torch

Once, a burgeoning civilization spread across a vast continent. Old kingdoms coalesced into a powerful esoteric empire. Ambitious rulers sought to ascend into the courts of their old gods. Instead, they wrought into reality the horror that has since dissolved the old ways of life.

Through misunderstanding and mystic misuse, the Vetus Empire brought about an arcane calamity,  where the world itself was cracked open, leaving a gaping wound in the earth still festering far to the north. From this chasm, the infected blood of what lies beneath began to spill out.

Ichor spread across the land, its inky residue infecting and corroding everything it touches, warping flora and fauna into aberrant abominations. Its miasma shifts about the lands with the wind, blotting out daylight where it lingers.  

Now, over one hundred years later, people live a nomadic life — dodging the ebb and flow of Ichor over the lands, finding pockets of clarity for their caravan-cities to settle. Cavalcades of adventurers in fire-adorned wagons, torch-companies, brave the trek between caravans and old ruined castles. They trade goods and supplies while fending off unknowable monstrosities, or descend into the dark corners of the continent and into the ruins of forgotten kingdoms to hunt for lost relics. All the while clinging on tight to their torches.

torch is a role-playing game — in which players will band together and grow their own torch-company, working together as guides, couriers, explorers, pilgrims, hunters, scholars, entertainers, or any group of companions that would have reason to traverse the regions of the realm overtaken by a reality shifting substance known as Ichor. 

Player characters often won’t survive long in the unforgiving world they occupy. While hopefully realizing their goals and happily retiring to safety, death or worse misfortune are a common fate out in the wilderness. However, the company may yet endure. Through the bonds you forge, your legacy of renown or infamy may continue on.

torch is built on THE RESISTANCE TOOLBOX and, more specifically, HEART: THE CITY BENEATH (By Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor).