A GUMSHOE roleplaying game of swords & sorcery!
by Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner
When it’s summer, you smell her before you see her. As you come around the curve of the Serpentine river the scent of the open sea is replaced by the stench of low tide, of boat tar, of rare spices spilled from a smuggler’s ship; of cooking smoke and human waste. Bells ring out across the water and echo like the song of ghosts, loud enough to almost drown out the chanted prayers of your ship’s rowers.
You round the bend past the lower fort and there she is: the great city of Eversink, sprawled out on scores of islands across the sheltered water. Her jeweled and crystal turrets are reflected in a shimmering bay full of hundreds of brightly colored boats. Architecture from a dozen eras towers above a tangle of grand plazas and narrow canals. Temples to her goddess rise above the mansions and tenements, calling her people to prayer. She may be ancient and corrupt, slowly and inexorably swallowed by an endless bog; but she’s alive in a way most cities aren’t. She’s a melding of faith and stone and wood and water – and mud – that’s unique in all the world.
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve come to kill a rival, earn a fortune, learn a secret, or hire an army. You’re home now, and the Sinking City will embrace you. All you need to do is survive.
Pre-order the Adventurer’s Edition of Swords of the Serpentine now, and get a free limited edition colour map of Eversink with your book!
Swords of the Serpentine is a sword & sorcery game of daring heroism, sly politics, and bloody savagery, set in a fantasy city rife with skullduggery and death. The rules adapt the GUMSHOE investigative roleplaying system to create a fantasy RPG with a focus on high-action roleplaying and investigation inspired by the stories of Fritz Leiber, Terry Pratchett, Robert E. Howard, and others.
Your characters will discover leads that, if followed, propel them headlong into danger and forbidden knowledge. A lead might point the way to sunken treasure, jungle ruins, the missing key to a sorcerous trap, or the true identity of a notorious murderer. The GUMSHOE game mechanics ensure that you’ll always notice leads if you look for them. It’s up to you to choose which one you’ll follow into whatever perils lie ahead, in hopes of fortune, glory, justice, or just staying alive another day.
If you want to track down foul sorcerers in a corrupt and decadent city, clamber through underground ruins to sneak into an enemy’s home and rob them, or wage a secret war against a rival political faction, you’re in the right place.
Swords of the Serpentine offers:
- A fantasy city of mystery and magic inspired by Lankhmar and Ankh-Morpork
- Tools for fast and effective character creation
- A customized combat system that opens the door for cinematic, heroic battles
- Social combat that targets your enemy’s morale, letting you defeat some foes through wit, guile, and threats
- Sorcery that allows you to rip apart a tower with the flick of a hand—but are you willing to pay the price in corruption to body and soul?
- Powerful allegiances that give you influence in one or more factions across the city, but which can earn you equally powerful enemies…
- Streamlined abilities that power four distinct types of heroes, and which you can mix-and-match across professions to customize your character further
- Gameplay and rules mechanics that encourage players to help build the world they’re adventuring in
- Rules for death curses, true names, alchemy, sorcerous items, ghostly possession, political manipulation, and more!
| Stock #: PELGSS01 | Author: Kevin Kulp, Emily Dresner |
| Cover Art: Jérôme Huguenin | Format: Full colour hardback book, ~320 pages |
Yes, please. When may I give you all my money?
Looking forward to this!
Can’t wait for this!
Oh wow.
GUMSHOE just never stops being a pleasant surprise.
Sounds really interesting. I’ll be watching for more info on this one.
This sounds exactly like what I’d been planning to home-brew a few years ago with gumshoe (I think I even have some .docs with untesteed ideas for how to handle fantasy armor, weaponry and magic). Nothing came of the project, so I’m really looking forward to this – sounds like I’ll get to play Gumshoe in a weird, sprawling fantasy metropolis after all!
Please include 1 on 1, thought.
