the old feudal order. Poets don’t write romances about the knights anymore, but satires. This burgeoning new society, exuberant and ostentatious, obsessed with novelty and the self, is the early, cocoon stage of our Modern Age.

II. At the heart of it is always the Empire. The Empire encompasses the world, yet is terrified of the without. It enforces itself with steel and fire yet considers itself benevolent. It consumes the labour of others with a bottomless hunger yet calls its subalterns lazy, or wasteful, or greedy. Its citizens were brought up to love it, and fear its absence. But all have come to know in their bones that the Empire is violent and unjust. That its bounties are ill-gotten. That it is ruled by the incompetent and the self-serving. That its rebels, criminals and apostates speak with a moral clarity that law-abiding citizens can scarcely afford. That, worst of all, for all it’s violence, it’s infinitely fragile, like a brittle sword.

III. The Empire wages an eternal war against Chaos. Its priests preach of Chaos as an intrusion, something unnatural. Yet what is Chaos but the basic state of the world? There is no law in nature other than the arbitrary motion of blind mechanisms. Nature has no morality, no mercy, no justice. All laws are man-made and the law of Empire was made to suit the men that wrote it. These men see Chaos in anything that does not buttress their rule. They call it disorder, anarchy, corruption. They say that to rebel against their order is to rebel against god and nature. That the current arrangement is natural, rather than artificial. Meanwhile, the common people look to the Empire to deliver the justice that they were promised and they find none. They look to the Empire and do not see themselves reflected in it. They look around at what they were taught was right and good and see only misery. Their world begins to unravel. Chaos comes to reside in every heart and mind that sound enough to look at the world and conclude it is broken.

IV. A great prophet once said: There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. Hark now, the world might be broken, but it’s not fallen. It is not yet risen. The world is in chaos, but that only means it is yet unformed. No person is an island, and the rest of us, we’re in it together. All laws are man-made. We shall write our own law some day. The world we were promised, we must yet build it together.

Setting up and creating your character To play this game you will need some paper, writing implements and a handful of regular six sided dice (or a digital equivalent of the above). One of the people playing will take on the role of the GM. They need to improvise or prepare a scenario, or use a published one. A few tools are provided later in the zine for coming up with your own content. Everyone else takes on the role of a character. The following pages contain 36 character backgrounds that can be randomly chosen using a d66 roll (roll two six sided dice, reading the first as the „tens“ number and the second as the „ones“ number). The backgrounds are all compatible with the Troika! RPG written by Daniel Sell and published by the Melsonian Arts Council. If you plan to use it, simply combine the backgrounds in this book with the rules for that game. If you aren’t familiar with it, Troika! has a free core rules document that you can check out online. If you prefer, you can use the alternative rules presented in this book. In that case simply roll a random background as described above and then, in any order you like: •

Choose a name and pronouns for your character

•

Give them some detail by naming one or two distinguishing features.

•

Record your worldly possessions as determined by your background. You also have your clothes and probably a knife and spoon.

•

Add up the two dice from your background roll to get the number of your starting silver pieces.

•

You get 6 Luck. It will increase and decrease a lot during play so it’s recommended you keep track of it with tokens or a die of a different colour.

11: The Street Rat

12: The Bargee

Raised on the streets, you’re one of the countless orphans and urchins of Empire. Invisible & beneath notice to some, too uncomfortable to contemplate for others.

You’ve made your life on the great river that splits the Empire in two. And while there’s people travelling, trucking, hauling and bartering on both sides, there’s always going to be a need for your services.

Skills • Vanish into a hole 3 • Notice 3 • Beg 3 • Flee! 2 • Pilfer 2

Skills • Boating 4 • Swimming 3 • Fishing 2 • Bribe 1

Possessions • Tin bowl or cup

Possessions • A small boat or barge • Boat lantern • Oilcloth cloak & high boots • Net or fishing pole

13: The Starving Artist

14: The Forester

It’s a shit business, but you’re determined to portray the Truth, no matter if it gets you into trouble or if nobody appreciates it.

You’ve always preferred the woods over the towns, but now and then business (or the lack thereof) inevitably brings you back to civilisation.

Skills • Craft artwork 3 • Notice 2 • Drink 2 • Read & Write 2 • Gossip 1

Skills • Strength 2 • Bushcraft 2 • Melee (axe) 2 • Climb 2 • Track 1

Possessions • A box of pencils, charcoal, brushes, pigments, inks, chisels and loose bits of parchment. • A folder of unfinished work

Possessions • Woodfelling axe • Pouch of tobacco • Packed lunch

15: The Graverobber

16: The Soldier

Look, they’re dead. They don’t care if some doctor wants to look at their insides, or if I slip the ring off their finger as I deliver them to him. I’m sure they have other concerns.

Once you’ve seen the horrors of war you can never truly return to civilian life. But there are always people who will pay good money to keep their own conscience and hands clean.

Skills • Sneak 3 • Dig 3 • Awareness 2 • Evaluate 2

Skills • Formation Fighting 3 • Marksmanship 3 • Strength 2 • Dig 1 • March 1

Possessions • Hooded cloak • Spade • Prybar • Oversized sack

Possessions • Breastplate & helmet • A polearm or musket • A sidearm • Waterskin

21: The Labourer

22: The Bawd

You’ve spent your life breaking your back, working hard for other people’s profit. You have nothing to show for it but a spectre of the future.

You’ve been around. You know all the city’s hot spots and hidden alleys. Whether you’re acting as a guide to some gullible newcomer or as a go-between for some shady deal, you’re going to make a pfenning on your intimate knowledge of the streets.

Skills • Strength 4 • Dig 2 • Carouse 2 • Craft 2 Possessions • Hammer or sledgehammer • Pickaxe or sickle • An empty pine box

Skills • Streetwise 3 • Bribe 2 • Romance 2 • Blather 1 • Gossip 1 • Evaluate 1 Possessions • Bottle of cheap liquor

23: The Gaoler

24: The Old Salt

It’s a miserable, dehumanising job where you’re discouraged to look at your wards as people, but it certainly gave you many skills and contacts.

