Backer Draft Manuscript Part 2A

– Lineages: The Dead –

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constitute a challenge to the respective copyright holders of that material. “Curseborne” and all
characters, names, places, and text herein are copyrighted by Onyx Path Publishing.
Lineages
You must be new here. That’s okay, everyone starts new. That’s how these things work. Walk with me. I
know it’s overwhelming at first, but you’ll get used to it. I’m sure by now you know the world is fucking
cursed. Sure, it sucks, and bad shit happens. What you probably don’t know is curses are tangible. It’s a
web of connections and layers that dates back to the dawn of time. Pull a string here, and it can
reverberate across the whole damn planet.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’m Claudia, and I’m here to help you understand. You’re one of us: the Accursed. You might be asking
yourself, what the fuck does that mean? That’s a fair question, and I’m going to do my damnedest to
answer. Others will give you a more in-depth rundown of who we really are, but first, the basics. Of
course, you’re here with us because no one in your family chose to have an ounce of empathy and tell you
this stuff. Look, your parents are probably assholes like mine who cling to the way things have always
been. Tradition and all that shit. They had to learn the hard way and think you should, too. Fuck all that.
We’re your family now. Let us know if you need anything.
The world is cursed. That isn’t pithy commentary about the state of things; it’s a fact of life. That’s been
true since the first beings dragged themselves from water to dry land. Indiscriminate, unfeeling, uncaring,
and worst of all, ever-present, curses are woven into the fabric of the world. As Accursed, we’ve been hit
hardest by a curse hammer. You see, there are basically two kinds of curses. There’s little curses —
everyday bullshit, like getting your shoelace caught in the people mover at the airport — and then there
are big curses: Damnations. These big curses are life-changing affairs. Where little curses hang around
waiting for someone — anyone — to trip over them, Damnations are directed and personal. You don’t
just accidentally trip into a Damnation; someone bestows it on you like the worst fucking inheritance you
can imagine. That someone could be your grandpappy who got cursed to high hell and back for pissing
off someone extremely powerful. Sins of the father and all that. Or it could be someone you bumped into
on the subway who decided you looked like a good target to vent their anger on.
We don’t know the origins of Damnations, but we know they come in a few distinct flavors. I’m not a
scholar, so I’m just going to tell you what my mom told me. Way back at the start of history, there were
these fuck-off powerful beings — we call them Provenances — who could warp the very fabric of the
world. Meaning they could manipulate and wield curses, both big and little. The Provenances used
Damnations to punish people for crossing them. You don’t even have to know you’re crossing them to get
one. Ain’t that some shit?
We don’t know the Provenances’ names; we don’t even know which humans first interacted with them.
We do know the results. Being Damned opens your eyes, for good and for ill. You have magic running
through your veins. You might be thinking, it’s fucking cool to be able to manipulate the very essence of
the world. And yeah, it’s pretty cool, but understand this: You can’t reach your hand into a pile of shit
without getting covered in it. Sure, growing wicked claws is awesome, but it always comes with a cost.
Your curse is still connected to that web, and everything you do pulls a string. Your curse hangs around
you, manipulates you, and makes your life a living hell. Each Damnation is different, so how your curse
affects you is different — but it’s always bad. You might have a monster lurking under your skin, or you
might have to eat human flesh to survive, or you might be hunted by creatures from the Outside. (Put a
pin in that, it’ll be important later.)
We know of five main Damnations. They spread like wildfire, because if you’ve been cursed you can
now pass that bullshit along. That’s where the Accursed come in. Each Damnation leads to a different
Lineage. Don’t get me started on the archaic terminology we still use for this stuff, because that implies
blood relations, and that’s not always the case. But it’s the best I’ve got. As far as I know, there’s five
broad categories of Accursed: Outcasts, Dead, Primal, Sorcerers, and Hungry. You’ve got a Family of
“likeminded” individuals who share the same Damnation. Maybe they got together because of shared
interests, relationships, or maybe they were an actual family. Sometimes Families are a political affair.
Someone got a Damnation and decided they didn’t vibe with the rest of the Lineage, or maybe didn’t even
know about them, and fucked off to do their own thing. You need to be pretty powerful to do that, so
people respected the decision. At this point, the Families feel fairly set, so if you’re new, you’re likely
born into one, or forced to choose.
So, that’s who you are. There’s more to this world than just the Accursed. Hell, there’s more to this world
than just… this world. Let’s start from the Outside in. (I’m so fucking funny.) Outsides are realms that
literally exist outside the world. There’s a ton of them and they’re connected to our world in weird
fucking ways. Sometimes it’s a portal — a door hidden in the back of a cave — sometimes it’s a whole-
ass building. Normal people can’t accidentally pass through these connections, but if you can manipulate
the fabric of the world, you can find your way through. Like all doors, they open both ways. The things
on the other side can open them and come through.
Then there’s liminalities. These are parts of our world that have been so cursed, warped, twisted, and
changed that they aren’t mundane anymore. Some of them are at the edges of the world where an Outside
just touches and too many things have come through the door. Others are just spooky spots where one too
many curses have congregated over time. All liminalities are noticeably weird, but some are more
dangerous than others. Dangerous being a relative term. All sorts of things are dangerous if you aren’t
equipped to deal with them. For the Accursed, few liminalities are truly dangerous, but for normal people,
every liminality is a trap waiting to be sprung.
This brings me to supernaturals. Besides us, the Accursed, there are plenty of other supernaturals out
there. You’ve got your goblins, selkies, oni, devils, zombies, fairies, gremlins, elementals, cryptids; the
list goes on and often repeats itself in different languages. Where do they come from? Dunno. Personally,
I think everything came from some Outside — even people — but honestly, they’re here to stay, so who
cares. Maybe all those things are just Accursed that have Damnations so different from our own we can’t
recognize them as such. Maybe we’re the only poor fuckers who ever pissed off a Provenance and
everyone else was smart enough to watch their steps. Who knows?
You know who knows? They do, and they aren’t talking. If it always seems like you’re one step behind
everyone else, it’s because you are. Your Family doesn’t want you to know the whole truth because that
might give you some inkling of how to break your damned curse, and then what leverage would they have
over you?
Another thing about being Accursed is that you’ve got enemies. Power attracts power, and plenty of
people want yours. Either to take it from you or use you for it. Those supernaturals aren’t all friends, and
they won’t hesitate to let you know. In fact, I wouldn’t even trust other Accursed unless you’ve known
them for a while.
Also, Outsides have powerful beings inside them that might as well be gods. Maybe they’re Provenances,
maybe they hold the realm together, hell, maybe they are gods. They have minions who slither into our
world: Archons. That’s the name us Outcasts give them, and since they’re literally trying to lord over us,
everyone calls them that, too. Our world has its own powerful beings, called the Fae. Well, we did. Now
they’re all gone. Where are the Fae now? Thanks for asking. Maybe dead, maybe in hiding. We see their
influence in the world still, but Sorcerers tell us they haven’t been around for a long-ass time. You best
hope that’s true because the stories say they’re some nasty pieces of work.
Then there are the normal people. Most people are dealing with their own shit to pay attention to
supernatural things going on around them. But sometimes someone gets a bug up their ass and decides to
act. If they’re alone, they’re mostly an annoyance, but sometimes they group up, and that can get
dangerous.
That’s it. I mean, no, it’s not everything, but it’s enough to prepare you. I’m sure you still have questions,
but I don’t have all the answers. Maybe we can find out together, though.
[TO LAYOUT, THE FOLLOWING SHOULD GET ITS OWN FULL PAGE IMAGE TO SEPARATE IT AS IF IT
WERE ITS OWN CHAPTER. I USED A NEW HEADER TO DENOTE ALL LINEAGES.]

