D.

Vincent Baker’s
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest
A Role-playing Game
 D. Vincent Baker’s
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest
A Role-playing Game
D. Vincent Baker’s
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest
A Role-playing Game

The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest

& The Book of Doomed Wizards
© 2021 by Meguey Baker & D. Vincent Baker
Downloads available from lumpley.games
Permission granted to print & duplicate for personal use.

a lumpley game
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest

Contents
Introduction: The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest 4

You & Your Qualities 5

Your Qualities & Your Exertions 6

Your Tools 7

Your Bloody Quest 7

Your Goal in the Game 8

Volunteers, Sessions, & Getting Started 8

The Fundamentals of the Game 9

Ending a Session 10
Between Sessions 10

Summary 11

Your Exertions 12

Your Character Sheet 14

Volunteers’ Guide 22

A Bestiary 24

Spawning Circumstances 26
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest

You are a killer, a wanderer, an outlander among civilized people.

A wizard once came to the mountainside village where you were born
and lived. You were a child. You remember the wizard as a terrible,
nightmare figure — man or woman, beautiful or grotesque, you’ll
never remember. Your parents hid you and you couldn’t see what
happened. The wizard summoned fearsome creatures in armor who
butchered your family and all the people you ever knew, butchered
many and enslaved the rest for the wizard’s use. You stayed hidden
and they never found you.

You were soon taken in by your village’s enemies, a clan of blood-

thirsty raiders and brigands. They adopted you not out of mercy or
kindness, but indifferently, simply to replace one of their own who
had been killed in battle.

You were theirs for two decades, raiding, fighting, murdering,

robbing. You found yourself fearless, throwing yourself into deadly
peril with no thought of hesitation, driven by the roaring of your
blood. You found yourself powerful, strong, and skilled. You won-
dered if you were conscienceless. At last, not long ago, awash in gore,
your sword in your hands, your heart reawoke and you realized who
you are.

You’re a killer, but you’ll no longer kill people for their wealth, for
pride of place, or to ease your own bloodlust. You’ll kill wizards, and
you’ll kill them for revenge.

4
You & Your Qualities

You are a killer and wanderer, seeking revenge upon the wizard
who once destroyed your family. What’s your name? What are your
pronouns?

You are, yourself, quick, ruthless, tempered, and strong, in measure.

Answer the following questions, and keep a running tally.
1. Imagine that a wizard lashes you with a tongue of scarlet vehe-
mence. Will you leap nimbly aside, or will you take the blow across
your back and press undaunted forward? If the former, tally 1 to
quick. If the latter, tally 1 to strong.
2. Imagine that you are approaching a wizard’s seclusium, and the
guard you must pass by is yawning and inattentive. Will you slip
silently by them and leave them no wiser, or will you creep up and
murder them, wizard’s creature that they are? If the former, tally 1 to
quick. If the latter, tally 1 to ruthless.
3. Imagine that someone waylays you, and you aren’t certain, but you
think to detect the whiff of wizardry upon them. Will you strike them
back unthinking and unhesitating, or will you hold them off until
you can confirm your suspicion? If the former, tally 1 to quick. If the
latter, tally 1 to tempered.
4. Imagine that a wizard constrains you within walls of dismal
adamance. Will you rage powerfully against them and hope to bring
them down, or will you probe them patiently for some weakness
to exploit? If the former, tally 1 to strong. If the latter, tally 1 to
tempered.
5. Imagine that a wizard uses a spell of sorcerous enthrallment to send
an innocent to assassinate you. Will you strike them down to defend
yourself and deny the wizard a tool, or will you suffer their blow
to avoid doing them harm? If the former, tally 1 to ruthless. If the
latter, tally 1 to tempered.
6. Suppose that you are in a public marketplace and a wizard
unleashes a swarming flight of glass wasps, who sting and
overwhelm all in their path. Will you leap ahead of the fleeing crowd
to catch the brunt of the attack, or will you let the wasps pursue the
crowd and take the opportunity to get close to the wizard? If the
former, tally 1 to strong. If the latter, tally 1 to ruthless.

5
Your Qualities & Your Exertions

You are able, as are all living things, to exert yourself upon your
surroundings, against your enemies, and alongside your allies.

You begin the game with seven named and rated exertions, plus
submission, as follows.

