Backer Draft Manuscript Part 5

– Storyguiding –

© 2024 Onyx Path Publishing. All rights reserved. References to other copyrighted material in no way
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.
Storyguiding
As a Storyguide for Curseborne you detail the world your player’s characters live in, the stories they
pursue, and the obstacles that get in their way. You portray every other character within it, and draw
attention to the curses that permeate the lives of the Accursed. You’re the guardian of the setting and the
keeper of secrets. Here we’ll give you some advice on how to make your Curseborne game the best it
can be.

Best Practices
I can feel your lungs inflate… and deflate. There they are. I can feel your blood coursing through
your body. I had to work on that one. I can feel your heartbeat from inside you.
Yeah, it’s pretty sexual!
Look, if you want me here, it’s all good. If you want me gone, that’s fine too. We’ll go at your
pace.
Okay, so I’m gonna walk you around a little. Yeah, like a puppet on a string.
Haha, that’s right!
‘kay, so the deal is this. You let me enjoy your body for a while. I won’t put it in any danger,
God’s truth. Annnnd… I’ll let you see things you’d never get to see without me. I mean, really
weird shit. You’re gonna love it. Wait until you meet my family, it’s gonna be wicked.
No, of course you shouldn’t tell nobody else. They wouldn’t understand is why.
Look, the reason they call it a “curse” is because some morons go ‘round telling people and
getting in trouble.
We’re gonna keep it a secret. We’re gonna have fun. ‘kay?
You’re in charge of a lot, and one of the most important things you’re in charge of is your own actions.
It’s easy to forget that running a game puts you in a social position of power over your players. This
makes it doubly important to be open and supportive of their actions and take any feedback they give you
charitably.
Be the characters’ biggest fan. Live their stories with their players and embrace the drama of their lives.
It’s easy to get bogged down with rules, stories, and SGCs, but the real reason you’re running the game is
to make an enjoyable story for your friends. Part of the joy of Storyguiding is seeing how characters grow
and the course their lives take. Cheering on the player characters, crying when they fail, and celebrating
when they pick themselves back up makes the game gratifying for everyone.
Address the characters, not the players, and remember important SGC names. To get your players
engaged in the game, call them by their character’s name. Not only does this motivate the players to reply
in character and roleplay, but it also tells the players you take their stories seriously. Likewise, try your
best to remember the names of SGCs who are important to your story and your players. If you have
difficulty remembering names, keep a small written cheat sheet next to you and update it as necessary.
Respect your players’ actions. Not everyone roleplays the same way, but most people sincerely care
about their characters and what happens to them. Players may propose actions you deem irrelevant or a
bad idea, which are integral to how they feel their characters are played. It might be tempting to
discourage the player from these actions, but it’s good to reflect on why you are doing it. Will the player’s
action disrupt the story? Will the player’s actions harm another player? If the answer to either of these is
“no,” let the person play their character as intended, whether you think it’s a good idea or not.
Be open to being wrong. When running a game you’ll make mistakes. You’ll design nonsensical
encounters, present confusing puzzles, misunderstand what your players want to do, portray horrific
elements that offend or upset a player, or even kill off a beloved SGC. You’re not perfect and your
players know that. Not accepting the blame when you mess up won’t buy you a lot of charity with your
players. Instead, admit blame when its warranted and apologize when you can. If your players offer
feedback, listen to it, digest it, and see what you can apply to your game. If you disagree, ensure it’s
coming from a place of rationality rather than emotion. It’s easy to get upset, especially facing feedback,
but you’ll be happier and it’s healthier for you to take a pause before responding.
Don’t die on that hill. Some Storyguides can get hung up on players trying to gain more power than the
Storyguide feels they deserve. Thinking this way will only bring you misery. Players love their characters
and always want the best for them, and they’ll try anything to get what they want for their characters. If
you see this happening in your game and it’s upsetting you, rather than restricting your players at every
move, speak to them about their goals. Ask them: Why does your character need so much money? Do you
really feel you’re not getting enough experience? Why do you think your librarian needs more knowledge
of firearms? Having a frank conversation turn a tense relationship into a productive outcome.
If what they’re asking still feels unreasonable to you after discussing it with them, tell your players why
you don’t want to see that aspect in the game. Explain why it makes your life difficult as a Storyguide or
how it might break your story. Giving your players an insight into your struggle with what they’re asking
will give them perspective on the game and make it easier to find a compromise that suits both parties.
You’re a player too. Building on the previous point, remember that you’re playing this game for fun just
like everyone else. We make a differentiation between “player” and “Storyguide” in this book, but that’s
purely to make it clearer that one player has different and more complicated responsibilities than the
others. You can and should advocate for yourself and talk with the players when the game moves into
areas that aren’t enjoyable for you. It’s also good to remind the other players this isn’t an adversarial
relationship, and that you want to work with them to collaboratively make an exciting and entertaining
story.

Content
Before your game starts, before you make characters, speak to each other about the content of your game.
Namely, the things you don’t want to see in game. It’s useful for the Storyguide to lead this conversation,
because they know the type of story they want to run and can ensure everyone gets a fair say. Storyguides
should be clear in the type of content their game could include, and if there is no middle ground between
the content a Storyguide wants and what a player wants, that should be made clear right at the start. No
one wants to get halfway into a story to realize it focuses heavily on content they don’t enjoy.
Curseborne is a game with adult content: there’s swearing, sex, and violence. The game is intended to be
played by adults, but it is also meant to be fun. If someone doesn’t find some of the adult content fun
leave it out. Because when you play Curseborne everyone at the table participates in continuous consent
— each person gives their permission for play to continue and if the permission is withdrawn — the game
must change or stop.
To facilitate this, Curseborne uses the X-card by John Stavropoulus. Place a literal card with an X on it
on your table (or pin a chat reminder in whatever online source you’re using). When the game hits on
subject matter that a player is uncomfortable it, they may tap the card (or type “X-card” in chat) to
immediately have the scene fade to black. People should respect the use of the X-card, at all times and not
question why it was tapped. You may also want to discuss boundaries and no-go areas before the game
gets underway, if that’s your group’s preference.

Immersion on a Budget
There are amazing aids you can get for your game — physical props, custom artwork, and so many dice
— but these cost money and not everyone can afford them. Sometimes it can feel like a battle to get what
you need for your game without buying a million things as aids. All you need to play an excellent game
of Curseborne is a copy of this book, some dice, and your imagination. Everything else is nice to have
but isn’t required. Below are a few suggestions on how to avoid the price tag to playing.
• Online/app dice rollers: If you’re unsure about investing in a full set of dice and don’t want to
share with friends, you can download a dice app on your phone or use one online. Onyx Path Publishing
has an official Discord dice bot for Storypath Ultra you can use for free.
• Digital books: Rather than buying a physical book, you can purchase PDFs of our books from a
digital storefront — DriveThruRPG is the one Onyx Path uses at the time of publication. Not only will
you have access to your books wherever you can get online, but they’re also typically cheaper than their
physical counterparts.
• Music playlists: A good list of music through one of your favorite music streaming services goes
a long way to getting everyone in the mood to play and setting the tone for your game.
• Food: Cooking a meal together with your friends before you start playing not only saves money
but allows you to get excited about the game and talk over plans before playing. It’s more meaningful to
spend quality time with your fellow players than buying a prop.

Stumped?
Much of your time as a Storyguide is dedicated to facilitating play for your group. You’ll create SGCs on
the fly, add setting into scenes, and throw antagonists at your player characters at dramatically poignant
moments. You can plan for a session of play, but a Storyguide’s best laid plans can often be thrown off
the rails by their players, and sometimes the need to always be responsible for the story is overwhelming.
You can’t have all the answers to every question your players ask, and even the best Storyguides get
stumped sometimes. There are a couple of things you can do in these moments to continue to facilitate the
game for your players.
The first is preparation. When things don’t go the way you thought they would, have a bank of SGCs
prepared that you can funnel into the situation to make it fun and interesting for your players. Don’t tie
these SGCs to an established group, but give them a name, a motivation, and a general personality.
Knowing who these characters are allows you to pick the appropriate one for the scene that went awry
and continue the story with relative ease. Having these neutral SGCs means you have tools to implement,
modify, or dodge around ideas you didn’t plan for.
The second is asking questions. It’s easy to take the burden of presenting and expanding on the
Curseborne setting, but you don’t have to do that in a bubble. Your players are there to help you. If one
of them decides to take their character somewhere you haven’t planned for, ask the player to help you
create the setting. If a player wants to talk to a previously undetailed contact, work with them to create
this SGC. Asking players to create the world with you comes with the joy of being surprised by the result.
Different people take inspiration in different ways and it could end up adding beautifully unintended
aspects to your game.
Ask questions such as:
• What does this place or person look, smell, and sound like?
• What’s a hidden secret or danger here?
• Who cares about this place or person?
• What is this place or person known best for?
• Why is this place or person significant?
• What unnerves you about this place or person?
• What’s beautiful about this place or person?
• What’s the last thing that went wrong in this place or with this person?

Digital Play
The roleplaying community is closer than ever, and we live in a digital age. When playing games online
it’s important to remember a few specific pieces of etiquette.
Pay more attention but take more breaks. When you aren’t in the same physical space as one another,
it’s particularly important that you’re engaged in the game and what your fellow players are doing. This
can make playing online fatiguing, so keep in mind your online sessions may need a extra breaks for
players to compose themselves and may run shorter than normal.
Show up on time and ready to play. Digital sessions are often shorter and more concise, so if you’ve
planned to only play three hours, it’s detrimental to the game to show up 30 minutes late. Likewise,
technical difficulties — a microphone not working, sound cutting out etc. — can really eat into game
time, so test all your equipment before you start playing.
If you’re playing with a new group, don’t forget to say hello! Before you start your first game, take the
time to introduce yourself to one another and get to know each other. When you introduce your
characters, be curious about what the other players are saying, ask questions, and generally get to know
them. This will go a long way towards making roleplay between members of the group more natural.
Ask for clarification. You may be playing audio-only or it may be difficult to read body language via a
webcam, so be sure to check in with each other so you understand what the other person means. This is
especially important if you feel they’ve said something rude or unfair, because it’s likely their true
meaning got lost.
Wait for your turn. While this is important roleplay advice in general, it’s doubly important online when
others might be struggling with digital communication. If a person pauses, check that they’re done before
you take an action, and generally give people time to conclude what they want to say.

Using Digital Tools

Digital tools allow players to connect to the game remotely. They aren’t always used just for digital play,
however — they can also help players in physical games stay connected between sessions and contact one
another for meaningful character development that isn’t dependent on the main plot. The level to which
you integrate digital tools into your game depends on the amount of free time you have, but a few can be
used with relatively little effort.
In-character chat groups allow characters to plan with one another between sessions, share gifs and
memes, and generally get to know one another. It lets players seek connections with their characters and
have a bit of fun between sessions.
A chat server adds more flexibility for players to break into smaller rooms and engage in more intimate
roleplay. The benefit of a chat server compared to players breaking off and messaging each other
privately is that the Storyguide can pop into conversations and aid the play when required. Having a log
of conversations makes it easier to bring what was said back into play during a session. Many of these
servers have their own built-in or easily-added dice rolling bots, meaning everything is in one place for
your game.
Email and shared drives are useful keeping a digital record of important events, SGCs, backstories, and
other details the group might need to remember later. The ambitious Storyguide may even create email
addresses for certain SGCs so they can write the characters themselves and deepen the immersion of your
game.
What’s most important when implementing such tools is to ensure all participants are clear and accepting
of its use before starting. If you create a chat server where you’re going to place important plot
information that could affect players during the following session, every player needs to have access to
that server. As with any tool you may use, adding a new aspect to your game should serve to deepen a
player’s enjoyment rather than punish them if they’re unable to engage with it. Checking in with your
players before implementing the tool and remaining flexible to changes later down the road will keep the
game fun for everyone.

Playing as Other
Curseborne is set in a modern world with characters who come from all walks of life, struggling against
a force much larger than any one of them could possibly handle on their own. The Accursed echo the
struggle in our own world by being a diverse group of people rebelling against an unjust system. If you
want to, we encourage you to play someone whose experience of the world is different than your own.
Playing someone of a different ethnicity, gender, or sexuality can broaden your experience of the world
and build empathy for others who aren’t exactly like you. If you decide you do want to play as someone
other, use the following guidelines for your game.
Research the culture, sexuality, gender, etc. that you’re considering playing. You can find firsthand
accounts of what it’s like to belong to that group to help you model your character’s reactions and
feelings about a wide variety of topics.
When portraying your character, remember that they are a person in the Curseborne world, so no matter
how strange the situation is, or how silly you’re being in the moment, the character’s experiences color
their actions, just like yours do. Try not to fall back on stereotypes and tropes about a group of people
when acting as your character, but instead find ways to incorporate their otherness into their lives in a
meaningful way.
It’s okay to drop the role sometimes. You don’t always have to have the character respond to a situation
“the way a gay person would” or “how a black person does.” In fact, the best way to react is how you
would genuinely react in the moment. It’s often better and more natural to just act as yourself sometimes,
and use the character’s background to inform other elements of play.
While portraying your character, be cognizant of the other players around you. The safety tools we’ve
included in this book are there for all types of play. If someone thinks your portrayal is offensive or
problematic, try listening to their concerns and adjusting play accordingly. This is especially true if they
happen to be part of the group your character comes from.
Designing Stories
Woodsmoke and a waft of honey appear to fill the air. Everyone wears a serious expression as
they stand around the campfire. Some have attended in rugged, outdoorsy clothing, as if they
hiked instead of getting an Uber out here like a normal person. Others are dressed in suits as
sharp as the claws, fangs, daggers, and glares readied around the roaring flames.
I break the silence. I have to.
“We all know what we have to do now. I hate it as much as you do, but the Heirs and Hydes
need cutting down and spreading out, maybe even exiling to another city.”
I wait for a rebuttal. So far, nothing’s coming. I can see Izzy smiling, breaking the solemn vow of
utter seriousness. She’s looking forward to handing these bastards their asses, and why not
after what the Hydes did to her family?
“The question is whether we take the time and do it with precision or go in wild before they
expect us. Do we act as scalpels or hammers?”
I know this question is going to draw debate and nobody’s going to be 100% happy with the
solution. But it’s important we discuss it across our five crews before we take action.
People are going to die soon because of our actions. But we have a responsibility to our
neighbors and loved ones. If Accursed are going to fuck this city up, Accursed have got to stitch
it together again. You can’t heal a gangrenous limb without cutting the rotting flesh off first.
Depending on the type of Storyguide you are, your style of storytelling could range from planning out an
entire session to writing up a few SGCs and seeing what your players throw at you during a session. Both
methods are valid and you’ll settle into your own style the longer you run games as a Storyguide.
However, there are a variety of Curseborne products that offer ideas, suggestions, outlines, and even
fully-fledged stories to run for your group. For clarity, there are four different types of story suggestions:
⦁ Story seeds: These are the short, 1-2 sentence adventure ideas. They generally are just some
quick suggestions of the kinds of story a particular game can produce.
⦁ Story hooks: These are stronger, more comprehensive ideas, generally covering a paragraph or
two. They’re designed to hook you on a specific story, but they aren’t broken down in any detail.
⦁ Story tracks: This is more like an outline of a story idea. The plot is broken down into individual
scene ideas, but the scenes are only covered in a few sentences.
⦁ Stories: A fully-detailed adventure. You can find these in jumpstarts, other Curseborne books,
or even as a self-contained product.
You can use these story suggestion terms to determine how much preparation you need for your sessions.
Some Storyguides prefer everything detailed at the level of a complete story, with fully-detailed scenes,
antagonist stat blocks, and fleshed-out descriptions. Others can improvise an entire session from just a
story seed. Most tend to float around the level of a story track, with a rough idea of what scenes a story
will cover and a few notes on each of those scenes. There’s no wrong way to prepare. Whichever level of
preparation you prefer is up to you!

Scene Types
Within every game you play characters are faced with different types of scenes to deal with. These range
from tricky puzzles to detailed fights, and all of them have different aspects which make them work. Your
approach will be different depending on how you run a game, so we’ve provided advice below on best
practices for designing different types of scenes.

Roleplay
Roleplay happens in every type of scene, but it is also its own type of scene. Roleplay is the way
characters build up relationships with one another and express what is important to their character. During
pure roleplay scenes it’s important to do some work describing the setting and where the characters find
themselves. Give the players something to react to other than the SGCs in the room. The way you
describe the scene to the player influences how they feel going into the scene. Confronting your family
head over a cup of tea in a coffee shop is different than confronting them in their home as they sit behind
a desk in front of a roaring fire. Give the players ample hints to the social dynamics happening in the
scene for them to play off of.

Puzzles
Puzzles, riddles, and the like are fun, because although they take some pre-planning on your part, during
the game you get to sit back and enjoy watching your players solve the problem presented with them. If
you find creating a puzzle or riddle difficult, you’ll get a long way by doing a quick internet search. Use
what you find online and change it up to thematically fit your game and then present it to your players.
When your players are trying to solve the puzzle, encourage them to stay in character. Doing so will bring
more interesting results than just a group of friends trying to work together to solve a cool puzzle. If your
players are struggling with solving what you’ve given them, allow them to take an investigation action,
with each piece of evidence acting as a hint. Avoid giving them the entire answer so they can have the
satisfaction of solving the puzzle themselves.

