Spurned and Splintered

In the mile-high tower of the Spire, the Aelfir—the High Elves—enjoy lives of extreme luxury, waited upon by the Destra—the Drow—whom they have subjugated and continue to oppress the criminal revolutionaries that would rise up and overthrow them. In the City Beneath, where heretical churches have found the freedom to worship their forbidden gods and organised crime to operate the drug farms that supply the needs of the Spire above, the Aelfir find themselves free of conformity, the Destra free of repression. They are joined by Gnolls and Humans. Some simply live free of the stifling Aelfir control, whether by means lawful or unlawful, others are driven to beyond the Undercity, delving ever deeper into the bowels of the world in search of the fabled Heart, or perhaps their heart’s desire. There are those though, who find themselves exiled to the city below, cut off from the world they once knew and they once fought for. Once you were members of the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, both a faith and a revolutionary movement, and outlawed for both reasons. As the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress foments and funds rebellion and unrest in the Spire above, some it casts out and if they are lucky, they find themselves in the City below. Perhaps someone made a mistake. Perhaps someone took more than they gave. Possibly secrets were revealed. Perhaps by someone else or perhaps by you. It does not matter, for then the misgivings began to spread. Rumours about betrayals and bribes and worse, and so you became a hindrance rather than a help. Your only use to the cause was as something to placate the authorities, and so you were betrayed.

Were you sent on a mission, your handlers knowing you were going to fail? Were simply traded away to give the high priests of the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress an advantage? Were you set up as a lesson to others? Does it matter? You became a traitor and you ran.

Burned and Broken is a supplement for Heart: The City Beneath, a roleplaying game that explores the horror, tragedies, and consequences of delving too deep into dungeons. Published by Rowan, Rook, and Decard Ltd., like the other supplements for Heart: The City Beneath—Sanctum and Vermissian Black Ops—explores other ways in which to roleplay in its world underneath. For Burned and Broken, this is to translate the spies, killers, and revolutionaries of Spire: The City Must Fall to the lawless nightmare of Heart: The City Beneath. This, though, is not done by simply adapting the Player Characters’ stats from one roleplaying game to another. Instead, Burned and Broken will chart the events that lead to the collective fall of the ex-operatives of the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, which ultimately, will prepare them for life in the City Below.

First though, Burned and Broken expands upon Derelictus, described as the ‘City Between’ Spire and Heart. In Heart: The City Beneath, this is just one Landmark that the Player Characters can visit, here it is broken into multiple Landmarks, beginning with Haven Station, the starting point for most people’s entry into Heart, and multiple Delves, like a Pig Farm that the Player Characters accidentally wander into, a warren of half-starved pigs that feed on who knows what and the pigs know the Player Characters are just something to feed on, although a very mobile something… Neither Delves nor Landmarks are safe, especially for newcomers, but Delves are far more dangerous. For the Player Characters from Spire: The City Must Fall, ‘the burned and broken’, their progress into Heart is tracked via Fall. In Heart: The City Beneath, the Player Characters each have Callings, which keep them in the Heart, but also push them to Heart. ‘Fall’ in Burned and Broken is shared between the Player Characters, who each pick a story beat from one of three categories—‘Leave’, ‘Acclimatise’, and ‘Become’. These respectively, get a Player Character out of Spire, help them adapt to its unfamiliarity, and lastly, begin to make connections with the peoples and places of the City Beneath. Fulfilling a beat first gets a Player Character a Calling as per Heart: The City Beneath, and then the abilities and advances from the selected Class.

If the first two sections of Burned and Broken take the Player Characters into the City Beneath and chart their progress, the third looks at their beginnings. Consequently, ‘Origins’ feels out of place, as if should have been at the start. It presents several packages of skills, domains, equipment, and abilities that each represent why the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress recruited a Player Character and what a Player Character brought to the City Beneath. These are not direct adaptations, as various abilities do not fit the realm of Heart: The City Beneath and not all of them work as well below as they do above.

Despite Burned and Broken telling the Game Master that it is not designed to simply present a means of adapting a Player Character from Spire: The City Must Fall to Heart: The City Beneathh, it does actually give such a means! This, though, comes towards the back of the book and it is a very quick-and-dirty method that will definitely require the adjudication of the Game Master to fix potential issues. The advice on running a Burned and Broken campaign is decent though, highlighting the fact it is designed to tell a particular story, one of translation and change, that predominantly takes place in Derelictus, in the upper part of Heart. After all, the Player Characters are not ready to, let alone capable of surviving, a further descent beyond its confines. Plus, the Game Master is given some adversaries who will be hunting the Player Characters, including the Spire City Guard and Ministry Silence Operative.

Although the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress is very much focused on fomenting its rebellion and resistance against the Aelfir masters of the Spire and so reclaiming the Destra home, it does maintain action operations in the City Beneath. Most obviously for Burned and Broken, this would actually be to track down agents of the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress which have gone rogue or it deems to have turned traitor. Of course, the other option would be for the Player Characters to be seen to be disavowed by the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress and then transition into agents still working for it, but in the City Beneath rather than the Spire. Several ideas are suggested as what operations they might be sent on, including some that involve the weirdness of the Heart: The City Below, such as breaking into the Slumbering Depths to assassinate an Aelfir before it is born in the mortal world and descending to the Maw where anything that is undestroyable elsewhere can be got rid of here! Lastly, Burned and Broken includes Minister as a Calling. This enables the creation of a Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress agent from the start in a Heart: The City Beneath campaign, equal to that of the other Player Characters.

Physically, Burned and Broken is a slim, very well-presented book. The artwork is excellent and the book is easy to read and understand. The order of the various feels slightly odd, but this is a minor issue.

Much as with Sanctum and Vermissian Black Ops before it, Burned and Broken presents a different campaign focus and set-up for Heart: The City Beneath. Unlike those supplements, it sets out to tell a specific story, one of betrayal, survival, and adaptation. It is a classic espionage tale, but here there is little chance of the ex-Minsters—the Player Characters—coming in from the cold. It allows though a campaign to transition from Spire: The City Must Fall to Heart: The City Beneath and gives opportunities for the Player Characters to grow and change in ways they would never have imagined in telling its one story.

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Rowan, Rook, and Decard Ltd. will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.