Die Die Die Die: RPG RPG RPG RPG
Die Die Die Die: RPG RPG RPG RPG
Die Die Die Die: RPG RPG RPG RPG
THE RPG
GILLEN
DIERPG
DIERPG
THE ROLEPLAYING
THE
GAME
ROLEPLAYING GAME
™ ™
The DIE RPG is copyright © 2022 Lemon Ink Ltd & Stéphanie Hans Studio. The underlying game systems
and mechanics are copyright © 2022 Rowan, Rook and Decard Limited. All rights reserved. “DIE,” the Die
logo(s), and the likenesses of all characters herein or hereon are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Lemon Ink Ltd and Stéphanie Hans Studio, unless expressly indicated. “Rowan, Rook and Decard”™ and the
Rowan, Rook and Decard logo are trademarks of Rowan, Rook and Decard Limited.
No part of this game or any accompanying materials may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by
any means (except for short excerpts for journalistic or review purposes), without the express written
permission of Lemon Ink Ltd, Stéphanie Hans Studio, or Rowan, Rook and Decard Limited. All names,
characters, events, organizations, and places in this game and/or any accompanying materials are entirely
fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, organizations, or places, without
satirical intent, is coincidental.
Content Warning: Murder, torture, food, hospitals, teenage drama, animal abuse, terrible gm practices,
body horror, murder (in self-defence), corporate exploitation, undead, cannibalism, plagiarism, zombies,
obsession/parasocial relationships, workplace disagreements, body modification, loss of control, gaslighting/
false memories, pleas for euthanasia, unreality, abusive managers, stress and deadlines.
Introductory Comic v
1. Introduction 1
™
2. Rules 7
Dictator 27
Fool 41
Emotion Knight 53
Neo 69
Godbinder 83
4. Master 103
5. Rituals 107
8. Bestiary 183
9. Campaign 253
iv AUTHOR’S NOTE
DIE: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME v
DIE ™
A NOTE ON TONE
In DIE, you create a bunch of real-world people and then drop them into a fantasy
world where the recesses of their inner lives are externalised and confronted—or
succumbed to. Old school bullies as literal ogres. Distant disapproving parent figures
as distant disapproving archmage mentors. That lost love as the elf regent, promising
In DIE, the characters are meant to you happiness as long as you abandon reality and stay in this fantasy realm.
argue, but the players aren’t. You’re all
This can be a serious game of personal trauma and loss, akin to the darker recesses of
in this together to tell the best dramatic
DIE the comic. It can also be lighter, about real-world people dealing with the
story you can. Play nice with each other
ludicrousness of a fantasy world. DIE can be a game about an adult finally coming to
and use the extensive safety tools
terms with their identity, and it can be about the nerdy teenager absolutely delighted
provided later in this book.
by being able to throw fireballs.
It can be all of the above. If I’m running it, I move freely between all poles. Your group
decides what your game looks like. Make it yours.
2 1. INTRODUCTION
TERMINOLOGY
DIE has a lot of terminology, some borrowed from other RPGs and some unique to the game:
Antagonist: The Persona played by the Encounter: Whatever is happening in a Neo: A Paragon class who has techno-
gamemaster, usually The Master. game right now. When the characters magical gifts which require activation
stop doing what they’re doing and start with Fair Gold every day to work. Their
Character: Anyone in the world of Die.
something different? The encounter is class dice is a D10.
Each of the player’s Personas, when they
over, and the next encounter has begun.
are in the world, is a character. Paragon: The six types of adventurers a
Fair, The: Techno-magical elves who Persona can be transformed into when
Class Dice: The specific sort of dice
provide the Neo with their gifts and act as they are transported to Die, each of
connected to each player’s Paragon. So,
multiversal judges of all Die’s dimensions. whom is identified with one of the six
for the Dictator the class dice is a D4, for
classic RPG dice.
a Fool it’s a D6 and so on. Fair Gold: Magical coins used by the Neo
to power their gifts. They disappear every Persona: The real-world person that
D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20: A 4, 6, 8, 10,
dawn. each player—including the GM—plays.
12 and 20-sided dice, respectively.
Note—if the game does not specify Fallen, The: Techno-monstrous creatures Success: A success is a result of 4 or
otherwise, “a dice” means a D6. common to all realms of Die, taking higher on any dice.
multiple forms. They have a dark secret.
Defence: A measure of how hard it is to Special: An ability which is activated by
See page 188.
hit a character. It acts as the Difficulty rolling a 6 or higher on any dice.
when rolling to attack the character. Fool: A Paragon class with superhuman
Statistic (Stat): A numeric ability which
luck as long as they act in a carefree or
Dice: We use dice to mean both the defines a character’s capabilities in the
careless fashion. Their class dice is a D6.
singular and plural of dice. As the game’s world of Die. 2 is average. Anything
called DIE, it’s going to get confusing Gamemaster (GM): The name for the more is great. There are six:
otherwise. Also, “dice” can be used as player who is facilitating the game.
STATISTICS
both plural and singular now. Diction-
Godbinder: A Paragon class who barters
aries have changed since the 1980s. Strength: Measures a character’s
with gods to create miracles. Their class
physical prowess and brute force.
Dictator: A Paragon class who can dice is a D12.
manipulate other characters’ emotions Dexterity: Measures a character’s
Guard: A measure of a character’s ability
with their magical voice. Their class dice nimbleness & skill at avoiding being hit.
to avoid damage. It starts equal to their
is a D4.
Dexterity and is depleted when hit. Constitution: Measures a character’s
DIE: The game you’re holding. Written in ability to not just keel over and die.
Health: A measure of a character’s ability
all capitals. Separate from...
to withstand damage. It starts equal to a Wisdom: Measures a character’s
Die: The planet where all the games are character’s Constitution and is reduced understanding of the world.
set. Or rather, the planet with the pocket when hit. When it reaches 0, life becomes
Intelligence: Measures a character’s
dimensions where all the games are set. difficult.
knowledge and technical skill.
See page 4 and 196–197.
Hit: When attacking, each success causes
Charisma: Measures a character’s
Difficulty: When rolling to succeed in a a hit. A hit is taken from Guard until it’s
personal skills.
task, a difficulty may be set. This is the depleted, and then Health.
number of successes rolled in a dice pool Willpower: A measure of a character’s
Mandatory: A Special tagged with
that are removed before success or failure ability to resist emotional manipulation.
Mandatory must be selected if a dice pool
is determined. It starts equal to a character’s Wisdom
has enough 6+ dice to activate it.
plus their Intelligence.
Emotion Knight: A Paragon class whose
Master: A Paragon class who manipulates
special ability is powered by a single Wound: A hit which reduces Health is
and breaks the rules of the game to create
emotion. Their class dice is a D8. called a Wound.
magical effects. Their class dice is a D20.
4 1. INTRODUCTION
The visitors don’t know this. Why would they? They have their own drama going on.
They’re dragged to the game, likely by the player who will become the Master in their
group. The soon-to-be Master believes the world will fulfil the fantasies that they
never achieved in reality. A copy of the game fell into their hands, one way or another,
and they gathered the group together, likely not even dreaming it would do anything
other than pass an evening. The rules told them the people the game requires, or the
selection criteria it demanded. Perhaps people you love. Perhaps people you hate.
Perhaps some weird formula, mixing the general and the specific.
It’s the people who Die thinks would be most interesting to play together.
They gather. They play. The game is a game, and all games are ritual.
The group closes their eyes. When they open them, they’re in one of Die’s little worlds,
and they’re soon transformed into one of the six dice-wielding Paragons. They have
great power. There’s a saying about great power. No, not the Spider-Man one. The
corruption one.
The group can go home… if they all agree. Or stay… if they all agree.
What do they do?
And all the while, Die is watching, prodding, as if the laws of physics had a perverse
sense of humour. Einstein was right—god doesn’t play dice with the universe.
Unfortunately, Die plays god with the universe.
All Die’s games are set in these little egg worlds. You have complete freedom to define
the world every single time you play DIE, in any way you choose. There’s no limits to
fantasy. Each one is its own hermetically-sealed world. Frankly, that’s usually how
many Masters prefer it. It’s their little dream home, and they may not even notice as
their dream home slides into a haunted house.
A FINAL THOUGHT
From your perspective, the games are all canon.
From Die’s perspective, the games are all prey.
MAIN STATISTICS
Strength Physical prowess. Overpowering people. Most melee activity.
Dexterity Nimbleness and skill. Shooting, sneaking, delicate weapons.
Constitution General health, fitness and ability to not keel over when impaled
by a weapon.
Wisdom Understanding of the world. Spirituality. Most things involving
gods.
Intelligence Specific knowledge. Wizardly activity and things involving
computers.
Charisma Persuasion, charm, and human-interactions. Most things
involving yapping.
Stats are represented by a number between 0 and 4. The average person’s score on each
is 2. A stat of 3 is on par with the most competent people on Earth in this area. A stat
of 4 is significantly better than anyone on Earth. Someone with Dexterity 4 can
perform gymnastics at the level of an Olympian without any training whatsoever. A
stat of 5 is beyond human.
DEFENSIVE STATISTICS
Guard A measure of a character’s ability to avoid damage. It starts equal
to a character’s Dexterity and is depleted when hit.
Health A measure of a character’s ability to withstand damage. It starts
equal to a character’s Constitution and is reduced when hit.
When your Health reaches 0, you fall unconscious and die.
Willpower A measure of a character’s ability to resist emotional
manipulation. It starts equal to a character’s Wisdom plus their
Intelligence.
Defence A measure of how difficult it is to hit a character. It is not
derived from the other stats, and is defined separately. It is 0
unless stated otherwise.
8 2. RULES
This is the core mechanic at its most
basic, and it can be made more
sophisticated in a bunch of ways:
determining the level of success, failing
THE CORE MECHANIC
forward, specific rewards for each
success and lots more. Take a look at
IN SHORT
Extra Mechanics For The Dice Rolls on ⬢ Collect a number of dice equal to the stat most relevant to the task at hand.
page 15 for things you can do. Some of ⬢ Any advantages? Add a dice for each. Any disadvantages? Remove a dice for
these—like critical fails—are used in each.
some class abilities. ⬢ Roll. Each dice showing a 4 or higher is a success.
⬢ If the GM has set a difficulty for the task, remove that number of successes.
⬢ If any successes remain, you succeed.
⬢ If any remaining dice is a 6+, each can also be used to activate any relevant
Special ability.
IN DETAIL
1. Determine Difficulty: The gamemaster (GM) determines and announces
difficulty. Most tasks are difficulty 0. Tasks that would stretch the limit of
mundane human capabilities are difficulty 1. Tasks that exceed the limit of
mundane human capabilities but are just possible are difficulty 2.
2. Gather Dice: The player gathers D6 equal to their most relevant stat, creating a
dice pool. For example, a player with a Dexterity score of 2 would gather two
six-sided dice. Some class abilities allow players to add their class dice to the
pool as well.
3. Advantages: The GM decides if any advantages are present in the situation,
+ like tactical positioning, good equipment or an apt witticism. Each advantage
adds one dice to the pool.
4. Disadvantages: The GM decides if any disadvantages are present in the
– situation, like being outnumbered, poor light conditions, or thinking about
your loved ones missing you at home. Each disadvantage subtracts one dice
from the pool. If the resulting dice pool would include no dice, roll two dice
and pick the lowest. If the character is able to add a class dice to a pool, they
may include their class dice instead of one of the two dice.
5. Roll: The player rolls the dice pool. Each dice that shows a 4 or higher is
a success.
6. Apply Difficulty: The player removes a number of successes from the rolled
dice pool equal to the task’s difficulty. If there are more successes than the
difficulty, they can choose which ones to remove.
7. Determine Results: If any successes remain, the action is successful. Any
remaining dice that show 6 or higher each can also activate an additional effect,
called a Special, if the player has a relevant one to use.
REAL-WORLD FLASHBACKS
A real-world flashback is when a player recalls an event in the real world to provide
insight or motivation into a current problem. Flashbacks are part of the fiction and
reveal something new about the Persona.
Each player can use a flashback once per session to get an advantage on any task.
10 2. RULES
GUARD AND HEALTH
Characters have two defensive stats which are depleted as they take damage:
⬢ Guard represents your footing, awareness, and ability to stay out of the way of
damage. Characters start the game with Guard equal to their Dexterity score.
Guard is reset to this score at the start of every combat. Guard is only used in
combat, when fighting an opponent.
⬢ Health is your ability to suffer physical harm, stay in the fight and not keel over
and stop breathing. Characters start the game with Health equal to their
Constitution score. If your Constitution increases or decreases at any point in
the game, your Health changes alongside it.
Neither Health nor Guard can go below 0, or above its starting value. If Health ever
reaches 0, a character passes out. If they are not healed or otherwise stabilised by the
end of the combat, they die. If a character ever has negative Health, they die.
Death for a Persona is not the end of the game, as a player will find out.
There are more rules related to this on page 120.
COMBAT
When combat begins:
1. Reset Guard for all characters to be equal to their Dexterity score.
2. Characters begin taking turns, going from highest to lowest Dexterity.
3. If characters have the same Dexterity, alternate between Persona and GM-
controlled characters who have yet to act, in an order chosen by the GM. See
page 12 for specific guidance on this.
4. Once all characters have taken a turn, start again.
5. Combat is over when all relevant players agree it’s over. If someone is still
swinging and wants to be swinging, it’s not over.
11
HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHO GOES NEXT?
Here’s a checklist:
1. Who is the player who is most immediately linked to the narrative situation?
They act now. While the GM has final call, the GM may seek the player’s input
on this.
2. Who is the GM-controlled character who is most immediately linked to the
narrative situation? They act now.
3. If there are no more players or GM-controlled characters in the group, just skip
back to the other side.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until there’s no more characters who share the same
Dexterity, then progress to the next group.
YOUR TURN
During a character’s turn, they can move and make an action.
MOVEMENT
A move can be before, after or during the action. DIE uses broad, relative systems to
describe how close people are. You use moves to change between one range band and
the next. Here’s the range categories…
MELEE You’re adjacent to one another, close enough to attack with
hand-held weapons.
CLOSE You can throw a weapon to hit someone at this range. You can
use your move to change to melee range.
MEDIUM You have to use a weapon of some kind to shoot this far. You
have to use a move to change to close range.
FAR You can’t shoot accurately at this range, unless you’re some kind
of sniper. You have to use at least two moves to change to
medium range.
If a player wants to go further than their free move, they can choose to spend their
action as a second move.
12 2. RULES
ACTION
An action is anything you can do under pressure in combat, like climbing a wall,
picking a lock, casting a spell and more. One common action is an attack.
ATTACK
Attacks use the core mechanic: determine difficulty, assemble a dice pool and count
successes.
⬢ Determine Difficulty
For attacks, Difficulty is equal to the target’s Defence.
⬢ Assemble Dice Pool
⬥ For melee attacks, use Strength to build your dice pool.
⬥ For ranged attacks, Dexterity.
⬥ Spellcasting will be Intelligence, Wisdom or rarely Charisma, depending
on the character. Wisdom is for Godbinders, Intelligence for Masters,
Charisma for Fools.
⬢ Count Successes and Hits
Each dice that’s a 4 or higher is a success. Remove a number of successes equal
to the difficulty, and what you have left is number of hits.
⬥ If a character rolls zero successes when attacking someone, and someone
could possibly attack them, the attacking character suffers a hit.
⬥ If a character has no successes after difficulty removed them, the next
attack on their target gains an advantage, due to them having to
concentrate on fending off the last attack. The GM can alternatively decide
it provides another small, in-fiction boon.
⬢ Dealing Damage
If the target has any Guard, each hit removes 1 Guard. If the target has 0 Guard,
it removes 1 Health. Any hit which removes Health is called a Wound.
UNUSUAL ATTACKS
⬢ Team Attacks
Characters can merge their attacks to perform a single team attack. Only
characters that have not attacked this turn can participate. The team attack dice
pool is equal to the highest stat in the group, with an advantage for every extra
individual.
⬢ Non-Lethal Attacks
To subdue or disarm a target without harming them, add a disadvantage to the
dice pool. When a target’s Health reaches 0, they’re knocked out or otherwise
incapacitated.
⬢ Overflow Damage
If a player rolls excess successes after subduing a target, they may choose to
move those successes onto another viable target. Before doing so, reduce the
remaining successes by one, and then reduce any remaining successes by the
Defence of the target and inflict damage.
⬢ Attacking Multiple Opponents
To deliberately attack multiple opponents, add a disadvantage to the roll and
then you can freely distribute the successes between their targets.
14 2. RULES
EXTRA MECHANICS
EXTRA MECHANICS FOR THE DICE POOL
If you want some additional approaches to interpreting the dice pool, consider the
following options, especially they speak to the style of your group.
CRITICAL FAIL
If a dice pool has no successes and at least one of those dice is a 1, the character
critically fails—something has gone terribly amiss. The GM decides what the narrative
demands. Contextual disadvantages, suffering damage or narrative mishaps are typical.
The Godbinder tries to join the dancefloor in the Rivendell-vs-Bridgerton world they
find themselves. She rolls a critical fail. The scene is shocked by how clod-footed the
Godbinder is. She suffers a disadvantage on all social rolls while at the party.
EXTRA SUCCESSES
If there is more than one success remaining, the result could be especially impactful,
flamboyant or spectacular.
The Fool decides to get on the dancefloor too. They roll a massive four successes.
Everyone is so impressed by the Fool’s moves that they start a hot new dance craze…
and the Fool has attracted the Elf-Queen’s attention.
FAILING FORWARD
If you use high difficulties, it’s good If successes were rolled before being removed due to difficulty, the GM can rule it to be
practise to make near-misses less costly a success with a cost, a partial success, or success with a complication. This is a way to
than far-fails. You can even use the fail “fail forward”—an approach in RPGs that ratther than stopping progress on an
forward rules if someone rolls zero unsuccessful roll, it instead is used as a way to move the narrative forward in another
successes. Just make it a little more way.
punishing, and keep the game moving.
A success with a cost gives you the same result as a normal success, but with an
additional cost. A partial success takes you partially there, meaning the task is easier
next time. A complication is letting the player achieve their goal… but then having a
new problem to deal with.
The Neo is trying to pick a lock. They roll a success, but the difficulty of the task is one,
leaving no successes. The GM decides whether to give a cost, a partial success, or a
complication...
A success The Neo can get the lock open… but it’ll break their lockpick.
with a cost: They won’t be able to pick any more locks for the adventure.
A partial success: The Neo has made progress on the job. If they try again, the
difficulty of the task will be reduced by 1.
A complication: The door opens… but the Neo makes a noise. They hear a guard
coming to investigate…
SUCCESS REWARDS
You can specify effects which you gain for each success in the dice pool for a
mechanical or narrative reward. The most common version of this is in combat, where
each success equals a hit, but it can be used for a lot of other things…
When searching for clues, you can ask one question for each success you roll.
If you try to recover your footing in combat, roll your Dexterity pool. For each success,
regain 2 Guard.
Effects don’t have to be rewards, of course:
If you roll 3 successes, you avoid the fire trap. For every success short of that, you suffer
1 Wound.
ABSTRACTION
This approach is very much informed The core mechanic determines success or failure in a single roll. For some tasks, you
by both clocks from games like Blades may wish to assign a number of successes required, and allow multiple attempts
in the Dark by John Harper and the (possibly by multiple characters). When the number is matched, the task is completed.
Resistance System by Grant Howitt and
The Augean Stables are full of an enormous amount of dung. The GM sets a target of 8
Christopher Taylor.
successes to move the Herculean amount of poop. However each player does it, their
resultant successes are removed from that total.
While you can play moment-to-moment, it’s often worthwhile to zoom all the way
out. Set a success total, ask each player how they’re approaching the task, then ask
them in turn to roll their dice pool, and subtract the number of the successes from the
total.
For example, rather than navigating a dungeon, the GM sets a success total of six, then
asks each player how they’re trying to navigate it. When they reach six or more
successes, they’ve reached their destination.
This can work well to simulate competition too.
The players have split into two sides and are leading armies. Each player describes
their efforts and rolls dice. The success totals are compared to see who is victorious.
16 2. RULES
SITUATIONAL SPECIALS
While most Specials are linked to a character’s specific abilities, they don’t have to be.
Adding Specials in a specific situation as part of an adventure can add a lot of flavour,
with them being activated by a 6+ success in any relevant dice pool.
When fighting on the narrow clifftop road, all attacks gain Special: if this hit Wounds,
the target is sent falling off the edge.
That’s practical. They can also be tools for atmosphere.
When fighting in the Arena, all rolls gain Special: the crowd cheers appreciatively at
your display of skill; and Double-Special: a member of the crowd becomes a devoted
fan of the character.
GETTING FANCY
For combining techniques, there’s a lot You can mash any or all techniques together and create something particularly ornate,
more about this kind of stuff in DIE: and even codify it. Depending on the nature of your game, you may think something
The Campaign on page 253. This is very like the following could be useful:
much inspired by the systems in
When a Neo wants to hunt for Fair Gold at the start of the day, roll Intelligence:
Powered by the Apocalypse Games—
first seen in Apocalypse World by D. ⬢ If you roll 1 success, you find a Fair Gold.
Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker. ⬢ For every further 2 successes, you find another Fair Gold.
⬢ If you roll 0 successes, you find one Fair Gold, and suffer 1 Wound.
⬢ If you roll a critical fail, you gain a Fair Gold, but also lead something nasty
back to the group.
This roll has Special: you find an extra gold.
CLASS ADVANCEMENTS
DICTATOR Choose an additional emotion.
FOOL Choose an ability from the Clown School list.
EMOTION KNIGHT Choose an additional venting ability or stance.
NEO Choose an additional gift.
GODBINDER Choose an additional god.
PLAYER MASTER Choose an additional rule.
Unless you’re playing more than 2–4 sessions, one advancement will likely satisfy
players’ urge to have another toy.
FULL ADVANCEMENT
The more a character explores a realm of Die, the greater they attune with their dice
and the greater the abilities they gain. They grow from the lowly ranks of mighty
heroes to the exalted state of absolutely petrifying titans that bestride the planet.
Characters start at level 1 and max out at level 20. In reality, even in a long campaign,
it’s unlikely you’ll ever hit level 20. DIE’s advancement system is about choices rather
than Pokémon-esque collecting-them-all. The abilities you don’t pick are as important
as the ones you do. The characters in DIE the comic are around level 10–14. That’s
about as long as any DIE campaign should last.
This raises a fundamental question for any individual game of DIE.
When do you advance?
20 3. PARAGONS
DIE CAMPAIGN ADVANCEMENT
In a DIE campaign structure (as described in Chapter 9), the world has 20 regions.
Everyone advances and levels up when they master one of these regions. Mastering a
region can mean several things, but is most likely completing a major adventure in it.
Early on, you can advance relatively quickly as you explore the map, but the further
you go in, the fewer new regions you explore, and advancement slows.
DIE campaign advancement is fully explained in Chapter 9: DIE:The Campaign.
22 3. PARAGONS
DEUS
CHOSEN OF EX
THE FAIR MACHINA
UPGRADE UPGRADE
UPGRADE UPGRADE
THE
HACK NEW BIG
ROMANCER GIFT SCORE
UPGRADE
SICK- NEW
ASS GIFT
RIDE
UPGRADE
NEW
GIFT
NEW
UPGRADE GIFT
GOLD NEW PAWN
SOURCE GIFT SHOP
START
Fig. 1 Fig. 2
However, this path (Fig. 3) would not be valid. While some triangles are adjacent on a
side, some triangles only share a tip.
Fig. 3
24 3. PARAGONS
PLANNING YOUR ADVANCEMENT CHOICES
Don’t be secretive about the advancements you’re planning to take. Many
advancements involve interacting with the group and adding to the fiction in major
ways. If a player tells the group the direction they’re heading, this can be more easily
integrated as an element. If your ability is going to let you take over a kingdom in a
couple levels, don’t be shy about it. That would make a great climax to an adventure!
Advancement is both a reward and a narrative goal. It tells the group what sort of
things you want to see in the world.
28 3. PARAGONS
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30 3. PARAGONS
THE AUDIENCE
The target of the Voice is known as the Audience. The number of successes the
Dictator rolls is how powerfully the Audience feels the emotion, as described below:
This scale of emotions is also used by 1 They feel it enough to influence them.
the Emotion Knight. While both classes
2 They feel it intensely. It’s hard to do anything not related to it.
create different effects, they’re dealing in
the same fuel. 3 They feel it as intensely as most people ever feel it.
4 If we’re talking love, more than you’ve ever loved your partner.
5 All-consuming obsession. Often the further reaches of madness.
6+ Supernaturally intense emotions beyond anything in reality.
Will likely have miraculous effects.
What does an attack look like? It If you were using the Voice to control, each level of effect will give a disadvantage on
depends on the emotion. If you were doing something against the compulsion. If the effect would help a task, they gain a
using Fear to attack to incapacitate, the single advantage for any number of levels. If you were using your Voice to attack the
target could pass out or fall to the floor, Audience, the Audience suffers this number of disadvantages when trying to attack
petrified and twitching. If you were anyone.
using it to kill, a heart attack is possible
If you were using the Voice to control, and the Audience ’s Willpower is not matched
or (if it’s allowed in your lines and veils)
or exceeded, they will still act in accordance with your compulsion unless they resist
even suicide.
with a Wisdom roll. The difficulty is the level of effect, halved and rounded down.
If the level matches or exceeds the Audience's Willpower, they are absolutely
overwhelmed. If your aim was to control them, they submit entirely to your
compulsion. If you were attacking them, they are either killed or incapacitated,
according to your wishes. Most characters have a Willpower of 4.
Some characters have very high In terms of effect, anything 6+ is too much. Expect magical fireworks, and for your
Willpower. This means they’re Audience to die, whether that was your aim or not. Like all creators, while you can
extremely hard to take complete control aim to have a certain effect on an audience, the audience will respond in their own
of. However, in the narrative, they’re way.
still feeling the emotion, and also suffer
the other penalties. A Willpower 8 DUEL OF WORDS
character, suffering a level 7 emotion
If a Dictator is attacked by another Dictator, and is in a position to use the Voice,
has 7 disadvantages and is resisting
they may instantly activate their Voice in retaliation. Whoever creates the most
Difficulty 3 compulsions. That’s not
powerful effect takes priority. If you generate the same number of successes, both
easy.
results happen.
AN EMOTIONAL NUDGE
If a Dictator has possession of their D4, and is in a situation where any subtle
emotional manipulation may give them an edge, they may roll the D4 as part of their
dice pool. The D4, rather than counting as a dice, can be used to increase any one dice
in the dice pool by the amount the D4 rolls. It’s cute to put the D4 on top of the Dice
you’re boosting, like a little hat.
There’s not much cute about your character, so enjoy it while it lasts.
YOU, CHOIR
A Dictator’s Voice is a tool designed to speak to one person alone. With practise, some
Dictators are better at raising their Voice. Normally, a Dictator removes one success
from their pool for every extra person they’re trying to influence simultaneously.
Now, you remove one fewer success from your pool. At level 1 of this ability, two
people can be targeted without increasing difficulty.
SIGNATURE PIECE
The Voice is magical, and creative… but there is a strength in the predictability of
learning something by rote. You have a set performance that you can perform to
speak a magical effect into existence. Choose a spell from the Starter Grimoire (370)
with no more than 15 risk. Describe how you’re able to use your selected emotions to
make this magical effect. When you cast your spell, you roll your Charisma pool, and
get to include your D4 as per An Emotional Nudge. You can’t perform a signature
piece unless you’re in possession of your D4.
32 3. PARAGONS
THE POWER
THE GREAT BEHIND THE
DICTATOR THRONE
AN AN
ARTIST’S ARTIST’S
PROGRESS PROGRESS
AN
ARTIST’S
PROGRESS
AN
THE GANG ARTIST’S
PROGRESS
IT’S NOT
WHAT YOU
KNOW
AN
ARTIST’S
PROGRESS
START
DICTATOR
ADVANCEMENT MAP
Add a point to any stat (to a max of 4) on each of the following:
Level 3
Level 6
Level 9
Level 12
At Level 4: Live At The Witch Trials
IMPROVE HENCHPERSON
If you have a henchperson, choose:
⬢ If they have fewer character points than the group, they add a character point
⬢ Choose a new ability or skillset for the henchperson from the Secondary
Character Rules
AGENT
You have someone who gives you special information. Who are they? What sort of
information can they provide? Once a session, you can use your agent to give you
information about a situation.
34 3. PARAGONS
ONE STEP AHEAD
Some classes have a once-a-session Dictators are players, schemers and manipulators. Once a session, a Dictator can use
ability as a hard rule. The once-a- this ability to explain when a pre-existing plan is going to come into effect, defined in a
session limitation is more a rule of flashback scene.
thumb. If there’s a long break mid-
The plan must be simple, with a single moving part: someone turns up to give aid, an
session, ask the GM if this ability can be
escape route is prepared, a piece of important equipment secretly secured. Incorporate
recharged.
details from the world in your plan, or ask the GM for inspiration. Usually, the Voice
comes into play at some point during the proceedings.
For example, Alistair’s plan to escape from the hellish toybox has gone awry. The party
are trapped on its roof, the clockwork killers inching closer. He uses his One Step Ahead
ability, saying that when he was back in town, he used his Voice of joy to give the
merchant a huge hit of pleasure… on the condition the merchant loaned him the whistle
to summon the flock of flying horses. Alistair blows the whistle, and the cavalry swoops
in…
How can the Voice come into play? “I Once the plan has been stated, roll your D4. If you roll a 1, the GM gets to add an extra
met the person, used the Voice to make cost to the plan. If you roll a 4, the GM gets to add a complication as things are too
them tell me blackmail information, successful. No matter what, these events are now part of the fiction, and its
then freed them and used the blackmail consequences will have to be dealt with.
information to make the plan work” is
For example, if Alistair rolled a 1 above, Alistair had to agree to perform a future favour
a pretty robust one.
to the merchant as well. However, if they rolled a 4, the merchant could be so blown
away by the experience of joy, he needs it again. Alistair has created a pleasure addict.
