Goldengrave: Dark Chocolate Fantasy is an analog adventure game for one Game Master (GM) and any number of players.

Overview

Some people say they want “vanilla” fantasy. I want a game and a setting like dark chocolate.

Dark and Intense
Simple yet Rich
Grounded and Earthy

Setup

The GM must prepare an adventure location (at minimum, a small dungeon) for the player-characters to explore.
If you are a player, you must create a player-character. (Player-character is abbreviated “PC”; characters controlled by the GM are called non-player-characters or “NPCs.”)
As a group, you and the other players must decide how to distribute 6 points between your party’s three stats. Your party’s starting and maximum value for each stat is 6 + the points you assign to it. (More Stamina makes you better at fighting, more Supply gives you better access to tools, and more Sway makes you better at manipulating NPCs.)

Components

All you need to play Goldengrave are paper, pencils, and a handful of six-sided dice. Twenty-sided dice are useful for tracking your party’s three stats, but are not required.A “d6” is a standard six-sided die. “Roll 2d6” means roll two six-sided dice and add the two results; “d6,d6” means roll two six-sided dice and place one result before the comma and one result after the comma (it doesn’t matter which).Alternatively, you can play Goldengrave online via voice or text chat and use a computer program to simulate dice rolls. Play-by-post is a good way to have adventures more often.

Who Are You?

You are a treasure hunter, which is a polite way of saying you kill rats and rob graves. Maybe you consider this admirable. Probably, you know better, but you've lived a violent life and you don't know how to live any other way.

Character Creation

Roll on the table below to spark an image of your character in your mind. Gyldrion is the corrupt and decaying capital of the Golden Empire; Bittermarch is a ruined, war-torn frontier; and Fairbuck is an independent earldom known for its forested mountains and peaceful pastures (see Setting Guide).

2d6	Spark A	Spark B
2	Cave	Nomad
3	Jungle	Refugee
4	Desert	Hunter
5	Sea	Zealot
6	Gyldrion	Criminal
7	Bittermarch	Veteran
8	Fairbuck	Scholar
9	Forest	Noble
10	Fjord	Knight
11	Swamp	Poet
12	Cosmic	Merchant

Next, roll 3d6 and assign each result to one of the three columns on the table below. You cannot assign the same result to your personality and your flaw; if all three dice have the same result, reroll.Example: Evan rolls 2d6 twice and gets 2+5 for Spark A and 6+6 for Spark B, so his character is a Merchant from Bittermarch. Then, he rolls 3d6 and gets 6, 4, and 1. He decides his character is average/fit (4), inventive/curious (6), and sly/selfish (1).

d6	Physique	Personality	Flaw
1	short/stout	honest/loyal	sly/selfish
2	small/light	cool/confident	sensitive/anxious
3	long/thin	sociable/energetic	quiet/reserved
4	average/fit	patient/gentle	stubborn/irritable
5	big/heavy	organized/careful	sloppy/careless
6	big/brawny	inventive/curious	consistent/cautious

Finally, roll for your character’s name on the table below. Each column represents names from a different region of the setting. If you don’t like the first name you roll, you can keep rolling until you get a name you like.

d6,d6	Fairbuck	Gyldrion	Bittermarch	Elsewhere
1,1	Alaric	Agnola	N	N
1,2	Anton	Alvaro	N	N
1,3	Armin	Antenor	N	N
1,4	Blaise	Azzo	N	N
1,5	Bronwyn	Bandino	N	N
1,6	Cedric	Bonita	N	N
2,1	Claude	Bianca	N	N
2,2	Cyril	Cassia	N	N
2,3	Dagmar	Corvino	N	N
2,4	Declan	Donato	N	N
2,5	Digory	Evita	N	N
2,6	Elias	Flavio	N	N
3,1	Elwin	Galindo	N	N
3,2	Emery	Gaspar	N	N
3,3	Fabian	Gherardo	N	N
3,4	Florian	Griselda	N	N
3,5	Greylond	Idoya	N	N
3,6	Heyden	Kaenis	N	N
4,1	Kerrigan	Korinna	N	N
4,2	Lionel	Kostas	N	N
4,3	Maeve	Leandro	N	N
4,4	Morgan	Lykon	N	N
4,5	Myron	Megara	N	N
4,6	Orla	Nestor	N	N
5,1	Oswald	Odilon	N	N
5,2	Perrin	Petra	N	N
5,3	Quinn	Phoebe	N	N
5,4	Robyn	Pietro	N	N
5,5	Soren	Quisila	N	N
5,6	Sybil	Riccardo	N	N
6,1	Tess	Rosana	N	N
6,2	Tulley	Scipio	N	N
6,3	Vanora	Vasco	N	N
6,4	Vesper	Valeria	N	N
6,5	Wilmot	Verres	N	N
6,6	Wolfrik	Ymilia	N	N

A note on weapons: By default, your character wields a sword and a bow, but you can choose to wield some other weapon if the GM approves.

