Table Of ContentSinister Beard Games Presents
A roleplaying game of Stealth, Guile, Violence and Devilry
Game development, writing and layout
by Oli Jeffery, © 2020 Sinister Beard Games.
Illustrations by Kasha Mika, © 2020
Cover by Harriet Moulton, © 2020
Editing by Lauren McMannamon
Sensitivity Editing by Misha Bushyager
Thanks to Frank Smiles and Jenny Lord for their help in playtesting and many useful
suggestions, and for essentially fixing combat for me.
Thanks to the Gaunlet Gaming Community LLC for their kind assistance in funding
the cover illustration for this game, and to Jesse Ross and Jason Cordova for Trophy,
without which this game would not exist.
This work is based on Trophy (trophyrpg.com), product of Jesse Ross and Hedgemaze
Press, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Trophy is adapted from Cthulhu Dark
with permission of Graham Walmsley. Trophy is also based on Blades in the Dark
(found at http://www.bladesinthedark.com/), product of One Seven Design, developed
and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Trophy™ is a trademark of Hedgemaze Press. The Rooted in Trophy Logo is ©
Hedgemaze Press, and is used with permission.
2
The Book of Lore
Laefendport
The scabrous, rainslick metropolis of Laefendport was mere decades previously nothing
but a collection of hovels and shacks, home to scavengers who scraped a meager existence
salvaging whatever they could from the many ships dragged into the notoriously treacherous
waters to its immediate east, and wrecked on shores so jagged and jutting it seems as if the
very earth was reaching up in protest. Its name meant Liars Port, a reference to the treachery
of both its tides and its residents. Farming was nigh impossible, as the area for miles around
Laefendport was afflicted with the Night Rain - so called not because it fell at night, though it
often did, but because of its colour.
Black as a moonless winter sky, viscous and inert, the Night Rain falls near constantly,
poisoning all but the hardiest, most unappealing plants, deforming and driving animals mad,
and leaving anything it touches greasy and stained. For centuries, only the desperate or the
touched would go anywhere near Laefendport. Until, that is, the Eisenhart Process.
Named for its inventor, Friedrich Eisenhart, this is the alchemical process by which
the Night Rain can be filtered and made combustible. Suddenly, there was a freely available
source of fuel literally falling from the sky. Free, at least, until the noble families arrived to
harvest it.
This discovery led to a great revolution of industry and science, and the cancerous
growth of Laefendport from barely a town to the largest city in the country. Noble families
became businesses, businesses became dynasties; and above them all, the royal family of
House Wilderose loomed: to them all the dynasties paid reverence and, more importantly,
taxes.
The Night Reign
The Royal House, House Wilderose had never lowered itself to actual industry, instead
supporting itself through taxation alone. The Eisenhart Process marked a turning point.
Suddenly, the other Houses were rich beyond any of their previous imaginings, and equally
suddenly found themselves disinclined to pay their taxes.
When the tax collectors arrived in Laefendport from the capital, they were turned away.
When they attempted a second meeting, complete with an attendant squadron of guards,
their heads were returned to the capital in their collection boxes.
There followed much sabre rattling on both sides, but neither the Wilderoses nor the
dynasties wanted a costly war, and so the Houses invited the Royals to Laefendport in order
to resolve the matter diplomatically. The entire Wilderose family attended, with the full force
of the Royal Guard at their side. They thought that would make them safe; but the Guard had
already been bought.
The Wilderose dynasty was massacred that day. Reports on exactly who was slain and
who managed a desperate escape vary, though nobody who saw the bodies of the King and
Queen strung from the rooftops of the House Eisenhart refinery can wipe the image from
their memory. Laefendport was named the new capital city, and the Noble Houses control of
the nation was complete; the Night Reign had begun.
3
The Red Right Hand
While many of the citizens of Laefendport and beyond still keen for their King and Queen,
they do so quietly; public Royalist sympathy is now punishable by imprisonment, torture or
death under the brutal police state of the Noble Houses. The members of the Red Right Hand
are not among this quiet herd.
The Right Hand was the name of the Royal Secret Police, back when the Wilderoses
reigned. They should have been able to stop the dynastic coup, but even they could be bought.
The leaders of the Right Hand owed their fealty to the Noble Houses, and any loyal agents who
discovered the plot were disposed of. Even after the revolution, there were some who were still
loyal to the Wilderoses, and conspire to find any rightful heir to the throne and return them
to power. They are now known as the Red Right Hand, both to reaffirm their loyalty to the
heraldic colours of House Wilderose, and in honour of the amount of Noble blood they have
spilt since the Night Reign began.
