Strata is the ice-rimed carpeted streets of Amaranth where high elf dilettantes fund revolutionary cells for sport. Strata is being blessed by the Spire Herself and watching, helpless, as ash-grey roses burst from your skin. Strata is a pulp author with a gun who knows the occult power of purple prose. Strata is a drow so deep in service to the goddess they have burned their identity on a funeral pyre as tribute to her.
Strata is rescuing thirty drugged and mutilated drow from a wicked sculptor-surgeon. It is fighting for what little you’ve got when the police try to take it away from you. It is stumbling blind through the backstreets of Pilgrim’s Walk, hoping your handler doesn’t sell you out to your enemies as a bargaining chip.
Strata is higher highs and lower lows. Strata is the next evolution of Spire, digging deeper into the secrets of the city, and offering more ways to fight for what you believe in.
Strata is a full-length, full-colour, hardback sourcebook for the Spire RPG.
It contains:
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Five scenarios. Written by a mix of established and new authors, these campaign frames and adventures for Spire are written with the system and setting in mind. They’re evocative, inspiring, and most importantly open-ended, allowing gamesmasters to weave their own narratives within the boundaries presented. (You can learn more about the scenarios below.)
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The Inksmith class. The Inksmith is a black-market, black-magic occultist who channels the power of pulp fiction into spells. They can knock out adversaries with a single haymaker, introduce schlocky details into the story, embody the fears of a community and, if things are moving slowly, magically summon a man holding a gun through the nearest available door.
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The Shadow Agent class. Devotees of Our Hidden Mistress, the Shadow Agent risks their own identity to receive covers - semi-mystical fake identities that they can embody to further the revolution. At higher levels of power, they can “leave” injuries and madness in their cover identities, and put aside a broken leg as easily as shedding a disguise.
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Lots of extra advances. We have rules for: all nine of the noble houses of the drow, giving players the chance to take on the role of disaffected aristocrats; playing a Druid of the Living Spire, and letting sacred plants grow through your skin; becoming a gazetteer and distributing illegal pamphlets through Spire; devoting your character’s sorcery to a particular artistic movement in Ivory Row, and more besides.
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Reams and reams of setting info and plot hooks. More than 40,000 words of engaging writing on the highest and lowest parts of society in Spire, illustrating the volatile city that’s waiting for the players to show up and change it. Aelfir blinding parties, undercity folk tales, the secrets of Bound god-prisons, Silver Quarter heists, drug-dealing speakeasies, fashion, music, art, madness, magic, and ravenous, unknowable gods - they’re all here.
color hardcover
