Post-Apocalyptic Heroic Outsiders (PHO)

The obsidian towers of the Underworld lingered as the smokey columns of a lost horizon. My shade’s cold vapours coughed forth the final gasps of the pyre that had consumed me. The false birth of a fleshless soul, exposed and naked in a manner even a squalling infant abandoned to the jackals could not conceive. Nothing to cling to but the terrible vision placed before my rawness so that it engulfed me - consuming me once more in fire.

Characters in Champion’s Road: Hell March are dead and this in and of itself opens up a host of opportunities and challenges for players and gamemasters alike. This is keeping with the game’s three main themes (PHO):

1) Post-apocalyptic (civilization destroyed)

2) Heroic (characters fight evil demons, save people, and rebuild)

3) Outsiders (characters are undead, set apart from the living people they are charged with protecting)

Consider the Ghost who must enter a community of survivors in pursuit of a demon that has possessed one of its leaders. Being a Ghost with no physical body of her own, she chooses to possess the remains of a lone soldier recently killed by bandits and hastily buried in a shallow grave. Fully aware that entering a post-apocalyptic village of traumatized people with a caved-in skull would be ill-advised, she uses the Apparition power to assume the guise of a badly scarred but very much alive imperial soldier. She is in luck, for the settlement consists of veterans of the old Imperial Army and has been actively recruiting surviving soldiers in hopes of eventually launching a counter-attack against the invading demonic hordes. She is granted admission and begins a discreet search for the demon while accepting the community’s hospitality in an effort to blend in. That is when she notices people begin to move away, some holding their noses, others making signs to their gods. The possessed man appears and triumphantly denounces the Ghost as a demon in disguise…and the villagers believe him. Her crime? The tell-tale scent of the grave that appearances cannot hide…to say nothing of the lifeless chill that terrified the servants in the village hall while serving her food she did not eat.

Such are the social challenges of being undead. Just because you’re a demonslayer trying to protect people doesn’t make you any less out of place among the living. Our hapless Ghost possessing a smelly corpse might be an extreme example, but a recently resurrected Wight, in her own body, might also come to grief from the scent of the grave. A Liche could easily creep mortals out with her alien sorcerous aura even if she smells like roses! And then there’s the classic scenario of a well-meaning mortal barging in while the party is resting exposed in their respective Corpse States. Decorum just isn’t enough. Yet existing in a hazardous post-apocalyptic setting, caught in the hellish maw of a demonic invasion, makes allies indispensable and interactions with mortals inevitable.

Character creation grounds the newly resurrected revenant in the mortal world: their vengeance, born of the visions of the Gatherers, is tied to the loss of loved ones and familiar places; their past lives and careers are built on relationships with allies, colleagues, lovers, families, villages, crews, cults, companies, guilds, contacts, army units etc.; even grave goods and the manner of their deaths can be interpreted in any number of ways through player and gamemaster collaboration.

The “unburied dead” result on the Grave Goods Table might mean anything from a player character awakening by the side of the road after being robbed and murdered by bandits; coming to on a battlefield surrounded by corpses and menaced by scavenging ghouls; waking in a locked dungeon cell after being left for dead by jailers now residing in the belly of some demon; or regaining consciousness on their death bed after their family believed their injuries to be beyond hope. Each of these starting points carries implications for how the game will unfold - whether the revenant will begin by seeking revenge against a loathsome band of mutant cutthroats, evading packs of ravenous ghouls, trying to escape a dungeon, or figuring out what to say to their grieving and now thoroughly shocked family members.

These scenarios also have implications for starting equipment - the character creation tables are only guidelines. A character killed by bandits is likely to have most of their useful possessions stolen. A fallen soldier might retain their battered armour and weapons. A starving prisoner is not likely to possess anything at all apart from their clothes and whatever meagre effects remain in their cell. While the resources a deathbed resurrection can command will largely depend on what their family and community thinks of this sudden “miracle” (who can forget Highlander).

Roleplaying opportunities are only expanded when the respective Corpse States of the characters are considered. The waylaid character might display the ghastly wounds inflicted by the mutants that killed him. The fallen soldier might display battle wounds alongside the marks left by the scavengers that gnawed on his guts. The prisoner might revert to the emaciated, near-skeletal state she was in prior to her death. While the bedridden character might display the deathly pallor of her final moments. Though all recently dead, the Corpse States these characters revert to when injured or resting vary considerably - as will the reactions of the NPCs that behold such dramatic transformations!