• You may exert your instincts to grasp and react to a dangerous

situation. Your rating equals your highest tally, plus 2.

• You may exert yourself with openness and warmth, to approach

and get to know someone. Your rating equals your tempered tally
plus 1.

• You may exert yourself physically against the mass and momen-
tum of an uncooperative or unsensible thing. Your rating equals
your quick tally plus your strong tally, but with a minimum of 3.

• You may exert yourself with purpose in your pursuit, to study and
learn about a particular wizard or particular wizardry. Your rating
equals your tempered tally, plus 1.

• You may exert yourself with a show of readiness for violence, a

show of force, to dissuade your enemies. Your rating equals your
quick tally plus your ruthless tally, but with a minimum of 3.

• You may exert yourself subtly, to pass through your environment

unnoticed or take action unremarked. Your rating equals your quick
tally plus your tempered tally.

• You may exert yourself violently against an enemy. Your rating

equals your ruthless tally plus your strong tally.

• In addition, when you exert yourself against a wizard, special

rules apply, so note and follow them.

• And finally, when you choose not to exert yourself, you submit to
circumstance and just try to come out on your feet. Your rating
equals your strong tally plus your tempered tally.

6
Your Tools

You have a number of tools at hand to help you on your quest. You
begin the game with these three:
• Your arms & armor: a short sharp sword, a hatchet, a shield, and a
helmet.
• Your purposeful knowledge of wizardry, which allows you to pursue
wizards effectively.
• A stone & bone talisman of blue jasper and a fox bone, which you
had from your parents, which helped hide you from the wizard when
you were a child.
As you play, you’ll gain tools, and possibly lose them.

When you exert yourself, you can bring your tools to bear in a variety
of ways. Look them up on your character sheet.

Your Bloody Quest

When play begins, you’ve come into possession of two important

facts about wizards.

The first is, when you cut open a wizard, what spills out depends
upon the particular nature of that wizard’s magics.

The second is, when you finally cut open the wizard who butchered
and enslaved your family, no blood will spill out, but instead, a
pulsating vermilion light.

Your quest is to cut open as many wizards as you must, until you cut
one open and pulsating vermilion light spills out. Then you’ll know
that your quest’s fulfilled and you’ve had your revenge.

“The Book of Doomed Wizards,” this text’s companion booklet,

contains all the wizards you might encounter in your quest. Have it at
hand, but don’t read it! It’s secret from you. It’s for your volunteers.

7
Your Goal in the Game

Your goal as player of the game is to follow your quest for revenge
into danger, and to emerge victorious when you can.

The rules of the game won’t keep you safe in your quest, exactly, but
they’ll always keep you alive and free. You never need to act to avoid
danger. Plunge forward!

Volunteers, Sessions, & Getting Started

Once you’ve named yourself, tallied your qualities, and rated your
exertions, you’re ready to begin play.

Play the game in “sessions,” each a short episode in which you

pursue your quest against some wizard, go into danger, and maybe
emerge again victorious.

For each session, you’ll need to find two friends who’ll volunteer to
play against you. They can be different volunteers each time; it’s your
responsibility to bring them up to speed and give them what they
need to know in order to play. Be sure to hand them “The Book of
Doomed Wizards,” and to give them each a copy of the “Volunteer’s
Guide” and “A Bestiary.” Find these on pages 24–27; they’re also
available for download.

Each session begins with a spawning circumstance. You choose your

spawning circumstance from a list, then explain it to your volunteers
to start the session.

As you play, session by session, you’ll encounter the wizards in “The

Book of Doomed Wizards.” It’s your volunteers’ responsibility to track
your progress through the book, following the rules they find within,
so remind them to do it.

At the end of the session, be sure to get “The Book of Doomed

Wizards” back from them, so that you can continue your quest again.

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The Fundamentals of the Game

1. Ask your volunteers what you see and hear.

Ask them who’s present, what they’re doing, and what’s going on.

Answer your volunteers’ questions in turn, if they happen to have

any.

Don’t wait for them to tell you, spontaneously, what it’s like, who’s
there, what they’re doing, how it looks, where you might go, who’s
paying attention to you, who isn’t. Whatever you’re curious about,
whatever you need to know in order to decide what to do, ask.

It’s not their job to say anything at all, if you don’t ask!

