Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Lineage: Epoch Edition

Lineage: Epoch Edition (WYH Games)
Written & Designed by G. Johnson

You can get Lineage here.

Additionally, I used the following “quality of life” supplements: Family Tree Worksheet and For the Ages.

Like Ex Novo, Anamnesis, or Artefact, this game is more like a tool to aid in worldbuilding that is also fun to play with. If you’re searching for something parallel to a character-focused adventure, this isn’t that, though you could use this to establish a monarchy in your fantasy kingdom with a rich backstory for both the people and the land. What Lineage is, is a royal family history builder. Using a couple six-sided dice, you will roll on a series of tables to determine everything from the descriptive sobriquet of the ruling royal to how many children they have to the events that occur within the kingdom during their reign to the cause of their death.

The mechanics aren’t much more complicated than that. You begin the game by coming up with a starting monarch and, how they rose to power/what the land was like just before they took over. From there, you go through the tables, rolling dice and recording what happens. Some events will indicate an increase in one of three statuses: Weak, Dishonorable, and Unstable. If any of these numbers reach an 8, then the royal family line collapses, opening the door for a new monarch or, in fact, an entirely new system of governance. Additionally, you can end your game if you’ve come to a natural conclusion. That was what happened with my game when a combination of poor luck for successive monarchs made a random event feel like it was signaling the end of an era.

There’s not much more to explain about how the game works, so I will jump into my actual play. I came up with the idea of a kingdom composed of five islands colonized by The Western Lands. Over centuries dissent had been growing and finally resulted in a full-blown rebellion. The Western colonists were sent packing, and the newly formed United Islands of Uvtopis was born. The islands are Vaeril, Phyrra, Magbella, Ialantha, and Vuduin. The first member of the newly formed ruling family is Rydel, a leader in the rebellion who led the final charge against the Western forces. He’s reluctant to take the throne, fears recreating the system of their oppressors, and spends his reign pushing against that, earning him the sobriquet of “The Reformer.”

The Reign of Rydel the Reformer

Rydel married Kavrala, a daughter of a foreign noble house in Malarue, a peninsular nation about two days boat ride from Uvtopis. They would have four children, including twins who died within their first year. During Rydel’s reign, he was confronted with the challenge of dealing with ghosts from the past. Archaeologist Raina Calen discovered ruins of one of the oldest cities on Vaeril; it had been buried early during the occupation. She found inactive ember hulks among the ruins, giant magic-powered golems used to brutalize rebellion. Some in the islands wanted the hulks used as a defense system, but Rydel said they were tools of the people they had banished and should be destroyed. And so they were.

Tragedy struck less than a decade into their marriage when Kavrala died during the birth of the twins. The islands entered a year-long period of mourning over the passing of their first queen. When that year ended, Rydel declared The Festival of Life, a rolling celebration of the abundance of wildlife and food the islands provided its people with. There were animal parades, plentiful community meals, and performing arts displays that made each island culturally unique. 

There was also a significant change in the relationship between the monarch and labor. Uvtopisian philosophers argued that the king should be given near total control of labor placement on the islands using a long-term plan of development to guide these migrations. Rydel was not eager to exercise such authority, but after touring the islands and seeing how poor the infrastructure had been allowed to become, he agreed to take on these powers, hoping his heirs would not abuse them and that, hopefully, they would be removed without strife one day.

The nation of Chavray sent emissaries to Uvtopis for an audience with Rydel. They said their people have been inspired by Rydel and the movement that liberated the islands. Chavray shares the same continent as the Western Kingdom and only recently gained independence. They are frightened of potential retaliation and wish to become a vassal state of Uvtopis, meaning their safety would become the responsibility of Rydel and his heirs. Not all islanders are keen on this relationship, but Rydel feels sympathy for their plight and agrees to sign a treaty with them.

Rydel’s great shame came when his eldest child, Pador, became haughty & arrogant, abusing his power as the crown prince. His father sent the boy to a monastery on the Great Continent where he hoped his son would learn inner peace. When Pador returned many years later, he had transformed into a thoughtful, sensitive man but declared he would not take the throne. That meant the crown would pass to Rydel’s daughter Faralei, and her family line would come to shape Uvtopis for better or worse. Rydel would pass away suddenly due to partisans. This faction held a modicum of power during the occupation due to its cooperation with the Western powers. Rydel’s reforms put them at the same level as their brethren, which angered them. They sought out the dark magics of the Western warlocks and cursed Rydel. After a period of muteness and blindness, Rydel died a week later. He reigned for 27 years.

The Reign of Faralei the Poet

Faralei gained her sobriquet due to a love of the arts and the use of the kingdom’s coffers to sponsor as many artists as she could. Faralei’s favorite was poetry; she even wrote some of her own historical records composed in verse. She married Sudrayl, a rebellious foreign noble more interested in painting than ruling. Faralei would have ten children, three of which died in early childhood. 

