Welcome to the nightmarish realms of the Wretchedverse, where horrors lurk around every corner, and the darkness hides untold terrors. Wretched Darkness is a mature horror role-playing game where you take on the role of an anti-hero character who must face the unknown and confront the supernatural head-on. This game can be played as dark fantasy or make it an actual horror experience. Players can choose from several factions for their characters, some already featured in previous Wretched games, such as The Knights of Cydonnia, BurroughsTech, the Araknyd Brotherhood and the Daughters of Ksenia and some new ones, like the Warden Foundation and the Children of the Night.
By default, the game is set in modern times, in urban environments, where danger lurks at every turn and death is never far away. However, you can use it to play horror games at any other time. Combine it with Wretched Époque or Wretched Country for the 19th-century terrifying experience, pair it up with Wretched New Flesh for a near-future surrealistic horror campaign, jump into the far future by using Wretched Space, or set it in any other timeline.
This book presents you with a sandbox inspired by the works of masters of the genre, such as Clive Barker, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Lucio Fulci, and Mario Bava, but expect sources of inspiration as varied as William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, William Gibson, Paul Auster, exploitation movies and Leonard Cohen’s poetry. As a Game Master, you will find here tools and game mastering hints for running any style of horror game, such as Giallo, gore, supernatural, psychological, apocalyptic, surreal, sci-fi horror and more.
Wretched Darkness uses a revised version of the Wretched mechanics, an old-school set of rules designed for playing characters that are not necessarily good or virtuous. The revised rules include new mechanics for sanity and the use of magic, as well as several new classes and playable races, such as Incubus/ Succubus, Loup-garou, and the Wampyr.
