Today, I’m dusting off my solo RPG blog to post a long-overdue review of Jaws of the Six Serpents by Silver Branch Games, written by Tim Gray. After this overview, I’ll follow up with a recent solo actual play report to show the system in action.
As this game still rates just slightly above Barbarians of Lemuria among my all-time favorites—and because it’s still flying below the radar—I’m giving it a full write-up along with some actual play highlights to illustrate its strengths.
I love spotlighting this game because it oozes sword-and-sorcery goodness. It fits the genre better than almost any game I’ve seen, and while it’s extremely flexible, I wouldn’t call it generic. It has a flavor all its own.
For those curious:
👉 Jaws of the Six Serpents on DriveThruRPG
The Core Engine: PDQ with a Sword & Sorcery Twist
Based on the PDQ (Prose Descriptive Qualities) system, Jaws uses a narrative, flexible approach to character creation and task resolution. Characters are built using Fate-like “aspects” or descriptive phrases—but unlike Fate, there’s no need for meta-currency to activate them. Each Quality is rated on a scale from Poor [-2] to Master [+6], with modifiers applied directly to 2d6 rolls.
What’s Inside the Book?
The Table of Contents is a good indicator of what you’re getting. This isn’t a sprawling tome—it’s tight and efficient, but yet a surprisingly complete game by page count.
Part 1 – The Prose Descriptive Qualities (PDQ) System
You can grab the basic PDQ rules for free here:
👉 PDQ Core Rules
The system is elegant. It’s a simple 2d6 + MOD vs. a target number (TN), or an opposed roll. The attacker deals damage equal to the margin of success. That “damage” comes out of the opponent’s Qualities, which degrade along the rank scale:
Master → Expert → Good → Average → Poor
When a character’s Qualities are fully ticked down and they can’t absorb any more, they’re “zeroed out” of the conflict.
Here’s the flavorful twist: the first Quality damaged creates a story hook. The GM (or your solo oracle) can use that as a future narrative thread, making every battle meaningful beyond hit points.
PDQ also includes a handy chart mapping Quality levels to both modifiers and equivalent TNs. For example, Good [+2] corresponds to a TN of 9 (because 7 is the average 2d6 roll, plus 2).
Let’s say my character wants to use their Good [+2] Athletics to scale an Expert [+4] Rocky Height. You could treat this as an opposed roll or roll against the static TN of 11 (average 7 + 4 MOD).
One of my favorite things about PDQ is how fast and flexible it is to stat up NPCs. Unless an enemy is a full-fledged major threat, all you need is a single Quality to represent them.
For example, you might face two Average [+0] Ruffians, or a single Good [+2] Dire Wolf. Even though these Qualities are broad, they imply a wide range of applicable actions: the Dire Wolf gets its +2 on hunting, attacking, tracking, and heightened senses.
Defeating one of these NPCs is as simple as beating their TN. You don’t even need to write down the stat—just improvise it at the table. That’s huge for solo play, where minimizing bookkeeping is a godsend.
Part 2 – Character Creation, Meta-Currency, and Risk
Jaws starts with character creation tailored for sword-and-sorcery tales. Heroes are always human—there are no elves, dwarves, or fantasy races. The default setting offers a lightly-sketched world, but it’s flexible enough to drop into any grim, pulp-fantasy landscape.
Characters start with eight Good [+2] Qualities. Three of those follow a loose funnel structure inspired by genre convention:
A Peoples Quality (your culture or ethnicity)
A Driver Quality (your motivation)
A Faculty Quality (your signature ability or edge, e.g., Climbs Like a Goat, Uncanny Prowess)
The remaining five are up to you: professions, traits, reputations, training, quirks—anything goes. There’s plenty of room to specialize and stack bonuses, but spreading out across multiple roles helps shore up weaknesses.
All characters must take one entertaining Weakness, rated Poor [-2]. This can be used against them—or invoked to earn benefits.
The book includes a host of rollable tables (d66) for inspiration, from quirks to cultural traits. There’s also support for character-defining elements like Fame, Fate, Possessions, and more.
