TinyZine

TinyZine Issue 18
Written by Alan Bahr, Jonathan Hicks, & Steffie de Vaan
Editor: Alan Bahr
Interior Art: Anthony Cournoyer, Nicolás R. Giacondino
Graphic Design & Layout: Robert Denton III
TinyD6 Line Manager : Alan Bahr
Based on the game Tiny Dungeon by Brandon McFadden
Second Edition

Published by Gallant Knight Games, 2019

Tiny Dungeon 2e and TinyD6 are trademarks of Gallant Knight Games.

©2019 by Gallant Knight Games. All rights reserved. Reproduction without
the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden, except for
the purposes of reviews, and for the blank character sheets, which may be
reproduced for personal use only.

Gallant Knight Games, Ogden UT 84404

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 Letter from
the Editor
Hail Loyal Gallants!
Welcome to the eighteenth issue of TinyZine!
Steffie returns with our monthly Roll-and-Play, this time
tackling Sunken Worlds and their setups.
A new contributor Jonathan Hicks, provides a Tiny Frontiers:
Revised adventure!
- Alan Bahr, 12/5/2019

PS: As always, we’d also be remiss if we didn’t inform you of

our Gallant Knight Games Patreon, where you can get access to
previews, TinyZines, and free GKG RPGs! Please, feel free to
check it out.
www.patreon.com/gallantknightgames.
The art in this TinyZine is graciously funded by our Patrons.

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 Roll-and-Play:
Tiny Kingdoms
Roll-And-Play

Steffie de Vaan
Roll-and-Play is a monthly article by Steffie de Vaan which lets
GMs create readymade content for their game. The concept is
simple: grab a d6, and roll once on each tables below, or mix and
match as fits your game.
Let’s talk about kingdoms. They’re not exactly tiny, but you still
need them for your game (and if the characters like to travel, you
need a lot of them) so we’re covering them this month. While
we call them kingdoms, this also includes monarchies ruled by
women or non-binary people, and oligarchies and democracies.

D6 Kingdom
1 Arash’tel, jewel of the nine worlds
2 Gretash, where the dragons died
3 Hanurdal, ruler of the eight seas
4 Torak, under the shadow
5 Weltend, at the edge of the world
6 Zatorda, land of unbearable light

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 D6 Ruling Body
Roll-And-Play

1 The fey queens Eleanor and Roshna rule their kingdom wisely
and justly. Their subjects love them, though complaining
about taxes remains fair game.
2 Sovereign Roanna just ascended their throne. The young
human thought it was a matter of issuing royal decrees,
but there’s bickering nobels, taxes and angry merchants to
contend with!
3 The Queen-Mother rules this Treefolk monarchy after her
son and his husband died under mysterious circumstances.
She fears a plot to kill her grandchildren too, to wrest the
crown away from her family.
4 This nation is ruled by a representative democracy. Every adult
person may cast a vote for someone to represent them, and
representatives with enough votes gain a seat in parliament.
The representatives then elect a prime leader among them
- this position is currently held by a Karhu named Bezoar.
5 An oligarchy of noble families rules this kingdom, and
has for generations. This led to stagnation and oppression,
as most nobles only look out for their own interests. The
nation experiences a schism between Kalar, a human
scheming to make himself king, and Hatha, a dwarven
noble who wants to make life better for the lower classes.
6 Human General Ramus leads this kingdom after a coup.
The coup was just - the ruling monarchy was cruel and
dictatorial - but Ramus is falling into the same trappings
of power. It’s been seven years, and he made no move
toward installing a democracy.

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Roll-And-Play

D6 Capital
1 A great harbor city of gleaming white stone and marvellous
riches - neither of which can keep the perpetual smell of
fish at bay. People are generally wealthy, even if inns and
taverns experience literally cutthroat rivalry.
2 The official capital is an ancient keep on a rocky, windy
mountain. While still in use by old rich families, the
governing body has since moved to a more accessible city
with better trade routes.
3 Sitting on fertile lands that flood every few seasons,
this capital exists in layers atop itself. Entire streets and
houses, now covered under mud, lie under the adventurers’
feet. Locals converted some of them to food stores, but
monsters roam in others.
4 The capital sits in the caldera of a long-dormant volcano.
The people dug tunnels out of the solidified magma to
serve as stores and emergency bunkers if the capital comes
under attack.
5 The capital city is haunted by the ghosts of its past inhabitants.
They come out at night, and the living - vastly outnumbered
- line their windows and doors with salt to keep them out.
6 Sitting in the shadow of a vast mountain where dragons
roam, the capital struck a bargain with the terrifying
creatures. The people pay a tax of cows and sheep, and the
dragons protect them against invaders.

