Trophy Loom is a setting book for dark medieval fantasy roleplaying games. It’s system-free and intended for use in-game, as well as for world-building. Rather than long descriptions of people, places, and creatures, the book uses tables, with each entry detailing a morsel of information, along with one or more story hooks. While Trophy Loom is a setting in itself, it’s a flexible one, and GMs are given the freedom to use what they like and ignore what they don’t. At 195 pages, and with thousands of entries, there’s bound to be something to inspire between the book’s covers.
So, what’s the deal? Perhaps the best place to start is with a bit of background on the Trophy setting itself. It includes ‘the forest’, a term that actually includes any natural area: forests, swamps, deserts, etc. Millenia ago, the enormous, glittering, civilisation of Old Kaldur expanded into the forest area, exploiting resources and harvesting magical knowledge. It was a mistake. Now, the civilisation is gone and only the forest remains. What happened? The answer is lost in the mists of time. Humanity endures, and fares better the further from the forest it is. The memory of Old Kaldur persists, however, and treasure hunters venture into the forest in search of its fabled riches and artefacts. They seldom return.
The forest is gothic in the old-school sense: the environment itself is an antagonist. It’s ancient, powerful, and it doesn’t take kindly to human intrusions.
The setting has a lot of range; in the forest, it is very dark but, further out it becomes a lot lighter. Trophy Loom describes a series of human settlements reflecting this range, as well as a lot more besides: NPCs, artefacts, myths, gods, cults, monsters and treasure.
Furthest out from the forest is the city, Ambaret, with seven discrete districts. It’s a medieval, low-magic setting. Next are the borderlands, with four example settlements, becoming more dangerous, lawless, and strange the closer to the forest they are. And then there’s the forest itself. It’s pretty dark. In each area there are additional entries covering prominent people, religions, myths or factions that flesh out the area’s character.
Each section has 36 entries, each corresponding to the result of rolling two 6-sided dice. There are numerous sub-sections describing anything from what is happening in an area when the players arrive, to why someone borrowed money from a notorious loan-shark, and what strange gods are worshipped in the borderlands.
I counted 39 sections, resulting in over 1400 entries, and that’s not counting the sub-sections. The book is well-indexed, with a clean, easy-to-use layout. The writing is simple, clear and to the point. You don’t need to wade through blocks of flowery text to find the information you need, and there’s zero wasted space: the inside covers feature maps and handy tables.
Within sections, individual entries are brief, outlining one or two features. They provide usable information without getting bogged down in intricate detail or excessive storytelling. The end result is that Trophy Loom delivers around 2000 handy chunks of usable game info that, together, add up to a convincing setting without a single lore dump. And if something doesn’t suit, there are plenty of other entries under the same heading to choose from.
The idea here is that each entry can be seen as a thread. GMs can use one for a scene, stitch a few together for an adventure, or weave many into a campaign or game world. Being system-agnostic, Trophy Loom is suitable for any fantasy RPG where the GM would like to inject a bit of creepiness. Or a lot. You decide.
The pdf is fantastic but if you can get a hold of the physical book, I heartily recommend it. It’s a hardcover, about 17 x 24cm, printed on heavy gloss paper stock, and looks and feels great.
Check out our review of Trophy Dark
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/402821/Trophy-Loom
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