Yoooo Trudvang Chronicles!

These aren't you dad's wizards!

I love thematically consistent artwork. Quality Swedish shit just like Symbaroum.

You want undead?

How about weirdo tree skull monsters?

...

How about some trolls!

Going to have the first session today. Hopefully I'm not a terrible GM.

One thing I dislike about the KS version is the fact that there is NO way of knowing how powerful monsters should be in comparison to the players. Nor is there any good start up adventure since both the Elvenhorn and Wildhart are made for experienced characters in mind.

I am planning to run a game for my friends once I am done reading the rulebooks. The artwork is indeed gorgeous and I like how different the dimwalkers from different religions are. For example, one tradition gets a spell that allows you to turn into a salmon that can heal people by letting them to touch, kiss or bite you.

Vitner Weavers are fresh as well.

Last week, short of time, I downloaded an adventure from Medusa, ran it through Google Translate and started blabbing away.

Hit on slavery due to a mis-read of the GM screen naming charts, the headman of Velbo threw the players out after a chance meeting with some Wildlanders that caused a shift in loyalty, there was a bit with a wizard and his horse, something with Night Ulms, and running across water. .

We were 3 hours in before we got to the module's starting scene. I am very inspired by this system and setting.

Try this place
medusagames.blogspot.com/p/drakar-och-demoner-trudvang.html

That was a thing with all of them, though. Can't remember if core DoD 6 had some sort of challenge rating since that had the actual level system, but I don't think so, and the level system was ass anyway and nobody used it once Expert was released and everyone immediately switched to level-less.

It's basically down to you testing it out to see what's an appropriate level of lethality. Luckily, a lot of the lower-end trolls are probably likely to capture players to ransom/eat/torment. Hell, there's a story in Jorgi's Bestiary where he's captured by grey trolls for months and manages to escape. So you could have them knocked out if it becomes too much to handle and then run a prison escape game from there.

Good luck with your session!
Do you know what kind of characters your group will play?

>This whole threads artwork

Found that but I'm using an old D&D6 Ed adventure called The Witch's Riddle that I've restatted into the new system. I've made some changes to characters and the setting aswell. Nothing Major.

I did some underhanded testing with my players when we tried out the combat. I took an unchanged Graytroll and threw it at two of the players. The big part to look out for at least in my estimation is the damage that creatures do. 2D10 (OR8-10) +4 is stupid amounts of damage to deal to a character that has 30 something BP.
I'm confident I've done enough to mitigate the absolute worst offenders for the adventure.

A Westmark rogue/outcast thats been drifting to the eastern parts of Mittland. Good with a crossbow and pretty charismatic. Talks the talk but can't walk the walk.
A Stormkelt Dimwalker that is out on a pilgrimage. Decent with weapons and buffing Miracles. He's also quite well-read and knowledgeable about botany and healing.
Last one is an Korpikalli Fighter who's the groups muscles and is knowledgable about the wilds and hunting.

>No Thul
Well, don't blame me when y'all get eaten by a giant god snake for dissing his runes.

Also, yes, dwarves are scared shitless of snakes in this setting, because their sort-of-god-sort-of-world-ender is a huge magic snake who gave them magic runes. He will eat the world if you piss him off or give away rune secrets.

>Fight ancient lava dragons
>Run from snakes
>dwarf_logic.txt

Well, for others looking to translate those PDFs, I'm using
onlinedoctranslator.com/

Also, there was a super cool campaign released for DoD 6 where the players had to find an ancestral sword for some foreign dwarves. I remember it being pretty cool and having a lot of interesting parts where the players were captured at sea by raiders and shit. I'll see if I can dig it up.

>The Witch's Riddle
Can't find this... do you have a link? Maybe a trove that holds it?

I take so much inspirationg from Trudvang for my games North zone is ridiculous. Of course it gets a bit weird with all the shit I mix with it (Miyazaki, Dominions, Hiborian age, Titan (FF games setting), LoTR, Glorantha, and a fuckload of books like from Mascaras de Matar to the first law) but heck if the Paul Bonner/Tapias art aren't inspirational and fantasy art done right. You only need Brom or Adrian Smith to get the top quality wise.

