Chronicles of Darkness: Revised Storytelling System Rulebook

Chronicles of Darkness is the revised core rulebook for the Chronicles of Darkness roleplaying game, formerly known in its first edition as the World of Darkness (or "New World of Darkness", in contrast with the original). This revised version is a complete game that fully incorporates the rules updates and setting material from The God-Machine Chronicle into the revised core rules of the Storytelling System.

Summary

From the Onyx Path catalog:

Keep walking.

Eyes straight ahead.

Don’t look back.

In the shadows and between the cracks of our everyday lives hide the Chronicles of Darkness. Here lurk creatures of ancient myth and urban legend. Here lie the graves of angels and the bunkers of secret government programs. Here every malformed horror you’ve ever seen out of the corner of your eye has a home. And they’ve seen you.

Don’t look back!

Chronicles of Darkness contains

• A guide to creating characters to explore a world of modern horror, from hopes and fears to psychic powers.
• Dramatic rules for investigation, social manipulation, and bone-crunching violence.
• Over a dozen monsters straight out of weird fiction and urban legend... plus complete rules for creating your own.
• The God-Machine Chronicle, a massive collection of sample characters and techgnostic adventures.

Background Information

Nearly all of the text in the section of the books titled "The God-Machine Chronicle" (pages 161-267) is directly taken from the book The God-Machine Chronicle, which was originally intended to serve as the "second edition rulebook" for the Chronicles of Darkness; some in-character fiction is instead taken from the game's original core rulebook. Not all of the background material from The God-Machine Chronicle was transferred over into the chronicle section of the new core rulebook; additionally, parts of the rules text changed between the God-Machine Chronicle Rules Update and the Revised Storytelling System.

Originally, CCP did not intend to allow Onyx Path to produce full Second Edition rulebooks for the Chronicles of Darkness system or its subsidiary game lines. Instead, Onyx Path was allowed to publish rules updates in the form of the "Chronicle" series of books, beginning with World of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle and Vampire: The Requiem's Blood & Smoke: The Strix Chronicle. CCP later reversed tack and allowed Onyx Path to create actual second edition rulebooks, with the first one being Vampire: The Requiem Second Edition (a retitled Blood & Smoke, which had already been usable as a standalone core rulebook for Requiem when it was published). Werewolf: The Forsaken Second Edition was the second core rulebook to get a Second Edition title; it had initially been in development as The Idigam Chronicle, but its name was changed to a second edition title well before it was released. Both second edition books came out after The God-Machine Chronicle and used the updated rules from that book (as did Demon: The Descent, which directly ties in with the God-Machine itself), but were released before the material from The God-Machine Chronicle was updated into the new core rulebook.

When White Wolf and the World of Darkness game lines were acquired from CCP by Paradox Interactive, the name of the setting and game line was changed to Chronicles of Darkness to allow the Classic World of Darkness to serve as Paradox's iconic "One World of Darkness". The book that was originally in development as the "World of Darkness Second Edition" core rulebook (based on the God-Machine Chronicle's rules revisions) was subsequently released under the Chronicles of Darkness name, with new material and rules updates in addition to the rules updates and chronicle material from The God-Machine Chronicle.

Characters

Keywords

Angel, Ban, Bane, Dread Power, Ephemera, Equipment, Ghost, God-Machine, Horror, Infrastructure, Manifestation Conditions, Numen, Rank, Spirit, Twilight

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Game Books Chronicles of Darkness books

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