It's the End of the World

Worldbreaker is something that The Esoterrorists has never had before. Originally published in 2006 and then in a second edition in 2013, The Esoterrorists is Pelgrane Press’ roleplaying game of investigating and combatting occult terrorists intent on tearing the fabric of the world by exposing it to the creatures of the Outer Black. Notably, it launched the GUMSHOE System, the publisher’s investigative, clue-orientated roleplaying mechanics, which it has used for the majority of its roleplaying games since, including Mutant City Blues,  Ashen Stars, and Night’s Black Agents. In that time, The Esoterrorists has been supported with numerous scenarios and a supplement or two, but it has lacked is a campaign. Worldbreaker is the campaign that fulfills that lack.

For decades the Esoterrorists have conducted occult activities and conspiracies aimed at tearing open the membrane between our reality and the horrific vortex of the Outer Dark. Only the Ordo Veritatis has worked to thwart their activities, throwing back any demons that slip through tears in the membrane, breaking up Esoterrorist plans, and conducting operations to cover up what really happened, lest the fear and the horror become known and so further weaken the membrane. To date the Esoterrorists have been conducting single operations, but now their plans seem to be coalescing and pushing forward towards to a very final end. From a brutal ritual in an underground club in San Francisco, agents of Ordo Veritatis—the player characters—will find clues and links to greater plans, clues and plans that will lead them back and forth across the globe. This is the set up for Worldbreaker, a campaign detailing the Esoterrorist efforts to bring about their final plans written by the designer of the GUMSHOE System and The Esoterrorists, Robin D. Laws.

Taking its cue from previous titles from Pelgrane Press like The Zalozhniy Quartet for Night’s Black Agents and even older campaigns of investigative horror like The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep, the structure of the campaign in Worldbreaker has a beginning and an end that are set, but the scenarios in between can be played in any order. Clues are laid in the initial scenario with links to each of the following four and then clues gathered from the four build links to the campaign’s climax. Following these clues will take the Ordo Veritatis agents from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. and back and forth across the USA and then on globetrotting investigations to Leicester in the UK—a nod to the author’s attendance of Continuum, to a cave system in Belize, to Moldova, and Nigeria before the final destination can be determined. The campaign itself is not only globetrotting, but so are several of the scenarios.

Worldbreaker opens in San Francisco with the prologue, ‘Into the Basement’, a descent into the aftermath of an assault upon alternative lifestyles which culminated in a bloody ritual and a suicide pact. How and why did a middle class vanilla family come to commit such acts? Answering these questions presents the agents with the first clues to the campaign’s greater conspiracy. The scenario plays out as a traditional law enforcement investigation, with lots of clues to gather and organise from the crime scene, so it feels very like an episode from the C.S.I. franchise. That said, the bloody nature and adult themes of ‘Into the Basement’ definitely make it a scenario for mature gamers and set the tone for campaign to come even as it plays out in a very straightforward manner.

(Note: This review will discuss the four scenarios in Worldbreaker in the order in which they appear in the book. So when the scenario number is mentioned, it should not be taken as the implication that they should be played in this order—Worldbreaker is not The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep.)

As the title of the first scenario suggests, it involves clowns. Drawing on the rash of random clown sightings in 2016,  ‘Coulrophobia’ begins simply with that, a thin link to the sighting of a man dressed as a clown that becomes more when the first of series of strange car-related deaths occur nearby. Are the deaths related to the clown sightings and if so, how? Following the trail leads to another outbreak, this time in Leicester in the UK. This scenario shifts from the prologue in terms of skill, involving much more in the way of interpersonal skills than it does technical or forensic skills. One issue is that the scenario’s UK-set scenes do not feel particularly authentic and still some Northern American in their details. Nevertheless, the Ordo Veritas agents will need to work quickly if the clown sightings and the strange deaths are not to spread…

Where the other scenarios in Worldbreaker are quite contained, the second scenario, ‘Geoslashers’ threatens to sprawl as the Ordo Veritatis agents investigate how the world’s leading search engine—here called ‘Waltz’, but as the author suggests, substitute the one of your choice—is managing to capture the sight of dead bodies with its street-mapping and satellite-imaging technology. Is this simply a case of one too many a coincidence or is someone playing to the cameras? A much more open scenario, this pulls the investigators hither and thither, and the GM will probably need to juggle its various scenes around in reaction to how the players and their investigators conduct the investigation.

