Just One Sword

You have ascended the mountain, your sword sharp and your empty coin purse begging to be filled. The tower looms in the distance, but a light bursts forth from the base as a door opens. A dark, hooded figure steps out, challenging you. Against this sorcerous darkness, you realize you only have Just One Sword

JUST ONE SWORD is a 96-page Solo-RPG that combines the rules-light structure and gameplay of OSR, and the narrative opportunities of PbtA, into a game about delving into ancient dungeons and forgotten tombs to fight monstrosities, collect treasure, and return home triumphant. It is inspired by the greats before it such as:

1. Worlds Without Number
2. ShadowDark
3. Dragonbane
4. Ironsworn

Classless Character Creation

Your character's abilities and talents are only limited by your imagination and ingenuity. Everyone will have a background, and the reason why you have taken up the sword (or spear) of an Adventurer, but anyone can cast a spell, pick a lock, or track a bounty through the forests.

Additionally, there are 30 Skills and 10 Combat Talents to choose from to provide more nuance, and a little extra help, to each and every playthrough.

PbtA Inspired Checks

In order to provide some narrative focus to your game, the game allows you to roll 2d6+ATR Bonus to get a "Full Success," "Partial Success" or "Failure" derived from Powered by the Apocalypse games. This helps provide some narrative complications to picking that lock, or for you to rely on your CHA Bonus to navigate that conversation for you. However, a clever plan is encouraged to always over-ride these checks.

Player Facing Combat

Combat rolls involve attacking, and then Blocking, Dodging, or Resisting Magic. Armor will impact these options, as heavy plate is good for Blocking, but slows you down if you have to Dodge that Giant's club. This makes it so that maximizing your ability to tank damage is not always the best choice for your character.

Low-Fantasy Magic System

A full, level-less magic system involving 36 spells that must be crafted in order to be used. You will not 'magically' wake up knowing Magic Missile or Turn Undead, instead you must have the right herbs and spend time in camp (or as part of downtime) crafting your spells for your adventure. If you want to know it, you also must be taught it. You will not simply gain spells for leveling up., instead you require the talents of a teacher.

Full Bestiary

A full bestiary of 90 monsters, some unique and some classic, to help make sure you always have something to fight. This includes snippets of their appearance and personality, as well as potentially their history and behaviors. Some enemies are more than willing to negotiate or barter, while others will simply want your head.

So Many Oracles

A huge list of random tables, oracles, and designers to help you build the entire area and everything in it for your adventures! It includes:

1. Region Designer
2. Settlement Designer
3. Dungeon Designer 
4. Encounter Designer
5. Treasure Generator
6. Adventure Seeds
7. And more!

This game is playable as 1 person being both GM and Player; or with 2 people, one being GM and one being Player.

Art by the very talented Silver Nightingale