Chronicles of the Drenai
Monday, October 19th, 2009Chronicles of the Drenai is an RPG based on David Gemmell’s dark and gritty heroic fantasy novels.
In Chronicles of the Drenai you will play a character struggling to be a better person in a world that is cold, cruel and capricious. This is a game of desperate last stands, painful sacrifices for loyalty and honor, and overcoming your weaknesses to become worthy of legend.
The game is very rules-lite, with a system based on rolling d20’s vs. a weakness, or Passion, of your character in the spirit of Gemmell’s tales. For example, in combat you don’t test Strength or Dexterity, but roll against your character’s Fear (possibly with modifiers if you’re facing something really formidable). Freeform Traits may add bonus dice to your roll. You only need to beat the target number with one of your dice to succeed.
This PDF contains the basic rules for creating characters and running a game, plus brief descriptions of the Drenai world and its nations. This is a fan work made in homage to David Gemmell, and in no way meant to challenge the copyrights of the Gemmell estate.
Desperate last stands. Agonizing choices between two or more evils. Searing encounters with the worst in man. The fate of millions resting on a grim and scarred antihero. Valor and sacrifice in a dark, uncaring world, with only faith in a nebulous and rarely evident Source to guide your way. This is the world of David Gemmell’s gritty, pulse-pounding, dark yet uplifting series of heroic fantasy novels revolving around the unlikely heroes of the Drenai people. In this game, you will walk in the same troubled paths as Waylander and Druss, rising from an unknown or troubled past and into the halls of legend as you fight to save the Drenai.