In case you didn’t know, I am also a big gaming geek. This year at Gen Con, my excellent gaming group will be running several events, including the new roleplaying game I am designing for Eden Studios. If you are going to Gen Con, check these out. Tickets are still available.
Blood & Thunder: Dreadpunk Roleplaying
Join us in a beta test of this exciting new tabletop rpg.
What is Dreadpunk Rolplaying?
“How graves give up their dead,
And how the night air hideous grows
With shrieks!”
– Varney, the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood
It’s all of your favorite monsters – vampires, werewolves, and man-created fiends – in moldering crypts, mist-shrouded moors, and burning windmills. It’s flashing blades, guns blazing, and swinging on chandeliers to save beautiful damsels in distress. It’s mystery and suspense, with a good fight at the end.
Modern horror has only creatures and victims. It has gotten so bad that we empathize more with the monsters, who are far cooler than their food. The protagonists usually deserve what’s coming to them, or can only “survive". In Blood & Thunder heroes rule the day, with skill, luck, and wit. While the villains are still dark and scary, that’s no reason you can’t shoot ‘em with your shotgun. Sure, you could stake a vampire in its coffin, but a duel with sabers would be more fun.
… And More!
While thumping monsters can keep a good hero entertained for a long time, we realize that a roleplaying game has to have more than that. Everyone enjoys something different; some players enjoy political intrigue and role-acting, others like exploration and discovery. Some are drawn to the fantastic elements in roleplaying – fantasy and science fiction, and there are those who just like to roll the dice. Fortunately, Blood & Thunder has all of these things.
The World of Blood & Thunder
Set in the true “gothic” period of the late Victorian Era, Blood & Thunder exists in a world much like our own. The major difference being that monsters, magic, and mad scientists are real.
All of the great heroes and villains of literature can be found here: Dracula, Dr. Frankenstein, Captain Nemo and Sherlock Holmes. Game Masters can use these figures in their campaigns, or just as background.
Dark Powers and Secret Societies
It is world where creatures of nightmare and shadow still stalk the edges of civilization. Though many wish to believe these things no longer exist, legends do not die easy. Like predators with shrinking territory, some go rogue, infiltrating cities to find new prey.
Joining the old fiends are new ones, just as powerful, created by foolish minds with a power they have yet to comprehend.
Fighting against the darkness, men and women form societies dedicated to protecting humankind. Each society has their own agenda and methods (not all of them entirely pure), but more often than not they must band together in order to defeat their powerful foes.
Weird Science and Ancient Magic
Amazing leaps forward in knowledge and technology have created a belief in the “cult of science”, whose followers profess that all that can be known, will be known soon, and harnessed by man. These early pioneers create fantastical inventions that can plumb the ocean’s depths, fly across vast distances, and even hold the power of life and death. Some create gigantic steam-powered mechanus to do their bidding. Others seek knowledge more personal, and create elixirs or apparatus that can change the very nature of living creatures.
Still, there are some who cling to the old ways. A power thought lost to the ages – magic, still exists and can be harnessed by those who master the arcane arts. Mages scour moldering scrolls and crumbling ruins to gain but a mote of the power that the sorcerers of ancient times possessed.
Also, just now discovered, are those who posses a power like that of magic, but explained (or so they think), by science. More and more, certain people are born with the power to read minds, see the future, or move objects with thought. These powers the new science calls Metaphysics.
Romance and Destiny
To love is to be truly noble, and in this world lovers can actually die of a broken heart. Passions that go beyond all physical boundaries and reason inflict the souls of both heroes and villains alike. The love two beings share can be the most powerful force, beyond science and magic.
These intertwining fates cannot always be controlled. The heavy weight of destiny holds many in its thrall. Curses and ties of love, friendship, and family can draw in heroes and monsters to perform acts of great good, or evil.
Empire and Revolution
A stately queen sits on a throne of a vast empire, whose lands reach so far that the sun never sets upon all of them. Yet after almost 100 years of enforced peace, new nations arise to challenge the empress, and they form empires themselves. From what once was a land of ethnic wars and isolationism, people now unify and call themselves citizens of an empire. These days cannot last, however, for the web of alliances necessary to join these nations now pull them unto the brink of war. With the new and terrible weapons, some fear that another war may be the last.
Also, while old feuds fall to history, new conflicts arise. A growing middle-class of merchants and factory workers, begins to call for the power that is their due. Monarchs grasp tenuously at power, as democratic fever catches fire.
Adventure and Discovery
Many believe that soon, the human race will cover all the globe, which is why some do everything in their power to get there first! Explorers race against each other to be the ones who first tread the most forbidding places – jungles, mountains, and even the arctic poles.
To be found is not only fame and glory, but the last few remaining tribal people. Some want to exploit them, others protect and study them. Who knows what secret knowledge these people hold about magic, metaphysics, or the few remaining legends that stalk the earth?
System
Blood & Thunder uses the award winning Unisystem.
The Unisystem, used by Eden Studios, has been made popular by such games as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Roleplaying Game, Armageddon, and All Flesh Must Be Eaten. You can learn the basics of the Unisystem by downloading any of the introductory packs for these games at www.edenstudios.net/intropacks.html. If you want more, you can even download an entire Unisystem game for free, CJ Carella’s Witchcraft, at www.edenstudios.net/witchcraft.
Buy tickets for Blood & Thunder events at gencon.com
Geeks Out After Dark is also bringing back some old favorites and some new rpg events. This year, we are also running popular board games. Check out all of our games here.