The blank pages were intentional; if you do double sided printing the blank pages should make the packet more like a book. I *should* probably test this out myself but I don't have a printer readily available for my own use.

Hi there! Quick update, there's a printable version now available. I was not originally planning on making it a small booklet because I wasn't sure how to properly format a booklet on 8.5 by 11 inch paper (the paper I use whenever I want to print things out) so I've made a version with each page at 8.5 by 11 inches. It is 22 pages long. I apologize for the delay.

Unfortunately I do not have it at this time; however I will release a version of it hopefully today for you, as it looks like I had started on exactly this a few years ago, and then I abandoned the project because a large part of my life collapsed around that time.

CHAPTER 2 – Outside of Fate.

SIGIL (DAY)

Shade awoke the next morning after RESTING and contemplated her next move. She doubted there was anything worth value in Tiresh, so she decided to take the path to the north. It would lead her to the uninviting forest, but she figured that there might be something worthwhile there. As she walked the path, she took note of just how everything seemed somehow different than she remembered when she was a child. Things were darker now, and there was a definite sense of grimness that filled the air. She recalled that as a child, there was a time when the hill she was crossing was covered in a field of beautiful flowers and the trees weren’t such a dark shade of green. It was inviting back then, before the dead began to walk again. The Kingdom wasn’t perfect of course, nowhere is. But now the very boughs that had offered her comfort as she walked into them seemed to warn her away. The trees loomed over her, the canopy blotting out the sun almost entirely as she plunged deeper into the forest. And then, suddenly she arrived in a grove.

The Gnarled Tree (DAY)

The first thing that she noticed was the Gnarled Tree. In the middle of this dark wood rose a strange, twisting ash tree. Its bark was rotting and yet as the rot spread, it also strangely appeared to be renewed. It gave the tree the appearance that it was writhing. The next thing Shade noticed was that there were three more of those men in frayed robes. She didn’t recognize any of them, but they were surrounding a bush in the middle of the grove, muttering observations to themselves about it. Shade couldn’t hear them, and she considered for a moment whether to sneak away or FIGHT them. She realized that she couldn’t do much else unless she FOUGHT them. Her experience with the three men yesterday had proven informative, so she considered her best options first. She didn’t recognize the bush the men were investigating, but she did recognize that they were keeping their distance from it. She wasn’t sure why, but decided that was unimportant. As she was considering her options, one of the men glanced her way and frowned.

“There’s a woman over there.” he said, pointing at Shade.

“Excellent! The Stars delivered her unto us! We’ve been needing a test subject to feed the bush.” the other said.

The three men attempted to advance upon Shade, but Shade was fast on the draw – before they could even react she had let loose a rock from her sling. It found its mark with a sickening crack between the zealot’s eyes, and the man crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. The attack must have taken one of the other zealots by surprise, because he stared at his fallen comrade in disbelief. The third however ignored this, and advanced upon Shade. He ran straight for her and drew a thick wooden club, which he slammed into Shade’s shoulder. She let out a hiss of pain and turned her attention to him. Shade didn’t like the way the bush suddenly seemed to writhe itself, as though it were awakening from some sort of slumber and decided to avoid getting close to the bush itself. The second zealot was shaken out of his stupor from a shout by his comrade and he rushed at Shade, drawing his own weapon, a broken short sword. The club wielding Zealot bashed Shade upside the head, momentarily dazing her. She stepped back from the club wielding zealot, clutching her head where he had bashed her. The other zealot took advantage of Shade’s momentary distraction and stabbed her in the left arm. She grit her teeth and shrugged the attack off as best she could and drove her long sword into the club wielding zealot’s gut. The zealot gurgled up blood and Shade kicked his corpse from the end of her sword.

Shade whirled around to the final zealot. He approached her with a leering grin and punched her in the diaphragm, knocking her breath away. As she doubled over in pain, she saw a vine shoot from the bush and hurl something from itself onto the ground next to it. It looked like a caltrop carved from a splintered bone. She decided then and there that she definitely wanted nothing to do with the bush at all. She straightened up and bashed the zealot’s mouth with the pommel of her sword as she stepped away from the man.

He spat a tooth out and snarled. “You’ll pay for that, bitch.”

