Welcome to Seln Alora! A tabletop roleplaying game of high-flying kung-fu and misty romance on the shores of a strange land!

In this game, you will assume control of a series of characters, each empowered by a martial Glory and a meditative Grace. Born to the Kingdom of Alora, you will face the chaotic elements, the wilds, your own fractious clans, and the mysterious Fae as you seek to cultivate your spirit and build your home on the isle of Seln.

Seln is a primordial wilderness. Raw elemental energy surges through the island, manifesting through wild storms, ever-shifting terrain, and towering crystals. Fantastical beasts make their home in the wilds, and the terrifying Fae lurk ever patient beyond the Kingdom’s wards.

You, however, are a Cultivator, seeking enlightenment and empowerment through the refinement of your spirit. You will harvest the rarest treasures of Seln and use them to build a legendary arsenal. Thus armed, you must face all the dangers of Seln!

BETA

This game is still in testing and development. Anything and everything may be changed by the designer’s whims. You’ve been warned!

About

This guide includes everything required to play Seln Alora. It is divided between sections on the world, the players, the storyteller, and appendixes.

Payment

Important! This information is all freely available at SelnAlora.com (aka, this website!). Payment and tipping are strictly optional! Eventually, this content will be avaialble on itch.io and DriveThruRPG; hopefully with a print version!

Socials

There is a parked subreddit with no current activity.

The author does not maintain a Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media presence.

The Storyteller’s Prerogative

Please keep in mind that the storyteller can and should make adjustments to Seln, so any information on the world contained herein is only the “common understanding” of Seln.

Changes include but are not limited to adjustments to history, geography, creature stats, balance changes, and funny accents. As a player, try to be tolerant to changes. Uncovering the mysteries of Seln is part of the fun!

Storytellers: Your players build their characters and their expectations from this guide’s baseline. Run drastic changes past your players to build a consensus. Nobody enjoys building the wrong character for a given game.

What is a roleplaying game?

Playing pretend with extra steps.

What do I need to play?

As a player, here’s what you will need:

  • This guide
  • A designated Storyteller and several players.
    • A good table size is one storyteller with one to five players.
    • For three or less sized groups, consider using the Spirit Guardian rules to help the party succeed
    • The storyteller will have difficulty challenging groups of six or more. If your group isn’t worried about difficulty, go for it.
  • Character sheets, digital or paper. See the appendixes for an example.
  • A Hearth sheet, digital or paper. See the appendixes for an example.
  • At least one set of polyhedral dice or a dice-rolling app
    • This system uses a lot of d6, d8, and d10 dice.
    • D4 and d12 dice are less common but still used
    • Your d20 will be sad and lonely. Not like there’s a lack of d20 roleplaying games out there…
    • Your dice pool will usually be 2 to 8 dice of a kind
    • You only need one set, but we won’t judge if you buy thirty sets of clickity-clackity math rocks, sort them by theme, and test them for dice ghosts As a storyteller, you’ll need a bit more:
  • Decisions on the true nature of the world
    • Pre-arranged decision points called “setting dials” appear regularly through the book
  • Extra paperwork to track:
    • Terrible elemental storms that criss-cross the world
    • The dastardly Nemesis, a devious foe that lurks in the shadows and opposes the players
    • Various storyteller characters of various importance. These characters are often greatly simplified to keep your sanity somewhat intact.
  • The insane commitment to arbitrate a world of fantasy for the group of squirrels known as “players”

With all that said, let’s get started!

Rights

At this time, all rights are reserved for this project. I hope in the future to open this with a gaming license (ORK is looking promising!), but I want to finish the beta before I open to anyone else.