Kris Kringle is revered across the world as a bringer of good luck and merry tidings to people, young and old. December 25th -- Christmas -- is his throne, a day filled with dizzying displays of old-fashioned magic resulting in the distribution of billions of presents beneath Christmas trees. The truth is that Santa Claus uses no old world magic, no sleight-of-hand, no rocket-powered sleigh (although he does own one). Santa uses thousands of highly-trained, highly-motivated elves such as yourself to infiltrate and deliver presents and dreams-come-true to countless children on Christmas morn.

You have been chosen to move up. You will no longer be monitoring one of Santa's outdated manufacturing lines, patrolling his vast icy palace, or working in one of the numerous grunt jobs notorious among elves (face it - reindeer don't poop candy canes). Because of your skill and talent, you will become one of Santa's treasured helpers. The fate of countless children's happiness will soon lie in your hands.

And yes, the job is far more dangerous than you think.

To join Santa's legendary brigade of elfen superspies, read on to discover classified information on the ongoing Christmas War. If you do not wish to choose to be a part of Santa's best, consider yourself assigned to reindeer poop detail permanently. Read on. Santa needs you.

The ultimate challenge of being Santa Claus is the limited timeframe to pull off his amazing feat. A scant 24 hours to distribute billions of pounds of toys and goodies to the world's children? Impossible -- but not for Mr. Kris Kringle, a genius and inventor beyond measure. Over time, Santa experimented with thousands of ways to achieve his massive present distribution. Many of those experiments led to strange results.

Mr. Kringle ultimately hatched a swathe of daring plans. The principle of his strategy was to covertly use private shipping, manufacturing, and storage companies across the world. Using these sophisticated facilities, Santa was able to shift much of his burden to other companies without their knowledge. With children population constantly rising and demand for high tech toys exploding through the roof, Santa cannot simply do it alone. Spending massive amounts of capital, Mr. Kringle now owns major chunks of these businesses, also spending money to acquire marketing and toy research firms to propel his work forward. Therefore, much of Santa's work goes on right beneath the world's unsuspecting nose.

The elves -- you -- come in next.

Trained to infiltrate, gather information, and wage delicate silent warfare, Santa's Little Helpers guide, deliver, and protect Santa's precious shipments from the forces who would see Christmas end. Extensive training facilities and amazing elfen technology mean Santa's elfen crew are some of the most courageous, professional bad asses on the face of the planet. There's a reason for this -- you cannot fail. If you do, Christmas will fail. And we don't want that, now do we?

One experiment Santa toyed with turned into his greatest mistake. Using his scientific prowess, Santa attempted to clone himself, figuring that multiple Kringles would allow his operation to expand to meet Christmas demand. Of the twelve attempts, the last and final clone lived, but to Santa's terror, the clone became the exact opposite of Jolly Saint Nick -- hateful, vile, ruthless, and skinny. Evil Santa, as he soon came to be called, did have Santa's awesome brain power, combined with an unstoppable lust to end Christmas forever.

Leading a revolt in the North Pole, Evil Santa rallied a handful of disgruntled elves (the entire robotics department) and fled to the South Pole. Evil Kringle's crew built a sprawling subterranean complex where a war to end Christmas would be directed. Without an army of his own, Evil Santa began the immediate construction of a massive, misshapen robot army that would be the key weapon to disrupt Santa's present distribution on Dec. 25th.

In equal measure, Evil Santa also works on worming his representatives into high profile jobs, spreading rumors and lies that Santa Claus is just a figment of a child's imagination. This disinformation campaign is highly effective and seems to spread further every year. Evil Kringle even uses Christian forces to discredit Santa as a pagan and harmful entity. This is Evil Santa's most successful strategy.

Thus the Christmas War was born.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Christmas War rages on 364 days a year. The only day off is Dec. 26th, so both sides can see which strategies paid off.

Dec. 27th - Dec. 20th -- The Cold Christmas War: Both sides engage in unfruitful compromises and peace talks while secretly trying to disrupt each other's goals. During this time, elfen scientists are captured, light raids are conducted, shipments are stolen, plans are deleted, computer hacking is rampant, new weapons are built, prototypes are sabotaged, and press release games are played.