The Dead
I m agine a party you can’t leave. W hether it’s a shitty party or a perfect
one, it’s fucking forever. M y suggestion? Have a drink or four and start
learning som e dance m oves. You’ll be on the floor for a w hile.
— Tatiana Khrulyova, Fury Family
So, you’re Dead? Me too, I’m Sam, welcome to the show. We’re not in hell, definitely not in any kind of
heaven I’d imagine, and we’re not nothing. I guess that means we’re somewhere between alive and not,
which is where you’ll be for a while. Me? I’ve been like this for a few years now, at least long enough to
show you the ropes.
I’m going to start with the big picture, because I think that’s what works best in this case. You died and
didn’t pass on. Instead, you’re stuck in your body, puppeting it around like a bloody marionette. You are,
at the very core, a ghost. Not like those other incorporeal sods who don’t have a mind of their own and go
on repeat for ages. No, you’ve still got all your faculties, and even your body in a weird way. You can
leave your body behind if you want. I wouldn’t suggest doing that for too long, because something might
happen to it, and then you’re left scrambling to find a new one. (More on that later.)
How did this happen? Well, more than likely, someone you met cursed you. I know that’s a shit answer,
but it’s what happens. I’d take a stab and say it’s likely someone dear to you, maybe a family member or
a coworker. These things tend to be more intimate than people think. Just know, you can also pass this
shit on to someone, so if you’re one of those revenge types, you can eventually get yours.
Now that you’re Dead, if you play it right, you could be around forever. You can try to hold onto that
original body of yours as long as you like. It won’t decay or age now that you’re Dead, but it also won’t
heal naturally or fix itself, so be careful with it. If you really need another, I’m sure you can find one, but
the ethical quandaries surrounding that get pretty dodgy. You’ll note that most Families don’t agree, and
have drawn firm lines on how one goes about it.
Anyway, this curse, however long it’s been around, came about because someone tried to fuck over a
Provenance. The story goes that there was a league of utter bastards who affronted the Provenance by
trying to trick it into granting them eternal life. If you ever meet one of those fuckers, they’ll probably say
they asked nicely and don’t deserve their due. I’m sure you can imagine they are great dinner guests, and
have nothing but fun stories about the “good old times.” They got their eternities, in a sense. It struck
them down, and bound them to their bodies like Prometheus to his bloody rock. On top of that, they were
governed by their basest urges, the ones that drove them to this unutterable sin in the first place. Don’t
give in, and go bats instead. So, they indulged, and that led to them cursing others, and now here we are.
Our existences are anything but stagnant. We might be Dead, but we’re the life of the party. We’re
hellishly impulsive, and we sure know how to have a good time, whether it’s taking down the murderer
who killed one of us in life or getting higher than you ever imagined while you were still breathing. Don’t
get it twisted, being cursed to be stuck haunting your body forever is a drag, but we make the most of it.
Unfortunately, we still have those impulses our predecessors had. That’s part of our curse, too.
To help curb our ghastly impulses, we form Families. Some contain Dead with actual blood ties to each
other, but most are governed by our emotional drives. Families bring solidarity, purpose, and hierarchy.
Death’s a party if you play it right, and being part of a Family means you’ve got an invitation list readily
available! Make friends and find ways to help each other, just watch out for the ones who get angry if you
don’t play by their rules.

Where to Start
Unlike the Dead, we can’t just animate this book and make it flip instantly to
whatever you want to read. Instead, we must pick an order to present the material
in. This section opens with Sam’s introduction on who the Dead are, then presents
all the pertinent information for playing a Dead character. If you’re looking for a
specific section of this material, use this reference to quickly find it.
Incorporeality, p. XX.
Lineage Path Mechanics, p. XX.
Damnation, p. XX.
Torments, p. XX.
Shade Path, p. XX.
Warden Path, p. XX.
Fury Path, p. XX.
Poltergeist Path, p. XX.
Maven Path, p. XX.
Zed Path, p. XX.
Practices, p. XX.

We’re different than ghosts.

So, you’re probably thinking that being Dead just means you’re a ghost. Which is partly true, but there’s
more to it than that. Ghosts aren’t cursed like us, at least, not so far as I know. Think of ghosts as memory
remnants. They are the souls of individuals potent enough to leave a scar in reality’s fabric. They do have
emotional resonances, and can manifest in ways that look similar to the things we do, which can get us in
trouble sometimes.
When living people think of ghosts, they think of the spirit with unfinished business. The person so
traumatized by their death that they keep reliving it, or the person so consumed with hatred that they’ll
visit it on the next poor bastard who moves into their shitty, crumbling mansion. What’s funny is that half
the time, those people are experiencing Dead acting on their urges. I’ve been known to pop in front of a
thermal camera a time or two to get a rise out of ghost hunters.
Most ghosts are pretty simple. They are caught in repetitive behavioral cycles, reliving a familiar activity
from life, or wailing in the darkness. You can talk to them, maybe even get a bit of gossip. But, few of
them are fit for deep conversation. Ghosts come in as many flavors as people do, making it a coin toss of
if they’ll be helpful or not.
You’ll see ghosts a lot when you’re incorporeal. Less so when you’re in a body, unless you’re actively
looking for them. They like to haunt places they know well, either where they lived, but sometimes where
they died. You see them a lot more in older cities, or places with a gory history.
Some of us take it upon ourselves to look after them, or at least try to keep the worst ones from freaking
people out. Only the Zeds Family makes a concerted effort at settling ghost business to help them move
on, though. We don’t know if ghosts are thinking, sapient entities, and that’s a philosophical conversation
I don’t feel like having right now. Just know that you’ll end up dealing with a ghost sooner or later, so
you might as well get used to the idea of it, lest the necromancers make a fool of you.

Speaking of necromancers...
We call anyone with a penchant for talking to or dealing with ghosts a necromancer. Many Dead are
necromancers. You’re a natural at it. But we aren’t the only ones who deal with ghosts. You’ll also find
necromancers among the Sorcerers, and some normies who have learned how to fuck around with things
beyond their control. You may even run across some other supernatural who has some ghosting ability.
Anyone who can mess with a ghost can fuck you up if you happen to be incorporeal. Most Dead wouldn’t
dare to treat one of us like a simple ghost, but other necromancers aren’t always so pragmatic. But don’t
worry, you have far more at your disposal than a few parlor tricks to deal with any bastard that tries any
funny business.
Necromancers aren’t our biggest concern anyway. Most people who know enough about ghosts
immediately recognize that the Dead are vastly different. It’s the ones who don’t know enough that are
the problem. I call them ghost hunters; others call them exorcists. They barely even know that ghosts
exist, but they are intent on ridding the world of them, and often catch Dead in the crossfire. It isn’t like
they are hard to deal with, but when you’ve got a pack of blinkered ghost hunters casing your home, it can
get annoying real fast.

So, what are we?

Imagine eating your favorite food every single day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s the same every time.
You can’t eat anything else. Sure, you may still love that food after a year, but you start to crave
something else. Every time you get to eat something that isn’t this food, it’s an overwhelming sensation.
Okay, so now convert that to emotions. We feel emotions just like we did when we were alive, but now
we crave something else; something more. The Dead have these urges to chase a high, to get that level of
overwhelming sensation that comes from experiencing something outside the ordinary.
Everything in our existence centers around dealing with and fulfilling these urges. Because of this, we
have a unique perspective on emotions and how to evoke them. In some ways it’s a good thing, because it
gives us a place in Accursed society. We’re always chasing that high, and the best way to do it is to
surround ourselves with others.
I mentioned bad guys earlier. Well, we’re not cape-wearing superheroes, but it’s one of the ways some of
us channel our urges into something worthwhile. What better way to vent your need for vengeance or
terror than to take it out on a bunch of life-destroying scumbags? Or, if you’re inclined, you can try to
rehabilitate the arseholes with a calculated downfall and subsequent “guidance.” It’s not entirely
altruistic; in fact, it's downright pragmatic. We need somewhere, or someone, to visit our personal hells
on, and we draw far less negative press when it’s on a group of mobsters or tosser brownshirt wannabes.
We tend to act as emotional anchors for other Accursed. Everyone’s got their own shit going on, but we
seem to have ours together just a little bit more than the rest. Other than the Hungry, we exist far longer
than anyone else, so we see Family dynamics come and go. We aren’t anyone’s conscience. Instead, we
bring a unique emotional intelligence that only comes with age and watching other people experience said
emotions. It also comes in handy that we’re more adept at dealing with emotional resonance than anyone
else. Most Accursed are going to be open to having you around. The Dead have made a smashing name
for ourselves as party people who’re fun to be around. So as long as you even remotely hold up that
appearance, you’re golden.
Speaking of parties. We have somewhat of a reputation for throwing them. I use the term party in the
broadest sense of the word. Sometimes they’re exclusive to the Dead, other times they’re for all the
Accursed. We host parties for the same reasons most people do: To celebrate our lives, hold new
inductions, gas up our fellow Accursed, go over important business, and even just to blow off steam.
Sometimes our party agenda is extremely businesslike, whether it’s scientifically breaking down a curse,
delivering actual bad guys to their just rewards, or just locating isolated Dead and bringing them into the
fold.
We have these things we call “grand wakes” that are Dead invite only where we discuss important Family
business, commiserate and cheer each other in equal measure. They are fun and not a little cathartic. You
can expect to find Dead from every Family at a grand wake, whether it’s a parade in the French Quarter, a
gathering at a bar in Soho, or an all-night rave at a club in Munich.

