Games like Upper Heleng

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, 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 …

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…

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 …

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, ISLAND-HOPPING EASTWARDS Laundry lines stretch out past the mangrove trees. They flap like sails over the water: skeins of yarn, sheets of cloth, dyed this morning. + In these islands, spoken language marks you as a foreigner. The monitor-folk do not speak, and did not make words. Merchants who travel here negotiate with sign and gesture. They come to buy textiles of exquisite craft. N…

There came a time when the Old Gods died! The wild died with the weary! The magnificent perished, locked in battle with the unforgivable! It was the last day for them! An ancient era passed in a Great Disaster! Now, well over three thousand years later, the tales of the Old Gods are little more than myths in the Inner Systems. But in the Outward Space of the Fourth Galaxy, on many dingy frontier p…

A minimalist, rules-light RPG for playing old-school fantasy stories, in the spirit of the game originally devised by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax in the 70s. Another fantasy RPG among hundreds of already existing ones? Certainly. But everything you need to know — including rules for fleshing out any player character you have in mind, combat mechanics, a table of items and other adventuring resourc…

Small town, big adventures Welcome to Pine Shallows, a small coastal town. Sunny and cheery in summer, when the tourists come in droves, it turns dreary and empty when autumn comes. Weird things keep happening and because most adults are oblivious or too busy to deal with the problems, it's up to you kids to solve the mess. What is Pine Shallows? Pine Shallows is a tabletop roleplaying game in wh…