Thirsty Sword Lesbians - A One Shot

About the adventure

Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a rolepaying game for telling queer stories with friends. If you love angsty disaster lesbians with swords, you’ve come to the right place. This one-shot will use the plot from the handbook: Sword Lesbians of the Three Houses The Three Houses of the realm have a long and bloody history. At the end of the War, your parents agreed that you would all be schooled together at the Academy of Hope. Will the bonds you forge as classmates prevent the next war?

Additional Details

How to prepare

Voice is essential, video is a bonus. Knowing the basic rules ahead of time would be helpful. I'll distill them for you here: As in many PBTA games, every roll is 2d6. A 10+ is an ‘up-beat’, a 7-9 is a ‘mixed beat’, a 6- is a ‘down beat’. Note that none of these rolls constitute a success or a failure -- you are good at what you do and will often succeed! It just helps direct the energy of the move. For every down-beat, you mark XP. You have 5 stats (partially defined by your playbook): Daring, Grace, Heart, Wit, Spirit. Each stat will always be between -1 and 3. There are 5 conditions you may take when you roll a down-beat or an adversary gets an upper hand on you: Angry, Frightened, Guilty, Hopeless, Insecure. Each condition nerfs one of your basic moves, and when you have all 5 marked, you are defeated (inactive for the rest of the scene). Strings represent influence over someone. Certain moves will tell you to take a string on someone, that you can later spend to influence them or gain insight, or to give someone a string on you, which they might use to influence you or gain insight. Your character always has full agency, though, so responding to someone’s influence is your choice (often, you get an XP for going along with it). The GM starts the game with a number of strings = number of players, and can use them on anyone at any time. Racking up 5 XP lets you take a playbook advancement (may lessen this value for a one-shot game). Basic Moves: Fight (+Daring or +Grace) Defy Disaster (can be any stat depending on approach) Stagger (No roll needed, just #of Conditions you have marked) Entice (+Heart) Figure Out a Person (+Wit) Influence with a String (no roll needed) Become Smitten (no roll needed) Finally Kiss in a Dangerous Situation (no roll needed) Emotional Support (+Heart, +Spirit, or +3 if you spend a string) Call on a Toxic Power (+Spirit) The Playbooks: The Beast (Self expression vs fitting in with a dominant social order) The Chosen (Inner truth vs crushing social expectations) The Devoted (commitment to a person or cause vs self-care) The Infamous (lasting consequences of their past actions vs their new righteous convictions) The Nature Witch (isolation within nature vs the complexities of socializing) The Scoundrel (urge to explore new horizons vs committing to purpose or security) The Seeker (tradition and upbringing vs justice and developing their own values) The Spooky Witch (pressures to conform vs their connection to the unknown/monstrous) The Trickster (fearing vulnerability vs desiring closeness)

What I provide

I have the full TSL handbook if needed, otherwise player handouts and playbooks are available here. https://www.evilhat.com/home/thirsty-sword-lesbians-resources/

Gameplay details

This game contains the following themes: post-war tensions, genre-typical (sword-based) violence, queer romance. Safety tools like the x-card and frequent check-ins will be employed. By nature of the system, the game is highly narrative, rules-light, and more collaboratively run than other systems (namely, D&D)

Content warnings

(none)

Safety tools used

(none)