Family is important.
One of the only ways you can exist for hundreds of years and not lose yourself to your base urges is by
building something. One of the first things we — as Dead — constructed was our society. I’m
increasingly persuaded our Families formed because the blokes who first got fucked over realized that
without structure, they’d become ghosts howling into the dark beyond. Or at the very least, utterly
unsympathetic to mortals, our fellow Accursed, and their myriad plights.
Sitting around getting pissed is fun for a few years, but not for centuries at a time, so we have Families. I
think the first Families were formed around whichever urges they felt most strongly drawn toward. (Dead
like all emotions, but not always in equal measure.) But like anything that exists for longer than a few
decades, the lines have been redrawn multiple times for different reasons. Now Families have individual
goals, ways they interact with the world, and even how they handle the issue of how to procure a new
body if you need one.
Something you’ve got to understand is that when you die, any concept of blood ties pretty much fades
away. Sure, you get some Dead Families claiming they all descend from the same old arsehole. That’s
like me saying I should have been the next Holy Roman Emperor because when I was alive, I shared
DNA with Charlemagne. You might not even have the same body anymore, so we end up caring less
about who you were in your previous life and more about who you are now. Our curses unite us.
Because most don’t share blood relations, you could really join any Dead Family you wanted. In practice,
Dead end up joining whichever Family found them first, or were there when they first reawakened.
Sometimes it’s a good fit, other times, you end up wishing you were with anyone else. Sometimes a
Family has a membership requirement, but it isn’t like you get to shop around before making a choice.
The Poltergeists ask you to sign a confidentiality agreement, and the Mavens put people through a series
of trials. Either way, you aren’t likely to go door to door and find out what all the requirements are like
you’re doing some fucking pledge week.
If you’re lucky, your Family is going to be your support network. Of course, they’ll make some ridiculous
demands of you at times, but most of the time they have your best interests in mind. Just like the living,
not all Dead Family members get along. Even the most functional family doesn’t get along all the time.
And with as many Dead inhabit these Families, we’ve got some serious dysfunctional bullshit going on.
That brings me to my next point.

Friends are just as important.

You can certainly make friends among the living, Accursed or not. I suggest you do, because only
hanging around with other immortal beings can give you a fucked-up sense of perspective. Everyone
needs mates, even if you aren’t the outgoing type. You’re welcome to find them wherever you want, but
I’ll give you my take on who to buddy up to.
First let’s talk about the Hungry, who are like us in a lot of ways. They’re not quite dead and live a long
time, which means they’ll be around to commiserate with long after everyone else is gone. Unfortunately,
that also means if you piss one off, you’ll have an eternal rival. They have what I’ll refer to as eclectic
diets. When they indulge their appetites, they create waves of emotional resonance. It ranges wildly.
Sometimes you get fear and disgust, other times it’s horny and visceral. Either way, we often make
arrangements where we bring in a vict— uh, person, and both of us get something out of it. Don’t let one
suck on you, though. Remember how I said your body doesn’t heal? Yeah, if they take all your blood, it’s
just gone unless someone can do some magic on you. Beyond that, they have brilliant societal structures
that would make the stodgiest Zed cream his pants. You could learn a thing or two from that.
Outcasts present an interesting case: They are definitely people, but they came from an Outside at some
point. They have all these ideas on where they came from and who they are, and most of them make me
uncomfortable. Outcasts make the concept of heavens and hells out to be very real. I’m not a religious
type, but the idea that they could be just on the other side of a bleeding portal is disconcerting at best.
Also, where the fuck do ghosts go when they pass on? Do they actually pass on? I don’t like thinking
about it. Despite that, some of my best friends are Outcasts. To them, this world is a fucking trap, which
sums up my feelings exactly. Neither of us truly belong here, and we can find a lot of common ground in
that.
Sorcerers are great to have around, fun to party with, and great with magic. They will also absolutely try
to rope you into the shittiest deal you’ve ever made. Imagine having an incredible need for power, but
only being able to fulfill it by wheeling and dealing. Eventually, everything in your life becomes a
transaction. I can sympathize to a degree; we Dead also have our urges. Which of course means we’re out
here making deals with Sorcerers. They make good allies, hell, bloody good friends, just watch out for
what they are asking of you. Besides us Dead, Sorcerers are the most capable of dealing with ghosts.
Which means they can do perverse shit to you if you let them. It also means you have a go to person if
you can’t figure out how to handle a complicated haunting.
The Primal feel big emotions in big ways. Follow one around for a day and you can satisfy your urges for
a month. Unfortunately for you, this is the one Lineage that won’t just accept your presence without
question. More than one Dead has tried to push a Primal too far in indulging their darker side, leaving
them all a little skeptical. It doesn’t help that we are literally dead, and they often find that creepy as fuck.
You see, Primal feel like they are more deeply connected to life than anyone else, so we fly in the face of
everything they find natural. Some of their families feel more inclined than others to engage with us, so
it’s hit or miss. If you do make friends with one, keep them close. Those blokes are stronger than us and
are loyal to a fault.
Don’t think I’m going to leave out talking about other Dead. Who better understands what you’re going
through than someone else going through the same shit? You may be thinking, of course I’ll be friends
with my Family. I’m not saying you won’t be, but it’s less common than you think. Your Family is your
family, and that holds a different place than friendship. I find it’s easier to get on with Dead from other
families. We complement each other, without competing urges. It’s magical to watch an experienced
Dead comfort someone new to this existence. Downright heartening to see new love forming between old
souls. There’s a certain truth to relationships among the Dead, driven by an ability to see beyond our
painful urges, a desire for warmth and care, and a need to feel a part of something greater than our curses.
I’ve seen age-old rivalries between Dead as well. Even those relationships have a certain beauty to them.
Everyone benefits when a bout of one-upmanship creates increasingly more elaborate parties from two
aggrieved hosts.
Other Accursed aren’t the only ones you’ll be making friends with. They are probably going to be the
ones you spend most of your time with, though. Let’s be frank, your situation makes it a little difficult to
get on with normies. There are those out there that are happy to have a dead guy hanging around though,
even if they don’t really know what you are.
I’ve a friend in Kensington who has more money than God. Being bored with a lot of money led her to
dabble in some necromancy. She happily funds a lot of my ventures as long as I bring her some juicy
details on ghosts in the city.
There’s Father Lester who fancies himself an exorcist. Somehow, I’ve convinced him that the Dead are
not ghosts, and he gives me insight into the ghost hunting community. A good thing too, because having a
head’s up on that kind of stuff is important.
Dr. Kellner down at St. Thomas’ Hospital has a thing for excess. I bring them to all the posh parties, and
they let me into the morgue, no questions asked.
Then there are ghosts. Most ghosts are just wailing twats without a thought in their heads. Some of them
are a little more put together, allowing them to talk and even hold a halfway decent conversation. You
might find yourself drawn to their plight. Helping ghosts is a good way to spend your time, in my humble
opinion. Sometimes you can forge a bond with them, and they’ll help you back. That isn’t why I do it
though. I just feel a little sorry for them. Or maybe it’s that I feel sorry for myself.
Which bring me to…