You play as one of these brave but terrible people.
The Sisters
Laefendport does not traffic with
gods. The sea swallows everything that
dares come near, and the sky pisses down
black tar onto the land. If ever anyone
prayed to a god here, their prayers were
demonstrably not answered.
Instead, Laefendport has the Sisters.
They are not things to worship, they are
things to blame misfortune on, to curse,
to avoid. If you mutter their names in a
prayer, it is to ask that they overlook you
for another day.
There are two families of Sisters, each
with three members: the Brostnest Sisters,
the Sisters of the Lost, and the Ryne Sisters,
the Sisters of the Hidden. The Brostnests hate
the Rynes almost as much as the Rynes hate
the Brostnests; the citizens of Laefendport know
better of the Sisters than to enquire as to why.
A Whispered & Bitter Prayer
The Right Hand were taught the sacred art of
devilry to further the plans of the crown. Arcane power
flows from the Sisters, but they do not grant it freely. To access their domains, you must reach
into the blackness that lies beyond the rain and steal some of their divinity. The whispered
prayer is not to be granted that power, but that you will not be caught by the Sister when doing
so.
4
Technology in Laefendport
is at aT elecvhenl orloouggyh ilny Nthieg hsat mReei gn Let me walk through the stinking
as the late 19th to early 20th alleys to the music of drunken
centuries, but nearly everything beatings
is powered by refined Night Rain. PJ Hartvey, The Last Living Rose
Until the discovery of the Eisen-
hart Process, there was no steam or
oil technology, and the only flammable
was wood and coal, either inefficient or dangerous to mine.
Laefendport has undergone a radical technological shift since the discovery of refined
Night Rain. The streets are lit by flickering Rainlight. Gunpowder and explosives do not exist
in the game world, so firearms powered by small capsules of liquid and flint are a new and
powerful invention, and were key to the success of the Night Reign's revolution.
With guns such a novelty, melee weapons are still common; they're cheaper to produce,
and a knife in the kidneys will see to you just as surely as a bullet.
Ships powered by the Rain have made travel easier, but not safer - the ocean is filled with
monsters warped by years of exposure to the Night Rain. More common are smaller gondolas
either hand rowed or powered by Rain fed outboard motors, used to navigate the labyrinthine
canals that criss-cross the city.
Primitive automobiles exist, though they are luxury items possessed only by the very
rich. Generally styled in metal and wood art nouveau patterns, they are handcrafted per
owner and as much an expression of personality as they are a mode of transport. Elsewhere,
horses and carts are still common, as is the shit they leave behind on the streets.
The Noble Houses
House Breman, The Pirates
Sailors, traders and warriors who brave the monstrosity haunted seas around Laefend-
port to trade with far off lands like Mohtuharri and Mahl Kalada (or, more accurately, force
their subjects to do so); they also provide the majority of the other houses' security, at a cost
of course. They are ruled by Admiral Lydia de Breman.
House Eisenhart, The Alchemists
House Eisenhart is the Noble line that first discovered how to refine the Night Rain, a
process they still jealously guard from even the other houses. They control all the refineries in
Laefendport, and as such their influence can be felt in all the other houses, who, in turn, hate
them utterly. The head of the house is Alchemist Supreme Friedrich d'Eisenhart.
House Foreyda, The Traitors
House Foreyda are negotiators, deal makers and liars par excellence. They handle all
negotiations with powers outside of Laefendport on the other houses' behalf, always making
sure that they get the choicest end of any agreement. Reciprocation is anathema to the
Foryedas - to them, every deal must have a winner and a loser, and they intend always to be
the former. The head of the house is Lord Wordsmith Logan de Foreyda.
5
House Forbehn, The Blasphemers
There was no religion in Laefendport before the Night Reign, aside from a few forbidden
cults to the Sisters. Now House Forbehn, previously bookish cowards known for their vast
libraries and knowledge of the minutiae of Noble history, made a grab for power, establishing
themselves as the heads of Those Above Others, a religion that places the Nobles families as
demigods spiritually above the mere humans they rule over. Nobody, themselves included,
actually believes it, but the creed is enforced by their gold masked soldier-priests. They are ruled
by Father Aldhelm de Forbehn.
