This is The Spire: The City Must Fall, written by Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor. I love this damn game.
The titular Spire is a massive vertical city, once ruled by Drow and now held by Aelfir, the high elves who have subjugated the native population. Players are a cell of a secret society of Drow intent on overthrowing the occupation through any means necessary. By which I mean lots of revolutionary violence. Which, hey, feels like a perfect pressure release valve RPG for 2019.
The game is built around causing, and sustaining, damage. It is central to the system, which uses five Stress stats to gauge a character’s health. Failed skill checks result in Stress of different types. The more collective stress, the more potential for increasingly nasty Fallout when a critical failure turns up. The aim here isn’t longevity – the game system is a giant clock ticking down the time a character has left to live. The goal, then, is for players to inflict as much damage on the Aelfir as they can before that time runs out.
The Spire dramatically reimagines Drow. Aside of being averse to sunlight, there is little that connects them their D&D ancestors, which is a good thing in my estimation. All of the available classes explore some aspect of this Drow society while also naturally positioning characters on a path of revolutionary opposition against the ruling Aelfir culture. They’re extremely weird and evocative; you’ll be hard pressed to read through them and not have dozens of idea of how to run a character.
Stone’s world-defining art deserves special mention. He’s the lone artist in the book, which makes for a wonderfully unified visual presentation. He manages to capture the violence and strangeness of the setting in a way that still allows you room (and encourages you, even) to contribute your own ideas. And he does it in a style that feels revolutionary, often evoking political art and propaganda posters.
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