Introduction

So you're the gm, huh?

Everything past this point constitutes spoilers: if you are a player, beware!

Or read the spoilers. I'm not your dad!

Getting Started

• Familiarize yourself with the setting and lore, through these documents.
• Customize the setting and lore, using the Customization Toolkit.
• You're going to have the players go through Character Creation, up-front.

Exposition Dump

Some people think that it's more important for a game's setting to be evocative and imaginative and easy to turn into a fun game than it is for that game's lore to be incredibly detailed.

"I don't care who the former comptroller of the sewer department was, I would like a handful of exciting settings that get my blood pumping!"

These people are wrong, and also stupid. I bet they don't even know about the sewer infrastructure underlying their favorite fantasy cities. Do they have regular inspections? Are there city sewer inspectors? Where is the cut-off in sewer maintenance responsibility between the property owner and the city? Can an adventure where you don't know these crucial details even be said to constitute an adventure at all?

The former comptroller of the sewer department's name is Rendall Jjenson. He retired 6 years ago, to a spartan apartment in Krater Valley's retirement block. He has deep concerns about the new comptroller's comparatively loose position on deficit spending, but he's also worried about the aging H₂O reclamation units and thinks that running up some debt could get that resolved. Anyways, it's not his problem any more. He has a steel mug that says "not my circus, not my monkeys" on it, and he plays a lot of solitaire with a real deck of cards that his father brought from Earth.

There are regular inspections. The cut-off in sewer maintenance responsibility between the property owner and the city is unclear, even to the city, which results in no small amount of additional paperwork. And no: it can't.

True Horrors: The Psychic 26

The Moon is host to the attention of 26 ancient, impossibly distant psychic entities. These are the True Horrors, each hoping to claw their way into the hearts and minds of the people of the Moon.

These correspond with each of the 22 Major Arcana, as well as The Terror (Swords), The Ravenous (Pentacles), Legion (Cups), and The Bound (Wands).

Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere offers protection from cosmic radiation and all manner of spaceborne harms, but it's Earth's billions of inhaitants who form a psychisphere, protecting humans from psychic incursions: the only way for the True Horrors to gain access to the psychic feast that is Earth is by first establishing a stronghold on the Moon.

True Horrors offer boons and benefits to the human hosts they bind to: strength, agility, seemingly magical powers - but gradually take more and more control of the host, until the host is nothing more than a meat-puppet for a distant True Horror. Once the True Horror has truly taken over, they can turn the body inside out and pop out a monstrous servant.

Some of the True Horrors are Infectuous. They spread their power by creating circumstances that amplify their effects on people's minds and claiming more and more victims. Currently, Legion is the most infectious and one of the most widespread of the Horrors, but correspondingly their powers are some of the weakest.

Some of the True Horrors are Insidious. They prefer to spread their power by focusing on one specific individual, growing their power by leaps and bounds inside a single host until they're enormously powerful, then erupting forth. These are the kinds of True Horrors infecting our players.

Some True Horrors are a little from Column A, a little from Column B.

Some of them work together. Some of them want to destroy the others. Their goals are often at odds.