House Kleinengest, The Overseers
While Eisenhart brew poisons and balms in their labs, and Seeracraff tinker and giggle to
themselves, Kleinengest makes. They own workhouses around the city that produce workable,
saleable, practical applications from the other Houses wild and vapid imagnings. Their factories
are brutal and frequently fatal places, but should the poor not be glad to be sacrificed to the
great gods of Industry and Progress? They are ruled by a Mistress Ada de Kleinengest.
House Seeracraff, The Tinkerers
Previously tinkerers and toy makers of little import, the Eisenhart process has allowed
House Seeracraff to develop mechanical monstrosities such as clockwork soldiers, great striding
suits for guards, and security measures such as flame walls. They take delight in endless crea-
tion, and in the destruction their creations wreak. They are headed up by Artificer Natalia de
Seeracraff.
House Wilderose, The Lost
Few of House Wilderose yet live after the tragic events that began the Night Reign, and
none so far who would dare to attempt to take their throne back. Were they kinder, gentler,
better rulers than the current regime? Probably not. They are Nobles, and Nobles are a different
species to whom the travails of the proletariat mean nothing, if they are aware of it at all.
But they were your House, and you shall avenge them. Their lost heir is Princess Emile de
Wilderose.
6
The Book of Rules
The Night Reign will fall
Night Reign is a roleplaying game of stealth, guile, violence and devilry for a GM and one
or more players, Set in a quasi-Edwardian metropolis perched on an inhospitable peninsula
beset by toxic black rain and ruled by a corrupt cabal of Noble Houses.
You take the role of members of The Red Right Hand, a conspiracy loyal to the recently
deposed royal family, using your talents in assassination, infiltration and dark sorcery to
strike out at your oppressors.
Gather your apparatus of infiltration
To play Night Reign, you'll need two Sets of regular playing cards with the jokers
removed, and two pools of poker chips in different colours, which you can acquire from your
local bawdy house, or perhaps from a sinister street magician. We recommend that the two
decks of cards have different backs so they can be easily distinguished from each other.
The GM claims one of the decks of cards and shuffles it thoroughly. This is the Night
Deck, and is used by the GM to Set difficulty on tasks, to represent obstacles that the players
must overcome, and to provide actions for the players' opposition in combat, should you
come to so gauche an activity as crossing blades in the open. The Night deck should be placed
within easy reach of the GM, and within sight of the players.
The players claim the other deck. Divide the deck into number cards (including Aces),
and face cards (all Jacks, Queens and Kings). Shuffle both of the players' decks individually
and place them next to each other. The deck with the number cards is the Royal Deck, and the
deck with the face cards is the Sisters' Deck. Pray that you don't need to draw from the latter.
All players draw from the Royal Deck, or if they are foolhardy and impetuous, from the
Sisters' deck. Both these decks should be placed within easy reach of all the players, or if this
is impractical, you can nominate one player to draw on the party's behalf.
Number cards are worth the value of the number printed on them. Aces are worth either
one or eleven, and can change between these two values at any time according to the whim of
the player drawing, even after they are drawn. All face cards are worth ten, and a portion of
your Soul.
Choose one of your pools of tokens to represent Shadow, and one to represent Flame.
Traditionally, black and red tokens provide a pleasing visual feedback that even the most
Sister-touched inmate of the Broadgate Asylum can understand. The GM will also need
tokens to represent Opposition; they may have their own pool or borrow from unused Flame
and Shadow tokens, as Opposition tokens are only ever in play temporarily.
You will also require one copy of the City sheet for the party and a copy of character
sheet for each player. Character and City sheets can be distilled from the very æther at
sinisterbeard.com/nightreign.
7
Characters in Night Reign
In Night Reign, you play an agent of the Red Right Hand, a contra-revolutionary group
dedicated to bringing down the Noble Houses who betrayed and murdered your masters, the
Royal House Wilderose. Your task is not an easy one, and you will likely die in pursuit of it.
But even when your bones are the playthings of rats and your flesh is withered, Laefendport
prevails. You may find yourself making several characters over the course of a campaign.
First, choose your Name, Pronouns, Appearance and Cover Identities. Name, Pronouns
and Appearance have no mechanical implication, but help you to portray your character. Place
and proper names in this zine take inspiration from mangled versions of Old English, German
and Russian; choose a name that follows suit. Names and appearances may also be informed by
your cover identities.
Your Cover Identities are the false roles you take to avoid being arrested by the Noble
Houses. Pick two from the list on page 30, or invent your own. Each Cover Identity provides
one free dot in a talent (page 30), and a network of connections which may be used as narrative
permission (page 28).
