About These Rules 

The rules given here are meant to let you play in a classic Sword and Sorcery style world like those written about by Robert E Howard, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner and Lin Carter. They are set in a world where the heroes are usually steely-thewed barbarians, mighty warriors or cunning rogues. Magicians are usually the villains. Magic is rare and frightening. Non-humans are uncommon. You can’t buy magic items in shops. You avoid wizards like the plague. Combat is bloody and usually fought against seemingly overwhelming odds.

In D20 terms S&S heroes tend to be warriors, rogues and barbarians. Magic is rare. There are no clerics. Healing magic is less powerful if it exists at all. There are monsters a plenty but they tend to be rare and unique. Humans are the dominant race, and where there are other races they tend not to be too different.

This set of rules is something I have wanted to do for a very long time. I have always loved Sword and Sorcery. I began work on my first set of S&S rules, Elder World, an attempt to simulate Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane stories almost 25 years ago, using the original Runequest as the base system. Over the years it’s something I have returned to again and again using second edition D&D, the Hero System, Gurps and others. Even after all these years, S&S remains my favourite sub-genre of fantasy, and with the coming of the new d20 rule system I decided to have another go at writing the rules for my own campaign. Having written them all down, I thought it would be a nice thing to share them with anybody else that was interested in the genre, so here they are!

Why a toolkit? 

Because not all Sword and Sorcery worlds are the same and not everybody agrees with any given set of rules even about the same world or style of world. I have tried to provide a selection of rules which you can mix and match until you hopefully have something that matches your vision of the world. These rules are not intended to be used all at once-in fact it would be impossible to do so. They are intended to let you pick and choose the rules you like until you get the sort of world you are trying to recreate. For the record my default standard set of rules for a S&S campaign would include the following rules: all the rules in character generation, defence bonus, quick healing, scary monsters, the taint of evil, spell-casting fatigue and low magic. 

Just so you know where I am coming from I have usually included the thinking behind each of the rules and options. If you disagree with it you can change it. My own preferences are for simple add-on rule systems that have as little book-keeping as possible and which work with the grain of the d20 system. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.