What is The Second Kingdom?

The Second Kingdom is a Gothic fantasy role-playing game of brutal combat, moral drama, and enduring hope.

Themes and Setting

The Second Kingdom is set in Purgatory, a mist-shrouded and mournful realm in the afterlife where sinful souls dwell for eternity unless they are able to ascend the realm's colossal mountain and its nine terraces to reach paradise at its peak. The players take on the role of pilgrim knights, people from all over the Earth and all throughout history who have bound themselves together in oaths of fellowship, and who are armed with physical manifestations of their past lives' worst sins. Together the pilgrim knights set out from the base of Purgatory's great mountain on the most important journey of their eternal lives. Each terrace of the mountain is shaped in the image of one of  humanity's vices and brings with it new trials and tribulations to be overcome. Hulking soldier demons stalk ruined battlefields from apocalyptic wars long past and steam-powered war machines forged by angels eternally guard abandoned strongholds beside the road. Seductive dragons with a fetishistic love for tempting human beings cast illusions on travelling pilgrims and probe their minds with sorcerous powers in search of moral frailty. Corrupted pilgrim knights hunt others on the road and attempt to suck them dry of their convictions like a vampire of the soul. Cities full of resting and retired pilgrims, wraiths, shades, and other phantom spirits dot the terraced landscape of the mountain. Such places can provide shelter and comfort to pilgrims passing through or unique dangers all their own.

The Second Kingdom's world-sized mountain is itself an active character in the players' journey. Each terrace of the mountain features a series of moral traps and hazards, designed by inhuman minds to test the virtues of passing pilgrims and purge them of their sins. Every step the pilgrims take, every advance and ascent the pilgrims manage, is purchased at the cost of abrasive introspection and the solving of withering moral dilemmas.

Creative Inspirations

The Second Kingdom takes its thematic and mechanical inspirations from two sources. With respect to the journey to the mountain's peak, The Second Kingdom is inspired by fantasy epics like The Lord of the Rings, Willow, Krull, Conan, and Clash of the Titans. With respect to the game's brutal and tactical combat, the Second Kingdom is inspired by Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Dragon's Dogma, Monster Hunter, and Darkest Dungeon. Of course, The Second Kingdom draws heavily upon the narrative theology and existential symbolism of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, as well other allegorical literature such as Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses, John Milton's Paradise Lost, and John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. Video games such as Castlevania, Diablo, and Limbo, films such as What Dreams May Come and Fantasia, and the art of Gustave Dore also helped to inspire aspects of The Second Kingdom's aesthetic.

The Second Kingdom has a number of elements which are uncommon or unique among role-playing games. A few examples of such are listed below...

1. Randomly generated landscapes and encounters.

The Second Kingdom has a traditional player/gamemaster relationship common in pen and paper role-playing games, where the gamemaster is responsible for directing the game's ongoing action as well as creating and narrating the world around the players. However, The Second Kingdom also features a number of randomized elements which interrupt the gamemaster's planned story and cause twists and deviations in the plot. Travel might suddenly be cut short and offer the player's respite, or, travel might be extended beyond the players' endurance and new obstacles might appear. Combat might suddenly result in a surprising player victory, or, a few opponents might suddenly become an overwhelming mob of dozens. Allies may choose to betray the players on account of secret insanities and unknown motives, or, enemies may choose to befriend the players for much the same reason. The great mountain at the heart of The Second Kingdom is itself a constantly changing landscape that remakes its roads and ruins in response to emotion, memory, and simple vagaries of chance. When the players overcome a challenge or complete a leg of their journey, it is not just because the gamemaster decided that they had enough, but also because the game itself, and the mountain itself, has had its say.

2. Player driven progression.

Player characters in The Second Kingdom gain one experience level per gaming session they participate in. "Level" in The Second Kingdom sets the limit on the number of lore entries the player can make on their character sheet. A level 2 character can have up to two lore entries. A level 12 character can have up to twelve entries. Etc. Each lore entry is a memory of an important event in the character's journey. "Bindings" are events where the player character emotionally connects with another character or a place with special significance to them. "Confessions" are events where the player character discusses some terrible tragedy or wrongdoing in their mortal lives. "Redemptions" are events where powerful opponents are overcome and the spirits of those opponents are freed to continue on their own journeys. Players choose when to add a lore entry to their character sheet and what event to base the entry on. The type of lore entry chosen determines what types of benefits or improvements the character receives from it. This lore system allows players to progress their characters in a more natural way and ties each moment of progression to the players' overarching journey. High level characters are not merely characters with larger numbers on their character sheets, but rather characters who have found more meaning in their quest.