Romance
Assuming romance plays a role in your game, agree beforehand with everyone how far these scenes can
go. Most players are comfortable with a flirtatious conversation, maybe a kiss and then a fade to black,
but it’s up to your players how far they want to go.
Remember that romance is much more than sex. It’s a slow seduction over a long dinner, flirting through
texts, and a wink at your lover across the room before jumping into a fight. Physicality is only one small
part of a romance storyline, and often the least important. As always, encourage the players to use the
Bearings rules (p. XX) to adjust or skip over content that makes them feel uncomfortable.

Research
Research rarely takes up a full scene. Typically a player take an investigation action, and then you
describe how long the research takes and give them relevant information. If you want to avoid
overloading your player with information or spilling too much of the mystery, consider giving them a
brief overview of what they learn and then letting them ask you questions instead. Depending on how
successful their roll is, allow them to purchase the Question and Answer Trick to ask you some questions,
such as the following:
• Where can I find more information on this topic?
• Who is most affected by this information?
• What’s a surprising secret?
• What’s the biggest danger?
• Who is related to this?

Mystery
Unlike research, it can be a lot of fun to play through mystery scenes. Whether trolling through a house to
find clues to a murder or following tracks of an alien creature through the city streets, mystery scenes
allow characters to slowly unravel a new story and make sense of an intriguing puzzle that’s been
plaguing them. When presenting your players with a mystery scene, use some of the classic elements of a
story to inform how it unravels.
• Exposition: The players are presented with a scene to investigate. The grisly scene of a murder. A
decrepit mansion.
• Rising action: The players make a few investigation actions to learn more about what happened
or is happening. A vampire murdered the person. The mansion is filled with hundreds of dolls, each of
them bearing a name.
• Climax: The characters follow the clues to something exciting. The vampire is watching the
investigation perched on a rooftop, and a chase ensues! Each doll is named after someone who died, and
one doll has a name of someone living the player characters know.
• Resolution: The characters unravel a truth based on the climax. They catch the vampire, and it’s
their landlord. The player characters take the doll for further investigation.

Stealth
Stealth scenes are tricky, because if they are executed properly not much should happen: Your characters
sneak in somewhere, achieve their goal, and sneak out. If the place they’re sneaking into is exceedingly
dangerous, it may be important to play out the entire scene, asking for multiple stealth actions and placing
several obstacles in their way.
In this case using a map can be useful. Rather than describing every single hallway in detail, you can
show your players where their characters are and where they are going to. You should still set the scene
appropriately, especially when there is a chance for danger, but using a map allows the extremely stealthy
characters to do what they do best — sneak around the place and carefully plan out their movements.
For scenes where the environment isn’t relevant, consider asking all players for a roll and then cutting
right to the action. If most of the characters succeed, they arrive at their objective unscathed. If most of
the characters fail, start the scene with them getting caught by guards or setting off an alarm. Don’t bog
down the scene by making the characters climb the fence, pick a lock, or knock out the guard. Jump right
to the good stuff where you can cause some real trouble for the player characters.
If players want to play out a detailed stealth scene, however, you can always look at the heist rules on p.
XX.

Combat
Most good combat scenes have different aspects players can interact with to feel useful in the scene. Not
everyone focuses on making their characters as deadly as possible, and some players may feel they don’t
have a lot to do in combat. If you have characters who are less effective in combat than others, provide
different cues in the scene they can interact with to help other than just fighting. Maybe there is a victim
to save, a ritual to stop, or a computer to hack. Also, giving antagonists Status Effects and Complications
are just as important as damage.
Avoid dull combat scenes where you can. If a fight isn’t meaningful or there is a clear victor, ask yourself
if the combat is worth playing through. If the answer is no, consider skipping the combat or making it
more interesting and giving the characters something to care about.
Combat is typically the deadliest type of scene for characters, and it’s important you keep to the rules and
avoid fudging your dice rolls. Having the death of a character on your hands is a heavy burden and dice
rolls help to keep the game fair. If the player characters are facing a threat above their station, make it
clear the scene is deadly so players can consider backing down or running from the fight.

Building Encounters
A trucker mentions the name of a small town in central Illinois, and two thirds of us nod to her.
Some of us remember passing through that town at one time or another. A few of us even have
spotty, childhood memories of summers out on the lake of that town. Yet you won’t find it on any
map, new or old. You can’t drive to it. It not only vanished, it’s like it never existed. It’s one of
those whatchamacallit situations, like the Berenstine Bears, and how we used to think it was
Berenstain, and how we thought it was Berenstein before that, and every time it changes, it
even infects the print of our raggedy-old books.
But I’ve heard — and I’m not alone in this — that the town is still there. You just have to make
the right offering. Do the right dance, say the right words, and pay the tollkeeper.
I hear it’s wonderful there, for people like us. A place without judgement. Where you never want
to leave.
But that’s not where we are right now, is it?
The Accursed are more than average people in the world of Curseborne. The nature of curses means they
attract danger and power in equal measure. Player characters are generally extraordinary people who
encounter extraordinary threats, and many encounters end with physical conflict. They’re capable of
much more than just two-fisted action, however. They excel and attract conflict in all three areas of
action.

Action-Adventure
Physical encounters are typically violent combat, but action-adventure covers all forms of physical peril,
dramatic movement, violence, and round-by-round action. It’s important to consider who is involved once
initiative is rolled. More importantly, you should consider what the participants want to accomplish and
what it would take to escalate things to violence.
Set the stakes at the beginning of each encounter so that the players can decide when they need to
escalate. Two families both trying to steal a powerful artifact is a tense situation that can erupt into
violence at any time. Challenging another Accursed to a social media competition to get the most likes is
much less likely to turn nasty.
Then you need to decide which characters are involved, where they are, and what they’re doing during the
encounter. Innocents may flee or try to hunker down, and minor threats may try to pin down or distract
the characters while the main antagonist prepares for a major attack.
When trying to decide which antagonists to include, how many, and what threat levels, you should take
into consideration not just how powerful the antagonists are, but also the capabilities of the player
characters. The characters’ abilities and equipment make a huge difference in their capabilities.
Remembering who has what might be difficult; consider making cheat sheets of each player character’s
capabilities so they remember what they have available, and you know what the characters are capable of.
In general, decide which antagonist archetype to use in an encounter based on the needs of the story and
how generally powerful the characters are, but refine that encounter by considering the characters’
capabilities in other areas. This also goes for how many of each antagonist type to include.

Tuning the Severity of Combat

Storyguides determine how dangerous to make fights when they sit down to plan the exciting action-
adventure parts of their games. Depending on how the players choose to build their characters, this task
can range from straightforward to a complicated puzzle. Fights should be fun and engaging, but they
shouldn’t be too easy, either. Unless a group is particularly turned off by the idea of combat, most play
groups want an action scene to last more than a few rounds.
At the starting level, a combat-focused group can handle antagonists up to the Terror template. In its
primary source of expertise, the antagonist has +2 Enhancement, meaning it will readily push through
anything lower than Defense 3. For a group less focused on combat abilities, keep antagonists to no
stronger than a Fright. Bear these in mind when designing an encounter — it never hurts to double-check
what’s on your player’s sheets before you plan. This way you’re not throwing something at them that’s
too hard or too easy.
Sometimes, an important antagonist brings friends to the party. A daring group of heroes can expect that
the dastardly villain opposing them will employ dirty tricks, traps, and have a deadly henchman at her
beck and call. In addition to other named threats accompanying a chronicle antagonist, they’ll bring along
backup — usually in the form of Shivers.

Investigations
Antagonists oppose characters in investigations in two ways. The first is to obscure clues and hinder the
characters’ investigations, typically in the form of make evidence harder to find or adding Complications
to investigation actions. If antagonists are successful in obscuring clues from the characters, consider
making the leads related to the antagonists themselves. Let the characters know that crime scenes have
been tampered with or that information has been erased from their archives. Evidence can reveal the
antagonists’ means, methods, and skills. Complications might alert the antagonists that they’re being
pursued or identify who the characters are.
The Storyguide doesn’t need anything beyond the guidance on p. XX if the antagonists aren’t present in
an investigation scene with the characters. Antagonists will do whatever the Storyguide needs to justify
the difficulty and Complications of their investigation actions. Pay attention to the dice pools of the
supporting characters involved, as well as any additional information. Use those details as evidence and
additional information. As the characters investigate, they learn more about their enemies.
Characters may also compete against antagonists to finish the investigation first or most accurately. Each
participating team of investigators needs to accumulate the most clues as quickly as possible. The
characters construct an argument to defend a cousin against the wrath of their family elders while their
rival collects evidence against them as the date of the family dinner approaches. Rival researchers race for
the most obscure mystical information.
When the characters directly interact with their antagonists during investigations, the Storyguide needs to
communicate with the players to keep the action flowing. Opposing hackers from rival Lineages combing
through the same network to see who can find the hidden files first while simultaneously leaving digital
traps and dead ends for each other can be just as tense as any action scene, but requires clearly
establishing the stakes and consequences of each action.
The action economy is important in these situations as well. Multiple antagonists working together can
spread out and find clues more quickly than a single investigator. The Storyguide should consider
appointing a lead investigator for each group of antagonists and improve their Enhancement or let each
member of the group freely access each other’s Edges or powers.

Influence
Sometimes antagonists thwart characters through social maneuvering or false information. Consider
having long-term antagonists act in ways that antagonize the characters without devolving into a fight.
That said, things might still end up throwing punches at each other, and that’s okay. You still want to
consider what the antagonist does in a fight. Does she run away when she sees that talks have gone south?
Does she call in reinforcements to distract the characters? Does she fight with all her might? How does
she escalate in response to violence? Characters engage in influence in three primary ways. They try to
influence specific targets in one-on-one discussions, sway crowds, or manage organizations.
Whether convincing the black sheep of the family to lend her aid to their investigation or asking after an
Outcast’s criminal connections in a smoky bar, one on one interactions form an important part of
building social encounters. For the Storyguide, this means coming up with a colorful cast of characters
that your players will want to meet and talk with. Recurring antagonists can develop bonds with the
player characters as well as allies. Utilize them to give the players authorial control over the development
of their characters’ relationships.
Characters sometimes engage with an entire group. This might be on a personal scale, such as giving a
speech to a crowded room of angry Accursed punks, but it could also be on a greater level, such as giving
a rousing speech to inspire the rest of your crew. Your character might also flit from person to person at
an elegant family gala. For social groups, treat their Integrity according to the highest of all characters
involved. If the aforementioned character is trying to talk down that gang of punks, and their leader hates
her, it’s unlikely she’ll have a lot of sway over his followers. The same applies for a speech or
presentation. After seeing the results of the player’s roll, the Storyguide might decide that a particular
character in the crowd was especially swayed and move on to a one-on-one interaction. This presents an
excellent opportunity for the Storyguide to introduce new characters, as well as give social-focused
characters a chance to flex their skills.
Sometimes, characters will face the stodgiest social opponent possible: an organization. When dealing
with a bureaucracy or large family, treat this as a staged action. Depending on what the character is trying
to do, and how enormous and unfeeling the bureaucracy or family is, it may have Advantage, and
therefore require Advantage to deal with. A group of magical researches can be dealt with on a personal
level, but the entire Sorcerer family has Advantage against such tactics.

Remember: Consent is Key

No matter what it says in an antagonist’s stat block, the players’ characters cannot
be forced to do anything without their players’ consent. They can always accept a
hard bargain or ignore the results of the roll (p. XX).

Mood and Feel

Gladys goes next. They have a shock of aquamarine hair. Gladys says that every few months
they have a nightmare that maybe is not a nightmare. They wake up paralyzed with someone
sitting on their chest, stealing their breath. They go to classes. Life resumes. But every month
they become more lethargic. The doctor just says they have night terrors and sleep apnea and
should lose some weight.
I smile sympathetically. I know Gladys is already fucked. They’ve got the wrong kinda Dead
targeting them, and…
Actually, no. This isn’t it for Gladys. I know what I’ll do. I’ll speak to her after the meeting, and
then I’ll get my crew on this.
Maybe one of us can save her. It’ll be good to do some good for a change.
After building your encounters, how do you give them the right feeling of relentless curses and terrifying
family drama? What’s the best way to get the right mood across to the players, to make them feel
immersed in the setting? How, in other words, do you make the game feel like Curseborne? At its heart,
Curseborne is a mixture of hopepunk and horror, with a dash of urban fantasy and romance thrown in.
But it’s more than just those things. We’ll break it all down for you.
Let’s start with hopepunk. Punk was a raw, dissonant, and transgressive musical aesthetic, and literary
movements have co-opted that aesthetic, typically by adding a “punk” suffix to another genre. It’s hard to
determine what unifies all of these to justify the “punk” component, but often they were dystopic,
featuring untrustworthy people, destructive anger, and the collapse of outdated systems of authority.
Hopepunk still contains the grim and dark elements of traditionally punk stories, but instead of fighting
for personal gain, characters fight for positive change. Instead of angry pessimism, people use radical
kindness. And instead of looking out for themselves, protagonists consider communal responses to
challenges. It’s still punk — tearing down the status quo is very much on the table, here — but it’s a
different approach to punk.
Curseborne also has a core of gothic horror. The feeling of creeping terror and grief-fueled rage that
causes you to do something truly reprehensible. The ruins of locations lead people towards horrifying
actions and relentless mental anguish. Gothic horror is the mirror held up to each Accursed, reminding
them that they’re truly damned. It’s the creeping doom telling them the world is a bleak and hopeless
place, made all the more awful by their presence. The seduction of forbidden arts, the taste of sweet flesh,
and the obligatory self-loathing that follows are all parts of this theme.
This desperate darkness combines with hopepunk to fuel your character. The true tragedy of each
Accursed’s story is they’re trapped in a world tinged with the intoxicating promises of living a debased
life free from human morality, while actively fighting against their own curse. They’re their own worst
enemy and they know it.
Urban fantasy is fantasy set in recognizable modern cities, towns, or urban areas. It’s grounded in the
contemporary world while also incorporating supernatural elements. It’s also aggressively modern. The
Lineages might have originated from ancient curses and old intrigues, but modern Accursed are obsessed
with modernity. They convert ancient legends into modern memes, utilize digital tools to uncover deadly
secrets, embrace the fleeting morality of their mortal friends, and constantly balance the mundane and the
sublime.
Unlike traditional fantasy, urban fantasy is grittier and darker, making it a perfect companion to horror.
However, protagonists in urban fantasy tend to have some special something that gives them an edge
against the horrific things they encounter. The aesthetic blends ancient folklore and urban mythology,
offering a more heroic edge to the relentless monstrosity of pure horror.
Romance is, ironically, unloved by a lot of other games. Love, wanting to be loved, and genuine human
connections often take a back seat to horror or violence, but love and romance is more than sexual
relationships. It’s family bonds, deepening of friendships, and the touchless seduction from an engaging
conversation.
Curseborne stories are punctuated with love and romance to give the characters something to care about,
which helps it blend well with hopepunk. It makes for a more interesting story if every Accursed has
something or someone to lose. The world might tell you bad things always happen to good people, but
you’ll be damned if something you truly care for gets snatched away without a fight.
Now that you have an idea of the building blocks of Curseborne’s mood and feel, here’s some advice on
how to adjust and tweak your encounters to get them into the right spirit.

Keep Things Scary

Bringing aspects of horror into your game can be one of the most difficult aspects of a Storyguide’s job.
Yes, characters will experience horror in game and it will be terrible for them, but as a player you’re still
sitting in a room with a group of friends playing make believe. Breaking through that barrier of reality to
have your players (at least in part) live in that terror with their characters can be a difficult task, so here’s
some advice on how to handle it.
Set the mood. If the characters are venturing into a haunted house, dim the lights in the room, light a few
candles, and introduce the scene in hushed tones. Make your environment as close to where the characters
are going as possible so your players feel what their characters feel. Music and sound are also powerful
tools for tapping into emotions. Playing a creepy playlist of music or haunted house sounds can help add
to the immersion of your scene.
Play on what creeps your players out. If a player has an aversion to porcelain dolls, add a few into the
haunted house you’re running. Or if they don’t like spiders, make sure that’s the beast the antagonist
breaks apart into. Assuming your players haven’t nixed the content using the Bearings rules — which
means you should not use it under any circumstances — play on what a person dislikes out of character to
put them in the horror headspace.
Play on emotions. Horror isn’t scary if the people experiencing it don’t care. Sometime rather than
attempting to create a scary scene, it’s more important to create a meaningful scene with elements of fear.
It’s rare that a person feels a single emotion at any one time, and if you can get a player to emotionally
invest in a scene, it’s likely they’ll feel some level of fear when confronted with possible losing
something their character cares about. Horror doesn’t mean only feeling the cold fear of a dark figure
following you home at night, but it is also the pang of losing a best friend, the sorrow of a hopeless
situation, and the panic brought forth from anger.
Stay serious. It’s easy to devolve into making jokes with your players — you’re playing a game with a
group of friends and everyone’s enjoying themselves. So during horror scenes, take the lead in keeping
the tone serious and solemn. Avoid comedic descriptions and address the character’s actions with the
weight required by a life-or-death situation. Policing other’s behavior isn’t necessary, but showing your
players by your actions that this scene is something to take seriously helps them get into the same
headspace.