Furthermore, such scenarios may be used to tie player characters together. Perhaps another revenant was waylaid by the same bandits weeks earlier and will emerge from the shallow grave they flung him in only to come face-to-face with their latest victim. The imprisoned revenant might not be alone as she first thought - a second revenant might awaken in an adjacent cell or on another level of the dungeon. Perhaps this second revenant is the ghost of an executed prisoner whose mortal body was burned or dismembered. The fallen soldier might encounter a comrade emerging from a mass grave. And the deathbed survivor may discover that she’s not the only miracle in town as her long dead uncle stumbles from the family crypt beneath the local temple!

Gamemasters may even elect to run a prelude in which the players explore the final days and moments of their characters’ old lives. This will allow them to roleplay their backstory and how they became what they are following death and resurrection, possibly extending to memories of the Underworld or Spirit Plane. Characters in such preludes are not yet revenants and will not have access to powers or spells, leading to a very different game experience.

Gamemasters should encourage scenarios where players face dilemmas. If they wish to rest and recover their abilities (requiring extended time in the Corpse State), it will give their cultist enemies time to escape or summon a particularly nasty demon. If they continue without resting, they will intercept the cultists but the resulting battle against a cornered and desperate enemy could go against them in their depleted state. If they do choose to rest, do all of them rest at the same time? Do some of the characters remain awake to act as sentries (with the trade-off of not being able to rest themselves)? What nasty surprises might they face if they’re not careful?

Grave Madness leads to further dilemmas and opportunities. Perhaps the character’s patron deity is willing to forgive their transgressions committed under the influence of Grave Madness or even purge them of its effects entirely - but only if the Champion does penance! A Skinchanger might have to survive alone in a haunted forest for a week in order to appease the jilted Beast Lords. A Magus who has angered the Star Gods might have to recover a lost djinn lamp from a demon-infested desert ruin.

Endless possibilities!

Much more to come!

Unheroes: The Heroic Undead

 Characters in Champion's Road: Hell March

“Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Everyday when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, muskets, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death in a great earthquake, falling from thousand foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And everyday without fail one should consider himself as dead.” - Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, William Scott Wilson translation

Heroes in roleplaying games are rarely found among the walking dead. Given their parasitic, blood-drinking natures, protagonists in Vampire: The Masquerade can be considered anti-heroes at best and monsters at worst. Imagine a game where the player characters are dead humans, dead elves, dead orcs, dead goblins, dead lizardmen - all of them resurrected by besieged gods as the last earthly defence against an apocalyptic demonic invasion. In this post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, the undead are not monsters but the final bulwark standing between the living and a fate worse than death, though this does not make them any less terrifying or alien to the mortal world. This is Champion’s Road: Hell March.

The continent of Nazor lies far to the west of Titanis and Kenetchi (the settings for Falhorne and Stone Serpent respectively). Formerly splintered into interwarring kingdoms, it was unified under the powerful Empire of Melkior less than a century ago. Yet this continent-spanning empire with its emperor, nobility, priesthood, and professional army perished within days of the first portals grinning between dimensions. The Demon Plague consumes the land and the fate of the living now hinges on the fallen of Nazor, from beggars to princes, as they rise from their graves as mighty warrior Wights, sorcerous Liches, and ethereal Ghosts - empowered by the gods to do battle against an otherworldly invader whose mutating powers and ability to corrupt the landscape renders them unstoppable to mortals.

 

Character Creation: Waking the Dead

Each type of Champion (Wights, Liches, Ghosts) is divided into two sub-classes with their own unique abilities. Wights can choose to be either a Skinchanger or a Forlorn Hope. Liches can be either a Magus or a Hierophant. Ghosts can be either a Seeker or a Celebrant. All six classes have their own revenant powers and areas of focus - from spellcasting to melee combat to more sneaky stuff.

Character creation is a five-step process of accretion, with each stage fleshing out the new revenant a little more. Instead of beginning with attributes and statistics, we begin with a character’s 1) Essence, their core personality in death as well as in life. From Essence we proceed to 2) Ancestry, a character’s species/race. Only then do we determine 3) Attributes such as a character’s strength and charisma. From here we move to 4) Past Lives, fleshing out what the character did in life, their relationships and accomplishments. The player chooses two past careers for their character which determine the character’s skills/abilities and have a major impact on roleplaying. Finally we come to 5) Grave Goods, where we determine how the character died as well as what equipment they start out with as an undead revenant. This includes class, which is also chosen at this stage.

Take “Gob” for example: He’s a goblin who worked as a jailer before learning a (mostly honest) trade and becoming a shipwright (his two careers). He therefore gains the skills associated with each of these careers. When Gob died, he became a Ghost (specifically a Seeker) because his physical body was cremated (more on why later) and a person’s body must be (mostly) intact for them to come back as a Liche or Wight.

