We are happy you decided to check Living Lantartia out! Here you can see the first highlights of both the Dungeons Soul system and Lantartia setting, to expand, support and reinforce your play experiences into the best they can be. There are for sure elements that fit well within your play style, where your homebrewing is headed or where your campaign is at.
Thanks to your participation, the full scope of our contents, beyond the fundamental ones, will be unlocked! Take a peek on the Achievements section, below, to see how you can help even without a honorary €1 pledge.
Feel free to ask questions and discuss anything regarding the project in the comment sections here, on our Fanfare, Discord server or any media channel.
Your feedback is invaluable to us and we try our best to always incorporate it, according to your playing needs, with full transparency to the best of our abilities. Please, check the page regularly for news and as the campaign Achievements are updated. We wish you fun and thank you for your generous support making in Fantasy for Real!
Dungeons Soul is made for simplicity and flexibility. Designed on elegant complexity so it is not only 5e compatible, but also its parts serve as resources to suit the most diverse of other games, RPG schools and individual campaign styles.
All of the system elements are carefully tested to their cores, with a heavy focus on streamlined processes, that can easily be expanded upon with next to zero adaptation effort.
The game’s 4 Core Rules may be the only ones used for old school style games, to start playing fast or keep sessions very rules light. But the addition of the Basic Rules, within those, the Tertiary Rules, to them allow progressive expansion to all areas of play.
Which includes more support or details to character creation, combat and healing, exploration, social or political interaction, crafting, magic, psychism and much more.
This makes it clear what can be independently added or even totally skipped, according to your and your group’s demands. Whatever the case, inexperienced to veteran game masters will find it easy to identify what fits their games and will be able to implement it quickly, with little to no preparation.
To help us fulfill your game fantasies, as soon as the crowdfunding opens, consider supporting us at the Truthseeker pledge tier or higher and join our playtest rooms, where discussions and playtests are more prevalent.
Additionally we at MeepleWorks subscribe to the ORC license, making it easy for everyone maximize their own and others fun, through earnest discussions and community design, keeping Living Lantartia true to its word and vocation. Always progressing on being easy to learn and run.
All of the Dungeons Soul and Living Lantartia elements are ready to use. As we value your time, we have a particular focus on minimizing preparation demands for the DM. From the book(s) layout to the general division of Core, Basic and Tertiary rules; and the order in which everything is presented; everything is set to prioritize your sessions starting fast and running smoothly.
Beyond this, the Lantartia omniverse is designed for coherence and harmonization of fantasy troupes, story potentials and the mechanics keeping them consistent.
The setting is there so you and your group can simply dive in. It is made sturdy as not to crash because of the game's own weight when running high fantasy or epic games with hundreds of spells, furry feeric glitter and physical prowesses that, while superficial, amass to nothing other than complications and discussions!
In Lantartia tens of spells, psychic powers, and martial options carry the same weight, but with tens of lineages (that are not all shades of elf), distinct pantheons and cultures bring gravitas and offer elegant complexity that bores deep so that your choices are brought to the surface and actually matter on the table (or screen)!
Such a setting can easily be a source of elements and inspiration for games that prefer less and simpler experiences too.
Need tools and/or content to challenge players at higher levels? Done. Need it in a low or even no magic context? Done. But still with supernatural powers as options for players or to develop your world further? Done. High magic? Easy and ready to use, even with mana levels and magic phenomena that highlights the core differences between arcane and divine sources. All of it together? Barely an inconvenience; and it’s all balanced from the mechanics viewpoint, without neglecting the other pillars of play.
Consider pledging and sharing now, so we can make even more content ready and make it custom tailored to your needs, as discussions, polls, further playtests will be included as often as possible to crown Living Lantartia as the ultimate toolkit it is meant to be!
Check out our previews, including of a free conversion guide, and play test material!
Dungeons Soul is designed with elegant complexity at heart.The layering of the system into Core, Basic and Tertiary rules readily informs the DM what and how to cut out or adapt everything to the group's or campaign needs. While the modularity at its heart ensures that no or minimum effort is needed to use this game more like a toolset than a manual.