Our Damnation.
I know I have talked a little bit about the Damnation, but you probably need more context about what it
really is and how it’s going to affect you from now on.
You’re dead in all the ways that matter to the world around you. Your family knows you died. Your work
probably sent them a piddling flower arrangement and some sad condolences. There’s probably a picture
in the press of you on your best day with a little blurb about your survivors and all that. You might have
even been buried and had to dig your way out of a sodden grave. You don’t exist to them anymore, and
you can’t go home.
That’s part one. You pretty much have to start over from scratch. It’s a blessing for some. It isn’t as bad
nowadays as it once was. Us Dead stick together, and we’re going to get you fixed up now that we’ve
found you. So that isn’t our curse; it’s just the beginning.
Our curse is that you’re dead and you have urges. Here you are, haunting your body. In effect, you’re an
incorporeal being with a mechanized flesh suit. This works as a double-edged sword. You can flit and
spook your way through the world as a ghost would, but you can’t interact with people or things that way
without using magic. You can walk around like a normal person, but your body doesn’t heal naturally on
its own and if you aren’t careful, it could deteriorate on you. You won’t die because of it, but it’s damn
inconvenient.
Speaking of, you might be confused about if you can die. You’re already dead right, and you’re going to
persist, in a body or not. You’ve got two grisly options for getting out of eternal life. The first is to go
incorporeal so long that your urges take over. In that case, you’re like one of those other ghosts out there.
Worse even than that, because there’s no putting you to rest. The second option is to cease to exist. That’s
not passing on, or whatever it is that ghosts do whenever you resolve their last wishes. Get caught in your
body as it’s destroyed, or get yourself exercised and you’ll just... stop existing.

Then there’s urges.

I don’t know how to better describe what it is other than an urge. More than a fancy or desire, it’s a damn
need. You feel it tugging at you like the event horizon of a sucking black hole of emotion. Some think it’s
because we lost everything that connected us to this world. But I’m sure it’s part of our curse and there by
design. The urge is always with you. No matter how long ago you indulged. It whispers like an eternal
voice saying, “you don’t deserve to relax, you’ve still got this to do.” Sometimes it manifests as a mission
with a clear objective, other times, it’s just that gnawing feeling.
Sure, everyone has their favorite emotion, but it’s how you evoke that emotion that matters. Your urge
pushes you to act, as well as feel. When you scare someone, protect them, guilt them, betray them, even
kill them, you give into your urge. It washes over you like a wave of warm light and a soft embrace.
When it passes, you miss it deeply and want nothing more than to get it back. Don’t worry little addict,
you’ll figure out how to keep it up.
If you don’t, you suffer. Burning desire turns into compulsion; compulsion turns into frothing inability to
do anything else. My first month as Dead, I couldn’t wrap my head around a desire to terrify others. I
holed myself up in an abandoned house for a while. That urge finally overcame me, and I went ballistic. I
wish I could say I blacked out and don’t remember it. If only curses were so forgiving. I scared a woman
to death. I’ve heard that if you don’t fulfill an urge for too long, there’s no coming back from it. You just
turn into an embodiment of that urge, which becomes everyone’s fucking problem.
[NOTE TO LAYOUT. THE FOLLOWING SHOULD HAVE SOME KIND OF ½ PAGE ART DELINEATING IT
AND IT SHOULD START AT THE TOP OF ITS OWN PAGE.]

Dead Systems
The Dead are a Lineage of people who have been cursed to inhabit their bodies after death. They exist
between the worlds of the living and the dead, fitting into neither. This section contains all the rules you
need to create a Dead character, and the special mechanics that define how they function.

Being a Ghost
While the Dead often inhabit a body, they do not have to and can leave it and return as a basic ability.
A Dead character can leave their body as a reflexive action by bleeding one curse die. The body goes into
a trancelike state, appearing to be sitting quietly, or sleeping. The character becomes an incorporeal ghost.
While in ghost form, the Accursed cannot interact with the physical world unless she uses a spell. She can
pass through solid objects such as walls, doors, floors, etc. without issue. The character cannot take
physical actions, but may use any of her spells that do not require physical touch to enact.
No matter how far she ventures from her body, she can return to it immediately as a reflexive action
which requires no expenditure of curse dice. If the character spends more than a scene outside her body,
she bleeds curse dice, one for each additional scene she remains without a body. If she runs out of curse
dice, she begins to bleed Skill or Attribute dots as though she were unanchored. Returning to her body
immediately restores any lost dots.

Undeath
The Dead cannot truly die. This is part of their Curse. If a Dead’s body is destroyed — either while she’s
in it, or while outside it — she immediately gains the Taken Out status effect. She then is considered
unanchored until she finds a new permanent body to inhabit. The new body must not have a
consciousness attached to it, either because the body is an inanimate object, a dead body, or someone
clinically dead but kept alive on machines. She must bleed 1 curse die and spend a full 24 hours in the
new body to claim it, making it her new permanent body.
Every scene a character is unanchored, she loses part of herself. The character loses Skill dots every scene
she does not have a new body. If she runs out of Skill dots, she loses Attribute dots instead. If she runs out
of Attribute dots, the Dead’s ghost form dissipates and is effectively dead. Any dot loss from being
unanchored is temporary, and when she regains a new body, all her lost dots return to her after her 24-
hour acclimation period.

Lineage Path
You’re dead. That kind of sucks, but at least you have a cool new party trick. You’ve got a new lease on
life, ironically enough. What will you do with all this time that fate has handed to you?
Path Skills: Empathy, Esoterica, Survival
Major Path Attributes: Mental 3, Physical 2, Social 5
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 1, Physical 1, Social 2
Assets: Family elders, secret haunts, things lost, things found
Major Path Inheritance: The Dead’s nature makes them harder to hurt, and their undead bodies are
more resistant to magic than most. When resisting sources of magical harm from area effects or
appropriate status effects, gain hits before the roll equal to the character’s Entanglement.

Damnation
The Dead are pushed by their urges to feel emotions and take extreme actions. The more they use their
abilities, the more their urge pushes them to act out. Any time the character’s curse dice pool reaches 0,
her urges overtake her. While in the throes of her urge, she cannot cast spells or gain any new curse dice.
Resolution: She must take meaningful action to express her urge. If the action she takes inconveniences
her or one of her crew, she gains a curse die or Momentum (player’s choice) after taking the action. Each
Dead Family has a different urge they partake in. To determine which urge your character has, look to the
individual families.

Torments
Curses drive all Accursed to act in ways that make them monstrous. Choose one of the following
torments that affects your character. Any time your character succumbs to a torment, gain a Momentum.
• Corporeal Longing: Death has brought new life, and with it, a desire to have new experiences. A
character with this torment isn’t satisfied with just inhabiting her old body, and longs to experience new
corporeal forms, no matter what they are. When this torment triggers, the character is overwhelmed with
the desire to possess someone or something, even if it’s terribly inconvenient. Usually this results in the
Dead forcing her way into a new human form, but sometimes it leads to a more embarrassing situation
such as possessing a neighbor’s small dog or a subway rat, etc., leaving her normal body insensate on the
ground. The character might be limited to possessing a nearby cadaver depending on their Entanglement.
• Yearning for Life: Being dead disconnects a character from the living. They forget about you,
and they move on with their lives. A character with this torment strains against the terror of being left
behind. When she succumbs, she must make herself as memorable as possible to those she cares about —
from leaving overbearing love notes in unusual places to full-blown poltergeist activity.

Families
Dead Families are found families made up of people who all share the same urges. Once a Dead joins a
Family, it’s very hard to leave it. They take that “family is forever” stuff seriously.

