Broken Weave by Cubicle7, who also produced Uncharted Journeys and A Life Well Lived, is a post-apocalyptic setting where magic has unwoven after a great cataclysm. Its themes are the balance between tragedy and decay against hope and life. It's a compelling setting promising both the dark fantasy and a dive into the genre of apocalyptic fiction, while showing that life continues. It's also bold in the TTRPG space by almost being a self-contained system alongside it's setting. Although built on the framework of 5e D&D, Broken Weave introduced the lineage and lifepath systems that Cubicle7 later packaged into A Life Well Lived and includes its own classes that replace core 5e ones and a separate feat system (called talents and explored below). With so much new standalone content you essentially only need the SRD to provide the core rules for combat. It seems that everything else needed is provided. The systems are also built upon Cubicle7’s own work for Adventures in Middle-Earth.
So while this runs on 5e, Broken Weave feels very similar to me as I feel when looking at 2e AD&D and the various settings with vastly distinct rules that seem to a detached observer like me to have created very unique gameplay experiences. This is the most comprehensive review and discussion of the material to be had on the internet by my research, so if any of this interests you, read on. Also be warned; spoilers regarding the setting and some secrets of Broken Weave follow...
Welcome to the Broken World
Haven Creation
Community is emphasized as a major theme in the introduction above, protecting characters from physical and mental decay. Creating a Haven is part of a campaign probably best suited to a session zero, perhaps even before character creation to help set the ideas that will influence all of the characters. This is a really cool and innovative idea that I think can be ported over to other 5e campaigns and settings striving for a similar feel, but that don’t quite hit the mark. Cubicle7 did a really good job with Havens, along with the associated mechanics without making the bookkeeping a nightmare that requires spreadsheets to track.
I tried out the Haven creation system myself to see how it worked:
Founder's Legacy:
Our founders wanted to find a refuge where the monsters could not follow.
Location:
Biome: Tundra
Abundance: Meat
Scarcity: Vegetation
Landmark: A crater containing a massive moonstone meteor; additional abundance: moonstone fragments
Culture:
Values: Knowledge, curiosity, education
Clothing and Appearance: Everyone should have a good travel cloak.
Traditions and Superstitions: The youngest and eldest members of the group eat first, they need it most. It’s bad luck and disrespectful to throw away any part of a hunted animal, we’ll find a use for it.
Leadership: Every few years, prospective rulers leave the Haven and search for relics. Those who return with the most useful relic gain a seat on the council.
Crisis:
Past Crisis:
Internal Conflict: The Haven cannot safely expand any further. Some must be exiled so that the rest can live.
Internal Conflict: Some paranoid Haven members believe that Monsters walk among the Haven and have begun impromptu witch hunts.
On-going Crisis:
External Conflict: A group of raiders have begun to harass the Haven, robbing travellers and stealing from
the Haven’s stores in the night.
Internal Conflict: The Haven has accepted a sudden influx of refugees, putting strain on both the community’s resources and creating tension amongst the populace.
Hope: 11 (assuming four players at 1d4 per player)
Decay: 2 (added an uncovered artifact—Chrysalid Sarcophagus—for +1 decay)
Resources: 10 (same assumption as above)
Population: 120
Name: Moonstone’s Rest
This system seems pretty interesting, and the inclusion of all details in rollable tables makes it much more usable, allowing a roll to be made if players can’t decide on a detail they like. It also advises the GM that they can roll to create other Havens for their adventure, a detail that seems reminiscent of system generation in Traveller. I think you certainly could create an entire campaign by generating multiple communities like this and populating at least a loose map for yourself (because according to the book decay makes distances and time while traveling away from the Haven fungible).
It also provides the added benefit of creating a unique place that players can hold onto for the campaign. A home base and a motivation for their adventuring and survival. It also gives the GM plenty of built in hooks and potential conflicts as you can see above.
