Tunnels & Trolls: Katabasis

[craulabesh]

Ugh, dear Trolls!

I just posted my homebrew-version of Tunnels & Trolls, it's called Katabasis. The game is in german right now and relies mostly on the free rules of T&T and thusly on T&T 5E. I hope it is readable with google.translate.

It is set in ancient greece at the time of the three greek empires after alexander the great in 270 BC. The focus lies on dungeoneering, the dungeons or the megadungeon is some kind of greek underworld, with mainly various types of shades and ghosts – but also other grave-diggers, cultists, imperial agents and even factions among the supernatural inhabitants of the dungeon-world (who may be forgotten gods, servants of the titans, waiting for their return or even plotting to release them from tartaros).

As the german roleplayers seem to like "realistic" settings and (accordingly) dislike dungeoneering, I wanted to provide a realistic frame to the dungeoneering experience. The players may explore the historical context, but this is just an option. The dungeons are encapsuled in the setting, they are at the fringes and sometimes even magically hidden. The core-concept of a ghostly underworld also eliminates many questions about dungeon ecology.

I consider the summary of the (mostly) english-speaking discussions on (mega-)dungeoneering a main part of the work, I hope this elaborations will help us germans to understand and to like this game-mode.

If you are interested take a look at the pdf (12.9 mb, 115 p.)

[mahrundl]

Interesting, craulabesh. My German is far too rusty to be able to read it without a dictionary / translator web site these days, but there certainly seems to have been a fair amount of work put into it. I hope to have time to go through it a bit in the near future (although I'm not at all certain that my work will let me do so). Thank you for posting it, in any case.

[craulabesh]

hi Mahrundi, ok, at first I could try to summarize the parts:

- it begins with an introduction, elaborating on what I said above.

- there is an introduction to the historical world. It is presented as a fantastic world, nearly everyone believed in supernatural beings around them (except those epicureans) and as a world of which we know the general outlines but not the specifics, everyday life might surprise even experts in archaeology and history if they could visit it.

- then I introduce the greek adventurerer as an archetype. I point out that the character may be from any civilization, chances are good he is hellenized anyway, lives a greek way of life and has a greek name. Then I underline another important aspect: Greeks might be rulers of the world and really mobile now, but most greeks still are poor. Many are soldiers or mercenaries or search for opportunities in the new strange lands, a bit like "Three Kings" in the ancient world. I then present the greek PC as a typical looter and grave-digger and I point out, how this archetype relates to the (mega)dungeon game. E.g. levelling is done by gold and silver alone.

- then i show the character sheet and I present the character creation rules. They are mostly like in 5E and the free rules, but also authentic armor, weapons and equipment and some house rules, I summarized them here at the forum. There are additional house rules too. E.g. amulets: PCs can invest any amount in amulets and get boni to luck, a guaranteed minimal value to luck (no force in the underworld can reduce it below this amount as long as they have the amulets) and a chance to reroll one roll or die per session. This part is followed by the remaining rules, combat, saving rolls, stunts, magic.

- then the GM part begins, consisting of elaborations towards a greek influenced underworld as (mega)dungeon. The task is to greekify the usual aspects of dungeons for example teleporters. I give some examples, teleporting areas might be magical underworld rivers with magical currents beneath their flat, mirror-like surface. Another example are temples in the underworld. Characters might offer there to level up and to reset their Luck-Death-Spiral: Everytime they would die they have a SR on luck, but it gets harder each time. Offering adequate (but not perfectly known) amounts of treasure to an underground goddess gives various boni and resets this Death-Spiral. Then comes the monster list.

- the last part is the appendix with additional information about the setting: names, economy, way of life, language and the notion of civilizations.

Throughout the text are additional information about converting T&T to D&D, rules for swarm attacks and special abilities of shades, a generator for shades, suggesting to interpret the underworld as a cthulhu setting and so on. There are also many links, many citing authors of the OSR blogosphere or other RPG-designers, I translated their statements, the sources are all in English.

The pdf is still updated constantly and I hope I'll receive some good feedback. Sometimes this process generates more errors. If your version has some errors (for example layout errors) there is a good chance they are already corrected in the actual version. Just download the pdf again.

[mosker]

Craulabesh--

I have no German (but my wife does), but it certainly certainly looks impressive. I would like to include this in the upcoming newsletter. Do you have a website? A working link to the forum you referenced above? A preferred name (your real one?) and best way to contact you?

Thanks.

[craulabesh]

Thanks Mosker, Craulabesh is fine right now. My website is craulabesh.wordpress.com, but it's mostly German. You could also email me at craulabesh at gmail dot com. The link should work now.

[craulabesh]

Alea Iactanda Est made a character on his blog, so you can see how character generation works.

He will also post accounts on his solo gaming, so keep visiting it, it's definitely worth it.

[craulabesh]

I now printed it at the copyshop, here are some images (and now in the updated version WITH some public domain images).

BTW here you have an English delver's pass for playing T&T in a greek-style world.

I'll keep you informed! ;D