Hundred Halls Role Playing Game Campaign Guide (Free Version)

HUNDRED HALLS ROLE PLAYING GAME
Free Sample / Playtest Edition

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Magic is real. The university is deadly. You've just been accepted.

Welcome to the Hundred Halls — a modern fantasy tabletop roleplaying
game set in the City of Sorcery, where elemental magic, cutthroat
academia, and a world of interconnected realms collide. Students wield
fire, water, earth, air, and spirit to survive not just their classes,
but the very school itself.

This is the free playtest edition of the full Hundred Halls RPG
Campaign Guide — a complete, ready-to-play document that gives you
everything you need to run your first campaign.

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WHAT'S INSIDE
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CORE RULES
A streamlined modern TTRPG system built around the five elements of
magic, faez (the raw stuff of magic that fuels — and can destroy — a
mage's mind), patron bonds, and a mix of turn-based combat and open
freeform play. Familiar enough for veterans, accessible enough for
first-time players.

FIVE PLAYABLE HALLS
Choose your school of magic and your playstyle:

• Arcanium Hall — Knowledge-seekers and arcane scholars who master
runic languages, lexology, and the art of rewriting spells on the fly.

• Academy of the Subtle Arts — Assassins and infiltrators who train
in stealth, poison, and the art of ending things quietly.

• Order of Honorable Alchemists — Masters of elixirs, transmutation,
and magical chemistry, turning raw ingredients into power.

• Holistic Institute (Aura Healers) — Healers and support mages who
read auras, mend wounds, and hold a party together under pressure.

• Protectors — Front-line defenders who shield allies and absorb
punishment that would break anyone else.

CHARACTER CREATION
Build your mage from the ground up — backgrounds, ability scores, five
elemental affinities, and Hall-specific abilities that grow with your
character across levels.

SPELL COMPENDIUM
Hundreds of spells across all five elements, plus mixed-element
combinations, uncommon spells, and Hall-exclusive abilities.

MAGICAL ITEMS & ELIXIR SYSTEMS
Weapons, artifacts, and an extensive elixir system that lets
alchemists and resourceful players craft powerful consumables.

THE CITY OF SORCERY
A full map of Invictus — the City of Sorcery — and its thirteen wards,
key figures, timeline, glossary, and a guide to the realms beyond the
city, from the treacherous Eternal City to the dungeon-crawl depths of
Caer Corsydd.

A COMPLETE INTRODUCTORY ADVENTURE: CULT OF THE INFERNAL
A full campaign adventure that takes your party from Level 1 to Level 4:

• The Trials of Magic — three dangerous entrance exams that players
must survive to earn their place in the Halls. Every year the trials
change, making this a replayable starting point for any campaign.

• Intro to the Halls — navigate your first days as a student mage,
meet professors, and discover the secrets buried in the school.

• The Cult of the Infernal — an escalating mystery that pulls the
party into a conspiracy with stakes far beyond a first-year student's
pay grade.

• Side quests, city exploration, and open roleplay opportunities
throughout the City of Sorcery.

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THIS IS A PLAYTEST — YOUR FEEDBACK SHAPES THE FULL GAME
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The Hundred Halls RPG has been in development for nearly three years
with extensive testing by new and experienced gamers alike. This free
edition is the next step: expanding the playtest and inviting the
Hundred Halls reading community to help shape what comes next.

The full release — coming to Kickstarter — will include:

• 10+ Halls (classes) with 25+ specializations
• 300+ spells
• 150+ magical items and elixirs
• 200+ creatures and monsters
• A full campaign from Level 1 to Level 15
• Solo adventures and Kickstarter-exclusive bonus content
• Deluxe hardback with full-color art and professional formatting

Download the free playtest edition, gather your party, and let us know
what you think. Join the Discord community, submit your feedback, and
be among the first to get your hands on the full game when it launches.

Discord: https://discord.gg/MWfUXrUkt8
Contact: thomaskcarpenter@gmail.com
Kickstarter: Follow in prelaunch to be notified at launch

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Based on the bestselling Hundred Halls Universe by Thomas K. Carpenter.
100% human written. No AI content, artwork, or generation of any kind.
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Introduction
This is the Hundred Halls RPG free sample. This document is meant as a free version of the upcoming Hundred Halls RPG Campaign and Adventure book that will be released in a few years on Kickstarter and eventually on all online retailers. The HH RPG has been in development for nearly three years now with extensive testing by both new and experienced gamers. We’ve reached the point that we’re ready to expand our player base and invite others to join the playtest. If you have this document, you are formally invited!