Survivor Creation
This is essentially character creation using the new lineage and life path systems and classes created for the setting. It is largely the same as in A Life Well Lived with some differences entirely based upon the setting and the fact that some details available in a generic fantasy setting simply don’t exist as options in a post-apocalyptic one. As a sidenote, I did find it a bit off putting that art was reused from this book (which was produced earlier) for A Life Well Lived.
Lineages
The core lineages of D&D (humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings) are included, along with the Forgotten—a catch all option for other fantasy lineages that you would like to include. Each lineage provides two traits (most of your traits, skills, and abilities are derived from the life path system), and a trait regarding how your lineage deals with the decay caused by the broken magical weave. This is a really cool mechanic to provide narrative choice and risk to players as the adventure. Each lineage gains power as the decay increases, but higher decay increases the likelihood of incurring more. At 10 decay, each lineage is destroyed or transformed into a monster, providing some interesting narrative opportunities for the GM.
This cyclical play style also reinforces the potential to make this a long running game with multiple generations, as your characters can form families, have children in downtime, and then their children can become new characters as play progresses. This idea is unique for 5e, although it’s existed for decades in games like Pendragon.
Classes
There are six new classes here designed to be thematically appropriate for the Broken Weave setting. It’s also interesting that although a new subsystem of abilities called Talents are included, normal 5e feats are not included by default (they merit a sidebar in the later talents section explaining that they can be take in place of personal improvements—which are similar to ASI—at various levels).
These classes also start out with significantly more hit points and abilities than a normal 5e characters, making beginning at level one a more interesting option than in a typical campaign.
Another interesting thing to note about the setting is that there are no spellcasting classes in the conventional sense. Magic is truly broken here, and instead abilities are tied to the forces of Decay that exist in the world.
- Harrowed: This class makes significant use of the Decay mechanic, using it to stave off the effects of decay and fuel their own abilities. Some can even purge decay from other locations or characters, potentially saving their comrades or their Haven. There’s some great roleplay opportunities here, however, decay ultimately is irreversible, and this type of character will inevitably succumb to its effects.
- Makers: Makers are crafters, gaining more skills over time than an artificer could dream of. What I perhaps most appreciate about the high level ability (level 17) of the maker is that it incorporates a follower by giving them an apprentice who can undertake downtime activities while the character adventures. This reinforces again the idea of generational play, focused on the haven as a unit of society. It also means that the maker offers the chance to make your mark through creation and improving others, rather than ending in decay and corruption like the harrowed. The additional systems from Cubicle 7 in Hammer & Anvil and Mortar & Pestle are logical aids for enhancing the maker further (minus magic crafting, as all the maker’s work is explicitly through alchemy and engineering).
- Sages: These characters are about using and passing on knowledge. They possess a tome of lore that enables them to make checks to search out information. Additionally, their level features focus on improving and benefiting others, including their haven. The healing focused subclass also offers a unique way to decrease Decay. The capstone ability for the class allows the character to pass on from life having provided a last lesson that benefits their haven. I also love how they don’t get a spell-like effect until level 11 and it can give the character Decay. No willy-nilly casting of a corrupted version of magic missile or shield.
- Seekers: The Seeker class focuses on enhancing journey abilities and navigating the broken world. Its features can also help others travel and help make the shifting world more permanent, fixing locations in their places rather than allowing them to continue to drift in magical entropy. These features actually shape the world and drive the narrative, imposing certain effects that the GM must incorporate into the game world.
- Speakers: This class includes some elements similar to the bard, including buff and debuff capabilities. It also has interesting narrative abilities impacting your haven and the future.
- Wardens: While all of these classes are essentially martials, the warden is the true fighter of the bunch, and built to be a strong front line defender for the party. These warriors are made to be hit hard and deal out damage too. They get buffs to their weapons or armor as ancestral arms. Interestingly, unlike some other classes with abilities bordering on the magical, wardens don’t have as many opportunities to trade buffs for Decay.
