Spire RPG Core Book (5th Anniversary hardcover) + complimentary PDF
The revised, 5th anniversary edition of Spire is a 252-page book which contains:
- A quick and easy D10 system that lets you tell stories of brutal rebellion
- Details on the districts, factions and personalities that make up Spire – the frozen high elf kingdom of Amaranth, the lawless undercity of Red Row, the mysterious Mortician sect and the bleeding hole in reality known as the Heart
- Eleven character classes, including the vagabond Knight, the sorcerer-artist Idol and the arachnid nurse Midwife
- Multiple extra advances to sculpt your character, allowing them to learn the hidden magicks of the Ministry, fall back on their military training, or devote their existence to a mad cannibal king who lives under an abandoned warehouse
- A gamesmastery chapter, written with an eye to help you craft conspiracies and power structures that your players can topple, subvert or be consumed by
- Over fifty illustrations by the tremendously talented Adrian Stone
- The full contents of the previously-separate Black Magic sourcebook, including full and inadvisable rules for demonology
- The adventure Blood & Dust, also available separately
- Beautifully redesigned by ENnie award-winning layout artist Mina McJanda
Spire is a roleplaying game about desperate revolutionary dark elves caught up in a secret war against the high elves, or aelfir, who rule the towering city of Spire.
The world of Spire is a brutal one, and players can expect to see their characters suffer at the hands of their oppressors, or their rivals; bodily harm, psychological scarring and reprisals against their allies are commonplace. But for those willing to do what it takes, Spire is on the brink of full-scale rebellion, and you are poised to push it over the edge.
THE SETTING
Spire is a mile-high impossible city, older than anyone can remember. Two hundred years ago, the high elves – or aelfir, strange and beautiful masked creatures from the far north – took it from the dark elves by force. Now, they graciously allow dark elves, or drow, to live in the city if they perform four years of service to an aelfir lord once they come of age.
Spire is crumbling from within and without; it is ancient, and has been built and rebuilt countless times, and at the centre of the mass there is a jagged, weeping hole in reality called the Heart. It is a nightmarish, dizzying place of perverse luxury and widespread destitution, where drow labourers toil in vast gardens and sweltering factories to produce treasures for their masters.
It is a place of gods, and magic: there are preachers on every street corner’ demonologists hiding behind the facade of research universities; and in the depths of the city, where space and time fear to tread, there are sects of magicians who have given themselves to a huge and alien intelligence, filling their bodies with sacred bees and turning their organs to wax simulacra.
THE SYSTEM
Spire uses a straightforward D10 system to determine success or failure on risky actions; players gather a pool of between 1 to 4 dice, roll them, and select the highest – this gives an indication of success and the amount of stress incurred when attempting the challenge.
Stress covers any and all misfortune a character might suffer: from hits to reputation, to physical wounds, to loss of cover. Each time a character takes stress, there’s a chance that it might solidify into fallout. Fallout is concrete, ongoing consequences for their actions, whether that’s a broken leg that needs healing, a connection burned or betrayed, or increased police attention.
We’ve worked hard to ensure that all fallout pushes the story forward rather than blocking it or slowing it down.
THE CHARACTERS
We wanted the character options in Spire to reflect the unique world we’ve built, so we chose to make each class embody part of that world. While every character is a member of the Ministry, a forbidden paramilitary religious sect devoted to overthrowing the aelfir, they’ll have their own origins from somewhere in the city.