It's in Swedish but I can post two that seem to have slipped through the cracks.

Please do!

Overall I think that Riotminds will translate alot of the campaigns adventures to English eventually.

I fucked up. I'll post the links instead.

Voluspa
riotminds.se/downloads/Voluspa.pdf

I Lindormens Näste / In the Lindwurms Lair
docplayer.se/6745036-Drakar-och-demoner-t-r-u-d-v-a-n-g-fangar-i-lindormens-naste.html

Vinterskogens Hemlighet / The Winterforests Secrets'
riotminds.se/downloads/Vinterskogen1_1.pdf

These are all in Swedish

I'd this system compatible with the 1990 edition?

Jag tycker om varenda fantasyspel som är inte jävlageneric amerikanskt skit såsom dnd. Samma gamla klichéer blir transplanterad överallt och alla är nöjda med det.

>Trudvang Chronicles
Where can I find pdfs? It catched my attention, maybe I'll buy it for my group.

As a Finn, I am really amused by the (pseudo-) Finnish naming conventions the elves got:
The term for an elven dimwalker is Ihana, which can mean 'lovely', 'wonderful' or 'marvellous' in Finnish.
Korpikalli are pretty much wild elves, which is pretty fitting considering that 'korpi' means 'wilderness'.
The elven sword-spear Miekka is also aptly named as 'miekka' literally means 'sword'.
Finally, Illmalaini have clearly misspelled their name as 'ilma' means 'air' or 'weather'.

I really like that aspect of the elves. Since Finnish is a very different language from the othe Nordic languages I think it fits really well.

I find it hilarious that elves are these serene, beautiful creatures. And they decided to make them Finnish. And that's not a knock on Finland, but out of all the Scandinavians I wouldn't exactly say they are known for their grace.

>Jag tycker om varenda fantasyspel som är inte jävlageneric amerikanskt skit såsom dnd. Samma gamla klichéer blir transplanterad överallt och alla är nöjda med det.

That may be, but I like DnD, and my homebrew games. That said, Trudvang rocks!

Well, Korpikalli live in the woods and stab people with their blades, so I think that they got at least something right. Plus we got a neat language that some people apparently consider elven-like.
Also, Finland isn't Scandinavian, just Nordic.

I don't know why would you expect grace from Skandis, they are big, good natured drunks, but not very gracile. It's like you have never seen them in the wild.

You have 10 minutes before I take this down.

mega.nz/#F!cSYgjKjZ!C9lOLoOG3RozutK81VpYSw

Clock is ticking.

Honestly I have nothing against DnD tropes and all that. It's just it seems very focused on the actual combat and making that the biggest part of the gameplay.

Some music that fits the themes and feel of Trudvang.
Sowulo - Sol
youtube.com/watch?v=MNsKSOnb06w

Wardruna - Runaljod
youtube.com/watch?v=_Zdg-AMv8tw

Danheim - Mannevegr
youtube.com/watch?v=8tilKaOINmE&t=37s

Most of this can be found on Spotify.
Witcher 1-3 soundtrack is also recommended, especially the more somber pieces.

I will add Heilung to that list:
youtube.com/watch?v=h1BsKIP4uYM

bah! i missed the last one.

thanks for posting those they look amazing. i wish i knew about that kickstater for the art book back in 2016. awesome stuff. thanks again

Depending on what it was, it might be in the trove in the PDF Share Thread OP file.

Do I need to repost?

Wildhart actually is an intro adventure. And a large part of the game is figuring out what is too dangerous to face. These games have never really been a DnD kill the things parade of level appropriate encounters.

Really?
Then again Wildhart doesnt seem like a kiol everything adventure.
The one I've chosen is somewhat combat heavy and facing 2 Greytrolls throwing out 3 attacks each and each attack deals around 15 dmg minimum is a bit too much. I'll throw them into Wildhart after I've gotten a hang of GMing since I want to do the adventure justice.

