Dark revolutionary RPG Spire announces a new crowdfunded sourcebook
Repent or riot.
Return to the massive structure on the brink of revolution - or chaos - with Sin, an upcoming sourcebook for brutal RPG Spire that introduces more options to the fight to reclaim the drow home out from underneath the thumb of oppression.
The sourcebook will launch a Kickstarter campaign on March 30th and contain written and illustrated work from several new authors that have been brought on to the project for the first time.
Designed by Chris Taylor and Grant Howitt - part of publisher Rowan, Rook & Deckard and creator of countless one-page storytelling RPGs - Spire puts players in the shoes of desperate drow, or dark elves, striking back at the mysterious and urbane aelfir who seized the the tower and transformed it into a metropolitan prison.
The stories told in Spire are dirty, cruel and unforgiving; violence is a given and the players will be lucky if they’re the ones dishing it out. Character classes range from researchers obsessed with a non-euclidean mass transit ruin to swaggering dock guards with a lost sense of purpose, to hyena priests who stalk the wastes on the very top of the impossible Spire.
The Revolutionary System at the heart of the game uses a d10 dice pool to determine not just success but the how much stress a character shoulders in order to complete their intended action. Inciting a secret revolution isn’t a walk in the park, and every move may force the players to sacrifice something vital.
Stress can have tangible effects like bodily harm or mental strain, or it can look like a reputation crumbling or a weapon being lost over the side of the tower. Allow stress to accumulate and it might coalesce into fallout, burdening characters with more permanent or deleterious circumstances: shattered limbs, betrayal from a trusted source or being pressed into service by the aelfir’s police enforcers.
Sin will introduce two new class options for players to explore. According to Howitt’s announcement thread on Twitter, the Gutter Cleric “steals miracles from dead, forbidden or merely unpopular gods”, while the Mortician Executioner circumvents normal clerical paperwork channels to declare folks pre-humously dead, allowing them to treat them as such regarding all spells and effects - amending the error with a blade afterwards.
Adrian Stone will return to provide the illustrations for the Sin sourcebook. He previously worked with Rowan, Rook & Deckard on both Spire and the RPG’s first sourcebook, Strata. More information about scenarios, worldbuilding and other additions will be outlined when the campaign goes live.
The Kickstarter for Sin will go live on March 30th. Howitt confirmed on Twitter that Backerkit rewards will allow the public to purchase all other Spire sourcebooks and materials through the campaign. Shipping will reportedly begin in December of this year.