Beneath The Floating World is an exorcism RPG set in a historical fantasy land that is vibes-adjacent to late Edo (or late Heian) Japan. My first instinct would be to compare it to Shabake tonally, and visually to World Of Dew, but that's doing it considerable injustice because its mechanics are where it shines the brightest.
Beneath stands shoulder to shoulder with titles like Beyond The Fence Below The Grave and Digital Angel in the genre of vibesy OSR adjacent supernatural RPGs. That's some of the highest praise I can give.
The PDF is 16 pages, with lovely bashed together classical art and a brochure sort of vibe and hang on is that the medicine seller from Mononoke?
Mechanically, Beneath is Carved From Brindlewood, but it's a bit more grounded and concrete than that would imply. Brindlewood is quite loose, but Beneath is dice-based, has advantage and disadvantage, you have an inventory, etc.
And the flourishes that Beneath adds to the formula are really interesting.
Paths, for example, are kind of an HP track. A Path is a route by which you may abandon being an exorcist, abandon your life, or give up something else that changes you fundamentally. You may always take a step down a Path to increase a dice result. Scenarios can have their own specific Paths related to the things in the world, society, or death that have broken.
Path walking is super flavorful, and it also addresses what for me is the biggest pain point with PbtA. In traditional PbtA, it's really easy to feel like you're being held hostage by that 2d6 fail-or-complicate probability curve. Inching your character towards retirement in order to *decide* when you fail, that's good stuff.
And on top of that, Path walking is also a signal for when you're transgressing against the game's setting.
Beneath, per its note at the start about historicity and fantasy, isn't intended as a rigorous simulation of the period it's riffing on. And it's not a White Wolf game where there's a big dense world you need an advanced degree in before you can play. Still, it does have some concrete pieces of lore that the whole game orbits around. For example, you can't spare a ghost during an exorcism. You can break this rule if you take a step down a Path.
Oh, before we continue, we need to talk about poetry.
Once per day, as part of Beneath's phase based scenario structure, you can write a haiku.
I think in another game, this would be a throwaway riff. Cool, but disconnected. Instead, Beneath uses the haiku to recharge parts of your character. Beneath makes part of character creation choosing a motif that represents you, and that motif is something the other players can invoke in their haikus.
This is rad!
When poetry shows up in TTRPGs, it's not usually super mechanical, but Beneath threads it deftly.
Outside of your motif, character creation is pretty constrained. You functionally only have a stat point, a class, and some equipment that everyone else gives you based on your vibes, but the sparseness makes all of these things interesting. Classes in particular have a ton of flavor, and change the genre of the game in interesting ways.
In terms of GM tools, the game's structure is the biggest aide, with it encouraging a flow from safety and daylight to darkness and confrontation, but also including lots of little ways to disrupt that flow. However, Beneath also has direct advice for the GM, premade scenarios, reference materials, random tables. It's very professionally put together and friendly without spilling over into being a toolbox system.
Overall, this game is going on my shelf. It's excellent. I don't want to linger too long on singing its praises, but if you like mysteries and pseudo historical settings and the human side of exorcisms, I'd strongly recommend grabbing a copy.
Minor Issues:
-Page 6, Oni, "super natural strength" no space
-Page 13, Threats Of Nightfall, a period is missing from the end of the paragraph
Thank you so much!! Running my home games of it has been a wild time so far ~ Ater having been in your game I'm sure you'll do a killer job bringing the chaos and curses to life!
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Beneath The Floating World is an exorcism RPG set in a historical fantasy land that is vibes-adjacent to late Edo (or late Heian) Japan. My first instinct would be to compare it to Shabake tonally, and visually to World Of Dew, but that's doing it considerable injustice because its mechanics are where it shines the brightest.
Beneath stands shoulder to shoulder with titles like Beyond The Fence Below The Grave and Digital Angel in the genre of vibesy OSR adjacent supernatural RPGs. That's some of the highest praise I can give.
The PDF is 16 pages, with lovely bashed together classical art and a brochure sort of vibe and hang on is that the medicine seller from Mononoke?
Mechanically, Beneath is Carved From Brindlewood, but it's a bit more grounded and concrete than that would imply. Brindlewood is quite loose, but Beneath is dice-based, has advantage and disadvantage, you have an inventory, etc.
And the flourishes that Beneath adds to the formula are really interesting.
Paths, for example, are kind of an HP track. A Path is a route by which you may abandon being an exorcist, abandon your life, or give up something else that changes you fundamentally. You may always take a step down a Path to increase a dice result. Scenarios can have their own specific Paths related to the things in the world, society, or death that have broken.
Path walking is super flavorful, and it also addresses what for me is the biggest pain point with PbtA. In traditional PbtA, it's really easy to feel like you're being held hostage by that 2d6 fail-or-complicate probability curve. Inching your character towards retirement in order to *decide* when you fail, that's good stuff.
And on top of that, Path walking is also a signal for when you're transgressing against the game's setting.
Beneath, per its note at the start about historicity and fantasy, isn't intended as a rigorous simulation of the period it's riffing on. And it's not a White Wolf game where there's a big dense world you need an advanced degree in before you can play. Still, it does have some concrete pieces of lore that the whole game orbits around. For example, you can't spare a ghost during an exorcism. You can break this rule if you take a step down a Path.
Oh, before we continue, we need to talk about poetry.
Once per day, as part of Beneath's phase based scenario structure, you can write a haiku.
I think in another game, this would be a throwaway riff. Cool, but disconnected. Instead, Beneath uses the haiku to recharge parts of your character. Beneath makes part of character creation choosing a motif that represents you, and that motif is something the other players can invoke in their haikus.
This is rad!
When poetry shows up in TTRPGs, it's not usually super mechanical, but Beneath threads it deftly.
Outside of your motif, character creation is pretty constrained. You functionally only have a stat point, a class, and some equipment that everyone else gives you based on your vibes, but the sparseness makes all of these things interesting. Classes in particular have a ton of flavor, and change the genre of the game in interesting ways.
In terms of GM tools, the game's structure is the biggest aide, with it encouraging a flow from safety and daylight to darkness and confrontation, but also including lots of little ways to disrupt that flow. However, Beneath also has direct advice for the GM, premade scenarios, reference materials, random tables. It's very professionally put together and friendly without spilling over into being a toolbox system.
Overall, this game is going on my shelf. It's excellent. I don't want to linger too long on singing its praises, but if you like mysteries and pseudo historical settings and the human side of exorcisms, I'd strongly recommend grabbing a copy.
Minor Issues:
-Page 6, Oni, "super natural strength" no space
-Page 13, Threats Of Nightfall, a period is missing from the end of the paragraph
Absolutely gorgeous, like all your other projects. Just finished my first read through and really excited to run it!
Thank you so much!! Running my home games of it has been a wild time so far ~ Ater having been in your game I'm sure you'll do a killer job bringing the chaos and curses to life!