The preorder for the Dresden Files RPG is now live!

You can learn more about the particulars of the preorder — and place your early order for both books in the set, including getting access to the almost-complete PDFs right away — at the Evil Hat Productions web store:

http://www.evilhat.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=65_72

Free shipping is available in the USA to people who place a preorder for both books, and the final PDFs will be made available to preordering customers once they are available (which should include the addition of a short story by Jim, still getting written as we speak)!  The books will ship out in late June/early July.

Fans of the series may be particularly interested in the second book, which among other things provides a comprehensive character guide up through Small Favor.  A handy reference to have on hand as you read through Changes next week.

General preorder, product info

As part of our celebration of the run-up to the release of Changes (Book #12 in the Dresden Files series), today we’re giving you a look at the list of powers we have in game.

You can download the powers list here!

And make sure to check out our new Downloads page as well, which includes printable blanks of the city and character creation sheets.

General system

Current Conflicts

A lot of secret supernatural history actually gets canceled out behind the scenes. The White Council saves a settlement here; the Red Court takes over a European colony in South America there; volcanoes explode, killing thousands (and a number of nasty mystical critters); Milwaukee disappears for a weekend. These things happen.

The important thing about occult history is that it gives rise to long-standing grudges and vendettas among the supernatural factions. And often these centuries long animosities catch uninvolved people in the gears and grind them up, leading to new and different drives for revenge.

Life isn’t fair. That’s history, too.

The Vampire War

The White Council of wizards and its allies are currently fighting the Red Court of vampires and their allies in the Vampire War. It is a notable failure of the Unseelie Accords.

While the avowed cause of the War is the death of Bianca St. Claire, Margravaine of the Red Court at the hands of the wizard Harry Dresden of the White Council, there is evidence that this event was only a convenient excuse to start open conflict that had been long-planned by the Red King.

Harry refused to take Bianca’s “reasonable and acceptable” offer of truce (which would only have cost the life and soul of the woman he loved) and instead killed Bianca and most of her followers. The Red Court didn’t take this “affront” all that well. War was the only acceptable response.

Like most things in the supernatural world, this isn’t what it appears on the surface. Bianca deliberately lured Harry Dresden into an intolerable situation, expecting that he’d either get himself killed or lose the people he loved. When she died, other Red Court forces moved with suspicious speed. While some factions in the Red Court had wanted to delay the war with the White Council a bit longer, most of the major players were ready for it. They took advantage of the excuse provided by the broken Accords.

Matters could, in theory, still have been sorted out under the letter of the Accords, by executing Harry Dresden or handing him over to the Red Court. However, the White Council was aware that the incident was only a pretext, and that the Red Court would just have found or manufactured another excuse for fighting later.

Factionless Monsters

While the ghoul clans haven’t formally picked a side in the Vampire War, their past associations with both the Red and White Courts have led to their use as support troops in the Vampire War.

Most ghosts, being simple “recordings” of the death throes of strong-willed individuals, are not capable of joining a side in any supernatural conflict. However, their existence has been exploited during the run-up to and the execution of the Vampire War.

While the overall demonic “supernatural nation” of Hell/Downbelow has not declared one way or another with regard to the Vampire War, individual demons have been summoned by Red Court vampires for use against their White Council foes.

The Vampire War continues in April as we conclude this preview series.  Join us in two weeks.

General old world order, setting

So, we’ve been teasing out details of other chapters in the Dresden Files RPG as we build up to the release of the game. That’s all well and good, but we thought it was time to give you a preview with some real heft to it. We’d like to take you on a visit to a dark and dangerous little burg we’re using as our sample campaign setting in the book. A place we like to call Nevermore… though you may know it by a more familiar name. But names, as we’re so often told, have power…

Here’s the Baltimore chapter from The Dresden Files RPG: Your Story. All 39 pages of it: PDF Download (Approx 13MB) — you can save us a little bandwidth by downloading it from DriveThruRPG instead!

What story will you tell on the streets of Charm City?

General baltimore, setting

Outsiders & Old Ones

We know little of the Outsiders and the Old Ones.

What is known is that the Outsiders are minions of the Old Ones. Both come from outside our universal reality, from beyond the limits of Creation, from beyond the Outer Gates.

Outsiders are creatures of utter chaos and nihilism. They are dedicated to the ending of all thought and order. Their only goal is the return of the universe to the void.

The fact that the Red Court has been able to summon the lesser servitors of the Outsiders in the course of the Vampire War is a cause for great concern among the White Council.

