Dark Places, Unspeakable Horrors

Ker Nethalas: Into the Midnight Throne is a tabletop role-playing game centered around a single-player dungeon crawl through a vast necropolis. The game utilizes a D100-based ruleset for resolving actions and combat encounters, incorporating character Attributes, Skills, and Masteries to customize gameplay. Players create and develop their survivor character, exploring the necropolis, facing various creatures, and collecting loot. The game includes detailed rules for combat, exploration, scavenging, and character progression, with a focus on strategic resource management and unpredictable encounters. The setting features a rich lore and detailed descriptions of the world, creatures, and items encountered.

Your Character, Your Story

Condemned to death for a crime that you didn't commit (or did you?), you find yourself alive, but in the depths of Ker Nethalas, a vast necropolis that extends itself under the kingdom's capital; a rotten, decaying source of corruption and evil. For most, this would be considered a fate worse than death, but you refuse to give up, and soldier on.

  • Extensive character customization through the Mastery system. Players start with two Ability Points to spend on different Masteries. Each Mastery gives the player character access to different powers and abilities, representing specializations and playstyles. There are twenty-two Masteries, each one of them having several Abilities to choose from, but some examples of Masteries include:

    • Abyssal Reaver: This Mastery focuses on demonic energy. One of the abilities, "Demon Skin", covers the player in flames, causing opponents to suffer Infernal damage if they attack the player.

    • Arcanist: The Arcanist Mastery gives the player more control over arcane magic. For instance, the "Arcane Missile" ability allows the player to launch magic darts that deal Arcane damage to an increasing number enemies.

    • Mindbinder: With this Mastery, player characters can manipulate their targets' minds. "Mind Control" allows the player to take control of an enemy, which will then become the player's minion.

  • Players can further develop their characters by improving their Skills as they progress through the game. There are a number of Skills that a player can focus on, such as Acrobatics, Athletics, and different types of weapons, all of which influence a character's success in different situations. Whenever a player rolls doubles when using a skill, they can mark that skill for improvement and can then attempt to increase that skill at their camp.

  • The game provides opportunities for players to make meaningful choices during gameplay. For example, when encountering traps, players can choose to try disarming them, avoid them, or trigger them while trying to get out of the way. Each option has a different risk/reward calculation. Players can also choose to set Personal Goals for their character, such as becoming an expert in a particular damage type or focusing on defeating certain types of opponents. Once completed, these goals reward the player with Perks, items, or experience.

  • The game's mechanics encourage players to consider the consequences of their actions. For instance, if a player decides to Take a Breather to recover some Toughness, they must weigh this against the consequences of that action, which include a reduction to their lightsource and the Tension Die.

  • Players can choose how to engage with the game world through exploration and scavenging. Ker Nethalas is a vast network of tunnels, rooms, caves and even buildings, and a players' only chance of survival is to scavenge these areas for resources. These resources will proof indispensable when setting camp, identifying magic items, repairing your gear, and more.

Ker Nethalas presents you with a vast, underground world to explore. This is done by slowly creating a map of your journey through each of the Domains you generate as you go, done so by rolling on a table to determine the shape of the room or corridor you are entering. You can choose to make the game more immersive by rolling for a room or corridor description, although this step is optional. Or you can even play with a pre-generated map and forego the randomness of creating a map as you explore!

As you explore a given area, you will need to perform various checks, such as Lair Checks, which are used to find the Domain's Overseer, and the dreaded Tension Die check, which slowly but surely ups the risk the deeper you progress into the current Domain, usually resulting in a Growing Darkness event.

Players are encouraged to scavenge the necropolis for items and gear. Among these, the randomly generated magic items will quickly prove indispensable for their survival. Who knows, you might even come across one of the powerful Relics said to be left here by the ancient Vaelorians...

Exploration and Scavenging
Combat

The necropolis is vast, but far from empty. All sorts of abominations roam its halls and corridors, and they will not hesitate to end your life. When one of these encounters takes places, combat begins. At the start of combat, an Initiative check is required, which involves comparing the player character's Perception attribute against their target's Awareness attribute. Whoever wins the Initiative check acts first in combat. Surprise is also possible if a player character can successfully ambush an opponent by comparing their Stealth skill against their opponent's Awareness.

Combat proceeds with the attacking character rolling a D100 and comparing the result to the combat skill they are using, taking into account any bonuses. Simultaneously, the defender makes a combat skill check. If the attacker rolls the highest but is still under their combat skill score, they score a hit. If the defender rolls the highest but is still under their skill score, they get to roll on the Defensive Move table. If an attack successfully hits, then the attacker must roll to determine the Hit Location, calculating damage and taking into account any defensive properties the target might have, such as armor or unique resistances to the different damage types. With a bit of luck (good or bad) a critical hit or fumble can surely change a character's fate!

Survival

Unfortunately for you, it is not only terrible creatures you'll have to deal with while exploring Ker Nethalas. You will have to pay close attention to your lightsource, as well as making sure you eat and rest properly, to ward off the effects of Exhaustion. Furthermore, the many horrors found in the catacombs beneath Veldonia with slowly but surely erode your Sanity, making you plummet into the depths of madness, until you become yet another lost soul roaming the corridors of the necropolis.

Core Features

Ker Nethalas: Into the Midnight Throne features:

  • Detailed random dungeon generation, providing endless replayability and adventures, with an easy to use D100 ruleset that makes it the ideal game for new solo RPG players.

  • Meaningful character builds with endless combinations. Want to make a warlock that wears heavy armor and summons the dead, or a berserker that casts cold blasts and turns invisible, or an expert at hand-to-hand combat that can summon a shadow clone? These and many more are all possible, thanks to 100 different abilities, spread among 20 Masteries.

  • Tense survival mechanics, focused on the dungeon delving experience. Want to take a rest? You better make sure you fortify that room, or something will wander inside and eat your face out.

  • A unique bestiary with a wide array of undead creatures and other similar abominations, each one with a detailed action table to randomly determine what they do in their turn.

  • Hundreds of loot and gear items, as well as a simple system to randomly generate magic items, to ensure you never loot the same magic sword or boots twice.

  • An original dark fantasy setting, inspired by England in the 17th Century, and Spain at the height of the Inquisition.

  • Built from the ground up to be played by a single player with a single character. You are alone in the darkness, and nobody’s coming to rescue you.