Prepare to Drown in Broken Shores 2nd Edition
If you’ve spent any time exploring solo RPGs, you’ve come across something from Alex T. at Blackoath Entertainment.
If you’ve read a few of my playthroughs, you’re likely familiar with some of his games. The man needs no introduction.
Well, here’s one anyway: there’s no other company or designer creating TTRPGs like his. Period.
Besides the gritty, twisted worlds, themes, and concepts, Blackoath games have deep and satisfying character and gear progression, meaty and extensive solo procedures, and video-game like mechanics.
Look, I love different kinds of games and very different publishers and creators, but there isn’t anyone making anything remotely similar to Blackoath, especially for solo play.
And here comes another banger: Alex has officially launched the Kickstarter campaign for Broken Shores Second Edition, a massive overhaul of the original.
The world is gone.
Four hundred years ago, the Goddess of the Sea drowned every continent beneath an endless ocean. Entire kingdoms vanished beneath the waves, the gods died, and civilization collapsed. But now, the waters are finally receding. New islands emerge from the depths every day, ancient ruins break the surface, and lost treasures, forgotten secrets, and fragments of dead gods wait to be claimed.
And every cult in the world is willing to kill for them.
When you start a game of Broken Shores 2e, you do so as an escaped prisoner. Armed with little more than stolen supplies and a ramshackle raft, you set sail across the One Sea in search of survival, fortune, and power. Will you hunt sea monsters? Explore drowned kingdoms? Wage war against fanatical cults? Master dangerous sorcery? Or simply struggle to survive another day?
The choice is yours.
An open sandbox to die in for
Broken Shores 2e is set in a flooded, post-apocalyptic dark fantasy setting. The world as it was known is long gone, swallowed by rising, corrupted waters. What’s left is rotting under the gaze of malevolent deities.
It’s a dark fantasy game with drowned aesthetics that focuses on survival and crafting. Kind of like Waterworld meets sword & sorcery.
You play as survivors navigating this brutal seascape. You aren’t legendary heroes destined to save the world; you are scrounging for remnants of the past, dealing with body horror, sea leviathans, and cults, while trying to build a place to call home amidst the tides.
Gameplay happens in a sandbox built around absolute freedom, in a completely open world.
Hexcrawling will have you trading, exploring, delving, or whatever you wish to pursue, with the map being shaped by your choices. Generate ocean stretches, island terrain, dynamic weather, and sea encounters as you sail.
A drowned world that breathes life
Like in real life, you are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. A miserable pile of secrets in a huge, uncaring world.
As you explore, you will meet factions, cults, and other survivors who aren’t waiting idly by while you finish sorting your inventory.
Rival factions build strongholds, wage naval wars, hunt for Godshards, and starve on the open water with or without your intervention. Your actions—or inaction—will directly alter the balance of power across the One Sea. Help a struggling settlement and they might establish a safe trade port; ignore a violent cult, and they may raze an entire region before you ever return.
Besides the open sea and into a painful death, you can also dive into ruins or even board decaying, floating hulks.
Game features
This new edition improves and expands the core gameplay from the original in several ways.
That includes the crunch, obviously. We’re talking about Blackoath here, come on.
The game features equipment degradation, scavenging loops, progression via gear crafting, survival mechanics, tight and lethal tactical battles that emphasize risk versus reward when diving into sunken ruins or fighting monstrosities, and a lot more.
Solo mechanics
The solo mechanics were refined and expanded with a plethora of tables, procedural hazard generation, and intuitive oracles that keep the narrative momentum.
The tables and generators really shine here. There are spark tables, a complication mechanic, surprise/unknown random events, a significance table if you want more meaning and information about an encounter or event, and plenty of explanations and guides on how to use and interpret these tools.
Like other Blackoath games, Broken Shores 2e is designed for solo from the ground up, as you might expect. Nevertheless, you can also drown horribly with friends while playing coop or in a traditional GM-led campaign.
Crafting and progression
In Broken Shores 2e, character progression is tied directly to crafting gear, its maintenance, and base expansion.
All your gear is crafted from the remnants of your vanquished foes. With dozens of properties that grant you all sorts of abilities, you can carefully plan your build and go hunt the creatures that will guarantee you’ll obtain the parts you need to craft it.
In a submerged world, metal and other materials are rare. You harvest components from monsters or find materials in ruins, sunken leviathan graveyards, and ancient vaults.
Gear is created at specialized crafting stations. It can then be refined into better rarity tiers (Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Epic). They degrade with use, requiring maintenance.
Unwanted loot can be salvaged for raw materials, creating a self-sustaining survival loop on the high seas.
Your base also plays a part in survival. Scavenged rafts, derelict ships, and harvested timber are invested in a self-sustaining floating sanctuary. Modules include hydroponic gardens, repair docks, defense ballistas, and living quarters.
Rescued survivors can also join your haven. Assigning crew members to workshops speeds up crafting times, generates resources, and unlocks unique recipes based on their background.
Of course, a larger base also draws unwanted attention. Upgrading your defenses is essential to survive raid events from pirate fleets, cultists, and sea horrors.
The awesome illustrations by Andrios S. Moreira, Carlos Castilho, and Eiko finishes this incredible meal of a project. A warm and tasty meal, made with the remains of a sea raider.
Yeah, you can cook enemies for food, and humans abound. Cozy stuff.
Go support Alex, a really cool person consistently doing great art.