By Kevin Kulp

High Concept

Want to adapt Swords of the Serpentine to play a high fantasy game instead of swords and sorcery? Use these guidelines and house rules to capture a classic fantasy feel that features non-human heroes, classic magic, and gods who grant prayers and provide miracles.

Character Generation

Professions

If you’re coming to SotS from a class-based system, add additional Professions using the Mixing and Matching guidelines (SotS p. 16). These SotS Professions are designed to capture the feel of professions and classes from other games.

• Barbarian: Danger Sense, Spot Frailty, Tactics of Death, Wilderness Mastery. Your Social abilities of choice are probably Taunt, Intimidation, and Command. At least one Allegiance should be Outlanders.

• Bard: Arcana, City Secrets, Ridiculous Luck, Scurrilous Rumors. Go in heavily on Social abilities and local Allegiances.

• Cleric: Divinity, Leechcraft, Prophecy, Spirit Sight. The spheres for Divinity should be linked to your god’s interests, as might be your preferred weapon. A more studious priesthood might swap out Prophecy for Laws & Traditions.

• Druid: Divinity, Know Monstrosities, Vigilance, Wilderness Mastery. Spending a point of Wilderness Mastery will let you turn into an animal for the scene; this won’t change your Health and Morale unless the GM wants it to, but may change your movement capabilities, Armor and Damage Modifier.

• Fighter: Danger Sense, Know Monstrosities, Spot Frailty, Tactics of Death. Consider getting a shield and heavy armor, then using Taunt to draw attacks to you in a fight.

• Monk: Laws & Traditions, Spirit Sight, Spot Frailty, Vigilance. You could have a lot of fun with a monk who attacks their enemies using only Sway, but who flavors this as using physical blows to attack and affect the spirit instead of the body. It isn’t unbalanced for the GM to allow a monk a +1 Damage modifier as if they were using a sword, even when they’re using unarmed attacks.

• Paladin: Divinity, Laws & Traditions, Spirit Sight, Tactics of Death. Spheres for Divinity are linked to your god’s interests or your paladin’s religious order. If you’d rather start with a paladin who heals and cures disease instead of casts divine miracles, it isn’t unbalanced to swap out Divinity for Leechcraft. Take ranks of Charm and Trustworthy if you see yourself as charismatic.

• Psion: Arcana, Forgotten Lore, Prophecy, Scurrilous Rumors. Arcana spheres should be linked to classic psychic abilities like telepathy and telekinesis. Use Warfare to attack if your psychic abilities cause physical harm, and Sway if they erode your enemies’ Morale.

• Ranger: Know Monstrosities, Skulduggery, Vigilance, Wilderness Mastery. This models the ranger as a wilderness stealth warrior. Consider a bow as a weapon. As a ranger it might be worth losing your bonus Build point to get both Skulduggery and Tactics of Death.

• Thief: City Secrets, Ridiculous Luck, Scurrilous Rumors, Skulduggery. This is a classic city-based thief. For a more dungeon-oriented adventurer swap Scurrilous Rumors for Vigilance.

• Warlock: Corruption, Divinity, Forgotten Lore, Ridiculous Luck. Think about your divine patron and take Divinity spheres to match. The combination of both Corruption and Divinity results in a powerful and versatile spellcaster who has interesting complications to track. For a classic warlock feel, take the sphere of Curses and lots of Warfare for throwing sorcerous bolts.

• Wizard: Arcana, Forgotten Lore, Leechcraft, Prophecy. You have lots of flexibility in wizardly spheres, and necromantic magic will feel quite different from alteration or evocation magic. If you picture yourself as a war mage, it’s not unbalanced to swap out Prophecy for Tactics of Death.

Non-Human Heroes

Use the rules for non-human heroes to play elves, dwarves, and more. We are continuing to publish rules for specific non-human Ancestries, so it’s worth a quick check of See Page XX to see if your favorite has already been published. Click on the “Swords of the Serpentine” tag at the top of this article.

Power Level

For a longer campaign, start Heroes at Fledgling tier (SotS p. 225): 8 Investigative ability ranks, 25 General ability ranks, Health and Morale split between 15 points, two Allies and one Enemy.

More Interesting Allegiances

Detail why your Allies are allies (and who you are actually friends with), and why your Enemies despise you (and who particularly has it in for you).

Abilities

Investigative Abilities

• Thaumaturgy is called Arcana in a high-fantasy game, with access to all spheres (SotS p. 105) for common wizards. This allows you to cast arcane spells with no negative side effects, although they aren’t as powerful as Corruption-fueled sorcery. Try to choose Arcana spheres based on your character’s theme; for instance, bards typically focus on emotion and enchantment magic.

• Corruption is uncommon and is considered dark sorcery. It’s generally considered to be taboo. The negative effect from Corruption spends may vary depending on where the sorcerer draws their power; in a desert setting, for instance, Corruption might burn away all nearby plant life.

• Felonious Intent (SotS p. 24) is now renamed Danger Sense. It’s easier to remember. In addition to the standard description it will warn you before most traps and ambushes, especially those that stand between you and the completion of the adventure.

