Bleak Forest

Overview

You have been fated to end the world - or at least bring the current cycle to its next stage. The Bleak Forest Engine is built around the premise that the world is stalled, stuck in a segment of the Cosmic Cycle where every day is defined by suffering, grief, and strife. Agents of the Adversary seek to keep it this way. As an agent of the Fates, you endure and will ultimately prevail, but the level of adversity you must endure to see your task through is yet to be determined. Every Bleak Forest campaign follows the Fated Goal; the world-ending task Fate has chosen you for, and every Ordeal you complete is a step along it. Ordeals grow with the map and with your character: Minor Ordeals save a village, Moderate Ordeals save a city or a district, and Major Ordeals save a region. Each tie of ordeals carries you through three Degrees of the Road, and a final Ordeal, the Reckoning, ends the Goal.

The Fated Goal is a path that ultimately leads to the Adversary. This path follows a sequence of interrelated tiers of events and tasks. The pieces nest and are defined as follows:

• Goal: the single purpose that ties the campaign together, its Adversary, and its Reckoning. Rolled once, on 1d6.
• Ordeal: a place in trouble with a hidden Cause. Each Goal has six Ordeals at each tier.
• Task: what must be done to put the place right. An Ordeal has 2, 3 or 4 tasks.
• Encounter: a scene on the way to finishing a task: a fight, a hazard, a witness or a temptation.
• Fragment: a clue. One Fragment reveals each task, and one more reveals the Cause.
• Omen: the sign that a Prepared Ordeal has begun.
• Thread: the Cause Fragment of a Major Ordeal. Threads lead to the Reckoning.

Ordeal Scale

An Ordeal’s tier sets how much of the map it covers. A Minor Ordeal stays inside one settlement or site, for instance, while a Moderate Ordeal fills a town, a city, or several sites in one stretch of country. A Major Ordeal spreads over a region of several Overland hexes.

Sites. A site is where a task is done: a mill, a gaol, a barrow, a bridge. In a Moderate Ordeal, give each site its own sub-hex. In a Major Ordeal, put each task’s site in a different Overland hex, so the characters must travel between them, and the Danger Die runs between sites as normal.

Where Fragments lie. Every Fragment of an Ordeal is found inside its footprint. In a Moderate or Major Ordeal, each task’s Fragment lies at that task’s site or on the way to it. The Cause Fragment lies where the wrongness is strongest.

Where the Omen falls. The Omen of a Minor Ordeal happens in the place. The Omen of a Moderate Ordeal is seen in any settlement in its Overland hex. The Omen of a Major Ordeal is felt across the whole region. If the characters are outside the footprint when the Omen arrives, they hear of it as a Rumour, and the Ordeal begins when they next enter the footprint.

Choosing the place. Each Ordeal in the Goal tables names its place. To set it on your map, put a Minor Ordeal in the nearest settlement of the right kind. Put a Moderate Ordeal in the nearest town or city, or the nearest group of sites that fits. Put a Major Ordeal in the region the characters have not yet crossed.

Advancement: Degrees of the Road

A character climbs the nine Degrees in three bands, and each band is reached only through Ordeals of its tier. Minor Ordeals carry a character from 1st to 3rd Degree. A Moderate Ordeal opens 4th Degree, and Moderate Ordeals carry the character to 6th. A Major Ordeal opens 7th, and Major Ordeals carry the character to 9th. The Reckoning ends the Goal. A full Fated Road is 3 Minor, 5 Moderate and 5 Major Ordeals, then the Reckoning: 14 Ordeals in all.

Gates. The first Ordeal of a new band is its gate. A character at 3rd Degree cannot reach 4th Degree by completing more Minor Ordeals; only a Moderate Ordeal opens the way. The same is true at 6th Degree for Major Ordeals. take note of the following concerning Ordeals:

• Ordeals below your band. A lower-tier Ordeal still changes the world, and it can still yield loot, Identity Marks and Fragments for other events. It does not count towards Degrees.
• Ordeals above your band. You may take on an Ordeal of a higher tier if you dare. It counts as two Ordeals of your current band, but no single Ordeal can raise a character more than one Degree. It never opens a gate early: the gate needs an Ordeal of the gate’s own tier, completed while you stand at the Degree below it.
• Failed Ordeals. A failed Ordeal counts for nothing towards Degrees. Its Blight applies, and the Goal’s Adversary gains a Hold (see The Reckoning).
• Parties. Every character who is the Lead or a Second in at least one of an Ordeal’s tasks counts it towards their own Degrees (see Party Size). Characters of different bands can share an Ordeal; each counts it by their own band.

