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Sigil & Shadow: A Roleplaying Game of Urban Fantasy and Occult Horror
Set in a mirror of our own world, Sigil & Shadow is a roleplaying game of urban fantasy and occult horror in which players take on the roles of illuminated heroes and shadowed monsters to face the rising tide of supernatural forces. Ancient nightmares lurk behind the closed doors of board rooms, entities from beyond time prowl the city streets, forgotten rituals are reborn as viral memes. Do you take a stand against the encroaching shadows? Or do you seek their power for yourself?Powered by the highly accessible d00Lite system, Sigil & Shadow focuses squarely on the story rather than the mechanics – who the characters are and what they do, not how they do it. Easy to adopt to any mythos, campaigns can be built around a wide range of plots, with players taking the role of anything from paranormal investigators and monster hunters to members of occult cabals or secret societies. The setting offered sees a modern world buffeted by the tides of supernatural power, where beings of myth wake from their slumber while modern cults sacrifice to pop-culture gods and ancient cabals pursue their age-old schemes into the digital age.
248 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 22, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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February 10, 2023How? Someone said something positive about this game and I decided to buy this to get the free shipping when I got Heirs to Heresy.
What? A sort of sandbox for building modern occult/horror games. There's one specific thing about the world: we are surrounded at all times by a dark Nether that tinges the world to some extent and maybe has little pocket dimensions. But everything else is pretty much up to you and your game group. You can play regular people who have been exposed to this darkness and now can't look away (maybe you seek to know, to kill, to protect, or to quarantine). You can play the monsters or people who embraced the shadow world (maybe you're afflicted by the power or devoted to something higher or a host to something alien or simply ravenous for something).
As you might expect from a sandbox style game, there's magic and supernatural powers that are sort of open-ended in how they're defined. Or maybe another way to put it is: let's say there's a magical attack power, but that will look different for a ghost or a vampire. In fact, the last third of this book or so is all about how to create your game: different tones or campaign frames.
Yeah, so? Don't get me wrong, the game isn't truly generic -- even the part about how to create your own game makes some assumptions (that there will be factions that you might get tangled up with). But it really does feel open-ended and interesting and... maybe if I had a game I wanted to run, I might turn to this, but I'm not sure what I'd run with it right now.
ETA: oh, I forgot, this book continues the tradition I've noticed in other Osprey RPG games of having too many copy-editing mistakes for a book that looks so nice otherwise.
What? A sort of sandbox for building modern occult/horror games. There's one specific thing about the world: we are surrounded at all times by a dark Nether that tinges the world to some extent and maybe has little pocket dimensions. But everything else is pretty much up to you and your game group. You can play regular people who have been exposed to this darkness and now can't look away (maybe you seek to know, to kill, to protect, or to quarantine). You can play the monsters or people who embraced the shadow world (maybe you're afflicted by the power or devoted to something higher or a host to something alien or simply ravenous for something).
As you might expect from a sandbox style game, there's magic and supernatural powers that are sort of open-ended in how they're defined. Or maybe another way to put it is: let's say there's a magical attack power, but that will look different for a ghost or a vampire. In fact, the last third of this book or so is all about how to create your game: different tones or campaign frames.
Yeah, so? Don't get me wrong, the game isn't truly generic -- even the part about how to create your own game makes some assumptions (that there will be factions that you might get tangled up with). But it really does feel open-ended and interesting and... maybe if I had a game I wanted to run, I might turn to this, but I'm not sure what I'd run with it right now.
ETA: oh, I forgot, this book continues the tradition I've noticed in other Osprey RPG games of having too many copy-editing mistakes for a book that looks so nice otherwise.
January 24, 2022
Sigil and Shadow is exactly what it says on the tin, a toolbox for modern day horror games. This game book presents a solid background and game system for everything from gothic ghost stories to cryptic cosmic horror. The cosmology provided can also be easily adapted to your favorite game engine.
November 11, 2021
One should not judge TTRPG rulebooks as books but as games and while I have yet to play Sigils and Shadows, I have to say it looks like a lot of fun. It's easy to set up and leaves lots of room for story without too many crunchy bits so if that's the kind of game you love (and so if you share my tastes) it's worth reading and worth playing.
March 15, 2024
Pretty decent modern horror rpg that can stand on its own as a toolkit for creating your own setting or could be used for a different set of mechanics as well. This uses a d100 system.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews