Enter a world where adventurers can become conquerors – and conquerors can become kings.
Welcome to ACKS II, the new edition of the bestselling fantasy RPG.
Adventure, conquer, and reign!
Will you survive the perils of war and dark magic to claim a throne? Or will you meet your fate in a forgotten ruin beyond the ken of men?
This is a world where empires stand on the brink of war, and terrible monsters tear at the fragile borderlands of men; where decaying cities teem with chaos and corruption, weeping innocents are sacrificed to chthonic cults and nobles live in decadent pleasure while the realm burns; where heroes, wizards, and rogues risk everything in pursuit of glory, fortune, and power.
The Adventurer Conqueror King System™ Imperial Imprint (ACKS II) is the new edition of the acclaimed bestselling fantasy role-playing game. Within ACKS II you'll find everything you need to enjoy epic fantasy campaigns with a sweeping scope. Whether you want to crawl through dungeons, experiment with alchemy, crossbreed monsters, run a merchant emporium, raise an undead legion, or conquer an empire, ACKS II supports your playstyle.
This is the ACKS II core game system module for Foundry Virtual Tabletop, providing character sheet and game system support for ACKS II.
This game system has essential rules mechanics and character sheets to make the judge's job easier for running ACKS games on the Foundry VTT. Also included is a world map of the Auran Empire (the default setting of ACKS). A number of compendiums with Monsters, Items, Spells, Proficiencies, Abilities and more are available separately.
- Armor Class (Ascending starting from 0)
- Attack throws, saving throws, and proficiency throws
- Attributes, class powers, and proficiency modifiers applied to character sheet
- Encumbrance rules, including encumbrance bar to reflect speed
- Initiative rules, including readying, delaying, and tie-breaking by group size
- Morale and Loyalty tracking for Henchmen
- Party-based surprise rolls to start encounters
- Party-based evasion rolls to end encounters
- Spellcasting
For a detailed list of changes for each release, refer to the Changelog.
- Adventurer Conqueror King System Imperial Imprint (ACKS II) for Foundry VTT
- ACKS II Core Game System
- Table of Contents
- Before Installing or Updating
- Installation Instructions
- Downgrading to an older ACKS Core System release
- Developer Instructions
- Community Contribution
- License
Here are some important notes that apply whenever you update any Foundry VTT module, not just ACKS. The main point is to always backup your game world because it could be upgraded (and made incompatible with older versions of the modules).
Data Loss Warning
- Be warned that updating to a new release of ACKS will update your game world data.
- If later you revert back to an older ACKS release, you might have to reload an older game world backup. If so, all recent changes in that world will be lost.
- There's no guarantee that you can keep your current game world when going backward in ACKS versions.
Always make a backup
- Before updating, always make a backup of your current world.
- Test the behavior immediately after updates, in case you need to revert back.
- Keep the older backups in case you have to go back to an older version later.
Downgrade Instructions are provided immediately after the Installation procedure.
Getting Started with the Foundry VTT
If you're new to installing Game System modules, follow along with the Foundry Gamemaster tutorial section headlined Installing a Game System. https://foundryvtt.com/article/tutorial/
Backward Compatibility
If you need to maintain backward compatibility with older Foundry releases before version 11, we recommend using the Version 9 installation package. Be aware that the Version 9 package is for ACKS (original) and will not contain any updated content for ACKS II.
If you're using the Forge hosting service, the ACKS II module is immediately installable directly from Forge's Bazaar.
The rest of this document describe how to install the module on a self-hosted Foundry instance.
To install and use this system, paste one of the following installation URLs into the Install System dialog of the Setup menu inside the Foundry application.
| For this Foundry version |
Use this Installation URL |
|---|---|
| The Forge hosting service | Visit the ACKS II page on Forge and click the Install button. https://forge-vtt.com/bazaar/package/acks |
| Version 12, Version 11 |
https://github.com/AutarchLLC/foundryvtt-acks-core/releases/latest/download/system.json |
| Version 10 | Unknown. Recommend staying at Version 9 or else updating to Version 11. |
| Version 9 | https://github.com/thehappyanarchist/foundryacks/raw/master/src/system.json |
| Older versions | Not supported. |
If you wish to manually install the system, you must clone or extract it into the foundry "/data/systems/acks" folder. You may do this by cloning the repository /src folder or downloading and extracting the zip archive available on the GitHub page.
If you have conflicts between an updated ACKS and another module, you might be able to revert back to an older version of the ACKS module (or the other module), if you have a backup.
Note
The Foundry setup manager does not have an automated way to do this. It's a manual process where you have to provide the desired manifest URL for that game system version.
Data Loss Warning
- Be warned that updating to a new release of ACKS will update your game world data.
- If later you revert back to an older ACKS release, you might have to reload an older game world backup. If so, all recent changes in that world will be lost.