Allan, you won’t see one-2-one rules there like you’d see in Cthulhu Confidential. I don’t see any reason you couldn’t play the game with one hero and one GM, though. I’ll go add some quick thoughts into the GM advice chapter on this, to make it easier for folks.
Yes Kevin, do that please! I think Serpentine will be great with one GM and two players… I’m already channeling a Lankhmar vibe…
This sounds like a winner all around. I’ll definitely be looking forward to this!
Nice!
How is this / will it be different from _Lorefinder_?
Lorefinder just replaces a few F20 skills with GUMSHOE investigative abilities, but leaves everything else – combat, adventuring, magic, monsters and the like – unchanged. Swords of the Serpentine is GUMSHOE from nose to tail.
Are you planning a Kickstarter for this?
Nope, traditional release with pre-orders once we get a bit closer.
Does the Sinking City or game itself have a particular iconic symbol, e.g. a sword crossed with a snake? Just thinking ahead to ordering some custom d6s.
This is the coolest question I’ve been asked all week. Eversink’s flag is a blue pennant with a swan swimming over a golden coin (that might also be a pond). So a swan (you can see an example on the tower above!) or a coin would be *perfect*.
Thanks, mate. So, I’m thinking that Chessex Gemini Blue-Gold with White ink, the 6 replaced with a swan symbol, would be ideal.
Color me very intrigued!!!
I would love to have a great S&S system to delve into as I’m a fan of the genre. I look forward to a corruption/sorcery system, that seems very in-genre.
And if ya need art, I always love doing S&S art and don’t get the chance at it very often. (stornart.com)
Storn, you have no idea how delighted this makes me. Your work defined more than a decade of monthly superhero (MnM and ICONS) RPGs for us; you have art of one hero in a robotic body with a fishbowl for a head (Dr. Pisces, maybe?) that inspired one of the funniest games we ever played. So thank you.
Awww… that is so nice to read! Yeah, fishbowl head guy was for a private commission and it came out really fun! Love hearing that my art helped inspire others in their games.
One thing I was musing on, is that culture is a big deal in the Conan books. A Pict is different than a Cimmerian. An Aquilonian is different than a Hyrkanian. Now, I contend that REH was painting with a big brush in his stories to get across the idea of what a Pict or Cimmerian was with broad strokes in the sake of economy of words.
When I was thinking of doing an S&S based game, I came at culture in this way. It is what the rest of the world thinks of your tribe, country, city-state etc…. not necessarily what the character thinks/feels. This allows the players to play against type. I could play a Cimmerian who has wandered south, who loves art and draws/drafts well, keeps a travelogue and likes “civilization” and the conversations with folks that would drive our prototypical Cimmerian, Conan, to boredom.
Lastly, when it comes to social conflict, I think culture can play a HUGE part in that. (and I love me some social conflict, loved Burning Wheel for precisely that!).
I’m wondering if culture is going play a part in Eversink?
Culture (and more importantly, loyalties) is a Big Damn Deal ™ in this game. Who you’re allied to, and who hates you, comes into play in every game. The culture for Eversink itself is really well defined. It’s further reinforced by Drives, which are expressed by answering the question “what three things are best in life?”
As a default, foreign culture is lumped into the category “Outlanders” (in part because that’s how ‘Sinkish citizens tend to see anyone from outside the city — either you have friends with those damn foreigners, they have a grudge against you, or you don’t care about them either way). “Outlander” comprises folks from more than 8 detailed countries, and I have really easy guidelines that show you how to break out Allegiances with specific countries when you need to be more specific.
Emily and I haven’t specifically broken down personality and cultural traits for each foreign country we talk about; that might be fun fodder for a supplement.
Awesome!!! Sounds like you have a track that I am very interesting in seeing. I really look forward to reading your game.
I have a follow up question; is there a quick and easy way to handle npc followers, companions and hirelings?
The reason I ask is I’m musing upon doing a Sword and Sorcery mercenary campaign… a way to have my 3 players lead a band of colorful characters into various scraps… somewhat influenced by Battle Brothers PC game… but not get bogged down in too much dice rolling and tracking.