Furies
They asked for this. They all asked for this.
You know how fucking infuriating it is when you feel like you’re not in control? People scream at
inanimate objects, rage at traffic, and go all incandescent at the slightest scheduling mishap. Now imagine
the worst loss of control in your life: your death. So many people die angry. Life was ripped right out
from under them without giving a shit about what they wanted. Of course, you want revenge for that kind
of shit.
We’re the “fuck around and find out” Dead. Time to do some finding out.
We’re attracted to pain and whip up rage. Our urge is vengeance. We want to revisit pain on the
people who hurt us in life; give as good as we got. What did they think? That we’d go quietly into that
good night? Get a fucking clue.
We want them to suffer. We want their anger, their hurt, their suffering, and that all ends if they die on
us. It isn’t always easy to rein ourselves in. I’ve got a fucking trail of bodies behind me. What happens
after that is harder to say. If you kill your tormentor from life, then what? The Fades tell us to go on to the
next. Find their loved ones, their friends, their coworkers, follow that trail down as far as it will go to get
your next indulgence. That’s some bleak shit. I personally suggest finding someone who needs help
getting revenge and plying your efforts there.
Anger drives us, but it doesn’t own us. The more you indulge, the worse your anger gets. Don’t let that
overtake you. You’ve got an urge, you indulge it, and you move on. Enjoy death in between. Yes, the
urge is always there, but you don’t have to let that shit define your every moment. Those who do are
insufferable.
Quiet places help calm the urges. I don’t know about other Dead, but we always feel better without the
constant nattering of people. I like to haunt graveyards, but you’ll also find some of my brethren chilling
in churches and libraries because they’re quiet. Sometimes we’ll tell each other stories there. What? You
don’t take us for the contemplative types? Fuck off.
Come to the pit. Something about losing yourself in the blast beats and power chords really opens the
soul. It gets the blood flowing (if that were a thing that still happened). It’s here that we let loose. We let
out pent up rage, pump each other up, blow off steam, and everything in between.
Fades are the arbitrators. Once a year, we vote on what I call “the rulers.” Fades are supposed to make
decisions on conflicts and punish rule breakers, but they do a lot of meddling in other people’s shit. They
do extra stuff like decide who’s worthy of vengeance or if someone’s killed too many times. It’s supposed
to be fair, but the same assholes get voted in every year. They do a lot of politicking bullshit to sway the
votes in their favor. I don’t care about that shit, I just toss my vote to whoever will leave me the fuck
alone.

Relations
We’ll get a target fired, murder and maim his friends, haunt his house and turn
his dog and kitchen utensils against him. We’ll do everything before finally
performing a dance of death with the shattered soul, that sees the victim welcome
his demise. Do you know where we learned this practice? Our Poltergeist friends.
Without them, we’d just be a bunch of butchers.
I get what the Mavens are about. They want to have fun. They might go about it
in different ways, but in the end, it’s all just there to make you feel better, right?
We used to be thick as thieves, but the Shades lost a taste for blood. It isn’t like we
intend to murder people, but it sort of comes with the territory. They didn’t like it,
so they cut us off. A shame really.
Zeds are all about ending things. Every once in a while, you’ll catch one swooping
in on your victim to end their misery. What a fucking killjoy. They can be good
partners, but watch out for that killing shit they do so freely.
I’ve seen some Primal who are murder machines. They can be fucking scary as
hell when they want to be. I’d sure like to be their friends, but I haven’t figured
out the right way to approach anyone yet.
I haven’t met an Outcast who wasn’t a bit of a whiny shit. They’re good to have in
a fight, but damn, quit moaning already. Just bring the fight to the people who put
you where you are. It’s not rocket science.
Others call us all sorts of derogatory names I won’t go into here. If they have any sense, they won’t call
us those things to our faces. Sometimes you’ll get called a vengeance, and that’s not so bad.
Within the Family, we call each other revengers or just Furies. We don’t get too fancy.
We often use our magic to incite rage in others. We love the sound of a mob whipped to frenzy, or a jerk
ready to run someone else off the road. You’ll find us buttering up close family members of our victims,
only to use them against them in the future. Anything to get our revenge or have it play out for others.

Path
Path Skills: Athletics, Close Combat, Ranged Combat
Major Path Attributes: Mental 3, Physical 5, Social 2
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 1, Physical 2, Social 1
Access: Martial arts studios, gang members, grave keepers, libraries, musicians
Secret Spell: Berserker’s Focus, p. XX
Major Path Inheritance: Once per scene, while incorporeal, you may apply the Passions Flaring area
effect on the Area with a major Complication instead of moderate.
Motifs
• When casting a spell that acts as an attack, bleed one additional curse die to apply the effect to a
second target.
• When casting a spell with the Emotional Attunement, bleed one additional cure die to apply the
Frayed Temper status effect to the target.
• When casting a spell with the Ethereal Attunement, bleed one less curse die to a minimum of
zero.
[LAYOUT: THE FOLLOWING SHOULD BE IN ITS OWN SPECIAL BOX]
Play a Fury if you want to:
• Play an angel of vengeance sweeping across the city, leaving a trail of dead in your wake.
• Participate in the most manic, rage-filled raves in cemeteries and abandoned factories.
• Cauterize injustices with extreme prejudice.

Mavens
W hat fun w e are to be around.
Do you remember the rush of excitement from your first kiss? Or the thrill of surviving a near death
experience? The jolt of electricity that goes through you when you accidentally cut your finger? The flood
of endorphins as shock sets in after a traumatic injury? I do, bitch, and I miss the shit out of it.
You only live once, right? Except, in our case, we get a second chance at life through this horrible half-
alive cursed existence. You might as well make the most of it.
Even in death, it’s good to make time to enjoy yourself. Us Mavens take this to… shall we say, the
extreme? Oh honey, there’s no other way to take it. Our urges lead us to inspire a thrill. Pain? Joy? It
honestly doesn’t matter. We’re always searching for a high that comes from sensation.
We just adore new experiences. Life has so many ups, downs, and turnarounds, and we want to see
them all. Just because we can’t feel the emotions, doesn’t mean someone shouldn’t. Think of all those
things you shied away from in life. Wouldn’t you kill for a chance to do them, now that you know how
things turned out? Mind you, some of us can get up to some freaky shit in the pursuit of a rush. I wouldn’t
ask too many questions about what the sensates are doing.
Variety is the spice of life. Where’s the fun in using the same technique day in and day out to get a rise
from people? Other Dead might be content to fall into tedium. Not me sweety; I find a new experience
every night. Some people think this makes us shallow. Just because we don’t sit around blithely accepting
whatever death has on offer, doesn’t make us superficial. It takes a lot of self-reflection to be this
fabulous.
The living have something we can never get back. They should value it. We like to remind people of
that. Okay, so maybe it’s not some huge self-sacrifice to bring people joy and excitement. I never said we
were doing this just for them. So what if we satisfy ourselves? They are getting something out of it too.
Our Family is divided. There’s two sides of the debate, and no one can agree to disagree. The way it
used to work was, you’d make a contract with someone. They agreed, and you helped them experience
something extreme; no take backs. Those are the sensates. The modernists put forward continuous
consent as the standard, and the contract can be voided at any time. Either way, the contract is the most
important aspect, and you must abide by what you agreed to. Now, no one is watching to see if you break
it. But listen darling, if you do, and I find out, I’ll rip your dead head off your shoulders. And I’m not
even the worst. The sensates are far more into pain than pleasure, and they will take their urges out on you
as punishment.
We throw the best parties. Every other Family will go on about why their style of party is the best.
Believe me when I tell you, honey, that no one parties like a Maven. The music is perfect, the decorations
are on point, and everyone has a good time. No self-respecting Maven would have it any other way.

Relations
If you’re looking for a powerful engine with a nitro injection system, look no
further than the Furies. They spread zero happiness (unless you count their smiles
as they brutalize), but one cannot fault their… vigor.
We’ve been given a second chance at existence, and all the Poltergeists want to do
is scare people away from experiencing it. It’s a tragic waste.
Wardens want to help desperate people. What a lofty goal, and one I can
appreciate. Too bad most of them fail to uphold such a standard and end up
making a mess of people’s lives instead.
Zeds are the darkest fetish. Undeniably cool but extremely risky, like snorting
powder from the barrel of a loaded gun, we can’t get enough of them and we’re
one of the few lodges to get them to wear their hair down.
We’ve a lot in common with the Hungry, and they appreciate our sensibilities in
turn. I’m pretty sure we got the contract idea from them, though they won’t weigh
in on the debate.
I’m pretty sure the Outcasts are the only other Accursed with a true understanding
of the value of their lives. They are cast offs, and yet they still persist, finding joy
in their own ways. I honestly admire them.
The others call us hedonists and libertines. If they are feeling old school, they’ll call us sensates, but you
have to correct them if you aren’t actually one.
The Family is divided between sensates and modernists. We call groups by that name, and individuals
are just Mavens.
We use our magic to heighten people’s emotions while we give them an experience. Our contracts often
involve possession, with people agreeing to let us take direct control over their bodies for a short time.

Path
Path Skills: Artistry, Culture, Persuasion
Major Path Attributes: Mental 2, Physical 2, Social 6
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 2, Social 2
Access: Thrill seekers, addicts, repressed professionals, amusement parks
Secret Spell: Seize the Spotlight, p. XX
Major Path Inheritance: Once per scene, while incorporeal, you may apply the Overstimulating area
effect on the area at a major Complication instead of moderate.
Motifs
• When casting a spell with the Emotional Attunement, you may choose to apply the effect to an
additional target you have a bond to.
• When casting a spell with the Psychic Attunement, bleed an additional curse die to apply the
Passions Flaring area effect to the scene.
• When casting a spell with the Emotional Attunement, spend an additional curse die to extend the
effect’s duration by one factor. Example: If it would last for a scene, it lasts for an additional scene.
[LAYOUT: THE FOLLOWING SHOULD BE IN ITS OWN SPECIAL BOX]
Play a Maven if you want to:
• Experience all the joys of existence life denied you.
• Open the eyes of others to the extremes of pleasure and pain.
• Make the sad happy, give the lonely company, and help struggling mortals live their best life.

Poltergeists
Don’t fear the dark, fear m e.
It’s okay to be scared. Fear is a survival instinct. It keeps you out of danger, and ostensibly keeps you
alive. It’s no wonder so many people die afraid. Their bodies are screaming at them to get out, save
themselves, make themselves small so the danger doesn’t get them. It’s a lesson that sticks with you.
Fear is natural.
It’s a normal reaction. And it’s oh so easy to evoke.
We’re the ones who foment panic. Our urge is terror, tugging at you from an unseen place. When you’re
alone in a room and you feel like someone’s watching, it’s us. You don’t just jump at shadows; you jump
because we made you. When the lights go out and you’re all alone, we’re the one touching your arm.
This isn’t just a jump scare. Sure, you might get a jolt of fear from a quick jump or a gory scene, but
that doesn’t really satisfy the urge. It wants creeping dread. You want to stay with one person, haunting
them for so long that they begin to question reality. It pushes you to play with them over and over again,
until one of you breaks.
Everyone knows what it’s like to be afraid. Our very existence as Dead is terrifying and fear is a
constant companion. It’s okay to be a little afraid of yourself. In fact, I’d encourage it. If you understand
your own fear, you can use it to temper yourself.
We settle into our haunts. Usually, it’s a place, but sometimes it’s a single person. We like places
people already fear to go, building its lore by scaring everyone who enters. Soon people dread to step foot
inside. When we haunt people, the urge makes us relentless; every waking moment is a nightmare for our
victims.
Fear teaches a lesson. The lesson isn’t specific like the Shades. Dread and paranoia change a person.
They start to avoid the things that evoke those feelings. If you play it right, you can make even the most
mundane object into a subject of terror. Some of us seek out people who might be in need of such a
lesson. Maybe it’s an addict who's hurting herself, or a criminal who’s endangering his family. It’s a
small consolation for the things we have to do.
Intrafamily politics are wild. We don’t have a lot of rules when it comes to dealing with the living. You
can do what you like to them as long as you don’t infringe on another Poltergeist’s territory. We have so
many rules on how you interact with Family. You must respect your elders; elders being anyone who has
been Dead longer than you. You must ask permission to haunt. You must declare a territory. You must
ask for permission to visit someone else’s territory. You must ask an elder to help you find a new body.
The list goes on, and sometimes the interactions are wildly arcane and you find yourself out of bounds
fast. Anyone older can arbitrate between two others, though if you piss off someone in the oldest groups,
they may just mete out justice on their own.
Grand wakes are joyous affairs. It can’t be all terror all the time. We laugh and dance to blow off
steam. We also do more subdued gatherings. Peer groups often meet weekly to do confessionals, and talk
through all our baggage. It looks a bit like an AA meeting where everyone tells their story and the rest
lend a comforting ear. I try to make them when I can, even if I don’t think I need the help.

Relations
The Wardens think they can turn theier curse to their favor. It’s cute to watch them
fight against their urges and try to instill hope. We’ll be there for them when they
ultimately fail and need to pick up the pieces.
I love the Furies and what they do. I just wish they didn’t go to such extremes.
They find out pretty quick that you can’t keep up that level of vengeance without
blowing your top. If only they could learn to pace themselves.
You’ll find some good friends within the Shades. They certainly keep us close. I
find their lack of organization a little off putting, though I can commiserate with
always being nitpicked by elders.
The Zeds are stuffy, but I can respect their commitment to the bit. If you need
someone with great organizational skills, there’s no better person to have on your
team.
Phagophobia. The fear of being consumed. Uncommon, but visceral enough to
make the Hungry interesting companions and cases for study.
Could you imagine joining up with a Primal? Think of all the terror you could
instill with one of them by your side. They seem to like us okay enough, maybe
because we’ve never tried to push them like others have.
Other Dead call us phantoms because we spend so much time outside our bodies. You
might hear someone call you a night terror as well.
Within our Family, we simply refer to each other by name. If that person is your elder, you best be
putting a formal prefix (such as “Ms.” or “Mx.”) in front of it though.
We use our magic to possess and move objects more than any other Dead. You’ll even find some of us
who have taken on a doll or scarecrow as a new body. We like to work with the physical world to invoke
terror, rather than just manipulating an emotional state.

Path
Path Skills: Larceny, Pilot, Technology
Major Path Attributes: Mental 5, Physical 2, Social 3
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 2, Physical 1, Social 1
Access: Haunted house, living family you haunt, grieving spouses, mortuaries
Secret Spells: Gloomstrike, p. XX; Nightmares, p. XX
Major Path Inheritance: Once per scene, while incorporeal, you may apply the Dread area effect on the
area at a moderate Complication instead of minor.
Motifs
• Gain +1 Enhancement when casting a spell with the Psychic attunement, either to cast the spell,
or as a result of the spell’s effect.
• The hold or bleed cost to cast spells with the Liminal Attunement is reduced by 1 to a minimum
of 0 curse dice.
• When casting spells with the Emotional attunement, bleed one additional curse die to apply the
Dread area effect to the scene.
[LAYOUT: THE FOLLOWING SHOULD BE IN ITS OWN SPECIAL BOX]
Play a Poltergeist if you want to:
• Overcome the fear that held you back as one of the living.
• Terrify your victims into becoming better people… Or just for fun.
• Play a creepy ghost possessing an even creepier ventriloquist’s dummy.

