In Cypher, “fantasy” means medieval fantasy. You’ll have little trouble finding gamers who understand fantasy roleplaying. Most will at least be familiar with dungeon fantasy, popularized by fifty years of games set in dungeons. But you can cover other types as well, as defined by popular literary tales. Epic fantasy is in the style of Tolkien’s stories or tales of King Arthur and swords & sorcery, as embodied by tales of Conan or Elric of Melniboné.
Assuming the PCs didn’t just fall into the world from elsewhere, they (and thus the players) should understand the rules of the setting, at least a bit—not Cypher rules, but the rules of magic and the fantastical elements of the setting. Are faeries real or superstition? Can dead people be brought back to life? Are the gods real? Is there any limit to what a powerful wizard can do? These are the kinds of questions players need answers to so they can understand the world in which their characters live.
You’re the one who has to provide the answers, and that involves anticipating at least some of the questions. Spend some time outlining the parameters of the fantasy elements of the world. Who’s the most powerful wizard? Where does one go to find the mightiest artifact? Where does the most fearsome dragon dwell? How do the normal people fit in? Who lives in the little villages the PCs will come upon, and how do they look at their world? And so on.
Running a fantasy game means, at the core, engaging the PCs in an entertaining story that includes magic and mythic themes. However, those themes and other elements of the game may differ slightly based on the fantasy subgenre you want to play in.
These mechanical and narrative differences function a bit like different laws of physics for storytelling. For example, where a dungeon fantasy hero can usually get back in the fight quickly thanks to fast healing, an epic fantasy hero must endure serious consequences for their wounds, reinforcing the high stakes of their grand struggle.
Dungeon fantasy settings mostly focus on exploration. That is to say, adventurers brave dangers of every sort as they journey to forgotten and lost locations, ancient ruins, crypts, caverns, and dungeons. Good and evil are usually clearly defined. Orcs and demons are evil, and heroes are… well, if not objectively good, at least good within the context of their magical world where evil is objectively real. Sometimes PCs in a dungeon fantasy are described (partly tongue in cheek) as “murder hobos,” but that comparison is only possible when made to real-world modern and historical scenarios.
Scope and Narrative: Dungeon fantasy focuses heavily on exploration and combat in dangerous locales. Player characters are likely a band of individuals with very different strengths and weaknesses who regularly face challenges that include bizarre monsters, life-draining undead, traps, curses, and potentially dragons or gods. The rewards usually include treasures of gold, gems, jewelry, and magic.
Role of Magic: Magic is overt and pervasive in a dungeon fantasy. You probably want the PCs to discover at least a few magical artifacts (along with their magic cyphers), like swords (which usually give an increase in damage or an asset to attacks), wands (which usually contain a dramatic power with a small number of uses), or rings (which usually have an always-on power that works like a free skill or asset); see dungeon fantasy artifacts for examples of these and more.
Foci that involve extreme magical effects, such as Rides the Lightning and Blazes With Fire, are perfectly suitable. These powers might be channeled from a god, a birthright, or a kind of magic the character pursues. Manifest cyphers usually take the form of potions, scrolls, runes, and charms.
In a dungeon fantasy game, the PCs likely look to magic to solve their problems, and it’s prevalent enough to possibly do so. Severe injuries are often healed by magic rather than long rest periods. Need to get into a well-guarded castle? A teleport spell is something that the characters will at least consider. Need to find a specific object? Divination magic. Dead character? Magic can bring them back. If this approach to magic doesn’t appeal, perhaps I can interest you in some swords & sorcery gaming… An easy way to increase the amount of magic in a fantasy campaign is to increase the cypher limit for all characters by 1 at tier 1, and again at tiers 3 and 5.
Although there’s room in a dungeon fantasy game to have a well-developed world, let’s focus here on the titular dungeons. You’ll probably want to sketch a map and make notes of what’s in each area. This location-based approach takes a bit of prep time before the PCs go exploring, but once you’ve figured out what’s in the dungeon, you might have three or four sessions of material worked out, so this kind of adventure encourages you to front-load your prep and then relax a bit.
Dungeons are rarely just random rooms to explore, even if that’s what it seems like. They were typically built for an original (or current) purpose. Some might still have that purpose, or they might be abandoned but still interesting, with challenges, inhabitants, traps, and treasure.
Different environmental factors can completely change a dungeon adventure. Consider the following ideas to get you started.
