Cthulhu Eternal - Victorian Era SRD

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Above the waves rose weedy remembered spires. The moon laid pale lilies of light on dead London¸ and Paris stood up from its damp grave to be sanctified with star-dust ...”
IMPORTANT NOTE: This PDF contains the text of a full set of rules for a (setting-independent) RPG which embraces Lovecraftian investigations in a mid-to-late 19th Century context. In OGL terms it is a "System Reference Document” (or SRD). While the rules contained in this PDF give you everything that you'd need to run a game they are not illustrated¸ typeset¸ or furnished with detailed examples as you would expect from a core RPG rulebook. Neither do they describe a particular game world¸ with a set of monsters¸ rituals¸ tomes and the like (although guidelines for building and encountering such elements are fully described).
Cthulhu Eternal is a multi-era¸ setting agnostic ruleset which aims to support inventive game designers who have original ideas for Lovecraftian roleplaying games or scenarios. It draws upon the long line of D100 games of Cthulhu-themed investigation¸ offering a beautifully streamlined and elegant set of mechanics to support a diverse range of gaming styles.
Different eras of human history each have their own flavor and character - due in part to the technology available¸ and in part due to social conventions of the day. Recognizing this¸ Cthulhu Eternal exists as a family of inter-related rules engines - each based on the same mechanics but tailored to the needs of a specific era.
This version of Cthulhu Eternal is specially designed to support Lovecraftian games set in the Victorian Era - that is¸ the mid-to-late 19th Century when Queen Victoria was Queen Empress of the world's largest empire. This period is a popular setting for the earliest fiction revolving around themes of cosmic horror¸ gothic horror¸ science fiction¸ detective fiction and weird fiction.
Other versions of Cthulhu Eternal currently available in SRD form:
Cthulhu Eternal: Modern Age SRD Cthulhu Eternal: Jazz Age SRD Cthulhu Eternal: Cold War SRD
More titles are planned as future releases.
Contained within the 100+ page PDF¸ you will find rules covering the following topics:
Part 1: Rules of the Game
1.0 Core Game Concepts 2.0 Creating Protagonists (the term given to player characters in Cthulhu Eternal) 3.0 The Game (skills¸ tests¸ willpower) 4.0 Combat 5.0 Equipment 6.0 Vehicles 7.0 Sanity 8.0 Downtime (developing protagonists between adventures)
Part 2: Game Moderator Resources
9.0 Maddening Revelations 10.0 Supernatural Effects
Part 3: Game Building Resources
11.0 Designing New Archetypes 12.0 Translating Creatures from D100 Games 13.0 Gumshoe Creature Conversion
For convenience¸ this pack also includes two versions of the Cthulhu Eternal Victorian Era character sheet. One is a high-resolution non-fillable PDF¸ suitable for printing. The other is a fillable PDF sheet which will ONLY work with the full version of Adobe Reader - save the file to a local drive and open it using the Adobe Reader App (using it in-browser or on mobile devices won't work).
WHAT CAN I DO WITH THIS SRD?
We are releasing this SRD to support community creators who would like to produce their own original Lovecraftian RPG creations¸ but who need a free and open set of rules to serve as a foundation to their own creative endeavors. As such¸ there are no real limitations on what you can do with this material (other than those described in the Open Game License).
Some examples of ways this SRD could be used:
Do you have some old Lovecraftian scenarios sitting around gathering dust for want of a free and open game system to use in their publication? Why not convert the scenario to work with Cthulhu Eternal¸ release them and direct readers to download this SRD to run them? Or even talk to us about bundling the SRD with the scenario PDF itself? Do you have a fantastic idea for an innovative Lovecraftian game but the thought of having to re-create all the "nuts and bolts” of a game system is a distraction from your high concept? Well¸ you could always recycle some or all of the mechanics in this SRD to be those "nuts and bolts.” Because the material is virtually 100% open content¸ you can copy/paste whatever rules you want into your original creation (as long as you release under the OGL and credit us as per the requirements of the license).