Good afternoon, Patsies Fearless Operatives!

We have been busy on Dark Conspiracy, getting everything ready for you to explore a world under attack and safeguard humanity. So, time for a progress report!

Add-Ons
All the Add-Ons that were pledged for have been sent and are now on their way to everyone if, indeed, you have not received them already!

Dark Conspiracy Core Rulebook
You have had this in your hands for a little while now, and we have been collating all your feedback and comments. Expect an update to your files later this month with your latest suggestions.

Field Ops
The mission book for Dark Conspiracy is in layout right now, and we are expecting to get everything to you in early December. The missions in this book will take you around the world and include investigations minor and disasters extreme. We have been playing around with the mission structure too, so not all will start with a simple briefing/dossier from The Company. To give you some idea of what your Operatives will be facing...

Operation Cracked Vessel: Amber. A cult in Nevada has taken over an otherwise safe and sleepy community, and your Operatives are dispatched to see what is going on. If you were at an event where we were playtesting Dark Conspiracy last year, this mission will be familiar. Speaking from experience, do take surveillance gear and don't drive flashy cars...

Operation Falling Timber: Green. Set in one of the scariest places in the world (Norwich), the Operatives will be infiltrating a distribution centre to see why the staff have been acting oddly.

Operation Shattered Antler: Black. Your Operatives are dispatched to the Italian Alps. This is not a holiday - they will be confronting the Demonground that has erupted on one of the peaks. One cell has already been destroyed by it - your Operatives will need both skills and heavy ordnance to prevail.

Operation Sundered Ship: Amber. The Contacts and Allies of your Operatives have gone dark, disappeared or are acting very strangely. Something is deliberately targeting them.

Operation Endless Sun: Green. You may have heard of the Beast of Bodmin. It is a myth, a story for tourists (seriously, Bella - the author of Field Ops - went to have a look). However, nearby Dartmoor is very different, and the British government have shut the area down and evacuated a lot of people. They are hiding something, and The Company thinks it knows what it is. Your Operatives are duly dispatched...

Operation Fighting Bison: Red. Even provocative podcasts are basically harmless, right? Well, maybe not when the Dark gets involved. The Operatives will be infiltrating a farmstead turned compound being used to host a podcast that teaches the world real traditional values. The Dark Minion at the centre of this is placing a heavy toll on the hosts.

Operation Hidden Anvil: Amber. The Operatives will be jetting off to Tokyo for this mission, to look into a mysterious set of disappearances (presumed murders) that have taken place at Shibuya, home to the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing. What they may find will test their resolve in what is perhaps the darkest of all these missions.

Dread Earth
And once you have mastered the missions that Field Ops throws at you, we have the first full campaign for Dark Conspiracy - Dread Earth. Set in the Appalachian Mountains, the Operatives will soon find themselves effectively cut off from the outside world where the presence of Demonground will be the least of their worries. A previously unknown dimension is pressing upon the Earth, directed by a true Minion Lord. This will be the toughest assignment your Operatives will have yet received.

Bella is putting the finishing touches on Dread Earth right now and will be handing the manuscript over later this month. We are lined up for editing and it should be entering layout before Christmas, with a PDF ready for all of you next year.

Stretch Goals
These are mostly complete and just awaiting layout and art - all going well, you will start seeing these before Christmas!

More news as it comes!

Good afternoon, trusted Operatives!

I'm happy to report that the Dark Conspiracy: The Unseen War Core Rulebook is fully compiled, unredacted, and ready for review by all Operatives. PDFs will be transmitted to you by our contacts at DrivethruRPG, so look out for an email from them with a download link and let us know if you don't receive it.

I say unredacted – the notable exception is the final cover artwork, which is still getting a few tweaks before receiving final approval. Here's a little teaser of that cover:

The Core Rulebook gives you everything you need to dive into the fight against the Dark, from Operative and Cell creation to Minions, Missions, Cults and, of course, Conspiracies!

The PDF is still a draft, so please don't hesitate to let us know your thoughts. This is an opportunity for you to let us know what you like and dislike, and for us to incorporate your comments.

Finally, a note on the surveys – a big thank you to the 80% of you who have already completed them! We will be locking your surveys next week and will then proceed to charge cards (for any add-ons purchased through the pledge manager) and lock your shipping addresses. That will let us start shipping physical add-ons ASAP. If your address changes after we lock it, please get in touch so we can make sure your parcels still reach your HQ!