Yes, although I don’t specifically address it in the book (I may want to). You’d build a hireling or companion the same way you’d build a supporting character or an adversary – a pretty simple stat block that only requires tracking one ability instead of a bunch. Supporting characters use fixed attack bonuses that can be supplemented in a pinch, and have a handful of special abilities that represent their capabilities. You’ll be left with someone as capable as you want them to be, but with no risk of getting bogged down in minutiae.
Neat question.
That one thread was starting to run off and get some words cut, but I just wanted to say that your last reply seemed very promising in terms of tracking and stats for allied NPCs.
STORN, you an press CTRL-U to view the source and look for the post in the resulting jumble (I looked for “supporting character” with CTRL-F and found it right away). Anyway, here’s Kevin’s text in its entirety:
(quote)
Yes, although I don’t specifically address it in the book (I may want to). You’d build a hireling or companion the same way you’d build a supporting character or an adversary — a pretty simple stat block that only requires tracking one ability instead of a bunch. Supporting characters use fixed attack bonuses that can be supplemented in a pinch, and have a handful of special abilities that represent their capabilities. You’ll be left with someone as capable as you want them to be, but with no risk of getting bogged down in minutiae.
(end quote)
I’ve added guidelines on statting up Companions, and even got them into the playtest rules!
That is awesome! I have the playtest rules, maybe I got an earlier version? Because I have not run across rules for Companions yet.
As much as I’m looking forward to this game I’m hoping that Pelgrane can do it justice with regards to the art. Some Pelgrane books have been a bit hit or miss and, as someone who can be put off by the look of the book, I really hope they get this one right.
I hope so, too! -Mika
I am looking forward to this. I haven’t been able to determine if this is “flintlock fantasy” or otherwise and if not will there be any sort of ruleset to allow black powder into the game? My other question is when…..when….whemn???
Me too. Where is the preorder page for this? I will give you my money now!
Bradley – totally sounds more Conan or Lankhmar than Dark Tower or Amber.
I too want to give you my money. Where is the preorder?
We’re hoping to be able to release it in the next few months!
Hi Cat. Is it still likely before the end of the year or is it more likely to be released early next year?
Hi Colin. This will be early next year now. Thanks, Becky.
I agree with @Andy M. Young.
My family were some of the playtesters and we had a blast. When can we give you our money? When this comes out it’s definitely going into our collection. An awesome game
We’re hoping to be able to release it in the next few months!
Can I run a “Dishonored-y” game with this?
Hey Ben —
The world of Dishonored is far more steampunk and industrial than Eversink is. You could easily run with the concept of stealthy magical assassins who can sense thoughts, and that character concept is really easy to build, but you’d need to hack the setting to get the right world feel. (If you haven’t, do take a look at John Harper’s superb RPG Blades in the Dark. I understand that the setting is far closer to Dishonored.)
Hey Kevin. Will be getting some gold plastic swan-shaped tokens to use with SotS. They’re super cheap and come engraved with a short sentence of my choice (they’re actually intended as wedding charms/scatters). I was thinking, “Gold is Denari’s Fortune.” Does that sound appropriately Sinkish?
Colin, that’s amazing. I’d love to see the link!
I like your saying, too. I’m batting around “Every coin is a prayer” or something similar, but I think I like yours more.
Thanks, Kevin. Let me know what you go with and I’ll create the tokens with the phrase on them. I found them on AliExpress with the title “60 Pcs Personalized Laser Engraved Gold Silver Mirror Swan Customize Baby Shower Birthday Wedding Party Table Decor Centerpieces” and the price and option to have them inscribed seemed too useful to ignore. Gold-backed plastic swans with a short prayer to Denari just struck me as perfect tokens for the game.
