Crave
A downloadable game
This is my hacked version of Knave, originally by Ben Milton (a.k.a. QuestingBeast). What's different?
Well, I mixed up Knave and Maze Rats to get all these wonderful tables in the same game. Also made up a new magic system (Sigil magic) based on the one in the Tyranny CRPG. There are many rule changes (4 stats instead of 6, for example, as well as Death and Dismemberment and... lots of things), but you should be able to run OSR adventures with it without any retooling.
Why is it called Crave? It's because it's a Knave hack like Brave and Grave, and crave sounds like "crève" in French, which means die. Stop looking for a deep meaning and go play already!
Cover image by LadyofHats.
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How exactly does the sigil magic work? I think I've hopelessly confused myself.
Ok, so you learn one or more sigils and those give you access to specific spells. You need to learn at least one core sigil. Let's say I know the sigil of Earth - this gives me access to the Hold Portal spell. If later I learn the sigil of Focused Intent, I get access to the Stone Ram spell. Later, I learn the Fire sigil, giving me access to Produce Flame and Burning Hands (since I already know the Focused Intent sigil)...
So the sigils themselves do not have an effect, they unlock spells that you can use. Well, Enhancement sigils modify the spells, acting like metamagic in other systems.
That makes sense
Would the enchantments be earned in a similar way to spells?
I'll quote the text from the Sigil magic page to answer this:
"Characters can learn a number of magic sigils of any type equal to their PER. At first, learning a core sigil (first column) lets them cast a single spell (second column) even if they don’t know any expression sigil (first row) yet. As they progress, they can combine core and expression sigils to cast various spells, further modified by enhancement sigils."
Now, how they get their sigils is decided by the Referee. Are they found, do they research them... you decide.
Cool
Really great hack. I'm in love with it.
Why only 99 spells?
Because of Sigil magic: it's a 9x11 matrix. But honestly, I was always tempted to put 100 spells and see if anyone would notice that one of the spells was not available by using sigils.
Hey, a couple of the "OSR Conversion" classes have an item granting the "Bulwark" sigil (the Cleric/Paladin and the Druid). But I can't find that anywhere in the sigil magic table. My best guess is that it's "Guarded Form (the Cloak)" - is that correct?
Ah, never mind - it's an enhancement sigil!
Exactly! It lets them cast in armor without penalty.