Mechanically, it’s interesting that all of these classes have the same advancement structure (they receive core features at the same levels and have similar levels of customization generally). They also all get two actions at fifth level, similar to regular 5e martial classes with two attacks. Finally, during my read through I didn’t see any features using a bonus action. Instead the action economy relies on the two actions and reactions.
I love the deliberate theming of these new classes. I also appreciate how balanced and less gamebreaking the high level abilities were crafted to be. A high level game which continues to enjoy story progression and dramatic events remains viable using these classes, and none of the cheese of typical high level 5e is included. It reinforces the core themes of mortality and decay encapsulated in the setting. Individually, these characters are all doomed to death or Decay. But collectively, they could work over time to give their haven a better way of life, and perhaps cleanse it of the corruption of the setting. It’s a clear vision and strikes chords of hope that set this setting apart from the typical post-apocalyptic or grimdark fantasy setting.
Talents
There are sixty three total talents listed, providing lots of ways to further customize your survivor throughout gameplay. Talents are very similar to feats, however some are focused on rounding out their abilities in a roleplay sense, providing some more of the personal character growth through leveling that is actually missing from core 5e gameplay. Others include elements of the core 5e classes so that you can flavor your character in this setting differently (for instance, Backstab gives you essentially a sneak attack similar to a rogue with no scaling damage. It requires proficiency in stealth as a prerequisite). The text notes that you can also include feats at the designated automatic skill increases (called personal improvements in Broken Weave). Of course you’ll only want to include thematically appropriate ones, as those that include magic won’t work in the setting.
Equipment
This world has no need for currency, so the designers have created a way to provide gear and equipment that slowly drains the resources of your haven and weakens it in a crisis. This should put the breaks on those characters that just want free and cheap stuff by imposing costs on their home. A simple system of barter is provided to, so a GM can adjudicate trading and obtaining items when players visit other havens. The equipment items are themed to the post-apocalyptic environment, and the text notes that you can "reskin" the items based upon what is available as a resource at your Haven.
There are also ways to accrue additional resources. These include waiting or adventuring, as your Haven will generate resources based on its size every four weeks. You can also return items and gear to the resource pool, basics cashing them in. Additionally, there are downtime activities which can generate resources. Finally, you can harvest more resources from creatures. There are also unique components, or unique resources, that can be used for crafting.
You can actually generate pretty substantial amounts of resources from creatures if you succeed on your tool checks when harvesting, but this is nicely balanced with Decay, requiring a saving through if the monster has a certain amount of Decay. There is also a time element added, and the GM is directed to roll for random encounters, increasing their likelihood the longer the party is harvesting.
One minor complaint is the stub section on vehicles, which essentially leaves the work to the GM to develop the statistics and requirements to get vehicles. For a game fairly focused on inventory management and survival which could have some interesting trade in emergent sandbox play this feels like an omission.
New Rules
This section is where we see the meat of the rules interacting with the new elements identified above. A number of new mechanics are introduced, several of which were previously mentioned and are elaborated on here. Some include a modified skill list, extended and group tests (essentially skill challenges based on checks against a DC, which must the add up to or exceed a target number). Others are new actions which allow for some new tactical situations, especially since the game now has no magical abilities. "Shove" and "Seize the Initiative" are the most interesting to me, allowing you to move a creature and shift your place in initiative respectively.
The another major area of change is a lack of magical healing. To mitigate some of the more harsh 5e rules important changes include that you no longer fall unconscious at 0 HP. Instead you are critically injured and begin Death Saves, but can either move or take an action. Stabilizing and Death Saves function largely the same, but the "Last Stand" provides a new dramatic option if a character is about to die. This feature buffs the survivor, giving their attacks extra damage and allowing them extra movement, at the cost of simply dying at the end of the turn.
Healing then is modified, with HP returning after a long rest, but failed Death Saves only clearing one per long rest. Hit dice only recover at a rate of half your level. To incentivize downtime and campcraft activities, there are additional buffs to be gained from these.
