Mutant Chronicles (June 2017) & MC2 (new)

In February 2019 we presented two offers featuring Mutant Chronicles, the dieselpunk techno-fantasy RPG from Modiphius Entertainment. First, we revived the June 2017 Mutant Chronicles Bundle with the 2015 Third Edition of the core rulebook and important supplements. And its all-new companion offer, the Mutant Darkness Bundle, addedthe Dark Legion and Dark Eden campaigns and the rest of the the faction books. These two offers, between them, presented the entire Mutant Chronicles line.

Mutant Chronicles is a mayhem-filled thrill ride across a Solar System beset by megacorporate intrigue and the invasion of a terrible alien force. In the late 21st Century a growing madness of plagues, wars, terrorism, and environmental collapse led major corporations to terraform other planets and lead an exodus from Earth. After a final cataclysmic nuclear war, it takes centuries to re-establish life on the inner worlds. The Imperial, Capitol, Bauhaus, and Mishima megacorporations rule from their headquarters in the steaming jungles of Venus, the caverns of Mercury, the deserts of Mars, and many orbitals and asteroid homes. Luna City is a vast sprawl, built over labyrinthine mines.

A fateful exploratory mission to Pluto unleashes an ancient evil force, the Dark Symmetry, on all thinking machines. As technology fails, humanity is beset with conspiracy and corporate intrigue. Heretics spread teachings of greed, jealousy, and war. While humanity’s armies wage corporate struggles, the Dark Legion’s citadels rise up on every planet, and hordes of Nepharites, Razides, Pretorian Stalkers, and Undead Legionaries march forth. As the Dark Symmetry’s malign influence grows, the Brotherhood, with their strange powers, arise to unite the corporate armies and fight back.

Originally published in 1993 by the Swedish company Target Games (now Paradox Entertainment), Mutant Chronicles grew into a franchise, with a Doom Trooper trading card game, three boardgames, a video game, the massive Warzone miniatures game, and two editions of an RPG. There was a 2008 film, a pre-painted miniatures game from Fantasy Flight Games and a 2016 reboot of Warzone by Prodos Games.

In a successful January 2014 Kickstarter campaign, Modiphius Entertainment funded a licensed Third Edition of the Mutant Chronicles RPG and a full support line. The 3E version uses the fast-playing, cinematic 2d20 system that powers the Modiphius Conan, Infinity, and Star Trek RPGs. Mutant Chronicles presents the crunchiest version of the system. To resolve an action, you roll two d20s under stat-plus-skill. The more dice that roll low, the more successes your character scores. Successes beyond a specified minimum go into a shared Momentum pool, which players can spend on various advantages. You can also push your luck, rolling extra d20s. However, each extra d20 depletes the character’s resources or adds to a Doom pool. The GM can spend from the Doom pool to complicate situations and make the characters’ lives interesting. A 119-post “Sell me on 2d20” RPG.net forum thread from January 2018 is one of several that discuss the system in exhaustive detail.

1. Mutant Chronicles
[revived from June 2017]

Your full-throttle ride across the Solar System began with this revived Mutant Chronicles Bundle. There were five titles in this offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $57) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete 496-page Mutant Chronicles Third Edition rulebook (and its free Quickstart rules, character sheets, and Universal Index); the Player’s Guide extracted from the rulebook; the Game Master Screen (with its “Intrigue Initiator” tables to generate adventures); and two faction books about the megacorporate nation-states of the Solar System: Capitol Source Book and Imperial Source Book.

Those who paid more than this offer’s threshold (average) price also got this offer’s entire Bonus Collection with five more supplements worth an additional $67, including the Dark Symmetry Campaign that covers the setting’s calamitous early history, and the Bauhaus, Mishima, Cybertronic, and Brotherhood Source Books.

2. Mutant Darkness [all-new]

This all-new Mutant Darkness Bundle added the rest of the Mutant Chronicles 3E line. There were four titles in this offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $65), including the Whitestar, Dark Eden, and Dark Soul Source Books and the Mutants & Heretics faction book.

This offer’s entire Bonus Collection added five more titles worth an additional $100, including three campaign supplements — Dark Legion Campaign, Dark Eden Campaign, and Venusian Apocalypse — and the last two faction books, Cartel & Orbitals and Luna & Freelancers.

Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) for these two Mutant Chronicles offers was donated to the charity chosen by Chris Birch of Modiphius Entertainment, Vision Rescue. “Modiphius has chosen to support Vision Rescue through a number of different projects,” says Chris. “Our goal is to raise US$20,000 for a Vision Rescue Bus.”