Although there are only 4 Core Rules, all layers tend to be front loaded. Since by having more dials to play with earlier on, the DM can get a feel for the system faster and more to work with both on rulings and customization.
Additionally robust and flexible rules design means less specific ones are needed, which in turn results into them being more fail proof against weird interactions. All in all complexity is optimized as to make the DM's life easier and the game more adaptable.
Whatever combination of realistic grittiness, high (or no) epicness your game may require. Lantartia accommodates all game styles, while remaining 5e compatible. Sample the basic 5 Classes, use of lineages as classes option and deadly fast paced combat for your first sessions or a more serious and strategic OSR experience!
If you want more, expand it with a handful of archetypes for each class, class customization through Adventure Paths and a choice of culture, regardless of background, class or lineage.
Which will keep your games ever new and to sate more profound appetites. Without ever needing the creation of new classes, mystical powers and power creep supplements!
For the holders of the social or role playing flame, you have never seen a more nurturing world building! Tens of unique and deeply crafted lineages, cultures and pantheon choices for every volition you may cook up for your character or campaign.
With your participation and support, we can keep advancing the hobby in support of the public’s suggestions and into expanding the RPG community. Our dream is to strengthen and inspire other players, dungeon masters and world builders alike.
Curious? Ask us about it! Your support, comments and ideas mean literally the world to us. It is life giving. May the dice always roll in your favor and your name forever be remembered!
Dungeons Soul is packed with DM tools, player and world building options, singlehandedly focused on the main principle of making the DM’s life and playing easier, so you gets the most out of your games.
The system’s design is based upon interaction, combat, exploration and medieval realism as pillars, which inform the design choices for the Living Lantartia setting. This design approach optimizes the modularity and balance of the new mechanical elements and features that we present.
Some of the new content for this is summarized here (and in the book sample):
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Epic Points and Inspiration work together to allow narrative sharing and heroic recovery mechanics, bringing an epic feel to the sessions since level 1;
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Injuries, called shots and initiative by range/reach facilitate fast, realistic and gruesomely lethal sessions, that enhance risks and strategies instead of breaking the game. All the while keeping traps, equipment and martial skills meaningful at all levels, even against magic!
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Depletion rolls may be the most powerful core rule, given how compact and adaptable it is. It covers anything from ammunition usage, skill challenges and luck to the menace of diseases or trauma, the marvels of a full fledged crafting system and the desperation of otherworldly horror. The flexibility of the design puts untold customization power on the GM’s grasp;
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Milestone xp solves the conflict between either milestones or xp advancement and the rhythm can be adjusted on the fly, even revert towards xp or milestones;
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Armies and mass combat keep the power in numbers a realistic threat at any level. This makes scaling encounters up much easier. Although we will provide as many ready to use units stat blocks as we can, the rules are simple enough to allow creating your own without prepping!
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Psychism and crafting are skill based and made with fantastical world building in mind, to enhance coherence against magical power creep in support of a much finer and wider spectrum of genres for your campaign and setting;
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Leveled spells, cast through Aura points and the option to employ mana densities ensures diverse and rich magical effects and usage; while tens of spells do the job that takes other systems hundreds of fixed spells to do.
The addition of fantastic materials, beyond just magic or even psionic items, reinforce all the other game resources and there is much more… All of which, with your help opening the way, we will develop it fully and be able to finish and add striking art for you to enjoy. Thank you for the honor of your support!
Backgrounds, classes, lineages and cultures all impact your characters mechanically, while also fleshing out better how you wish to define them.
This is especially true since all of these variables are chosen independently from one and the cultures themselves are diverse. Not only two fighter, urchin orcs won’t feel the same, no two lineages are monocultural and a culture isn’t necessary closely tied to a lineage’s social stereotypes.
