The Wildsea

3–5 players 2022

About this Game

Centuries ago, an explosive growth of greenery called the Verdancy overtook the land, covering it in a canopy of massive trees. Survivors retreated to islands that rose above the canopy or temporary "spits" on top of it. Now, with the help of great ships that tear across the treetops with powered chainsaw blades, intrepid crews seek adventure on the wildsea: exploring lost places, traveling and trading, hunting beasts and bounties, salvaging treasures of the world left behind, and seeking the secret whispers: words with a will of their own. The Wildsea presents a singularly unique fantasy setting in modern tabletop roleplaying games. Player characters can choose their species from among cactus-folk, moth people, the soul of a wrecked ship in a salvaged body, and a hivemind of sentient spiders, among others. They form the crew of a ship that "sails" the canopy of skyscraper-sized trees that cover the land via massive chainsaw, and may in fact be itself a living thing. Together they face the perils of the wildsea's fauna, flora, settlements, and rival crews using their wits, tools, skills, and whispers. These mystical secrets are living ideas that, when spoken, can discover new information, twist the situation, or even force a change upon reality itself. All of this creative energy is packaged within an elegant d6 dice pool system, with mechanics to support montages, extended challenges, combat, chases, negotiations, exploration, traversal, and journeying across the wildsea. Rolling the dice introduces triumphs, conflicts, disasters, and twists naturally into the narrative. Add in a treasure trove of evocative art and adventure hooks, and The Wildsea is a jewel of contemporary RPG design.

Mechanics

D6 System

How to Play The Wildsea

The core mechanic of The Wildsea is a d6 dice pool, meaning actions requiring dice rolls have the players assembling some number of six-sided dice, rolling them all, and taking the highest. The first die comes from a character's Edges; whether they're taking action in line with Grace, Sharps, Veils, Iron, Teeth, Instinct, or Tides, the seven Edges a character can have! Add one, two, or three dice to the pool based on your character's relevant skill or language that could help them with this action. Then you can add up to two dice if you have a particular advantage; a helpful circumstance, resource, equipment, ability, or aid from an ally, for example. Roll all those dice together! If the highest die is a 6, that's a triumph, an unmitigated success. If it's a 4 or 5, that's a conflict, a success at a cost or with a complication. If it's a 1, 2, or 3, that's a disaster, a failure with consequences. Additionally, if you roll any doubles at all in your pool, you get a twist: an additional unexpected outcome decided not by the GM nor by the player rolling, but by everyone else at the table. For especially difficult rolls, the GM can also apply a "cut" of 1 or 2, forcing the player to discard their 1 or 2 highest dice before resolving the roll.

Characters advance by pursuing their drives, and accumulate resources to aid them on journeys, including salvage, specimens, charts, and whispers. The latter are living secrets that can change the world by speaking them aloud. Play proceeds in scenes for moment-to-moment play, montages for long-term actions or downtime, and journeys for travel across the wildsea itself. Progress for long-term or complex obstacles and goals is measured on tracks, which player characters can mark when they succeed on actions or spend resources. The number of segments of a track to mark is dictated by impact, or how effective a given action is at progressing toward a solution that completes the track. Adventures are composed of journeys, scenes, and montages flowing into one another, creating, advancing, and completing tracks, and of course, facing the perils of the wildsea!

Posts

Alchemist

An expert on the guts of the sea itself, a student of chemical smoke and the spatter of reactions, the roiling chaos of elements reimagined. Alchemists are masters of concoction and reaction, able to combine chemicals and arconautic knowledge with unexpected (and occasionally unstable) results. Some alchemists focus on the healing arts, some on transformation and understanding, and others on more… explosive pursuits.

Char

For a char, the wildsea is an endless new frontier of excitement and discovery… in culinary terms, at least. Whenever you smell something delectable, there’s a good chance that a char is behind it. Chars are somewhere between chef and survivalist, with a dash of healer and vintner thrown in for good measure.

Corsair

Fighters tasked with protecting their ships from the myriad dangers of the sea. Every wildsailor is expected to be able to take up arms in a crisis, but the corsair elevates combat to an art form. Tasked with protecting their ship in close combat, they often focus their training on blades, hammers, and axes.

Crash

Sometimes things just need to be broken. While some people value the goods that can be dredged up, the crash isn’t worried about that. They are specialists when something needs to be cleared away, torn down, or simply turned to rubble.

Dredger

Brave explorers with an eye for value. The art of dredging is a difficult and painful one to learn, but the benefits are well worth the struggle. Dredgers make their living by diving into the waves in search of valuable specimens and salvage, sifting through dangerous wrecks and exploring ancient ruins as part of their daily routine.