If you haven't completed your survey yet, don't panic – this won't affect your ability to do so. That said, please consider this a gentle reminder, as we'd love to ship add-ons to you as well.

As always, a big thank you for your support and patience, and we hope you enjoy everything the Core Rulebook has to offer!

Good afternoon, fearless operatives!

We had tentatively said the Dark Conspiracy Core Rulebook PDF would be with you this week, but it will be early next week instead. We're just waiting on the cover art and one full-spread art piece like this one:

We hope you agree it will be worth the wait!

Meanwhile, Cassie is hard at work laying out the Field Ops mission book - there's nothing quite ready to show yet, but the layout is looking really exciting and will do a great job setting the scene for players and referees.

Bella put the finishing touches on the stretch goals this week, so you'll start seeing them shortly - Cassie will work her magic on them before they're slid under your door in unmarked envelopes.

Finally, our good friends over at RPG Planet are going to be working on a Portuguese translation of Dark Conspiracy! They're responsible for bringing Traveller to Brazil, and we're excited to see what they can do with Dark Conspiracy.

Good things to come!

Good afternoon, brave Operatives!

Well... thank you all for your support! You have put immense trust in us, and we are all so grateful for that. Now we return our noses back to the grindstone to make something truly worthy of you all!

If you will give us a little leeway, this is actually our first time on the BackerKit platform, so there are a few things still new to use. However, we are in constant contact with the BackerKit staff, so we foresee any issues getting resolved quickly.

So, what happens next?

Well, first of all, the next two weeks will be fairly quiet, as this is the time BackerKit takes to collate all your information. However...

All through this, we will preview snippets of text and the new artwork coming in for the titles beyond the Core Rulebook, so you will soon be swamped in lots of Dark Conspiracy goodness!

So, for now, it is just left for me to say thank you again, to one and all. Your support is most humbling and we sincerely hope you massively enjoy the game as it drops through your inbox and mail box.

Thank you!

Good morning, brave Operatives!

There are just three days left in this BackerKit campaign for Dark Conspiracy, and we are getting super-excited as the time nears when we can start sending out the Core Rulebook to you all!

However, there is more than just the Core Rulebook coming. We also have the dread Earth campaign, plus the Field Ops mission book that will get you started in defending the Earth against the predations of the Dark Minions.

Field Ops has 7 standalone missions suitable for any cell, ranging from Green-Grade to Black...

This mission pits the Operatives against an insidious cult in rural Nevada, whose attempted summonings of biblical figures to protect them against the apocalypse have caught the attention of something far darker, and far more bloodthirsty. 

 

A branch of a multinational company has been haemorrhaging staff, and nobody knows why. Their personnel losses are becoming too hard for the Company to ignore, however, and reports are only becoming increasingly concerning.

 

At least two teams have not returned. The Company has no other option. Operatives must find a way to push back Demonground from where it encroaches into the Italian Alps next to an otherwise picturesque village, before all manner of horrors pour forth. 

 

Friends, ex-coworkers, family members… all are susceptible to the Dark. Nobody knows this better than the Operatives who now have to save Contacts and Allies from the worst of fates.

 

Dartmoor has been cordoned off, and villages and towns have been evacuated. The Beast of Dartmoor is back, and the Operatives are sent to determine the truth behind this old folktale, once and for all. 

Podcasts are a dime a dozen, but some break out of their smaller audiences and into the wider public arena. One such podcast has become too big, and its hosts too violent, to ignore. The Operatives must stop them before they release their anniversary episode, which could be disastrous for all humanity. 

 

There is little evidence behind what attacked Aiko Takamura near Shibuya Crossing. There is no CCTV, no blood, no DNA, and no witnesses. Nobody could have hurt someone that badly within such a short time, and yet… here Aiko is. The Operatives must find out what happened, and what part Dark Minions had to play in Aiko’s injuries, before someone else gets hurt.


Stay tuned for more updates before the end of the BackerKit campaign!

Good afternoon, brave Operatives!

When we started work on Dark Conspiracy, we knew if should be/would be Traveller-based (in terms of the rules). However, Traveller is more than just 'roll two dice, add modifiers, try to get 8 or more.' Traveller is effectively a set of interconnected mini-games that allow a Referee to create adventures without serious preparation. You never need be at a loss for adventure!

