Ruling Letter

Ruling Letter is a fantasy world that keeps running whether you're driving the action or not. You play one character in it, under tabletop-style rules: d20 checks, saving throws, spell slots, short and long rests, and turn-based fights.

Each world is generated from a seed: 4 realms, about 40 cities, towns and villages, and around 20 dungeons, crypts and towers. One world started with 45 settlements and about 250 named people, each with a trade, a temper and a history. Four months later 279 named people were alive in it, and free settlers had founded two new villages.

Ruling Letter isn't a story written for you. The big events have people behind them: a war is declared because someone on the council wanted one, and most bandits ride under captains with reasons. The chronicle names them. A line from that world, five weeks in:

"With better times in Wolfreach, Coron Carver's band gives up the roads, and its men slip home with what they took."

No AI runs while you play. Every name and event, and every line about them, comes from the game's own procedural rules, running in your browser.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE WORLD

• Towns produce, trade and consume 13 kinds of goods, and caravans carry them to wherever they fetch the most.
• The year turns on the harvest. Grain is cheap in the autumn and expensive in the spring, and in winter snow makes the hills and mountain passes slow going.
• Rulers declare war in council and send named lords at the head of their hosts. Envoys ride between courts to swear the peace.
• Towns are besieged, starved, stormed and ceded, and their folk remember who took them.
• Bandit captains have names and reasons for taking to the roads, and a band breaks when its captain falls.
• Hordes gather under named warlords and last until someone beats them.
• Malcontents plot, towns rise, and realms come apart.
• Rulers age and die, and the crown goes to their blood, or to whoever can take it.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

• Build a hero from 5 races, 5 classes and 8 backgrounds, and take them from level 1 to 10.
• Clear dungeons, hunt named beasts and take work from the notice boards.
• Trade, buy property, and run your own wagons and companies of hired adventurers.
• Hire up to 3 companions. Make friends and enemies, court, marry and raise children.
• Swear fealty to a crown, earn a knighthood, and petition for a Letter of Rule over a village of your own.
• Rule it: hold court days, set taxes, raise walls, and send your levy when the Crown calls.
• Take sides in wars, risings and plots, or turn on a town yourself.
• When you die, the world goes on, and a child, your spouse, a companion or a relative can take up your banner.

HOW IT PLAYS

• Time passes only when you act, so nothing happens while you think.
• Two difficulties, chosen with your character:
• Normal: dangerous roads, rival crowns, and a new horde a month or two after the last is beaten.
• Apocalypse: about 30 dungeons, far more monsters, a new horde a few weeks after the last one falls, and many towns already in ashes.
• Five save slots and an autosave. Export a save as text or a file, and import it in another browser.
• Export your saves now and then (Menu, then Export). Saves live in your browser, so clearing its data or playing in a private window can wipe your progress.
• Best on desktop: at a screen size of 1280 or more, the story, the map and the ledger sit side by side, and the fullscreen button gives the game the whole screen. It also plays on a phone in a one-column layout, though expect a fair bit of scrolling.

GOOD FOR

• Long games where the story is whatever happens
• Tabletop players who want a solo sandbox with familiar rules
• Trading, ruling and scheming as much as fighting

IN DEVELOPMENT

Ruling Letter is updated often, with notes in the devlog. So far, saves from earlier builds have kept loading in newer ones. Found a bug, or want something added? Leave a comment.

NOTES

• Free to play, with an optional donation.
• No account, no sign-in, no install.
• Saves live in your browser's storage. Clearing site data, or playing in a private window, loses them. Menu, then Export, keeps a copy as a file.
• Once the page has loaded, no connection is needed.
• No sound. English only.
• The code and text templates were written with the help of an AI coding assistant; no generative AI runs while you play.

CREDITS

Made by Defaulted.

Fonts: Alegreya and Alegreya Sans by Juan Pablo del Peral (Huerta Tipográfica), and Pirata One by Rodrigo Fuenzalida and Nicolas Massi, via Google Fonts (SIL Open Font License).

MORE FROM DEFAULTED

Making a game or a campaign with realms of its own?

Armorial - Procedural Heraldry: 240 coats of arms built on the rules of heraldry, for kingdoms and noble houses: https://defaulted19.itch.io/armorial-procedural-heraldry

Armorial - Wax Seals & Signets: 90 seals with ring text, for the letters and charters between them: https://defaulted19.itch.io/armorial-wax-seals-signets

Deephold - Procedural Dungeon Maps: 90 dungeon battle maps with GM keys and VTT files: https://defaulted19.itch.io/deephold-procedural-dungeon-maps

Willowbrook - 16x16 Settlement Sim Asset Pack: workers, walls, and buildings that rise and fall: https://defaulted19.itch.io/willowbrook-1616-settlement-sim-asset-pack

Try them free first:

https://defaulted19.itch.io/armorial-free-starter-pack

https://defaulted19.itch.io/deephold-free-starter-pack

https://defaulted19.itch.io/willowbrook-free