The Night Clerk: An Architectural Horror Scenario is a system agnostic scenario usable in any modern horror game. Characters are trapped in an infinite labyrinth and have to find a way out. Fight monsters, scavenge for supplies, and see a different universe behind each door.
Characters check in at the Sleep Easy Inn, a cheap hotel, for the night and wake up...somewhere else. At first, it looks like the hotel but the windows show only a black void outside and no one can open a door or break a window to escape. The guests are now trapped in an infinite labyrinth designed to break their minds. Escape is possible but only if they find the Night Clerk, the person who trapped them in the first place or the 13th Floor, the heart of the labyrinth. The Night Clerk is a full color 44 page zine featuring a new monster, tables for unnatural artifacts, random encounters, and more! It's a flexible framework to make a unique architectural horror experience for your playing group. It is written by Ross Payton, Ennie Award winning host of Role Playing Public Radio, author of Base Raiders, and a writer for Eclipse Phase and Delta Green. The Night Clerk has been updated, after years of fine tuning and is ready for your gaming table.
This zine includes art from Trevor Henderson (creator of Sirenhead) and Patsy McDowell (Base Raiders). It can be run in any modern horror RPG with minimal adaptation.
Main Features of The Night Clerk zine include:
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The Mystery Guest: A new monster designed to destroy the sanity of its victims!
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Exploration focused scenario: Characters earn clue points by exploring the labyrinth and use them to find a way to escape.
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Artifact random tables: Find unnatural weapons and tools and use them to survive.
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Full Color with original illustrations from artists like Matt Emmons, Galen Pejeau. and Patsy McDowell.
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Random Encounter Tables: Separate tables for NPC trapped survivors and unnatural beings
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Multiple pocket universes: Behind each door of the labyrinth lies a pocket universe with its own rules.
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Advice: Guidelines on how to run the scenario.
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Two paths to freedom: Characters can either escape by finding the Night Clerk and getting him to reveal how to escape or they can find the 13th Floor, the heart of the labyrinth.
Architectural Horror
Architecture is an art form about transforming an environment to suit a purpose, to turn the chaos of nature into order the mind can understand. Outdoors into indoors. Architectural horror explores how designed spaces can be used to harm and terrify. Examples of this genre include haunted house stories, slasher films about killers who build traps and hidden torture dens for their victims, and survival horror games about dead cities filled with monsters. It is a genre of intentionality and consequence. There is no raw violence from the wilderness. No divine or infernal hand is behind the horror. Architectural horror is defined by the intention of the architect behind the evil. In many tales, the architect is left anonymous or unknowable but their presence is still felt in the narrative.
Listen to a discussion on architectural horror on Role Playing Public Radio with Ross Payton and Rob Stith, author of the Orpheus Protocol RPG.
In the Night Clerk, the architect is left described, except as a powerful cosmic evil, so that the scenario can fit your individual game better. The labyrinth is a machine designed to transform its victims into unnatural monsters by breaking their perception of reality. Shattered victims become Mystery Guests, malevolent creatures intent on breaking more victims. Everything in the labyrinth is designed to achieve this goal. However, it is an ancient place and its creator has long since disappeared. It is decaying and that rot has made it unstable. Who knows what else you can find in there?
44 Seiten, vollfarbig, geheftet