But how to do this in Dark Conspiracy?

Well, we had the mission structure as far as the Company is concerned (showcased in the last update), and we had the name of the game - Dark... Conspiracy...

How would it be if we blended those together? What if it were the players who were uncovering their own conspiracy, independent of the Referee?

Could we get that to work?

We knew this needed to have minimal Referee-input. As much as possible, it would be driven by the players alone. So, we had the idea that the Operatives would dig around, doing their research, and the Referee would award them with 'conspiracy headlines'.

These would be short one-liners that could be gleaned from the Internet, conspiracy-focussed magazines (you know the ones), or drawn from random in the Core Rulebook (we have an Appendix filed with them - everything from 'Weird radio pulses detected under the Antarctic ice' to 'They're turning the fricking frogs gay!'). The more sensationalist, the better.

The Referee then takes a step back and lets the Operatives get on with it.

The Operatives start by making Investigate checks. If successful, the Referee gives them a headline. This headline has a Veracity equal to Effect of the check.

Headline in hand, the Operatives decide whether it relates to an Event, Location, Entity, Obfuscation, Beneficiary or Victim. They are given a Conspiracy Web chart (that, coincidentally, looks like a six-spoked spider's web), and places that headline at the outermost edge of the web, on the spoke that relates to one of those categories.

So, if the Operatives heard about radio pulses at the South Pole, they might decide that is an Event or a Location, perhaps, and place it there.

They need to fill each of those categories with a headline, so will need to get six before they can really start investigating.

As the campaign continues, they will 'finesse' those headlines with a variety of checks, representing them trawling the internet, talking to contacts, visiting locations and performing reconnaissance, and so on. This will, hopefully, improve the Veracity of a headline.

Operatives will have the chance to swap headlines between conspiracy categories, and add new ones. The goal is to improve the Veracity of each headline and bring it closer to the centre of the web while constructing a narrative of how everything fits together.

When the centre of the web is surrounded on all six categories, the Operatives then present their grand conspiracy to the Referee, showing how everything fits together and ready to take action on a mission of their very own, with no Company involvement!

Finding headlines and improving their Veracity is easy at first, requiring only a few hours between Company-assigned missions. However, as the Operatives get drawn ever deeper intwined with their conspiracy, it begins to take over their lives, with checks taking days, weeks... months of all-consuming research and explanation.

The truth is out there! It must be!

At some point, deep into their investigations, the Referee can present them with a Breakthrough. This is purely optional (and is really just a method for the Referee to stick their oar in), and is done by the Operatives being contacted by a stranger 'in the know' who can give them new leads and let them know that they are close... very, very close.

If you have seen the episode of The X-Files where Deep Throat is first introduced or Donald Sutherland’s character in the film JFK, you will know exactly how to portray this.

Conversely, the Operatives can try to discard a headline that is not working for them. However, this requires a check too, and failure will mean that, maddeningly, they cannot see the connection but just know it is part of the conspiracy!

When the Operatives present their grand conspiracy, the Referee is free to knock it back and tell them to try harder with their narrative - it has to make some sort of sense!

However, if it all seems... somewhat plausible, the Referee takes the Veracity score of each headline the Operatives have been massaging, and converts it into a Truth score - secretly determining whether the Operatives are just plain wrong... or right on the money (ranging from The Complete Opposite to The Unvarnished Truth, with levels in-between).

We then help the Referee to create a mission (or several missions!) that will allow the Operatives to uncover the truth, whatever it may be, and end the evil they (think) they have uncovered, using he framework that the Operatives themselves created.

We have given an optional rule for Operative-Generated Missions. Instead of the Conspiracy Web, the Operatives are (physically) given a white board... and red string.

In this version, the white board gets filled with handouts and scrap notepaper, with the Operatives trying to connect headlines by red string to show how they are all related.

This method is much more... confusing, but very much in the theme of Operative-Generated Missions!

To a great extent, this is our favourite part of the Dark Conspiracy Core Rulebook. Some groups may ignore it completely, we think most will dabble as part of an on-going campaign, but some... well, there is every chance that Operative-Generated Missions will become the sole focus of a few groups!