2. Say what you do, and ask what happens.

The basic interaction of the game is:

• Say what you do.
• Ask your volunteers what happens.
It’s up to you to take the active role in the conversation. Tell your
volunteers where you go and what you do, and then ask them what
you see, what you find, how people react to you, who resists you,
what they say, and what happens.

3. Exert yourself.

Going back and forth asking and answering questions is fine for as
long as you want to do it, but exerting yourself drives the game and
gives both you and your volunteers more to work with.

Your volunteers aren’t responsible for knowing your exertions or

prompting you to do them. That’s all on you.

Learn your exertions and don’t wait passively, make opportunities

and seize them!

9
Ending a Session

Either you or your volunteers can end the session any time, for any
reason or none, without worrying about how abrupt it might be.

Your goal in the game is to follow your quest for revenge into danger,
and to emerge victorious when you can. You can use this as an
outline for a session, if you want, when it works out that way: end
the session when you’ve encountered and defeated a wizard, or else
when the wizard’s bested or escaped you.

When you kill a wizard and a pulsing vermilion light spills out, you
know you’ve killed the wizard who butchered and enslaved your
family. You’ve won your revenge; your quest is finished! You can end
the game, or else keep playing without the quest to drive you on.

Between Sessions

Between sessions, you’re allowed to re-tally your qualities and

change your ratings, if you want to. Go back to the quality-defining
questions in character creation. Answer them anew from your current
mindset, and recalculate your exertion ratings accordingly.

10
Summary
• You’re a killer and wanderer. You’re on a quest to kill the wizard who
butchered and enslaved your family, and you’ll kill as many wizards
as you must in order to do it.

• You’re quick, ruthless, tempered and strong. You can exert yourself
with instinct, with openness, with physicality, with purpose, with
a show of readiness, with subtlety, with violence. You can choose
not to exert yourself, but submit to circumstance instead. You also
have tools to bring to bear when you exert yourself.

• Your goal in the game is to follow your quest for revenge into
danger, and to emerge victorious when you can.

• To play, you need two volunteers to play against you. It’s your job
to give them everything they need in order to play. Give them the
“Volunteer’s Guide” and “Bestiary” handouts, and “The Book of
Doomed Wizards.”

• The fundamentals of the game are, first, to ask your volunteers

questions; second, to tell your volunteers what you do and ask them
what happens; and third, to take opportunities to exert yourself.

• You play the game in sessions. Open a session with a spawning

circumstance, and end it whenever you want.

• Any of you can end the session at any time, for any reason or none,
without worrying about how abrupt it might be.

• Between sessions you can change your qualities and the ratings for
your exertions.

• When you finally kill a wizard and pulsing vermilion light spills out,
you’ve won your revenge and completed your quest. You can end
the game, or else keep playing without the quest to drive you on.

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Your Exertions

In play, you can always ask your volunteers any questions you
want about what you can see, hear, and directly experience. You can
always take safe, simple action: just tell your volunteers what you do
and ask them what happens as a result.

When you want to ask questions beyond your direct experience, or

take actions beyond the safe and simple, exert yourself.

It’s your job to decide when and how to exert yourself, and to
interpret the rules and the results. It’s also your job to walk your
volunteers through it, by telling them what you’re doing and asking
them what you need to ask.

To roll: Roll a number of 6-sided dice equal to your rating. Count each
4, 5 or 6 as a hit. If you roll no hits, it’s a miss.

Don’t be disappointed by a miss. A miss won’t slow you down, it’ll

lead you into danger all the more rapidly.

Bringing Your Tools to Bear:

When you exert yourself, you can bring your tools to bear in a variety
of ways. Look them up on your character sheet.

Exerting Yourself Against a Wizard:

When you exert yourself against a wizard directly, special rules apply.
Be sure to note and follow them.

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Exerting Your Instincts:
You may exert your instincts to grasp and react to a dangerous
situation.
Tell your volunteers that you’re taking a quick second, a couple of
minutes, or “the time” to look around, get a feel for things, and try
to figure out what’s going on, then roll. On any hits, you can ask as
many questions as you want about what you can directly observe,
as always. But you can also ask questions about what your gut tells
you, like the following. Ask one such question per hit. If they seem
uncertain, remind your volunteers to make up the answer if they
don’t already know it, but to be honest and forthcoming if they do.
• Am I being watched? Followed?
• Is everything cool here or is there something going on?
• I’m looking for [x]. Where should I start?
• I wonder if [x] is going to happen. What does my gut tell me?
If you roll well, you might find that you don’t have as many questions
to ask as you’re entitled to. That’s fine, just ask the questions you
have.

