Games like Hundred Red Scales

FIVE DAYS ON FOOT, WESTWARDS Wooden posts line the road. Carved with feline forms: snarling tigers, sulking tabbies. You feel them staring. + In Kraching, woodworking is revered. The surrounding forests are full of haunted timber, longing to be carved into masks and figurines; they want to see the world. In Kraching, cats are revered. Scions of the god Auw, they are welcomed as equal members of an…

THREE DAYS, IN CLOSE FOREST Crashing through the brush, a man carries thrice his weight in stacked cargo -- “Excuse!” he snorts, waving you aside -- he overtakes you. + There is no way to cross the mountains, except through Ngelalangka. On market days every species of trader may be found, here. What do you need? Magic wines that bestow enlightenment? Hats that shield you from more than the sun? A …

THREE DAYS OUT, DURING THE DRY SEASON There is a hole in the ocean, between your prow and the horizon line. A wide, deep valley. The waves slope steeply down to the beach below. + Korvu belongs to the Sea. Its people live in a hole in the ocean. They farm the seabed soil and praise their goddess's generosity. Then the storms come. The Sea drowns Korvu. The people take to their house-boats. They be…

MAYBE FOUR DAYS, ON FAIR WINDS The ship’s navigator collapses. Her seizing limbs beat staccato on the deck. The captain points at her and says: “That’s how you know we’re near.” + In Stray Virassa, locals are outnumbered ten-to-one by immigrants: sailors from distant Mu -- drowned, dead. Spectral.   This is the Fourteenth Hell of Mu-folk tradition, the one reserved for those lost at sea. But life …

THREE DAYS, UP A SWITCH-BACKING TRACK Silk strips on a teak gateway. Drifting gauzily with the wind. Inwards, at first. Then out. In again. And out. The breeze keeps shifting. Breathing. + In every fold of Dog Mountain there is a village, green with terraced rice. The farmers smile at you. They always harvest bumper crops. They all look a little thin, though. A little wan. And there are no animals…

FIVE DAYS BY BOAT, UPRIVER You come to wide lake, watched by limestone cliffs. Shapes lurk in the water. Shapes wait up ahead. + Riches clog Mr-Kr-Gr's rivers -- but its citizens build neither soaring temple nor palace spire. It is forbidden to set stone upon stone, in Mr-Kr-Gr. The crocodiles say so. The crocodiles rule, here. What stone cities exist in Mr-Kr-Gr are overgrown ruins -- haunted by …

FIVE DAYS, THROUGH FOGGY UPLANDS The river forks. The sun is out. Men nap on the bank, or dice in shabby cabanas. A young girl waves. “Guide?” she calls. “Need a guide?” + The forest of Upper Heleng was Time's lover; he refuses to flow within her borders, and their children the seasons govern her people as gods. The people of Upper Heleng live amid wonders. They hunt yam-men, trade with rhinos. De…

The toyol: an imp created from a dead fetus, a consummate thief. The penanggalan: a vampire whose head and entrails leave its body, to fly about in the night. The hantu tetek, who smothers victims between its massive breasts. "Hantu" -- of Malaysian popular lore -- is typically translated as "ghost", though this isn't quite right; "spirit" or "monster" are better. Hantu are feared, often malevolen…

The Basics Plunderlight is a dark fantasy role-playing game about ambitious characters following their convictions in a world of stark iniquity. There are deals in dark alleys, harrowing chases through haunted forests, duels fought in the morning rain, and pacts made with otherworldly powers who care naught for the plight of mortals. We play to find out if the characters' convictions drive them to…

In a long forgotten age, a raging war shattered and devastated the worlds of gods and men. Now green life blooms amidst the ruins of the lost worlds. Wondrous and terrible beings roam the Nine Realms. Civilisation stumbles forward, fresh and reaching. Fate carves the skein anew but there are loose threads, lost long ago in the wars, with no place in the tapestry. These threads must seek the fire w…