„I’ve seen things landlubbers would not believe. Galleons on fire off the coast of Lustria. I might tell you about it if you buy me a drink.“

Skills • Awareness 3 • Locks 2 • Tunnel Fighting 2 • Gossip 1 • Strike to stun 1 • Evaluate 1

Skills • Boating 3 • Knots 2 • Climb 1 • Carouse 1 • Gamble 1 • Swim 1 • Sing shanty 1

Possessions • An assortment of chains, manacles, locks and keys • Candlestick

Possessions • Piece of a treasure map • Knife and cutlass

25: The Thief Money is a heavy responsibility and you’re doing charity work, relieving people of their burdens. Skills • Locks 2 • Sleight of Hand 2 • Flee! 2 • Climb 1 • Sneak 1 • Notice 1 • Read signs (Thief marks) 1 Possessions • Set of lock-picks • Soft shoes • Hooded cloak

26: The Charlatan You’ve become convinced nobody comes into money the fair way, and without advantages of birth, you’ll have to rely on your wit...and there’s a sucker born every minute. Skills • Flee! 2 • Sleight of Hand2 • Blather 2 • Evaluate 2 • Forgery 2 Possessions • Tools for divination • Vials of sugar water • Pack of cards • D6 counterfeit silver coins

31: Revolting Peasant

32: The Initiate

Three tax raises in the past year, only cow died to the pox, six days of tilling the lord’s lands and now the plague? Frankly, you’ve had enough.

You decided to join a religious order to learn the mysteries and divine truths they possess. Also, you heard they brew good beer.

Skills • Animal Handling 2 • Craft 2 • Carouse 2 • Arson 1 • Riot 1 • Dig 1 • Strength 1

Skills • Read signs (divine will) 3 • Sanctify 2 • Lawyer (doctrine) 2 • Read & write 1 • Orate 1 • Healing 1

Possessions • Torch • Club or Pitchfork

Possessions • Raiment of your order • Book of hymns or prayers or theology • Bottle of fine Trappist beer

33: The Coach Driver It’s an honest business, often lonely, sometimes dangerous. But few things compare to the open road. Skills • Drive coach 4 • Handle animal 3 • Carpentry 1 • Marksmanship 1 • Back-road wise 1 Possessions • Rain cloak & wide-brimmed hat • Coach horn • Lantern • Blunderbuss • Coach and pair of horses

34: The Outlaw More than a common thief or burglar, you’re a romantic figure, a dashing rogue with a reputation to uphold...and perhaps a greater ambition than mere silver. Skills • Sneak 3 • Marksmanship 2 • Strike to stun 1 • Intimidate 1 • Notice 1 • Climb 1 • Ride 1 Possessions • Hooded cloak or hat and mask • Bow or pair of pistols

35: The Bounty Hunter

36: The Alchemist

Some idiot is always trying to run and some other idiot is always willing to pay money for the first idiot to be brought back.

All things pass from one form to another, ice to water, water to steam, bodies to souls, lead to gold. Probably. Maybe. You’ve just got to keep trying. And find someone to finance your experiments.

Skills • Track 3 • Marksmanship 2 • Alley Fighting 2 • Sneak 1 • Gossip 1 • Read & Write 1

Skills • Blather 4 • Solve: melt, dissolve, sublimate 2 • Coagula: solidify, curdle, crystallise 2 • Purify 2

Possessions • Crossbow or Pistol • Sturdy rope & manacles • d3 wanted posters

Possessions • A small chest containing an alembic, portable athenor and various dishes, bottles, vials and raw materials

41: The Loyal Servant

42: The Hunter

You might be serving some complete dolt, but you can’t help yourself. Look at them stumbling around like a lost puppy. What would they do without you?

You’ve been tracking some beast for so long it has become your white...wait, it’s too early for that idiom. Anyway, you’re here to hunt.

Skills • Etiquette 3 • Gossip 2 • Animal Handling 2 • Cook 1 • Ride 1 • History 1

Skills • Tracking 3 • Trapping 2 • Marksmanship 2 • Animal Handling 2 • Sneak 1

Possessions • Cooking utensils • Sewing kit • Cleaning brushes and cloths

Possessions • Bow or hunting musket • d3 Snares • The fresh track of a beast

43: Entertainer

44: Slayer

The nobles are bored out of their minds, the commoners desperately need a distraction from the misery, and you’re happy to oblige both.

Sure the nobles are bad, but you know what’s worse? Vampire nobles. Literal and metaphorical bloodsuckers. And they’re just the first on your list.

Skills • Acrobatics 2 • Sing 2 • Dance 2 • Handle animal 2 • Sleight of hand 1

Skills • Read signs (demonic) 3 • Notice 3 • Fight (monsters) 2 • Gossip 1 • Track 1

Possessions • Gawdy clothes lined with bells • A trained pet • A musical instrument • Throwing knives or juggling balls

Possessions • Kickass hat • A string of garlic or holy water • A silver knife or a stake of hawthorn wood

45: Barber-Surgeon

46: Gambler

Shaving a beard, lancing a boil or sawing off a gangrenous leg, skill with a blade is skill with a blade, and there’s no shortage of filth and sickness that you reckon needs cutting off.

Fate is a fickle mistress, but lady luck can be nudged and cajoled.

Skills • Grooming 3 • Surgery 3 • Etiquette 2 • Gossip 2 Possessions • Razor blade, several knives • Bone saw • Forceps • Jar of leeches

Skills • Games of chance 3 • Sleight of hand 2 • Evaluate 2 • Flee! 2 • Notice 1 Possessions • Pack of marked cards • Pair of loaded dice • Concealed pistol

51: Vermin Snatcher

52: Witch

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a town with a rat problem must be in want of a catcher. And, oh dear, there’s a lot of rats out there.