• Spirit Sight now gains one sphere per rank: Arcane (you can sense Corruption and arcane magic), Dimensions (you can sense planar gates), Divine (you can sense divine magic), and Spirits (you can sense ghosts and nature spirits). This limits the scope of a flexible ability and lets players focus on the thing they think is most interesting; add additional broad categories (such as infernal magic) if they make sense for your campaign. Spending pool points of Spirit Sight lets you influence or manipulate the thing you are sensing. 

• New Investigative ability: Divinity, at the same power level as Corruption but with a different tradeoff for that extra power. 

  • Ranks in Divinity allow you to gain clues about gods, religion, and divine magic. 

  • For every rank of Divinity, gain a sphere related to your god’s area of belief. For instance, a small god of horses might have spheres that include Horses, Travel, and War. 

  • Spending pool points of Divinity allows you to beseech Miracles. 

  • The effect of Miracles is similar to that of Corruption, more powerful than typical spends of other abilities. Miracles are themed by your divine spheres. 

  • When you gain your first point in Divinity, choose either Health or Morale to be wracked (compromised) when you cast powerful Miracles

  • Your body isn’t meant to channel divine energy. Casting miracles wracks your Health or Morale (chosen when you gain your first Divinity rank). For every pool point of Divinity you spend on a miracle, temporarily lose that many ranks from your Health or Morale ability. These refresh completely at the start of the next adventure. 

    • Example 1: Your Divinity wracks Health. You have 8 Health ranks and currently are fully healed. When you spend 2 pool points of Divinity, your maximum Health drops from 8 ranks to 6 ranks until the next adventure. Since you can’t have a pool higher than a rank, your current Health pool drops to 6 as well.

    • Example 2: Your Divinity wracks Health. You have 8 Health ranks and currently are injured with a pool of 4 Health. When you spend 2 pool points of Divinity, your maximum Health drops from 8 ranks to 6 ranks until the next adventure. Since your current pool of 4 is lower than the new maximum rank of 6, your current Health is unaffected.

• Wilderness Mastery includes Navigation when you’re at sea. If you want an animal companion, take ranks of Wilderness Mastery; more ranks means a more capable familiar or companion.

General Abilities

• Remove the Sorcery general ability; instead, use just Warfare and Sway. What used to be Sorcery attacks use Warfare if they are attacking Health, and Sway if they are attacking Morale. You’re just describing it with your Arcana or Divinity Spheres. Disregard the “Health or Morale Damage?” rule on SotS p. 103.

• Bind Wounds automatically heals you as efficiently as you heal others. (The official rule is finicky for an action game and excessively slows the game when people need to heal.) Remember that you can describe your Bind Wounds ability as a magical healing spell if you choose.

• The Bind Wounds 8+ talent is now Quick, Drink This!, which lets you heal one person each round without using your action. This allows you to heal two people in one round, spending points separately for each, or heal someone and then take a different action in the same round.

• The Burglary 8+ talent is now Lucky Grab, which lets you choose a piece of loot that you have stolen (within common sense GM limits) when using Burglary. This loot is almost always some sort of item, not pure Wealth. It’s a great way to create plot hooks leading to future adventures.

Wealth

• In cities, Wealth spends set your lifestyle and repute as per normal (SotS p.125). 

• In the wilderness or on the road, Wealth spends help you deal with danger when traveling outside of a travel montage. Repute serves as “resources that let you avoid threats.” You spend 1-5 Wealth per games as normal; and like Repute, the scale is -2, -1, +0, +1, and +2. Players can spend positive Resource points to mitigate hazards. “I simply pop into my new tent to avoid the sandstorm. These amazing camels won’t even be fazed.” Negative points are used by the GM to make hazards worse. “You realize the water cask had a leak in it, which is good because the camel carrying it might collapse at any moment.”

Other Rules Changes

• Three Best Things in Life (SotS p. 17) allow you to reroll one die, instead of giving you +1 to a die roll.

• When rolling damage, the number of points you spent on the attack roll raises the result of your lowest die that you roll, not a specific die. We find this faster and more fun.

• No unconsciousness test is required when low on Health or Morale (SotS p. 77). There are already enough penalties when you drop below 0 and -5.

• Acquiring certain rare items is gated by Allegiance affiliation; you need to spend a favor or an Ally pool point if an item you want is tightly controlled by the faction. You’ll see this most often when acquiring rare poisons from the thieves’ guild.

• Grant an increased quantity of Refresh tokens (SotS p. 98) for Adversary defeat – 1 for a Mook, 2 per Hero for a named foe or a non-mook enemy; 3 per Hero for a big bad; and 4 per Hero for a truly memorable foe.

Matching Rules to Theme

Game rules are designed to match play to a particular play experience. They aren’t an end in themselves, so we want to encourage you to have fun tweaking SotS’s core rules to match the game you want to play. Don’t be afraid to change these rules in your home game if they aren’t quite right, and let us know your house rules on social media or Pelgrane’s Discord.

---

Kevin Kulp (@kevinkulp) and Emily Dresner (@multiplexer) are the co-authors of Swords of the Serpentine, out now in hardback and PDF. Kevin previously helped create TimeWatch and Owl Hoot Trail for Pelgrane Press. When he’s not writing games he’s either smoking BBQ, watching dubious shark movies, or helping 24-hour companies with shiftwork, sleep, and alertness.