Shadow City Mysteries: The Roleplaying Game is a TTRPG book with an exciting new setting and rules for 5E where you can immerse yourself in a world of dark clockwork noir, where the lines between reality and the supernatural blur!
Six major factions work to bring all available citizens under their auspices. The Society of Ravens are the truly influential among the upper classes, while the Court of Rats organizes every player in the criminal underworld. The Iron Union represents every industrial worker in the city, many with massive iron prosthetics just shy of the power of the weapons they send off to the war, while the Brass Consortium spreads its membership across the “softer” trades, where entertainers are sometimes assassins. The Church of Astra wields tremendous power over the hearts and minds of those that worship, with their strongest priests manifesting miracles of light, but can never fully stamp out the Cult of Tenebrous, whose shadowy powers generate willing devotees among those with nothing to lose.
All of these factions are made possible by the clockwork physics of the color-starved world. Long ago, a great calamity changed the world such that color became a rarity, a sign of the miraculous. One of these miracles was Turnstone, a substance that rotates with no obvious motive force that became the inexhaustible power source of the world once engineers learned to harness it. Nearly every technological innovation in this era of increasing modernity is drawn from this substance, from self-winding arbalests to internally-powered automobiles and tanks, to clockwork prosthetic limbs that work even better than the originals, to the locally-generated electricity that powers the buzzing lights that make it possible to navigate the dark. And the nation’s war machine will not grind to a halt any more than Turnstone will, while there is more of the essential substance buried beneath foreign lands, ready to drive the world to greater and greater heights of engineering marvels.
Wield these clockwork innovations, join a faction, and explore a world where the lines between reality and the supernatural blur and every choice can lead to unexpected consequences.
Unravel intricate mysteries, expose deep conspiracies, and confront the supernatural forces hidden beneath the mundane surfaces of the Shadow City. Your choice of factions and backgrounds shapes the unfolding narrative, providing you with a unique path through the city’s politics every time you play.
You may be a detective solving a crime of passion, a fixer navigating a web of deceit, or a warrior battling eldritch horrors. In Shadow City, each night is a new and unforgettable adventure where nothing is as it seems.
For this project, we're partnering up with The Wanderer's Tome with their project Deadline - A Clockwork Press. If you back both of our campaigns AND we're both funded, you'll get the below cross-collab reward for free!
Our cross-collab reward is an A4-sized case file folder, ideal for organising your adventures in one place. The folder's design showcases ephemera woven with threads of mystery and lore, making it perfect for adding depth to your adventures.
Be sure to visit our collaborator Deadline - A Clockwork Press! Deadline is a news-chronicling and map-making TTRPG where players take on the role of a reporter for the largest news publishing house in the city. Presented in a newspaper format, this game brings a new approach to storytelling and world-building.
Social Stretch Goals: Reaching the following social media goals will unlock an Extra Subclass: Instagram 1500 Followers Twitter 500 Followers Discord 500 Members TikTok 200 Followers YouTube 200 Followers Steam 500 Followers
Play On Words Studios is a Malta-based studio focused on creating high-quality, diverse, and narrative-driven transmedia experiences for players of all backgrounds with original IPs with a twist. Our international team is made up of veterans from across the TTRPG, video game, and multimedia industries.
Creative Director - Christopher Mifsud Lead Game Designer - Stephen Cheney Lead Writer/Editor - Brandes Stoddard Tarot Designer/Sensitivity Reader - Rabbit Stoddard Artist - Adam Schumpert Tarot/Symbol Artist- Luana Zahra Graphic Designer - Fleur Sciortino
