Blackbirds: The Extinguishing - Core Rulebook

Product Information

I'm an avid TTRPG fan, in the hobby for 20+ years. I own and have played tons of different games ranging from the common to the extremely obscure. This book is absolutely excellent and worth the high price tag. It's a beautiful book with fantastic artwork, high-quality construction, and deep and fascinating lore. The world the book takes place in is one of my favorites. I love the details around the dead gods and the new "gods" who slew the old ones and took over. I love how each of the new "gods" has a disease/condition that they inflict on their followers that transforms them in multiple stages, leading to new and interesting monsters in each of the intermediate stages (as well as cool transforming diseases that can be inflicted on the PCs). Character creation options are similarly amazing. Spells are a standout, all based around pacts made with outsiders (similar to demons) and all coming with a cost. While "power with a cost" is a common theme in dark fantasy scenarios, I've not ever seen it so well-executed before. The art style draws on the work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch and esoteric illuminated manuscripts. | Image credit: Florian-Ayala Fauna A final word on the artwork is due to the astoundingly diverse array of pictures and the talented contributors to this project, for while these richly illustrated and immersively atmospheric images sprawl throughout the book in many different styles, the entire opus as a whole feels piercingly cohesive, even transfixing aesthetically, where one genuinely feels present within the depictions of the stark characters, the riveting monsters and mysterious beings, as well as the devastatingly arresting environments. In addition to a wonderful Patronage system which reinforces the theme of interweaving the characters with the world and its other denizens, spurring countless story ideas and in character interactions, to say nothing of adding yet more meat to the bones of the characters themselves, the magic system of Theurgy also hinges upon Patronage, in this case with the aforementioned Outsiders and their cryptic Courts, and with whom Odic, or magic practitioners must bargain carefully to receive and wield their powers, the Vitiations and other assorted pact-based abilities. Along the way, in either case, characters are deeply embroiled in the vicissitudes of Fate and the stories which will emerge thereby. To sever this golden cord is to plunge all of creation into chaos, a world without gods or their justice, where rebirth is the only possible salvation, and to be reborn,

Our Vampires Are Different: The Striga are oversized, intelligent, parasitic arthropods who kill humans and puppeteer their corpses, using them to masquerade as human and collect blood. Over time they grow larger and larger, until they fully shed their decaying shells and transform into the enormous Titan Casks. The immersive role-playing game employs the “grim and perilous” Zweihändersystem created by Daniel Fox. The roll of a percentile dice determines your character’s fate. There are three canvas maps included: one for Erebos and it’s two major cities Corbel and Highsalt. Norse Foundry dice give the game a high production valune along with a limited edition copy of the book that enhances a cursed artifact feel. The box also included metal Fortune coins and a Fate talisman that can be flipped to see if a character can defy death. Instead of just hiring sensitivity readers, the team needs to be diverse in a way that hasn't really happened a lot with a team like ours. I would highly recommend giving this book a shot. Reading through the text was a delight and I eagerly await what comes next.Theurges start the game with a relationship to an Imp, the lowest level of whatever otherworldly hierarchy these things have,” Limbaugh tells Nerdist.“The level of relationship is in the form of a structured contract which determines what they can ask for and what they will pay for it. It’s definitely an in-game goal for theurges to seek out and form contracts with other Outsiders that are higher in the hierarchy or have abilities they would like to gain access to.” I was very nervous, but I was incredibly excited. And I was just like, you know, I just have to take this plunge; I have to do this thing,” Verniere said. “And it worked. The next day the work began on gathering a real team.” Attempting to cast a Vitiation or a Spell requires a skill test, and critically or sublimely failing this test can cause some horrible effect to the target or the caster, depending on the spell. For example, attempting to magically empower a nearby weapon will instead destroy it on a Critical Failure, or destroy all nearby equipment on a sublime failure. Magic Misfire: Attempting to cast a Vitiation or a Spell requires an skill test, and critically or sublimely failing this test can cause some horrible effect to the target or the caster, depending on the spell. For example, attempting to magically empower a nearby weapon will instead destroy it on a critical failure, or destroy all nearby equipment on a sublime failure. Critical Failure: In general, rolling a natural 100 or a high multiple of 11 on any skill test will result in a critical failure as well. A natural 01 or a low multiple of 11 will instead result in a critical success. One during spell casting may summon Daemons of Chaos, render you impotent, render you and your party and your distant relatives impotent, or merely give you an insanity point. Guns tend to simply blow up.

