Liminal, by Paul Mitchener, is "a roleplaying game about those caught between the ordinary and extraordinary." It utilizes a 2d6 system, and the setting is set in the United Kingdom's hidden supernatural world. The book and cases used can be found on the Modiphius website.
The players in this project represent the Guild of Echoes, a crew by the system's definition. Two are changelings lost to time, whose exploits started way back during the second world war, the other is a material spirit tied to an occult library. At first their only connection was a London tramp named Ollie.
The Project was started with the two case story of Prodigal Son and The Haunting House. Our characters follow the sorted issues of the family Northcott as they navigate the hidden world of Liminal.
A Vanwinkled Veteran Detective and magician, Valen and a fellow agent were lost to the fae realms in 1945. His drive is to investigate Fortean crimes (under the Official Secrets Act) to better understand the threats to the mundane.
Changeling Warden of Valen Stroud, and fellow agent that fell into the Hedge with Valen in 1945. Her drive is to better understand the worlds I have traversed, to find a way to navigate them safely and to protect V.
The Lexicon is a material spirit and asset of the order of St. Bede. Though killed in the 1800's, Lex now walks the world utilizing the very same books that build the body of his knowledge to build a physical form to interact with the world around him.
On a warm evening in July, 1945, a squad of British operatives infiltrated Hochosterwitz Castle in Sankt Georgen, Carinthia, Austria. Their orders were to eliminate a secret headquarters and bunker potentially sheltering several Nazi VIPs.
What they found instead was in an occult rite in progress. Most of the squad died in the attempted ambush which proved effective against all but one Nazi officer who was revealed to be a person Vampire.
Two of the British operatives fell through the active gate and ended up in a fae realm. Remaining with Hulda, both The White Lady and The Dark Grandmother, as unwilling guests for a long time, they were warped and changed overtime into changelings (Im asking for that narrative license) Not knowing the rules of conduct of this strange place they incurred a significant temporal disjunction between the realms, returning to the mundane world only 5 years ago (2015).
Disoriented by how much the world had changed, they made their way to an English embassy and after discovering their MIA service records they were brought secretly back to P division for debriefing. In the months that followed they they were offered positions in P division, seeking to put the skills and abilities they gained in the fae realm to use.
As they continue to carry out P division's mission, they continue on the trail of the vampire lord that killed their team and got away.
The material spirit of a man killed in the year 1727 once he had learned of The Hidden World. His spirit, enraged by his death being brought about in reaction to his pursuit of knowledge, latched onto his notes and texts.
A century passed and the echo of the man's spirit flickered between the pages he had spent so long compiling, whereupon they were discovered and seized by the Order of St. Bede. Shortly after being disrupted, the man managed to pull the pages holding his spirit together, forming a husk.
Luckily, the Order treated the room in which they stored his texts more as a vault than as a library; giving him ample time to read through shelf after shelf before they returned. Though they initially sought to destroy the man, he was able to prove to them his worth by referencing some historical texts they had collected and the inaccuracies contained within. He proposed, that if he were allowed to exist, that he could do the same with all of their texts; fact-checking, noting, and cataloging the information that the Order brought to him and allowing them access to this information when they need.
The setting is fairly standard for urban fantasy, something akin to the television show Grimm or Supernatural. The books thus far only deal with the United Kingdom, but could easily be molded to another country or place with a little effort. They take a more traditional approach to much of the lore, even going so far as to reference bronze rather than iron as a weakness against the fae which I appreciate.
The system itself is a fairly simple 2d6 plus modifier versus difficulty style game. At first it appeared to be similar to Powered by the Apocalypse style games, even when it comes to such ideas as crews, experience progression, etc. Magic can be a bit odd and clunky to handle, primarily written to be used as a story element instead of as a combat tool.
All in all, it is a great alternative to systems like Chronicles of Darkness when players want to play characters of different supernatural backgrounds. Given the more investigative nature of the system and setting, I suggest smaller groups of 2-4 instead of larger groups. This will help more players get opportunities to shine and roleplay their characters to the fullest.
TBA