Witchburner (Indie Review)

 

The indie title I am reviewing this time it's Witchburner by Luka Rejec. Inside the book we are presented with a dark fantasy setting of heavy and somewhat dense writing in a certain romantic style.  

The rules are simple and draw inspiration from early editions of D&D (OSR) and also from contemporary narrative-centric games. The game tells us about a very concrete situation, where the players occupy the role of investigators who are called by a village in the middle of nowhere to find the witch that makes their lives a torment. The time period of the title seems to be set at the beginning of the industrial revolution and the religion reminds me of the ecclesiastical structure of game of thrones, you know, many gods and elaborate rituals that go beyond praying and singing.

The point is that the players are in a small town and must find the witch who is generating countless evils on the innocent villagers. The plot is extremely simple, but we have the description of 30 npcs and several random tables that will allow us to generate conflicts and tensions between the characters and the villagers. Another very important element is that we have a detailed chronogram of the events that could happen during 30 days, each day divided into morning, afternoon and night. 

These 30 days could be defined as the time limit for the group to find the witch or better yet, escape from the town, an option that, as the days go by, starts to look like the most sensible one. And although there are rules for the resolution of conflicts and the development of combats, much of what happens in the game will depend on the observations and especially on the relationship that the players have with each of the 30 main villagers.

The most interesting part of the game are the villagers, because the feeling that each one of them has towards the players is fundamental to define the path of the adventure. For example, if most of them harbor hatred or resentment towards the characters, then the investigators will end up being the ones accused of witchcraft.

In Witchburner the experimental aspect does not come from the rules, the innovation is found in the construction of relationships as a method for conflict resolution. The characters could act like madmen and burn whoever they want, but they still get more allies and opponents who will get them into more trouble.

I love the month-by-day guide that the book has, since it helps to divide the events and to have a precise follow up of the scenes and situations in the village. But I must say that I don't like the narrative material that accompanies the descriptions of the npcs, I'm sure many people enjoy it but the style is too cryptic and doesn't tell much about the life of those characters.

What I can't deny is that the adventure captivated me, obvious reason why I narrated the whole adventure but using other rules. Instead of following the book's suggestions, I preferred to use a trusty old school manual, but keeping the time rule and the town's love rule. 

By time rule, I mean that the game suggests keeping only three possible interactions with npcs per day per player or group, so that they are forced to plan their days in case they want to move forward with the investigation. On the other hand, with the love of the people, I mean that Witchburner has a list of the main npcs in which you should note whether they love, hate or are indifferent to the party. The more people love them, the more the npcs will be willing to burn the folks that hate the players, but if hate wins out, the adventurers will most likely have the npcs end up at the stake. 

In the same way, pay special attention to the rules related to the witch's trial, in which there are some indications or evidence requirements (mandregoras under the bed, dead cats under the table, dream catchers, drawer full of worms, etc...), which need to be gathered to convince the jury of the town.

It could be said that if the group has managed to burn the witch, everything has ended satisfactorily, although the best of all is that the book has several options to complicate the picture. The group of 3 investigators that I had to narrate, managed to stay successfully for 17 days in the village, accused 3 people of witchcraft, but ended up releasing them for lack of evidence. And who knows, maybe the group would have continued with their investigations had it not been for the accumulated hatred of so many inhabitants. So the only thing left for them to do was to escape from the town in order to save their own skin. 

Although it seems to me that the pdf has a high cost, I recommend that you get the adventure on discount dates. What I am sure of, is that from now on I will have the works designed by Rejec under my gaze.