# Vale of the Failed and the Fallen *Created:* 2026-11-10, *Modified:* 2026-11-10 ![[Vale of the Failed and the Fallen (cover).jpg]] **Vale of the Failed and the Fallen** is a Powered by the Apocalypse game about the worst thing that can happen to a child hero: growing up. Twenty years ago you were the chosen ones, pulled from Earth into the fantasy realm of **Eidylorn**, handed spirit-bonded artifacts and sent off to defeat the ultimate evil. You failed, and your friend died. Now the realm is calling you back as adults — and you know what it costs this time. ## Setting Eidylorn is the fantasy realm of the first adventure: floating islands, mushroom forests, strange magics and mythical beasts, a storybook land with no modern technology. It is also, now, a ruin. The **Vassal of Darkness** holds it, the people are scattered or corrupted, and the old landmarks are changed. The game's premise is that the players built this place as children and have to build it again as adults. Creation is collective and deliberately vague. The group answers how they first entered Eidylorn, what the realm was like, and who the companions were — then the **original journey**, the places and denizens they met, and the **fall from grace** that ended it. One companion died on that first quest, and that death is a permanent fixture: the **Fallen Companion** has their own sheet, and the memory of them is a resource the table returns to. Then comes the passage of time — adult vocations, emotional baggage, the fallen friend — and the **inevitable return**: what the realm looks like now, who has joined the **Vanguard**, and where the resistance makes its stronghold. Backgrounds are intentionally left full of holes; the book asks you to answer only what is asked and paint in broad strokes. ## Mechanics ### The Roll Roll **2d6** and add a modifier from an aptitude, a vocation or an activated **tether**. **10+** is a strong success — you get what you want and often a bonus. **7–9** is a costly success: you do it, but pick a consequence from the move. **6 or less** is a failure: the GM makes a move, and you may mark **reflection**. A natural 12 is a strong success and clears a point of stress for free. ### Moves Any playbook can use the five basic moves. On a 10+ you pick two effects; on a 7–9 you pick one, and also take a consequence — stress, harm, +1 threat to the GM, or a trade-off. - **Provide Assistance** — help a companion: your target sheds a stress, gains +1 on their next move, may mark reflection, or the pool gains +1 hope. - **Obscure the Details** — hide something, by sneaking, lying, disguise or sleight of hand: the target believes you, you pocket the object, you or an ally stays hidden, your actions go unnoticed, or you pull attention elsewhere. - **Seek the Truth** — uncover what is hidden: ask one question (three on a 10+) from the move's list — what am I missing, what can I use here, the direct way out, what is new or secret, what happened here, or whether a target is honest and what they want. - **Lead the Charge** — force a change: deal a point of damage, take something tangible, lower an adversary's resolve, beat a static challenge, declare how the situation changes, or plant an impression that gives +1 against that target. - **Hold the Line** — keep things as they are: stop a move resolving, block a specific action, prevent harm or a setback, declare the situation holds, de-escalate a social exchange, or restrain an adversary and remove a resolve. Each playbook also has a **special move**, which always costs either a hope token or a point of stress, and hits much harder on a success and much harder on a failure. ### Playbooks Seven artifact-based playbooks, each a role rather than a weapon. Every one starts with two abilities from its gift: - **Blade** — a **magical weapon** of your choosing (no modern hardware), with **two** of Bloodthirsty, Dark Connection, Elemental, Ghost Blade, Honed, Independent, Non-Deadly Object and Spell Breaker; special move **Relentless Assault**, spreading three damage across one or more larger, stronger or more numerous foes. - **Heart** — the **Heart of the Realm Amulet**: +1 to Provide Assistance, and on any basic move a success effect can remove a target's stress; plus **one** of Carry the Burdens, Celestial Light, Shapeshift, Soothe to Sleep and Unicorn's Blessing; special move **Spiritual Restoration**, sending yourself or an ally back into the fray. - **Mask** — the **Mark of Passage**: safe travel and +1 to social rolls with the powerful; plus **one** of Cosmetic Alterations, Mimicry, Secret Truths, Surface Desire and Well Connected; special move **Mesmerize**, bending a common person to your wishes. - **Quill** — the **Ancient Tome**: **two** deciphered spells from its pages, picked from eighteen including Astral Pockets, Control Weather, Create Illusion, Entangle Foe, Forcefield, Levitate Self, Magical Attack, Summon and Telekinesis; special move **Search the Lore**, putting three questions to the GM about anything in the realm. - **Shadow** — the **Cloak of Shadows**: step into the Shadowlands, invisible and incorporeal, and whisper out for a point of stress; plus **one** of Ebon Messenger, Mark of Mischief, Shaded Steps, Shadow Pockets and Veil the Mind; special move **Silent Death**, six damage on a single target with no one the wiser. - **Tower** — a piece of **elemental armor** (breastplate, bracer or helm), with **two** of Breath of the Wind, Dragon Hide, Elemental Guardian, Like a River, Like a Rock, Mermaid Scales and Wind Walker; special move **Fortify the Company**, letting every companion shed stress, mark reflection or take +1. - **Watcher** — the **Everburning Lantern**: its flame reads black for evil, red for need and blue for help; plus **one** of Delumination, Reveal Falsehoods, See Tracks, Tiny Eyes and Will-o-Wisps; special move **Find the Path**, asking the