On a miss, tell your volunteers that you stand there lost in thought
until something snaps you out of it, and ask them what does.

Against a Wizard: Tell your volunteers that you might have hereby
alerted the wizard’s safeguards, and to check in “The Book of
Doomed Wizards” under “Safeguards.”

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Your Name:
& Your Pronouns:

Your Qualities
Tally Final Tally Tally Final Tally
Quick Ruthless

Strong Tempered

Exerting Yourself
Exert Your Instincts:
To grasp and react to a dangerous situation.
= Your Highest Tally + 2

Exert Yourself with Openness:

To approach and win someone over.
= Your Tempered +1

Exert Yourself Physically:

Against the mass and momentum of a physical thing.
= Your Quick + your Strong, min 3

Exert Yourself with Purpose:

To study and learn about a particular wizard or wizardry.
= Your Tempered +1

Exert Yourself with a Show of Readiness:

To dissuade your enemies.
= Your Quick + your Ruthless, min 3

Exert Yourself Subtly:

To pass through your environment or take action unnoticed.
= Your Quick + your Tempered

Exert Yourself Violently:

Against an enemy.
= Your Ruthless + your Strong, min 3

Submit to Circumstance:
Instead of exerting yourself.
= Your Strong + your Tempered
Your Tools

A Barbarian
zz Your arms & armor: a short sharp sword, a hatchet, a shield, and a helmet.
Exert yourself with openness: Before you roll, ask your volunteers whether your
bearing arms and armor makes your counterpart think that you’re their enemy or
a threat.
Exert yourself with a show of readiness: When you communicate your readiness
to violence, you can mention your arms & armor.
Exert yourself Violently: When you “do [x],” [x] can include striking with your
weapons and fending off blows with your armor.
zz Your knowledge of wizardry, which allows you to exert yourself with purpose.
zz A stone and bone talisman of blue jasper and a fox bone, which you had from your
parents, which helped hide you from the wizard when you were a child.
Exert your instincts, exert yourself with purpose, or exert yourself subtly: On a
miss, tell your volunteers about this talisman, and ask them to take it into account
while they’re judging whether you’ve alerted the wizard’s safeguards.
{{ A copper needle as long as your arm, etched with stringent slogans of infliction.
When you exert yourself…
Exert yourself violently: if you impale a plasmid with it, it must submit to you,
begging you for mercy and release.
{{ A grimoire which includes a treatise on the Maxims of Ruelish of Fane. If you study
the First, Third, or Fourth Maxims, you become a wizard, and must end the game.
If you study only the Second Maxim, however, then when you subsequently exert
yourself…
Exert yourself with purpose: You may use 1 of your hits to ask your volunteers, “will
the Second Maxim of Ruelish of Fane disrupt this wizardry?” If they answer that it
will, then you may apply it, and so disrupt it. Ask your volunteers what happens.
{{ The Recitation of Kaibenta of the Bower, a powerful demi-spell of annulment.
When you exert yourself…
Exert yourself with a show of readiness against a wizard’s thralls, if you recite
Kaibenta’s Recitation before you roll, it fleetingly disrupts the wizard’s enthrall-
ment. Tell your volunteers that they’re subject to your exertion, even though they’re
wizard’s thralls.
{{ A javelin enmarked with an invocation of fire. When you exert yourself…
Exert yourself violently, you may include in [x] that you throw this javelin, and
whom it strikes, an abysmal gout of flame erupts, engulfing them to deadly effect.
The javelin’s unharmed by the flame, and you can recover it afterward, if you’re
able.
Your Improvements
{{ Honed: add 1 to your strong tally.
{{ Unhesitating: add 1 to your quick tally.
{{ Hardened: add 1 to your ruthless tally.
For each of these three improvements, update your exertions’ ratings as well.
If you re-tally your qualities between sessions, keep these improvements separate,
and apply them again after you’ve finished your tallies.
Exerting Yourself with Openness:
You may exert yourself with openness and warmth, to approach and
win someone over. To do this, you need at least a little time with
them, without urgency, pressure, or immediate danger, and they
must not regard you as their direct enemy.

