Since the first breaths of the world, spirits have been keen on crossing the bridge between their realm and ours. Some once mistook them for gods. There are no gods.
The Church of the One Light despised the spirits, calling them abominations. Driven by holy fury, they gathered their army and marched through the veiled gates to purge the unseen from existence. The spirits were eradicated, their arcane essence torn apart and scattered like leaves in the wind.
The magical energy that spilled from the spirits seeped into every crack of the world, bleeding into soil, stone, and sky. Common folk harvested this power to craft humble charms, while scholars shaped it into incantations capable of bending the laws of reality itself.
Fearing a loss of power and control over the people of Lightfall, the Church declared the use of magic a divine right reserved for their order alone. Those who defied them were branded heretics, tortured, and executed beneath the radiant banners of the One Light.
Death has no hold on spirits. When the veil tore once more, it did so in the Derweald. Thorned vines and slick fungal growths erupted from the soil like a living plague.
The oily roots consumed kingdoms and souls alike. As the fallen exhaled their final breath, their bodies warped into wooden husks bound by ancient wills, driven to march against the last bastions of warmth and light with their bark soaked with the blood of those who fed their endless hunger. In that dark hour, the spirits walked the land once more.
So much of the realm was lost to the forest's embrace. Castles, cities, palaces, dungeons, and villages were all swallowed whole. Nowhere was safe.
Yet within the devouring dark, tangled in roots and decay, lie countless vaults. Artifacts, treasures, gold, and unfathomable knowledge. Sparks bright enough to outlast the dark for one more day.
The depths call to the brave and foolish alike with so many returning with lopsided grins and bright eyes, pockets heavy with dirt instead of the gold they so desired.
Many try their luck in the woods, seeking what lies in the darkness. But the blighted roots have a will of their own now. They creep along the ground, where death, decay, and spirits waltz at the maw of chaos itself.
Welcome to Lightfall
The Forest is WaitingA Peril Fantasy Role-Playing Game
Boundless is a peril fantasy RPG carved in bark and bones. Play as brave souls trying to find their way in a world grown dark under the shadow of an otherworldly woods bound to the spirit world.
In this game, you will confront corrupted creatures, religious zealots, spiritual anomalies, and the blighted things that crawl from places where the veil to the spirit world has torn.
With these rules, you will create characters in minutes, push your luck when things get ugly, track dwindling supplies with dice pools, cast dangerous magic, survive brutal fights, expand one-shots into campaigns with procedures for journeys, delves, mysteries, and strongholds, and eventually create your own ruleset from an easily extensible system.
It is a game games of perilous travels and desperate delves where character creation is quick, play focuses on clever problem-solving, and combat is fast and deadly.
If you love Year Zero Engine, Into the Odd, MÖRK BORG and Blades in the Dark, you’ll feel right at home.
Character creation
Assign 4 Attribute ratings, calculate your character's Hit Points, roll for starting items, and your character is ready to embark on their journey.
Core system
When your character faces a risky challenge, roll a handful of D6s. Each result of 5 or 6 is a Hit. Two or more Hits means the action is successful, one Hit means the action results in a partial success, and zero Hits means the action fails. Advantage and disadvantage shift the character's Position, which as a result shifts which results count as Hits.
Pushing your luck
Every mechanic in the game is about what the character is willing to spend to get what they want. They can reroll failures by taking Conditions, survive deadly threats by risking damage to their Attributes, or rely on their gear and watch its usage Pool shrink through use, wear, and tear.
Dice Pools as clocks
Boundless uses Pools as a "clock" system to track resources, pressure, and progress. A Pool starts with 2, 4, 6, or 8 dice. When a Pool is tested, it is rolled and every die that results in a Miss (1-4) reduces the Pool's size by 1 die, up to a maximum of 2 dice per roll. When the Pool runs out, something in the fiction changes. Torches burn out, supplies run dry, enemies lose morale, danger arrives, or a complex challenge resolves.
Solo-friendly
The game's mechanics are player-facing and include procedure-driven Fortune Rolls to keep things moving when characters are not directly involved. This makes solo, duet, and GMless play a breeze to run.
Ready to hack
The core of the game is 100% free, open-licensed, and designed with hackability in mind. You can use the core rules as written, reskin them for a new setting, or build a complete game from the same fast, flexible foundation.
Listen to the game's official soundtrack or reading, prepping, and playing in the dark.
To make your own Boundless game, please credit us as follows:
This product is based on Boundless, published by Fari RPGs (https://farirpgs.com/), developed and authored by Rene-Pier Deshaies-Gelinas, and is licensed for use under the Open RPG Creative License. This product is licensed under the ORC License held in the Library of Congress at TX 9-307-067 and available online at various locations including www.azoralaw.com/orclicense and others. All warranties are disclaimed as set forth therein.
Third-party games, hacks, and supplements built from the Boundless rules.
Jreluctance's ongoing solo Boundless actual play, following Dorn and Thora from character creation into the dangers of the Greenstand.
