Osmond Ward

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Kick off those dusty boots, will you? Listen to the tale of Osmond Ward, the City That Touched the Stars.

Our Story Begins in the year 1242. The war had finally ended, after close to two hundred years. The world was in grand and open celebration. Champagne and Beer flooded the streets and turned it gold, and men and women returned to their homes, tired, depressed, and alone in the world.

It is in this time that the Grand Engineer, Oma Fareen, unveiled the fruits of a hundred years of artificial life and isolation - Osmond Ward, a city of clockwork marvels and innovation, built into the mountains.

Over the next four hundred years, due to Oma's Prestige and her clockwork marvels, the city rapidly grew, twisting and turning in on itself, pressing ever upward and onward to the skies above.

You have just landed in Osmond Ward, in the year 1743. Spring has fallen, and all sparkles and shines to greet the new day. That is but an illusion, however. Something evil lurks, far beyond the railways and well driven city streets. You can sense it on the winds, feel it in your bones. A long forgotten enemy stirs. This is how we begin.....

The Concept

Osmond Ward is a classless Steam/Teslapunk TTRPG inspired heavily by indiana jones, saturday morning action tv, and various other pieces of pulpy, action heavy fiction.

Written with the help of an active discord server of close friends and testers, we have done everything in our power to make an inclusive, open, easy to understand and play tabletop rpg with everything a player needs to jump in and start play immediately included within the SRD.

Design

The design philosophy for Osmond Ward is different from many other systems in the field in that it is built with the player's story in mind, much moreso than tales of their battles or valor. There are systems in-place for the players to be able to play anything from the mercenaries of more classical rpgs down to travelling bards, singing and performing for that next tip that lets them survive. The game is built to allow for all manner of playstyle, personality, and performance, regardless of skill level.

A Classless System

As mentioned earlier, Osmond Ward is classless, meaning that the player does not gain their abiltiies and benefits from classes, but rather from selected benefits chosen by the player. This allows players to play the system similarly to a video game such as final fantasy - picking and choosing the abilities that fit them rather than being dictated by a strict, funneled system that forces them into abilities and roles they might not particularly want to run with.

HyperLethal Combat

Combat in Osmond Ward is dangerous, rapid, and extremely versatile. Players will go down in three or four hits if an opponent is lucky, but the same can be said about bosses. Everything in the system is built around taking cover, making smart plays with whats at ones disposal, and doing everything in ones power to survive. Potions are the only things really capable of healing in system besides two or three spells, and the few other methodologies are unreliable. As a result, the players will need to play combat tactically, relying on each other and things such as shared initiative and coordinated attacks to get by. Overkill is always the answer, and a sure kill is often far more useful than conserving bullets.

A Broken World

Osmond Ward isnt unique in how it is a war torn land, built off of many generations of combat and bloodshed. What makes it unique is just how terribly it has come out of these wars. Magic itself, the very thing that sustains much life in the setting, is heavily unstable and broken. The people who died in the previous wars have come back as intelligent undead, and the scars of the old wars have left the land decimated, with mountains and ravines so scattered around the land that the few decent methods of travel are already taken up by clustered rail lines and bandit infested trails. The few good methods of travel left that dont risk problems is through the air, and in the air lurks sky pirates. As a result of the difficulty of navigation, players will largely spend their time tracking the days and hours left of sunlight, navigating by day and hiding by night, and spending what time they can in the safety of the megacities known as wards.

Supporting Small Creators

A major policy for work through Osmond Ward is that for all of our projects, we try to bring in small creators, artists, and voiceover artists. We value our artists and creators and do everything we can to make the creators have all the time they need, giving them space to work and room to breathe. We rarely impose art restrictions on the work unless asked, and a lot of the time what the players see in the guide is work done with the creator's full creative force come to bare.  We try to hire from highly diverse backgrounds and always look for creators in the space to work with. If you or someone you know does good quality art and you think you can be of help to the project, please feel free to contact us via our email.

Finally, all proceeds from Osmond Ward go back into the project, and are used to make the system better. Typically, we'll use profits from this SRD to go into art, design, and type-proofing for the system in an attempt to improve what's already here for everyone.

Alright! If any or all of this makes you interested, please do have a look at our SRD. We've been working pretty hard at it, and hope you enjoy what you see! Thanks for dropping in!

-C

Osmond in other media:

Beholder to No One: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/osmond-ward-ttrpg-one-shot/id1497243706?i=1000510735700

Pod of Blunders: https://podofblunders.com/2022/05/12/hearthside-chat-with-connor-heighton-author-of-osmond-ward/