Kal-Arath Core Rules Print Zine

Kal -Arath is a completely self-contained 56 page booklet of rules, setting, and tables designed for solo, co-op, and group play.

Or, you can just as easily lean into the setting, procedural gameplay and many included tables using your own favorite fantasy ttrpg rules.

The game includes procedural rules that are a breeze for the solo player or the zero-prep group or co-op session: overland travel/hex crawling is broken down into different phases that create a satisfying gameplay loop and keep the action going.

Oracles, Starting Adventure Seeds, Points of Interest, Encounters, Settlements, NPCs, Dungeons, Items - all of these have their own tables for generation, and combined together create a setting flavorful setting that emerges from the tables themselves - and over 25 pieces of original, hand drawn art.

The included ruleset is a 2d6 system that blends my favorite aspects of Barbaric!, Mörk Borg, Black Sword Hack and OD&D -

it is classless, with player facing rolls (due to its intention to be played solo with no rules changes); combat is fast and extremely deadly, with exploding damage dice and different maneuvers available to various weapons.

A character could begin their career as a barbarian fighter type, and through progression take a backstab skill and later in their career pursue a demonic pact to learn the dark arts of sorcery, if they live that long.

The following is some flavor text from the intro:

Greetings, wanderer of wild and treacherous lands, seeker of glory and power untold!

You have set your foot upon the perilous path into a savage land - a realm where ancient demons demand sacrifice and vie for power…and mortals strive against one another with blood-magic and steel.

This massive steppe is known to its peoples as Kal-Arath, although the barbarians of the north refer to the vast grassland as “The Kyrg.”

Arathi civilization centers around the stony plateau city of Kar’eld, heart of the Khanate of Akkai, the demon lord of Kal-Arath.

Across these untamed vistas, the battle-barges of countless warlords sail a sea of grass and stone, crews hungry for the favor of squabbling demon rulers both demanding and cruel.

To survive in Kal-Arath is to dance with death, yet the rewards for the bold are riches and renown beyond imagination.

Here are monks and mystics drunk on the rotting blood of human sacrifice, practicing arts considered inhuman by those foreign to this place. Their bodies are hardened by fighting arts taught them by their dark masters, and their minds are fixed on nighted voids beyond mortal understanding.

In the sky, beneath the blinding sun, one can sometimes see the riders of the fearsome flying lizards called teradun, doing battle with flashing lances or dark magics. These riders are sometimes favored champions of spiteful demonic nobility, or mercenary captains, or perhaps even the scouts or messengers of some wealthy merchant king.

For Kal-Arath is not truly ruled by any - the city of Kar’eld may be the seat of the power of Akkai, but his lordship is contested at every turn by mortal and demon alike.

This is a land where even a lowly pit-fighter may earn the love of the crowd and become king.

Where rich traders and clever merchants hold more power than gods…

and he who learns the secrets of decaying scrolls and forgotten codexes might set himself up as opposition even to the demons who rule this land from their blood-soaked temples.

This is Kal-Arath.

Who will you be?

How will you die?