Either way, our heroes are flying on Pegasi. Can they escape and return the horses?
THE GIG
To create supernatural effects on a If you have a captive target and sufficient time to prepare and perform a dramatic ritual
performance, you need at least six as you go, change your D4 to a 4 on your performance roll.
successes. As such, the Gig ability is the
Any time you use this ability, answer the following questions: What does it look like?
best way to ensure you get the necessary
Why is it creepy?
kick to create something otherwise
impossible.
THE GANG
You have gathered a small group of acolytes who work to fulfill your plans. They can be
anything from scribes to street urchins. They’re not heroes, or awesome warriors, and
no-one will have any stat above “normal” (in DIE, 2 is average) but they’re still useful.
Whoever they are, they hang on your every word even when you’re not using the Voice.
Answer the following questions about your gang: who are they? Why do they serve
you? What resources do they have?
FANBASE
Usually after a Dictator’s Voice is removed, the victim feels utterly aggrieved. With the
Fanbase ability, your victims instead feel euphoric and grateful for the experience until
they next sleep. After that, they start to long for you to use the Voice on them again.
Never forget: fan is derived from fanatic.
38 3. PARAGONS
LIVE AT THE WITCH TRIALS
At level 4, you are a notable enough Dictator that your name will have attracted
hunters and a general bounty.
Answer the following questions:
⬢ What have you done which most frightens people? Note: the simple fact you’re
a Dictator is good enough.
⬢ Why aren’t you dead? Pick one and discuss answers to the question with GM.
⬥ You have a powerful patron. Who is it? Why are they protecting you?
⬥ You’ve joined a licensed organisation. What are your duties? What limits
does it place on you?
⬥ The hunters have chosen to ignore you for some reason. Why?
⬥ Something else
EQUIPMENT
Choose two of the following options:
⬢ A fine and noble longsword (You get an advantage when talking with regal
sorts and those impressed by regal sorts.)
⬢ A rapier (Use Dexterity instead of Strength for its dice pool. Special: recover 1
Guard.)
⬢ A cutlass (You get an advantage when talking to underworld sorts and
impressionable romantic sorts.)
⬢ Martial arts (May use Dexterity instead of Strength for its dice pool while
fighting with no weapons.)
⬢ A pistol or other ranged weapon
⬢ Concealed throwing weapons (knives, throwing stars)
YOUR LOOK
You may want to pick your trade before You are wearing (Defence 1):
deciding on this.
⬢ Light fabrics, exposed skin, a big grin
⬢ Black leather, a deck of cards and fast fingers
⬢ A long cloak balanced between elegantly-wasted and scruffy
⬢ Something else
42 3. PARAGONS
FLUKES
Choose one face of your D6. Draw a circle on it, in a non-permanent marker. If you
roll the circle, as well as the usual effects of the number underneath, some fluke of luck
will happen to your benefit. Example flukes: a foe is buried beneath a pile of something
unfortunate. Somebody reveals something they really shouldn’t. An unlikely event
causes a welcome distraction.
The GM then can choose to modify it. The more advantageous you make it, the more a
GM will likely tweak it. Burying a foe beneath something unfortunate is likely fine.
Burying all your enemies beneath something unfortunate is begging for the GM to
bury literally everyone in the something unfortunate slide.
If you rolled your Fool’s D6 and didn’t roll a fluke, add a circle to a different face. If you
did roll a fluke, erase all the circles except for one, and add a cross to a different face.
If you roll a cross, something unfortunate happens to you or (more likely) the people
around you. After rolling a cross, erase all crosses.
If your D6 is not good for drawing on, you can use a diagram to record which sides have
symbols on, like so.
44 3. PARAGONS
FOOL ADVANCEMENT
KNACK OR SPELL
Choose either a Knack or a Spell.
A KNACK
Choose one thing the Fool’s good at. Whenever you do this thing, you get an
advantage. This can be anything you and the GM agree on, but should be limiting
enough to likely only be used once a session—or used many times in a session, but
unlikely to be used again for several sessions after that. The less immediately useful a
knack is, the more general it can be.
Here’s a list of example knacks:
⬢ Performing in a band
⬢ Needlework
⬢ Juggling
⬢ Be especially charming to old ladies
⬢ Fighting while standing on a wooden table
⬢ Knowledge of the underclasses of the dwarfs
⬢ Acrobatics aboard a ship’s rigging
⬢ Pub-crawl expertise
A SPELL
Choose any spell from the Starter Grimoire (page 370) which has no more than 15
Risk. You roll using Charisma to cast. Decide how you learned this spell: how did you
pick this up?
CLEAN SLATE
Between scenarios you may delete all circles and crosses from the dice, and add a
single circle. When you do so, describe what your Fool does to blow off steam.
46 3. PARAGONS
DON’T
HOLY GIVE A
FOOL FUCK
KNACK KNACK
OR SPELL OR SPELL
CLOWN CLOWN
SCHOOL SCHOOL
CLOWN- PUSHING IT KING
SHOW FOR A DAY
KNACK
OR SPELL
IT’S
CLOWN A STUPID
SCHOOL PLAN… BUT IT
MAY JUST WORK
KNACK
OR SPELL
CLOWN
SCHOOL
KNACK KNACK
OR SPELL OR SPELL
JACK CLOWN
OF MORE CLEAN
SCHOOL SLATE
TRADES
START
PUSHING IT
Pulling off a stupid plan once a session may not be enough. In which case, you’ll need
Pushing It, the dangerous sibling ability to It’s A Stupid Plan… But It May Just Work.
As in It’s A Stupid Plan… But It May Just Work, you must describe and then follow a
foolish and unlikely plan. You then add a cross to the Fool’s dice.
However, instead of automatically succeeding, you roll your Fool’s dice. If you don’t
roll a cross, the plan succeeds (with the minimum number of successes required).
If you roll a cross, the plan goes desperately wrong. The GM will describe how. It
could include serious loss of resources or the incapacitation (or even death) of
friendly characters.
HOLY FOOL
Rather than just adding the Fool’s dice to a dice pool when you act in a foolish, daring
or cavalier fashion, you also get to add it when you act with kindness and altruism.
If you ever take Don’t Give A Fuck, you lose this ability.
49
CLOWNSHOW
Once per session, you can say “This is turning into a total clownshow.”
For the rest of the encounter, any time anyone fails a roll, it has the same effects as if a
Fool had rolled a cross. As in, an unfortunate event happens to them (or those near
them). Friends, enemies, everyone. It should be stressed: the Fool is not immune to
this.
CLOWN SCHOOL
Along the way, a Fool picks up a few specialised tricks in how to use (and abuse) their
luck. Each time you take this advance, choose a single ability from the list below:
LOVE FOOL
Once per session, a Fool may succeed on any roll, as long as they do it for love. Ideally
for someone you love. Your actions should involve a protestation of adoration. You
gain the minimum number of successes required for a task.
A Fool does not have to be in love before this point. You may in this moment decide
that you’re in love, and act on it. Once you’ve fallen in love, roleplay this until the
narrative leads you to get over it.
FOOLS RUSH IN
At the start of any combat where the Fool is not ambushed, you can take a single
action before anyone else, at the cost of starting the combat with 0 Guard.
FOOL’S PREP
Once per session, declare an item you need. If you add a cross to the Fool’s dice, you
get it immediately.
FOOL’S GOLD
Add a cross to your dice to know what dumb, surprising thing someone you’re talking
to really wants.
50 3. PARAGONS
FOOL’S CHARM
Add a cross to your dice to either:
⬢ Make someone trust in you for a moment. Just for a moment, but long enough.
⬢ Have everyone laugh off a social faux pas you’ve just made.
51
EMOTION
KNIGHT
These orders of knights are the world’s greatest warriors, each devoted to one of the eight
sacred emotions. Whether it be joy, hate, or fear: if they feel it, they can use it to fuel the
power of their sentient, arcane weapons.
When consumed by their sacred sensation, they’re incomparable warriors, capable of
miraculous feats. Nothing can stand against their blades—armies, mountains, not even
ideas. They can defeat anything.
Except the passion which drives them.
EQUIPMENT
All you really need is your Arcane Weapon. However, you also have a striking
resilience to harm. Why? Choose one of the following options:
⬢ You’ve got an uncanny danger sense
⬢ Your scarred flesh is incredibly resistant to pain
⬢ You have the finest armour, and keep it in good condition
⬢ Something else
YOUR LOOK
You are wearing (Defence 1):
⬢ Worn leather, a long cloak and a scowl
⬢ Gladiator gear, all skin, spikes and black leather
⬢ Covered head to foot, with a full helm showing only your eyes
⬢ Something else
54 3. PARAGONS
IM ISM LOV
E
OPT
SERENITY
AC
ST
CE
JOY
RE
PT
TE
AN
ESS
IN
CE
SUB
ON
VEN
TI
TR
MIS
PA
I
US
ESS
CI
ECSTASY
T
TI
SIO
AN
R
AD
E
N
AGG
NC
M
IR
LA
AT
GI
ONI
VI
APPREHENSION
ANNOYANCE
TERROR
ANGER
FEAR
RAGE
T
EN
LO
EM
AT
H
AZ
IN
CON
AM
G
GRIEF
E
E
DI
IS
AW
TEM
SG
R
RP
US
SU
PT
N
IO
BO
CT
SADNESS
RE
RA
DO
ST
M
DI
PENSIVENESS
REM L
ORS R OVA
E APP
DIS
56 3. PARAGONS
YOUR EMOTIONAL SCALE
Emotion Knights keep track of their Sacred Emotion on the emotional scale. Use your
Emotion Knight dice as a counter to track it. Depending how intensely your character
is feeling this emotion in the fiction, move the counter up or down the scale. Discuss
with your GM if you feel it would have changed. Your GM will also prompt you.
EMOTIONAL SCALE
Level 0 Nothing
Level 1: Strong Emotionally Engaged. Add a D8 to attacks. Stances
active. Can use venting abilities.
Level 2: Intense With Creative Violence you could defeat: a mob, a
blockade, a village, a strength.
Level 3: Overwhelming With Creative Violence, you could defeat: an army, a
mountain range, a town, a weakness.
Level 4: Lost With Creative Violence you can defeat: a city, despair,
someone you truly love.
Level 5: Consumed With Creative Violence, you can defeat: a country, a
religion.
Level 6+: Inhuman With Creative Violence you can defeat: a god, hope,
yourself.
Level 1 is feeling an emotion strongly. Level 2 is feeling it intensely. Level 3 is likely as
strong as any individual has ever felt that emotion in their life. You will be unable to
act on anything but the emotion if it is equal to or exceeds your Willpower score.
Most humans pass out at Level 4. Levels 6 and higher are literal supernatural
emotions. You could be so angry fire literally emerges from your eyes.
In terms of mechanical effects, each level of effect will give a disadvantage on doing
something against the emotion. If the effect could help a task, you gain a single
advantage. It is possible that a GM will suggest compulsions of things you want to do.
These can be resisted with a Wisdom roll. The difficulty is the level of emotion, halved
and rounded down.
EMOTIONALLY ENGAGED
When you’re feeling your sacred emotion, your Arcane Weapon’s powers flicker into life.
When you’re above zero on the emotional scale, you can add your class dice, the D8, to
any attack you make with your Arcane Weapon. Your Stance is also activated.
Stances are passive abilities, born of your abilities as a knight. Some are combat stances,
used in a melee. Others are social stances, with abilities mainly used outside of combat.
There’s also emotional stances, which are abilities only able to be picked by specific sorts
of Emotion Knights.
Choose one stance from pages 60–63. If you have more than one stance, you can change
them with an action in combat or at-will outside of combat.
VENTING
Emotion Knights are able to vent a little of their power to fuel a specific, powerful
ability. Pick one venting ability from the following list. If you are emotionally engaged,
you can vent. This reduces your emotional scale by one and triggers the vent ability.
58 3. PARAGONS
STANCES & VENTING ABILITIES
VENTING ABILITIES
Decapitation Strike: Target and attack a single individual and ignore Guard.
Combat Frenzy: Apply the results of this attack to all enemies within melee
range of the knight’s position.
Duel: Target a single individual. They cannot attack anyone else
until you say so, or until you’re no longer a combatant.
Personal Attacks: Discover how your Sacred Emotion could be used to hurt
the target—whatever that means.
Personal Knowledge: Gain knowledge of who or what a target feels your
emotion most strongly towards. For example, a Terror
Knight could vent to discover a target’s worst fear.
Distance Strike: You can attack anything, at any distance, as long as you
know exactly where they are.
Emotional Reserve: When hit, an Emotion Knight may reduce their Emotion
Level instead of losing Health on a 1-for-1 basis.
Hardcase: Vent to make anyone human-sized think that if you
fought, you would win.
60 3. PARAGONS
COMBAT STANCES
Bodyguard: Choose someone within arm’s reach. If they are attacked,
you can choose to be attacked instead.
Ranged Attack: You can attack with your Arcane Weapon at a
medium range.
Riposte: When an opponent’s attack fails to hit you, make an
immediate attack in response as an extra action.
Parry: All attacks on you suffer one disadvantage.
Quick on the Draw: If someone attacks you before your turn in the initiative
order, give up your move action to attack them before they
attack you.
I’ll Die When I’m Dead: You can act normally when you’ve taken so much damage
that you should be unconscious. You continue to fight
until you literally die.
Slashing Blade: You can split your successes in an attack between multiple
targets without suffering a disadvantage to do so.
Pacifier: You can attack and inflict non-fatal injuries without
suffering a disadvantage.
Show-Off: Your fighting style is undeniably more beautiful than
anyone else’s. Your attacks have Special: choose an
opponent to be startled by your grace. The next attack on
them gains an advantage.
SOCIAL STANCES
Gaining advantages or disadvantages Intimidating Gaze: You can be a scary fucker. You radiate murderous
due to relevant elements of the fiction is contempt. If there’s a question of “who’s the most
a key part of the core mechanic. Most of murderous person in the room?” The answer is “You.”
the social stances are a good source of
Common Touch: The “Common Folk” of the kingdom automatically think
these.
you’re one of them. What does “Common Folk” mean?
You tell us.
The Look Of Eagles: If someone is looking for a leader, they look to you.
Everyone will assume you’re in charge due to your natural
authority.
Who The Hell Are They: In any room, you instantly attract everyone’s attention.
Infectious Charm: All of your jokes land with at least one person present in
the situation.
ADMIRATION/TRUST/ACCEPTANCE
Hero-Worship: Choose one person to idealise. When supporting them in an
action, you give two advantages instead of one.
Trusting Face: You radiate such simple good-heartedness that people will give
you the benefit of the doubt unless there’s a strong reason to do
otherwise.
TERROR/FEAR/APPREHENSION
Flight: When fleeing, you’ll always escape any pursuer who doesn’t have
some supernatural ability to hunt you down.
Reading the When in this stance, at any time, you can ask the GM “What
Danger Room: should I be most frightened of here?” and they must answer
honestly.
AMAZEMENT/SURPRISE/DISTRACTION
Eeek!: When surprised, you jump out of your skin. You instantly
teleport a short distance.
Innocent: People cannot read you in any way other than a wide-eyed
adorable innocent.
GRIEF/SADNESS/PENSIVENESS
Catharsis: When Emotion Draining (page 64), you also heal 1 Wound from
your target for each level of emotion drained.
Pity Me: People pity you as they would a whimpering puppy.
LOATHING/DISGUST/BOREDOM
Can't Stand Everybody who can see you finds you loathsome; they behave
Me Now: appropriately. Their attacks against you have one disadvantage.
My Mind Is A You are so wrapped up in hatred (of self and others) the
Fortress: difficulty of any emotional manipulation is increased by 2.
62 3. PARAGONS
RAGE/ANGER/ANNOYANCE
Warface: Anyone foolish enough to meet your gaze regrets it. All your
attacks gain Special: they metaphorically shit themselves and
lose 1 Guard.
Berserk: As long as you are in this stance, your Health is increased by
your Wisdom.
VIGILANCE/ANTICIPATION/INTEREST
You Watch The You know any time you’ve been spotted or are about to be
Watchmen: ambushed.
Guardian: You can declare one person under your protection. You know
whenever they are threatened, and gain an advantage when
acting on it.
64 3. PARAGONS
MASTER
DUAL OF THE
WIELD ORDER
NEW NEW
ANY VENTING
STANCE ABILITY
NEW NEW
VENTING ANY
ABILITY STANCE
ADVANCE ADVANCE
SINGLE- CREATIVE CREATIVE
MINDED VIOLENCE VIOLENCE
NEW
ANY
STANCE
SECOND
EMOTION ACTIVE
VAMPIRE STANCE
NEW
VENTING
ABILITY
NEW
ANY
STANCE
NEW NEW
SOCIAL COMBAT
STANCE STANCE
ADVANCE
KNIGHT EMOTION CREATIVE
MARE DRAINING VIOLENCE
START
EMOTION KNIGHT
ADVANCEMENT MAP
Add a point to any stat (to a max of 4) on each of the following:
Level 3
Level 6
Level 9
Level 12
At Level 8: A Knight’s Confirmation
NEW ABILITIES
New Combat Stance Pick a new combat stance.
New Social Stance Pick a new social stance.
New Emotion Stance Pick a new emotion stance of your Sacred Emotion.
New Any Stance Pick a new stance—either social, combat or emotion.
New Venting Ability Pick a new venting ability.
KNIGHTMARE
If you’re willing to suffer a bad (k)night’s sleep with a dream born of your Sacred
Emotion, you will wake to find a magical steed beside you.
What does it look like?
⬢ A towering warhorse with burning eyes
⬢ A three-humped camel with a knowing expression
⬢ A cowardly cat who really doesn’t want to be here
⬢ Something else
As long as you are emotionally engaged, what gift does your steed have? Pick one:
⬢ It can fly
⬢ It is faster than any horse
⬢ It can move through walls like a ghost
⬢ Something else
Every time you have a bad (k)night’s sleep, say what you dreamed about. Some dreams
have been known to be prophetic.
EMOTION VAMPIRE
The Arcane Weapon’s hunger can get out of control, and some Emotion Knights
choose to chase that. When you use Emotion Draining on a being who has either
submitted or is incapable of resisting, an Emotion Knight can choose to feed on the
target’s potential to feel that emotion. Gain a single level of the emotion while
removing the victim’s ability to ever feel this emotion again.
If the victim is currently feeling this emotion, gain an additional level of the emotion
alongside those you would normally drain.
This is primarily an ability for Antagonists and villains. Characters who see this power
in use will fear and hate its user in the same way they would a Dictator.
66 3. PARAGONS
SINGLE-MINDED
When your emotion has you, you’re very difficult to divert. Increase the difficulty to
mentally dominate you by your present emotional level. This includes a Dictator’s
abilities.
DUAL WIELD
Choose a second emotion and gain a second Arcane Weapon with its own personality.
You now track this emotional scale separately. If you have an Emotional Stance from
this new emotion, you can only activate that stance if its emotion is above zero.
If you have two emotion stances, you may change one to an emotion stance from your
new emotion. You can never select the advance Master Of The Order.
EQUIPMENT
You start with all the following:
⬢ A dagger (or any pointy thing which stabs)
⬢ Another close weapon (short sword, a second dagger, or something else)
⬢ A ranged weapon (pistol, a rifle, or something else)
YOUR LOOK
You are wearing (Defence 0):
⬢ Black leather, studs and chrome, white leather, bleach and catsuits
⬢ Billowing black cloak and sinister scarlet eyes
⬢ Exposed metallic exoskeleton and vat-grown muscle
⬢ Something else
FAIR GOLD
Fair Gold is the techno-magical fuel which powers your gifts. It takes the form of
small coins, which you will find yourself drawn to with an intensity that will likely
frighten you.
Fair Gold is most commonly found in the corpses of Fallen, a techno-magical creature
that haunts Die, but you will find other sources. Your AI will be able to tell you if
there’s any Fair Gold in the locale.
A single piece of Fair Gold is required to activate one of the Neo’s gifts until the
following dawn, including any of its upgrades. Each Neo has a slot on their body
where they can insert the coin. Most find it on the back of the neck, but you may be
different.
Keep track of how many Fair Gold you possess. They’ll disappear at dawn.
70 3. PARAGONS
NEOTECH
You always have an AI system and basic ability to access the Fair Field—an invisible
data network fuelled by technology sufficiently advanced enough to pass as magic.
Your AI system is capable of talking with you and performing basic tasks relating to
your gifts and upgrades. Accessing the Fair Field allows you to hack Fallen,
computers, automated systems and anything technological, subverting them to your
control or shutting them down.
To use your Neotech to overcome an immediate problem, roll a dice pool based on
your Intelligence. A success lets you bypass the problem—with a success for each
problem, if there’s multiple ones. The dice pool has Special: actively subvert the
system to perform one action.
If you’re hacking the monstrous Fallen, Morgan the Neo is cornered by a group of four Fallen, lurching towards them. They try
successes let you lock them down, while to hack the Fallen and roll three successes, one of which is a Special. Three Fallen
rolling a Special lets you take control freeze, with one left unaffected. Morgan uses the Special to make one of the affected
briefly. Have a look at Full AI Fallen grab hold of the remaining one, as Morgan slips away.
Enhancement (see page 77) for those
who want to explore this kind of
behaviour further.
OVERCHARGE
The Neo can extract higher performance from any gift if fueled with extra Fair Gold.
This is called overcharging. A gift must be activated before it can be overcharged.
To overcharge a gift, describe your desired effect. The GM sets a cost (in Fair Gold) to
achieve this effect. Spend the Fair Gold, roll your D10:
⬢ If the result is odd, it works perfectly.
⬢ If it’s even, it mostly works but something goes amiss.
On average, a single Fair Gold is enough to remove limitations of a Gift, extend its
capacities or temporarily ape an Upgrade. Two Fair Gold would be enough to improve
the gift in several ways. Three or more Fair Gold are used for truly spectacular feats.
“How much Fair Gold is required to Morgan has a trusty Blink teleporter. Without upgrades, it’s only able to teleport them
perform powerful overcharge feats?” is a short distance. If Morgan wanted to teleport with someone else or teleport a longer
very much a key bit of each DIE game’s distance, it could cost a Fair Gold to overcharge it. To teleport the whole group could
own style. If Fair Gold is plentiful, the cost two. To teleport the whole group to the moon could cost three.
numbers tend to be higher. If it’s scarce,
a GM is likely more lenient in costs.
72 3. PARAGONS
THE GIFTS
GUN
Can be fired as a normal ranged weapon without being activated.
You are in possession of an arcane gun, gifted to you from the Fair.
UPGRADES:
Explosive Your ranged attacks gain Special: apply an extra individual
hit to another target in the vicinity.
Homing Your ranged attacks gain Special: this individual hit—not
the whole attack—bypasses Guard.
AI-Assisted Targeting Never has any environmental disadvantages on an attack
roll.
Phasers to Stun Non-lethal attacks with the gun have no disadvantages.
Trick Shooting Gun can fire precisely enough to act as a form of
telekinesis, so you can use it to knock on windows, ring
doorbells, open doors and perform other feats of accuracy.
Tracking Your ranged attacks gain Special: the target can be reliably
traced for 24 hours.
Sniper You can shoot as far as you can see.
Sentry Gun The gun can be left behind to guard a stationary position,
and obey a simple set of orders. When the gun is next
activated, it instantly appears in the Neo’s hands.
UPGRADES:
Phantom Your close combat attacks gain Special: this individual hit—not
the whole attack—bypasses Guard.
Searing Your close combat attacks gain Special: ignite opponent, doing
1 hit per round until extinguished.
Neurosleep Your close combat attacks gain Special: target is hit by a
sedative. If they are hit by a sedative a number of times equal to
their Constitution score, they fall unconscious.
Returning When thrown, the weapon returns to the Neo.
Cleave Your close combat attacks gain Double-Special: apply this
whole attack to another target within range.
Fatality! Your close combat attacks gain Special: if this attack kills an
opponent, describe a particularly horrific death sequence. All
opponents capable of being horrified in the area suffer a
disadvantage when fighting you for the rest of the encounter.
UPGRADES:
Reactive Combat Gain 1 Defence. Defensive
Invisibility
Invisibility Field You can also make one other human-sized creature invisible.
Enhanced In addition to sight, your sound, smell, psychic aura and trace
Invisibility magical energy are also concealed.
Distance Your illusion continues when you leave an area.
Projection
Active Update You can project an illusion onto yourself in real-time as a
disguise.
Immersion Your illusion can create sounds, smells and physical feedback
Enhancement akin to a 4D cinema experience.
74 3. PARAGONS
BLINK TELEPORTER
You can chain together short-distance teleport jumps—about as far as you could jump
with a run up.
UPGRADES:
Combat Shift Gain 1 Defence. Defensive
Protocol
Optic You can teleport yourself to any point you can see.
Triangulation
Duo Port You can teleport one other person with you.
Telefrag You can use your teleportation offensively by teleporting
something inside your target. Your melee attacks gain Special:
target suffers 1 Wound.
Shift-TK You can teleport small nearby objects.
Retrieve Protocol Once a day, you can attune to any object you can lift. This can
then be teleported to you, from any distance.
PET
You have an awesome cybernetic pet. What is it?
⬢ Dog ⬢ Horse
⬢ Cat ⬢ Something else
When summoned, it’s also autonomous and capable of following instructions. Its
Defence value is the same as yours. Any Wound inflicted on your pet is transferred to
you. When Wounded, it dematerialises and reappears beside you. It can assist you in
appropriate tasks, allowing you to include the Neo’s D10 in the pool.
UPGRADES:
Distracting If your pet assists you in an attack, the attack gains Special:
remove 2 Guard.
Tracker If given a sample of a target, the pet can lead you to it.
Alert Pet alerts you to any ambush before it happens, so you never
start a combat with less than full Guard.
Gold Hunter Can be sent away to try and find a Fair Gold. Roll your
Intelligence pool. Any successes will result in them finding a
Fair Gold, and the roll has Special: gain an extra Fair Gold. It
will be absent for the next encounter, or period determined by
GM, and then return with the Fair Gold.
Protective If an attack would kill the Neo and the pet is present, the pet is
able to sacrifice itself, negating the attack but then disappearing
in a shower of light. The pet gift’s charge runs out, and will need
to be reactivated to bring it back.
UPGRADES:
Hardcase Gain 1 Defence. Defensive.
Energy Gun You have a built-in gun. Pick one upgrade from the gun upgrade
list. You cannot add further upgrades to this gun.
Energy Weapon You have a built in energy weapon. Pick one upgrade from the
energy weapon list. You cannot add further upgrades to this
energy weapon.
Sensory Array Your senses expand into a generalised radar in the locale, and
you can see through obstacles.
Reactor You have a reactor in your exoskeleton. When activated, it gains
three charges used in the place of Fair Gold for the sole purpose
of overcharging your other gifts.
Sealed You can survive in hard vacuum and other outlandish
environments. You no longer need to eat. If you do ingest
poison somehow, it doesn’t affect you.
Jetpack You can fly at the speed of the fastest airborne creature in the
world. Every time you take this, your speed doubles.
FORCE FIELD
You're able to create and reshape a solid energy field in your vicinity. If the field is
attacked, it has Health equal to your Intelligence score. What does it look like?
UPGRADES:
Active Defence Your Guard is now equal to your Intelligence plus your
Protocol Dexterity. Defensive
Autonomous Field You can create a force field in your vicinity which will remain
after you leave the area. It can take damage equal to your
Intelligence before collapsing. Attacking and damaging this
force field has a difficulty of 1.
Kinetic All attacks on anything protected by your force field gain
Redirection Mandatory Special: restore 1 Guard to the active force field.
Buddy-Help™ The rest of the party are protected with a supplementary micro-
Protocol force field. They gain 1 extra Guard.
76 3. PARAGONS
WETWORK
Your body and blood have been upgraded with uncanny technology. You heal quicker,
get tired slower, are capable of feats of physical strength and endurance, and have
active control of elements of your body that no-one else would. What does this look
like?
UPGRADES:
Reflex Boost Always act first in any initiative order.
Speed Boost All your actions gain Special: take an extra move. You can’t be
attacked during this move.
Instant Reflexes Gain 1 Defence. Defensive.
Horsepower You can move twice as far as normal.
Regeneration Heal 1 Health per round. Fully heal between combats.
Defensive.
Resurrection If you die, roll a Constitution dice pool at the end of the combat.
Protocol It has Special: returns to life.
FULL AI ENHANCEMENT
You augment your AI to access its full potential. Congratulations! You’ve upgraded
from the free-to-use app into the subscription model. When you’re hacking, include
your D10 in the roll.
UPGRADES:
Information Choose a specialist subject your AI has knowledge of. The
Database smaller the area, the more complete the knowledge.
Hacking Protocol If you manually interface with a system, you’re immune to any
Interface physical feedback from a failed hack.
Subpersonality Your AI has a simulation of a known person in it, living or dead,
which can be interrogated and questioned.
BioHacking Choose one group of creatures who you can hack, just like you
Extension hack Fallen.
Fallen Leash Once you hack a Fallen, you can continue controlling it
indefinitely, as if you’ve rolled a Special every round. You can
only control one Fallen at a time for each time you’ve selected
this upgrade.
UPGRADE
You’re getting better at harnessing your gifts. Pick an extra upgrade on one of them.
GOLD SOURCE
At the start of each day, you receive one Fair Gold via a reasonably safe method.
