In The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game, you play a member of an investigative team researching reports of supernatural activity. For 200 years, the Magnus Institute has quietly collected statements from people of all walks of life, detailing their personal experiences with the supernatural, and you’re part of that organization or one very much like it.
Your records are filled with disparate statements of bizarre occurrences—usually with a very chilling edge. Statements discuss people (or creatures?) such as an odd figure that beckons drunken pubgoers into an alleyway—never to be seen again; items like a meat grinder that somehow compels its users to merrily feed it their own limbs; events like a late-night subway trip in which the train burrowed itself into the earth, all but crushing its lone occupant.
And books with extraordinary power, such as The Boneturner’s Tale, which seems to give one who reads it the grisly power to rearrange the bones of others. An astonishing number of these books seem to trace back to a particular private library, owned by the enigmatic Jurgen Leitner.
Your organization is dedicated to cataloging and researching these incidents—not fighting or confronting the supernatural. But it’s becoming clear these events aren’t as disparate as they first appear. There are connections between them—connections that suggest existential dangers to the world as we know it.Â
How will you combat them, when simply coming to understand these dark forces threatens to bring you under their influence?
The threats in The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game start small, but lead big places. Investigations initially focus on singular events—weird, creepy, and even dangerous, but also minor and localized. A real estate agent found herself trapped in an endless corridor behind a door that hadn’t been there before. A young man took possession of a coffin from which weird sounds emerged. Another man had an encounter with what seemed to be a vampire.
(Speaking of vampires, The Magnus Archives offers a fresh take on the supernatural. The stories—and your adventures—are filled with both enigmatic, original concepts, and recognizable elements that play out in cool and unexpected ways.)
Working together at the Magnus Institute, or a similar organization, brings the party together (though characters may have different backgrounds, perhaps as law enforcement, or amateur supernatural sleuths, that bring them into the fold). The PCs have a common purpose from the start.
The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game really shines as your campaign builds. Connections form between the individual adventures, and other records in the archives, involving the PCs with powerful Entities that underlie the strange events. At the same time, the characters are affected by their investigations. Ultimately, these effects can damage the PCs, or give them important advantages for facing the Entities—it’s up to the players to find a balance between the rewards and the very perilous risks…
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Scroll down for details on these unique and beautiful items. The Investigative Team pledge level outfits your entire gaming group for an immersive and chilling The Magnus Archives experience. If you're looking for the best all-in deal that includes autographs, early access, and an actual Leitner book, upgrade to the Entity pledge level for only $150 more.
This game is based on the entirety—all five seasons—of The Magnus Archives podcast. For those of you who have experienced every episode, you know that there are secrets unveiled all the way up to the very end. Speaking of which…
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Skip This Section If You Want to Avoid Spoilers!
If you’ve listened all the way up through the end of the podcast, you know that all the supernatural and esoteric happenings are due to the entities of fear, and this game goes into this in depth. Moreover, you know that in the universe of the podcast, the entities are no longer present, thanks to the sacrifices made by Jon, Martin, and the rest of the team. So for the game, we have decided that each GM will create their own reality that has been exposed to the freed entities. That means you’re free to use anything from the podcast, and free to change anything you wish. Is the Magnus Archive in London or does it lie elsewhere (perhaps with a different name and history)? Is Jonathan Sims the head archivist, or is it someone else—even a PC? The game will provide all the guidance you need to create a setting and a campaign that mirrors as much or as little of the podcast as you want.
The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game is a hefty hardcover book. It contains the full rules of the game, a detailed character creation system, lots of game advice, a comprehensive look at the characters, artefacts, and entities of The Magnus Archives, and entire adventures (called investigations, instigated by statements) ready to play.
It's also loaded with informative lore and great art that every fan of The Magnus Archives is going to love, even if you never sit down to play.
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The Cypher System is renowned for its flexibility, narrative focus, and fast pace. It’s the perfect system for a story- and character-oriented campaign. And its mechanics are easily adapted to the needs of a particular genre or style of play. The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game has the Cypher System at its core, specifically tailored to portray the horror and the action of The Magnus Archives.
You’ll find changes to the damage system, new ways characters can advance, and special mechanics that escalate the tension as your adventure progresses. And an innovative process for creating the witness statements at the root of each adventure—a process that deeply invests the entire gaming group into the investigations.
And in particular, a whole new set of mechanics portraying the fear and stress of these stories is woven throughout every aspect of the game. Stress not only measures the toll of these terrible encounters, but can translate, over time, into the remarkable changes to a character. Those crossing paths with the entities of this setting come away psychically scarred, but also sometimes with mysterious, supernatural abilities. Using such abilities might save your life, but it might also send you further into the clutches of the entities at the heart of such powers. A character might even eventually become an avatar of one of the Entities… but is that a good thing?
You’ll have to discover that for yourself.
Download the Primer
Like most tabletop roleplaying games, this game is played with and in the shared imaginations of a group. One player takes on the role of the Game Master (GM) who crafts the adventure and controls the world in which it is set. The other players take on the roles of fictional characters within that world, describing—and occasionally rolling dice to resolve the outcomes of—the actions of their characters.
For a quick look at The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game, download our free primer. It introduces the Cypher System, and offers a glimpse of what you'll find in the depths of the Magnus Institute archives, including a few examples of characters, entities, and items you might encounter in your research.
In addition to the standard The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game, this campaign is funding a range of accessories and game aids that make your tabletop experience that much more compelling, fast-playing, and fun. Many of these items are limited-edition, created especially for this crowdfunding campaign.
You can select add-ons once you've backed this campaign. Once you're a backer, the Add-Ons tab appears at the top of this page; click it for more information on these items.
Here's the expected delivery timeline for this campaign's rewards. The world is still experiencing a lot of post-COVID upheaval in supply chains and freight transit, so we're adjusting this timeline to allow for slippage. We may be able to beat some of these dates, but there's also a chance we may see unanticipated production or shipping delays. We appreciate your flexibility!
Here’s the gist: shipping and global logistics are disrupted everywhere. That said, working within our own warehouse and with trusted global fulfillment partners in Europe and Australia, we do everything in our power to get your rewards into your hands as quickly, reliably, and affordably as possible.
All backers pay for shipping when they redeem their rewards. We offer a variety of domestic and international shipping methods from which you can choose. As of this writing, basic domestic shipping is $9 per shipment, but we do not control future postal rates, so that cost is subject to change. International shipping is based on postal and shipping rates at the time of the order, and varies by destination and shipment weight.
International shipping is expensive. We don’t have any control over shipping rates, and we can’t accurately predict what shipping rates will be at the time of fulfillment. To comply with international law, we cannot mark your reward as a gift or as a zero-value item. Here are details that apply to your region:
Canadian Backers: Your rewards will be fulfilled by our shipping center in the United States. You will be responsible for import duties, taxes, and brokerage fees (if applicable). Please note that our books are printed in Canada, and thus are not subject to import duties; however, they are subject to sales tax (GST/PST/HST). Items not manufactured in Canada, such as dice and decks of cards, are subject to import duties and GST/PST/HST.
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