#unknown armies

I feel that Call of Cthulhu particularly fails to capture anything that makes its antagonists terrifying in the sanity mechanics and it usually just manifests as a penalty for interacting with otherworldly creatures.

Alien does a fear mechanic that's similar to sanity but with a strong short term panic focus.

The only system I know that seems to have made a real effort in innovating here is Unknown Armies.

Some mages from different mage ttrpgs

From left to right, in names (and ttrpgs they're from):

• Mikkel (Mage: the Ascension) – guy from Celestial Chorus, you might've seen him here. Simplifying here and further, he belongs to religious monotheistic mages.

• Ava (Mage: the Awakening) – girl on Path of Mastigos: arcane path of desires, thoughts and mastery over them.

• Hayate (Unknown Armies) – adept of Ustrinaturgy, smoking magick. Unknown Armies have some of weirdest magic schools known to ttrpg.

The Guy With Pencils Stuck In His Eyes and Josh

quote:

First batch of AF attacks/revenges!

Hazel Carmody - Belongs to Batty-acid on AF

Nika - Belongs to sketch_caster on AF

By Greg Stolze and John Tynes

Postmodern magic urban horror

Unknown Armies is a game about broken people conspiring to fix the world. It's a character-driven game of occult weirdness, taking place in a world driven by obsession and symbols--based under the assumption that the collective unconscious holds power, and that You Did It.

In terms of who you are and what you actually do, you and your fellow players--your "cabal"--are in what's called the occult underground, an ever-present underbelly of creeps and weirdos who have it "all figured out". Chances are, you're a creep and/or a weirdo, too, don't worry about it. You're typically pursuing an objective, which can be anything from "find our friend who went missing last week" to "form a grand, withstanding ward beneath the state of Delaware to dispel all demons", or even something like "create a new color".

You have adepts, wizards who cast magick-with-a-K through paradoxical commitment (gun mages can't shoot anyone, movie mages have to commit to the bit/trope, sex mages can't have sex for pleasure), and avatars who embody platonic archetypes with the off-chance of becoming modern gods (like The Mother, The Fool, The Survivor).

Put simply, being an Avatar is like playing the role of Hamlet, while being an Adept is like BEING Hamlet.

You can also play as a "mundane" person perfectly fine. It's a game that's all about getting in too deep.

For a quick and easy pitch, imagine something like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia if The Gang were a bunch of fucked up wizards, or Twin Peaks if it was directed by the Coen Brothers.