The Barbarians Bloody Quest Ezine
The Barbarians Bloody Quest Ezine
The Barbarians Bloody Quest Ezine
Vincent Baker’s
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest
A Role-playing Game
D. Vincent Baker’s
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest
A Role-playing Game
D. Vincent Baker’s
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest
A Role-playing Game
a lumpley game
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest
Contents
Introduction: The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest 4
Your Tools 7
Ending a Session 10
Between Sessions 10
Summary 11
Your Exertions 12
Volunteers’ Guide 22
A Bestiary 24
Spawning Circumstances 26
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest
You’re a killer, but you’ll no longer kill people for their wealth, for
pride of place, or to ease your own bloodlust. You’ll kill wizards, and
you’ll kill them for revenge.
4
You & Your Qualities
You are a killer and wanderer, seeking revenge upon the wizard
who once destroyed your family. What’s your name? What are your
pronouns?
5
Your Qualities & Your Exertions
You are able, as are all living things, to exert yourself upon your
surroundings, against your enemies, and alongside your allies.
You begin the game with seven named and rated exertions, plus
submission, as follows.
• You may exert yourself physically against the mass and momen-
tum of an uncooperative or unsensible thing. Your rating equals
your quick tally plus your strong tally, but with a minimum of 3.
• You may exert yourself with purpose in your pursuit, to study and
learn about a particular wizard or particular wizardry. Your rating
equals your tempered tally, plus 1.
• And finally, when you choose not to exert yourself, you submit to
circumstance and just try to come out on your feet. Your rating
equals your strong tally plus your tempered tally.
6
Your Tools
You have a number of tools at hand to help you on your quest. You
begin the game with these three:
• Your arms & armor: a short sharp sword, a hatchet, a shield, and a
helmet.
• Your purposeful knowledge of wizardry, which allows you to pursue
wizards effectively.
• A stone & bone talisman of blue jasper and a fox bone, which you
had from your parents, which helped hide you from the wizard when
you were a child.
As you play, you’ll gain tools, and possibly lose them.
When you exert yourself, you can bring your tools to bear in a variety
of ways. Look them up on your character sheet.
The first is, when you cut open a wizard, what spills out depends
upon the particular nature of that wizard’s magics.
The second is, when you finally cut open the wizard who butchered
and enslaved your family, no blood will spill out, but instead, a
pulsating vermilion light.
Your quest is to cut open as many wizards as you must, until you cut
one open and pulsating vermilion light spills out. Then you’ll know
that your quest’s fulfilled and you’ve had your revenge.
7
Your Goal in the Game
Your goal as player of the game is to follow your quest for revenge
into danger, and to emerge victorious when you can.
The rules of the game won’t keep you safe in your quest, exactly, but
they’ll always keep you alive and free. You never need to act to avoid
danger. Plunge forward!
Once you’ve named yourself, tallied your qualities, and rated your
exertions, you’re ready to begin play.
For each session, you’ll need to find two friends who’ll volunteer to
play against you. They can be different volunteers each time; it’s your
responsibility to bring them up to speed and give them what they
need to know in order to play. Be sure to hand them “The Book of
Doomed Wizards,” and to give them each a copy of the “Volunteer’s
Guide” and “A Bestiary.” Find these on pages 24–27; they’re also
available for download.
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The Fundamentals of the Game
Don’t wait for them to tell you, spontaneously, what it’s like, who’s
there, what they’re doing, how it looks, where you might go, who’s
paying attention to you, who isn’t. Whatever you’re curious about,
whatever you need to know in order to decide what to do, ask.
It’s not their job to say anything at all, if you don’t ask!
3. Exert yourself.
Going back and forth asking and answering questions is fine for as
long as you want to do it, but exerting yourself drives the game and
gives both you and your volunteers more to work with.
9
Ending a Session
Either you or your volunteers can end the session any time, for any
reason or none, without worrying about how abrupt it might be.
Your goal in the game is to follow your quest for revenge into danger,
and to emerge victorious when you can. You can use this as an
outline for a session, if you want, when it works out that way: end
the session when you’ve encountered and defeated a wizard, or else
when the wizard’s bested or escaped you.
