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It has been a while, but it’s time to do a system thread - this time about one of my all time favorite TTRPGs. A game with interesting mechanics, unique, badass classes, and dynamite aesthetics.
I hope you’re not afraid of heights or spiders, because we’re heading to Spire.
I hope you’re not afraid of heights or spiders, because we’re heading to Spire.
Spire is a game by Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor and published by Roward, Rook, and Decard. It is a Resistance System game about drow revolutionaries fighting to take back their mile high city from the high elves who stole it from them.
There’s so much I love about Spire, and I’m going to do my best to touch on everything without being too long winded, but I could easily talk for days about how much I love this game. In this thread I’m going to cover some basics about the setting, lore, classes, and mechanics.
Spire is set in the city of Spire. It is a mile high, (almost) fully enclosed city inhabited by drow, Aelfir (high elves), gnolls, and the occasional human. The drow were the original inhabitants of Spire until the Aelfir seized control of the city.
Each district of Spire is full of personality and neat places to explore - from the casinos and clubs of The Silver District, to the Temples of Charnel in New Heaven, to the Spiral Gardens of Amaranth. It is one of the most incredible settings I have ever encountered in a TTRPG.
There is no corner of Spire that isn’t drenched in incredible lore and aesthetic flavor, which makes for an amazing game setting - no matter what type of story you want to tell, there is an interesting place within the city to set as its backdrop.
Want to run a game where your revolutionaries have to infiltrate a fancy Aelfir party? The red carpeted, icy streets of Amaranth are waiting for you. Maybe you want something more rough and tumble? Something on the unsavory side of things? Threadneedle Square is ready.
Even more incredible than the setting of Spire is the lore that accompanies it. I could easily do multiple threads on Spire lore, but in an effort to keep this from getting *too* long I’ll try and stick to some of the biggest pieces of the amazing tapestry that is Spire’s lore.
The "protagonists" of Spire are the drow; dark elves who had their city stolen from them by the high elves who now control it. The party makes up a cell of drow revolutionaries working for The Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress in an effort to reclaim their city.
The Drow are devotees of Ishkrah, the mother of spiders. It’s said that Ishkrah’s children crept into the bloodlines of the drow at one time and as a result there are a small number of drow born (or rather, hatched from eggs) with spider traits - extra limbs, eyes, or mandibles.
These spider-born drow are regarded with both respect and fear by the drow communities. They are treasured by the midwives (a guild of drow dedicated to the survival of the drow race who care for the drow eggs prior to hatching) and nearly all spider-born drow join their ranks.
In direct opposition to the drow are the Aelfir, or high elves, who rule the city of Spire and keep the drow under their heel. They are not sensitive to the light like the drow are, and mainly reside up-Spire where there is more sunlight than other parts of the city.
Aelfir like the cold, and because of that Amaranth, one of the up-Spire districts, is kept uncommonly cold and is home to a series of ice caves where the Aelfir are known to bathe in partially frozen water. Perhaps the most notable feature of the Aelfir, however, is their masks.
All Aelfir, as well as drow who travel or live upSpire, wear masks at all times. It is seen as extremely inappropriate to ever be unmasked to the point that even married couples may never see their spouse’s face without a mask. Masks come in all shapes, sizes, and designs -
- there is even a Spire supplement called “The Book of Masks” that has many unique (and sometimes, in true Spire fashion, deeply unsettling) masks that can be used in game. As a result of this custom, masks are required by anyone within an Aelfir district.
Now that you know a bit about the city and its major players - let’s talk classes and character creation. Your character’s stats are derived from 2 main aspects - your PCs class and their durance. A durance is a length of time all drow spend in indentured servitude to the Aelfir.
A durance can take many forms - serving as an acolyte in the Solar Basilica, a duelist for an Aelfir noble, a pet kept by the Aelfir as a piece of art, or a personal assistant handling your noble’s day to day operations - to name a few.
Once you have selected your durance you can choose your class. Spire has some of the coolest classes you will ever encounter - from the Idol, magic occult celebrities who use magic to entrance and compel, to the Firebrand who can literally *become* the idea of revolution -
- to the Midwife, who can heal with as much skill as they can harm and harness the powers gifted by the mother of spiders, or the Vermissian Sage who can traverse through the mind and reality warping tunnels that make up the failed transportation network of The Vermissian.
Each class provides proficiency in domains and skills, which then combine with the proficiencies gained as a result of your durance and give you your PCs stats. Then you simply choose your starting advances and the bulk of your character creation is done!
Lastly, let’s talk mechanics. Spire uses the Resistance System, which is a d10 system. There are two categories of stats - skills and domains. Skills include fight (to fight), fix (to heal), and compel (to persuade). Domains include Academia, High and Low Society, and Religion.
When making checks, you will be told what skill and domain is associated with the check, and if you have proficiency in those areas you a d10 to your rolling pool for each proficiency. So if you are making a Fight/ Low Society roll and are proficient in both, you roll 3d10.
You roll your dice and only take into account the highest value rolled. If you roll a 1, that is a critical failure and you take double stress, a 2-5 is a fail, 6-7 is success at a cost, 8-9 is a success, and a 10 is a critical success and you inflict stress.
Your proficiencies also serve as resistance to stress in that area. So if, for example, your class gives you +2 to Mind and you would take 2 Mind stress - you don’t mark any stress. But when you do take stress - it adds up, and once you take enough stress you can take fallout.
Fallout can be something minor like Tired or Shaken, that can be fixed easily or Moderate like a Broken Limb or Arrested that are a bit harder to mend but can be fixed. And then there is severe fallout, like dying or reviled, which can end your PCs story.
Fallout is tied to the different domains and skills, so a GM can easily figure out what the consequence is for the PC based on the situation at hand. It’s a very interesting system and that allows for long and lasting effects on the characters if rolls don’t go as planned.
This is only scratching the surface, but hopefully is enough to get you interested if you’ve been considering giving Spire a try. It is a game that perfectly blends creepy and cool in everything from lore to character abilities - and you can tell truly amazing stories with it.
The TL:DR to all of this is that Spire is a game rich in interesting, unique lore, set in a city unlike anything else. The system is dynamic and easy to learn with classes that offer a wide array of cool abilities - all to better help you tell the story of your revolutionaries.
Now all that’s left is to form your revolutionary cell and get to work.
The city must fall.
Will you be the ones to make it?
The city must fall.
Will you be the ones to make it?
