Kingscairn

Kingscairn is a zine that presents a Troika sphere from the author’s personal game. Kingscairn is an island state that trades in a mysterious mineral called Kingsium that is mined and dived for in a lake located at the top of the island.

It is typical of this sub-genre of British roleplaying fantasy that the value, purpose or substance of this mineral is never explained. Similarly the lazy repeated naming that masquerades as irony.

While not having a tremendous amount of sympathy for the material I found the zine to be quite a helpful guide to what the key elements of creating a Troika sphere are. Something that isn’t explained in the rulebook.

The zine primarily consists of Backgrounds and Locations. Backgrounds are templates for creating new characters so they also serve as an explanation of the archetypes that exist in the sphere and the structure of the society there.

Locations are descriptions of key locations in the sphere as you might expect and here are accompanied by random tables to generate encounters and events at the location which help define the tone and activity of the place being described.

If you’re curious you can get a pay-what-you want PDF version on Itch.