Swords in the Deep
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The tomb was dark¸ the only light coming from Ryland's quickly dying torch. Mel didn't like it. Something was wrong¸ the hairs on the back of her neck were on edge. Gripping the dagger tighter in her hand she stepped forward into the darkness careful to make sure her footfalls didn't make a sound. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw it¸ the pinprick of reflected light...eyes.
Turning she threw her dagger and a howl filled the room. Quickly the whole place was illuminated as Stufgard ignited a ball of fire in his palm. Now she could see them¸ five little demonkin skulking in the shadows. One was dead on the floor. It was only a momentary calm¸ the surprise quickly fading away¸ as Ryland dropped his torch¸ drew his sword and charged....
Welcome to Swords in the Deep¸ A tactical action Tabletop Roleplaying game. What does that mean? It means that you are about to play a game where every move you or your party makes matters¸ where skills play off each other¸ but above all else where propulsive action is paramount.
Swords in the Deep is a game that takes much of its inspiration from CRPGs like Diablo¸ World of WarCraft¸ and Dragon Age: Origins. The party is a tightly knit group that plays off of each other¸ as they explore dungeons that are built on random tiles¸ and find loot that is also randomly generated.
When people read small squad and tactical instantly a much slower and more methodical style of play pop into their minds. That is what we are trying to avoid with Swords in the Deep. Every system and rule has been designed with speed in mind while not sacrificing too much of the crunchy nature of a game like this.
4 Classes¸ 3 Subclasses for each class totaling 177 unique skills
Every skill has its own card to help speed up play
Dungeons built with random tiles¸ drawn from 7 starting tilesets.
Random magical loot created from a deep Prefix-suffix based system.
Deep Crafting system
Fully built social interaction system with its own skills¸ talent and experience points.
A starting adventure with 12 dungeons to explore that will set characters up for exploring beyond.
Public Beta? What is here? How much of the game am I actually getting?
The Game is finished¸ but still needs quite a lot of testing to really dial in the experience¸ which is why we are doing a public beta¸ which is basically a soft launch.
What is here?
The 167 Page Core Rule Book
A 69 page Adventure
7 tilesets
300+ Cards for skills and map based events
Tokens for a every monster
Character sheets and magic item cards
A GM cheat sheet
How Much of the game is that? It's the whole game¸ everything we have built in the last two years is here. This is Swords in the Deep in full¸ nothing has been left out or held back. To make sure that the data from this ongoing public test is good we decided that you would need the whole game¸ so here it is. In the end this is a passion project and I'm far more interested in it getting into people's hands than hoarding it for some later date.
This seems like a lot to print out.
It can be a lot to print out¸ that is why Swords in the Deep is also built to be played without the use of a single card¸ or physically printed tile. There are tables¸ sheets¸ and the like to help you run the game with just the book and some form of gridded mat.
Need some music?
Well you are in luck¸ we lucked out and have an origianl soundtrack that was composed by award winning commoser Jack Walker which you can fund below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBl_phx7qCQ&list=PLNnuRd55_EA5WX6KAHibbW5hwTK7PEJtl