The Dark Peaks: Deep Maw Core Rules
A downloadable game
"Whether you’re looking for a one-shot or fast-combat and gritty campaign Dark Peaks is a perfect fit. " - Roll4.com
"Gentle steps through the silent cavern ring out like a bell's chime in the dark. Clutching your sharpened field scythe as close as you can, you step forwards into the ever-cloying darkness in your vision. Is that a shadow? Your mind playing tricks? Or could it be one of the monsters they say live here, in the dark? Wolf howls fill the air - the night is full of shapes as wolf-headed figures bring blades down on your companions. Screams - metal upon metal - desperately you fend a slashing sword's blade away. With a cut to your stomach leaking thick blood, you bring down the scythe's tip upon the howling bestial face. It falls dead as you clutch your own wound. That's one monster down ... but a mountain's worth to go. And you're just a farmer who might have made a terrible mistake coming here."
Paring down the RPG combat system to a single attack roll, and adding lethality back into a single strike, THE DARK PEAKS: DEEP MAW is a game all about taking risks and surviving them.
Beneath the village of Maw's Foot, the mountain of Deep Maw has always been over-run with strange creatures and terrible monsters. Now they are driven to a frenzy by the Dweller, the true source of evil in this land. The Dweller must be defeated, else evil will conquer the mountain and kill the thousands that live there. Hundreds of peasants have been called to this fight. Only a few dozen may survive the battle to hunt down the true devil in the thick, cloying darkness at the base of Deep Maw...
Based on the feedback from the standalone adventure, THE FESTIVAL OF SWORDS, THE DARK PEAKS: DEEP MAW takes all the systems within that game and ramps them up to 11!
Using an Old School Renaissance style system of risk dice to drive a fate dice pool, players have to take heroic actions to build up their resistance to the dark. In the blood-soaked interior of the mountain, players must descend down through the enemies towards where the Dweller lays. Upon the way, they will battle horrors of the night, creatures of the deep, and their own fears and objectives.
This system includes:
- Level dice which increases the danger as the adventurers go deeper into the mountain.
- Unique Monsters to populate your dungeons, expressed in neatly arranged monster cards.
- Quick peasant generating characters, including motives and fears which will change your Character's play style.
THE DARK PEAKS: DEEP MAW is a complete, original game system. The Core Rules include a player's guide with quickly and easily generated characters, setting background, DM's guidance and a complete bestiary of the original monsters found within the mountain's heart. With 50 monsters and a generator to create the final Dweller, players and DM's will find plenty within this book to drive their campaigns to their bloody and brutal conclusion.
Lethal encounters, fast paced combat and a campaign to save thousands of lives! Will you stand with the other common folk, and head into the mountain? Will you survive to tell your tale of victory?
Battle within THE DARK PEAKS: DEEP MAW to find out!
If you want to try before you buy - check out the Festival of Swords, a PWYW stand-alone adventure in the Dark Peaks: Deep Maw setting, with a full set of rules and enemies to take on in a deadly dangerous dungeon!
Check out an example of play via plusoneexp HERE, to get a sense of the game as run by its creator!
Check out our Sample Pages!
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Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $8.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
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Originally posted on DriveThruRPG 12/14/2020 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/338697/THE-DARK-PEAKS-DEEP-MAW-CORE-RULES?a...):
THE DARK PEAKS: DEEP MAW CORE Rules by Kieran Mathers (@TalesPeaks)
“Paring down the RPG combat system to a single attack roll, and adding lethality back into a single strike, THE DARK PEAKS: DEEP MAW is a game all about taking risks and surviving them.”
In the Dark Peaks: Deep Maw you are no stalwart hero of renown, you aren’t born with innate magical abilities (though through sheer bloody-mindedness and luck they may live to gamble with their life beseeching the Idol for the Art), and you most certainly don’t come from a background of wealth, privilege or education. You are poor as dirt farmers, poachers and shepherds wielding the tools of your former trades as weapons against monsters in the Deep. Common folk swept up in the Festival of Blades and protection of your home from the evil spilling out from the dark below!
A simple, yet robust system that allows for frenetic and exciting combat that will have everyone at the table gripped and panicked with all actions from both sides occurring simultaneously. These wild melees truly feel like a battle between life and death, managing to capture the vicarious excitement we feel when reading or watching ordinary folx risk life and limb. There’s almost a feeling of chess and tabletop wargaming in the strategy that goes into so many moving parts at once. It’s impressive to feel the danger and the odds stacked against, without it feeling too hopeless, and your options for combating your enemy being limited without losing the fun of playing.
The lore and setting are at once rich and vital, while asking questions of the players and GM encouraging world building.
The resources for the Games Master are detailed, covering all aspects of managing the game, discussion of roleplay and helping the players build up their PCs and bonds, expedition, encounter and campaign design, as well as a huge range of monsters and minions of the Deep all presented with aesthetic and easy to reference Creature Cards from the thugs and rogue adventurers, the myriad Taur of Deepmaw, the warped Dusklings, the terrible and horrifying Nightchoir, and the truly terrifying Monsters of the Black, as well as in depth advice for creating your ow. Deep Dwellers!
A Developer’s Commentary allows greater insight into the game’s design, and an extremely helpful Appendix has absolutely everything you could ask for in quick reference in the back.
This is nearly 100 pages of stygian doom and dungeon-crawling fun crafted by someone who has clearly been playing all the games, taken notes and used all that experience to make something that will not only appeal to the OSR crowd, but to anyone after some serious fun that doesn’t have to be taken too seriously! It’s impressive to feel the danger and the odds stacked against, without it feeling too hopeless, and your options for combating your enemy being limited without losing the fun of playing.
If you want to try before you buy – check out the Festival of Swords, a PWYW stand-alone adventure in the Dark Peaks: Deep Maw setting, with a full set of rules and enemies to take on in a deadly dangerous dungeon! https://kieran-of-the-dark-peaks.itch.io/the-dark-peaks-the-festival-of-swords-s...