You hold the wisdom that has been passed down through generations to aid and protect the community, but you have been driven into hiding by those that don’t want to share their positions of authority.

Skills • Trapping 3 • Animal Handling 2 • Poison 2 • Tunnel Fighting 2 • Music (Woodwinds) 1 Possessions • A dinky yet ferocious dog • A pole or sack with d6 dead rats • Cudgel • Flute

Skills • Second sight 3 • Hex 2 • Herbalism 2 • Gossip 2 • Handle animal 1 Possessions • Candles, herbs, chalk, needles • An animal familiar with an ironic or absurd name

53: Student Your parents thought you are getting edified, but you much prefer getting hammered. Skills • Blather 2 • Drink 2 • Carouse 2 • Read & Write 1 • History 1 • Astronomy 1 • Orate 1 Possessions • d3+1 treatises and grimoires • d3+1 books of poetry or theatre • A bottle of cheap wine

54: Itinerant Peddler Most small communities don’t have their own shops or markets so you travel to and fro, carrying simple wares, gossip and mail between towns and villages. Skills • Haggle 4 • Evaluate 3 • Gossip 2 • Drive (cart) 1 Possessions • A small cart loaded with cheap wares • A skinny mule

55: Duelist

56: Engineer

Few people know how to wield a sword or a pistol, yet all men have honour. And you’ve learned to wield both to your advantage.

You always took an interest in how things are put together and taken apart, and your expertise was most desired when it came to building and blowing up forts.

Skills • Dirty trick 2 • Provoke 2 • Take the fall 2 • Fencing 2 • Marksmanship 2

Skills • Read & Write 2 • Artillery 2 • Architecture 2 • Math 2 • Locks (& fine mechanisms) 1

Possessions • Light sword or pistol

Possessions • Blueprints, inks and pencils • Pair of compasses • Mason’s square and level Special You can test your Luck to have the right tool for the job always at hand.

61: Smuggler If people are willing to pay for it, who’s to say they shouldn’t have it? It’s just humble saltpetre, what harm could it do? Skills • Sneak 3 • Read signs (smuggler marks) 2 • Bribe 2 • Drive (Cart) or Boating 1 • Tunnel Fighting 1 • Strength 1 Possessions • Dark cloak • Hooded lantern • A barrel filled with illicit goods, but the buyer is missing

62: Bum-Bailiff The imperial bailiffs are typically too embroiled with „more important matters“, so the less pleasant jobs (like debt collection in shadier neighbourhoods) get delegated to more... desperate individuals. Skills • Lawyer 2 • Flash badge 2 • Embezzle 2 • Evaluate 2 • Read & Write 1 • Alley Fighting 1 Possessions • Badge of office • A truncheon or knuckle dusters • A small chest with a sturdy lock

63: Rabble Rouser

64: Apothecary

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? Is god not revealed to us all, rather than the few? Have you noticed frogs croaking strangely recently?

While surgeons treat with knives and leeches, trying to get the bad stuff out of the body, you’re trying to get the good stuff in. Or, well, get the bad stuff in, depending on who’s paying for what.

Skills • History or Gossip 3 • Orate 3 • Read & write 1 • Flee! 1 • Alley Fighting 1 • Read signs (political causes) 1

Skills • Herbalism 4 • Poison 3 • Heal 2 • Gossip 1

Possessions • 3d6 leaflets & pamphlets • Hammer and nails

Possessions • Mortar and pestle • A small collection of dried herbs, essential oils, mineral powders and other substances of more dubious origin

65: Agent You pose as someone with just enough flair or class to get access to the circles of power, but you really here to do the dirty work for someone else. Skills • Etiquette 2 • Disguise 2 • Find contact 2 • Read & Write 2 • Lawyer 1 • Bribe 1 Possessions • Quill, ink and parchment • Fancy clothes with a hidden pocket & valuable papers, sensitive correspondence or a vial of poison

66: Clueless Noble Sure the court was nice but you wanted to travel, to see the real world! You wanted to live like common people! Skills • Etiquette 4 • Ride 3 • Gossip 1 Possessions • A trunkful of finery and light reading • A squire or assistant (another PC?) • 2d6x10 extra silver Special When you explain how your wealth gets you out of a tight spot (you’ve bribed the executioner, your extravagant brooch stops a bullet…), every 10 silver you spend counts as a point of Luck.

Basic Rules: Playing the game This is a social tabletop game like poker or chess, but instead of interacting with figures on a board or managing hands of cards and so on, we interact with an imaginary space which we share through a conversation: the GM describes the the situation and the players describe what their characters do or say. Everyone can ask questions to get a better understanding of the fictional situation. The GM should always give the players all the information they need to make informed decisions for their characters.

Skill Tests The conversation continues in the manner described above until a character does something that has (a) high stakes and (b) an uncertain outcome, at which point a Skill Test should be made. In general, the GM may call for a skill test when an action is time sensitive, the character is in conflict with someone or if they are attempting something dangerous. As a player you may call for a skill test when you’re trying to win some advantage or to clarify and improve your situation in the fiction (or, alternatively, to harm or disadvantage an enemy). Either the players or the GM may call for a skill test when they feel one is necessary. Regardless of who initially called for the roll, the player should be explicit about their goal (what they’re trying to achieve with the roll), and the way they’re going about it. Once this is clear, you might find out you don’t need to roll at all. In other words: if there’s nothing at stake or the outcome seems certain, there is no need for a roll. If a skill test is still the best way to handle it, the player rolls dice equal to their rating in a relevant skill. If they have a helper or the environment in their favour, another player or a GM can give them one (and only one) bonus die. If a player has no available dice, they roll two, but only keep the lower one.

After rolling, the player looks for the highest individual result. If it’s a 6, the character succeeds without trouble. If it’s a 4 or 5, the GM will offer them one or more bargains: • • • •

a weaker result or partial accomplishment of the goal a way to back out safely or bow out graciously a success with a twist on the goal success at a price (harm, collateral, further complications, etc.)