The Circle

There is a secretive group stirring up supernatural trouble. Always working behind the scenes, this group is providing resources and power to (seemingly) set the supernatural nations at each others’ throats.

Someone gave Victor “Shadowman” Sells training beyond that of a normal sorcerer. Someone arranged for the FBI Hexenwolves to get their magic belts and warned them about the White Council. Someone delivered a mysterious athame to Bianca St. Claire to be used as a gift to a powerful sidhe. Someone drove the Summer Lady Aurora mad. Someone provided the entropy curse ritual to the Evil Eye Franchise. Someone felt the need to interfere in the Chicago Darkhallow. Someone sent the Scarecrow to kill Lucius Glau. Someone used Hellfire against Mab’s stronghold of Arctis Tor. Someone had an interest in the “culling program” of the Skavis. Someone silenced Queen Mab of the Winter Court.

Harry Dresden thinks that all of these someones may be working together. And that they may have a spy in the White Council—possibly even on the Senior Council itself.

They have many names, granted by those who have seen their shadowy hand in action; they are commonly called either the Black Council or the Black Hats. But there is some evidence that they call themselves the Circle.

They are known to react badly to incompetence and murderously to deception. They’re hard.

What their ultimate goal is, no one knows.

HARRY: With regard to the Circle (or whoever they are), whatever it is, it ain’t good.

March ends with a look at current events in the supernatural world.

See you in two weeks.

General old world order, setting

In this Designer’s Corner, lead system developer Leonard Balsera talks about the game’s approach to setting.

While one of our goals for the Dresden Files RPG was to provide a comprehensive guide to the life and times of Harry Dresden and his friends (and believe me, given the size of our NPC — Who’s Who — and monsters — What Goes Bump — chapters, I think we pulled it off), it wasn’t the most important one for me. One of my biggest points of focus for the project was making sure that gaming groups had the space to make the world of the Dresden Files their own, without having to slavishly adhere to constraints set up by the books.

The first idea which supports that is our central conceit for the game itself – that it’s being written by Billy Borden of the Alphas in an effort to create a Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the 21st century. The information presented in it is the best he could do with the resources he had, but at the end of the day, it’s still just Billy’s best educated guess on the universe he lives in. Nothing guarantees that he’s 100% right about everything, and if you and your group decide that you see some things differently than he does – well, it’s your game, and what you say goes.

Our city creation system also gives you a large sense of ownership and control over setting, allowing you to choose a city and “Dresden” it up, investing it with characters and locations of your group’s choosing. You get to decide what the supernatural community is like in Denver, Las Vegas, Paris, Tokyo… wherever you want. You get to decide what the points of interest are. You get to decide what the themes and mood of the stories you’re going to tell in that city are going to be like. Include or ignore as much real history as you want. Know a lot about your city? Bring that detail into the game. Don’t? Make it up. What matters is that by the end, what your group creates will be your definitive stamp on the Dresden Files universe, your own niche of it to shape and carve.

Don’t want to go through all that work? No problem – we’ve included a sample city, Baltimore, completed as if it had gone through the city creation process, all ready for your characters to move in and make it a home.

And then, of course, there’s Chicago, the default setting of the books themselves. On the one hand, it’d seem that this would be the hardest thing for a gaming group to “own” – after all, a lot of the setting decisions seem to have been made in the books already, right? What if your group’s not interested in that?

Fortunately for you, the powers of erudition possessed by Kenneth Hite are here to help. Going beyond just the books, his chapter on Chicago is a veritable treasure trove of historical, geographical, and thematic tidbits – it’s essentially the research done for you, plenty of information for your group to use the city creation techniques, narrow down what matters, and apply that in your game, tweaking the city’s aspects and locations to fit. The Second City is a vast place, with room enough for campaigns about werewolves struggling through college, cops looking into the weird, and wizards struggling to keep the darkest of forces from hurting humanity. Your Chicago and Dresden’s Chicago may not have a whole lot of overlap when it’s all said and done, but it’ll be yours.

