Six Torches Deep Professions

A series of notecard drawings for the character professions of Six Torches Deep, a tabletop RPG I developed. 6TD focuses on dungeon-crawling and brutal combat. These were the professions I finished, but the game had at least 100 different professions to choose from. You could be a Wizard, a Soldier, a Thief, but you could also be a Highwayman, a Farmer, a Cobbler, Merchant, Rake, Jester, and so on. Each class brought something unique to the table. And if you played a magic-user, it didn't mean you couldn't also be a good swordsman, persuader, or lockpicker since your skills improved through training and first-hand experience, not levels and experience points.

It was heavily inspired by games like Torchbearer, Five Torches Deep (where I got the name from, but would have to change if it is ever published), and the combat system was very similar to that of Riddle of Steel, a game likely no one has heard of these days. Although combat was very in depth, particularly with wounds, the game flowed very quickly and combat encounters usually never lasted more than 10-20 minutes. I attribute this to the lack of initiative freeing up the flow of taking turns, as well as characters and NPCs/monsters not being able to take much damage before they bleed out, lose limbs, succumb to pain, get decapitated, etc. Because it was very realistic in this way, players made more sensible decisions in game, and utilized tactics and strategy that would apply in real-world situations.

I used 6TD to run Greg Gilespie's BARROWMAZE megadungeon. Although we never finished exploring its 500+ rooms and corridors, my players had a blast sweeping the first level. Only one player death occurred, and it was an NPC played by a player. He was accosted by a pack of Ravenous Zombies and had his esophagus torn out when one of them necked him. Almost immediately one of the PCs died when he got bit by a giant spider, but he fled the dungeon before he succumbed to its venom.