The manner and circumstance of a character’s death affects gameplay as well character creation. Notably a revenant, although they do not require sleep, must occasionally rest in order to regain their powers (which deplete with use). Whilst resting they revert to the “Corpse State” and can take no action for the next twelve hours. Revenants typically appear lifelike but while in the Corpse State they appear as they did at the time of their death, even if they were only a pile of ashes like Gob. This can result in some…interesting roleplaying opportunities as well as some very obvious challenges for players to navigate if they wish to return to full strength.

Champion’s Road: Hell March uses D100 tables to allow Gamemasters to quickly generate characters, campaign locations, equipment, treasures, potions etc. The goal being to make the game easier and smoother to run, recognizing all the unexpected twists and turns TTRPG sessions inevitably take.

D100 (and D10) tables play an important role in character creation. To return to the example of Gob, I rolled “Execution Ground” on the Grave Goods Table to determine his death/starting equipment. This result indicated that our goblin friend had been executed for some crime and his earthly remains burned. As such he begins with almost no personal possessions but gains a Blessing (Outlaw’s Fate).

By contrast, Eskander, a human Skinchanger Wight rolled “Mausoleum” on the Grave Goods Table, indicating a rather more privileged funeral! He retains all his personal effects, can roll once on the Treasure Table, twice on the Weapons Table, once on the Armour Table, and once on the Equipment Table. When all is said and done, he starts the game with a monster skin (treasure), throwing knife (weapon), battle-axe (weapon), full plate (armour), and a piece of chalk (equipment).

In addition to Grave Goods, another part of character creation where tables play a role is Essence. Gob, for example, rolled “Wise Wizard” on the Essence Table. This is considered a Visionary personality type and gives Gob the Second Sight skill. Essence determines how a character regains Grit, an important character trait that powers many Wight abilities. Regaining Grit depends on roleplaying. With his Wise Wizard Essence, Gob regains a Grit point whenever he creates something of lasting value that he will be remembered for. Eskander’s Essence, on the other hand, is that of a “Nosy Innkeeper”. This is a Selfish personality type for which he gains the Subterfuge skill. He regains Grit whenever he achieves unmitigated success in something he considers vitally important.

Campaign locations can also be generated in this way. Three D100 tables (location, location details, and tactical features) can be rolled together to create all manner of gameable environments. A temple (location) might contain a study used by a high priest (location detail) which in turn might have a collapsed floor (tactical feature). Some results might require interpretation (or a re-roll): a hunter’s camp (location) might not seem to work well with a bank (location detail) with broken windows (tactical feature), but this is a post-apocalyptic setting and maybe a hunter set up camp inside the ruins of a bank for protection or maybe he’s looking for something. A well (location) combined with a pantry (location detail) and a drainpipe (tactical feature) could indicate an outdoor well next to a small building housing a pantry which in turn is connected to a larger building like a ruined manor house by a drainpipe allowing for stealthy entry.

One final element of character creation has nothing to do with random tables. In keeping with the post-apocalyptic dark fantasy aura of the setting, vengeance is a major theme. The Gatherers, the angelic beings that gather souls for resurrection in the war against the demonic, are sure to properly motivate their charges before unleashing them on the enemy. Every revenant beholds a vision upon their resurrection in which they will witness the destruction of someone or something dear to them at the hands of the demonic invaders devastating Nazor. In addition, they will behold the specific demon or demons responsible. The vengeance rules, including some hefty combat bonuses, come into play when the character faces these enemies. The specific nature of this harrowing vision, what the character lost and those responsible for it, must be worked out between the player and the Gamemaster.

Lots more to come!

Heroes

Adapted from my remarks at the Stone Serpent book launch May 26 2026

Bobby Sands was a real life hero - a poet, a soldier, an elected member of parliament, and a prisoner of war. At 27 years old, he gave his life for his nation after 66 days on hunger strike on May 5 1981. An Irish lad from a working class neighbourhood, Bobby had no royal blood, no magic, he was not a “chosen one”, yet he inspired millions worldwide by standing up to the brutal occupation of his homeland - a cause he was willing to sacrifice everything for. And what more can be asked of a hero? A hero stands for something, fights for something, and is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for that something. In this regard, the heroes of literature and of fantasy in particular could learn a thing or two from their real world counterparts.

