undergroundoracle

[undergroundoracle]

New Occult and Paranormal Adventures For Your Superhero Games!

Cypher Shorts: Dark Supers Shorts Vol. 1 is live! 

I'm not going to lie, this is the volume I've been waiting to get out in front of you for more than a hot minute. We're big, big fans of the supers genre in general here at UO headquarters, but the occult/paranormal corners of comics are flush with storytelling potential. Plus, it's full-on fall and we're getting in that appropriately spooky mood. 

If you were a reader of 90s Vertigo comics, you'll undoubtedly see a lot of their influence in this volume, although Kayla went with a more modern/Zach Snyder approach to 'Doom is the Cost of Power' that you're also going to love. 

This was an incredibly fun and refreshing volume to write and I would love to hear how these scenarios play out at your tables in the comments below or on the socials. 

If you're a member of the Sage or higher tier, use promo code 'SAVIOUR_MACHINE' to grab your free copy from the UO store below. (This code will expire when the next volume of shorts drops.)

Read more about what's inside below and then head over and grab your copy at the links.

UO Store | Drivethru

Enjoy and happy gaming!

~ Jess

This Volume of Cypher Shorts Includes:

A Darkening Light: The characters are each a part of the occult and supernatural underworld who have been brought together to stop a fallen angel from opening a gate to a dark dimension. Can they outmaneuver the sinister powereds protecting her before she cracks the door to the end of days?

Doom is the Cost of Power: Years ago, the characters each made a deal that made them the most powerful heroes on Earth. All that was required in exchange for their power was a favor that would be called due sometime in the future. Now, it's time to pay their tab, and it could spell the end of the world they traded their souls to protect.

The Far Side Of Town:  The characters are a team of outsiders who have been called in to deal with Reverie, a powered who has trapped a psychiatric hospital in her dreamscape. Can they get her to release her psychic hold or will they find themselves lost in the psychedelic recesses of her subconscious?

[undergroundoracle]

Grab Your Free Harrow: The Blighted Plane Wallpaper Pack!

With the Harrow core book on the very near horizon, we've dropped the Kickstarter-funded wallpaper pack on our site for free to get you properly stoked to explore the wonders of the Blighted Plane.

This wallpaper set features 8 amazing scenes from the world of Harrow beautifully realized by Tasca Skelton and formatted for your desktop, laptop, or mobile screens.

Snag yours here

Learn more about Harrow: The Blighted Plane here.

[undergroundoracle]

International Women's Day Sale Through 3/11!

Happy International Women's Day, kind folk of The Underground!

To celebrate, from now through March 11th, you can get 50% off of your entire order in our store when you use promo code 'UO-IWD' at checkout!

Check it out here!

[undergroundoracle]

Want to win a FREE Underground Oracle membership? 🎫✨

Join our newsletter, Missives from The Underground!

On the first of each month, we choose 3 random subscribers and gift them a Sage membership.

Sign up and get more details below 👇

[undergroundoracle]

Don't Miss The Underground Oracle Advent 2023 Event!

Starting today, our Patreon subscribers will be treated to daily drops of brand-new cypher system materials that they can add to their ongoing campaigns. 

Each day will provide new descriptors, cyphers, creatures, NPCs, rules options, and more exclusively to our Patreon supporters. 

Want to make sure that you don't miss out on your access? 

Gain Your Access For Only $3!

[undergroundoracle]

"Starwire says I'm a smuggler? Do I look like that kind of gal to you?"

Join our Patreon for only $3 and you can shape the future of our current TTRPG, Wyld Space!

Unlock access to the developing early-access pdf, playtest surveys, patron polls, and more.

Subscribe Here!

What's Wyld Space?

[undergroundoracle]

Fill Your Digital Shelves With Our End Of Summer Sale!

Now through 8/31, you can snag any of the sourcebooks and supplements from our catalog for 30% off of their normal price.

Check it out at the links below and complete your Underground Oracle collection!

Drivethru ShardVTT

[undergroundoracle]

Introducing Our Current Setting Focus: Wyld Space!

Wyld Space is a science fiction setting designed on the bones of the Cypher System, so many of the common features, mechanics, and tropes that you would expect from that combination will be present while you’re playing in this setting. However, Wyld Space is its own fully realized world (or system filled with worlds, as it may be) with all of its own original tweaks that make it what it is.

The important quirks of the Wyld Space setting are presented below, as a helpful primer to get you in the right headspace while you’re getting started. Most of these highlights will be explored in greater detail in their appropriate sections later in this book.

