Sample file Sample file STAY ALIVE!

Sample file CREDITS

Designer Sean K. Reynolds Additional Designers Monte Cook and Bruce R. Cordell Creative Director Monte Cook Managing Editor Shanna Germain Editor/Proofreader Ray Vallese Art Director Bear Weiter Cover Artist Roberto Pitturru

Cartographer Hugo Solis

Artists Samuel Araya, Jacob Atienza, Milivoj Ceran,´ Donald Crank, Sarah Dahlinger, Biagio D’Alessandro, Jason Engle, Michele Giorgi, Doruk Gölcü, Katerina Ladon, Brandon Leach, Eric Lofgren, Raph Lomotan, Anton Kagounkin Magdalina, Patrick McEvoy, Alyssa Menold, Federico Musetti, Mirco Paganessi, Grzegorz Pedrycz, Angelo Peluso, Mike Perry, John Petersen, Roberto Pitturru, Scott Purdy, Maichol Quinto, Aaron Riley, Martin de Diego Sádaba, Joe Slucher, Matt Stawicki, Shane Tyree

© 2020 Monte Cook Games, LLC. CYPHER SYSTEM and its logo are trademarks of Monte Cook Games, LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. All Monte Cook Games characters and character names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are trademarks of SampleMonte Cook Games, LLC. file Printed in Canada TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: GROWING UP WITH HORROR 4

PART 1: HORROR WORLDBUILDING 5 Chapter 1: HORROR CAN BE ANYTHING AND ANYWHERE 6 Chapter 2: BUILDING YOUR HORROR SETTING 10 Chapter 3: CONSENT IN HORROR 19 Chapter 4: HORROR PLOTS: WHY AND HOW 21 Chapter 5: ADVICE FOR RUNNING A HORROR GAME 24 Chapter 6: HORROR GENRES 36 Chapter 7: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HORROR MECHANICS 84 Chapter 8: CYPHER SHORTS 100 Chapter 9: CREATURES AND NPCs 106 Chapter 10: HORROR CYPHERS 119 Chapter 11: HORROR ARTIFACTS 128

PART 2: MASTERS OF THE NIGHT 135 Chapter 12: WELCOME TO THE NIGHT 136 Chapter 13: AWAKENING 137 Chapter 14: SECRETS OF BEING A VAMPIRE 159 Chapter 15: YOUR CITY AT NIGHT 173 Chapter 16: YOUR LAST SUNRISE 187 Chapter 17: POWER VACUUM 195 Chapter 18: GANG WAR 204 Chapter 19: THE HUNTED 215

SPECIAL CARDS 221 SampleHORROR GAME CONSENT CHECKLIST file222 VAMPIRE ABILITIES REFERENCE SHEET 223 INDEX 224 STAY ALIVE!

INTRODUCTION: GROWING UP WITH HORROR

’ve always enjoyed the horror genre, on as a solo author, and I’m going to even when I was young. I grew up in need to read, watch, and write a lot of I the 1980s, smack dab in the middle happy, joyful things to counteract all of the “Satanic panic” about roleplaying the crazy research I’ve been doing. My games, which also happened to be browser history probably has triggered when slasher films like A Nightmare several flags at the FBI, and I’ve made on Elm Street were at the height of some weird phone calls (including their popularity. I remember being asking blood banks and bloodmobiles on camping trips with my dad telling how much blood they have in storage). scary stories about the hook-handed I’d like to give special thanks to killer (and his local cryptid cousin, the MCG’s Bear, Darcy, and Shanna, who Proctor Valley monster). I watched The asked really good questions about Thing over and over on VHS until the vampire PCs in the 2019 summit tape wore out (and did a presentation playtest, Susan Morris for pointing out in my tenth-grade literature class about that milk is basically blood (and all that the horror genre). The Terminator was entails for hungry vampires), and Bear the first R-rated film I saw in a theater again for his various weird suggestions (my cousin and I snuck in because I was and off-color comments during the 13 and he was 15). The gamer kids from vampire playtest (like the idea of a Stranger Things are exactly the same age “blood vending machine: put a cow as I was in 1983 (the year the show is in one side, get blood from the other set). My teenage gaming group fought side”). against the xenomorphs from Alien and Please enjoy my creepy, possessed, Aliens. tattooed, literary baby . . . and don’t Instead of acid for blood, it seems I forget to Stay Alive! have horror in my blood. To end on a serious note: Remember In my career as a game designer, I’ve that all of the horror we’re talking about written about a lot of creepy stuff— in this book is fictional horror. Don’t ghosts for D&D’s Ravenloft setting, emulate real or fictional crimes, horrors, genocidal racists for Greyhawk, an or other offenses against people, iteration of the World of Darkness (with animals, or property. Keep all of that Monte!), biblical Hell, and more—so it’s stuff in the game, not in real life. no surprise that I called dibs on writing the horror sourcebook for the Cypher SampleSystem and cramming it full of quotes file and references to my favorite movies and TV shows from the past forty years. This is also the largest book I’ve worked

4 Part 1 HORROR WORLDBUILDING

Chapter 1: HORROR CAN BE ANYTHING AND ANYWHERE 6 Chapter 2: BUILDING YOUR HORROR SETTING 10 Chapter 3: CONSENT IN HORROR 19 Chapter 4: HORROR PLOTS: WHY AND HOW 21 Chapter 5: ADVICE FOR RUNNING A HORROR GAME 24 Chapter 6: HORROR GENRES 36 Chapter 7: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HORROR MECHANICS 84 SampleChapter 8: CYPHER SHORTS file100 Chapter 9: CREATURES AND NPCs 106 Chapter 10: HORROR CYPHERS 119 Chapter 11: HORROR ARTIFACTS 128 STAY ALIVE!

Chapter 1 HORROR CAN BE ANYTHING AND ANYWHERE

umans love being scared. We watch Weddings are a joyous occasion, except This chapter is horror films and scary television when the bride is a vampire. Balloons intended for GMs and players. H shows, read scary books, attend are fun, unless the person giving them haunted houses and zombie festivals, away is a monstrous clown. torment each other with pranks, and Horror in roleplaying games is no even have national holidays where the different than in other media, except entire purpose is for adults and children the players are taking on the roles of to enjoy and embrace the idea of fear. the characters in the story instead We’re oddly comfortable with the idea of merely watching or reading them. of fear and horror as something to It doesn’t matter what kind of game entertain us. you’re running (or what game system That acceptance of horror is probably you’re using)—you can mix in a little a significant part of the weirdest and horror and bring something new to it. most amazing thing about horror: you Even children’s games can handle some can make it part of anything. It’s such (age-appropriate) horror and bring a a broad topic that it barely counts as good scare. its own genre, but by mixing it with something else (families, teenage drama, science fiction, and so on) it DEFINING HORROR GENRES becomes a distinct and amplified aspect “Horror” is a broad category that of whatever it is attached to. You can includes such widely different subjects add it to things that are innocuous, as Dracula, the works of Edgar Allan cute, or even wholesome and create Poe, and the Friday the 13th film something that is genuinely shocking franchise. Horror is usually divided into or frightening. Babies are cute, but zombie babies are terrifying and weird. USING STAY ALIVE! Stay Alive! is a companion to the Cypher System Rulebook. This means you won’t find introductions to Throughout this book, you’ll see the Cypher System, how to create page references to various items characters, full rules of the game, accompanied by this symbol. These or other related concepts here. Stay Sampleare page references to the Cypher Alive! assumes you’vefile got all that System Rulebook, where you can find in the Cypher System Rulebook, and additional details about that rule, that you’re ready to dive right into ability, creature, or concept. some horror-specific content.

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