Finally, we provide advice, scattered about the book, on how certain setting deviations might be interesting. Here’s one, from the Who’s Who chapter, talking about how life could have gone differently for everyone’s favorite wiseacre wizard (spoilers ahead!)…

Read more…

General designer's corner

Over the last few weeks we recruited some volunteer GMs to run Evil Hat’s games in the slots at the Origins Game Fair.  We got a really good response, and better yet, most of them are for the Dresden Files RPG.  Here’s the breakdown:

Beauties, Blood and Beasts

Owen Powers, director of last year’s low-budget supernatural hit “Unnatural Undertaking”, has some problems. His efforts since have tanked miserably, and he was banking on his latest, top-secret project.  This morning the police found him on the set, covered in blood and surrounded by carnage, with no idea what happened. It’s going to take your “special” investigation skills to finish this script! Introductory, characters provided.

Capital Chaos

Where’s the best place in Washington D.C. to meet a demon for dinner? When it comes to national security and matters Infernal, protocol is of utmost importance. An impeccably credentialed Emissary of Hell has come to you with information about a terrorist plot of supernatural proportions in your hometown, our nation’s capital. You can’t ignore what you’ve been told:  you’ve got to stop it, if you can. But everyone knows Hell doesn’t do anyone a favor with no strings attached. It really sucks to be you right now… but then again, it usually does.

The Century Club and the Day of Myth

The Century Club have competed in the Remarkable Race, visited Lost Cities and Mysterious Islands, and solved the mystery of the Nether Agenda, but can they survive the Day of Myth? When creatures of legend threaten, the members of the Century Club must solve the mystery behind their attacks before it is too late!

The Century Club and the Talons of Fear

The Century Club have competed in the Remarkable Race, visited Lost Cities and Mysterious Islands, and solved the mystery of the Nether Agenda, but can they survive the Talons of Fear? When the police are baffled by a series of mysterious deaths, only members of the Century Club can unmask the true terror behind the Talons of Fear!

The Doom of Damocles

When you’re a Wizard you live by seven unbreakable laws. Break one and it’s an instant death sentence. No appeal, no parole, no exceptions. But what happens when you’re falsely accused? Your only hope is the Doom of Damocles, a stay of execution and a chance to get your old life back. And that’s exactly the choice the White Council has given you: go on a dangerous suicide mission, or face an instant death by the swords of the Wardens. Either way your head is on the chopping block, and you’re under the Doom of Damocles.

The Dracula Killings

Something is wrong in Houston, Texas. The supernatural community has gone into hiding. A new player is in town and they are causing a big splash. Bodies are turning up and even the mundane community is on edge. The newspapers are calling it the Dracula Killings. If only they knew how close they were. Bad news is that you and your friends have just been hired to put a stop to this Black Court Scourge.

Ethereal Pillars

Fog in San Francisco is nothing new. Heck, tourists come to see the fog. There’s even a local rugby team named for it, poor devils. When the figures of both new and long-forgotten dead start appearing in the evening fog, however, even a city long-accustomed to weirdness starts to come unglued. It’s up to you to figure out what’s calling the dead from sea and shore and put a stop to it before anything worse happens — if it isn’t already too late.

First Down and Hell To Go

The last time the Cleveland Browns went to the national championship, the Cuyahoga River burned…as a warning.   A trickster creature from the Nevernever cursed the Browns and if they ever return to the championship game, more than just the river would burn…everything would!  Now, in Baltimore it is the game that decides who goes to the Superbowl and the Browns have forgotten their old curse after years of purposeful mediocracy.   This year they could go all the way…and you have been brought in to prevent it.  Just beware evil forces that would be happy to see the nation burn… and they are not just Raven fans!

A Fright at the Opera

You’d planned on a nice enjoyable evening at the local theater festival, seeing a revival of one of your favorite plays.  Little did you know that something else had plans for the theater that night and they weren’t going to be quite as enjoyable.

Greek Week

It’s Greek Week, and for most of the fraternities and sororities on campus that means raising money for charity, putting on shows, and some friendly competitions. But for the werewolves of Sigma Alpha Delta it means danger – a rash of unexplained disappearances plagues the University, and strange creatures out of myth are invading the frat pack’s territory. Can they put a stop to it, and win the Pan-Hellenic games?

Halftime Hexes

The OSU/Michigan game the weekend before Thanksgiving is one of the biggest events in Columbus.  Whether you like the Buckeyes (or Football) or not, you can’t escape it. There’s lots of emotion, and let’s face it, nothing makes magic more than emotion. You’ve got tickets to the game, and a ticket for the Dube’s tailgate, and a gentle request by the PTB to check things out a bit while the  local Wardens deal with a Red Court threat in Cleveland.  In other words, it’s a cake job at the event everyone who is anyone is at. Until you get a whiff of some evil magic brewing, and set to go off at halftime!

