Incunab­u­li is an orig­i­nal, in-devel­op­ment Adven­ture Goth­ic pen-and-paper game. The game rules are a d12 sys­tem. The world is told through short fic­tion, dic­tio­nary entries, and ency­clo­pe­dic lore pas­sages; it’s con­cep­tu­al­ly entailed in spec­u­la­tive sci­ence fic­tion and hor­ror more­so than fan­ta­sy.

The Incunab­u­li game sys­tem is designed to be easy to learn, easy to ref­er­ence, and pro­vide both pal­pa­ble risk and sat­is­fy­ing advance­ment for your cut­ter (your char­ac­ter.) It sup­ports long-term and short-term play. It draws on the con­se­quen­tial, resource man­age­ment-y bits of OSR design phi­los­o­phy, but it isn’t a retro­clone. It’s unre­lat­ed to D&D.

The Incunab­u­li set­ting is called the Coast.

What is the Coast?

A tiny world frayed by ancient hubris. By a cat­a­clysmic error com­mit­ted by a Human­i­ty so fat­ted on con­ceit and hyper­achieve­ment that they con­fi­dent­ly broke a car­di­nal rule in real­i­ty’s book of laws.

To imag­ine it, pic­ture this: Take a paper map of Eura­sia, and place it over sev­er­al oth­er, dif­fer­ent maps. These maps are par­al­lel to the orig­i­nal, extant in sep­a­rate real­i­ties. Dif­fer­ent worlds. Adja­cent, yet inac­ces­si­ble. Now, light the edges of the top map on fire.

It ignites. Shrink­ing and curl­ing. The bor­ders are con­sumed. Every­thing with­out is lost: Every con­ti­nent, every plan­et, every stretch of the uni­verse. Pure­ly anni­hi­lat­ed. A lone­ly coast­line remains, the sole con­tents of a bro­ken real­i­ty.

Extin­guished and viewed from above, we still see Eura­sia. How­ev­er, it’s a patched-togeth­er, holey con­ti­nent shot through with dif­fer­ent uni­vers­es, all sud­den­ly acces­si­ble to each oth­er via their charred edges and through-holes.

This burn­ing, the Inter­stic­tion of Worlds, reduced the uni­verse, con­tain­ing the world once called Nôren, down to just a sin­gle coast­line. Now, the Coast is a super­po­si­tion between worlds, awash with the influ­ence of adja­cent oth­ers. Between the worlds of mon­sters, of wicked souls, of end­less snow, of a thou­sand track­less shores.

Of course, few Coastal peo­ple know this. They just know the for­est is full of ælves and sprig­gans, their fish­mon­ger is swad­dled in silk, and their cob­bler is small and cov­ered in hair.

The Coast is defined by human­i­ty’s sur­vival against the encroach­ing unnat­ur­al, and its inex­orable draw to a past best for­got­ten.

What about technology and Magic?

The Coast is post-Indus­tri­al Enlight­en­ment. It resem­bles the late 19th cen­tu­ry, with a few alter­ations.

Fos­sil fuels aren’t plen­ti­ful in the ground, but kerosene is plen­ti­ful in the bul­bous heads of great cachalots from anoth­er world. Coastal homes and the streets of cities are lit by immense net­works of street­lamps lit by the burn­ing of mon­strous whales.

Gun­pow­der is scarce, but odite is plen­ti­ful, and odite alloy makes gun­springs: Pow­er­ful bal­lis­tic flechette guns.

Real magic—or bet­ter put: sor­cery—is myth and mys­tery to aver­age folk. They have mys­ti­cism and sooth­say­ing of their own, but none of it amounts to much. Their reli­gion, on the oth­er hand, is very real.

Real sor­cery is the domain of the aris­tos­phere, of cut­ters, and of the stranger class­es of neosor­cer­er who yet lurk in hid­den places. A prac­ti­tion­er of these arts might well be called a sci­en­tist, for the pow­er of so-called “mag­ic” is large­ly a bio­me­chan­i­cal prod­uct. It is derived from ancient tomes of lore, and from tombs, the leav­ings of tow­er­ing empires of bygone sor­cery, which teach magi­cians to swap the bones of their hands for mag­ic knuck­le­bones, and to com­mand great ener­gies using the dire poten­cy of mech­a­nism and chem­istry.