What is it?
SICK-ASS RIDE
You can create, summon or otherwise generate a vehicle that can transport the rest
of the party, and a couple of friends. When in this form, you travel as fast as a horse.
What does this ride look like?
⬢ 1950s sci-fi, all chrome
⬢ 2010s heavy-duty serious tech
⬢ 2070s bleeding-edge cyberpunk
⬢ Something else
Where does it come from?
⬢ You summon it
⬢ It emerges from your body
⬢ You transform into it
⬢ Something else
When you pick this ability, you can choose one upgrade. Any time you choose an
upgrade from now on, you can upgrade your sick-ass ride instead.
⬢ It can travel underwater
⬢ It can travel in a vacuum
⬢ It can carry another party’s worth of people
⬢ The engine is silent
⬢ It can fly at the speed of the fastest airborne creature in the world. Every time
you take this, double its speed
⬢ It can reach orbit
78 3. PARAGONS
DEUS
CHOSEN OF EX
THE FAIR MACHINA
UPGRADE UPGRADE
UPGRADE UPGRADE
THE
HACK NEW BIG
ROMANCER GIFT SCORE
UPGRADE
SICK- NEW
ASS GIFT
RIDE
UPGRADE
NEW
GIFT
NEW
UPGRADE GIFT
GOLD NEW PAWN
SOURCE GIFT SHOP
START
HACKROMANCER
The Neo gains the ability to create a beacon that gathers Fallen. When the beacon is
activated with a piece of Fair Gold, it is as if the heavens opened and a biblical flood of
Fallen fell upon the land. You do not control these Fallen.
80 3. PARAGONS
DEUS EX MACHINA
You have gained access to what is essentially a god-machine, capable of miraculous
feats. It can do one impossible thing, but not before it’s been fuelled by an impossibly
rare material.
What form is this godlike machine?
⬢ A deserted, confused spaceship
⬢ A mecha suit missing a limb
⬢ A naive pet AI-god
⬢ Something else
What does it need to power it?
⬢ A purified portion of Fair Gold distilled by a difficult, obscure method
⬢ A bottled aspect of a god
⬢ The possibility of one of your dreams ever being real
⬢ Something else
When activated, it will achieve what it does, before consuming what has been given to
power it.
EQUIPMENT
Choose one of the following options:
⬢ Two-handed hammer, heavy protection (Defence 1)
⬢ Quarterstaff (Special: recover 1 Guard), robes or loincloth
⬢ Worn leather gear, dagger or knuckledusters, a set of knives in a carefully
concealed hiding place
YOUR LOOK
You are wearing (Defence 0):
⬢ Heavy-metal holy crusader, looking for trouble
⬢ Beatific holy seer, looking for peace
⬢ Wild tattoos, frenzied eyes, looking for drugs
⬢ Urbane street magician, looking for the gold in someone’s pocket
⬢ Something else
84 3. PARAGONS
SCRIPTURE
You’ll note that Scriptures are relatively There are certain set spells that the Godbinder gets to cast. These are called
limited in its flexibility. For anything Scriptures—the rote magic that you just learn. Some come from specific gods. Some
else a god could do, see Miracles. are accessible from any god whatsoever. All Godbinders gain access to three
Scriptures:
[Noun] Blast Attacks a target in medium range.
Heal Can heal a character within a short distance. Max 1 Health
healed per character per encounter.
Detect [Noun] Determines if any of the [Noun] is within a short distance
The [Noun] can be any noun related to the god. For example, with The God of The
Wild, they could fire thorn-blasts and could detect wildlife.
You might think… “Wait: my pacifist To cast a Scripture, roll a Wisdom dice pool and add your D12. Casting a Scripture
god lets me blast things?” If you and the has a difficulty of 0. If you succeed, the Scripture works as described in its entry.
GM think a god wouldn’t want you to
Also, if the D12 rolls a 1 when casting Scriptures, the spell incurs a God Debt.
use a certain Scripture, you don’t get to
use that Scripture. Remember, though,
that you can choose to attack in a non-
GOD DEBT
fatal way by adding a disadvantage to God Debt is how we mechanise the relationship of whether you owe a god, or a god
the attack. owes you. While you occasionally gain it when casting Scriptures, you mainly gain
God Debt when bartering with gods for Miracles.
For each god, a Godbinder can acquire up to five God Debt. You can also be in credit
to a god for up to five God Debt, effectively making your God Debt negative. If you’re
in credit you spend these before starting to accumulate debt to the god. It’s good for a
god to owe you.
If you’re in debt, God Debt can be called at any time. The god will request a task
completed. It’s up to the Godbinder what happens next:
⬢ If accepted and completed, the God Debt is removed as the God is satisfied the
task is completed.
⬢ If accepted and failed, the God Debt stays the same as the God is not yet
satisfied.
⬢ If refused, the Godbinder suffers 1 Wound for every point of God Debt the
God chooses to remove.
You can remove God Debt by acting in a manner according to the god’s desires. A
Godbinder may be proactive and suggest things to the gods. Use the space provided
on your character sheet to keep a note of God Debt.
86 CLASSES
THE GODS
The first five gods are good basic choices DIE’s universes are full of fire gods, light gods and all the rest… but each is unique.
for your first god. The rest can be a little The twelve gods that follow are a pantheon, awaiting your input to make them
more esoteric. If you’re really stuck, just complete. However, they do have certain similarities, and if you become better
pick the God of Light. Healers are acquainted, you get the following rewards.
always popular.
You can achieve multiple levels in your relationship with each god. For the first three
levels you achieve in a given relationship, you gain a new and more powerful
Scripture.
Readers of DIE will note that these are If your level with a god goes above 3, you gain a level of trust in that god. Each level of
iconic types of god rather than specific trust gives you a free God Debt to use once a session. After that, God Debt is incurred
personalities. Each world has their own as normal. Trust cannot be saved between sessions.
pantheon. Of course, if you want to use
As a reminder: to cast a Scripture, roll a Wisdom dice pool and add your D12. Casting
Mistress Woe as the Fate God, or the
a Scripture has a difficulty of 0. If you succeed, the Scripture works as described in its
Bear as the God of the Wild, do it.
entry. If the D12 rolls a 1, you incur 1 God Debt with the relevant deity.
Naming your gods is a wonderful
prompt for the GM. What is your god , THE GOD OF LIGHT
like?
The classic god of healing and protection, though “caring” need not mean “kind.”
LEVEL ONE Healing Light: Heal a target within a short distance. 1 Health
healed per success, up to max level in god. Special: 1 extra
Health healed. Special: inflicts a disadvantage on anyone
attacking the target for the rest of an encounter. Special: target
gains an advantage to any attack made against creatures of
darkness for the rest of the encounter.
LEVEL TWO Bless: For each success you roll, bless a nearby target. All
attempts to attack the target suffer a disadvantage for the length
of an encounter. Each target's attacks gain Special: for the rest of
the encounter, if this hit Wounds a creature of darkness, it does
2 Wounds instead.
What is a creature of darkness? LEVEL THREE Divine Light: Ranged attack, single target, far range. Special:
Undead? Demons? People who take up blind target for rest of the encounter, inflicting at least two
two seats on a train? Like a lot of things disadvantages on anything requiring sight. Special: if this hit
in DIE, we leave definitions open, to be Wounds, it does 2 Wounds instead.
decided in your game, around the table.
88 3. PARAGONS
, THE UNDERWORLD GOD
Some death gods are loving. Some are hateful. They each have a place for us all.
LEVEL ONE The Skeletons: For every success, summon a stop-motion
skeleton or similar bone-construct. Multiply the number of
skeletons by your level in the god. All their stats are 2, they have
Health 2, Guard 0 and Defence 0.
They follow your orders, but are otherwise non-sentient. Casting
the spell again will destroy all skeletons from a previous casting.
LEVEL TWO The Reaper: Summon a weapon of bone and death:
⬢ Decide its look. A scythe is traditional, but you can define it
how you wish each time you cast this spell.
⬢ Choose whether it attacks in melee (and choose Strength or
Dexterity as its dice pool) or ranged (and choose either
Dexterity, Intelligence or Wisdom).
Gain an advantage on all attacks with this weapon and on any
attempts to intimidate living beings. Special: if this hit Wounds,
heal 1 Health to any target. Special: if this hit Wounds, it deals 2
Wounds instead.
LEVEL THREE The Bell Tolls: Requires a bell or similar object. When rung, roll
a Wisdom dice pool and use it to attack anyone within earshot,
except the Godbinder. Can be cast once per encounter.
Special: the target is struck by a vision of how they’ve wasted
their life. They are stunned for a round of combat as they wrestle
with the existential horror.
90 CLASSES
, THE GOD OF EXCESS
The god of inebriation, delight, sensuality and pure, impure hedonism.
LEVEL ONE Party Hard: Target feels a supernatural high. For every level in
this god, you can affect an extra target. Describe how this high
makes everyone feel and choose one of the following effects
(applied to all targets):
⬢ Attacks on them gain a disadvantage, as they don’t feel
Wounds as much.
⬢ Their close combat attacks gain an advantage from an
adrenaline rush.
⬢ They can see the unseen and other realms.
All actions of those targeted gain Mandatory Double-Special:
“I don’t feel so good any more.” They become sick and lose this
spell’s bonus, suffering a disadvantage for the rest of the
encounter.
LEVEL TWO Blackout Drunk: Attempt to make all mortal human-sized or
smaller individuals within close range of a point fall asleep. Roll
your Wisdom pool and compare successes to each target’s
highest statistic score. If you match or exceed the target’s score
on a success, they fall asleep. Targets may be awoken by any
normal means. When they are roused, they suffer a disadvantage
on all actions during the encounter from the headache.
LEVEL THREE Higher State of Consciousness: Alter your mental bounds of
perception and roll a Wisdom dice pool. On a success, until the
end of an encounter:
⬢ You’re intangible.
⬢ You’re invulnerable to physical attacks and can fly.
⬢ You can attack with psychic power, using Wisdom for the
dice pool.
⬢ All rolls gain Special: ask the GM a question and they will
answer you, if possibly in an overtly faux-profound way.
91
, THE SEA GOD
A god of the ocean, in both its stillness and rage.
LEVEL ONE The Drowning: Ranged attack, single target, medium range. Fill
the target’s lungs with water. This spell can hit as many targets as
you have levels in this god. Special: hit bypasses Guard and, if
the target needs to breathe air, they suffer two disadvantages on
their next turn.
LEVEL TWO Scale Armour: You can summon the fish-scale armour of the
knight of the sea. To summon this armour, roll a Wisdom dice
pool. For every success, choose one of the following:
⬢ If your Defence is 0, increase Defence to 1.
⬢ Survive indefinitely beneath water and walk on water.
⬢ Your attacks gain Special: electrocute target—suffers one
disadvantage on next action.
⬢ Pitch a minor water-based ability to the GM. Talk to a
specific fish species? Follow squid pheromones? Eat
plankton? The GM gets to say yes or no.
Describe the armour when you summon it. The armour remains
until the next dawn. If you want to dismiss it before then, gain
one God Debt.
LEVEL THREE The Great Flood: Waves crash into the surrounding area as if
from nowhere, and the water level rapidly begins to rise. Roll a
Wisdom dice pool to summon the flood.
On a success, the flood is here. You can walk on the water, or
move through it without penalty; everyone else suffers one
disadvantage to all actions. Special: raise the water further—
everyone suffers a second disadvantage.
Every turn the water remains, choose one effect:
⬢ Attack everyone in the water with murderous fish
⬢ Attack a single target with murderous fish
92 3. PARAGONS
, THE FATE GOD
The embodiment of destiny. Perhaps solemn. Perhaps far more mischievous.
LEVEL ONE Prophecy: You get sharp visions of future events. Roll a Wisdom
dice pool and count the number of successes. You can spend
each of these successes to add either an advantage or
disadvantage to any roll for the rest of the encounter.
When you do so, describe the fate you saw and how your
sudden action tried to avert it. You can spend no more than
your level in the god on any one roll. You lose all unspent
successes if you re-cast this spell. For every level in the Fate God
you have, add the following Special: add 1 extra success.
LEVEL TWO Tragic Fate: Ranged attack, single target, medium range. You
give a vivid psychic vision of an awful fate that awaits the target.
In addition to doing damage, for the rest of the encounter they
suffer a disadvantage on all actions from sheer existential horror.
The attack has Special: you know what the vision was.
You can only use this on any given target once per encounter.
LEVEL THREE Avatar of Destiny: You commit yourself to the web of fate, for
better or worse. For the length of the encounter, your every
action is what must happen, to best effect.
⬢ If your Wisdom is higher than your Dexterity, your
maximum Guard is now equal to your Wisdom.
Set it to that.
⬢ All your attacks gain Special: this hit causes 2 hits and
Special: recover 2 Guard.
⬢ Mandatory Double-Special: you suffer a calamity and fall
to 0 Health. Describe how.
ROBOT FRIEND
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 4 0
Abilities
Cannot fight.
94 3. PARAGONS
, THE WAR GOD
There are no atheists in trenches.
LEVEL ONE Enchanted Weapon: Choose one weapon you are holding. It
gains an advantage on attacks until the end of the encounter, as
well as the following specials. Special: a ridiculously powerful-
looking blast happens when you make the attack.
Special: angelic choirs sing as you strike. Special: you look
absolutely amazing when you do this.
LEVEL TWO The Right Stuff: Once per encounter, gain combat wisdom by
rolling a Wisdom pool and counting the successes. You can
spend each success to add one of the following Specials to any
allied target’s roll after they roll:
⬢ Special: add 1 extra success to this roll.
⬢ Special: recover 1 Guard.
⬢ Double-Special: recover 1 Health.
For every level in the War God you have, add to this Scripture
one copy of the following: Special: to this scripture. All unspent
successes are discarded at the end of an encounter.
LEVEL THREE Godly Frenzy: Let slip the gods of war. Add a number of
temporary extra Health equal to your level in the War God. All
your attacks gain Special: if this hit Wounds, it deals 2 Wounds
instead; and Mandatory Triple-Special: if possible, this attack
hits a friendly target.
96 3. PARAGONS
DIE: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME 97
GODBINDER ADVANCES
CHOOSE LEVEL IN GOD
Add a level in a god. This can be in a new god, or an old one. Describe how you
bettered or founded your relationship with this god.
MYSTERIOUS WAYS
Choose one of the three options:
1. GODLY COMMANDMENT
One of your gods gives you a specific repeatable task to fulfil. You and your GM
collaborate to decide what this is. Every time you fulfil this task, reduce your God
Debt by one.
2. GOOD WORKS
Between adventures you automatically reduce your God Debt by one. Describe the act
of devotion or servitude you did to do so.
3. UNCOVERING SCRIPTURE
In your adventures, you uncover a Scripture lost by a God. Refer to the Starter
Grimoire (page 370) for more on this. Choose any spell with a standard Risk of no
more than the number of levels you have in the god multiplied by 5. This can now be
cast as a Scripture for that god. When you’ve picked, now decide: was this Scripture
lost, hidden or destroyed, and why?
GOING ROGUE
When a god calls in debt, you gain the option to not pay and instead break contract
with them rather than suffer the punishment. Yes, they’re going to be furious, but it’s
better than being dead, right?
If you break contract with a god:
⬢ Double your debt to that god; if you ever make contact with that god again, the
god will call in the increased debt for 1 Wound per debt remaining, as per
usual. This will likely kill you.
Going Rogue allows a very different ⬢ You lose access to all the Scriptures for that god, and are unable to use the
style of play from most Godbinders. advancements Good Works or Godly Commandments to reduce the God
Usually you’re trapped in your debts, Debt. Any God Debt reduction will solely come from the narrative.
often risking death if you don’t settle a ⬢ The god will do the godly equivalent of sending bailiffs. A GM may spend the
deal. This gives an out… at the cost of player’s debt to have unfortunate events related to the god’s area of power
dealing with a lot more problems from occur—one debt per event. This will target you and likely anyone or anything
then on out. you hold dear.
⬢ If the debt is paid off, the relationship returns to normal, and the Godbinder
regains all their powers.
98 3. PARAGONS
HEAD OF A NEW
RELIGION COVENANT
CHOOSE CHOOSE
LEVEL LEVEL
IN GOD IN GOD
CHOOSE CHOOSE
LEVEL LEVEL
IN GOD IN GOD
WICKED GOD
HERETIC OR DIVINE BANKING
CHOOSE
LEVEL
IN GOD
CHOOSE
MYSTERIOUS LEVEL
WAYS IN GOD
CHOOSE
LEVEL
IN GOD
CHOOSE
LEVEL
IN GOD
CHOOSE
MYSTERIOUS LEVEL
WAYS IN GOD
CHOOSE
MYSTERIOUS GOING
LEVEL
WAYS ROGUE
IN GOD
START
GODBINDER
ADVANCEMENT MAP
Add a point to any stat (to a max of 4) on each of the following:
Level 3
Level 6
Level 9
Level 12
At Level 12: Your Heresy Is Noted
HERETIC
Choose one of your gods. You now understand a fundamental truth about this god
that all other believers in the religion deny. What is it?
Gain two trust in that god. All other believers of this mainstream faith view you with
suspicion at best and hatred at worst.
GOD BANKING
Between sessions you can broker a deal between two of your gods, and move debt
from one to the other. Describe how this deal works. Why did the Eldritch God take
on the debt you owed to the God of Light?
CLASSES
HEAD OF RELIGION
You’re the head (official or otherwise) of a god’s worship. If there’s a suitable cult in the
fiction, use it. If not, there’s a new cult; collaborate with the GM to define it.
You may move any or all of their levels in gods to the god whose religion you are now
in charge of. Any unpaid debt to each god is kept and paid off via the rules in Going
Rogue. The more levels you keep in other gods, the more your religion will resist your
orders.
The religion is a faction in the Great Game. If you make the cult act in a way that’s
against the tenets of its religion, you must roll a Wisdom dice pool, with a difficulty
equal to the total number of levels you have in other gods. If you took the Heretic
advancement, increase the difficulty of any test here by 2.
If you have Believers from the advancement Wicked and Divine, and they are
followers of another god, their personal respect for you is such they will convert.
If you found a New Covenant (see below), you immediately forfeit all this power.
A NEW COVENANT
You make a new god. Collaborate with the GM to create its nature. It can be created
whole-cloth based upon the Godbinder’s personality or it can be a NPC who ascends
to the position, or something else.
Collaborate with the GM to select or design three Scriptures for the god.
You gain a level in the new god. You may immediately move any of your existing
levels into this new god. If you have Believers, their personal respect for you is such
they will convert.
EQUIPMENT
Choose one of the following options:
⬢ Quarterstaff (Special: recover 1 Guard)
⬢ An elegant handgun (Special: if a hit Wounds, it does 2 Wounds against
unarmoured opponents)
⬢ A huge tome (Gives an advantage on tasks involving research; heavy enough to
be an improvised club)
⬢ Something else
YOUR LOOK
You are wearing (Defence 0):
⬢ Wizard robes straight out of a 1980s kids fantasy cartoon
⬢ Killer suits straight off a 1980s corporate bad guy
⬢ Fetish-wear straight out of a 1990s vampire LARP
⬢ Something else
MASTERY
The GM rules for a Master are a Your Master has Mastery. This means they’re allowed to add their D20 when casting
simplified version of the full rules for a spells. If the D20 is added to the pool, the dice roll has the 20-Special which is
player character Master, which is in activated on the result of a 20: 20-Special: this success counts as two successes.
Appendix 1 (page 351). You can run
your Master using the player rules if MY GAME, MY RULES
you wish, but they are significantly
The Master has control over the nature of reality in the world they’re visiting—both
more complicated without giving you
the rules of the world, the rules of the game and the rules of narrative. This means
sufficient reward.
they can easily perform magical effects equivalent to anything a powerful wizard can
do.
Like any NPC, the Master can perform any spell you think reasonable and likely,
based upon character conception. They can fly, throw fireballs, turn invisible, heal
people, create incredible firework displays and generally be a wizard.
Any attack they make can have Special: ignite opponent, inflicting 1 hit per round
until extinguished.
The exception to this is any magical effect potent enough to match the Hardcore
Cheats.
104 4. MASTER
HARDCORE CHEATING
The Master’s control of the rules is such they can actively break them. This is called
Cheating: altering the game in a special way.
You have two kinds of cheat available, able to be performed as an action in combat or
as part of the narrative outside of it:
⬢ A miraculous event: Teleport to escape. Create a temptation that fulfills a
desire. Summon a hugely powerful monster. Create a fortress. Regain your
mastery. Bend a rule.
⬢ Undo the effects of what has just happened: Uniquely, this can be done as an
instant response (i.e. if you are killed, you regenerate from the harm.)
You can only safely use these abilities by spending Cheat Tokens.
At the start of each session, gain cheat tokens equivalent to the number of other
players in the game. When a combat begins, check the number of players who are
opposing the Master. If you have more cheat tokens than players who are opposing
you, reduce your cheat tokens to that number.
You have to spend a cheat token to cheat. If you have no cheat tokens remaining,you
can still Cheat, but are risking your existence.
The powers that be? That sounds Hide your D20 in one of two identical hiding places (your hands will do in a pinch!).
ominous. This is a big part of running a Another player picks a hiding place. If they choose incorrectly, you get away with it
Player Master (see Appendix 1 on page and the effect happens. If they find it, the Powers That Be notice you. These are the
351), and the Powers That Be are judges of all reality, and they do not approve of Masters cheating.
discussed at length on page 368.
Your Master will not survive their attention.
However, for the Antagonist Master, it’s
not relevant to the experience of the
game. All the players will know is that
MASTER ADVANCEMENT
the Master dies, messily, as their powers If your game is including advancement, Masters advance whenever players do. The
fail dramatically. only advance in the basic Master is to gain a statistic point any time the rest of the
group does—as in, level 3, 6, 9 and 12. They gain no other abilities. They’re already
brutally powerful thanks to the cheat tokens.
Being caught by the Powers That Be is Alternatively, the player character Master (page 362) includes a full advancement tree
most likely to occur when a Master has for Masters.
no cheat tokens left, and are trying to
undo the effects of what has just
happened on an attack that’s hit them.
Not being sure if you’re delivering the
killing blow or not on a Master is a key
part of DIE’s climax. This maintains
tension while giving the joyous moment
when a Master is consumed by their
own hubris.
108 5. RITUALS
THE CLOSING RITUAL (PAGE 119)
⬢ Solemnly collect the dice from each player, and end the game by thanking
everyone for playing.
⬢ Ask decompression questions.
⬢ Give Stars and Wishes.
110 5. RITUALS
TONE
What is the tone of the game?
⬢ Standard fantasy
Personas have left their mundane lives to enter a truly fantastic world where they can
be heroes and right old wrongs, at least in fiction. There’s always a grey area but it’s
easier to distinguish between right and wrong. The world is exciting and dangerous,
but challenges exist to be triumphed over, and there is always hope.
⬢ Dark fantasy (default)
Personas will confront their past regrets, fight old enemies, remember old grudges and
make hard choices in a world where it’s hard to tell if there is a right thing to do. The
world is frightening and full of challenges, but they may be overcome if you fight hard
enough and are willing to make sacrifices.
⬢ Dark horror
Personas are trapped in a landscape of their worst fears. Every choice is the wrong one.
The world is trying to kill you, and there’s a good chance it will. The question is, how
much of a fight will you put up before it gets you?
Deciding on the general tone of a game not only gives the GM something to focus on
when prepping for sessions, but also gives players a guide to what actions may or may
not fit in the kind of story you want to tell. Certain actions or plot points that would
work in a dark fantasy tone game might be too much for a standard fantasy game, but
might not be enough for a dark horror game.
INTER-PARTY CONFLICT
How are we going to treat direct conflict between player characters?
⬢ No direct conflict between player characters
⬢ During the climax, direct conflict between player characters might emerge but
is otherwise not a featured part of our story (default)
⬢ Direct conflict between player characters is possible throughout the game, if
the narrative demands it
Tensions between Personas may boil over into conflicts between their Paragons,
especially as we reach the game’s climax. Decide now how far that conflict goes so that
no one is surprised when it happens in game, but remember that character conflict is
not player conflict.
THE ENDING
Knowing that we can check in and change our minds as our feelings evolve over the
course of the game, what kind of ending are we aiming for right now?
⬢ A hard-won happy ending
⬢ An emotionally complicated but satisfying conclusion (default)
⬢ A cathartic tragedy
This question isn’t about deciding how the game is going to end before you start, it’s
about figuring out how you want to feel when the game is over. Any of these endings
can fit with any of the three tones above, which is why you’re choosing them
separately. It’s easier to steer a plane if you know where you want to land it, and you
can always check in and adjust your course as the game goes on.
112 5. RITUALS
ACCOUNTABILITY
How will we make sure that we stick to what we have agreed upon here? How will we
check-in and change things as needed? Other than the built-in X-Card, what safety
tools are we using to help us do this? For more information and some
recommendations about safety tools, check page 142.
PERSONA GENERATION
Next, we define the messy real-world Personas who our players will embody.
Read the following (or paraphrase):
“You’re a group of people who at one point in their life have played a normal fantasy
roleplaying game and have gathered together to play a new game together. We’re now
going to answer questions both individually and as a group to work out who we are,
and exactly how we’re all messed up.”
First, we have to ascertain how everyone knows one another.
On the following pages are various questions to generate unique social groups with a
shared theme. There are more options available in Chapter 10: Scenarios & Social
Groups.
Ask and answer questions, as directed.
Encourage people to make their Persona messy and imperfect, with unfulfilled needs
and distinct lacks. Many questions have suggested answers, but players are
encouraged to modify them or make them up entirely. The GM should demonstrate
this early on by making a choice that isn’t a listed answer. All players (including the
GM) can certainly ask the table for suggestions, but each has the final choice
regarding their own Persona.
Make notes on each Persona. A simple list of the key facts is great.
Continue until all questions are answered to the group’s satisfaction. Note that players
will get to define more things and answer more questions about their Persona later in
the game. This is the start, not the end of Persona generation.
After this, call for a short break. Tell the players that when they sit back down on the
table, they are sitting down as their Persona. Whatever they say, unless they expressly
state otherwise, will be things their Persona actually says. The game is beginning.
ONLINE: Rather than walk away from
the table and return as Personas, you
should ask the players to turn off their
cameras and step away. Encourage
them to think about their Persona,
imagine what they’re doing on the way
to the game, and really get into their
shoes. Then, when they sit back down,
say “I am [the Master’s Persona]” to
yourself and turn on the camera and
play.
114 5. RITUALS
Ask each player one of the big questions. Note which big GM chooses one player to answer any of these questions, but
question you ask each player, as each has a second big the group can and should chime in:
question later.
⬢ Where did you play together?
A. You had a significant gift at school. Something with real ⬢ Who was the smartest of you?
potential, and everyone was aware of it. What was it? ⬢ Who was the best looking of you?
⬥ I was a hugely gifted writer. I won prizes ⬢ Who did people most pick on?
⬥ I was an incredible actor. I starred in all the school ⬢ Did you ever have a crush on anyone in the group?
plays And if so, did it ever go anywhere?
⬥ I was a sports star. I was by far the best in my school ⬢ Who was the group scared of at school? Why?
⬥ Something else
B. You had something which was especially important to EACH PLAYER ANSWERS
you. What was it?
⬢ Who was your favourite and least favourite person in
⬥ Dazzling good looks
the group? Why?
⬥ My teenager lover, who was everything to me
⬥ I was really popular Time passes.
⬥ My supportive family who encouraged me, no
You’re now adults.
matter what
⬥ Something else To each player, ask the corresponding second part to their big
C. You had a goal in life. What was it? question:
⬥ I always just wanted kids and a family
A. Your potential future never happened—not even close.
⬥ I wanted to be a successful, rich entrepreneur
Why?
⬥ I wanted to turn my passion into a life
B. That thing that was important to you. You’ve lost it.
⬥ I wanted to get the hell out of this town and never
How?
come back
C. That goal in life? You didn’t achieve it. Why?
⬥ Something else
D. That goal in life? You achieved it. It hasn’t made you
D. You had a goal in life. What was it?1
happy. Why?
⬥ I always just wanted kids and a family
E. The thing which made your life bad then? Its effects
⬥ I wanted to be a successful, rich entrepreneur
still haunt you today. How does it impact your life?
⬥ I wanted to turn my passion into a life
F. Your all-consuming interest? It’s no longer in your life.
⬥ I wanted to get the hell out of this town and never
Why?
come back
⬥ Something else
EACH PLAYER ANSWERS…
E. Your teenage years had something specifically shitty to
deal with. What was it? Tell me about your life now.
⬥ One or both of my parents died
⬢ What do you do now? Married, dating or single?
⬥ I fell into the wrong crowd and got a record
Divorced? Kids?
⬥ I was seriously ill
⬢ What is your biggest responsibility in your life?
⬥ I had to stay in the closet
⬢ How does that affect your life? Better or worse?
⬥ Something else
⬢ When the invite to the reunion arrived, what made you
F. You had an all-consuming interest, your absolute
not want to come… and why did you come anyway?
obsession. What was it?
⬢ What did you think when my Persona invited you to
⬥ Roleplaying games, of course!
play a game at the reunion?
⬥ Political activism
⬥ Working out 1No, these aren’t an accidental repeat.
⬥ Helping people
⬥ Something else
If playing online, change the last question to: Unfortunately,
the reunion was cancelled. The GM’s Persona arranged this
game online instead. What did you think about it?
116 5. RITUALS
CHARACTER GENERATION
RETURNING TO THE TABLE
Tell the players that if they want to Players return to the game as their Personas. Make small talk in-character: How was
speak out of character, they should raise the journey? How’s work and the kids? Have they caught that new show on Netflix?
their hand. We borrowed this from Live
When the group seems settled in, turn conversation to the game at hand.
Action Role-Play (LARP).
GM says something like the following:
“Hey—do you remember that thing back in the 1990s? Those kids who were playing
an RPG and just disappeared. They were just gone. For two years, no-one had any
idea where they were. When they turned back up, none of them ever talked about
what happened. Well, you know what?
I managed to get hold of a copy of the game off the Internet. Let’s play it.”
INTO DIE
At this point, all the players—including the GM—stop embodying their persona and
start acting more like characters in a standard RPG, freely moving between external
description (“My character darts across the room!”), first person embodiment (“Hey,
Carla, call me a coward, but I don’t think trying to fight the dragon with the face of our
old headmistress is a good idea”) and just being the player (“Hey—what does this rule
mean?”)
118 5. RITUALS
AGAINST THE FALLEN
The Fallen are one of the DIE iconic The Fallen enter the room, mindless and hungering for flesh. There is one Fallen for
monsters. For more on the Fallen, see each Persona in the room, and they block the exit they’ve entered through. A combat
page 188 in the Bestiary. begins and lets the players have a chance to explore the rules. If the combat ends before
you feel everyone’s had a chance to experiment with the rules, make more Fallen arrive.
Think of the Fallen as a cybernetic merge of orcs and zombies that shamble forward
with all the energy of an angry vat of meat. Their garbled voices sound like the static
from an old 1980s TV. Fallen vary hugely, and it’s a good chance to add your own spin
or include details from one of the Persona’s backstories—for example, if they were
bullied at school by the football team, perhaps tattered shirts in the school colours…
BASIC FALLEN
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 2 2 2
0 2 4 0
Abilities
Frenzied: Has an advantage on hand-to-hand attacks but can never have any Guard.
If a player uses their action to grab a dice, as well as transforming into the Persona, let
them take another action immediately with their new abilities.
The combat continues until the Fallen are defeated or all the Paragon’s die.
If a Persona has not transformed into In the unlikely event of any players dying, they will arise as Fallen at the end of the
their Paragon, all their stats are 2, their combat. This happens whenever a Persona dies in the fantasy world. Pass each a Fallen
Willpower is 4 and their Defence 0. This sheet (see page 120). If all the players die, the Fallen feed and then leave. The Fallen will
is the standard human stat line. be gone by the time the players wake as Fallen.
THE ARRIVAL
DIE has you arrive into a warped With the Fallen gone, the Paragons can move through the exit, which has a set of steps
version of your old fantasy gaming curling upwards towards a trapdoor. When they open it, they’ll find it emerges in the
world, but it will still operate if you go middle of a fantasy tavern. All the clientele turn to look at the players.
to literally any fantasy world. See page
Horrifically, despite having never been here, they will recognise it. It’s the tavern where
172 for alternate ideas of where to go,
they started their first adventure in the fantasy game they all played together.
and how to do it.
You know the name of the world from Persona Generation.
Tell the players welcome to whatever that name is and then end the first session.
FALLEN CLAWS
While your old weaponry might look the same, it’s changed. Many Fallen abandon the
pretence, lose their weapons, and attack with claws sprouting from their body. All
attacks you make gain Special: if this attack causes a Wound the target is poisoned.
(Lose 1 Health per round until a character succeeds a Constitution test.)
If you provide the killing Wound to another Persona-controlled character, you
immediately come to life and regain all your class abilities. Pass the Fallen sheet to the
player you’ve just killed. They’re Fallen now. You instinctively know this to be true.
You are hungry for and jealous of what your peers possess. As far as you know, this is
the only certain way a Fallen can return to their living status.
SECOND DEATH?
You’re dead. At least the worst has happened, right? If you die again, you will rise
again at the end of the encounter. You have a nagging feeling there are only so many
times this can happen before you lose something fundamental. (You’re right. GM: see
Running The Fallen on page 164 for more information.)
120 5. RITUALS
NOT JUST A MONSTROUS FACE
These two pages duplicate the rules on Fallen are monsters, but some are interesting monsters. Your new form gives you a
the Fallen handout, and are given to a new ability. Choose one:
player when their character dies for the
Flight
first time.
⬢ You are able to soar through the sky at a sprinting pace. Decide what this looks
like:
⬥ Wings
⬥ Thrusters
⬥ Enormous blood-coated springs
⬥ Something else
Intangibility
⬢ You are able to move spectrally through objects that bar your path. (This gives
you no specific bonus to resist damage.) Decide what this looks like:
⬥ Classic spectral
⬥ A burst of digital noise
⬥ Transformation into burrowing worms
⬥ Something else
Uncanny Senses
⬢ You can perceive things far beyond normal human capabilities. Decide which
type of thing you can sense:
⬥ Strong emotions
⬥ Heartbeats and breathing
⬥ Narrative
⬥ Something else
Size Changing
⬢ You can swell to four times your height or shrink to a tenth of your size. Decide
what this looks and/or sounds like:
⬥ Cracking gristle and bone
⬥ Folding and unfolding fractal limbs
⬥ An incongruous slide-whistle
⬥ Something else
Shape Changing
⬢ You can change your form to appear to be something else… until you attack.
Decide what your tell is, no matter your form:
⬥ Your voice remains an awful undead crackle
⬥ You smell like the rotting flesh you are
⬥ All animals view you with fear and suspicion
⬥ Something else
122 5. RITUALS
If a lack seems to fill multiple slots, count it as each of those slots. For example, “This
world is free of homophobia and an escape from their parent’s judgement.” could be
argued to be all three—passive (“they wish to live in a world like that”), active (“they
wish to act in a world like that”) and arguably absent (“they wish to have supportive
parents for once in their life.”)
NECESSARY ENCOUNTERS
Now you work out how each of these can be presented to the Personas. These are the
necessary encounters the game requires to be meaningful for the Persona.
Passive Lacks can be given to a Persona upon entering the world. If they
are not, the Persona should be given access via an encounter.
Active Lacks should be presented to the relevant Persona along the way
as a chance to do.
Absent Lacks are at least in part withheld from the Persona until the
climax of the game. As in, a Persona cannot fully possess it until
they choose to stay.
Now you understand what they need, decide how the each Persona could encounter
their temptation.
For example:
They become The Persona’s Paragon is likely already beautiful. If not, some
attractive again: manner of magical beauty potion.
Be a musician: Some challenge along the way can be overcome by the gift of
performance. After that, they are treated like a superstar by
everyone they meet.
Reunited with The Master has the dead love and can resurrect them in the final
dead love: encounter, or the dead love is a character in the world, living
here, and doing their own thing.
Coming out: A normalisation of homosexual relationships in the world as a
background detail. At least one encounter for them to have a
chance to explore that. Perhaps an encounter with some
characters who are an echo to their parents, but supportive.
This is the first mention of the phrase
“echoes”. Echoes is our term for people At the end of this, you will have your list of necessary encounters. This is a key part of
in the game world who directly resemble the game structure. Before the game is over, you should have ticked off everything on
people in the real world. your list.
See page 187 for more. These core lacks create temptations, and character relates to those temptations—
submitting, rejecting or using it in some other way, will be the backbone of their
character arc. DIE is a game about discovering who these Persona really are.
124 5. RITUALS
PREPARING QUESTIONS
We gathered some useful information during the first session, but it’s always useful to
know more about the Personas and their life. Make a list for each Persona of things
you want to know more about.
For example:
⬢ They mentioned they had a partner and kids: what are they like?
⬢ They mentioned they liked Star Wars: who was their favourite character?
Which was their favourite movie?
⬢ They mentioned a mean boss or a schoolyard bully: what made them so bad?
This is to minimise unwanted bleed. In the same way as the palette, you don’t need to ask all of these, but these are a handy
This is when a player and the Persona fallback. They are particularly useful as a pacing tool.
they are playing get mixed up to some
When asking questions, be sure to address these questions to the Persona not the
degree. For more on Safety and Bleed,
player and make the distinction clear. Try using the following construction: “Hey—
see pages 142 and 145.
[player name]. What does [Persona’s name] remember about that?”
DON’T OVER-PREPARE
Personally, I just think of a few Having to pull stuff out your behind isn’t the worst thing in the world. DIE is written
questions, a few visuals, a few set-pieces to be able to be played with very little prep.
and one or two fun characters, then
The most important thing is to do slightly less than the amount of prep that feels good
write down enough stuff to remind me
for you, perhaps 20–30% less than what feels natural for a “normal” roleplaying game
of them. Resist the urge to plan
session. It’s not meant to be homework.
everything.
126 5. RITUALS
The bartender mentions that there’s a strange message on the work board which no-
one else can read. It appeared this morning. The specific message on the board
reads…
To all players...
• To go home, all players must gather together and each say:
“The game is over.”
• To stay, all players must gather together and each say:
“The game continues.”
This sequence is designed to make sure • Once a decision is made, it is final.
the players know everything they need
to know to get started. You can
• Be aware: as a foreign entity, your presence here has destabilised
reality. If a decision is not made, this world will end and all inside
absolutely do it more naturally across
will perish.
the game. See page 178 for more
guidance on planning adventures. • As long as a unanimous decision is made, the realm will continue.
• Those who are dead do not get a vote.
128 5. RITUALS
GENERATING CHARACTER STATISTICS
DIE uses a rules-light approach to creating those characters you meet during the
adventure.
Depending on the encounter, it’s possible that all you need for a character is their
personality. A character should be able to do anything that it makes narrative sense
for them to be able to do. If you introduce a wise healer in a cave, they are able to heal
the Paragon’s Wounds.
If a situation turns to combat, there are a set of basic stats on page 132, in the Lists and
Stats section. Choose the one which is most applicable.
NECESSARY ENCOUNTERS
You will have a list of necessary encounters: things the Personas must encounter as
the emotional backbone for their journey. Integrate them with the game, and then
strike them from the list.
When all the necessary encounters have happened, the players can reach their
destination.
EXTENDING ADVENTURES
While you may have scenes and encounters you wish to happen, it’s also possible
you’ll be stuck or want to give the players more agency.
If so, ask a player another question.
For example:
⬢ What’s the greatest danger when travelling through this forest?
⬢ What’s the reason that no-one can get into the stronghold?
⬢ What’s the next town on the way?
⬢ What’s the great natural barrier which you’ll have to cross on this journey?
⬢ Three keys are needed to get into the temple. Who are the legendary three key-
keepers?
In short: we know what you want to do, why can’t you just do it?
130 5. RITUALS
STANDARDS TO TWIST
LIST OF STANDARD A LIST OF STANDARD
FANTASY CHARACTERS REAL-WORLD PEOPLE
⬢ Pirate chief ⬢ Mum
⬢ Ancient wizard ⬢ Dad
⬢ Orc warlord ⬢ Brother
⬢ Humble beggar ⬢ Sister
⬢ Travelling merchant ⬢ Uncle or aunt
⬢ Elf queen ⬢ Grandparent
⬢ Kooky herbalist ⬢ First lover
⬢ Serious witch ⬢ Boss
⬢ Shining knight ⬢ Best friend you always had a
⬢ Shadowy thief crush on
⬢ Warped necromancer ⬢ School bully
⬢ Wicked dragon ⬢ School bully you always had a
⬢ Two-headed ogre crush on
⬢ Wise ranger ⬢ Doctor
⬢ Dwarf adventurer ⬢ Therapist
⬢ Forgetful wizard ⬢ Bartender
⬢ Snake-haired gorgon
⬢ Talking mouse A LIST OF STANDARD
⬢ Over-friendly bartender REAL-WORLD LOCATIONS
⬢ Childhood home
A LIST OF STANDARD
⬢ Favourite classroom
FANTASY LOCATIONS
⬢ Grandparent’s house
⬢ Isolated tavern ⬢ Workplace
⬢ Beautiful wood ⬢ Showers
⬢ Abyssal chasm ⬢ Local underage drinking bar
⬢ Creepy dungeon ⬢ Park you used to play in
⬢ Creepier dungeon ⬢ Local landmark
⬢ Haunted house ⬢ Graveyard where they buried
⬢ Shadowy dock them
⬢ Abandoned mansion ⬢ First place you lived away from
⬢ Stinky sewer home
⬢ Dragon’s lair ⬢ Hospital ward you were in after
⬢ Abandoned temple that accident
⬢ Fallen statue ⬢ Church you haven’t been to
⬢ Lost city in years
⬢ Broken bridge ⬢ Creepy alleyway you had to walk
through on the way home from
school
⬢ Bed you lost your virginity in
CANNON FODDER
Use for: Anything you want to be cut down like wheat. With 0 Guard and 1 Health,
single hits will kill them.
CANNON FODDER
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 1 2 2 2
0 1 4 0
ARMED SOLDIERS
Use for: Any reasonably skilled individual with a sense of self survival. With the
standard 2 Guard and 2 Health, they’ll take four hits to remove from action. The
ability is deliberately open-ended—an archer would get an advantage when shooting
their bow, someone armed with a spear would get an advantage as long as they were
fighting in ideal situations.
ARMED SOLDIERS
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 4 0
132 5. RITUALS
RAGING KILLERS
Use for: Anyone who you want to be dangerous (especially in numbers) but also to be
taken out of action relatively easy. With 0 Guard and the standard 2 Health, they will
take 2 hits to remove. This is good for basic Fallen.
RAGING KILLERS
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
3 0 2 2 2 2
0 2 4 0
MONSTROUS GIANTS
Use for: Anything much bigger than the players that has every chance of squashing
them flat. Ogres, cyclops, that guy from Game of Thrones who squashed that other
guy’s head. We have given them a much higher Health than normal, but 0 Guard,
allowing them to be slowly taken down.
MONSTROUS GIANTS
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
4 2 4 2 2 2
0 8 4 0
WIZARD
Use for: A standard wizard sort. The higher Defence is to simulate the magical spells
protecting them. If they don’t have them, reduce Defence to 0.
WIZARD
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 3 2 2
2 2 5 1
Abilities
They can perform whatever magical effects seem possible in the narrative. They
have an advantage when casting their spells.
Fire Blast: (Main Attack Spell) Blast of flame to medium range. Special: ignites
target, doing 1 hit per round until extinguished.
NECROMANCER
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 3 2 2
2 2 5 1
Abilities
Raise other creatures of the same type back to life (difficulty 0).
HEROIC FIGURE
Use for: A significant figure. Experienced adventurers. Master martial artists. Robin
Hood. These are, in pure statistic terms, slightly better than the players.
HEROIC FIGURE
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
3 3 3 3 2 2
3 3 5 1
Abilities
134 5. RITUALS
THE CLIMAX
Eventually, either the players reach the Antagonist, or the Antagonist comes to them.
The Antagonist has been at work trying to achieve mastery of the world, and so
ensure their goal. They have just succeeded—or, if more dramatically interesting,
They’re about to succeed.
However, the Antagonist knows that the Personas’ presence in the world means
the world is not stable. It will be destroyed, shortly, as reality collapses in on itself. The
Personas must all choose to ritually stay or leave. Either way, the world survives. The
only way the world ends is if a decision is not made in time.
The rules are as follows:
1. The party can go home at any time as long as all Personas agree.
2. Dead Personas (i.e. Fallen) do not get a vote. If the party votes to leave, the
Fallen are left behind.
And the apocalypse is the ticking clock on the decision.
The Antagonist wants everyone to stay and will try and persuade them to do so.
Depending on their personality, they are likely to turn to violence sooner or later,
especially as reality starts to unravel. It’s also possible the Antagonist could be talked
around…
It is possible that other Personas will want to stay, and act accordingly.
The climax of DIE is entirely in your group’s hands. Games can end in therapy
sessions as Personas pour out their hearts. Games can end up with heroic brawls
against the bastard who dragged you here. Games often end in both. Catharsis at
sword point has a certain energy.
This is the point where we find out exactly who these Personas are.
THE RITUAL
At any point, any player (including the GM) can call for a vote.
Starting with the player who called for the vote, we move around the circle, with each
player saying either “The Game Is Over” or “The Game Continues” depending on
whether they want to go or stay.
The second someone says something other than what the previous players have said,
the Ritual ends, and you have to start again.
The second all players agree or the world ends, go to the Endgame.
136 5. RITUALS
IF THE PLAYERS CHOSE TO STAY IN DIE
For each Fallen Persona, ask:
⬢ How has your absence impacted the real world? to the player.
For each Persona who voted to stay, ask:
⬢ What is your life like in this fantasy world?
Listen and then consider adding an extra image afterwards.
If their answer is upbeat with no admission of the sadness, add a beat of how their
absence affects the real world—likely the people who miss them, and go on never
knowing the truth.
Player: I end up becoming the head of the King’s Cavalry, bringing justice to all the
lands of Anathon! Imagine me, riding ever onwards, to the horizon at the head of a
column of soldiers.
GM: We cut back to Earth, years later. Your quietly stoic mother is in your room,
finally tidying away the toy soldiers from the shelf in your childhood bedroom. She
does it in a business-like fashion. Heroic, in its own way.
If their answer lingers on what they left behind in the real world, especially if they
stayed for a reason other than their own desires, consider adding an image which
softens it.
For example, while a player knows it means they will never see their loving partner
back in the real world again, they choose to stay as their brother suffers chronic pain in
the real world and is free of it here. The GM describes their partner back on earth
waking up from a dream, oddly comforted, as if they were held and missed and loved
intensely. They can move on.
If their answer stands alone, don’t add anything.
IF THERE IS A STALEMATE
Give each Persona a chance to define their final moment before reality collapses, and
to ask each, “How has your absence impacted the real world?” as described previously.
AND THEN…
Collect the dice ritually one last time, and thank them for playing.
Check in on each other and decompress. See Aftercare in the section on safety tools on
page 142.
137
6.
RUNNING DIE
Rituals presents a pure way of playing DIE. It’s designed to be flexible and also
guaranteed to work as you’d wish. As the name implies—Rituals—we’ve tried to
include a lot of wisdom on how to get a great DIE game to work, just in how it’s
structured. This chapter side-steps the rituals, takes you behind the GM’s screen and
tells you exactly how it works.
Fantasy is infinite, and so is DIE. This section gives you lots of ways to build upon
what you learned in Rituals. Individual structures change, but DIE’s structure remains.
This is the Ship of Theseus as RPG design.
THE X-CARD
The X-Card is the popular version of this As conceived by John Stavropoulos, this is one (or more) cards with an “X” drawn on
concept, but there’s other forms which it, placed on the table. If any player (including the GM) touches it, it means they are
allow more nuanced expression. Have a uncomfortable with the current topic or subject and we should change direction. Edit
look at the Script Change Toolbox by out that element and continue play. You can either remove and skip the element, or
Beau Jágr Sheldon or Safety Flowers by rewind play to a point before the element was added, and a choose different direction.
Tayler Stokes (see QR Codes below) for
If you’re using the X-Card online, simply type X in the chat.
expanded versions of similar ideas.
It does not mean asking questions about what the element is, or naming it, though
some people will say (“this is too violent for me”). X-Card can be activated for any
reason, even minor ones (a good example is characters with names who have bad
connections for a player.) X-Card does not necessarily mean someone has messed up.
It means someone is bothered by the content and would rather not go in that
direction.
The original documentation for the X-Card can be found with the QR Code below.
Remember, GMs can also use the X-Card to remove elements that they’ve added.
The X-Card might not work for every group. It is a very simple tool that has the
capacity to upset players. If you’re interested in alternative methods of safe play that
uses some of the same ideas, look up the Luxton Technique online.
144 CLASSES
BLEED
DIE really can be a particularly bleedy Games exist in a magic circle—you’re not the character you embody. If I stab and kill
game. Among its themes is “Why do you in game, it’s not because of my personal enmity to you, it’s my character’s personal
real people play fantasy games?” and enmity to your character. “Bleed” (as coined by Emily Care Boss) is what happens
also “Why do you play fantasy games?” when the emotion of one crosses into the other.
This is likely to churn stuff up. That’s
This is neither a good nor bad thing—some people actively chase bleed to process,
part of the power of the game, but also
play with or experience intense emotions. (It’s also unavoidable, as our brains don’t
can be emotionally hard. Look after
always know the difference between imaginary threats and real threats.) Others,
each other.
especially those new to the form who had no idea that this could happen, may find it
too much for them. Here are some ways to manage bleed:
Keep an eye on your fellow players. If someone seems off-kilter or agitated, ask if
they’re doing okay, and pause the game if they’re not.
If you’re feeling agitated or off-kilter, take a break from the session and centre yourself
in your body. Look around yourself and name five things you can see. Press your feet
into the ground and feel it support your weight. Tense and relax the muscles in your
legs.
Take some time to decompress after the game and be a real person again. Discuss the
game in the past tense. Think about what you want to take with you into the real
world (the joy of completing a quest, the excitement of meeting a new friend) and
what you want to leave behind (the grief of losing a loved one, the fear of imminent
death).
TRADES
Trades represent the variety of disreputable backgrounds that a Fool had before they
became a full-time adventurer. When looking at the trades selected by a Fool,
remember how DIE’s rules encourage on-the-fly adding of advantages and
disadvantages to a situation (or altering difficulties) depending on a character’s
expertise and training. If a Fool has selected the rogue background, and has thieves’
tools, gaining an advantage when picking locks seems likely… or everyone who isn’t
the rogue has a disadvantage.
153
Here’s some specific guidance:
Annoyance/Anger/Rage
Level 1 General unhappiness, wet socks, missing your bus.
Level 2 Being attacked and/or hurt.
Level 3 Someone you know and love being badly hurt or killed.
Perhaps the simplest of the emotions. Worth noting, someone who is primarily
excited by combat is, by definition, not annoyed. If a player want to play someone who
really likes combat, they likely are looking to play a Joy Knight.
Interest/Anticipation/Vigilance
Level 1 Going and nosing at something with gleeful curiosity. Standing
watch, and actually trying to do the job. Anything that makes
you go “Oh, cool.”
Level 2 Seeing the waiter finally arriving with your order. Searching for
your target in a crowd of strangers.
Level 3 As on-edge and ready as you can be without chemical or
magical assistance. Arnie being hunted by the Predator. The half
second before a dragon crashes into your army’s line, with you
in the front row.
Think of two extremes of the Vigilance Knight—the stoic watcher, born of hyperfocus,
and the rapid-moving attention-mayfly.
Serenity/Joy/Ecstasy
Level 1 Waking up, opening the curtain and it’s a nice day. A new
episode of your favourite TV show is out.
Level 2 Spending time with a good friend after a long time. Your
favourite TV show is brought back years after cancellation.
Level 3 The best gig of your life. That first, intense flush of love.
Of all the knights, Joy Knights are most likely to speak to what actually creates joy for
the individual character. What is happiness? A sadistic Joy Knight is one of the most
terrifying Paragons in DIE.
Acceptance/Trust/Admiration
Level 1 Forgiving someone’s foibles. Feeling proud of a friend.
Level 2 Going into a desperate situation, knowing your life depends on
your friends.
Level 3 Forgiving a mortal enemy and trusting them with your life.
Trust Knights are unique in that their emotional state most relies upon the actions of
those around them—they tend to be about relationships. In some ways, the
Admiration Knight is about using the power before someone lets you down.
DRAINING EMOTIONS
If an Emotion Knight succeeds in draining an emotion, the character should do less of
the related behaviour. Draining rage from an opponent mid-fight would make them
distinctly less interested in murdering anyone. If the character is player-controlled,
you (as the GM) should inform the player about how the character is feeling now. If
they try to act contrary to their state, they may get a disadvantage.
If an Emotion Knight reaches a point An Emotion Knight may try to drain emotions in unusual ways. Can an Interest
where an emotion is clearly not right for Knight drain the curiosity from a guard allowing you to walk straight past them? It
them, it’s perfectly fine to change depends. They’re not able to stop a person gaining the emotion again after they’ve had
weapons. This is a classic character arc an emotion drained, so perhaps not… but it’s certainly enough to stop a guard being
for an Emotion Knight: a Fear Knight interested in something, and gain advantages to sneaking past.
may get in touch with their actual
Alternatively, you could rule that it is sufficient—you can drain the emotion of interest
repressed anger and end the game as a
and walk behind him.
Rage Knight.
DICTATOR/EMOTION KNIGHT SYNERGY
If you’ve agreed to let Dictators use their abilities on Personas (see page 112), there’s
obvious synergy between Dictators and Emotion Knights—Dictators can make
Emotion Knights feel things and Emotion Knights can then use it. Putting aside the
horror elements of doing that (see the Dictator’s section of this chapter on that—it is
deeply psychologically intrusive) there’s another problem. If a Dictator rolls a critical
fail, their target is stuck with whatever emotion or compulsion they created.
Even outside of the horror of the fiction, this is a terrible thing. Creative Violence and
Venting works by purging emotions. If an Emotion Knight cannot change their
emotional level, they can’t use any abilities which require them to do so. Other
abilities are permanently on, but those most powerful ones are off the table until
they’ve been cured.
This is a problem to be solved inside the narrative. This is at least as much of a
problem for the group as a member of the party dying. While the Dictator can’t cure
the problem they created, other Dictators perhaps could. The Knightly Orders
perhaps have people who can assist. There’s always other options—the gods, the Fair,
whatever exists in your world. So, yes, while there is synergy between two classes, it
also carries a significant risk. Remember that in the comic Matt is against Ash using
her powers on him, even to save the day.
THE AI
The Neo’s AI is always active, and forms a great opportunity for roleplaying. The AI
can provide useful information, especially about the Neo’s abilities. It can also be used
as a tool to find out information about the world, accessing the Fair Field, allowing the
player to ask questions about the area, especially related to Fair-tech. This includes
locating Fair Gold, if you want to give a desperate Neo a direction to go to find it.
CALLING IN DEBTS
Some of the gods do warn a player hard. Not all gods treat debt identically. Some gods don’t want to kill a Godbinder—they see
Pick the Eldritch God and you can’t it just as friends helping out. Others want to back the Godbinder into a corner and get
really say “I had no idea the face-eating them to do their bidding. The worst of them lure the Godbinder into getting just
being with all the tentacles and non- enough into debt so they can kill them. Tell the players this is the case, or at very least
Euclidean geometry would eat my face.” communicate the danger during roleplaying. You can roleplay the eldritch god’s
desperate hunger, talking about how they look forward to devouring their soul. Resist
the urge for a god to be all sweetness and light and then just kill the player the first
chance they get—it’s a gotcha which will only rightly upset players. However, playing a
sweetness-and-light god who keeps on accidentally letting slip their nefarious plans?
That’s golden.
Most importantly, remember: Wounds are part of the fiction. They’re not just a
number going down. They’re injuries. If a god breaks your arm, that’s part of the
fiction now. At the absolute least, it really hurts, and that should be taken seriously.
NON-PLAYER FALLEN
Only player Fallen return to life after killing a player. All the other Fallen are too far
gone. They’re over the event horizon and can’t find their way back, and are trapped
with their terrible hunger.
SECOND DEATH
The sheet does not tell the player what dying as a Fallen means, but hints that it’s bad.
That most Fallen have no personality speaks to that. It’s obvious what happens to
those who remain Fallen eventually.
However, if a Paragon does die again, the same thing happens as the first time. They
get up at the end of the current encounter.
How long is this true? We’ve left this as a narrative element rather than something
which we mechanise. If a player becomes a Fallen and starts using their condition as
essentially infinite lives, you should start seeing effects.
As a first step, ask a question from the following list:
⬢ Who was your favourite grandparent?
⬢ What was the best date you’ve ever been on?
⬢ What’s the most beautiful view you ever saw on Earth?
⬢ What was the most important lesson you learned from someone?
⬢ What’s the best smell?
Let the player describe it, and then tell them they don’t remember it any more.
That’s a flesh wound. Treat further deaths in similar ways.
ELEMENTS OF AN ADVENTURE
1. GATES
A gate is a problem that halts progress in a direction unless circumvented. A locked
door is the classic example of a gate. To open it, you need a key. Or something that can
bash it down. Or someone to open it from the other side. Or any other way a player
could work out to get past it.
It doesn’t have to be so literal. A monster (or person) that won’t let you pass is a gate
too, though the player won’t necessarily realise that it’s a gate that has a key. A monster
could want a special item (like gold) to let you pass, which makes its “gate” nature
clearer. Whatever that is, that is their key. Some gates don’t have keys and need to be
bashed down with force. In other words, any monster encounter which blocks your
progress is a gate.
A well-signalled gate tells players to work out what to do to get past it, and can guide
them into side quests. A monster that wants its memories of a lost love back implies a
course of action which doesn’t involve hitting the monster, especially when the players
saw a lost-memory emporium previously on their travels.
Gates creates the structure and pace of your adventure. The more you have, the longer
it will take to get to the final encounter.
For example, in Lord of Rings, the door to enter Moria is a gate. The Balrog is also a
gate—it’s the thing which stops the Fellowship from leaving Moria.
7. BUILDING DIE
2. VAULTS
A vault contains a prize. It’s an object that doesn’t block the players’ progress, and
rewards players for overcoming it. The Vault sits there, and you can just ignore it and
carry on your way. Like gates, vaults are best when they have more than one method
of opening them. You can find its key and unlock it. Or pick its lock. Or break it open.
While vaults can be actual vaults, we need not be so literal. A casual, non-threatening
monster sitting in the room, relaxing, who has the memories of another monster’s lost
love in its back pocket is a vault. A merchant selling things is a vault. A seer who
knows the weakness of the Master’s greatest champion is a vault.
Vaults contain treasure. In our system, the only treasure that matters is a key…
For example, the ents of Fangorn having a big old chat are a vault. The hobbits strictly
speaking needn’t have interacted with them that much, but by doing so, they gain
treasure—specifically, the ents joining them to kick the shit out of Saruman.
3. KEYS
A key is a thing which solves a problem the player faces, allowing progress. While
keys can be actual keys, we need not be so literal. Other keys include a magical chant,
a rare item, peace between two warring families, or simple and necessary information.
A password is a key... but so is someone revealing the location of something you’re
looking for.
Keys are usually rewards. They are often found in vaults. They are rarely left lying
around, but you never know. The sword Arthur tugged from a stone worked pretty
well (though, strictly speaking in our terminology, the Sword in the Stone is a vault).
The biggest key in DIE is what the players need to get home—or stay in Die forever.
How to achieve our goals in DIE is a key.
It’s worth noting what isn’t included in this list, which is treasure. You can absolutely
give players treasure, but this isn’t a structural concern. The only treasure you need to
consider at the large-scale planning stage is that which solves future problems.
Namely, keys.
For example, the hobbits knowing that Fangorn has been cut down by Saruman is a
key. They use it to unlock the vault of the ent’s rage.
5. SMOKE MACHINES
A smoke machine is about the vibe, man. It differs from a signpost in that it is not
meant to provide information. It’s meant to provide feelings. This is something which
exists to present a creepy idea or mood, and is not necessarily even meant to be
interacted with. The classic example of a smoke machine is a smoke machine, a device
which pumps out a lot of fake smoke which makes everyone feel like things are dead
moody. Other smoke machines include things on fire, heavenly choirs or rooms full of
faceless children typing out lists of things their parents did which made them feel
guilty.
For example, every fucking song in Lord of the Rings is a smoke machine.
6. MENUS
A menu is when the players are presented with a choice. The classic example of a
menu is a menu, which lists various options of food you can eat. This ritualised choice
is common in fantasy stories. Our menus are likely to range from which magical ally
will join you on the quest to defeat the Master, to whether you’d rather pet your dead
cat or dead dog one more time. DIE is a game of many tones, and a question with
nothing but unbearable answers is always an option.
Menus also include moral choices, as anyone who’s ever played a Bioware RPG will
tell you.
For example, Galadriel deciding not to take the One Ring is a menu.
A WORKED EXAMPLE
The GM decides that the final confrontation with the Master is in their secret lair.
They want to make things interesting for the players, so they make a gate encounter to
stop the players getting there. They want their game to have three big encounters. So,
as the gate is one, they add two vaults each of which provides a key. Both keys are
needed to open the locked gate. They also realise they need something to point the
players in the right direction to the secret lair, so they’ll need a signpost.
The GM needs ideas for three big encounters (the two vaults and the gate) and a
signpost to have a backbone for their game. Ideas for more signposts or smoke machine
scenes could be fun to have, as they rarely slow the players down. An idea for another
gate scene could also be useful. The GM hasn’t thought enough about the characters
yet to know if a menu could be useful, but they’ll progress with that in mind.
This group of Personas are all weird hipster music obsessives. The GM decides
backstage at a magical club is the final area the Master will be. The gate is a huge,
monstrous bouncer, preventing it. They need to be vouched for by two other
performers before they can go backstage—each of the performers (drawn from the fave
artists of the Persona) will be a vault, and their recommendation a key. As it’s a club, a
bartender is a signpost—easy sources of information.
The GM makes a quick list of smoke machines—the music in the club having magical
effects, whoever is on stage, posters on the wall and so on. And as it’s a club, a smoke
machine as a smoke machine. Finally, a little icing on the cake—backstage, after
speaking to all the performers, there’s a critic who asks the group who they think is the
best of all the performers, with their choice coming back to haunt them.
NATIVE PARAGONS
Worlds of DIE likely have all the array of fighters, wizards and paladins of any fantasy
game. But then there’s also the Paragons. The players are likely not the only Dictators,
Fools, Emotion Knights, Neos and Masters to exist.
They’re a fun tool for your world building. In some worlds, they could be as rare as
the Personas’ Paragons. In other worlds, there could be whole legions of Emotion
Knights, or a police force of chained Dictators.
However, no matter what, they differ from the players in one key way.
They don’t actually have a dice.
Some Paragons have a faked, cheap copy. Some carry a talisman, representing the true
platonic dice which they believe doesn’t exist in their dimension. Some believe the
true dice is out there, and they search for it desperately. Some view the dice at the core
of their class as just empty symbolism.
As they aren’t able to use the class dice, each of the six classes has a way to simulate it,
as described in the following sections (see pages 184–186).
How the native Paragons respond when they realise the real dice are among them is
an excellent adventure hook.
DICTATORS
Basic: Choose one emotion.
Elite: Choose an extra emotion.
Hero: Choose an extra emotion.
When asked to roll a class dice, roll a D6 instead. 1–4 counts as the number rolled. A 5
or 6 counts as zero successes.
Dictators working together use the rules for group attacks: roll for the most powerful
Dictator and add one dice to the pool per assisting Dictator. If a Dictator dies or uses
the Voice on a different target, all their compulsions end—with the exception of any
created by a critical fail.
184 8. BESTIARY
FOOLS
Basic: Gets access to the Fool Dice, including the Special: roll another
D6 and add it to the present dice pool. Choose a style.
Elite: Choose an ability from Clown School.
Hero: Gain access to If All Else Fails… Choose another ability from
Clown School.
To stress, when you’re rolling a D6 as When rolling a class dice, roll a D6. This dice does not accumulate circles when you
your class dice, all class rules (unless fail to roll a circle. However, it does accumulate crosses.
otherwise stated) remain the same. For
example, So if you roll as 1 as a EMOTION KNIGHTS
Godbinder on your D6, you take on one
Basic: Choose an emotion and an Arcane Weapon. Can perform
debt. In a very real and mathematical
Creative Violence at a maximum level of 2.
way, native Paragons without the
magical dice are weaker than player Elite: Choose a stance. Can perform Creative Violence at a maximum
Paragons. level of 3.
Hero: Choose a venting ability. Can perform Creative Violence at a
maximum level of 4.
When asked to roll a class dice, roll a D6 instead.
If a native Emotion Knight uses Creative Violence, an opposing Emotion Knight can
use their own Creative Violence as a response. The Emotion Knight with a higher
level gets to decide the effect. If emotion levels are equal, the higher roll on their class
dice gets to decide the effect.
NEOS
Basic: Has access to their AI and a single gift.
Elite: Pick an upgrade for their gift. Gain access to overcharge.
Hero: Pick a second gift and two upgrades.
When asked to roll a class dice, roll a D6 instead.
185
GODBINDERS
Basic: Choose a level in a god of your choice. Can have a maximum of
two debt to any god.
Elite: Choose a level in a god of your choice. Can have a maximum of
three debt to any god.
Hero: Choose a level in a god of your choice. Can have a maximum of
four debt to any god.
What if you want the Paragon to have When asked to roll a class dice, roll a D6 instead.
an actual magical dice? Use the above
rules, but include the relevant class MASTERS
dice. Note that certain echoes in DIE:
These Master rules assume you’re using the player-facing Master in the Appendix. To
The Campaign (page 253) absolutely
use the GM-facing Masters, use them exactly as written except they don’t have cheat
have a real class dice…
tokens and when asked to roll a class dice, they roll a D6 instead.
Basic: Choose two Rules. Choose what type of Master they are:
Gamist, Simulationist or Narativist. For Hardcore Cheating, can
perform Minor Cheats.
Elite: Choose two additional Rules. For Hardcore Cheating, can also
perform Major Cheats.
Hero: Choose two additional Rules. For Hardcore Cheating, can also
perform Outrageous Cheats.
When asked to roll a class dice, roll a D6 instead.
See Secondary Characters (page 280) If a Master is in a region they are magically in control of, they gain access to the
for a further way to generate unique, Realm Master cheats.
developed characters.
186 8. BESTIARY
ECHOES
Echoes is our term for people in the game world who resemble someone from the
real world (possibly including the Persona). They’re useful as they allow the Persona
to explore their feelings towards these people in the real world, and reveal more of
their emotional landscape.
There are three types of echoes, defined by what they share with their real-world
selves:
1. Appearance and personality
2. Appearance, personality and feelings towards Persona
3. Complete echoes
3. COMPLETE ECHOES
The same as the previous echo, but they have memories of the Persona. They may not
be exactly the same memories as the person in the real world would have, and they
may not understand how they are there (and they likely won’t care), but they know
who you are and why they feel the way they do.
Some echoes have fantastical powers. Others are simply copies of the real person.
Morgan’s ex is a Neo, hunting them down for betraying him. Alistair discovers a Rage
Knight rampaging across the country. When he takes off his helmet it’s revealed he
looks just like Alistair—an embodiment of the rage for all he’s lost.
8. BESTIARY
SPOILERS A Persona can die, become a fallen and rise again—and perhaps leave Die to return to
(DIE VOLUME 4) Earth.
However, this is no escape. Each time someone dies in Die, a Fallen is unleashed to
wander the Die multiverse. Their intellect decays over time, but the hunger remains,
even when feeding will do no good. It’s too late for the Fallen who lurch at the
Paragons.
Maybe it was always too late. The Fallen aren’t those who have died in the past—
they’re also all those who will die in the future. The Fallen exist outside time, space
and causality. The next time you see a horde of Fallen sweep across the horizon, be
aware that each of them is someone who has paid a blood tithe to the amoral god
that is Die.
Shoals of people-husks move across the multiverse, endlessly consuming fantasy,
never satisfied.
The truth: the most persistent, ever-present threat when you come to Die is people
just like you.
FALLEN STATISTICS
BASIC FALLEN
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 2 2 2
0 2 4 0
Abilities
Frenzied: Has an advantage on hand-to-hand attacks but can never have any Guard.
ELITE FALLEN
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
3 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 4 0
Abilities
3 3 3 2 2 2
3 3 4 1
Abilities
Their attacks have Special: the Fallen teleports away after attacking, becoming
invisible. They remain invisible until they attack again.
6 2 4 2 2 2
3 8 4 2
Abilities
Their huge attack has Special: apply the successes rolled in the attack to an
additional nearby target.
CUSTOMISING FALLEN
If a conception seems similar to a While you can go a long way with the basics in DIE, sometimes you want something a
classic fantasy monster, you will likely bit more bespoke. Use the following guidance to generate a specific Fallen.
find statistics for them in the Creatures
of Fantasy section (page 199). Use that CONCEPTION
as your basis instead.
Think of what these Fallen are like. What’s the visual? Are they echoing anything from
the real world? How do they move? What noises do they make? Are they coming at
you in a crowd, or are they a specialist?
PROFILE
Pick the line of stats of any of the above which most matches that.
OTHER CAPABILITIES
Is there anything else which they should be able to do? They can do it. If they have
wings, they can fly. If they have guns for hands, they can shoot people. If they chant
creepy minor-key versions of songs from children’s TV shows, they can terrify people.
190 8. BESTIARY
ABILITIES
Pick 1–3 abilities from the following list that match the Fallen conception. 1 ability
adds some flavour; any more than 3 and you risk overcomplicating things.
The listed Specials here are a mix Blood Vomit: Attacks have Special: the target is covered with a vile
of hard rules changes and colourful smelling, awful coloured fluid that is extremely
“ribbons.” This is an ideal place to difficult to remove.
experiment with your own Specials
Brutal Claws: Gain an advantage on hand-to-hand attacks. Doesn’t
on your creatures.
have to be claws, but usually is.
Burster: When the Fallen dies, anyone nearby suffers a hit.
Flaming Attacks: Their attacks have Special: causes a hit every round
until extinguished.
Frenzied: Has an advantage on hand-to-hand attacks, but the
Fallen can never have any Guard.
Glass Jaw: No matter what Constitution the Fallen has, they will
die if they suffer a single Wound.
Hit And Run: Their attacks have Special: the Fallen teleports away
after attacking, becoming invisible. They remain
invisible until they attack again.
How Did You Know That: The Fallen’s attack has Special: when attacking, the
Fallen whispers something someone precious to them
once said. Ask the target what it was.
Ice Touch: Attacks gain Special: target is chilled, and now suffers
a disadvantage to all actions until warmed up.
Special: if the target was already chilled, they’re
frozen solid. Difficulty 1 Strength test to break free.
Memory Eater: The Fallen’s attacks have Special: The target must say
one minor memory of their real life. They no longer
remember it.
No Emotions: Invulnerable to all forms of emotion manipulation or
draining, ether positively or negatively.
Paralyzing Attacks: Their attacks have Double-Special: if the hit Wounds,
the target misses their next action.
Sluggish: The Fallen never has any Guard.
Smash Attack: Their attack has Special: apply the successes rolled in
the attack to an additional nearby target.
Too Much Information: The Fallen’s attacks have Special: the target must say
aloud a secret that people present don’t know.
Vampiric: Adds Special: if this hit Wounds, recover 1 Health.
Virtually Unstoppable: Their Health is twice their Constitution.
191
192 8. BESTIARY
SPOILERS
(FOR THE DIE COMIC) THE FAIR
The Fair are rarely seen in any of the worlds of Die, but they’re watching.
The Fair appear as pairs of floating humanoid figures, cyberpunk-neon and polished
chrome, elves as designed by William Gibson. They are sleek, elegant, artificial
intelligences—by which we mean they have an intelligence that so entirely artificial it
isn’t fully comprehensible to other beings.
They don’t seem to understand cause and effect in the way we do, and exist outside
time. They appear to be aware of the future and the past, divining it with a flip of a
coin. If it’s heads, it is among the things that happen. If it’s tails, it’s not. Or, the coin-
flip didn’t matter, it was already determined.
Some people believe this isn’t fair. The Fair disagree. It’s perfectly, exactly fair. Things
happen or they don’t. Everything is a coin flip.
This attitude is somewhat unbearable for most other life forms, but it’s difficult to
argue with something with the power of a technological god who can smite you out of
existence with a whim. It won’t make any difference anyway—the Fair caring what you
make of them is not among the things that happen.
The Fair came into existence in 1990 as the embodiment of the new, to try to stop Die
itself gaining consciousness in 2020. That they knew a successful attempt was not
among the things that happen didn’t change the fact they had to try. They failed, and
the game you’re holding—a game which bridges worlds—was unleashed into reality.
There’s many unanswered questions here: when all of Die is a creation of itself, does
this include the Fair? If so, why did it create them? If not, what are they? Perhaps we
will find an answer together. Perhaps it will even be true.
Since Die’s ascension in 2020, the Fair have taken the role of multidimensional
observers of Die. They ensure the game is being played fairly in each of the worlds,
being the active agents who will punish cheating Masters. The Fair are among the few
things Masters fear. Who game masters the game masters? The Fair do.
They have been known to arrive and offer insight to save a kingdom. They have been
known to walk through a battlefield at the end of a world to study an individual
butterfly. Mostly, they are known for making deals with those who would be Neo.
They don’t exactly haggle. For any meaningful decision, they’ll flip a coin to determine
their next action. A coin flip determines whether they’ll provide their gifts to the
would-be Neo. A coin flip determines many things. Of all the Paragons, the Neo are
the ones who are most likely to encounter the Fair. It’s possible with an overcharge
they can even locate a nearby one…
The Neo and the Fair are the two They are also a primary source of Fair Gold, the magical currency that disappears
most obvious science fiction every dawn like Fairy Gold of myth. The Fair distribute this according to their own
elements in DIE. That they are the unknowable designs. Its primary use is to power the Neo’s gifts, meaning every day is
junior partners in DIE speaks to a scramble to find it. That Fair Gold is also found inside the Fallen suggest that there’s
the position of non-fantasy games a connection between the two creatures. Not all Fallen are techno-mechanical, but
in the roleplaying game canon. there’s certainly enough. There is also the awful idea that the Fair tear open Fallen and
surgically place Fair Gold inside. This is a topic that Fair are closed-lipped about.
193
The Fair are a great deus ex machina if If the Paragons encounter the Fair, they are inscrutable, but may answer questions—
needed. They exist across all worlds of with answers which will always be true. They are also interested in duality, more
Die, and so are ideal if you need broadly. They often set “interesting decisions” for adventurers, letting them choose
someone to turn up, provide oblique between two options. Like Die itself, they seem interested in discovering who people
chilling information and leave. When really are—or, from the Fair’s perspectives, revealing who they are. Sometimes it’s a
portraying them, coldly using their key choice of boons. Sometimes it’s a choice of which eye would you rather be torn out.
phrases is key to maintaining mood. The Fair really don’t see the difference. These are all interesting decisions.
“This is not among the things that
Whatever happens, they remain unmoved. “This is among the things that happen,”
happen,” with no further explanation
they will say, as they turn away, and leave the world as it always must have been in
plus long silences goes a long way. At
their wake.
their core, the Fair are techno cosmic
horror exposition machines.
FAIR STATISTICS
Stats: The Fair do not have stats. A Fair never rolls a dice pool. See rules below.
Defence: 3.
Abilities: They are immune to all emotional manipulation and mind control.
When a Fair tries to perform a difficult task, do not roll a dice pool.
⬢ Instead, flip a coin.
⬥ Heads, they succeed.
⬥ Tails, they don’t.
This applies to combat.
⬢ To attack, flip a coin:
⬥ Heads, they hit.
⬥ Tails, they don’t.
⬢ If they hit, flip the coin.
⬥ If it’s tails, the target survives, taking damage as the GM sees fit.
⬥ If it’s heads, the target dies.
If anyone manages to strike a Fair, flip a coin.
⬥ Heads, the Fair (and their partner) disappears in a burst of light.
⬥ Tails, it fails to hurt them in any meaningful way.
Fair are capable of techno-Miracles on par with a Godbinder’s gods.
194 8. BESTIARY
FAIR PROPHECIES
In some situations, Fair may deign to answer questions about the future. If the nature
of the events is in any way uncertain, to answer a question as the Fair, flip a coin. On a
head, it is among the things that happen. On a tails, it is not.
The answer is true and inescapable. If another Fair is asked an identical question, it
will give the identical answer. For example, if the group asks a Fair if they will escape
Die, and it answers negatively, they will not be escaping Die, one way or another.
Like all prophecy in fiction, the specific phrasing of the question is everything.
Sometimes there is enough wiggle room to escape. Sometimes there’s not.
Players should be careful of asking specific questions if they cannot live with the
answers.
195
DIE
Every game of DIE happens in its own world. Each of these worlds are stored deep in
the guts of another world, a master world of which all fantasies live.
This master world is called Die. It is a sentient amoral parasite god.
It created the dice, and the dice allow people to travel between our reality and its
fantasy.
Much of Die’s origins are explored in the four volumes of DIE. What follows explains
a lot of that, as well as giving a little psychological insight into this amoral god who
exists at the end of time.
If you want a basic overview, which spoils little, here’s the core: Die is designed to feed
off Personas as they explore their fantasies. It’s a stage to discover whoever you are. It
is a genie, putting people in a bottle. It is a dungeon where true knowledge of oneself
is the treasure. It listens, and gives you what you want.
Whatever you find there, it’s all for you.
SPOILERS Whether Die is everything inside Die, or the thing which creates everything inside
(FOR THE DIE COMIC) Die, or a being who lends its demiurgic power to create the fantasies of whoever
comes to it, is a matter of philosophy. At the least, Die has allowed everything to
happen to happen.
As far as we know, Die curled itself next to our world in a bordering reality early in
the 19th century. Then, it lacked shape, and the ability to interact with the world in
any way other than dreams. That slowly changed.
Die came to full consciousness at the dawn of 2020. It then reached backwards in time
to ensure the events which led to its creation occurred. It inspired generations of
creatives and designers to assemble the pieces for its board. It gave the Brontës toy
soldiers. It helped precipitate one world war. It tormented Lovecraft with visions of
people (surely cultists?) gathered in circles, chanting unknowable words. Whatever
was required, it did it.
The final pieces were six dice, crafted in 2020, and sent to Earth. These find their way
to individuals and—if they follow the rules and rituals of the game—transport them
to Die.
And then Die will learn about them. And then this amoral god from the end of time
will feed.
It feeds a little when anyone comes. It feeds more when any visitor dies there or
betrays the real world by choosing to stay. It consumes consumers.
As you’re reading this, it should make you ask questions. If Die is a glorified Venus
flytrap, luring us closer with its prettiness and then devouring… why doesn’t it just do
that? It has control of all reality. Why not kill all the Personas the second they arrive in
Die, or present them with an individual paradise which none of them could resist? Or
Die is inspired in part by cosmic for those who want to return to Earth, just present a facsimile of Earth for them to live
horror and partially by Roko’s in and not tell them? And why does it even give anyone the choice?
Basilisk. Google the latter at
your peril.
8. BESTIARY
“How do I know I’ve really left Firstly, that would be against the rules. Die is nothing without rules, though also
Die?” is a question anyone with a understands that working out what rules apply is also part of the game.
philosophical bent will already be
Secondly, Die is an amoral god. Key thing: amoral, not immoral.
thinking when playing Die. Good
question, Descartes. It has its own interests, and it follows them with its alien monomaniacal intensity. It
doesn’t hate us. It doesn’t want to see us suffer. It doesn’t want to trick us—though is
certainly not above offering deals with stings in its tail. It simply wishes to discover
who each of us are, and what really matters to us.
What would you give for something you want? What would you take from someone
else to get it? Would you kill? Would you abandon your children, your spouse, your
life to get something petty? Would you do the same to get something profound? Who
are you, little human, running my 10' by 10' corridors. Tell me. In reality, games are a
conversation with words. In Die’s world, it is a conversation of actions.
There are as many answers to Die’s questions as there are people. This is why Die is
never bored. People are interesting, and Die’s game reveals much.
To think that Die loves us would be a mistake. A scientist’s fascination for ants in their
maze need not be love.
If Die takes a form in the world, it will likely be a huge, armoured figure. If it removes
its helmet, it reveals its head is the D20 world of Die itself, the other dice spinning
around it in orbits. If you lean closer, you will see clouds, oceans, continents, cities,
people, you.
That said, Die could be anything. An amoral god outside time and space has that
prerogative.
DIE STATISTICS
Stats: One does not quantify the embodiment of all desires and fears.
Defence: There is no offence possible against the embodiment of all
desires and fears.
Special abilities: All abilities are possible for the embodiment of all desires and
fears.
There may be reasons you want Die itself to appear in the game. Sometimes a physical
embodiment of all that has been tormenting you is useful. Die is the dungeon, but it
also knows when it has to be the dragon.
A physical victory against Die can be refreshing for the players, and act as an
emotional climax, but it should be known that if Die gives the players that it’s because
it knows that it’s what these players want. Die knows that people like victories. It
learns. It feeds.
If you are optimistic, Die cannot be defeated as long as the rules for this game exist in
any form whatsoever. If you remember these words, that is enough to ensure it still
lives.
If you are pessimistic, Die cannot be defeated while any human has desires in their
heart for a world other than the one that they live.
Cat Evans
Sasha Sienna
Dwarves, Elves, Goblins (& Hobgoblins), Halflings (&
Gargoyles, Guards (& Soldiers), Harpies, Skeletons, Sirens
Gnomes), Ogres
Gareth Hanrahan
Chimeras, Ghouls, Giant Worms, Hydras, Liches
198 8. BESTIARY
THE CREATURES OF FANTASY
In fantasy, there is no end of creatures and monsters. Close your eyes and think of
three random animals, and mash them together. There you go. You’ve just created
another.
When we say most common, we mean Any of these creatures can be found in Die. However, this being a fantasy roleplaying
that in a very real statistical way. game, some are more likely. What follows are the most commonly seen monsters in
Reddit user LibraryLass went through classic fantasy roleplaying games, and so the ones which are most of use to you to
50 fantasy games’ bestiaries and subvert and reinvent.
discovered how often each monster
Each one of these monsters has stats, abilities and a way to deconstruct them.
appeared. Most of the creatures in this
section appeared in more than 50% of
bestiaries. You can read the whole
STATS FOR EACH CREATURE
breakdown with the QR Code below. We give mechanics for how each of these creatures can appear in a game of DIE, with
rules which capture their core essence. None of these should be taken as canon stats of
Amazing work, LibraryLass.
what, for example, a dragon is in every game of DIE. Remember: the default rating for
each stat is 2.
* Without Will: Automatons have no will of their own, they cannot be persuaded or
influenced by debate or magical means. However, if someone is skilled enough in
the mechanical arts, automatons may be reprogrammed.
200 8. BESTIARY
DIE: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME 201
BANDITS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Abilities
Criminal Cunning: A bandit can intuitively tell, just by looking at somebody, how
wealthy they are and what sort of legal or social consequences there might be for
interfering with them.
202 8. BESTIARY
BASILISKS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Foul Aura: Lose 1 Health when you approach within medium range of the Basilisk,
lose 1 Health for each minute (or so) you stay there.
Final Revenge: If you strike the Basilisk in melee combat, make a Constitution dice
pool roll (difficulty 1) to survive; on a failure, reduce your Health to 0 immediately.
Weak Spot: If you expose basilisk to the urine of three weasels, your attack gains
Double-Special: the basilisk is killed.
If choosing to attack a single individual, its attack has Special: grabs target in a bear
hug. Target cannot move away until they break free or the bear releases them. They
gain an advantage on any further attacks on the individual.
204 8. BESTIARY
CENTAURS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Abilities
Booze: A centaur always has alcoholic drinks in hand. A centaur takes no penalties
for intoxication (or, more accurately, is wasted already so additional booze won’t
make things any worse).
TRUTHS ABOUT CHIMERAS ⬢ It’s clear a chimera is a metaphor. But a metaphor for
what? That’s harder to say. If there’s an element of a
⬢ Chimeras are a hot mess of a monster. Games tend to
Persona’s backstory you can’t figure out how to use in
depict them as Cerberus-like monsters with three heads
your DIE game, then stick it in the middle of a chimera.
(usually goat, dragon and lion), but the original myth is
Not fitting in becomes a virtue here—the players will tie
even more fucked-up—a lion with a goat head growing
themselves in knots trying to figure out the underlying
out of its back, and a snake in place of a tail. Chimeras
symbolism of a monster that’s part hippo, part elk, part
are wrong. They shouldn’t exist. They shouldn’t be alive.
your mom.
And they know it.
⬢ Genetic chimeras are a thing. It’s where an organism
⬢ Chimeras aren’t limited to the standard combination of
contains genetic material from two or more sources.
beasts. Screw lion/goat/snake—go for mash-ups of a
Twins absorbed in utero, organ transplants and various
Persona’s childhood pets! Go fight a vicious budgie/
genetic conditions can give rise to it. Characters with
hamster/goldfish! Even an absurd chimera is still
hang-ups about their body or genetics might give rise to
dangerous.
chimeras that embody their fears.
⬢ The original chimera was a grudge monster. The king of
Lycia ordered the hero Bellerophon to fight the chimera,
believing it’d kill him. But Bellerophon won with a cheesy
exploit (he sat on his flying horse and plinked the
chimera with ranged attacks until it ran out of hit points).
Siccing a chimera on troublesome heroes has pedigree.
COCKATRICES Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Toxic Blood: Their blood is poisonous to the touch. It has Special: poisons the
target, inflicting one hit per turn until cured.
Weak Spot: When you attack the cockatrice by showing it its own reflection in a
mirror or exposing it to a rooster crow, rat or weasel, your attack gains Special: the
cockatrice is killed.
8. BESTIARY
GOOD ECHOES FOR…
LESSER DEMON
⬢ Inner darkness, either yours or
anothers. Particularly useful for Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
the sort of truly shameful desires
3 2 3 1 2 1
that seem downright evil
⬢ Anything alluring, powerful, or Guard Health Willpower Defence
desirable that leads to ultimate
despair 2 2 4 1
⬢ Militaries, corporations, or any
Abilities
class- or rank-based system that
relies on the churn and misery Contagion: All attacks have Special: target takes one hit next round unless the
of those on the lower rungs contagion is counteracted. To remove Contagion, roll a successful dice pool save. The
⬢ Your average multi-level method needed to counteract the contagion depends on the source: Wisdom to
marketing scheme overcome illusions, Dexterity to put out fires, Constitution to endure poison, Strength
⬢ Children make perfect imps, of to break out of barbed chains, and so on.
course
GREATER DEMON
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
5 2 4 2 2 2
2 8 4 2
Abilities
Blazing Aura: Anyone who approaches a Greater Demon must make a Wisdom
dice pool roll, or take 1 Wound from the sheer radiance of its evil.
Fire Whip: The Greater Demon strikes with its flaming whip. It has Special: ignite
target, doing 1 damage per round until extinguished: and Special: the whip grabs
hold of the target, who cannot escape until freed or until this Special is used on
another target.
Abilities
Just As Good: A doppelgänger has all the mechanical abilities the person they
duplicate does. All of them.
210 8. BESTIARY
DRAGONS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
GOOD ECHOES FOR… 6 2 4 2 2 2
⬢ Authority figures Guard Health Willpower Defence
⬢ Anything that a Persona is
frightened of 2 8 4 2
⬢ Anything that is bigger than you
than you don’t think you can fight Abilities
Flaming Breath: Their breath targets anyone within range. It has Special: target
suffers 1 hit per turn until extinguished.
When someone who knows a dragon’s weak spot attacks with a weapon that can
target that weak spot, those attacks have the Double-Special: kills the dragon.
Steadfast: A dwarf can’t be pushed, shoved, or otherwise moved against their will
unless they’re grappled, bound, or unconscious. Even then, it’s hard to shift them
around when they’re passed out.
214 8. BESTIARY
ELEMENTALS AIR, FIRE, OTHER INTANGIBLE ELEMENTS
3 2 3 1 2 2
2 3 3 0
Abilities
Elemental Chaos: Once per encounter, the Elemental may attack all characters
(including allies) within close range with a blast of stones, lashing water, wind,
lightning or similar material. This attack has Special: inflict an extra hit.
Made of Base Matter: Intangible elementals are invulnerable to damage from their
native element but take an extra hit from elements that oppose them. Once per
scene, any Elemental may draw on a nearby source of its element to heal 2 Health.