Ordeal Structure

An Ordeal is a chain of tasks, each guarded by encounters, ending in one decisive check against its Cause. Bigger Ordeals have more tasks, more encounters in each task, and stronger creatures.

These numbers are for a party of 3 or 4; Party Size scales them for 1 to 6 characters. The totals count only the encounters inside tasks and at the Cause. Travel between sites, foraging and Fragment hunting add their own Danger Die encounters as normal.

Tasks

Each task has an attribute, a site and a check. The Goal tables give every task’s attribute and what it asks. Identity Marks apply to tasks whenever their benefits, constraints or complications are relevant. A task’s check uses the attribute named and whichever skill fits the approach the player describes.

Encounters within a task

Before the task check, play out its encounters. Each Ordeal in the Goal tables names its task encounters; when you need more, or want variety, roll 1d6 on the table below. Each encounter is a full scene, resolved with the normal encounter, combat and skill rules.

When the task’s encounters are done:

• All resolved in your favour (won, avoided, talked down or survived without retreat): the task check gains Moderate Advantage.
• Mixed: no change.
• All lost or fled: the task check is at Moderate Disadvantage.

The decisive check

When every task has been attempted, the characters confront the Cause. In a Moderate or Major Ordeal, play the Cause encounter first. Then one character, the Lead, makes the decisive check against the Ordeal’s Decisive BAM!, using the attribute and skill that fit how they face the Cause. The others can Support it (see Party Size), and their earlier work shows in the Advantage from completed tasks.

• Each completed task grants Moderate Advantage on the decisive check.
• New limit: the Advantage from completed tasks stacks to a maximum of Extreme (3 steps). Without this, a Major Ordeal’s four tasks would drop Formidable (22) all the way to Easy (10).
• Each failed task leaves its complication in play. Its encounter, hazard or harm is still waiting at the decisive check, and the Narrator may apply Minor Disadvantage for each one.

Success

The Trouble is resolved and the place changes for good. Every character who was the Lead or a Second in a task counts the Ordeal towards their Degrees. An Identity Mark may be deepened, reinterpreted or added when the outcome calls for it. Each Ordeal’s entry says what success brings in the Goal.

Failure and Blights

Roll 1d6 on the Blight table. Whatever the roll, the Goal’s Adversary also gains a Hold.

Party Size

An Ordeal works for 1 to 6 characters. The number of tasks and Fragments never changes, so every Ordeal in the Goal tables works as written. What scales is who takes part in each task, how many encounters each task holds, and how many enemies each encounter brings. Every character must take a role in at least one task, or the Ordeal does not count for them.

Roles in a task

Every task has one Lead and any number of Seconds.

• Lead: makes the task check. One per task.
• Second: takes part in one of two ways:
  • Face an encounter. The Second is the one who carries one of the task’s encounters: makes its key roll, takes point in the fight, or does the talking. Others may join in as normal.
  • Support the check. The Second describes how they help and makes a check with any attribute and skill that fits, at the task’s BAM!. One successful Support gives the Lead Minor Advantage; two or more give Moderate Advantage. That is the most Supports can give. A natural 1 on a Support check is a Skill Mishap for the supporter (a Magical Misfire for a Spiritus check).

A character can take a role in several tasks. To count the Ordeal towards Degrees, each character must be the Lead or a Second in at least one task. The decisive check works the same way: one Lead, and Seconds who can Support it.

Encounters by party size

The encounter numbers in Ordeal Structure are for a party of 3 or 4. Use this table for other sizes.

When the table adds encounters, roll them on the encounter table in Ordeal Structure, or use the Goal’s signature encounters.

Enemies by party size

The Number listed for a creature in the Creature Compendium is for a party of 3 or 4.

Never scale a single named creature (a champion, a lieutenant, the Adversary) up or down. Scale the creatures around it.

How it plays at each size

• 1 character (solo): the character is the Lead of every task. There are no Seconds and no Supports, but there are fewer encounters and fewer enemies. A solo Major Ordeal is 8 encounters and the Cause.
• 2 characters: they share the tasks between them, Leading some and Supporting others. A Minor Ordeal gives each one task to Lead.
• 3 or 4 characters: the standard. In a Minor Ordeal, at least one character will be a Second only; give them an encounter to carry.
• 5 or 6 characters: more encounters than characters, so everyone carries something. The Narrator should make sure no one sits out a whole task: a Second who has no encounter to face Supports the check instead.

Worked out, a party of 6 in a Minor Ordeal has 2 tasks with 2 encounters each: 2 Leads and 4 encounters to carry, one role each.