Look to the New and the Old

When designing any encounter, there’s a pressure to expose your players to something new, something
novel they’ve never seen before. This is a good impulse, new is good and you should strive to keep you
narrative fresh. When Storyguiding Curseborne, look at current trends for inspiration in your game. Your
Outcast could use their magic to punish the CEO of a polluting company, or your Dead could possess a
government official to stop them inciting racial violence. Look to things people care about now, and find
ways to inject them into your stories.
This isn’t to say the Accursed won’t get caught in the politics of the Accursed families, not by a long
shot. If your character’s family is going to war with another, you’d better expect your character to get
caught up in the fight. In fact, they must. How they balance petty supernatural wars while also fighting
the systematic oppression of the world at large is where the magic of the game lies. You must decide
what’s important, what you’re fighting for, and do everything in your power to summon it into reality.
With the push to explore that’s new and fresh, however, there’s also a drive to ignore tried and tested
clichés, because they’ve been done before — but classics are classics for a reason. One way to add
novelty into your game is to use classic horror tropes and turn them on their head. Bring them into the
now and examine what classic horror means in a new world.
Using tropes creates a build-up of excitement for your players as they’ve recognized things they’ve seen
before. The sweet child walking the street alone at night must be evil, there is someone behind you in the
car, this abandoned house is haunted. Players get invested in stories they understand and get a sense of
accomplishment for figuring out what’s happening. Then, when you turn the tables and everything isn’t
what it seems the enjoyment changes from knowing the familiar to genuine surprise!
Here are some examples of tropes, and how you could change them up for your story:
• The final girl. Trope: One girl survives a grisly night after all her friends die. Twist: She’s
actually the murderer.
• The innocent child. Trope: That child is evil or possessed by evil. Twist: The spirit is protecting
the child from something far worse, a real evil.
• The house is haunted. Trope: The abandoned house is haunted. Twist: The haunted house is
actually a Shattered Space.

Embrace the Weird and Romantic

There’s always a lurking darkness the Accursed refuse to look too closely at lest it consume them. The
mind-breaking reality of their situation and the whisper in the back of their consciousness from something
far more corrupt than their deepest, most denied impulses. This thing lives in all Accursed: it is strange, it
is weird, and just maybe it comes from the Outside.
The Outside exemplifies Curseborne’s embrace of unknowable power and weirdness. It’s a place and
thing apart from the concepts of time, space, and matter. If the Accursed are unlucky enough to peel back
the layers of reality buffering them from horrific truth, they get a small taste of the alien. A realm, a
creature, a Shattered Space bubbling with odious terror. When experiencing anything from the Outside
it’s filtered through their mind and takes a form which makes some semblance of sense for the human
mind. But this concept is jumbled and corrupt, it’s nonsensical in its sense, and it demands attention
despite every ounce in a person’s body screaming to look away.
But one way to deal with this weird, eldritch horror is to ground yourself in real, human relationships,
which leads to the romantic. As mentioned above, we’re not just talking about sex here: it’s love in all its
myriad forms, and your relationship with your best friend can be just as comforting as a lover’s caress.
Find out what level of romance works for your table and use it in your game.
One of the Hungry may lust for blood. She finds the very scent of humans intoxicating, a strange
addiction she subdues every day to keep everyone around her safe. Then, once a week, in the privacy of
her own home, there’s a release. This doesn’t come fast, she takes her time — gently warming the
bloodbag sous vide, carefully opening the bag as to not spill a single drop, reveling in the seduction
denied for an entire week until, finally, she drinks.
A Sorcerer’s magic isn’t elegant, but a messy thing he has yet to control. He works, he suffers, he toils to
understand his art, all while working minimum wage to keep the lights on in his run-down, one room
apartment. But every day he comes in. He always orders a flat white and the Sorcerer always spells his
name with a smiley face above the i. One day the Sorcerer will kiss that boy and it will make all the toil
worth it. He knows it.

Using the Rules

We’ve all been to those slumber parties. They start out innocent enough, all light-as-a-feather-
stiff-as-a-board. Light incantations. Harmless strangeness. Then someone inevitably pulls out a
forbidden book, swiped from a grandparent’s attic or that secret part of the public library, and
then the real Weird happens, and everyone’s parents scramble in the middle of the night to
drive their children back home, and kids will be kids. We’ve all been there. We’ve all been
children.
We’ve all been a part of one of those families.
Except now we’re grownups and we’re doing the same shit. We opened the wrong the book, the
wrong door, or the wrong seal on the wrong ancient fucking artifact, and the walls are closing in.
The Outside is coming.
And this time, mommy and daddy aren’t going to drive us home. They’re going to delight in our
misfortune.
Storypath, at its core, is a system that wants to drive the story forward at every step. Failed a roll? Get a
Momentum and describe how the failure creates new obstacles and opportunities in play. Succeeded on a
roll but failed to buy off a Complication? Now there’s a new element to the story to deal with. Got
everything you wanted? Way to go, now you’re one step closer to the solution to all your problems. Each
section of the rules should provide opportunities to introduce new elements to the game or allow players
to introduce ideas they want to see come as a consequence of their actions.

Rule Zero
A common (if sometimes unwritten or unspoken) rule in every gaming group is that everyone is part of
the story and should be working together to come to decisions about how to play the game. We call that
rule zero. When a written game rule doesn’t make sense, or two powers might interact in such a way as
to cause confusion, the group must come to a consensus on how to adjudicate the rule. In general, you are
the final arbiter on the matter of rules confusion and interpretations. Sometimes a set of rules may interact
in such a way as to cause players to feel like their powers aren’t useful, or they don’t work the way they
want them to. Players should always be empowered to discuss rules and powers with the Storyguide to
come to a consensus on what’s best for the group. Everyone should feel like their characters are an
important part of the story and their abilities are interesting and fun. If a power or rule doesn’t make sense
or causes undo confusion, feel free to rewrite that rule to fit the group’s play style and make it fun for
everyone involved.

Changing Character Creation

It’s possible that the Paths as presented might not give players exactly the
character they want, such as the Skills and Attribute offerings. We’ve designed the
 Paths in such a way that players are guided to pick elements that reinforce their
character and give them a large enough dice pool that they’re likely to succeed in
things characters in those Paths are likely to succeed in. However, if a player really
has a strong opinion, there are a couple of things you can do to adjust Paths.
Swap Skills: The easiest one is to change one of the Skills offered in the Path for
another. Players can get Skills from all three Paths, and even get some bonus Skill
dots at the end of character creation, but the player might want to make sure a
specific Skill is a Path Skill for things such as getting bonus dice from Injury Levels.
If that’s the case, and you agree, you can let them change one Skill for another on
the list.
Untethered Attribute Dots: Similarly, some players might prefer to simply have
a pool of Attribute dots instead of having them assigned by Path choice. There’s a
possibility using this method will result in characters who can’t actually
accomplish things their characters should be good at, but if you and your players
prefer a more freeform option, you can ignore the Attribute dots awarded by
minor and major Paths and simply let the player allocate an additional 18 dots
after putting 1 in each Attribute.
Untethered Skill Dots: Because Skills need to be coded as Path or not-Path for
Injury Levels and other effects, we highly recommend against doing this for Skills,
but if you absolutely must, you can also untether Skill dots, ignoring references to
Skill dots for Paths and awarding 16 Skill dots in Step Five instead of 4.

When to Roll Dice

You only roll dice in Curseborne when something interesting might happen. But what does that mean?
How do you know what will be interesting before the results come in? When should you roll, and when
shouldn’t you?
The simplest rule to keep in mind is: If you already know what needs to happen, don’t bother rolling.
If the group needs to drive to the crime scene to uncover the next step in the mystery and nothing’s
stopping them from getting there, there’s no point in asking for Pilot actions. It’s the same mentality as to
why leads are always a difficulty 0 roll for characters to find — dice should never stop the story from
happening. They should only propel the story forward or make it more interesting.
That said, there are some specific circumstances where it might be unclear when to roll.
• “I don’t know what should happen next.” If you as Storyguide aren’t sure what should happen
next, then let the dice direct events for a bit. Ask the players to make an appropriate roll and see what
their success or failure inspires. Sometimes the fun of Curseborne is letting the random elements of the
game take your story.
• “Both success and failure are boring.” If neither success nor failure are intriguing, you have
two options. The first is to skip right to the next scene which does have something interesting — it’s a fast
and easy solution, but it might make for a disjointed narrative in certain circumstances. You can also ask
for a roll with a low difficulty but a Moderate or Major Complication. This will push the results to more
likely be a disaster or a success with consequences, which can liven up an otherwise drab set of results.
• “I need the characters to fail here.” This can be tricky, because players rarely like to have
agency taken away from their characters. Remember that the Accursed are designed to be competent, and
even though failure is always an option, they are more likely to succeed (even if it’s with consequences)
than they are to fail. Still, once in a while you might need to have the characters fail to move the story
forward, such as being captured by a monstrous Primal or letting a key character get away to come back
later. In these cases, you can encourage players to accept failure or disaster, perhaps even reminding them
that gives them Momentum for their pool. But you can also do it the other way around: give them
Momentum and then tell them they’ve failed. Just don’t play that card too often.

Failure
A failed roll doesn’t always have to mean that the character failed to do the action she was trying; just that
she did not receive the result she wanted. That can introduce a new plot point to the story. When the
character trying to hack the system gets in, she doesn’t even have an opportunity to find the information
she’s looking for as her presence shuts down the whole system and she has to figure out how to turn
everything back on. The code breaker figures out the cipher the enemy is using to send messages, but
instead of learning her plans, he discovers these codes are being used to send secret information between
the enemy and a member of a rival family who will be furious to learn that someone is eavesdropping on
her private affairs.
Failure (and disaster) also lead to Momentum. Whenever a player fails a roll, she generates one
Momentum for the pool, two if she chooses to accept a disaster. Momentum is a key component of
Curseborne and making failure meaningful. Keep in mind that the Momentum pool is intended to be
spent. There’s no benefit in allowing the pool to overflow with Momentum. In fact, if the players choose
to spend half the pool in a single scene, they will all earn experience.
The players should feel free to use Momentum judiciously. If they are afraid to spend it, remind them that
if they aren’t generating Momentum, then they are doing just fine. If they are failing their rolls, then they
are remiss not to use Momentum they generate to prevent failure in the future. That’s what it’s there for.

Complications
Complications add a wrinkle to the story and provide a way to implement success with consequences. Not
every roll needs a Complication, but consider peppering them into dramatic scenes to introduce tension
and foils to the characters’ successes. Even Minor Complications can introduce tension into a scene where
the players thought they had everything under control.
Tell the player before they roll any dice what the Complication is, and what the side effect of not buying
off that Complication might be. This isn’t to discourage the action so much as to warn the player that the
story may take a strange turn in response to what she is about to do. Complications should not be a
punishment for an action either. The character successfully carried out their action the way the player
intended; the Complication just adds a new element or changes the environment. These new elements
might feel punishing, such as taking damage or having to deal with additional enemies, but Complications
should never deprive the player of her successful action.
Think of Complications not as additional difficulty on the action so much as how inevitable a thing is to
happen: A Minor Complication is easily bypassed and a Major one covers hard to prevent circumstances.
Example: Darby is rolling to have her character pick a door lock. The door itself has an alarm
on it, that when opened will go off. Setting off the alarm is a Major Complication unless the
characters know the alarm is there, which reduces it to a Moderate Complication. Setting off the
alarm doesn’t stop the door from being open, but it introduces a new plot element: The enemy
knows someone has unlocked their door.
The following are some examples of the kinds of results you get from failing to buy off a Complication.
Action/Adventure
• Suffer damage
• Guard dogs come rushing around the corner
• Reinforcements arrive on the scene
• The character falls prone
• A passage is blocked, and the characters must find a new way through
• An enemy gains an Advantage in combat
• The characters get turned around and lose time during a chase
• Strange creatures are alerted to the characters’ presence
Investigation
• An enemy learns an important piece of information that inconveniences the characters
• A recurring enemy learns a vital piece of information about the characters
• The character loses an important item
• Important evidence is damaged, and the characters must find a way to fix it
• Someone else is investigating the scene and it becomes a race against time
• A suspect learns they are being investigated
Influence
• An important character decides they do not trust the players’ characters
• A bond is broken
• An enemy’s plight feels sympathetic to the character
• An enemy learns vital information about one of the characters’ bonds
• A character falls in love with an enemy
• An enemy falls in love with a character

Difficulty vs. Complication

When trying to decide how hard to make the difficulty on an action, think about what the consequences of
the action could be. Consider both how difficult the action should be and the consequences of failure
along with what kinds of problems might arise if the action succeeds. High difficulty actions are ones that
take a lot of skill and preparations to overcome, and the consequences of failure are the interesting
elements that will drive the story forward. If the action itself is relatively simple, but the consequence of
taking the action in the first place leads to interesting consequences, consider making that a Complication
on the action rather than an increase in difficulty. Remember that Complications do not happen unless the
action is successful (or a disaster is chosen by the player), so a high difficulty action paired with a
Complication may not ever see that Complication come to light.
Without Enhancement, hits are relatively difficult to come by. This is done on purpose — Enhancement is
the way that characters shine — but even the most skilled character is unlikely to net more than 3 natural
hits on a roll without some luck. The extra hits that come from Enhancement guarantee the character is
likely to do well on the action, allowing them to overcome even the most difficult challenges.
In general, the combination of difficulty and Complication should not exceed 6 if you want the characters
to have a chance at overcoming the challenge without special circumstances. That isn’t to say that you
can’t have a high difficulty action come with a high Complication. Sometimes the circumstances call for a
hard-to-accomplish action that has inevitable results. Just keep in mind that such actions should be rare
and meaningful when they show up.

Difficulty Instead of Antagonists

Although the antagonist rules are easy to use, you can decide to use difficulty and Complications to
represent small antagonists who are roadblocks rather than full antagonists with stat blocks.
Sometimes a Storyguide character is in the way but isn’t there to fight, or taking them out requires only a
single action. In this case, instead of figuring out all the mechanics for the antagonist, you can simply set
a difficulty to deal with them and allow the players to decide if they are going to talk their way around the
character, fight them, or use some other action to deal with the character to overcome the difficulty. Set
Complications on the action to represent the antagonist getting in a pot shot or adding a foil to the
characters’ plans before they bypass them.

Advantage
Curseborne uses Advantage to compare large differences between characters and objects. In general,
Advantage doesn’t apply unless a rule explicitly says it does, but how and when to apply Advantage
outside the explicit rules is entirely up to the group. Storyguides may wish to apply Advantage to an
action a character is taking when she’s attempting to overcome something that would normally outclass
her. For example, we normally don’t discuss the Speed Advantage of a car, especially in relation to other
cars — two cars are relatively the same Speed Advantage, so we don’t even bother considering it. But if
someone is attempting to catch a car on foot, then we might want to consider that the person on foot has
less Speed Advantage than the car and factor it into the action. Doing so is entirely up to the Storyguide
though, as unless the car specifies its Speed Advantage, how much it conveys and how to overcome it is
entirely up to the Storyguide. A Storyguide may determine that there is no reasonable way for a person on
foot to catch a car going highway speeds, and so applies three or more Speed Advantage to it so the car
automatically wins, and there is no roll for the action.
Advantage is at its core a comparison tool used instead of rolling lots of dice to show a major difference
in capability. Having a higher amount of Advantage than something else means that you gain
Enhancement on your action, and having a lower amount of Advantage means you increase your
difficulty. If you’re unsure about how and when to award Advantage, feel free to only apply it when the
rules explicitly state it.

Setting the Scene

This room… needs work. Terrible furnishing. Godawful designs. Who chose this rug? I mean,
eugh.
Thank God for me. Thank God for curses. A little sorcery here, a little spell there and we’re
going to reinvent this space. We’re going to make it magical.
I’m going to make this hovel into a home. I’m going to populate the shelves with the rarest of
books (I know an excellent dealer in a hidden cranny off downtown, just our secret), the walls
with the most valuable of paintings (magicked away from one gallery in Osaka, another in
Dubai, another in Madrid — nobody will make the connection), and furniture to make King Louis
the whatever jealous (I haven’t sourced them yet, but a quick Google won’t hurt).
There’s going to be a fee. There always is. Thing is, one doesn’t always know the cost until one
has taken the offering. I’m not saying I always charge into these things blindly (I’m not stupid),
but sometimes deals come with hidden fees, surprising interest rates, and penalties for late
repayment, if you get my meaning.
That’s why you’re taking out insurance. You’re dealing with me. I won’t cheat you, darling. I’ll
work magic for you and this pokey little dive and you can feel safe in my hands. Yes, you’ll owe
me, but you’ve got to admit it’s a little more exciting than owing IKEA a monthly payment.
Be not afraid, child. Trust me, and if you can’t trust me, trust the family I represent.
Storyguides will want to consider how things might appear in our world, and then tweak the edges to
provide that vital air of tension, strangeness, and threat that makes things feel suitably Curseborne.
Take an office setting on a summer’s day. When it’s hot, the air conditioning clunks, shudders, and makes
a terrible grinding sound before giving up the ghost. You’re stuck in this stifling place where the windows
have been bolted shut. According to the manager, it’s to prevent any sensitive paperwork getting caught
in a breeze and blowing free from the building. According to talk around the watercooler, HR sealed
everyone in to prevent yet another suicide attempt.
Immediately, players will wonder why this office is so dystopian. Is there a business on the ninth floor
that doesn’t appear on the brass plaques in the lobby? Is the night security guard one of the Dead in
possession of a host? Is it true that unclaimed post gets filtered through pneumatic tubes to a department
locked behind a level four security door, and the workers within scan every letter for codes? Why does
the CEO of the biggest corporation want the building to be so hot all the damn time?
Take a city suburb caught in a downpour. The drains overflow with scum and puddles in the road become
filthy lakes. Traffic is rerouted, causing all manner of stresses as workers come home late from work or
decide to stay in the city overnight. A jogger out in the rain sprints up your front steps and hammers on
the door. He claims to have seen a kid get washed down an open manhole. As you rush out to investigate,
you can’t help but be transfixed as the flood forms a hypnotic vortex of muck and water pouring into the
sewer, and into a place beyond even that.
Suddenly, the weather is more than just inclement; it’s aggressive and threatens the community’s
stability. On the plus side, the floods in the street wash away evidence of crimes you committed the night
before. Less good is how the rainfall has an unerring way of making bodies in shallow graves emerge.
They call them “the dogwalker’s surprise” in your city, though if they spent any time in your crawlspace,
it wouldn’t be much of a novelty.
The Accursed affect the world around them in subtle ways. A city’s atmosphere changes depending on
who you are and what you’re doing, and this in turn affects what others feel and perceive.
All these things could be in our world, but in Curseborne, they are.