Magic, if you want it, requires committing Qualities to represent your magical aptitude. Sorcery, the core magical ability, starts at Average [+0]—reflecting just how hard it is to manipulate arcane forces in this world. Most casters must invest several Qualities to be effective, meaning you likely won’t see a Conan-style warrior-sorcerer hybrid here. It’s a meaningful trade-off.
You can also opt to start with fewer Qualities in exchange for a higher rank. For example, giving up one Good [+2] lets you upgrade another to Expert [+4].
Fortune Points, Learning Points, and the Edge of Survival
The game’s meta-currency is called Fortune Points. These can be spent to:
Re-roll a failed check
Add extra effort pre-roll
Declare a useful narrative detail ("Ah! A loose axe at my feet!")
You start with one, and they’re rare—earned infrequently. GMs can adjust this, but I like the tight economy.
There’s also Learning Points, earned by failing rolls. Every four Learning Points can buy you a new Quality or boost an existing one. Best of all, you can convert Learning Points into Fortune Points when the stakes get high. You can’t go the other direction, though—once spent for survival, they’re gone.
This trade-off creates a nice push-pull between long-term growth and short-term survival, and GM's can quickly course-correct by raising the stakes and opposition when they see too many points accrue for their desired game pace.
Then there’s the concept of Danger Levels:
In a normal scene, being zeroed-out just means defeat—capture, retreat, or unconsciousness.
In a Risk scene, you also gain a lasting Scar—a new Poor [-2] Weakness. Think: Missing Eye, Shattered Confidence, Crippled Arm
In a Doom scene, zeroing out equals death. End of story.
Interestingly, even a Risk-gained Weakness can be tagged once per session to earn a Fortune Point. This encourages players to lean into the consequences of their failures, not just brush them aside.
And when your adventure ends, all those Props you picked up—say, your Expert [+4] Trove of Gold—can be cashed in for extra Fortune Points next session. Because let’s face it—Conan always squanders his loot before the next adventure.
Minions, Gang-Ups, and Multi-Target Action
As mentioned earlier, minions are super simple: beat their TN and narrate their downfall.
But they can gang up. Two minions working together get a +2 upshift. Three or more grant an additional 1d6.
PCs can choose to downshift their attacking Quality to hit multiple targets. If you’ve got Master [+6] Swordplay, you could split that down:
Attack 4 minions at Average [0]
Attack 3 minions at Good [+2]
Attack 2 minions at Expert [+4]
It’s a fantastic mechanic that captures the feeling of plowing through hordes of lesser foes in pulpy style.
Part 2.5 – Magic: Dangerous, Cosmic, and Flavorful
This deserves its own post—but here’s a primer.
Sorcery
The main magical path is Sorcery—the raw manipulation of reality. It’s a Quality, and its rank caps what you can safely attempt. You can build power over multiple turns, one rank at a time, using control checks. Every turn builds toward a target TN, depending on the intensity of the effect (area, range, power, etc.).
Let’s say a Good [+2] sorcerer wants to cast a miasma of madness over two guards. The number of targets (2) sets the required intensity to Average [TN 7]. On Turn 1, the caster rolls against a Poor [TN 5] intensity. On Turn 2, they go for the full TN 7. Success means the spell is unleashed.
If you overshoot your rank or fail the control check, bad things happen. If you zero-out during casting, you suffer a Scar—and possibly begin taking on a demonic aspect.
The game also introduces the concept of Urges—cosmic, elemental serpent forces. These are the power sources sorcerers must tap. You can’t just cast in a vacuum; you need to draw on a Talisman, a Place of Power, a Sacrifice, or another conduit.
Other forms of magic include:
Charms – Fast, predictable magic with limited uses per scene.
Alchemy – One-use potions and magical items.
Divination – Entrail reading, visions, and oracles.
Intercession – Spirit communication unique to the default setting.
Sorcery is powerful, flexible, dangerous—and extremely sword-and-sorcery in tone.
Part 3 – Setting: The World of the Six Serpents
The included setting is minimalist but rich with potential. It’s mostly wild, dangerous terrain, sparsely populated, with strange folk and occasional supernatural phenomena.
