One of the more interesting indie RPG systems out there is Gallant Knight Games‘ Tiny D6 system.
Gallant Knight has produced a lot of material for Tiny D6 – Tiny Dungeon, Tiny Wastelands, Tiny Supers, and even a Baywatch-based system called Beach Patrol. Each of these books are self-contained. There is no core Tiny D6 rulebook.
In 2021, they released Tiny Cthulhu, an adaptation of Lovecraftian horror to the Tiny D6 system. I’ve been playing around with it and have created two fillable character sheets.
Here’s all of my previous Tiny D6 posts.
Basic Rules
The basic mechanic in Tiny Cthulhu (and all Tiny d6 systems) is simple – roll 2d6. If you get a 5 or 6 on any die you succeed. If you have Advantage, you roll 3d6. If you have Disadvantage, you roll 1d6. That’s it.
In place of Sanity rules, Tiny Cthulhu has Corruption. Each character has a Corruption Threshold. Whenever they’re exposed to something otherworldly (monsters, ancient books, etc.) The have to make a Corruption Test. If they fail, they can be out of action for 1d6 days, or spend a Corruption point. When their Corruption drops to Zero, they are institutionalized.
Character creation is class based. There are a series of archetypes that determine your starting Hit Points, Corruption, and what Traits you have.
There are optional Pulp rules, if you want to run a more heroic style of adventure.
Setting Information
There is no default Tiny Cthulhu setting. A lot of general Lovecraft Mythos information is provided, along with several possible settings.
In terms of Mythos information, Tiny Cthulhu includes the following:
- Mythos tomes, along with their effects.
- Mythos spells
- Descriptions and effects of all the usual Mythos gods and monsters, along with some custom gods, unique to Tiny Cthulhu
- Various cults, along with stats for their members.
As in most Tiny D6 books, there’s a list of possible settings you could run a game in. They’re all only a few pages long, and require some work from the GM to use, but they’re all packed with interesting ideas and details. This is probably my favorite part of the book, and would be useful to anyone running any Mythos game, even if it’s not Tiny Cthulhu. Highlights include:
- Arkham High: Basically Buffy the Vampire Slayer set in Arkham.
- The Dark Forest: a crossover with Tiny Dungeon set in a dangerous forest that is actually within the dreams of an ancient evil dragon.
- YG-359: The human spaceship Hyperion travels to far-off Yuggoth.
- Longest Days: WWII Weird War action
- The Slithering World: A post-apocalypse where the Cult of Yig (Lovecraftian snake god) won.
- Unspeakable Voyage: A Mythos version of Fantastic Voyage. Players are miniaturized and injected inside humans infected with Mythos-derived diseases.
Character Sheets
I’ve got two fillable character sheets to choose from. The first is just a slightly modified version of the original character sheet from the corebook. I’ve fixed one typo, and replaced the Health/Corruption boxes with boxes that will auto-generate check boxes with whatever number you fill in.
The second is a completely original letter-sized fillable PDF. There’s a bit more room, and I’ve added the ability to import an image. I’ve added both of these to my ever-expanding, unwieldy list of RPG character sheets.
Polyhedral Nonsense 