moralinth - uncanny edition
what is the
cypher system?
The Cypher System is a role-playing system created and published by Monte Cook Games - the developers of the award-winning game Numenera.
Designed as a framework for other games, The Cypher System came about following the success of Numenera, allowing many official and third-party campaign settings to be built using its easy-to-learn but surprisingly in-depth mechanics.
Games such as The Strange, Gods of The Fall, Predation, Unmasked, Invisible Sun - and of course Numenera - all use The Cypher System at its core.
The Cypher System revolves around its namesake: "Cyphers", one-shot fantastical items or assets that allow players to do things otherwise outside of their normal capabilities.
why use the cypher system?
I discovered The Cypher System in the early stages of writing Moralinth and was impressed by its clever use of game mechanics to promote narrative game-play, allowing players the freedom to act independently of common table-top rpg restrictions like classes or other designated boundaries.
At its fundamental core, The Cypher System is about being given a difficulty to overcome by the Gamesmaster (or as we call them in Moralinth, the Narrator), and then the players work together to lower that difficulty as much as possible before rolling a twenty-sided dice to see if they succeed or fail.
Of course, there are all kinds of modifiers, assets, training and circumstantial conditions that can effect that roll, but at its very foundation it all comes down to a single dice roll and you want to get that difficulty number as low as possible.
So the rules are simple but have a lot of room for depth - perfect for the rules-light, improvisational game-play for a gothic horror game.
Added to this the way characters are made in The Cypher System is unique and interesting, and feels very in keeping with the unusual natures of the characters players portray in Moralinth.
A character is built out of 3 fundamental choices which, when combined, not only give a thematic description of the character but the basis for fleshing out character creation.
In the Cypher System players choose a "Type", a "Descriptor" and a "Focus" which opens up further options for character creation.
For example, one of the pre-generated characters in the Moralinth Core Rulebook is 'Ms. Isobel O'Neil, a Weird Adept who Works Miracles.'
In this instance Ms O'Neil's "Type" is Adept, her "Descriptor" is Weird and her "Focus" is Works Miracles.
It's not all about the players though. As a Narrator, the freedom to work "on the fly" is almost unparalleled. All NPCs, monsters, tasks and situations in The Cypher System have a difficulty level (the one we mentioned earlier that the players need to succeed against), and all rolling is done by the players.
The Cypher System comes littered with NPCs, creatures, items, cyphers and just about anything you might want to present your players with; and Moralinth adds to this already impressive repertoire.
It is common in a lot of table-top RPGs that players level up or upgrade their characters at the end of a game session, but The Cypher System gives out Experience Points (or "XP"; being the resource needed to upgrade a character) during game-play itself, lending to a more organic and fluid progression system.
Overall The Cypher System is among the most impressive game systems I have encountered as both a player and games master in recent years, and it felt a natural fit to build Moralinth around this system in the first instance.
Lastly, Cypher System is especially streamlined in its dice use. Almost all rolls are done on a single d20, with the d4, d6 and d10 needed very rarely. As a bonus, only players ever roll dice.
For those unfamiliar with The Cypher System, a copy of the quick-start rules can be downloaded for free from the Monte Cook Games website.
Moralinth: Uncanny Edition is made in accordance with the CSOL.
what does moralinth bring to the cypher system?
A brand-new I.P. and campaign setting, Moralinth uses the Cypher System to form the structure upon which the entire setting is based. Though the campaign setting introduces many new features, the primary portion of the rules is identical to those found in the Cypher System Rulebook.
A large and expansive tome, Moralinth includes much of what can be found in the Cypher System Reference Document (CSRD), but also adds a slew of brand-new and setting-specific features, including:
a victoriana gothic-horror setting
Moralinth is set in a unique world that mirrors Earth in many ways. Technologically equivalent to the late 1800s but with entirely different geography, cultures, religion, and history, Moralinth pulls inspiration from literary and cinematic Gothic horror but moulds it into a victoriana-like aesthetic with steampunk and Lovecraftian overtones.