If the result is 3 or less, the character fails to achieve what they wanted and things probably get worse. Try to avoid „nothing happens“ outcomes, which is why something should be at stake before you roll. To recap: Only roll for actions that aren’t certain to succeed and have an interesting or narratively significant consequence of failure. Otherwise, the character should probably just succeed.

Luck Unlike Skill Tests, testing Luck has nothing to do with the characters’ skill, and shouldn’t be rolled when the character does something, but rather when something bad happens to them. The goal of a Luck roll is to elude an otherwise inescapable disaster. Alternatively, you may attempt a Luck roll when your character is in a bad position and you hope or pray for a dramatic twist that’s beneficial to the character. The later should be an unlikely but plausible turn of events building on what has been established before, if you hope thunder strikes at the right moment, it should be already raining at least. To make a Luck roll, first clarify with the GM how much of the disaster you might be able to elude or what is the best you can expect in the given situation. Then, spend a number of your Luck points and roll an equal number of dice. If you have no Luck, you’re out of luck. Just as with skill tests, look for the highest die. On a 6, it goes as well as you established. On a 4-5 you probably still get hosed or are left with a problem or complication, but things could have gone worse. On a 3 or less, it’s as bad as it could be, no saving grace. Characters recover 1 point of Luck every time they have time to rest and recover in a safe environment, plus an additional point if they engage in merriment and festivities or spend time in prayer or some intellectual pursuit.

Violence Keeping the guidelines below in mind you can run combat descriptively, using the regular rules for skill and luck tests. When a character makes a test in combat the player can name any goal that’s reasonable within the guidelines. Both sides should make their goals clear before the roll and consequences should be rigorously applied in the fiction. 1. All weapons are created with the intent to kill (or at least injure) an opponent with the goal of disabling, subduing, deterring or driving them away. At the very least, a weapon is intimidating in its prospect of causing harm and pain. Most people are reasonable and don’t want to be hurt, even less end up dead. In many cases, drawing a sword and threatening someone with it might be enough to elicit a surrender or withdrawal. 2. Once violence occurs, unless the character is attacking someone helpless or unaware, the victim is likely to defend themselves and fight back. If their target can oppose them or strike back in earnest, they should roll too. 3. Humans have invented all kinds of protective clothing and gear to lessen the impact of their killing tools, while beasts and monsters might have thick hides. There are creatures that do not fear weapons, either because they do not understand them, or because weapons cannot harm them (at least not in the ways they can harm humans). Armoured opponents or supernatural threats might attack and fight indiscriminately, until an opportunity to harm them is found, then see point number one. 4. If you are a trained fighter wielding a weapon, you can use your weapon skill to block and parry incoming attacks. Otherwise avoiding injury and death in a chaotic situation is a matter of Luck. If you want more rules or something more traditional, use any or all of the combat rules in the next section.

Optional Combat Rules Initiative: The GM determines initiative according to the following factors: (a) The side that ambushed or surprised another has initiative. (b) If neither has, the side that is holding or defending a superior or fortified position has initiative. (c) If neither is, the side with superior numbers, force, size or gear has the initiative. (d) If it’s still unclear, each side rolls a die, highest roll has initiative. The side with the initiative can first declare actions that the other side can’t ignore. The side without initiative can only react once the first side has made their move. Toughness & Armour: Each character has 10 Toughness points. Any damage taken in combat is subtracted from Toughness. At 0 Toughness, a character is at death’s door: the next time they take damage it’s a killing blow. Armour is divided into three categories: light (padded jacks, or armour made from cloth, hides, furs, leather, etc.), moderate (arming jacks, buff coats, brigandines or antiquated plate, chainmail, etc.) and heavy (modern plate, cuirassier armour). The armour’s value is subtracted from incoming damage in combat. Light armour subtracts 1, moderate armour subtracts 2 and heavy armour subtracts 3. Weapons & Damage: Weapons are divided into five broad categories, listed in the table below. For other weapons or sources of damage, find the nearest equivalent. Weapon

Base Damage

Mighty Blow

Vantage

Warhammer

4

+1

2

Spear

3

+2

4

Sword

2

+3

3

Dagger

1

+2

1

Unarmed

1

+1

0

Crossbow

4

+2

-/HG

Pistol

5

+1

-/CQ

Other weapons: For weapons not on the table, find the nearest sensible equivalent. An animal’s claws are daggers. A mace is like a warhammer. Two-handed weapons are versatile: halberds can be used as either spears or warhammers and zweihanders can be used as either spears or swords on any given turn, but they both require two hands. Damage: On a 4 or 5, the weapon deals its base damage. On a six, add the mighty blow damage to the base damage. For each six rolled beyond the first, add another instance of mighty blow damage. Weapon Vantage is a measure of the weapon’s reach, speed and versatility. In a fight, the side with the higher vantage gets a bonus die. Using a shield puts you one vantage category higher than you’d normally be (so a person with a dagger and shield has a vantage of 2). Ranged weapons like bows and muskets can get a Vantage die for shooting from High Ground. Pistols can get a vantage die for shooting someone in Close Quarters. Masterwork weapons might add +1 to vantage or base damage. Blackpowder weapons are powerful, but slow to reload, in most combats you’ll only get to use them once. They might also require a Luck roll in bad weather of difficult conditions.

Cost of living For simplicity’s sake, most basic things like food or drinks cost 1 or 2 silver. More specialised or useful stuff like tools, paying for lodgings or a small farm animal cost about 5. Well made or large stuff things cost about 20. Rare or fancy stuff made for the upper classes like a sword or a riding horse costs a 100 silver or more. The genre rule for money is that the characters should always be strapped for cash. If they get so rich they can retire, they should probably also retire from the game. Employers and nobles never pay more than they feel they should. When they’re generous, they do so because they know they’re getting something out of it. If you play a campaign, hike the prices every now and then as a cause of cheap silver flooding the market.

