The City Ethereal
A downloadable game
What is The City Ethereal?
The City Ethereal is a fantasy game that takes place in a modern world, though not our world. Players are Weavers that track down and deal with wayward spirits in a hidden world of spirits and magic.
A Hidden World
of Spirits and Magic
A few hundred years ago, spiritualists and magiturges worked openly. The War of the Crows changed that, and the magic users of the world faded into myth and legend. But they are still here. They keep the practices alive out of knowledge, curiosity, respect, and duty. And the spirits are still here, too. Unseen. Mysterious. And on rare occasions, dangerous.
The world of The City Ethereal is like our own in many ways. The level of technology in the Valley is similar to ours in the modern day, with continent-wide internet, air travel, and massive wealth inequality. But behind the tech, the lifestyles, and the capitalism-enforced class divide, magic and spirits move unseen. The Guild of Magiturgy is the only group standing between the hidden world and the ignorant masses.
Take on The Charge
The Charge is the Guild’s never-ending duty to keep the city and its inhabitants, including the spirits, safe. Unfortunately, sometimes spirits lose their path and become wayward, posing a danger to themselves and others. Before the War of the Crows, wayward spirits were a rarity, but since Weavers were forced underground, it has been harder for them to appease spirits that become angry, scared, and lost.
What's Included?
- Rulebook, Spreads, PDF (best for monitors/laptops)
- Rulebook, Pages, PDF (best for mobile/phones/tablets)
- Rulebook, Pages, PNG
- Character Sheet
Content Warning(s): war, tyrannical leaders, capitalist plutocracies, violence, accidental or intentional bodily harm, magical harm, espionage, ghosts and possession, body horror
Supplies Needed: a set of polyhedral dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20), pencils, and these rules
Game Length: 3+ hours
This game by Chubby Crow Games is licensed under the Creative Comrades License Agreement 1.0.
Other Heartland Valley Games
(Minted in Blood is coming in 2023!)
This Game is Breathless
This work is based on Breathless, product of Fari RPGs (https://farirpgs.com/), developed and authored by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5 USD. You will get access to the following files:
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Community Copy
If money is an issue for you, please take a community copy for free, no questions asked. Additional copies will be added for every 5 star rating, and every sale of the game at full price.
Development log
- Updated with setting info and random tablesApr 17, 2023
Comments
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Hey, I ran an initiation one-shot with my relatives on the City Ethereal and everyone enjoyed it. Nice job!
There are a few typos but I remember that the game was designed during a short jam so it is understandable.
May I ask you a question? I really like the roleplay opportunities offered by the two vocations. It is refreshing to have some magic users relying on technology rather that pure intellectual skills. However, in this version, engineers look just like magiturges with drawbacks. They can’t interact with spirits and have to build their magic items beforehand rather than improvising on the spot. Did I missed an advantage they have over the magiturges?
Thank you so much, this is the first anybody's told me they actually ran one of my games, so this means the world to me.
Your critique of Engineers is also greatly appreciated, and a good reminder that outside eyes are always a good thing when designing a game.
The intended balance with Engineers is that their goggles allow them to access The Sight at all times without using a device, the tradeoff being that their devices require planning, while Magiturges can improvise their spells, but accessing The Sight takes up one of their ongoing spell slots.
So their intended advantage is being able to access The Sight without using one of their devices. Magiturges are also limited to using elemental effects, while Engineer devices don't have that requirement; however, re-reading the text, that's not something that is clear or indicated. And it doesn't address the fact that they also can't interact with spirits, which is a very good point, and one I think I let slip by me.
The other aspect I was thinking about with Engineers is their Specializations, which allow them to access technology in a way that Magiturges cannot, making their lack of spirit interaction less important in the long run. However, they key phrase there is "in the long run", and it completely ignores one-shots or shorter games. It also presupposes that players will take specific talents, which is always a bad plan; game design should never require a specific choice to be made, or else there's no real choice.
I have some ideas for balancing this out a bit, but I'm gonna take some time to readjust things and try to make the two vocations feel less uneven. Thank you very much for your feedback; while you're correct that this was a game created within a short jam window, I really liked making it, and I want it to be a game I can be proud of :)
Woaw,that’s a long and precise answer, thanks a lot.
You pointed out some interesting explanations:
Some gameplay balance are designed for midgame when PCs have 2 to 3 talents. If I play the one-shot with another group, I’ll try to play it with 3rd level PCs. This would probably be better.
I don’t feel that the elemental limitation of Magiturges is that significant but I may be wrong since I don’t tried it enough.
Even with the two points above, I still find the need for anticipation build in the Engineer very limiting. In my game, I like to take the player by surprise and that defeats the whole point of choosing the device beforehand. If I would stick to the mechanic, I would feel the need to provide some sort of mission briefing so that engineers have a chance to pick some adapted devices. They can’t have the same gears for a fight against a Wayward, an inquiery or a social hostage situation.
When I ran the one-shot I changed the engineer mechanic on the spot to offer them a better adaptation. I made a dichotomy: natural matter for magiturges and technogical one for engineers. Both can use magic on the spot but they are limited to their respected domain. Engineers become some sort of enchanters that craft magic items and alter the properties of human-built devices. In my game, an engineer turned a key into a key that can open any lock and create a false ID to free a prisoner.
Thanks again for your response and keep the good work going. We really enjoyed your game :)