When you kill a wizard and a pulsing vermilion light spills out, you
know you’ve killed the wizard who butchered and enslaved your
family. You’ve won your revenge; your quest is finished! You can end
the game, or else keep playing without the quest to drive you on.
Between Sessions
10
Summary
• You’re a killer and wanderer. You’re on a quest to kill the wizard who
butchered and enslaved your family, and you’ll kill as many wizards
as you must in order to do it.
• You’re quick, ruthless, tempered and strong. You can exert yourself
with instinct, with openness, with physicality, with purpose, with
a show of readiness, with subtlety, with violence. You can choose
not to exert yourself, but submit to circumstance instead. You also
have tools to bring to bear when you exert yourself.
• Your goal in the game is to follow your quest for revenge into
danger, and to emerge victorious when you can.
• To play, you need two volunteers to play against you. It’s your job
to give them everything they need in order to play. Give them the
“Volunteer’s Guide” and “Bestiary” handouts, and “The Book of
Doomed Wizards.”
• Any of you can end the session at any time, for any reason or none,
without worrying about how abrupt it might be.
• Between sessions you can change your qualities and the ratings for
your exertions.
• When you finally kill a wizard and pulsing vermilion light spills out,
you’ve won your revenge and completed your quest. You can end
the game, or else keep playing without the quest to drive you on.
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Your Exertions
In play, you can always ask your volunteers any questions you
want about what you can see, hear, and directly experience. You can
always take safe, simple action: just tell your volunteers what you do
and ask them what happens as a result.
It’s your job to decide when and how to exert yourself, and to
interpret the rules and the results. It’s also your job to walk your
volunteers through it, by telling them what you’re doing and asking
them what you need to ask.
To roll: Roll a number of 6-sided dice equal to your rating. Count each
4, 5 or 6 as a hit. If you roll no hits, it’s a miss.
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Exerting Your Instincts:
You may exert your instincts to grasp and react to a dangerous
situation.
Tell your volunteers that you’re taking a quick second, a couple of
minutes, or “the time” to look around, get a feel for things, and try
to figure out what’s going on, then roll. On any hits, you can ask as
many questions as you want about what you can directly observe,
as always. But you can also ask questions about what your gut tells
you, like the following. Ask one such question per hit. If they seem
uncertain, remind your volunteers to make up the answer if they
don’t already know it, but to be honest and forthcoming if they do.
• Am I being watched? Followed?
• Is everything cool here or is there something going on?
• I’m looking for [x]. Where should I start?
• I wonder if [x] is going to happen. What does my gut tell me?
If you roll well, you might find that you don’t have as many questions
to ask as you’re entitled to. That’s fine, just ask the questions you
have.
On a miss, tell your volunteers that you stand there lost in thought
until something snaps you out of it, and ask them what does.
Against a Wizard: Tell your volunteers that you might have hereby
alerted the wizard’s safeguards, and to check in “The Book of
Doomed Wizards” under “Safeguards.”
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Your Name:
& Your Pronouns:
Your Qualities
Tally Final Tally Tally Final Tally
Quick Ruthless
Strong Tempered
Exerting Yourself
Exert Your Instincts:
To grasp and react to a dangerous situation.
= Your Highest Tally + 2
Submit to Circumstance:
Instead of exerting yourself.
= Your Strong + your Tempered
Your Tools
A Barbarian
zz Your arms & armor: a short sharp sword, a hatchet, a shield, and a helmet.
Exert yourself with openness: Before you roll, ask your volunteers whether your
bearing arms and armor makes your counterpart think that you’re their enemy or
a threat.
Exert yourself with a show of readiness: When you communicate your readiness
to violence, you can mention your arms & armor.
Exert yourself Violently: When you “do [x],” [x] can include striking with your
weapons and fending off blows with your armor.
zz Your knowledge of wizardry, which allows you to exert yourself with purpose.
zz A stone and bone talisman of blue jasper and a fox bone, which you had from your
parents, which helped hide you from the wizard when you were a child.
Exert your instincts, exert yourself with purpose, or exert yourself subtly: On a
miss, tell your volunteers about this talisman, and ask them to take it into account
while they’re judging whether you’ve alerted the wizard’s safeguards.
