Her Odyssey

A Caltrop Core Game

by S. Kaiya J.
@mirror_lock

Her Odyssey is a solo journaling RPG about a wanderer

trying to return home… or find a new home.

You Will Need: Who Is Your Wanderer?

▶ At least one d4 (for the base game, five are
recommended)
▶ A standard deck of 54 playing cards
(including jokers)
▶ Somewhere to record the story
Creating Your Wanderer:
You have eleven stat points to distribute as you
like between these three stats. Assign numbers
between 1 and 5 to each.
Take some time to answer the following
questions before playing:
▶ What is your wanderer’s name?
▶ What are her pronouns? (While this text
uses she/her, a wanderer may use any
pronouns.)
▶ What does your wanderer seek?
▶ What has your wanderer left behind?
▶ Was your wanderer well prepared to set off
on the road?

▶ Vitality: A principle of fire. Bodily strength, ▶ There is someone or something that your
the force of one’s presence. Roughly maps to wanderer loves and has lost. What is it?
Strength and Charisma. ▶ There is a shadow that follows your
▶ Quickness: A principle of air. A cunning wit, wanderer and haunts her steps. What is it?
a deft and dexterous body. Roughly maps to
Dexterity and Intelligence.
▶ Fortitude: A principle of earth. Calm,
steadfastness, self-belief. Roughly maps to
Constitution and Wisdom.

1
Gameplay Overview
Gameplay consists of drawing cards from the
deck, determining what Hazard lies before your
wanderer, using your stats to meet the
challenges presented, and writing about the
experience. You may choose to write in a first-
person journal format or a third-person
narrative. After you have written about what
your wanderer has faced and suffered - or
overcome - place the card in the discard pile and
prepare to draw again.
Ideally, you should draw a Hazard card from the
deck each morning, spend the day considering
your wanderer’s journey and letting the story
passively develop in your mind, then return to
the game in the evening to make your stat checks
and record the results.
Drawing a Card
When you draw a card, the numerical value of the
card, or the Omen Score, determines how
difficult the day ahead will be. (A = 1, J = 11, Q = 12,
K = 13.) The suit determines what kind of Hazard
your wanderer faces; choose one or more from
the following prompts:
▶ Diamonds: Villages, towns, cities. An illness.
An abandoned dwelling. A false friend. A
mirage or illusion. Mistrust. Rumors and
lies. An accident. A revelation.
▶ Hearts: Farmland, meadows, moors. A key.
Curiosity. Delayed consequences. An army.
A trap. An accusation. A malfunction. A
reflection of the wanderer’s lost love.
▶ Spades: Forests, cliffs, deserts. A sudden
change in weather. Ruins. An ambush. An
oath. A misunderstanding. Doubts and
despair. A strange beast. A confrontation
with the wanderer’s shadow.
▶ Clubs: Wastelands, mountains, the sea. A
curse. A sudden change in terrain. A crime.
A threshold. Greed. A stranger in need. An
unknown language. A natural disaster.
2
Making Stat Checks
In order to overcome the Hazard, your wanderer
needs to use a stat appropriate to the method by
which she wants to address the problem. To
make a stat check, roll a number of d4s equal to
the value of the stat you’re using, and take the
highest roll (discard the other rolls).
This value will determine whether the wanderer
succeeds at what she was trying to do, per the
Caltrop Core base rules:
▶ 1: Absolute failure. You don’t get what you
want and things get a lot worse.
▶ 2: Partial failure. You don’t get what you
want.
▶ 3: Partial success. You get what you want,
but things get complicated.
▶ 4: Absolute success. You get what you want -
and more.
Based on the outcome of your first stat check,
determine what kinds of new complications and
developments might arise related to the day’s
Hazard. Your wanderer may want to use her
other stats to address these story developments.
You may choose to make a stat check with one,
two, or all of your stats each day, but each stat
may only be used for one stat check per day.
At the end of the day, total up the stat checks your
wanderer made for the day’s Hazard, and
compare the sum against the Omen Score. If
your wanderer meets or exceeds the Omen Score,
it is an Auspicious day: she is able to overcome
the Hazard and pass through on favorable terms,
refreshed, under her own power, and possibly
with new friends. If your wanderer does not
exceed the Omen Score, it is an Inauspicious day:
she may be chased away, suffer indignities, be
injured, or escape the Hazard only at the cost of
something important to her. Keep a tally of the
number of Auspicious and Inauspicious days
your wanderer has encountered.
Some Omen Scores are not attainable under the
base system at the beginning of the game. This is
intentional.
No wanderer is in full possession of her own fate.
It is possible to roll a success for each individual
stat check but fail to meet the Omen Score. It is
also possible to fail each stat check but have an
Auspicious day overall. This represents elements
of chance, fate, or the world intervening. Take
note of these outside elements, and develop
them - they may become intriguing recurring
elements of the story in their own right.
Travel is tiring, and exhaustion easily catches
wanderers on the road. When you attain an
Auspicious day, each stat that was used to
contribute towards stat checks decreases by one.
Conversely, failure provides opportunity for
learning and growth, and rest is restorative.
When you attain an Inauspicious day, each stat
that was not used for stat checks that day
increases by one. Stats cannot exceed 5 or fall
below 1.
Homecomings
The first joker you draw is a False Homecoming.
Your wanderer reaches a place that she believes is
her lost home - or can be a new home - but she is
thwarted in some way. She may find she is a
stranger here, her home may no longer be what
she remembers, or her needs and self-
understanding may have changed beyond
recognition. Reflect on what your wanderer has
been through so far and how her experiences
have shaped what she desires. Has her journey
been mostly Auspicious or Inauspicious so far?
How does she feel about her travels?
Then count the number of Auspicious days that
your wanderer has had. This is now your fourth
stat, Hope. From now onward, at any time you
may subtract 1 from your Hope stat and add 1 to
the result of an individual stat check. However, if
your Hope stat ever reaches 0, your wanderer
loses all hope and abandons her journey.

