The upcoming Prophet of the Pyre campaign takes the player characters from 1st to 10th level, from fresh-faced young adventures to epic heroes. The first part of the campaign takes place in a remote valley, isolated from the rest of the Empire. Most of the characters have never left this valley and so do not (yet!) have […]
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31
Oct
Oct
A column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws This wraps up the series outline from the previous installment of See P. XX. Cult Activity A friend or loved one joins the Temple of Hali, willingly embracing the new unreality as more vivid and exciting than boring old regular life. Can the team dig up a […]
05
Aug
Aug
Intense drama. Hilarious comedy. And you are the sole protagonist. First Edition is the game of personal storytelling for one player and one GM. Incorporating new rules by GUMSHOE One-2-One and DramaSystem designer Robin D. Laws, First Edition features an accessible framework for creating compelling solo protagonist narratives. This core rulebook also includes eleven innovative […]
28
Apr
Apr
Nominated for Best Setting and Best eBook in the 2012 ENnie awards. Winner of the Gold ENnie for Best e-Book.
On November 2nd, 1936, the world died. Humanity perished, women and men died in their millions. Finally, the stars had come right, and the things that had lurked under the seas for eons rose to claim their rightful place. Now, they rule the earth, stalking it like titans.
Yet you survived this destruction. Some miracle or design left you alive to watch the destruction of everything humanity built. You are doomed to wander the devastated ruins, discovering what little you can. What went wrong? Are there others like you? How can you stay alive? Can you fight back? And, most importantly of all, is there a way to put this right?
The Apocalypse Machine continues the investigations of Trail of Cthulhu in a post-apocalyptic world. In these pages, you will find instructions on designing your own apocalypse; new Occupations, Skills and Drives, and explanations of how the old ones function in this post-apocalyptic world; and many ways for the Mythos to take over.
Your apocalypse can happen anyway you want, whether it’s a nuclear disaster, a meteor slamming into the ocean, the new ice age, or Cthulhu taking a stroll, it’s up to you.
The Apocalypse Machine contains two different modes of play, Aftershock and Wasteland.
- Aftershock – This mode puts the investigators right in the thick of it, moments after the earthquake has toppled buildings, mere seconds after the Mi-Go swarms are spotted in the skies. You have to find a safe place, food, water, and just try to escape the Mythos hordes.
- Wasteland – The apocalypse was years ago, barely talked about anymore, the old civilisation has gone, replaced with a rougher existence. Frontier towns, destroyed buildings, poisoned farmland, you can’t escape the effects, you just have to learn to survive in the new world.
The Apocalypse Machine is the second installment of the series now contained in Cthulhu Apocalypse by Graham Walmsley, author of the Purist adventures in The Final Revelation.
Related Material
- See Alessandro Alaia’s amazing art in these three desktop wallpapers.
- Read reviews of The Apocalypse Machine
27
Apr
Apr
The original set of The Yellow King RPG, featuring the PDFs of three separate products:
The Yellow King RPG
Written and designed by GUMSHOE master Robin D. Laws, The Yellow King RPG takes you on a brain-bending spiral through multiple selves and timelines.
Inspired by Robert W. Chambers’ influential cycle of short stories, it pits the characters against the reality-altering horror of The King in Yellow. This suppressed play, once read, invites madness or a visit from its titular character, an alien ruler intent on invading and remolding our world into a colony of his planet, Carcosa.
Four books, served up together in a beautiful slipcase, confront your players with an epic journey into reality horror:
- Belle Époque Paris, where a printed version of the dread play is first published. Players portray American art students in its absinthe-soaked world, navigating the Parisian demimonde and investigating mysteries involving gargoyles, vampires, and decadent alien royalty.
- The Wars, an alternate reality in which the players take on the role of soldiers bogged down in the great European conflict of 1947. While trying to stay alive on an eerie, shifting battlefield, they investigate supernatural mysteries generated by the occult machinations of the Yellow King and his rebellious daughters.
- Aftermath, set later in the same reality, in present day North America. A bloody insurrection has toppled a dictatorial regime loyal to Carcosa. Players become former partisans adjusting to ordinary life, trying to build a just society from the ashes of civil war. But not all of the monsters have been thoroughly banished—and like it or not, they’re the ones with the skills to hunt them and finish them off.
- This is Normal Now. In the present day we know, albeit one subtly permeated by supernatural beings and maddening reality shifts, ordinary people band together, slowly realizing that they are the key to ending a menace spanning eras and realities.
Absinthe in Carcosa
At the end of the 19th century, an American art student went to Paris, read a play, and lost his grip on reality.
The play was called The King in Yellow.
Having read it, head reeling from absinthe, bedeviled by unseen adversaries, he realized that the alien world it described, Carcosa, had sunk its traces throughout the City of Lights.
As he explored Paris in search of its decadent influence, he created a scrapbook. A guide for himself, and for those who would come after him. This is Absinthe in Carcosa.
