PICARO! with Wythe

​As the Saturday of all Hallows approaches in Sibiiu, capital of Transylvania, you find yourself seeking warmth in the “foreigners’ tavern” whose sign is a gold key floating over a basket of orange kittens. You are penniless—a passing embarrassment, you’re sure—but the owner lets you sit by the hearth, anyway. A wealthy drunk is telling a tall tale—“but it’s quite real!”—he says—“and money to be made by it!”

​The story goes: just outside Sibiiu lives a little fech (a “shadow gnome,” a “cobblelurk,” a wee “face-borrower”) who has returned scarred but alive from a jaunt impersonating an adjutant’s orderly in the rear train of the army of the western mercenaries who’ve come here to aid the distant tsar in his war against the Swedes.

​The fech says that the tsar—with the permission of your ruler, the great sultan, of course—has ordered part of the train to wait for the Hallows here, in Transylvania, in an abbey recently abandoned to the plague. There is something important in the abbey, the fech swears, and the tsar will send his most trusted spies to come collect it. “You could steal it! You’d all be rich! Rich! I’d do it—were it not for my gout.” He winces at his foot. “You’d just have to speak with the little face-stealer in the woods first…”

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​PICARO! is the new early modern fantasy game using the Grit System. Help me playtest it! Learning the system only takes a few minutes. (It’s simpler than D&D.) I’ll provide all game materials, including several pre-generated characters to choose from and/or hack apart.

​Please join the Band of Noobs discord to get the latest updates about the game: https://discord.gg/5ukVXBPYe9