The third scenario, ‘New Crystal Maiden’, is the most straightforward and easiest to run in the campaign. Set in Belize it draws from horror films like The Descent—which itself is probably a big clue as to what happens—in having the protagonists trapped and hunted in a cave system. This turns the more traditional investigative horror of most scenarios for The Esoterrorists into a survival horror adventure and just like a traditional horror movie, it includes a cast of deplorables that when it comes down to it, you are happy to see shredded in the dark. This cast of deplorables is in fact all too modern, the cast and crew of a new reality television series to which the agents can attach themselves to.

As with the second scenario, the title of the fourth scenario, ‘Heart of Outer Darkness’ says a great deal about its inspiration and its story. The Ordo Veritatis agents have to travel into dangerous territory and the ‘heart of darkness’ not once, but twice. Once in the furthest reaches of Eastern Europe and the quite literally ill-regarded territories caught between the old Soviet Union and the new Russia, then again into war torn Africa and the rebel-held forests of Nigeria. Both journeys have a tired, wrung out quality to them, the first of old espionage tales, the second of old colonialism, though the trip through west Africa is the one in the campaign that touches the most upon contemporary events, in particular the ebola outbreaks and the activities of Boko Haram. Both trips also highlight the limitations of Ordo Veritatis  as for the most part, the agents will be on their own as they travel up country. The journey structure of the scenario means that it builds to a definite climax and feels as it should come fourth in the order that the scenarios should be played, despite the fact that they can be played in any order.

Rounding out Worldbreaker is its climax, ‘Swallowed’. Each of the preceding four scenarios come with pipe clues which feed into this scenario and the mystery of a disappeared passenger flight. It allows the Ordo Veritatis agents to pull any last strings together before confronting the Esoterrorists and their very final plans. This echoes the end of the Call of Cthulhu campaign, Shadows of Yog-sothoth, but brings it up to date with a party, a degree of bureaucracy, and a very matter of fact attitude. 

Physically, Worldbreaker is a slim book, ably illustrated by Chris Huth. It feels slightly rushed in places and perhaps could have been better localised in places. Each of the scenarios is neatly organised with notes on handling, clues leading in and out, as well as suggestions to the veil out, the procedure for covering up each Esoterrorist activity—though in the case of ‘Swallowed’, that veil out is going to have be very big indeed. (There are also notes for running Worldbreaker for Night’s Black Agents included in an appendix.) Throughout of course, the skills required to push each investigation forward are clearly marked, though what is clear is that the expenditure of investigation skill points is kept low throughout. This also has the effect of confining the majority of the campaign’s mechanical aspects to the use of general skills—mostly in fights, scuffles, and the getting out of the way.

In terms of structure and scale, Worldbreaker does feel very much like a Call of Cthulhu campaign. A small mystery leads to a conspiracy and a larger mystery which in solving will reveal a global threat and ultimately the means to defeat it in a final confrontation. This should not be taken as a criticism, for there are some very fine Call of Cthulhu campaigns and the model has been proven to work again and again. Worldbreaker though, is a campaign for The Esoterrorists, and that means it is a contemporary affair, more brutal and often sordid in tone, its horror not quite so arcane. It is also a short campaign by any measure, none of the scenarios being more than a few sessions long, which also means it can be better paced and Ordo Veritatis can thus save the world—if not necessarily the player character agents—in quite short order.

Hiding Horrid Horrors

In 2006, Pelgrane Press was best known for the Dying Earth Roleplaying Game, the weird and wondrous RPG based on the works of Jack Vance, but it branched out with an RPG designed to address a problem with investigative games. This problem was that the player characters failed to make a particular skill check or roll, they failed to obtain a clue—and if this was a particularly important clue—then the game or scenario could be stopped in its tracks. Now there was nothing to stop the GM from finding a way around this, but until 2006 no RPG directly addressed this issue. The game that did was Robin D. Laws’ The Esoterrorists.

