A fantasy text RPG that remembers who you swore to
The High King is dead and the crown came apart in five pieces. You play a claimant with a name and no army, a knight whose oath outlived the man who took it, or a druid holding the last living tree against a rot that moves south every winter. The kingdom is already written; you decide what your character does in it.
Play The Shattered Crown free →
No account, no card, nothing to install. The world's lore is already built, so it starts in seconds.
Oaths are only worth something if the world keeps track of them
A chatbot will happily let three rival factions all be pleased with you. Here the factions, their grievances and their claims on each other are read out of the world before your first turn and stay on file, so when you side with one the others are still holding the thing you did.
The world
When High King Aldric is found dead with the royal crown split in five, the realm of Vaelmark teeters between civil war and a creeping blight from the north.
Vaelmark is a feudal land of grey moors and ringed castles, where oaths bind tighter than blood and the old druidic magic is fading from the world. The blight—a slow grey rot that hollows the living—spreads south each winter.
Who is in it
- Ironwardens
- the king's own knights, now leaderless and split in loyalty.
- Hollow Court
- a cabal of blight-touched nobles who believe the rot is a gift.
- Druid Circle of Thorn
- the last keepers of the failing earth-magic.
Where you go
- Castle Greymoor
- the seat of the High King, its great hall now empty and contested.
- The Sundered Vale
- a valley where the blight first broke through the wards.
- Thornhold
- a hidden grove where the druids guard the last living heartwood.
What already happened
- The Splitting of the Crown
- King Aldric's death and the crown's shattering into five shards.
- The Grey Winter
- the year the blight first reached the southern farmlands.
Who you can play
-
Lady Bryn Greymoor Disinherited heir
A cold-eyed exile who has waited her whole life for a throne she may not want.
At the start: a claimant with a name but no army.
-
Corwin Ash Blight-touched scout
A haunted young man who can feel the rot calling to him in his sleep.
At the start: marked by the blight but not yet consumed.
-
Maelis of Thorn Last druid
A young druid who carries the weight of a fading tradition on thin shoulders.
At the start: keeper of magic the world is forgetting.
Or write your own character — the setup form takes a name, a background and what you are good at, and the game master works from that instead.
How a turn works
- You say what your character does, in your own words.
- What you attempted is weighed against your character sheet and the state of the scene — and the outcome is settled before the scene is written, so the part telling the story does not get to decide that you succeeded.
- The game master narrates what happened, grounded in the world's own characters, factions and places, and remembers it for the rest of the run.
Start playing The Shattered Crown →