Through Wednesday, July 2 we present the Shadowlands Raven Bundle featuring Raven, the gothic horror RPG from Spanish publisher Shadowlands Games inspired by the macabre tales of Edgar Allan Poe. You and your fellow Corvus family aristocrats – Tormented Necromancers, Obsessed Summoners, Unsouled Beings, Guilt-Ridden Lunatics, Trapped Ghosts, Immortal Mesmerists, and even Poets – have plagued the 19th-Century city of Raven with your forbidden magic. Whether in the laboratories of your vast mansion, on the spectre-haunted city streets, or in the land of dead souls on the Other Side, you seek treasures, evade the lurking threats of the Vigilant Order and the Lodge, uncover the mysteries of Raven’s past, and pursue your obsession: your beloved, who harbors dark secrets just as you do. (Your beloved may not even be currently alive, but to a Corvus Character that’s no impediment.)
Raven: A Gothic Horror Roleplaying Game captures the graveyard beauty of Poe and the rising disquiet of 19C Victorian ghost tales. The Corvus family is all-important; everything that happens in a Raven scenario happens to, or because of, a Corvus Character. Their mansion holds endless tantalizing secrets, and the servants aren’t talking. Magic is subtle, personal, corrupting, and always requires a sacrifice.
When tension has risen to its utmost, the story-driven Maelstrom System decides the outcome of an entire scene with one die roll. The Maelstrom System uses ten six-sided dice in two colors: black Corvus dice (favorable to your character) and white Mist dice (threats). An entire scene or conflict is resolved with a single die roll. The Threat Level of the situation, and the current chapter of the plot (Exposition, Development, Tension, or Resolution), determine the number of Mist dice you roll. Use Corvus dice based on your character’s Personality (relevant attribute) and Tendency. Rolls involving magic require a sacrifice, such as destroying or harming something you hold dear, or taking an Aftereffect. Successful (4+) Corvus rolls are Cats; successful Mist rolls are Ravens. A surplus of 2 Cats means a Favorable Plot Twist, 1 Cat or 1 Raven means a yes-but Twist With Complications, and 2+ Ravens means a Tenebrous Twist that complicates the situation.
And boyoboy if Raven does nothing else, Raven will definitely teach you the word tenebrous. (“Shut off from the light; dark, shadowy; causing gloom.”) Raven is a game of “tenebrous stories and ghosts.” The city is full of tenebrous places and tenebrous threats. Your mansion is tenebrous, as are your character’s vocation and essence and life and possessions, and your cats. Your gamemaster is, no joke, the “Tenebrous Voice.” Don’t make a drinking game of watching for the next “tenebrous,” because you’ll pass out in Session Zero.
Think of this drumbeat of tenebrousness as a hypnotic evocation of mood – or of high camp. Though Raven isn’t a comedic game, its lugubrious tone encourages you to embrace your character’s misery with the macabre enthusiasm of The Addams Family, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Keith Baker’s deliciously morbid card game Gloom. Lean into it while you can! You probably don’t have long.
This all-new Raven Bundle gives you the entire Shadowlands Games line to date in both English- and Spanish-language versions – everything you need to create your own tales of doomed families, lost loved ones, self-destructive obsession, mesmerism, catalepsy, doppelgangers, and cats – lots of cats. Pay just US$12.95 to get all three titles in our Raven Collection (retail value $55.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks in both English- and Spanish-language versions, including the complete, beautifully illustrated 266-page Raven: A Gothic Horror Roleplaying Game core rulebook (plus the free Quickstart and Character Booklets); the eight-scenario anthology Tenebrous Cats and Forgotten Tombstones; and the Tenebrous Voice Screen.
Note: The Character Booklets aren’t available in Spanish. We provide the Spanish-language versions of the rest of these titles along with the English versions on your Wizard’s Cabinet download page on the Bundle site. The Spanish versions aren’t available on DriveThruRPG.
This Raven offer meets its tenebrous end Wednesday, July 2.
