a Bitter Toll for Eldritch Gold

Beyond time and space, in a place where even gods cannot venture uninvited, there floats the majestic Port Hedron. Ruled by a demon of greed Mammon, and inhabited by mortal races, the Hedron hosts a flotilla of Threaders, eldritch vessels, able to traverse the void between the realms.

Cursed with an insatiable hunger for wealth, Mammon decreed that he will grant a single wish to anyone who brings him a hoard worthy of a king.

You are daredevils eager to risk their life, limb and sanity for treasure. Using Threaders to blindly travel to unknown, alien tombs, you plunder their treasure to hoard it back at Port Hedron.

Will you succeed, and ascend the tower of Mammon with a suitable offering, or, like many others, will you pay a Bitter Toll for Eldritch Gold?

WHAT IS IT?

"A Bitter Toll for Eldritch Gold" (FKA "Croatoan") is a tabletop roleplaying game by Raphael Sadowski.

A Bitter Toll... is a fast, OSR-inspired dungeon-crawling system built for players who love the genre but don’t always have time for sprawling campaigns. The rules are referee-light and player-focused, designed to get your group straight into the dungeon, beat it, and count the treasure, while still keeping all the grit, quirks, and danger that make classic modules shine.

RELEASE DATE

While the manuscript is 100% ready, the game should enter its Kickstarter pre-sale phase in the second half of 2026.

ARTISTS

Gorgeous, hand-made pencil illustrations you see on this page were created by the fantastic Rodrigo Vega especially for A Bitter Toll.... Character sheet was designed by Mythbound, the best character sheet designer bar none in my opinion. The knight illustration visible on one of the screens was made by the awesome Carlos Vera.

QUICKSTART RULES

These text-only, free quickstart rules do not contain any of the features of character levels 2-7. Full version contains ✦kits, ✸sets, Ten Thousand Gods mechanic, rules for hiring and running retainers and even more referee and player advice.

These quickstart rules may still contain some typos and other mistakes that will be fixed before the game is officially published. Thank you for your understanding.

Have fun with the this basic version of a Bitter Toll…; I hope it shall keep you entertained until the premiere.

QUICKSTART RULES

1. Print out a single character sheet (remember that it's two-sided!) - you are going to have much easier time following the rulebook, when you have the character sheet in front of you.
2. Either print out the whole rulebook (109 pages in A4 or letter format, 55 if you print two-sided), or open it in PDF.
3. Read the rulebook.
4. Gather some friends including a referee willing to run the game, and try the included module: "The Dark Forge of Thar" or let your referee prepare another adventure. Have fun!

FILES AND TABLES

A Bitter Toll... relies heavily on the rules contained in multiple tables. You'll make everyone's lives easier, if you print out some extra stuff for the referee and players alike:

• A Bitter Toll... refree screen (you’ll find it in a separate file below)  - these 3 or 4 pages (you can drop the 4th if you like) will be a tremendous help to the referee, and I'd advise every group to print those out. You can also google how to create your own referee screen, and use these pages as the referee-facing content.
• All the tables from the end of the rulebook. Staple them together and let the referee keep them handy.
• Starting from level 1, it would also be optimal if every player had one copy of Basic Equipment and Basic Arms tables. Especially for the "equipping" phase.

THE DARK FORGE OF THAR

In the package you’ll find “The Dark Forge of Thar”. A medium-sized dungeon ready to play. It was designed to showcase what you can do with this ruleset.

LAST WORDS

Once the referee learns all the rules, they can attempt explaining the rules quickly to the players, without making them read the whole rulebook. Giving a quick summary of the rules, and then introducing additional details as you play is a perfect tutorial experience. This is especially effective for starting characters of level 0.

It's very easy to create a new, 0 level character:

1. roll for attributes, 3d6 down the line, and record only the modifiers
2. roll for "origin" - it's among the referee's tables
3. check your age, size, reaction and other descriptors
4. do the math - write down the saving throws scores, will, HP etc.
5. roll once for "cheap equipment" - also among referee's tables
6. you're ready to go!

Character sheet contains all the "math" you need to perform while creating a character for the ease of use.

Remember that if a character dies on a venture, you can use "lost adventurer" table to generate another, and get right back into the fray!

CONTACT

Check out the game's official subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/porthedron/ or drop your comments here.