(After the False Homecoming, continue to keep

track of Auspicious and Inauspicious days, but
they will not affect your Hope stat [or your Doom
stat; see variation below].)

The second joker is the True Homecoming. Your

wanderer’s journey comes to an end. Take time
to write about all she has seen and done, and the
joys and scars her experiences have given her.

Example
My wanderer’s stats are currently Vitality 3, Quickness 1, and Fortitude 4. I draw the five of clubs, and
determine that the Hazard is a stranger in need: a young man is trapped under a fallen boulder. My
wanderer rolls Vitality to try to push the boulder away, and rolls 3 d4. The highest of these is a 3 - she
manages to push the boulder off with a great heave, but there’s a complication; the man’s leg is
broken, and he cannot go anywhere on his own. My wanderer decides to try to roll Quickness to see
if she can remember how to splint his leg. She rolls a 1; not only does she not succeed in treating him,
but the pain of the attempt has caused him to pass out. At this point she decides to carry him and
look for a settlement, and she rolls Fortitude to see if she can endure the burden long enough to find
other people. Rolling 4 d4s, she finds a 4 as her highest roll. Not only does she succeed in coming
across a settlement before she grows too weary, but it happens to be the village that the young man
is from, and everyone is overjoyed to see him returned. They readily believe that the wanderer was
trying to help him, and give her food and lodging for free. The total of the day’s rolls was 8, far more
than the Omen Score of 5. It has been an Auspicious day, and each of the stats used goes down by 1.
Vitality is now 2, Quickness remains at 1, and Fortitude is now 3.

3
Variations
You may add any combination of these variations
to your game to customize your experience!
The heroic journey. When you roll a stat check,
instead of rolling a number of d4s equal to the
stat, roll just one d4 and add the value of your stat
to the result. The outcome of individual stat
checks still depends on the value on the d4, but
this variant makes it easier to meet the day’s
Omen Score.
The hour of doom. When you reach the False
Homecoming, in addition to gaining the Hope
stat based on Auspicious days, you also gain a
Doom stat equal to the number of Inauspicious
days your wanderer has had. On Auspicious days,
no Doom is expended. On Inauspicious days,
automatically lose as much Doom as you would
need to meet the Omen Score exactly. If the
Doom stat reaches 0, your wanderer dies.
The uncertain road. Each day after making your
daily Hazard draw, instead of placing the card in
the discard pile, return the card to the deck and
shuffle the deck.
The measured path. Remove the jokers from the
deck. The False Homecoming occurs after you
have drawn 25 cards; the True Homecoming
occurs after you have drawn 40 cards.
Credits
Writer/Designer: S. Kaiya J. (@mirror_lock;
http://mirror-lock.itch.io)
Built on Caltrop Core by: @titanomachyRPG
(https://titanomachyrpg.itch.io/caltropcore),
@aghostofeli, @n_quests
Playtesters: @Antharal, @CountessCassi,
@ElfSy1, @LordPaido, @Weirdman3214
Media Used With Commercial Permissions:
Carmen6969 (https://pixabay.com/users/
carmen6969-5357260/)
Darkmoon Art (https://pixabay.com/users/
darkmoon_art-1664300/)
ImaArtist (https://pixabay.com/users/
imaartist-11400164/)
Additional Photography By: @Antharal
Colophon
Body Font: Alegreya
Subheading Font: Chromate
Title Font: Cinzel Decorative
PDF layout done in Affinity Publisher.
May lantern-light ever illuminate your way.