This makes it easy for a player to go for creating a very “orcish orc” (or centaur, giant, vampire…) or to vary as one that was raised by a group of a different lineage or on a deep sea realm! With your support, tens of options will be ready for you and your group’s needs and they should inspire you to bring forth your own with this alliance between lore and mechanic. So it feels empowering and simple to flesh out anything you can imagine playing with or against.
To embrace the diversity of cultures within and between lineages is also to acknowledge that humans cannot be the center of a fantasy world populated with several humanoids and other sentient beings, that have physical needs and social organization. Furthermore cultures clash and coalesce.
So the diversity among cultures can be more closely linked to that of a realm, of a lineage or an institution. Making this trait one of the most adaptable to fine tune the character experience you aim for. Particularly when exporting or importing between Dungeons Soul and other systems.
Realism in games is about facilitating immersion. Its power is most effective towards verisimilitude, which doesn’t mean copying what is real in excruciating detail.
Rather it has to do with portraying consequences in a way that makes sense. This is realistic, not bringing a physics round table to the hobby or session! Good realism doesn’t add mechanics, instead it uses those mechanics better.
As an example, in Dungeons Soul fire burns. It is part of fire damage, there is no need to waste text and rules deciding for each instance of a fire spell or accidental fire scenarios if and how a fire burns. Let the damage do it! Because this affects everything in a game, we save lots of room for what truly matters.
In art and text, Living Lantartia strives to depict and support the medieval tone and feel, with as much historical accuracy as possible. This mostly appears in medieval appropriate weapons and armor names and traits.
And, complementarily, architectural, legal, institutional and further social aspects receive special attention, as much as it is feasible and we are able to. We appreciate any suggestions or expertise you may have to offer, so we can improve even more. Join in the discussions!
A character’s identity, in RPG and literature both, relates much closer to the lineage the character belongs to, than to its profession or social stand. No wonder it is usually the first descriptor we say to present a fantasy character.
Sadly, most games throw this to the sidelines as the mechanics fail to represent and keep up with potentials of the character’s identity as part of a lineage.
Fantasy books and media are full of examples of how much lineages play defining roles in what characters can or not do or how they are viewed by others, bringing the story forward. The troupe of advanced, experience or exemplary characters of a particular lineage, such as Glorfindel, an elven lord, in The Lord of The Rings is one of a myriad such examples.
The lone wizards of sword and sorcery, disconnected from humanity by the corruption and transformations from their lust for power in Robert E. Howard’s Conan, might be another.
Instead of letting other game elements take a toll by simulating these fantasy troupes, we dug into the roots of identity to bring it to the forefront.
In Dungeons Soul lineages can progress along with the character’s level. This allows lineages to not only matter mechanically, but also to remain conceptually meaningful.
So much that it can substitute classes, as some old school games do. It is also a no brainer to restrict the progression or use just the starting traits, as is typical of current games.
Regardless, this work is ready to bring to the table as is or be used to create new lineages, advance monsters or experiment with in one shots or variant games of your own!
At the same time this approach solves the issue of self simulation that affects RPGs at large. There is no shortage of concepts or motivation to play with classical lineages of fantasy.
Dragons, fiends, undead, giants, fey surely are among the most popular ones that get banned from play. There are either taboo or balance reasons for this, but, since the demand is there, supplement after supplement power creep simulacra of them in.
As an almost schizophrenic compromise in world building and game balance; shoveling them into a world not designed for it and offering then the “dragon like”, “giant vibe”, “undeadish”, “emancipated devil themed” version of a lineage… Why hogtie and rein our imaginations and fantasy worlds in like this!?
In Dungeons Soul you get to play without half measures, cosmetic fey or any lazy shoehorned option. We embrace, welcome and support the power fantasies and roleplay potential that is innate to our wonderful hobby!
Of course no single book can fit every possibility in it and our current budget can’t hold half of what we have in store; but thanks to your participation we will be able to reach stretch goals vastly expanding the lineage options as the book(s) get bigger, including new art beautifully finalized, as well as new miniatures and expansion of rewards bundles!