Hacker

The marks and scars of your profession are writ large on your skin. A hacker's job is to clear the way for settlements, ships, and exploration, plunging into the wilds to tear open paths and clearings.

Horizoneer

A fountain of facts about the sea and its cultures, its dangers and hidden places. Part scholar, part explorer, horizoneers make it their business to learn as much about the rustling waves as possible. They root out its secrets, study its beasts, and integrate almost seamlessly into its manifold cultures, mimicking even the most novel customs with ease.

Hunter

Some hunt for food, others challenge. Yet others to reassure themselves that they are not the hunted. A hunter's role is to provide food and materials for the crew, usually in the form of animal parts. Some hunters prefer more complex prey, styling themselves as bounty hunters and roving the waves looking to bring down bounties for payment. Either way, stealthy movement and hidden snares often pay dividends.

Mesmer

An explorer of the mind, dabbling in the mysteries of memory and the power of thought. The waves are an illusion, a rustling dream lain across ironwood spindles. Crewmates are bundles of thought and emotion, impulse and memory. A ship is a carcass, a nebula, a home.

Navigator

A bridge between the waves and the ship itself. Overlooked by youngbloods and praised by the old hands, navigators make sure a ship can get from A to B with the minimum of trouble and the maximum of opportunity.

Rattlehand

Everything breaks eventually, but most of it can be repaired. Hull-iron rusts. Sawteeth blunt. Engines cough and struggle. In a world of salvage and barter, nothing lasts forever… unless you have a good rattlehand on your side.

Screw

A disciplined manipulator of unseen forces. Screws are masters of an ancient pre-verdant technique, a branch of arconautics rarely seen in the wild world - ferrokinesis, the uncanny control of metals and magnetism. Iron is commonly the screw’s tool of choice, though the economy of salvage and scarcity across the waves has led some screws to adapt their techniques to other, less common metals.

Slinger

Distance fighters that announce themselves with a cacophony of gunfire. Usually found keeping a watch on the sea from the tallest vantage points on their ships, slingers are the first line of defense against attacks from pirates and wild beasts. Lightly armored and possessing heavy firepower, their aim is usually to drop their targets before they even get close enough to fight.

Steep

Beveragiers who connect you to the deeper mysteries of the wildsea with but a sip. Food and water are nourishing to the body; concoctions feed the spirit. A steep is the hand by which concoctions are mixed. Steeps provide all sorts of solutions to a group of wildsailors, their curiosity and imagination limited only by their ingredients.

Surgeon

Experts in shattered bone and split vegetable matter, few turn down their ministrations out on the waves. The surgeon combines the skills of a traditional portside doctor, a therapist, a scholar of research, and a butcher into one terrifying package. Expert at mending broken parts and curing illnesses, taking the surgeon’s post on a ship tends to ensure that you’ll be welcome wherever you end up - nobody wants to offend the one that might be saving their life in the future.

Tempest

Your blood crackles with sparks, your heart beats with thunder. Internalizing the wild power of a storm is no small feat, but it's not impossible - through technological application or obscure arconautic methods, tempests have managed to embed the essence of lightning within themselves.

Wordbearer

The routes may be longer and a lot more dangerous than in the pre-verdant times, but the post still needs to get from A to B. When a wordbearer walks by, laden with twine and packages, charts and envelopes and cages, their scars speak volumes, their gazes (if they are the sort with eyes, at least) tell stories, and their lips shape secrets only meant to pass from one mind to another. They are the personification of whisper, the wordbearers - conveyors of quiet truth.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do I need to play The Wildsea?

The Wildsea uses pools of six-sided dice, and no player should ever need more than six at a time. If playing in person, you'll want pencils and paper, character sheets, and some snacks! If online, a voice or video chat platform and a virtual tabletop might be helpful if your group prefers.

Is The Wildsea a Forged in the Dark game?

There are a number of similarities between The Wildsea and Forged in the Dark, but not officially, no! The Wildsea's design also diverges in several places from Forged in the Dark games.

Is The Wildsea post-apocalyptic?

Yes, although the apocalypse in The Wildsea is not environmental collapse—it's environmental explosion! The Verdancy, the apocalyptic event in the game's history, was a rapid growth of massive trees that covered the surface of the world.

What inspired The Wildsea?

The Wildsea was inspired by video games like Sunless Sea and Bastion, other RPGs like Blades in the Dark and Heart: The City Beneath, and books like the Bas Lag trilogy.

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Alchemy VTT

Game Details

Player Count: 3-5 Players
Year: 2022
Publisher|Publishers: Mythworks

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