Valorous Heroic Fantasy Roleplay D6 Hardcover by Andrew Collas (Bear the Gex X GM)

VALOROUS: A Return to Heroic Fantasy

The world needs heroes again.

VALOROUS is a tabletop roleplaying game of dangerous journeys, forgotten ruins, ancient magic, terrible monsters, fellowship, and the courage to stand up when everyone else has decided it would be safer not to.

This is fantasy about heroes.

Not flawless champions. Not invulnerable paragons. Heroes can be frightened, angry, selfish, stubborn, wounded, tempted, and wrong. What matters is what they choose when something worth protecting is threatened. VALOROUS is built around the idea that courage matters, goodness matters, evil is worth opposing, and doing the right thing means something precisely because it can cost you.

This new edition completely embraces HEROIC D6, using ordinary six-sided dice and a fast, intuitive dice-pool system. Roll your Attribute or Skill, total the dice, and meet or beat the Difficulty. The same basic mechanic carries through adventuring, combat, social situations, magic, and everything else the game throws at you.

BUILD A HERO, NOT A BUILD

Character creation begins with a single 18D Starting Dice pool. Choose an Origin, choose a Career, then use your remaining Personal Dice to make that character your own through Skills, Boons, Specializations, and improvements.

Seven core Origins let you play Humans, Elves, Half-Elves, Dwarves, Hauflin, Hoblyn Gnomes, and Centaurs, while twenty broad Careers range from Warriors, Knights, Rangers, Thieves, Bards and Scholars to Spellbinders, Sorcerers, Hedge Mages, Priests, Greensingers, Runesmiths, Starseers, and the remarkable Cogwrights.

Careers give a hero a strong starting identity without locking them into a class progression. A Warrior can become a scholar. A Thief can learn command. A Courtier can become one of the deadliest swordsmen in Keldara. Your character grows according to what happens in play, not according to a predetermined advancement track.

HEROISM HAS TEETH

Every hero has a Keystone: the line they will not cross, or the principle they refuse to abandon when keeping it becomes difficult.

Stand by it when doing so genuinely costs you and you earn Valour, the heroic reserve that lets you push beyond your ordinary limits. Break it knowingly, embrace cruelty, or reach for darker power when your Valour is gone, and you risk Malice — and ultimately the Fall.

The rules never decide what your hero chooses. They make the choice matter.

STEEL HURTS

VALOROUS does not use ever-growing pools of hit points. Combat uses Wound Levels.

Armour improves Damage Resistance, injuries impose real penalties, and repeated wounds can turn a confident victory into a desperate fight for survival. Combat is quick, dangerous, and designed to keep everyone making meaningful decisions instead of grinding through bags of health.

MAGIC IS MORE THAN A SPELL LIST

Magic in Keldara is rare, powerful, and deeply tied to the world. There are no spell points, mana pools, or spell slots, and a character may follow only one supernatural Tradition in their lifetime.

Spellbinding, Sorcery, Hedge Magic, Greensinging, Starseeing, Runesmithing, Cogwrighting, Glitter & Gold, and divine Channeling each approach the supernatural differently. Magic is not simply one universal system wearing different costumes; the way your hero touches the supernatural says something about who they are and where they come from.

WELCOME TO KELDARA

The complete game is set in the Kingdom of Keldara, an old realm divided by thirteen years of war and an uneasy present-day standoff.

South and North remain divided, the Great Lake separates armies that cannot finish their war, the Wildwood keeps its own counsel, ancient Dwarven places lie beneath forgotten roads, and things much older than the present political struggle are beginning to move again.

Keldara is built for adventure. Every town has something worth protecting. Every region has its own people, history, and dangers. Ruins predate the kingdom, monsters have returned to places soldiers abandoned during the war, and the supernatural waits just beyond the roads ordinary people are willing to travel.

INSIDE VALOROUS

This complete Core Rulebook gives you everything needed to create heroes and run campaigns, including:

• A complete HEROIC D6 fantasy rules system
• 7 Origins and 20 Careers
• Skills, Specializations, Boons, Banes, and Keystones
• Valour, Malice, and character advancement
• Fast, dangerous combat using Wounds rather than escalating hit points
• Weapons, armour, equipment, travel, and adventuring rules
• Multiple distinct supernatural Traditions
• The complete Kingdom of Keldara campaign setting
• Cultures, faiths, history, languages, and regional gazetteers
• Game Master guidance, creatures, treasures, and the hidden secrets of Keldara

VALOROUS is a return to the things that made heroic fantasy worth falling in love with in the first place: dangerous roads, strange places, loyal companions, steel and sorcery, terrible enemies, impossible choices, and ordinary people who discover that when the darkness comes, someone has to go anyway.

Answer the Hero’s Call.