Guidelines for content in the Incunabuli setting.
Every session should include:
The Grotesque
- Something weird and hideous. Often a human thing. A sickness or an ugliness in society.
The haunting Past
- Failures and ruins that cannot be expunged or put aside. Things that cannot and will not be forgotten, though they should be.
The specter of Death
- Memento mori. Death waits for everyone. Humans become monsters after death. The cutter’s life is a short one.
The Supernatural
- Close beyond the reaches of reason and safety lie other worlds, existential threats, and the derelicts of bad, dead kingdoms.
Style guide
Dos and don’ts for rules and setting.
Reference the late 19th century for technological and stylistic inspiration. Cowboys and chimneysweeps. Budding electricity and the advent of the automobile. Some elements even border on the 1920s. The Coast’s Gilden Age has peaked, and the world is advancing headlong into an uncertain future.
Root every supernatural or magical effect in theoretical or speculative science, even if far-fetched. Magic is “magic.” All of it has an explanation, no matter how odd.
Incunabuli is science fiction, not fantasy. Resist adding anything identifiable as core to fantasy, especially additional “races.”
There are no social skills save for reaction rolls. Never make a “diplomacy” or “insight” skill or the like.
Abide by the Rule of 2. If you’re looking for a modifier, penalty, or bonus, use 2. Two actions per turn. Two units water in a canteen. +2 to to hit per edge (a ~17% weight on a d12 roll.) The exception is damage: Bonuses to damage always come in increments of +1.
NPCs have different levels of knowledge about the world. A Firlish homesteader in the Marchlands may be very aware of the Otherworld but not conceive of any neighboring realities beyond it. A citizen of any major city may be reasonably well educated, but their grasp of world-threatening issues is probably clouded by propaganda and by their distance from danger. Most people are superstitious, uneducated, disinterested, or amply fed on propaganda, folklore, ideology, and religious dogma. Even if they are aware of the higher elements of the world as scholars, magicians, politicians, and cardinals are, they are probably too concerned with personal power to care.
Magic is not flamboyant. There is no telekinesis, no light without energy source, no colored fire or goofiness of the sort. Look at the effects produced by knucklebones for an idea of the aesthetic limits of magic.
The Otherworld tends to bring North American fauna and flora with it. Like spriggans, coyote-like wags, and black bears.
Never let the players play älves. Keep them otherworldly, predatory, and dangerous. älves can turn invisible and will steal your baby. They may be sexy, but they are aliens, and they do not act like humans.
No vampires or werewolves. Just don’t. Despite this: Real vampire folklore is easily reinterpreted as being related to plague, or to some human mutation, like revenancy. For example, vampire burials on the Coast are interpretable as burials meant to combat plague.