Thanks, Kevin! My question was less about the setting and more about if characters such as Corvo, Emily and Daud are plausible, such as their powers. Like sorcery in SotS is, the gifts of the Outsider are forbidden and dangerous. I’m very interested in perhaps, if possible, running a 1-on-1 game featuring a highly skilled (and possibly magical) thief. And I do know Blades very well! Thank you for suggesting it nonetheless.
Ben, you’re right on track. The setting would fit really smoothly into what you’re describing. That 1 on 1 game with a magical thief seems incredibly fun. I’d probably build them with high Stealth and Burglary, and with ranks of City Secrets, Scurrilous Rumors, Skullduggery, Forgotten Lore, and Corruption (including the sphere of shadow). Maybe a rank of Ridiculous Luck as well? That’d be incredibly fun in a one person game, especially if you invest some ranks in Allegiances so you can single-handedly manipulate (or ask favors from) the power groups who are running the city.
Thanks for the reply, Kevin! I should elaborate and say that I wasn’t expecting (nor wanting) a full-on Dishonored feel in the setting but in the characters, which you answered in the affirmative it seems, so that’s awesome! In my mind I see more Gentlemen Bastards/Dusk City Outlaws in the criminal aspects of SotS and characters can be like Garret or Corvo sans The City/Duskwall insofar as incredible skill and dangerous magics. Am I off here?
(That’s strange. My I was informed my first post didn’t go through. Apologies for the unintentional spam!)
I am interested in pre-ordering this because it sounds awesome, but you have gotten on rpg.net and other sites I think extolling this game’s system and interactions and hacking it for superheroes or other genres.
How is it to hack this for other genres?
Thanks! We’ll open up pre-orders once we know exactly how many pages it will be, so that won’t be until it’s laid out in the first part of next year.
And the answer is “quite easy”. I hacked it for 1930s Pulp heroes this summer by changing a few ability names; I skew towards designs that are easily adaptable. And you can adapt this for a different fantasy setting with great ease, just by changing a few core assumptions.
Kevin, you are killing me. My money is RIGHT HERE! Just take it!
So, any news? Timelines? Guesses? Info? Anything :)
Hey Spence. Our current estimate for this is late July/early August 2020. Thanks, Becky.
Is that for the final printed book? Any possibility we’d see a pdf earlier than that?
That is for the print book and accompanying PDF. The stand-alone PDF will be available for purchase 3 months after the print book is released. Thanks, Becky.
Do we know who’ll be doing the interior art?
Hi Colin. We haven’t commissioned this yet, so we don’t currently know. We are in talks with a couple of different artists. Thanks, Becky.
If you have artists you think we should look at, Colin, give them a shout-out!
Hey Kevin. I’ll give it a bit of thought, both in regard to artists I’ve worked with on various RPG projects, but also other artists whose work I admire.
Okay, not knowing your budget or whether you’re going b/w or colour, I can only suggest artists who have styles I think would suit and/or have had (or are likely to want) tabletop RPG work:
Daria Rashev
https://www.artstation.com/nim
Polished style with enough grit to work effectively for the subject matter.
Filipe Pagliuso
https://www.artstation.com/filipe-pagliuso
Entirely appropriate in style and has worked on Trudvang.
Dmitry Skvortsov
https://www.artstation.com/frant
The style he brings in with works such as his image of Leo Bonhart from The Witcher series would fit beautifully.
Annti Hakosaari
https://www.artstation.com/haco
His work nails it.
Phrolian Gardner
https://www.artstation.com/phrozac
His work has a nice barbaric splendour.
Shen Fei
https://www.artstation.com/shenfei
His artwork is beautiful and he has done work for Onyx Path on their Scion 2e line.
Aurore Folny
https://www.artstation.com/aurorefolny
Her style has just the right edge and exudes a lot of personality. She has worked on FFG’s Android: Netrunner.
Alejandro Garcia
https://www.artstation.com/alejandrogarcia
Although his work isn’t quite at the same level as many of the others, it is still solid and he shows he can portray non-caucasian characters well.
