A Role-Playing Game of Steel, Rumor & Ink

GoblinHunt

an ink-and-paper wandering

Being a top-down adventure drawn wholly in pen and ink, with real-time fights struck to the beat, villages and wilds and barrows raised anew each time, and adventures you carry one character through.

Try the prototype Phones & tablets — in preparation

An early build, free in your browser. Expect rough edges and missing pages.

HEXMONGERIn development · MMXXVI

In-game: a walled village seen from above, drawn in black ink — timbered houses, a dirt road through the gate, and a villager named Mari with the prompt Talk to Mari. — **FRONTISPIECE.** Ashstead, the last lit window before the wilds.

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GOBLIN HUNTPREFACE

Preface

wherein the reader is told what manner of book this is

This is a game about a road, a village at the end of it, and the dark places a little way past the village where no sensible person goes. You play one wanderer. You walk the road, talk to the people who live there, hear what frightens them, and then go and do something about it.

Everything is drawn in ink on white paper, seen from above with north always up, in the manner of the old adventure maps and the illustrated rulebooks that came with them. Colour is spent in exactly one place, and you will know it when you see it.

The villages, the wilds and the barrows are raised anew from a seed. The adventures, which are small books of their own, decide what must be there and how it connects; the engine draws the rest.

Of Combat

in which blows are struck to a beat, and the ink runs red

Fighting is real time, and it keeps a rhythm. Around every foe within reach, a ring closes steadily onto a dashed mark. Tap the foe to strike. Strike as the ring meets the mark and the blow lands hard; strike early and it glances.

A careless swing costs you. Strike off the beat and you are caught in your own follow-through for a moment: your feet drag and you cannot swing again until you recover. The ring is a promise you make, not only a measure of damage.

Blood is the one colour the game allows. It is flung in the direction of the blow, heaviest at the wound and thinning downrange, and it stays where it fell. So do the fallen.*

TABLE I: THE STRIKEas the ring closes on its mark
Timing	Result
Early in the beat	A glancing blow, as little as two-fifths of full damage
As the ring closes	Damage rises with it
On the mark	Double damage and a critical: more blood, flung farther
A hair late	Still counted on the mark; the window forgives
Off the beat	A moment’s recovery, with dragging feet

FIG. 1. The closing ring, and the moment to strike.

In-game, animated: a goblin closes on the wanderer in a clearing; the ring around it flushes red as the beat lands, the wanderer strikes twice on the mark, blood is flung across the paper in a cone, and the goblin falls and greys where it lies. — **PLATE I.** Two blows struck on the mark, and the one colour the game spends.

* The fallen are not tidied away. They grey where they lie, and the living walk over them.

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GOBLIN HUNTOF PLACES ABOVE & BELOW

CHAPTER II

Of Places Above & Below

villages, keeps and taverns, and the deeps beneath the barrow

Each village is walled, with a road running through its gate and a river running past it. Houses face the road; the largest is the keep, the next the shop. Trees overhang the lanes, and their canopies thin to nothing around you and the people you meet, so the ink never hides who is standing there.

In-game, animated: the wanderer walks south along a river bank drawn in flowing ink lines, through a wood whose canopies fade to near-transparent as he passes beneath them. — **PLATE II.** Downriver through the wood, the canopies thinning as he passes.

Step through any door and the place behind it is drawn fresh: a house, a shop, a tavern with its long counter, a keep with a steward who pays for swords. The village waits exactly as you left it, and you come out where you went in.

In-game: a tavern interior with a hatched counter, shelves, and a barkeep named Marta. — **PLATE III.** The Tin Candle, where the taverner keeps rumors behind the bar.

The Barrows

Past the village, a barrow mouth opens in the grass. Below it the dungeon goes down level by level, each deeper and worse than the last. What lives there depends on the adventure: goblin war-bands, the restless dead, vermin, or something with horns in the third deep that you should probably leave alone.

Walls and dark are drawn the old way: heavy black stipple, flagstones outlined one by one, stairs going down into nothing. Every layout comes from a seed, so the same adventure never draws quite the same deep twice unless its author pins it.

In-game: a flagstone dungeon room edged in dense black stipple, with a stair and a passage leading east. — **PLATE IV.** The first deep: flagstones, a stair, and the way on.

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GOBLIN HUNTOF THE WILDERNESS

CHAPTER III

Of the Wilderness

on rumors that draw the map, and the dice that walk it

Beyond the road’s end stands a waymark. Walk onto it and the wilderness opens as a hand-drawn map, with only the places you know marked on it. A place you have never heard of is not on the map at all, and you cannot travel there.