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 D6 Historical Event
1 This kingdom conquered the neighboring nation of Hatush
Roll-And-Play

less than a generation ago. The kingdom claims it was simply

defending itself against aggression, while Hatush claims the
kingdom was the aggressor.
2 When true dragons, winged creatures so large they blotted
out the sun, went extinct, the ruler of this kingdom saved the
last dragon egg. Rumors claim the royal family still keeps it.
3 This kingdom was once three, now united through trade and
marriage. The three cultures still clash though, and unrest is
on the rise.
4 The kingdom was dreamt by a fairy king, and wrestled out of
the Feylands and into reality by its first queen. He demanded
recompense and she offered marriage to appease him. The
royal family still bears the markings of their fey ancestry.
5 The Godstone struck the earth countless generations ago, and
the kingdom arose on the ashes of the massive impact crater.
All the land is fertile, and the people live long and healthy lives.
6 The kingdom was subsumed by the larger nation of Lasran
generations ago, and its people still yearn for independence.

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 D6 Trouble
1 Drought struck the farmlands and famine seems imminent.
Roll-And-Play

The drought is out of season though, leading to rumors

of deliberate malice. The kingdom seeks adventurers to
investigate and they indeed find an ancient cult (Tiny
Dungeon 2nd Edition, p.47) using the water to raise an
eldritch horror (TD2E, p.49)
2 A plague sweeps the kingdom. Doctors and magicians scramble
to find a cure as the bodies pile up. They need adventurers
to retrieve the Goddess’ Tears, which cures all illnesses but
is currently possessed by an ice giant (TD2E, p.50)
3 The kingdom is beleaguered by a red dragon (TD2E,
p. 55) who demands the prince’s hand in marriage. The
queen hires the adventurers to slay the dragon, but they
discover the prince and dragon are truly in love.
4 An evil necromancer (TD2E, p.54) holds the king in
thrall. Defeating the necromancer requires first releasing
the king from his enchantment, or he’ll send soldiers to
the necromancer’s aid.
5 Massive earthquakes shake the kingdom, destroying
communities and croplands. Investigating leads the
adventurers to an underground nation of trolls (use bridge
trolls, TD2E p.47). The trolls are digging tunnels and
caverns to create new cities, as their old cities are overrun
by giant spiders (TD2E, p.51).
6 Crown Princess Arwen and her twin, Prince Arjan, are
locked in a battle for the throne. Arjan is 3 seconds older,
but the kingdom is a matriarchy. They ask the adventurers
to mediate. While Arwen won’t relinquish her claim (she
and her younger sister were raised to rule, while Arjan
enjoyed a more leisurely upbringing), she might adapt the
law so her first child stands to inherit next.

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 The Hole Truth
Jonathan Hicks

INTRODUCTION
The Hole Truth

‘Explorers, this is Central. We have a signal bearing 241.6 mark 258.5,

please adjust your course. It is being scanned as a large asteroid moving
through the solar system but has never been recorded before, and long-
range scans indicate an energy source. The asteroid also has a huge hole
in it’s leading edge, far too symmetrical to be a natural occurrence.
‘Please intercept and investigate.
‘Central out’.
Upon setting course, the PCs are sent images of the asteroid
and it’s trajectory. It appears to have changed direction twice and
is now on course to arrive at the system’s major habitable planet in
three weeks. The PCs ship will intercept in three days.

APPROACH
The asteroid is huge, 22.3 km in length and 12.8 km in width,
and is of a rough egg shape. There is definitely an energy signature
from within, not powerful but steady, about the strength of a
medium-sized starship’s power core. The asteroid also has a gentle
spin along it’s axis, generating around a 85% of standard gravity.
The hole in the front of the asteroid is spherical and almost
perfectly round, apart from the rough rock it has been hewn
from. A field of debris extends from behind the asteroid a swell
as creating a small cloud of it in front, trapped by the gravity
the spinning asteroid creates. To get through the hole, the PC’s
starship will have to navigate the debris field. Two rolls will have
to be made and as the debris is very slow moving the roll can be
made at automatic Advantage.

