For this character – part of the #CharacterCreationChallenge – I’m going back to Free League Publishing. This time, it’s another FRPG with a slightly different feel than the others – Forbidden Lands.

Kaja is a half-elven druid with no stomach for demons – she has committed herself to their eradication and is even willing to work with humans to do so.

Well… some humans.

In her mind, the Blood Mist that covered the land until recently was a punishment to those humans that aligned with the demons. She believes most humans learned their lesson and should be given a chance to atone for the errors of their ancestors. In fact, the joining of men and elves that resulted in her own birth is a sign of better things to come.

She does have some attitudes that can be off-putting, especially her practice of treating everything – every village, every building, every garden – as open to her as an adherent of her god, Clay. She can be rather persuasive, however, and often gets her way. And, as a healer, her skills are often in great need.

Forbidden Lands

Similar to other Free League games, character creation was reasonably simple without too many options to slow you down.

One thing that I had to do some research on, however, was Willpower and spellcasting. It wasn’t clear from the books, but spells have to be used with great care. Even if your character is a spellcaster – druid or sorcerer – casting a spell isn’t something you should just spam.

First, you start the game with no Willpower points, meaning you can’t cast any spells (or use certain other abilities). You need to face challenges the old fashioned way, fail, and then push yourself before getting any WP. And then only if you roll some ONES (banes, or skulls, if using the official dice) among your base dice.

Once you earn them, then you keep them session to session until you use them up. Oh, and when you use them, you could suffer a mishap!

Does this mean spellcasters are pretty useless?

I don’t think so. At least, I haven’t actually tried playing one, but it seems like every adventurer can be decent at combat and wear decent armor, meaning combat encounters should default to, well, melee and ranged combat. Magic should only come out when you’re feeling desperate.

For a healer, that suggests to me that non-magical healing using skills should be the default, although that’s limited to a character being broken, meaning their Strength or Agility has been reduced to zero. And using harm to attributes as damage rather than hit points is a pretty interesting mechanic – as you take damage, your own effectiveness diminishes.

Sounds deadly, no?

And that’s a throwback to old RPGs and the whole Old School Renaissance (OSR) movement. Combat isn’t something to enter into lightly, so you should be using your head and your skills to avoid them.

As mentioned in a previous post, I acquired a number of Free League games through an amazing Humble Bundle offer, and I really find them interesting. I’m not sure Forbidden Lands will be the first I bring to a table, but there’s a lot to like about it.

Grab a copy, support the authors, and let me know how you like it if you get it to a table near you. Virtual or otherwise. And thanks to Reddit user lloyd094 for providing fillable character sheets. They were great!