This project is co-owned and co-designed by James Salisbury and contributed to by many more of my friends. Art on this page has been crafted by James and is often inspired by SketchGoblin‘s illustration style.
The Goblet of Harathorn (GoH) is a long-running fantasy adventure TTRPG project, currently on its 7th design iteration. The game has been created with the intent of providing a D&D alternative to our friend group and as a delightful hobbyist endeavour.
Over the years, we’ve drawn inspiration from novels such as Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series, and Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn and The Stormlight Archives series, and other media such as the video game Fable, or the TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender.
At its core, GoH is about playing…
- …a ragtag assortment of unlikely misfits…
- …who stumble, bicker, and grow into something greater together…
- …to shelter their Community against a looming threat.
The core game loop is a familiar classic, seeing the players supporting their character’s Community, Adventuring into the Wilds of Ara, and fighting the deadly environment, beasts and foes in the Challenges that the world presents.
Gameplay & Dice
Our latest edition uses dice pools of custom d10 dice, with outcomes designed to produce an average of 1 ‘hit’ per die. This creates a very elegant bell curve with the average result equal to the number of dice rolled.
A die is added to the pool for each different relevant Skill the character has. Each Skill is a tag (akin to the tags of Fate or Legends in the Mist) that describes some aspect of the character. By using tag-like Skills this way, we ensure that every roll is a reflection of a character’s backstory and narrative.
Characters & Traditions
Unlike most fantasy TTRPGs, where each player usually chooses a single class to play, all characters in GoH are composed of two ‘Traditions’.
There are 15 Traditions in total, covering a wide range of possible play styles, from The Tinker’s ability to invent incredible items to The Wake’s gift of summoning and binding souls from The Sorrows.
The Traditions’ abilities are carefully balanced to ensure that each of them is effective while Adventuring and during Challenges.
Asking the player to combine two disparate Traditions promotes more novel character design and ensures that the characters at the table stand apart from the typical fantasy tropes.
Conlang
For Ara, we have created an ancient language that heavily uses compound words to form new words. The language has added wonderful depth to the setting and the campaigns that have run, providing a sense of history and culture.
You can see that many world-building elements on this page have their ancient language name.