Magic Blood: Fantasy as an Aristocratic Genre

Fantasy, as a literary genre, has its origins in fairy-tales. Fairy-tales being essentially folk-tales reformulated and rehashed for European aristocratic or bourgeois audiences between the 17th and 19th centuries. From the beginning, they were meant to entertain princes, princesses and the well-to-do, not working class boys from Belfast! The best that a commoner can generally hope for in a fairy-tale is to marry the king’s daughter, the medieval equivalent of winning the lottery, thereby raising his family to noble status. His friends, neighbours, village etc. would be expected to know their place and respect their betters in an idealized feudal order that could only exist in fairy-tales.

Fantasy is a fundamentally conservative genre. Emerging in reaction to the sweeping societal changes of the Industrial Revolution, it appealed to traditional notions of authority: thus it was not enough for Bard to have killed a rampaging dragon in The Hobbit, to become ruler of Laketown he also had to be a legitimate descendant of the Kings of Dale. Traditional fantasy heroes are special because of their illustrious lineage that marks them for greatness and is often the source of their magic and fantastical abilities. Aragorn is bigger, stronger and more long-lived than other men thanks to his royal Numenorean blood - 80 years old at the start of Lord of the Rings and still in his prime! While the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings might not be descended from royalty, with the exception of Sam they hail from the Shire’s gentry and are effectively nobles in their own right. Tolkien makes a big deal of their ancestry and Bilbo only embarks on his adventure with Thorin and Company because his “Tookish blood” takes over long enough to override the “respectability” of his Baggins ancestry.

This magic blood trope hasn’t gone away. It shows up in Harry Potter, Game of Thrones and almost every other fantasy franchise you can name. I myself used it in my Falhorne novels in which the main character Tagus derives great power from his mother’s sorcerous bloodline. However, I consciously avoided it in Stone Serpent. Ta, its protagonist, has no innate power and must consciously learn all of the mystical abilities he comes to wield in the course of his perilous quest to save Kenetchi from the Serpentmen. In the upcoming sequel to Stone Serpent, Arena of the Gods, Ta’s father will even admit to his son that he is not a descendant of the legendary heroes of Kenetchi as he previously believed - the same heroes that he idolized in childhood. Instead, Ta’s father was an orphaned peasant boy and the Askarii powers that he wields can technically be learned by anyone with sufficient discipline and focus. Blood does not matter.

 

Heroic Mercenaries: Sword and Sorcery meets Blackwater

  

Heroic sellswords, unscrupulous yet honourable, are staples of Dark Fantasy and the Sword and Sorcery sub-genres - a trope that is also hard-wired into the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons and similar role-playing games. Conan the Barbarian, like most DnD adventuring parties, fights for gold and personal glory. He serves no cause and kills stuff for money - he has no real principles beyond that. It’s worth noting that people who kill stuff for money are not very heroic in the real world. Real mercenaries don’t risk their lives beating up on dragons or even powerful people - they consistently beat up on peasants and others who can’t offer meaningful resistance to trained soldiers. It’s all about low-risk, high-reward. Think Blackwater in Iraq or the “sub-contractors” whose idea of delivering aid to besieged Palestinian civilians is a bullet in the head.

I had to laugh when game designer and Youtuber Matt Colville had his mercenary DnD party The Chain of Acheron get hired to confront the evil “Invincible Overlord” who rules most of the known world. This would be like Blackwater getting hired to take on the Pentagon and it beggars belief in even the most outlandish fantasy setting. A more realistic approach would see the Chain of Acheron already working as hirelings of the Overlord (who almost certainly has the deepest pockets) before being betrayed by him and witnessing the deaths of most of their comrades. Now it’s personal. Now the formerly unscrupulous mercenaries have a reason to challenge a superpower with all of the deadly and unprofitable risks that entails, similar to the Bridge Burners in Steven Erikson’s Malazan novels, effectively becoming the partisans and resistance fighters that they would otherwise be tasked with crushing for their paymasters.

I consciously rejected the heroic mercenary trope in the Falhorne novels. Tagus, the protagonist, is part of the Falhorne - an ancient order of warriors dedicated to defending the now persecuted followers of the Old Gods. He’s not in it for the money. He’s fighting for his people, risking his life to protect family and community, the very things that the goons hired by his enemies are trying to destroy. Heroism isn’t something you do for money, it’s above and beyond that. People who are in it for the money in Vinos and the Thousand Cities are more than willing to cut deals with evil, even when that evil is of the non-breathing kind that drinks blood at night!

