From Bandit Camp:
WICKED ONES is a Forged in the Dark tabletop RPG about a group of fantasy monsters building a dungeon, launching raids on the surface to gather a hoard, and pursuing your nefarious master plan. Along the way, there’s pillaging, rituals, concoctions, contraptions, discoveries deep in the ground, dungeon rooms, traps, creatures, minions, and so much more! You build your dungeon over time throughout the campaign and no two dungeons will ever be alike.
You bask in choosing the greater of two evils as your group strives to accomplish its master plan and terrorize the region around your dungeon. However, your vile deeds lure increasingly greedy and powerful adventurers into your dungeon. Can you stave off the inevitable onslaught of heroism that your notoriety brings?
Main Features
- Forged in the Dark: Built on the framework made by John Harper for Blades in the Dark, with significant changes to better represent monstery gameplay.
- Build a Dungeon: Rules for building and drawing out a dungeon together, including traps, tricks, creatures, locks, minions, and things you discover underground.
- Cycle of Play: Four phases of play (lurking, calamity, raiding, and blowback) that set the pace of dungeon life.
- Dark Hearts, Dark Impulses, and Going Feral: Game mechanics that reinforce that you’re a monster.
- Flexible Spell System: Players choose a specific path of magic or god they worship, then flexibly create spells of different power levels on the fly.
- Powerful Ritual Magic: This extends magic further, allowing the creation of very powerful magical effects, though you must fulfill some special requirements and fight off those who might seek to stop your rituals.
- Monster Science: A robust crafting system to create whatever contraptions and alchemical concoctions you can imagine.
- Safety Tools: A write-up on recommended safety tools (X-Card, Movie Ratings, Lines & Veils) to help your group with sensitive subject matters.
- Five Dungeon Themes: Each theme has a unique core function and list of rooms that can only be built within that dungeon, allowing your dungeon to match your group’s preferred playstyle. Build an Enclave, Forge, Hideout, Stronghold, or Temple.
- Four Regional Sandbox Maps: Each sandbox is a region to build your dungeon within, giving you a list of factions to target with raids or you can fill it with factions of your own! Play within the City Sewers, Colonial Seas, Quiet Valley, or Warzone.
- Primal Ability: Choose any monstrous race and represent them by building their own unique abilities.
- Primal Monsters: Play as four powerful monster types with their own unique mechanics. Play as a Braineater, Doomseeker, Facestealer, or Goldmonger.
- Easy Start: A clear session 0 / session 1 starting scenario to get your dungeon up and running while teaching all players the game mechanics.
Art & Layout
The visual style of Wicked Ones was a labor of passion that matches the effort put into crafting and playtesting the game mechanics. It’s a 360-page, full-color book designed by Ben Nielson and illustrated by artist Victor Costa. This two-person team created a consistent style and quality throughout the book that captures just the right flavor of “evil.”
The book itself contains more than 50 full-page illustrations which serve to highlight the type of gameplay that work best with the mechanics and tone of the game. Aside from the full-page illustrations, the book is packed full of character concept art to give give players ideas and more than 30 tiny, humorous imps ready to give you advice about the game.