I assume the answer is no. Too bad, I wanted to use it as a sourcebook

While Trudvang is more combat oriented and forgiving compared to previous Drakarbetter editions it still in large part sticks to the idea that internal consistency is more important than serving up a long line of appropriate encounters. You're certainly in for a violent adventure, the game is geared heavily towards combat, but the idea is to make sure you stack the deck in your favour and avoid the really nasty stuff you might run into.

As for Wildheart it is actually the prologue to a long series of adventures, dont know if its been translated or to what, but the next parts are Snösaga (Snow saga) and Likstorm (Corpse storm).

Unlike the latter shit adventures, Wildheart is built to be basically a series of set pieces you randomly stumble upon that showcase many different parts of the lore and mechanics while the forest and its curse sets an overall theme. Pretty early on its 'supposed' to inform you that bloodshed is gonna go poorly for you in order to warn players not to rely on combat, and hopefully instill the idea that encounters can and perhaps should be solved in other ways than fighting.

Snösaga and Likstorm completeley break from this player driven sandbox/random exploration model and put you squareley on a railroad through a shit plot that wipes away much of the really cool setting material by kickstarting the fimbulwinter apocalypse.

I didn't warn them at all. They saw Gilte's body and kind of figured out how the forest operates.

4th Ed Drakar, best Ed Drakar. Krigarens handbok is some of the best combat rules i've ever had. Granted i like detail and crunch.

You can use the setting, just grab the stats of old monsters, there are counterparts to most of it in the old editions and replace all the descriptions, behaviors and so on.

While im at it.
If the system is the exact same one i played, and i suspect it is if its a translation here are some things to look out for mechanically: Never play a magic user and expect to be able to do anything combat related, or really much of anything, most spells will either cost everything you have if you're a safe magic tradition, or leave you with some spare change if you're not.

That is unless you find an infinite summoning loop that ends the world with skeletons. I dont know how much that came up to other people, but yeah, that used to be a thing.

If divine magic is still the same, it is probably overpowered. I remember making an easterner war priest whatever their name was, who could drop five lightning bolts on people per day and had a four hardcore spectral bodyguards at his beck and call. Also had some kind of dark cone of death spell to just for shits and giggles.

And if you do want your group competent at fighting, never take bows, always go for either two handed weapons with increased crit perks (exploding damage dice forever) or berzerking with dual wielding (so many swings you're bound to kill something).

As noted at the start, some of this might have changed, most of it probably hasn't knowing the devs.

I put the books back up. I'm not going to leave them there all day.

So you think it's better to throw in big stuff early to make the players knowledgeable about the dangers?
I'll go with that approach later but for now learning the systems is tough enough.
Is restating bad as a concept? Because that makes alot of creatures instakill encounters.

Kudos

>Is restating bad as a concept? Because that makes alot of creatures instakill encounters.

Uhh, what?

Overall, just make sure they're aware its a dangerous world that doesnt try to make sure everything they meet is something they can kill. Its a mindset kind of thing, think more adventure fiction and movies as opposed to modern videogames or DnD.

The other thing i do in similar games is really tro to telegraph and give plenty of opportunity to escape, talk down or otherwise avoid confrontation with things that are out of my players league. I never GMed Wildheart, but i remember it doing that decently well.

Encounters like the baselisk bird thing in the cave, or the icecave with the frost giant who kicks off Snösaga i felt generally telegraphed the danger pretty well and had some interesting solutions and opportunities built into them. The trick is to make sure the players are in an open thinking mindset rather than a rush in swinging at everything way.

Exactly. Vildhjarta/Wildhart is literally about "seriously, you don't want to kill things here, because you have a giant evil dragon-cursed forest that will start fucking you up if you do".

And yeah, a lot of the other modules are very hit and miss, especially the ones that follow. I was never a fan of meta-plots, especially those that so fundamentally alter the setting the core ideas no longer exist. Mutant: Year Zero did it better by having a meta-plot that just ended at the exact moment the different splats mixed together. So you could run a Maskinarium campaign to get used to robutts and then start running mixed groups after the meta-campaign if you wanted.