He rushed her again, driving his blade into Shade’s hip. She grunted in pain and wrenched herself free from his sword. She had to end this quickly, as she wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. She swept the man off his feet and stabbed him through his sternum. He clutched the blade futilely and then fell slack against the ground, dead. She turned her attention to the bush just in time to see it throw another caltrop of bone on the ground. It didn’t seem that it could hurt her as long as she didn’t step on them, so let loose several stones from her sling until the bush stopped moving. She carefully swept the shards of bone to the side and investigated the bush. At the base of the bush she found all manner of bones from squirrels to wolves with roots tangled around them like greedy fingers. A vine was curled around a small rat’s skull, which was obviously beginning to crack when the bush was defeated. Shade figured that the bush must’ve pulled corpses in to fertilize it and then used the bones to create the caltrops for self defense. She decided to SEARCH the area and found within the pile of bones. She also took stock of her surroundings again. Though the gnarled tree was new, she was certain she had been to this glade before. She took a few minutes to SEARCH for a path she knew was here that should lead to the boat house. And she found it – hidden through some overgrown bushes, which she easily hacked away as night fell. She began walking to the boathouse again, determined to return to the island tonight. Along the way, she decided it prudent to drink one of her healing potions, unsure of what she would find on the island tonight.

BOATHOUSE (NIGHT)

The first thing she noticed when she arrived back at the boathouse was that there was a distinct lack of blood or any other sign of her battle with the zealots yesterday. If it weren’t for the lack of blood, she would have thought that the Crimson Duke had claimed their bodies for his army of undead minions. The spectral boatman was waiting for her in their boat again, and she decided to ask them about this.

“Er, hello,” she said to them.

“Good evening, Engraved.” they replied in that crackling, ephemeral whisper of theirs. “I sense that thou wishes to ask a question. Wouldst thou also wish to travel to the island yonder?”

Shade nodded as she got settled into the boat. “Yes, and yes, I do. Yesterday, I fought some men here after we returned. Do… you know what happened to them? I thought maybe their bodies got claimed, but… there isn’t even blood or a new footprint.”

The boatman regarded her for a moment and nodded. “Thine eyes deceive thee not. ‘Tis true that the corpses of thy foes are no longer here. But it is not because a necromancer has claimed their bodies either. Thou art outside the tapestry of Fate now. This is why thou cannot DIE, and why thou can no longer pay me in what I wish. When you meet thine demise, thou shall reawaken at thy sigil, on the same day as when thou DIED. The same happens when thou chooses to REST at thy sigil. The only way to end this is to seize the 7 Runes of Obron, and use the power granted to thee to wrest control of the loom of thy Fate. Some foes, by their own nature are outside of the Weave of Fate and will not return. The one thou calls ‘The Crimson Duke’ is one such example. For him, it is because he is directly tied to your Fate by virtue of being the one who first slew you,” The boatman paddled the boat as they explained this, “Another such is the Lost Knight, though this is because he has cast aside the yoke of his own fate by failing to die when the Ruined King seized the Rune of this realm. And obviously, so too are all the Rune Lords like you. Thou art two sides of the same coin. Ah, it appears that we are here. When thou art ready to return, I will answer more questions. For now, safe hunting, Engraved.”

Shade disembarked and considered this new, troubling piece of information.

RUINOUS CAMP (NIGHT)

Shade wandered through the empty camp, her head dizzy with the knowledge that her foes would be alive the next time she came through that area if she RESTED at her Sigil or DIED. It certainly would affect how she handled some of her resources going forward. She shook her head of those thoughts and turned them toward the present. She knew she wouldn’t find the health potions here to refill her stock, but she vaguely remembered seeing some notes before she headed out the last time she was here. She decided to take the time to SEARCH the area for those notes. After a time she found them and studied them. They were notes about a necromantic ritual that the Crimson Duke was going to attempt on the Ruined King at the very last moment to seize the Rune for himself. The plan obviously backfired, and the Crimson Duke fled after besieging the castle. The majority of the rest of the notes were about searching for a way to separate the Rune from the Rune Lord, and claim it himself. 

It does feel a little unnecessarily punitive to me, but this could also be sour grapes about my build moving only a single square at a time (Long Sword + Sling + Strider Boots). Thank you for your answer! 

Just realized that the only starting equipment that lets you attack the Same Square is the Flame Spell, is this working-as intended or should the Long Sword and Axe be Same & Adjacent? 

Thanks! It's been a lot of fun and already I'm enjoying it a lot. So far, filling in the blanks of the lore with my own stuff has been probably one of the the most interesting parts because I'm approaching it like a writing exercise. Things like fleshing out the relationship between the Uniques, Shade, and the Rune Lord was pretty cool and I tried to fit it as best as I could with the lore provided - there's stuff that I've already written so that if or when it comes up, I already know about it and can have Shade react to that information accordingly.