GM for two routes to a goal and what waits on them. No two characters may share a playbook unless the table is larger than six. ### Hope and Threat Two shared pools sit in the middle of the table. **Hope** is spent by any player to activate a tether or an ability; it carries between sessions but not between milestones, and spending the *last* hope requires the group's consent. With an empty pool you can still spend hope by giving the GM **+2 threat**. **Threat** is the GM's currency for GM moves and for triggering a character's **banes**; it is removed when spent. ### Stress, Harm and Banes **Stress** is a five-dot pool spent to reroll one die, block harm from a single move, or amplify an ability. **Harm** has three stages — **bruised**, **battered**, **broken** — and imposes penalties as it climbs. A companion who is taken out doesn't die; they **fall out** of the action and take a new bane tied to what happened, and they can still weigh in on group decisions. **Tethers** are bonds that add a bonus to rolls when activated with a hope token. A tether can also be **burned**: you roll a third die and add all three together — **3d6 instead of 2d6** — and may decide to burn after seeing the roll, so long as the tether was already activated. The price is permanent: the burned tether counts as a bane the GM can trigger. ### Seasons, Milestones and the Campfire Play is organised into **seasons**. A season is a run of **milestones** — one per player — and it ends when every companion has been Keeper of Memory once. A milestone is a single mission against the Vassal’s hold on Eidylorn, chosen by the group from a menu of types: **Forge an Alliance**, **Liberate Captives**, **Recover Useful Magic**, **Ambush the Vassal’s Allies**, **Parlay with Deserters**, **Destroy a Place of Corruption** or **Steal Something Significant**. Each names the denizen or location it targets and the rating that target must be at, and each has its own success and failure effects on that rating and on the realm’s **Darkness Rating**. A type can be attempted again later, but never twice in a row, and at least one direct blow against the enemy is required before the Ultimate Showdown. Every milestone runs through the same steps: an optional **restful interlude** first (once each per season — the companions recover, and the realm gets worse), then the **Keeper of Memory**, the choice of milestone, a **preparation** phase (gear, then one move each), **travel and Around the Campfire**, and finally **approach, twist and climax**, with the GM’s suggested twist as the complication the mission turns on. It closes with rewards and resolutions; unused hope can improve the world, and unspent threat worsens it. The **Keeper of Memory** carries the fallen companion for that milestone. They play with both sheets, add the dead child’s aptitude to their own rolls, take that child’s bane when the GM spends threat, and can spend a hope to use the fallen friend’s artifact. They have the final say if the table cannot agree on a milestone, and they take a greater reward at the end — at the cost of carrying the friend they failed. Marked **reflection** triggers **Around the Campfire**: the table tells a story about the first journey, each player adding to it before the initiating player rolls one of four moves — **Tend to Your Wounds**, **Inspire through Song or Story**, **Weave a Tale of Wonder or Woe**, or, with everyone's reflection, **Reconcile the Past** to clear a bane. ### The Ultimate Showdown The campaign ends in three phases: a last campfire and preparation, the **Clash of Armies** (a single grand round against the enemy's **Darkness Rating**, with anything left over rolling into the Vassal's resolve), and the direct confrontation with the **Vassal of Darkness**. Death is possible here and only here — the finale is where a companion can make the ultimate sacrifice. ## Editions - **Vale of the Failed and the Fallen** (Wicked Clever Games, 2025) — the core, PDF/PoD v1.0, 225 pages; a hardback followed through Studio 2. *Held.* ## Supplements The free play-aid pack is all held: - **Playbook Sheets** — the seven playbooks as one-page sheets, each with its gift and special move. - **Realm Creation and Corruption** — the places-and-people sheets, the Darkness Rating track and the Vassal's plan. - **Fallen Companion Sheets** — the dead companion's playbook and gift, for the Keeper of Memory. - **Moves Cheat Sheet** — the five basic moves, their outcomes and the modifiers. - **Eidylorn Blank Map** — the realm, blank, for the table to fill in. - **Sticker Sheet** — map icons for marking it, by Amanda Kahl. ## References - [Vale of the Failed and the Fallen — Wicked Clever](https://www.wicked-clever.com/vale-of-the-failed-and-the-fallen) — the publisher's page, with the playbook summaries. - [Vale of the Failed and the Fallen — DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/520878/vale-of-the-failed-and-the-fallen) — the PDF, and the reader reviews. - [Vale of the Failed and the Fallen — Kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wicked-clever/vale-of-the-failed-and-the-fallen) — the 2025 campaign, its updates and the stretch-goal files. - [Wicked Clever — free downloads](https://www.wicked-clever.com/downloads) — the official play-aids, including the six held here. - [An interview with Robert Turk — EN World](https://www.enworld.org/threads/vale-of-the-failed-and-the-fallen-an-interview-with-robert-turk.716352) — on the concept, why PbtA, and what playtesting changed. - [Character Creation: Vale of the Failed and the Fallen — One Thing at a Time](https://blackhatmatt.blogspot.com/2026/03/character-creation-vale-of-failed-and.html) — Matthew McFarland builds a Shadow, start to finish. - [Talking PbtA — Open Hearth Gaming](https://share.transistor.fm/s/bdeb63a2) — a community discussion of PbtA games that turns to Vale and why its pitch lands.