Kraken and Leviathan: The Kraken is merely a massive and ferocious squid, but the Leviathan is something far more than that. The Leviathan is a colossal sea monster, so large as to devour a n entire ship in a single gulp and so mighty that even the direct intervention of an Oligarch or and Outsider Lord can affect it at all, and even they can only do so temporarily. The Wolfen literally shed their human skin, and the intermediate phases between human and wolf often have their human body twist in nightmarish ways as their wolf head emerges form their human mouth. Verniere sat down with Dicebreaker to talk about the upcoming dark fantasy RPG published by Andrews McMeel, which is still very secretive ahead of its release sometime next year. He sketched the rough edges of the world alongside a group of friends who switched to the Zweihänder RPG in search of something that fit the images in his mind. The world of Eidol is a prison planet, constructed by an ancient spacefaring culture to imprison the Great Goddess, Pandora. To keep the goddess’s agents at bay, the cube-shaped planet consists of six sprawling dungeons, ever-changing their layout and contents—a challenge that never ends, luring delvers into the depths of the world in pursuit of treasure, glory, and a wish granted by the Maiden of the Dungeon herself.

Gracious Compliance was forged from the body of an Aes diplomat by the ancient people of Corbellus before their downfall. The mind of the Aes lives on in the weapon, and is a deceitful, treacherous thing that seeks the death of all mortals. Verniere showered praise on as many team members as he could, from video game designer Zoë Quinn to Werewolf: The Apocalypse author Bill Bridges. He believes their “weird, bespoke nightmare machine” will find an audience that more mainstream fantasy offerings pass over in their outreach. I did not want to do this exclusively coming from my cis, white, male voice,” Verniere said. “Instead of just hiring sensitivity readers, the team needs to be diverse in a way that hasn't really happened a lot with a team like ours.” The perennial concerns which many TTRPG players have with learning any new system are adequately attenuated by a book which is meticulously crafted and laid out in concise and easy to follow terms. The system’s mechanics feel robust and complex without becoming burdensome or difficult to grasp, bestowing nuances for build possibilities and the necessary mechanical manifestations of character concepts without feeling cumbersome or overly complicated. All the while each step of the process one takes in learning to grasp this game’s system spurs roleplay and story ideas in such a way that one is literally teeming with material that will surely be satisfying to play out at the gaming table. Death of the Old Gods: The gods of old are dead, slaughtered by the Oligarchs in their bid for godhood.

A new system for building fleshed-out characters, replacing races with ancestries, cultures, and secrets Deal with the Devil: The one of the setting's main magic systems is Theurgy, whereby a Theurge bargains with an Outsider to exchange some service for magical power. The Elfwrought are humans twisted by the Aes art of Fleshcrawl, transformed into abominations like the vaguely-canid Cu-Sith and the many-legged Elfmount. Once the files are at the printer, then it’s a waiting game. We anticipate having advances in–hand to show off in late June, along with the Servants of the Gods advances to show around the same time. Sample Spreads Body Horror: It would frankly be easier to list the monsters that this didn't apply to. A few highlights:

Table of Contents

For centuries, the Novarchs, descendants of the royal House of Novarchon, have ruled with an iron fist over the feudalistic galactic empire of humankind, the Domineum. During this time, they brought stunning technological innovation and scientific advancements to their domain. This accelerated progression helped the Domineum reach — and eventually inhabit — even the farthest segments of the known galaxy, where new Houses emerged to govern the outer sectors of the empire. As the House of Novarchon grew in power, so grew the religious cult that surrounded them, proclaiming grim prophecies about an ancient cosmic being from another dimension: the Voidborn.

If you like your fantasy like I like my morning coffee… with a gauntleted uppercut to the jaw, you’ll love this world and you will love this system. I grew up loving Warhammer/grim dark fantasy and this is the spiritual successor. You are in good hands here people. 🤘🏼💀🔥 https://t.co/H9XC3v8LmU— JOE MANGANIELLO (@JoeManganiello) November 26, 2020 The game includes non-human character options that offer unique spins on classic fantasy archetypes. Aes, for example, are immortal elf-like heroes bound to phases of the moon, while Daimn are dwarf-like characters bound to different elements. These ancestries also include Nephilim, half-demon haracter created through merging humans and the strange Outsiders looking to make their own play on Erebos. Each technique includes an Extinguish action that puts a pwerful narrative shift in the hands of the players at the cost of shutting the technique down for a while. These actions include combat enders such as flurry of blows from a master swordsman to a magic character calling in an imp to eat the remaining bad guy. Non-combat actions are also available here such as being able to sneak the group into a location unnoticed or extracting a juicy secret from a lover.This really feels like something special, and I look forward to what the future holds for both the setting and future game books, as well as Mr. Verniere and the rest of the team behind the book. The writing is top notch both in the world building and fiction aspects, while also having some interesting system mechanics in store, especially with how the game handles it's magic. And the production values of the physical book are great, you get a solid book that should hold up well to repeated reading and use. I was very nervous, but I was incredibly excited. And I was just like, you know, I just have to take this plunge; I have to do this thing. Most forms of The Undead are visibly rotting away, with the Striga also having monstrous fleas emerging from their mouths. It's more important for us to be deeply loved than it is to be deeply successful,” Verniere said. “And I feel like the team owns that vision.”