What is Adventure Gothic?

Adven­ture Goth­ic is the milieu of cut­ters: Weird des­per­a­dos, thrust from soci­ety’s enclave of nor­mal­cy into the hor­ri­ble, the strange, and the super­nat­ur­al. It is:

• the fear in tres­pass­ing sealed com­plex­es and for­bid­den forests. Fear of what haunts them, and of how your tres­pass will change you.
• the grotes­querie of gris­ly wounds, ghast­ly mon­sters, and deranged col­leagues faced in aber­rant places—and in your­self.
• the lim­i­nal­i­ty of for­got­ten places and ill deeds done there­in, per­haps irre­deemable, com­mit­ted at the behest of ruth­less cap­i­tal­ists.
• the moral com­pro­mise required to trans­gress for these mas­ters, who care only for gold and fell occul­ta, and to breach mores in pur­suit of your own wicked goals.
• the haunt­ing past, in all its deca­dence, its ornate deprav­i­ty, and its buried, guilty mys­ter­ies. Too hor­rid for the light of day, but too seduc­tive to destroy—or to leave buried.
• and it is the specter of mor­tal­i­ty, omnipresent in piled bones and carved icons of exalt­ed death, remind­ing you that every for­ay into des­o­late, insane realms may be the last—before the black skele­ton with­in you earns its turn at life.

Adven­ture Goth­ic defines the lives of cut­ters and the set­ting themes they’re engaged in. They are fringers, punks, and weirdos. They are exposed to obscure, occult, and exis­ten­tial threats that most folk will nev­er con­ceive of, and be changed by wounds, trau­ma, and oth­er­world­ly and sor­cer­ous expo­sures. This sets them apart: Oth­er (nor­mal) char­ac­ters may have no point of ref­er­ence for them at all.

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Timeline

Work in progress. Will prob­a­bly change.

Turn of First Mil­len­ni­um. The Doom of the Ancient Nor.

• ~0.200, First evi­dence of Ampul­lon­ian Civ­i­liza­tion
• ~0.350, Estab­lish­ment of Nauss­ian Domin­ion
• ~0.400, Plague becomes pan­dem­ic (and remains, today.) Human pop­u­la­tions strug­gle for mil­len­nia. 
• ~0.600, Last evi­dence of Ampul­lon­ian jar buri­als
• ~0.900, Naus­sia retreats into the under­world

Turn of sec­ond mil­len­ni­um. Prae­cant­ian Age

• ~1.200 Idran Micelle authored
• ~1.400 Foun­da­tion of Agadese democ­ra­cy
• ~1.600 Fail­ure of Idran Beautarchy
• ~1.700 Rap­ture and decline of Aga­dion. The Predacean Colos­sus comes to pow­er, enslav­ing remain­ing human soci­eties.
• ~1.750. The Predacean Colos­sus holds domin­ion over the South­ern Coast. 80% of human lives are enslaved by it. The North is over­run by plague.
• 1.999, Birth of Aveth