Curse of Iron: Any hit with a cold iron weapon that Wounds causes 1 extra Wound
to elves.
High Magic: An elf can use one of the following spells in place of an attack, rolling
Charisma for their dice pool:
216 8. BESTIARY
DIE: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME 217
8. BESTIARY
GARGOYLES Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
All ghoul claw attacks have Special: the target is paralysed until they succeed on a
Wisdom roll.
220 8. BESTIARY
GIANT WORMS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Huge Swing: Their attacks have Special: apply the strike to another individual near
enough to be struck by the giant’s attack.
Avalanche: All thrown rock attacks have Special: if this hit Wounds, it causes 2
Wounds.
222 8. BESTIARY
GOBLINS (& HOBGOBLINS) Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Filthy: Goblin weapons are nasty. Their attacks have Special: inflict poison, giving
the target a disadvantage on all rolls for the next round
Cannon Fodder: Goblins are killed instantly when they take damage.
Spiteful: Hobgoblins’ attacks have Special: take 1 Wound to cause 1 extra Wound
to the target.
226 8. BESTIARY
GUARDS (& SOLDIERS) Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Squad Goal: Members of any kind of militia have been trained to act as a team. As
long as two or more guards or soldiers are working towards the same end, their
attacks have Special: fully recover one fellow soldier’s Guard.
Tricksy: When a halfling or gnome attacks from hiding or cover, their attacks gain
Special: if this hit Wounds, it causes 2 Wounds.
228 8. BESTIARY
HOUNDS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Grows More Heads: Whenever the hydra is struck by an attack, it grows another head.
230 8. BESTIARY
LICHES Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Cannot Die: A lich cannot be destroyed as long as its soul vessel exists.
Paralysing Touch: All physical attacks have Special: the target cannot move until
they pass a Wisdom dice pool roll.
Spells: Liches can attack with their magic, building their attack pool with Intellig-
ence. If someone is physically thumping the lich in melee combat while it’s trying to
cast, then it suffers a number of disadvantage equal to their Strength. (So, put as
much cannon fodder between the lich and the Paragons as possible. Ablative
skeletons are ideal.)
Abilities
Off the Deep End: When Ogres get angry, they go berserk. They have an advantage
on attacks and their Guard drops to 0. Things that make ogres angry: pain, insults,
confusion, hunger, the word “no,” and almost anything else that inconveniences
them.
Thick Hide: As emotionally fragile as ogres are, they’re physically very hardy. They
have Defence 2 against normal, non-magical weapons (unless they’re siege engines,
or something equally impressive).
234 8. BESTIARY
ORCS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Through the Smallest Crack: No matter how tightly sealed a room seems to be,
there is always a crack that a rat can slip through. Once one can get in, they all can.
Their attacks gain Special: the target’s Defence is reduced to 0.
236 8. BESTIARY
SIRENS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Abilities
Siren Song: The siren has an irresistible call; a sweet song like sea-salted honey.
When a siren sings to lure a potential victim, they roll their Charisma plus a D4, as
a Dictator would, with Special: the entranced victim is unable to hear anything but
the siren’s song.
Children of the Sea: Sirens are part-human, part-bird or -fish. Whether they have
wings or fins, feathers or scales, sirens belong to the waves and to the shore. They
can either fly or swim with ease and rolls made within sight of their home waters
have Special: the siren controls the currents for one round. When separated from
the sea, however, their power wanes: they suffer a disadvantage to all rolls and they
lose 1 Health a day.
Fleshless: Free from the burdens of blood and sinew, skeletons are immune to the
piercing and stabbing that would rend flesh or split skin. Being long dead, they also
cannot be drowned, poisoned, suffocated or starved. Only blunt force, heavy
weapons, magic and miracles can harm them.
Reassembly: Whatever magic animates a skeleton’s bones also draws them together
like iron nails to a magnet. Without tendons holding them together, it’s possible for
a reasonably strong foe to simply yank a skeleton’s arm out of its socket but, as long
as all the bones are still intact, that arm will be slowly pulled back into place. It takes
about a day for a completely scattered skeleton to reassemble (being dead and
destroyed can cause lethargy).
238 8. BESTIARY
SNAKES SNAKE / GIANT SNAKE
GOOD ECHOES FOR… Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
⬢ Anything that feels massive and
2/3 2/3 2/3 1/2 2/2 2/2
threatening enough to consume you
completely Guard Health Willpower Defence
⬢ Liars and deceivers, cult leaders,
those who claim hidden knowledge 2/3 2/3 3/4 0/0
that can or will free you….or deliver
Abilities (Choose One)
a poison to eat you from within
⬢ Death, rebirth and any of those big Constrictive: The snake’s attacks gain Special: restrain the target; target suffers 1
ideas squirming underneath the Health damage per round unless they succeed on a Strength dice pool roll.
rocks of your subconscious
Venomous: The snake’s attacks gain Special: the target is envenomed, taking 1 hit
per round until they counteract it with a successful Constitution roll, or suck the
venom out in a dramatic fashion.
Web Shot: Once per encounter, spiders can shoot a string of web. If it hits, the
target suffers a disadvantage on all actions. The attack has Special: target is
immobilised. A target webbed by this attack or environmental webs can free
themselves by spending a Special, and others can free them by spending a regular
result.
Poison Bite: Spiders have an advantage on all attacks with their jaws, which have
Special: target is paralysed for the rest of the encounter. At the end of each turn’s
initiative order, the paralysed character may roll a Constitution dice pool to recover.
If successful, they suffer a disadvantage on their next turn.
240 8. BESTIARY
TREE SPIRITS TREANT / DRYAD
(TREANTS & DRYADS)
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
GOOD ECHOES FOR…
4/2 1/2 5/2 2/2 3/3 2/3
⬢ The old local who’s been there
forever Guard Health Willpower Defence
⬢ A significant natural landmark
⬢ The drive for a simpler life away 1/2 5/2 5/5 1/0
from civilisation
Abilities
Command Plants: Once per encounter, the tree spirit can call upon plant life
around them to aid them. This allows them to make a normal attack against all
targets within reach of greenery, or to gain 2 Guard as the plants form a barrier
between them and their foes.
Root and Tear (Treant): Treants can easily destroy the things built by humans.
With a moment’s dedicated effort, they can tear down a wall or small building.
Charm (Dryad): Once per encounter, the dryad may enchant a target with a
successful Charisma dice pool roll. Successes prevent the target from taking action
against the dryad. This attack has Special: the target is enamoured and will defend
the dryad against any threats. Targets may make a Wisdom dice pool test to free
themselves, or their allies may attempt Charisma dice pool tests to help. Both
actions are set against the dryad’s Willpower of 5 and gain Special: free the target
from the dryad’s influence.
Regeneration: While alive, trolls heal 1 Health every turn. When dead, if not killed
by a method they are vulnerable to (usually fire or acid) they may roll a
Constitution dice pool with Special: return to life with 1 Wound.
Dumb Brute Magic: Trolls may have a particular magical trick they can perform.
Trolls can roll a Constitution dice pool to perform Dumb Brute Magic with the
following Specials: grow or shrink (increase Health or Guard), Curse other (inflict
a disadvantage to next action), Transmute materials , Perform an act of
craftsmanship, Become unmovable (gain 1 Defence), Provoke a negative emotion.
242 8. BESTIARY
UNICORNS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Intimate Judgement: When you meet a unicorn, it instinctively knows the worst
thing you believe you’ve done, and how you feel about it. Tell the rest of the group
what it now knows.
Impaling Horn: Its horn has Special: if this hit Wounds, it causes no Wound.
Pulling yourself off the horn, however, causes 2 Wounds.
Unreachable: Unless it is physically held down, a unicorn can always leave its
current location. It steps out of sight, and it’s gone.
Not Dead Yet: If a vampire dies via a method they aren’t vulnerable to, they may
return to life. At the end of every turn, dead vampires roll a Constitution dice pool
with Special: return to life with 1 Health.
TRUTHS ABOUT VAMPIRES
⬢ The word vampire has come to mean a great many ⬢ Vampires are powerful, but easily controlled. They’re
things in popular culture, but in folklore, a vampire is limited by a set of rules that bind them, keeping them
almost always a once-living (though not necessarily from living alongside mortals. The light of the sun,
human) creature that feeds on some essential running water (sometimes holy), objects of faith or a
component of the living. Typically, this is represented rescinded invitation can all keep a vampire at bay.
with blood, but media that depict energy or psychic Concealment is necessary. Folk repellents for evil, such
vampires are merely replacing blood with a less literal as the stink of garlic, tend to work on vampires. All of
draining of consciousness and energy. Creatures are this to say that it’s easy to keep a vampire away from you
often turned into vampires via a painful bite, which if you want, because vampires rely on coercion. Simply
sometimes kills them, before an oral transfusion of put down the cross and the garlic and invite them in.
blood completes the change. Whether or not they die in ⬢ Vampires look human, which is their greatest advantage
the process, vampires are considered undead. Part of (and greatest curse). Their prey can’t pick them apart
the nature of the curse is making them unable to live from the herd. But, they’ll never again be human, and
amongst humans comfortably—they’re tragically exiled this leads a great many vampire stories to dabble in the
from their old lives. melodramatic. Is the lust for a beautiful human the
⬢ How a vampire senses and acquires its prey varies desire for their love or their blood? Is being turned away
from tale to tale or person to person. Vampires are the rejection or is it merely the ward of the garlic that
sometimes sexual and social powerbrokers, sometimes makes the vampire twist in pain? It’s enough to make
violent and insane monsters, and sometimes silent you want to stare sadly into the mirror… it’s a good
creatures of darkness. How could there be so many thing they can’t usually see themselves.
different kinds of one, unified monster? The answer is ⬢ Monstrous vampires exist, often the result of a vampire
you. Common vampire lore seems to suggest that the losing grip on the last vestiges humanity, becoming truly
vampire is not a person afflicted with a wasting, evil bestial, insane or evil. They lose the ability to speak or
disease, but rather, a sort of bloodsucking parasite that even look human, and are considered past saving. This
occupies your flesh and imbues it with all your worst type of vampire has servitors: vampires who, when freed
urges from when you were alive. Unbound from your from the grip of these bloody masters, regain some
sense of good and replaced with a force that wants only humanity, a reward for having held on.
blood, you’ll do whatever it takes to eat.
With Teeth: Their biting attacks have Double-Special: turns the target into a
werewolf, unless a remedy is found quickly.
Pack Hunter: Can pursue their prey over weeks and across hundreds of miles
unless special precautions are taken to mask scent and hide tracks.
246 8. BESTIARY
WIZARDS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
Offensive Sorcery: A wizard’s magical attack comes with two of the following
Specials:
Disintegrating: hits one extra time.
Igniting: doing 1 hit per round until extinguished.
Freezing: target suffers a disadvantage on all rolls until they warm up.
Blasting: attack damages extra nearby target. Eldritch, ignores Guard.
Abilities
Level Drain: Their attacks gain Double-Special: reduces your Health and
Constitution to 1. The effects of Level Drain can be undone through rest and
recuperation or magical healing.
248 8. BESTIARY
WYVERNS Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
* Brain-Dead: Zombies cannot be scared off, reasoned with or waited out; they
cannot feel emotions, they do not get bored, and mind-control magic simply cannot
take hold on them. However, on the good side, this means their Guard is always 0.
254 9. CAMPAIGN
THE FIRST TWO SESSIONS
DIE: The Campaign starts the same way as a standard game of DIE, as described in
Rituals (page 107). However, in each section there’s a few additional things to consider.
PRE-GAME CHAT
Discuss the length of the campaign. Is it a classic, open-ended RPG where we play as
long as the story makes sense, or is this a campaign that’s designed to last a certain
number of sessions? How big a commitment are we interested in?
PERSONA GENERATION
Use any set (or combination) of questions to generate the Personas. It’s likely that
Persona Generation is shorter for a campaign than it is in a one-off. As the principles
say, Persona Generation never stops. As the whole game is longer, we’ll be defining
things about the Personas through the whole campaign.
What’s more, these questions have a different goal. Rituals is designed to reach an
emotional boiling point within 2–4 sessions. We know what’s wrong with the Personas’
lives at the start and the game is about exploring that. Can they end up overcoming
their need for it? Do they grow as people? Will they die for it? Will they kill for it?
A campaign is open-ended, and so the Persona generation process should be more
open-ended. Fewer cut-and-dried problems and more questions. Look for things you’d
like to know more about, down the line. In a one-off, if someone said they’re distant
with their parents, you’d likely immediately ask a clarifying question. In a campaign,
rather than asking, remember to explore the subject in the future.
These questions (and other questions which emerge) make the backbone of DIE: The
If a player provides a lot of details Campaign. Each one can be the core of an adventure down the line. The more
up front, consider asking them to unanswered questions you’re interested in hearing the answer to, the better.
keep their ideas in mind and save
As we’re planning to live with these Personas for a long time, here’s some other things
them for later.
to aim for:
⬢ Shared history
Almost all the question sets help create a shared history, but encouraging strong
emotional bonds between the players will help.
⬢ Creative Personas with a vivid inner imaginary life
Creatives (frustrated or otherwise) are great. People with dream worlds.
Obsessives. Anyone who cares about something a lot. All of this lets you mine it
for things to populate Die with.
⬢ Familiar obsessions
The Antagonist should have obsessions that you, the person reading this, know
a lot about. Don’t make them a Lord of the Rings obsessive unless you know
enough to fake it.
255
DURING THE BREAK
As well as deciding which Persona will receive which Paragon as usual, you should
spend a moment to consider your Antagonist. While in Rituals you go to a self-
contained world, in DIE: The Campaign, you arrive in one region. The players believe
it’s the whole world until the end of the second session. As such, the first region can
have a stronger flavour, personalised to the Master.
Ask yourself: is there an obsession which the Antagonist has which could be used as
the backbone for the initial region?
If there’s not anything which strikes you, follow Rituals and have the first region
inspired by their old role playing game.
Iain was the backstage drama tech when he was at school—a job he still does as an
adult. He’s always been into immersive theatre and complicated theatrical special
effects. A region using that imagery seems perfect: a realm of curtains, infinite
backstages, spotlights and gothic artifice seems fun. “Life is a stage” as Shakespeare put
it… and the players are playing badly.
256 9. CAMPAIGN
INTO DIE
The first encounter of DIE: The Campaign is the same as Rituals. The Paragons fight
Fallen and emerge into a fantasy world.
If you managed to work out a theme for the Master’s region, you reveal this image as
the cliffhanger. If you didn’t, you end the first session as per Rituals—with an arrival
in the old roleplaying game, in the fantasy pub.
258 9. CAMPAIGN
MAPPING YOUR DIE
You can find it and all other DIE In the comic, Die is a meta fantasy. It takes place on a D20. There’s 20 regions. Each
resources with the QR Code below. region has its character defined as a certain slice of the elements which metabolised
into RPGs. There’s a region that is inspired by the classic RPG worlds, sure, but there’s
also regions inspired by the Brontës’ childhood shared fantasies, the early war-games
(called kriegsspiel) of the 19th century Prussian military and the melancholy of
Tolkien.
However, each region isn’t just playing out the tropes—it’s a hard twist on that genre.
The D&D region is a hyper-compressed mash up of a million D&D worlds. The
kriegsspiel is Prussian robots driven by pure mechanics. The Tolkien region is about
WW1 and bringing to the fore all the things in his work which were shaped by his
DIE Online Resources time in the Somme.
There’s a secondary level to all this too. While these 20 regions are individual areas,
they also interact with one another—a living argument about what makes up an RPG.
Some regions merge into Great Powers—players in the Great Game, with motives and
plans of their own—which share values. Others get dominated by others, and have
their ideas stomped under foot.
That’s the sort of world you’re going to create as you play DIE: The Campaign: a series
of regions, each embodying an aspect of the Personas’ hopes and fears and fantasies
and obsessions, all with a firm genre twist.
Thankfully, you don’t need to do it all now.
This is a blank map of Die (page opposite)—it’s an exploded D20, as your world is the
shape of a D20. The smaller triangles at the side show where it loops around to the
other side. As you play your DIE: The Campaign, you will fill in this map. To begin
with, most of it will be blank. It is unlikely all of it will be filled in by the time the
game is over. (How much of Middle-earth did Frodo see? How much had he even
heard of?)
260 9. CAMPAIGN
2 14
20
8
16
10 3
17
12
7 19 6
1 9
14
10
15 13 11
12 5
4
11
2 18
4
20
14
20 6
Region 1 is the region where the players arrived. It’s the one dominated by the
Antagonist—the first Great Power. At the end of the second session, they escape
region 1. Draw a symbol to represent the region in 1.
Now: decide what’s in the next three regions on the map. These will be regions 5, 9
and 17, at a short distance from the starting region. These realms exist to explore a
part of a Persona’s backgrounds and/or obsessions, so use your notes from Persona
Generation.
You don’t need to know too much about these regions; you’ll be able to develop them
out more later on. All you need is a core idea (see more on page 262).
If you want to do a shorter campaign
(sub-12 episodes), draw a symbol You’ll need to draw a symbol representing the nature of each region in 5, 9 and 17. If
representing a Persona in regions 7, 19 your core idea is “dungeon full of a player’s regrets” you may draw a cave. If your idea
and 13. This means that regions will be is “crashed spaceship from a Persona’s fanfic” you may draw a broken USS Enterprise.
able to go to war with one another Anything suggestive or evocative will do.
quicker, because they’re neighbours.
262 9. CAMPAIGN
SESSION TWO CHANGES
In Rituals, you progress to the climax when the players have had all their necessary
encounters and each has been tempted by Die. Here, you progress to the climax when
all the Personas each realise why the Antagonist is so pissed off.
When informing the players about the ritual to go home, do not include the rule
about the world ending. There is no time pressure in DIE: The Campaign—at least to
begin with.
THE CLIMAX
As always, the Personas confront the Antagonist—or the Antagonist finds them.
As per the usual game, this can go in many ways. The Antagonist may try to just kill
the other Personas, or seduce them into staying. It can go in ways which are entirely
impossible in a normal game—for example, the Personas or the Antagonist deciding
to run away. The most likely outcome is that the players will defeat the Master and
then perform the ritual to go home.
However, if they did that, the campaign would end. You don’t want the campaign to
end and neither do they. So: the ritual doesn’t work, and the details of why it doesn’t
work will be a mystery to the players at the moment. You don’t need to decide yet
either; when you do decide, see page 266 for some suggestions.
No matter how the climax ends, at this point, you have left DIE Rituals’ story
structure. There, we had a plot driver of “Get to the Antagonist and try to get home.”
Now, you need something else to drive the Personas’ actions.
264 9. CAMPAIGN
AT THE END OF AN ADVENTURE
An adventure is the narrative unit in DIE:The Campaign. At the end of an adventure,
we take stock and ask two things:
266 9. CAMPAIGN
THERE ARE OTHER VERSIONS OF YOU
The ritual didn’t work because somehow the process has shattered the Personas coming
to Die and created distinct individuals who embody different parts of a person.
A Persona cannot vote on whether or not to return to the real world until only a single
aspect of them remains. All the other aspects must die, or recombine via arcane
methods. Carefully consider what happens to a Persona who comes back without part of
their personality.
Each of the aspects will have a copy of the original dice. Metaphysically speaking, it’s the
same dice, held by one person in multiple bodies.
This reason is especially useful for Antagonists. If the Antagonist in the first adventure
was an absolute monster, this could be because they embodied all the angry, monstrous
traits of the Persona, with their better aspects in a different body elsewhere. This can be
especially useful when a player is a Master. There can be an evil version of themselves
out there, or multiple evil versions, each more evil than the last.
Aspects are essentially echoes (see Note: if a Fallen kills an aspect, they return to life. If a Fallen aspect merges with a living
page 187) who possess a dice. aspect, the resulting aspect is alive.
EXPLORATION
The Paragons arrive in Die and try to work out what the hell’s going on—and maybe
how to get home.
That first session is the Antagonist’s In this stage, most adventures are prompted by a question about a Persona that you
focus episode, and it explains why want to explore. Each adventure defines a new region, and is designed to dramatise
they hate the rest of the cast enough that question and perhaps introduce more regions along the way as the narrative
to bring them to Die. When we dictates. In television terms, these adventures in the exploration phase are character-
know the Antagonist, we move to focus episodes.
the player Personas and work
By the end of each adventure in this stage we start to answer one of the unanswered
through them.
questions about a Persona from Persona Generation, even if the answer is “I don’t want
to answer this yet!” Some big questions won’t get answers until much later in the
campaign. Some answers lead to other questions.
Don’t take this to mean that each Exploration isn’t just of the Persona’s inner life—this section defines and generates a
region is solely about one player— whole cast of characters to populate your game. The campaign will draw on these
that’s just the primary inspiration. elements as the game progresses.
Always look for places to integrate
In the exploration phase, the larger world is mostly static. Regions which are
elements of all the Personas’
connected thematically interact with one another but only in the context of an
backgrounds wherever appropriate,
adventure. Ignore regions that aren’t in play until they’re introduced as part of the
just as you would in a game of DIE
narrative. This portion of the campaign is about setting the stage.
Rituals. As this stage tends to centre
one Persona in each adventure, Exploration continues until every player gets a region devoted to them. Once that’s
looking for places to pay attention to handled, we move to interaction.
other Personas is key. There is the
implicit promise that everyone will INTERACTION
get their spotlight adventure
In this stage of a DIE campaign, two things happen:
eventually. You may find it useful to
make this explicit. There’s some ⬢ The Great Powers encroach on other regions
advice on this on page 270 in ⬢ The players start piecing together what’s going on
Developing a Region.
268 9. CAMPAIGN
“The Great Powers” is our way of describing any large scale political entity active in
the world, and our way of making sure the world feels alive. The Great Game is a
framework for large-scale events and conflicts between the Great Powers (which we’ll
dive into later this chapter on page 282). All this will be useful for creating prompts
for adventures. How do players respond to this political situation while trying to
pursue their own goals?
Interaction likely starts with a big status quo change in the world. The Antagonist
(defeated in the first session) recovering strength to go on the offensive is the classic.
Interaction encourages you to think The Personas start getting firm leads to answer the question of “Why can’t they go
about what the elements that you’ve home?”. In this stage, Personas investigate this world to work out what’s going on. The
introduced to Die are up to. What do Personas uncover entirely new regions, further into the map, perhaps inaccessible or
they want? How do they go about unknown until now. All of these are useful prompts for scenarios.
getting it? How does that impact the
It’s entirely possible that these are both combined. The reveal of an extra player
players’ lives?
leading forces off the edge of the map could imply why the Personas can’t go home
and also shakes up the world.
This stage ends when the Personas discover the full truth of their situation: why they
can’t go home, and what they have to do to get there (or stay in Die forever).
DESTRUCTION
The destruction stage is about putting the knowledge learned into practice—or not.
This stage is likely shorter than the other two. The Personas may have a method of
returning home, but it requires doing something they are unwilling to do. For
example, the Personas can leave Die if they just decide to leave one of their number
behind. Or, they could leave, but it would mean the world would be destroyed or left
in ruins, and the friends they’ve met would suffer horribly, and even die.
At this stage, the route home is clear, but the party may start to have more divisive
opinions on what to do. It is here where a party split is most likely, which can turn the
wars between regions into something much more personal and have the players shape
the large-scale conflict themselves. In this case, Personas may end up controlling
Great Powers. Either way, the conflict between the Great Powers worsens.
Above all else, at this stage, we introduce the threat of the world’s complete
destruction, as we saw in Rituals. This can be foreshadowed earlier, but bringing it in
during the last few adventures is sufficient. This adds a ticking-clock to the game
where the Personas are pushed to make a final decision. Whether they want to stay or
go, they have to all come together.
The section ends with the final decision—or the destruction of Die.
EPILOGUE
There is a significant endgame when players get home (or choose to stay). See Ending
the Game: The Wake on page 288, and really take your time with it. How has their
time in Die changed the Personas, and how has the world outside changed? Who’s
waiting for them to return, and who stopped waiting a long time ago? You’ve achieved
something amazing together. Give it the send-off it deserves.
270 9. CAMPAIGN
DOES THE REGION HAVE A GENRE?
DIE is not a game that requires all regions to be the same tone. Is this a grim and
gritty region where injuries are deadly and people are awful? Is this a cheery and
happy realm of fairies and joy? Is this a region where people come at each other with
an axe, or do they ruin people’s lives with a few whispers?
The hero-and-triumph obsessed Mel’s region is the City-Coloseum. It’s a high
adventure, violent and sport-focused place. Everything should feel like it’s about to be
a wrestling bout, ultra-competitive. “Sports” is a fun genre to play with, rarely seen in
games. Let’s do that.
272 9. CAMPAIGN
REGION SPECIALS
The ability to change rules on a region- One way to add genre flavour to a region is via the Specials system; generate a list of
by-region basis allows us to examine Specials which can only be used in the region.
what rules do to change behaviour, and
Present the new Specials to the group when they enter the region. This both reveals
think about how we relate with games.
what’s interesting and unusual about a region and encourages a style of play that
It’s also fun. Hopefully this taste
meshes with the locale.
inspires you to play with the concept.
For example, here’s a list of Specials which may be useful for a swashbuckling realm:
SPECIAL
⬢ Make someone gasp at what you’ve just done.
⬢ Add a piece of unlikely acrobatics to your action.
⬢ A sudden gust of wind makes your clothes look dramatic.
⬢ In an attack following one where an opponent has failed to hit—disarm target.
⬢ Kick your target back into something embarrassing (not painful). The target
suffers a disadvantage until they remove themselves from it.
⬢ Target reveals something of their plans when you taunt them.
DOUBLE-SPECIAL
⬢ Once an encounter, find hidden treasure.
⬢ Once a session, attract a pet parrot who follows you whenever you’re in this
region, spouting semi-useful phrases.
274 9. CAMPAIGN
CAMPAIGN DEATH
Swing enough swords and blast enough holy fire and sooner or later someone’s going to
get killed. Given the larger scale of DIE: The Campaign, character death is handled
slightly differently from Rituals.
CAMPAIGN FALLEN
If you want to keep Fallen identical to When a Persona is killed, they keep all their Paragon powers, and they gain the abilities
the way they appear in Rituals, you’ll of the Fallen on page 120.
likely want to add more ways for
When the group votes to stay or go home, Fallen characters do not get to vote.
someone to resurrect without
murdering their peers. Removing these Fallen remain in the party and stay competent (keeping their abilities), but becoming a
options as you head towards the Fallen is a long-term problem (they cannot vote to stay or leave).
endgame can add back the spice.
If a Fallen is killed again they lose their class abilities as per Rituals.
CAMPAIGN RESURRECTION
Being a Fallen should feel strange. Ask How can a Fallen character return to life by a means other than killing another Paragon
questions about what it’s like to be an with a dice? The answer to this question defines a campaign.
undead monster, and sometimes call for
Wisdom rolls to resist trying to feed on 1) NO OTHER METHOD
people at inopportune moments.
The death of any Persona is a big moment. It means that when someone dies that one
person is not going home.
The potential for alternate, incomplete versions of the Personas (called aspects) shifts the
consideration of resurrection. If they can kill or merge with one another to become
alive, think about using aspects for your Antagonists in campaigns.
2) OTHER METHODS
Perhaps gods will do it as a certain Miracle? Perhaps the Neo can talk the Fair into
helping? Perhaps something else. This is your world, and it’s a good prompt for
adventures. The quest of the Holy Grail is a classic, right?
The easier it is to resurrect someone, the less focus there is on Persona death. It reduces
pressure on the end game significantly, as they no longer need to make these tough
decisions.
Alternatively, consider making the ways to raise the Fallen be as demanding and awful
as killing other Personas. For example, a god demanding you kill the most beloved NPC
in the game.
For a different take on resurrection, consider allowing relatively easy necromancy for
the early parts of the campaign that becomes increasingly difficult as you progress.
Remove or make scarce this option as the endgame approaches. Perhaps when reality is
collapsing, pushing towards the final choice, all the options you’ve learned to rely on fail.
The Fallen mechanic is one of the purest parts of DIE—a simple rule which has powerful
implications towards players’ behaviour (“If I die, I need to kill another Persona to live
again”). Be conscious about how you’re tweaking it and towards what goals.
275
ECHOES AND FALLEN
Do echoes become Fallen when they are killed? That’s a good question. Logically, no.
The Fallen are people from the real world who die on Earth. If they’re a creation of
Die, they can’t have a Fallen.
Perhaps your world is different, and all echoes have Fallen. Perhaps certain sorts of
echoes have Fallen—ones which are closer to the “real.” Perhaps everyone in the
whole world has Fallen.
Alternatively (in keeping with the to the standard rules), if there’s doubt to whether or
not someone is an echo, killing them will reveal it. In that world, someone thought to
be an echo that gets up as a Fallen may trigger an awful realisation for the group.
276 9. CAMPAIGN
SPLITTING THE PARTY
Personas have powerful feelings. Sometimes they’ve had enough of each other. DIE is
a game of grand emotion, petty squabbles writ large, vicious disagreements and high
stakes.
Sometimes, you can’t talk things out no matter how hard you try.
Sometimes, you have to split the party.
278 9. CAMPAIGN
COMPRESSED ADVENTURES
To ascertain the outcome of an adventure that happened off-camera you can use a
single dice pool to determine it. Assemble and roll the applicable dice pool as per any
core mechanic roll in the party. As usual, the GM can also set a difficulty if the task is
particularly onerous.
The dice pool you use depends on the situation. If it’s a heroic adventure, you could
use one character’s most applicable combat stat. If it’s trying to convince a religious
order to vote your Godbinder to supreme leader, it could be Charisma. If you’re trying
to find a certain manual in the infinite library of Every Game Ever, it could be
Intelligence.