Corruption Kriegsmesser partially subverts or deconstructs the traditional conceit of Warhammer where the characters are threatened by the forces of Chaos. In this game it is the player characters who are the agents of

„Chaos“: they are likely to become the „rats“ under the streets, and the wild „beast-men“ in the woods bringing civilisation down. It’s the Empire and its nobles and priests that are corrupt ones. If you wish to play a more traditional way, with the corrupting influence of an objectively existing supernatural Chaos, use these rules. Characters begin with a special Corruption die (use a die of a different colour) and a Corruption score of 1. Any time they come in contact with the forces of Chaos, they must make a Corruption Check: roll the die and if the result is higher than their current Corruption score, their Corruption increases by 1. Any time a character attempts a Skill or Luck test, they may call upon the forces of the dark gods for help and add their Corruption die to the roll, increasing their chances of success. However, if the Corruption die shows the highest result in the roll (winning ties), a Corruption Check must be made, as above. If you don’t have an appropriate skill, only roll your Corruption Die. If a character reaches a Corruption score of 5, they start showing clear signs of a chaos infection or mutation. Characters may reduce their Corruption, 1 point at a time, by destroying a significant shrine, text, or relic related to Chaos or purging themselves through holy fire. At 6, they are lost to the manipulations of Chaos and must exit the game.

Careers and Advancement If you have a week or more of downtime and you have a mentor with whom you can apprentice, you may declare you’re changing careers. Pick a different background and gain any skills you don’t already have, starting at 0. You don’t get any extra possessions for starting a new career, you’ll need to buy them yourself. When you use a skill during a session, mark the xp box next to it. At the end of the session or during extended downtime you may attempt to advance any or all of your marked skills. For each skill you attempt to advance, erase the xp mark and roll a die. If the result is higher than the current level of the skill, increase it by one, to a maximum of six.

Terrible Injuries If you find the rules for damage too deadly, you can opt to use rules for Terrible Injuries. When a character at 0 Toughness takes damage, instead of being killed, they roll two dice on the injury tables on this spread (one for the table, the other for the result). The idea is that yielding or running away should be preferable to fighting on once you hit 0 Toughness, while reducing the risk of losing your character. 1: Left Leg, 2: Right Leg

1

You avoid injury but a blow makes you lose footing and fall.

2

Your ankle is sprained, rendering you unable to move at a brisk pace for a few days.

3

A vein is burst or slashed open, causing you to bleed unconscious within minutes if untreated.

4

Your knee is shattered, leaving you with a permanent limp.

5

You lose d3 toes, making running and balance-related actions more difficult.

6

Your leg is mangled or severed below the knee. You fall unconscious from the shock and will require surgery. 3: Body

1

A blow to the soft bits makes you double in pain and vomit.

2

A smashed rib or piercing wound punctures your lungs, causing pain and shortness of breath.

3

The wound causes internal bleeding or organ damage, causing death within minutes.

4

Your collar bone is smashed, making arm movement very difficult until treated and healed over several weeks.

5

An injury to your spine causes you to fall prone. Unless treated, exertion or movement may cause death.

6

The injury causes catastrophic organ damage and instant death.

6: Head

1

An ear or your nose is severed or torn off, leaving a nasty gash.

2

A blow to the head leaves you dazed, losing your next turn.

3

Your scalp is slashed open, blood pouring over your face, making sight-related tasks more difficult until washed.

4

Your jaw is struck, knocking out d6 teeth and filling your mouth with blood.

5

The weapon ruins one of your eyes, rendering you blind on one side.

6

Your skull is smashed, damaging the brain. You fall down twitching and dead within moments. 4: Left Arm, 5: Right Arm

A blow across your fingers makes 1 you drop whatever you’re holding.

2

Your wrist is injured, making all dexterity-related tasks more difficult.

3

An object you’re holding is shattered. If your hand is empty, your arm is permanently injured instead. A vein is burst or slashed open,

4 causing you to bleed out in a few minutes turns unless treated. You lose d3 fingers, causing

5 finesse and dexterity tasks using that hand more difficult.

6

A blow to your elbow renders your arm numb for a turn, dropping whatever you’re holding.

Running the game Not all RPGs have a GM role, but this is one of those that do. GM roles differ across games, the guidelines below are for this particular game. If you are the GM, keep the following goals and responsibilities in mind. First of all, make the world seem real. This means actions have consequences, events have causes, people have lives and motivations. Think beyond the immediate circumstances and consequences. If the characters do X, how does the world react and change as a result, not just right now but in a broader sense. Second, you are the reporter of the fictional reality. Because of this, you should strive to be impartial and rely on your best judgement. You will need to interpret the fiction and translate back and forth between character actions, dice and whatever you’re picturing in your head. For this reason you should be generous with information: don’t withhold things from the players, don’t be coy with the truth. If you set up some mystery, do it because you want the characters to figure it out, so give them all the info they need. People in the world love to run their mouths! Third, don’t pre-plan outcomes. We play this game to find out what happens. Present situations, make them complicated, then follow the players’ lead. Don’t decide on how things should unfold down the road, always leave space for the dice and the players to take things in a different direction. Fourth, put real people first. Trust your players and build on their contributions. Don’t forget to make sure everyone is comfortable and on board with what’s going on. Remember to check in with people, especially if playing with strangers. There are many emotional safety tools that you can find online such as Script Change, Lines & Veils and the X-card, and they all have their pros and cons. People are different! Find something that works for your group. Fifth, imagine and convey a darkly humorous or humorously dark world. Don’t go all out trying to be funny, and don’t do things just for laughs but do try to find the humour in the darkness. Dramatic irony can bring meaning to suffering and laughter is a good coping mechanism. Satire is a way to critique and engage with (and pay homage to) things you care about. And remember to punch up, not down.

Last but not least: make the character’s lives exciting! They are the stars of the show, the protagonists of this picaresque. Keep in mind to make the world seem real (that is, root the excitement in the reality of the fiction), but throw twists and turns their way whenever you get a good opportunity.

