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"Allocating each part of yourself to this world is your most crucial skill. Most I've seen are dirt at it. You'll stay alive because you'll be better. Do that, and check your hands every now and then, because some things still won't be fair. Keep checking. Keep the Skies at bay as long as you can."
- Scoot, the Thunderbeast Tamer
What's on this Wiki?
This MediaWiki website was the original home of Thunderfort; buried within it are all the game's past rules and flavor text, though these things are outdated now. This website continues on as an archive and resource for Thunderfort players to download essential game documents from. You can find links to these documents below.
If you're looking to learn the rules of Thunderfort, the pages on this website won't do; instead, please find our official "Public Playtest ed." core rule book on DriveThruRPG and itch.io! This book is pay-what-you-want, no purchase required! So, if you don't have it, go get it! It's literally a free 450+ page TTRPG manual, how could you not want to take a peek?
Links to the Thunderfort Core Rulebook (Public Playtest ed.)...
DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/548555/thunderfort-core-rulebook-public-playtest-ed
itch.io: https://thunderfort.itch.io/thunderfort-public-playtest-ed
Quick start guide
For a brief introduction/overview of Thunderfort's setting and rules, as well as how it specifically deviates from fellow d20-based system D&D 5e, download the Thunderfort Quick Start Guide.
Essential documents
Here are download links for the various documents a Thunderfort game needs.
The Character Sheet (fillable)
The Creature Sheet (side one only, fillable)
Fort-Time World Map (Axis Braven)
Thunder Master's Screen (all pages)
Where to find us
To keep up to date on the latest Thunderfort developments, follow us on Mastodon, Bluesky, Reddit, and Tumblr!
Also, if you'd like to support our small team, consider becoming a patron on our Patreon!
For any inquiries, you can email us directly at thunderfort@mail.com!
What is Thunderfort?
Thunderfort is a partially-digital tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. Participants manage a mobile base built atop a massive animal: the Thunderfort. Using the fort, several players — each taking on the role of their own fictitious person called a Player Character (PC) — explore a dangerous setting orchestrated by a single Thunder Master (TM): the manager & narrator of the game and its Non-Player Characters (NPCs). Together, through gameplay and roleplay, the PCs and TM will tell entertaining stories revolving around the PCs’ choices and the TM’s responses & rulings to said choices.
This collaborative storytelling game is designed to be played with one TM (though several individuals could collaborate on this role) and several PCs: anywhere between two and five (though these limits are up to the TM). The system is split into two core parts: Session Time (S-Time), when the TM and PCs meet together in real time to act and play out a single day of the PCs' adventures, and Fort Time (F-Time), when the TM and PCs use a digital platform of asynchronous communication (any sort of chat program or social media) to resolve PC challenges and adventures on a scale of weeks instead of days.
With both of these references to how a Thunderfort campaign is played and paced, PCs and TMs can expect a TTRPG experience that comfortably conforms to their day-to-day lives, regardless of how busy their schedules may be. Even if long periods progress without an S-Time meeting, the light and consistent utilization of F-Time can keep campaigns interesting & lively without heavy planning on the TM's part or frequent, several-hour commitments on everyone's part.
Though any given game is entirely what the TM makes it, Thunderfort is not inherently a grand storytelling system in the way that many other pre-written TTRPGs are. In this game, the TM is the hand that commands the elements; the dangers and the wonders of a post-apocalyptic world. They keep the setting perilous, the NPCs unpredictable, and the cruel hand of dice-based luck unbiasedly cast. Stories will emerge from the PCs’ actions, but the guidelines of this book do not assume any large, overarching plots woven by the TM. The PCs are the ones who make the story — their story — whatever they wish it to be. There are no grand schemes, nor grand baddies to defeat, nor a world to save; Thunderfort's world, after all, has already fallen.
Thunderfort is meant to be an unforgiving apocalypse playground. The PCs find their purpose in the fictitious world, while the TM ensures that said world is not on their side by enforcing rules and challenges. However, as with any TTRPG, the rules in this text are guidelines, not law. Ultimately, the TM will have final say on any rule, regardless of whether or not it follows this book. Rules will give structure to your game, but they shouldn't stop the fun of your story. You and your group must determine what kind of game will be played. How much of this game is challenge, story, seriousness, and/or silliness isn't up to this book to decide, it is up to you.