The Airport
For some, the airport is an alluring place where dreams begin. For others, it’s a transitional place with no
heart. Nobody stops here for long. Modern day security measures ensure no one at the airport feels at
ease. Every passenger’s in a rush to their gate. The section between border control and your destination is
a mundane nothing space where you effectively exist between worlds, yet there’s no thrill to this.
The sad truth is the excitement of air travel has evaporated.
The Accursed use airports with some hesitation. When one lives a life of misfortune, trusting your life to
a steel and aluminum tube hurtling through the sky seems a bad idea. But the spaces themselves are
common neutral grounds where opposing factions break bread. Nobody can afford to piss off security in a
place like this.
Airports are common gateways to the Outside and are known for their Shattered Spaces. They’re an
architectural symbol of a crossroads between elements, with features that boast blandness and repetition.
It’s easy to find oneself in an interstitial walkway, or in a corridor where all the doors are marked STAFF
ONLY, locked behind keypads, or invitingly ajar. What would happen if you stepped through? Would
you ever find your way back?
Common Threats: Cops, Drones, the Empty
Common Curses: Making a phone call to a loved one before takeoff is a way to invoke personal
misfortune. Carry a pair of dice with you onto the plane. If you don’t roll snake eyes, your flight will
reach its destination safely. Never use the first restroom you see unless you want to risk getting locked in
during “cleaning.”

Complications
• Winding passages can lead to rapid disorientation and ending up some place you’d rather not be.
• Security is everywhere here, so don’t expect to commit a crime and go without notice.
• Wandering the airport without photographic ID is a good way to get hauled into a small room for
questioning.

Enhancements
• Security serves double duty, protecting you from all but the most subtle of attackers.
• WiFi is ever present here and there’s always someone you can ask for information about flights,
arrivals, and departures, even if they’re just as lost as you.

Example: Hayes Airport

After the plane crash five years ago, Hayes Airport has remained in a permanent state of semi-completion.
The main runway and supporting terminal are all highly modern, boasting sleek transit, flashing screens
advertising innumerable designer brands you can pick up duty free, and a maze of restaurants, stores, and
relaxation options. The second terminal is an antique dating back to the 1970s, with all the claustrophobic
décor and time-worn uniforms dating back to that time. Why do the staff insist on appearing locked in a
specific era?
Regardless, the third terminal is worse. It only boasts a handful of destinations and has a shorter runway
than the others. Canvas sheeting blocks the view but not the cold, staff seem absent, and travelers here
aren’t interested in grabbing a cup of coffee or a chat. Just visiting gives you an emotional memory of
what happened to the once-adjacent fourth terminal when the MJN Air flight, loaded with passengers,
smashed into it. The smell of heated metal blended with burning flesh is seared onto every surface here.
Some claim that if you try operating a mobile phone near the wreckage of the fourth terminal, you can
hear the minutes before Captain Crieff sent his plane into a dive. The Dead say you can even speak to the
cockpit crew, despite the disaster taking place over five years ago.
Arts District
This district, cloistered away in an old part of the city, where marble replaces concrete and a pedestrian
system takes the space for traffic, is where the rich and rarefied go to socialize and make deals, and where
the less influential go to entreat for favors or simply admire the arts on display. Whether seeking out a
portrait gallery, a museum, a theater, an antique store, or a library with hidden recesses and archives, the
arts district is the place to go.
The arts district appeals to every sense. During the daytime, one can see the creatively designed buildings,
walk the streets, and make plans for the evening, or hide away in a café or reading room with a good
book. Entertainers play acoustic music outside stores and galleries. Show posters advertise plays new and
classic, sometimes even boasting famous actors descending from their Hollywood perches to tread the
boards the old-fashioned way. When night comes, the arts district is a study in contrasts. Visit on a
weeknight and one might encounter tourists shuffling from restaurants to theaters and back to bars a
couple of hours later, but for the most part the streets are empty. It’s on the weekend, when the city’s
residents can put work behind them, that this area truly comes alive.
Among the Accursed, Sorcerers find themselves drawn to this part of the city. It provides them with the
knowledge they crave and gives them a vantage point from which to look down on others. Behind the
glossy stonework and cobbled streets are dusty rooms where brokers trade in relics and secrets, and
creatures offer eldritch promises in exchange for favors to be determined later. The Sphinx, Archivists,
and other families frequent this district, but Sorcerers see them as tourists. They are the masters of
knowledge.
Common Threats: Cursed Plaything, Hungry Parasite, Imps, Monster Traps, Sorcerer Tyrant, the Bandy
Man
Common Curses: Actors ought never speak the name of the Scottish play before a performance. It’s
considered bad luck to allow anyone to witness an artwork before its grand unveiling. A guarantee of
good fortune involves inviting some of society’s downtrodden elements to your show. The more tickets
you give away to the poor, the more curses might alleviate. Always walk around the museum clockwise,
despite directions to the contrary, or a relic curse might attach itself to you.

Complications
• The museums and galleries offer solitude, which is all well and good until you’re desperately
trying to find someone who might assist you.
• The play being performed has a way of transfixing its audience, while their pockets are emptied
of money and minds are emptied of free will.
• The relics you can acquire here stand a good chance of being cursed or sought by someone even
more powerful than yourself.

Enhancements
• The arts have always been a good way for a troubled soul to decompress.
• If there’s a secret you’re seeking, this is the place to find it.
• It’s marginally easier to find a servant of the Outside here than most other locations. Whether
that’s an Enhancement or a Complication very much depends on your needs.

Example: The Prince’s Theater

The Prince’s Theater has always been a cultural hotspot in the city, but despite its age (it recently
celebrated its 75th anniversary) and the pride everyone has for the place, it’s falling apart at the seams.
Rot has set into the stage, the chairs are falling apart with mold, and just last year the stage manager
Rebecca Staine found herself having to battle a spontaneous backstage fire that risked consuming the
venue and everyone in it. The venue survived, but Staine remains a patient of the Ruby Valley Hospital
(p. XX).
Accursed with a love of drama still use the theater as a meeting spot for exchanges of information,
objects, and favors, all while watching performers put on another classic. One of the box seats has long
been held for a Premiere named Federico, but as far as anyone knows, he’s never attended a show even as
he preserves his section of the theater.
For the anniversary celebrations this year, the resident Prince’s Company acting troupe have embarked on
a tour de force of a different Shakespeare play every day for thirty days, starting with The Taming of the
Shrew and ending with The Tempest. They’re hoping this herculean effort will draw new eyes and money
to the dilapidated theater. Random Keepers of the Broken Vine and Reeves have been receiving
anonymous emails and texts, however, which are starting to ripple throughout Accursed society. The
Outcasts are being told to “BEWARE MIDSUMMER’S NIGHTMARE” while the Sorcerers are
receiving notices to “WELCOME MIDSUMMER’S DREAM.” Nobody is sure what this could mean, but
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is set up as the tenth performance of the run.

City Hospital
Nobody wants to visit the hospital, but it’s rare to find someone who hasn’t needed to at some point in
their life. Accursed or not, injuries, illnesses, or simple visits bring everyone to this temple to health and
sickness, with both permeating the structure in a visceral way. Ammonia and chlorine mix to bleach out
the smells of sickness. Patients on trolleys beg for assistance, bleeding citizens clog up waiting rooms,
and overworked, overstressed staff contribute to the feelings of desperation and malaise.
If you’re lucky, you’ll come to the hospital under your own steam. If you’re less lucky, it’ll be as the
passenger in someone’s car. If you’re cursed, it’ll be in the back of an ambulance. Depending on where
you are in the world, your medical bills could start from that point, worsening your condition with the
knowledge that whatever happens next, you’ll pay for it one way or another.
Get turned around in a hospital and you might find yourself walking into a theater mid-operation, trapped
in a secure unit, or standing among corpses waiting to be ferried to the morgue. As with other locations
known for their twisting corridors, pastel hues, and hurried staff with no time to help idle wanderers, gates
to the Outside appear with alarming regularity in the little-visited parts of hospitals.
It’s not all doom and gloom, however. The nurses do their best, especially around kids and people with
visible traumas. Doctors take pride in saving lives and sending patients home in one piece. Just because
they work for the system doesn’t mean they can’t identify its flaws. The hospital is still the place you go
to get better, just as much as it’s the place you go to die. That peculiar duality appeals to the Wardens,
Reeves, and Gaki, who balance out protection, exploitation, and study of the dying and the dead.
Common Threats: Dr. Gabriel, Hungry Parasite, Mounts, Phantasms, Voids
Common Curses: Nurses never say how successful a shift has been before clocking out, or an
emergency’s guaranteed to arrive. Deaths often come in threes. It’s considered good fortune to open a
window when a patient dies, so their soul might escape. Doctors tie a knot in the bottom right of a dying
patient’s bed sheet to help them last the night. If you feel well before treatment, that’s just death tricking
you.
Complications
• Getting mistaken for a patient from a secure unit is a permanent risk when acting in an aggressive
manner. The “men in white coats” move fast to snatch anyone bothering the staff and patients.
• It’s easy to get lost in a place like this unless you have a guide, and that can lead you to all
manner of awful sights and sounds.

Enhancements
• Drugs are easy to obtain in an overworked hospital, with the pharmacist an easy mark for mental
manipulation.
• Hiding in a hospital is simple given the sheer number of rooms, curtains, beds, and corridors one
can duck into.

Example: Ruby Valley Hospital

Ruby Valley Hospital is the kind of clinic few people ever get to see from the inside. You see, it’s
exclusive. You need a platinum tier insurance plan with Ruby Valley itself, where you bet on your health
to such an extortionate degree that few can afford the premiums. Those who can make a deal benefit from
the best healthcare on offer, with expert doctors flown in from all over the world to give you the treatment
you deserve. From heart transplants and therapy to breast augmentation surgery and physio, liposuction
and hydrotherapy to cancer treatments and palliative care, Ruby Valley has it all, but it doesn’t share. Not
unless you can afford it.
One of the minds behind Ruby Valley is Dr. Gabriel, an Outcast with a fascination for the human brain.
Gabriel wants to know how humans work and why they think the way they do. They want to understand
why so many humans fall into the same traps of mortality, and what could compel one to accept a curse in
exchange for an ounce of power or influence. Gabriel’s patients often emerge as drones, but compared to
others like them, they seem “happy” with their treatment. Or happy enough to recommend it to others.
Ruby Valley sits on the city outskirts, far from the hustle and bustle of urban life. It’s impossible to miss,
however, as its position atop a hill overlooking the freeway beckons to those with incomplete lives. It’s as
if it’s calling out “Come here, and we’ll make you whole.”

Example: Aston Morgue and Crematorium

The city has more than one mortuary, but Aston Morgue is its oldest. Within its freezers, in the cracks
beneath its tiled floors, and on the stacked tapes recorded by successive pathologists, coroners, and
morticians, lie hundreds of morbid secrets. As if by kismet, when people die because of Accursed
schemes and incidents, their bodies end up at Aston Morgue.
Zeds and Shades have a habit of possessing doctors working here, and the Gaki often visit to prey upon
cadavers, but it’s a distinctly human-run operation. The man in charge — Dr. Jon de Wolfe — is obsessed
with the anomalies that pass through his doors, onto his slabs, and under his scalpel. He’s aware of the
Accursed and has made deals with many to ensure he gets the chance to examine corpse after corpse,
recording all his thoughts on his sizeable cassette collection. He and his staff then arrange for said bodies
to find their way to the Aston Crematorium, just next door. De Wolfe hoards knowledge like a Sorcerer.
The thing is, de Wolfe didn’t found this place. Nor did he establish the deal resulting in Accursed victims
ending up here. Somewhere on one of those tapes is a recorded confession of a very bad deal, the
originator of which is still conscious but unable to move or speak, locked forever in one of the morgue
freezers. At least until someone frees her.
Corporate Quarter
Investment bankers and big swinging executives dominate this section of the city with their muscular cars
and sharp suits. They hold vapid conversations about their last big purchase, how they lost a client several
million dollars last week (but it’s okay, NFTs will bounce back), their holiday homes, and the size, shape,
curvature, and coloration of their business cards. It’s not all about penises, except when it is. The bros
(and they are almost all bros, forming a toxic-as-fuck all boys club with their inherited wealth and
everyone else’s savings) here are hollow humans, dedicated to the almighty pound, dollar, dinar, or
bitcoin and little else.
The buildings here are almost as vacant. Either they’ve been built to resemble the souls of the people
“working” here, or the people emulate the buildings. Mirrored windows, sleek (yet somehow uninspiring)
architecture, replica paintings on the walls, and flatscreen TVs and monitors dominating walls and desks
create a nothing environment some describe as liminal. If you can stay focused here and commit to your
goal (wealth and corporate progression, typically) you’ll do well. If you can’t, you’ll find yourself lost in
this sterile kingdom of zero.
Plenty of Accursed live among the suited and booted, with the Network, Heirs, Munificents, and League
of the Hidden Crossroads chief among them. If trade is your thing, the corporate quarter is a place of great
importance. Many Accursed know the sting of accepting a bad deal because they needed cash at the
wrong time. Tragically, many of those same Accursed then turn deals around onto others. It’s a pyramid
scheme, and once you’re trapped in the pyramid you have to use other schmucks so you can climb up.
Common Threats: Drones, the Greys, Hobgobs, the Mondays, White Collar Crooks
Common Curses: The first investment of the day will always go awry, but someone must break that
levy. If a client named Mr. Bevis calls, wanting to make a deal, hang up immediately. Never stop to give
someone a ride on the way to work unless you want to court misfortune. Run the first red light you see in
the corporate quarter. Click your mouse right key three times before logging on in the morning to stave
off ill omens. If the elevator stops on the 13th floor, turn to face the wall as the doors open.

Complications
• Connections are everything here. You need to have a network. If you don’t, the people here will
stare straight through you until you disappear.
• Corporate security is tight in a place like this. You can’t make it past the lobby without an access
card or an invitation.
• If you don’t look the part, you’re going to struggle to get service. You may even get arrested and
removed from this district.

Enhancements
• Money attracts the leeches in this area and carries more weight than anything else. If you flash the
cash, even in a vulgar way, you’re going to attract flies.
• There’s arrogance here and a surprisingly low awareness for private security. So many of the
pricks here leave their cars unlocked and fire doors wedged open so they can duck out for a vape.

Example: The Mirror Needle

They built the Mirror Needle skyscraper to attract big-time investors, corporations looking to expand into
the city, and make their mark on the city skyline. What they ended up with was a colossal, largely empty
monument to late-stage capitalism, overstaffed with bored security, maintenance, and cleaners. The
building is a titan to run. The energy costs alone are extravagant. But the consortium who put their
clients’ money into this place will be damned before they lower the rent. No, they’ll wait for another
boom period, at which point everyone will flock to populate the Mirror Needle.
Legitimate businesses do operate out of this building, but almost every one of them has renter’s remorse.
They’re locked into multiyear deals in a skyscraper that’s hard to access and feels like a glass and steel
tomb. More than one has prayed for the day some terrorist hijacks a plane and flies it into the building,
unintentionally freeing them from their terms and conditions.
For some of the Accursed, the Mirror Needle provides the benefits of discretion. No other fucker’s
moving in. Plus, several floors are Shattered Spaces and bridges to the Outside. It’s an entire fulcrum of
dystopian, vacuous excess. The League of the Hidden Crossroads would love to discover which company
conspired to build this edifice to bugger all, so they could shake them by the hand and ask “What’s the
play, here?” There’s got to be a play. It can’t just be a towering nexus where realities collapse into void.