Turn of Third Mil­len­ni­um. Bel­lu­an­tic Age

• 2.015, Aveth slays the Drag­on Ptara­gan­thes and frees its sub­jects. The first of many giants to fall.
• 2.016 Start of the Stel­lades, Aveth’s cam­paigns against rul­ing ser­pents and sor­cer­er kings.  
• 2.049. The Predacean Colos­sus is thrown down. The Stel­lades con­clude. Aveth bestows pre­caria and benefices to her fol­low­ers, who found set­tle­ments on the gift­ed land through­out the South­ern Coast.
• 2.052, The leg­endary city of Hal­cy­on is found­ed by Aveth and her fol­low­ers, far east of mod­ern Alagór. These are the 14 “Hal­cy­on years,” in which human­i­ty flour­ish­es, plague dimin­ish­es, and leg­endary cheva­liers hunt the remain­ing ser­pents of the old Colos­sus.
• 2.065, Aveth pre­dicts her final year in the world. Pow­er is set to trans­fer to her con­suls Aven­tus and Avecin.
• 2.066, Death of Aveth.
• 2.072, The Hal­cy­on state is split, fol­low­ing a rift between its con­suls. Aven­tus removes west to estab­lish rule on the Alagóran Penin­su­la. In order to main­tain con­trol, The Aven­tine and Avecine cul­tures diverge, with the for­mer becom­ing an iso­la­tion­ist state. Aven­tus con­sol­i­dates pow­er, estab­lish­ing a prin­ci­pate.
• 2.078. Awnlings col­o­nize the Bay of grey. The first record­ed large-scale dredg­ing of the Bay of Grey for griso­date salt. They will lat­er call them­selves Firls.
• ~2.080. Huge idols are found in the Bay of Grey and become objects of wor­ship by the Awnlings and ear­ly Firls.

~2.090. Start of the Medieval Era

• ~2.100, Stel­lade benefices begin expir­ing. In the west, under Aven­tine rule, new landown­ers are pop­u­lar­ly deter­mined via blood type, deter­mined by feed­ing the can­di­date’s blood to san­guinar­i­an doves. This deter­mi­na­tion is deemed a sig­nal from Aveth and will be lat­er known as the Columbine Por­tent. The pat­tern of inher­i­tance becomes known as hemogen­i­ture. Those with holy blood are known as the Dright.
• ~2.150. Hemogen­i­ture spreads to the North. Awnish chiefs begin the prac­tice, estab­lish­ing feu­dal blood­lines. Some con­vert to Aveth, spark­ing war with Idol­a­trous neigh­bors.
• ~2.210. The first war between the Aven­tine empire and the Dright begins, fol­low­ing an Aven­tine attempt to destroy a Grey Idol.
• 2.230. The last fairy is killed on Som­mar Isle. The House of Som­mar, strong in their posi­tion, is estab­lished by Lady Eclille the Som­mar­i­an and rapid­ly becomes the strongest of the north­ern Dright.
• ~2.360. Fol­low­ing a year of storms, oth­er­world assump­tion quick­ens mas­sive­ly in the west. Huge tracts of East­ern land become hos­tile in the fol­low­ing years, sep­a­rat­ing and even­tu­al­ly sub­sum­ing the great city of Hal­cy­on.
• ~2.400. The Epiphaenid Revival. Sor­cery begins ris­es the in roy­al courts of the Coast. Mag­i­cal advi­sors and court war­locks pro­lif­er­ate.
• 2.480. Alfright Som­mar of Som­mar Isle becomes the first king of Fir­lund fol­low­ing a pro­longed uni­fi­ca­tion war.
• 2.481, First mint­ing of the Gold­en Pound by the House of Som­mar.
• 2.542, Fol­low­ing decades at war with the South, the Grey Idols are cast into the sea by an Avethan army. Fir­lund will large­ly for­get reli­gion hence­forth.
• 2.550, Mice first emerge from beneath the roots of elms. 
• 2.647, First trans-lat­i­tu­di­nal voy­age from North to South.

Turn of Fourth Mil­len­ni­um. Mod­ern Era

• 3.045, Dis­cov­ery of pep­perelle and toma­toes in the Isles
• 3.207, Dis­cov­ery of odite alloy
• 3.221, Inven­tion of the spring­bow. Lit­toral Adven­ture Cap­i­tal Com­pact signed
• 3.237, Tiber & Fel­lowes near­ly fails, forced to over­lend by a Crown obsessed with cost­ly cir­cus­es and tour­na­ments.
• 3.230 Near-Anther Con­tin­u­ance
• 3.260, Hairold Von Mus cre­ates pro­to­type whale oil steam engine
• 3,278, First mod­ern tra­ver­sal of the Lantrim Sea dol­drums, reveal­ing an ocean­ic fron­tier of new worlds.