{{ A copper needle as long as your arm, etched with stringent slogans of infliction.
When you exert yourself…
Exert yourself violently: if you impale a plasmid with it, it must submit to you,
begging you for mercy and release.
{{ A grimoire which includes a treatise on the Maxims of Ruelish of Fane. If you study
the First, Third, or Fourth Maxims, you become a wizard, and must end the game.
If you study only the Second Maxim, however, then when you subsequently exert
yourself…
Exert yourself with purpose: You may use 1 of your hits to ask your volunteers, “will
the Second Maxim of Ruelish of Fane disrupt this wizardry?” If they answer that it
will, then you may apply it, and so disrupt it. Ask your volunteers what happens.
{{ The Recitation of Kaibenta of the Bower, a powerful demi-spell of annulment.
When you exert yourself…
Exert yourself with a show of readiness against a wizard’s thralls, if you recite
Kaibenta’s Recitation before you roll, it fleetingly disrupts the wizard’s enthrall-
ment. Tell your volunteers that they’re subject to your exertion, even though they’re
wizard’s thralls.
{{ A javelin enmarked with an invocation of fire. When you exert yourself…
Exert yourself violently, you may include in [x] that you throw this javelin, and
whom it strikes, an abysmal gout of flame erupts, engulfing them to deadly effect.
The javelin’s unharmed by the flame, and you can recover it afterward, if you’re
able.
Your Improvements
{{ Honed: add 1 to your strong tally.
{{ Unhesitating: add 1 to your quick tally.
{{ Hardened: add 1 to your ruthless tally.
For each of these three improvements, update your exertions’ ratings as well.
If you re-tally your qualities between sessions, keep these improvements separate,
and apply them again after you’ve finished your tallies.
Exerting Yourself with Openness:
You may exert yourself with openness and warmth, to approach and
win someone over. To do this, you need at least a little time with
them, without urgency, pressure, or immediate danger, and they
must not regard you as their direct enemy.
Given this, tell your volunteers what you share with them — your
food, a story from your past, your fire, your knowledge of the stars or
of distant lands — and roll. On any hits, show your volunteers this list
and have them choose one per hit:
• They ask me to do something for them. Namely, [x].
• They promise me a meal and a warm bed, when next I need one.
• They tell me about their home and family, and what they love.
• They offer to do something for me. Namely, [x].
• They share their pain with me. Namely, [x].
• We find our common history or experience together. Namely [x].
On a miss, tell your volunteers that they regard you with suspicion
and hostility, decline to share, and depart as soon as they’re able.
But first, if you’re not satisfied with this, tell your volunteers what you
share or give them now, to reassure them, and ask your volunteers
whether you may reroll. You may only try for a reroll once, though; a
second miss must stand.
Against a Wizard: Before you roll, tell your volunteers that your
warmth might persuade the wizard to lower their guard, and to check
in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under “Acts of Warmth.”
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Exerting Yourself Physically:
You may exert yourself physically against the mass and momentum
of an uncooperative or unsensible thing.
Tell your volunteers what you do and what you’re hoping to
accomplish. Ask them whether you can just do it, or do they want
you to roll? Before you roll, you’re allowed to ask them what you can
accomplish without rolling, if you want to.
On a miss, choose 1 that you are, and one that you definitely aren’t.
Tell your volunteers that you’re adept enough, but you’re just plain
not patient enough, or whatever, and ask them how it goes for
you. Remember that your goal is to follow your quest into danger.
Embrace it and don’t hedge!
Against a Wizard: Tell your volunteers that acting against the wizard
might alert their safeguards, so to check in “The Book of Doomed
Wizards” under “Safeguards.”
You can exert yourself against physical things set against you by
wizardry. However, before you roll, ask your volunteers to choose:
• These forces are equivalent to natural physical forces. Roll as
normal.
• These forces are more powerful than their natural equivalents. Roll
with a modifier of -1 to your rating.
• These forces are vastly, impossibly more powerful than their natural
equivalents. Roll with a modifier of -2 to your rating.
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Exerting Yourself with Purpose:
You may exert yourself with purpose in your pursuit, to study and
learn about a particular wizard or particular wizardry. To do this, you
need to witness or observe an act or object of wizardry.
