The Dark Eye

Das Schwarze Auge
RPG published by Ulysses Games
Authors	Droemer Knaur Schmidt Spiele
First Publication	1984 (1st edition) 1988 (2nd ed) 1992 (3rd ed) 2001 (4th ed) 2015 (5th ed)

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Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) is what Germany equipped on their character sheet where Americans wrote "Dungeons & Dragons". It's pretty much THE fantasy role-playing game in Germany, it's been around since the 1980s, and it's in 5th edition. And it exists because TSR said "we will not do business with the krauts."

There was one shit translation effort, but in the 2010s there was a kickstarter to raise funds to bribe fund DSA's publishers into making a decent English translation for 5th edition. Despite the lack of translations of the games themselves, the video game adaptions Realms of Arkania, Drakensang, Memoria and Blackguards were all translated and 3 out of 4 of those are considered solid entries into their genre. All of these games dropped the supertitle in translation as a result.

The default campaign setting is the world of "Dere" (an anagram of "Erde," or "Earth"), on the bog-standard fantasy feudal Europe continent of Aventurien. It's got the usual complement of fantasy races: orcs, Tolkien-like elves, lizardmen, goblins, kobolds, giants, etc. It's got spellcasters and even their own Elminster named "Borbarad", and the technology level is somewhere below muskets and blackpowder. Over the sea far to the west is the golden land of Myranor where it looks more like Final Fantasy games with a decadent and declining wealthy empire, airships, and catgirls. A third continent and setting is the Hollow World of Tharun which has an Edgar-Rice-Burroughs feel in island archipelagos.

Species

• Humans come in different kinds of Not- flavors. You got the Not-Germans (Middlelanders), the Not-French (Horasians), Not-Turks (Tulamids), Not-Arabs (Novadi), Not-Vikings (Thorwals), Not-Inuits (Nivese), Not-Jewish Not-Monglos (Norbards), etc.. Though the differences come through fluff and not crunch. Most cultures see men and women as equals, with only a few favoring one or the other.

• Elves come in three flavors:
  • Wood Elves - Hippy snubs who dislike humans and act high and mighty.
  • Shire Elves - They've arranged themselves with the human civilization, they might not all like us, but what are they gonna do about it?
  • Firn Elves - Badass frost elves who take no shit from any outsider, also master skiers, fighting for their survival in the cold and unforgiving north.

Yep, there are no High Elves, cause there once were and they fucked up, so the survivors went back to hugging trees. Immortal until murdered or until they fulfill their destiny at which point they decide to just die.

• Dwarves come in four types:
  • Anvil Dwarves - Here there be Gimli. Smithing and fighting, fighting and smithing.
  • Gem Dwarves - The most jewish of them all.
  • Ore Dwarves - Big into mining. Really big. Like, that's all they do.
  • Hill Dwarves - The Hobbits of DSA. Comfy dwarves with a tendency of being british as fuck.

• Achaz are Aztec lizard people, you know the drill. Long lost, ancient civilization, old weird gods. Also they do well in crystal magic shenanigans.

• Orcs are shorter than humans, hairy as balls savages. Treat their women like cattle, live in a caste system of: slaves (includes the gals)< farmers and stuff < warriors < the elite warriors < chieftain and shamans.

• Goblins are the orcs shorter cousins, also hairy as balls. Though most goblins live in tribes all over the northern half of Aventuria, some goblins live in human cities (most notably Festum and Uhdenberg) and do all the labors that no humans wants to do, like rat catching. The tribal goblins live in a matriarchy with each clan being led by an elderly shaman (male shamans are pretty much unheard of). They believe in the two gods Mailam Rekdai (a bodacious goblin female with a boar's head) who is the goddess of fertility and peace and Orvai Kurim (male goblin with a boar's head) the god of hunting and tribal feuds. Goblins do not honor their deceased. Like, at all. Once a goblin drops dead, he isn't considered a goblin anymore and often ends up just being fed to the pigs. Yeah, they also ride boars, or mountain goats depending on the location.

The World

As mentioned before, the setting is the fictional world of Dere, created when the Ur-God Los and the Ur-Giant Sumu had an epic brawl that ended in Sumu's death. Her body became the world and from her blood came the Titans (some of which would later join the pantheon of the 12 Gods), while Los' tears turned into gods.

Playing the Game

Chargen used to be dierolls and classes, but in 4th edition they changed a lot of mechanics and went to skills based. Then they had a D&D 3.0 moment and had to re-release a fixed version of 4th edition, which fans call "4.1 edition". Version 5.0 was recently released after a public Beta. Very few changes to the rules happened, the basic is how talent checks at a disadvantage work now, basically the minimum disadvantage is tripled, but the way the math plays out now allows for a more accurate representation. In short, Germans tweaked the math on how well you can build a table without the proper tools. Also, there is now a magic resistance against divine/demonic damage, so demon pacteerers and priests of the thirteenth god are no longer absolute nightmare fuel for even the most experienced heroes.

Success checks are rolled on 3d20, and each die has to roll under one of the three appropriate attributes for the situation. Character attributes are: Courage, Wisdom, Intuition, Charisma, Dexterity, Agility, Constitution, Strength, and Speed. Failing on one or more of these dice tell you exactly how you fail (i.e.: you were agile enough to climb, but got too tired on the way up. or you had enough constitution to last, but couldn't find handholds that lead all the way to the top).

