The Eras of Dark Conspiracy

This time in our previews of the new Dark Conspiracy, we would like to introduce you all to the different 'eras' of the game's setting, and thus our long-term plans for the lines future.

In a nutshell, the Dark Conspiracy line is going to have three parts to it - or three acts, if you prefer.

Each of these eras will have its own Core Rulebook, the odd supplement, and be well supported with missions and campaigns so you can leap right in. These rulebooks will be introduced in gaps of 2-4 years, giving you enough time to immerse yourself in each.

Dark Conspiracy: The Unseen War

Dark Conspiracy kicks off this summer with a core rulebook entitled Dark Conspiracy: The Unseen War.

Set in our own modern world, the players will be Operatives recruited by a shadowy organisation they know next to nothing about and dispatched to fight an enemy... that they know even less about.

This is an era of suspicion, horror, and secrets. The Dark and its minions are pressing through dimensions to the Earth and, as yet, few people realise the scale of the threat - or that it exists. Nonetheless, there are powerful people who will be all too ready to dispense with their humanity to claim lordship over the Earth.

Such people may be as great a threat to humanity as the Dark Minions themselves.

The players must therefore learn everything they can about the entities they face, while at the same time keeping the secrets they uncover. In this era, it is the players who will be responsible for creating the conspiracy.

Dark Conspiracy: The Open War

Set 10-15 years after The Unseen War, by this time the world knows about the Dark, The Operatives of the first era, while holding back the tide for a while, have ultimately failed.

National governments have fallen, cities are cut off from one another, and Demonground is a known phenomenon. The organisation the players had belonged to in The Unseen War has changed and become a lot more aggressive. However, it has learned a little more about the Dark and while humanity remains very much on the backfoot, some Dark Minions have been understood and can be fought.

The players here will have a lot of autonomy over how they fight the Dark, with access to better technologies - some of which may be based on Dark Tech. While some of them may be veterans of what remains of the organisation in The Unseen War, others may have come from the besieged cities and demon-filled wilderness to create a truly motley crew.

Of all the eras, this will be the one closest to the original Dark Conspiracy published in the 90s.

Dark Conspiracy: The Final War

This is a grand finale, the high stakes confrontation between humanity and the Dark. The world is a battlefield, and by now the players will be running the organisation they have been part of all this time - the last defenders of planet Earth.

Set a decade or so after The Open War, this era will see the players marshalling their forces, developing fantastic technologies, and even carrying the fight to the Dark Dimensions.

There will be no canonical ending to The Final War. Your players will be solely responsible for the Earth standing... or not.

Let the dice fall where they may!

The Grand Campaign

This approach has allowed us to focus on specific areas of the Dark Conspiracy world, and groups can pick and choose which era and what themes they will enjoy the most.

However, there is another possibility...

The astute among you will have spotted an epic possibility here - it is indeed possible to create Operatives in The Unseen War, and play through each era with the same characters to create a massive, epic campaign. Your players will be there as the true nature of the Dark is just beginning to be understood and will be responsible for gathering much of the information the later fight will rely on.

They will then see the collapse of civilisation as the war becomes more desperate, learning what they are actually fighting and the vast power it represents.

Finally, they will have full control as the war reaches its climax, becoming utterly responsible for the defence of Earth and the resources being used to fight for its survival. They will be pitted against dread abominations and able to cross over dimensions, while harnessing the knowledge and tools that have been acquired - at great cost - through the years.

Ultimately, Dark Conspiracy will be a nice self-contained line with a limited set of books - however, from the start, your campaign can be developed into a broad decades-spanning story that will take your players from absolute cluelessness to the guardians of the world.