In March 2022 we revived (for a second time) the November 2015 Esoterrorists Bundle, featuring The Esoterrorists occult-investigation RPG by Robin D. Laws (Feng Shui, HeroQuest, Hillfolk) from Pelgrane Press.
As an investigator for the benevolent secret conspiracy Ordo Veritatis, you defend modern-day reality against a loose network of occult terrorists, the Esoterrorists, who try to weaken the protective Membrane and summon Unremitting Horrors from the Outer Dark. You and your teammates share a background in investigation. You may be a world-weary homicide detective, a lab-coated forensic scientist, a grizzled old-school reporter, a tweed-jacketed scholar, or even a hanger-on in the criminal underworld. Your secret worldwide organization operates with the tacit approval of the world’s major powers to fight the machinations of the Esoterrorists, a network of misfits and rejects from various occult traditions. Your enemies stage hauntings, create Fortean phenomena, and insert false evidence of nonexistent conspiracies into the historical record. These begin as hoaxes but, as they create mass hysteria, become real. As they peak, they spawn Creatures of Unremitting Horror, bizarre modernist monsters. Your job is to destroy them.
The Esoterrorists was the first RPG to use Robin’s GUMSHOE system, later seen in Trail of Cthulhu, Night’s Black Agents, and many other RPGs of detection and mystery. The GUMSHOE rules ensure your investigation never grinds to a halt due to a failed die roll. As top paranormal detectives, you never fail in your areas of expertise. When necessary, you can expend extra effort to glean more from the evidence than any plodding journeyman could hope to find.
This revived Esoterrorists Bundle once again provided everything you need — both ebooks and music! — for your own campaign of heroic struggle against sinister world conspiracies. There were four titles in this revived offer’s Player Collection (retail value $44) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:
- The Esoterrorists Second Edition core rulebook, as well as The Esoterrorists First Edition.
- The Esoterror Factbook: An indispensable reference for assets, protocols, psychogeography, Membrane permeability, and Techno-Macho Utterances.
- Dissonance – Music for Esoterrorists: Four atmospheric tracks by composer James Semple encompassing suspense, action, and horror. Includes the music that introduces the ENnie-winning podcast Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got this revival’s entire Gamemaster Collection with eight more titles worth an additional $75:
- The Esoterror Summoning Guide: The Ordo Veritatis summarizes what it knows of the enemy’s world-threatening methods.
- Worldbreaker: A world-spanning campaign by Robin D. Laws.
- Book of Unremitting Horror (GUMSHOE version): A boundary-crossing collection of truly disturbing modern monsters.
- Albion’s Ransom: Little Girl Lost and Worm of Sixty Winters: A complete two-part campaign of battle against a climate catastrophe in northern England.
- The Love of Money: A full-length campaign investigating Esoterrorist funding sources, and what they’re doing with all that rhodium.
- Profane Miracles: Leonard (Fate Core) Balsera’s fast-paced investigation of a millionaire supposedly raised from the dead.
- Six Packed: A gruesome revenge killing in a London slaughterhouse leads to a terrible threat from the Outer Dark.
That’s a US$119 value, well worth it just for the possible protection from Torture Dogs, Snuff Homunculi, Feral Drowners, and other Unremitting Horrors. (Protection not guaranteed.) Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) for this Esoterrorists offer went to the charity chosen by Pelgrane Press co-owner Cat Tobin, the International Red Cross Fund for Ukraine. During Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ICRC water engineers and doctors tried to help more than three million people access clean water and improve the living conditions of more than 66,000 whose homes were damaged by heavy fighting.