The combat was fun and definitely a lot more difficult than I anticipated and I think Sling + Longsword + Strider Boots + Fate's Hunter was a bad move on my part. The Sling was *way* too difficult to use for the Boathouse encounter and I think I only managed to use it once. The Longsword didn't let me outmaneuver the enemies like I hoped it would, so my next Engraved will likely start with the axe.  I don't think I wrote it in the combat section, but in the notes for writing out the fight, Shade's Strider Boots are actually what saved her a few times since I either forgot I could add Stamina dice or my dice just didn't generate a result to move her. So, it stopped the Mercenary from managing to get a blow on her since she'd just move out of his range. This did have the unfortunate side effect of meaning she would miss her own attacks but by that point she was down to 4 Health and I was trying to figure out if Shade could get a better trade in. I think it ended up being just 1 Harm dealt to her for 3 Harm (overkill because he only had 2 Health left himself) dealt to him, so she survived. The Fate's Hunter Rune didn't do much to help either, but I suspect that it will be a big help if I end up fighting the Necromancer and the Lost Knight together, since killing either one of them will mean that I get a health back. I definitely intend to swap out the Sling as soon as possible. I think it's far too situational to really justify using it.  

I haven't decided yet on the frequency of chapters, but it might be that they're my warm up exercises before I do some of my own prose writing. 

I had originally intended to post the story solely to my tumblr, but I've decided it'd be cool and probably much easier for other people who are interested in RUNE to see it on the community page on itch so they too can follow along with Shade's journey if they want. So without much ado, here's the first chapter of "Shade Corvo's Quest". 

Chapter 1 - Resurrection.

In which Shade Corvo dies, is resurrected, and gets her ass kicked.

The first thing she remembered upon awakening was a burning sensation on her breast, right at her heart. She tore her shirt open and saw a Rune was engraved there. She knew this Rune. It was her personal good luck charm - the Fate’s Hunter Rune. She wore a bone amulet with an identical Rune carved into it. She took that amulet out now to examine it and gave a wry grin. So, she had become an Engraved. She carved the Rune into the ground at her feet, and buckled her longsword on her hip and retrieved her sling. That meant she could get her revenge of the Crimson Duke. But she took a moment to contemplate where she would go. Her men were gone probably. If they had survived the Crimson Duke, then they were probably scattered to the four winds across the Grim Coast. Nothing to be done for that. She considered her options about her next move. There was a coastal village to the west she could go to. It was probably abandoned, but maybe she could find something to loot there. Alternatively, she could go to the forest that loomed eeriely to the north. Eventually, she decided to take her chances and head to the village.

Shade arrived at the remains of the Village of Tiresh. It was, as expected clearly abandoned, though she noticed that there were some fresh tracks indicating that there were some recent visitors of the humanoid kind. The place was as quiet as a grave. She decided to SEARCH the town’s ruins. And discovered a Healing Vial. She tucked it away in her belt pouch. It may come in handy later. Then she took a moment to examine the home she found herself in. She did not find any corpses, and found many valuables still in place waiting for their owner’s return. Not finding the corpses was not unusual, as there was a necromancer prowling about murdering people for their bodies. Bodies just laying about were probably just free game for the bastard. But, she did LEARN something. The dust here had recently been disturbed by somebody dragging something heavy – possibly a body – to a cellar door. Shade tried the cellar door and found it was locked. She’d need to find the key, since she didn’t have the tools or skills to pick it herself.

She considered her options from here. While she would love to loot the houses of all their silverware and jewelry, she doubted she’d find a buyer anywhere here on the Grim Coast. And she wasn’t certain she could leave the Coast yet herself. She would have to leave it. She did take what unrotten food she found though, as she wasn’t sure if she still needed to eat or not. Shade didn’t want to find out if she would starve to death the hard way. She could go back to the safety of her Sigil to the south west. It would be wise, with night falling soon. Or she could forge ahead to that ominous forest to the east. She wasn’t certain what she’d find there in the night though. She could also make her way to a solitary structure to the north and seek shelter there. Maybe she’d find something interesting there as well. There was also the Keep to consider; it was not too far away on a hill. She could challenge the Rune Lord now and put an end to the Ruined King. It would be a mercy. She didn’t think she was prepared for that, however and so that left one of the other three options. Eventually, she decided to go to the building on the east coast. Night fell as she made her way to the structure.

