#curseborne

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played CURSEBORNE ?

By Onyx Path Publishing

Curseborne is a game about being unapologetic monsters in a world where being monstrous is the least of your worries. In Curseborne, you play as Accursed, descendants of monstrous lineages lurking in a modern world that closely resembles our own. You rebel against the ancient feuds between these entwined families, as well as against the web of curses that bind you, while fending off inhuman antagonists seeking to claim — or reclaim — your power.

The world of Curseborne is full of intrigue, magic, and things that go bump in the night. It’s just like our world, except the reason that things don’t go your way or that bad things happen is that the people are literally living in a world of curses. Some people are cursed more than others, and these are our Accursed characters. They have a particularly large curse that hangs over their heads and makes them more prone to bad things happening to them and around them. The nature of this curse also makes them magical in nature. They have a sense of the thing holding them back, and they can manipulate it in ways that normal people cannot.

Everyone is Cursed, The curse doesn't care if you're a CEO of a big corporation or a beggar on the street. It affects everyone with the same judicious hand. Everything is Connected, This isn't just a world full of random bad things happening to random people. It's a web of curses, and everything is connected. Curses weave an intricate tapestry over everyone. Family Drama, Some family is chosen, others you're born into, but all family has expectations for you. You have strands of obligations to each other, and sometimes fulfilling those obligations is harder than you want it to be. For good or for ill, your family is a big part of your life.

A new urban fantasy horror game by the same team behind Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, Vampire: The Requiem, Changeling: The Lost Second Edition, Chicago By Night Fifth Edition and the other World of Darkness 20th Anniversary & Chronicles of Darkness games.

On Kickstarter

[manyworldsofdarkness]

What is CURSEBORNE?

This might be of interest to any World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness fans or any fans of Onyx Path Publishing and White Wolf in general. We could be getting a new urban fantasy horror game series soon.

On April 10th, 2023 Onyx Path publishing’s blog brought up a hypothetical of making their own urban fantasy game series. Of course this was in response to their lack of any new WoD or CofD products as they do not own the rights to those IPs and must have approval by Paradox before working on anything. Currently Paradox is more focused on supporting their v5 products with their in house studio, Renegade Games and are no longer contracting other studios to right supplements for them for the foreseeable future. Because of this, the 20th Anniversary World of Darkness games and Chronicles of Darkness lines aren’t getting any new releases and what has already been announced and put into production are the only things to release in the near future. The only way for Onyx Path to make more urban fantasy horror games is to make their own and while they only mentioned this as a possibility, the comments section of this blog post exploded into discussions over this new potential game.

The next few blog posts afterwards continued the discussions asking people what they would like to see in a new potential horror game, such as a Masquerade system or signature characters as the comments sections only further spawned more discussion over this new world. Around this time too, Onyx Path announced their new unified version of their in-house system called Storypath Ultra, which should go without saying but will definitely be the system this potential game will be using. Then about a month later, on May 19th, on the official Onyx Path YouTube channel, this video was released https://youtu.be/fL1VPUzoB_Y?si=cR4ZPeb0wf9Kt6mM

A short seven second long animation of a murder of crows flying against a snowy tree line and the word “CURSEBORNE” forming as they all fly away. A short, mysterious teaser? Well for the next eight months Onyx Path would release a total of 30 videos of similar nature as of writing this post. Strange and short vignettes of classic horror tropes such as fog, spiders and recordings of monsters. Some would even be rereleased with minor differences and even text. I recommend watching some for yourself, there is a really eerie vibe to some. These capture more “modern” horror vibes when compared to WoD or CofD, some even feel inspired by analog horror or urban legends, the “Train” short particular reminds me of Japanese urban legends. Blog posts more or less stopped mentioning this potential game as time went on and mentions were then replaced with a strange picture of a moth, the same one at the top of this post.

On January 31st, 2024, 7:00 EST this website appeared https://www.curseborne.com/

CURSEBORNE, the title in all of those videos. The website has no text, just images of the same moth from the blog just posted all over a black background. Some will slowly fade in. Clicking on them will lead to a new page featuring one of the many teaser videos playing in your browser. Going back to the homepage, you’ll see a moth that appears to be glowing when compared to the others. Clicking it sends you to a Typeform quiz asking “Who are you?”. Answering it gives you a strange title such as “Raptor”, “Gaki”, “Archivist” etc. with a description of how you act. If I’d have to guess, these titles could be the names to new monsters or factions in CURSEBORNE. I’d like everyone who’s interested to please take this quiz and post your results on this post to see how many titles, or “paths” are found.

