# Swords of the Serpentine *Created:* 2026-09-13, *Modified:* 2026-10-19 ![[Swords of the Serpentine (cover).jpg|600]] So, you want to risk your neck in a sinking city choking on its own corruption? **Swords of the Serpentine** is your ticket to Eversink, a fantasy metropolis that's one part Renaissance Venice, two parts Lankhmar, and three parts unsanitary swamp. Written by Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner, published by Pelgrane in 2021, it pitches itself as "sword & sorcery," which is a polite way of saying you'll be playing morally flexible Sentinels, Sorcerers, Thieves, or Warriors navigating political intrigue, back-alley justice, and the sort of bloody savagery that gets the cobblestones stained. You're not saving the world; you're trying to get paid, get even, or just live until sunrise. ## Setting Eversink is the body of a commerce goddess — a city built on and into the corpse of a dead god whose body is slowly sinking, about eight centimetres a year. Every building sinks a little deeper into the silt; funerary statues dot the streets because destroying one might obliterate a soul; and the whole place reeks of wealth, worship, and rot in equal measure, which is frankly what a commerce goddess's corpse deserves. It's a moral swamp as much as a literal one: the powers that be run on debts and favours, and the player characters are the sort of people who thrive on the edges. The sword & sorcery framing means you're not here to save the world — you're here to make sure your enemy's "unfortunate accident" can't be traced back to you. ## Mechanics ### The Core Roll Under the hood it's a modified **[[Gumshoe|GUMSHOE]]**, which means your biggest problem was never finding the clue — it's surviving what you do with it. When a task genuinely hangs in the balance you roll one six-sided die against a target number, usually 4. The saving grace, and it's a real one, is that you're not entirely at the mercy of that cube: every ability doubles as a pool of points you can spend to nudge the roll up, turning you from a hapless victim of probability into somebody who can throw resources at a problem on purpose. It's like getting to cheat a little — with the city quietly watching how much you're willing to pay. ### Combat Here's where Swords quietly parts company with the rest of the **GUMSHOE** family: there's **no Stability pool**, no sanity spiral ticking toward the asylum. Instead every Hero carries **two attackable tracks** — **Health**, the body, and **Morale**, your mind, will, and standing in the eyes of the city — and the game treats both as legitimate targets in a fight. You wear someone down with a blade (*Warfare*, vs Health) or break them with terror and vicious words (*Sway*, vs Morale); **Sorcery** attacks either. Because you can genuinely "win" a fight by wrecking morale, the best combats are as much psychological warfare as bloodshed. The defense runs off those same two tracks. Attackers roll a d6 against your **Health or Morale Threshold** (3, or 4 once the relevant pool is 10+), spending points from the combat ability to nudge the die. Land the hit and you inflict **1d6+1** damage — never below the points you spent on the attack, and a **critical** (an extra damage die) if you clear the number by 5 or more. What soaks it depends on which track got hit: **Armor** shaves Health damage, while **Grit** — a small pool every Hero starts with, and that enough character-defining gear can buy more of — shaves Morale damage instead. Ride an ability at rank 8+ and beat the roll by 3+, and you catch **extra nearby foes** in the swing too. Two supporting moves round it out. **Teamwork attacks** hand your damage to an ally instead of landing it yourself — roll your normal combat attack and, on a hit, add a d6 (bonus dice included) to the ally's next strike, and you can set up the *other* track: a Sway attack that opens the door for a friend's Warfare. And **Maneuvers** spend for a non-damage effect, forcing a foe to choose between suffering it — losing their sword, say — or taking damage instead. The best fights are the ones you win by making the enemy feel stupid rather than merely hurt. ### Sorcery The real gem is magic, and the book knows it. **Sorcery** is powerful, illegal, and always costs something real, in a currency called **Corruption** — a pool you spend the way other games spend Investigative points, only flashier: it buys exceptional or area-of-effect damage, spells the rules don't otherwise cover, **Curses** laid on a foe, sorcerous glyphs and traps, and Maneuvers no ability on your sheet can pull off. And no matter what you conjure, the bill still comes due — every point you spend must be *internalized* or *externalized*. *Internalize* it and risk a failed Health test (the Difficulty climbing with the Corruption) that leaves a hideous mutation crawling across your body; *externalize* it and scar the world around you, forcing your allies to pass a Morale test or take the terror themselves. There's no free lunch — only a menu. ### Wealth and Lifestyle Even money is an abstraction: you don't count coins, you hold a **Wealth** rating you spend on your **Lifestyle** between adventures. Live opulently and you bank **High Repute** to throw around as leverage; live in squalor and the GM pockets **Low Repute** points to spend against you. It's a tidy way of making your standard of living an actual decision with teeth. ## Editions - **Swords of the Serpentine** (2021) — the core book, by Kevin Kulp & Emily Dresner. *In the library (core, a text-and-art-only copy, and a small-file-size copy).* ## Supplements - **Eversink** — the companion city sourcebook and setting detail, expanding the districts, factions, and secrets the core lays out. *In the library (World and Eversink maps).* ## References - [Buy the game directly from the source — Pelgrane Press](https://pelgranepress.com/product/swords-of-the-serpentine/) - [A Review of Swords of the Serpentine — EN World](https://www.enworld.org/threads/a-review-of-swords-of-the-serpentine.689697/) - [Another take on the game — The Walking Mind](https://walkingmind.evilhat.com/2020/07/23/swords-of-the-serpentine/) - [SotS on DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/408716/swords-of-the-serpentine)