3.310, Start of the Indus­tri­al Enlight­en­ment

• 3.311, Improved steam engine mar­ket­ed for indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions
• 3.323, Birth of Adalace Guil­lo­tine
• 3.340, Peak of old whal­ing indus­try. Whale oil wide­ly used for light­ing, heat, and engine fuel
• 3.346, The Guil­lo­tine decap­i­ta­tion gantry is first used in Empereaux
• 3.348, Awnish whale sur­vey fore­casts extinc­tion of sperm whale with­in 10 years, spark­ing the Great Oil Pan­ic.
• 3.352, Gate of Sloe first chart­ed; First cachalot caught
• 3.354, Race to adopt kerosene as replace­ment for whale oil
• 3.360, Hart­ford High Rail Com­pa­ny wins roy­al con­tract to head rail expan­sion on Som­mar.
• 3.363, Prince Alvon of Fir­lund assas­si­nates sev­er­al pop­u­lar courtiers who unwit­ting­ly kissed his poi­soned rings. Unrest gath­ers.
• 3.364, Inven­tion of the chain maille gin. Use of maille armor resurges.
• 3.369, Alvon II is guil­lotined; Fir­lund’s monar­chy ends. A par­lia­men­tary body, the Crown, assumes gov­er­nance, assem­bled by demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­si­dents.
• 3.374, Adalace Guil­lo­tine pro­to­types the autoload­ing gun­spring.
• 3.378, First Nut­meg War begins.
• 3.380, Hogue­hauer Mount eject­ed from Adven­ture Cap­i­tal Com­pact.
• 3.397, Ester Crick of Saun­dow­er trans­mits the first elec­tric tele­type.
• 3.400, Birth of Wal­lace Pied­mont. First Nut­meg War ends
• 3.402, Peri­dot Firm accept­ed into the Adven­ture Cap­i­tal Com­pact  
• 3.405, Crick Clock Com­pa­ny earns con­tract to install rail­way tele­type lines across Som­mar.
• 3.411, Gen­er­al elec­tions cease in Fir­lund; the Low­er Crown is no longer cho­sen by the peo­ple. The Upper Crown becomes clan­des­tine.
• 3.428, Sec­ond Nut­meg War begins
• 3.430, Sec­ond Nut­meg War ends.
• 3.432, Win­down-Llor­muth line com­plet­ed, the longest yet. Rail invest­ment explodes.
• 3.436, The Dark Con­ti­nent is chart­ed by Wal­lace Pied­mont
• 3.439, Bas-Klein­auer-Stotz Kero Inter­est eval­u­at­ed at one bil­lion gold­en pounds, the high­est in his­to­ry. Inven­tion of the taxime­ter.
• 3.440, Ani­mun­culi are first seen out­side Illa Cor­voy.
• 3.442, First con­tact made with Tefelka­ni mer­chant­men.
• 3.445, Pan­tea is chart­ed beyond the Agra­t­ian Sea.
• 3.446, First high-speed gyro mono­rail avail­able between Mod­deroi and Abon­dance.
• 3.447, Lothrheim out­laws adven­ture cap­i­tal­ism with­in its bor­ders.
• 3.448, The first rigid diri­gi­ble aero­stat flies in Leah. | The King’s Men rise in Llor­muth, swollen by ex-cut­ters forced from Lothrheim, spark­ing mob scare.
• 3.499, Archi­tect and alienist Arno Enten­mus Lain pro­pos­es a rev­o­lu­tion­ary hos­pi­tal sys­tem. The Lain Plan will be wide­ly licensed in com­ing years in the con­struc­tion of insane asy­lums.

3.448, Parou­sia; Aveth returns to the world.

• 3.449, Wal­lace Piedmont’s expe­di­tion to the Dark Con­ti­nent van­ish­es. Belvirine declares war on Lothrheim, backed by Coastal banks.
• 3.450, Present. Lothr-Belvirine war inten­si­fies.

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