Docklands
The docklands are a vital artery for the city’s survival, and it’s clogged. The riverbed is too high and
needs dredging. Only small boats can make it up and down the waterway. The industry and commerce
that used to come this way may end up going to a city with a bigger port and the people needed to work it.
The docklands stand as an example of a city’s changing shape and how the Accursed face the same
economic and civic threats as rank-and-file humans. Many a family with roots in this city will have had
ancestors linked to or working for the docklands. Some may have been stevedores, longshoremen, fishing
crews, or sailors on merchant and cargo vessels. The docklands carry a sense of pride for an era that’s
swiftly fading. It’s for reasons of nostalgia and heartache that many people make bad deals, to secure their
family’s, union’s, or company’s future.
The docklands run the risk of being another industrial wasteland, but all hope is not lost. The city may
redirect funding to gentrify the area with housing and tourism as a focus, or, with the right word in the
right ear, may finally dredge the river and rejuvenate the waterfront.
This kind of urban decay appeals to the Eight Hands, who hide away in moored boathouses and in tunnels
beneath bridges, and the Spawn of Vodník, who have aquatic links from their cursed line. There are few
reasons to visit a place like this unless you have business there, are hunting something hidden, or are
pining for stories of a time gone by. Don’t step into the water though: it’s filthy, and all kinds of little
critters are swimming around in there looking for an open wound to crawl inside.
Common Threats: The Host, Host Worm, the Night Whistler, the Nuckelavee, Street Criminals,
Wretched Isopod
Common Curses: Don’t whistle down by the docklands, or something might whistle back. Never set sail
during a red sunrise unless you want to take on water and worse. Friday is always a bad day to work
down by the water, as that’s when the freaks emerge. A black cat is the best friend you can have on a boat
or pier for rats and to ward off curses. If accompanied, straighten your companion’s collar for good luck.

Complications
• The isolation in this place makes it challenging to draw notice or summon help if you need it.
• The one person you may attract in a place like this is the kind you don’t want to: a serial killer
dumping a body or an even worse kind of slasher, just using this place to prowl for lone victims.
• Scrap metal and jagged planks of wood exist in a state of rust and rot here, threatening harm to
anyone who isn’t watching their footing.

Enhancements
• The solitude works in your favor when it comes to operations requiring stealth and discretion.
• There’s always a chunk of something you could use as a weapon on these docklands.

Example: The Grain Pier

The city’s blue-collar workers have staked their hopes on the renewal of the city grain pier and the
dredging of the river and the canal. They’ve campaigned online, on TV, and in person. They’ve delivered
compelling arguments for the pier being central to the city’s renewal. They’ve remortgaged their houses
and spent little John and Jane’s college funds to prop up their dreams.
Sadly, it may all be too little too late. Too many palms need greasing, and as far as the people at city hall
are concerned, there’s just not enough money to go around. It’s the kind of harsh reality check that has set
the Iscariots and Furies in a tempestuous mood, not to mention the folks in the union who work the docks.
There’s no master manipulator at work here, ruining the docklands for everyone else. Its decline is a
symptom of many things: greed and the abandonment of the working classes being paramount. City hall
describes it as “a necessary shift in city priorities,” however. It’s not a message that’s gone down well,
and soon, someone’s going to start lighting fires under those fat cats. There’s an unhealthy dose of
corruption in play here, and activists want answers. If they can’t get answers, they’re prepared to take
names, and if needed, heads.

Downtown High Street

For many, this is the only part of the city to which one pays attention. It has all the major retailers,
restaurants, coffee shops, cinemas, and bookstores. Bars and pubs are commonplace, boasting gimmicks
and moods to lure drinkers in all day and night. It has places to gather and sit, and a few artificial green
spaces in which one can relax. You’ll find it well-lit and luckily, public restrooms and drinking fountains
are available. Best of all? Downtown is open seven days a week, all year round.
A thriving downtown is a symbol of a healthy city. Plenty struggle, where people often choose to shop
and socialize online, but a strong downtown diversifies to appeal to the widest range of visitors. Many
now act as home to escape rooms and niche museums to attract tourists or go retro and house arcades or a
Ferris wheel. In many ways, downtown is the kind of place where a citizen can watch the city throw shit
at a wall and see what sticks. It’s the most likely recipient area for funding and is almost always propped
up through the sunk cost fallacy of “We’ve put so much money into this place, this next ideas have got to
work!”
Downtown is popular among all beings, Accursed, human, or supernaturally monstrous. It’s an ideal place
for negotiations, as there are always crowds of people to deter wanton acts of violence and murderous
betrayals. The Accursed know that if they do something blatant, they’ll attract cops, or worse, venators to
their location. Conversely, an individual with a little guile and area familiarity could commit a crime and
disappear into the throng here, or easily disappear into one of the many open stores or the alleys and
streets running behind them.
Common Threats: Cops, Cultists, Hobgobs, Imps, Mr. Purple, Street Criminals, Tetraphiliac, Venators
Common Curses: Always add a coin to the beggarman’s cup, especially if you need that coin for
something else. If you don’t, your thriftiness will catch up with you. If you pass a store and a TV is on,
watch through the window until the current broadcast ends: a message for you may appear on the screen.
When it’s raining, avoid ducking for cover: the water washes away your sins. Before crossing the main
thoroughfare, always look left twice: there’s a phantasmal car that kills at least one jaywalker a year.

Complications
• With so many people around, it’s difficult to take an overt action without notice.
• Repercussions for violence in a place like this are severe, from human and Accursed figures alike.

Enhancements
• Finding a charming place to grab a meal or a drink is easy here.
• In downtown, you’ll always be able to find what or who you’re looking for.

Example: Common Grounds

Walnut-wood furniture, the rich smell of a hot brew, soft music in the background, and a quiet place to
rest, recuperate, and talk business. Common Grounds doesn’t register to most humans. If questioned, they
say it’s because they have no loyalty card program, or their lattes never come with novelty, seasonal
themes. It’s because Common Grounds straddles this world and the Outside as a liminality (p. XX), and
most people pass it by without looking twice. Most people except for the Accursed.
Common Grounds has sites all over the world, and while interiors and servers differ, the menus remain
the same and the law is always upheld: no conflict. Plenty of locations are marked as neutral zones, with
some Accursed favoring holy sites, others claiming green spaces are good for that kind of thing, but only
Common Grounds receives uniform acknowledgment as a place of peace.
In theory, Accursed can discuss anything here from mundanities to the nature of their existence and do so
without fear of retribution. If a human does get in, they focus more on the music than the conversation.
Still, the question many Accursed wonder, but fear to ask, is “who enforces this peace?” And beyond that,
“who owns the chain?” No answers are forthcoming, but conspiracy theories point toward something Fae
lurking in the background, funneling everything said and agreed upon in one of their coffee shops back to
their own troves of blackmail information and forbidden intelligence.

Example: The Electric Mile

This stretch of high street was established in the post-war boom period, bringing retailers, eateries,
entertainment, and bars to the city in their droves. The Electric Mile lives up to its name. It’s never lost
that buzz of a city alive with energy. Strings of colorful lightbulbs are draped over every few yards of the
Electric Mile, the sidewalks are wide enough to walk down in comfort, there’s plentiful parking, and
businesses stay open until late. It’s truly a good place to be. And that’s despite the chain of murders that
took place here over the last three months.
The Electric Mile is one of those places where people refuse to open their eyes to the reality of curses,
malignant behavior, and predators stalking the streets. It feels utopic because the people who live, work,
and walk here keep their blinkers on. They don’t want ill events afflicting their reality. This means crimes
go unaddressed or unpunished, disappearances and murders get described as “freak events” and barely
make it onto news sites or into the papers.
The Accursed can see all this folderol clearly, and it’s fucking alarming. Yes, it provides a cover for some
of the blights they leave in their wake, but what about when the wrongdoer isn’t one of them, but some
other supernatural creature? Accursed with a conscience feel compelled to address the matter themselves,
because if not them, who?
Example: Mr. Apollo’s Gym
Creak. Scream. Clunk. Release. Crash. A familiar refrain for anyone who enters Mr. Apollo’s in
downtown, as the bodybuilders take their weights very seriously, to the point of pain. This gym acts as a
temple to the human form, and without doubt, its adherents are cultists at the shrine of physical
perfection. The shining symbol on the sign over the door displays the Greek god Apollo in gleaming gold,
flexing every muscle in his body. Everyone here wants to be Apollo.
Mr. Apollo’s owners are always happy to make space for anyone willing to sign up for a trial
membership. From that point on, you’re expected to apply yourself with vigor, keep to a protein-rich diet,
and never, ever skip leg day. The payment plan kicks in two weeks later, and it’s infamously hard to
extract oneself from it.
Gyms like this are common enough to not feel sinister at first glance, but some Furies recently stumbled
upon something eerie. They were possessing two ‘roided up hockey bros for the fun of it, pushing their
bodies as hard as they could go, when they witnessed something impossible: a 98lb weakling transformed
into a gold-skinned monstrosity, and everyone in the gym just fell to their knees in worship. After making
their escape, they reasoned that it must be some Primal shapeshifter fucking with the meatheads, but after
enquiring with the Hydes, they’re now concerned something from the Outside is entering this world and
not only altering but possessing the bodies of its worshipers.

Example: Pollack Library and City Archive

A great storehouse of books, newspapers, texts in foreign languages, and assorted media all catalogued
using a unique and frankly arcane form of classification known only to the Archivists and their
employees. Nobody these days could even tell you who “Pollack” is, or was, though a common assertion
says the place started as a gallery and was named after Jackson Pollock but misspelled.
Word on the street, at least for academic and scholarly types, is that if something exists in print, Pollack
has it. You just need to know who to ask and put down one hell of a surety if you’re going to take
anything off the premises. The Archivists will get you what you want, but they’ll record exactly why you
want it and what you intend to use it for. Deception gets you barred from Pollack, at the very least.
Stealing from the library and archive reportedly results in Mr. Purple appearing in your life, just to make
it a little shorter.
The truth is that Pollack doesn’t contain every book known to humankind (though it can source a lot of
them), but that it has a colossal film library of old spools in steel cases. These reels are films of all manner
of supernatural events, recorded and preserved. Conspiracy theorists would kill to access this proof,
which has never been digitized. If word gets out to venators of Pollack’s treasure trove, a lot of Accursed
would rather see the place burned to the ground than in the hands of the humans who want them dead.

Green Space
When an area is described as “green space” it conjures the image of verdant plant life, expansive parks,
maybe a water feature or two, and the pleasant tweeting of birds nesting in bushes and trees all around. In
truth, the health and vibrancy of a green space depends entirely on how much effort and curation the city
puts into it, and how the residents of that city treat it. A green space can be an idyllic glade suitable for
picnics, school trips and pets, or an overgrown wasteland where gangs rule the roost, drug users shoot up,
and people dump their old fridges, TVs, and drums of toxic waste.
What green spaces always offer despite their openness is privacy. It’s difficult to bug such an open space.
Nobody questions the presence of joggers, someone sat on a park bench with a phone or newspaper, or
ecological explorers examining wildflowers and local insects. Passing through a green space you mind
your own business except to say “good morning!” to dogwalkers.
Primals, especially among the Get of Lyka, treat green spaces as highly valued city spaces. All the better
if they’re on the outskirts and lead to genuine tracts of forest, rolling hills, swamps, and interesting
environs. Dense clusters of trees, circles of wildflowers, hedge mazes, and untamed wilderness are
dangerous crossing points to the Outside. Creatures here are often feral, hunting anyone unlucky enough
to trigger their appetites. Keepers of the Broken Vine believe that these places are more dangerous to
those who rarely frequent them. If one is accustomed to the wild, the wild will approach with respect.
Unfamiliarity implies vulnerability, and predators sniff out signs of weakness.
Common Threats: Crossing Guardians, Cultists, Paznic, Primal Predator, Red Riding Hood, Street
Criminals, Zombie Flesh-Eaters
Common Curses: Hammer a coin into a tree for good luck and health whenever you visit the woods.
Leave an edible offering to the wilderness to supplicate angry beasts. If you shoot but fail to kill a deer,
you’ll find an antlered man haunting your dreams. When you hear singing from a forest glade, join the
song, but don’t approach: you may end up caught in a torturous dance. If a beast pursues you, running
will only exacerbate its rage and worsen your fate.

Complications
• Thick undergrowth, thorns, and other organic hazards hamper movement and ruin both clothes
and equipment.
• If you look, smell, or sound like you’re from the city, you’re a target to supernatural inhabitants
of this place.
• Escaping a native pursuer is tricky when they know the environment and its hazards better than
you.
• Finding a phone signal out here is an exercise in futility. You might be able to leave a message,
but making a stable connection is challenging.

Enhancements
• Finding an isolated spot for rest, recuperation, or privacy is easy.
• A peaceful environment is useful when attempting to put someone else at ease in conversation,
negotiation, and even seduction.

Example: Harmony Cemetery

Known for its labyrinth of sepulchers, tombstones, statues, and dominating war memorial, Harmony
Cemetery is a fascinating example of semi-organic architecture. People have tombs erected and
monuments sculpted to their deceased friends and relatives irrespective of how the plot beside them
appears, creating a physical landscape of broken teeth, some shooting up into the air in polished glory,
others overgrown and clad in years of untended grime.
The city’s Gaki frequent Harmony Cemetery when searching for fresh bodies or troubled spirits. They
often join mourning congregations at the periphery, wearing their funerary best, and hang back until
everyone but they and the undertakers have departed. More than one Gaki in the city has a gravedigger on
the payroll. The Gaki utters “take a long cigarette break,” the cemetery worker goes for a walk, and the
Hungry goes to work in their place.
Pupils from Eastern Digital High (p. XX) have used Harmony Cemetery as a hazing ground for thirty
years or more. The “living burial” ceremony entails trapping new kids in the Proksch family mausoleum
overnight, in their underwear and without their phones. While they’re sealed within, the high school
bullies hide their victims’ clothing around the cemetery. They then spend the night sending morbid,
humiliating, and threatening messages to people listed on the Facebook friends lists they find on their
captive phones, reading the irate or panicked replies to the incarcerated pupils trapped in the granite
building.
The living burial ritual takes place every year, but this year something went horribly wrong. The four
pupils locked away fell silent around the midnight mark. Eventually, some two hours later, one of the
perpetrators opened the door to find three of them dead and part-devoured, the fourth in the process of
eating his classmates. The bullies fled, leaving the Proksch mausoleum door unlocked.

Example: Preservation Woodlands

Protected under green laws, the aptly named Preservation Woodlands is a natural utopia. You could visit
this great stretch of forest and never run into anyone, even on the five hiking trails cutting through the
trees. While environmentalists and rangers frequent and work in this area, it’s expansive enough that they
only have contact with each other via radio (there’s no cell signal out here).
Stick to one of the trails and you’ll have a great time exploring the wilderness. Just stay hydrated and fed,
keep your map handy, and always carry a foil blanket along with the rest of your camping gear. It can get
criminally cold under the thick tree canopy, and the earth has a way of leeching heat from the body. Even
Lykans warn each other to not step off the trails. Walk one minute in the wrong direction and you’ll no
longer have sight of the path you abandoned. Finding it again is a crapshoot marred with rough terrain,
confusingly marked trees, and sudden drops into valleys and riverbeds, not to mention the mines that ran
underneath these woodlands over a century ago. The higher the trail tier, the more likely you’ll be
climbing as much as hiking, and it’s on the climbs that the concealed mineshafts give way. Funnily
enough, nature then has a way of covering up the collapsed entrances with branches, leaves, and mud. At
least until the next hiker comes along.
Things lurk in these forests, and they resent the constant human intrusions. They don’t want idiot dentists
(it’s always dentists) from the city with too much cash and too little sense stumbling into their dens,
shrines, and Battlegrounds. These people think that because they have money and the most expensive
hiking boots, pop-up tents, water purification tablets, and eco-friendly stoves that they’re safe here.
They’re not safe here.
If you stumble into a clearing where twenty or so boots hang by their laces from branches in a circle
around you, you’ll know you’ve taken the wrong path.

Industrial Zone
Foundries, metalworks, and chemical plants. Construction sites, assembly lines, and factories of unclear
purpose. All of these make up the city’s industrial zone. Typically clustered together on the city’s edge or
in a tight band around the city’s historic center, industrial zones are easy enough to identify via the
chainlink fences, razor wire, sounds of screaming metal (and other, fleshier things), belching chimneys,
and the steady trudge of manual workers from one job to the next.
People who work and live in the city’s industrial zone have a straight-faced honesty to them and a sickly
tinge to their skin. They call it as they see it and die well before the age of 60 for reasons utterly
unconnected to their labor (legally speaking, anyway).
There’s a constant stream of traffic from and to production sites, but unless you have reason for being
here, you’ll be examined as a stranger in a strange land. This isn’t the place you visit to make a purchase,
and no tourists would want to see the city’s gears at work, so security, forklift drivers, and shop foremen
are equally likely to shout out “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Despite all intentions to contrary, accidents are frequent in places like this. The wheels of industry must
keep turning, even at the expense of health and safety, and it’s often cheaper to settle a lawsuit or cover
medical bills than to refit an entire plant with titanium railings, triple-layered plexiglass, gas masks, and
mixed sprinkler systems. And with nobody dredging the chemical waste vats, they make for excellent
body disposal sites. Just ask the Hungry who use the industrial zone to cover up their mistakes.
Common Threats: Battleforged, Drones, Homunculoid Blob, P-Borgs, Resurrection Jake
Common Curses: Never wear goggles when speaking to a worker outside the plant: eyes are the
windows to the soul, and soulless lack them. If scratched by something made from iron, allow a dog to
lick the wound to remove the hex. For every minute of work you miss by arriving late, make up an
additional hour or the old boss will come to collect in a currency other than time. Gift a cigarette a day to
the foundry furnace: it’ll afflict your enemies with illness and foul temper.

Complications
• Everyone who works here recognizes each other, even through the layers of grime. Sneaking
about and blending in is easier said than done.
• Health and safety is at a minimum, and the rusted gantry could give way at any moment.
• If an accident — a fire, for instance — occurs, there are few measures in place to control or stop
it.

Enhancements
• Anything in this place could be turned into a weapon.
• The workers in this site care for each other and can easily be motivated to work together.