Characters

Because of the GURPS-like point-buy system, characters can grow to be pretty wild.

Basically, characters buy skills, attributes, special abilities, spells, perks and all the other stuff with adventure points, which are awarded similar to experience points, but can be directly spent rather than waiting for a level-up.

Character development is pretty open after the creation. There are no classes, only professions, which are sets of starting skills and abilities which almost all can be learned later in the game as well. The amount of available professions is mind boggling and (in true kraut fashion) are categorized into Combat, Wilderness, Social, Magic, Priestly, Scholars and Crafting, and go through all social strata, from whores (gender equality applies) and beggars to knights and royal guards. This of course opens the possibilities to adventuring as anything. Wanna play a baker who wants to see the world? CHECK! A former boy prostitute trying to steal and sweet talk his way through the criminal underworld? YEPP! A good-for-nothing (a literal profession in the rule book) who just wants to blow his inheritance on becoming a hero? CAN DO!

Skills are wild and all over the place. Especially knowledge and crafting skills can be anything you can dream of. Characters that specialize in these fields sometimes need additional sheets just to list all their skills because the default sheet could not fit them all. The point is: if you find a teacher, you can learn it. With the exception of magic potential. Only people born and raised to be spell casters will ever be. Some special people like half elves can learn some basic spells throughout their lives but it will be hard. And in order to learn the skills that a certain profession starts with by default, a mighty amount of adventure points, so you better think twice whether you want to dualspec your knight into a shipwright. For some characters, it's necessary to branch into other stuff. Mostly for all mages and most scholars, since they are fresh out of college and need to learn to not suck at everything else. If you chose one of the few gods that will let you keep your astral body, you can even be a priest and a mage, giving you access to two different kinds of magic with two seperate mana pools.

This diversity of professions and skills, combined with the german spirit, of course means that YES, there IS an official adventure that allows you to win by accounting.

The Gods

In contrast to our own world, where the existence of true divinity cannot be proven (or disproven if you will), the gods of TDE are very real. The most well-known or rather mostly worshipped ones are the Twelve. They are:

• Praios - God of the Sun, the Law and Truth. Hates magic with a passion.
• Tsa - Goddess of Life.
• Boron - God of Death and Dreams.
• Rondra - Goddess of Battle, Honour and Lightning.
• Firun - God of Ice, Snow and Survival.
• Hesinde - Goddess of Wisdom and Magic. Fuck you, Praios.
• Efferd - God of Water and Storm.
• Rahja - Goddess of Sex and Wine and Tits.
• Phex - God of Trade and Screwing other people over.
• Peraine - Goddess of Harvest.
• Ingerimm - God of Smithing and Fire and Metal.
• Travia - Goddess of Being Nice To Each Other, Harvest and Hospitality.

Staying true to Germans' love of hierarchies and bureaucracy, these twelve gods themselves are not super powerful all by themselves and merely inhabit twelve thrones associated with their sphere of influence (it is even hinted that the positions have shifted multiple times). Gods that exist but do not inhibit one of the twelve thrones are considered "demi-gods" not because of their nature, but because they cannot supply their priests and shamans with an as big supply of divine power (their priests' mana-pools are halved by default). And because we are big into numerology there also exists a thirteenth god. His sphere of influence was power and domination. When he tried to stay true to that, the other twelve just chained him into the starless breach so he can chill out until the thirteenth age. And they also destroyed his name, so is just called the nameless god. And ADDITIONALLY to that, every of the twelve gods has a dark flip side, an arch demon who is their perverted image, so the flip side of Rondra is a demon of slaughter and unfair combat so honourless, even Khorne would be pissed. Whether the thirteenth god has a flip side is unknown, but there is a myth of a being called the demon sultan.

Magic

Magic in Dere is pretty straightforward and takes its notes from the "useful things to have" book of magic, where spells are more like a 120-piece toolbox and less like a glowing rocket launcher. From deciding to cast a spell to actually casting it, the caster can make quite some decisions on how to define the outcome. Spells can have most components (duration, cast time, components) modified spontaneously (called "spontaneous Modifications") Some spells also have alternative versions that a more experienced caster can utilize to, for example, turn a spell from a single gust of wind into a continuous wind as long as the caster can breathe out, or a simple telekinesis spell into a movement constricting inhibition field.

Also, spells arent organized into classes, only in difficulty to learn (increasing the adventure points necessary to achieve a certain skill level) and "Representation", indicating whether a spell is known in the different forms spell casting can take, from standard boring Guild mages' way, to witches and druids, dwarven, Kobold, high elven, Achatz etc. with some spells being only accessible to some specific professions or races. Every representation brings its own components. For example, druids need to have bare feet contact to the ground, Achatz' crystalcasters needs a special kind of crystal for each type of spell, Kobolds can only cast if it's funny (but they are very mischievous, so they might not have taken a situation seriously in the first place) etc. Also, some neat tricks can be applied, like Guild Mages being able to modify spells for half the disadvantage on the check, witches being able to amplify spells with emotions, giving even more flavour and customization to spells.

All this together boils down to spells being crafted by the player themselves and well thought-out. In combat, most spells are useless because of their casting time and direct damage spells are actually very rare. There are a few basic spells like speed or armor buffs that always help in a fight, but unless the group has a master of multi-target combat or the GM is so generous to NOT throw enemies at the casters, they better start learning how to fight.