In the fading light of dusk, Shade recognized the solitary structure on the craggy coast. It was a boat house, lit by a single candle in the window. A howl of the wolf reminded her of why she came here and she hurried on inside. She DELVED within the Boat House, hoping to find the boat intact. What she was greeted with instead was a spectral boatman chained to the boat. They leaned on an oar and beckoned her to come closer. Shade could see they were a figure shrouded in long, pale cloak and they looked at her with eyes that reminded her of brightly burning blue flames.

“I can take thee to the island to the north of here,” they whispered. Their voice was like cracking ice and as ethereal as smoke. “However, I can only do so by the light of the stars. If thou wouldst wish to travel betwixt here and there, it will have to be at night.”

Shade contemplates the boatman’s words for a moment and then nods. “I’ll think about it. Do you require payment for this service?”

“Thou art Engraved,” came that voice, hissing and cracking. “What payment I could take from thee, it is not thine to give anymore.” They reached a gloved hand and gently poked Shade’s chest, where the Rune was burnt on her chest. “Instead, I ask of thee a boon. Swear that thou shalt slay the Ruined King and claim his Rune.”

Shade nodded. “I, Shade Corvo, swear it will be done,” she said. There was nothing in the oath saying she had to do it immediately, just that she would have to kill him and claim his rune eventually.

“The pact is sealed then,” the spectral figure said. “If thou wisht to travel now, we may. Or thou can stay here a little longer.” Shade considered her options.

She could return to Tiresh to the south, that eeriely stillness could be inviting, or she could travel to the Keep. She could also take a ride on the boat and investigate that ominious fire across the channel. Her restless feet eventually made the decision for her, and she climbed into the boat to investigate the fire across the channel. The boatman looked to the stars as she stepped in and he nodded before paddling across the dead still channel.

As Shade and the boatman drew closer to the fire, she could smell the stench of the grave strong on the wind and she wrinkled her nose. She recognized that foul odor. It was the reeking ooze of the Crimson Duke. She remembered smelling it just before her first death. She tightened her grip on her sword and readied herself. She disembarked from the boat and the boatman said to her in that voice like cracked ice and wisps of smoke “Remember, Shade Corvo that I can only take thee between here and the mainland by nighttime. If thou art on the island when dawnbreaks, thou will have to remain here until the moon rises.”

Shade nodded and crouched down, moving stealthily toward the camp. Fortunately, it seemed that the Crimson Duke was not present at the moment. She decided to rifle through his belongings. Her SEARCH revealed two more Health Vials. The bandit stashed those in her belt with the other two and looked around. She noticed that it was soon to be morning, and if she wanted to leave the island tonight it would have to be now. Alternatively, while she was searching the camp, she noticed some notes scribbled on the desk. She could spend some time decoding them and see if she could learn what the Crimson Duke’s next move was, or she could follow a solitary path along the coast and see where it went.

After thinking about it, Shade decided it was better to return to the mainland – she had no idea when the Crimson Duke would return to his camp, and did not care for being stuck on the island for another day. So, she hurried back to the boatman and climbed into the boat. They pushed off, heading back to the Boat House.

The boatman disappeared as soon as the prow of the boat touched the dock. Shade chained the boat up herself and headed outside, where she stumbled into a group of three men. Two of them were clearly mercenaries, armed to the teeth and the third was dressed in frayed brown robes.

“It’s the stars! Don’t you see it? The stars!” The man in the frayed brown robes said to his companions, gesturing feverntly at the fading stars above. The soldiers for hire were clearly uninterested in what he had to say. Shade attempted to sneak away from the three men, but any hope of that was dashed when she stepped on a twig and broke it.

“Say, you gents wouldn’t happen to know where the bathroom is, would you?” she asked trying to avoid a fight.

The zealot frowned and hissed at her, “Get her!”

Shade had no choice but to FIGHT the three of them.

The three men rush at Shade, drawing their weapons. The mercenaries are armed with a hand crossbow and a sword each, while the zealot has nothing but a dagger. The Zealot is the fastest of the three and he gets right in Shade’s face. His allies step up next to him and Shade is taken aback when she realizes she recognizes the face of the zealot – it was Richard Horne, a former member of her band. He uses this distraction to drive a dagger deep into Shade’s shoulder. She takes a step back from him, her back now to the shore. She narrowly avoided one of the soldier’s shortswords as the other takes a swipe at her, nicking her across the ribs. She gasps in pain and runs Richard through with a decisive thrust with her longsword. The man falls to the ground, dead.

