What will you risk to change the world?

It’s time to stop playing games. The world spins madly on its axis, plunging us headlong towards the end of time. Self-appointed messiahs are crawling out from under every rock, weird cults are squirming like maggots on a corpse, and magick is flowing from the wounds of the world. If you can throw a punch, steal a car, hack a computer, or cast a spell, you might have what it takes to change the world.

Someone’s got to.

Soon the cosmos will die and be reborn. Next time around, the world might be a terrible place – or it could be paradise. Someone gets to decide. Might as well be you. You could chart the course of reality itself, and make a new world in your image. You could be God.

Easier said than done.

The problem is, lots of people have the same idea. The occult underground rings with the battles of unknown armies, and sides are being drawn. Magickal adepts duke it out with gun-toting enforcers and weirdos of every stripe. Clockwork humans and plodding Golems slip through the cracks of society. Entropics eat you memories and spit them back at you with poison added. Fringe groups like the Sect of the Naked Goddess, Mak Attax, The True Order of Saint-Germain, and The New Inquisition have all set their sights on the coming Apocalypse and put their ante on the table. The only people you can trust are your friends and yourself, and you’re not always sure about yourself.

Never forget:
When this many people are hungry for power, you better be the one with the fork.

Recommended for mature readers.

- From the Unknown Armies Rulebook -

If Delta Green hadn’t come along and saved Chaosiums’ bacon, then Unknown Armies would probably boast the highest number of Call Of Cthulhu converts, and lets face it, they’re a hard bunch to please. But look at the credits for Delta Green and who do you see but John Tynes, a stalwart founding member of the Pagan Publishing team since the early days. So one of the people who’s helped keep the ‘Cthulhu gaming license alive for the past ten years is perhaps best placed to push the envelope and deliver the next step in horror role-playing... transcendental horror role-playing no less.

Unknown Armies pits the players headlong into the ‘Secret War’, an age-old battle to shape creation waged amongst higher powers that were once human. This war rages across the Earth as followers of the ‘Gods’ or Invisible Clergy, barely mortal adepts and other shadowy organisations vie for both temporal and cosmic influence. Player characters can be involved in a variety of differing roles, from ignorant dupes and lackeys of other groups, independent agents attempting to accrue personal power and position right through to potential shapers of the New Universe. Magical arts, Avatar powers and good old fashioned violence back up the subtle skills of intrigue, blackmail and destabilisation in the struggle that is the Secret War.

At first glance it may seem like your average late 1990’s ‘modern occult and conspiracy’ game, with scattered schools of magic, sinister organisations and secret cults, hands-on deities and their followers fiddling about with the every-day doings of common folk, etc. But lurking beneath the now familiar paranoia strewn bleak wilderness of post-modern urban cityscapes infested with all manner of Things That Mean You No Good, is a unique premise that gives the whole game an invigorating spin. Remember those hands-on deities mentioned earlier? Well, if your characters play their cards right, and if you’re the type of gaming group who goes in for vast campaigns with epic story arcs that span years of real time gaming, there’s a chance you could join the Invisible Clergy. This select body of Archetypal powers form the guiding intellect that will shape the next incarnation of reality. If the Clergy is dominated by unpleasant archetypal expressions of humanity, the resulting cosmos will be one of anguish and torment.

Unlike other games where it’s the sign of a party hi-jacking the game masters’ plot when they end up taking on the celestial residents, in this it’s a legitimate and playable goal. That’s not to say it’s the only theme you could play within, Unknown Armies has a broad and well detailed game world that allows for a variety of exploration and conflict. It also has guidelines for playing campaigns at differing levels of ‘awareness’ of the secret occult forces that battle on the earth. Although a ‘street level’ campaign lacks the potential reward of a say in the recreation of the cosmos, it draws more heavily on the horror and psychological isolation elements of the game. Unknown Armies sets itself up well as a ‘magical cold war’ themed game, with occult forces which hide behind the smoke screen of ‘popular magic’ engaged in a clandestine battle for the hearts and minds of humanity. Where your character group fits into it all is for the players to decide, most options are open and the games designers do a good job of exploring the possibilities for the benefit of the GM.

Above and beyond the original and evocative background the action is set within, there are two elements of the game mechanics which bear particular comment. One of the reasons ageing Call of Cthulhu fans will (and do) enjoy Unknown Armies is firstly there’s a very real danger of your character going insane, and secondly because the game uses a percentile skill system that works! The way in which Stolze & Tynes engineer both sets of mechanics far outstrips Chaosiums’ use of either the San loss rules or straight percentile skills rolls. In fact I have to say this game restored my faith in percentile skill systems, and I wouldn’t hesitate to adapt the easily understood core elements of it into any other game which used a similar set of mechanics. To me, the clear cut ‘I can brain-surgeon to 65%’ rule always seemed woefully inadequate, and although unofficial rules additions and rules lawyers have suggested ways in which it should work, the essential premise as presented still lacks strength. Unknown Armies clarifies how this system can be made to work right from the beginning of the game, no later additions or tweaking is necessary.

Cleverly and adroitly simulating the ways in which a person can loose their commonality with the rest of mankind and there become ‘mad’ is another triumph for Unknown Armies. Gone are the days of ‘one day - fine, the next - mad as a march hare due to that 16 San point loss’. Rather, it’s a slow, twitchy decline into various forms of mental aberration and psychotic disorder - whether you make the roll or not! Fantastic stuff. Not a tentacle in sight, either. Well, I say that, I don’t expect you to believe me though.

Everything needed to play a game of Unknown Armies is in the main rule book, the additional sourcebooks detail further some of the elements and organisations integral to the background, whether you wish to flesh them out yourself or run with Messrs. Tynes’ & Stolze’s vision is up to you. The Invisible Clergy sourcebook (Stratosphere) and Postmodern Magick are both highly recommended. The game also has a good following on the internet, with some excellent expansion material and discussions on various sites. The central resource website is at www.unknownarmies.com The creators website is www.johntynes.com but remember, he’s not an entirely well man and probably shouldn’t be trusted with unattended children…

Reviewed By Harry Albany