Expanding the Hedgerow Hack

The Hedgerow Hack flew from my keyboard onto the page and now it's available on drivethrurpg - pay what you want (but I think it's worth £1.99 so there!).

​There's a bundle too that includes character sheets. A softback edition will be along soon.

I'm working on a Player Pack that sums up character generation and adds a bunch of extra tables and rules to flesh out your characters and motivate them. Now your animated scarecrow can be all that's left of a Fae knight who loved a maiden who died and her grave is underneath platform 3 at Liefbury Station and once in every Age she returns and waits for the train (or carriage or palfrey, depending on the century) to carry her away and you have to be there before she leaves to tell her you love her  and... oh you get it. Lovely complex roleplaying stuff to distract you from shooting crows and battling Lord Isengrim Von Ulf with flintlock pistols over the midnight rooftops of 17th century Thornyford.

Here's a taster of what's going to be in that booklet:

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An Age Called Home

PCs in The Hedgerow Hack are mysterious strangers who arrive in an Age to solve a mystery or resolve a crisis. But where do they come from?

• From the Age of Swords, when England is being invaded by the merciless Danes?
• From the Age of Plagues, when the Civil War tears the country apart and witchfinders terrify the population
• From the Age of Steel, when the landscape is being torn up to make way for railways and factories?
• From the Age of Ashes, when pollution and soulless urban sprawl blight the land?
• From the Age of Fable, a magical realm of the Fae?

Each PC choose an Age that is the one in which they were born. For Ouzel, this must be the Age of Fable. For Wurzels it is the age in which their scarecrow body was built.

Familiarity

In their Home Age, Human PCs can test INT to know about any (non-supernatural) place or object and test CHA to know about any (mortal) person. If the test is successful, this knowledge can be related to the PC’s background.

For example, in the Age of Swords, Guyon is curious about a group of knights. He tests CHA and the GM says he recognises one of the knights as Cuthbert of Combe, because Cuthbert fought alongside his uncle to fend off a Danish raid some years ago.
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• Gypceans have a body of family lore, so they also count as being native to the Age before the Home Age as well. If their Home Age is the Age of Swords, they do not get this benefit.
  

Fae PCs can test INT or CHA to know about supernatural places, objects or persons.

• Ouzel know about the Age of Fable but at Disadvantage
• Wurzels know about the supernatural denizens and locations of the Age their scarecrow is from, but at Disadvantage

Ouzel and Wurzels do not know where Legendary Locations are: these must be discovered in play.

NB. The GM has the right to declare any location or object to be ‘mysterious’ or person to be ‘strange’ or ‘unknown’ in which case no Stat test will reveal anything about them.

Unfamiliarity
Although Briar Knights always speak and understand the language of the Age they visit, they don’t always grasp its norms and manners.

At the start of a story, PCs in an Age they are not native to roll 1d4, 1d6 or 1d8 depending on how far removed they are. That is the number of CHA tests with mortals they must make at Disadvantage until they settle in.

For example, Guyon is native to the Age of Swords so if he adventures in the Age of Steel he will be at Disadvantage for 1d6 CHA tests because that is ‘two Ages away’ from his Home Age.
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• The Age of Fables is strange for everyone, but its inhabitants don’t respond badly to strangeness, so there is no penalty here.
• Gypceans have a culture that doesn’t change much over time; they never experience more than a 1d4 penalty, regardless of how ‘far’ from their Home Age(s) they travel.

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Player Characters as Children

The Hedgerow Hack takes inspiration from some classic children’s literature of the 1960s and ‘70s – like Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen or Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising (and latterly, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials) – or TV shows like Catweazel and Children of the Stones. If you want to capture this atmosphere, then Heathen Clerks and Tinkers can be children.

If you feature children as PCs, then consider these rules changes:

• Roll different Stats: children are not fully developed so roll STR, DEX and CON on 1d6+6; they can be preciously wise and appealing, so roll WIS, INT and CHA on 2d6+6.
• De-emphasise violence: children are not likely to be attacked with violence, even by Daemons and Goblyns; they will instead be captured and held to ransom. Mortals, even the Witch-Harrow, are more likely to deliver children home to their families than visit harm upon them.
• Out of Action does not mean dead: When child characters are OofA, they do not die; they are captured or left unconscious to be found later.
• Maiming is Temporary: when child-PCs go up a level, they recover any Stats lost to OofA side-effects.
• Allow lucky escapes: children are always wriggling out of bonds and finding unguarded exits; allow child-PCs to roll Gramarye to escape from any perilous situation, through the Hedge if need be.

The advantage of child-PCs in your campaign is that their family life becomes part of the drama. It is important to know what Age the family live in, because children need to slip away from their family to go on adventures with their weird friends.

• In the Age of Swords, children probably have chores on a farm, but might have to escape watchful tutors, chaperones or (if they are nobility) bodyguards or priests.
• In the Age of Plagues, children probably have some schooling to truant or else are apprenticed to a master they need to evade.
• In the Age of Steel, schooling becomes widespread and in the Age of Ashes it is compulsory, with truant officers tracking down children who abscond and social workers getting involved if it happens too often (these people invariably report to the Witch-Harrow, knowingly or unknowingly).

Families can be placed in danger, especially if a Doom Die exhausts while a child-PC is with her family. The Feral Squires are not above threatening to harm a PC’s family, if only to coerce Briar Knights into not interfering with their schemes.

Families will have their duplicates in other ages, albeit without the PC in them and perhaps living in different circumstances. This can make for interesting roleplaying, if a child-PC wants to save or redeem their similar-family in a different Age.
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For example, Guyon’s family in the Age of Swords are contented farmers, but in the Age of Steel the family is being forced into the workhouse after being evicted from their land by Isengrim Von Ulf.

Childhood’s end: All children (but one) grow up. Childhood could end when a PC reaches 10th level or 6th.  GMs should decide in advance how long childhood lasts and whether the PC continues to adventure as a now-adult hero or if they forget about their childhood and settle down to a mortal life of love, labour and a family of their own, watched over by the comrades they no longer recognise.