Splintering Wheel

So you ride The Splintering Wheel. Welcome, friend.

Splintering Wheel is a roleplaying game about exploring a world reclaimed by nature and chaos.

The game is played in a “Westmarches” style: the campaign contains many players and each session sees a party of a few of those players setting out from their home town to explore the wilderness before returning home at the end of the session.

The setting is centered on the town of Beidha in the world of The Splintering Wheel in the age of The Dominion Of Horu. The world is filled with life and death in excessive abundance, with the remnants of great magical and technologically advanced civilisations lost amongst the overgrowth.

The media touchstones for this campaign are:

Look

Pick from these lists or make your own:

Basic Moves

Undertake a Perilous Journey

When you lead your party through the wilds with a destination in mind, name what you’re looking for (adventure, treasure, the hidden Grove of the Elder Bloodtree, the Bone Zone) and ask the GM how much Progress you’ll need. Then, roll NONE plus 1d for each of the following:

  • If you have a map of your route.
  • If you have folklore and hearsay to guide you.
  • If you’ve been there before.
  • If everyone is mounted.

✴On a Failure, a Danger comes upon you unawares
✴On  a Twist, Choose 1:

  • Make a Discovery, but no Progress. Ask the GM what you find.
  • Make 1 Progress, but only if you overcome a Danger first.

✴On a Success, you make 1 Progress, the GM will tell you what that looks like.
✴On a Crit, you make 2 Progress, the GM will tell you what that looks like.

Make Camp

When you settle in to rest outside of town, choose a camp leader and have them roll NONE plus 1d for each of the following:

  • If everyone consumes a ration.
  • If you’ve got plenty of time and energy left in the day (i.e. it is not yet dark).

✴On a Success each player chooses 2, ✴On a Twist each player chooses 1:

  • Tend wounds of yourself or another. That person regains up to half their max HP.
  •  Share a story, secret, or moment with one or more other characters. You both/all gain 1 xp.
  • Consume an appropriate resource (medicine, booze, bandages) and remove an impairment from yourself or another.
  • Rest soundly and take +1d on your next roll.
  • Scavenge. Gain 1d4 rations.
  • Make a map showing a path you've travelled from one place to another.

✴On a Failure your camp is not peaceful. Each player chooses 1, but hardship will strike either after or before.

Searching For Rumors

When you spend several hours in a steading searching for rumors, roll that steading's Fortunes.

  • On a Success: You hear a rumor of opportunity, and are given advice or some provision to help you grasp it.
  • On a Twist: You hear a rumour of opportunity but shrouded in mystery or danger.
  • On a Failure: You hear rumours of dangers or threats where the only reward is their cessation or avoidance.

Downtime

When you start a session in a steading, roll NONE +1d for each session that has been played while you were away.

  • On a Success: Choose 3 from the list below
  • On a Twist: Choose 2
  • On a Failure: Choose 1

 (You may choose the same option multiple times)

  • Increase the project clock for constructing an improvement by 1
  • Gain 1 Coin
  • Gain 1d4 rations
  • Remove 1 impairment
  • Regain all lost hitpoints
  • Remove all stress

End of Session

When you return to town at the end of a session:

If you ran out of session play time and had to elide your return, reduce the town's Fortunes by 1.
If you returned to town, broken, battered, and in need of care, reduce the town’s Fortunes by 1.
If you overcame a threat to your home steading or filled a need of its people, increase the town’s Fortunes by 1 to a maximum of 3.
If you returned bearing great riches, increase the steading’s Fortunes by 1 to a maximum of 3.

Steadings

Steadings are any place folks gather and live together. From a couple of houses to vast sprawling cities.

Steadings have a stat called Fortunes that describes abundance, luck, and morale in the steading.

At the start of your campaign create one steading with 1 Fortune and a few improvements. This is your home steading.

Improvements

Improvements are additional moves added to a Steading by fulfilling a set of requirements and filling a progress clock for their development.

If any of the improvements listed say you can do a thing, then you probably can't do that thing in steadings that don't have that improvement.

You can use the ones below or create new ones during play as needed.

