Ironclaw
Ironclaw is a game made by furries, for furries and about furries. It takes place in a sort of feudal european fantasy setting. Basically Furcadia: The Roleplaying Game. RPG wonks say the mechanics and settings are worth investigating, but look at that cover art. Just look at it. Jesus.
System
Basics
Characters have Traits (can be used for many different purposes), Skills (used only for specific purposes), Gifts and Flaws. Every character has at least six Traits: Body, Speed, Mind, Will, a race, and a primary career. Additional traits, including additional careers, can be purchased. Character generation is point-buy system.
Every trait or skill is measured in dice: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d12+d4, d12+d6, ..., 2d12, 2d12+d4, ... In contests, both actors roll all the dice for their relevant skill & any applicable traits. Both parties compare the highest single die in their pools. Ties result in a stalemate unless one actor has more skill dice (not trait dice) than the other, in which case the more skilled person wins. If the difference is more than 5, it is an overwhelming success for the winner. If an actor rolls all '1's, it's a botch that causes additional difficulties to self.
In contests against the environment, the actor would roll traits dice + skill dice vs. the narrator's difficulty dice, usually a pair of dice (2d4 for easy tasks, 2d6 for routine, 2d12 for damned difficult, 3d12 for omgwtf, etc...). Difficulty dice can't botch, for obvious reasons.
Example: In order to ambush someone, you'd roll your Speed trait vs. their Sixth Sense skill. However, you're ambushing Mavra, and foxes can also add their race-trait dice to "Sixth Sense" rolls, making it harder. If she knew something was up, she could also add her Mind trait dice for keeping an eye out for signs (but not Observation, since the "Sixth Sense" skill is already being used).
Character Generation
Ironclaw uses point-buy system. Each Trait and skill is rated on the size of the die assigned to them -- dice above d12 spill-over into a second die starting at d4, so d12 -> d12+d4 -> d12+d6.
All characters have a basic six Traits: Race, Career, Mind, Body, Speed and Will. The player assigns each of these dice to these starting traits: d12, d10, d8, d8, d6, d4. By spending build points (or through the use of experience points) you may increase the die for each attribute or skill.
Build points can be used for increasing dice for traits or skills, or for buying Gifts (physical, social or esoteric) such as 'great Wealth' or 'Night Vision'. Your character's race may have some Gifts that come with it automatically, but this deducts from the build points you can spend. You can get more buildpoints by purchasing Flaws. Flaws are either external (inflicted on you once per session or every other session) or internal (must be role-played out).
Characters also have skills, which are much more specific than attributes. Notable skills include Hold-Out (the ability to hide things on your person), weapons skills, gambling, and observation. These also have an assigned die (or dice) that are to be rolled when performing this action.
Setting
Ironclaw is generally set on the island continent of Calabria, though in expansions there are other continents to visit such as Zhongguo. The continent is on the cusp of a change from the medieval period to the renaissance. Swords and armor are still prevalent, but guns and machines are becoming much more common. Literacy is uncommon -- there is no public schooling, but everyone knows someone who can read, and can easily find someone who knows how to write.
The island is split among four major factions, with a fifth controlling Triskellian (a sort of hub-city that controls trade on the island) that ties them all together. The major factions are the Bisclaveret, Avoirdupois, Doloreaux, Phelan and Rinaldi/free guilds. The first three are noble houses, each headed by bloodline of specific race (Wolf, Horse, and Boar respectively.) The Phelan are a number of atavist (barbarian) wolf tribes. Lastly, the Rinaldi are a noble house of foxes that act as patrons to Triskellian. They ensure that the city and it's various trades guilds stay free.
Magic
The setting for Ironclaw is supposed to be low-to-medium magic, so the wizard-types are pretty gimped. While this is disappointing for most knigh/tg/uys and ca/tg/irls, at least it's not dominating the game like every other system out there.
The fluff describes why sorcerers are so rare: magic used to be even more broken than the Mystic Theurge class in D&D 3.5. There were three or four immortal kings called "Autarchs" roaming around and basically using the world as their playpen. Once the Autarchs finally fell, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and the arts of magic were feared and hated for centuries. Magic knowledge wasn't just lost but exorcised from public knowledge. In recent years magic was picked up again, but it is still mistrusted and in it's infancy. All this is for the sake of realism (stop laughing) in what is supposed to feel like a pre-renaissance Europe.
The magic system comes GURPS flavoured, with each wizard having an inventory of practiced rote-spells, bought in "lists." Spellcasting is like any other skill roll, using Mind dice + (wizard career dice) + skill dice, and must buy a separate skill for each unique spell. Spellcasting uses up a personal resource of "magic points." Once a magician has raised their skill level for casting a spell to match the spell's power level (becoming an "adept" at that spell), the magician no longer needs to roll each time to see if it fizzles. (ie.: Level 1 spells are easy right away, but Level 3 spells you need to go d4->d6->d8 before you stop rolling to see if you fumble it).
The starting book mentions four flavours/careers of magic:
- Elementalism, the easiest, is your typical LIGHTNAN BOLT! LIGHTNAN BOLT! spells. Starts out as generic conjuration & evocation pew pew type, but wizards eventually have to specialize in one of the four classic elements.
- White magic, your typical holy miracle stuff, only available to members of the church. Abjuration and heal spells.
- Green & Purple magic (one flavour, two colours) is your pagan cultist type, with enchantments & charms, little bit of divination.
- Thaumaturgy feels more like a D&D magic-user class, with the heavy academics, metamagic and supernatural stuff.
There's also Atavism, which is when the furries get all tribal and shit and stop pretending to be half-human. It means being a scary fucking beast, but also means being a dumb animal; you always add your own Mind dice to the difficulty dice of any Atavist power you're trying to pull off. Almost all of these powers give you some serious RIP AND TEAR shit. Even the passive advantage makes you a scary customer: any effect that would make give an Atavist the "confused" condition gives them the "berzerk" condition instead.
Ironclaw on /tg/
Mostly used as bait by furry trolls, but it has been praised for being a decent system, and also for having a cover ripped off of Slayers. If you see a 73mb Inquisitors Handbook for Dark Heresy on /rs/, odds are you will end up with this. Don't act surprised.
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Jadeclaw, the weeaboo expansion book.
