In this post I want to talk a little about how the solo rules work, then show you an actual starting situation generated for Zelik, the wandering Jew from last post. Everything below comes straight out of the solo booklet and the card deck, no extra prep, no hidden notes.
How Durandal Solo works
Durandal Solo does not use dice. That part you already know from the core game. You spend Effort points to face trials. You compare your total to a Difficulty Rating. You lean on Virtue, Faith, Duty, and Temptation when the road gets rough.
The oracle deck replaces the Game Master.
Each card gives you
- An answer, yes, no, or maybe
- A Difficulty Rating from one to ten
- An event and a sensory detail that show what happens
- A name, a place, an item, and an emotion
- A wild card twist
- A supernatural sign that hints at saints, ghosts, fae, giants, and other powers
When you attempt something risky you decide how much Effort to commit. Then you draw one or more cards depending on how hard the situation feels. The number on the chosen card is the Difficulty Rating. You compare your Effort to that number and read the result as critical success, success, success with a condition, failure, or critical miss.
The rest of the card tells you how that success or failure actually looks. Does a saint ride beside you, does a demon saint offer help, does a wild hunt pass close, does an old banner catch fire, do the bells toll with no hand on the rope. The rules walk you through it step by step.
On top of that, the solo booklet includes a starting situation generator. Four draws and you have a road, a burden, a patron or rival, a rising threat, and a first twist. Let me show you how that plays out in practice.
Meeting Zelik again
If you have read my last post, you know Zelik. He is a Jew and a wanderer, clever and wary, walking the dangerous line between the Christian world that uses him and the God of Israel that still calls his name.
For this solo run we take his quickstart sheet as written. We grab the oracle deck and follow the starting situation procedure from the solo booklet.
Four cards later, this is what the game gives us.
The Road and the Burden is the first step, and I drew:
Place: The Chapel of the Broken Altar
Item: A silve reliquary said to hold a martyr’s bone
Emotion: Tender
Supernatural: Ancient spirit claims this ground as it’s own
I write on my notes:
I travel alone toward the Chapel of the Broken Altar, a small stone church squatting on the edge of the marshes. At my side hangs a silver reliquary said to hold the bone of a forgotten martyr. I should feel only fear and caution, instead there is a strange tenderness in my chest, as if some old story in this land wants to be carried gently for once. The villagers warn me that an ancient spirit claims the chapel hill as its own, long before Christ or Charlemagne, and that neither saint nor demon will give it up easily.
Zelik begins on the road to a contested holy site, already carrying a relic that does not quite belong there.
The second step is for The one who commands or waits, for which I drew:
Name: Raoul the Unbending
Answer: Maybe – but it comes at the cost of your reputation
Descriptor: The ground shakes with distant hoofbeats
Wild Card: Opponent’s weapon rusts in an instant
So I note:
Raoul the Unbending is the one who sent me. He needed a man outside the order of Frankish knights, someone whose reputation could be spent like coin. If I succeed his problem vanishes, if I fail I am only the wanderer Jew who overreached. Riders of his household move somewhere ahead of me, the ground shakes now and then with distant hoofbeats. It is said that on the last field Raoul fought, his enemy’s sword rusted away in his hand, a miracle or a curse depending on who tells it. Raoul believes that protecting this bone may earn him another such favour from Heaven, and he does not care what stories cling to my name afterward.
The bond is clear. Raoul will stand by the result, but not by Zelik’s honour.
The third step in determining our starting situation is The rising threat, and I drew:
Event: A patrol blocks your path and orders you to turn back
Difficulty Rating: 8
Emotion: Envious
Supernatural: Cursed relic hungers for fresh blood
So I fix the main peril of the first act.
As I near the lowlands a patrol blocks the causeway. Their captain wears Raoul’s colours and yet his eyes slide over me as if I were a stranger. Orders have come, they say, no more travellers to the Chapel of the Broken Altar. The air between them tastes of envy, envy for the relic at my side, envy for the unseen favour that Raoul seeks for himself. The men stare at the silver reliquary the way starving dogs stare at meat. When I touch the case my fingers tingle. Whatever bone lies within, it feels awake, restless, hungry in a way no holy thing should be. The patrol tells me to turn back. The relic feels as if it would rather go forward and drink.
Difficulty Rating eight means any attempt to force the road through this patrol, whether by argument, trickery or sudden violence, will be a serious test. The cursed nature of the relic colours every choice.
And for The first twist I drew:
Answer: Yes
Name and Place: Roderic the Cautious and The Reed-Chocked Fens
Item: A forgotten herald’s horn
Wild Card: Corpse sits up and finishes its last sentence
I turn one more draw into a concrete opening scene, and I write:
I do not turn back. Instead I let the patrol send me off the causeway toward the marsh track, the one they call the Reed Choked Fens. There I find Roderic the Cautious, a thin faced knight in mud stained mail, keeping watch on a half collapsed plank bridge. He greets me with a wary courtesy and produces a forgotten herald’s horn from his cloak, the kind used to call safe passage under truce.
Roderic says the horn once belonged to a royal messenger who never reached the chapel. He claims that if I blow it, some old agreement may still hold enough force to carry me past the patrol and into the Chapel grounds, though doing so will mark me as Raoul’s creature in the eyes of every lord who hears its tone. As we speak the wind lifts and the reeds begin to whisper.
At the edge of the fen lies a half sunken corpse in old livery, ribs and rust showing through torn cloth. The moment Roderic uncovers the horn, the corpse sits up, water pouring from its mouth, and finishes a sentence begun years ago, naming Raoul, naming the chapel, naming a price that was never paid. Then it falls still again. The relic at my side grows heavier, as if every word were a drop of blood in its cup.
That is my starting situation, and oh boy! does it scream mythic chivalry. Join me as I take Zelik on a journey of discovery through.
Durandal is already out on DriveThruRPG (and so is the solo mode, and you might want to pick the free quickstart edition), so if this kind of lonely chanson speaks to you, go take a look. To everyone who has bought it already, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and if you have a moment please leave a review there, it helps the game reach new knights on new roads.
Best,
-Rui
Se7en Sagas 
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