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 ENTERING THE HOLE
Passing rough the hole sends a ripple through the starship, as if
they have passed through an energy field of some sort. In fact,
as soon as the starship passes through the sensors register an
atmosphere; the PCs will have to wear breathing masks and cold
weather gear as the temperature is very low, but other than that
they should function perfectly fine.
The hole leads into a long tunnel which gradually morphs from
The Hole Truth

being rock into a more structured, artificial tunnel with ribbed

and supported walls.
The inside of the asteroid is artificial, that is to say that the
asteroid has been hollowed out and a civilisation has made it’s
home on the inside. It is a long way into the asteroid before signs
of habitation are discovered – at least 20km – which means that
the thick shell of the asteroid acts as the perfect protection from
the radiation that would have penetrated a starship otherwise,
allowing for extended periods in space.

INSIDE THE ASTEROID

The hollowed interior measures roughly 6.5 km in circumference,
giving a lot of living space for the evidently huge species that
travelled inside. The very centre of the asteroid has no gravity and
there is a small spinning globe here emitting a little reddish light;
some kind of tiny artificial sun, perhaps, in it’s last stages of life.
This is not the source of the power signal detected; that comes form
deeper in the asteroid and is most likely a power plant of some kind.
The surface it was shining upon appears to have been alive,
once, with plants and trees and organic growths that grew from
the soil like boils, but these are long dead and dessicated, like a
field of dust statues.
The civilisation built around this sun and worked outwards in
levels, three in total. Everything is huge, at least four times the size
of an average human being. Steps are 80cm high, chairs are 180cm
high, everything is much larger than average which points to the

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 fact that the race that
lived here was very,
very large, measuring
at least 7 meters in
height. Players will
have to do some
climbing to get up
and down stairs, as
well as see what’s on
The Hole Truth

tables. They’ll be like

small children.
The design is
incredibly organic
yet artistic; the floors are smooth, almost reflective obsidian. The
walls are ribbed like the inside of a corpse but not in a crude,
disgusting way; they are delicate, as if carved from the material
they used to build the interior. Everything has an air of artistic
endeavour, as if the race that constructed this were not happy to
simply build but also felt the need to inject their art and emotion
into it. There are parts of the asteroid that feel like the inside of
a corpse, yes, but it is tasteful and elegant.

THE TRAVELLERS
There is no sign of anyone living here; in fact, it seems that
nobody has lived here for a very long time. Perhaps hundreds
of years. A fine layer of frozen dust lies across the surface of
everything, so much so that walking across surfaces results in a
‘crunch’ and footprints, like on a thin dusting of snow.
In every building everything is neat and tidy, with everything
packed away and neatly stored. There are no pictures, no apparent
personal belongings, nothing. It is as if the ship was built but
never manned.
The only evidence of the look of the travellers are statues in
what appears to be a town hall of some kind, or at least a central
gathering point. Eight statues of what appear to be important

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 beings, bipedal, with long faces, what appear to be two trunks
drooping from the centre of a long face, and three fingers on
each hand. Each statue seems to be reaching for something, a
symbolic stretching of the hand.

ENCOUNTERS
Falling debris when heavily touched or mishandled; the inside of
the asteroid is delicate and fragile! Make some deft Save tests or
The Hole Truth

suffer a point of damage!

False alarm! A door opens and a creature attacks! But don’t
worry, it was just a huge suit of clothes hanging in the doorway,
or a loose light fighting that has swung down.
Skittering shadows; did the player imagine that?
Tread carefully! The floor might give way to expose a lower level,
which is quite a drop. A Save test is required to minimise damage.
As the players get closer to the power core level, they notice
three-toed footprints in the frozen dust...

