About Slay the Scales

What this is

Slay the Scales is a solo fantasy adventure run by a chronicler named Pell. Think of Pell the way you'd think of a good Dungeon Master — someone whose job is to make a world hold still long enough for you to walk through it, and to write down what happens to you while you do.

It is free. It runs in a browser. There is no account, no email, no credit card, and no advertising. The whole thing lives at slaythescales.com and asks for nothing.

It is not a copy of Dungeons and Dragons. It is the kind of game a person who grew up loving D&D would build for themselves, in their own style, and then realize other people might want too.

The shape is simple. You build a traveler through nine deliberate steps. You pick one of fifteen dragons. You walk a long road toward them. Pell narrates the journey as a small book the player keeps. The book is the game.

What this is not

Slay the Scales is not a Diablo, a soulslike, an action RPG, a twitch game, or a speedrun. It is not a deck-builder. It is not procedurally generated. It is not a multiplayer game. There are no microtransactions, no advertising, no upselling, no premium tier, no leaderboards, no comparison with other players, no achievement badges.

It is also not a game for players who want to optimize for speed. The chronicle is patient. So is the game. Failures are permanent but not punishing. The chronicle holds both triumphs and losses with the same dignity.

How it plays

The game does not demand a session length. Play for a little bit. Play for a little bit longer. The chronicle waits where you left it.

Each day in the game has shape. Stamina, food, water, weather, and weight all matter. You walk, you read, you choose, you roll dice. The dice are honest. A natural 20 always succeeds; a natural 1 always fails. The math is calibrated so a strong stat wins about 70 percent of the time and a weak stat fails about 70 percent of the time. The character has real strengths and real weaknesses.

The world is built around Hearthhold, a crossroads town with ten shops, an inn, a tavern, a public library, a lender's guild, and a town well. Beyond it the realm has five regions and fifteen dragons. Some dragons can be fought. Some can be sat with. Some cannot be approached without rare items earned through specific hard adventures.

Pell, the chronicler, narrates everything. The chronicle is literally written down as the player plays and can be reviewed at any time. Players have reported that the chronicle reads more like a small novel than a save file.

Who it's for

Slay the Scales is for readers who like dice. It is for anyone who loves D&D-style adventures and wants one they can sit with alone. It is for current players who already have a weekly group and still want a quiet road to walk between sessions. It is for lapsed tabletop players who can no longer find the table. It is for older players who want a slower, kinder game. It is for parents who used to game and cannot find the time for a long campaign. It is for the curious. It is not for everyone, and that is fine.

How it was made

This project started as the game its developer wanted to play. It became something larger: a chronicler — a DM, in spirit — for anyone who loves D&D-style adventures and wants one in a slightly different style. Not a copy of anything. Its own thing.

It was built by one developer over the course of several intense weeks of late-night work, with the help of a large internal cast of simulated focus-group voices: D&D dungeon masters, game psychologists, medieval historians, narrative authors, UI and UX specialists. Their advice shaped the writing and the mechanics. Their voices live in the project's focus-group reports, which read like the minutes of an unusually dedicated book club.

The game is free in honor and memory of David, the developer's childhood best friend, who was the dungeon master of the games they played together. He died the day before the developer's twelfth birthday. He should have been the one to write Pell. In a sense, he is.