What you’ll find in this document is all the basics on how the game works, character creation up to a certain level, and the spells and items required for those levels. You’ll also find an adventure that will take you from level 1 in the Trials of Magic to the end of your first year at the Hundred Halls magical university at level 4. This isn’t everything available because we didn’t want the free document to be too overwhelming, so we cut some of the Halls, spells, and items to a more manageable amount, but the final version will have a more substantial amount of information available typical for most RPGs.

This document is everything you need to play the Hundred Halls RPG in its current form, but keep in mind that we’re still working on the game, so things may change by the time it reaches the release date. We estimate at release we’ll have something around: 10+ Classes (with 25+ sub-classes), 300+ spells, 150+ magical items and elixirs, 200+ creatures, and an entire adventure that takes you from level 1 to level 15. And since we’re launching on Kickstarter, there’s an opportunity for even more stuff including solo adventures and other bonus content.

Also of note, the final version of the game will be available as a deluxe hardback with color pictures and professional formatting. We would have liked to have those ready for the free playtest version, but decided that getting feedback at this stage was more important than fancy extras.

If you want to know more about how to give feedback or ask questions about the HH RPG, you can join us a number of ways. We plan on releasing more free content through those avenues to players and GMs that are providing feedback.

Contact email: thomaskcarpenter@gmail.com

Discord Signup: https://discord.gg/MWfUXrUkt8





If the Discord signup doesn’t work, feel free to contact me directly and I’ll get you invited to the server.

The books that make up the Hundred Halls Universe and the Hundred Halls RPG are 100% Human written. We do not plan on using any AI and will keep all content, covers, artwork, illustration, etc. 100% Human created.

If you’d like to read the books that the HH RPG is based on, you can find them at any online retailer or at my online store: https://thomaskcarpenterbooks.com/

Follow the Kickstarter in prelaunch and be one of the first to get your own copy of the full RPG!

Kickstarter Link:
Welcome to the Hundred Halls

What are the Hundred Halls?
The Hundred Halls are a modern, magical university set in a place that—except for the existence of magic—looks a lot like our world. There are smartphones, cars, guns, skyscrapers, and all the other trappings of the modern world, but in this one, magic is in the open and used by a very small subset of the population.

Why only a handful of people? The first reason is that only some people have enough innate magical talent to achieve magehood. But the biggest reason is that faez, the raw stuff of magic, is harmful to the mind, and after too much use, will drive someone insane. Thus, the patron system was born. Older mages, or other powerful beings who managed to survive the use of faez, could, through a linkage spell, protect younger students as they learned how to use their magic. Eventually, if they could survive their own hubris, they could unlink from the patron—but it takes decades of constant faez use first to get to that point.

The patron system is the foundation of the Hundred Halls. Patrons can start their own schools, teaching the brand of magic they see fit to teach, while working within the university system set up by the founder, Invictus. While the number “Hundred” appears in the name, the actual number varies depending on factors such as whether the individual patron stays alive to keep their Hall in use.

To ensure that prospective students have the creativity and requisite faez levels to become a mage, the Trials of Magic were instituted to test them. Applicants must pass three separate trials to have a chance of being invited to the Hundred Halls. The trials are extremely dangerous, and some prospective students die or are permanently maimed every year. If a student can pass the Trials, they are assigned to a Hall, which is based on their desired Halls, their final Trials score, and the judgment of the Selection Committee.

Once in their assigned Hall, students learn from the Patron and instructors associated with the Hall. The structure of the organization varies widely—from the intensely competitive and dangerous Coterie of Mages to the more studious and helpful Arcanium Hall. The school is structured into five years. 
The existence of magic and the Hundred Halls is not the only major difference in this world. In this one, there are numerous realms connected by a series of portals or other, more natural, ways of passing through the barriers between them. Besides the various Fae realms, there’s also the Eternal City, which is the home of the city Fae—a ruthless urban version that loves to ply their trade as gangsters or heads of major corporations. A small list of some of the realms encountered in the books so far can be found later in this document. 

Lastly, the Hundred Halls exist in the city of Invictus (named after the founder), which is also called the City of Sorcery. The city is located along the eastern coast and is broken up into thirteen wards, each with its own flavor. More details about the City of Sorcery can be found in the Wards of the City of Sorcery section or on the embedded map.


