FATHOM

This game is in playtest release! It is incomplete and open to feedback: Please let us know if you play!

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You know the truth about this City. 

You know the secret machinery of reality, the unseen monsters, and the back-alley magicians. You’ve seen the living shadows that hide in words and street signs.

You have learned how to call the corners, to speak the cryptic tongue, and how to pass between layers of truth. You can accomplish unbelievable, impossible tasks. But that won’t stop your landlord from breathing down your neck. 

FATHOM is a roleplaying game about paranormal drifters - people in touch with the strange and supernatural - living in a surreal, capitalist, post-modern City.

Using the dice mechanics of the Sparked by the Resistance system (Spire, Heart, etc) and the mission mechanics of the Forged in the Dark system (Blades in the Dark, Scum and Villainy, etc), FATHOM invites players to investigate mysteries, combat monsters, and unravel the web of strange phenomena taking place in the City. 

To do that, they'll step into the UnReal: the dark mirror of our own world, where magic is real and possibility is endless.

Each step of the way, they'll take Actions, use Abilities, and utilize Equipment to solve the Problems that get in their way - but they must look to their own needs, collecting Valuables and nursing their Anchors to retain their hold on the Real world. 

Dive too deep, or look too long into the Abyss, and the UnReal might take hold....

FATHOM features:

• A guide on how to play, and how to run the game

• Guidelines on how to construct a City of your very own to play in

• 10 drifters playbooks, each with core, minor, and major abilities

• 5 crew playbooks for your team of drifters

• Example equipment and anchors for everyone to use

• Over 50 UnReal monsters to contend with

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Drifters are defined by their Grind - their mundane past, their life in the Real - and their Playbook, which defines their perspective on the UnReal and the world around them. 

Playbooks include...

• The Bends - Mercurial, improvisational shapeshifters that use the UnReal to reinvent themselves and the world around them

• The Exorcist - Hunters of supernatural monsters, intent on protecting the world from the worst of what the UnReal has to offer.

• The Expert - A veteran advisor and mentor, unable to weave the UnReal but who knows its ins and outs like the back of their hand.

• The Keeper - The guardian of a strange UnReal creature who must contend with its incredible strength and dangerous capabilities.

• The Media - A witch of the web who gathers information, conjures lies, and manipulates the flow of data as they see fit.

• The Prisoner - Someone trapped within the Real who uses the UnReal to explore the world as a specter, freed from your earthly chains.

• The Reaper - An agent of Death Itself, a harbinger of the end, an unstoppable force that’s capable of incredible violence.

• The Returned - A conspiratorial soothsayer who was taken by mysterious forces: now they’re back, and haunted by the visions of what’s yet to come.

• The Vamp - A slick social climber, at home in the dark and given over to taboo cravings.

• The Velveteen - An UnReal monster in human skin, fascinated by the Real and determined to become a person themselves.

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Created by Matthew Guzdial and Brendan McLeod. 

FATHOM is Sparked by the Resistance. It uses ideas from the Resistance Toolbox, published by Rowan, Rook and Decard. Find out more at rowanrookanddecard.com

FATHOM is also Forged in the Dark. This work is based on Blades in the Dark, product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Apart from these systems, FATHOM owes much of its DNA to the many games that came before it, most notably Voidheart Symphony by Minerva McJanda.

Cover art and itch page by Yuri Runnel. Interstitial art generated by WOMBO Dream. Other art from Unsplash.