Scarlet Heroes is a game by Kevin Crawford of Sine Nomine Publishing. It's notable for three reasons. One, it's part of the so-called Old School Revival movement, a series of games heavily inspired by or based on first edition AD&D and designed to be roughly compatible with supplements originally published for that game. Two, the setting is a damn sight more interesting than most, with a heavy Southeast Asian flavour to it - a nice change from the usual orcs, dragons and fifteen different kinds of polearm. And three, it's designed with solo adventures in mind - just one player and a GM. Most games can theoretically support this, but Scarlet Heroes is pretty unique in actively encouraging that style. Heroes are relatively self-sufficient, without the need for a party
It also has an appendix to cover games where you can't even find two people, and this, for me, is the most fascinating part of the whole thing.
I wanted to use this appendix to give the system a trial run before trying it out with my partner, but it then occurred to me that it might be an entertaining ride, and a good writing exercise, to plan out a sort of verbal Let's Play of the game. All the adventures will be generated using the appendix, with my imagination to fill in the gaps.
The book offers three types of solo adventure: Urban, Wilderness and Dungeon. For this first run, I'm going to go with Wilderness, which should give us some good variety without complicating things too much for a first outing. We're going to generate the countryside randomly, so there's no need to plan anything out just yet.
What we will need to do, however, is make a character - so, without further ado, let's take it from the top.
Step 1: Roll Attributes
The attributes are the standard D&D six we all know and tolerate, but, unlike most OSR games, the roll is 4d6 and drop the lowest, since Scarlet Heroes are meant to be exceptional. The rulebook says they're rolled in order but then tells you you can swap them around if you like, so, in practice, you can assign them as you choose.
My starting array is 16, 13, 13, 13, 10, 9 - not a bad array at all! Four stats with bonuses and none with penalties. If I had no rolls below 16, I'd be able to set one of these to 16 so I had at least one noticeable strength, which is a nice touch.
I think I'm going to run an expert type for this game. A skill monkey will be fun to stress-test the noncombat parts of the system, I'd prefer not to have to handle magic on my first attempt, and it'll make a change from playing nothing but healers like I usually do. I'm thinking of a more intellectual scoundrel, though, rather than a sneaky one, so Intelligence gets the 16, and I'll put the 13s in Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma. Constitution gets the 10, and Strength the 9. This character prefers wits and trickery to combat where possible.
Step 2: Choose a Race
I'll be boring and go with human. Races in Scarlet Heroes don't have any intrinsic mechanics or stat adjustments attached, but nonhuman races dictate some of your starting traits, which are this game's equivalent of skills.
Step 3: Choose a Class
The classes are the classic quartet of cleric, fighter, magic-user and thief. We're going with thief, and so we get the classic sneak attack - +4 to attack and triple (!) damage when attacking an unwary target. We can also choose a thief archetype which we pick up as a special trait that automatically improves as we level up.
Traits are player-defined like Fate's aspects, and I'm going to give my character an archetype that's been burning a hole in my brain ever since I came up with it: "Action Librarian". This will give him a bonus to anything related to scholastic knowledge and applying it in an actiony way. Just straight-up climbing a wall probably won't get the bonus, but if he has to feel for the weakest point in a wall to knock it down... maybe. I, as the only player, will be the final arbiter.
Being a thief determines a few of his other stats too. He starts with four hit points - this is the lowest among the core classes, alongside the magic-user, but heroes are pretty hard to land blows on in this game, and healing is a lot faster and easier than it is elsewhere. He'll pick up two more with each level beyond first. His attack bonus starts at +1 and increases by +1/2 each level (fractions are rounded to the nearest whole number, and I'll assume that halves round up).
Thieves can wield any weapon, but the damage is capped at 1d8. More on how damage works in this game later - it's a bit weird. They can also only wear leather armour; anything heavier stops them from using their special trait or their sneak attack.
Finally, a thief's Fray die is 1d6. This is one of Scarlet Heroes' coolest features and I'm very excited to test it out. Every turn, regardless of what our character is doing, he can inflict a certain amount of incidental damage on enemies within his reach, representing the "passing" blows he strikes in between bigger actions. Damage dealt by a Fray die can only be applied to enemies with HD equal to or less than the character's level, though.