Technology is dark-age level. Sorcery and alchemy sit at the bleeding edge of science.
There are eight cultural groups, each with sample names and trait Qualities. These include:
Industrious river folk
Highlander-inspired tribal societies
Cliff-dwellers of Narrowhome
Masked jungle folk
Devilfolk of Ahaan
Nomads of the Desolate Cup
Iconoclasts of Sartain
- Wandering charm-weavers
- Owl folk of the jungles
Each is tied to a unique region and social worldview, making character creation and world-building feel connected. Yet there is plenty to flesh out and room to create new cultures, cities, and factions. It's more of a teaser setting to show what a creative GM can do, but I like to use it a fair bit in actual play.
The Urges
The Urges are central to the metaphysics. Six elemental “Serpents” define the forces of the world, arranged in a hexagram. A seventh Urge—the Dark Urge—sits outside the diagram, representing chaos and the void.
Sorcery is grounded by these Urges. You need access to one to power your magic. It’s a clever way to make magic feel rooted in lore and limit its use.
Bestiary and Monster-Making Tools
The bestiary is more than a list of sample monsters—it’s a toolkit. Enemies are built with the same Quality system. Most threats are simple, but powerful adversaries have full stat blocks.
You also get a modular list of monster traits, like:
Amorphous
Camouflage
Claws
Dead*
Energy Drain*
Flight
Magic Resistance*
Pack Hunter
Poison
Regeneration
Swarm
… and many more.
These Qualities let you build demons, beasts, undead, and cosmic horrors in no time. For solo players or improv-heavy groups, it’s invaluable.
These are things built like PCs with an array of Qualities for strengths and weaknesses — very changeable and evocative. Again, most people PCs will encounter will be of the minion variety, with a single Quality denoted its main function or nature, thus ensuring PCs are capable and resilient. However, there is a good array of particularly strong stat blocks to provide greater challenges.
It begins be discussing Size, an easy way to scale creatures. Each of the ranks (Good, Expert, Master, Average, and Poor) are defined. A creature with a different size scale will have Size in a paired set. For example, a horse might have Good [+2] Size / Poor [-2] Size… providing the appropriate MOD depending on the situation. For example, being Large is good for smashing smaller opponents with strength, but bad for avoiding ranged attacks from smaller folk. The Size applies anytime a creature is dealing with someone at a differing scale.
Next on the list are common Qualities to use for natural beasts, such as Scavenger, Predator, and Grazer. This covers their behaviors and suggests actions to which to put those MODS.
Then comes the crowning jewel — a list of special Qualities for use in sword and sorcery creatures (see above for some examples). Some have special rules for using TN rank instead of MOD for some things, providing a somewhat granular scaling system.
For example, Dead* provides a TN bonus to resist life drain, death magic, poisons, and diseases. Some real creative stuff here to cover all sorts of situations.
By the way, those players that do take Sorcery* and plan to summon things will find this list very useful. Summoned creatures and demons are built from Qualities — the number and rank are tied to how intense of an effect they hope to achieve on the control checks.
Part 4 – GM Advice and Supplements
The final chapter includes GM advice, hazard and trap rules, campaign guidance, a sample adventure, and a bibliography of inspirational media. It’s compact, but packed with value.
There are also two supplements worth mentioning:
Serpents’ Teeth – A grab-bag of extra articles, adventures, and setting options. Highly recommended.
Blizzards’ Teeth – A single, in-depth adventure set in a frigid wasteland. Excellent material, but purely adventure-focused.
Final Thoughts
Jaws of the Six Serpents is a masterclass in genre emulation. It’s streamlined, powerful, flavorful, and endlessly hackable. Whether you’re playing solo or with a group, it gets out of your way and lets you tell brutal, high-stakes tales of savage heroes and strange sorceries.
It remains one of my all-time favorites—and if you like sword & sorcery, it deserves a spot on your shelf.
Stay tuned for my actual play report, where I put Jaws through its paces. Until then—sharpen your blades, light your lanterns, and watch the skies for serpents.
Edit: Here is part 1 of Black Heart of the Petrified God
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