Emmeryn

https://quaternion-j.itch.io/fitr-academy

FITR Academy is a Forged in the Dark game inspired by stories of magical combat education such as RWBY, Hunter × Hunter, and Naruto. It lets you experience the melodrama of school life, intense, over-the-top action, dangerous threats, and the exploration of the institutions at the heart of these stories.

You create your Fighter-in-training by combining two, distinct Weapon Playbooks to assemble your weapon. You then pick a Spark, a unique magical ability that can grant you superhuman senses and abilities, create illusions, energy, or structures, and can even let you rewrite the laws of reality.

Play consists of three phases: you'll first interrogate the nature of the Academy in the School Phase, participate in simulated and field missions in the Training Phase, then recover and unwind in the Social Phase.

This is the first official release of FITR Academy. Within this sprawling 150+ page PDF, you'll find:

The complete rules for running adventures and campaigns for both Fighters-in-training and the Advisor

Rules for creating your characters, with upwards of 3,000 combinations possible between your choice of Weapon Playbooks and Spark

Rules for Chaos Beasts, including a bestiary and tips on building & running encounters

Appendices for inspiration and reference

I was compelled by some sort of curse maybe to do nothing but make this for the past day and a half.

the "Austin Walker's Boyfriend". (Lenin-esque populist idealogue and figurehead. often ambitious, abrasive, smug, and machiavellian, though not always. driven by a deep idealistic love of the people and a belief that a better world is possible, but also inescapably bound to the cruel materialism and pragmatism of leading a movement, a contradiction which ultimately crushes him. most (though not all) of these characters also qualify as Char Clones.)

the "Ali Acampora's Girlfriend". (powerful and intimidating, very flirty, maybe not a very good person)

the "Keith Carberry's Improv Partner". (deeply weird, very friendly-but-aggro guy who exclusively exists for keith's character to bounce off of)

the Nice Boy (sweet and conscientious and funny, and bearing a burden of grief far too heavy for him which will ultimately change him)

the ~Who's That Big Man~

the Tired Mid-Level Bureaucrat

the Heterodox Historian/Theologian

the Nebbish But Energetic Assistant

the Plucky Unattended Child

the Surprisingly Malevolent Priest

the Dangerous Libertarian and/or Fascist Demagogue (twilight mirage alone has like 6 of these. it gets confusing who believes what.)

the Feckless Liberal Politician

the Arrogant Unserious Rich Fuck

the Eerie Posthuman Presence

the Awe-Inspiring Mechanical Horror

the Likeable New Jersey Huckster

the Sad Crotchety Grandpa

the Trickster God

the Haunting of History Itself

the Divorced Gays

dessert: CUSTARDy Battle

[ID:

Five panel comic with crudely drawn stick people

Panel 1: a grayscale person is pointing accusingly at a green person

Grayscale: "You!"

Green: "Me?"

Grayscale: "Yes, you! I know of your crimes, now!"

Green: "Sigh. what now."

Grayscale: "Kidnapping."

Panel 2: The grayscale person points towards a large student dorm building in the background, where two green people are standing outside.

Grayscale: "I know you're affiliated with them."

Green: "Who"

Grayscale: "Don't play this game with me. I've been paying attention. Tracking the disappearances. The suspicious amount of incredibly saturated green people living in this specific dorm building."

Panel 3: The grayscale is still pointing.

Grayscale: "The only reasonable conclusion. Is that a secret forcegreening ring is operating on this very campus. I have caught you in the act, criminal!"

Green: "You know this is a completely ridiculous thing to believe, right? Like how would the logistics of this operation even work."

Panel 4: A catnip green cat person is watching from the window above while the argument continues in the distance.

Grayscale: "Of course you would say that! You have a vested interest in maintaining the secret, because you've been partaking in the crimes!"

Green: "I have never been here before."

Grayscale: "Lies! Lies from your fake identity!"

Panel 5: The bright green cat person is in a common room. A moss green person wearing a bandana, and a dark green person with weird rectangle shoes covered in hazard stripes, are on separate seats.

Catnip: "That one has been at it for a long time. Should we…?"

Moss: "No point. Forcegreening doesn't cure annoying."

End ID.]

