"Now, listen carefully, for what I'm about to tell you really happened..."
Long ago, even before the era of Marduk, when wielders of dark magic could walk the earth as they pleased and prey upon all they found, there was a particular warlock in the far north of the world who ravaged the lands to carve out a space of his own. The warlock's true name has been lost to time, but his signature magic was a vile blast that melted away the flesh, leaving only the bones behind. Those killed by the skeleton lord's magic would instantly become skeletons, falling under his control, and adding to his skeleton army. Because of this, the warlock came to be known simply as the Skeleton Lord.
All that rises eventually falls, and the Skeleton Lord eventually ravaged too far. His undead army moved from Scandinavia, across the north of Asia, and eventually into North America. After claiming nearly all of the northern ice territory for his own with little supernatural resistance, the Skeleton Lord pushed his way into the Sasquatch territories. They fought back, and eventually defeated the Skeleton Lord. However, as is always the case with these sorts of things, they were unable to kill him entirely. Instead, they opted to seal his remains deep within the ice for all time.
Of course, an Ice Prison never lasts. Just as the camera begins to roll on our protagonists, the Skeleton Lord breaks free! Perhaps the stars were right, perhaps it was global warming, no one can say for sure. What we can be sure of is that the Skeleton Lord will begin skeletonizing people to rebuild his army as soon as possible, and his journey begins near a remote town in ???.
It's October 1st, 19??. (Any year with a Friday the 13th in October, 1989 or earlier, group's choice).
All signs point to the Skeleton Lord's imminent return!
He won't be able to fully return to Midgard until the 13th (of course).
That said, you better get out there and start sleuthing right now.
Your squad is the lowest ranked of the search groups, sent to the remote area that's got only a one in a million chance of having the Skeleton Lord.
Of course, with odds like that, you're absolutely guaranteed to find him.
This game has extra monster types than are normally within an After Sundown game. Particularly, Skeletons! They're a type of undead monster, weak to Wood attacks.
Also available are Sasquatch, Wendigo, and Agropelter. If you want to be something else even from that we can probably hammer it out easily enough.
Your characters are all recent supernaturals, or perhaps you got made into a monster and then did nothing for however long you want. Either way, you start somewhere between Origin and Medias power levels, and you are very low ranked in supernatural society.
- All Basic Attributes start at 1, and then you assign 13 additional points. In other words, your Basic Attributes should be a total of 19.
- Only one Basic Attribute can be a 6.
- Edge starts at 3, Potency is of course 1.
- All skills start at 0, then assign 60 skill points.
- You do not have to have any specific split among the Physical/Social/Technical categories.
- You can only have one skill at 6 OR two skills at 5. All other skills must be 4 or less.
- You get 1 Specialization in each Technical skill with at least one rank, as well as 3 Specializations you can assign anywhere.
For Backgrounds, you get 35 points but you do not have to spend them at character creation.
- Background points spent at character creation can give you a single background at 6, or two backgrounds at 5, similar to skills. Any other backgrounds spent at character creation must be for backgrounds that are 4 or less.
- Background points held in reserve can be spent at any time to make up a new Background or raise an existing Background (no higher than 4).
- The 2 of Wands and 3 of Wands both give two extra Background points to hold in reserve instead of their normal effect. Other cards that increase Backgrounds work as normal, and can raise a Background above 4 as normal.
- Backgrounds cannot be raised above 6.
- You must select at least 1 Advantage and a matching number of Disadvantages.
- Free Resources: 3/2/1. Similar to Backgrounds, you don't need to assign any of these at the start. The only benefit to picking them right away is that you can use them right away.
- Obligations (Rating 3 or less) can be taken to obtain additional Resources of a matching rating. Unlike the free Resources, you have to decide the details of the Obligation and the Resource at character creation.
- Master Passion as determined by supernatural type.
- Select a Driving Passion of course.
- Select any Ethical Taboos you want to have.
- Fill in a starting Ideology: pick at least two things that you Honor and at least two things that you Despise. You can of course have more than that to start, and you can edit it between sessions once the game has begun.
- You should pick a supernatural type and gain the default Basic and Advanced magics listed for it.
Instead of two karma and a karma to give to someone else and then drawing and bidding and all that, you just get 1 major and 1 minor per Karma. In other words, you get 2 major and 2 minor cards that go onto you, and then you draw a major and minor card which you must then give to another player (they don't have to both go to the same player).
Testing out a new rule for magic: Instead of Magic Suppression being triggered by the creature type of the creature using the magic, it's triggered by the Power Source of the magic in question.
- Infernal magic doesn't function when you're wet
- Astral magic doesn't work when you're drunk
- Orphic magic doesn't work in sunlight
The rules for Counterspelling and Dispelling are unaffected. The rules for what material deals Aggravated damage are also unaffected.
So, Vampires in the sun can use any magic that isn't Orphic, and Mages in the rain can use any magic that isn't Infernal. This also makes the interaction between Universal magic and your own power source much more important to each player.
Also, because I'm not sure it's specifically stated anywhere in the main rules, Devotions copy the Power Source of the person using them for all purposes.