#gallows corner

Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG

The year is 1376, five years before the Peasants’ Revolt. Half of England’s people are dead from plague. You are a peasant among those who remain. And you’re about to become an outlaw.

Get the Gallows Corner Quickstart Guide now, containing everything you need to start playing, plus a free introductory adventure.

A Better World is Inevitable

Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is the new game from the award-winning team at Three Sails Studios. In this TTRPG – powered by hope, rage, and the unshakable belief that everyday people can make a better world for all – players are peasants and working-class people in an alt-historical medieval England. Outlawed from the crown’s so-called justice, how will you survive? Who will you save? How will you change England for the better?

An Irish sergeant once said something to me I’ll never forget. ‘It’s no sin to be born in the gutter,’ he said. ‘But it’s a terrible sin to want to stay there.’

What Story Will You Tell?

At first glance, Gallows Corner might seem built only to tell stories of violent insurrection, or kings captured and beheaded, of burning manors and epic struggles. And while it’s certainly true that these stories are possible, they’re not the limit.

Gallows Corner is designed to tell stories of struggle, but struggle powered by hope, by the dream of a better tomorrow, by the power of community, all rooted in the act of stepping up and helping others.

Tell stories of growth and nurturing, of celebration and mourning, of daring action and quiet assistance. Tell stories of new communities and new ways of living. Tell stories of stubborn resistance and radical confrontation.

Tell stories of hope. And tell them in your own way.

Narrative First, Intuitive Gameplay

Gallows Corner is a new TTRPG system built around a single principle: you are what you do!

All characters begin the same way, with three Traits (Physical, Intellectual, and Emotional) and three dice (D6, D6, and D8). Assign your dice to your Traits and your character is born. Over time, these Experience (EXP) Dice will shift and change, increasing up to a D12 as you get stronger, smarter, and more emotionally mature or decreasing as low as a D4 as you get hurt, get tired, or suffer great losses.

Then, choose your Trade from the eight on offer, and then a Job from within your Trade, gaining a D6 for both plus a Skill from the latter. Your Trade determines how you interact with the world around you generally, while your Job represents your particular talents and understanding.

When you’re Tested, you’ll build a Dice Pool from your collection tailored to the challenge you face. Begin with EXP dice, then Trade, and then Job, if relevant. When your Dice Pool is built, roll and look for any results of 5 or above: a success! Only a single success is needed.

As you find your place in this harsh world, outlaw, you’ll discover deeper systems at play: the Retinue system, that allows you to get stronger and more capable by gathering a cast of NPCs known as Retainers who become extensions of your PC, and the Point Crawl system, the means by which you’ll change England into something better.

A better world is possible if only you fight for it. Tell the story you want to tell. Struggle and fight in your own way. Shape the England you want to see. Give the commons back their hope!

What is Gallows Corner?

Gallows Corner is an alt-historical TTRPG that sets players a single challenge:

Change England by any means necessary.

Players take on the roles of those lowest in medieval society: peasants and the working classes. And to make things worse, you’re about to become outlaws!

Less than twenty years after the end of the Black Death (known at the time as the Great Pestilence), England is a fractured and broken place. The crown is soon to change hands as one king dies and another – unready for the throne – takes his place. The nobility, rejecting anything that will decrease their enormous wealth and power, work their peasants to the bone, seeing them as little more than prized livestock. And the church, England’s second largest landowner, grows richer and more indolent with every passing year, preaching the virtues of poverty and labour while they feast from golden plates.

And you? You were just trying to get by, trying to survive another year, trying to keep those around you safe and happy. But not much chance of that.

For one reason or another, you have been outlawed and must learn to live beyond the so-called protection of the law.

In other words, it’s time to take things into your own hands. To tell your own story. To make things better for everyone. Even if that means burning it all down and starting again.

Do I Need a History Degree?

Absolutely not! If you know what a peasant is and you know what a revolt is, you have enough knowledge to love Gallows Corner.

If you’ve ever looked at the world around you and wondered if things could be different, you’ve got the mind to love Gallows Corner.

If you’ve ever witnessed injustice and bristled against it, you’ve got the heart to love Gallows Corner.

If you dream of a better world, you’ve got the soul to love Gallows Corner.