Tell your volunteers that you fix your full attention on the wizardry,
then roll. On any hits, ask one of the following questions per hit. Tell
your volunteers to check in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under
“Wizardry” for direction for their answers.
• What did the wizard hope this wizardry to accomplish?
• Was this wizardry easy for the wizard to create, or difficult?
• What did the wizard sacrifice of themself to create this wizardry?
• What does this wizardry reveal about the wizard who created it?
On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but tell your volunteers that the wizard’s
safeguards might certainly perceive your querying attention, and to
check in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under “Safeguards.”
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Exerting Yourself Subtly:
You may exert yourself subtly, to pass through your environment
unnoticed or take action unremarked.
Tell your volunteers what you need to do, and ask them if anyone’s
going to notice you or care. If nobody is, cool, carry on. If somebody
is, though, you’d better roll. On any hits, you get a number of
chances to escape attention, one chance per hit. A “chance” is
something like:
• I can wait until they’re distracted. Does anything distract them?
• You wouldn’t believe how quick I am with my hands. Am I going to
be quick enough?
• I can act casual, I’m in no hurry. Do you think I’ll raise their suspi-
cions anyway?
• I can get [x] to do it for me. Do I think they’ll be able to trace it back
to me?
You can invent your own. Take the first chance that pans out for you.
Against a Wizard: Tell your volunteers that you might have hereby
alerted the wizard’s safeguards, and to check in “The Book of
Doomed Wizards” under “Safeguards.”
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Exerting Yourself Violently:
You may exert yourself violently against an enemy.
First tell your volunteers how you enter into violence, then roll. On
any hits, you get a number of chances to end the fight on your terms,
one chance per hit. Choose from these or invent one:
• I do [x]. Do I drive them off?
• I do [x]. Do I disarm and constrain them?
• I do [x]. Do I get away from them?
• I do [x]. Do I get them at my mercy?
Between chances, if you haven’t ended the fight, ask what your
enemies do. Answer back with your next chance.
On a miss, or if you run out of chances, ask whether they leave you
for dead, take you captive, drive you away, or what.
Each action you take against the wizard’s safeguards, or then against
the wizard directly, counts as one of your chances.
If you defeat the wizard, cut them open. Tell your volunteers to check
in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under “What Spills Out.”
20
If what spills out is a pulsating vermilion light, then you know you’ve
killed the wizard who butchered and enslaved your family. You’ve
won your revenge; your quest is finished! You can end the game, or
else keep playing without the quest to drive you on.
Or you can…
Submit to Circumstance:
…Instead of exerting yourself, just trying to come out on your feet.
At the end of this, you’re going to ask your volunteers where you
wind up and what state you’re in when you get there, but first roll. On
any hits, choose one per hit:
• I keep my feet.
• I keep my bearings.
• I keep my life.
• I keep my senses.
• I keep my grip.
• I keep my dignity.
• I keep my self-control.
• I keep my self-respect.
• &c as necessary.
Before you choose, you can ask your volunteers just how badly it
might go, and make your choices accordingly.
Tell your volunteers which you’ve chosen and ask them, given that,
where you wind up and what state you’re in when you get there.
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The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest:
Volunteer’s Guide
Thanks for volunteering to play The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest with
me! Here are the rules.
Almost your only job is to get with the other volunteer and make up
answers to my questions.
I’ll ask things like “I’m set upon by raiders. What are they like?” You
and your fellow volunteer can imagine any raiders you want, exactly
the raiders you find most fun, and tell me about them together.
If you want to ask me any clarifying questions, please do! I’ll be more
than happy to answer them.
Sometimes I’ll show you one of my sheets and have you choose
something from a list, too. Always choose whichever option seems
best to you at the moment.
On the reverse, see also “A Bestiary,” which includes some ideas that
you can use and build on.
3. The Book of Doomed Wizards:
Be sure that I hand “The Book of Doomed Wizards” over to you. Get
with the other volunteer, take a look at it, and follow the rules you
find there. I’ll direct you to refer to it when I need you to.
In order for anything to really count, you and the other volunteer
have to agree on it. If you don’t agree about something, it’s not true
until you do. Talk it over until you’re both satisfied. I’ll wait!
