The Queen’s Cavaliers (TQC) is an upcoming baroque, clockpunk, tabletop fantasy roleplaying game designed by Caoimhe Snow (of the ENnie-nominated RPG Wandering Monsters High School.) TQC is a swashbuckling game that draws on inspirations like The Three Musketeers to recreate that style of action. Swinging on chandeliers, dueling while dangling off the side of an air ship, and trading witty banter are all par for the course. With this style of play, TQC has a cinematic feel to its gameplay, with combat consisting of far more than, “I walk up and swing my sword at the goblin,” and combat being far from a character’s only recourse. It’s a game that encourages creativity and playing characters with a sense of style.

Mechanically, TQC uses a dice pool mechanic grouping attributes, skills, specialties, and tools with the highest pair of results creating the total for a roll. Skills and specialties are determined from a character’s classes that allow a blending of a wide variety of concepts. Want to be a noblewoman who dabbles in clockwork machines in her spare time? That’s a Courtier/Mechanician. What about someone who was a soldier who later found religion? Try a Veteran/Chaplain. There are over 20 classes and any of the combinations can lead to a unique character.

One of my favorite things about The Queen’s Cavaliers is the setting. Set in a fictional version of Europe, while Gallinea has some similarities to France, it has drastically different views on diversity. Gallinea was a matriarchal society that promoted gender quality and embraced people of different religions, races, sexualities, and gender identities. It’s a small thing, but for an RPG with ties to a different historical era, it’s beyond appreciated. Any kind of character is possible in The Queen’s Cavaliers and can be played without comment or any of the -isms getting in the way. As Snow puts it, “In The Queen’s Cavaliers, I want to produce a game which is full of fun, sexy swashbuckling but which is also inclusive of everyone — gay, straight, transgender, male, female, people of color, and so on.” Add to the diversity sweet clockwork machines, airships, alchemy, and fashionable magic and how can you go wrong?

Currently, The Queen’s Cavaliers is in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign. They’ve already more than doubled their initial pledge goal, but that’s no reason not to get in on the Kickstarter and get yourself a copy of this amazing game. Any level of pledge, even $1, will get you a copy of the playtest documents for the game. $15 can net you a .pdf of the final game with $35 purchasing a softcover copy, and $60 a hardcover. There are also some shiny higher level pledges for those of you who would like to contribute a character to the game or have Snow run a session for you herself.

You can also visit boldpueblo.com/dazed/tqc for more information about the game, including some previews of the mechanics. The campaign is set to end on June 6, 2014, so make sure to get your pledges in before then.

For those of you in the Los Angeles area, Snow and Rachel Tolliver will be running several sessions of The Queen’s Cavaliers at Gamex from May 23-25. It’s a great opportunity to try out the game. I hope to see you there!