Deep within the archives of the Magnus Institute dark things are stirring...
An odd figure beckons drunken pubgoers into an alleyway—never to be seen again. A meat grinder somehow compels its users to merrily feed it their own limbs. A late-night subway train burrows itself into the earth, all but crushing its lone occupant.
Your records are filled with disparate statements of bizarre occurrences—usually with a very chilling edge. Statements discuss people (or creatures?) such as an odd figure that beckons drunken pubgoers into an alleyway—never to be seen again; items like a meat grinder that somehow compels its users to merrily feed it their own limbs; events like a late-night subway trip in which the train burrowed itself into the earth, all but crushing its lone occupant.
And books with extraordinary power, such as The Boneturner’s Tale, which seems to give one who reads it the grisly power to rearrange the bones of others. An astonishing number of these books seem to trace back to a particular private library, owned by the enigmatic Jurgen Leitner.
Your organization is dedicated to cataloging and researching these incidents—not fighting or confronting the supernatural. But it’s becoming clear these events aren’t as disparate as they first appear. There are connections between them—connections that suggest existential dangers to the world as we know it.
How will you combat them, when simply coming to understand these dark forces threatens to bring you under their influence?
If you're new to The Magnus Archives, you'll get a great introduction with Episode One of the podcast.
A Different Kind of Existential Horror
The threats in The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game start small, but lead big places. Investigations initially focus on singular events—weird, creepy, and even dangerous, but also minor and localized. A real estate agent found herself trapped in an endless corridor behind a door that hadn’t been there before. A young man took possession of a coffin from which weird sounds emerged. Another man had an encounter with what seemed to be a vampire.
(Speaking of vampires, The Magnus Archives offers a fresh take on the supernatural. The stories—and your adventures—are filled with both enigmatic, original concepts, and recognizable elements that play out in cool and unexpected ways.)
Working together at the Magnus Institute, or a similar organization, brings the party together (though characters may have different backgrounds, perhaps as law enforcement, or amateur supernatural sleuths, that bring them into the fold). The PCs have a common purpose from the start.
The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game really shines as your campaign builds. Connections form between the individual adventures, and other records in the archives, involving the PCs with powerful Entities that underlie the strange events. At the same time, the characters are affected by their investigations. Ultimately, these effects can damage the PCs, or give them important advantages for facing the Entities—it’s up to the players to find a balance between the rewards and the very perilous risks...
This game is based on the entirety—all five seasons—of The Magnus Archives podcast. For those of you who have experienced every episode, you know that there are secrets unveiled all the way up to the very end. Speaking of which...
AN INTRIGUING ADAPTATION ON THE CYPHER SYSTEM
The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game is a hefty hardcover book. It contains the full rules of the game, a detailed character creation system, lots of game advice, a comprehensive look at the characters, artefacts, and entities of The Magnus Archives, and entire adventures (called investigations, instigated by statements) ready to play.
It's also loaded with informative lore and great art that every fan of The Magnus Archives is going to love, even if you never sit down to play.
The Cypher System is renowned for its flexibility, narrative focus, and fast pace. It’s the perfect system for a story- and character-oriented campaign. And its mechanics are easily adapted to the needs of a particular genre or style of play. The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game has the Cypher System at its core, specifically tailored to portray the horror and the action of The Magnus Archives.
You’ll find changes to the damage system, new ways characters can advance, and special mechanics that escalate the tension as your adventure progresses. And an innovative process for creating the witness statements at the root of each adventure—a process that deeply invests the entire gaming group into the investigations.
And in particular, a whole new set of mechanics portraying the fear and stress of these stories is woven throughout every aspect of the game. Stress not only measures the toll of these terrible encounters, but can translate, over time, into the remarkable changes to a character. Those crossing paths with the entities of this setting come away psychically scarred, but also sometimes with mysterious, supernatural abilities. Using such abilities might save your life, but it might also send you further into the clutches of the entities at the heart of such powers. A character might even eventually become an avatar of one of the Entities... but is that a good thing?
You’ll have to discover that for yourself.
Work alongside Jonathan and Martin, Basira, Daisy, and the rest of the staff of the Magnus Institute, or create your own branch of investigators. Encounter the NotThem, the Anglerfish, or The Man Upon the Stair. Learn the truth of the books of Jurgen Leitner, the coffin that is also a pit, and The People’s Church of the Divine Host.
Like most tabletop roleplaying games, this game is played with and in the shared imaginations of a group. One player takes on the role of the Game Master (GM) who crafts the adventure and controls the world in which it is set. The other players take on the roles of fictional characters within that world, describing—and occasionally rolling dice to resolve the outcomes of—the actions of their characters.
The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game includes:
* Complete rules tailored for a story-based tabletop roleplaying experience in the eerie world of the popular The Magnus Archives horror podcast.
* An innovative process for creating witness statements to launch each adventure, investing the entire gaming group and creating an entirely new experience each session.
* Unique mechanics for handling fear and Stress, and for the remarkable changes that dealing with dark forces can inflict on a character over time.
* Dozens of creatures and NPCs to encounter, including beloved and feared NPCs from The Magnus Archives podcast such as Jonathan Sims, Elias Bouchard, and Jurgen Leitner.
Designer: Monte Cook & Bruce R. Cordell
Format: Hardcover
Page Count: 384
Cover Artist Roberto Pitturru
Skip This Section If You Want to Avoid Spoilers!
If you’ve listened all the way up through the end of the podcast, you know that all the supernatural and esoteric happenings are due to the entities of fear, and this game goes into this in depth. Moreover, you know that in the universe of the podcast, the entities are no longer present, thanks to the sacrifices made by Jon, Martin, and the rest of the team. So for the game, we have decided that each GM will create their own reality that has been exposed to the freed entities. That means you’re free to use anything from the podcast, and free to change anything you wish. Is the Magnus Archive in London or does it lie elsewhere (perhaps with a different name and history)? Is Jonathan Sims the head archivist, or is it someone else—even a PC? The game will provide all the guidance you need to create a setting and a campaign that mirrors as much or as little of the podcast as you want.
