Yannick Dubois and Forestheart Studio have released Rivers of Awen, an immersive storytelling title set across the British Isles during the Iron Age, circa 300 BC. The book is an ambitious hybrid work that functions as an accessible history guide while delivering a complete roleplaying game. It provides three distinct play modes: solitary journaling, communal Bardic Circles, and traditional guided group sessions.
The project proves Yannick Dubois is an exceptional artist and historian with a deep affection for the landscape and lore of the British Isles. Instead of relying on fantasy clichés, Rivers of Awen grounds its world in archaeology, material culture, and animistic belief. It rewards thoughtful play, prioritising kinship and seasonal survival over reckless dungeon crawling.
Setting: The Iron Age Isles
The game plants its feet firmly in the mud, smoke, and seasonal cycles of pre-Roman Britain. Settlements are organised around kinship and households sharing one or two roundhouses. Five to twenty settlements make up a clan, with clans joining to form loose tribal territories bounded by ridgeways, marshes, and river crossings. Everyday survival demands cooperation, from harvesting barley and shearing sheep to smelting bog iron and boiling coastal brine for salt.
Animism shapes how people interact with the wider world. Rather than presenting a centralised priesthood or a rigid pantheon of gods, Rivers of Awen presents the Great Currents. These twelve living currents include archetypes like the Flame Mother, the Many Skilled, the Battle Crow, and the River Mother. Ancestors watch from across a thin Veil, communicating through dreams, omens, and the turning of the agricultural year.
System: The Action Die and Counter Dice
The core resolution system in Rivers of Awen is an original dice pool engine that shares philosophical common ground with systems like Ironsworn while carving out its own distinct identity. Uncertainty is resolved through an Action Roll that pits a character’s approach against the resistance of the world.
A player selects a Common Action and pairs it with one of five core Attributes: Grace, Presence, Might, Cunning, or Wisdom.
- Roll 1d6 (the Action Die) and add the chosen Attribute score (which ranges from 1 to 3) to create the Action Total.
- Roll 2d10 (the Counter Dice) to establish the opposition.
- If the Action Total beats both Counter Dice, the result is Blessed (a clean success).
- If the Action Total beats one Counter Die or matches either, the result is Tested (success with a complication, delay, or cost).
- If the Action Total falls below both Counter Dice, the result is Broken (failure or a dangerous turn of events).
The standing stone tracker on the character sheet governs Awen Flow. Awen represents creative inspiration and conviction. Players can spend banked Awen points to boost their Action Total, elevating a Broken result to Tested, or pushing a Tested outcome into a clean Blessed success.
Character Generation: Standing, Calling, and Oaths
Character generation discards arbitrary fantasy classes in favour of standing and community relationships. You distribute a standard array of 3, 2, 2, 1, 1 across the five Attributes, establishing where your character naturally excels. From there, you ground the character in their tribe and clan by assigning their standing and noting two or three Bonds with mentors, kin, or a companion pony or hound. A character can also name an Anam Cara, a rare soul companion whose connection challenges and transforms both lives.
Every character starts with a Calling, such as curiosity, an inheritance, loss, or exile, which sets their journey in motion. Sworn Oaths give the narrative sharp stakes. Swearing an oath before a chief, an elder, or a sacred grove establishes expectations that demand a price in comfort, reputation, or safety. As characters grow, they develop a Dán, taking on specialised Crafts like Smithing, Weaving, or Scouting, alongside Talents that sharpen specific Common Actions with a permanent +1 bonus.
Health, Spirit, and the Field of Nwyfre
Physical and emotional resilience are measured through parallel tracks on the Life Force sheet. Health moves from 5 down to 0, running through Strong, Strained, Hurt, Battered, Broken, and Collapse. Dropping to zero leaves a character unable to act until help arrives, with continued violence risking death. Spirit tracks emotional fortitude along an identical scale, sliding from Steady down to Overwhelmed, where fear and confusion take over.
Hardship also inflicts specific Conditions: Encumbered, Exhausted, Shaken, Imbalanced, and Wounded. Each Condition imposes a penalty of -1 to -3 on actions that rely on linked Attributes.
External forces are tracked through the Field of Nwyfre, which represents the breath of life moving through the world. Herbal draughts, ancestral blessings, sacred sites, or curses can give your character Ease or Friction. Under Ease, you roll the d6 Action Die twice and keep the higher result. Under Friction, you roll twice and take the lower result, showing how the weight of the land or spirit world presses on your efforts.
Combat: Clash of Arms
Physical conflict carries high historical stakes and lasting danger. While minor brawls can be resolved with a single Fight roll, serious violence uses the Clash of Arms rules. Fights unfold across back-and-forth exchanges where weapon damage is weighed directly against the protection offered by clothing, leather, and hide shields.
Combat covers mounted warfare, chariot attacks, battle lines, and ranged skirmishing with slings and fire-hardened spears. Because injuries do not vanish with a casual night of sleep, physical violence is never trivialised. Broken bones take weeks to mend, and wounds must be washed with clean water or ale and treated with poultices of yarrow and plantain to keep rot at bay.
Art Style and Visual Presentation
The digital edition is a visual triumph that echoes authentic Iron Age craftsmanship. Yannick Dubois decorates the book with flowing triskele spirals, detailed maps of the Isles, and delicate line drawings of roundhouses, iron forges, and burial cairns.
The layout feels warm and organic, presenting clean typography that sits comfortably alongside soft, atmospheric landscape paintings. The parchment character sheets, tracker illustrations, and knucklebones tables make the entire book feel like a treasured historical codex rather than a dry rules manual.
Conclusion
Rivers of Awen is an exceptional achievement in historical world-building and narrative roleplaying games. Yannick Dubois delivers a rich educational exploration of Iron Age Britain while offering an evocative, modern dice engine that runs smoothly for solo journaling and group play alike. It is an essential purchase for anyone seeking a thoughtful, grounded tabletop experience steeped in ancient landscape and oral tradition.
Quick Links
- The digital edition of Rivers of Awen is available to buy on itch.io.
- The physical edition, featuring an A4 hardback book, parchment character sheets, and wooden dice, is available to purchase on Etsy.
