Fight On!

Progress continues on Witches of the Wenderweald. The hi-fi draft is complete, and now comes my favorite part: the art.

I’m experimenting with styles, inks, compositions, and layouts to make this feel like something entirely new—hence the India ink sketch above. Shoutout to Toby Penney for the recommendation.

Last week, I showed how players “level” without xp.

This week, blood and guts. Let’s talk combat.

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There’s too much preamble to fighting in RPGs for me. If I’m committing to a fight, I want to get to the blood.

So I cut the fat from my favorite systems down to the bone. For the Wenderweald, there’s no initiative. No reactions. No gaming the action economy.

You get one action each round. Attacks always hit.

Ready for more? Roll initiat—nope. Not here. Fight on!

When you encounter a foe, you roll to see who controls the moment. No initiative ladder. No waiting 20 minutes for your turn.

Test your Wit with a d20. Win, and you choose: strike first from the dark or flee (no shame in running—it’s often the right call).

Mechanically, the winner makes their first attack with advantage. That’s it. Next phase. If you don’t want to fight, flee.

Combat has four phases. You get one action, taken in one of those phases: move, attack, or use witchcraft.

That’s it.

Your choice determines when it happens. Move, and you act first—but now you’re exposed. Loose an arrow, and you’d better drop the Stag Knight, because he’s coming for you in the next phase.

No combos. No bloated turns. No safety net of “I’ll just do everything.”

Fight, flee, or die

Distance isn’t counted in squares or feet. It’s descriptive and based on what you’re doing and what your enemies are doing in response.

• Close — you can hear their breath.

• Near — you can see the weapon, not the eyes.

• Far — you’re already wondering if running will work.

Movement works the same way. It’s a few strides, a short dash, or a long run.
Enough to matter. Not enough to save you if you hesitate.

It’s all movement — run far, dash near, or get in close. You’re moving, and you go first (serpentine!)

If you want long tactical puzzles, there are plenty of games for that. This game is built to go wrong in seconds.

There’s no AC. No to-hit rolls. Attacks always land.

All weapons use attack dice from d4 to d12. Roll to inflict harm. Unarmed attacks roll a d3 (that’s a d6/2).

Some weapons have special properties.

• Blast weapons inflict harm on anything close. These are bombs, grenades, and some pernicious spells.

• Brutal weapons roll 2 attack dice and keep the highest result. They’re written like this: dx > dx.

• Savage weapons deliver relentless trauma. If they roll the max result, you roll again and add the result to the total. They’re written like this: dx!.

Here’s the armory you can choose from:

Even if you move or duck behind cover to loose an arrow, nothing stops the Kratt from coming at you.

If you spend your turn attacking, that’s your focus. Defense is secondary.

But instead of suffering -2 modifiers or risking opportunity attacks, just step down your attack die.

So if your attack die is a d8, now it’s a d4. If it’s a d4, you're down to your mits — d3.

That’s it. I said it was simple. The enemy still rolls, the game keeps moving, and there’s always next round to make your escape.

This game coming together much faster than expected. That’s thanks to the good folks supporting me here and over on Discord.

All that to say, there’s a 100% free hi-fi version of this game coming soon…very soon.

Watch for the Wenderweald watching.

—Odinson