How will character creation work

First, choose your house within the setting. Then choose a playbook that suits that house: Welcome to The Blue House The realm of The Blue House is known for its mages, specifically in the realm of enchantment magic. Our House Emblem is the spider, weaving her web and pulling the right strings to achieve her ends. During the great war we specialized in mind control magic, turning enemy soldiers against one another and infiltrating enemy cavalries with manipulation and enchantment. We blame The Red House for the huge amount of collateral damage done by the monsters they employed in their armies -- mindless beasts cannot discern a soldier from a civilian. We fear their power is growing, due to a pact made with an infernal entity. We are unsure how they controlled their animal soldiers, and by what power they were summoned. We blame The Yellow House for the destruction of a prosperous valley that has since become overrun by the undead, due to the necromantic plague they unleashed. We fear their power is growing due to the constant evolution of new weapons. Their magic is foreign to us and we cannot build defenses against it. Because of our interactions with the bestial armies of The Red House and the necromantic plague of The Yellow House, our people have become very cloistered, not interacting much with the natural world. Animals are too unpredictable, plants can be dangerous, and germs could be anywhere. We build elaborate cities and structures to elevate ourselves away from the wilds. Cleanliness is paramount. Our people tend to be erudite, intellectual, wealthy, and some may say manipulative. High society among The Blue House involves a lot of social climbing, using wit, charm, and grace. Playbooks to suit the House: The Chosen, The Infamous, The Trickster Welcome to The Yellow House Praise be to the Allmother, who in her infinite benevolence has graced us not only with fertile lands and bountiful harvests, but with the power to circumvent death itself. She in her righteousness has deemed us worthy of her undying love that we might live undying. Our House Emblem is the Raven, representative of our Beloved Allmother who watches over us and shepherds us. During the great war, we released a necromantic plague on the world that caused the undead to rise and attack the living, all through Her power. We loathe The Red House, for their attacks caused a loss of pride. Public faith in Our Allmother dipped slightly when we lost a calamitous battle with The Red House, who have no respect for nature and its wild creatures -- it is rumored they entered an infernal pact to control the bestial monsters in their armies. How could we, a people so entangled with nature itself, lose to such a hamfisted, primal attack? We fear a prophesied chosen one will rise among them and lead their House to victory. We loathe The Blue House for heresy. They have twisted the intention of magic, that which is available all around us in nature, for their own dreadful purposes. Some may speak ill of necromantic magic (heretics), but nothing could be more loathesome than using magic to override another sentient person’s agency - to fully control another person is heinous and besmirches the Allmother’s intent. Despite this, we fear that they are somehow favored by the Allmother - who they do not even pray to! - due to their relative resistance to our plague. Only one region of their territory was affected. Perhaps she has Chosen them as well, and our elevated status over them could be lost. Our people are highly religious, dogmatic, and dedicated. We believe in the authority of our theocratic government. The leaders commune with the Allmother and interpret her will, which our people follow happily and with full faith. We see her beauty and her magic in nature, and we are very attuned to the natural world. We have fertile lands, abundant resources, and a generally happy populace. Playbooks to suit the House: The Devoted, The Nature Witch, The Seeker Welcome to The Red House Boots on the ground, baby, that’s what it’s all about. And when we didn’t have enough boots, we conjured some more. Infernal beasts. What’s wrong with a little hired muscle? What do we owe, in exchange for the use of wild beast soldiers? Uhhhhh don’t worry about it. Our emblem is the dragon. Why? Because dragons are fucking sick, duh! We hate The Blue House for using dishonorable tactics in battle. Really? Mind control to make our own armies attack ourselves? That’s fucking cheating. Never trust a spider. We fear that their economic power is too great to overcome. The Red House, we aren’t exactly... planners. We get by just fine, usually, but The Blue House has these elaborate economies and these high falutin cities. There’s power in that, power that we don’t have. We hate The Yellow House for the extinction of our population of livestock. Turns out their little zombie bug they let loose on the world? Extremely fatal to our main source of food. One whiff on the breeze of the pollen they used to disperse it, boom, whole fields drop dead. We’re starving over here, and we fear that The Yellow House will overpower us, with their whole nature shtick keeping people fed. Our House is full of people who prioritize action over planning, physicality over mentality, and the ends over the means. But you knew that. You’re one of us. Playbooks to suit the House: The Beast, The Scoundrel, The Spooky Witch

Players can expect

• Find a game to join solo or search for a professional game master for you and your friends/coworkers/family.
• Book your session and wait for the Game Master to approve you.
• If you don't have a blast with your first game, your next game is on us.