THE POWER SOURCE

The investigations will eventually lead them to the power core,
and this is where the danger is.
As they approach the core the heat rises to bearable levels;
they cannot breath the air, but the cold weather gear will start to
become uncomfortable.
The first thing the PC’s come across is what appears to be a
huge storage chamber and in here are skeletons; thousands and
thousands of huge, bipedal creatures around 7 meters tall, the
remains of what appear to be the same species as the statues. The
bones appear to have been gnawed on, which is never a good sign.
As they approach the power core they find a command room,
with huge flickering holographic images of solar systems, flight
paths and worlds. On inspection it appears that the computer
system is automatic and locks on to possibly habitable worlds an

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 steers the asteroid towards them, as is the case with the trajectory
the asteroid is now on as it heads to the main planet of this solar
system. With some time they can adjust the asteroid’s trajectory,
the controls are incredibly simple. Point and click, of a sorts.
Also in the power core are the creatures that have made the
asteroid their home.
These are around two
meters in height but they
The Hole Truth

share the same characteristics

as the statues and the
skeletons encountered earlier.
Are these a subspecies of
the original travellers? Their
descendants? Perhaps a
strange mutation? Regardless,
they are incredibly hostile and
attack on sight. They have
made their home around
the power core and seem to feel the need to sleep in huge balls of
naked puss-covered flesh. It is a huge spherical energy source that
generates the only heat the asteroid has, and there is evidence they
eat their own kind as half-eaten corpses and regurgitated bones
scatter the floor of the room and the corridor leading up to it.
They are sickly and weak but move fast and are dangerous in
large numbers. There is no intelligence in the small, dark eyes,
just rage, a lust for food and slathering, murderous intent. They
do not use weapons and act like beasts, using their claws and
teeth to rend and tear.
CREATURE: HP 2 / Claw & bite (melee attack) 2D6
There are a lot of them; it’s advised the players beat a hasty
retreat. If they go beyond the heat influence of the power core and
into the cold areas of the asteroid, the creatures will not follow.

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 CONCLUSION
The travellers appear to have been a highly advanced race with
no starships for interstellar travel, so they constructed this home
within an asteroid to travel the stars as a generation starship.
There seems to be no immediate reason why they did this and it
appears to be a simple case of the desire to explore; they were not
running from war or natural disaster.
The Hole Truth

The evidence suggests that the artificial sun, the ball of light
hanging in the centre, was emitting a power signature that seemed
to be interfering with the genetics of the young being born, and
an increase in mutations was being recorded over generations.
That is all the immediate information that can be gleaned; the
data is so old and corrupt that it cannot be deciphered and will
need years of extrapolation. There is no data as to where the
travellers even came from.
But there is a lot to learn from the travellers; art, design,
construction methods, theology and philosophy… scientists will
be studying the data for decades.
They’ll just need to stay away from the power core.

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 Tiny Torchbearers
An alternate experience system for TinyD6 inspired by Burning
Wheel and Torchbearer.
Failure can feel terrible in roleplaying games. Presented is an experience
system that is designed to leverage failed rolls into character growth.This
system will not work with the alternate experience systems presented in
Tiny Dungeon 2e, other TinyD6 products or other TinyZines.
When a player character fails a test, they gain 1 Growth Point.The very
first time they fail a test, they must select a Trait related to that failed test
that would have helped them succeed potentially
(the Game Master can help guide this.) This
Growth Point is then assigned to that trait.
Thereafter, every time they fail a test where
the previously selected Trait would have helped
them, they gain another Growth Point which
is assigned to that trait. Once that trait has a
number of growth points equal to the number
of traits the character currently has (Archetype
Traits and General Traits), they gain that Trait as a new Trait.
A character can have multiple Traits being assigned growth
Tiny Torchbearers

points at a time, but they get progressively more difficult to get

as traits are accumulated.
For example, Alan’s character Sigarmund fails an Evade test in combat
with some goblins. Alan decides that Shield-Bearer is the trait that
represents how Sigarmund is going to attempt to learn a skillset that helps
him avoid harm in the future. Alan then assigns 1 Growth Point to the
Shield-Bearer Trait after marking it on his sheet. Since Sigarmund is
a human and has 4 Traits already, once Shield-Bearer has 4 Growth
Points, Sigarmund gains the Shield-Bearer Trait permanently.
Another option is to allow a character to spend a Growth
Point assigned to a potential trait to use it for one turn only. This
delays the character’s growth in that aspect but can allow them
to tap into a skill set they are learning temporarily.

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