Willcaster

Something out of the old royal line has come back to Silthorr. Dead for centuries, it returned rotted in body and soul, and now it wants the kingdom remade in its own corruption. It does not win by force. It turns people. The heroes who marched against it are dead, or worse, they kneel to it now. And the stronger the frog, the hungrier for power or knowledge, the easier the rot slips inside.

You are a great sorcerer of Silthorr, and you are afraid. Not of dying. You are afraid of what the enemy could make of you if it ever got close, because your kind of strength is exactly the kind it corrupts best. So you do not go. You send a champion in your place, and you choose him weak on purpose: a small, plain, cheerful frog with no thirst for power and nothing for the rot to grip. He carries an old family sword and little else.

You never march beside him. From the sorcery table in your home you hold the bond between you open and cast for him from across the kingdom, the way a wizard watches over a friend he cannot walk with.
Draw his path, then live with it
You do not move your champion. You draw his path across each cursed room, then watch him walk it, fight, and bleed the way you sent him. Every room is a board of tiles, traps, treasure, and enemies. Draw well and he feeds his hungers, slips past the hazards, and lands clean kills. Draw badly and he ends up surrounded.
He has a will of his own
Your champion is not a game piece. He has his own hungers, caution, greed, curiosity, and loyalty, and every room stirs them. Give him what he wants and he trusts you more. Ignore him and the resentment builds. Push him too far and he refuses the path you drew. Then you choose: let him have his way, or force yours and watch the trust between you thin. The closer the bond, the more he gives you when the fighting starts.
Guide him from the table
Between rooms you read the cards laid before you, each one a road you could send him down. Scout a road ahead before you commit to it. Weigh what his senses catch along the way. Steer him toward what your build needs before a rival dweller reaches the treasure first. The road only runs forward.
Cast from across the kingdom
Your spells are how you protect him when you cannot be there yourself. Open a living grimoire of magic across four schools and spend Focus to pull him out of a fight going wrong. Shape him further with rare glyphs, artifacts, and skill forks. Nothing comes cheap, and no two runs build the same frog.
Features
Draw the path and cast the spells. Your champion does the walking and the dying.

A living champion with his own wants, and a bond that can sour into defiance.

Support him from afar with a grimoire of spells across four schools, fueled by Focus.

Rare glyphs, artifacts, and skill forks that reshape every run.

A forward only campaign of roads you can scout ahead, hidden signs, and a rival racing you for the spoils.

Permadeath roguelike runs through a kingdom rotting from the inside.