You Go Hard, The Sci-Fi Doesn’t

Wyld Space is not a hard science fiction setting. The capability of technology that is available strays far outside the realm of current possibility and dances on the outskirts of the fantastic. Starships powered by cores that make traveling through star systems and back as easy as taking a trip to the town over, nanotechnology that can mend metals designed to withstand the wildest space anomalies, machines that can create food and water out of thin air. The difference in access between those living in collective space and those braving the unknown of flux space may make the availability of certain advancements difficult to come by, but even the most backwater station floating past the bounds of the helix sphere will have use of some piece of tech that would look like magic to those out of the know.

Who You Are

In this setting, humans don’t exist. And beyond that, only the dustiest xenobiologist believes that those ancient aliens ever really existed in the first place. You instead play as wylds, the dominant sapient genus that has claimed the known galaxy and carried the torch of civilization into space. Wyldkind is varied and beautiful, composed of highly evolved anthropomorphic versions of the myriad mammals, birds, and reptiles that you can currently see around you on Earth.

Additionally, you play as an outlier—someone who has been designated as irregular and nonconformist by the Intergalactic Network of Collectives (the governing body of collective space) and the sinister megacorps that truly call the shots behind the scenes. Being designated as an outlier could mean a lot of things in Wyld Space. It could mean that you take direct action against the systems that you see as corrupt. It could simply mean that you want to live as freely and purely as possible on your own terms. It could also mean that you’re an active criminal running various contraband back and forth through flux space. At the end of the day, being an outlier means that you refuse to cow down to the accepted status quo.

Who They Are

The primary antagonists of Wyld Space are the government and the corporations that secretly control it. The Intergalactic Network of Collectives (INC), although founded with lofty goals and good intentions, was quickly corrupted by the influence and money of the three megacorps that were allowed to bloat out of control. Mercenary groups, bounty hunters, and purchased police are just a fraction of the corpo agents that you’ll have to maneuver as you traverse the setting.

Void Titans

Colossal beasts with their own biological equivalents of ship-to-ship weaponry, void titans (or simply titans) are creatures that stalk flux space and hunt the starships that brave the sector. Trapped behind the fury of the helix sphere, those who stay within the safety of collective space never have to worry about these alien terrors—which is knowledge that the megacorps are more than happy to propagate.

Element 427: Foxfire

Element 427, called foxfire by everyone but corpo scientists, was the miracle discovery that changed the course of wyldkind forever. Not truly understood, but coveted nonetheless, foxfire is a quantum material highly valued for its matter-enhancing and physics-defying characteristics. Any of the truly fantastic properties exhibited by ships, weapons, cyphers, or artifacts can be tied to foxfire, and its presence in flux space is what drives the megacorps to push into the sector.

Kinetics

Whether the result of genetic tampering, the presence of foxfire, or a little of both, there are wylds who can manipulate the world around them using only the powers of their mind. Called kinetics, these incredible people can create fire, generate electricity, or turn their bodies into living weapons with only a thought.

And that’s only a portion of what you’ll be able to unlock and explore in Wyld Space!

Ready To Get Wyld?

Join our Patreon at the $3 monthly tier and receive all early access updates for Wyld Space as well as exclusive feedback and playtest surveys that allow you to impact the setting!

[undergroundoracle]

Oracle Talks episode 3 is live with 'Summer of Horror'!

Join @jesspendley and Kayla Bayens for the latest ttrpg news and community highlights, an eldritch world-building challenge, and a horror-themed Q&A filled with tips and tricks!

[undergroundoracle]

Don't Miss These Free One-Shots!

Next week, our first collection of sci-fi cypher shorts goes live and officially kicks off our next genre/setting cycle.

To celebrate, we're giving away our first collection of fantasy cypher shorts for free!  

Between now and 6/23, hit the link below to snag your copy of Cypher Shorts: Fantasy Shorts Vol. 1 for the low, low price of absolutely free. (Courtesy of the support of our amazing Patreon community) 

Want to know what's inside? Check out the product page below for descriptions of all 3 included shorts (3-4 hours of fun each) plus the product review of volumes 1 and 2 by the one and only Qedhup!

Grab Yours Here!

[undergroundoracle]

Explore a fallen fantasy crystalpunk setting that's one part Treasure Planet, one part Water World!

Harrow the Blighted Plane is live on Kickstarter and includes everything that you need to play in one book. Never played the Cypher System? Learn how to play in Harrow!

Pledge today and you'll unlock the early access version of Harrow: The Blighted Plane, which includes everything that you need to start playing the moment our campaign wraps, including creatures, cyphers and artifacts, a Cypher Short, and a full starting adventure!

Check out our Kickstarter here!

