The Second Sun

The Second Sun

The World
One so much like ours ended a long time ago, but uh on the bright side all the magic in
the world stopped being repressed by modernity. Now it all mingles together in sun-
soaked grass. Slick black screens, steel swords, plastic toys and smiling spirits. Things
are quieter, but not too quiet. There’s still friends. Still danger. Strike the earth, find
your family, and defend them. Maybe see some sights too.

The Dice
In calm moments, or where there is no risk, all proceeds according to plan.

For dire situations, roll xd6 where X is the relevant stat+relevant skill+situational
modifiers.
Results of 5-6 are Successes! Count your successes and compare below for results.

0 - Total Flop. Nothing went your way, and the Referee inflicts the discussed
consequences.
1 - Partial Success. The Referee will offer a dastardly bargain for your desired
outcome.
2 - Success. Things went alright! You’re fine for now.
666 - Radical Success. Three dice showed 6s! Tell us what happened and take +1
Success for next time, you scamp you!

The Fights
You deal xd6 damage when rolling to hurt something, where X is your successes. In the
event of a Partial Success or Total Flop, the enemy deals 1d6 damage to you as well.

Defense reduces an enemy’s successes against you by 1 each when they straight-up
attack, but this cannot reduce them below 1.
If one combatant has a weapon and the other doesn’t, or their weapon cannot reach,
they deal no damage on Partial Successes and Total Flops.

Character Creation
Characters start with 2d6 Hit Protection (HP) and 10 Inventory Slots.
Your statistics all begin at 1, but will be modified by selections later. They cap at 4.

Brawn - Your body’s strength, health, and ability to hurt.

Intellect - Your capacity to learn and what you already know.
Senses - Your agility, dexterousness, and the sharpness of The Five.
Psyche - Your personality and its power metaphysical.

Select the 3 major circumstances of your old life from the choices below. You must
have one each of Origin, Species, and Job. Take the listed kit and record them on a
legal pad, ideally.

Origins

1. Pod Person

Any Statistic +1

Assisted Targeting - Your SynthBrain™ grants you +1 to locating/capitalizing on weak

points.
Bond: Your lifelong toy. What is it, but more importantly what does it represent to you?

Skills
- Naivety 3
- Electronics 2
- Plumbing, Farming or Medicine 2
- Skeet Shooting or Fencing 1

Equipment
- Knothole™ PC Wristband (Bonded)
- Personal diary disc
- Knothole™ Apeskin! Jumpsuit (Skintight)
- Birdgun w/ 6 shots
 OR a fencing sabre
- 3 cans of spam (1 slot)

2. Vegetoid Farmer

Brawn +1

Tungsten Guts - You can eat anything and never suffer bad food effects.
Bond: Your favorite food. What conversation does it pair best with?

Skills
- Farming 3
- Barter 2
- Card Games 1
- Old World Tales 1
- Horizon Staring 1

Equipment
- Raggedy denim
- Sturdy, beloved hat
- Handheld Thresher (2 slots)
- Homemade sickle

3. Abandoned

Psyche +1

Hopeless - +3 HP, +6 when alone.

Deprived - +1 Inventory Slots.
Bond: Your deepest scar. Where’d it come from?

Skills
- Bitter Struggle 2
- Silence 2

Equipment
- None but the rags on your back

4. Townie
Senses +1

Home - You are always welcome free of charge back where you grew up.
Bond: Your parents. How are they, and what was their catchphrase as you grew up?

Skills
- Barter 3
- Gossip 2
- Friendship 1
- Grudges 1
- Board games 2

Equipment
- Deck of Beasturbo™ cards
OR a set of 7 funny dice
- Wooden club
- Box of delicious potatoes

5. Adventurer

Brawn +1

Righteous Creed - You gain +2 to any rolls that help you follow your creed.
Bond: Your creed! What motto do you live by, and what tragedy made you pick up a
sword to defend it?

Skills
- Screaming 3
- Friendship 2
- Rivalry 1
- Improv 1

Equipment
- broadsword
- greatsword (2 slots)
- 2 mini swords (1 slot)
- empty scabbard (sword escaped)

6. Beasturbo Tourney Ref

Intellect +1

Rules Card - You can become an expert of any game’s rules in 5 minutes.
Bond: Your ace. What card is your favorite, and how did it clinch you a win?

