Written by: James Sadler
First, it behooves me to do some explaining and tell you what Troika! is, more or less, if not quite exactly. Written in 2015 by Daniel Sell, Troika! is a tabletop role-playing game very similar to some you may already be familiar with, but it is more freeform than the industry’s big names. And, despite its generous helpings of novel mechanics, the game itself is simple and easy to grasp. Its loosely bound rules allow players and GMs to bring their own ideas to the table. That, and its gonzo philosophy of weirdness-immersion, lets you plunge straight to the heart of this delightful game. Let’s look at some Czepeku maps you can use with Troika! which do exactly that.
Troika! is unbridled creativity amidst febrile flights of fancy. It is the scintillating ichor of space and time itself weeping into the world and crystallising into rarefied shapes unknown and unseeable. It is a seething chorus of insect voices, a golden psalm sung with prehensile tongue to the wonders of the human imagination.
Without getting carried away, it is a feverish romp through the odd and unstructured corners of science-fantasy, where you don’t get mired in rules or the need to maintain a complicated swathe of stats, equipment, or abilities.
It is messy and wild, and I love it.
When you play Troika! it helps to really lean into the weird, the uncanny, and the wondrous. Let strangeness take you in its stride to unexpected places and revel in the fun that it brings. When I imagine stories to tell and games to play using Troika! I like to draw on touchstones of current media like Adventure Time and The Midnight Gospel or recall some of the more otherworldly Studio Ghibli movies like Spirited Away or The Boy And The Heron. These media have oodles of the right stuff – the bright colour and strange characters, the bizarre landscapes and dream logic that makes Troika! stand out in the contemporary indie RPG sphere.
On top of all that, loads of Czepeku’s battlemaps and scenes are practically made for this game, and embody both the weird and the whimsical. I’ve been through Czepeku’s catalogue and hand-plucked a few of the most perfect for you. Read on for some of the best Czepeku maps to use with Troika!
Realm Of Dreams: Full Map Day
This is another section of the map I used for this article’s header image. I couldn’t help but include it in this list because, I mean, just look at it. There’s so much going on in this map, and it all waltzes around that Troika! strangeness in such a perfect way. Plus, it’s enormous. There’s so much detail to it. You can zoom in and use smaller pieces of it to tell a specific story, or you can mush it all together and let your players experience the full panoply of dream-world eccentricity.
The Crystal Veil: Starry Ship Night
Troika! entreats you to embark on an adventure across the humpbacked sky. There isn’t much lore in the text to tell you precisely what this is, but this is a good thing! Nothing about Troika! is precise. It’s open to your own interpretation. To me, it conjures images of sailing across the astral depths beneath the spheres of heaven, where the starry silence is music unto itself. What does it say to you?
Mycelial Gate: Any Variation
I’ve used the ‘Original Day’ map for illustration, but any variation works well for Troika! Did you know that fungi are technically more closely related to us than they are to plants? That never ceases to amaze me, and neither does the sheer profusion of colour and form that fungi exhibit. They are the aliens on our doorstep. These vibes are spot-on. Imagine adventuring to a sphere (realm, plane, astral archipelago, floating space-rock) that is a mycorrhizal mirror of our own reality. Imagine a whole planet made of mycelium. Perhaps it’s whimsical, or perhaps it’s a warning of what could befall our own world.
Gnome City Centre: Snail Trail
Naturists always tell you to remain neutral. The natural world takes its course, and humans shouldn’t interfere. Sometimes, though, you really do just have to intervene and rescue a village of mushroom-dwelling Gnomes from an attack by a giant snail – a snail-zilla, if you will. Your ship is out of juice anyway, so you won’t be going anywhere fast, and that snail’s slime looks curiously similar to the metastable hyper-fluid inside the ol’ gal’s fuel tanks…
Wizard Prison Pt. 3: Original Day
Traditionally, mazes are two-dimensional puzzles, overcome with the correct sequence of right and left, the perfect number of steps. If you add a third dimension to the equation, things become a little more complicated. Add a fourth dimension, and people start to lose their marbles entirely. Did we come across this portal tomorrow? Will we see it again yesterday? These questions are even harder to answer when you’re hanging upside-down over a river of stars into which you could fall forever. Perhaps these wall carvings have been pointing the right way the entire time.
Celestial Gate: Constellation
With the right combination of runes and incantations, the players could use this once-forgotten assembly to tear open a portal to anywhere in the known (and indeed the unknown) universe. In a pinch, it would let them escape from an unbeatable foe, but where might they end up? And how might they get home?
Chthonic Lighthouse: Spell Cage
The lynchpin of spacetime. The fulcrum of the stars. This tower has stood since time immemorial as an arcane axle around which the universe turns. Now, it is under threat. Its wards have flared into life and it prepares to defend itself. But the question is: are the players there to aid the tower in its efforts, or are they the ones laying siege to its ancient stones?
Giant Kitchen: Witch
There’s so much to love in this map. The neon colours, the textures, the implication that giant frogs exist only to be tossed into an enormous cauldron. Wouldn’t you relish the opportunity to yell, “FEE-FI-FO-FUM!” at the top of your lungs and have a witch-giant pursue the players around its oversized kitchen, smashing its hammy fists down in sheer, red-faced rage?
Tutelary Turtle Island: Astral
When the players are caught short or must abscond from a sphere without their own ride, this cheerful chelonian serves as a perfect alternate means of transportation. The village on its back requires some renovation, but with a bit of spit-and-polish, who’s to say it wouldn’t make a perfect base of operations for the adventuring party?
Yggdrasil Roots: Sap Flood
Ancient and mystical beings inhabit the spaces between the stars. What treasures do they guard? What boons could they convey to those willing to do their bidding? Troika! features an interesting mechanic where the GM determines a monster’s mien prior to an encounter. Catching this serpent on a good day means it might offer a pretty bauble in exchange for services rendered. On a bad day, it might just eat you without any effort at a polite preamble.
Well, that was a quick whip across the weird, wild, and wonderful world (wow) of Troika! through Czepeku’s battlemaps. I gave you ten examples of some great maps to use for this game, but there are so many more. Honestly, I cut out loads of ideas. If you’re curious, you can browse Czepeku’s huge selection of maps here.
Troika! itself is available through troikarpg.com across the UK, US, and Canada, as well as Germany and the Czech Republic. The Melsonian Arts Council has absolutely loads of different modules for the game, too. I hope you get as much joy from reading it as I did, and that it sparks strange places in your imagination that you didn’t know were there.
Start Your Adventure With a FREE Map Pack!
For tons more overviews like this, and to keep up to date with the latest from Czepeku, sign up to our mailing list now and get an introductory map pack for FREE.