Given this, tell your volunteers what you share with them — your
food, a story from your past, your fire, your knowledge of the stars or
of distant lands — and roll. On any hits, show your volunteers this list
and have them choose one per hit:
• They ask me to do something for them. Namely, [x].
• They promise me a meal and a warm bed, when next I need one.
• They tell me about their home and family, and what they love.
• They offer to do something for me. Namely, [x].
• They share their pain with me. Namely, [x].
• We find our common history or experience together. Namely [x].
On a miss, tell your volunteers that they regard you with suspicion
and hostility, decline to share, and depart as soon as they’re able.
But first, if you’re not satisfied with this, tell your volunteers what you
share or give them now, to reassure them, and ask your volunteers
whether you may reroll. You may only try for a reroll once, though; a
second miss must stand.

Against a Wizard: Before you roll, tell your volunteers that your
warmth might persuade the wizard to lower their guard, and to check
in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under “Acts of Warmth.”

16
Exerting Yourself Physically:
You may exert yourself physically against the mass and momentum
of an uncooperative or unsensible thing.
Tell your volunteers what you do and what you’re hoping to
accomplish. Ask them whether you can just do it, or do they want
you to roll? Before you roll, you’re allowed to ask them what you can
accomplish without rolling, if you want to.

But supposing it comes to a roll, consider these:

• I’m strong enough / I’m not strong enough.
• I’m quick enough / I’m not quick enough.
• My footing is good enough / my footing is not good enough.
• I have the endurance for it / I don’t have the endurance for it.
• &c.
On any hits, you’re up to the challenge, in whatever terms make
sense for the circumstances. Technically you can choose one per hit,
but if fewer will settle it, you don’t have to keep choosing. Just tell
your volunteers that you’re adept enough and you have the endur-
ance for it, or whatever, and ask them what happens next.

On a miss, choose 1 that you are, and one that you definitely aren’t.
Tell your volunteers that you’re adept enough, but you’re just plain
not patient enough, or whatever, and ask them how it goes for
you. Remember that your goal is to follow your quest into danger.
Embrace it and don’t hedge!

Against a Wizard: Tell your volunteers that acting against the wizard
might alert their safeguards, so to check in “The Book of Doomed
Wizards” under “Safeguards.”

You can exert yourself against physical things set against you by
wizardry. However, before you roll, ask your volunteers to choose:
• These forces are equivalent to natural physical forces. Roll as
normal.
• These forces are more powerful than their natural equivalents. Roll
with a modifier of -1 to your rating.
• These forces are vastly, impossibly more powerful than their natural
equivalents. Roll with a modifier of -2 to your rating.

17
Exerting Yourself with Purpose:
You may exert yourself with purpose in your pursuit, to study and
learn about a particular wizard or particular wizardry. To do this, you
need to witness or observe an act or object of wizardry.
Tell your volunteers that you fix your full attention on the wizardry,
then roll. On any hits, ask one of the following questions per hit. Tell
your volunteers to check in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under
“Wizardry” for direction for their answers.
• What did the wizard hope this wizardry to accomplish?
• Was this wizardry easy for the wizard to create, or difficult?
• What did the wizard sacrifice of themself to create this wizardry?
• What does this wizardry reveal about the wizard who created it?
On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but tell your volunteers that the wizard’s
safeguards might certainly perceive your querying attention, and to
check in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under “Safeguards.”

Exerting Yourself with a Show of Readiness:

You may exert yourself with a show of readiness for violence, a show
of force, to dissuade your enemies.
Tell your volunteers how you communicate your readiness for
violence, such as by taking up your arms and standing at the ready,
then roll. On any hits, choose one per hit:
• Everyone who thought I’d submit without a fight, leaves.
• Everyone who thought I’d be easy to defeat, leaves.
• Everyone who has a family to go home to, leaves.
• Everyone who’s standing against me for pay, leaves.
• Everyone who’s heard of me before, leaves.
If it’s just a single enemy standing against you, rewrite your choices
from “everyone who [x], leaves” to “if they [x], they leave.”
Of the enemies who leave, ask your volunteers whether they flee,
back away, keep their distance, throw down their weapons, turn
aside and pretend not to see you, or what.
On a miss, tell your volunteers that they panic and attack. Be ready
to exert yourself a different way, or submit to them if you prefer.
Against a Wizard: Tell your volunteers that a show of readiness never
dissuades a wizard or a wizard’s direct thralls, so no matter what you
roll or which you choose, they’re still standing against you.

