Guild of Shadows now available in print

Guild of Shadows was released back in November, but now it's become available in print as well - and it's currently on sale, so if you're interested running in a campaign where the players are a gang of thieves, spies and assassins, you should definitely take a look.

Get it here: Guild of Shadows

In addition, the Rogues Hall of Fame (which contains 27 famous rogues from history and mythology, built as pregens using Guild of Shadows) is now available as Pay What You Want, so why not grab a copy for free, and if you like it you can go back and toss in a dollar or two, or perhaps write a short review?

Get it here: Rogues Hall of Fame

The original Rogues Hall of Fame contained 30 rogues, but 3 were left out as they were considered more "villain" than "rogue", so I turned them into an unofficial final page.

Get it here: Rogues Hall of Fame - Lost Villains

Although I'd previously submitted articles for Savage Insider, Guild of Shadows was the first official licencee setting for which I did major freelance work - I wrote a lot of the mechanics and edited the rest; I also wrote the Rogues Hall of Fame, and did the layout myself. So while Savage Insider got my foot in the door, I consider my work for SPQR Games to be my first major foray into freelancing for Savage Worlds.

Guild of Shadows released

The Guild of Shadows setting has finally been released to Kickstarter backers, and is now also available on DriveThruRPG. In a blog post earlier this year I mentioned that I'd edited and expanded the mechanics, but I've done further work since then, and in thanks for my contributions I've been credited as a co-author.

The final product contains 11 new Hindrances and 20 new Edges, as well as additional gear, and rules for disguises, minions, and poison. The disguise rules were based on a concept I originally proposed in an earlier blog post, the minion rules allow players to create and customise their own gang members, and the detailed poison rules allow players to design their own poisons by selecting different forms of delivery, onset time, and effect. There's also a simple adventure generator.

Guild of Shadows is set in the city of Kurstwahl, which can be used as a standalone setting, or slotted into an established fantasy setting. But even if you don't want to use Kurstwahl, the book could easily be used as a sort of "Rogues Companion" for people wanting to play thieves or assassins.

The adventures also do a good job of capturing the feel of the genre, tending to detail locations rather than events. For example Kurstwahl’s Eleven describes a location where the players have to execute a heist, paying particular attention to the various defences in place, but it's left entirely up to the players how they complete their mission.

Rogues Hall of Fame: Lost Villains

A side project I worked on was the Rogues Hall of Fame - it was a stretch goal that wasn't quite reached, but SPQR Games wanted to offer it to the backers anyway.

I was provided with a list of ten names for inclusion, but I had some additional ideas of my own, and also wanted to incorporate further suggestions from Kickstarter backers. In the end I wrote up stat blocks for thirty characters, although three of them (Cardinal Richelieu, Grendel, and Morgan Le Fay) were rejected due to being more "villain" than "rogue".

Rather than lose those three characters to the annals of time, I've turned them into an unofficial final page for the Rogues Hall of Fame, which you can download here.

Royce Melborn

The Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan is one of my favourite series of fantasy novels, so I thought it would be fun to stat up Royce Melborn using the new Edges and Hindrances from Guild of Shadows. I couldn't include him in the Hall of Fame for legal reasons, but I think I can probably get away with including him on my blog.

Royce grew up as a thief on the streets of Ratibor, eventually joining the Black Diamonds, where he became one of their top assassins. He was later betrayed and sent to Manzant Prison, receiving a brand on his left shoulder as a permanent reminder of his time there. After being rescued from the prison, Royce joined up with Hadrian Blackwater, forming the partnership called Riyria (meaning "two" in elven).

The following stats are for Royce as a Novice starting character, when he was still a youngster living on the streets:

❄ Royce Melborn

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d6

Skills: Climbing d4, Fighting d6, Healing d4, Intimidation d4, Knowledge (Poison) d4, Lockpicking d6, Notice d6, Persuasion d4, Riding d4, Stealth d8, Streetwise d6, Survival d4, Throwing d6, Tracking d4

Charisma: –; Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 5

Hindrances: Dark Past (Major), Lone Wolf (Minor), Vengeful (Minor)

Edges: Alertness, Artful Dodger, Night Eyes

Here's an older and much more experienced Royce, with 20 advances under his belt:

❄ Royce Melborn

Attributes: Agility d10, Smarts d8, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigor d6

Skills: Climbing d6, Fighting d10, Healing d4, Intimidation d8, Knowledge (Poison) d8, Lockpicking d6, Notice d6, Persuasion d4, Riding d4, Stealth d8, Streetwise d6, Survival d4, Throwing d8, Tracking d4

Charisma: –; Pace: 6; Parry: 8; Toughness: 5

Hindrances: Dark Past (Major), Branded (Minor), Lone Wolf (Minor), Vengeful (Minor)

Edges: Acrobat, Alertness, Artful Dodger, Fearsome Reputation, Improved Level Headed, Precision Bladework, Marksman, Master Assassin, Mobile Defense, Night Eyes, Quick, Quick Draw, Thief

Guild of Shadows: Character Builder and the Thief Edge

One of the Kickstarter projects I backed that I've been particularly looking forward to getting my hands on is Guild of Shadows - a dark urban fantasy setting based around the nefarious activities of a thieves guild.

With the project now so close to completion, I was recently hired to take a look over their mechanics, making any final edits for balance and consistency. As I'm a big fan of the genre, I also took the opportunity to propose a further 14 Edges and 3 Hindrances, all inspired by various rogues from history or fiction.

I've obtained permission to produce a web-based character creation tool for the setting, which you can access here:

Guild of Shadow Character Builder.

I'd also like to give an overview of a potential problem with the Thief Edge that some may have already wondered about, along with my solution...

The Thief Edge in a Thief Setting

Savage Worlds has two Edges in the core rule book that provide a Stealth bonus: Thief gives +2 Stealth in urban areas, while Woodsman gives +2 Stealth in rural locations.

The Thief Edge is particularly nice in that it also boosts Climbing and Lockpicking, as well as trap-related uses of the Notice and Repair skills. The large number of bonuses are somewhat balanced by the fact that it's usually a fairly niche Edge, and has some very tough requirements.

However because Guild of Shadows is an urban thief-focused setting, the Thief Edge is no longer even remotely niche - it boosts several of the most useful skills, and is the only way to get a Stealth bonus. When I ran a similar style of campaign in the past, most of the players invested in Thief simply because it was so useful.

But it gets worse. The tough requirements mean that each Thief also needs to boost one attribute, and assign around half of their skill points in a specific way, leaving them much less room to differentiate themselves from each other - and even if they're able to stand out in smaller ways, because most of their starting points are tied up in heavily boosting the same set of abilities, they're still likely to feel quite similar to each other (at least mechanically-speaking).

Removing the Thief Edge wasn't an option, because Guild of Shadows is designed to be slottable into existing settings and campaigns if the GM wishes, and such campaigns could well have characters who have already taken the Edge.

So I approached the problem from a different angle, and added two new Edges: Highwayman and Urban Ranger. Like Thief, they are Professional Edges, which means their bonuses don't stack with each other - thus there are now three different Edges which grant the much-coveted +2 Stealth bonus, each of which provides other benefits as well, and Urban Ranger also has a 'backdoor' through another Edge. The end result is that characters in Guild of Shadows can obtain that +2 Stealth bonus without sacrificing diversity.