The reason there are two of you, by the way, is that this way you can
trade off and build on each others’ ideas. Neither of you has to do all
the work.
If you have any trouble coming to agreement and you want to use
some kind of system to decide, like R-P-S or flipping a coin or dibs or
something, that’s none of my business. Whatever works for you. Just
let me know what you’ve decided.
I have a 6-sided die you can borrow if you want to roll it.
Any of us can end the game whenever we want, for any reason or
none at all. It doesn’t matter how abrupt it might be.
6. Thank you!
It’s not Earth, probably, although it has a single yellow sun and a
single white moon and three stars in a row in the winter sky that
everyone recognizes. It has summers and winters, forests and
deserts, great various continents and unmeasured salt seas. It
has horses, dogs, cats, birds, cattle, lions, hyenas, camels, llamas,
marsupials, mustelidae, primates, pachyderms.
If you went there you could breathe the air but the language would
be unknown to you and the food and fashions unfamiliar.
2. Human Nature:
Human beings love to have full bellies, warm rugs, sweet sad music,
and their loved ones nearby.
They hate violence, hunger, fear, cold, injustice, and their friends who
have wronged them.
They work stone, clay, wood, metal, cloth, fur, glass, horn, sinew,
bark, leaves, leather, and reeds. They cook their food, brew their
drink, bury their pickles, eat fruit in season, eat fish when it runs,
and eat salt when they have it. They hold their nose when the healer
makes them swallow balms and pungencies.
And many human beings live their lives on the move, in villages that
follow the seasonal routes of migrating animals and life cycles of
important plants.
4. Wizards:
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a wild,
rocky coast, where no one lives, but a wizard makes their seclusium.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by approaching the wizard’s seclusium.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a wealthy
and important city. You have heard that a wizard frequents its
marketplace to select and buy certain materials, but you have not
learned where they make their seclusium.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play in the city’s marketplace.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a poor
district, where the people labor in dusty and scrubby fields to provide
a wizard’s needs. The wizard makes their seclusium in a squat tower
on the hillside.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play on the track through the countryside.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a lush
countryside of orchards and olive groves, where a wizard makes their
seclusium in grand style, with servants in the house and villeins on
the grounds.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by approaching the wizard’s estate.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a queen’s
palace. You have heard that she employs a wizard as counselor
and soothsayer, and that she sometimes hears the petitions of her
subjects.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by approaching the palace.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you into a
caravan, traversing under guard a district of raiders and bandits. You
have heard that the raiders serve a wizard in the hills.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play when you see the first sign of the bandits’
approach.
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• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a sea
island, the largest in a chain of islands in placid waters. A wizard
makes their seclusium upon it, in a low-roofed house off the beach.
The island chain is otherwise apparently unpopulated.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by stepping off your boat onto the island.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to the laby-
rinth of catacombs, crypts, and sewers of an ancient city. Somewhere
below, a wizard makes their seclusium.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by stepping down into the catacombs.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a towering
mountain peak, icy and wind-scoured. A wizard makes their seclu-
sium here in a dismal tower that sometimes appears and sometimes
vanishes. It’s here tonight, solid and real under a bright waxing
moon.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by approaching the wizard’s tower.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a trade
town on the Salt Road. You have heard that there is a wizard who
makes their seclusium near here, but you don’t know where.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by entering through the town gates.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a wayfar-
ers’ house on a stormy night, in foreign woods, among people who
are strangers to you. You know that a wizard makes their seclusium
in these woods, and you know that one of the strangers here is that
wizard’s servant.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play in the common room of the wayfarers’
house.
• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to an oasis
town in a great sand desert, where silk caravans, spice caravans, and
caravans carrying copper and amber stop and cross paths. A wizard
also makes their seclusium here, and the caravans are under their
protection.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play with dawn in the oasis, as you rise for
your day.
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• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to the
disused ruins of a fortress on a long-overrun, long-forgotten border.
You have heard that a wizard comes here sometimes to search for
the temple goods of antiquity, hoping to find among them a relic of
lasting potency or a text of lost wisdom.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play when you spy the wizard arriving at the
ruins.
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