The Urchins of Eldavia

Overview

The Urchins of Eldavia is an OSR-Storygame hybrid. It is an urban adventure engine set in the city of Eldavia, a place where the nobility thrive, the poor are left destitute, and street urchins take on dangerous adventuring contracts in order to survive.

Game Features

• No Dead Ends: Abilities like Investigation and Medicine are treated as limited-use Powers. When you use them, you automatically succeed. This means there are no dead ends in your mystery and intrigue-based adventures.
• Focused on Intrigue: Your 12 skills are calibrated to emphasize intrigue in urban adventure settings (Acrobatics, Athleticism, Charm, Command, Disguise, Empathy, Guile, Melee, Ranged, Taunt, Stealth, Trickery).
• Magic is Limited: There are a handful of basic spells in the game (Bolt, Grasp, Illusion, Impede, Light, Ward), but spellcasting is volatile, and spellcasters are wanted.
• Rules-lite D6 Engine: Skills, attacks, and damage rolls are all made using d6 alone, and the entire game itself is an easy read (only 12 pages).
• Adventure in Eldavia, or Elsewhere: This is both an engine and a setting. The rules are flexible enough that you can easily modify or replace the city of Eldavia with your own campaign setting, your own magic system, and so on.

About Eldavia

• Inequality and Corruption: Eldavia is a corrupt city, where the seven houses accumulate great wealth and power at the expense of the urban poor.
• Urchins and Street Gangs: Urchins taking adventuring contracts from the noble houses have taken to forming street gangs to protect themselves against other urchins seeking to poach their contacts.
• Nobility Points: To show how important winning the favor of the nobility is, the party shares access to a pool of nobility points, earned by getting on the good side of the nobility. These points allow players extra dice when they roll.
• Intrigue Adventure: The nobility are often searching for adventurers to steal from and assassinate one another. The players are outsiders asked to become insiders in order to do the dirty work of the houses.

About the Author

Hello, it is me, Kazumi! I am a big fan of playing in the OSR style without necessarily using OSR rules, and I'm always searching to innovate in ways that allow me to do that better. I hope you and your table find this game fun and helpful to use in your urban intrigue settings! I am happy to answer any questions you might have about the game in the comments.