Skills
- Beasturbo 3
- Referee 2
- Deescalation 2
- Gavel Use 1
- Library Use 1

Equipment
- 2 decks of Monsturbo cards, each themed around an element (1 slot each)
- Checkered button-down shirt
- Sledgehammer Gavel (2 slots)
- Gavel Plateshield (Def 1)

7. Barbarian Ascetic

Psyche +1

Seclusion - You can reattach lost limbs and otherwise heal super fast so long as you're
alone.
Bond: Your lost pet. What was your favorite memory with them before they
disappeared?

Skills
- Crying 2
- Reflection 2
- Axe 2
- Poetry 1

Equipment
- Rusted battleaxe (2 slots)
- Second draft poetry compilation
- Furry loincloth

8. Oil Cultist
Senses +1

Gas Guzzler - You can drink motor oil in place of food.

Bond: What’s your favorite road to travel, and why?

Skills
- Singing 3
- Driving 2
- Mechanic 2
- Crashing 1

Equipment
- A full barrel of motor oil (3 slots)
- Corded wire robe
- Buzzsaw axe
- Steel helmet

9. Caravan Salesman

Psyche +1

Smile! - If you initiate a sale, you can talk to anything for 2 minutes while they’re being
sold to.
Bond: Money! What was your biggest sale, and how long ago was it?

Skills
- Hawking 3
- Hoarding 2
- Lying 2

Equipment
- 3 unlabelled potions
- Fancy cane
- Jar of hair oil

10. Dungeon Janitor

Senses +1

Blue Collar - You can go through dungeons unharmed as long as everyone with you is
actually cleaning.
Bond: Space. Why do you need to stretch out in these empty places?

Skills
- Janitor 3
- Hiding 2
- Stalking 2
- Card games 1

Equipment
- Mythril mop (2 slots)
- Anti-slime jumpsuit
- Sturdy boots (shiny)
- 50’ Roll of silk rope

Species

1. Human

Any Statistic +2 or two Statistics +1

Any Statistic -1

Extinct - You can’t resist being warped or mutated.

Wanderer - Take the bond and equipment from a second Origin of your choice.

2. Goblin

Senses +1

Cowering - You are tiny and scrawny, easily punted around.

All Cartilage - Can fit through anything your head would fit through.

3. Squat

Brawn +1

Ethanol Soul - You get drunk in reverse. Keep booze around!

Low Center - You know the language of stones and soil.
Equipment
- 3 slots of wildflower mead

4. Mutant

Psyche +1

Scary Face - -1 to rolls that are affected by your appearance.

Facey Scares - Your bod can replicate one mundane bit of kit, like pliers, a crowbar or
a quiver.

5. Domehead

Intellect +1

Glass Case - The bubble that contains your robobrain is super fragile.
Supacomputah - You can access the old-world internet in your mind.

6. Elf

Psyche or Senses +1

The Rule - Unbroken circles halt your movement.

The Court - You can summon an Elfin Court messenger-horse once a day.

7. Walkin’ Dog

Intellect or Senses +1

Nothin’ But - You must roll to resist doing stereotypical dog things, like barking at
mailmen.
Teefies - You are never without a melee weapon, whether it's your claws or your fangs.

8. Elemental

Senses +1

Super-effective - You are cripplingly weak to your opposite element.

Only Half Man - You have a skill 2 named after your element. If nothing else is nearby,
you can use your body to supply it for use.

9. Zombie

Brawn +1

Heartless - You must roll to stop hurting things when you start.
Headless - You don’t need any of your body to live.

10. Stuffie Spirit

Psyche +1

Fragile - You take double damage.

Teddy - Everyone sensible is fond of you when you meet.

11. Sentient Sword

Senses +1

Sword? - You don’t have arms or legs

Sword! - You are effectively immortal as long as some scrap of you remains to be
repaired.

12. Wormkin

Intellect +1

Frontal Lobe Invader - Everyone’s creeped out by you when you first meet.
Two Minds - Your worm brain can shield your body’s brain from mind altering effects.

Jobs

1. Warrior

Brawn +2

No Love - Take +1 to rolls made to kill something.

Wild Strikes - In combat, you may attack multiple targets by splitting your dice pool
between them. You can decide where successes go after they are rolled.

Bond: Combat. Why does it matter so much to you? Who taught you all about it?

Skills
- Weapon of your choice 2

Equipment
- Weapon of your choice (as above)
- Family Armor (Def 1)
OR Crossbow w/ 20 bolts
- Your favorite fight trophy

2. Holy Guy

Psyche +2

The Name - Choose any three words. These are your God’s domains. Treat them as
Skills 2, and invoke them when attempting to perform clerical magic. They commune
with you in dreams.
Not-Wizard Vision - You can read scrolls, and see into the Astral Plane.
Minivinity - If you ever roll a Radical Success while performing magic, your God
revokes your powers for the week due to its exhaustion. Performing miracles is hard on
command!

