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Desolation. Despair. Desperation.

At the end of the War of Despair, madness and bloodshed were all that remained of a butchered age. When all seemed lost, seven Inheritors wielding ancient rings of power arose to vanquish the Black Crown, a necromancer of near god-like powers… Yet, their unlikely triumph was marred by the Black Crown’s final curse: a dreadful miasma called the Bane that twisted and tainted everything it touched, casting a pall over the mortal realms.

For ten centuries, the world languished under the Bane’s grim veil, and the Inheritors vanished. But the plague fogs are receding. Imidia, once the resplendent heart of civilization, now a desolate boneyard, is accessible once more. Its streets teem with banespawn, warlocks, dragons, and unspeakable horrors, but hidden amidst the ashes of Imidia are untold treasures and secrets awaiting those bold enough to reclaim them… Awaiting the Inheritors!

What's Inside the Core Rulebook?

Whether you’re a solo Inheritor or part of a crew, the Core Rulebook provides everything you need to embark on your INHERITORS adventure:

Easy to Learn: A Unified d6 System

 I know how frustrating rulesets can be, and how nasty rules-arguments can get. The rules are carefully arranged and indexed to ensure that you can always find whatever you need with minimal effort. (In fact, the digital book is hyperlinked, allowing for easy maneuvering on devices!) At every possible point, INHERITORS keeps things simple and straightforward, optimizing for player fun and choice first. New players can build your character and jump straight into playing a game in about thirty minutes flat.

One critical way we kept it straightforward is unifying all skill and combat checks around the d6 system, likely familiar to wargamers. This reduces the number of materials players need and simplifies a great deal of mechanical stuff without losing what matters: risk, choice, and a whole lotta of interesting modifiers. Even better, because the system is unified around the d6, it is easier to refine balance between enemies, powers, and players. No more studying the geometry of the dice. Grab what you need, roll, and do your best to survive!

FAST, FURIOUS, AND FIERCE

INHERITORS combines the fantasy and roleplay of d20 games with the team-oriented strategy and danger of skirmish wargames. Even better, it's structured around the classic pulp adventure story: your character starts as an established adventurer marching into certain peril, rather than telling another rags to riches hero's journey. From the first jump, you're a badass endowed with vast and terrible powers—but whether that's enough to keep you alive in Imidia... only the fates can say.


You'll quickly discover the city is swarming with minions of the Lesser Shadow, the black dragon Cairnvog, but around every corner deadlier threats emerge through surprise mechanics such as Scavenging Conditions and other hazard modifiers. Imidia is ever-changing, and always hostile: it keeps even the most experienced raiders on their toes—and everyone has to pitch in to keep the gang alive.

Gone are those stuffy half hour rounds where everyone is looking at their phones or idly stacking dice, waiting for the GM and the one active player to sort an interaction out: every player is active in INHERITORS, either roleplaying as their heroes, or helping to manage the monsters via a simple but modular AI logic that makes every fight feel desperate. Once you feel the energy of the entire table coming to life, you'll never want to go back to the stodgy old wait-your-turn initiative. This is fast, furious, and fierce: just like a knife fight with a gang of starving, man-sized rat mutants should be.


Customizable Classes: The Seven Great Rings and Player Characters

The world of INHERITORS is steeped in a lore that emerged from a long study of world history, cultural mythology, and psychology. I'm a big dork for the epics, famous and obscure, and from them I derived the the seven Great Rings: mantles that player characters adopt. From Buddha to Boudica, from Hercules and Hecate, and Genghis Kahn to Gilgamesh, players can truly draw their inspiration from anywhere in the world as they build their Inheritors. In the Core Rulebook, you'll find some of the most wide-open customization and freedom available anywhere in the RPG space.


Primary player characters are called Inheritors because they inherited one of the seven Great Rings. These cosmic, divine artifacts bestow vast and terrible powers on those worthy enough to wield them, bestowing significantly more powerful than mere mortals could handle... but it also draws the ire and jealous attention of the wicked-hearted and those of a certain low-cunning. Inheritors are never far from danger...


The second type of player character is the humble but ardent Follower. As these ambitious and loyal companions travel and fight alongside their Inheritors, they begin to manifest powers and signs themselves—and perhaps they may be worthy of inheriting a Great Ring themselves one day.

Each Ring Class comes with more than a dozen powers to choose from, allowing for a huge array of possible combinations and class builds—not to mention the General Skills list! No two Inheritors are alike, just as no two raids into the cursed city will be alike. Build the hero you want to be—and hold


Engaging Combat with the Hit Trade System

The core tenet of INHERITORS' hit-trade combat is that many hands make light work! Breaking away from the singular Game Master structure called for a serious rethink to many aspects of the game, but none so much as combat. Thematically, I love desperate fights and deadly strategy... and in order to bring that to life, simulating the give and take, devil may care swashbuckling of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy adventures, I realized I had to do away with the passive defense systems typical of many of the RPGs we were familiar with, and adopt something much more active that would encourage players to play together, rather than alongside one another.

So here's the skinny: combat in INHERITORS involves both the attacker and defender making choices. Each time a player character is attacked, they have a chance to defend themselves, blocking incoming damage or even dealing damage back in a riposte. Think of your favorite sword fights: the screeching steel clash, the snarling ledge-side duels, and the daring gambit of taking a wound to inflict a greater injury on the opponent... or your poor, long-suffering best friend/gardener holding his own against the flailing limbs of some dread spider as he defends your vulnerable body.

The Hit-Trade System enables INHERITORS to simulate that kind of fast, furious, and fun combat to keep your party on its toes (or claws)—without bogging down into too much crunchy math!

Open Licensing

Lionborn Publishing supports sharing good ideas and making gaming affordable and accessible for anyone who wants to get involved. As with FEET FIRST INTO HELL, purchases of the INHERITORS Core Rulebook allow players to publish new games using the mechanics found in INHERITORS. More information will be provided in summer 2024!