The last few sections really get into the mechanics of Decay, Hope, and their impacts on Havens, which are intended to truly drive play. Decay is fairly simple, as much of the impacts of increased Decay are tracked by the player rather than the GM. Hopeis also then set up as a positive resource to the negative pool of Decay. Hope is accrued as a Haven and can be spent for mechanical benefits, normally of utility in combat. Some of these are pretty powerful, like getting to take an extra action. Hope is gained by taking actions that benefit the community or display compassion to other creatures. A large amount of Hope is also generated when a survivor makes a Last Stand, incentivizing this roleplaying behavior. Havens in Crisis provides rules for reflecting damage done to a Haven as first resources and then the population is depleted. Damage is done to a Haven at the end of each week of narrative time. This creates the tension between using resources for equipment or keeping them to protect your Haven.
Travel and Hazards
This section rehashs the system outlined in another Cubicle7 product, Uncharted Journeys. While I love their journey system and use it regularly in my ongoing Empire of the Ghouls campaign, I am disappointed at the cursory example encounters here. A sidebar instead refers users to Uncharted Journeys wild magic lands sections for encounters, while the types of encounters actually differ from those of the other book, complicating using them together. I personally it annoying that you need to have another supplement to use this system as intended—even if I have and love both of them. The fact that some things differ significantly makes it more difficult.
The hazards setting is better, providing unique mechanical elements flavored to the world that can be added to encounters, locations, dungeons. Wherever. These are a great practical tool.
The Passage of Time
This is one of my favorite sections of the book—and perhaps the best implemented approach to time and creating a long term campaign that I’ve seen in 5e. This chapter outlines a system providing mechanics for Campcraft, Downtime, and Seasonal activities survivors can undertake. While slightly modified, much of this material exists in Cubicle7’s A Life Well Lived. In this book, I think the implementation is better. Instead of lumping all of these activities into the Campcraft and Downtime buckets with less defined times to do them, this approach is more specific and structured.
In this case, the times for each are clearly delineated. Campcraft occurs when survivors are resting during an adventure—and only occurs on journeys when an encounter allows a long rest (this nuance is no-where to be found in the aforementioned setting agnostic products that are ostensibly compatible). The Campcraft activities all encourage roleplaying and provide pretty substantial buffs—although they seem more balanced in a setting where no magical healing exists.
Downtime is next well defined as a period between Crisis of less than a year. These activities mostly focus on preparing for your next adventure and posturing the Haven for future Crisis.
Seasonal activities are conducted in periods that last between a year and a decade. The book also notes that a GM can run multiple seasons in a row—which I love as a mechanical way to drive the story forward and make the passage of time more meaningful. There is player incentive to have these seasons pass beyond their own benefits as the Haven grows in population and available resources increase. The activities similar advance the survivors’ stories and tie them to the Haven. This section also includes retiring so players can swap out who they are playing, or establishing a New Haven, which similar has a survivor become an NPC.
All of these combine to allow players to actually play through the life of a community, not just an individual survivor. You see this type of play in computer games like Crusader Kings and others, but it's cool to see it in a TTRPG. With the right group, this is the type of emergent, storytelling setting and mechanics that could play out over years-long campaigns.
The Broken World
This section of the book is actually more general than I expected in the first few pages, and retreads material already outlined earlier. Where it really shines is in providing some specific names locations and Havens to drop into a Broken Weave campaign. The sidebars provide some great actionable adventure hooks and there are some really interesting sites. Because of the amorphous nature of the Broken World, these aren't tied to a particular geography either, so you could lay out your own pointcrawl structure with these locations and employ the journey rules for travel and exploration between them, or just employ the table of notional distances in the book.
Storytelling
This chapter provides see solid advice on how to incorporate the themes of the setting and approaching the pillars of play of 5e. Tables that would actually be quite helpful on the GM screen (but are not on the official one) offer assistance generating content on the fly and describing the Broken World. Finally there is also a collection of cool arcane items that also cause Decay for characters who use them. These are very cool items, but certainly hold the seeds of destruction for characters who stumble on them.
The Broken Ecosystem
Another interesting section focused on providing the GM tools to create their own content for the Broken World. Among my favorite features are a generic NPC stat block for survivors, and directions of adapting any 5e monster into a creature for this setting. This in particular is great for turning the many other 5e bestiaries that you might have collected into relevant materials to draw upon. In general, it's a really good example of how to build a step-by-step process for adapting monsters to match a more niche setting. One of the beauties of 5e is its modular nature and ability to repurpose elements between various sources quite easily. It would be great to see other efforts like this to lean into those unique traits of the system.
Additional bespoke monsters for the setting are provided (seventeen stat blocks in all, including the Survivor PC and a bespoke NPC). These also provide so.e inspiration that can be drawn upon for aesthetics and abilities when converting or creating new monsters for the setting. It certainly seems that the impetus to create additional monsters is on the GM, whish is positive and negative. The robust tools to aid this provided help make it less of an issue.
Trail Glyph Appendix
This is short, but I thought it worth highlighting that a whole art piece provides a full key of glyphs that can be used to signal various landmarks or locations in journey portions of the game. Glyphs might also be cool clues for new locations in the Broken World, perhaps found in a location to pass along information.
Final Thoughts
I wrote this review over a long period of time, so I had the opportunity to examine other 5e products from Cubicle7, including Adventures in Middle Earth, and their later Vault 5e line. This book owes a great deal to the early design work of Adventures in Middle Earth and later books seem to build off of design ideas created for Broken Weave. This includes thibg concepts like passing through significant periods of time for characters and having narrative continuity, something which occurs in products like the thirty year Mirkwood Campaign through various "Fellowship Phases" (basically extended downtime), along with journeys and adventures. This approach brings good and bad elements as some design debt is carried over, or elements do not fully mesh together in the modular design form of 5e, as noted above. I do really like this product overall though, and I think it's worth checking out to experience a unique setting and playstyle. It should be more okay to retire a character, or put down roots in a location. And the idea of providing a legacy to enhance future characters provides direct mechanical benefits to this behavior for players.
One thing that I do find confusing is the active relics of abandoned or poorly planned Cubicle7 products that sometimes appear in their works, and Broken Weave is no exception. For instance, on PG 251, in the section I otherwise quite enjoy on making your own decayed monsters there is a sidebar teaser of another product that seems never to have come to fruition for the Broken Weave line, called Broken Weave: Seekers Guide. This is much like the promised C7d20, 5e-variant system announced by the company that has since failed to materialize or be acknowledged, except in this product. But it remains obvious that Broken Weave truly still needs the chassis of whichever variant of 5e you prefer. It means sometimes the text makes promises it doesn't keep in this book and then fails to keep altogether.
When I run my own Broken Weave campaign I think I will implement my own rule that everyone will advance a level every session. It also seems viable to have new survivors start at level one and progress through the levels as the power curve is less dramatic than in other 5e variants. This is also the fastest way to start seeing the effects of the generational play mechanics and persistent haven that the setting is focused around. Perhaps after a generation or two of characters then something truly remarkable and hopeful can occur as the characters make the world better and cleanse the areas near them of decay.
While Broken Weave has an awesome concept and ideas for stories the, it’s true to value me is seeing the full realization of the various bits of auxiliary systems Cubicle7 is producing for 5e in one cohesive hole. While each of their individual offerings is great, there are definitely blind spots and bits that don’t fit at first glance. Attempting to reconcile them is a bit like the parable of m blind people attempting to identify an animal by touch; each one clearly described the portion they could reach. But all the pieces needed to come together to identify the creature as an elephant. The same with these systems. They are amazing, but taken together we can truly see how they fit—and how we can better adapt them to our own 5e settings, whether in Broken Weave or our own worlds.
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