Characters who miss an Ordeal

A character who was absent, or who took no role, does not count the Ordeal. To keep a party together, the Narrator may allow catching up: an absent character’s next completed Ordeal counts as two Ordeals of their band. Catching up can never raise a character more than one Degree from one Ordeal, never above the party’s highest Degree, and never through a gate.

Travel, Terrain and the Danger Die

Ordeals happen on the map, so every travel rule in Playing the Game still applies inside an Ordeal’s footprint, and the Trouble makes the land worse. Getting from one site to the next is travel. Terrain and weather slow you down and make tasks harder, and the Danger Die keeps rolling.

Moving between sites

Travel between sites uses trekking speed, the terrain and weather multipliers, and Forced March, all as normal. In a Moderate Ordeal each site is its own sub-hex, and in a Major Ordeal each is its own Overland hex, so a Major Ordeal is also a journey.

The Danger Die inside the footprint

Roll the Danger Die on entering each new sub-hex, as normal, with these changes while an Ordeal is Prepared or under way:

• +1 die for the Trouble, and +1 more in the hex of a Major Ordeal’s Cause. The pool still never goes above 4d6.
• When the sum gives an encounter, roll 1d6. On 1–3, use the region’s normal table of that rarity. On 4–6, the encounter belongs to the Ordeal: roll on the Ordeal encounter table in Ordeal Structure, with creatures of the Ordeal’s tier.
• When the Wyrd die shows 1, roll 1d6 instead of a Special Event. On 1–2, a Setback strikes. On 3–4, you meet a Witness, or find a Fragment for another event. On 5–6, the Trouble flares: roll for the Omen now (if the Ordeal is Prepared).
• Rest inside the footprint is never safe. Resting without a guard adds a die as normal, and no Full Rest is possible at the Cause’s site.

Terrain at the site

A task done outdoors is shaped by the ground it is done on. Tasks done indoors, underground or in a settlement ignore this table.

Weather on the day

Roll the weather (2d6) at the start of each Watch as normal. It applies to every task done outdoors that Watch, on top of its effect on travel.

The characters may wait for better weather. Waiting costs time, and time is what the Ruin die measures.

Setbacks and the Ruin Die

Once an Ordeal’s Omen arrives, the Trouble gets worse until it is stopped. The Ruin die tracks how long the characters have; Setbacks are what go wrong along the way.

The Ruin die

When the Omen arrives, set a d6 to 6. Lower it by 1:

• at the end of each day of a Minor Ordeal, every 2 days of a Moderate Ordeal, or every 3 days of a Major Ordeal; and
• each time a Setback strikes.

A task check that succeeds with style (beating its BAM! by 6 or more) raises the Ruin die by 1, to a maximum of 6.

At 0, the Trouble peaks. Roll on the Blight table now: the place suffers it whatever happens next. The decisive check can still be made, at Moderate Disadvantage. Success still ends the Trouble and counts towards Degrees, but restores no Doom.

Setbacks

A Setback strikes when:

• a task check fails;
• any task, Support or decisive check rolls a natural 1;
• the party loses or flees an encounter inside a task; or
• the Wyrd die calls for one.

Each Setback lowers the Ruin die by 1. Then roll 1d6.

A character may spend 1 Boon Point to cancel a Setback as it is rolled. The Ruin die still drops.

Fragments, Omens and Threads

The cycle is unchanged: find Fragments, become Prepared, receive an Omen, resolve the event. What changes is that every Fragment and Omen in the Goal tables is written for its own Ordeal, so a Fragment tells the players exactly what it reveals.

Fragments

An Ordeal needs one Fragment per task, plus one for its Cause. Each Ordeal in the Goal tables lists its Fragments in order, each with its form and what it reveals.

• Task Fragment: reveals one task: what must be done, and at which site.
• Cause Fragment: found last; reveals the hidden Cause. In a Major Ordeal, the Cause Fragment is also a Thread.

The form of a Fragment says how it is gained. The forms are the same as in Playing the Game.

Fragments never transfer between events. A Fragment found before its Ordeal is known can be named with a Lore check (Difficult 16). A Fragment for an Ordeal one tier above the characters’ band can be found and recorded, but that Ordeal cannot begin until it is Prepared.

Order of discovery. The Goal tables list Fragments in the order they make most sense, but the players can find them in any order, except that the Cause Fragment is always last. If the players reach the Cause Fragment’s place early, they find signs of it but not the Fragment itself.