Death was no stranger in her house, and after her children, fate took Sudrayl. He had been attempting a trick on horseback and was thrown, killed instantly from the impact to his skull. Faralei went into mourning for the expected year and, at the end of that time, released a ballad titled “The Sunless Dawn,” which effectively conveyed the depth of her love for her late husband and expressed the overwhelming grief she worked to overcome during that year.

The only other major event to mark Faralei’s reign was an expansion of the agreement made with Chavray. Three more nations: Jassin, Malarue, and Lusha, proposed an alliance that would trigger all of them to go to war if one was invaded. Faralei hesitated because she worried the Western Lands would see this as a declaration of war. She continued to listen to both the other nations and her people and ultimately joined the alliance, still worried it brought Uvtopis one step closer to war.

Faralei was never able to fully move past the loss of Sudrayl, and five years after his death, she drank a poison brewed from the leaves of a particular nightshade plant that grows on Vuduin. She died peacefully in her sleep, having reigned for 17 years. This was to be the end of the period of reforms in Uvtopis.

The Reign of Esta the Butcher

Faralei’s eldest daughter, Esta, would take the throne after her mother. She was only 16 years old. A marriage was arranged between Esta and Keldor, a member of a wealthy noble house in Chavray. The new queen would have three children, each of whom died at a successively younger age than the previous. This was the result of a plague that ravaged Uvtopis during this time. There was much speculation that the epidemic resulted from the curse cast upon Rydel during his reign as the partisans had transitioned into esoteric cults in the following years, equating the Western slave masters as some sort of avatars of dark elder beings. The deaths of her children made Esta that much more cruel, and she began rounding up cult members and suspected members, having them sent to an abattoir where they were tortured & mutilated until they died. A rebellion broke out, and an explosion on Esta’s route from an inspection in Phyrra back to the palace ended her life. Esta the Butcher reigned for 9 years.

The Reign of Wyn the Mad

While Esta had sat on the throne, her brother Wyn had departed Uvtopis to campaign with Jassin warriors on the plains of Tasar. A warlike mind grew within Wyn, and with his crowning as king, the islands became more militaristic in their outlook. He married Amaranthe, a member of a greedy noble house on Magbella. They would have nine daughters, with only three surviving to adulthood. Their youngest, Saphielle, lived to age 14 but took her own life when her father declared she could not marry a commoner.

Madness appeared to be taking hold among the aristocracy during this time, as Wyn’s advisors pointed out that the plague that had died down seemed to have left many with deteriorating minds. It was most prominent among some noble lords & ladies who were making less and less coherent decisions about how their lands were operated. When it became clear to the advisors that Wyn was also showing signs of a severe mental collapse, they began to discuss these issues without him in their presence. It sowed the seeds of the eventual dissolution of the monarch years later.

Wyn demanded a level of loyalty from the island’s noble houses that no monarch had previously required. He imagined raising up a great army to conquer foreign lands. His advisors devised a plan that pleased the often irate king; each island would pledge 20% of their young people to the foundational army. The islands became darker after this decree, violence increasing as young people began to fear dying in some war on a foreign shore.

Before the Western occupation, there had been one ethnic group most of the islanders ignored. The Amrom were indigenous to all five islands, having arrived centuries before the Uvtopisian ancestors. They are typically pacifists but unafraid to defend themselves and each other if threatened. The Amrom prefer to live quietly, and some have become servants in the noble houses out of a need for money to keep surviving. Wyn’s incompetence as a leader and their great respect for his grandfather, Rydel the Reformer, led to an Amrom uprising. They began protesting, refusing to work, and demanding to improve the conditions of the cramped quarters they often occupied in the dense & growing cities. Wyn granted them seats on the council, and they began to find their influence growing among the United Islands.

King Wyn’s life ended in great betrayal. The people, including his children, became worn down after twenty years of cruelty and militarism. His daughter, Pyria, led the charge into Wyn’s bedchambers early one morning. He was executed under her orders; she believed this would prevent a civil war that seemed inevitable if Wyn’s rule continued. Thus began the reign of Pyria the Bold.

The Reign of Pyria the Bold

Pyria would marry Naertho, one of her distant cousins known for his sharp wit. She would have eight children, all of whom died in childhood, a haunting repeat of her aunt Esta. Pyria’s reign would begin with tackling the problem of Qazid the Sea Dragon. Qazid was a great leviathan that lived beneath the waters, particularly the same waters where Utvopsians frequently fished. Pyria dissolved much of her father’s attempt to have a standing army but did offer coin to those trained soldiers who would agree to go on a great hunt. For two years, these warriors sought out and faced Qazid, and many died along the way. 

Qazid was brought down by a group of twenty men & women who exhausted the beast with a constant onslaught. Pyria even joined this effort despite her advisors declaring their disapproval of the monarch putting herself in harm’s way. She faced the sea dragon when it rose out of the water, body dotted with spears and arrows. Pyria gripped her blade tighter and climbed onto the monster with the other warriors; they hacked away at the creature. When the queen returned home, she declared a new crest to her family’s house, one that bore the visage of Qazid. The head of Qazid was stuffed and mounted just above the throne in the palace.

The death of Qazid opened up waters that had been too treacherous, dating back to before Rydel’s reign. They found a burgeoning population of Cephalons, an octopus-like species. Some islanders saw the Cephalons as a new food source, but Pyria forbade this. Legends had been told for generations about the Cepahlons being the siblings of the islanders, sharp-witted & clever. Pyria said they could not eat them as it would be like eating their family. Some found this ironic, seeing as how she killed her own father.

A wealthy merchant named Fenhorn approached Pyria with a proposal to explore potential new trade routes to the northern region of the Sea of Tonna. It would be a perilous journey, but recent archaeological discoveries had pointed to the Uvtopsians having their ancestry rooted in the lands of that region. Pyria thought this over and decided it might prove helpful in uniting the people. She agreed to hand over a considerable amount of coin to Fenhorn. Just a few months later, Pyria died in a tragic carriage accident; a mudslide made the road give way on a treacherous mountain pass. After nineteen years, her reign had ended.

The Reign of Hycis the Diplomat

Hycis, a younger sister of Pyria, was crowned following the death. Hycis was married to Theodas, the son of a notoriously greedy noble house in Lusha. Like her sister, Hycis would watch all five children die in their youth. At this point, it was agreed by most advisors the family was experiencing the lingering effects of the curse placed on Rydel that had ended his reign. 

Hycis’s reign began with a potentially dangerous event. The neighboring and reclusive kingdom of Drogthor began sending warships into the fishing waters once patrolled by Qazid the Sea Dragon. Hycis understood that the monster had acted as a barrier between the United Islands and the warlike Drogthorian people. The nobles demanded she raise an army and go to war with Drogthor, but Hycis opted to meet them on the water and discuss their concerns. They had become worried that without Qazid to protect them, the United Islands would take over their fishing waters. Hycis was able to negotiate a mapping of the territorial waters that everyone could agree on, earning her the sobriquet of the Diplomat.

This led to the construction of the International Temple of Peace, a sprawling campus on Ialantha which would serve as a place where foreign officials could come and conduct negotiations to solve disputes. It would not be completed during Hycis’s lifetime, but she was the monarch that declared it would be built. 

This brief six-year reign was cut short when a plot was uncovered. A cousin going back to the line of Faraeli had raised a conspiracy to assassinate Hycis. He claimed that her patricide was in violation of the ideals of Rydel. Hycis reluctantly ordered her cousin’s arrest and execution after attempts to negotiate with him failed. Tragically, Hycis and the royal family believed the coup had been averted, only for one of the queen’s servants to slit her throat a week later while the ruler slept.

The Reign of Axilya the Saint

The last of King Wyn’s daughters took the throne following the assassination of Queen Hycis. Axilya married Calimo, a member of a charitable foreign house, and her reign was similar. This was the twilight of the monarchy, and everyone could feel that the islands were becoming something new. The first significant change came in the form of the harnessing of electrum. Decades earlier, the mages had determined there was an invisible force they named ‘electrum.’ It had tremendous potential as a fuel source, and they spent all their time attempting to harness it. During Axilya’s reign, electrum use became prevalent throughout the islands, ending much needless suffering as the food could be more successfully preserved, and people could heat themselves without the danger of fires.

It was also decided that the esoteric cults, who had been given a much looser leash after Esta the Butcher’s time, needed to be reigned in. They spread lies that sought to replace the monarchy with a military dictatorship. Instead of fighting them on the battlefield, Axilya had heavy taxes issued that caused the wealthy leaders behind the cults to be brought down to far more modest means. Some found humility and began to work towards shared goals; others remained entrenched until their pitiful deaths in old age.

Axilya had what she called a spiritual vision near the end of her reign, a lengthy and surprisingly uneventful twenty-four years. She would write about this vision and explain that she saw the islands connected by electrum wires with cities that grew high like mountains. Where the royal palace had once stood were crumbling ruins surrounded by a beautiful garden. In fact, the garden spread from the palace grounds across the islands, with the line between cities and forests wholly blurred.

This vision coincided with the philosophers of the United Islands proposing that the powers handed to Rydel in controlling labor be passed to an elected body run by the workers themselves. It seemed radical to many, but Axilya believed that her vision was a sign that this was the path the islands had always been meant to take. All four of her children had died, so she announced that the royal house would be dissolved upon her death. Uvtopis would finally achieve the freedom & independence that the people of Rydel’s time had dreamed of. 

Axilya would die by drowning. One morning, she asked to be rowed out into the waters where Qazid the Sea Dragon once swam. An attendant took her out, and she said she would go for a swim, something the queen enjoyed doing quite often. At one point, Axilya dove beneath the waters and never returned. Her attendant brought out more people who dove down, but no trace of the queen could be found. There were reports the following year that a golden sea dragon had been spotted breaching the waves, but it kept its distance from the fishers who saw it, never proving to be a threat. Some believe that Axilya transformed into the golden sea dragon so that she could live for eternity as the guardian of the islands. Though, this is just another myth like so many of the old stories.