Example: Rearne Steelworks

Rearne Steelworks is the city’s industrial heart. Hundreds of titanic machines buzz, chug, and roar, and
thousands of workers slave over their workstations day and night to keep up with the demand for
everything from building materials to pots and pans. Rearne does it all and does it well. There’s a reason
the steelworks successfully expanded to absorb all competitors, making it the primary source of
employment for the city’s manual workers. Rearne leaves an imprint on every steel object it ships out —
a stylized R on an anvil — so wherever you are in the world, there’s no doubt when you’re handling
Rearne steel.
Workers at Rearne are fanatically devoted to the legacy of the company founder: Henry Rearne. He died
decades ago, but his grandson Oliver Rearne now runs the company and resembles his ancestor in all the
ways that count. In fact, he’s a Battleground-spawned simulacrum of Henry. Today’s Rearne is a P-Borg
with the unusual talent for wearing a skinsuit and looking vaguely human. From a distance he looks like a
leathery, taut-skinned gentleman. For three generations he’s been wearing the same skin, constantly
treating it with chemicals, stitching it together wherever it splits. His purpose is a simple one: he’s
widening the gate between this one and the Battlegrounds, allowing battleforged to exit his factory as new
employees in overalls and face protectors so they can blend into the city proper and go hunting Outcasts
who need to return “home.”
Rearne Steelworks is at risk of exposure, however. A new recruit on her induction split off from the tour
and ended up in a boarded-up part of the factory. Within, she found what can only be described as a
leather tannery and an enormous machine belching intoxicating fumes. She made the mistake of staring at
the machine and caught a glimpse of the Battleground on the other side. Staggering out, she immediately
sent a text to her best friend about the weirdness at Rearne.

Inner City
Whether you call it the barrio, the public housing district, skid row, the slums, the ghetto, or indeed the
inner city, it’s obvious when you pass the threshold into this space. At some point, city hall gave up on
trying to equalize opportunities across the city, designating this area as a crime center, this population as
troublesome and work-shy, and these schools a waste of good funding. Whether born from racism and
classism or because bribes from other city sectors were more plentiful, the city may as well have put a
wall up around the inner city and declared it a warzone.
Yes, gangs have carved up blocks into territories and drive-bys are freakishly common. Yes, drug
addiction and alcoholism are endemic. And yes, kids here are likely to drop out of school and end up in
prison. But the inner city has soul. It has community. It has a code. It’s a code outsiders struggle to
understand, but that’s only because they’re not trying:
family looks out for family. Fuck everyone else.
A family could be a gang or an entire stretch of city blocks, but the implication is the same. It’s “us
against the world” because the world’s given up on the inner city. This kind of attitude appeals to a great
many Accursed who find themselves in similar states. The Black Hearts and Iscariots, Chimerae and
Unburdened are all at home here. This is where they get to flip off the world and carve out something for
themselves. They protect the people in this part of the city and sometimes expect the same service in
return, though it’s far from obligatory. Helping people as abandoned as you? It’s its own reward.
Common Threats: Barghests, the Betrayed, the Haint, the Mondays, Street Criminals, Voids, Zombie
Flesh-Eaters
Common Curses: Give one dose away for free each day to stave off your own addictions. Touch the
Tupac poster pasted to the alley wall every morning for good luck. If you see a stray dog, be sure to feed
it: it’ll protect you when you most need it. Collect any bullets meant for you and melt them down: death
will find your enemies more easily and ignore you for another day.

Complications
• Eyes are watching you from everywhere: stoops, windows, doorways, alleys, corners, and
rooftops. Everyone’s got their own game here, and they want to know if you’re a part of it.
• If you ask the wrong questions, you’re in line for a beating. Snitches do indeed get stitches.
• Poverty is rife here, and showing off your wealth is a good way to get stuck up.
• Walk down the wrong street wearing the wrong colors and anyone who can see you might bolt or
open fire, depending on how they view you.

Enhancements
• Procuring drugs is as simple as approaching a corner and asking what the seller’s got for you.
• Finding a place to lie low is simple if you know some of the people and where the empty
rowhouses can be found. Just don’t confuse a crack den for a vacant, or your Enhancement will turn into a
Complication.

Example: The Fight Ring

It was going to be a multi-story parking lot before the city gave up on its construction, acknowledging no
one with a lick of sense would leave their car in a place like this. Still, their abandonment paid off for
people in need of a wide space with roof cover and decent lighting from the gas station and McDonald’s
down the street. The car park’s now a fight ring that meets up weekly, though the exact night and timing
aren’t advertised in the usual places. You only find out about the fight ring via word of mouth. Nobody
wants the cops rolling up to ruin their fun.
The stakes at the fight ring run high, with a pot for the victor, another for the promoter (she’s got to have
her end covered) and proceeds for anyone who wins a bet. The bets grow depending on the length and
viciousness of the fight. So far, nobody’s declared a fight to the death (the risk/reward isn’t exactly
appealing, unless you’re a Fury enjoying hopping from fighter to fighter), but fights that only end when
one participant is knocked out are popular, as are clashes with blunt weapons.
The fight ring isn’t nearly so professional as to have weight classes. In theory, anyone can roll up and
throw themselves into a match if they can find a competitor. This leads to many people down on their
luck — humans and Accursed — trying their hand at a fist fight or some approximation of an MMA bout
looking to earn a few hundred dollars. Sometimes, a fighter is forced into a battle if they can’t pay up to
the loan shark on their ass.

Example: Gina’s Pool Hall

If you’re looking for information about the city’s underbelly, some cheap booze, or to hang out in a place
where indoor smoking is still acceptable, Gina’s is the place to go. Just don’t expect to shoot any pool.
Those tables belong to the Young Outlaws — a gang known for its heroin, meth, and sex trafficking —
and they take poorly to anyone messing with the felt.
Gina herself is tired of all this shit. She remembers when there were rules over who gets capped, when
and where drugs were sold, and when pimps took good care of their workers… Or at least, she thinks she
does. She’s pining for a history that never existed, but rose-tinted glasses are common no matter what side
of the class divide you’re on. She claims her pool hall is a neutral zone but since the Young Outlaws
staked their claim on it, she’s seen her custom dry up and disrespectful gangbangers have used the place
for a hit more than once. Those bloodstains are a pain to shift, and it’s not like the Outlaws are going to
pay for the cleaning supplies or broken windows.
Gina would love to see her business rejuvenated and this toxic element kicked to the curb, but she knows
in her heart that to do so she’d have to reach out to another gang, which just opens her place up to being
taken over. She needs outside assistance and is prepared to make a deal to see everything return to the
way she thinks it was some twenty years ago.

Example: Eastern Digital High School

The city’s eastern district has been rough since day one. Its high schools bear the brunt of that downhill
roll of shit. The teachers are underpaid and under threat. The kids spend more time playing truant and
fucking up the rest of the city than they do studying. Parents don’t genuinely expect their teens to
graduate from Eastern and head on to university. Asbestos in the ceilings makes everyone’s futures a little
bleaker, still. At least those kids who stay in the classroom aren’t causing trouble on the streets, but are
they learning anything?
There may be a savior, set to rehabilitate this slum school and every child in it. This “angel investor” has
donated two rafts of tablets and computers to bring the school up to modern standards. Two, because the
first set was stolen or vandalized beyond repair within the first week of its arrival. When the second
arrived, the kids and teachers realized this investor was playing for keeps. Now, all the equipment gets
locked away in secure storage at the end of every school day, even as it takes custodian Victor Meadrew
hours to do so.
Who this angel investor is remains a mystery, but the faculty assume it’s someone who studied here who
made good. That’s a very small list and ranges between two gang bosses, one politician, and one of the
production supervisors at Rearne Steelworks (p. XX).
The true menace at Eastern Digital (renamed since its upgrade) is sadly the children themselves, though
it’s hardly their fault. So many do awful things to each other, to their surroundings, and are on a
downward slope ending in a jail cell or dead on a street corner. The Mondays don’t help with this, with
some of the classrooms seeping into that Shattered Space. Numerous kids are now home to voids, steadily
leeching their lives and driving them to rampant acts of destruction.

Law and Order

Less a place and more a presence, the city police, law system, and penal institutions loom heavily over
everyone who lives here, human or Accursed.
The cops are prone to corruption, laziness, bigotry, and point scoring. Their target is “X arrests per shift”
over solving serious crimes. The police departments divisions boast different standards: homicide
detectives prioritize easy-to-solve cases; vice and narcotics are a quagmire of corruption; internal affairs
are a paid-off, reviled-within-the-department joke; missing persons cops try their best but are often
repurposed for other divisions; and cold cases are prone to Accursed interference, for better or worse. All
this means it’s easy to get away with a crime if you’re careful and have “the right look.” Stand in the
wrong place near somewhere a crime is reported, and if you’re Black, mishear the arriving officers, or
follow their instructions to the letter, you’re prone to getting gunned down. There are honest, dedicated
cops, but in a broken system filled with motherfuckers, what’s the point in swimming against the tide?
The courts aren’t much better, though at least you get to have your say if you’ve made it this far. The
deep bench of old, prejudicial judges and lawyers suppressing evidence is horrible, but typical in a career
that rewards you for tenure, wins, and swift case resolution over good, properly presented and handled
cases. Many a lawyer has advised their client to “take the plea deal” just so they can secure a free
afternoon at the gold course with their favorite judge. As with cops, some representatives aim for a higher
standard, but they’re plunged into this career with a mountain of debt, and the only way to clear it is to
take on more cases than any human is capable of handling, resulting in cut corners and improper justice.
Finally, the prison system. The guards are bullies, the warden a slave driver (literally, in the case of for-
profit prisons), and the inmates are here because many of them had the misfortune of being born and
raised in the inner city (p. XX). Oddly, it’s at the tail end of the law and order process you find the
greatest kernel of hope. Volunteers, teachers, priests, and ex-convicts work hard to ensure nobody who
serves time returns to do so again. It doesn’t always stick, with recidivism painfully high, but if properly
motivated and rehabilitated, convicts can leave the city prison with a qualification, temporary housing,
and an opportunity…
It would all too grim to describe how all these things get taken away. How nobody hires ex-convicts or
rents them property. How they swiftly fall in with old crews and get up to old hijinks. Better to assume, as
the Accursed must, that there’s a way of breaking the cycle.
Common Threats: Cops, Outcast Apostate, Street Criminals, White Collar Crooks
Common Curses: Knock on wood before commencing your opening statement for good luck. Abort your
course of action if a black bird perches on a nearby windowsill: nobody believes a raven-marked
storyteller. Break a mirror if you receive an anonymous message saying “the dyrne is out.” Never walk
back to your cell the way you left it unless accompanied: enemies will target someone else if you remain
unpredictable.

Complications
• Misfortune finds you with cops screaming and pointing guns in your direction. Try following
their bellowed, confusing commands as every instinct tells you to just break down and plead. You’ve seen
how this goes.
• You must watch your back in prison. Say the wrong thing to the wrong person and you risk
getting shanked or worse.

Enhancements
• “Corrupt cops” is a tautology. They’re as susceptible to bribes as the criminals they cuff on street
corners. Maybe more so.
• Beat down the hardest convict in the jailhouse and you’ll earn the respect of everyone else here.

Example: Precinct Thirteen

Precinct Thirteen has been dancing around with closure ever since the station chief was linked to
organized crime fifteen years ago. It took a rare internal affairs success to finally pull the pin on the whole
rotten station, when they discovered the entire vice and narcotics squad running drugs from the Young
Outlaws gang all the way to wealthy, yet unidentified clients in Platinum Tower (p. XX). It was
inescapable: Precinct Thirteen had to go.
Now, the precinct’s being shuttered and is down to a skeleton staff. The civilians in this part of town are
being redirected to Five and Twelve unless they have need of an urgent response.
As misfortune would have it, a call for urgent aid comes through to Thirteen and its bare bones staff. In a
rare act of heroism (or perhaps penance), six cops head to Lark’s Grove (p. XX) to tackle a murder-in-
progress without backup from other precincts.
Back at the precinct, Sergeant Wintergreen listens on his radio as each one of his colleagues advances on
the situation. One by one, in rapid succession, they scream for help — abandoning call signs and radio
codes — and then disappear off air, leaving only broadcasting static. Thirty minutes later, cops from Five
and Twelve show up at the crime scene. They find the bloody, horrifically mauled remains of their
colleagues, but no sign of the perpetrator or indeed the original victim.

Luxury Villas
The wealthiest residents of the city live in gated communities, tucked in picturesque canyons or atop
hillsides far from the madding crowd. In their luxury villas, these celebrities, magnates, judges, surgeons,
and stockbrokers enjoy their splendid isolation. They wouldn’t be seen dead shopping in downtown (they
can hire someone for that) or at any one of the seedy nightclubs (the better parties are held at expensive
houses, like their own). The Prince’s Theater (p. XX) might draw them from their seclusion if a friend’s
performing, as might a rave at the Wharf (p. XX), but otherwise, they live a contrary existence of being a
part of the city despite wanting to live as far from its sight and its people as possible.
Plenty of individuals who own luxury villas never live in them for longer than a few weeks a year. These
mothballed mansions are constantly patrolled or monitored, with contracted security teams watching for
anyone who makes the mistake of trying to break in or get closer to their favorite celebrity. Many security
personnel have licenses to carry firearms and are paid well enough to ensure the bodies are never found.
The city’s luxury villas are natural homes for Accursed who enjoy the finer things while craving privacy.
The Báthorites and Sphinx are leaders here, though the Raptors and Ascetics have their own reasons for
wanting distance from the hubbub of urban life. Whether it’s to build a blood bath, fill a private gallery,
or stock a secret library, luxury villas with high security are in significant demand among supernatural
beings with means.
Common Threats: Abigail Sloan, O Diabo Esfumaçado, Haunted House, White Collar Crooks
Common Curses: Never permit a stranger entry to your home without an introduction from someone
else. Doing otherwise is a way to allow Fae within your home. Always flip the window blind before you
leave the house: something on the Outside will receive the signal to protect your home. Leave the radio
on throughout the day, especially when you’re not present to hear it: spirits are always listening. Kiss
your car key before using it to assure a safe journey: you’ll arrive faster and someone you know will
break down.

Complications
• Anything worth stealing is rigged with an alarm.
• These locations are under permanent security agency scrutiny.

Enhancements
• Masquerading as gardeners, maids, technicians, and so on is relatively simple, as the people who
live here don’t remember their staff from visit to visit.
• If you’re someone with status, it’s easy to secure an invite to a luxury villa.

Example: The Dussolier Mansion

Remember the Manson Family? A similar cult (in practice, if not philosophy) broke into the Dussolier
Mansion around the same time, killing retired diplomat Regina Dussolier and her family. The whole
Sharon Tate murder case took all the press from the Dussolier incident and since then, the gaudy 1960s
mansion has been retained in a state of preservation, as a parent might the bedroom of a missing child.
The reason for this is that the Dussoliers still haunt their mansion, and their remote, living descendants
have felt compelled to keep the mansion in a state of perfect repose. Unfortunately for the phantasms,
their last descendant died recently, and the house is now making its way through the courts.
The Dussoliers are simple phantasms, but the house itself has become a venomous spiritual entity
prepared to chew up anything living that tries to repurpose it. It’s possible a great deal of strife could be
avoided if the Dussoliers’ murderers were tracked down and their case brought to light. The city’s
Poltergeists believe that may result in the phantasms being purged, but it’ll do little to detoxify the
haunted house.

Nightlife Circuit
Some things never go out of style, and booze, dancing, and the occasional pinch of something a little
spicy are all fun ways to liven up a night. The city has no lack of nightlife options, and some of them even
ask for ID before pouring you a shot. The club scene isn’t far from the downtown high street (p. XX), on
a road often left empty during the day, but which becomes a major thoroughfare come nightfall. The bars
and pubs on the other hand are always open and are dotted throughout the city, many with a flavor or
theme to appeal to punters.
Some people gravitate to loud music and pounding feet. Others desire a cool establishment bathed in
ultraviolet, where a repeating beat drums throughout the night. Meanwhile, old school drinkers might
prop up the bar in a place with comfortable chairs and a jukebox, enjoying the beer and conversation over
the chance to dance. Everyone has a different taste, and that’s fine: the city provides the nighttime
entertainment you desire.
The nightlife circuit is an integral part of Accursed existence. It’s not that they’re all clubbers, ravers,
metalheads, or punks; it’s that the nightlife is where people let their hair down, have a good time, and are
susceptible to chat, offers, or interrogation. Nightlife is also a powerful magnet for other supernaturals
and predators, compelling Accursed to stand on the corner with a drink and watch the alleys or blend in
with an unusual crowd to see if they can pick up the scent of something unnerving.
More than anything, the nightlife circuit is a rare opportunity for Accursed to feel “normal.” This is where
you can look weird and do your thing. This is where you can bang your head like there’s not some hex
hanging over it. Nightlife is where you can forget all about the awful things you’ve done.
Common Threats: The Betrayed, the Champagne Room, Cultists, Gianluca “De Sade” Abruzzi, Imps,
Red Riding Hood, Tetraphiliac, Voids
Common Curses: Order and pour a shot away for the Dead to receive the Lineage’s friendship. If a
woman in scarlet asks for a light, do as she says: someone you detest will suffer a fire soon after. Tip the
next bartender more than you did the last one: hobgobs lurk among the staff. The first one on the dance
floor washes away their curses. If you see someone filming a live performance with a mobile device, find
a way to steal and destroy something they own: capturing art in such a form is a way of dooming the
artist.