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Exerting Yourself Subtly:
You may exert yourself subtly, to pass through your environment
unnoticed or take action unremarked.
Tell your volunteers what you need to do, and ask them if anyone’s
going to notice you or care. If nobody is, cool, carry on. If somebody
is, though, you’d better roll. On any hits, you get a number of
chances to escape attention, one chance per hit. A “chance” is
something like:
• I can wait until they’re distracted. Does anything distract them?
• You wouldn’t believe how quick I am with my hands. Am I going to
be quick enough?
• I can act casual, I’m in no hurry. Do you think I’ll raise their suspi-
cions anyway?
• I can get [x] to do it for me. Do I think they’ll be able to trace it back
to me?
You can invent your own. Take the first chance that pans out for you.

On a miss, or if none of your chances pan out, tell your volunteers

that well, you go for it anyway. Ask them who catches you and how
they react.

Against a Wizard: Tell your volunteers that you might have hereby
alerted the wizard’s safeguards, and to check in “The Book of
Doomed Wizards” under “Safeguards.”

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Exerting Yourself Violently:
You may exert yourself violently against an enemy.
First tell your volunteers how you enter into violence, then roll. On
any hits, you get a number of chances to end the fight on your terms,
one chance per hit. Choose from these or invent one:
• I do [x]. Do I drive them off?
• I do [x]. Do I disarm and constrain them?
• I do [x]. Do I get away from them?
• I do [x]. Do I get them at my mercy?
Between chances, if you haven’t ended the fight, ask what your
enemies do. Answer back with your next chance.

On a miss, or if you run out of chances, ask whether they leave you
for dead, take you captive, drive you away, or what.

Against a Wizard’s Human Thralls: No special rules apply when you

exert yourself violently against a wizard’s human thralls, guards, or
servants. Exert yourself just as above.

Against Creatures of Wizardry: When you exert yourself violently

against a creature born of wizardry or against any supernatural
creature, roll as normal, but ask this instead:
• I do [x]. What effect does it have upon them?
…And only if it affects them to their detriment can you go on to ask
whether you drive them off, disarm them, &c.

If it doesn’t have detrimental effect on them, it still counts as a

chance you’ve taken.

Against a Wizard Directly: When you exert yourself violently against

a wizard directly, you certainly alert the wizard’s safeguards and
awaken their guardians. Before you take any of your chances, tell
your volunteers to check in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under
“Guardians.” Only if you’re able to overcome the wizard’s guardians
can you go on to assault the wizard themself.

Each action you take against the wizard’s safeguards, or then against
the wizard directly, counts as one of your chances.

If you defeat the wizard, cut them open. Tell your volunteers to check
in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under “What Spills Out.”

20
If what spills out is a pulsating vermilion light, then you know you’ve
killed the wizard who butchered and enslaved your family. You’ve
won your revenge; your quest is finished! You can end the game, or
else keep playing without the quest to drive you on.

If something else spills out, you might nevertheless gain something

of value to you. Ask your volunteers what you find, and tell them to
check in “The Book of Doomed Wizards” under “What I Gain.”

Or you can…

Submit to Circumstance:
…Instead of exerting yourself, just trying to come out on your feet.

At the end of this, you’re going to ask your volunteers where you
wind up and what state you’re in when you get there, but first roll. On
any hits, choose one per hit:
• I keep my feet.
• I keep my bearings.
• I keep my life.
• I keep my senses.
• I keep my grip.
• I keep my dignity.
• I keep my self-control.
• I keep my self-respect.
• &c as necessary.
Before you choose, you can ask your volunteers just how badly it
might go, and make your choices accordingly.

On a miss, choose one, but it’s “I can’t keep…”

Tell your volunteers which you’ve chosen and ask them, given that,
where you wind up and what state you’re in when you get there.

21
The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest:
Volunteer’s Guide
Thanks for volunteering to play The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest with
me! Here are the rules.

1. Your Goal in the Game:

You’re doing me a favor just by playing, so you don’t have to worry

about winning or losing the game. Your goal is just to say things that
you, personally, find honestly entertaining.