Bond: Your God. How did you come to meet them, and why do they follow you around?

Skills
- Journeying 2
- Conversation 2

Equipment
- Rider-Waite Tarot
OR a crystal orb
OR a bag full of animal bones
- Holy symbol carved from scrap

3. Scamp
Senses +2

Always Prepared - In towns, you can buy UNMARKED PACKAGES. These cost as much
and take up as many slots as you like, and contain up to 2 items worth that many slots
and bits. You can only carry one PACKAGE at a time.
The Margins - If you disappear from the party, you can later announce how you’d like
to return! (like appearing behind an enemy, or carrying the key to a cell) The Referee
will tell you some consequences and then you roll to see how well your little escapade
went!

Skills
- Scurrying 3
- Fleeing 2

Equipment
- Grappling hook!
- Dark hooded cloak
- Really tiny knife
- Bag full of, like, 1000 ball bearings
- 3 smoke bombs

4. Wizard

Intellect +2

Wizard Vision - You must always see into both the Astral Plane and reality. Ghosts,
demons, spirits, cryptids and other gobbledygook live there. You can also read Scrolls
and learn new spells from them by transcribing them into your Spellbook
Spellbook - Your lifeline. Your best friend. Holds 4 spells to start. Give them names like
“Goregraza’s Firebolt” or “Final Walk of your Life”. Whenever you cast one, tell the GM
what you want it to do and then roll to see how close to your goal it ends up. You can
cast each spell once a day. The spellbook takes up 2 inventory slots and would be a
huge pain to replace, but you don’t need to have it on you to cast the spells inside of it.

Skills
- Loneliness 3
- Fan-fiction 2
- Monologuing 2

Equipment
- Cool robes!
- Obnoxious hat
- Letter opener and 4 envelopes (1 slot)
- Wax sealing kit

Setting Creation
Gather your player together at Session 0. I recommend doing this step after character
creation, but you might get more setting investment if you do it right before! Come
with a rough sketch of a setting prepared to make things go quicker, or you could play
this minigame for a while longer.

You can either play as yourselves or choose 3 domains as if you were a Holy Guy’s God.
If you choose domains, use them as inspiration for what details you determine in the
next steps. Take a turn each declaring one major factor of the region you’ll be playing
in, such as pizza parlors, monster lairs, plagues, candy kingdoms or orders of
wandering wizards. Then, go around the table in reverse, adding details to the previous
person’s ideas. Maybe mutant tomatofolk make the pizza sauce out of blooodd? Then
go back around the table again until everyone has made up 2 details about the world
and they have been expanded on by someone else.

Then, as a group, determine the length of time that elapses between the setting you’ve
all created and when your characters will arrive. I prefer about 10-20 years so things
have an opportunity to change in big ways, leading to lots of surprises!

Be sure to edit some things, add secrets, and invent your own locations and concepts
as GM to fill in the blank spaces your players’ leave. It isn't that they’re telling you the
setting, its that they're helping you create what they want to see most! Assume about
half of the setting is detailed in this Session 0 Activity.

Optionally, you can use a drawn map as the baseline while you pass a pencil or pen
around the table and record details in this way. It makes a fun little relic for you, and
could possibly be given to the player characters as a historical map!

Use the table below to help with setting ideas if you need it!

2d20 Sparks
1. Candy Train
2. Distant Tree
3. Old School Kingdom
 4. Gamer Ruin
5. Noble Village
6. Rotten Family
7. Undead Warriors
8. Wizard Orb
9. Robo Wizards
10. Computerized Car
11. Dungeon Highway
12. Legendary Forest
13. Capital C Chaotic Mountain
14. Capital L Lawful Sword
15. Flaming Armor
16. Drowned Artifact
17. Underground Arcade
18. Space Animal
19. EVIL Mutant
20. RIGHTEOUS Toy

I would include rules for adventure creation, but 1) this jam is nearly over and 2) I find
that players involved in the setting’s creation have a good idea of what they want to
go explore themselves. For example, I once had a game where the players made a
Chuck E Cheese knockoff with a cult of children inside, and all they wanted to do was
spread that religion! They decided that before they had even finished their characters.
I encourage you to try this out as some extra pre-game fuel to encourage hexcrawling
and adventuring and whatnot