3. Unique hit point and death mechanics.

Characters in The Second Kingdom have a pool of hit point style health called "conviction." Conviction can be worn down slowly as the character undertakes their harsh journey and experiences fatigue, horror, or moral conflict. Conviction can also be depleted rapidly when weapons are drawn and sorcerous energies begin to fly. When a character is reduced to zero conviction they are said to be abolished. Their armor is shattered and their physical form disintegrates. The character enters a phantom-like state where they can still interact with the world to a limited degree but cannot aid their allies or participate in combat as they normally would. Reconstituting a player character and returning them to physical form requires other player characters to sacrifice some of their own conviction. Conviction also powers spell-like abilities that player characters can gain access to and can be spent to increase the chance of success when rolling dice to determine the outcome of actions.

Much of this is conventional. What separates conviction from other hit point systems is that conviction absolutely cannot be replenished under any circumstances. Rest does not recover conviction. Magic cannot recover conviction. The passage of time or the change from one game session to another cannot recover conviction. Because of this, abolishment is an inevitable fact of playing The Second Kingdom. Player characters will be abolished, their armor will be destroyed, and their allies will need to sacrifice some of their own conviction to bring them back to full life. Only when a player character is reconstituted is their conviction returned to full. The party of player characters only truly "die" if they are all abolished at the same time, and so trying to time when player characters will meet their end is an important element of strategic play in The Second Kingdom.

4. Action point based combat.

When combat begins in The Second Kingdom the player characters draw living weapons out of their hearts and the players roll a die which sets their starting discipline. The players' enemies also roll discipline dice or their own. "Discipline" is a pool of points used to take action in combat. The character with the most discipline at any given time has the initiative and can spend points to attack, cast magick, change stances and postures, or move and interact with the environment around them. Characters who do not have the initiative can spend large amounts of points to interrupt the action of the one with the initiative and take action instead. When a character runs out of discipline, they can only recover it by lowering their guard and inviting an attack. Successfully surviving the attack gives them more discipline and the cycle continues again and again until one side falls. Combat using action points is fast, efficient, and rewards a player's skill in managing the discipline resource.

5. Tactical combat using postures and maneuvers.

The Second Kingdom emphasizes the elements of a combat encounter that pen and paper role-playing games are good at modeling and largely ignores the elements that pen and paper role-playing games are not good at modeling. Things like range, movement, and the precise locations of combatants are simplified. Pilgrim knights can dash, leap, and glide around the battlefield with preternatural speed. Anyone can attack anyone at all times regardless of distance or the weapon they have in hand. This design choice makes a 'theater of the mind' style of play easy to use and lessens the paperwork burden of combat.

Instead of tracking position and movement, player characters have "postures." A posture is an abstract indication of a character's fighting stance, momentum, and morale. There are five postures in The Second Kingdom, two advantageous, two disadvantageous, and one neutral. Advantageous postures represent fighting strength, forward momentum, and a solid guard, whereas disadvantageous postures represent weakened or surrounded positions. Discipline can be spent in an attempt to control a character's posture, or a character can deliberately slacken their own posture to gain more discipline, but the vicissitudes of combat can also force a character's posture into different states both for good and for ill.

Characters in The Second Kingdom attack with "maneuvers." A maneuver is an offensive technique like "crushing whirlwind" or "barrage of cuts" or "diving falcon." Each maneuver grants bonuses to an attack's accuracy, speed, and power, and sets two possible consequences for the attack: one that is achieved if the attack is a glancing blow, and a second that is achieved if the attack lands in full. Different maneuvers are better against certain kinds of targets who prefer using certain kinds of defenses. Some maneuvers trade accuracy for speed, others trade power for utility effects, some strike entire groups of opponents while other focus on grappling and dominating a single foe. Some maneuvers can only be executed from certain postures, while other maneuvers strengthen a character's posture when successful. Each player character has access to a number of maneuvers, and selecting the right maneuver at the right time is key to success against the mountain's supernal minions.