This Haunted Land - Version 0.1

The Boy and the Heron, Studio Ghibli

Here is the playtest version of my game about where you play tiny imps, goblins, bugaboos, pixies, and sprites who venture out to wreak chaos upon mankind. Click on the image below to get the rules and character sheet.

You can read this post to get an idea of what this game is about. Basically, the game is focused on your inventory, like Mausritter or Knave. Your character is defined by the items they carry - if you want to be a thief, you would carry thieves tools. A wizard would carry spells, a fighter carries weapons and shields, etc. 

The twist is that your "Items" can be intangible objects like Fears, Dreams, Stolen Youth, Lost Beauty, or The Howl of a Wolf. You are fae creatures, so you can reach right into someone's head and steal their strength, their courage, their memories. Instead of carrying thieves tools, you might steal the memories of a Master Thief or a patch of the night sky to hide yourself with.

These items define what your character can do. And each one is a little sentient: They have their own goals and needs, and they can rebel and riot against you if they are mistreated. The game is about managing this chaotic hoard while having fae adventures as a little gremlin creature.

Ulla Thynell (Finnish, b. 1982) Untitled, 2021 Watercolor and alcohol ink on paper

This version is very much a work in progress, and after playtesting it there's a lot of things I want to change and update. Here's some of the improvements I'm planning for future versions:

• Mortal forms: At the moment, you only get the basic Sprite Form. In future versions, each character will get a mortal form by default as well. This can be an animal, a small child, a plant, etc - but something that lets them blend in with mortal society and mess with humans.
• Improved starting items: The current starting items are quite simple and D&Dish - you'll notice that everyone gets a weapon. I want to improve this and make your starting items much more baroque and fae-like. You might start with a deceptively deep puddle. A cat's curiosity. A shadow. A bag of bones. I also want to integrate this better so that there's less tables to roll on at the start.
• Boosted Sentience: The intent is that all your items are alive. They have their own desires that they try to work through you. Even if you just have a mundane item like a sewing needle, it's a living sewing needle that can fly around and sew people's shoes together. I want to push this more and make it clearer in the text.
• Strings attached: I'm planning to overhaul and improve the guidelines for how you steal things from other people. How you reach in and steal a soldier's courage, a mother's love, a sage's wisdom, etc. 
• More stuff. This is a basic version of the rules, so you only have a basic list of items and one form. The full version would have a huge range of different factions, forms and items. You're all shapeshifters, so one of the core methods of advancement would be to find different forms and learning to take the shape of a vampire, a skeleton, a ghost, etc, each with different abilities and powers. You'd go out into the world and earn forms and items by doing quests for different factions, or stealing them from those factions.

David Wyatt

I'd love any feedback or thoughts you have on the rules so far! Let me know in the comments.