Some more words on interpreting rolls Interpreting rolls can be tough. Sometimes you just can’t come up with anything. In that case, consider just rewinding. It’s fair to say something like: „you know what, we shouldn’t have rolled for that, you just do the thing“. When a player rolls a 4 or 5, you need to offer them a bargain. That can be the hardest! Here are just a few examples to help you along. A weaker result or partial accomplishment of the goal. The apothecary tries to make a potion that will put someone in deep sleep. Their highest roll is a 4. The potion will merely make the target drowsy. Success at a price. The agent wants to quickly dispose of a loudmouth that’s threatening to expose them at a ball. They lunge and stab the poor soul, but as they go down, they claw and tear up the agent’s fancy clothes. They can’t hang around the ball looking like this! Offer a way to back out safely or bow out graciously. The thief tries to sneak into a manor to steal a letter. Their highest roll is a 4. Tell them they can leave the manor without alerting anyone (the situation doesn’t get worse for them), but they don’t manage to get the letter either. If they refuse, they find the letter but are noticed by someone. A success with a twist on the goal. An Engineer drafts some blueprints for a new siege engine and presents them to the duke with the goal of getting into the duke’s employ. The duke is unimpressed with the blueprints but wants the Engineer to draft plans for a mysterious underground chamber instead. If you are struck by a good idea, pick two bargains and string them up with an „and“ or „or“ then offer them to the player. For example the character can back out safely or succeed at a cost. At some other time you might tell them that they succeed at a cost and only get a weaker success. Always consider the context of the fiction and follow your best judgement when you make such decisions.

Running GM Characters For the most part, all you need for your characters is three things: 1. their name 2. their look or appearance 3. their relationships (who and what they care about) You can roll or pick a name from the table opposite. You can pick or roll their look and relationships from the pictures and tables on the next spread. If you’re going to stick with the same characters for a while you can develop more details, mannerisms, speech patterns and so on to make them more fleshed out.

Combat Most of the time, you won’t need any stats for your characters. Just think about what they want and how they act. Sometimes, especially if it comes to a fight, you might need to think about their weapons or protection (if they have any). You might also need to consider if they have any fighting experience and how many dice they roll when they oppose player characters. As a rule of thumb give them one die in a fight if they have basically no combat experience, two if you think they’re better in a fight than an average person would be and three if they’re a big deal. This still gives the player characters an edge, but not without making their life substantially harder (and their death more palpable). Remember that most people don’t want to fight and would prefer to avoid harm.

Class and Status When you portray a character of lower station, show their quiet desperation, their fear, reservation, doubt or lack of certainty. Occasionally, show their righteous anger or desperate violence when they’re left with no recourse. When you portray a character is of high station, show their direct and calm behaviour & lack of reservation. Be invasive and interrogate. Occasionally, show their rage and frustration if their status is threatened or questioned.

d66 11 12 13 14 15 16 21 22 23 24 25 26 31 32 33 34 35 36 41 42 43 44 45 46 51 52 53 54 55 56 61 62 63 64 65 66

Male names Abdulah Anton Belcolore Belot Benjamin Bogdan Boris Brancaleone Branislav Črtomir Erazem Faris Florian Gjorgij Grifone Janez Jaroslav Jozsef Konstantin Lazaro Leopold Lovro Mansur Maximilian Mirza Mucimir Nándor Nikolaj Ognjen Orel Orlando Pavel Skander Stjepan Tomislav Ugo

Female names Abondancia Agatha Aisha Barica Cicilia Črna Desislava Ekaterina Flora Franziska Hana Helena Héloïse Hermina Honesta Iacobina Isabella Jadviga Jagoda Karlinka Lada Lamija Magdalena Maria Ninoslava Odola Pellegrina Radomira Svetlana Temava Theresa Uršula Veronika Vincentia Zlatica Zora

Surnames Alamano Bonfagioli Balog Bartoš Báthory Corbolini de Corvis Čedrag Dimov Dvořák Fortunič Frankopan Gambaloto Graf Hasanbegović Herzog Hudadlaka Janževec Kastrioti Kohlstedt Kozoglav Levi Lukács Maloprav Marzarius Mokorel Pamuk Perun Pogrebnyakov Müller Schwarzkobler Simeonov Steinauer Valburg Varga Zajec

What’s the basis of their relationship? 1. Romance 2. Crime 3. Family

2

4. Business 5. Politics

1

6. Religion

4 3

5

6

What are the dynamics of their relationship? 1-2. Unequal/unilateral. One of them wants the relationship to become more equal, formalised or developed.

1

3-4. Strained. One of them wants out of the arrangement. They don’t like being in this position. 5-6. Threatened. Some external force is trying to destroy or the relationship and they are struggling to keep it safe.

2

3

4

6 5

Creating a scenario Some GMs like to improvise everything, while others prefer to run a prewritten scenario. Most do a bit of both. Kriegsmesser is pretty agnostic on that front. You can do any of the three, as long as you heed the guidelines laid out in the earlier chapters. A simple way to go about it would be to run one of the many adventure modules that are available for other games in combination with the contents of this zine. Some people find that reading through and preparing for a published scenario is plenty of work already. If you prefer to improvise, you probably know how to do this already. The tables and procedures on the following pages will hopefully give you some elements to riff off. If you want to prepare something, here’s a procedure for creating the skeleton for one or more scenarios. 1. Roll up a random town using the tables on the next spread. Once you’ve rolled an individual result, cross it out and pencil in a new idea or leave it blank for later. 2. Think about the person that’s running the town. How are they placing unreasonable demands on the population? How are they driving people to desperation, illness or revolt? 3. Roll two pairs of people on the spread after the town tables. What forms the basis of their relationship? What’s the dynamic of the relationship? 4. Using the same procedure, tie one of the people in each pair to a person from another pair. Tie the other person in each pair to the person in charge of the town. 5. Consider the problem, the event and the web of characters you have created. How are they related? Has one been caused by the other somehow? Tie it all together. 6. Reveal the information in play, showing, not telling. Jumping forward with motivated characters. The characters you made have their agendas, find ways to drag the player characters into their mess.