Dec. 21st - Dec. 23rd -- The Simmering Christmas War: With Christmas so close, last minute plans are created, revised, and put into action. Battles pick up as enemies try to protect toys and shipments across the world. The most devious plans come to fruition or fail utterly.

Dec. 24th - Dec. 25th -- The Boiling Christmas War: Things are hot now. Open warfare, downed jets, booby-trapped ships, hidden warehouses, late night present drops, counter attacks, and final stands -- these are the nights when it gets real exciting.

Dec. 26th -- The Only Day Off. Elves rejoice everywhere.

Now, it's time to fill out this great job application, recruit. Remember to fill out every space to the best of your ability. Please refrain from lying, drawing crude pictures in the margins, or writing insults directed against other elves.

Please wait 1-364 days for processing. Have a nice day.

Actions are what you'll spend most of your time doing as an elven superspy. Whether you are scaling a slippery roof, sneaking past a snoozing housecat, shooting an evil robot, sliding down a chimney, hacking an alarm system, flying a plane, tossing a traitorous elf into the garbage disposal, or celebrating your day off with egg nog, you will roll to find out if you succeeded or made yourself look pretty lame. Decide what attribute relates to the action (Strength, Nimbleness, Craftiness, Brains). Roll a single D8. If your roll is lower than or equal to your attribute, your action is a success. If the action uses your Specialization, you gain an extra D8 to roll, and you take the lowest roll (making it virtually impossible for you to fail).

If your action is against a robot or another elf (an opposed action), the lowest successful die roll wins. Make sure you use the appropriate attributes during opposed actions. A Strength action to punch an evil robot would be opposed by the vile robot's Nimbleness action. If neither side succeeds, it's a draw. Roll again.

Damage is dealt in bites. If you shoot or punch an enemy and succeed, your opponent is dealt one Bite of damage. Basic opponents only have 1-2 Bites, so they don't last long. Harder opponents have a few Bites, so you may have to work extra hard to bring them down. If you take damage, you must take a single Bite from one of your cookies. Once you have eaten all of your cookies (and hopefully washed them down with cold milk), your elf is dead. You may create a new one to enter the game if you wish.

A successful Brains action can create a single Gadget. Gadgets do one of two things. First, they can act as a weapon and add a single Bite to damage (meaning you can do 2 Bites of damage with a Gadget). Or, a Gadget can raise a particular attribute (decided when you create the Gadget) by 1. You must describe that your elf is using the Gadget to gain the bonus.

At the end of an adventure, the GM can award Claus Points for the elf that did the coolest stuff. That elf can raise one of his attributes by +1 (to a maximum of 7). Also, all injured elves get all of their cookies (health) back once gameplay ends.

Battle In The Living Room: Intercept a team of evil robots from Evil Santa who are attempting to replace the good toys with broken toys in a two story house in Atlanta, GA. Your team must get inside, bypassing any security measures, find the evil robots, and destroy them before they can ruin Christmas for the children of the house.

Save the Plane: A plane carrying crucial, hi-tech toys has been hijacked by a team of traitorous elves working for the South Pole -- get on board, take control back, and punish those traitorous pigs. Oh, and try not to crash the plane into the Pacific.

Traitors: There is a traitor in the North Pole. Follow the cookie crumb clues to discover who is supplying the South Pole with inside information -- could it be a disgruntled reindeer or a spy?

Kidnapped!: Rescue an important scientist who was taken from the North Pole to serve the Evil Santa. Infiltrate the South Pole complex and save the day -- otherwise, important toy schematics could fall into the wrong hands!

Well, elf, you are now ready to strap in and engage in battle to save Christmas. I hope the information you have learned today has opened your eyes to the perilous times we live in. It is up to you to save Christmas. Good luck, recruit!

Special Thanks to these #RpgNet regulars: Teucer, Gui-Gwee, Jesse

Check out this review of Santa's Little Helpers = click here.

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