Your Party’s Three Stats

Your party has three stats: Stamina, Supply, and Sway.Remember: After character creation, decide as a group how to distribute 6 points between your stats. Your party’s starting and maximum value for each stat is 6 + the points you assign to it.For example, if you distribute 4 points to your Stamina, 2 to your Supply, and 0 to your Sway, you start with 10 Stamina, 8 Supply, and 6 Sway.

Stamina

Stamina is your party's ability to keep fighting. If a damage roll (see Dungeons) leaves you and your party with half or less than half the Stamina you had before the roll, a random PC is knocked out. The PC remains knocked out until they are no longer under threat (whether the party defeats the threat or retreats and drags the PC to safety).Exception: If a damage roll reduces your party’s Stamina to 0, a random PC is not knocked out; instead, PCs who are already knocked out are instantly killed and remaining PCs must immediately retreat and return to town.Additional notes…

The GM might pick a random PC by rolling a die or drawing a name from a hat.
If your PC is killed, make yourself a new PC to appear in town and join the party.
Some monsters and traps have special moves that trigger “On KO” (when they knock out a PC) or “On Kill” (when they kill a PC).

Supply

Supply is your party's preparedness. You can spend Supply to "summon" useful items (items that, in the fiction of the game, your party had all along). When you spend the night in town, any items you gained by spending Supply are removed from your inventory.

Items	Cost
Basic items. Bedroll, knife, lantern, ration of food, rope, shovel, tinderbox, waterskin.	Free
Common tools. Arrows (3), caltrops, collapsible pole (10 feet), crowbar, grappling hook, hand mirror, iron spikes, lockpicks, etc.	1 Supply
Unusual tools. Carpentry kit (hammer, saw, nails), fishing rod, glue (dissolves in water), magnifying glass, manacles-and-key, slippery oil (harmless if ignited), writing set (parchment, ink, quill), etc.	3 Supply
Specialist tools. Antidote to most poisons, disguise kit, explosive barrel, fuel oil (highly flammable), poison (enough to kill one human who drinks it), smoke bomb, vial of acid (highly corrosive), etc.	6 Supply

Sway

Sway is your party’s renown and ability to influence others. In certain social situations (see below), the GM may impose a price of 1, 3, or 6. If you pay the price and reduce your Sway by the amount, something good happens; otherwise, something bad happens. The GM sets the price based on how likely they think the good outcome would be.

When you meet a monster for the first time. If you pay the price, the monster is curious and treats you like a new neighbor. Otherwise, the monster is cautious and treats you like an invader.
The first time a monster is reduced to half or less than half its starting Power. If you pay, the monster retreats or surrenders. Craven monsters always retreat or surrender at half Power; iron-willed or mindless monsters never retreat.
When you want a monster to provide you information. The monster only tells you what you want to know if you pay the price.

Advancement

Spending the night in town fully restores your stats. When you do this, you gain Glory as per the table below. You can spend 1 Glory to increase your party's maximum value for any stat by 1, but you cannot increase a stat's maximum value above 18.

Rank	You found...	During the night...	You earn...
S	the main treasure and all the side treasures.	You rent out a fancy dining hall and throw a feast fit for a king!	5 Glory
A	the main treasure and at least one side treasure.	You throw a festival with food and entertainment for everyone in town.	4 Glory
B	the main treasure.	You buy drinks for everyone in the tavern and party late into the night.	3 Glory
C	all the side treasures.	You celebrate with a few drinks before heading to bed in an inn.	2 Glory
D	at least one side treasure.	You sleep comfortably in an inn.	1 Glory
F	no treasure.	You take whatever hospitality you can get.	0 Glory

You can revisit a dungeon to try to improve your Rank and earn additional Glory, but when you do, the GM rolls a d6. On a 2 or 3, any side treasures you didn’t get have been stolen by rival treasure hunters. On a 1, any main treasure you didn’t get has been stolen.

