#vampire rpg

My new PbtA-influenced, solo journaling game dropped today! A free preview of things to come.

Do you like games about befriending monsters? Do you enjoy exploring themes of isolation, loss, and the nature of personhood? Vampire Year is the game for you!

This free preview covers the first three months of the titular year and introduces you to the core cast, including:

Lady Crimson, the quiet sister

Elena, the outgoing sister

James, their long-suffering parental figure and grieving widower

Maycair, the hedonistic problem child

Jaunty, a cat

BLOOD & TEARS, my vampire ttrpg is out now. It's for 1-6 players and is based on the Blades in the Dark rules.

You can define your rules of vampires. Are they weak to flowing water or thresholds or garlic? Can you kill them with radiation? Do they have the power the read minds, or turn into animals? You decide!

Each vampire is defined through their playbook and memories. Figure out how and when you turned, and change your memories as you play to define your vampire, their backstory, and their shifting relationships with other immortals.

If vampires are real then what else is true? Tackle magic by basing it on actual myths and stories about the occult. Are star signs the secret language of the universe? Is remote viewing real? If so, what do they cost you when you try to manipulate them? A grounded approach to magic creates more drama and raises the stakes of the stories you tell.

As you play you will get the attention of one or more factions. Will you bow to The Dominion and their new Undying Empress? Will you evade the sleuths and amateur investigators of The Hunters? Will you play nice with The Others and The Occult? Will your dark secret be discovered by The Grey Zone?

The playbooks of Blood & Tears are based on the classic 4 bodily humours. The Choleric Vampire is mean and aggressive at their worst, charming and a natural leader at their best. The Melancholic vampire is at times introspective and erudite, but often too wrapped up in their memories and regrets. The Sanguine vampire is affable and extroverted, surrounding themselves in beauty and perhaps too many mortals. The Phlegmatic Vampire obsesses over mysteries and the arcane, and is likely to spiral into obsession.

And finally the neophyte as no humour, but has only just joined the ranks of the unliving, and brings all new challenges and questions to established vampire customs.

So, how about it?

Do you want to live forever?

Check out Blood & Tears on itch (where it is currently on sale)

Paint The Town Red is our rules-light, narrative driven TTRPG of tragically depressed undead desperately trying to find love, community and meaning in a world that wants them GONE.

Tear up the night in the greatest cities throughout history, make friends, enemies, lovers and some in-between before this place turns to dust.

Introducing: A Rush of Blood

A solo journaling role-playing game, in which you play a vampire's favourite blood source. Explore the romantically charged relationship between your character and her vampiric Lady and discover the impact vampiric influence has on your life, your priorities, and your relationships. Be consumed by the intensity of it or come out singing -- it's entirely up to you and where you feel the story is taking you.

#BIPOCVampDay Showcase, Part I

The cast of Bloodspell' was always intended to be diverse, and racism through the ages was something I wanted to set up for consideration. That's the thing about a vampire story: it lets you take the long view on things, by having a character experience a social phenomenon from whenever you want up to whenever it's set.

Dominique Bien-Aimé, top right, Haitian affranchi until she went on the run, has moved through a strange middle ground - a slave, then a freeman's wife, then part of the new aristocracy post-revolution, and then a refugee.

Sylvester, bottom left, has been a low-grade part of the colonising machine, and a disenfranchised pirate, but always Spanish, always European - until he embedded himself in America, and minority status accumulated around him without his understanding. He's always been down and out, but now he's differently down and out.

Laetitia, middle, viewpoint character, is Algerian, and an early draft in which their story was set in the UK still holds up for describing her feelings about that. In that draft, she's complaining about a customer at her all-night petrol station job who called her "Paki" - as she put it, these haters can't even get the right continent. Laetitia's the youngest character, the postmodern postcolonial girl, and part of her journey into vampirism involves where she's from and what happened there, particularly when she meets Clarimonde (bottom right) - nineteenth-century French-North-African colonist.

(Dorian, top left, is white as the inside of an icebox. Their thing is intersectionality: being queer, in an interracial reletionship, and monogamous, dating someone who's very poly.)

I wasn't quite sure how to get all of this into the flavour text of an experimental RPG booklet, but - maybe one day. ' The indie vampire "roleplaying experience" I made a few years back, based on Epidiah Ravachol's Wolfspell and illustrated by @sluggybunny. You can still buy it, and one day I will put out the Extended Edition. One day.

Wishlist a True Modern Gothic Vampire RPG:

Built for players, not shareholders!

Inspired by classic games like VtM Bloodlines!

All new setting and lore!

Create your own character!

Pre-alpha but with clear vision!

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚐𝚘𝚝 𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖… Nestled in a holler deep in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia lies Briar Ridge: a haven town in 1930 welcomin' folks of all walks of life into its humble arms — though them suits from S&C Coal'd do best to leave it well alone, folks don't want their greedy claws digging into their land any longer. You could wonder if they're any worse than the loomin' ancient horrors of the Forest, though. She's alive alright, 'n She's mad.

See, folks 'round here are used to Meemaw's warnings 'bout haints, green-eyed prowlers, 'n not-deer, hell, even survived those werewolves S&C unleashed — 'n who knows what they're planning next…

Somethin' other than the town's many moonshiners — you can thank Prohibition for that profitable business runnin' rampant here — is lurking under the cover of night. Innocent people torn from their beds on the full moons, their flesh ripped open by razor-sharp teeth 'n their blood drained from their body. Mists, folks been callin' 'em — on account of them bein' made of fog; blood-suckin' clouds of the devil, I say.

Despite it all, Briar Ridge takes care of its own: moonshiners building their empires, queer folks finally able to be their full selves, businessmen who lost their fortune in the Great Depression, folks of color finding acceptance, (ex-)S&C employees hiding their past affiliations; those calling for blood and those beggin' for peace.

Features

⟢ Welcoming, enthusiastic, literate community with a passion for horror, history, plotting, and detailed characters

⟢ 21+ server with 18+ player characters

⟢ Queer-led space, enthusiastically welcoming of POC, both IC and OOC

⟢ In-character secrets and various secret roles (you don't know who the vampires/mists are until they are discovered in-character, and their numbers are growing)

⟢ In-depth lore with lore drops and admin-led quests based on player actions; your choices matter!

⟢ Player-led and admin-led factions with room to start up new ones

⟢ Immersive full moon events fraught with danger and clues

⟢ Safety tools to ensure player and admin comfort as horrors are bestowed

🌗 Setting || Lore || Join the Discord 🌓