Common themes:

-antique store worker confirming they REALLY don't know how something got there

-other retail employee (especially Barnes and Noble????) saying this isn't antique store specific

-guy who is definitely going to have to call a priest

-tales of excellent thrifting experiences that I'm going to share in this and subsequent reblogs

The RPGs for Accessible Gaming Bundle is currently live, and it's raising some money for a great cause: DOTS Braille Dice, which makes tabletop gaming more accessible for blind gamers. Here's a few great games that you can find in this gigantic bundle!

Arkyvr, by Alewood Games.

ARKYVR is a multimedia MOTHERSHIP 1E setting & toolkit to play documentary filmmakers in space for 1-4 players and 1 GM.

Equipped with only their camera gear, ARKYVRs will attempt to document life in space and expose corporate client atrocities while surviving the void’s unspeakable horrors. Players will make ends meet through corporate media contracts but with each assignment they will also find horrible truths hidden just under the surface of their mission. If the ARKYVR crew survives their film shoot, they must then decide how to distribute their footage. Some clients will pay a handsome price to cover up their atrocities while others will use it to lead a revolution. How will players use their recorded stories to shift the balance of power? Will they even live long enough to tell the story?

Created by and in collaboration with industry filmmakers! ARKYVR is a 60 page zine that brings a unique vision to deadly space adventures through the lens of a camera!

ARKYVR only works if you have a copy of MOTHERSHIP to play with it with, but since the core rules of MOTHERSHIP are free to access, this shouldn't stop you from being able to pick up the game and enjoy it's film-making twist. Each character concept comes with duties: elements of the role's job that help you define your character and give them some bones to build a personality off of. The core rules of the game are re-contextualized around missions that involve capturing footage, rather than investigating jobs gone wrong.

I feel like ARKYVR has the potential to combine the horror of space with the lovely irony present in horror movies that involve artists getting in way over their head for the pursuit of the art that they love. How much will they sacrifice for the perfect shot? What kind of art does their team want to make? What kind of art can their team afford to make? What dark secrets will they uncover in the process?

Fang, by Joel Happyhil.

You’re a Fang, an ageless super-powered being living among humans, you live in city that doesn’t matter surrounded by people who won’t live to see a fraction of your life, yet you can’t help but be intrigued. You are driven by your desire, an ever-growing thirst that has the power to reduce you to something less than human, but who knows how long that could take.

Here's a game for the vampires and their human companions. FANG has a lot of common hallmarks when it comes to what you think about ttrpgs: stats with ratings attached (in this case in the form of dots), playbooks that define your character type, and a method of advancement, to show how your PC grows over time. Similar to Blades in the Dark, there's dice pools and staggered resolution levels. There's also a thirst track that increases and decreases as your vamp experiences the visceral parts of life, like physical harm, strong emotions, or the thrill of victory.

What I love in games like this is when you see what happens when you hit your character's limit. In FANG, this limit is Starvation - when your Thirst track hits 12. Your character has an outburst, or breaks down, pushing you closer and closer to getting taken out of the scene. On the other side of the coin, Human characters have a Passion track, which is less powerful than Thirst, but also exempts them from the consequences of Starvation.

If you want a game about a desperate character having a terrible time, you'll likely find some really satisfying moments in FANG.

Be Seeing You, by Tanya Floaker.

This roleplaying game contains dangerous levels of dystopian science fiction, social allegory, and psychological drama.

Influenced by fiction in the vein of The Prisoner, Stalker, and Utopia, and real struggles against mass surveillance, the Hostile Environment, and the alienating effects of capitalism.

Be Seeing You is a game about surveillance and dystopia, but it's also a collaborative world-building exercise, building a story through a series of short vignettes. No character is controlled by one single person; each player will pick up the role of the Prisoner throughout the story, focusing on how this central character is treated by the village and its residents.

The game itself is diceless; things change in the story based on the kinds of choices you make when it comes to answering the prompts and following the parts of the story that are interesting to you. This is a game that thrives with a group that feels comfortable in the dystopian genre and loves hitting thematically resonant story beats.

Pretty Beastly, by Em Hubbard.

Calling all disaffected furniture, oppressed appliances, and humble housewares ready to rise up against monstrous monarchists! You were once simple servants in the household of an overbearing oligarch. Years ago, you were victims of an unfair curse and now you really are objects - dishes, chairs, mirrors, and ornaments. The time has now come to rise up against your Prince, defeat the vile sorcerer, and fight back against an oppressive social system!

Pretty Beastly is a collaborative roleplaying game for 2-5 players. Players work together to create a story of cursed household servants struggling against their oppressive social system. A deck of cards will help determine your challenges, successes, and failures.

Taking inspiration from animated musicals and dramatic historical epics, a fantastical (problematic) fairy tale collides with the French Revolution. Quirky and political, this game will take you on a wild anti-establishment musical adventure.

Welcome to the story of Beauty and the Beast, from the furniture's point of view. Set firmly in the setting of 18th century, this is a game of rage and revenge; working as a group to escape, defeat, or break the chains you find yourselves under as the servants of cursed and cruel monarch. The game is played over a series of scenes, using playing cards to provide inspiration for challenges as well as the means by which you can overcome those challenges. There's also a hilarious addition of musical numbers, where your characters break into song if you draw a low-enough card.

Corporate Fae, by ryland.s.

You’re a really weird fae, as far as everyone knows, you’re the only one who’s got an obsession with human corporate work life. Fortunately for you, you can stand in as someone’s secretary, manager, or the barista across the building. Unfortunately for humans, they don’t remember you before and after you temporarily take up someone’s position.

A close human friend asks you to attend some company galas and parties to do some corporate espionage and learn some gossip your friend can monopolize.

All you need is a deck of standard playing cards without the jokers, a way to record, and some time to play.

Hello solo gamers, I haven't forgotten about you! Corporate Fae is a prompt-based solo game that uses a deck of cards to generate details that allow you to imagine a story about a fae trying to commit corporate espionage.

The game is rather simple; you draw to determine the role you've taken and the kind of party you attend, and then continue to draw various juicy pieces of gossip that your fae will overhear. I think it might be interesting to try and piece the bits of gossip together, to paint a portrait of a slowly unraveling secret being pieced together from the various bits of information you gather while socializing at the party.

The only criticism I have for this game is that there isn't a great way to wrap up the game in a neat little bow at the end - I think I would have loved some kind of tension underneath getting found out, or perhaps a timer that gives you a hard limit on how much time you have to gather information before you need to leave the party - maybe like a clock-strikes-midnight situation or something like that.

Darkest Hour, by Emmeryn.

Here, a night like any other.

Rays of sunlight slowly recede over the wilds, the cabin, the steeple, the mausoleum. A gathering of friends, allies, comrades, hunters, united in their cause. They may not yet realize the danger they are in, but a cruel eye turns upon them. Something cursed awakens, stirring to life with the fall of dusk. A hunger claws free from the pitch black.

In the darkest hours of night, hearts tighten as untold horrors bear down. Fangs, claws, the glint of rusted steel and the scrape of bone. Howls and screams resound in the darkness, creeping ever closer.

Will you live to see the light of day?

Darkest Hour is a horror tabletop game designed for one-shot horror sessions. It can be played as a GMless game or with a GM, and can accommodate 2 to 5 players (with or without a GM) for one to two play sessions totaling 2 to 5 hours. It can be played with as little as the book and three six-sided dice.

Say hello to a one-shot horror game that can provide multiple sessions of fun, thanks to the various settings and horrors you can combine for a different theme each time. Your characters are hunters, pursuing a monstrous and terrible haunt that has trapped them somewhere. You use six-sided dice to try and overcome the challenges this story throws at you, each obstacle becoming harder and harder to overcome the longer the story goes.

The author refers to the work of Avery Alder, but I feel that in some ways, there's also a little bit of Ten Candles hidden in the roots of this game, especially with the rising doom the further into the story you go. That being said, the Haunt does have a weakness, and defeating them is much more likely to happen than in a Ten Candles game. If you want a game that's dripping in monster vibes, you probably want Darkest Hour.

Other Games I've Recommended in the Past…

Teenagers With Attitude and Post Apo Calypse, by CardboardHyperfix.

A Witch, A Gallows Bird, by Jellyfishlines.

Protect the Child and Copper Shores by me!

Wrath of the Undersea, by EfanGamez.