What is the midnight world?
Role-Playing Dread
The Midnight World is a narrative driven horror role playing game focused heavily on mounting anxiety and tension…that creeping dread you experience when you know something terrible is hiding somewhere just out of sight.
Like other entries in the horror RPG market, The Midnight World seeks to tell grand stories of mind-cracking terror. Unlike those games, which tend to focus on the big flashy moments at the beginning and end of a story, The Midnight World tries to digs its claws into the stories that happen between, around, after and before them.
living with the memory
Every Player Character in The Midnight World has had a brush with the terrifying creatures across the Twilight Veil. They all live every day with the awful memory of that event, and the heart-crushing anxiety that it might happen again.
Memory plays heavily into The Midnight World’s mechanical system. Character creation is based off of each character’s recollection of their own dance with cosmic horror. The way they recall that event provides the framework for their abilities, skills and backstory.
The character creation process can take as few as a couple of minutes, using pre-generated memory blocks, or the player can meticulously craft a memory and character sheet based on their desires.
the 11th hour
Just as the minutes constantly slip away in real life, the pendulum of The Midnight World’s clock swings steadily and without pause. Hour by hour, the hands creep towards their apex. Once it has been set in motion, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.
The Midnight World’s system is designed to replicate the feeling of constantly creeping tension, of building pressure in your skull that must eventually rupture.
When the clock chimes Twelve for you, will it be a relief or just some new kind of horror?
Story
The Big Bang didn’t just birth our reality. Indeed, that singular event brought a nearly infinite host of Universes into creation. Most of those spun off in their own directions and grew into maturity without difficulty. Some, though, died moments after their inception.
The remains of these Corpse Universes float somewhere in the space between something and nothing. They’re separated from physical existence, occupying a sort of “Universe Graveyard” where forgotten realities are left to rot. While living Universes have evolved according the stable rules of physics, these dead shards are governed by inconsistent and utterly alien laws…and in some of them, something akin to life has even grown.
The Midnight World is a living Universe, not unlike our own. Mathematics work just like they do in our reality, and the basic laws of physics remain unchanged. But for whatever reason, this existence shares a terrible proximity with the Universe Graveyard. Because of this unfortunate fact, The Midnight World is subject to all manner of intrusions from the Dread Beings that have grown in those dead realities.
Most people still don’t ever come into contact with anything supernatural in their lives, and The Midnight World looks more or less exactly like the Earth that we know. But there are those who have had a brush with the things Beyond. These Dread-Touched people are forever changed by their encounter, and most of them will eventually find themselves face to face with the Beyond again.
News
The Midnight World is now available on DrivethruRPG and Itch.io!
We’re so happy to announce that The Midnight World is available in high quality digital PDF on DrivethruRPG and Itch.io!
See you At Midwinter Gaming Convention
It’s official! The first convention for The Midnight World post release is Midwinter Gaming Convention in Milwaukee, January 12th-15th 2023! Our little game began as an indie project run on borrowed tables at Midwinter back in 2018, and now we’re coming home. We’ll have an exhibitor booth, several games throughout the weekend, and even a