Overview
'Grúagach Revenge' is a one-page tabletop RPG inspired by Grant Howitt's Honey Heist and Ryan Lynch's Goblin Prom. Stupid humans have formed a settlement dangerously close to your forest. They've been mistreating their cattle and cutting down trees to expand their land. Time to call the other Grúagach and teach them a lesson!
Rooted in Irish folklore, the Grúagach are (sometimes) mischievous fairy creatures. In this game, players take on their roles in a collaborative one-shot session, completing three acts of revenge before dawn: freeing animals, ruining feasts, cursing village elders, or sabotaging logging operations. The game is built around a simple dual-stat system that keeps players permanently on the edge between their primal fairy nature and the human disguises they must maintain to survive in the settlement.
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Design
'Grúagach Revenge' is built around a compact design philosophy aiming at minimum complexity. The entire game fits on a single sheet (one player-facing page (front and back) and one GM page) making it immediately accessible without sacrificing depth.
The core resolution mechanic is a dual-stat system. Every Grúagach has two stats — Grúagach and Human — each starting at 3. To attempt something risky, players roll 1d6 and succeed if they roll equal to or under the relevant stat. When a character's chosen skill directly applies, they roll 2d6 and keep the lowest, increasing their odds. The tension comes from what happens between rolls: acting human raises the Human stat and lowers Grúagach; leaning into fairy nature does the opposite. Push either stat to 6 and the game ends for your character: either absorbed into the human world forever, or lost to wild magic entirely.
Character creation is driven by tables: a descriptor, a skill (from zoolingualism and hexing to sneaking and transforming), and a starting item. The GM page offers randomised settlements, chieftains, fears, defences, wandering villagers, forest creatures, and a table of curses, from souring milk to making every shoe mysteriously full of pebbles. A glamour mechanic adds further pressure: staying disguised for too long risks something slipping, with consequences ranging from an irregular shadow to being followed by every animal within a mile.
Roles
Game Creator, Lead Game Designer, and Writer:
- I conceived 'Grúagach Revenge' as a compact one-shot grounded in Irish folklore and the one-page RPG tradition.
- I designed all game mechanics, including the glamour rule, and all endgame triggers. The dual-stat mechanic and action resolution originally comes from Honey Heist.
- I wrote all content across both pages: the character creation tables, the stat and action system, the GM tools (settlements, chieftains, fears, defences, events, villagers, forest creatures, random curses), and all flavour text.
- The game was designed with one-shot accessibility in mind, keeping rules light enough for new players while giving experienced GMs rich material to improvise with.
Game Tester:
- I ran and participated in test sessions to balance the stat system, verify the glamour mechanic's pacing, and ensure the GM tables produced consistently entertaining and varied scenarios.
Collaborators
- Yumi Nakashima – Illustrator
- Adinan Borges – Designer