Complications
• If you don’t have ID, some establishments will throw you out instead of serving you.
• There’s some predatory creep waiting to dope your drink when you’re not looking.
• Tracking someone is difficult in a thick crowd of moving bodies.

Enhancements
• Dress to impress and you’ll find a captive audience for your moves.
• It’s a lot easier to fight someone when they’re drunk or doped up.
• There’s always somewhere open and therefore always a sanctuary if you’re being pursued.

Example: The Champagne Room

If you can get inside, the Champagne Room offers an experience like no other. Dancing in this venue,
where the floor lights up to match your steps, where the drinks are exotic and punchy, and where
everyone on the floor seems unnaturally beautiful, is one hell of a thrill. But again, you need to get in
first, and the waiting list ain’t short.
Built in the ruins of an old church, the Champagne Room derives power from the many dead entombed in
its foundations. They hunger for lusts and excesses, the feelings surge through the music and into the
dancers, and everyone is suddenly having the best nights of their life. Patrons ignore how their drinks
quickly sour, how those who order food find themselves chewing on rancid meat and moldy cheese, and
how they’re compelled to dance so hard that their feet bleed.
Emotions in this Shattered Space (p. XX) are so heightened that fights are frequent. Patrons find any
excuse: you looked at my boyfriend; you spilled my drink; you’re wearing the same shoes as me. No
matter how trivial, fists fly and teeth bite into unexpecting cheeks. Blood flows and the Champagne
Room’s pull strengthens.
Many Accursed are on the verge of suspecting the Champagne Room is more than just a trendy venue.
The number of disappearances and acts of random violence in this libertine lounge have swelled in recent
nights, and if they don’t deal with it soon, venators and worse will arrive on the scene looking for
answers.

Example: Salute
If you’re the kind of person who likes a venue with a perpetually sticky floor, experimental live music,
and the occasional comedy night, Salute is the club for you. A popular place for lovers of bands
(especially of the metal and rock varieties), this low-ceilinged, dimly lit space creates the kind of
claustrophobic tension so many headbangers enjoy. A night’s entertainment can’t go by without a brawl,
and the bouncers are happy to let clashes resolve on the dance floor unless it looks like someone’s about
to take things too far.
Salute breeds a certain loyalty uncommon to other venues in the city. When you laugh together, sing
together, and fight together, a kind of family emerges from the gloom. Even if one of you broke the
other’s nose this week, you’ll go on to embrace the week after. The house band — Cannons and Sabres
— produces songs the Accursed can relate to. They turn stories from around the city, concerning
mysteries and the supernatural, into folk metal refrains. None of them are hits outside the Salute audience,
but to the regulars? They’re deeply moving.

Nooks and Crannies

Every city has its share of secrets. Some of them hide in plain sight, others are tucked away in dark alleys
and side streets you only walk down if you know exactly where you’re going. They call these “liminal
spaces.” Businesses of an illegal or illicit nature are common here, along with individuals who focus their
trade on the occult and the unknown. The city’s nooks and crannies appeal to the Accursed because
they’re home to mysteries, monsters, and curses of their own. To better understand oneself, one must
occasionally enter the belly of the beast.
It’s highly likely the city’s liminal spaces bear little resemblance to their surroundings. They often exist in
forgotten parts of the city. It’s not just a figurative description: cops will conveniently forget to patrol
these streets, the city may even forget to tax the residents and business owners, and public renovations are
nearly non-existent. This makes each nook and cranny a time capsule and potential boundary to the
Outside. The Accursed are aware of the risks such places pose, but when considering all that can be
gained, the risks are worth taking.
Common Threats: Any Supernaturals
Common Curses: Never turn left and left again unless you want to fall deep into the Outside. Knock on
every door before trying the handle: rudeness in a place like this will see you punished severely. If
balancing on rough or precarious ground, look upward before looking down: you might find a handy
guide. Drop a flower behind you for safety. Drop one in front of you to curse someone you can see.

Complications
• Avoiding the more blatant supernatural threats in the nooks and crannies requires offerings or
tremendous subterfuge.
• Everyone has a deal they want to make in a place like this, and it’s rarely so simple as money for
services. If you can’t uphold your end of the deal, the people here see you as a timewaster at best.
• Finding your way out from the nooks and crannies is challenging. It’s possible to turn a corner
and end up in another hidden space, or closer to the Outside.

Enhancements
• Characters associated with criminal practices are at home in a place like this and can always find
a buyer for the services they provide.
• If you’re looking for a source on a mystery, the nooks and crannies are likely to turn up
something good, albeit threatening.

Example: The Cosmopolitan Club

Established somewhere back in the 19th century for white gentlemen with a penchant for international
travel and big game hunting, things have thankfully changed for the Cosmopolitan Club in the years
since. Though it’s locked in its aesthetic state of Gilded Age décor, the membership has evolved to
include non-males (gasp!) and non-whites (heavens preserve us!) simply because it was the only way for
the club to survive in the modern era. It’s still an exclusive arrangement for influential figures, some of
them Freemasons or Rosicrucians, others just powerful politicians and city leaders, but ever since its
foundation it has served a valuable cause: death to curses.
The Cosmopolitan Club attracts formidable people who have encountered or are curious about the
supernatural, and it desires nothing short of their extinguishment. While some venators in this
establishment have traumas associated with the Accursed, their main beef is that the Accursed represent
something they can’t control. If they can’t control it, they must destroy it. There’s no other option.
It’s always been curious to the city’s Accursed how despite frequent attempts to eliminate the
Cosmopolitan Club, it always survives. It’s even more intriguing how close this club is to the Outside,
with the alleys surrounding it almost gaping maws into other worlds with far worse creatures than the
supernaturals in this one. The venators who claim membership seem oblivious to this fact. They drink
their brandy, smoke their cigars, and arrange the next strike on Accursed in their city.

Example: The Dens

In several nooks and more than a few crannies, exist the dens. Luckily for most humans, they can’t
perceive these holes in the earth and sides of buildings. Most of them appear burrowed, through some are
expertly carved and placed behind gates and grilles. Though a recurring question is “who put them
there?” few can focus overlong on answering it, due to what resides within each of them.
Dens are home to some of the most unrelentingly predaceous beings in this world, far beyond the
Accursed. At surface level, barghests, cuckoos, and phantasms wait in the dark. Deeper dens house
battleforged, crossing guardians, and witches. At their lowest depths, dens are home to alien threats such
as the Greys, the Host, and homunculoid blobs.
Most Accursed think “no good can come of lingering around a den,” but there’s always something that
can compel an Accursed to entreat one of these horrific creatures. There’s always a need the dens’
inhabitants can fulfil. The Archivists long ago surmised that these are the reasons the dens exist; to
service the need for deals between this world and the Outside. For their part, the Battleground Angels
don’t give a shit. It’s their view that every den and every inhabitant therein requires driving back to the
Outside.

Example: The Olde Curiositie Shoppe

Pippi Divarettes, now 90 years old, has run this antique store in this exact location since she left
childhood. A round-faced, plump woman with red cheeks and a warm smile, she promises that if she
doesn’t have an antique in store, she could source it. All she needs in return is something quite
immaterial, really. A strand of hair. A drop of blood. A palmful of spit. She draws the line at other fluids.
It’s no secret that Pippi’s a witch. Even non-supernaturals talk about it. But she seems harmless, has been
a city mainstay her entire life, and when she’s not behind the register she’s feeding the cats that
congregate outside her front door or making boiled candies for schoolkids passing by at the end of school.
The Olde Curiositie Shoppe is a beautiful little piece of rustic charm amid an urban sprawl, but beneath
its veneer are spines and spikes. If you enter through the front, business can be conducted as usual.
Anyone who tries to break in through a window or follow Pippi through to the storeroom finds
themselves tumbling into a hellscape of fire and ripping thorns. She may pull you free, but only if you
offer her something she wants.
Plenty of the relics on display and for sale in Pippi’s store are magical and cursed with it, but she doesn’t
conjure them out of thin air. Pippi is hooked deeply into the Network to the point where they’ve lost track
of what she owes them, but she knows exactly what they owe her. Part of the deal includes connections
with every significant dealer in treasures and antiquities, living and dead. On a huge roll of parchment,
she records their names and locations, and if rumor’s to be believed, she can step through the shop’s back
door to jump to any place in the world, or disappear down a black chute in the alley behind the store to
hop backward in time.

The Outskirts
The outskirts are far from an abandoned wasteland. This is where you find strip malls, casinos, motels,
gas stations, and roadhouses. This is where developers used to build glimmering glass shopping centers,
built layer upon layer, and stuffed with stores. The outskirts are where you find tight-knit communities
that like to keep their own. It’s where the power plant, sewage treatment, and the city dump all coexist in
proximity. Farther out, you might find a secure military base or research laboratory. The outskirts are a
bizarre medley of commercial, industrial, governmental, and residential. It’s where you go to hide out if
the city’s getting too hot for you but where you’re also likely to encounter dangerous people and
organizations that react poorly to uninvited visitors.
People treat the city outskirts as a series of islands. You hop between them to make your major purchases
— sofas, beds, white goods — but never linger in the between places. Superstitions are strong out this
way. You become more aware of the weird surrounding you, making protection rituals and belief in
omens far more commonplace.
The outskirts are a zone of abandonment. When a place falls to ruin out here, the city instinctively leaves
it as a monument to failure. If a whole shopping mall shuts down, leaving hundreds unemployed and
hundreds of square meters devoid of life, who wants to rent that kind of space again? Phantasms form in
these places, not from the dead, but from ill feeling and negative energy. In turn, venators and
expulsionists are drawn like flies.
Common Threats: Barghests, Crossing Guardians, the Haint, Hungry Parasite, Hunting Beast, Mounts,
Phantasms, Red Riding Hood, Venators
Common Curses: In reverse order, recite all the highway exits you’ve passed for good luck. Let the
driver of the bottle green Mercedes cut in front or he’ll come for you. Leave an offering of at least $10
under the mattress: the person who takes it will be under your spell. Write “Welcome” on the mirror in
lipstick or pen: phantasms appreciate the kindness. Pot two yellows at the pool table when you’re
supposed to be shooting for reds: the next person you look at will suffer extreme misfortune. Never look
when the trash pile at the dump starts moving. Just turn around and walk away.

Complications
• Curses are so commonplace out here that car breakdowns, weird hitchhikers, road rage attacks,
and creepy gas station attendants are hard to avoid.
• People who live and drink out here are paranoid and quick to anger. Fists and booted feet fly with
ease.
• The salespeople out here are desperate and won’t leave you alone until you make a purchase.

Enhancements
• Everyone’s got a story out here, and they’re quick to share it if you ask the right questions.
• You’ll always find a room in the motels and roadhouses in the outskirts.

Example: Resting Place Motel

The last stop on the long road out of the city, the neon-illuminated Resting Place is a motel in the
traditional u-shape, with two stories comprising 34 rooms, with 33 open for business. Room 13 has been
left permanently vacant following the repeat instances of bloody murder and suicide that have taken place
within. It’s not that the motel owner’s scared; she’s just tired of having to clean up the mess after the cops
are done with the room.
The motel is everything a traveler on a budget might expect. Simple locks on the doors, thin mattresses,
unusual smells, frequent peeping toms, and a local contingent of sex workers if that’s your thing. The real
attraction is the True Blue Bar & Grill a short walk away. It promises a hot meal, as much booze as you
can drink, and a startling propensity for fights between gangs, mainly of the biker variety. In fact,
superstition says that if you don’t feed the jukebox regularly, a fight is inevitable. Old Mike sits next to it
just to keep it loaded with quarters, but occasionally he falls asleep and violence ensues. Lykans, Black
Hearts, and Furies love this venue.
All kinds of stories surround the Resting Place. The one everyone knows concerns the steadily increasing
elephant’s graveyard of rusted out cars parked in wasteland to the motel rear. It’s not so odd that joyriders
might dump their cars here (though everyone assumes a lot of the vehicles come from motel guests who
didn’t pay the Piper — a spirit living in an air conditioning unit), it’s that nobody strips the various
vehicles for parts. Supposedly, to do so is to offend a Red Riding Hood who dwells amid the wrecks and
emerges to slay Accursed who make the mistake of staying here overnight.

Places of Worship
Churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and shrines are commonplace in a diverse world of diverse
faiths. Some are built to blend in with their surroundings, others stand tall as icons of religion, bearing
rustic architecture, gothic accoutrements, golden cladding, or carvings on the interiors and exteriors.
Much of what determines a religious site’s ostentatiousness is the volume of worshipers and the funnel of
their wealth to the temple coffers. Sometimes a sponsor (maybe known, maybe anonymous) funds an eye-
catching sculpture, stained glass window, or ceremonial altar. Sometimes, these things just appear as if
from a wish or as part of a supernatural deal.
Superstition, faith, and ritual are fundamental parts of religion. Cynicism has minimal place here. As a
result, creatures from the Outside deploy their subtle servants among congregations and within holy
orders. It’s easy to coax a desperate wish from a prayer and reward it with magic. And just like that, your
victim’s on the hook. Conversely, belief has shown itself capable of overpowering crooked deals, if they
were made in good faith. It’s not just the strength of belief, however: the Accursed intervene to keep such
places “clean” out of fear of groups like the Sisters of the Cross, and what they might do if they saw the
devil’s hand in their places of worship.
Battleground Angels frequently dedicate themselves to places like this.
Common Threats: Battleforged, Crossing Guardians, Gargoyles, Hobgobs, Horror Streamer, Outcast
Apostate, Sisters of the Cross
Common Curses: Cross yourself before entering and upon seeing the altar or crucifix for divine
blessings. Whisper a prayer to your ancestors as well as to God: they’ll target your enemies. Light a
candle for your loved ones: they’ll look out for you. Never wear dirty shoes in a place like this unless you
want to suffer a grievous curse. Gift something truly important to the shrine to show your commitment
and penance. Drink water containing shavings from the font to offset unnatural ailments.

Complications
• True believers can sense curses unless they’re concealed through virtuous deeds.
• Venators such as the Sisters of the Cross patrol these places to ensure the Accursed aren’t
violating them.

Enhancements
• It’s remarkably easy to make a supernatural pact in a place of worship, though expectations for
repayment may be high.
• Many creatures, irrespective of origin, can be convinced to treat places of worship as sanctuaries
where violence is not permitted.

Example: Cathedral Church of St. Bartholomew

The mighty Cathedral Church of St. Bartholomew dominates its surroundings, with carved saints and
gargoyles jockeying for position on every roof, wall, and tower. This awe-inspiring building took decades
to complete and saw the deaths of nine builders in the doing. It dates back hundreds of years and is now
permanently clad in scaffolding, as the spires threaten to collapse the eroding masonry beneath.
This cathedral is an active place of worship and contains dozens of significant historical artifacts — from
bishops’ tombs to precious jewels, and saints’ fingerbones to one of the oldest clocks in existence. It’s a
place where blessings are more common than curses. The cathedral is a good place.
There is, however, one cursed item buried somewhere in its walls, or perhaps beneath the tombstone
floors: the skull of the cathedral’s first ordained bishop, Wells Lacey. The tale goes, Lacey was a wicked
man who used his spiritual power to indulge every vice. His congregation were his slaves in body and
mind. For a time, he was the city’s most powerful human. So stained was his spirit, that he became a
nexus of curses. No Lineage would claim him. No family would touch him. When he finally died in the
jaws of a barghest that still prowls the cathedral after dark, his body was dismembered. While his torso
and limbs were recovered, his skull was not, and is now lost somewhere in the cathedral.
Wells Lacey’s skull is said to be capable of answering any question about the Outside. If found, it would
make for a truly powerful cursed relic. How anyone knows this for certain is uncertain, given his skull has
never been recovered. But it’s said that if one prays alone in the cathedral before a burned-out candle, you
can hear Lacey’s skull screaming in pain, offering the world in exchange for being reunited with his body.

Suburbia
Suburbs are artificial retreats from the urban sprawl. Built to accommodate growing populations and
attract families to areas where the inner city is a little too rough for their tastes, suburbia advertises itself
as idyllic, with its curated lawns, homeowners’ associations, and community cookouts where everyone
gets to share the local gossip. The veneer of respectability is so thick here that it’s incredibly easy to
conceal crimes, liminal spaces, Accursed activity, and unexplained weirdness. Suburbanites just want
everything to stay quiet and on the level. They won’t allow anything to shatter their perfect prism of life.
Suburbs have a glossy, polished exterior. It’s easy to wipe stains off such things. The Dead enjoy
possessing people in suburbia, because at first glance, the lives led out here are perfect. They soon
discover the secrets and lies told behind closed doors. Likewise, other Accursed seeking a “quiet”
existence lead lives in communities with a neighborhood watch, the freedom to warn others to stay off
their property, and a greater proximity to the great outdoors. It’s common for suburbs to find themselves
pinned between the big city and the countryside, at least until the city grows further, at which point
suburbs fold into each other, becoming their own kinds of liminal labyrinths where streets of trees, perfect
houses and fences, and waving neighbors all blend into each other.
The mysteries at play in suburbia are often shockingly dark. There’s a frankness to the
straightforwardness of city crimes; less so the covered up, gaslit terrors buried away in this area.
Suburbanites know this, creating a firm division between those who conceal the sins of their neighbors
and those determined to purify them.
Common Threats: Cuckoo, Cursed Plaything, Drones, Expulsionists, Haunted House, the Night
Whistler, painful.love, Phantasms, Venators, Witch, Wretched Isopod
Common Curses: Leave the yellow balloon exactly where it is, or a monster will be waiting in your
home. Pick up an injured bird if you see one and place it in a bush: the Raptors will thank you. Never stop
for the old woman with the shopping cart: she only steals wishes and dreams. For protection, recite the
name of every President you can remember, biting your tongue for every one you forget. Hang a
horseshoe over your door for good luck. Let the tap run for ten seconds before you use the water: host
worms pour out in those initial seconds. Let families deal with their own problems unless you want to
attract problems of your own.

