Tales of the Burned Stones
A downloadable game
Mount Baram groaned and shattered, birthing unfathomable tunnels spiraling deep into the unknown. From the abyss, shadows emerged. Countless hordes of monstrous fire-spitting creatures laid waste to all in their path, reducing the realm that lay at the foot of the mountain to ashes. The remaining kingdoms now stand as mere shadows of their past selves.
You are one of the remnants. The Sisters of the Eclipse found your lifeless body, and brought you back. Waking up among the debris of the cataclysm, changed and indebted, you have turned to scouring the endless pits for the treasures and stories buried deep within.
Commoners plead for your help in finding missing heritage and mementos, and guilds offer rewards for locating lost wealth and gold. Even queens require your services and task you with finding rare folk tale artifacts like the Burned Stones of old. Despite everything, you press on.
The past is lost, the future uncertain, but your skills remain.
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Tales of the Burned Stones is a free and solo-friendly dark-fantasy role-playing game of journeying and dungeon delving. In this game inspired by Diablo, The Witcher, and The Warded Man, players assume the roles of raiders and treasure hunters who are brave and foolish enough to delve into the derelict kingdom, located next to the demonic-controlled lands of Mount Baram, in search of stories, mementos, wealth, and lost artifacts.
Come talk about TotBS on our forum and on Discord.
FEATURES
This game features...
- An easy to expand upon dark fantasy setting.
- Player-facing rules and oracles to assist with solo play.
- Fast character creation, all based on rolling tables.
- An exciting skill degradation based on the Breathless SRD.
- Numerous subsystems to handle fictional positioning, items, looting, long-term projects, challenges, combat, travel, and dungeon crawl, and more.
- A player-driven and story-tied progression mechanic.
- Printable pamphlets for the GM and the players.
- Tons of rolling tables to help run the game.
- An introductory adventure frame.
- Fully open licensed text and rules.
- And more...
STONEBUNER
This Breathless game acts as a prequel to Stoneburner, a sci-fantasy TTRPG of demon-hunting and community building in a dwarven asteroid mine. It uses the same fan-favorite, rules-light systems to allow for fast-paced journeying through perilous lands.
This project was designed for all the wonderful people who have helped, boosted, and backed Stoneburner during its Kickstarter campaign. This game is a gift from us to you and to the rest of the TTRPG community.
Now go explore, loot, and most importantly, survive.
OPEN LICENSED
The mechanics and the details regarding the setting of this work are available under the Open RPG License (ORC).
For more on this and to design your own "Burned in Stones" work, head over to https://farirpgs.com/burned-in-stones/license
MORE DETAILS
System: This game is Breathless
Format: +70 pages PDF (5.5×8.5”)
Number of Players: 1-5
Publisher: Fari RPGs
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- v1.10 Update - Editing FixesSep 19, 2023
- v1.9 Update - Loot Check Mechanical ChangesAug 25, 2023
- v1.8 Update - Another Editing PassAug 23, 2023
- v1.7 Update - Term reusabilityAug 14, 2023
- v1.6 Update - More clarity on choosing a character nameAug 07, 2023
- v1.5 Update - Typo, clarifications, layout tweaks, and actual play.Aug 07, 2023
- v1.4 Update - Typos, Monster Stat, Templates, and Actual PlayAug 04, 2023
- v1.3 Update - Another Typo UpdateAug 02, 2023
Comments
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Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity in providing PWYW copies of your game. I’m a disabled pension who can’t afford much so these free games really help me out in being able to get games and keeping my mind active. When I find a game I really like I come back when I can spare some money to support the creators and get any other games or expansions.
I really appreciate your hard work and kindness in providing PWYW copies.
This looks really great! Would love to see with Galen Illos, like stoneburner. any update on physical printing?
I would so love to buy a hardcopy of this and your Firelights game! Amazing systems for solo players like me.
Hey! Physical copies are coming soon. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when they are available ^^
https://farirpgs.com/newsletter
This is a really cool system! Might use this for some solo play in the future.
Heads up that it looks like you've got a typo on the character sheet on page 63. Both boxes next to Dexterity and Willpower say "current" when I think the ones on the left should say "initial" just like Strength's boxes above them?
Oh thank you so much, so happy you like the game. Thanks for the info regarding the issue in the character sheet. I pushed a fix in v1.5.
Amazing layout from an amazing creator. Gonna try this game out solo sometime. Check this out, y’all!
Thank you so much 🖤
Fari has once again refined an already amazing system (Breathless) to fit the needs of a modern TTRPG player. The highly enjoyable risk vs. reward mechanic of dice value degradation (do an action, dice value goes down until a rest) is the highlight of the system, in my opinion. You will feel connected to your actions and the risk that your character is taking to perform them. When you character finally grows in strength, you will treasure the higher starting value as just rewards.
Tales of the Burned Stones is an amazing triumph from a creator that just keeps going and getting better with every release. I cannot recommend it enough for players, and especially for aspiring designers (myself included).
5/5
I must say, this totally made my day. Thank you so much for the kind words. You have no idea how much they mean.
Thanks for offering the game for free. I love lowering skills temporarily as ability costs. Were you inspired by anything in particular for that mechanic?
My pleasure! Super happy you loved what you saw.
The "skills stepping down" idea is based on Breathless, another one of my games. The using skills as a meta currency is something I came up with explicitly while developing TotBS' sibling game, Stoneburner.
I knew I wanted to include some sort of currency you had to spend to power abilities, but was very on the fence about including some sort of point system. Didn't want the game to have too many moving pieces.
Then it clicked, I already had that currency: skills. Plus, using them as a way to power abilities would further reinforce the need to catch your breath, thus adding more complication and drama to the narrative!
Looks amazing! Thank you for offering this for free/PWYW!
Thank you so much! And yeah, of course ^^ really wanted to make this as accessible as I could!