Shades
Sadness is sw eeter than sugar.
Shocker: some take satisfaction from sorrow. I know, it’s not actually a shock. Nobody blames the
fucking musician who writes a sad song about a breakup. Nobody thinks it’s wrong to laugh when
someone falls on their ass. Misery strengthens us. Accept it; the downfall of others makes us feel better.
Misery forms the strongest, most vital memories.
And we remember.
Everyone dies with some regret. Where others might desire some sense of closure, us Shades would rather
hang on to that misery and bring ruin just to sing songs about our victims. We take satisfaction in
harassing those guilty of unpunished sins, no matter how large or small.
We’re the omens of ill fortune. We’re the shadow you can’t bear to face, because you see your sins
looking back at you from the darkness. We’re the desolate Dead, and ruin’s our Provenance.
We seek out the guilty and spread misery. Our urge is the downfall of the deserving. Guilt can break a
person or change them for the better. Make the guilty feel that guilt and take your pleasures from their
sorrow. We like to draw out our urges, creating long form dramas and tragedies in people’s lives. We
cultivate some of the worst people to take to task. It brings some peace to think that these events are
learning lessons for our victims. But for most, the satisfaction of bringing a shitheel his just desserts is
more important than any life lesson he might get out of it.
We don’t kill. For most, death terminates the possibility of reflection. We haunt the living for a purpose.
Also, if you kill them, then there goes all the fun.
Our Family is the most disorganized. There’re the elders at the top and the rest of us who listen to their
long-winded stories of conquests we’ve heard a thousand times.
There’s only one rule: Show up to the party with a story. But if you think no rules means anything
goes, you better think again. Oh no, the elders like to pick apart every little thing you do: critiquing your
methodology, the frequency of your indulgences, and anything else you can think of. While there’s no
restrictions on activities like possession and manipulation, everyone has strong opinions on the topics.
Less scrupulous Shades go all in for taking over a life, while more conservative ones expect you to rough
it for the good of everyone around you. If you need a new body, you better ask a direct elder what their
preferred method is, or you might get an earful or worse.
Our parties include dramatics. We love ruining the ultra-rich and corrupt (because fuck those guys) and
then telling tales of it at our grand wakes. The one-upmanship between Shades is legendary, filled with
dramatic storytelling, backroom deals, and not a little bit of alcohol.

Relations
We’ve a longstanding feud with the Wardens, due to our targeting the mortal
family with one of our guilt games a while back. The result was a whole bunch of
them dying in misery and coming over to our Family post-mortem. The situation’s
tense, to put it mildly, but they can fuck off if they want an apology.
The Poltergeists are our closest allies. We both like to drive people to a form of
awakening, though our methods differ considerably.
Death ought to be a method of elevation, but you need to climb on the corpses of
others to reach the top of the stack. Zeds would rather just bury the corpses.
We party with the Mavens often enough that they’ve grown on us. Their penchant
for pain can be fun, even if it feels a little mean spirited sometimes.
Primals are a little too tempestuous for our tastes, though we work wonderfully
with the Hrafn, happily exchanging information on people in need of visitation
and punishment. While some Dead consider the Eight Hands strange beyond
understanding, they connect with our Family like professional peers.
We know the inner workings of the human mind. Sorcerers know the secrets of
the universe. You show me yours; I’ll show you mine. We’ll see who ends up more
depressed.
Other people call us omens and Hell’s Ravens. Neither are meant to insult, though that omen bit is a tad
on the nose.
Among the Family, we call ourselves Shades. You might hear some of the old folks using
gentlesir/woman and, when you’re feeling formal, you can use Ruiners.
We use our magic to push people to act in dramatic ways that will out their guilt. We push and prod until
the breaking point, then push them one step further. Some view it as cruelty, but life’s lessons always feel
a little cruel.

Path
Path Skills: Culture, Esoterica, Persuasion
Major Path Attributes: Mental 3, Physical 3, Social 4
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 1, Physical 1, Social 2
Access: Reformed cops, corporate holdings, guilty CEOs, prisons
Secret Spell: Unreality, p. XX
Major Path Inheritance: When incorporeal, you affect a miserable atmosphere creating an area effect
making the people in close range guilty and paranoid. Everyone in the Area has a minor Complication on
mental or social actions. Failure to buy it off inflicts the Guilt Ridden status effect toward you.
Motifs
• When casting a spell with the Emotional Attunement, bleed a curse die to learn a single secret
about someone in the scene.
• When casting spells with the Psychic Attunement, bleed a curse die to apply the effect to a second
target.
• You may cast spells with the Emotional Attunement as a reflexive action.
[LAYOUT: THE FOLLOWING SHOULD BE IN ITS OWN SPECIAL BOX]
Play a Shade if you want to:
• Portray someone with a mountain of sin for which they need to repent.
• Deliver the unjust and the unpunished to reflect on their actions.
• Enjoy a fiercely competitive and artistic undead experience in a haze of smoke and alcohol.

Wardens
W hen you help your fellow s, you help yourself.
Mother says we should help those in need. It’s a natural human inclination to help those around us. Adults
protect kids who aren’t even theirs because it’s hardwired into them. When people witness an emergency,
they jump to help. When disaster strikes, nations band together. Helping those in need is the highest form
of altruism.
Mother knows best. She’s the oldest of the Wardens, and the leader of our Family. We all look to her for
guidance, and she blesses us with her wisdom. Some say she speaks with angels; others say she has a line
directly to some other higher power. Either way, her word is law. Listen well my sibling, the law might be
simple, but it’s rarely easy to follow. Protect others while doing as little harm as possible.
We save! Protection can come in many forms, from lending a helping hand when someone is down on
their luck, to literally being a physical impediment to danger. Our urges drive us to seek out desperation,
to create it in others. Mother has taught us to turn our urges into hope through assisting the desperate.
Wardens have a higher calling. Our Dead cousins’ urges cause them to hurt or scare people in pursuit of
an emotion. Not us, though. We act to uplift and help. If someone gets hurt, it’s because they got in our
way. Mother doesn’t like it when we’re sloppy.
We’re born special. Many of us were born into this curse, descending in a direct line from Mother.
Others have joined because they believe in her cause. We are siblings, each of us, regardless of prior
living relations. Many of our living relatives will one day join the ranks of the Dead. Even if they don’t
join Mother’s cause, they are our cousins, one and all.
Following Mother’s teachings is difficult. Some stray from the path, indulging their urge to cause
desperation, rather than heal it. It’s okay, because they’re still our siblings. Those who have strayed are
still welcome at our tables and parties. No one has strayed so far that they can’t learn from their mistakes.
Mother makes sure of it.
Community is key, and Wardens stick together. We celebrate what brings us together and our parties
are monthly communals. Our cousins might liken them to religious affairs as we share the word of
Mother, share news of those who need aid, and rededicate ourselves to our siblings and our cause. Mother
doesn’t always show up to our parties. I’ve never actually met her myself. They say she doesn’t have a
body anymore, which makes it harder to know. Many see this as a sign of her dedication to never cause
harm to others, and try to emulate her. It doesn’t go well for them. Mother is the only one of us powerful
enough to stave off the effects of being without a body. I’ve heard rumors that some believe Mother is
lost to us, but that’s ridiculous thinking.

Relations
The Mavens are so addicted to joy that they’ve lost sight of how happiness could
be a reward. They cheer our names when our missions go well, but swiftly turn to
mockery when we fail. They have a sadistic streak I just can’t stomach.
You know what they say about digging two graves, except in your case, we
imagine you’re going to need to dig at least a dozen. I’ll pray for you, cousin
Furies, but will still help you with the shoveling, for you are cousins.
Mourning is a completely natural part of grief, my sibling, but a time comes for us
to lift the mourners out from the darkness and show them the light. We must fix
our Shade cousins. They need the light.
I believe Poltergeists are truly trying to help people, even if their methods leave a
bad taste in my mouth. If they would embrace Mother’s word, they might be the
best of us.
I feel bad for the Hungry, for they are insatiable and there is truly no helping them.
Maybe I feel bad because I see their own desires mirroring my own, and know that
I too can never know satisfaction, no matter what I do to try.
The Outcasts on the other hand are the exact kind of desperate that we love. They
have lost everything and want it all back. Find one worthy of your help, and
maybe you’ll find your own deliverance.
Others call us guardians or sometimes cousins in mimicry of what we call them. The nasty ones call us
cultists.
We call ourselves siblings. Only Mother gets any honorifics.
We use our magic in the pursuit of helping others. We offer protection and succor to those in need.
While we try our damnedest to do no harm, if someone threatens a ward, we do not shy away from
responding with force. It’s better to protect someone forever, than for just a day or two.

