Hey everybody, great to be back! Thought I would update y'all on Wolf & Raven, my Viking-themed supplement for Forbidden Lands TTRPG — it's done! Done and published! Took WAY too long to do it, but man it feel's great to have completed such an epic (for me) project.
Wolf & Raven ended up being 14 pages long, consisting of rules for longships as strongholds, complete with 3 functions and a bunch of hirelings, 4 new General Talents, 3 new Artifacts, rules for Raiding, rules for alcohol consumption, LOTS of tables, and even suggested enemies for Viking-themed games, and a list of kennings to help you role-play like a Viking! AND MORE!
Overall I'm incredibly happy with how Wolf & Raven turned out. I thought it would also be fun if I picked out one of my favorite bits of rules and talk about them a little!
Okay, so I gotta talk about the new General Talents. I created four new paths:
Path of the Drengr, which allows you to taunt enemies, regain lost Strength, and even bumps up your Reputation score. This is great for players who want to draw attention away from comrades, or characters who have a death wish!
Path of the Drunkard, which allows you to drink like a boss (using the new alcohol rules!). Stack up willpower and drink your opponents under the table so you can look like Marion from Indiana Jones and the Raider's of the Lost Ark.
Path of the Shield Wall, which allows you (and your comrades!) to lock shields, go all-in on defense and fight like a Viking! I play-tested this with some friends and they were able to tank against a frost giant VERY effectively!
Path of the Viking, which allows you to find all the best treasure when you raid a stronghold (using the new raiding rules!).
Out of all these paths, I'm a particular fan of the Path of the Drengr. I'm always going balls-to-the-wall with my characters, and this path is 100% something I would take. Being able to taunt an enemy into attacking me, saving my friends, and dying in glorious combat is my ideal play-style, so if I ever get to play another character I might try to get my GM to let me take this path!
Probably the biggest chunk of rules written in Wolf & Raven are dedicated to raiding. After all, how can you play a Viking and not raid? You can't! These rules put the players on the side of the attacking force, while the NPCs are defending their stronghold, which turns out is very satisfying! It starts with a few quick rolls to randomly generate an enemy stronghold, how many guards it has, what it's defenses look like, and any unexpected qualities (like a monster being present!). From there, it plays out similar to the Battles at the Stronghold from the Forbidden Lands core book.
If the players successfully raid the stronghold though, then they get to roll on the massive Raider's Spoils table. They get a roll for each point of defense the enemy stronghold has, so the better defended it is, the more treasure you're going to find! And you can find nearly anything in these strongholds — from some common treasure, to all kinds of raw materials, to epic religious treasure, and even artifacts! If your players have need of specific raw materials like leather, stone, wood, or even meat, this is a great way to get what you need; especially if one of the players has the Path of the Viking talent, which lets them manipulate the rolls on the table!
Finally I wanna talk a little about sailing, which encompasses a huge amount of this supplement. The biggest chunk is probably all the stronghold rules for your longship, which includes flaws, hirelings, and even attack and defense ratings for naval combat, but what I like the most are the random events that can happen while sailing!
When you're out on the water for a day, you can roll 2D6 and add the numbers together to get some kind of random event! You can stumble upon another wrecked ship which allows you to roll for some Raider's Spoils, get caught in a storm, ambushed by a sea serpent, or if you're truly unlucky, you could even be set upon by a hurricane!
The hurricane is unlocked by rolling snake-eyes, followed by a D6 roll which results in a 1, so make sure to use your best dice! When the hurricane strikes, the storm lasts 3 rounds, starting with stormy weather, then rogue waves, and then a cyclone of death and destruction! You could make it out okay, or your ship's functions could be destroyed and your hirelings sucked up into the hurricane itself!
During testing, the hurricane event initially turned out very well. All the players succeeded their rolls and in the end, nothing terrible happened. Then we did it again, and a bunch of hirelings died and a player suffered a horrible critical injury, so anything can happen! Best of all, it gets all the players involved in the event and my players had a blast going through it.
I could go on! The animal training rules are lots of fun, the artifacts are super cool, and the kennings were so much fun to put together — but I'm just gonna let you read it on your own! Check out Wolf & Raven here on Drive Thru RPG and let me know what you think!
Thanks for reading, and come hang out with me on twitch every Tuesday at twitch.tv/HeyGMKenny! I paint Warhammer on Tuesdays and talk TTRPGS, wargaming, and all kinds of other stuff, so that's always a lot of fun. You can also reach out to me on Twitter @HeyGMKenny!
Stay safe, play some games, and I'll see you next time!
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