Complications
• A lot of the properties in this area carry sensors and alarms.
• Asking too many questions around here is a good way to get identified as a threat.
• Kids tell their parents everything, wives tell their husbands, and husbands tell their priests.
• The neighborhood watch lives up to its name, chronicling any strange faces in the area.

Enhancements
• Kids are desperate to escape their parents’ thumb and eager to embrace danger.
• Everyone’s a gossip, so bad news travels fast. This can be good and bad.
• The communal secrecy in this area works in your favor if you find something that could shame
someone, were it made public.

Example: Prufrock Academy

Prufrock is a fine school with fine standards. Attendance here is only awarded to the truly deserving
among children (adolescent overachievers, children from moneyed families, and to a lesser extent
orphans) and grants its pupils a plethora of academic options with some of the best teachers in the land.
There’s no room for bullying, no time for timewasting, and nothing less than 90% or higher on your
exams will do. Prufrock makes good, honest, intellectually brilliant adults out of its students.
That’s what it says in the brochure. In terms of numbers, Prufrock boasts record numbers of students who
graduate and move on to prestigious universities all over the world.
But as with all things in suburbia, crack the surface and you find a mire of lies, abuses, and infernal deals.
Nobody ever talks about what happens to the kids who can’t quite hit 90% or higher, but they all end up
changed somehow until they become better. Nobody discusses the fact that the principal hasn’t been seen
for years, and the vice principal has been running the place aggressively since then. The faculty turn a
blind eye to the nightmares that stalk the halls during recess. Nobody, not even the children, mentions
“the lockup” for fear of ending up there.
Prufrock is on the radar for the Archivists, Network, and Premiere, as they’re always on the lookout for
bright young things to bolster their families. All of them have had members report back that Prufrock is
just plain wrong. There’s something deeply malevolent at play in the school.

Example: Lark’s Grove

Constructed to conform to the 1950s ideal, Lark’s Grove is the picturesque neighborhood you see in
movies like Pleasantville, The Stepford Wives, and The Virgin Suicides. Except, that is, for the layer of
dystopian horror! Ha ha ha. Please, have another glass of lemonade.
The first residents of Lark’s Grove formed a pact: trouble in our neighborhood will be erased swiftly and
never mentioned again. Since then, new people have moved in, descendants have been born, and the
suburb has expanded. But the surviving originators of the pact — all of them now in their 90s or older —
pursue their cause of peace at any cost with homicidal fanaticism. A Báthorite lives among them and
knows that a handful of these old timers have made all manner of deals to keep themselves healthy and
their mile or so of real estate a peaceful bastion in a troubled sea of grime.
It all sounds utopian, but something has started picking the originators off. Many Accursed suspect Mr.
Purple’s hand in this, but the Zeds claim the neighborhood’s aged populace have made favors to
circumvent their natural death clocks, and are therefore exempt from the family’s usual executions.
There’s a tale that once, some decades ago, the originators attempted to murder an entire family of
“troublemakers” who were bringing shame to Lark’s Grove. A child from the family purportedly survived
and grew up, their body covered 80% in burns, nothing but vengeance keeping them alive. The Furies
believe that if the Zeds won’t step in, this Lark’s Grove survivor is out for justified vengeance, and
they’re prepared to support her. But how to find a vengeful killer, and what to do with her after the job is
done?

Tourism Spots
Who doesn’t love a ghost walk or an escape room? How about an amusement park, casino, or museum?
Failing that, what about the food tour, the classic theater, or battlefield and nearby war cemetery? It’s
unlikely every city will have all these things, but it’s likely to have a few. The best ones are themed to the
location (i.e., it doesn’t make a huge heap of sense to have a Thomas Pynchon museum in a city he’s
never visited), but the best thing is when attractions are diverse. Providing plenty of ways to spend a
fortune is a good way of milking tourists.
The tourist trade offers a city many things: recreation, cash flow, and ripe targets. Some predators —
sometimes purely in the way of capital, other times more carnivorous, murderous, or magical in nature —
identify tourists as easy marks easily lost. If a tourist goes missing, the rest of the city goes on living. Yes,
concerned relatives or cops might show up to ask around, but most people want to keep to themselves, or
knowingly tell the concerned visitors “If he was from around here, he’d have known not to have crossed
that bridge after midnight.”
Tourist sites offer a place to unwind and absorb a little culture, even when they’re built around something
facile. Poltergeists adore ghost trails, amusement parks, and other sites where thrills and chills are
common. Many Hungry use tourist spots for picking up feeding vessels. Raptors, Archivists, and other
Families with an interest in history may turn their noses up at the gaudier, tackier tourist sites, but a well-
informed tourist visiting a place they’re fascinated about can prove a surprisingly useful teacher.
Common Threats: Haunted House, Horror Streamer, Hobgobs, Monster Traps, Phantasms, Resurrection
Jake
Common Curses: Spit in your hand before entering this place: you’ll be protected from disease but may
spread your own. Make a wish when you see something new: fresh ideas bring wishes into being. Tie a
piece of string around your middle finger: someone who’s crossed you will choke today. Blink ten times
if you feel something breathing down the back of your neck: the breather will disappear into mist.

Complications
• Getting people interested in a mystery beyond the dazzling delights in front of them is tricky at a
tourist spot.
• It’s easy for an adversary to remain hidden, disguised, or trigger an ambush in such a packed,
colorful location.

Enhancements
• It’s easy to bilk tourists out of their money or convince them “a better site is just over there, in
that alley.”
• You can find plenty of ways to distract people at a tourist spot.

Example: Amazing Fantasy Wonderland

This Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland themed park is fantastic for children and hell for adults. For
Accursed, it’s a place somewhere in between. The performers are all a little too eager, the rides have seen
better days, and everything served at the concession stands is sugar lacquered. The kids don’t care
because it’s all so fun. The grownups can’t help but wince when the rollercoaster takes its corners a little
too fast. The Accursed, however, think all the bells and whistles are a mask for something sinister.
The human-sized chessboard is always a popular attraction, with jam tarts for the winners. It’s odd
though, how the pawns’, knights’, and bishops’ weapons seem heavy and sharp, and how when a castle
takes you, you’re eaten up by the costume (“caught in the dungeon”) and only returned when someone
has bought you a season pass.
The hedge maze shifts every month and never matches the laminated map you’re given when you enter.
Visitors emerge looking and acting differently to how they entered, sometimes having aged months or
years.
A kid got upset when the White Rabbit growled at him to “piss off.” He tried to pull the performer’s mask
off, but witnesses said the White Rabbit screamed as if the ears and fur were part of her skin.
One kid goes missing from Wonderland every season. The park gives the distressed parents a doll to
represent their missing child and suddenly, the tears stop, and the families go home happily.
All these things and more take place at Wonderland, but non-Accursed seem oblivious to the weirdness,
even beyond normal cynicism. This place is truly an interstitial zone (p. XX).

Example: The Grand Hotel

The Grand Hotel is the city’s oldest, having been built to celebrate a World’s Fair back in the 19th
century. It maintains much of the same décor and atmosphere since its founding, including classically
trained and dressed butlers, maids, bellboys, and footmen. Staying at the Grand is an opulent novelty
where you can be guaranteed a service like none other.
Guests disappear at least once a year but their signature appears on the hotel’s system to record a
checkout, so the cops have never got much farther than recording the Grand as several lost individuals’
last known location. The truth is, the Grand is a vast liminal space layered on top of an interstitial zone.
It’s frighteningly easy to get lost in the uniformly designed corridors and stairwells (all of them lack
numbers to identify where you are) and end up in a populated bar saloon adjoining the guests “new
rooms, with compliments from the management.”
In recent years, horror streamers have booked themselves into the Grand to capture footage of purported
ghosts and freakish liminal spaces, such as doors that open to walls, staircases leading nowhere, and the
spaces where the cranked elevator opens to floors that shouldn’t exist. The Grand prosecutes unauthorized
moviemakers aggressively. Hotel management — Ron Pale and Ronald Hace — first destroy streamers’
recording devices. Then, if they don’t feel the lesson’s learned, they allow these interlopers an extended
stay on the fourth floor, which — as far as the public is concerned — has been condemned since 1948.
This doesn’t stop footage escaping, of course, and accounts about the Grand are plentiful. All it does is
increase the hotel’s legend and attract more visitors.
Many Accursed believe everything about the Grand is a ruse designed to attract the tourist trade, but even
if so, it’s possible such foolish toying with curses and mysteries will attract real versions of the same,
which the two Rons are unprepared to handle.

Transit Hub
Flickering lights, unpleasant smells, unwashed travelers, and eerie noises are but a handful of the treats
awaiting those using the city bus station. The train station is scarcely better, though it tends to offer the
benefit of increased space, meaning one doesn’t have to share space with a clearly hostile individual or
gang. It’s always best to travel during daytime, when you can see the people around you and know where
not to stand or sit. Just don’t stare too long. You don’t want to catch their attention.
Large cities add public transport infrastructure such as a subway, inner city bus lanes, and in rare cases, a
monorail. Such travel options undoubtedly contribute to a city’s growth and health. Accursed have
discovered something odd about many a metro or bus stop, however: they attract supernatural threats like
nowhere else. Nephilim believe it’s because the supernatural is drawn to high energy, high fear places,
and ask “is there anywhere more terrifying than a subway station at night when you’re the last traveler
waiting for the last train?”
Families such as the Eight Hands and Poltergeists take advantage of such places. The former use tunnels
and darkly lit waystations as bases and safe houses. The latter uses them to generate as much terror as
they can. All Accursed agree that there’s something to train carriages, unknown stations, a sense of travel
weariness, and the tension that manifests whenever the bus stops and the doors open that make public
transit and transit hubs common gateways to the Outside, open in both directions.
Common Threats: Any
Common Curses: Always catch the second bus instead of the first unless you want to end up in the
Outside. If you don’t have exact change, don’t ask for any when you pay: the bus driver will take care of
you for a tip. Always sit in the most rearward train carriage and never look at the doors when they open
unless you want to catch its attention. Stare out the window when passing through a tunnel to see your
fate imprinted on the glass. Get up only when the vehicle has come to a stop: standing prematurely is a
good way to find yourself exiting at an unknown station.

Complications
• People here want to be left alone and might act violently if approached.
• You could pass into a liminal space without warning unless you control some aspect of your
environment.

Enhancements
• When under threat, it’s easy to rouse communal security from passengers in a single carriage.
• Tensions are high and easy to exacerbate when traveling at night.

Example: Clearwater Bus Station

Clearwater Bus Station represents resistance on the part of the city’s downtrodden. The city angled the
seats at the bus station so people couldn’t sleep on them; rough sleepers share stacked cardboards and
blankets to even them out. The city replaced the public restroom lights with UV so drug users couldn’t
find their veins for shooting up; the dealers go by every day to smash the lightbulbs and provide their
customers with battery-powered flashlights. Cops started patrolling the bus station to eliminate criminal
activity; the bus drivers honk their horns when the cops show up and take a cut for doing so.
Clearwater is, despite all this, an operating bus station and the buses still run on time. Nobody likes
coming here because the sights and smells are distressing, and there’s always the risk of someone drunk,
drugged, or otherwise hostile getting in your face. People who miss their bus and end up stuck here are
advised to leave immediately. On more than one occasion, such a traveler has found themselves
supernaturally stuck in this quagmire of homelessness and vice.
There’s a figure named the Bandy Man who maintains a semi-permanent shop in a bodega at Clearwater
Bus Station. His unnatural deals make the venue popular among Accursed. The surrounding grime and
people within it are his personal guard. The city keeps trying to build a new bus station, leaving this one
to its decline, but one of the deals the Bandy Man extracts from his customers is to sabotage any city
effort in building a replacement station.

Example: Twin Lakes Underground Station

Twin Lakes shouldn’t exist. It was proposed as a station decades ago but never advanced beyond that
stage, as soon after that meeting, the designated station spot flooded in a sewer collapse and has never
been drained. Yet, every year there’s a metro passenger who reports their late-night train stopping at Twin
Lakes. They all say the station looks old, gray, and damp. They claim the doors open, the lights flicker,
and… the story then differs.
Some passengers, possessed of a foolish curiosity, step from the train into this Shattered Space and report
tales of traveling back in time, to another reality, or receiving visions of deaths in their future. Others
remain on the train and report seeing passengers on the station platform, their faces blank or hungry.
Sometimes they scratch at the train carriage, sometimes they ignore it. On one occasion, one of these
strangers climbed onto the train and lunged for those in the carriage. He was only held back through a
concerted effort before finally being ejected at the next station, where — to the trauma of everyone on
board — he fell between the train and the platform edge.
Is Twin Lakes a simple Shattered Space or something more? Are there more stations like this? The city’s
Nephilim are certain there’s an entire network of forbidden stations and all the disappearances that take
place on the subway are from people getting off at the wrong stop. They don’t know what happens to
them after that but expect there’s maybe many lives to be saved. These disappearances started years ago,
so how anyone could survive in such a place doesn’t bear considering.

The University
As a center of learning and culture, the university plays a vital role in keeping a city’s lifeblood fresh. It’s
where people discover new fields of interest, find their direction in the world, and potentially initiate a
path that’ll lead into their adult careers. A city with a university plays home to youth movements, is the
birthplace of lasting friendships, communities, troupes, and radical new thoughts, and what’s more, it
draws visitors from outside. The academic quality of a university is significant, but to those attending and
studying, the social aspect is often of greater importance.
Some universities are sprawling campuses set across multiple sites in a city. They might provide housing
for students and faculty. Others are tightly packed into old academic centers, cloistered in wings of old
buildings with stories to tell. Classic universities and modern ones are extremely different in feel. The
former have an air of legacy, dusty mystery, and wonder. The latter boast clean, contemporary
architecture and exist with a clarity of purpose: teach, accommodate, make you pass, send you into the
world.
Students are desperate to pass their exams, pay off their loans, avoid that bullying frat house, or teach that
abusive professor a lesson. Hobgobs and other creatures prey on that anguish to forge lasting, painful
deals. And establish curses should debts go unpaid. The Accursed often find themselves on campus to
handle such rampant curses. Beyond that, many universities are home to mysteries such as old, preserved
archives once in the ownership of a disappeared teacher; the diary of a distressed and sadly deceased
student; secret societies formed among students or faculty; and rampant abuses based on money,
popularity, or trials of an esoteric nature.
Common Threats: Expulsionists, Horror Streamer, Katarina Simko, Sorcerer Tyrant
Common Curses: Put a sprinkling of flour under your pillow the night before an exam to confuse your
invigilator. Burn last year’s textbook to increase your chances of passing. The first class you go to will
always be the wrong one: don’t linger there unless you want to stay for three years. Don’t follow the boy
in the white vest: he’ll take you to a place from which half of you will never return. When passing a
teacher’s office, mutter “thank you” or “fuck you” three times to issue a blessing or curse.

Complications
• The stress of being within an academic institution can make you nervous and prone to mistakes.
• There’s a pecking order at university, and unless you’ve done something to prove yourself,
someone’s always waiting to humiliate you.
• Your roommate keeps bringing people home with him, and until you stop it they’ll get worse and
worse, and more intrusive.

Enhancements
• Amid the tired and underpaid faculty, there’s always at least one good, genuinely interested
teacher.
• If you’re sincerely trying to learn, the university has abundant libraries and access to information
sources.

Example: Horizon University

Despite its new sounding name, Horizon University’s an old establishment with even older traditions. A
group known as the Dedicated Society for the Improvement of the Human Mind founded the university in
years gone by, and while they’re all dead now, their rules still apply: every student must commit
themselves 100% to learning and every teacher has leave to enforce this rule however they see fit. The
rule (among the others in the eight-rule code) has been enforced religiously since time immemorial. On
the positive side, the university sees a fantastic pass rate. On the negative, those who can’t cut it often end
up cut up.
Stories emerge from Horizon surrounding students who disappear, hurt themselves, or experience drastic
personality alterations during their time here. The Accursed cynically say “that sounds like most places in
the city,” except they sense there’s a malign intelligence at work here, living within the university walls
and infecting every inhabitant with a hive mind based on shared trauma. Something wants to crush these
students’ wills and shape them into moldable puppets for purposes unknown. The number of students
involved in violent crimes upon graduation may speak to the reason, leading to some Accursed to
conclude there’s a cult at work.
The frat and sorority houses are among the worst parts of Horizon University. The typical hazings are
only worsened due to rivalries between the houses, so each acts to outdo the other. Many a student has
undergone a Horizon haze and decided they’d prefer to go without the degree, thank you very much. The
academic board is trying to clamp down on this behavior, but more out of fear of losing students (and
their loans) than out of a place of conscience. One former student happens to be a young Reeve named
Susan White, and despite her family’s desire for her to receive a full education, would rather risk their ire
than return to Horizon University.