The Esoterrorists introduced the GUMSHOE System, a set of rules designed to handle mystery and investigative style games as well as giving player characters time in the spotlight. Now in truth, The Esoterrorists has since been eclipsed by Ken Hite’s Trail of Cthulhu; certainly that game of Lovecraftian investigative horror has received much more support from Pelgrane Press than The Esoterrorists. The GUMSHOE System has also explored investigations in other genres and subgenres, including more traditional horror in Fear Itself, in a superhero police procedural with Mutant Blues, in a post-singularity space opera with Ashen Stars, and with spies uncovering a vampire conspiracy with Night’s Black Agents. Nevertheless, The Esoterrorists was the first RPG to use the GUMSHOE System and since 2013 it has been available in a brand new edition.

The setting for The Esoterrorists is the here and now, but a here and now whose reality is threatened by occult terrorists—the ‘esoterrorists’ of the title—that work to rip open the Membrane that separates us from the Outer Dark.The esoterrorists—who can range from villages of backwoods cannibals and lone serial killers to covens of crazed housewives and power hungry moguls—hope to gain power and magic and in order to weaken the Membrane encourage a belief in magic in the general public as well as sow doubt and uncertainty in society in general. Where the Membrane is weak between this reality and the Outer Dark, there will greater incidents of the unexplained, of psionics, of magic, and so on, but worse, ‘Outer Dark Entities’ or ‘Creatures of Unremitting Horror’ can enter our world to further spread malignity and terror…

Fortunately, there is a conspiracy dedicated to thwarting the efforts of the esoterrorists—the Ordo Veritatis. It monitors for signs of esoterrorist activity and when the signs are detected, it sends out teams to investigate, to identify, and if possible, neutralise the threat. A team also has one last task—one that sets The Esoterrorists apart from other conspiracy RPGs—the Veil-Out. This is the creation and execution of a plausible cover story for the paranormal incident. Better cover ups strengthen the Membrane, but ineffective ones can weaken it.

It is agent members of these teams that the players take the roles of, each member of the Ordo Veritatis having a mundane occupation in addition to the tasks that he has to take on behalf of both the conspiracy and humanity. Each cell is self-contained and has relatively little contact with other cells or the Ordo Veritatis in general, what contact it does have with the Ordo Veritatis usually being via a briefing agent, either a Mister or a Ms. Verity. Now the ‘Veil-Out’ is not the only aspect of The Esoterrorists that makes it if not unique, then very different from other horror/conspiracy RPGs. In The Esoterrorists, the player characters are naturally the ‘good guys’, but so is the conspiracy that they work for. In other words, there is no inner conspiracy within the Ordo Veritatis with another agenda. Another difference is that the player characters are mundane—they have no outré powers like magic or psionics. Which makes sense given that possession of such abilities is a sign that the Membrane has been weakened, plus their use will further weaken the Membrane. Of course, this does not mean that the player character cannot know about such outré abilities. After all, they are tasked with thwarting a conspiracy bent on acquiring power both ordinary and outré.

Mechanically, The Esoterrorists uses the GUMSHOE System—no surprise given that it was the first. This system is divided into pools of two types of abilities—Investigative Abilities and General Abilities. Investigative Abilities are divided into three categories—Academic such as Art History, Linguistics, and Trivia; Interpersonal such as Bullshit Detector, Impersonate, and Streetwise; and Technical such as Ballistics, Document Analysis, and Evidence Collection. General Abilities include Athletics, Medic, and Surveillance, as well the combat abilities Scuffling and Shooting. During play, if an agent has a rating in any one Investigative Ability, then he can always gain the base or Core clues related to that Ability, but if the agent expends one or more points, he will get more information—during an investigation this an agent’s moment in the spotlight. Similarly, the points from General Abilities are also spent, but not to gain clues, but to perform physical actions, the points being added to rolls of a six-sided die.

A character’s Health and Stability are also represented by General Abilities. This means that an agent has to expend points from the appropriate pool to withstand the effects of poison for example or to get over a potential mental shock. This reflects both the effort made to withstand mental or physical trauma and the ability to withstand this trauma.

One of the complaints about the first edition of The Esoterrorists was that it was too concise. It did go into enough detail about the setting, specifically the Ordo Veritatis and the Esoterrorists. Further, the rules and their explanation were also said to be similarly succinct. Some of these issues were addressed in two supplements. The first, The Book of Unremitting Horror, provided an incredible array of originally disturbing and horrid monsters and creatures, whilst the second, The Esoterrorist Fact Book provided further information about the operations of both the Esoterrorists and the Ordo Veritatis.

