Coming from the man who brought you Red Tide and Spears of the Dawn, Scarlet Heroes is an old-school tabletop game designed to provide classic fantasy elements with only one GM and one PC in mind.It can be used as a stand-alone RPG or used with conjunction with other old school retroclones modeled off of the Basic D&D ruleset. It's setting is the
Red Tide, where the last remnants of humanity (and dwarves, and elves, and halflings) live on the edges of the verdant Sunset Isles. The destructive mists of the Red Tide slowly consume the world, spawning monsters in its crimson fog and sending maddening visions to those vulnerable to its touch. The nations of the Isles must contend with the indigenous Shou, who resent the new settlers and battled them countless times. The game draws heavily upon Southeast Asian elements, especially that of fantasy China (whose Imperial remnants are the predominant nation).
As opposed to other old school games where low-level PCs start out as relatively ordinary and weak individuals, Scarlet Heroes PCs begin as legends in the making! It incorporates house rules from Black Streams: Solo Heroes, including limited ability to cheat death, a Fray Die which allows characters to kill multiple weak opponents with one attack, and a "trait system" which is an open-ended pseudo skill system where you choose a descriptive background to show what your PC is good at doing (former city watchman, court alchemist, etc).
I own the Red Tide book, and I can safely say that the Scarlet Heroes sourcebook will be awesome. I've always wanted an RPG system which took into account the presence of only 1 PC, and the cool and unorthodox setting is just icing on the cake.
Currently it's a Kickstarter, but if you donate at least $10 you get an art-free beta version of the product for download. Yes, you can play the game before it even comes out!
Better yet, there's a preview of the Create a Hero chapter free for download!If you're interested in this product, go ahead and support the creator!