All that being said, the “heroic sellsword” can and often does subvert the “magic blood” trope discussed earlier. Conan The Barbarian can become the legitimate King of Apollonia through brute force and military skill despite not being of royal blood - something that would make him a usurper in a place like Middle Earth. Sword and sorcery heroes don’t have to be blue bloods, they just have to be tough. Frodo (even Sam) could have become King of Gondor if the Lord of the Rings were a sword and sorcery epic, though he’d have to grow some muscle first. As an aside, even if Frodo wouldn’t dare challenge Aragorn for the crown, one Tummington Pattifoot III (aka “Slim Fatstacks Pattiwhacks”), Halfling adventurer extraordinaire and protagonist of my longest ever campaign of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, most certainly would have!

The future sequel to Falhorne, Gendarme, will follow members of the Royal Guard of Vinos, the elite Gendarmerie, and their transformation from loyal soldiers to rebels against church and state. Set in the same principality that forms the main setting for the Falhorne novels, the soldiers of the Gendarmerie are tough men and women many of whom were once sellswords and, despite now being soldiers in a professional army, continue to display a lot of that unscrupulous “beat people up for money” ethos. Each of them are flawed in their own ways and bear mental and physical scars, yet they are the ones who will ultimately change everything. They will transform into defenders of the people they were trained to repress and lead a revolution that will change the Thousand Cities forever.

Stone Serpent

Stone Serpent, like the Falhorne novels, is sword and sorcery but with real heroes rather than mercenary anti-heroes. Ta, our teen protagonist, begins his journey fighting for basic survival. Like Mad Max his post-apocalyptic world is one of “fire and blood”. But as he grows up amid the ruins of his native land of Kenetchi he learns the moral principles that he will ultimately fight for.

Stone Serpent chronicles the downfall of a civilization, ancient culture and way of life that we get a picture of in Chapter 1 with the celebration of the Ancestors’ Day Festival in Ta’s home village of Ne-Ket. We see an outcast teenager who wants to be man, desires respect as defined by his society and culture while also craving the excitement and adventure that farm life doesn’t allow for. This leads directly to Chapter 6 when things fall apart and a teenager’s curiosity is enough to initiate the downfall of a society with fundamentally rotten foundations.

And who survived this cataclysm? Who survived the downfall of the ancient realm of Kenetchi with its priests, landlords and toll collectors? People survived. People built new homes, tried to care for their families, or fled to safer lands, but never forgot where they came from. Chapter 17 tells their story.

These are my heroes - frightened teenagers, refugee labourers, washed-up army veterans, failed academics - they don’t always share the same culture and language, they are scared/flawed in their own ways, but they are the people and they will save the world from evil. No saviour or lost king is returning to save them. Together they must find the strength to save themselves and that’s how it’s always been.

 

 

Stone Serpent Book Review

Huge thanks to Jeff Reid Pettis for this excellent review of Stone Serpent! Definitely check out his blog for more.

https://lowercasepoet.blogspot.com/2026/06/stone-serpent-by-tristan-dineen.html

 

Stone Serpent Book Launch 2.0

While the launch event at the Red Brick Cafe on May 26 was wonderful and well-attended, the hard copies of my most recent novel, Stone Serpent, were unfortunately not present! Hence I will be having a second book launch event at the same location on Thursday June 25 starting at 7PM. Liam Reynolds will again be present with the original oil painted cover art he created for Stone Serpent, as well as the re-released Falhorne novels both of which will be available at the event. All the books are in and we have plenty of them!

In addition to book stuff, we’re also going to do some gaming! Those who came to the May 26 event will know that I’m working on a table-top role-playing game set in the same world as my novels in which the player characters are undead revenants battling a demonic invasion in a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting. Well, on June 25 we’re going to do some live playtesting with miniatures and battle maps and see how well Champion’s Road: Hell March works in its current state! I’ll be running a short scenario with pre-generated characters for which I’ll need 4-6 players from among the attendees (first come, first served). 

 

Falhorne Re-Release

The re-released Falhorne novels with new oil painting cover art by Liam Reynolds are now available!

Falhorne: The World is Burning (Book 1)

Book Funnel (includes Apple, Kobo, Barnes and Noble)

Amazon

Falhorne: Dark Dawn (Book 2)

Book Funnel (includes Apple, Kobo, Barnes and Noble)

Amazon

 

Stone Serpent now available!

Thanks everyone for being patient but the day has finally come! My latest fantasy novel is now live and I’ll include some links below where you can pick it up for yourself in e-book and in paperback. The launch event is still a go for May 26 7pm at the Red Brick Cafe in downtown Guelph.

Book Funnel (includes Kobo, Apple, Barnes & Noble etc.)

Amazon