The WITCH: Fated Souls 2e Quickstart is designed and developed by Elizabeth Chaipraditkul and Steffie de Vaan with extra writing, artwork, layouts, and edits by a number of different worthy souls. Printed by Offended Hamster Publishing, this undertaking is ready in right this moment’s world incorporating inspiration from Supernatural, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and American Horror Story: Coven. To be crystal clear, this RPG offers with mature themes and asks troublesome questions, as could be anticipated from abilities like Elizabeth Chaipraditkul and Steffie de Vaan. The quickstart prepares the bottom for the full-sized new model of this RPG, which launches on Halloween. Granted magic, your character explores and fights towards the supernatural. This isn’t a restricted idea, these powers aren’t modest, they’re highly effective sufficient to maneuver between planes of existence.
With a title that features the time period “Witch” and an idea that vans in demons and souls offered, there may be the potential for stumbling into troublesome ideas which may make gameplay much less enjoyable. To counteract this, the quickstart gives a full unique ruleset on how to make sure participant consolation. Going deeper into accountable play, I requested co-author Steffie de Vaan this: Wicca and witches are built-in ideas. Whereas many video games deal with witches as no totally different than fantasy wizards, there’s a actual world equal to be thought-about. Will there be steering on the distinction between in-games witches (Fated) and actual world Wicca? In reply, I discovered extra concerning the connections and variations between Wicca and witches as she shared a abstract of the way in which that is addressed within the introduction to the corebook:
“Wicca and witchcraft are adjoining, however not fully the identical. Wicca is a faith and lots of Wiccans, however not all, follow witchcraft. Witchcraft is a craft and lots of witches, however not all, are Wiccan. For instance there’s additionally Chaos Magic, Thelema, Brujeria, and so on. The corebook does deal with that witches exist in actual life, and GMs are welcome to incorporate them of their recreation. Witch: Fated Souls additionally explicitly assumes that each one religions are ‘proper.’ Fated, nonetheless, should not tied to any actual world faith or craft. They’re individuals who offered their soul to a demon and gained magic as a part of the cut price, which isn’t the identical as Wiccans (or every other faith) for apparent causes.”
That clarified, let’s speak concerning the quickstart, and what it gives from the broader recreation. Retaining the primary editions themes, the brand new model makes use of the identical engine as Afterlife: Wandering Souls. Your character offered their soul and now they’re trapped. They’ve magic, they will see the infinite, however they pay a value. Their demon retains them remoted; alone to allow them to’t resist as simply. These horrors have poisoned their buddies towards them, and saved them away from mundane avenues of help. Regardless of that, there’s hope. The Fated bide their time ready to activate their demon, reclaim their soul, and extricate themselves from this example.
There are seven forms of Fates and Fated, every coming from a special sort of demon that took their soul. The kind of demon – Cadavres, Draoithe, Heksen, Jinn, Seers, Sorcier, and Yokai – determines the magic your Fated has entry to. Extra than simply your character’s magic, their sort and demon decide the sorts of tales that your Fated is more likely to interact in. Completely different Fated have various kinds of demons and magic which makes them higher suited to cope with particular issues.
The Fated’s magic comes from what the demon gave within the discount, a shard of their essence. They gave their soul nevertheless it wasn’t a one-sided affair. Demons give energy. The Fated should learn to join with that energy by way of rituals and the like, however the magic is theirs. As well as, the demon can also be a final ditch lifeline in case your Fated wants assist desperately sufficient, they will name on their demon. However there’s a value and so they’ve already offered their soul, so this feature is greatest used judiciously. As well as, relying on how highly effective your character is impacts how a lot your demon is keen to help. The extra highly effective your Fated, the much less assist their demon is keen to offer as a result of they should preserve their benefit. All of those components affect the connection between a demon and their Fated.
Regardless of the give attention to the Fated and their demons, this RPG is greater than a single idea RPG. The total RPG is a deep dive into the supernatural and touring to different realms. Magic, menace, and transferring from one dimension to a different. The setting is the trendy world and, as you would possibly count on, it’s an atmosphere that’s hidden, cloaked away from humanity’s gaze. Like many narratives, there’s a political component just like Vampire: The Masquerade and different RPGs and tales the place the Fated have developed their very own legal guidelines and social norms to maintain their existence hidden. Their reasoning is on stable floor. Not solely would magic be off-putting, however revealing how that magic was paid for would definitely result in conflicts that the Fated should not favored to win.
By way of your character, they’ve their causes for promoting their soul. Past that, they’ve their magic, and three Stats: Physique, Thoughts, and Spirit, which every have three associated Attributes (Manoeuvre, Overcome, Stand up to, Apply, Percept, Motive, Allure, Create, and Perceive). Mechanically, this technique entails checks for any state of affairs that’s unsure. Utilizing a cube pool of d6s, you mix a Stat and one in all its Attributes to seek out the variety of d6s you’ll roll. Every 4 or higher is successful. You’ll must get 1 and 6 successes, primarily based on the conditions Stakes and Opposition, to beat any problem. You may have what you roll plus a restricted reserve of energy so as to add successes to your complete. In case your character fails to achieve the goal, then they acquire an expertise level, however the state of affairs will get worse from there.
Your character can do magic. The place that energy will get fascinating is one in all your stats, Spirit, which will get translated into Energy. Energy is the inner supply of your magical talents. That’s important, clearly. In case your character’s Well being reaches zero – some extent the place they’d die – they may give up some extent of Energy to go on. Nonetheless, with out Energy, they will’t solid magic, which is sort of a blow to a personality whose entire factor is magic.
Whereas there are extra guidelines together with an summary of magic within the quickstart, this e book isn’t a full rulebook. It doesn’t have some important particulars reminiscent of character creation and leveling, as an alternative providing pre-gen characters for a one-shot journey so you possibly can pattern the system and world. From that viewpoint, this quickstart has all the things you’d must play the sport. There are core guidelines, a slick journey, the aptly named “The Satan Made Me Do It,” that I cannot spoil right here, and 7 pre-generated characters. The pre-gens are necessary as they offer you a glance into the magical choices you possibly can count on. If you wish to get a way of this RPG earlier than it crowdfunds, this quickstart does a improbable job of introducing the ideas behind the universe and teasing how a marketing campaign would possibly look.
Must you obtain WITCH: Fated Souls 2e Quickstart? In case you’re on the lookout for a darkish city fantasy with a particular gimmick (on this case, the place your powers are owed to a demon, but the chances are limitless), WITCH: Fated Souls 2e guarantees to be precisely what you’re on the lookout for. This quickstart offers an important pattern of the world, letting you see what you’re stepping into earlier than backing the upcoming Kickstarter for the total RPG. Plus, with Halloween coming quickly, this supernatural RPG drops in time to hang-out your gaming desk.
WITCH: Fated Souls 2e Quickstart from Offended Hamster Publishing is PWYW at DriveThruRPG. In case you take pleasure in this quickstart, search for the total model of WITCH: Fated Souls 2e from Offended Hamster Publishing at Kickstarter on Halloween day and operating by way of November 20, 2022.
Egg Embry participates within the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, Noble Knight Video games’ Affiliate Program, and is an Amazon Affiliate. These applications present promoting charges by linking to DriveThruRPG, Noble Knight Video games, and Amazon.
