Inherit a vicious baby wyrm. Die during character creation. Become a contortionist. Get mocked by your fellow players. Get an objective and hidden motivations. Wield strange new powers. Beg, cheat, and steal.
Tales from the Gutter is a mixture of a choose-your-own-adventure and character-builder for the dark and vile world of MÖRK BORG. Intended to flesh out characters built without optional classes (but still giving you access to weird, interesting powers), this will guide you through creation as a narrative journey. Players and GM interact with story cues, gain mechanical perks and flaws, generate a mostly-balanced set of ability scores, chuck dice to determine outcomes, and see how characters' past choices have moulded them into who they now are! Almost every page is illustrated with surreal art from dead people. Contained in these pages are:
A horrible fire, and flame-wizards that burn up things you love!
16 core abilities, plus dozens of specialties, flaws, and other mechanical tweaks generated by making story choices!
A dream-journey that ravishes you but gives you strange insights!
Tables for generating a party-wide goal + secret player motivations to spice it up!
A tryst with the Nymphs of Agollach!
Things for your character sheet that gives the GM story hooks!
A journal snatched from the temple of the Basilisk!
Acid burns!
You proceed through a mixture of dice-rolls (d6 determines an outcome), specific decisions (do you want X or Y?), choose-your-own-adventure style options (if you do X, go to page Y), and material for table discussion (you summoned something awful, what was it?). This helps give your character mechanical depth, and gives other players a chance to weigh in and connect your characters together. We've play-tested this a few times, and it generates stable but very diverse characters. Best done as a group so players can make unique choices.
- from the publisher's blurb