[undergroundoracle]

Harrow: The Blighted Plane is Live on Kickstarter!

A vibrant sky filled with a constant aurora overlooks a sea of phosphorescent-streaked sand, while a group of young gatherers prepares their small sandship for a trip to one of the life-sustaining fungal oases that sprout from this strange landscape. Crystalblighted creatures stalk through towering mushrooms and skim across crystalline dunes while twisted monstrosities distorted by esoteric energies shriek and howl in the Lucent Wastes.

This is Harrow: The Blighted Plane.

The world of Harrow exists where the genres of high fantasy and post-apocalypse meet—with a healthy dose of crystalpunk aesthetics thrown in for fun and good measure.

Everything you need to Play

Harrow: The Blighted Plane contains a full world for you to explore and all of the rules that you need to play, so if you have no previous experience with the Cypher System this is the perfect time to jump into this amazing narrative-focused system. Learn how to play in Harrow and you’ll be ready to explore any of the settings or genres from Monte Cook Games or anything upcoming from Underground Oracle Publishing.

No one wants to wait to start their adventures, and you won’t have to! Each pledge from the PDF tier and higher will unlock the early access version of Harrow: The Blighted Plane which includes everything that you need to start playing the moment our campaign wraps, including creatures, cyphers and artifacts, a Cypher Short, and a full starting adventure!

Early Bird Offer: Cypher Shorts: Harrow Shorts Vol. 1

The core setting book is guaranteed to include two Cypher Shorts and one adventure set in Harrow, but those that pledge at the PDF tier or higher within the first 48 hours will unlock a digital copy of Cypher Shorts: Harrow Shorts Vol. 1, a brand new collection of three Cypher one-shots that you can use to launch your adventures in Harrow!

This Early Bird offer will only be available for the first 48 hours of the campaign, so pledge now to unlock yours!

Pledge Today!

[undergroundoracle]

New One-Shot Adventures For Your Cypher System Games!

Cypher Shorts are special one-shot adventures designed for single sessions of three to four hours. Using a simplified character creation process and streamlined setup, Cypher Shorts are perfect for situations where: 

the entire gaming group isn’t available

the group wants to experiment with a new genre

someone new wants to act as GM for a session

when the GM or PCs need a palate cleanser before resuming the normal campaign

The following Cypher Shorts are setting agnostic, although the GM is encouraged to tailor where these scenarios take place as they wish, and can be used as standalone one-shots or as low-prep inspiration for sessions in an ongoing campaign. The character creation guidelines for Cypher Shorts are provided later in this supplement, but existing characters can be used if the group prefers and the GM is comfortable. 

Cypher Shorts are a supplement for the Cypher System and require an Underground Oracle Publishing setting ($3 on our Patreon), the free Cypher System Rules Primer or the Cypher System Rulebook to play.

This Volume of Cypher Shorts Includes:

Caravan Duty: The characters have been hired to guard a caravan as it makes its way through the countryside during the most treacherous time of the year. Can they escort the caravan to their destination intact?

Fanged Hunger: The characters have accepted the call from a remote village to take care of a spider problem. Except that problem is a whole lot bigger than they anticipated and when they arrive, the whole village is coated in thick webbing and there isn’t a soul in sight. Can they find the source of the problem and rescue the villagers before they‘re made into a liquid lunch?

The Hole in The Sea: The characters are nautical adventurers who have come upon an opportunity for a very unexpected dungeon delve. Can they loot The Hole in The Sea before the hungry waters claim it once more?

Cypher Shorts Guidelines: The simplified rules that you need to run and create characters for your Cypher Shorts. 

Grab Cypher Shorts Volume 2 Here! Grab Cypher Shorts Volume 1 Here!

Or get the latest of our monthly Cypher Shorts (plus all future ones) when you subscribe with us on Patreon!

[undergroundoracle]

Prepare to explore the world of Harrow: The Blighted Plane, a crystalpunk fantasy setting for the Cypher System!

Sail the watersands, explore fungal oases and risen ruins, avoid the crystalblighted creatures that live there, and scavenge powerful items and forgotten magitech to bring back to your nation!

Get notified of the launch here!

Can't wait to explore Harrow?

Unlock our 88-page quickstart with everything that you need to start your adventures for as little as $3 when you join our Patreon!

Check out our Patreon here!

[undergroundoracle]

Introducing Cypher Boosters: Free NPCs, Creatures, and More for Your Cypher System Games

Our Cypher Boosters offer new batches of genre-specific NPCs, cyphers, creatures, intrusions, and encounters that you can easily slot into Cypher System games.

And you can get them for free by signing up for our newsletter!

We’ve just released Cypher Booster #1: Fantasy NPCs, which provides a small batch of NPCs complete with the information and modifications that you would need to use them in your current Cypher System game, as well as something special that the player can discover through interacting with them.

Each of our Cypher Boosters will be available for new and current subscribers to download when they drop (through the newsletter or sign-up form), but anyone who joins us on Patreon will have permanent access to all past and future boosters as a patron bonus.

Click here to subscribe to our free newsletter and claim your free Cypher Booster (and all future ones as they release), or join us on Patreon for as little as $3 monthly and unlock whole new worlds for your table to explore.

(Some artwork copyright Kii W – https://twitter.com/kiichan – used with permission.)

[undergroundoracle]

Crystalpunk Fantasy in a Fallen Word

The Harrow: The Blighted Plane quickstart is live for our patrons!

This 77-page patron-exclusive supplement contains the species, descriptors, types, and foci that you will need to create your Harrow characters immediately, as well as an overview of the history and setting that you'll need to get things started.

Over the coming weeks, we'll expand the content of this quickstart (as discussed in our publishing schedule) to include deeper lore on the nations of Harrow, the topography of Harrow, extended crystalblight effects, additional foci, and loads more creatures, cyphers, artifacts, rules modules, and all of the wonderful bits that will flesh this out into the full-fledged version that will be launched on Kickstarter. 

As we produce each update, we'll provide playtest feedback forms to our Patrons so that they can help shape Harrow before we present it to the rest of the world.

Want to start your adventures in Harrow as soon as possible and help shape how this crystalpunk world develops?

Join us on Patreon for as low as $3 per month and help take our publishing efforts to the next level.

[undergroundoracle]

“Species of Harrow" by @tascaskelton-art

Cypher Setting Focus: Harrow, the Blighted Plane

It’s time to announce that our inaugural Cypher System setting focus will be Harrow, the Blighted Plane.

All patrons at our $3 monthly tier and up will receive the quickstart guide for Harrow, the Blighted Plane, and thanks to the fantastic way Monte Cook Games handles their license and SRD, the quickstart will include all the rules you will need to play in this setting in the Cypher System.

So you won’t have to own any additional books to play!

This quickstart won’t be publicly available and will include the species, descriptors, types, and foci that you will need to create your Harrow characters immediately, as well as an overview of the history and setting that you’ll need to get things started.

Through March, we’ll continue to expand the Harrow quickstart with additional lore, creatures, cyphers, artifacts, equipment, and more until we launch the KS to bring the book to fruition around the start of April. Throughout that time, we’ll be looking for feedback from our Patreon supporters that will directly affect the outcome of the final book and core setting.

At the start of May, our setting focus will shift and we’ll be kicking off this process again with a new genre and setting!

Want to start your adventures in Harrow as soon as possible and help shape how the world develops?

Join us on Patreon for as low as $3 per month and help take our publishing efforts to the next level.

“In the Oasis” by Victor Benitez Morales

Harrow, the Blighted Plane

A dusky sky filled with a constant aurora overlooks a sea of phosphorescent-streaked sand, while a group of young gatherers prepares their small sandship for a trip to one of the life-sustaining fungal oases that sprout from this strange landscape. Crystalblighted creatures stalk through towering mushrooms and skim across crystalline dunes while twisted monstrosities distorted by esoteric energies shriek and howl in the Lucent Wastes.

This is Harrow, the Blighted Plane.

Crystalpunk Fantasy in a Fallen World

The world of Harrow exists where the genres of high fantasy and post-apocalypse meet—with a healthy dose of crystalpunk aesthetics thrown in for fun and good measure.

While playing in Harrow, you’ll explore massive fungal forests filled with dangerous creatures and strange beings competing for the precious natural resources found there. You’ll guide your small vessel across the unending watersands while trying to outrun the massive ships of the plunderous Lekaine Armada. You’ll uncover powerful artifacts of the fallen kitarya’s dynasty as you try to stave off the mutating effects of the energies that roll through the Lucent Wastes. You may even find your way off of the Blighted Plane, should your luck play out and you so choose.

Because despite the inherent dangers of Harrow, it is also a setting rooted in hope. Of resilient people finding their own ways to thrive in a world nearly destroyed by the arrogance and cruelty of those that once ruled over them. Of stubborn optimism and the celebration of hard-won freedom in the face of impossible odds. Of epic adventures and ceaseless discovery in a world still in its newfound infancy.

Harrow is all of these things—plus everything that you make of it.

“Dune Leaper Run” WIP by @tascaskelton-art