Shadows of the Century

I’ve been thinking about an Lovecraftian monster hunting game using my own variation on Fate for a while now. It really didn’t have much of a hook for me, though. I could run a game like that in just about any system you care to name. It really needed something more; I just couldn’t sort out what.

Yesterday, a title struck me and then, shortly after, a hook. Then I wrote some quick back cover text to solidify the ideas in my head. Below is what I wrote:

 

There are heroes in the world. Brilliant, powerful heroes who fight for what is right; to save the world from nefarious masterminds and world-spanning plots to conquer the world.

That isn’t you.

While the superstars are out there saving humanity from itself, there are other, older, things moving in the shadows.

Before it happened, you were just a regular person but then you were touched by the darkness. Maybe it was just a brush against the shadow, maybe it took your friends and left you alive, maybe there was more to it that that. Whatever the case, the shadow left its mark and there ain’t no coming back from that.

Now you can see the things that hide out there in the darkness and only you are standing between them and the light. Only you.

 

Shadows of the Century is a roleplaying game of investigation, horror, and survival. Players take on the roles of everyday people who have encountered the creatures that lurk in the darkness and had their eyes opened. Now they fight a desperate, ongoing battle to hold back the darkness and protect humanity while struggling with the corruption that is gnawing at them from within.

Do you have what it takes to fight monsters without becoming one?