When prepping a dungeon fantasy game, keep the following bits of advice in mind:
Treasure Be Thy Reward: PCs explore a variety of different locations (dungeons) for various reasons—but often to find treasure. It might be a vault or a tomb, but really, the players will expect treasure in any dungeon. It’s a part of the overall vibe of dungeon crawling: you explore dungeons, fight monsters, and gain treasure. Treasure is usually guarded by creatures, traps, or magic (or all three) and comes in the form of money, valuables like gems and jewelry, and/or magic.
You can alter the magic feel of your setting by deciding that some kinds of magic (like necromancy or healing) don’t count toward a character’s cypher limit.]
Darkness Is Dangerous: When darkness descends, dangerous entities emerge and attempt to consume the suddenly blind adventurers. These entities could simply be goblins and goblin-adjacent creatures that can see well in the dark, but they could also (or instead) be eldritch things that lurk in void places, or something else. In any case, you can enforce strict tracking of light sources so PCs understand how dangerous darkness truly is, you can ignore it, or you can make the dungeons already well-lit. Probably the best option is to do some of each.
Wandering Monsters Out There: Fell beasts are always on the move. The longer the PCs explore and remain inside the dungeon, the more chance they have of being found by such creatures. To this end, separate from room details, you might have a list of monsters that PCs can encounter in this fashion, and either select the ones that interrupt their travels (or rest) or just roll randomly. As another option, you can have inhabitants you’ve placed in one location move to another, dictated by their nature and the circumstances. Do they come when they hear noise? Do they wander aimlessly? Up to you.
Puzzles and Traps: Classically, dungeons don’t just have monsters—they have traps and tricks and other challenges. Subtle environmental clues may point to hidden traps and puzzles. (Obvious puzzles might also be on display, of course.) Even the physical act of mapping the dungeon and navigating its strange architecture is a meta puzzle that rewards PCs who take the time to do so. You can help by giving them environmental clues such as, “The floor slopes a bit to the west,” “The air is colder near the east wall,” “Faint chisel marks show where a section of the wall was moved,” and so on.
These clues might point to hidden areas, including traps and puzzles, or at least to secret passages and rooms. If it’s a trap, make sure it has some sort of “tell” (like a smudge, a scrape mark, a faint sound, or the like) that a perceptive PC can notice. Why does a dungeon have so many traps and puzzles? They make the most sense in guarded tombs or ancient vaults. But sometimes a monster will protect its lair with them.
Strange Magic Prevails: Although a dungeon can just be a natural cave system or a bandit lair in the wilderness, the classic dungeon is more than that. Frequently, some sort of magical spell, curse, demonic presence, intrusion from an alternate reality, and so on has altered a basic rule of existence. Options include but by no means are limited to:
Descent to Darkling Castle: An archmage’s magic pulled a mighty fortress underground. In the intervening centuries, the surviving structure’s crumbling, echoing halls were colonized by malign creatures that creep and breed in lightless places, especially goblins. But other evils gathered in what came to be called Darkling Castle as well—including the original owner, whom the archmage failed to kill when the castle was pulled down. Not quite dead, nor quite alive, this entity has slowly festered, becoming a creature of icy elemental fury.
Now, tiny “rimekin" spill forth on the surface each night, seeking the warmth and life of creatures and people in nearby villages. A call goes out for heroes bold enough to venture down the ancient cracks to Darkling Castle to find the rimekin source and destroy it, if they can.
The Labyrinth of Stars: A cursed and powerful artifact was recently recovered by a lich called Nyss the Starsworn. With it, the lich can greatly expand her power. Brave adventurers are sought to relieve her of the dark object.
Nyss’s redoubt lies at the center of the Lunar Scar, a desolate, crater-pocked region containing the ruins of a lost prehuman civilization, and where the stars (arranged in strange new constellations) are always visible. Nyss claimed the largest ruin at the scar’s center for herself some decades earlier.
Adventurers who brave the scar find that Nyss’s lair is a labyrinthine structure. Some of it holds decayed, inscrutable remnants of the prehuman entities that built the place, with others filled with undead minions, crypts, and experiments of the lich. Eventually they find her in the tower at the labyrinth’s center, where Nyss works without rest, using her newly stolen artifact to draw down power from the stars.
Swords & sorcery is a “rawer” setting that focuses on surviving in a morally ambiguous world often corrupted by magic. Game locations include crumbling empires where civilization is a thin veneer, decadent cities ruled by corrupt aristocrats, forgotten ruins guarded by unspeakable horrors, or lands plagued by ancient, malevolent forces.