Omens

Each Ordeal in the Goal tables has its own Omen: the moment the Trouble breaks into the open. Omen timing is unchanged: once the Ordeal is Prepared, roll 1d6 at the end of each Watch spent inside its footprint, +1 for each Watch waited. On 6 or more, the Omen arrives. Danger Die Special results and scenario triggers can bring it sooner. An Omen for an Ordeal that is not yet Prepared reveals the form of its next missing Fragment instead.

Threads and the Heart

The Cause Fragment of every Major Ordeal in a Goal is a Thread: it shows how that Ordeal’s Cause ties back to the Adversary, and it reveals one of the Reckoning’s tasks. A character who completes five Major Ordeals holds five Threads.

The sixth and last Fragment of the Reckoning is the Heart: where the Adversary can be faced. It comes as a Vision during the first Full Rest after a character reaches 9th Degree. With five Threads and the Heart, the Reckoning is Prepared, and its Omen is rolled like any other.

Red Herrings

The Adversary does not want to be found, so every Ordeal hides false clues among the true ones. Seed 1 False Fragment for a Minor Ordeal, 2 for a Moderate and 3 for a Major, in the same way as real Fragments. A False Fragment looks exactly like a true one and points to a false task or a false Cause.

• False Fragments never count towards Prepared. If the party thinks an Ordeal is Prepared but holds a False Fragment, the next Omen does not begin it. It reveals the form of the missing true Fragment instead, as normal. That is the tell.
• Testing a Fragment. Any character may test a Fragment they hold with a Lore or Wits check at the Ordeal’s task BAM!, or by spending 1 Boon Point. On a success, the Narrator says whether it is true. Exposing a False Fragment grants Insight: Minor Advantage on that Ordeal’s decisive check. Insight from several red herrings does not add up.
• Acting on a False Fragment. The false task can be attempted like any other, with its encounters and its time. Completing it grants no Advantage. When it is done, the deception comes out, and a Setback strikes.

Each Adversary also has a favourite lie, which it tells in every Ordeal of its Goal. Use it as one of a Moderate or Major Ordeal’s False Fragments.

Challenges

Challenges stay what they are: personal trials that decide who a character becomes. On the Fated Road, a character faces one Challenge per band, its tier matching the band, and it can be woven into an Ordeal so the personal and the world-sized stories meet.

Unchanged. A Challenge tests one attribute at Average (13), Difficult (16) or Challenging (19). It needs 2, 3 or 4 Fragments. Success Locks the attribute and grants an Identity Mark: a Vow or Knot (Minor), a Vow or Scar (Moderate), or a Scar or Knot (Major). Use the Challenge Generator in Playing the Game for its trial, site, Fragments, Omen and Blight.

One per band. Each character may face one Challenge in each band: a Minor Challenge between 1st and 3rd Degree, a Moderate Challenge between 4th and 6th, and a Major Challenge between 7th and 9th. A Challenge does not count towards Degrees; it shapes the character, not the road.

Woven Challenges. A Challenge can ride inside an Ordeal of the same tier:

• Its site is one of the Ordeal’s sites, or a place inside the footprint.
• One of its Fragments can be found during a task’s encounter instead of by its own route.
• Its Omen can be the Ordeal’s Omen, so both begin together. The Challenge is resolved during the Ordeal, before the decisive check.
• If the trial matches a task (Stand against a foe and Hold a position, say), the Challenge check and the task check can be the same roll, made at the higher of the two BAM!s.

When a Challenge fails inside an Ordeal, its Blight applies, but the Ordeal goes on. When an Ordeal fails, any Challenge woven into it that has not yet been resolved is lost; its Fragments must be found again.

Escape the Bleak Forest. That game has no Degrees, so Challenges use its own optional rule: the tier equals the number of Locked attributes + 1.

The Fated Goal

Roll 1d6 once, at the start of the campaign, to choose the Goal Fate has set for the characters. Every Goal is the same promise kept differently: the world is dying, and something is holding it in its death. The characters must see the ending through so the new age can begin.

Building the road

1. Roll the Goal. Read its premise, Adversary and Reckoning aloud, or keep the Adversary hidden until the first Thread.
2. Roll each Ordeal when it is needed. When the characters are ready for a new Ordeal, roll 1d6 on the Goal’s table for their band. Reroll an Ordeal already used. Over the campaign you will use 3 of the 6 Minor Ordeals, 5 of the 6 Moderate and 5 of the 6 Major.
3. Place it on the map at the scale its tier needs (see Ordeal Scale).
4. Seed its Fragments. Put each Fragment where its form says it is found, inside the footprint. The players can learn of an Ordeal from its first Fragment, a Rumour, or a Danger Die Special result.
5. Run it using Ordeal Structure.
6. After five Major Ordeals and the Heart, run the Reckoning.