  • Tunnels
    When you use the tunnels to sneak in or out of town, take +1d.
  • Lockers 
    When you store items in the lockers, they will not go missing while you are away.
  • Healers
    When you start a session at this steading, restore any lost hitpoints and cure any simple poisons or illnesses.
  • Surgeon - requires Healers here.
    When you start a session at this steading, you may spend your downtime action to heal a major wound or debility.
  • Blacksmith
    Metal items can be repaired here.
  • Weaponsmith - requires a Blacksmith here.
    Weapons can be bought here.
  • Armorsmith- requires a Blacksmith here.
    Armour can be bought.
  • Mechanic - requires a Blacksmith here.
    Machines can be repaired here.
  • Carpenter
    Simple wooden items such as clubs or ragged bows can be bought here.
  • Bowyer - requires a Carpenter here
    Bows and arrows can be bought and repaired here.
  • Gunsmith - requires a Carpenter here
    Guns can be repaired here.
  • Walls
    When you Defend The Hearth in this steading take +1d.
  • Watchtowers - requires Walls here.
    Foes are usually spotted before they attack this steading.
  • Oracle - requires someone proficient to act as oracle.
    The spirits can be petitioned here, through the oracle.
  • Temple - requires Oracle &  a holy idol.
    the wardens can be petitioned
  • Farms - requires seed and livestock.
    Food can be bought here.
  • Mill- requires Farms here & a millstone.
    Better food can be bought.
  • Tavern
    Drinks and rumours can be purchased
  • House Of Vices - requires a Tavern here.
    addictions can be sated
  • Fence
    You can sell simple items
  • Market - requires Walls here.
    You can sell fancier things and buy exotic goods
  • Library
    Store, share and retrieve documents safely.
  • Stable
    You can hire or stable horses here.
  • Well
    Water is secure
  • Ring
    Fight to keep yourself sharp
  • Arena - requires a Ring here.
    Fight to earn renown
  • Baths
    Relax to soothe your mind
  • Apothecary
    Simple herbs and poultices can be obtained here
  • Alchemist - Requires an Apothecary here.
    Magical Potions can be obtained
  • Prison
    People and creatures can be locked up and restrained here.

Special Moves

Counter Attack
When you are attacked by an enemy you are prepared for, you may immediately deal damage to them first.

Spellwise
When you study magic worked by another, roll WIS. On a Success, the GM will tell you its nature and its vulnerability. On a Twist the GM will tell you it's nature.

Patient Defence
When you prepare to defend yourself or another from an enemy's attack, that enemy must roll their damage twice and take the lowest result.

Double Strike
You strike with multiple attacks at once. When you successfully deal damage with a weapon you may roll your damage twice and apply both.

Embedded Weapon
One weapon is a part of you. Its weight does not count toward your carrying capacity. It cannot leave your person unless destroyed.

Embedded Armor
Your armor is a part of you. Its weight does not count toward your carrying capacity. It cannot leave your person unless destroyed.

Monstrous
You can rend flesh and bone with your bare hands.

Flight
You can fly by exerting a similar amount of effort as when jogging.

Divination
When you consult signs and oracles for knowledge of what lies ahead, ask a question and roll WIS. On a Success you see the future that would have occurred had you not looked. On a Twist you see omens and portents which you must interpret.

Farsight
When you gaze into the distance or through a seeing token, roll WIS. On a Success your vision is clear and directed. On a Twist your vision is obscured and you see only snatches.

Summoning
When you perform sacred rites to call forth an unseen spirit in your presence, invoking its name, roll CHA. On a Success, they manifest before you. On a Twist a sacrifice must be made.
An unseen spirit includes those who are hiding or invisible, those still within their body after death, and those possessing objects or the living.

Banishment
When you perform sacred rites to banish a spirit in your presence, invoking its name, roll CHA. On a Success, they are banished, sending them away from this place and making their return difficult. On a Twist an appropriate sacrifice must be made.

Booksmart
You own a book of your choice. When you try to recall information from books you own, you may roll INT. On a Success, ask the GM one question whose answer would be in a book you own and one follow up question. On a Twist ask the GM one question whose answer would be in a book you own.

Dominate Will
You can dominate the mind of another. When you make eye contact with a creature with the intent to dominate them, roll CHA. On a Success you may control them like a puppet until they are injured or hurt. On a Twist, you control them like a puppet until they leave your sight, they are injured or hurt, or one of you falls asleep. Your victim is always aware of the fact that you dominated them.

Charm
When you go to parley with someone whose image you carry, you may harness that image to roll +1d.

Dangersense
When you Struggle to react to a surprise, explain your preparations, premonitions, or premeditations and take +1d.

Animate the Dead
When you take some part of a dead thing and bond it to your own life. It becomes animated and obeys your simple commands as best it can.

Knit Flesh
When you, with knives and twine, attach parts to bodies, roll INT. On a Success it works as if a part of their very selves. On a Twist choose one:

Patronage
You have a patron, they may be a deity or something profoundly different. You know what is required to summon their attention and have some small understanding of what pleases or displeases them.

Remarkable Proportions
You are either very large or very small. Not both.

Pantheon

The Splintering Wheel has a pantheon with one true god and seven wardens beneath them. Clerics choosing their deity can choose any of these or an uncountable number of spirits that exist between mortals and their wardens.