PCs tend to take on the roles of hard-bitten mercenaries, grizzled treasure-finders, or even antiheroes who understand that fair fights are for fools. Sometimes, survival itself is what’s at stake, rather than adventuring for gold or to see through some noble quest—though some may still try. But scenarios should force them to pay attention to the here and now, because maybe the stakes for a particular game are to escape a prison dungeon or a rampaging monster, gain revenge on a treacherous patron, or steal a cursed artifact from someone using it to sicken the PCs (and everyone else). If some larger good comes of that, it’s usually incidental.
Scope and Narrative: Players generally play some form of warrior, with spellcasters being the exception. The PCs are typically human. Nonhumans (if any) are seen as untrustworthy and odd. Scenarios often involve facing evil NPC sorcerers, dark cults, and still-extant populations of prehuman monsters. Heroes often rely on individual toughness and martial prowess rather than spells.
Role of Magic: Sorcery is typically a corrupting force, usually wielded by sinister villains, cultists, antediluvian creatures, demons, and nefarious gods, making it more of a threat than a tool for heroes. That’s because it might corrupt the user, demand blood sacrifices, attract malign entities, or deplete a user’s sanity. However, if magic is embraced by a PC, it usually takes longer to use and creates less overt effects. Magical artifacts are rare, and most have a dreadful aspect to them; see swords & sorcery artifacts for examples.
Foci that involve extreme magical effects are usually not available to PCs; instead, the swords & sorcery suggested foci list is more restricted to fit a low-fantasy tone.
Swords & sorcery settings are typically a bit grim and dark, because that’s how we usually think of the so-called dark ages of our world (whether accurate or not).
Often, a kingdom or region has a reputation for a single thing. For example, the people of Navaria forge the best steel, and all the greatest thieves hail from the hills of Quarol. Although there are lands where conditions are good and the people wholesome, there are likely even more places that are impoverished, subjugated by cruel nobles, or beset by harsh conditions. Cities in particular are often overcrowded, filthy, and rough, filled with beggars and thieves and lorded over by wealthy merchants or corrupt administrators.
There may also be huge swaths of wilderness with few traces of civilization. Such regions hold most of the nonhuman creatures of the world, as well as the mysteries the PCs will want to find. These include sources of strange magic and great treasures, as well as foul things left over from ancient times, and of course the towers and keeps of dangerous sorcerers.
The history of the world often includes multiple past civilizations. Typically, these rose to (often decadent) grandeur and then collapsed, leaving ruined structures and cities, especially temples of now-forgotten gods. The civilizations might have been human or prehistoric nonhuman races like serpent people, elves (usually with a strong “dark fae” vibe), or Lovecraftian monsters. Lovecraftian gods and monsters weave well into a swords & sorcery setting.
When the PCs go on adventures, whether to put raiders to the sword or explore an ancient ruin, what they’re looking for primarily is gold. That means you’ll very likely want to use actual coins, as opposed to the price category system that is the default in Cypher. PCs will want to know exactly how many gold coins they earn from protecting the caravan or what the rich noble had in his treasury. Likewise, they’ll need to know exactly how much they spend on a week of carousing after the adventure is done, down to the copper piece.
Rather than fighting to defeat an evil lord on an epic quest, PCs in a swords & sorcery game might find themselves, at least initially, simply trying to earn enough coins to pay for their supper.
When running a swords & sorcery game, keep the following advice in mind.
The Struggle Is Immediate, Not Epic: A game tends to deal with protagonists struggling against a grim and gritty world. Rather than fighting to defeat an evil lord on an epic quest, PCs in a swords & sorcery game might find themselves, at least initially, simply trying to earn enough coins to pay for their supper. Lack of resources, including food or freedom, might be what initially motivates the characters. In other words, the stakes are low and usually only important to a few (maybe only the PCs).
Show, Don’t Tell, the Unsettling: Information is at a premium. PCs may learn more about your world after they first encounter something new, but each time they face a new horror, don’t simply name the monster. Rather, describe it by its actions, its visage, and how it makes them (or other NPCs nearby) feel. For example, when initiating an encounter with a creature whose kind roamed in ancient times (a Tyrannosaurus rex) that attacks while the PCs explore a temple, you might describe it like so: “A colossal beast bursts through the temple wall with a gut-vibrating impact; dust falls like snow from the vaulted ceiling. The creature’s head hangs a dozen feet above the ground, split with a toothed maw large enough to fit any two of you inside. Tiny upper arms contrast with lower, powerful scaly legs thicker than trees. Its roar thunders through the temple like a hammer, its hot breath smelling of something ancient and reptilian.”
Undermine Feelings of Safety: PCs need to have successes for a game to be fun. However, you can create small moments of uncertainty to keep them on their toes. One way to do this is to let the characters find a safe house, a helpful NPC, a spring running with clear water, or some other useful thing and gain the benefit thereby. However, the next time they try to gain that benefit again, it’s gone—the safe house has burned down or is full of strange green insects, the helpful NPC has been run out of town or hanged, the spring has dried or runs with yellowish ichor, and so on.
Make Magic a Cause for Dread: To some extent, PCs who are Sorcerers, Witches, or Priests already understand that their magic comes dearly, at least in time and often in other ways. However, anytime magic is found or used, you have an opportunity to iterate on the theme.
Here’s a simple way to do this. When a PC uses magic (either a class ability or because they must use a magical mechanism to gain access to a location), introduce a GM intrusion that complicates things. Maybe the magic calls a ghost or animates a nearby corpse that feeds on magic. Perhaps to use the magic this particular time, for whatever reason, the PCs must energize it with fresh blood or human organs. Maybe the magic use scars a character in a way that won’t be easy to hide or erase. And so on.
Embrace Moral Ambiguity and Self-Interest: Things in a swords & sorcery game are usually not as clear-cut as good versus evil. Quests often come down to greed, necessity, or revenge, possibly requiring PCs to choose the lesser of two evils. There are a few ways to set this up. A good option is to reveal that a patron who hired the PCs is a cruel tyrant in some way, with very real and possibly dangerous shortcomings. Another way to hit this theme is to reveal that the sacred relic they need to accomplish their task requires a sacrifice, maybe one equal to the wrong they’re trying to right (or at least more dear to the PCs). Faced with such additional information and choices, PCs may betray an employer, destroy the relic as the greater evil, or even walk away from a job altogether because the cost of doing otherwise—at least to them—is too high.
Crypt of the Red Colossus: PCs begin the adventure hired by or otherwise forced into the service of an aging prince whose small kingdom has come under threat of evil magic from the Red Colossus. The PCs’ mandate is to protect the prince and, if possible, eliminate the evil responsible; if they don’t their lives are forfeit, one way or the other.
For centuries, the Red Colossus stood silent at the kingdom’s edge, a cursed tomb for a sorcerer-king long dead. Entombed no longer, the prince’s ancient ancestor has returned. His heralds are a horde of scarlet-scaled horrors, cultists smeared in red paint, and crop failures.
The Squirming Tide: Lost in a desert intent on killing the PCs with endless heat and desiccating sand, the characters stumble upon a forgotten city. Replete with living residents, gardens, and water-filled fountains, the place at first seems like a miraculous sanctuary. But it soon becomes obvious something’s off. The city’s residents drift through their days in languorous trances, addicted to a silvery powder harvested from some undercity source. This drug-fueled daze keeps them willingly oblivious to the truth—something hungry swims in the undercity drainage ducts, a horror that requires regular sacrifices from the dream-stupefied populace.
As newcomers, the PCs are feted, offered silver powder they can use to jump-start their own addictions, and, inevitably, selected as the next sacrifices to appease the monstrous appetite of the squirming tide. Surviving means escaping back into the desert or facing what lies in the sodden depths under the city.
The default epic fantasy setting focuses on grand heroism. That is to say, brave heroes face overwhelming odds and win in the end. Good and evil are usually clearly defined. Orcs and demons are evil, and heroes are good. Often, the evil is represented by bad guys in great numbers. That doesn’t mean games always need to be about fighting, but rather that there is always a threat to cope with, and the threat is always some dire evil.
Scope and Narrative: Epic fantasy has a massive scope driven by large-scale narratives and themes of fate. These sweeping stories thrust characters into a wider world where the conflict between good and evil is central. Themes often revolve around prophecy, destiny, and ancient evils, preparing characters for dramatic final battles against powerful foes like shadow kings, dragons, evil gods and their lieutenants (demigods in their own right), and/or demon lords. Frequently, an epic fantasy campaign culminates in a life-or-death struggle with the fate of the kingdom, or the whole world, at stake.
Role of Magic: Magic is rare, profound, and powerful in an epic fantasy. Magic in the hands of characters may be slower to access but, when fully realized, more powerful. Artifacts are rarer than those found in a dungeon fantasy, but also potentially more powerful and tied to a larger narrative purpose or goal within the setting; see epic fantasy artifacts for examples. Manifest cyphers come in the form of herbal concoctions created by knowledgeable folk from the living earth, or mythical runes recovered from an ancient time now lost.
The list of suggested foci falls between the wide-open options of dungeon fantasy and the restricted choices of swords & sorcery, including magical foci but omitting the most extreme options.
Frequently, an epic fantasy campaign culminates in a life-or-death struggle with the fate of the kingdom, or the whole world, at stake.
