The die from my first game

If you have opened the Quickstart Rules, you have met Ylranel, the priest of the Cracked Horn Company. His name is a nod to the past. Long before Destynéa, Ylranel was a half-elf priest of Torm who went on a Descent into Avernus every week in an actual play a friend streamed on Twitch, on his channel LaVolontéDuDé (which you can also find on YouTube).

We had a lot of fun. But as the sessions went on, some rules kept pulling me out of the story: counting my spell slots, waiting for a long rest to get them back (and sometimes forcing one), facing an enemy made almost untouchable by its armor class, and static fights where everyone was afraid of taking attacks of opportunity. The problem was never our GM.

After the campaign, we tried Mythras, Warhammer, Worlds Without Number… They all had their strengths, but none fully satisfied me. Then my friend discovered Giffyglyph's QuickQuest: simple, flexible, promising. I was hooked right away. Yet after a few sessions, something was still missing. And I finally understood what: the d100. A die where 45 means a 45% chance. The die from my very first game, back in middle school, with The Enemy Within for Warhammer.

That's when I decided to create my own game.

Quête Rapide

Quête Rapide (French for "quick quest") was meant to be a gateway: a game you can pick up in a few minutes, to introduce beginners to roleplaying. A character in ten minutes, no class or race, and you play.

I started from QuickQuest and switched it to the d100. I kept its foundations: six attributes, six archetypes, and the idea that the hardest techniques come at a cost. QuickQuest pays for them with resolve points. In my game, you pay with hit points.

Then I locked in what used to change with every roll. In QuickQuest, before each test, you choose the two values to add together. In Quête Rapide, those combinations became base skills, written once and for all on the sheet: Persuasion is Charisma + Diplomat, always.

One thing appealed to me from the start, and I kept it: these skills don't assume any setting. Persuading, hiding, healing: it works in a tavern just as well as on a spaceship. Quête Rapide could already be played anywhere.

The first campaigns ended, like many campaigns do: busy schedules, players drifting away. And something was still missing: depth, progression and structure. I didn't want to weigh the system down, make it too crunchy and lose its narrative, roleplay-driven side.

The turning point

The turning point came from Pathfinder. My friend kept telling me that crunch feeds roleplay, and I didn't see what he meant. Then I built my own character, and I understood: the rules didn't weigh character creation down, they gave it direction.

Quête Rapide, on the other hand, left everything open. Too open. An inspired player thrived in it. A player without ideas was left staring at a blank sheet.

So I decided to push Quête Rapide further. The paths of Chroniques Oubliées, the three actions of Pathfinder, the off-turn actions of Nimble: little by little, I added depth, progression and choices.

Not everything survived

Initiative, first: a d100 for the party against the GM, then a d20. Every roll made combat longer, and luck decided everything: with +5 to initiative, a bad roll could still put you last. Today, there is no roll anymore. Every character has a fixed initiative value, and whoever invested in it acts first, guaranteed.

The turn structure, next: two actions, a reaction and a free move, like in D&D. That was three things to track every turn, and everyone ended up getting tangled. Destynéa keeps only one: three actions, to move, attack or react.

And I never wanted automatic attacks of opportunity. They freeze combat: everyone stays glued to their opponent, afraid to move. I wanted the opposite: fights that move, that don't drag on, and where roleplay keeps its place.

Destynéa

One day, "quick" was no longer true. It wasn't Quête Rapide anymore, it was a different game. I named it Destynéa, because I believe in destiny and the stars have always fascinated me.

Quête Rapide didn't disappear, though. It became the Quickstart Rules: if you have read them, you have played its heir. The core rules are the game I run at my table today.

Why I'm sharing it

What made me decide to share it was my players. A friend who didn't like board games found herself fired up against a band of kobolds, then trying to squeeze information out of a creepy old man in a tavern. Another, a devoted Pathfinder fan, had a blast digging through the rules to build an optimized orc barbarian. In combat, it did exactly what he expected of it.

If a beginner and a veteran can both find what they're looking for, then this game deserves to leave my table.

I'm sharing it first because it's my passion, and I want it to live somewhere other than my home. So tell me what you think: your sessions, your questions, what you liked and what you didn't. I read everything.

What's next

And this is only the beginning. Early 2027 will bring the core rules, the game as I run it at my table, and Fantasy Characters: 9 classes, their paths and their ultimates. The Cracked Horn Company will also hit the road again in Next Stop: Lastsail, the sequel to The Ternauve Detour.

To hear when they come out, join the mailing list. And to tell me about your games, join us on Discord.

Willy Kim