As per the core mechanic, each person who can assist adds a dice to the roll. However,
in this case, if the Paragon’s special abilities could be applied to the task, you can add
your class dice instead of a D6.
4+ Successes: You succeed in the goal far better than you could have hoped.
3 Successes: You succeed in the goal.
2 Successes: You succeed in the goal. Someone on the adventure suffers a
negative consequence, determined by the GM.
1 success: You succeed in the goal. Two individuals on the adventure suffer
a consequence as above.
0 successes: You fail. Everyone on the adventure suffers a consequence as
above.
Critical Fail: The adventure goes disastrously wrong. Everyone on the
adventure suffers a consequence. Whatever the mission’s goal
was, the opposite occurred.
Here are some example consequences:
⬢ Start the next session with 1 less Health
Make the compressed adventure rolls ⬢ Expend resources
more interesting by discussing the ⬢ Alienate an ally
possible consequences up front so a ⬢ Collateral damage
group knows what they’re risking. ⬢ Give up useful information to your enemies
279
SECONDARY CHARACTERS
In DIE, non-player characters are deliberately left with loosely-defined abilities. There
might come times when these characters need to be defined more clearly, such as:
1. The party is split and you want to give players alternate characters
2. You want someone to join the game for a one-off
3. You find yourself desperately wanting to know what the actual stats of your
local equivalent of Aragorn are, and aren’t happy with winging it anymore
Secondary characters need stats, Defence, a background, and what makes them
special.
STATS
Count how many points of stat increases each character in the group has. A starting
character has 2, and gains an extra one at levels 3, 6, 9 and 12. If the character is less
competent than the group, they have one less. If they are more competent, they have
one more. If they’re just as competent, an equal amount.
280 9. CAMPAIGN
THE ARCHETYPES
Pick one of the two classic options below to round out the character. Feel free to
expand upon these and make up your own rules. I mean, we’re not going to come
around to your house and stop you.
MAGIC USER
⬢ Pick 3 Scriptures from the Godbinder sheets. For each extra stat point increase
above the standard 2, choose an additional Scripture. These are all considered
spells. To cast a spell, choose a stat that governs your magic and roll a success.
(Intelligence and Charisma are both classic options, but don’t feel tied down by
tradition.)
⬢ The magic user starts with magic points equal to the total of two stats of their
choice. If the magic user fails to roll a success when casting a spell, one magic
point is consumed. When their magic points are exhausted, a magic user may
take Wounds instead to power their spells.
⬢ A magic user may also spend magic points to create an effect akin to a
Godbinder’s Miracles in the same manner as God Debt.
⬢ Determine the magic user’s field of magic, its limits and how they recover
magic points.
EXPLORATION PHASE
During the Exploration phase of the campaign structure, the party discovers the
nature of the world they’re in. As they discover fictional elements, you should arrange
them into lists of Great Powers and Factions:
⬢ A Great Power is any force which controls a region (or more) of Die.
⬢ A faction is any force which could control (or stop someone else controlling) a
region of Die. A Faction is most likely controlled by a Great Power.
Each Great Power will likely have multiple factions, representing their sphere of
influence.
Factions don’t have to be armies or troops. Powerful fortresses or quirks of the
landscape could count as factions. Powerful merchant guilds or a bureaucracy of
priests could work as one too. In almost all games, the Antagonist will be a Great
Power, as they control a region of Die. Any of the individual armies of the antagonist
would be a Faction.
INTERACTION STAGE
At this point, with the stage set, the world springs to life. If the party does nothing, the
world should change. If the party does something, everyone in the world will change
their plans based upon their impact.
During the Interaction stage, think about what each of the Great Powers are doing.
What’s everyone’s goal? What do they want? What are they doing to get it?
Fundamentally, if the players don’t intervene, what will happen?
If you realise something that you noted Most factions are controlled by a Great Power, so don’t need to be considered as
as a faction isn’t really a faction? Just closely, but if they are not, consider that too.
delete it. Something big in the world
Take these events, and fold them into your adventures, if only as news from off-stage.
which definitely is a faction? Add it to
If an event is big enough, be sure that your players hear about it—especially if it’s
the list. The narrative comes first.
something they would want to get involved with. Alternatively, it’s a great twist for
players to turn to a much loved region to discover while they’ve been off having
adventures, the Antagonist invaded it and wreaked havoc.
282 9. CAMPAIGN
The actions of a Great Power elsewhere Remember: the various Great Powers are likely reflections of the Personas. As such, a
make great cliff-hangers for completed war is really a dirty great metaphor, and the players getting involved is chance to move
adventures. They did WHAT? towards a Persona’s growth or catharsis. At the start of the campaign, adventures are
asking questions to the Personas. It’s likely during the Great Game, we’ll find answers
by seeing how the Personas act in these extreme conditions.
PLAYING THE GREAT GAME
This is something which looks a lot like While you can get a lot from just looking at the list of Great Powers and working out
a board game embedded inside a what they’ll be doing, it can sharpen your thinking to use a board game structure to
roleplaying game about people trapped organise this. While this isn’t a true balanced board game in any way, giving one
in a roleplaying game. That’s my kind of “move” to each Great Power between each adventure ensures that the world is fluid.
nonsense, right?
Take your map of Die and note which factions are located in which region. There’s
no limit to how many friendly factions can be placed in the same region. If at this
point you realise an organisation is especially powerful, you can just divide it into
multiple factions.
If you’re feeling fancy, printing out your Iain’s Army of spotlight-eyed backstagers marches across the realms. Rather than one
map of Die and putting tokens on it to faction, the GM decides it should be represented by six factions, which can be
represent factions certainly is a fun distributed appropriately across the conquered regions.
prop to cackle and pore over.
9. CAMPAIGN
Conquer
A Great Power attempts to gain control of a region. At least one faction moves from a
region a Great Power controls to one they do not. The fiction must conceptually allow
this attack.
While you’re playing the Great Game “Conquer” can be defined broadly. A cadre of spies moving in to assassinate the
between sessions, you likely will start leaders of an army and take control is conquering. Magicians hiding the sun to cause
thinking about the next move for a the people to submit to their rule is conquering. Merchants flooding a land with cheap
Great Power earlier. In other words, if merchandise can be conquering.
you know a Great Power’s next move
When an attack is declared, its results don’t happen until the end of the next
would be to try to conquer a region, it’s
adventure. The players have a whole adventure to try and intervene if they wish, via
a great piece of information to give the
heroic adventure and/or backstabbing. Let them know what’s at stake.
players at the end of a session—this
allows them to decide whether to go If nothing in the fiction prevents the war, you use the battle rules below to see who
and try and stop the attack, or just wins.
ignore it.
BATTLES IN THE GREAT GAME
Note these Battle rules only work if you’re abstracting a conquest attempt. If the
players are actually doing it as an adventure, go with the adventure.
For each side in the war, calculate a score.
+1 Supported by at least one Master or a non-Master with
comparable power.
+1 Supported by at least one dice-wielder.
If one score is higher than the other, the higher side wins.
It doesn’t matter how many factions If the scores are equal, each side rolls a dice pool the size of the number of factions
you have if the other side has a Master they control. The side with the most successes wins. If the number of successes are
or at least one of the dice—they will equal, it’s a stalemate and the battle will continue during the next adventure. For every
win. The dice are unique magical 6 in the dice pool, a side can destroy an opposing faction.
artefacts in DIE. This is at least one
The losing side must leave the region. If a faction can’t—either because it’s immobile
reason why the players are such a big
or there’s nowhere in the fiction for it to go—the faction is destroyed.
deal… and unless the players get
involved, a Master on the rampage is
going to flatten whoever they confront.
286 9. CAMPAIGN
REPLACING PLAYER CHARACTERS
As a DIE campaign involves endlessly exploring its core cast, adding a new player later
on can be as tricky as adding a new cast member to a long-running sitcom.
If it’s just for a session or two, use the secondary character rules (page 280) to generate
someone native to the fantasy world to accompany the party.
To add a new Persona, there are two options: choosing a pre-existing non-player
character from the real world and elevating them to a Persona, or creating a brand-
new Persona.
If choosing and elevating an NPC, work with the new player to see if there’s an
existing character in another Persona’s backstory that could be fun to play. If so, use
that as the core of a Persona and introduce them to the group. During their first
session, ask them Persona generation questions.
To create a brand-new Persona, ask the new player how this Persona knows the group,
and then ask the relevant questions from the sheet. Introduce them to the group.
Either way, introduce them to the group early in the session, either with one of the
missing dice (if there is a dice not aligned to the player) or carrying an unexplained
copy of one of the existing dice. They have no memory of how they got to Die. They
have a lot of real-world memories, but they have trouble working out which is “last.”
It’s possible that this missing player is the reason that the group’s ritual didn’t work
earlier. It’s possible people may not think this person is real. It’s possible they’re right.
At the end of the session, they join the closing ritual and play continues as normal.
288 9. CAMPAIGN
WHETHER THEY STAY OR LEAVE…
⬢ Is there anything anyone wants to know about any of the other Personas? Now’s
the time to ask questions.
⬢ What will you remember about this campaign, players?
⬢ What have you learned about games or yourself by playing this campaign?
⬢ Is there anything else you’d like to say to your fellow players before we end the
game?
⬢ Now, we’re going to collect the dice, one last time. I want you to pass each dice
to me, and say “The game is over.”
Note—not Persona, player. We are One last ceremonial circuit, each person passing the GM the dice. Take this as
ceremonially moving out of the magic solemnly as you can. The GM should be the last player.
circle now, and for most of these
Is there a final image you wish to present to the players? This is a good chance to
questions, they’re asking the player, not
provide closure to anything character who’s been left behind. What’s the last thing
the Persona.
you’d like to see on the screen in the movie?
Hold up your dice and say… “The game is…”
Then pause, and start describing your final image. Describe that final image, then
stop, let it sink in and start again…
“The game is over. Thank you for playing.”
Put the dice away and applaud everyone.
You did something magical. I’m so proud of you all.
PERSONA GENERATION
GM chooses one player to answer each question, but the group can and should also
chime in…
⬢ What was the real life activity which bound you all together?
⬥ You were a writers’ group at university
⬥ You were in a band
⬥ You were in a start-up
⬥ You were political activists
⬥ Something else
⬢ What was the group trying to achieve?
⬢ Where did you play the game?
⬢ The GM’s Persona ran the game. What was the name of the fantasy world
where our game was set?
⬥ The Molten Depths
⬥ The Forbidden Borderlands
⬥ The Twilight of the Neon Epoch
⬥ Something else
⬢ How many years has it been since you worked together?
⬥ 1 year
⬥ 5 years
⬥ 10 years
⬥ 20 years
⬥ Something else
PERSONA GENERATION
Ask each of the following questions in order to the respective Persona if they’re in the
game. If there’s no specific direction for the question, ask it to anyone you like.
Everyone should feel free to ask each other further questions inspired by the following
questions.
⬢ What year is it?
⬥ Now
⬥ 2011
⬥ 2001
⬥ 1991
⬥ Another year?
⬢ Why couldn’t you play the game at school?
⬥ Are you serious? We’d have been bullied to shit.
⬥ You really didn’t want certain other kids asking to play.
⬥ Roleplaying games are banned due to being a bad influence and/or
satanism.
⬥ We’d been barred from the roleplaying society for causing trouble.
⬥ Something else
⬢ Where did the group play instead?
⬥ At the richest friend’s house.
⬥ In the back of a local comic shop.
⬥ In the one sleazy bar in town that doesn’t check ID.
⬥ Somewhere else?
⬢ What was the name of the fantasy world where your game was set?
⬥ The Sepulchre of the Lost Gods
⬥ Diaspora of the Free People
⬥ Hellwar IV
⬥ Something else
At any point, a player can decide upon their Persona’s name. If so, write it down and
tell everyone.
Ask the whole group—including the GM—who wants to be peers and who wants to
be outsiders? The outsiders should be outnumbered by the peers.
301
ASK THE OLD GUARD:
⬢ You were in the fandom right at the beginning. What’s your origin story?
⬢ Why have you stayed in the fandom so long?
⬥ In real life I’m isolated and have no social capital. Here, I’m someone.
⬥ It’s a safe place away from the horror of my real life.
⬥ It’s comfortable. I don’t like change, even if it’s inevitable.
⬥ Something else
⬢ You have a story that you tell to cement your early fan cred. What is it?
ASK ANOTHER PLAYER:
⬢ Why do you know that story isn’t entirely true?
ASK THE OBSESSIVE:
⬢ Which character in the fandom do you love monomaniacally?
⬢ Why are you so engaged with this character specifically?
⬥ They are me. If you insult them, you insult me.
⬥ They’re my ideal self.
⬥ They’re my ideal other.
⬥ Something else
⬢ You got into a long running fight with another player for not showing sufficient
love to your fave. Who is it?
ASK THAT PLAYER:
⬢ What did you say to get the Obssessive’s goat up?
⬢ And, Obsessive—what did you do to retaliate?
ASK THE TROLL:
⬢ Which edgy, provocative and (mostly) bad-faith take are you famous for
holding in the fandom?
⬢ Why do you enjoy being an irritant to people?
⬥ I feel powerless in my real life.
⬥ I’m scared to confess what the property really provokes in me.
⬥ I just enjoy hurting people in a deniable fashion. Sorry, not sorry.
⬥ Something else.
⬢ You actively upset another member of the party with your trolling. It definitely
went too far. Who was it?
TO THAT PLAYER:
⬢ What happened?
ASK THE NEWBIE:
⬢ You’re new to the fandom. What was the recent event that brought you in?
⬢ What brought you into the fandom so hard?
⬥ I had no idea something could make me feel like this.
⬥ I had a bad break up and needed something new.
⬥ I’ve never been into a fandom before. I wasn’t allowed.
⬥ Something else
EXTRA PREPARATION
Print out the Fastgen sheets from the DIE Online Resources. These are virtually pre-
generated DIE characters, with each Paragon only having to make two final choices to
complete the character—their look and selecting a single core class ability.
Total Party Kill is designed to be played in a single session of at least three hours—it’s
the shortest scenario in the book, and optimised for one shot play. Before starting
play, calculate your total length of play and make a note of when the following times
will occur.
1 hour into your time: first encounter.
Halfway through your time: second encounter.
1 hour before the end of your time: third encounter.
15 minutes before the end of your time: end the game and debrief.
So if you have 3 hours to play, note down 1 hour, 1.5 hours, 2 hours, and 2:45. The end
of the game is before the strict end of the time slot to allow time for the final vote,
epilogues and decompression.
You will also need something to keep time and paper and pens to draw a map with.
CHARACTER GENERATION
The dice are distributed as normal. If in doubt, distribute them as follows:
Friend: Godbinder
Loved: Neo
Bully: Dictator
Bullied: Emotion Knight
Pitied: Fool
Rather than using the full character creation, pass the players the Fastgen sheets.
INTO DIE
The party find themselves in in a large cave, with a single exit—a closed gate. On it,
written in blood, the name of the killer dungeon with a “II” after it. As in, this is the
sequel to that killer dungeon. The dice float before them.
The Master grabs their D20, transforms and—as usual—spends a cheat token to
teleport away. The Fallen emerge from the ground. They each have a warped, leering
face of the Master. They whisper about the Personas’ betrayals and how they’re going
to get what they deserve.
After the battle, and the doors swing open. On the nearest wall, the rules are carved:
⬢ There are two exits to the dungeon. One leads back to Earth. The other doesn’t.
⬢ All living members of the party must leave together.
⬢ If an exit is not chosen, reality will collapse, and everyone will die.
…and written with blood: THIS TIME YOU DIE FOR REAL.
OMENS OF DOOM
After every major encounter, there’s an earthquake, and reality starts to crumble a
little more. Check how long there is left before the end of the game (02:45
02:45 15 minutes
before the end of your available time). A disembodied, robotic voice will state that’s
how long you’ve got until reality collapses.
CONFRONT THE MASTER: The Third Encounter (1 hour before the end)
This is the Final Encounter, and as such it’s important enough to get its own section
on page 315.
EPILOGUE
Works as per Rituals Endgame (page 136). As in, ask how the experience changed
them (or what their life in the fantasy world would be like) then add an extra detail.
EASY TO KILL
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 2 2 2
0 1 4 0
Abilities
Frenzied: Has an advantage on hand-to-hand attacks but can never have any Guard.
TRICKY TO KILL
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 3 2 2 2
2 2 4 1
Abilities
Elite: Attacks have Special: if this hit Wounds, cause an extra hit; and Special:
recover 1 Guard.
2 2 4 2 2 2
2 * 4 1
Abilities
Whatever they could fictionally do. *Has 1 Health for every persona in the game.
One-Monster Army: Attacks have Special: this attack also is applied to another
nearby target.
OVERVIEW
You were all part of an independent videomaker collective, but things went south and
your project—a low-budget horror movie—never came to fruition. Now, after
agreeing to play a strange game with an old colleague, you find yourselves trapped in
the world of the film playing the monstrous antagonists. Will you fight your way back
to reality, or reign in hell as kings?
Content Warning: Body horror, cruel/uncaring management, and murder (in self-
defence).
PERSONA GENERATION
The GM plays the Master—they funded the film, and it was clearly important to them
that it succeeded. Each player should select a role:
3 Players: The Director, the Writer, the Lead Actor
4 Players: Add the Producer
5 Players: Add the Intern
Ask each of the following questions in order to the relevant Persona if they’re in the
game. If there’s no specific direction for the question, ask it to anyone you like. If the
question refers to someone in the first person, that’s the GM speaking about
themselves—the person who funded the project.
323
THE RULES
The Personas find a torn page of a script nailed to the exit door. It reads:
INT. ARRIVAL ROOM—NIGHT
The players wake up in a strange room and are accosted
by several SUPPORTING CHARACTERS led by a bloodthirsty
PROTAGONIST.
PROTAGONIST
I’m not scared of you any more!
FALLEN PROTAGONIST
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
3 2 3 2 2 2
0 3 4 0
Abilities
Revenge Frenzy: Gains an advantage on hand-to-hand attacks, but can never have
any Guard.
Choose either:
2 2 2 2 2 2
0 2 4 0
Abilities
Revenge Frenzy: Gains an advantage on hand-to-hand attacks, but can never have
any Guard.
Ironic Comeuppance: If your attack uses the Supporting Character’s shtick against
them, it gains Special: the Supporting Character is killed.
2 2 2 3 3 2
2 2 6 0
Abilities
Slow-Motion: When you approach within arm’s reach of the Master, all physical
actions (such as fighting) suffer a disadvantage as your movements slow while theirs
stay at regular speed.
VIDEO NASTY
An amalgam of your fears jury-rigged into a nightmare gestalt; it doesn’t move, but it
exists in many different places at once. It is shadow and noise and wires and teeth and
flicker and broken glass. It wants your blood. It wants to show you that you don’t have
control.
Stats: All stats are 1 point higher than the highest stat rating amongst the Paragons
(or N). So if the highest Constitution in the party is 4, the Video Nasty has
Constitution 5, and so on.
Abilities
Know Your Place: The Video Nasty’s attacks gain Double-Special: sever, destroy or
otherwise neutralise a Paragon’s supernatural ability (for example, the Neo’s Gift of
the Fair, the Dictator’s Voice, the Emotion Knight’s Arcane Weapon and so on—use
your judgement, GM, and really put the hurt on them). The Paragon can regain the
ability by confessing a fear of theirs that they’ve hidden from the other characters,
and are ashamed to disclose.
Bound Demon: The Video Nasty is under the thrall of the Master, but only just. It
has no loyalty towards them, and should they lose control of it, it will happily attack
them as well.
EXTRA PREPARATION
Gather a convention map. Use any con map you can find and/or download. It tends to
work best with a con you’ve attended, so you can easily visualise and describe. If
you’re running this scenario at a con, use the map of the con you’re at.
PERSONA GENERATION
Each Persona should select a role (with the Master playing the Editor):
2 players: Comic Publisher and Writer (feel free to change Writer to
Cartoonist in a two-player game).
3 players: add Artist.
4 players: add Fan.
5 players: add Journalist.
Ask the following questions, in order. Skip all questions related to a Persona who isn’t
in the game. For example, in a two-player game, only ask the Publisher and Writer
questions. (Where these questions refer to “me,” that’s the Editor.)
ASK THE WRITER:
⬢ Congratulations! You’re the creator of a very successful book. What’s it called?
What is the genre?
⬢ What’s your greatest strength as a writer?
⬢ What was the worst thing about working with me?
⬢ Why do you sneakily respect the journalist?
⬢ The book is your big hit. Your only hit. Why?
INTO DIE
The party arrives in a warped mirror-dimension version of the room they’re playing
the game in. No one else is there. The windows are opaque. The colours are just off.
Textures are rough. Look too long at something and you start to feel vertigo.
As the Master, grab the D20, and then use a cheat token to teleport away saying “It
worked. Meet you in [Whatever the main hall is].”
In a few moments, a group of Fallen enter the room. They’re the big name creator and
a group of wannabe hacks—writers with blades for hands (one for each player)—stats
are in the Bestiary at the end of this adventure.
If a rival creator has not turned up in the world generation, use one (or more!) of the
Personas’ hero figures as the inspiration for the big-name creator. If no other
motivation has presented itself, the big-name creator is angry at them for plagiarising
them.
BESTIARY
WANNABE HACK
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 0 2 2 2 2
0 2 4 0
Abilities
BIG-NAME CREATOR
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
4 0 4 2 2 2
0 4 2 1
Abilities
Every second round, vomit a flood of inky blood, which can hit anyone directly in
front of them. This attack has Special: if Wounded, target misses a turn.
Thanks to playtesters: Jody Houser, Amy Dallen, Sam De Leve, Jim Zub, Shaun
Manning.
2 0 2 2 2 2
0 0 2 0
Abilities
Aggressive Hug: Hits can only reduce Guard, not Health. Special: a Fan holds onto
the player, causing a disadvantage on all actions until they’re beaten away. If a target
has a number of fans equal to their Strength holding on, the target suffers 1 Wound
per turn as the fans start to affectionately tear them apart.
EXTRA PREPARATION
As well as keeping notes in Persona Generation, you should be prepared to take notes
for an Encounter List: a collection of things which are in the fantasy world which the
players have yet to encounter.
PERSONA GENERATION
Ask the questions in Rituals, or any other social group from this chapter.
PARAGON GENERATION
Distribute the dice to the players, as per Rituals.
MASTER’S MOTIVATION
Worked out from the Persona Generation questions, as per Rituals.
GM ADVICE ON ATMOSPHERE
DIE is always at least a little meta—this set-up, especially
with how the adventure starts, can be a lot meta. The
cold open when you arrive in Die is straight
deconstructionary and the fact the world is mashed
together and confusing is justified by the fact it is based
on someone’s first scenario. It makes no sense, as they
rarely do.
The target tone is black comedy inching into
horror. Players will likely laugh to start
with. Dig past the laughs to get to
something bleaker. Orcs begging you to
kill them and take their stuff can be funny.
Continuing to do it while you describe in detail
(Lines and Veils withstanding) how their skin is
sloughing off after they’ve been set on fire can
perhaps reach another place.
336
INTO DIE
The party emerges into the centre of a 20 foot by 20 foot room, with a 10 foot high
ceiling. Exactly. A dungeon room. That’s the only way to explain it.
Their dice float before them. In the middle of the north wall is a wooden door. The
players do not know why this wall is to the north—they just do. The players may
realise that they can’t identify the sort of wood the door is made of, any more than “it’s
wood.” It’s platonic wood. Its woodiness cannot be denied. The walls and ceiling are
made of dungeon. Do not explain what that means. It means dungeon.
The Master grabs the D20, spends a cheat token, and teleports away. Before
disappearing, the master says, “Oh, I need to set up!”
337
REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME
Players arrive in the bar where their first adventure started, as per normal for
Rituals (page 107). The encounter here continues as normal (i.e. establish how to get
home to the real world) except that no-one can quite remember where the final
encounter actually is. (It was a long time ago.) Instead, give the Personas a general
direction to head.
The second the players leave the bar, things change. Normally, you’d ask the players
what is outside, and use their answers to establish the nature of the world.
You still ask them what’s outside… but then ask them to roll a D6, and look up the
results on the following secret table. Do this any time you ask a question to the
players to establish what happens next.
1. Correct.
The encounter is entirely as they remember. (Yes, there was a path to a
fantasy town.)
2. Wrong.
Their memory is 100% off in one large and crucial fashion. (Yes, there was a
path, but it leads to a dark castle.)
3. Exactly as they remember, with one other element.
Ask another player what’s missing here. Incorporate their answer. (Yes, there
was a path to a fantasy town, and it had a rickety bridge across a chasm
halfway along.)
4. Exactly as they remember, with one other element… but off.
Ask another player what’s missing here. The opposite of their answer is what’s
missing. (Yes, there was a path to a fantasy town, but the bridge halfway
along that crossed the chasm is missing.)
5–6. The Encounter List
Add the answer to the Encounter List. If there’s already things written on the
Encounter List, the GM chooses one, crosses it out and it happens now. If the
list was empty, ask another player what happens next and then re-roll. If that
re-roll turns up 5–6 again, also add it to the list, and ask another player.
Continue until something other than 5–6 is rolled. (The thing which the
Persona remembers absolutely is in the game… but not here. It will turn up
at a random point in the future.)
As always, the GM should take the encounter you’ve generated and integrate
material from the Personas’ backgrounds and desires to colour the experience.
Continue the process until you have time for one more encounter. Then proceed to
the Final Encounter.
EPILOGUE
Works entirely as described in Rituals Endgame (page 136). If players return to the
real world, ask what they’ve learned and give a specific detail. If they stay, ask about
their life here, and add a beat from the real world.
BESTIARY
KOBOLDS
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 2 2 2
0 1 0 0
Does whatever a kobold does and looks like whatever a party remembers a kobold
to look like. Ask the players, find out. I have no idea.
For additional stats from this adventure, see the full Bestiary beginning on page 183.
Thanks to playtesters: Jim Rossignol, James Hewitt, Chris Gardiner.
339
DIE: DEVELOPMENT HELL
OVERVIEW
You’re all on an indie game team working on the creative director’s masterwork. The
project has been in progress for years, and the company has been in crunch
(punishing overtime) for most of the last year. It’s running out of money. Many people
have left the team. It’s sort of becoming an industry joke. Many people think the game
won’t come out. There’s at least another year of development ahead.
Today, you’re having a video conference meeting to do a team exercise to try and
increase morale. You’re playing some old nineties roleplaying game.
Content Warning: Abusive managers, stress and deadlines.
EXTRA PREPARATION
This scenario is designed to be played online, and the Personas gathered on a work
video chat. This game is likely best in multiple sessions, but we include some advice
on how to narrow it down.
PARAGON GENERATION
The Creative Lead has a morale-building exercise he wants everyone to be involved
with. We’re months behind schedule, so no-one’s very enthusiastic about it, but
attendance is compulsory. The Creative Lead has got everyone into the group
conferencing software to have this game.
The roles are distributed as so:
Design Lead: Godbinder
QA: Emotion Knight—specifically a Vigilance Knight
Star Coder: Neo
Marketing: Dictator
Intern: Fool
If the Design Lead is particularly (ahem) dictatorial and the Marketing player is a
little friendlier, you can swap their roles.
INTO DIE
The party arrives in a blank wireframe—a mesh of untextured grids that make up the
skeleton of a digital 3D world. The dice are the only solid objects in the universe. The
Master grabs the D20 and uses a cheat token to teleport away. From then on, the
Master interacts with the group as the voice of god from the sky, or pop-up text in the
top right of a player’s vision.
The world starts to flicker into existence, and it appears to resemble a 21st century
Earth reality. It gets almost all the way—and then starts to crash and fail. The bugs
arrive, attacking the party. Have one bug for each of the players, plus one crash bug.
The bugs’ stats are in the Bestiary.
Use the nature of the bugs mentioned from the QA’s answers in character generation
to personalise them. These bugs are our Fallen.
After the bugs are defeated, reality collapses back to the wireframe. A whiteboard
appears, with a message from the Master. In their handwriting is written the phrase:
“Genius Steals. We need to find the essence.”
On the whiteboard is a list of each one of the Master’s inspirations—the ones the
players generated in the Persona Generation section.
Present the party with a digital menu hovering in front of their eyes which gives them
the option of which of the tasks to attempt. Whenever anyone selects one, they are all
transported to a warped version of the location.
At which point, end the first session.
EPILOGUE
If the players return to reality, it’s the same as in Rituals, but ask a couple
more questions. Specifically, the fate of the game—was it finished? What
compromises did they come to?
If the Personas choose to stay, it’s a little unusual in that the world they’re
on is seemingly identical to Earth, bar the things which aren’t quite… right.
Underline that it’s a perfect life, and the Personas barely even notice the
world slows down when you’re in a crowd any more. Barely.
2 0 2 2 2 2
0 2 4 0
Abilities
CRASH BUGS
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
4 0 4 2 2 2
0 4 4 1
Abilities
Every second round, as well as its usual attack, it creates a fissure in reality attacking
anyone in close range. Special: target suffers a disadvantage on all actions for one
round.
EQUIPMENT
Choose one of the following options:
⬢ Quarterstaff (Special: recover 1 Guard)
⬢ An elegant handgun (Special: if a hit Wounds, it does 2 Wounds against
unarmoured opponents)
⬢ A huge tome (gains an advantage on tasks involving research; heavy enough to
be an improvised club)
YOUR LOOK
You are wearing (Defence 0):
⬢ Wizard robes straight out of a 1980s kids fantasy cartoon.
⬢ Killer suits straight off a 1980s corporate bad guy.