Yoked together from existing travelogues, newspapers, and the disquieting ephemera of the occult tradition, it laid out a skewed portrait of a haunted city:
- Art student life, from hazing rituals to fabulous bacchanals at the Moulin Rouge
- Hangouts and nightspots, from everyday beaneries to ghoulish cabarets
- Neighborhoods and attractions, with useful maps
- Sources of knowledge, from museums to institutes of technology
- Operations of the justice system, from the city’s police to its prisons
- Rites of death, from funeral fees to the notorious, bone-stacked catacombs
- Details of everyday life, including currency, communications, and essential phrases
- A timeline of recent historical events
In the margins appear the increasingly fervid scrawls of the anonymous compiler. Through them determined investigators of the Yellow Sign mystery will learn:
- Who to seek aid from
- Where madness lurks
- And to never waver in their distrust of clowns
The Missing and the Lost
The Missing and the Lost is a novel by Robin D. Laws based in The Yellow King RPG‘s Aftermath setting.
Imperial America has fallen.
Emperor Castaigne, who ruled the nation with secret police and even more secret sorcery, has fled. The portals that connected him to his rumored source of power, the alien realm of Carcosa, have been destroyed.
After a century of tyranny, democracy has returned to the USA—if those who fought for it have what it takes to keep it.
Along with his loyal crew, the man they called the Technician helped win the struggle. Now he seeks a return to civilian life.
Specifically, he wants to eliminate his job. He repairs the suicide machines known as the Government Lethal Chambers.
His determination to decommission these instruments of death brings him to the People’s Hall. There a generation of political pioneers works to jumpstart a disarrayed provisional administration into a fairly and freely elected government.
But when the body of a murder victim shows up in flagship Lethal Chamber in Washington Square, the Technician sees that the skill set of his crew hasn’t quite gone out of fashion.
The ensuing investigation takes him on a journey through the secrets of the old regime, with fugitive war criminals, haunted hide-outs, urban firefights and dread parageometrical rituals along the way.
15
Mar
Mar
Enter Glorantha, Greg Stafford’s classic fantasy world of richly imagined cultures, ferocious combat, and colliding mythologies.
13th Age Glorantha is a new setting for 13th Age, Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet’s d20-rolling game of heroic fantasy, escalating combat, One Unique Things, and limb-ripping owlbears. You’ll need the 13th Age corebook to play 13th Age Glorantha—the two books are available together as a discounted bundle.
What is Glorantha, and what makes it awesome?
Glorantha is a world of mythic fantasy, where mythology is real—a Bronze Age setting where the world really is flat and the sun travels each day across the Sky Dome only to descend into the Underworld each night. Countless gods and goddesses rule the powers and elements. But what gods create, they can destroy. The Gods War came within a sword-stroke of ending the universe, until Orlanth and his Lightbringers rescued the sun from hell and brought forth the Cosmic Compromise that created Time. Exiled from the world by the Compromise, the gods could only watch as Chaos tore a place for itself in the heart of the cosmos, entering the world wearing the beautiful mask of a goddess shaped like a Red Moon.
13th Age Glorantha takes place in Dragon Pass, a magical land perched between mountain ranges formed from the scales of long-dead continent-sized dragons. For generations, Dragon Pass has been dominated by human clans that rely on the goddess of Earth, Ernalda, and her consort, the god of Storm, Orlanth, to fight off the trolls, dragonewts, and beastfolk who once ruled the land.
But now the Red Goddess’ Lunar Empire rises in the north. Chaos corrupts the land and invades the sacred myths that shape reality. Can the heroes of Dragon Pass retake their myths and remake their home?
For Game Masters, 13th Age Glorantha includes:
- More than 80 pages of monsters and enemies fully compatible with any 13th Age campaign, including Chaos priests, dragonsnails, scorpionmen, Crater Makers who call down the Moon, and the awesome Chaos demon known as the Crimson Bat.
- More than 60 pages of ready-to-run adventures and heroquests—venture into myth to refight the battles of the gods and gain their cosmic powers!
- A distinctive setting that will entertain longtime fans but is aimed at gamers who’ve never heard of Glorantha.
If you’re a 13th Age player you’ll find:
- 5 new classes, including the hell mother who summons Darkness spirits and giant spiders; the swordmaster Humakti who wields Death; and the trickster who (in theory!) funnels your bad luck onto your enemies.
- 5 new class variants, including the wind lord, a fighter with magical storm-related exploits, and the rebel, a rogue with the supernatural ability to get where he’s not supposed to be.
- 2 new PC races—the trolls and ducks—plus Gloranthan humans with new cultural traits.
IF YOU DON’T FIGHT, WE ALL DIE!
13
Mar
Mar
This wraps up the series outline from a previous installment of See P. XX. Cult Activity A friend or loved one joins the Temple of Hali, willingly embracing the new unreality as more vivid and exciting than boring old regular life. Can the team dig up a sinister truth that will release this person from […]
by Tim Baker Pelgrane Press and Fire Opal Games have always offered a generous compatibility license for 13th Age. While the 13th Age SRD contains hundreds of pages of content, the Dragon Empire and its icons are Product Identity, meaning they aren’t included in the Open Game Content that other publishers can freely use. With […]
Several GUMSHOE games offer the players the power to retroactively add contacts and allies into the story. Night’s Black Agents has the Network ability, there’s Correspondents in Trail of Cthulhu, and the GM might offer a contact for an Investigative spend or push. Some tips on using such characters: Start with the scenario If you’re […]