Hello there everyone! Sorry for not posting in awhile (since last year!). With a pandemic going on, working 1 and a half jobs, and some health issues in my family I haven’t had much time to devote to the blog or any of my other little projects. When it came to DnD and what not, I only really had time to day dream and jot things down. I even dropped down on my discussions on the OSR Discord server believe it or not.

The only thing I really started working on were the house rules for the games that I have run. Some of these I have posted about before previously on the blog. Different ideas on combat, as well as setting. Mainly these were just ramblings and ideas for different people to try. Some of them I tried myself, others I posted about and kind of forgot. Somewhere during the fall of 2020 though, I decided to begin heavy work on my homebrew/house rules. This mainly came about after I bought the Dark Souls board game. I loved how players rolled for attack and defense, and thought that would be neat in DnD. After asking around on the OSR Discord, someone mentioned that Mörk Borg from Free League games already did something like that. After looking into it, I swiftly bought the PDF, joined the discord, then sent away for my own physical copy! I ran the starter dungeon included in the book and had a blast!

The main thing I loved about the rules was task resolution/combat. Instead following down the “Armor Cass” route of most DnD styled games, Mörk Borg changes things up by using an average DC (12) for everything. If it is a little harder? Bump the DC up a bit. Easier? Then lower it a bit. Instead of Armor affecting the DC, it works as damage reduction. Super Simple! Using the this task resolution mechanic as the skeleton, I began adding my own ideas on top of it concerning weapons and other things. I melded this style of resolution with some concepts of OSE as well when it came to wilderness and exploration. I also worked to make it more or less compatable with OSE and B/X style adventures. For magic then, I decided to step away from the typical “Vancian” style and found myself stumbling into the GLoG and its magic dice. I then found a post on reddit detailing 200 level-less spells. Wonderful!

While going through this whole process, my outlook on my home game changed as well. Originally, Goan looked very grimdark, akin to Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and some Castlevania for good measure. While working on other things though, I rediscovered my love for games like Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, and Faxanadu among others. Slowly, these different influences began taking hold in various parts of Goan, and as such, Goan needed a bit of a facelift. I decided the Goan is the “known-world” of my setting, with the stitched-together homebrew of rules being called “Falchion”.

In January, I sprung Falchion on two groups of players in him home group. Both have been playing through the Goblin Gully adventure by Dyson Logos and having a blast! The players love how simple the rules seem and don’t get in the way of what they want to do. We have had a few little issues, mainly myself not clarifying things within the ruleset (I wanted to stop working on rules and start PLAYING!) but other than that things are going well. With that, I would like to release the first hacked together version of Falchion upon the world! Feel free to check it out and use what you would like. I am already working on an updated version with some alterations, re-writes, and clarifications (no clue when that will be done). Maybe I could one day put it on DriveThru? Maybe someday I will Kickstart an actual physical book! Who knows, but as long as we all have fun, that’s the main thing

One note about the PDF above… It was written entirely in google docs, so hopefully the PDF will display right for you. I know if printed in booklet form, everything seems to be ok. Not sure how viewing on a phone or tablet might work. Please excuse any typos! If you have any questions about any of the rules, please fill free to hit me up here or on the OSR Discord server!