So.
You were out gallivanting seven levels deep in the megadungeon, when a modest swarm of 15-20 rats jumps on you from your blind spot, ripping you - and your gallant aspirations of saving the kingdom from the big bad guy - to shreds.
Your GM is one of those oldheads who really makes the party pay for resurrection magic on principle.
Suddenly, flashes of emotion harry your RPG aficionado gray matter;
“Was this campaign all a waste of time?”
“Is this really it? This character is gone forever??”
“Guess it’s time to roll out my binder of unused character builds…”
It can be bitter on the receiving end of death!
So these past few weeks, in preparation for Exalted Funeral’s Free RPG FuneralMania event, I wanted to bust out something fresh and new for y’all that could gamify one of the worst experiences in RPGs’ - character death.
Enter: The Psychopomp’s Road
This Circle of Adventure was inspired heavily by comparative mythology (literally on brand I guess); mainly Dante’s Inferno, the Popol Vuh, and Greek myths surrounding Charon.
Here’s the Skinny:
You have 3 days (72 earth hours) to traverse the Psychopomp’s Road before becoming a ‘Lost Soul’
You must complete the 7 Trials of the Tollhouses of Hell for your soul to cross to “The Other Side”
Your Psychopomp Spirit guide reveals your path as you go
You must cross 3 Paths, complete with Hazards & Spirits that get in your way, to get to the next Tollhouse
After each Tollhouse, your Psychopomp provokes you to perform a Soliloquy, reviewing your character’s life
Also included in this thing is our first ever Epic of Dreams Old School Renaissance conversion chart, for all your old school d20 games!!
With this, you can translate Epic of Dreams characters & monsters’ Core Stats into a pretty killer Old School approximation, including Hit Dice, Damage Dice, Level conversion, and lore!
These are just the Jpegs, you can download the Hi Res PDF on the digital download pack during FuneralMania, or you can download it right now from our discord server!
Free!
I had so much fun making this Circle of Adventure.
Researching mythologies again was so refreshing, I can’t wait to make more evergreen mythic RPG content for y’all.
Please let me know what you think about the presentation, mechanics, etc - or even mythic motifs you’d like me to explore in future Circles!
I really am loving exploring this weird random table format, and this project has given me a lot of spicy ideas of where we can go next with these…
Three words: Class & Faction Grimoires
Did We Forget To Mention…
We had such a blast on Free RPG Day, we wanted to DO IT AGAIN.
In case you missed out on our insane Free RPG Day 2024 offering, you won’t be able to download ‘literally every release’ we’ve made for EF’s FuneralMania this year, but you’ll still be able to grab a fresh copy of our 360 page core rulebook for The Epic of Dreams: Basilisk Edition!
Don’t miss out! Also, we still have physical copies available for sale on Exalted Funeral right now.
We’ll be back soon, enjoy the drops and let us know what you think!
Much love from your worst servant,
Drewcifer