Free to Download: Vileborn quickstart for this nobledark TTRPG

You can grab the 87-page Vileborn quickstart from Horrible Guild and Claudio Pustorino ahead of a Kickstarter launch.

Claudio Pustorino‘s Not the End RPG was published by Mana Project Studio, made ripples and picked up six ENnie nominations so there’s likely to be some interest in Vileborn.

Registration for the Kickstarter is open already, with nearly 1,000 followers and the “launching soon” alert.

Nobledark fiction tends to be set in a morally ambiguous world filled with conflict. Characters reflect this and are equally morally complex, often flawed but not without hope. People will get into fights over this sort of thing, but some prefer nobledark as more realistic than grimdark.

Horrible Guild are Italian and rebranded, wisely, from Horrible Games. They’re great at English but it’s not their first language and they’ve gone with the phrase ‘half-blood heroes’ to describe PCs in the game.

‘Half-blood’ would be a controversial phrase to use for some fantasy settings but here, importantly, heroes have a drop of vampire’s blood in them. It’s this bond with the dark spirit world that links the characters to the shadows.

The setting primer says;

Five years ago, Darkness appeared in the skies above Egas.

Now, days are barely lit by a sun shrouded in black: it is getting colder and colder, food is scarce, and the Reviled are everywhere. Vampires, Fallen, Werewolves: every creature of the dark has crawled out of their lair, ready to stake their claim to power in this eternal dusk.

You are Vileborn: half human, half Reviled.

You were just children when your corrupted lineage manifested itself, subverting your life and separating you from your loved ones. The Luminarian Church, spiritual guide of the Empire and riding a tide of moral fervor, is now instigating the whole world to hunt and persecute you in the name of faith.

The Empress of Egas wants to transform you into a weapon. Desperately looking for leverage in the war against the Reviled, the Empress of Egas has issued the Lex Umbræ, a decree to draft every Vileborn and place them under the authority and protection of the Order of Dusk – an ancient society devoted to safeguarding the Empire.

You are the first Vileborn enlisted into the Order of Dusk. You are at the center of a rift between Church and Empire. You are aware that the adults around you don’t have all the answers. You are at odds with your nature; you are feared and despised by all.