Mankind exists in massive walled communities called Enclaves that consist of many cities banded together and the Wilderness outside is lost to chaos and ruin.
Players control individuals with "The Spark", an ability that allows them to see past the veiled illusion of reality to peek behind the curtain and witness what really lurks in the dark. This power also grants them fantastical abilities, yet less than 2% of the world's population have The Spark. Those with The Spark refer to themselves as The Uncanny.
insanity & corruption
The mind and souls of the characters in Moralinth are in as much jeopardy as their physical bodies - perhaps even more so. Encountering secrets and entities that the human mind was not meant to know, characters are at constant risk of their minds breaking and their souls falling to damnation.
Moralinth introduces brand-new rules for corruption into the Cypher System as well as greatly developing and enhancing the insanity rules found in the CSRD.
Along with the usual statistics included in the Cypher System, characters also gain and lose Insanity Points and Corruption Points which range from 0 to 10. Characters gain "Corrupt Boons" and "Mental Disorders" as they pass thresholds in Corruption and Insanity respectively, and reaching 10 in either of these marks the end of that character.
The more a character learns about the supernatural world that exists in the shadow of the material one, the more powerful they become but their humanity is damaged along the way. Spending time in temples and asylums can sometimes reduce the character's corruption or insanity, but this balance of power is one of the central themes running in the Moralinth campaign setting.
the primordial darkness
In Moralinth the world is - unbeknownst to its current inhabitants - in its 3rd Age. In the distant past magic and the supernatural were very real, potent powers and in fact were the driving force during the 2nd Age of the world.
In modern times society has embraced the practices of science and technology, and the ways of magic are nothing more than legends and fables: stories to entertain or frighten. The average citizen of the Empire knows full well that magic and the supernatural are not real.
They are of course, quite wrong.
Magic, the supernatural and the occult, the creatures of darkness... all are starting to reappear in the world as if a great Darkness was awakening from a millennium-long sleep. Few see or recognize this insidious reemergence, blinded by science, faith, or The Delusion but a rare few see the world for what it is. These rare few are The Uncanny.
A little over three centuries ago, a single almost extinction-level event birthed the return of these forces into the world: a maddening of sentient life that would later become known as The Blight; a catastrophe so major that humanity was forced to wall itself in to survive and even the most scientifically-minded or religiously faithful were forced to admit that some things were beyond the understanding of Man.
Magic and the supernatural have gone by many names and monikers but the oldest recorded name for it is The Dark. In Moralinth the majority of people are completely unaware of the existence of The Dark with The Blight being the only indicator of forces outside of their comprehension present in the world around them.
extra content
Along with the Victoriana-Gothic Horror Setting, the re-vamp of Insanity rules, the new Corruption rules and the overarching effect of The Dark you can also find the following features in the Moralinth Role-playing game:
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A modification to the existing Cypher System Types to give them a distinctly Moralinth feel
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7 new Descriptors including the non-human Racial Descriptor: 'Clockwork' and other Ancestries.
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10 new Focus specifically designed for the setting and bringing the total Focus options to 96
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An Insanity Point tracking system along with 20 sample Mental Disorders to get narrators started
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A Corruption Point tracking system along with 20 Corrupt Boons for players to acquire
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'Dark Passengers': the darker side of the character's psyche made manifest
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'The Sight': a special ability afforded to all characters allowing them to see the world of Moralinth as it truly is.
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Equipment tables for weapons, armour, vehicles, gear and even housing, as well as a re-vamp to the currency system and a fourth grade of item value: 'Opulent'
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New Cyphers and Artefacts, with substantial use of more subtle cyphers
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A fully-realised and fleshed-out world of eighteen separate countries as part of one expansive Empire, with a particular focus on the Imperial Capital Enclave of Elysium.
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Advice for narrators on how to perpetuate the mood and atmosphere of a Moralinth game along with tips and tricks to make the horror-based game-play memorable and fun
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New creatures and Non-player characters, custom character sheets, XP cards and more!