What is the Hundred Halls RPG?
The Hundred Halls RPG is like many other popular TTRPGs, except this one is set in the modern world where magic is open and prevalent, and the school is the major feature of the system. Players take on the role of student mages in their particular Hall of choice (often called classes in other systems). They’ll use a mixture of elemental magics, spells, and abilities unique to their Hall to progress in the game. There are events unique to the HH RPG, like the Trials of Magic or the Second Year Games, a huge magical modern city, and an interconnected network of other realms to explore. Players will band together to take on quests given by professors or explore dangerous realms to uncover valuable magical knowledge and artifacts—all the while dealing with the challenges of a modern, magical university. In a nutshell, there’s an endless landscape of adventure awaiting the players.

The State of the World & Technology
The world of the Hundred Halls is very similar to our own in culture, technology, and geopolitical events, though sometimes those events were impacted by magic rather than their original causes. Currently, our world is rapidly changing due to technology like AI, drones, and medical science. To this point, the technology of the Hundred Halls is locked into the state of things based roughly on the year 2010. In other words, there are smartphones and a thoroughly expansive Internet, but this fantastical world spends its energy developing magical solutions to the world’s problems rather than technological ones.

As for geopolitical events, the existence of magic and the Hundred Halls makes things deviate from where our world has gone. The two might have a shared origin, but for the sake of fun and fantasy, the Hundred Halls RPG will go its own path rather than rigorously following the state of our world. So big events like WWI and WWII, or the American Civil War, would have happened, but more recent events like 9/11 or the Great Recession would not.

Hints for New Players
Most fantasy-based roleplaying games exist in a secondary world that’s medieval in nature. The Hundred Halls universe is quite different in that it exists in modern times, with access to limitless amounts of knowledge and resources. A player doesn’t have to go far to find food, shelter, or any convenience.
It’s important to keep this in mind as you’re traversing the City of Invictus and its many wards. Getting around the city is as simple as riding the train system, which is available for free to all students of the Halls. Because the Internet exists, getting information or answers to simple questions is sometimes easier than using magic. Additionally, the professors of each Hall are generally—though with exceptions—excited to help students with legitimate inquiries about all manner of subjects, and these professors can often be a source of quests. If you don’t know what to do in the world of the Hundred Halls, ask your professor. Or, if you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s always okay to ask your DM if you might know more about a subject, or specifically know someone who could help in your task.

Cool Things in the Halls
The prevalence of magic and technology in a city of millions creates a crucible for exciting new opportunities. This means that players will have the chance to experience strange new magics during their years in the Halls. Here are some fun or frightening little things that one can experience:

Trials of Magic – Entrance into the Hundred Halls starts with the magical entrance exam, made up of three different trials that the player must pass to gain entry into the school. The trials are a fun introduction to the world and give the players a chance to earn special boons at an early level.

The Second Year Games – The Second Year Games (SYG) are held during the second year of school. They are an optional but highly recommended challenge for players that can provide awesome rewards if they manage to win. Unlike most RPG encounters, these are held in a specially protected space where the characters cannot die. Instead of merely surviving the encounters, players must figure out how to optimize the battles and their use of resources. Think of time-loop stories like Edge of Tomorrow as a template for the SYG.

Alchemical Smoke Bars – Rather than drinking a beer or mixed drink, students can visit one of the many smoke bars that serve alchemical bottles of smoke which, when inhaled, provide a variety of pleasant and interesting experiences, such as feelings of bliss, riding a rollercoaster, or temporarily turning your hair a different color.

Illusionary Theater – The use of magic has transformed the normal theater-going experience into an interactive give-and-take between audience and performer. Some of the more famous practitioners are the traveling magical circus Mystique and the world-famous band The Garbage Kings.

The Canal District – Popular with out-of-town, non-magical college students, the district provides a unique experience with a Venice-like canal that runs through its many shops and bars. Just don’t drink the water.

Portal Network – For those with access, portals thread through the City of Sorcery, taking travelers to hidden places or to other realms entirely.

Glass Elevators – Crisscrossing the city high above the streets and buildings, invisible elevators take faculty and upperclassmen to their destinations.

The Undercity – Beneath the modern city is a massive collection of caverns and tunnels carved out by magic and technology. There are secrets in the dark and many a mage has gone missing trying to uncover them.

The Realms - The City of Sorcery is only one place for adventure. The school is connected to numerous other realms that all can be explored or exploited, depending on your moral compass.