“So boys, what do you say now that your client is dead you drop your weapons?” She suggested.

“That sodding idiot wasn’t our client,” one of the mercenaries spat. “He was just another apprentice of the Crimson Duke. Who happens to be our actual client. And he pays us by the corpse.”

Shit, Shade thought. This could go badly. The two men approached her again, ready to attack. She quickly took a stepback and away, letting loose a rock from her sling, which struck the mercenary in the back, stunning him. It was a lucky shot. Her blade crossed against the other mercenary’s and he managed to score a lucky hit. Things weren’t going so great for Shade right about now, and she needed to figure out a way to end this quickly, or else she was going to die again. She stabbed one of the mercs in the gut and wrenched her blade free just in time to dodge back from the final warrior’s attacks. The two of them circle each other warily sizing each other up. Shade could tell he was also on his last legs, and she could probably end him swiftly if she could just get a good strike in. Suddenly, the mercenary lunged at her. She grabbed the blade of his sword and thrust it to the side, throwing him off balance. She felt the blood well up in her palm as she brought her own sword to bear on the mercenary with a triumphant yell as she lopped his head off with a single, mighty stroke of her blade. With that, the fight was over. She searched through the bodies of the dead and didn’t find any gold or weapons that were of value to her. She did discover a note on the Zealot’s body which read “Meet me on the island to finish the hunt.” She could only guess that was written by the Crimson Duke himself. As for what they were hunting, she had no idea. She doubted it was herself. Maybe he was hunting the Lost Knight? It seemed likely, as the Lost Knight was his sworn enemy. She put those thoughts away for now and turned her attention on deciding what to do next. She could either go to the Keep or go back to Tiresh, and from Tiresh back to her Sigil. She doubted she could withstand another fight, so she headed back to Tiresh, and then the Sigil to Rest. 

Are there specific licensing things to keep in mind for creating 3PP content? I didn't see any in the physical book. 

Page 29 of the RUNE core book under determining Engraved Actions, the second rule switches from "You" to "I" when giving the example of assigning Stamina dice. 

Hell yeah we love a good QoL update

I am so glad you liked 42N8. Thank you for allowing me to participate in this Jam and inspiring me to experiment with unusual resolution mechanics. 

I'm having a lot of fun with my cover. I've got some pretty neat stuff to show off. 

Starting with the Cover:

Then here are some tables:

Really all that's left to do is to create a few more tables, including one that converts a d20 to give Magic 8-Ball answers, so that way the player won't have to go out and buy their own Magic 8-Ball. (The 8-Ball is a core mechanic that determines among other things, whether or not the client should invest in a stock and whether that stock rises or falls) 

Some fun design notes! 
1) The cover contains an homage to both "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "American Psycho" - can you figure out how? 
2) The tables are created using libre office's spread sheets. Libre office is a free open source alternative to Microsoft Word, which employs similarly scummy subscription based models for their software. You can get it here yourself: https://www.libreoffice.org/

This is the Clean Pages Print file

Sure thing, here you go.

Sure thing! I did have a hard time reading the A7 codex form, but that is because for whatever reason it's not a spread but single pages. I can attach a screenshot of what I mean if you'd like.

Oh hell yeah. I've been waiting for this. 

Howdy howdy, I just joined & I wanna see what I can do.

Thank you!

I am excited for that "Smithed for Brighthammer" logo. :eyes:

I haven't had a chance to run it yet, but I read over the GM book, and the updates that have come out recently, and I gotta say I am excited for everything. I finally got around to writing a one-shot for this, and will be running it as soon as I can. It's a VERY easy system to write for, which is a bonus to me. 

Bestiaries are always my favorite parts as a game master so I'm so excited to see this!

:EYES:

Understandable! I saw your twitter thread! Overall, it's a very well done game. I may round up some folks at one of my gaming tables to run it.

I didn't quite understand the way damage worked, as the sheet doesn't have a Wound Track. So I assumed it was something related to Vigor until I read Sledgehammer. 

This is really cool! I had to go download Sledgehammer because at first I didn't understand how the game worked but now that I have it, I can say that I super appreciate this game. The artwork is beautiful and evocative, and the layout is super easy on the eyes. I can't wait to see the GM book!