So you listen. A taverner’s rumor about caves in a ravine inks a new mark on the map. Choose a destination and your token sets out, leg by leg, the trail drawing itself bold behind you.

At each leg’s end the dice are rolled. They might bring nothing, a choice written on a card, or a fight in a clearing among the trees, with your hired swords beside you. The dice are fixed by the road, so reloading will not change what waits on it.

In-game: the village gate opening onto a winding road through clumps of ink-drawn trees on the Bleak Heath. — **PLATE V.** The Bleak Heath, east of the village gate.

TABLE II: WHAT A LEG OF THE ROAD MAY BRING
Result	What happens
Quiet road	You walk on. The trail inks in behind you.
A card	Two or three choices, resolved on the spot: pay up, turn back, or stand your ground.
A fight	Steel yourself. The map closes on a clearing with the foe in its far half. Win, walk out, and the journey resumes.
Arrival	You stand at the waymark of the new place, or at the mouth of the caves.

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GOBLIN HUNTOF HIRELINGS, GEAR & ADVANCEMENT

CHAPTER IV

Of Hirelings, Gear & Advancement

on the company you keep and the names you lose

Hired Swords

At the tavern, coin buys company: up to two hirelings, each with a name of their own that is never given to another. They follow at your side and go for the nearest foe they can see. You don’t give them orders, and you can’t bring them back. When one falls, they stay where they fell, and their name is written on the roll of honor in your journal.

Arms & Armour

A weapon adds to every blow; armour and shield take something off every bite. Two slots on your belt hold what you will want in a hurry, such as a draught or a ration. Shops sell gear for gold, and there are always people willing to pay for something done.

Advancement

There are no classes. You begin as a Wanderer and may rise through five levels, gaining strength of arm and more to lose. Experience comes from what you kill and what you finish. Advancing is noted in the log and never stops the fight to tell you about it.

TABLE III: THE WANDERER’S LOT
Concern	Rule
Hirelings	Two at most. When they die, they stay dead.
Belt	Two quick-use slots
Levels	Five, classless
Death	You wake in the village, healed; the map remembers only what you knew

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GOBLIN HUNTTHE LIBRARY OF ADVENTURES

CHAPTER V

The Library of Adventures

small books that set the stage, and leave the drawing to the engine

Each adventure is a module: a small bundle that names its places, its people, its quests and how it ends. It can be shared as a single file and added to your library. Anything the adventure does not pin down, such as the layout of a village or the turns of a dungeon, the engine draws for you.

The library lists every adventure you have, and what became of your character in each. Choose one, read its opening, and decide who walks into it.

The road climbs all day, and at dusk you see it: a squat stone keep behind a dry moat, the last lit window before the wilds swallow the map. East of here, they say, a ravine full of caves breathes out cold air and worse. The keep pays for swords. The caves pay better, if you live.THE KEEP ON THE MARCHES · READ ALOUD

TABLE IV: WHAT THERE IS TO WINThe Keep on the Marches
Deed	Points
Find the tavern	5
Hear of the ravine	5
Enter the caves	10
Report to the steward	15
Lift the barrow torc	15
Slay the terror of the third deep	25
Be counted a Veteran	10

The game comes with two adventures, The Keep on the Marches and First Light. There is also a random wandering with no module at all.

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GOBLIN HUNTAPPENDICES

Appendix A

Controls

To	On a touchscreen	At a keyboard
Move	Drag the left half of the screen	WASD or arrows
Strike	Tap the foe (a second finger works while moving)	Click the foe
Talk	Tap a person	E or Space
Map, pack & quests	Tap the minimap	M or Esc

New to the road? Play the tutorial from the title screen. It teaches by doing, and Esc skips it.

Saving

Three save slots, plus an autosave at checkpoints and whenever the app is set aside. Saves stay on your device; there is no account.

Appendix B

On Ads & Privacy

THE TERMS OF THE ROAD

The browser edition has no ads and no ad code.
The phone and tablet editions will be free and supported by ads. There will never be an ad during a fight, a conversation, a doorway or a death.
Two ads are offers you may refuse: getting back on your feet where you fell, and a hired sword when you are short of coin. The button to decline is as large as the one to accept.
One full-screen ad may appear between adventures.

Read the privacy policy in full, or write to privacy@hexmonger.com.

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