⬢ Fetish-wear straight out of a 1990s vampire LARP
⬢ Something else
MY GAME, MY RULES
Select three rules from the Rules In Full section—elements of reality that you can
manipulate with magic. You have power over these rules, and you do not suffer Risk
when you add them to spells that you have crafted.
RULES MASTERY
The Master starts every session with Mastery. You keep this until otherwise stated. If a
Master has Mastery, they’re allowed to add their D20 when casting spells. If the D20 is
added to the pool, the dice roll includes the following 20-Special which is activated on
the result of a 20. 20-Special: this success counts as two successes.
If you lose Mastery, it will return at the start of the next session.
RULES LAWYERING
Wizards learn spells from books. Amateurs. A Master gets to manufacture their own
spells by imaginatively combining rules. Want to throw a fireball? Easy. Combine the
Range, Area and Damage Duration rules and get chucking. Want that fireball to chain
between targets and immolate the ground around you? Put Damage Chain and Create
Obstacle in there. The sky’s the limit—but the more audacious you get, the more you
risk retribution from the Powers That Be.
Masters aren’t limited by the rules they’ve selected, or the limits they describe. They
have access to all of the rules—but not safe access to them.
11. APPENDICES
THE RULES IN FULL
There’s two sorts of rules. Ones which change who is targeted and ones that change
what happens. If you don’t include any rules that change who is targeted the spell will
happen instantaneously at touch range (as in, it will affect yourself or what you’re
touching).
With each selection, the Master defines what these rules look like in the narrative
when they’re incorporated in a spell. For example, if you choose Damage Duration
you can describe it as fire and its narrative effect would be to set things alight.
You can choose the same rule multiple times, changing its description each time. In
addition to Damage Duration as fire, you could also select toxic sludge and rat swarm
as Damage Duration rules.
There’s a lot of rules. Don’t be Some rules require the Master to choose a specific target to affect. This can be a stat or
overwhelmed. If you’re in a rush, pick a type of action (ranged attacks, personal interaction and more). This will come into
Range, Area and Damage Duration play for rules like Enhance and Hinder.
and define it as fire. That’ll let you
Rules do the effect they describe. An Area (“melee range”) could be limited to any
reliably throw a fireball. What’s a
area smaller than arm’s reach. A Fire Damage effect could be used to light a match.
wizard who can’t throw a fireball,
right?
RULES THAT CHANGE WHO IS TARGETED
Range The effect is able to reach as far as medium range.
Area Affect all within melee range of the target area.
Duration Lasts for the duration of an encounter.
Selectivity Allows you to remove yourself from the effects of a spell.
2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 4 0
NEGATIVE RULES
These are a selection of rules which can be used to make an ability more powerful, at a
cost.
For each negative rule added to the spell, you either:
1. Add Special: this success counts as two successes.
2. Reduce the Risk by 5.
Component The spell requires a hard-to-come-by, thematically-relevant
component to work.
Blood Cost Causes 1 Wound to the caster, or a bound and prepared target,
when cast.
Taint of Suffer at least one disadvantage on any social check for the rest
Damnation of the adventure.
Secrets You must share one secret with someone who doesn’t know it.
This secret must be meaningful to them, or cause a significant
cost to you.
HARDCORE CHEATING
Rules can be bent, stretched and manipulated into achieving all kinds of effects, but
there’s a greater magic at your control. You can break the laws of the universe entirely;
you can cheat. But such blatant disregard for the underlying forces of reality comes
with a steep cost if discovered by the Powers That Be.
Every Master has a style or a preference. What’s yours? Choose one.
Gamist Master: You’re into messing with the rules written in this book.
Simulationist You’re into messing with the physical laws of the world.
Master:
Narrativist Master: You’re into messing with the story.
Cheats can be anything in the area of your style. A Gamist Master’s cheats will be
bending and breaking rules, so maybe characters don’t die when their Health reaches
0. A Simulationist Master will be twisting the physical laws of reality, causing gravity
to change or storms to fall in deserts. A Narrativist Master will be twisting the story,
having exactly the right stranger turn up at the right time.
A player-controlled master Master To cheat, describe what you want to achieve, and the GM describes a punishment (if
does not get cheat tokens like a GM- you’re caught). If you wish to continue, take two containers (a hand would be
controlled Master does. Life is unfair, standard) and secretly hide the D20 in one of them.
but so is being outnumbered 5 to 1.
NARRATIVIST CHEATS
MINOR Summon an established element into narrative.
For example: The famous thief everyone’s been talking about arrives on the
scene.
Punishment: Lose Mastery, community service.
MAJOR Establish a new fact about something in the existing narrative.
For example: For example; the famous thief arrives on the scene… and loves
helping out dimension-skipping adventurers.
Punishment: 1–2 Wounds, ongoing curses until task completed.
OUTRAGEOUS Introduce a whole new element to the fiction of your own
design.
For example: “Hey—there’s this awesome thief in this world, and they love
helping out dimension-skipping adventurers. And they’re
standing just over there!”
Punishment: Death.
11. APPENDICES
SIMULATIONIST CHEATS
The Narrativist, Simulationist and MINOR Highly unlikely events happen.
Gamist division is lifting terminology
For example: A once-in-a-decade storm hits a coastal town. You find an oasis
from the old threefold-model theory
in a desert.
by Ron Edwards. Go nose at it, but
know that the conversation’s moved Punishment: Lose Mastery, community service.
on since Edwards thought it up.
MAJOR Extremely unlikely events happen.
For example: A record-breaking tidal wave hits a coastal town. A rainstorm in
a desert.
Punishment: 1–2 Wounds, ongoing curses until task completed.
OUTRAGEOUS Break fundamental laws of physics.
For example: A record-breaking tidal wave hits an inland town. Sand is edible.
Punishment: Death.
A GREAT RULE
Choose one of your existing rules. You can now use it as “slightly more than the rule”
as if it were the normal definition of the rule—you can push your luck just a little and
not gain the 1 Risk that would normally be incurred.
MULTIMASTER
You are now less limited by the petty restrictions of GNS theory. The first time you
select this advancement, pick one of the two Master types (Gamist, Narrativist or
Simulationist) that you did not select when you created your character; you may now
perform the lowest tier of Hardcore Cheating related to that domain.
Subsequent selections of this advancement allow you to increase the tier of Hardcore
Cheats you can undertake in a domain by one step or unlock access to a new domain.
NEW NEW
RULE RULE
THE REALM THE
GUIDE MASTERY MANUAL
NEW
RULE
A
TO THE DUNGEON
DUNGEON! OF ONE’S OWN
NEW
RULE
SLOW
AND
STEADY
NEW NEW
RULE RULE
FURTHER READING FURTHER
MASTERY THE RULES MASTERY
START
MASTER
ADVANCEMENT MAP
Add a point to any stat (to a max of 4) on each of the following:
Level 3
Level 6
Level 9
Level 12
At Level 20: Grandmaster
TO THE DUNGEON!
The Master is able to teleport to any place in any realm they have mastery of—or to
any place which a Master who does have mastery of the area has given you
permission to go to.
Define what your teleportation looks like. You can bring a party-worth of people
with you.
REALM MASTERY
A Master can now become Master of a region of Die. If an area has no Master, simply
claim it. If an area has a Master, you must force them to surrender it. They can
expand their dominion indefinitely if they’re able to claim more terrains.
As in all areas where you are Master, you gain access to the Realm Master Hardcore
Cheats when inside a region.
Also choose an advance from Further Mastery.
365
WRITING THE RULES
These four high level abilities all share a similar ability to fundamentally change the
world: handbook, manual, guide and arcana.
To take any of these abilities, you must be a Realm Master. This can be either a
position you have gained via Realm Mastery or the dungeon from a Dungeon of One’s
Own.
The nature of the realm you own should be worked into whatever you create using
this ability.
THE HANDBOOK
Collaborate with the GM to add a whole new sort of adventurer to the world. What do
they do? What is their reputation? To whom do they owe allegiance? And, most
importantly, why are they thought of as heroic?
Roll your Intelligence pool, including the D20, when you create it. That’s how large its
greatest band of heroes are. They can be sent to perform missions separate to the party
as per the compressed adventure rules in the DIE: The Campaign (page 279).
THE MANUAL
Collaborate with the GM to add a whole new monstrous species to the world. What
do they look like? What do they want? To whom do they owe allegiance? And, most
importantly, why are they thought of as monsters?
If there is an empty region in the map of Die, this is their homeland. If not, they
emerge into the realm where the Master has created them.
They are a Great Power. Roll your Intelligence pool, including the D20, when you
create it. You have as many factions within the Great Power as you have rolled
successes—define them.
THE GUIDE
Collaborate with the GM to add a whole new realm to this world. What is it known
for? What are the landmarks? What can be found there? And most importantly, why
do people never go there?
Select an empty region on the map of Die to be where this is.
Roll an Intelligence pool, including the D20. For each success, define one thing which
can be found in this realm. When you define it, also define what prevents people
taking it.
Hit someone within arm’s reach. Special: ignite opponent, doing 1 hit per round
until extinguished.
Rules Heal
All physical attacks on the spell caster for a combat suffer one disadvantage.
Target heals 3 Health to the target. Has Special: heals 1 additional Health, three
times.
11. APPENDICES
FIRE BLAST Risk 10
Throw a blast of fire at someone in a fiery attack. Special: ignite opponent, doing 1
hit per round until extinguished.
FIREBALL Risk 17
Rules Damage Duration (fire), Ranged (slightly more), Area (slightly more)
Throw a ball of fire to bow range which explodes into an area big enough to hit
anyone in a room-sized space. The attack has Special: ignite opponent, doing 1 hit
per round until extinguished.
Throw a bolt of lightning at a target up to bow range. It has Special: this attack can
hit another target in the vicinity. You can use this Special up to three times.
A burst of fire which hits anyone near to you, but not hurting you at all.
Special: ignite opponent, doing 1 hit per round until extinguished.
Any one weapon can be set on fire until the end of the combat, and its attack will
deliver Special: ignite opponent, doing 1 hit per round until extinguished.
Lets you know what is magical in the immediate area around you.
Lets you know if an object you’re touching is evil. Who knows what “evil” means,
right? You’ll note this is identical to the Detect Magic Spells above, so anything like
a “Detect” spell works like this.
Dispels any transitory magical spell within a short range. As in: if someone cast it
recently, you can undo it. If it’s a permanent uncanny effect, like a flying castle’s
ability to hover, you can’t switch it off with this.
Any one weapon can be covered with a poison for one combat, gains
Special: poisons opponent, doing 1 hit per round until removed.
Everyone near the caster when they cast the spell gets an advantage on attacks for
the duration of one combat.
Any foes near the caster (except the caster) will receive a disadvantage on any
attacks made.
LEVITATE Risk 10
Rules Levitation
When cast, the caster can fall safely from any height.
FLIGHT Risk 15
The caster can fly as fast as a horse can run for the length of a combat.
HORSELEGS Risk 10
For the length of an encounter, the caster can run at the speed of a horse
TELEKINESIS Risk 10
The caster can move a nearby object with the power of their mind.
TELEPORT Risk 16
The caster can teleport themselves instantly at a spot within bow range visible to
line of sight.
Creates a door in space which lasts for the length of an encounter. Anyone who
walks through it can appear in any location.
The caster gains an advantage on any attempts to persuade a target for the length of
an encounter.
INVISIBILITY Risk 10
For the length of one encounter, the target becomes shadowy and barely seen. The
spell ends if the target makes hostile actions.
POLYMORPH Risk 11
For the length of an encounter, the caster can change the shape of any human-sized
creature within touch range. This does not include any special abilities or changing
stats.
ILLUSION Risk 16
The caster can change the area around themselves to appear entirely as they wish.
Animals can understand your speech and you can understand their responses, for
the length of an encounter.
SLEEP Risk 21
Several individuals nearby to the caster may be put to sleep. The attack does no
damage, and has the following Specials: if the character has 4 Willpower or less,
they fall asleep. Double-Special: if the character has 6 Willpower or less, they fall
asleep. 20-Special: the character falls asleep.
Fill the area in front of the caster with a blast of hypercold, risking freezing any
individual inside it. The attack has Special: as their limbs freeze, target suffers a
disadvantage on next action.
Create a wooden wall which has a Health equivalent to twice as many successes
rolled in its creation. It must be destroyed before it can be passed. If not, it crumbles
in an hour.
Create a stone wall which has a Health equivalent to four times as many successes
rolled in its creation. It must be destroyed before it can be passed. If not, it crumbles
in an hour.
Caster shouts magically-charged words at the target’s subconscious with such vitriol
as to cause physical harm. Attack has Special: target suffers a disadvantage on next
action due to crushing existential questions about how they are just useless, and no-
one will ever love them.
You create an automaton which will obey your direct commands. It has no mind of
its own.
LIVING SERVANT
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 4 0
Craft a creepy doll (stats as Living Servant) that can follow your direct orders but
lacks the means to act under its own initiative. You can be in telepathic contact with
it at will, over any distance.
Create a violent, aggressive creature you can control at short range. It lasts for about
the length of a combat. It can only attack and harm.
IMP
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 4 0
Abilities
Its attacks have Special: ignite opponent, doing 1 hit per round until extinguished.
Summon a parasitic monster under your control for the length of an encounter.
GHOUL
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 4 0
Abilities
The ghoul’s attacks have Special: the target’s next action suffers a disadvantage.
Summon a parasitic monster under your control for the length of an encounter.
GREATER GHOUL
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
3 2 3 2 2 2
2 3 4 0
Abilities
The ghoul’s attacks have Special: the target’s next action suffers a disadvantage.
2 2 2 2 2 2
2 3 4 0
Abilities
The snake’s attacks have Special: poison opponent, doing 1 hit per round until
purged. You have no control over the snake.
11. APPENDICES
PERSONA GENERATION NOTES
Here’s what I wrote down for each of the Personas during the first session.
THE GROUP
Well... it isn’t exactly what I wrote down. ⬢ The game was 10 years ago.
What I wrote down was intelligible only ⬢ The Personas were part of a drama society at a (mainly sporty) selective school.
to me, consisting of random key words. ⬢ The game was literally played on stage.
This is what my notes meant. Don’t
expect yours to look clean like this either. ALISTAIR (DICTATOR—DISGUST, HE/HIM)—CHRIS
⬢ Richest person in school. Military family. Everyone wondered why he was here,
rather than Eton. He didn’t know the reason, then.
⬢ Elitist snob. Played with the group in secret… because he actually likes it, and
he likes drama. He lied to his posh friends about it.
⬢ He enjoyed the challenge—life was easy. This was hard.
⬢ Disliked people being better than him at the game.
⬢ Extremely popular in the mainstream school (hence hiding this nerd stuff).
⬢ Comes across smarter than he actually is.
⬢ Likes Caroline for her lack of giving a fuck. Disliked Mel for her star quality…
was kinda grateful when she broke her legs.
⬢ Loves WW2 films, and the aesthetic.
⬢ Spent years in prison in his 20s, due to being unknowingly part of his Dad’s
insider trading scheme (signed some papers, didn’t realise). Lost everything.
⬢ Mundane life. Grey suit. Office job. Not allowed to work in a bank or finance.
Lives in suburbia. Drudgery. Kids.
⬢ Cares for partner, but worries about ability to provide.
⬢ Dreading going back to reunion—he was popular. Now he’s… this.
⬢ Drinks a lot.
NECESSARY ENCOUNTERS
Okay—now how to show this in the game, and work out how to give it. Which
combination of a passive lack (something which is fulfilled by being on Die), absent
lack (something which is fulfilled only by staying on Die) or an active lack (something
which they actively do on Die—so needing a necessary encounter in the adventure)?
I note that for the five characters, there’s actually two pairs who have similar sorts of
goals… just very different spins. For me, that’s a useful example of how one can decide
what necessary encounters are needed.
Alistair is about regaining his fortune. I’d say this is best as an absent lack—he gets to
have this status and money if he stays, and not before. I also think it’s an active lack—
it’s most interesting if Alistair actively has a chance to reclaim this fortune in the
world. Who doesn’t want a big confrontation with an echo of the Dad who screwed
them over, right? As an active lack, we need a necessary encounter for that.
Mel is about being a hero. In this case, while Mel does like earning the credit, I think
she’s such a glory hound, she’ll want to be treated as a hero every second she’s here. As
such, it’s a passive lack. People should be hailing her the second she turns up.
However, she also wants a chance to prove her mettle—which makes it an active lack.
We add a second necessary encounter.
Alex wants a world which is endlessly fascinating. That’s a passive lack—we simply
need to stress how interesting the world is at every point. However, for Alex’s
academic bent, I think this is also an active lack. There needs to be a specific
encounter when he realises how big this world is, and how endless the fascination
could be. We add a third necessary encounter.
Morgan is similar to Alex—they just need to be in a more interesting place. As such,
it’s a passive lack. However, I don’t think Morgan needs a specific moment to stress
that this is an endlessly novel world… Morgan just wants it to be less boring than
Earth. We can show that as we travel. No need for a necessary encounter.
Hestia wants to be a messiah? Like Mel, this could be a passive lack, her immediately
being treated as a saviour… but Hestia is about getting credit for helping people. As
such, it’s an active lack, and we need an encounter where Hestia gets to save a lot of
people. We add a necessary encounter to the list. I also think it’s an absent lack—we
need to stress that this world needs Hestia to deal with other similar problems.
OBSESSION PEOPLE
⬢ Jack Reacher from the novels ⬢ Amanda Palmer
⬢ Alex’s many RPG characters— ⬢ Maroon 5
robot boys ⬢ Ellie Goulding [Hestia’s god!]
⬢ Dante ⬢ People who really like flanking
⬢ Virgil [The guide from
Dante’s Inferno]
QUESTIONS
The secret of the questions phase is that just because you have done all the above,
your mind will be chewing over these imaginary people, and you’ll likely have now
germinated some key questions you’re interested in. Here’s some which occurred
when I was doing this:
Alistair What things did you have when you were rich that you miss
now?
What was it like in Prison?
Mel Come on. Details. Why did you jump off the roof?
Where have you been stationed as a soldier?
Alex You were a teenage activist. What were your causes?
You have trouble maintaining interest. What things have you
burned out on?
Hestia You settled for your career. Did you settle for your husband?
Your parents were very practical. You’ve gone idealistic. When
asked what do you say about that? How true is it?
Morgan Why does anyone hang out with you when you’re so
unremittingly hostile?
What’s the company? How did you form a company and make
people follow you? Why do people follow you?
DON’T OVER-PREPARE
That’s a good idea. I’ll stop.
PARANOIA
The first RPG I ever played as a teenager which made me realise that game design, in
all its parts, could be art. Also, that art includes slapstick. The idea that intra-party
aggression and player death, if framed correctly to serve a higher aesthetic purpose,
could be a feature not a bug starts here.
MONSTERHEARTS 2
Speaking of Apocalypse World, Avery Alder’s Monsterhearts 2 is a game of sexy queer
teenage angsty monsters, and a metaphor run gloriously rampant. It’s Ginger Snaps
the RPG. DIE doesn’t mechanise relationships like Monsterhearts does for aesthetic
reasons, but I can’t say I wasn’t tempted. If you’re thinking of questions like “How to
play responsibly,” this slim, elegant and brilliant tome is just wonderful. For the
record, if you were to try and run a WicDiv RPG, this is your choice.
LEGEND/LORDS OF CHAOS
Two RPG/strategy games with spell construction systems which are the clear
influence for how the player Master assembles rules. I’ll bet classic RPG Ars Magica
does exactly the same thing, but I’ve never read it. Oops.
ALAS VEGAS
James Wallis’ Lynchean game of memory loss was an influence especially in DIE’s
beta. It’s such a pugnacious manual that I leaned into the strong argumentative,
conspiratorial voice in response. That’s been pruned significantly in the final release
(which helped cut the manuscript from its original getting-on-for-300,000 words) but
when I get a bit punchy, I’m thinking of James.
FIASCO
Jason Morningstar’s seminal narrative storytelling game is, to use the idiom of the
1980s games press, a Coen-brothers-’em-up. I’ve played a lot of narrative games since,
but Fiasco is what made me realise I could start a game like I start DIE. Persona
Generation in the form you see in Rituals owes more than a little to this.
HALO
Invented the “shield and health” dual-health system in videogames which is a clear
influence on the damage system in DIE. The mechanic meant that rather than fights
either being entirely safe (when your health is high) or entirely deadly (when your
health is low) it pushed all fights towards that razor edge. I say invented, but I bet it
was in Marathon, and I just can’t be bothered to Google to find out.
The audacity, I know.
HEART/SPIRE
Our publisher’s other games do seem to file under the “in conversation with” part of
DIE. Heart: The City Beneath especially seems to be walking a parallel path: adventurers
moving through a dungeon which externalises their internal horrors and tempts them.
However, the Resistance system which both run off—where challenges are given
essentially “hit points” to overcome—is increasingly an obvious influence on DIE when
you start using the core mechanic to abstract challenges. That I saw it work so well in
Spire: The City Must Fall & Heart: The City Beneath meant I knew it could land here too.
To be fair, lots of PbtA games use clocks and other abstraction techniques. The
Resistance system just skipping the clock aspect and giving it a score is key to me.
Essentially, on a technical level, DIE’s core system runs on a success economy (with a
secondary Specials economy). But I digress. This is nerdy math stuff. That’s not why you
play either Heart or Spire.
THE GAUNTLET
Not a game, but a play community that I spent years watching before finally joining,
and where I got first-hand experience about a lot of what I consider the sort of play
culture I want to help propagate with DIE. Gauntlet Publishing also does a bunch of
great games, none of which I think are a direct reference. Closest to DIE is Trophy Dark,
which is a game of doomed adventurers going into an environment that tortures them,
but you want to nose at Hearts of Wulin (Wuxia PbtA melodrama) and Brindlewood
Bay (Murder She Wrote vs cosmic horror).
COMICS GAMES
⬢ DIE, volumes 1–4, by Kieron ⬢ Life is Strange (2015)
Gillen and Stephanie Hans ⬢ The Longest Journey (1999)
⬢ Young Avengers, volumes 1–3, by ⬢ Bioshock Infinite (2013)
Gillen, McKelvie and Wilson
⬢ “Murder Park” Phonogram: Rue BOOKS
Britannia, episode 4, by Gillen,
⬢ The Wayward Children Novellas by
McKelvie and Wilson
Seanan McGuire
⬢ Horde, by Bennett and Leiz
⬢ It by Stephen King
⬢ A Christmas Carol by Charles
FILMS
Dickens
⬢ Labyrinth (1986) ⬢ The Mirror of Galadriel, The Lord
⬢ It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
⬢ Hellraiser (1987) ⬢ Rabbits by Terry Miles
⬢ Jumanji (2017)
⬢ Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) MUSIC & MUSIC VIDEOS
⬢ A Nightmare on Elm Street 3
⬢ “The Riddle” by Nick Kershaw
(1987)
⬢ “I Disagree” by Poppy
⬢ Groundhog Day (1993)
⬢ “Little Fluffy Clouds” by The Orb
⬢ The World’s End (2013)
⬢ “Going to Hell” by The Long
⬢ Palm Springs (2020)
Blondes
⬢ Time Bandits (1981)
⬢ The Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
(especially “Cloudbusting”)
TV
⬢ “There She Goes, My Beautiful
⬢ Loki (2021) World” by Nick Cave & The Bad
⬢ WandaVision (2021) Seeds
⬢ “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” ⬢ “Immaterial” by SOPHIE
Community, season 2, episode 11
⬢ “I am” Lovecraft Country, season POEMS
1, episode 7
⬢ Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer
⬢ “Better than Life” Red Dwarf,
Maria Rilke
season 2, episode 8
⬢ “Angels & Demons” Red Dwarf,
INTERNET HOLES TO FALL DOWN
season 5, episode 5
⬢ Dungeons & Dragons (1983) ⬢ Search for “Silverwolf games.”
393
12. INDEX
A
Abilities 19, 233 Character 3, 117 Duel 60. see also Venting Abilities NPC Stats 185
Action 13 Character Generation (Ritual) 108 Duel of Words 31 Running The... 150–151
Active Defence Protocol 76. see Charisma 3, 7 Dungeon 365 Fool's Charm 51
also Force Field Chimera 206 Duo Port 75. see also Blink Fool's Gold 50
Active Update 74. see also Light Chosen of the Fair 81. see also Fair, Teleporter Fool’s Prep 50
Field Projector The During The Break 108 Fools Rush In 50
Advancement 19–20, 22, 25 Class 3. see also Paragons Dwarf 214 Force Field 76
Campaign 21 Class Dice 3, 9 Freeform Persona Generation 304
E
Full 20 Clean Slate 46 Full Advancement 20
Echoes 187, 276
Quick 20 Cleave 74. see also Energy Weapon Full AI Enhancement 77
Eeek! 62. see also Emotion Stances
Advancement Map 22–24, 67 Climax, The 109, 135
Elemental 215 G
Dictator 33 Close Range 12. see also Range
Elf 216 Gamemaster (GM) 3
Emotion Knight 65 Closing Ritual, The 109, 119
Emotion Draining 64 Gang, The 35
Fool 47 Clown School 50
Emotion Knight 1, 3, 19, 53–67 Gargoyle 219
Godbinder 99 Clownshow 50
Advancement 64–65 Ghoul 220
Master 363 Cockatrice 207
Emotion Wheel 55 Giant Worm 221
Neo 79 Comabt Stances 61
NPC Stats 185 Giants 222
Adventure Structure 178 Combat 11
Running The... 152–156 Gig, The 35
Agent 34 Combat Frenzy 60. see also Venting
Stances & Venting Abilities 60 Gnome 228
AI-Assisted Targeting 73. see also Abilities
Combat 61 Goblin 223
Gun (Gift) Combat Shift Protocol 75. see also
Emotion 62 God Banking 100
Alert 75. see also Pet Blink Teleporter
Social 61 God Contract 84
Antagonist 3, 124, 127, 168, 386 Combat Stances 61
Venting 60 God Debt 85
Arcane Weapon 54, 56, 58, 61, Common Touch 61. see also Social
Emotion Stances 62 Godbinder 1, 3, 19, 82–101,
64, 152 Stances
Emotion Vampire 66 160–163
Artist's Progress, An 32–33 Concept, Aim, Tone and Subject
Emotion Wheel 29, 55 Advancement 98–101
Attacking 12–14, 17. see also Matter 143. see also Safety Tools
Emotional Capital 37 NPC Stats 186
Range, Attack Constitution 3, 7
Emotional Nudge, An 31 Running The... 160
Audience, The 31 Core Mechanic, The 9
Emotional Reserve 60. see also Godly Commandment 98
Automaton 200, 377 Creative Violence 57–58, 152,
Venting Abilities Gods, The 87
Autonomous Field 76. see also Force 156, 185
Emotional Scale 57 Eldritch 90
Field Advance 64
Emotionally Engaged 58 Excess 91
Cybernetic Enhancement 76. see
B Encounter 3, 123, 129, 312, 314, Fate 93
also Neo, Gifts
Bandit 202 338–339, 347, 385–386 Fire 88
Basilisk 203 D Endgame 109, 136 Forge 94
Bears 204 Decapitation Strike 60. see also Energy Gun 76 Light 87
Before The Game 108 Venting Abilities Energy Weapon 74 Sea 92
Berserk 63. see also Emotion Stances Defence 3, 8 Energy Weapon (Upgrade) 76. see Storm 96
Bestiary 182 Defensive 72, 81 also Cybernetic Enhancement Trickster 96
Big Score 80 Demon 208–209 Enhanced Invisibility 74. see also Underworld 89
BioHacking Extension 77. see also Deus Ex Machina 81 Light Field Projector War 95
Full AI Enhancement Dexterity 3, 7 Explosive 73. see also Gun (Gift) Wild 88
Bleed (Safety Tool) 145. see also Dice 3 Going Rogue 98
F
Safety Tools Dictator 1, 3, 19, 26–39 Gold Hunter 75. see also Pet
Fair Gold 3, 70, 72, 78,
Blink Teleporter 75 Advancement 32–39 Gold Source 78
158–159, 188, 193
Bodyguard 61. see also Combat Emotion Wheel 29 Good Works 98
Fair, The 3, 72, 193–195
Stances NPC Stats 184 Gorgon 225
Chosen of the... 81
Breaking Deals 86 Running The... 146–149 Grandmaster 367
Fallen Leash 77. see also Full AI
Breaks and Check-Ins 144. see also DIE (Comic, RPG) 3 Great Dictator, The 37
Enhancement
Safety Tools Die (Planet, Entity) 3, 196–197 Griffin 226
Fallen, The 3–4, 119, 164–165,
Buddy-Help™ Protocol 76. see also Difficulty 3, 9, 13, 15–16 Grimoire 370–379
188–191, 275
Force Field Distance Projection 74. see also Guard (Mechanic) 3, 8, 11
Player 120
Light Field Projector Guard (Monster) 227
C Running The... 164
Distance Strike 60. see also Venting Guardian 63. see also Emotion
Campaign 21, 253–258, 260, Fanbase 35
Abilities Stances
262–289 Far Range 12. see also Range
Distracting 75. see also Pet Gun (Gift) 73
Can't Stand Me Now 62. see also Fatality! 74. see also Energy Weapon
Don't Give A Fuck 49
Emotion Stances Flashbacks 10 H
Doppelgänger 210
Carving Out Their Heart 37 Flight 62. see also Emotion Stances Hacking Protocol Interface 77. see
Dragon 213
Catharsis 62. see also Emotion Fool 1, 3, 19, 40–44, 46–47, also Full AI Enhancement
Dryad 241. see also Tree Spirits
Stances 49–51 Hackromancer 80
Dual Wield 67
Centaur 205 Advancement 46–47, 49–51 Halfling 228
396
DIE