Merry Wintersmass! Have a Free One-Shot Illustration Adventure! (Patreon)

Dear heroes,

Welcome readers,

Gentle humanoidës,

Et al,

Today is the first day of snow here in the City South of the Fortress, and the first day of snow calls for a celebration. Now, it may not be the first day of snow where you are, but Christmas is surely nearly upon you, or perhaps some other suitable holiday of the Undefeated Sun.

I sometimes try to tempt casual players and gamers into the elusive mysteries of roleplaying games during the holidays, and what better for that than a simple (silly?) one-shot.

Here it is, a visit to the goddess Winterwhite. Convince her to make the winter gentle this year.

EDIT: Added a really big, roughly 600 x 700 mm print file. Go to kinko's, go wild.

One illustrated map presents the referee's point of view, with all the hazards and weirdnesses the players may encounter, the gifts they may beg and borrow for the goddesses, and how she may react. The other map is for the visitors, for the players. A little less information is available and some of it is unreliable. You could use this with a VTT, print as a handout, or some other method I can barely comprehend involving the blockchain for managing how the players navigate the map.

The map in the header is the visitor's map, so if you don't want the location spoiled for you, avoid the attachments labelled "REFEREE" and "WIDE BORDER PRINT FILE". That said, most referees will muddle things about and even if you see it, will you remember it when you play? Go on, enjoy the map. :)

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Perhaps you need a system for your one-shot? This one from Let Us In should do nicely.

D6 Know Resolution

This pared-down method may be enough to run the adventure.

The referee presents a situations and the players say what they want to do. The referee says what happens and the players react to the new situation.

Players take turns in an order that makes sense to the referee.

When a character attempts something risky, they roll a d6:

If competent • 1 failure, 2–3 marginal, 4–6 success.
If unskilled • 1–3 failure, 4–5 marginal, 6 success.

Failure: The character fails. Their predicament worsens. New challenges arise.
Marginal: The hero can succeed if they accept a complication devised by the referee—perhaps they try to rush past the ice wyrm, but it strikes them as they pass.
Success: The hero achieves their goal without further problems.

When circumstances or tools favor a character, they add a +1 bonus to their roll. If both envi- ronment and equipment are on their side, they add +2.

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The Wider World of Longwinter

If you're already a neometahero or metahero of this here patreon, a backer of the stratometaship, you should already have access to Longwinter. Other tiers can probably find a version floating around somewhere in the older posts (gods, I'm not the most organized) or on the Discord.

You can also get it on itch.io and dtrpg, as well as in two nifty printed books over at Exalted Funeral.

And if you want different mountains. And lakes. And seas. And cities. And great divine entities at the end of space. Well, maybe Our Golden Age is for you. I'll get back to that with the scheduled writing from ... uh ... soon! Maybe next week? Maybe.

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Take care, and have a ho-ho-so-snowy winter weekend (if you live in a suitable geographic location where snow is normal for this time of year),

—Luka