Trades and Jobs

In Gallows Corner, you ARE what you DO. Every character, every NPC, every antagonist belongs to a Trade, a group of likeminded workers who share general methods, practices, and understandings, and has a Job, a specific way of interacting with and understanding the world.

Gallows Corner features eight Trades to choose from:

The Body, for those who strain their muscles and come home exhausted at the end of every day.

The Earth, for those who till the soil, grow the food, and tend to the animals, keeping the commons fed.

The Flesh, for those who see the inner workings of bodies and know exactly where to cut, whether to kill or to cure.

The Hood, for those who work in the shadows, making an 'honest' living however they can.

The Market, for those who see the world as deals to be made, advantages to be gained, and money to be made.

The Masque, for those gifted and talented few, who thrive on performance, attention, and creativity.

The Mind, for the deep thinkers, the problem solvers, the inventors, and those who want to earn a coin on their wits.

and The Stranger, for those existing as best they can on the margins of society. 

Each Trade has six Jobs for you to choose from, giving a total of 48 different character options!

Retinues and Retainers

An outlaw on their own is a dead one. Only together, only united, do we stand any chance of changing the world. 

Gallows Corner is a game built on a simple truth: there is power in community. Whether family, friends, or people you meet along the way, you're going to need a Retinue.

In Gallows Corner, you don't get more powerful by 'levelling up.' Instead, your character becomes more capable through the support of others.

As you travel through England and build your Influence by helping others and standing up against tyranny and injustice, you will attract Retainers: people who have chosen to join you in your struggle.

Each Retainer is a character in their own right, with their own Traits, dice, Trade, Job, and Skills. They function as an extension of your character, and you can call on them for assistance in combat, when making Tests, and for Missions across England to spread revolution to far flung places.

And when it comes time to die, you have a choice to make. Will you let your character die and then start playing as one of your Retainers to carry on the struggle in a new form? Or will you let one of your Retainers jump in the way at the last minute and die in your character's place? You'll suffer the consequences, but only you can decide!

The Point Crawl

There is one England. There are many Englands. The stories you tell and the actions you take will change it forever.

Gallows Corner is built to show that stories of local struggle and support escalate and grow over time to bring down kingdoms, crowns, and churches.

To facilitate this, we use a Point Crawl system and a conflict between Influence (the fame and notoriety of our outlaws) and Control (the authority and land ownership of lords, bishops, and other antagonists).

England is divided into eight regions and those regions into counties. Within each county are variable numbers of 'points' -- Hundreds, Boroughs, and Liberties: the smallest areas of administration -- each of which can be travelled to, engaged with, and liberated.

Each point on the crawl has its own story, its own characters, and its own role to play. 

Simple to set up and easy to run, players will only interact with the mechanics of the Point Crawl sparingly and in the background. Narrators are responsible for building the foundations of the England you'll experience, but everyone together will bring it to life!

Inside the Book

How To Play: Player facing rules teaching you everything you need to know to play over just two pages. Start your new life as an outlaw simply and easily.

Trades and Jobs: Eight Trades, each featuring six Jobs, over 66 illustrated pages. Character creation takes less than five minutes. You are what you do!

Core Rules: Narrator-facing rules giving you everything you need to know to run Gallows Corner. With a simple to learn, easy to run, and intuitive system, you’ll be running games in no time at all.

Living England – The Point Crawl: Narrator-facing guidance on building and running the Point Crawl and bringing England to life. Whether you’re running a short story, a grand campaign, or a simple one shot, everything you need to know is right here.

England – A Land Divided: Breaking England down into eight Regions, from London in the south to the border with Scotland in the North and Essex & East Anglia in the east to the Welsh Marches in the West, this section is filled with story hooks, county information, and eight quick and easy to run mini-adventures (including two villages playing mob football)!

The English: Across 40 pages and a whole host of people from every slice of English society (artisans and performers, soldiers and bandits, to lords, ladies, priests, sheriffs, and knights), The English gives Narrators ready-made NPCs to include in stories, a whole bunch of story hooks, backgrounds information for your own NPCs, and random tables to generate a cast of characters for any situation.

Scene Suggestions: For those moments where you need an out of the book solution for an adventure, or for those just seeking some inspiration for their own stories of struggle, we present 10 pages of Scene Suggestions fit for any scenario.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Tue, March 3 2026 8:00 PM UTC +00:00