They Came from Beyond the Grave! Hardcover

I urge you now: do not open this book. Do not read its contents. Walk away, live your simple life, and keep these creatures of darkness in the shadows where they belong.

Opening your eyes to this horrible world, where demons possess dolls, the undead stalk the night, the Devil walks among us, and mummies march from their tombs, is an act of incredible bravery, or perhaps, complete foolishness. Turn away now, before it’s too late…

No? Well, in that case, I introduce you to a little game we can play, called 

They Came from Beyond the Grave! is a dramatic, hammy, and horrifying tabletop roleplaying game encompassing the shock, terror, eroticism, and humor of 1970s horror. This game allows you to play with all the magnificent content from the movies of Hammer, Amicus, and Roger Corman, and promises fun and thrills of the horror movie genre!

In They Came from Beyond the Grave! you play humans faced with the horrors of the supernatural. You’ll find yourself pitted against vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and constructed critters, along with demons, slashers, and THE DEVIL HIMSELF. Adventures range from the one-shot exploration of a haunted house, to the multi-era play across the 19th century and 1970s.

They Came from Beyond the Grave! contains a mix of serious threat, unmitigated ham, and nonsensical farce. We never tell you what is amusing and what is not, but we do provide you with the tools to make a seriously fun game incorporating all the elements of 1970s horror movies. This game provides rules for funny quips and amusing cinematics for incorporation in a story, along with dozens of special powers and story devices.

They Came from Beyond the Grave! uses the Storypath System, provided in full in the pages of this book!

This They Came from Beyond the Grave!  Kickstarter campaign is designed to enable Onyx Path to create a hardcover rulebook, a print-and-play PDF of Quip and Cinematic cards, and a Director screen to aid play. Exceptional funding may allow us to add Stretch Goals that further develop the setting and add additional materials for play, including more scenarios and additional threats! We also want to get at least one print run into traditional distribution and available for sale at game and hobby stores.

We want to create an 8.5" x 11" hardcover rulebook with a dynamic cover and full-color interior art. We estimate the book will be more than 200+ pages and will be traditionally printed on high quality paper stock. In addition, we want to create a print-and-play PDF with more than 120 Quip and Cinematic cards to use in-game.

•  Chapter One: Archetypes - This is where you’ll meet this game’s playable Archetypes. The Dupe, the Hunter, the the Mystic, the Professor, and the Raconteur each occupy different roles popular in the horror movies listed previously.
•  Chapter Two: Character Creation - If you’ve chosen the Archetype that appeals to you and already have the kernel of a character concept in mind, here’s where you go to flesh that character out in full.
•  Chapter Three: Skills and Attributes - Your selection of abilities is an important, defining aspect of your character, which is why Skills and Attributes get their own chapter where they’re all detailed for your pleasure.
•  Chapter Four: System - The Director will want to read this chapter to get a handle on how to run and play They Came from Beyond the Grave! This chapter breaks down the basics of dice rolling all the way through to Complications on actions, Conditions for characters, and scenes involving clue-solving, drama, and death. The players should scan through this chapter after creating characters just to discover the basics.
•  Chapter Five: Cinematic Powers - Here’s where you’ll find some of the best powers and tools for your horror games. If you’ve ever wanted to insert a missing reel to escape peril, produce copious amounts of blood to fake your own death, score points for coming up with a cutting one-liner at just the right moment, or explode with amazing Stunts when you succeed spectacularly, this is going to be a fun read.
•  Chapter Six: Monsters - What is a horror movie without a monster? Oh, some of them are human and fragile enough, but this chapter contains everything from Stalking Killers to Dracula, and Possessed Dolls to Abaddon, the Locust King. You’ll find no shortage of enemies to incorporate into stories and base entire plots around right here.
•  Chapter Seven: The Director’s Chair - All the advice an aspiring Director could need to run a game to hit a certain tone or mood, including a dissection of the different kinds of horror movies you might wish to emulate. This chapter goes into full detail of what a Director should and shouldn’t do to really get that 1970s horror movie feel across.
•  Chapter Eight: This Horrible World - Maybe this is your first RPG, or perhaps you’re struggling to come up with sets, events, and plots for your game of They Came from Beyond the Grave! Whatever the case, this chapter contains everything you need to start the flow of ideas. Both the 1970s and the 19th century, as they appear in films, are detailed lovingly for your use.
•  Chapter Nine: Scenarios - Two full scenarios, one involving the machinations of THE DEVIL HIMSELF, another embracing the characters, stories, and mysteries of Edgar Allen Poe’s trove of stories, each ready to run directly from the book.
•  Appendix One - Here we have the list of Quips present in the Cinematic Powers chapter, but easily locatable near the back of the book. This appendix is especially useful for players lacking a deck of Quip cards.
•  Appendix Two - Here you’ll find a helpful list of Stunts and Cinematics, stating their names and costs.

They Came from Beyond the Grave! is powered by Onyx Path's Storypath system, and includes all the rules you need to play as a brave (or foolhardy) hero dealing with supernatural threats, including rules for creating characters with a mix of options to customize your Archetype. It also has ready-to-play scenarios, along with information on the cinematic version of the 19th century and 1970s that you can incorporate into your game with a new spooky atmosphere. And, finally, dozens of antagonists, including a chaotic assembly of horrific haunts that create a host of locations and events for players and Directors to explore.

The Storypath system is Onyx Path's rules set designed specifically to allow the sort of rules scaling necessary to seamlessly enable players to play ordinary people as well as mystics and monster hunters.

The basics of the Storypath system should be familiar to anyone who has played many other Onyx Path games of action-adventure or heroic exploits, as it is a 10-sided dice pool system, where in order to resolve an action you basically roll a number of dice equal to the character's Skill + Attribute and must roll an 8 or better a certain number of times in order to succeed in the action.

That is the very basic resolution system, but we expand on that to further enhance how your gaming group can build their stories. Failing to hit your number of successes, or having more successes than your required amount, are built-in options in the rules. Here is a handy graphic that illustrates what we mean: