Tombpunk: Arcana – The Firebrand

Tombpunk is my lo-fi, lightweight, fantasy roleplaying game, published under license by Outland Entertainment. You can find it here on DriveThruRPG.

Tombpunk: Arcana is a series of articles written by me expanding content for the game with “playtest” material (I don’t think I can call it homebrew if I’m the official writer/creator!).

While the three professions in Tombpunk cover the “trifecta” of classic fantasy roleplaying archetypes, there’s a lot of room for growth and excitement with other professions.

Today we’re presenting the rabble-rousing Firebrand, a profession that takes inspiration from bards, paladins, and adds a bit more ‘overt’ punk to the Tombpunk game.

The Firebrand

Firebrands are revolutionaries, rabble-rousers, and agitators who work to overthrow the feudal lords who rule over the lands of the world. They loathe the oppressive nature of the economic system they are stuck in and see raiding the tombs for wealth, goods, and magical items as a tool to fuel their crusade against their authoritarian overlords.

The economic macro-game in Tombpunk deliberate weights the game towards the Lords who rule over the land, and as such Firebrands are in a position of disadvantage. The Firebrand is a more ‘narrative’ class, where their abilities and the rules around them are more subject to rulings from the Narrator than hard and fast rules from the game.

The choice of playing a Firebrand creates a specific campaign narrative, and one that should be chosen carefully, and with consultation with the group.

Firebrands start with Lifeblood equal to Might+5, Courage 4, Coin 1, Will 4 and the Special Abilities Fiery Speech, Natural Leader and Revolutionary Oaths,

Firebrand attacks do 1d8 damage.

Fiery Speech: When you have an audience and can give a speech, your words inspire them to rise up against those who use or oppress them. You can inspire Courage x 10 individuals to rise up! These individuals will undertake various actions to aid you (such as working with you to ambush the lord’s tax collectors, providing safehouses, etc.) for the next X days (where X is your Will.)

Every time you use Fiery Speech you gain a Rabble-Rouser point. When you reach three points, the local government will take action against you. When you reach six points, the local lord will send soldiers, assassins, and other terrible things after you.

Natural Leader: As an action, you can choose one of the following effects:

Grant an ally you can see advantage on their next test.
Grant an ally you can see an additional action. Any test made as part of that action has disadvantage.
Grant an ally a +1 to Courage or Will. You lose one from the equivalent resource.
Cause a group of non-character allies of low strength (commoners, etc.) to deal 2d8 damage to an enemy as a group attack. However, if this attack deals 10+ damage, you gain a Rabble-Rouser point.

Revolutionary Oaths: You swear a powerful oath to dismantle the oppressors around you. When you do so, every time you participate in removing all the darkness from a Dungeon, you gain +1 Courage or +1 Will, as the progress of gathering these resources and working to aid the commoners grants you more momentum and drive.

However, any week where you don’t make progress towards your goals, you lose 1 Courage and 1 Will.

The Firebrand

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