If someone throws out the word “quest,” you’re probably dealing with epic fantasy. The whole campaign is a steadily elevating story leading to a grand finale. Although the quest likely has many steps, they all lead to a single deed.
Some possible quests might be:
The quest probably has many parts and some diversions (sometimes called side quests). For example, on the way to slaying the dragon, the PCs must find a great weapon to use against it and learn a magical secret to protect themselves from its deadly breath. An important ally must be convinced to help them, and they need an ancient tome to learn the secret way into its deep subterranean lair. The dragon might also have servitors that must be overcome, traps and magical wards protecting its home, and maybe young the PCs must fight.
Along the way, the PCs might need to give aid to victims of the horrible monster or find ways to help repair what its depredations have wrought. A false dragonslayer (or just a wannabe) must be convinced to go home, and a cult that worships the dragon must be scattered before it causes more harm. These could all be side quests. Epic fantasy often features humans but may include other playable species like dwarves, elves, halflings, and orcs. Traditionally, the various species might not mix as frequently as one might find in a dungeon fantasy campaign. The different folk learning that they must work together to overcome a dark threat is a common theme in epic fantasy.]
Keep the following in mind when running an epic fantasy game.
Lowly Beginnings, Maybe: Some epic fantasy settings embrace the concept of lowly nobodies rising to great stature and power. “Zero to hero” is the phrase sometimes used. If you go this route, even for characters that come from a great lineage, one way to demonstrate this is to begin play with PCs as if each is a fantasy version of a real-world character (which is a core character plus a descriptor plus an additional profession skill). As play continues, you can add type and finally focus, as seems organic to your campaign.
At the other end of the spectrum, you can make use of the options for advancing a character beyond tier 6.
Elevate the Stakes: Main questlines should stretch beyond how the PCs might enrich or empower themselves. How events play out should eventually affect the fates of other regions, kingdoms, and possibly even the balance between good and evil. One way to do this is to ensure that the MacGuffin that drives the plot isn't just treasure, but an artifact of immense power that could decide a war. Another way is to make the death of an NPC ally (or a PC!) not just a sad end, but a tragic sacrifice that fuels a legend or turns the tide of a desperate battle.
Importance of Prophecy: For some epic fantasy settings, prophecy and destiny are part and parcel of the story and may interweave with PC character arcs. To inject such things into your game, introduce ancient texts, wise hermits, or mystical visions that hint at a greater purpose for the characters. Give at least one PC (or the party collectively) a destiny or heritage that connects them to a grand conflict—you can even present it as a character arc.
Build Grand Settings With Deep History: An epic fantasy often comes with an epic history, providing a sense of scale that makes the world feel vast and authentic. This requires more work ahead of time, but you can populate the world with distinct elven kingdoms, dwarven strongholds, human empires, and untamed wildernesses, each with its own allies, enemies, current events, and at least some history of import. Show the impact of time and history on the landscape, including ancient ruins, sacred groves, and battle-scarred cities and fortresses (and come up with what wars and/or incidents caused those scars). Make travel a significant journey that exposes the PCs to the breadth of the world and its diverse kingdoms and regions.
Epic fantasy campaigns are usually built from a series of lesser adventures, each of which contributes to the overall arc. Smaller adventures might include the following.
The Titan’s Crown: Legends say the whole continent rests atop the carapace of a colossal, slumbering giant. Turns out those stories are true—a titan of the ancient days, bound by runes scribed into a golden crown, sleeps away the epochs. When she wakes and doffs her crown, the world is prophesized to end. That’s not supposed to happen for thousands of years (or, one hopes, never). However, a power as old as the titan—a being called many things, including the Scorned One—has returned to the world. He’s built an army of burrowing dim dwarves whose eyes shine with night and nihilistic glee.
To put a stop to this growing threat, the PCs must find five keys—each also a weapon of great magical power—to lock the Endbringer back in the void from which he came before the world pays the price for his desire to be reunited with a lover that spurned him.
Shall Magic Die?: The queen wastes away toward seemingly inevitable death, the victim of a malicious curse. Should she perish, prophecy says that magic too will die, leaving the world a hollow shell and casting the various kingdoms into barbarism and shadow. The curse was delivered as a “gift” from an ancient kingdom at the other end of the continent. The gift was a silver mirror that seemed fair but shattered when she gazed into it, releasing the blight as it stole fragments of her soul.
To save the queen and perhaps all the fair lands, the PCs must journey across the breadth of the continent, braving strange lands and unknown regions that lie between, find the one who crafted the mirror, and retrieve what it stole, now bound to a glittering silver ring.