THE CROWNLESS

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

J. R. R. Tolkein

THE CROWNLESS is a TTTRPG for 2+ players, with one player taking on the role of the KEEPER while the rest of the players play as CROWNLESS. Inspired heavily by Elden Ring with a dash of Dark Souls, players will play as Crownless, banished individuals who once tried to overthrow the Pretender Gods, brought back from exile by the mysterious WYRD and its devout VOTARY. 

Rise, you Crownless, brought together once more by shared purpose and convictions. Face a broken land ruled by twisted Pretender Gods and use their bones as kindling to set the world ablaze. The WYRD wills it, as the cycle of rebirth always begins in Flame. And you will make it so. 

What's so cool about THE CROWNLESS? 

There are so many cool TTRPGs out there. Here's some of what I think makes THE CROWNLESS kind of neat: 

• One page, printable, easy foldable Zine booklets. Adventure wherever you are surrounded by friends: Camping, at a café, on the train, at a convention, the brief respite before riding onto the battlefield to kill a god, a picnic, etc. 
• Lightning-fast character creation and GM adventure generating
• Quick and simple combat that still lets you roll dice a lot 
• One of the first Elden Ring inspired TTRPGs that I know of, which is cool 

What you will need

To play a game of THE CROWNLESS you will need: 

• A way to read the PDFs (and rotate them) or, preferably, the ability to print them out and make them into a One Page Booklet (check out here for a Video Tutorial and here for a Written Guide on how to do just that!) 
• A d4, d6, and d8, or a digital way to roll those dice
• Character Sheets for the players or a sheet of paper to keep track of important information
• Something to take notes on and write with

The Crownless: Content Complete (for now...)

THE CROWNLESS is currently content complete, having delivered on everything I hoped would be in the game: expanded rules to deepen elements like magic and tactic decisions in combat and more resources for Keepers like Loot Options and a Starter adventure. 

I do plan, over the next few weeks, to make a more readable version for digital folks. Printers can be weird with printing the booklets, so I want to make sure there's a more accessible option in case you don't have em! 

However, I have a few extra ideas for THE CROWNLESS before it is complete. This is the first expansion (DLC? Content Drop? Patch?), dropping a Character Booklet, Magicks and Miracles, and Tattered Tactics. 

Over the next few months I will hopefully finish with two final booklets: 

• Progression and Loot Guide: Gaining levels, even in a short one shot, is kind of cool. Ways to implement that and add Special Loot. 
• A Promise Kept: Ready to go, out of the printer hexcrawl adventure of tragic love and blessings that become our curses. 

Done and Dusted in the Cool Stuff Patch (TM): 

• Character Sheet (coming Very Soon)
• Magicks and Miracles: adding some Sick Spells and Marvelous Miracles
• Tattered Tactics: More depth and optional combat tactics. 

Attributions and Inspiration

This game owes much to the Soulslike games of FromSoft, particularly Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3. The idea of returning to my Zine-y roots with this single page, fold-yourself-a-booklet-TTRPG-Manual came from the absolutely delightful From the Mud game. Such a flavourful, evocative text mixed with playing way too much Elden Ring are to blame for this wild project!

A debt is also due to #BetterSoulslikeJam for motivating me to try to whip this game together in... about a week. Check out the other amazing submissions Here. THE CROWNLESS uses art from the fantastic The Wyrd and Wild by Feral Indie Studio. Artwork used with permission by Charles Ferguson-Avery of Feral Indie Studio.