by EPeel

kingofanything wrote:

EPeel wrote:

Thank you for gifting my sixth star! And congratulations to all the new stars!

Big congratulations, Lauren! You are now a superstar!

Thanks king! Just like you and Zen.

by ced1106g

Overview: Deep Below is essentially a scaled-down version of "Five Leagues from the Borderlands". If you don't have time for a long campaign, don't have a lot of miniatures (I think HeroQuest should work!) and terrain, or just want to do some dungeoncrawling (you do get a settlement to visit and improve between delves!), Deep Below is an inexpensive set of rules for miniature skirmish games in a dungeon. (If you don't have dungeon terrain, I think you can "translate" the dungeon terrain rules to something above ground. Or pick up Battle System's Dungeon terrain set!) The ruleset is designed so you can use Five Leagues rules in Deep Below, and vice-versa.

Your Miniatures: Deep Below has made an effort for the enemies to use any monster miniature. While most generic fantasy skirmish games call for specific miniatures (eg. orcs), Deep Below provides Combat Profiles (Speed, Combat SKill, Damage modifiers, Toughness, and Armor) and Traits (eg. Fearless, Poison) so you can select a profile and traits that match best your miniature collection. However, enemies do have class types: grunts, elite, and leader, so you will want to design your enemies appropriately (eg. an armored warrior, ork, and goblin for HeroQuest). For boss and solo monsters, the game has Side Quests, which include the Enemy Champion, and the Roaming Horror (and you can use Aberrations or other rules from the original Five Leagues book).

Characters: The races in Deep Below are: Human, Derzkan (goblinish things), Dwarves, Grey Elves, and Weaslings (or any bitey anthro). Again, you may use characters from Five Leagues, with minor conversions (eg. Deep Below does not use Proficiencies, so Deep Below characters moving onto a Five Leagues campaign will gain Proficiencies normally).

Scenarios: Scenarios boil down to "find five things", referred to as Battlefield Features, with plenty of tables of variants thrown in. For example, the Notable Location Table may say the scenario is in the Grey Elf ruins or have Alerted Foes, and add a Complication and Reward for victory. The scenarios don't have the specific thematic variation that the original Five Leagues had (eg. raiding an enemy lair). The four types of features are: Peculiar Features, Investigations, Wanderers, and Noise. (Noise are hidden markers that represent enemies and are added as a scenario continues.) You may check for Difficult Battles, or add a Side Quest. These are generated during table setup. Essentially, you use the same generator for a scenario, but have many tables that "make things interesting".

Gaming Table and your Terrain: The game system suggests a 3x3 table, but it's just a suggestion. 2x2 tables will have "quicker" games, and 4x4 areas will let you "move around and dodge enemies". Terrain on the board is determined randomly, and, again, presented more like suggestions than anything required. You'll still end up with a "large underground cavern with ruins and multiple smaller areas" more than the RPG (and HeroQuest) board design of a dungeon subdivided into separate small rooms that you kick down the door. If you don't have an extensive set of dungeon terrain, you should be able to translate the terrain to something above-ground, though you'd still want some house-sized structures (eg. ruins or abandoned houses). Deep Below divides terrain into generic abstract types: Individual (eg. a barrel or mushroom; provides Cover from ranged attacks); Block (eg. huge boulder, cannot be entered into); Area (eg. ruins, rubble, forests, provides Cover, is Difficult terrain, other rules); Field (eg. shallow lakes), Linear (eg. walls, Cover and other rules).

Combat: Eh, I'll be lazy and refer you to the "Five Leagues from the Borderlands" reviews, as combat is similar enough. Throw dice and stuff. Whee. As noted, in addition to placing enemies on the board, the Noise mechanics add unrevealed enemies as Noise markers to the game board. Resolving these Noise markers counts toward scenario victory, so bloodthirsty players should be satisfied.

Rune Magic: Deep Below's Rune Magic, however, is a definite difference from "Five League's" magic system. Even non-Mystic characters can cast runes. Runes replace spells, and essentially boil down to six Functions: Binding (cannot Move), Destruction (damage), Healing, Repulsion (pushed back), Shifting (pass through terrain), and Tunneling (create passage). A non-Mystic has to obtain their runes. A Rune Mystic creates a rune every Campaign Turn. (You pretty much have a scenario each Campaign Turn.) Runes are single-use items. Again, the "Five Leagues" magic system can be used in Deep Below.

Ending the Campaign and Determination: Sadly (: unlike "Five League's" ending of the campaign after defeating two factions, the dungeons are endless! Your party has a Determination score, which increases as you win, but decreases as you lose. If it drops to zero, a random character leaves the party (thankfully, your Determination score bumps up)! Also, thankfully, you can spend your way to increase Determination. As for ending the campaign, the game pretty much says it's up to you and your story when you want to end. Or, roll against how many characters have died or retired. But, on a happier note (: the author notes you can now use your party to start a campaign of "Five Leagues from the Borderlands"!

Conclusion and PDF: I recommend Deep Below as an introduction or dungeoncrawl expansion to Five Leagues from the Borderlands. Deep Below has enough new content for experienced Five League players, who can purchase it as part of the Five Leagues from the Borderlands Compendium. If you pick up the Compendium, I particularly recommend the PDF and separating out (printing out) the Deep Below section, since it's written as a standalone game (though I trust it's not difficult to add The Ancient Land of Dust and Paths in the Wilderness to Deep Below!).

by Steve Dubya

<div>Front Cover from PDF</div>

by CommBBE

<div>SRA2.0 Logo</div>

by Steve Dubya

<div>Front Cover from PDF</div>

by Steve Dubya

<div>Front Cover from Copernicus Corporation Polish PDF</div>

by kingofanything

EPeel wrote:

Thank you for gifting my sixth star! And congratulations to all the new stars!

Big congratulations, Lauren! You are now a superstar!

by kingofanything

ecoboardgeek123 wrote:

Thanks to whoever gifted me my first star today it was very thoughtful!

Congratulations on your first!

by BG05

An item RPG Item: Dragonbane: Mirth & Mayhem Roleplaying has been added to the geeklist Look What I Got! RPG Geek 2025 Holiday Gift Exchange

by EPeel

Thank you for gifting my sixth star! And congratulations to all the new stars!

by sdonohue

Mulligans wrote:

Any chance of getting your beard a little more Cthulhu-ey? Glad to hear you're enjoying the festivities! Keep up the good work.

It turned a little blue last week, but that's mostly washed out now.
This is an older picture

by nickster1970

Related Item: Browsing Games

Hey, I already miss you too!

Happy gaming!