Step 4: Choose Traits
Traits are the skills of Scarlet Heroes. They're generally fairly broad, they often relate to a hero's background, and they can apply to anything outside combat as long as it's justified. We get three trait points to start with, plus two free bonus points for being a human, and the three points we get in Action Librarian on top of that. Normal traits can't exceed three points, though Action Librarian can, and will.
To pick our adventuring librarian's traits, we're going to have to flesh him out a little further. We know that he's a scholar, and that's already covered by his Action Librarian trait. Where's he from? The game offers a few options, and I'm thinking that the oppressive demon-worshipping Shogunate of the North might be an interesting place to start. The Shogunate seems like the sort of place that would restrict the flow of information pretty heavily, so maybe our character is a smuggler of sorts, a custodian of what the Shogun Rai doesn't want you to know.
Naturally, he'd have to get pretty good at stealth and staying incognito - let's call that trait "Quiet Operator". He'd also need to be alert and perceptive, so "Keen Eye" feels apposite. And we'll throw in "Talking the Talk" to show that he can generally say the right thing and get along in the strictly regimented society of the Shogunate. We'll put two points each into Quiet Operator and Keen Eye, and one into Talking the Talk.
Step 5: Final Touches
Our first step is to buy equipment. Our starting funds are randomized, and we have a below-average 80 gold to spend; we also have to bear in mind that we can only carry 60 lbs. worth of goods before we start suffering encumbrance penalties.
We'll buy a light weapon (let's say it's a rapier) for 10 gold, a crossbow for 40, and some leather armour for another 10. Then we spend 6 gold on twenty crossbow bolts. (The book only lists arrows, so I'll assume bolts cost the same.) That leaves us 14 gold for other stuff, with which I'll buy a waterskin, three days' adventuring supplies (these are free), a bundle of ten torches, a set of camp gear, and, what the hell, a cheap bottle of sake. Oh, and a backpack to keep it all in.
That lot weighs in at 58 lbs., just under the weight limit, and leaves our hero with 5 gold and 4 silver in petty cash. Better make it last. I wish I'd been able to afford a set of scribe's tools, but maybe that's something to save up for later.
Leather armour gives him AC 7, which is improved to 6 by his Dexterity score (like AD&D, lower AC is better). His rapier has a +2 attack bonus (for most melee weapons it'd be +1, but light weapons let you use your Dexterity mod if it's better than your Strength) and hits for 1d6. His crossbow, also with a +2 bonus, inflicts 1d10 out to an impressive 240 ft., though the bonus drops to zero past 120.
Now's probably a good time to talk about how damage works here. Each damage die you roll in Scarlet Heroes translates into zero, one, two or four points of damage: a 1 is no damage, 2-5 is 1 damage, 6-9 is 2 damage, and a 10 or more is a back-breaking 4 damage. This doesn't seem like much, but monsters in SH only have one hit point per Hit Die. 1 damage will take out your common or garden bandit at a stroke, and 4 damage will one-shot an ogre if you're lucky enough to roll it. Monsters deal damage the same way, so 4 hit points for us is a lot more than it looks!
Last but definitely not least, our hero needs a name. The Shogunate is very clearly Japanese-flavored, so I'm going to go for something with that kind of sound to it: Hideaki Sato.
Hideaki's Character Sheet
Here's what Hideaki looks like as a starting character.
Hideaki Sato
Human thief 1
XP 0
Human thief 1
XP 0
Str 9 (0)
Dex 13 (+1)
Con 10 (+1)
Int 16 (+2)
Wis 13 (+1)
Cha 13 (+1)
Max HP 4
AC 7
Atk +1
Fray d6
Action Librarian 3*
Quiet Operator 2
Keen Eye 2
Talking the Talk 1
Attack: rapier +2 (1d6) or crossbow +2 (1d10, 240 ft., 20 bolts)
Inventory: leather armour, rapier, crossbow, 20 bolts, backpack, waterskin, 5 days' rations, 10 torches, bottle of cheap sake
And, with that, we're good to go. Onward, to adventure, glory, and hopefully not dying!