- There's no guarantee that you can keep your current game world when going backward in ACKS versions.
In other words, to be safe, you should always make a backup copy of your game world before updating:
- Before updating, always make a backup of your current world.
- Test the behavior immediately after updates, in case you need to revert back.
- Keep the older backups in case you have to go back to an older version later.
All the ACKS releases are listed historically on the FoundryVTT page. See ACKS Foundry VTT Releases
There is a section in the ACKS module page on Foundry called Installation Instructions which provides a list of the recent releases.
- Use Foundry VTT to uninstall ACKS current version.
- Open Foundry VTT, and perform the following steps:
- Go to Game Worlds management tab.
- Back up your current world using a name and version, like (World name)-problems-ACKS-XX.Y.Z
- Go to Game Systems management tab.
- Right-click on Adventurer Conqueror King System and choose Uninstall.
- Obtain the URL of the version of ACKS you want:
- Visit the module's Foundry VTT page at Adventurer Conqueror King System.
- Locate which version of ACKS you want to install.
- Copy the URL from the column Use this Installation URL. Right-click on the URL and choose Copy Link Address.
- For more advanced needs, every ACKS II build, including minor releases, is listed on the module's GitHub releases area.
- Visit the ACKS GitHub Releases page.
- Locate which version of ACKS you want to install.
- Expand the Assets section to show the release files.
- Copy the URL of the asset file system.json. Right-click on the URL and choose Copy Link Address.
- Use Foundry VTT to install ACKS old version.
- On the Foundry setup screen, go to Game Systems Modules and choose Install System.
- Do not select anything from the list of available modules.
- At the bottom of the installation dialog, paste the copied URL into the field Manifest URL.
- Choose Install to download and install the chosen version of ACKS.
- You may need to restore your game world from an earlier backup.
Your currently installed game world might not work with an older version of the ACKS game system.
Good luck, and always backup your game world before installing new versions, or when downgrading!
There are tests that can be run inside of your Foundry instance through the acks-tests module. To
install the module locally, symlink that folder inside of your Foundry modules folder:
cd ~/.local/share/FoundryVTT/Data/modules
ln -s ~/path/to/foundryvtt-acks-core/acks-tests acks-testsOnce that's done, reload Foundry and you will see "ACKS Test Suite" in your Add-on Modules list. You'll need to install the Quench module too, which can be done via the built-in module search functionality.
To run the tests, log into a World which is using the ACKS System and go to Manage Modules to enable ACKS Test Suite. It will prompt you to enable Quench.
Now that it's installed and enabled, you will see a "🧪 Quench" button under your chat box. Click that and the tests will run. You can also adjust your Quench defaults in the Configure Settings menu.
Code and content contributions are accepted under the terms of the Autarch Individual Contribution License.
Please feel free to submit issues to the issue tracker or submit merge requests for code changes.
Merge requests should pass code review and (if necessary) design review by ArcanistWill. Please reach out on the Autarch Discord in the "acks-vtt-collaboration" channel with any questions.
Big thank you to Bobloblah and The Happy Anarchist for laying the foundation of the ACKS compendium! Both of them put in an enormous effort, all to save judges tons of work in getting their campaigns started.
This system is offered and may be used under the terms of the Simulationist Adventure Game Authorization (SAGA) License v1.0, the Autarch Compatibility License, and the Autarch Community Use Guidelines.
This code is modified from a fork of the v1.0 code of the Old School Essentials System written by U~Man, and released under the GNUv3 license. The software source of this system is also distributed under the GNUv3 license and is considered open source.
Autarch, Adventurer Conqueror King, Adventurer Conqueror King System, ACKS, ACKS II, and Imperial Imprint are trademarks of Autarch LLC. You may find further information about the system at autarch.co. Auran Empire is trademark Alexander Macris.
We gratefully acknowledge all the contributions that make this module possible! Graphical assets used in this module and its compendia come from a variety of sources and are used in compliance with their individual licensing terms as cited here. If we have accidentally missed crediting a source, please contact us through the Discord.
- Weapon quality icons, and the Treasure chest are from Rexxard, and came with the Old School Essentials System for Foundry VTT (Unofficial) by U~man which can be found at https://gitlab.com/mesfoliesludiques/foundryvtt-ose.
- Game-icons.net: Distributed under the Creative Commons 3.0 BY license and are available on https://game-icons.net. A list of icon authors and contributors for that project can be found on the website, or at https://game-icons.net/about.html#authors.
- Flaticon.com license: Free for personal and commercial purpose with attribution.
- Monster Tokens in the bundled ACKS Monsters Compendium are from the Free Token pack from Devin's Token Site and are made by Devin Night https://immortalnights.com/tokensite/.
- Other icons in the compendium are by Bobloblah or The Happy Anarchist.
- Map of the Auran Empire (default setting of ACKS) by The Happy Anarchist.