2. Your Main Job:

Almost your only job is to get with the other volunteer and make up
answers to my questions.

I’ll ask things like “I’m set upon by raiders. What are they like?” You
and your fellow volunteer can imagine any raiders you want, exactly
the raiders you find most fun, and tell me about them together.
If you want to ask me any clarifying questions, please do! I’ll be more
than happy to answer them.

Sometimes the answer to one of my questions will be obvious, or

you’ll already know it from what somebody’s said before. In that
case, just give the obvious answer, no need to second guess.

Sometimes one of my questions will be way out, weird, maybe

contextless. You can always ask me clarifying questions, but you can
also just say whatever pops into your head and let me be the one
who has to make sense of it.

Sometimes I’ll show you one of my sheets and have you choose
something from a list, too. Always choose whichever option seems
best to you at the moment.

On the reverse, see also “A Bestiary,” which includes some ideas that
you can use and build on.
3. The Book of Doomed Wizards:

Be sure that I hand “The Book of Doomed Wizards” over to you. Get
with the other volunteer, take a look at it, and follow the rules you
find there. I’ll direct you to refer to it when I need you to.

4. You and the Other Volunteer:

In order for anything to really count, you and the other volunteer
have to agree on it. If you don’t agree about something, it’s not true
until you do. Talk it over until you’re both satisfied. I’ll wait!

The reason there are two of you, by the way, is that this way you can
trade off and build on each others’ ideas. Neither of you has to do all
the work.

If you have any trouble coming to agreement and you want to use
some kind of system to decide, like R-P-S or flipping a coin or dibs or
something, that’s none of my business. Whatever works for you. Just
let me know what you’ve decided.

I have a 6-sided die you can borrow if you want to roll it.

5. Ending the game:

Any of us can end the game whenever we want, for any reason or
none at all. It doesn’t matter how abrupt it might be.

If, at any point, it seems impossible to entertain youreslf, or not worth

it, or anything like that, don’t hesitate, just call an end.

6. Thank you!

You’re the best! I’m lucky to have you.

The Barbarian’s Bloody Quest:
A Bestiary
1. The World:

It’s the Ancient World, before the Age of Empires.

It’s not Earth, probably, although it has a single yellow sun and a
single white moon and three stars in a row in the winter sky that
everyone recognizes. It has summers and winters, forests and
deserts, great various continents and unmeasured salt seas. It
has horses, dogs, cats, birds, cattle, lions, hyenas, camels, llamas,
marsupials, mustelidae, primates, pachyderms.

If you went there you could breathe the air but the language would
be unknown to you and the food and fashions unfamiliar.

2. Human Nature:

Human beings love to have full bellies, warm rugs, sweet sad music,
and their loved ones nearby.
They hate violence, hunger, fear, cold, injustice, and their friends who
have wronged them.

They work stone, clay, wood, metal, cloth, fur, glass, horn, sinew,
bark, leaves, leather, and reeds. They cook their food, brew their
drink, bury their pickles, eat fruit in season, eat fish when it runs,
and eat salt when they have it. They hold their nose when the healer
makes them swallow balms and pungencies.

3. Civilization and “Barbarity”:

Human beings create polities no bigger than city-states, usually, and

usually no longer-lived than dynasties. The greatest and the least
usually eat grain from the same fields and hunt ducks on the same
rivers.

Standing armies are vanishingly rare. Professional law enforcement

is unknown. There are professionals of law in many cities, but they’re
clerks and interpreters, lawyers and arbiters. For enforcement, they
depend on ad-hoc assemblies, mobs under their control. Cities don’t
have civil prisons, but they do have forced labor camps, and the
powerful sometimes keep private dungeons for their enemies.
Many human beings live their lives in settled polities smaller than
cities: self-organized, independent villages and towns. Sometimes
these owe tribute and political affiliation to powerful cities nearby.
Sometimes they confederate with one another instead, sending their
town elders or representatives to meet together to negotiate policies
on matters of shared concern, or going to war with each other when
peaceful negotiation is too much trouble.

And many human beings live their lives on the move, in villages that
follow the seasonal routes of migrating animals and life cycles of
important plants.

“Barbarian” is what a city-dweller calls anyone less settled than they.

It’s unnecessary and rude, but what do you expect.

