Roleplaying and Strategic Storytelling
For the moment, there are four games being developed by Vulpinoid Studio. One of these (The Eighth Sea) has seen publication, two others (Tales and Golgotha Showdown) have versions freely downloadable from this website. Each of these games is designed to provide a different social experience, from the free flowing anarchic storytelling of the Eighth Sea through to Golgotha Showdown's structured mechanics reflecting spiritual manipulations in a world on the brink of oblivion.
The Eighth Sea
The Eighth Sea allows players to take on the roles of temporal swashbucklers and adventurers from any part of time or space. Simple rules allow newplayers to get into the action quickly, while deeper levels of complexity allow groups to combine their imagination to develop collaborative tales like few other storytelling or roleplaying games.
Within its pages lies a world that exists beyond our own, a universe of epic adventures and quantum mechanics, dangerous intrigue and complex metaphysics. Survivors learn that the Eighth Sea is a world where nothing can be taken for granted, it is a place where enemies and friends can switch allegience as the timestream twists and weaves. Profiteers quickly learn ways to manipulate time and space to their advantage while avoiding the tyranny of the Integrity Marines and the chaotic hazards of the Chrono-Pirates. Scholars discover secrets lost to the minds of time-bound mortals. Captains learn quickly that Shroedinger's cat should not be left guarding the brig.
Visit the pages for The Eighth Sea
Tales
Imagine a world like our own. So much like our own, that most people don't realise that there is a difference. But hidden in the shadows of this world are levels of darkness that simply should not be, and in the secluded places far from mortal eyes, the ancient stories linger...waiting for the chance to be reborn in the imagination of the lesser souls.
Tales is a game set in just such a world. It is a world where the stories of the Brother's Grimm are based more closely on reality than the modern sciences would have you believe, a place where the ancient legends are closer to historical truth than the anthropologists, biologists and geologists would want you to know. It is a game of belief and superstition, set in a world where the war between religions has raged for millenia as each struggles to form the world in its image. Yet the old religions face new threats, in the forms of fledgling cults and the sciences. As the belief in the old stories fades, so fades the power of the ancient spirits once known as gods and totems. Unable to step foot in the mortal world, these beings inbue some of the essence into mortal vessels, creating half-blood avatars, daeva, daemons and nephilim. Heroes and legendary figures in the eyes of the mortal world, these figures must choose whether to return the world to the ways of their ancestral energies, or whether it is time for the world to move on.
Every decision has its consequence, and every tale must be told.
SPECIAL NOTE: TALES as a concept is still being developed, but it has moved in directions different from the original intentions. The current incarnation of Tales has evolved into Quincunx, a game focusing on those who confront the avatars of ancient belief. The remainder of the Tales concepts have not been abandoned, and they will be redeveloped to fit into this framework shortly.
Visit the pages for Tales
Shattered Souls
They have existed on the edge of time and space, vastly powerful beings whose merest thoughts could wipe out entire civilisations. Banished for eternity for sins they committed in fogotten aeons, they lie in wait, dreaming storms across the world and instilling war, famine, pestilence and death with their cravings. Most have faded into obscurity as the mortal world has forgotten about them; some have lost their minds and have degenerated into insane, blasphemous abominations; the most dangerous have carefully retained a sense of self, even as their powers have dwindled to a tiny fraction of their former glory. They lie in wait, hoping for even a single mortal to open a doorway to the great void. For even though their powers have dwindled, their strength can quickly rise once they have re-entered our world. Once more they can become divine.
Scattered across time and space are those who know of the doorways leading to the void. Over history, these individuals have clustered into factions with their own ideas about the sacred portals. Some have taken a vow to ensure that these doors are never again opened, others seek to open the doors so that they might claim the powers of the forgotten gods for themselves, some seek to rescue banished spirits that were unjustly removed for sins not their own, others simply seek to bring chaos back into the world by reawakening the insane monstrpsities known as the Shattered Souls.
These are the tales of the mortals who know the portals and what they choose to do with that knowledge.
Visit the pages for Shattered Souls
Golgotha Showdown
Life moves in cycles. It is the dying of an age, and the rebirth of a new one. Humanity turned its back on the old ways and dominated the planet without paying heed to the problems they might cause. Global warming, rising tides, destrution of the protective ozone layer, burning away the last of the fossil fuels. The world is now a vast wasteland, millenia before it was due for renewal.
Now the humans look to the skies for reason, some pray to the old gods for salvation, some curse the gods for forsaking them. Few accept the responsibility as their own.
But the gods have lost their power in this age, the faith of generations has not supported them, and it is still many centuries before they are due to be renewed by the turning of ages. The most powerful gods haven't answered the calls of the last dying mortals, but the younger ones seek an opportunity to claim the faithful energy of the remaining devout. Laying claim to the global wasteland, one ghost-town at a time, they amass their power and hope that one day they might become the leaders of new powerful pantheons as the age turns.
Visit the pages for Golgotha Showdown
One Page RPGs
As a new initiative, we are working on some ideas for self-contained single page role playing games, where everything you need to play is written on two sides of a single sheet of paper.
These games are designed for players who already understand the basics of pen-and-paper roleplaying, so they don't include pages of details about what roleplaying is, or how to roll dice...instead they focus on a quirky situation or game mechanism and provide enough details to get a stripped down game happening in a matter of minutes. Reading the basic rules should give players an understabding of how characters are built, how they function within the setting, and a few ideas to get going. Ten minutes of preparation for a game that could last an hour or two.
The first of these games has now been written and is available for free download, it is called Guerilla Television and is based on reality TV shows like "Survivor". Once the next game is writen, "Guerilla Television" will be archived and the new single page RPG will take it's place.
Download Guerilla Television.