Path
Path Skills: Leadership, Medicine, Science
Major Path Attributes: Mental 4, Physical 2, Social 4
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 2, Social 2
Access: Mutual aid groups, addicts, advocacy programs, hospitals, churches
Secret Spell: Sympatico, p. XX
Major Path Inheritance: Once per scene while incorporeal, you can deliberately appear in someone’s
peripheral vision, distracting them from their tasks and giving them the Confused status effect.
Motifs
• When casting a spell that you could normally only cast on yourself, you may bleed a curse die to
apply the effects to another character in the scene instead of yourself.
• When casting a spell with the Emotional Attunement, bleed one less curse die to a minimum of
zero.
• When casting a spell with the Support Attunement, bleed one additional curse die to apply the
effect to a second target.
[LAYOUT: THE FOLLOWING SHOULD BE IN ITS OWN SPECIAL BOX]
Play a Warden if you want to:
• Rebel against the family who raised you.
• Belong to a cult of personality to a flawed individual.
• Take on the role of a guardian angel to a mortal and spout disturbing dogma.

Zeds
Endings are beautiful things.
All things must come to an end. As everything moves towards entropy, death is the natural conclusion of
a life lived. It should be the end.
We’re the end of all things. The bullet waiting to make its way into your brain. The cancer overtaking
your healthy organs. The Dead waiting to ferry you across the Styx. We’re fate’s dispassionate
emissaries.
We embrace our fatalism. Our urge is to progress entropy. We don’t care which emotion that evokes in
you. We bring about that natural conclusion, and if we do our job right, you won’t feel much emotion at
all. Quietude is our goal. We want to end hope, terminate pain, conclude misery, and eliminate the need
for vengeance. There’s no victimhood in inevitability. We don’t just restrict this to the living. Ghosts
must pass on to have their end, and we’re here to help them along. Even the Dead do not escape our
notice.
One person, one death. We pick our targets carefully, and spend our time doing it right. The more souls
you introduce to a killing, the greater the likelihood of a conscience rushing past fate’s door. Rather than
having to clean up a mistake, we’d prefer not to make one in the first place. We let the living make their
final arrangements and we give ghosts time to state their final wishes. We’re murderers, not monsters.
Z.E.D. & Colleagues. That’s the name of the corporation we have on the books. This worldwide
conglomerate acts as a front to get us into places where people can’t normally go. It gives us credibility in
the murdering department. And coincidentally, it’s where we got our name.
You’re not a member, you’re an employee. Others play at familial relations, but we know our place in
the hierarchy. We all have jobs to do to ensure we can execute our function to the high standards we set
for ourselves. We act with professionalism at all times, as we are each a representative of the corporation.
If you need a new body, you have only to look at your most recent kill to find a fresh corpse waiting for
you. It saves on cleanup costs. We might kill solo, but we aren’t isolationists. We have a network of built-
in allies through our corporation. We pay them well to provide all sorts of aid when we need them,
including physical backup.
We don’t do parties. We meet in offices and hold court at boardroom tables. We discuss matters of
business among each other, and keep it succinct and to the point. During off hours, we gather in less
formal settings to discuss other matters. No matter how efficient and merciless a killer you might be, it
helps to express what you’ve seen and been through. It’s not therapy, however, Z.E.D. doesn’t cover
those costs. We do appreciate a party if someone else is throwing one, but not while on the clock.

Relations
There’s no joy to be found in death, and yet the Mavens insist on hanging around
us. Maybe they want to change us. When will they learn that neither life nor death
holds any value over the other?
Furies could make for an adequate scythe, but they need a firm hand. If their
leadership wasn’t so strict about not letting people leave the fold, I’d recruit from
them in a heartbeat.
We work surprisingly well with Wardens in allowing mortals and ghosts to tie up
unfinished business before a quiet denouement. We too are trying to help people,
just not quite the same way they are.
It’s funny to me that Shades try to make themselves feel better by staving off
killing. They know as well as we do that everyone dies in the end. It’s probably
why our relations haven’t soured in all these years.
The Hungry, much like the Dead, are beyond their expiration date. All the more
reason to find a way to break this damnable curse.
We’ve heard reports that a sect of Sorcerers eats ghosts. We have no idea what
happens to these ghosts when consumed in this manner. We haven’t spread these
rumors to the other Dead for fear of a war breaking out.
Others call us reapers. It’s a nickname the Mavens came up with and stuck to us, despite any comment
on our side. You might hear someone whisper assassin behind your back.
Within Z.E.D & Colleagues we call each other by our professional titles or names, depending on where
you are in the hierarchy.
We use our magic as yet another tool in our arsenal for killing. We prefer mundane weapons, such as a
gun or a garrote, but magic has its uses, like to get into places we shouldn’t be or to possess a killing
implement. The company prohibits possessing mortals, but you’ll find Zed who do it in a pinch. Just
don’t tell HR about it.

Path
Path Skills: Enigmas, Leadership, Ranged Combat
Major Path Attributes: Mental 4, Physical 4, Social 2
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 1, Physical 2, Social 1
Access: Company car, sharp suit, personalized weaponry, Z.E.D. & Colleagues boardroom.
Secret Spell: Supernal Aim, p. XX
Major Path Inheritance: You possess your body so tightly that you have infused it with your lingering
death. Gain access to the following Trick on all Close Combat attacks:
Death’s Door (1 hit): You curse your target into oblivion. They gain the Slow-Acting Toxin status effect
that only reacts to magical antitoxins. Failure to buy off the Complication results in the victim dealing an
injury to themselves every time they take a subsequent action.
Motifs
• The hold or bleed cost to cast spells with the Physical Attunement is reduced by 1 to a minimum
of 0 curse dice.
• When casting spells with the Psychic Attunement, bleed one additional curse die to deal one
damage to the target over any other damage that would normally apply.
• Spells and abilities that confer Close Combat Tricks now also function on Ranged Combat
actions.
[LAYOUT: THE FOLLOWING SHOULD BE IN ITS OWN SPECIAL BOX]
Play a Zed if you want to:
• Be an emotionless assassin looking to find a purpose beyond just killing.
• Help mortals and ghosts satisfy their last wishes before delivering them.
• Wield a gun you get to name and use it to hit a company-mandated quota.

Haunting Practices
Like lesser phantasms, the Dead derive a lot of their magic from their innate incorporeal state. Their
magic is far stronger, and much more versatile, but the term Haunting has permeated their magic use from
time immemorial. The Dead can influence people’s emotions as an extension of their curses’ urges, and
have learned to utilize their constant liminal state to their advantage.
The Dead have access to three Hauntings. Below each, we have listed the spells available at character
creation with a short description of the spell and the page number where you can find the full write-up.

Emotional Manipulation
Emotional Manipulation is the Dead’s urges born to bear. These spells give the Dead the ability to
manipulate the emotions of others: heightening or decreasing emotions as well as driving people to action
or inaction.
• Mental Fortitude: Gain armor against non-physical attacks. P. XX.
• Dissonance: Make an emotional attack dealing physical damage. P. XX
• Quiet Space: Create a social code that everyone must follow. P. XX.
• Provocation: Alter a target’s emotional state. P. XX.
• Homewrecker: Change the nature of a target’s bonds. P. XX.
Incorporeality
Ghosts have a knack for spooking those around them with a little telekinesis or manifestation. The Dead
have access to a greater suite of powers while in ghost form, allowing them to interact with the physical
world and possess all manner of things.
• Shared Senses: Send your consciousness into a willing target for the scene gaining a bonus to
teamwork actions. P. XX.
• Commune: Make a friendly space to talk to ghosts. P. XX.
• Creepy Doll: Possess and animate an inanimate object. P. XX.
• Manifestation: Be seen and heard while in ghost form. P. XX.
• Soul Scry: Perceive a location at a distance. P. XX.

Metaphysics
The Dead’s nature as a ghost gives them properties that defy natural physics. They can draw on their
ghost nature while possessing a body to utilize its intangible nature, as well as their own experiences as
being dead to manipulate the world around them.
• Universal Keyhole: Move through a barrier with a single step. P. XX.
• As Smoke: Apply a Complication to an incoming attack to prevent the attack. P. XX.
• Memoryscape: Create a projection of someone’s memories. P. XX.
• Haunted Ground: Create a Shattered Space. P. XX.
• Through Time: Pull an object through time for immediate use. P. XX.