IA

Domains

Life, Death, Ruin, Grave, Entropy

Precepts

Facing Suffering, Destroying Form

Description

There is one god and that god is IA.
IA is the Splintering Wheel, gaoler of the world. He is uncaring and eternal.

There is no escaping the wheel. It turns and splinters and so do we all move inevitably toward ruin and rest.

Clerics of IA are uncommon and are usually distant, strange, or deranged folks who have stared up into the night sky, past the stars and seen the true void there to which we will all return. Some are entranced by its beauty, some are stricken by inescapable fear, and yet others are touched by the value of the fragile lives we live in its presence.

IA is often represented by an empty circle, a stylised wheel, or a watchful eye.

Wardens

There are seven Wardens that obey IA and tend to the world. They are responsible for maintaining it and its inhabitants, ensuring the wheel keeps turning as it splinters slowly apart. Though the delineation of their responsibilities means that unlike IA, they have some stake in the events of the world. Often they pity, empathise with, or are entertained by mortals, spirits, and other things beneath them.

Each of them has clerics among the different peoples of the world. Each of them has angels and spirits that serve them. Each of them cares for the world in some way. Each of them will bow to IA when things turn dire.

Oli The Season Keeper

Domains

Nature, Tempest, Forge, Civilization

Precepts

Sowing Seeds, Taming The Wild

Description

Oli the Seasonkeeper is the warden responsible for the pact between civilisation and nature. Most intensely worshipped by farmers and woodsmen. His iconography traditionally includes farm implements, beasts of burden, and fowls. His priests believe in the spiritual value of hard manual work and in the humility of subjecting oneself to the elements.
Some believe he is husband to Avio and father to Shobi.

Horu Of The Undergrowth

Domains

Death, Nature, Grave, What Lies Beneath

Precept

Ending Life, Feeding The Earth

Description

Horu of the Undergrowth is the warden who accepts the bodies of the dead into the earth. Horu is also often worshipped by druids who recognise the importance of death in the cycles of nature. His priests are usually marked by a comb they wear in the shape of a slice of a kind of mushroom known to resemble a skull.

Avio The Kilnmother

Domains

War, Forge, Travel, Civilization, Bloody Conquest

Precepts

Stoking Flames, Crafting Tools

Description

Avio's earliest church arose amongst pavers who would fire and lay the bricks to make new roads. This association saw people begin praying to Avio as their borders expanded and they constructed new cities and towns and the roads between them. When these borders began to clash people would pray to her to grant them the roads as a way of asking for victory in battle and so the smiths and siege engineers began to worship her as a deity of their crafts. One of her symbols is a burning hammer.

Shobi Of The Skies

Domains

Knowledge, Tempest, Light

Precepts

Stargazing, Altered States

Description

Shobi of the skies is the warden responsible for the sky, wisdom and prophecy.
She is often known as the fickle mistress and is said to grant visions of truth or lies to those listening for her wisdom as her favour turns upon them. Her iconography is dominated by eyes and celestial bodies.
She is sometimes said to be the daughter of Oli and Avio.
Some followers seek out sacred spaces where the stars come to earth such as reflective lakes.

Nodermu The Pure

Domains

Life, Light, Destruction, Ruin, The Downtrodden and Forgotten

Precepts

Sacrifice of Valuable Possessions, Bathing In Light

Description

Nodermu the Pure is the warden who is credited with either teaching civilized races the secrets of escaping the Splintering Wheel or fooling madmen into destroying the wonders of civilization.
Nodermu teaches an ascetic way of life which actively eschews material possessions and desires in favour of wisdom and inner peace.

Shan The Patient

Domains

Knowledge, Trickery, War, Hidden Things, Bloody Conquest

Precepts

Gaining Secrets, Stabbing Backs

Description

Shan the Patient is the warden worshipped by sages, generals, librarians, and spies. He is considered a devious genius who places the utmost value on intelligence and whose motives are almost never directly discernable from his actions. His modus operandi is “Wait for your enemy to make a mistake.”

The priests of Shan often do not make their status publicly known and to find one often requires knowing someone who knows someone. They dress as common folk and often provide services teaching, scribing and the like. Calligraphy is a common practice amongst them.

Kilarbi The Flare

Domains

Light, Trickery, Travel, The Downtrodden and Forgotten

Precepts

Getting Intoxicated, Playing Music

Description

Kilarbi the Flare is the warden who distracts the world from bleak reality. Kilarbi is worshipped by performers, wandering tricksters, drunks, and hedonists. Their temples are typically taverns and their priests are barkeeps, emcees, performers, and purveyors of pleasure in all its forms.

Everything Else

All else below are angels and demons, spirits and mortals, all of which fear or envy the awesome glory of IA.

If you worship one of these their Domains and Precepts might be nearly anything, but so might their designs.