Generating a random town Roll once, reading all the results across the same row on all tables, or roll separately for each column of each table (or mix and match to your heart’s content). Town Name

Coat of Arms

Claim to Fame

1

Süsenberg

A fat tabby cat leaping out of a river

Tallest belltower

2

Mareborg

A tired horse

Fattest pig

3

Weißstadt

Two men wrestling over a sausage

Narrowest bridge

4

Göritz

A rose cloven in half by a sword

Most divorces

5

Rattendorf

A wormy loaf of bread

Best pies

6

Borgomorto

The devil playing a flute out of his ass

Worst carnival costumes

Minor Problem

Overall Mood

1

One of the wells has suddenly dried out

Violence & anger

2

The beer turned green overnight

Melancholy & despair

3

Someone has been stealing milk

Reckless abandon

4

Nobody likes the town crier

Religious fervour

5

A recent rain washed out corpses in the graveyard and the priest is away

Deluded jubilation

of crows have been 6 Disconcerting numbers stealing grain

Monomaniacal

Event unfolding as you arrive

1

A witch is being put on trial in the town square

2

4

A baker is being dunked in the river for selling loaves below the prescribed weight The leader of a peasant uprising is being drawn and quartered by horses in the square The village festival is underway, with traditional social roles reversed

5

A meteor has struck the bell-tower, sending people into a panic

6

The town is in the grips of a dancing mania

3

Who’s running the town?

1

The mayor, with his posse of cronies

2

The zealous priest, with brimstone and fire

3

The wealthy landowner, with promises and silver

4

A mercenary captain, with an iron fist

5

The people, a mob in revolt, looking for a leader

6

An apostate preacher, holding sway over the masses

Random Encounters Six personalities you might run into while travelling. To spark the imagination, start a conversation, or build relationships around.

2

1

Firespit Femke

Vogelhut Knipperdolling

Approach: In the square of the market, a young woman is breathing fire to the applause of onlooking peasants. She is surrounded by a troupe of jugglers and musicians. They have arrived to perform at the local market during a religious festival.

Approach: A man in a battered hat, prominently adorned with the wings of a large bird, is loudly demanding that passersby pay attention to him and what he has to say.

Background: Femke’s band are all accomplished performers (and occasional pick-pockets), skilled in both vulgar entertainment and putting on pious passion plays. They almost immediately become embroiled in a multi-sided fiasco as a local merchant accuses Femke of burning down his wagon (actually a scam concocted in accord with an insurance seller) while a priest accuses her fire-spitting of being an unnatural work of devilish sorcery after she spurns his advances.

Background: Vogelhut is a former falconer who barely escaped a vicious flogging after his master’s favourite falcon was shot in a hunting accident. Still on the run from his master, Vogelhut moonlights as a prophet, preaching a theology of avian deliverance. He claims that the falcon not only saved him from the stray bullet but had died for his sins and was an angel who had guided him to freedom. He’s gathered a small following of vagrants and runaway serfs, instructing them to be like birds, unbound from toiling the earth.

4

3

Ritter Lokus

Lady Kísértet

Approach: A fallen tree blocking the road as a number of armed figures led by a fully-armoured knight leap from the shadows.

Approach: A veiled lady and and old man near a broken down carriage, asking for assistance. They introduce themselves as Lady Kísértet and her servant and groundskeeper Venceslav.

Background: Lokus is a robber knight who has been harassing travellers and caravans passing through the region for the last few years. Local authorities are quite helpless against him, as he has a superb knowledge of secret paths and hideouts as well as a large gang of loyal henchmen at his disposal. If the PCs have any kind of significant wealth with them, Lokus will attempt to confiscate it, by force if necessary, though he prefers to remain „gallant“. If they appear poor, he will try to conscript them into his bandit army instead, promising them a tempting cut of the loot. If the PCs visit the nearby town, they find a large bounty has been put on the knight’s head.

Background: Lady Kísértet is a vampire and she likes to accost travellers around her demesne. If they help, she invites them to her castle as thanks for assistance. If shelearnsanyPCsareofnoblebirth, she will try to seduce them into becoming a decoy „husband“ or „daughter“tohelphermaintainthe charade of humanity. If she judges them vagrants and vagabonds without local connections, she will try to play with them and pick them off one by one as snacks. If they refuse to help, she is offended and will hunt them down over the next few nights to teach them some manners.

5

6

Apocalyptic Cult

Ancient Ghoul

Approach: A small group of people, naked, covered in bruises and sores. They hop and dance through the field, yelling and chanting, striking the earth with animal bones. They immediately surround the travellers, urging them to join in the revelries.

Approach: A jittery man, marble skin caked in cracked gaudy makeup, body draped in musty togas. He introduces himself as Claudius, a merchant from the city of Emona and asks to be accompanied home, as he seems to have lost the way.

Background: The cult has given in to the belief that the end of the physical world is close at hand. They’ve shed their clothes and engage in all kinds of mortification or exultation of the flesh to try to unravel their earthly prison faster (they still consider murder and suicide to be a sin: they with to hasten the apocalypse, not simply inflict bodily death).

Background: Nobody in the region has heard of Emona, although a monk or scholar somewhere might recognise it as an old Latin name of a nearby town. Claudius is well over a thousand years old, but too addle-brained to acknowledge that fact. In his old life, he was lured into a cave by a flesheating strigoi and transformed into his new servant, cursed with flesh eating immortality. The strigoi was killed long ago by some hero or another but Claudius still wanders the wild sleeping in muddy holes and consuming the flesh of dead animals.

Through divine inspiration, they have begun to assemble a machine made from horse jaws, which they believe will break the earth and release its black sinful blood.