Running Ordeals from the general Ordeal Generator in Playing the Game is still allowed. Such an Ordeal counts towards Degrees, but it adds nothing to the Goal: it has no Thread and gives the Adversary no Hold.

The Adversary

The Adversary is the power that wants the dying to go on for ever. It is felt more strongly as the road goes on:

• Minor Ordeals: its servants and the people it has fooled. Creatures of Might 0.
• Moderate Ordeals: its lieutenants. Up to Tier I.
• Major Ordeals: its champions, each guarding a Thread. Up to Tier II.
• The Reckoning: the Adversary itself, Tier III.

Build its creatures from the Creature Compendium. The Demon and Draconic generators there serve well for lieutenants and champions.

Holds

Each failed Ordeal on the Goal gives the Adversary a Hold: a fortress rebuilt, a servant raised, a chain mended. At the Reckoning, each Hold adds one more task at Formidable (22), with its three encounters. A Hold can be broken by completing an Ordeal from the general Ordeal Generator in Playing the Game of the same tier as the one that failed, set in the same place.

The Reckoning

The Reckoning is the final Ordeal of the Goal. It begins only when a character stands at 9th Degree and the party holds five Threads and the Heart.

• Tasks: 5, plus 1 per Hold, at Formidable (22). Each Thread reveals one task; the Goal’s entry lists them.
• Encounters: 3 per task, then the Adversary itself as the Cause encounter.
• Decisive check: Inconceivable (25). Completed tasks grant Moderate Advantage each, to the usual maximum of Extreme.
• Success: the age ends and the new one begins. Every character who took part may retire as a legend of the turning, or walk on into the new age with a new Identity Mark of their choice.
• Failure: the Adversary’s grip closes. The age goes on dying. The road begins again from the Major band with a new Adversary rising from the old one’s ashes, and every Hold remains.

Doom

Doom is how much of you the Adversary has already touched. It works as in Hail Three Wyrd Sisters, with the Goal’s Adversary in place of the Abrikoth: a track from 0 to 12 that falls when you fail Doom saves and rises when you finish Ordeals. At 0 the Adversary has you.

Starting Doom and maximum. Doom starts at 6. Its maximum is 6 at 1st Degree and rises by 1 with each Degree, to 12. A game with its own Doom table, such as Hail Three Wyrd Sisters, uses that instead. Escape the Bleak Forest does not use Doom.

Doom save. d20 + Spiritus modifier against the Adversary’s Doom BAM!. On a failure, lose 1 Doom and suffer the Goal’s extra effect.

Doom states

The Doom BAM!

The Adversary’s reach grows as the road goes on. The Doom BAM! is set by the Ordeal you are in, or by the last one you attempted.

When the Adversary holds 3 or more Holds, every Doom save against it is one step harder. A cursed or blighted site makes it one step harder too.

When to make a Doom save

• When a Major Ordeal’s Omen arrives: every character in the footprint.
• When you first face a Major Ordeal’s Cause, and when you first face the Adversary at the Reckoning.
• When you accept a Temptation encounter.
• When the Setback table rolls 6.
• When your Doom state calls for one.
• When you die: the final Doom save against Average (13), as in Character Rules.

When an Ordeal fails, every character who took a role in it loses 1 Doom, with no save.

Extra effects by Goal

Restoring Doom

• +1 for a Full Rest in a safe place, outside any active Ordeal’s footprint.
• +1, +2 or +3 for completing a Minor, Moderate or Major Ordeal of the Goal (none if its Ruin die reached 0).
• Full restore when you gain a Degree, and when the Reckoning succeeds.
• Never above your maximum.

Boon Points

At the start of each session, your Boon Points equal your current Doom. Unspent points are lost at the session’s end. Spend 1 to:

• reroll any one of your d20 rolls and keep the new result;
• invoke your Drive for Minor Advantage on a roll that serves it;
• pass a Critical Damage check automatically;
• cancel a Setback as it is rolled (the Ruin die still drops); or
• learn whether a Fragment you hold is true, without a roll.

Consumed

At Doom 0 you become the Adversary’s instrument and pass out of play, and the Adversary gains a Hold. A Consumed character can return as one of the Adversary’s creatures: a servant in a Minor Ordeal, a lieutenant in a Moderate Ordeal, or the guard of a Thread in a Major Ordeal. Your companions can bring you back by completing a Major Ordeal in which you are the Cause; you return at Doom 1.