Veli Nystrom
https://www.artstation.com/vablo
Another excellent artist with an obvious talent for the slightly grittier, less polished side of fantasy art.
I’d like to pre-order the “Adventurer’s Edition”, but I can’t tell if it’s a different version or just what I get when I pre-order. Can someone tell me how I’d know the difference? Or is the pre-order edition the adventurer’s edition?
Hi Kevin. This is exactly the same version of the book, it just means anybody who pre-orders this (including those who have already pre-ordered and new pre-orders) will get a bonus limited edition Eversink colour poster map with their book. Thanks, Becky.
Hi, is the ‘pre-layout PDF’ (part of the pre-order) liekly to be out any earlier than the print version? and how do timings stand overall with teh pandemic? The order still says 31 May for the pdf, but presumably that’s long since outdated.
Cheers
Hi Dan. The PDF was due to be released on 31st May, but this will be released with the next See Page XX, which is due today. The print book will be another 3-4 months. Thanks, Becky.
I was hoping to see the PDF today. Any news?
Hi Greg. I’m sorry the PDF wasn’t released on 31st May as advertised. This will be released with the next See Page XX, which is due today. Thanks, Becky.
Sorry – I’m confused! Was the next Page XX due on 1st June? Or is the pre-layout PDF available from somewhere else? A realistic update would be very much appreciated. Really looking forward to this! Thank you.
Hi Colin. The latest See Page XX has been delayed, but anybody who has pre-ordered Swords of the Serpentine will find the pre-layout PDF on their bookshelf under the ‘Downloads’ tab. Thanks, Becky.
Ah, the BOOKSHELF! Thank you! I’m new here, and don’t know how everything works. I’ve found it now. Thank you again!
Hi Colin. If you’re unsure how anything works on the bookshelf just drop me a message to support@pelgranepress.com and I can assist you further. Thanks, Becky.
Hi guys. I did the preorder and it reads: “Pre-layout PDF available 31 May”, but I have nothing in my downloads. Any news?
Hi Stefano. I’m sorry the PDF wasn’t released on 31st May as advertised. This will be released with the next See Page XX, which is due today. Thanks, Becky.
I was wondering why I didn’t get the PDF when I purchased it this morning. Thanks for the clarification, Becky.
I know this is in pre-layout but can we have a look at the interior art in some way? I’d like to pre-order but would like to see what the inside of the book is likely to look like first.
We’re still commissioning the interior art, so apart from what we’ve shared in View From the Pelgrane’s Nest, there’s nothing to show at the moment. Thanks, Becky.
Hey there: is the pre layout PDF now available? If so, I’ll purchase today!
Hi Sean. If you pre-order Swords of the Serpentine the pre-layout PDF will be added your bookshelf. Thanks, Becky.
I felt it was time to get in a pre-ordrr, as with LeisureGames listing it, it “must” be getting nearer.
but now the accompanying PDF is still the pre-layout draft… any hints as to when you will actually go to press, or to deliver books?
Hi Neil. There was an update regarding Swords of the Serpentine in the latest See Page XX. This is currently in layout, although layout has been paused while the final file is being reviewed. I’m unable to confirm when this will be released, though. Thanks, Becky.
I see discussion that the game has been released – how do I get the pdf? Does “Adventurer’s Edition” imply that a different version of the game in coming?
Hi Shaun. The print edition hasn’t been released yet, however if you pre-order the book the pre-layout PDF will be added to your bookshelf. The Adventurer’s Edition is just a pre-order bonus of a limited edition Eversink colour poster map that will come with the book. There is only one version of the game. Thanks, Becky.
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Is it possible to purchase the PDF alone, without a copy of the physical book? I don’t exactly need more physical objects knocking around my home at the moment, but I’d very much like to check this out.
You will be able to purchase the PDF alone, but the only PDF currently available is the pre-layout version that anybody who has pre-ordered the book will receive. The stand-alone PDF is usually released 3 months after the print book, but some PDFs have been released earlier this year due to the pandemic. Thanks, Becky.