4. Wizards:

A wizard is a person who, by diligent study and a brash willingness to

cheat fate and nature, learns to perceive and manipulate the plasmic
energy that suffuses the world.

As wizards grow in power, they inevitably exchange elements of their

human nature for plasmic versions of the same. Their willingness
to cheat nature, sooner or later, extends to the natural processes of
their own lives.

A powerful wizard is alienated from human life, and is able to regard

it — and all life! — as a resource, not as a value.
Spawning Circumstances

Begin each session with a spawning circumstance. Choose one

from this list and explain it to your volunteers to start play.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a wild,
rocky coast, where no one lives, but a wizard makes their seclusium.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by approaching the wizard’s seclusium.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a wealthy
and important city. You have heard that a wizard frequents its
marketplace to select and buy certain materials, but you have not
learned where they make their seclusium.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play in the city’s marketplace.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a poor
district, where the people labor in dusty and scrubby fields to provide
a wizard’s needs. The wizard makes their seclusium in a squat tower
on the hillside.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play on the track through the countryside.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a lush
countryside of orchards and olive groves, where a wizard makes their
seclusium in grand style, with servants in the house and villeins on
the grounds.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by approaching the wizard’s estate.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a queen’s
palace. You have heard that she employs a wizard as counselor
and soothsayer, and that she sometimes hears the petitions of her
subjects.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by approaching the palace.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you into a
caravan, traversing under guard a district of raiders and bandits. You
have heard that the raiders serve a wizard in the hills.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play when you see the first sign of the bandits’
approach.
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• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a sea
island, the largest in a chain of islands in placid waters. A wizard
makes their seclusium upon it, in a low-roofed house off the beach.
The island chain is otherwise apparently unpopulated.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by stepping off your boat onto the island.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to the laby-
rinth of catacombs, crypts, and sewers of an ancient city. Somewhere
below, a wizard makes their seclusium.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by stepping down into the catacombs.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a towering
mountain peak, icy and wind-scoured. A wizard makes their seclu-
sium here in a dismal tower that sometimes appears and sometimes
vanishes. It’s here tonight, solid and real under a bright waxing
moon.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by approaching the wizard’s tower.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a trade
town on the Salt Road. You have heard that there is a wizard who
makes their seclusium near here, but you don’t know where.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play by entering through the town gates.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to a wayfar-
ers’ house on a stormy night, in foreign woods, among people who
are strangers to you. You know that a wizard makes their seclusium
in these woods, and you know that one of the strangers here is that
wizard’s servant.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play in the common room of the wayfarers’
house.

• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to an oasis
town in a great sand desert, where silk caravans, spice caravans, and
caravans carrying copper and amber stop and cross paths. A wizard
also makes their seclusium here, and the caravans are under their
protection.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play with dawn in the oasis, as you rise for
your day.
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• Tell your volunteers that your quest has brought you to the
disused ruins of a fortress on a long-overrun, long-forgotten border.
You have heard that a wizard comes here sometimes to search for
the temple goods of antiquity, hoping to find among them a relic of
lasting potency or a text of lost wisdom.
Ask your volunteers the wizard’s name. Take time to ask questions to
set the stage, then begin play when you spy the wizard arriving at the
ruins.

Creating Your Own Spawning Circumstances:

After you’ve gotten the hang of it, you can create your own spawning
circumstances. You can plan them out in advance like these, or
improvise them in the moment.

Facing the Same Wizard Again:

If you face a wizard and don’t defeat them, you can try to face them
again. You can find the same friends to volunteer. You can re‑use
the same spawning circumstance if you choose, or else create a new
one for the purpose. All you have to do is, instead of asking your
volunteers the wizard’s name, tell them.

However, they’re not responsible for remembering who the past

wizard was, or any of the details or circumstances of your prior
encounter. It’s up to you to remind them of everything you want
them to know, and they’re under no obligation to somehow “get it
right.”

When a Wizard Escapes:

“The Book of Doomed Wizards” is designed so that there’s nothing
you can do to accidentally deny yourself the chance for vengeance. It
always preserves the possibility that you’ll complete your quest and
find the wizard who wronged you.

When a wizard escapes you, instead of devoting yourself to pursuing

that same one again and again, you can let them go. You can be sure
that they weren’t the wizard who wronged you, or that if they were,
you’ll encounter them again, in time.

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