Optional Rules: Raising an Army

You and your party have a fourth stat, Army, which represents your ability to unite mercenary types under your command. At the beginning of the game, your Army is 0, but you can spend Glory to increase it just like any other stat.Wars are resolved much like combat in dungeons. Enemy armies have Power scores like monsters, but their damage rolls reduce your Army instead of your Stamina.When you win a war — whether by reducing the enemy army’s Power to 0 or paying a Sway price to force a retreat — you earn 5 Glory. If you retreat or reach 0 Army, the war is lost.Unlike other stats, your Army is not restored to a maximum when you spend the night in town; the only way to recover from losses is to spend Glory to increase your Army.

Dungeons

Only the GM starts the game with a complete map of the dungeon and notes as to the contents of each room. As a player, your access to information about the dungeon depends on the difficulty setting your group chooses from the list below.

Easy. You start with a complete but unlabeled map.
Normal. The GM gradually reveals the map as you explore. When you enter a new room, the GM traces it from their private map onto a separate and public sheet of paper.
Hard. As a group, choose one player to be the mapper. The mapper must draw a map as you explore based solely on the GM's verbal descriptions of the dungeon. The map can be as simple as a flowchart with rectangles to represent rooms and lines to represent connections between rooms.

Traps & Damage Rolls

Traps are easy to spot (and therefore the GM should not keep them a secret) so long as you are not blinded, in a hurry, or otherwise distracted. When one or more PCs trigger a trap, the GM makes a damage roll. To make a damage roll for a trap or monster:

Roll a number of six-sided dice equal to its Power (listed in parentheses).
Ignore die results equal to 4 or more.
Add up the remaining results and reduce the party's Stamina by the total (see Party Stats).

Combat Procedure

You trigger combat if you provoke a monster into attacking you. With a clever tactic such as using an item, using your environment, or exploiting a weakness, you might be able to defeat a monster without triggering combat. When combat is triggered, follow these steps:

The GM makes a damage roll for the monster (see the steps above, under Traps & Damage Rolls) and describes how the monster’s attack changes the situation.
As a group, decide whether to retreat, fight, or try a clever tactic. If you choose to fight, decide and describe how you and your party fight the monster. The monster loses 1 Power unless your party's method of attack meets a special condition (see below).
If the monster runs out of Power, it dies. Otherwise, repeat from step 1 until combat ends.

There are three special conditions that your party's attack might meet. The monster loses...

2 Power if it is vulnerable to your party's method of attack.
0 Power if it is immune to your party's method of attack.
2 Power if your party attempts a risky method of attack and a player of the GM’s choice succeeds on a Skill Check (see The Basics). If the player fails, the monster loses 0 Power.

Groups of monsters that function as a unit are treated as one monster in the GM’s notes. If you somehow manage to trigger combat with multiple monsters at once, treat them as one monster with the combined Power of the individual monsters.

Wandering Monsters

If a dungeon houses one or more wandering monsters, about one-third of the rooms in the dungeon will be marked with a star or asterisk in the GM’s notes. When you and your party enter a starred room, the GM rolls a d6.If you are moving quickly, you encounter a wandering monster on a 1. If you are moving cautiously, you encounter a wandering monster on 1-3 or an omen on 4-6. Omens are signs of life that provide useful information about nearby wandering monsters.Unless the players say otherwise, the GM can typically assume that PCs move cautiously through rooms they have yet to explore and quickly through rooms they have already explored.

Monstrous Desires

The GM may roll on the list below to determine what any given monster wants. For more control over the result, the GM may roll two dice and choose whichever result seems more fitting.

to shame or humiliate you
to take your treasure
to keep or kick you out
to show you something
to get your help with something
to challenge you to a game or duel

Setting Guide

The Overworld. A ripe red sun in a deep blue sky. Weeds choke the crops, and every year more of the land seems to resist cultivation. The Golden Empire beat back the blight, for a time, but no longer.
The Underworld. The well where the souls of the dead go to drown, and the rising tide from which monsters and magic spring forth. Prophets commune with the depths; sorcerers mine crystals for power.
The Cosmos. Godlings hatched from planets rule the stars. Many claim to interpret their wisdom, but few actually have. Enclaves of human-like aliens have settled on the world of Goldengrave in violation of cosmic non-interference law.