Next, choose your Talents. Talents describe what your character is good at, and can be
marked to provide a mechanical bonus. You have 13 dots to distribute however you wish. You
may choose 13 individual talents at one dot each, or choose several to specialise in with two or
three dots. Collaborate with the other players in your group to ensure a wide breadth of Talents
are covered between you all. Remember that you get a free dot in a specific Talent from each
cover identity, so you'll have 15 dots in total.
Next, choose your Prayers, if any. Prayers (page 36) are dangerous spells you can cast to
perform miraculous feats. All agents of the Red Hand can learn and use Prayers, regardless
of Talents or Cover Identities. For each dot you have in a Devilry Talent, you may choose one
Prayer from that Talent's Prayer list (page 36). You can attempt to cast Prayers which you don't
have access to (even if you have no dots in any Devilry Talent) by selling your Soul (page 18).
Finally, choose your equipment (page 20). At the start of the game, you can choose up to
five items, and you may acquire more during Incursions. You do not have to take all of your
equipment with you on every Incursion, as discussed on page 20. You start the game with your
Body and Soul tracks at 0, and no Conditions. Don't worry, they'll come. Oh, they'll come.
When you draw
Night Reign uses cards instead of dice to resolve conflicts, like any decent ruffian or scoun-
drel. Depending on the circumstance, one may use Stealth, Guile, or Violence to overcome
things between them and their goal. Oftentimes, you'll face off against the GM's hand to see if
you succeed. These actions, and how they're resolved, are explained below.
After completing any action, discard any cards drawn from the Royal Deck into a discard
pile face up in sight of everyone. Any cards drawn from the Sisters' Deck do not get discarded
after an action and are instead replaced at the bottom of the Sisters' Deck.
Whenever the GM draws cards from the Night Deck, they are replaced at the bottom of the
Night Deck once they are no longer relevant. Cards from the Night Deck are never discarded.
If you make a Stealth draw and cannot immediately overcome the opposition, you must
choose if you will next use Guile (page 13) or Violence (page 15).
8
Improving your odds
When you use a skill or piece of equipment to discard a card during any draw, you must
mark it the skill or equipment used - simply cross through one of its boxes on your character
sheet. When all available boxes on the skill or piece of equipment are full, you may no longer
use it in this Incursion. Skills and equipment usage boxes reset at the start of each Incursion,
so use pencil or Betrand Merryweather's patented removable Rain Ink when marking.
Shadow and Flame Tokens
Shadow tokens represent how close you are to achieving your goal, and how well you
have covered your tracks. The more of these you have, the better. Flame tokens represent
noise made, blood shed and times you were carelessly spotted. The more Flame tokens you
have, the harder it will be to achieve your goal through stealth, and the worse things will
become in the city, but needs must when the devil drives, and oh, sirs, madams and all in
between or nowhere at all, Laefendport has many a devil.
You start every Incursion with no tokens of either type. Throughout the Incursion,
you'll gain Shadow tokens when you sneak successfully close to your goal, and Flame tokens
when solving a problem through open violence takes longer than anticipated... All tokens are
pooled, so tokens gained be they shadow or flame affect everyone. You must learn to work
together as a cell effectively if you're to succeed.
Spending Shadow tokens
Bypassing opposition without open violence
If the group wishes to bypass opposition they face as the result of a Stealth draw without
open Violence, you must pay as many Shadow tokens as your current Flame pool, or the
number of your Chaos track, whichever is higher, to do so. If both of these are currently at
0, as they will be at the start of the campaign, you may attempt to bypass opposition without
open violence without spending Shadow tokens.
Note this only covers open violence, as in a straight up fight. Dragging a guard into the
shadows and slitting their throat before they can cry for help does not count as open violence,
though it does count against your immortal Soul - but that is not a matter for these rules.
Achieving a Set's goal
Incursions are divided into Sets, and each Set in an Incursion has a specific goal. Once
you have three or more Shadow tokens and the majority of the group agrees, you can spend
three tokens to achieve the Set's goal and move onto the next.
Buying off Flame tokens, Suspicion and Activation Tracks
Once an Incursion ends, your individual suspicion rating, any dots activated in your or
the City’s Conditions, and any Flame tokens your group has acquired can be bought off with
Shadow tokens on a one for one basis. You do not have to buy them all off, but any remaining
Suspicion or Flame tokens will have a detrimental effect, the Suspicion to your individual
character (see page 21), and Flame tokens to the City. The number of Flame tokens that
cannot be bought off in this way are added to the City's Chaos rating.
9
