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Urban Shadows Core (2nd Edition)

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  • Urban Shadows Core (2nd Edition)
  • Urban Shadows Core (2nd Edition)
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Description

Urban Shadows is a political urban fantasy tabletop roleplaying game in which mortals and supernaturals alike vie for power in a modern-day city. Vampires, faeries, hunters, wizards, and more clash in the shadows...or make backroom deals for their piece of the streets and skyscrapers. No one is ever safe, and everything is always at stake.

In Urban Shadows, you play unique and powerful archetypes, protagonists who are attuned to the supernatural world. While the mortal world remains ignorant of the struggles of the city’s supernatural denizens, you are caught in the middle of the physical conflicts and political drama of the city’s past, present, and future.

You might be a spectre bound to an artifact, unable to move on until you’ve resolved your trauma. Or you might be a clever vampire who controls the best blood supply in the city, caught up in a war between your kind and those who hunt you. Or you might be a veteran of your city’s ancient conflicts, someone who got out of the game but keeps getting drawn back in by friends and allies.

No matter who you are, you contain within you the power to shape the city’s destiny. What future will you choose? And what will your victories cost you?

Urban Shadows is based on the Powered by the Apocalypse system used by tabletop RPGs like Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, and many of Magpie Games’s own titles such as Masks: A New Generation, Root: The RPG, and Zombie World. The game uses the core framework of that system to provide a strong, simple way to create your own stories of political urban fantasy. You’ll create a character using one of several archetypes, and then you’ll take action, rolling two six-sided dice to resolve the outcomes of dangerous and difficult situations.

Urban Shadows creates stories like those you’d find in Constantine, Diableros, The Dresden Files, The John Wick franchise, The Last Witchhunter, Lost Girl, and The Wire

In Urban Shadows, the city is a living, breathing character all its own. It hides dark desires, wicked deeds, and devious schemes, its shadowy tendrils a danger to mortals and supernaturals alike. Some residents have sacred sanctums or secure workshops—places to weather the storms of the city—but a sprawling metropolis lies just outside those little nooks, caring little if you prosper…or bleed out in the gutters.

But nobody faces the city alone. Even the humblest of imps has a small community, a circle of those who can offer solace in the face of problems and danger. But community is a double-edged sword—demanding as much as it gives—and the needs and desires of those same circles constantly shape and reshape the vibrant urban landscape of the city. Nothing lasts forever, but the city turns over nearly every night, different forces laying different claims to you and yours.

The city hungers. Will you sate its gnawing desires? Or will your enemies make you the feast?

The schemes and plots of supernatural beings have been a part of the city for as long as anyone can remember. The faces at the top may shift and change with the tides of fortune, but rarely does something occur in the mortal world without some push from those who lurk in the shadows. A new subway system? A contested election? A bank robbery? Nothing is what it seems.

But what is mere money or prestige to wizards, ghosts, and faeries? Who cares about cash or elections when trafficking in human souls or exploring other dimensions? The supernatural forces of the city—and the mortals who deal with them—know only one real currency: debt.

Debt is the power to influence those who owe you, the chits you call in to get things done, the ties that bind you to the rest of the city, and the proof that your word is strong and your bonds unbreakable. There are few true friends in the city, but your debtors always want to see you survive—you can’t pay up if you’re dead.

But there are other ways to triumph in the city beyond the economy of favors and patronage. Cruel rituals. Dark secrets. The temptations of the monster within you. Those who seek power at any cost will find no end to the magics and mysteries available for the merest price of a soul.

The streets bleed shadows—your debtors always around the corner—as the city threatens to swallow you whole. Will you die a hero… or live long enough to become the villain? Will you fight the darkness…or beg for power? The choice is yours.