Major Problem, Minor Talents

Supernatural trouble brewing on the streets of the Big Apple, and everyone with even an ounce of mystic talent can feel it. The war raging between the White Council and the Red Court Vampires has left both sides weakened and distracted. The Wardens are nowhere to be found; most minor talents are keeping their heads down and just trying their best to stay alive. But when the local Paranet group discovers a dangerous threat is stalking minor talents on the streets of New York. They know it’s way out of their league, but if they don’t even try to stop it, who will?

Neutral Grounds

At Neutral Grounds, you’re used to being greeted with a friendly smile, a cup of the best coffee in Baltimore, and the company of other people with your… unique talents. This morning, things have gone horribly, horribly wrong; you’ll have to use all your abilities, natural and otherwise, to get to the bottom of things. (Editor’s note: This one’s run by Clark Valentine, one of the game’s developers!)

A Penny-Farthing for My Thoughts

Welcome to the Village. I am Number 127, your doctor. Although I am supervising your treatment, you do not remember me. Recently, you suffered a traumatic shock that has caused a form of memory loss called profound retrograde amnesia. This loss of memory occurred because you attempted to escape the Village. The immediate cause of the memory loss is not known at this time. We believe that this is due to a trauma caused by some action on your part, and your mind has created a barrier as a way of protecting you. We — that is, you and I and Number 2 — discussed various possible treatments and you decided that your only option to recover your memory was an experimental drug called Mnemosyne…

The Princess Bride 2: Vizzini’s Revenge

A skinless-faced madman has kidnapped Waverly, the daughter of Westley and Buttercup, apparently killing Fezzik in the process. Westley, Buttercup, and Inigo Montoya (fresh from his first tour of duty as the Dread Pirate Roberts), along with two or three other interesting characters, take off in hot pursuit of the madman, from their home on One Tree Island, through the Wilderness of Woe, into the Swamp of Slime (only slightly more perilous than the Fire Swamp), and across the Serpentine Sea to the shores of Sicily … and the slopes of Muncibeddu, the Mountain of Perdition!

The Sterling Apartments

The Sterling Apartments aren’t glamorous, but hey, it’s home. But the clocks have stopped, the doors have opened, and you have all entered the Mad City. Stay awake, and you might live to see morning.

Vacant Streets

The dregs of society have gone missing. Not much of a crisis, right? But when the son of a well loved ectomancer goes missing, eyes open and ears perk. Something is definitely up, and it’s going to take those who are In The Know to get down to the root of the matter.

General origins

The Order of the Blackened Denarius

The Order of the Blackened Denarius is composed of Fallen angels bound to thirty silver coins. These coins, said to be the payment to Judas Iscariot for betraying Christ, permit the Denarians to possess mortal hosts. Denarians are old, powerful, and very dangerous entities. They have rampaged across two millennia of history, opposed only by the Knights of the Cross.

The Denarians are led by Nicodemus. Nicodemus has possession of those denarii not currently in use (or captured by the Knights of the Cross), and he passes them on to suitable targets for corruption. It is suspected that his ultimate plans involve bringing about the Apocalypse.

Freeholding Lords

Under the Unseelie Accords, powerful individuals are permitted to be signatories. These are the Freeholding Lords.

Dragons, scions, and even old gods fill the ranks of the Freeholding Lords. In the view of the supernatural nations, they are arcane “city-states.”

Marcone’s Mafia

John Marcone is the first “pure vanilla” (i.e., non-supernatural) mortal to have signed the Unseelie Accords as a Freeholding Lord.

The majority of Marcone’s forces are mortal criminals who are somewhat clued-in to the supernatural. A small number are combat-ready mercenaries, unfazed by weird magic shit. Marcone also employs at least one magical contractor (see Sigrun Gard) for magical protection and information-gathering, in an attempt to understand supernatural issues.

It is likely Marcone will assist the White Council, at least in a limited fashion, against the Red Court in the course of the Vampire War. (Interestingly, most of his major conflicts have been against the Denarians and the Black Circle.)

Harry: Marcone confounds me. He’s criminal scum, no debate there. But, on occasion, he does something so…right, that I need to pause and consider. Damn him.

March continues with the Outsiders and the Circle, in two weeks.

General old world order, setting

Cover Art Wallpaper Is In

We thought you all might like to see the cover art for both books from David Seidman today, formatted as wallpaper for folks looking to adorn their desktops. Click for the bigs!

