Swyvers is an RPG about bastards, built from the ground up to give you a grotty system for running a grotty game. You and your gang of criminals scarper through heists and sewers, stalk through the filth of The Smoke, and, if you're lucky, make it out with a few shillings. The whole of this city is your filthy, sickly oyster.
The Smoke is the greatest city in the world, the beating heart of an empire. What a city it is: corrupt officials, looming war, rogue sorcerers, monsters below and nobs above. Violence flows as thick as the smog, nothing is sacred, and it's always bloody raining. The Smoke does have a name, but only the nobs and learned-readers know it.
Beneath lurks The Midden – the interconnected passages of built-over streets, basements, tombs, and hidden lairs where criminals lurk, beasts squat, and lost wealth resides. An enterprising fellow with a sledgehammer can move through it in any direction – not that they'll like what they find. It is rife with corpse-thieves, cellar-breakers, and business folk shunned in sunlit places. The rich of The Smoke honor their dead with elaborate crypts; these morose edifices encroach ever further into the slums. The trapsmiths of The Smoke do fine business in these crypts, and the fences keep the money flowing thanks to enterprising tomb robbers.
Swyvers is a lightweight set of rules married to a full set of tools and tables for running a game in the chaotic sprawl of The Smoke. The GM starts a campaign by generating the city, starting from a core of districts: the Royal Gaol, the Palace, the Mayoral District, and the Docks. Use generation tables to flesh out and endlessly expand your rotten city, building hideouts, picking up odd jobs just to pay the bills, discovering heists, engaging fences, bribing officials, investing in properties (both legitimate and illicit), installing bizarre prosthetic tools, and dealing with demonic forces for personal gain.
Learn more at the February 2024 Kickstarter campaign page and at Swyvers.com.
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