Over the past five years, Magpie Games has developed and created multiple games that broke boundaries and redefined what PbtA can do. Now, we think it’s time to apply the lessons we’ve learned to Urban Shadows, making a game that’s tighter and easier to run, but also filled with new ideas and improvements, including new tools for players and GMs. We’re also excited to create a beautiful new book with visionary art and fantastic graphic design. In short… we’re making Urban Shadows 2E because we’re thrilled to revisit and refine our work!

Here’s a quick list of the major changes, many of which are already available in the quickstart:

  • revised basic moves, including new versions of turn to violence and let it out 
  • revised playbooks, including rebuilt versions of The Hunter and The Oracle 
  • two brand new playbooks: The Sworn (Power) and The Imp (Wild) 
  • changing Factions to Circles—see below—and adding Circle Status to represent standing
  • a new downtime phase of the game focused on player-facing city moves and rumors
  • replacing Storms with a new MC-facing faction turn, including new faction moves
  • expanded MC tools for generating your city and Circles at the start of play

We’re also adding a new mechanic to bring PCs into contact more often with each other: City Hubs. Cities are enormous spaces, and we found (in US1E) player characters could sometimes retreat to their different corners of the cityscape, interacting only with their own worlds and not with each other. With City Hubs, we want to create smaller, expandable environments to focus play and create drama. These Hubs—described below—position characters in neighborhoods, institutions, and community spaces in which they interact more frequently and avoid sessions in which PCs rarely come into contact and conflict.

Download the quickstart for a chance to test out some of these new features! We’ll be previewing more of them during the campaign, and we’re excited to get your feedback and refine Urban Shadows even more. Thank you to everyone who has given us feedback on 1st Edition since 2015!

 In Urban Shadows, your characters juggle relationships and obligations, seeking allies and opportunities, cashing in debts along the way to get things done. When you seize the day, you reshape the city in your image and unleash your powers on those who stand against you; when your enemies move and hunt, you do your best to stay ahead of the oncoming storm.

Urban Shadows uses the Powered by the Apocalypse framework to resolve interesting moments of uncertainty through moves, bits of mechanics that say: “When you do [x], [y] happens.” Each move trigger—the “When you do [x]” part—is designed to help point at moments of uncertainty, when neither the players nor the GM know exactly what happens next. Some examples of such moments include:

  • When you throw a punch at a loudmouthed werewolf in a demonic club
  • When you plead with the wizard’s council to return a tome of magic stolen from you
  • When you try to escape the evil ritual you stumbled onto in the city’s sewers
  • When you ask one of your companions to forgive the debt your fae lover owes them

When you trigger a move—when you perform the action described in the move’s trigger—then the rest of the move kicks into effect, often requiring a die roll. You roll 2d6 (two six-sided dice) and add in one of your stats to find out what happens.

Every playbook has four stats: 

  •  Blood is the measure of your fight or flight instincts. It tells us how tough, dangerous, coiled, and quick to act your character is in a perilous situation.
  •  Heart is the sum of your passion, charm, and charisma. It tells us how proficient your character is at getting what they want through negotiation and persuasion.
  •  Mind is a reflection of your critical thinking and analysis. It tells us how perceptive your character can be and how good they are at manipulating others through deceit.
  •  Spirit is a gauge of your connection to the “other” and your force of will. It tells us how focused your character is under pressure and what kind of power they can unleash.

Each stat is ranked from -3 to +3. You add your stat to some rolls when you trigger certain moves. For example, when you turn to violence, you roll 2d6 + Blood.

On most moves, if you get a 10 or higher (10+), things go your way! If you get a 7-9, you get what you were after, but usually with some cost or complication. If you get a 6 or lower, that’s called a miss, and the GM gets to tell you what happens next as things spiral out of control. 

Urban Shadows has basic moves for all the usual conflicts in urban fantasy—fighting, lying, escaping, magic, and more—along with special moves for managing debts and your relationships with communities at large.  

The city is a fierce cesspool of politics and corruption, but there are clear connections and boundaries between like-minded residents, spheres of influence that make up the scope of politics within the city. Most call these divisions Circles, loose political groupings that illustrate the differing affiliations and loyalties in the world, each one a community with its own internal politics and dramas. The Circles are:

In addition to the main stats, each character also has ratings (from -3 to +3) for their Circles, measures of how well the character understands each specific community. A character with a high rating in a Circle has contacts and connections within it, and can easily interpret its political information; a character with a low rating in a Circle doesn’t understand how that Circle works or who the power players are within that community.

Circles aren’t organizations or formal alliances; they are more like broad communities or subcultures. The disagreement between two members of the same Circle may be as—or more—intense than any conflict between two differing spheres. A werewolf and a vampire both hail from Night, but that doesn’t mean they get along. It only means they understand each other...and the violence inherent in the language of their streets.

Yet there are factions within each Circle capable of acting in unison, alliances who can shape the city’s future—werewolf packs, witch covens, faerie courts, and more. In Urban Shadows: Second Edition, we’re giving GMs new tools to support those factions in a “faction turn” between sessions. We’re also giving players new tools to get stuff done in downtime, acting on the rumors they heard about what the factions have done in the past week or two of offscreen activity, all fueling the drama of the city and the power players have to shape the setting.

Urban Shadows uses archetypes (The Wolf, The Wizard, The Oracle, etc.) to help players create characters quickly and easily. These archetypes are only ever a starting point; you can always bring in different myths, legends, and ideas to make your character entirely your own.

Characters often acquire abilities and powers from other archetypes and may even change archetypes over the course of play. As your character advances, you may also find reasons to retire to safety, securing that character’s place in the city as you create a new character to continue your group's story.  

Absolute power...corrupts absolutely. Urban Shadows features a dynamic corruption mechanic, tracking your character's descent into darkness. When you take a life, give in to your monstrous nature, or cross a line you shouldn't cross, you mark corruption. As you gain corruption, you unlock new and potent powers, allowing your character to get what they want—at the cost of further corruption. The dark side of your nature bears productive fruit.

Power is never free, though. Cross the line too often and you lose your character to the darkness, handing them over to the GM for them to play as a threat. Corruption is a downward spiral threatening to push you over the edge, and not everyone is cut out to make it back from the brink. As your character gains new abilities fueled by the growing darkness within, you face a difficult choice: will you give up what you've gained to save yourself? 

Corruption also encourages you to play to your archetype. Each archetype contains unique boundaries and taboos that define when you mark corruption. Life is always sacred, but werewolves, mages, and faeries all face unique temptations while stalking the city's streets.

Cities are giant, complex networks of interconnected communities caught in an almost constant state of change. In order to focus your characters’ conflicts and provide reasons for the players to consistently play together across those spaces, Urban Shadows 2E uses City Hubs—dynamic sections of urban life that frame the story you’re telling together without cutting you off from the rest of the city’s potential.

A City Hub isn’t just a physical district or area of your city. Instead, each Hub is a collection of institutions, relationships, and anchors—important NPCs—that create a background for the action in your story. Even better, Hubs can be added over the length of a campaign, expanding the city with new locations, conflicts, and NPCs as your story progresses. 

Urban Shadows 2E features four City Hubs, each dominated by one of the four Circles:

  • City Hall (Mortalis)
  • Downtown (Night)
  • The University (Power)
  • The Arts District (Wild)

Perhaps your Tainted is a student at the local university, the same campus that lies within the Wolf’s territory...and the same institution at which the Wizard recently started working as a professor. Or maybe your Oracle has an occult bookstore downtown in the same office building in which the Sworn is regularly summoned to meet with the wizard’s council, just down the street from the family restaurant in which the Aware still waits tables.

Hubs are also a flexible tool for structuring your campaign as a whole. You can use two different Hubs set in the same city for different campaigns, you can grab elements from any Hub to use as inspiration for your campaign, or you can expand your campaign to include new Hubs as your city grows.

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