The Long 16th Century What some call the „long 16th century“ in Europe has no formal definition but for argument’s sake, let’s say it’s a century that began about half a century early and ended half a century late. In 1450 Johannes Gutenberg began operating his printing press, which would go on to fundamentally change the control, production and dissemination of information. A few years later, in 1453, Constantinople fell to an Ottoman siege, marking the end of the Eastern Roman Empire. New empires rose everywhere, and some would continue to dominate the world for the next 500 years. In 1492, Spanish monarchs completed the „Reconquista“, marking the end of religious cohabitation on the peninsula. A mere year later, Columbus returned from his voyage to America with loot and prisoners in tow: a prologue to centuries of persecution, conquest, plunder and exploitation. In Italy and elsewhere artists and thinkers rediscovered, revived and reinterpreted ideas from antiquity, conceiving of a world at the centre of which was the novel idea of Man. It was the long century of DaVinci and Copernicus, of Machiavelli and Shakespeare, Descartes and Paracelsus. In 1517, Luther nailed his theses to the doors of a church in Wittenburg. The dominant catholic religion, which for centuries had suppressed all heresies with crusades, auto-da-fés and inquisitions was suddenly in crisis that resulted in a permanent schism and religious warfare took on a new character. Gunpowder and mercenaries gradually replaced knights on the battlefields. Cities swelled and grew, and with them, a new class of people which had been emerging for the last few centuries finally came into its own: the bourgeoisie, the middle class, neither noble nor peasant. The old order was crumbling, and in its stead, something new was being born. With newfound self-awareness people considered themselves modern, admiring antiquity and scoffing at the newly invented „middle ages“ that separated them from it. In truth, this long century marked the protracted crisis and transition from the feudal order to our „modern era“ (which we still call by the same name), with the birth of colonialism, capitalism and all that entails.

Although the infamous Black Death had struck Europe and the Islamic world a good hundred years before, the plague returned in waves and continued to ravage the population until the mid-to-late 17th century. The „price revolution“ struck during the second half of this period, marked by massive inflation and the debasement of currency, the most likely causes of which were the influx of gold and silver from the Spanish colonies. It compounded with all of the aforementioned crises to place the population in even greater misery. Many peasant revolts ensued during this period, from Scandinavia across the Holy Roman Empire to Greece, from Catalunya to China and Japan. Most of them caused by the mismanagement, exploitation and abuse of the feudal lords and acerbated by natural disasters. In many ways it must have seemed that the world was ending. The mood was apocalyptic, but also looking to the future. Skepticism and satire sparred with faith and virtue. The renaissance art that took inspiration in antiquity gradually evolved into the new baroque style that emphasised exuberance and grandeur, spurred by both the influx of plunder from the colonies and the defiance in the face of death from constant exposure to plague and war. This time of crisis and transition more or less matured during the mid-17th century, with the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and the English Civil War (1642-1651) which brought unprecedented carnage and a new balance of power. The injustices, wars and disasters didn’t stop there of course but society was markedly out of the middle ages and well into the early modern period.

Elsewhere, elsewhen The materials for the original Warhammer games were very much a product of their time: punk, irreverent, satirising the genre and poking fun at life under the Thatcher regime. Early Warhammer committed that most irredeemable crime of games: it was political. A lot of that has gone under the radar, forgotten or washed out over the years. We live in a time where satire sometimes seems impossible. Yet the shadow of the Iron Duchess and king Ronald still looms large. The initial spark of inspiration for Kriegsmesser was the idea to combine of the old Warhammer setting with the lightweight mechanisms of Troika!, an undercover hack of Fighting Fantasy, itself another British game from the 80’s. But me being me, I obviously had to tweak and twist both to the point they’re barely there. Warhammer was a pastiche of fantasy tropes and 15th century Europe. I decided to dig deeper into the latter, while also leaving things vague. I scrubbed away most of the high fantasy dressing. I figure most people are familiar with the tropes. There also a ton of good setting and adventure books out there that you can use to fill out the blanks. But as someone else once said: all books are campaign setting books. Due to its inspirations, Kriegsmesser remains centred on Europe, because that’s what I was most familiar with. But living out here on the Borderlands of Empire, where we’re less civilised and more savage, I have some small idea what it’s like to live in places that just get marked with „here there be orcs“ on most fantasy maps. Kriegsmesser was written with optional rules, modularity and hacking in mind. This should extend to the setting: the long 15th century was also the time of the Songhai and Mughal empires, the Joseon, Safavid and Ming dynasties, Aztecs and Incas. Take the game to Timbuktu or Aksum, read up on the Samurai in Mexico City. You might find history far deeper and vivid than you knew.

Mediography Some works listed here (especially the movies) are in the horror genre, or depict or describe the horrors of war. Some contain graphic scenes of violence, sexual assault and other disturbing imagery. I cannot list every element here, so consider this a general content warning and peruse with caution. Movies Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968) Blood on Satan’s Claw (Piers Haggard, 1971) The Last Valley (James Clavell, 1971) Flesh+Blood (Paul Verhoeven, 1985) Blackadder II (Richard Curtis, Ben Elton et al., 1986) Sauna (Antti-Jussi Annila, 2008) The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015) Hagazussa (Lukas Feigelfeld, 2017) Kingdom (Kim Eun-hee et al., 2019) Literature François Rabelais - The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel anonymous - Lazarillo de Tormes Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote H. J. C. von Grimmelshausen - Simplicius Simplicissimus Bertold Brecht - Mother Courage and Her Children Umberto Eco - Baudolino John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor Carlo Ginzburg - The Cheese and the Worms Ellen Meiksins Wood - The Origins of Capitalism Michel Foucault - Discipline and Punishment Mark Fisher - Capitalist Realism Ivan Tavčar - Visoška Kronika (The Chronicle of Visoko) Rado Murnik - Lepi Janičar (The Handsome Janissary) Janez Vajkard Valvasor - Visoška Kronika (The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola) Games Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (first edition, 1986) Cthulhu Dark (Graham Walmsley, 2010)