Embrace Your Darkness: Vileborn Embarks You on a Hero’s Journey as a Metaphor for the Transition to Adulthood

You are Vileborn, young adults with a dark heritage in a world that despises you, but also needs your supernatural gifts to fight the darkness invading it.

Upcoming TTRPG Vileborn will put you in the shoes of the eponymous Vileborn, young adults with a dark heritage that makes them feared and hated by a world being overrun by monsters, but at the same time gives them supernatural powers that the authorities have every intention of weaponizing in the war to save humanity.

Heading for launch with a Kickstarter campaign scheduled for November 5, publisher Horrible Guild will bring to print this evocative TTRPG, the latest effort by designer Claudio Pustorino, author of top-selling game Not the End, ENNIE Nominee in six categories (product of the year, best game, best rules, best layout and design, best supplement, best cover art) and winner of the Role Playing Game of the Year 2020 award at Italian convention Lucca Comics & Games.

Vileborn’s fictional world of Egas is loosely based on a supernaturally twisted imperial society of the 1500s, where the monsters of folklore are not only real, but wreaking havoc everywhere. The players’ half-blood characters were just children when a mysterious darkness enshrouded the skies, set monsters free, and made their true nature manifest itself, making them a danger to those who loved them most. Since then, they have been hunted and persecuted for their corrupted lineage, and that is all they have memory of.

But now things are changing. Against the will of the Luminarian Church, spiritual guide of the Empire, the Empress of Egas is now looking to enlist Vileborn in the desperate war against monsters and train them to use their supernatural gifts for the good of humanity. They want to turn them into weapons to fight the darkness in the world. What will they do with the darkness within them?

Vileborn features typical themes of nobledark stories as metaphors for the path from adolescence to adulthood. It is designed to tell stories of the hero's journey: the hard and rigorous training, the conflicting relationship with mentors, the exploration of your dark lineage and the fear of the urges that come from it, the camaraderie and the bonds that only adventures in a dangerous world can forge.

Despite its dark themes, Vileborn isn't necessarily about a descent into corruption. Instead, it's a game about characters exploring their darker sides to discover, for better or worse, their true selves and what sets them apart.

The game also features a simple, yet deep game mechanism. For each test you choose an “approach” (Force, Willpower, Influence, Reason, Precision, or Subterfuge), each linked to a specific polyhedral die. You then roll the appropriate base die, plus one each for the “personality” and “training” traits of your character, if applicable.

After the roll, you keep the highest result and compare it to the difficulty set by the GM: above gives you a success, equal gives you a success with a complication, and below just gives you a complication. Players and GM then share duties in narrating the outcome: players describe successes and use them to achieve their goals, while the GM describes complications to add danger or conditions to the scene.

Vileborn’s Kickstarter campaign is launching on November 5, but you can also get a taste of the game right now, thanks to the newly-released Quickstart guide which is available on Horrible Guild’s website. Hey, it’s free, so why don’t you take a look?