Raiders in the Dark

Raiders in the Dark is a tabletop roleplaying game about a crew of adventurers who seek their fortune by exploring terrifying magical places that fight back.

Blending traditional exploratory fantasy play with modern mechanics and roleplaying concepts, the game is adapted from the Forged in the Dark engine by John Harper.  Raiders in the Dark is a complete game (you don't need any other ruleset to play).

Features:

• Seven unique playsheets: Armiger, Artificer, Hunter, Mage, Scholar, Strategist, and Thief.
• Four crew books: Breakers, Burglars, Explorers, and Scavengers. 
• A comprehensive system for creating magical barrows, including the wight who haunts and defends the barrow, various creatures and monsters who might be encountered, traps, and magical items that can be found (with lots of examples). The GM can plan a barrow in detail, come up with opposition on the fly, or use the provided random tables to generate ideas for barrows and encounters.
• Move through a delve narratively without the need for detailed mapping for meaningless "do you go left or right?" decision making. Traversal rolls are used to abstract movement through the barrow, jumping to the next encounter or important decision. When a delve is over, you can play out exiting or you can resolve the exit into one roll.
• Between delves, during downtime, the crew has the opportunity to count the loot, rest up, manage trouble and notoriety, engage with other factions, craft alchemical and magical items, research new opportunities, and seek divine assistance from the gods.  
• During advancement, any character can accept a commitment that provides additional abilities in exchange for giving up a bit of control. Commitments include Blood Magic, Death Magic, Companion of the Black Rose, Death Magic, Devout, and Feral. 
• The setting of Athland and the Barony of Trenghall are detailed with heritages, backgrounds, and competing factions.
• 186 pages, 80k words.

Project status: Raiders in the Dark is a fully playable development beta. The game book is laid out for easy legibility, with PDF hyperlinks and plenty of color art. Printable playsheets are included as a separate download. Digital playsheets are also available at this link.

Roadmap: There are plans to tighten up the text, playtest character options, and add more setting information.  Feedback is welcome and much appreciated!