The game of politics between nations demands much of its intelligence community. Whether it is gaining insight into the decisions made by lawmakers or presenting resistance to the local military force. But how does one combat a religiously-driven theocracy in a world filled with monsters? These are the questions presented in Detente for the Ravenous, the newest TTRPG published by A.A. Voigt.
Detente for the Ravenous is an independent TTRPG focused on the political conflicts between Khajen Empire and the Gadan Dominion, two fictional nations featured in the novel by the same name. Khajen is a religiously-led nation who is ruled by a theocracy and is intent on conquering the world in the name of their faith. The Dominion is the sole power who is able to stand in their way and attempts to do so through covert actions. The players, also known as “agents”, have been hired to take covert action within the Empire to stop their militaristic effort expansion.
The aesthetics of the conflict, which is translated through a series of black and white images intermixed throughout the rulebook, present a mishmash of historical references. The conflict’s inspiration is a “historical trainwreck,” according to the author. While the military technologies resemble that of 17th century Europe, the political relationships resemble those of the early 2000s Middle Eastern conflict, the Cold War and even the world wars. The players are playing a game of modern espionage in a world only equipped with the tools to commit siege warfare. There are occasionally more modern tools, from computers to radios.
Gameplay focuses on the d10 dice used in Rowan, Rook, and Decard’s Resistance system. If a player is prompted to perform a task, they’ll be asked to roll a single d10. They can add additional d10s to the check based on whether or not they have the appropriate expertise, domain or other character creation features. They then are trying to get at least one dice to roll a 6 or higher to get a positive skill. Failing to do so may cause them to take stress, the game’s health tracker that relates to both physical, mental and social conflict. The more stress they take, the more in trouble they are. This can also lead to varying forms of what the game calls “fallout.” If a player is unable to roll below or equal to the amount of stress they have, then they’ll receive varying levels of fallout in response. These could be simple injuries like broken legs, or they could be consequences affecting one’s faith, drive, relationships or more depending on the DM’s discretion.
The gameplay occurs in three phases in a similar manner as Blades in the Dark. There’s the operations, where players use their agents to try and stop the Empire’s agenda. These could be military operations, covert actions or any sort of spycraft. There’s downtime, which is used to recover and work on longer projects. Finally is that of the “Nation Turn,” a set of events where players decide how the Empire, the Dominion and their surrounding neighbors act on a macro scale. All are controlled by the player and help move the narrative forward.
The world is, for the most part, similar to our own when it comes to weapons and humanity outside of it mashing together modern intelligence The sole exception to this is the Ravenous, a strange sort of monster which comes to exist through extraneous circumstances that force an average man to take on bestial features and become a irrational killing machine. These creatures are considered a significant threat and vary in quality. They may be seen in the wide spaces, and the player can even end up turning into one if their stress and fallout get too high.
Detente for the Ravenous builds on the lore presented in the original novel penned by Voigt, although players truly don’t have to know much about the world to play. Most of the setting and the main factions are presented in fairly thorough explanations within the text, while there is enough broadness around certain factions and individuals to allow for DMs to generate their own ideals.
The novel itself is a little over 200 pages and a quick read if you take the time to scan it and sets the tone. The book has a unique aesthetic where the designer mixes open-source and Creative Commons images to give the guide a rugged, aged aesthetic.
Gameplay is fairly simple to learn, particularly for those who enjoy the Forged in the Dark style system popularized by Evil Hat Games. Character creation is more focused on lore than optimization, and allows players to be anything from a soldier to a spy to a bioengineer.
If players want to explore an espionage-focused campaign with easy rules and a unique mixture of Medieval and modern ideals, Detente for the Ravenous offers a unique setting to explore with familiar enough weapons and politics for fans of history.
The game is currently available on Itch.io to download.
Images via A.A. Voigt
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