Spiral Lane Productions is an Athens-based RPG publisher who has met their modest Kickstarter to fund an RPG of tactical combat called Grimstone.
The classless system mixes axes and gunpowder in a world of juxtaposition, light and dark, science and magic and with a solid visual style. You can join the backers from the pitch page.
The RPG was created by Angelos Kyprianos and with the primary art by Charidimos Bitsakakis.
A dark fantasy, the game has two gods that represent the Moon and Sun, which divide the world of Mea into light and darkness. The dualism is seen with the Sunborn and Moonborn tribes, science and magic, religion and… well, Spiral Lane says “paganism”, but perhaps “unorganised spiritualism”?
Once the main pitch of the video is through, we hear a good chunk of the story. We hear of the discovery of Prisma, which led to Grimstone and the power behind the steampunk-style tech.
However, it’s the combat that might make Grimstone different from any other RPG in your collection. It gets all skirmish rulesy.
Grimstone has a simple system that requires a combat grid and miniatures or tokens. it features a classless system that allows free development of characters that may choose among Domains such as: Traditional Weapons (swords, axes etc.), Advanced Weapons (pistols, muskets etc.), Unarmed Combat, Magic and Science (medicine, alchemy, mechanic etc).
Additionally,
Grimstone features a lethal system where each attack requires a separate Anatomy Roll. Each character can sustain up to X number of wounds which may require just one shot from a gun or a spell if precautions are not taken and tactics are ignored. Science allows the use of healings, surgeries and other methods to deal with critical wounds and severe injuries.
A pledge of €20, which is about £17, will be met with the PDF ore rules of Grimstone. That’s enough for players and GMs.
The hardcover, which will ship anywhere, is the only other pledge level, and that’s €42.
Grimstone isn’t a giant book, though, coming in at only 125-pages. That’s more than enough for a great RPG, though. Delivery is expected in March or April, depending on whether you’re digital or hardback.
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