In response, Pelgrane Press published The Esoterrorists, 2nd Edition. It addresses many of the problems complained about the original edition—in particular, the rules system. In truth it has not changed from the original edition to this  one, but with another five RPGs having been written since the original publication of The Esoterrorists that also use the GUMSHOE System, its implementation and interpretation has evolved. Thus there is clearer advice on the types of clues that can be handed out and on how to run create and run better mysteries. In terms of background, The Esoterrorists, 2nd Edition better explains the background to both the Esoterrorists and the Ordo Veritatis, exploring why and how they operate, all the better for both the player and the GM.

One issue that has developed with The Esoterrorists since its release in 2006 is that its scenarios feel the same. There is a validity to the that argument. After all, the RPG presents just the one type of scenario—the investigative type—and even if there is plenty of variation on offer in terms of Esoterrorist and Outer Dark Entity threats to be faced, the investigation/monster of the week format is still present. The Esoterrorists, Second Edition takes a concept first discussed  in The Esoterrorist Factbook—‘Station Duty’—and develops it further. Inspired by television series such as Twin Peaks and stories like The Shadow Over Innsmouth, ‘Station Duty’ is a sandbox style campaign in which an Ordo Veritatis team is assigned to reside in and investigate a town and its inhabitants. The team will  be comprised of newcomers—atypical player characters—and locals. Whilst the former possess a wider range of technical skills and knowledges, whilst the local possess local knowledges about the business community, the local police force, religious community, and so on.

The town should be relatively isolated and can be wholly new or based on somewhere that the GM or the players know, but is created collaboratively in terms of its history, atmosphere, and notables features. To this they add a Station and its facilities, the players even adding assets by spending some of the investigative build points normally used to create characters. To this of course, the GM adds the Esoterrorist threat and the reasons for the Ordo Veritatis investigation, but whilst this together forms the basis for a Station Duty campaign, much of the campaign’s details are not set in stone, the aim being for the GM to work off this groundwork and the player characters’ investigations. This is not to say that some structure cannot be applied to a Station Duty campaign, but much of it is created and run in a freeform fashion without adhering to a strict plotline.

A full example of a Station Duty campaign is given in The Esoterrorists, 2nd Edition. It includes just about everything that a GM will need to run it bar plotlines. Key locations, major NPCs or ‘persons of interest’ (complete with interpretations for their being victims, allies, or Esoterrorists), investigation outlines, potential schemes, and more. Also included is a mini scenario that can be used as introduction to the campaign. On the downside, the given campaign is very American in feel and theme—no surprise given its inspirations—so if the GM wants to adapt to another continent, he will have a little work ahead of him.

Rounding out the RPG is the scenario ‘Operation PROPHET BUNCO’. It is again set in small town America, a Californian coastal town that is home to a radio evangelist who is prophesying the forthcoming Rapture. It is a short, one or two-session affair that neatly introduces the key concepts behind a scenario for The Esoterrorists. It can be used as a precursor to the ‘Station Duty’ campaign given in the book or to a campaign of the GM’s own devising.

Physically, The Esoterrorists, 2nd Edition, is neatly presented. The writing is clear and simple, and the illustrations all suitably dark and ominous. Much like the original version of the game, the writing in this edition could be said to be concise, but where this was issue in the original version, here it is a matter of style rather than a lack of information. A definite concern is the lack of Outer Dark Entities—just fourteen of them—and the need to refer to The Book of Unremitting Horror in some cases, which is a shame since the game relies heavily on the originality of its Outer Dark Entities. Thankfully, The Book of Unremitting Horror is worth picking up.

Fortunately, The Esoterrorists, 2nd Edition is neatly developed in just about every other fashion. The rules and the GUMSHOE System are much better explained, the advice is clearer on creating and running mysteries, and the GM receives better support in the form of both the scenario and the campaign. The Esoterrorists, 2nd Edition is a better edition of an original take upon the classic conspiracy horror RPG, ably supported by some original monsters and a great campaign outline.