In short, it looks like Onyx Path is gearing up to make a new urban fantasy game using their own system. It’s not going to be World of Darkness with different names, but its own unique take on the concept.

[owlbear33]

so uh Cursborne eh, how do we feel about it?

I have concerns but I'm not sure how much I should be listening to them

I worry about detail, the way the splats all have their own book lines for WoD/nWoD/CofD allows for much stronger theming for the different splats which can be a bit of a stumbling block for cross-splat play, which I know Curseborn is trying to avoid, ie mixed parties would be the norm, but the other thing the different book lines produces has is having a lot more detail on the splats, you can devote a lot more words to mages if the whole book is on mages

it looks like they're doing all the splats in one book(though maybe I'm wrong about that) and unless we're looking at a giant difficult-to-print book that's going to mean less detail on all of the splats

and yeah I'm not sure how I feel about that

[wave-serpentii]

Curseborne is a TTRPG about Carmilla and Bathorys girls fighting again for the millionth time.

[enddaysengine]

Oh. OH. There is a faction within the Maven who could very well act as Cenobite ghosts.

Terrifying and excellent story hook.

[scrivnomancer]

Curseborne!

Just over 24 hours to go on the kickstarter for CURSEBORNE a TTRPGI did some writing for, brought to you by @theonyxpath (the folks who have brought you some of your favorite World of Darkness material).

What sort of creature of the night will you be?

[ghostofcinders]

I didn't work on Curseborne. I'm very excited for Curseborne.

[lunargent-thorn]

Quiz for new Onyx Path RPG, Curseborne.

@the-sad-tomato

[enddaysengine]

I don’t cite PotC as RPG inspiration much anymore, because yeah… but almost every RPG I’ve ever played can use it for inspiration somehow.

That “All Myths Are True” bit? 100% Scion. Scion even has the mythical pirate kingdom of Libertania as part of its backstory.

Chronicles of Darkness has an entire Golden Age of Piracy Dark Era.

Curseborne has Liminalities.

Eberron and Golarion have entire pirate nations.

I don’t think we talk enough about how, despite the presence of multiple globes, PotC takes place on a flat earth, ice wall included.

[fluffytheterrible6]

An essay I wrote, partially to take my mind off everything and partially to voice some thoughts.

[manyworldsofdarkness]

[enddaysengine]

So with the provisions that a) I didn’t work on Curseborne and b) I haven’t had time to read everything:

This was one of my concerns. After making it about halfway through the manuscript for the Dead, I think this worry has been alleviated. There seems to be enough to me to get started with and it doesn’t take a genius to know the Clanbooks were Requiem’s high point (hell, the follow ups we’ve written for None More Dark constantly are best sellers). People are already asking when Clanbook style books will come out in the Kickstarter comments.

There’s enough to get started in Core as far as I can tell. It’s written to be dripping with plot hooks. And given how popular it seems to be, there is no reason to doubt that solid foundation with be built upon in supplements.

so uh Cursborne eh, how do we feel about it?

I have concerns but I'm not sure how much I should be listening to them

I worry about detail, the way the splats all have their own book lines for WoD/nWoD/CofD allows for much stronger theming for the different splats which can be a bit of a stumbling block for cross-splat play, which I know Curseborn is trying to avoid, ie mixed parties would be the norm, but the other thing the different book lines produces has is having a lot more detail on the splats, you can devote a lot more words to mages if the whole book is on mages

it looks like they're doing all the splats in one book(though maybe I'm wrong about that) and unless we're looking at a giant difficult-to-print book that's going to mean less detail on all of the splats

and yeah I'm not sure how I feel about that

[wave-serpentii]

Curseborne is the horror TTRPG where you smoke the cursed nightmare forever weed and then your uncle tells you to assassinate The Rat King or he is gonna lock you in his haunted house for a month.

[enddaysengine]

I suspect nothing will ever fill the spot Chronicles of Darkness has in my heart. But I also suspect I will be making a spot right beside it for Curseborn. Finally got to read the Ashcan and I like what I see.

[martyrette]

⊹˙⋆Lythos Curseborne⋆˙⊹

An OC of mine I didn’t get to RP too much, but I adore their art and story!

Their mother got possessed by a Highborne banshee while pregnant with Lythos, leading to them becoming cursed.

Unable to be healed by Elune’s grace and more connected with the dead, Lythos joined the Wardens in order to better understand their abilities and use them for good.

That is until they got kicked out for accidentally deafening one of their comrades via unwilling Banshee Shriek. Now they’re trying to prove their worth and questing about.

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