Hunter: The Vigil 2E - Hardcover version

he scales have fallen from your eyes. A fire is lit — is it a lamp perched over the inscription on an ancient blade or a roaring conflagration consuming the house in which the howling fiends wait? Things will never be the same after this. You’ve set forth on a damning path. Carry the Vigil. Fight back the shadows.

In Hunter: The Vigil, you play out stories following a core cast of characters as they fight their way through the Chronicles of Darkness, a version of our own everyday world filled with monsters. It’s a lot like a TV drama, something like The Walking Dead or The X-Files. Individual gaming sessions, generally running two-to-four hours, are like weekly episodes. Secrets will be revealed, relationships will be tested, and blood will be spilled.

When you create a character, you choose between three tiers of gameplay. At tier one, your characters will fight monsters with little to no support. They may find allies along the way, but they’re on their own. At tier two, you play hunters backed by a compact that typically operates on a regional level. Your hunters have more guns and gear to fight the darkness. At tier three, you play cogs in a global conspiracy that has plenty of resources — and politics to boot. Conspiracies have more information about the supernatural than they let on, but even then...it’s unclear if the lore they’ve acquired is accurate or not.

Three to five players are recommended to play Hunter, but the game can be played with two people. Each player slips into the role of a hunter. You’ll make decisions for your hunter — when their best friend betrays them, you plot a scheme for revenge. When another hunter picks a fight, you decide whether your character runs or negotiates with them. Perhaps most importantly, you’ll tell the story of how your hunters, even though they’re terrified, stand up to monsters to uphold the Vigil.

Hunter: The Vigil first hit shelves in 2008. It was a popular game line that presented a new take for mortal protagonists compared to the core Chronicles of Darkness rulebook from 2004. It quickly became a fan favorite and spawned several supplements, including Slashers. No longer were ordinary humans going to be swept up in the machinations of the unknown; now it was time for them to take up the torch and fight back against the darkness.

Now, over 10 years later, Hunter: The Vigil Second Edition is designed with a new premise: There are more monsters today than ever before. The rules found in this book are designed to give players and Storytellers new, flexible tools to identify, hunt, and capture monsters while enhancing the definition of what is means to be a hunter.

Hunter: The Vigil Second Edition is a standalone game that can be played by new or existing players. The lore has been updated to not only reflect the uptick in monsters, but also the fact that hunting monsters is not exclusive to a location, group of people, or time period. There may be more monsters than ever before, but now there are more ways to fight them, too.

In Hunter: The Vigil, anyone can be a hunter — provided you are committed to the hunt. It is a game of personal horror and sacrifice that tests relationships and encourages teamwork within a cell, compact, or conspiracy.

Will you heed the call? Will you uphold the Vigil?

This Hunter: The Vigil Second Edition Kickstarter is designed to enable us to create a hardcover edition designed to match the look and feel of our other Chronicles of Darkness core rulebooks such as Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken, and Changeling: The Lost.

We want to create an 8.5" x 11" hardcover with a beautifully designed, striking cover image printed on a metallic under layer, and featuring an emboss/deboss of the logo. We estimate the book to be more than 250 pages, with a two-color interior and endpapers on high-quality paper stock. Exceptional funding may allow us to add Stretch Goals that further develop the setting and provide additional materials for play, including...! We also want to get at least one print run into traditional distribution and available for sale at game and hobby stores.

Hunter: The Vigil Second Edition includes all the rules you need to play a hunter in a tier-one, -two, or -three chronicle.

•  Chapter One: Flickering Candles provides an overview of a hunter’s world; the history of the hunt; the types of hunters you can play; and three, separate types of gameplay included in this book: tiers one, two, and three.
•  Chapter Two: Compacts and Conspiracies are specialized hunter organizations that may be used for tier-two or -three games. In this chapter, you’ll read more about Hunter lore and the history of the compacts and conspiracies, find write-ups for six compacts and six conspiracies, along with rules for tier-three Endowments and how to make them.
•  Chapter Three: Character Creation allows you to build and customize a character. You’ll learn how hunters retain one foot in an unsuspecting world and another in the Vigil. Plus, you’ll discover more about the Code and how it shapes hunters’ core identities and beliefs.
•  Chapter Four: Rules of the Hunt dives into the rules for gameplay. It also offers rules for specific aspects of Hunter that includes investigation and socializing along with teamwork and Tactics.
•  Chapter Five: Monsters Around the World offers a taste of the strange and unusual monsters hunters may come across during the hunt. Sample monsters are presented according to the type of terrain from which they originate along with notes for how these creatures may be modified. Additionally, monster-creation rules, ephemeral-entity rules, and Dread Powers are found in this chapter.
•  Chapter Six: Mysterious Places takes another look at the Hunter setting by introducing where monsters live, locations the supernatural has tainted, and which places are actually monsters themselves. It offers new rules to handle each type of location, along with several examples.
•  Chapter Seven: The Slasher Chronicle is a sample chronicle setting. Yanked from the slasher-movie genre, the Slasher Chronicle is a horror-movie-themed setting that includes a new slasher-specific compact and conspiracy, rules for building slashers, customized approaches for tier-one, -two, and -three gameplay, new Storyteller characters, and more!
•  Chapter Eight: Storytelling offers advice for Storytellers to help build and manage a chronicle while fleshing out rules for Storyteller characters. Additional content includes advice for creating player-facing compacts and conspiracies.
• The Appendices provide Equipment, Conditions, and Tilts likely to come into play in Hunter.