When in doubt, choose the option that is, for all participants of a game, the most fun.
The setting of Thunderfort
Thunderfort isn't an inherently "setting-neutral" game system, but that shouldn't stop TMs, nor PCs, from worldbuilding themselves. It's as we just said: this game is your game, do what you think is most fun. However, the rules of this book are going to assume that your Thunderfort game will take place in this book's fictitious setting (however however, certain elements of this setting are more customizable than others, so no two game worlds will ever be the same).
If you want to run your Thunderfort game in a setting that is different from this book's, you might have to make slight adjustments to some game rules.
In a nutshell, Thunderfort's setting is a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy world. It takes place entirely on the fictitious continent of Axis Braven, which is a little bigger in size than Africa for reference.
The roleplaying game
For those unaware, a roleplaying game is a special format of organized play that can be experienced either alone or with a group. What sets apart roleplaying games from other forms of social play (card games, board games, video games, etc.) are their limitations -- or, rather, lack thereof. Roleplaying games do not require material components, only imagination; and they are not designed to be challenges that one either wins or loses, rather they are a means to improvise memorable & fun stories.
The essential order of most roleplaying games is as such: 1) Determine the world to be imagined. 2) Determine how you — your made-up persona — will fit into said world. 3) Through any means, play out scenarios involving your imagined persona & world. A single sitting of this sequence of play is called a session. A campaign is the continuation of multiple sessions — played across several weeks or more — that progress a shared story.
A roleplaying game system is a pre-written set of guidelines & resources designed to inspire people that are interested in playing a roleplaying game. One of the most popular systems, Dungeons & Dragons, provides rules for creating high-fantasy personas who go on dungeon-crawling, monster-slaying adventures. This system solidified several common tropes in roleplaying games: dice-rolling to determine the success or failure of imagined actions, extensive character creation options for participants, and complex rules for grid-paper-based combat scenarios.
Thunderfort takes heavy inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons and several other similar systems. It uses a twenty-sided die (d20) to determine much of what happens in a game, and operates best with a group: one TM and a few PCs. The role of the TM is the most intensive: they are the "director" of the story, so to say, planning out sessions and building make-believe scenes for others to react to. A Thunderfort campaign cannot exist without at least one person taking on the role of the TM, but it cannot progress without PCs. The TM's job is to guide the PCs through obstacles, while the actions of the PCs, in solving or not solving those obstacles, create an enjoyable experience for everyone. If a Thunderfort campaign were a musical, the PCs would be the actors and the TM would be the stage.
The game beyond the table
Unlike most tabletop roleplaying games, Thunderfort’s features and rules are not limited to real-time interaction. Outside of S-Time (the traditional gaming sessions scheduled and enacted by the participants), gameplay continues as a less intense, asynchronous experience: F-Time. Much like S-Time, the mechanics, pacing, and general execution of F-Time are entirely up to the judgment of the TM, though this book will contain guidelines for rules and general recommendations for how said rules can be executed.
The core of F-Time is managing the central hub that all PCs share: the Thunderfort. This base of crude structures and platforms is built on the back of a gargantuan creature called a Thunderbeast: a densely-haired, long-necked mammal 100 meters tall and 200 meters long. By default, the mechanics of F-Time run in a week-by-week frame, where each week offers opportunities for PCs and specific challenges orchestrated by the TM. All actions and events are conveyed via asynchronous communication (such as by a group chat or text channel). The PCs, at their own pace, send messages that declare what kinds of actions their characters are taking during a given week while the TM sends announcements regarding the current week’s events and, as needed, responses to player actions.
Weeks (whether it is every week, every other week, or so on) are the core beats F-Time is tracked in, with each week or interval of weeks being defined by one of several “colors”: representations of the sky & weather within the world of the campaign. The forecast (its weather events and passive effects) determines how PCs decide to act during F-Time. For example, Red Weeks are when the sky turns red and the Thunderfort is most at risk of damage, while Gray Weeks are when the sky is cloaked by ash and there is little chance of dangerous weather.
Associated with this book is a free mobile app [to be produced] which provides a platform of communication and features that streamline the management of a Thunderfort campaign.