Your Story

(Widescreen Version) (Non-Widescreen Version)

Our World

(Widescreen Version) (Non-Widescreen Version)

You’ve seen the first one for a few years now, but the second one just showed up in yesterday’s press release.  We’re excited to get that scene from Blood Rites illustrated, and it continues in Evil Hat’s tradition of making sure we have an ape on another cover.  Double victory!

Product Pricing

When we announced the release of The Dresden Files RPG for the upcoming Origins 2010, we had to put little “TBDs” (to be determined) for the pricing on the books. The reasons were several — we needed to figure out who our printer was likely to be (we’ve done that), and moreover whether or not we’d be going into distribution in order to get the product out to as many game-stores as we could (and as of yesterday, we’ve done that too).

Once those decisions were in hand, it was time to crunch numbers: we needed to make sure that every scenario we constructed made sure Jim got paid what he deserves, and that Evil Hat gets enough of a cut that it can make its costs back and, with a little luck and support from our fans, grow. It’s heady algebra, but we’ve run the numbers backwards and forwards at this point and we’re pretty confident we’ve gotten the prices down to where they’re competitive for the market, supportive of Jim, mindful of the fans, and friendly to us staying in business.

Which means we can share ‘em:

The Dresden Files RPG: Volume 1 – Your Story ISBN 978-0-9771534-7-3. Approx. 400 pages, 8.5″x11″, full color hardcover. MSRP $49.99.

The Dresden Files RPG: Volume 2 – Our World ISBN 978-0-9771534-8-0. Approx. 270 pages, 8.5″x11″, full color hardcover. MSRP $39.99.

No preorder announcement yet — but we are doing our best to stay on track for one that’ll land in the earlier part of our projected “sometime between early April and late June” range we’ve already been talking about.  And as with all Evil Hat preorders, when we do kick that off, it’ll come with an immediately-available PDF download so you can sink your teeth in while waiting for the physical things to arrive.

General art, david seidman, price, product info

Silver Spring, Maryland (February 24, 2010) – Alliance Game Distributors and Evil Hat Productions are proud to announce that they will be teaming up to bring The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game to adventure-hobby retailers in June, 2010!

The Dresden Files RPG is based upon the wildly popular series of books by New York Times best selling author Jim Butcher. With eleven books published in the series, and Changes, the 12th book set to release on April 6, 2010, the Evil Hat crew had a wealth of characters and plot to draw from.

“We are delighted that Evil Hat will be expanding its existing distribution network to include Alliance,” said Mike Webb, VP of Marketing and Customer Service for Alliance Game Distributors. “Evil Hat has a well deserved reputation for putting out some of the finest in independent roleplaying products. And from the previews we have seen, The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game hits on all cylinders with the industry. Jim Butcher’s vision and characters are a wonderful modern take on fantasy noir. Combining Butcher’s world with Evil Hat’s gamecraft is a winning combination!”

“When it came time for us to decide if we were going into distribution, there wasn’t any question about who we’d want in our corner,” said Fred Hicks, Co-President of Evil Hat Productions. “The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game is the first game we’ve done on this kind of scale. Partnering with Alliance to get the game into retail stores everywhere is a straight-up no-brainer. Their track record speaks for itself!”

In addition to the Dresden Files RPG, Alliance will also be offering Evil Hat’s backlist of products – including the award-winning Spirit of the Century RPG, based on the Fate game system—the same engine which drives the ruleset for Dresden Files!

The Dresden Files RPG: Volume 1 – Your Story [EHP3001] and The Dresden Files RPG: Volume 2 – Our World [EHP3002] will make their first appearance at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio June 23, 2010.

About Evil Hat

Evil Hat Productions believes that passion makes the best games. With this passion, they create award-winning games such as Spirit of the Century and Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, delivering the best in small-press gaming.

For more information about Evil Hat, contact
Fred Hicks, Co-President
feedback@evilhat.com
www.evilhat.com

For more information about The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, visit the game’s website at www.dresdenfilesrpg.com

About Alliance

Alliance Game Distributors is the largest hobby-game distributor in the US, with 4 warehouses and 5 sales offices servicing North America and the world. Alliance leads the industry in retail support, with a robust B2B web presence and the industry leading preorder publication, Game Trade Magazine – which has proved an invaluable tool to retailers and consumers for over 10 years.

For more information, contact
Mike Webb, VP of Marketing and Customer Service
mew@alliance-games.com ·   410-602-8000 x1005

General press release