I remember some of the Trudvang campaigns that were published on the old website and in Fenix being pretty goddamn good, though. Keep in mind I was like 15 at the time, though.

And while Chronopia was weird as fuck and not all that good mechanically, that was always my hidden gem of the DoD games. But 6 was my first "real" PnP RPG so it will always hold a special place in my heart, even if the core game was almost unplayable in how much of a mess it was and had typos that literally omitted entire mechanics and made it make no sense. Also, the world's shittiest level system.

It was just really goddamn atmospheric with how it portrayed the deep woods and the mountains, which takes a drastically different tone from the Ereb Altor "this is just DnD in Swedish" vibe they used to have.

This is unfortunately a recurring thing with Swedish RPGs these days. Really top tier production and art, the writing and concepts, the whole setting. Year Zero, UA, Trudvang, Coriolis, Symbaroum.

But they cant seem to make game mechanics for shit. UA is an unbalanced BRP mess, YZ is a shitty boardgame that tacked on roleplaying as an afterthought, Coriolis started as an interesting but broken experiment, and then dropped that in favour of following YZ and trudvang as i've mentioned above, tries to look like old Drakar mechanically, but goddamn it is such a mess. Even once you tease out the actual mechanics from the messy books it is still just bad, the math is all over the place, some concepts just don't work and some are retardedly overpowered.

Symbaroum is honestly the one i have the least issue with, but that might just be because i didnt play it. I have it, read it, was sort of off put by the way it handled players versus opposition in such a gamey way.

I personally think that while clunky and crunchy as fuck Drakar 4ed (the one before Chronopia) despite its faults and dated design still is one of the best roleplaying games ever made.

>you couldn't spill blood because it'd make the environment wake up and start trying to kill you.

Fucking blotrese. I HATED those. Now, as a GM, I think they're pretty cool.

Yeah okay. I phrased that like a retard.
I understand what you mean. That feeling is something I'll want to strive for.
I'll see how it goes today and see if I've understatted things.

This is nostly stemming from having no experience from the system at all.

Trudvang is fucking legit. The mix between celtic and norse mythology is rare enough, and the existence of Trudvang Chronicles lets anglophones enjoy an atmosphere that was previously only known to scandinavians.

Real good shit

>You can use the setting, just grab the stats of old monsters, there are counterparts to most of it in the old editions and replace all the descriptions, behaviors and so on.
Sounds good. I will look into it.
And yeah Krigarens Handbok was awesome. Especially taken together with Tjuvar och Lönnmördare

Gee, I wish my Swedish was better. I can trudge through a rulebook with a dictionary in my hand, but it's really slow and painful, and given that I'd rather use them as sources of inspiration or reference, it's not very helpful to have open an extra app (the dictionary) every time.

*to have to

If english helps, is still up with the newly translated core game.

I know. I just wanted folks to have a change and I figured I'd not be a dick for once in my life.

Year Zero has grown on me. Still not super satisfied with the minimalist crunch, but the additional splats did a lot of cool shit UA never did to differentiate the races mechanically which added a lot more options to differentiate characters. Robots no longer having stats in the traditional sense, but rather having parts that give various stats and can be replaced. Differentiating mutants and mutated animals by making the latter more instinctual and tribal. Having some skills be mutually exclusive (for example, only pleasure robots have any form of social skills).

I just kind of wish there was a bit more there.

>which started out as a shameless DnD rip-off
It didn't. The name was almost certainly chosen in the hope that it would make some looking for D&D to buy the Swedish alternative, but the game itself was from the beginning pretty much just a Swedish translation of the generic BRP rules with the magic supplement added on. The Swedish translation of Dungeons & Dragons was a completely different, and very short lived, thing.

Now what is that creature, because I'm sure it's not a Skeksis.

Symbaroum has amazing fucking art. I'd post some but this thread should stay Trudvang exclusive.

It's not like dragons makes much sense to begin with.

Just finished tonights session. Everything went better than expected. I overestimated the trolls damage output somewhat. But overall it went well. Tried to focus on elaborating and painting the environment as a magical version of Scandinavian forests and mountains.