Amboria Roleplaying in the World Under Starlight is an exciting TTRPG of adventure, language, and liturgy from the mind of Richard Rohlin & Strange Owl Games. This campaign is the last chance to unlock and pledge rewards at crowdfunding prices.
The Ambori are the people of Sky, Forest, and Water. They trace their lineage back to Lanenomen, the last of the lords of Starland who came out of the West with a great host, and thence to Feihoth himself, the first star to glimmer in the Western sky.
When Sencan built his city amid the sacred grove of cypress trees that surrounded the holiest of all hills, he established a kingdom and lineage to last the ages.
For three eons of the world the heirs of Sencan reigned, wielding the Hurorupeim—the living sword which Sencan forged long ago in the deep places of the earth, which would serve no master but him.
But thirty years ago, the Living Sword was lost. The crown prince Galal was betrayed and delivered into the hands of ancient enemies. Now, a usurper sits the throne, and the kingdom begins its slow decline into chaos and madness.
Beasts strange and fell stalk the northern moors.
Around the cities of the Archipelago, strange horrors with many eyes hunt the Deep Men once again.
In these uncertain days, the hardy folk at the kingdom’s edges do not look to the Holy City for deliverance. They must find strength—if they are to find it at all—from among themselves.
Amboria: Roleplaying in the World Under Starlight is a tabletop roleplaying game of high adventure and culture creation. It is set in The World Under Starlight, an original fantasy setting two decades in the making.
Amboria introduces players to a rich tapestry of liturgy, lore, romance, and history which draw deeply from the well of legends and folklore of eastern Europe and the Black Sea region.
In this world, players take on the role of Adventurers: courageous individuals on the edges of the kingdom who journey into the dark, fight monsters, and uncover the secrets and treasures of their own past in an attempt to build communities that will stand against the coming night.
Heroes are expected to be heroic, and their rise to glory (or fall into ruin) is expected to be spectacular and dramatic, impacting the lives and communities they touch along the way.
Adventurers fight monsters, uncover ancient treasures, and find themselves thrust into the crossfire of political machinations by people who want to use their power and influence to their own ends.
Magic exists in the World Under Starlight in a myriad of forms – subtle, powerful, dangerous. The investigation of an old ruined tower from a previous age might bring Adventurers into contact with an older, much more scarred version of themselves; eating food offered by a grizzled traveler in some wayside ruins might result in waking up in a different time and place.
In the World Under Starlight, magic is never mechanical, seldom predictable, and always wondrous.
The rules of Amboria assume a longer campaign played out over multiple in-game seasons and years. After their first few adventures, Adventurers become more invested in their community. At the same time, the threats against this community (from both within and without) escalate, as the characters increase in power, influence, and experience.
In Amboria: Roleplaying in the World Under Starlight, players might play…
A Knight of the Red Fang, banished from his island fortress until he fulfills an ancestor’s oath…
A Priestess of the Sacred Well, searching for the source of impurity poisoning the land…
A Deep Man, searching for a cursed treasure in the lightless depths of the Amborian Sea…
A Star-singer from the Leopard Isles, doomed to hear the heartbreaking song of the Stars…
A Treasure-hunter from the Northern Moors, seeking the sacred amber which grows in the Withered Wood…
The player characters are challenged to become something more than merely Adventurers—to put down roots, create works of art, patronize shrines and holy sites, enrich the communities of the present with the treasures of the past, and protect the weak and less fortunate.
Of course, player characters can also reject this and choose to walk a path of self-interest or seek to dominate and control others. If they do this, succumbing to the lure of power and the corruption of their time, the communities they sought to nurture and now seek to rule will wither and die. The choice is up to you…
Duelist of Sencankarr
Amboria uses the Clash system, the d100 system first published in the acclaimed Jackals! Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying. The Clash system was already famous for its fast and deadly combat. In Amboria, we’ve taken this dynamic system and integrated the liturgical and poetic depths of the World Under Starlight directly into the game mechanics.
The key mechanic of the Clash system involves the use of Clash Points, a narrative currency that reflects the ability of your character to act heroically in dangerous moments. Clash Points can be spent to increase precision and damage, perform powerful rituals, and defend or even counterattack when the enemy has you in their sights.
With Clash, there’s no sitting passively, waiting for it to be your turn and hoping the bad guys decide not to attack you. Everyone can act and react dynamically, without gameplay getting bogged down in an overwhelming number of actions and choices.
Clash is a system designed to be as much fun for the person running it – called the Loremaster – as it is for the players. Each monster has a unique and evocative attack chain, keeping the combat interesting and the players on their toes.
Dangerous combat, scarring rolls, and push-your-luck mechanics mean you’ll never have to force something dramatic to happen—the players’ choices will do that for you.
Development on the World Under Starlight began nearly two decades ago as an attempt to answer the question: what makes a culture, a homeland? As a medievalist and philologist, I’ve used a variety of anthropological and linguistic tools in an effort to sub-create a sense of home, place, and belonging. At its core of my worldbuilding approach is the idea that shared stories—and more specifically, shared sacred stories—are the building-blocks of societal cohesion.
This focus makes Amboria: Roleplaying in the World Under Starlight different from most fantasy roleplaying settings. Taking its cues from real-world examples of cultural mythmaking such as the Aeneid and the Kalevala, Amboria is based on a series of long-form narrative poems.
These stories are from the perspective of the Ambori; it might be fair to say that other cultures would have their own accounts of cosmology and major historical events, but Amboria chooses to go deep into the experience of a single people (and its many sub-cultures) rather than the “broad-but-shallow” approach which is found in most fantasy roleplaying settings. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but the goal of Amboria: Roleplaying in the World Under Starlight is to immerse the players in the culture and cosmology of the Ambori.
Each of the three adventures included with Amboria, as well as the Thunder in the North Campaign book, contains detailed liturgical and mythological notes, aimed at helping Loremasters bring to life a vivid sense of place and belonging.
In addition to the core rules for Amboria, backers at the Greater Spirit of the Lower Airs and Loremaster of Sencankarr Levels will also receive a copy of Thunder in the North: A Grand Campaign in the World Under Starlight. This original fantasy roleplaying campaign takes place over the course of ten in-game years and includes original monsters, poetry, liturgy, and all of the tools you need to run 20+ adventures in the World Under Starlight. Players will be immersed in an open sandbox world in which their choices really matter as they explore enchanted forests, uncover ancient secrets, and determine the fate of a nation.
IconicProduction: TheMidnight WarSeason 0 - Episodes 1 & 2 - Richard is running a short prelude to the Heroes Errant adventure - The Midnight War as an actual play. You can check out the rules and the setting with Richard as the loremaster!
$4000 -Book Upgrade IV- Charts will be added to the end papers of Thunderin the North to enhance the book's usefulness by putting the game's relevant information at your fingertips.
An Opportunity to Expand – Funding from this campaign will be used to expand the content in the Amboria core rules and Thunder in the North.
All of the following previously unlocked stretch goals will be automatically added to all pledges in digital format:
Book of Odes 1 & 2
The Secret of Rose Courts (Solo Adventure)
The Bell of Time (Adventure 1)
Bestiary Cards
The Isle of Madness (Adventure 2)
Due to the timeline for this project, we anticipate the books to go up $15 to $20 at retail, so this is the last chance to acquire them at crowdfunding prices.