Core Regions

Bittermarch. Dry grass and dead crops. A graveyard for petty lords and their domains. Ruined forts stand in for headstones; dungeons lie buried below. Nothing left but mercenaries and treasure hunters fighting over scraps.
Gyldrion. Old military power. A city of unrivaled passion and creativity — or, it was, before it was hollowed out by the Elite. Unlivable these days unless you’re a merchant, a noble, or a thief willing to steal from merchants and nobles.
Fairbuck. Rising economic power. Evergreen mountains and verdant valleys. The Gyldrian Elite are profoundly nervous about their empire’s reliance on Fairbuck for its abundant natural resources and cheap labor.

Factions

The Gyldrian Elite have the power to turn back the blight and bring peace and prosperity to all. Instead, they use their power to prolong their own lives and increase their wealth at the expense of others.
The Lords of Fairbuck defend their own privileged positions and titles to Fairbuck’s land — except for the Traitor Lords, who hope to profit from bowing to the Gyldrian Elite and helping them conquer Fairbuck.
Otherwise, wherever you find two significant factions in conflict — for example, Townsfolk vs. Peasants — the Elite or the Lords are playing both sides to keep them in balance. A meddling party of treasure hunters could tip the balance, or worse, unite the factions against the Elite and the Lords.

Principles

The conceit of fantasy is that, when society is crumbling, the individual gains more freedom. Let treasure hunters embody this fantasy, but use other characters to remind players that the reality of societal collapse is hardship and misery.
Imagine monsters complexly. A frightening or unfamiliar monster is not necessarily a hostile and dangerous monster. Even the most inhuman-looking creature can be essentially human underneath.
Foster sincerity and maturity, not nihilism or misanthropy. Don’t take monsters and magic too seriously — on the contrary, let them be silly! — but don’t stoop to parody or pastiche. Don’t be afraid to say something meaningful. (For reference, read a few short stories by Lord Dunsany.)

The Basics of Play

A game of Goldengrave has a top layer and a bottom layer. The top layer consists of the game’s rules and procedures; it is up to the GM to interpret their nuances and decide when and how they apply. The bottom layer is the conversation upon which the game rests at all times. The conversation tends to cycle through the following phases.

Information. The GM describes what you can immediately see, hear, or otherwise detect. You can ask questions or describe how you investigate your environment further, which the GM should reward with additional information.
Intent. You decide what you want your character to do and inform the GM. You can describe your character’s actions in either the first-person perspective (for example, “I open the door”) or the third-person (“Sir Borris opens the door”).
Impact. The GM decides and describes how your actions change the situation and how any NPCs in the scene react. Impact blends seamlessly into Information and another cycle of conversation.

The core conversation loop may be temporarily interrupted by…

In-character conversation. At any point, you or the GM may choose to speak in-character. Many players enjoy this element of improvisational theater, but it is perfectly possible to enjoy the game without ever speaking in-character.
Out-of-character conversation, or “table-talk.” You and your fellow players might pause at any point to discuss what you know and what to do next.

Resolving Actions

After you explain your Intent and before the GM describes the Impact, the GM decides if the action you want to take is Trivial, Risky, or Impossible.

Trivial. The action is certain to succeed (or its outcome is uncertain but the GM cannot think of an interesting consequence for failure), so it succeeds.
Risky. The action might succeed or fail (and the GM can think of an interesting consequence for failure), so the GM calls for a Skill Check.
Impossible. The action is certain to fail, so it fails.

After calling for a Skill Check, the GM sets a target number by starting at 10 and subtracting 2 for each of the following that is true…

You are physically and mentally prepared to take the action.
The action suits your character’s personality, background, or reputation.

To proceed, roll two six-sided dice. If the sum of the two results is greater than or equal to the target number, you succeed in performing the action; otherwise, you fail. Either way, it is up to the GM to decide upon and describe the Impact.

Sample Bestiary

Monsters listed in the singular form are typically encountered as individuals; monsters listed in the plural form are typically encountered in groups. A range of Power values is provided in parentheses next to each monster’s name; a higher Power value might reflect a stronger monster or a larger group of monsters.

Cobblemaw (2-4)

Mouth in the wall or ceiling. Lashes out with its long, snake-like tongue when you pass directly in front of or below it. Doesn’t talk, just chews, gnashes, and growls.
Attacking the tongue is standard, attacking the mouth itself is risky. Vulnerable to extreme tastes, textures, and temperatures (spicy, spoiled, hot, etc.).
On KO, pulls you into its mouth. On kill, swallows.