Overview

Somewhere, in a hidden room, five old men sit around a table. You don't know them, but they've shaped this world since before you were born. They drew a line between the mundane world, and the terrors that lurk in the shadows. They signed blood oaths with the Vampire Primogeniture, brokered a contract with the old magi consulate, bound the more esoteric monsters with rules that limited their prey to a luckless few unfortunate souls.

Some say the Five Old Men are heroes: keeping humanity safe and allowing the modern age of technology to even happen. Others call them tyrants - enforcing human misery and death out of fear that the alternative could be worse.

Either way, their time is almost up

The world is a forever shifting thing. Corporations pursue trading opportunities in hell and experiment with the biology of unearthly creatures. Vampire galas host the rich and powerful, tempting mortals with possibilities the Primogenature are forced to deny. New religious groups outfit eager acolytes with weapons forged of the bones of ancient gods. Ambitious generals dig up ancient weapons programs, reviving long buried horrors for the modern era. Those who hold power want their power to grow. No treaty of convenience could hold that back forever.

The era of the Five Old Men is coming to an end. What follows will be an time of opportunity. For good, or for ill? That part is left to you.

The idea for this game is... basically 'anime riff on the World of Darkness'. Not literally - I'm not using their settings or lore directly, that sounds like a ton of work. Take a lot of the concepts and base ideas from those games and urban fantasy in general, and use them to tell a fun, fast paced action story that goes to the craziest extent you can think of.

Think a tone similar to early Bleach, something in the Shaman King line... Maybe Street Fighter, Kamen Rider, or perhaps a more bombastic take on the X-Files. The supernatural is real, it's (at least potentially) dangerous, and you idiots are going to have your hands full keeping folk safe. This is kinda a sucky job when you think about it. You don't have any kind of big group backing you up, while the bad guys have at least one Ancient Secret Society on their side. But it has to get done and you've got your strengths too: pluck, grit, resignation and a complete inability to process logical odds can go a long way towards doing the impossible

Character Creation

We're using Panic at the Dojo - incorporating Patched Up v5. If you're unfamiliar, this adds a level up and supermove system to the game, as well as reworking/rebalancing a lot of the core styles and forms. If you have access to the playtest, Second Strike material is also valid. Please don't reproduce rules text from it in your character sheets, but otherwise you're cleared to use it.

In terms of lore? Go nuts! Half the fun of Panic is the ability to make whatever crazy character you want, and that was key to me with this setting. Magic is a given with this setup - but secret, highly advanced science also has a place in urban fantasy. From the Technomantic Union to the forces of SHOCKER, there's precedent in the inspiration for this game. I'd like characters who are at least vaguely heroic, want to keep ordinary people safe and are able to work in a team, but that's about the extent of the limitations here.

The world's big and diverse enough that any sort of power or organization you introduce can fit somewhere. I'd caution a little against large unified hero groups - that doesn't really work here. Still, smaller ones are AOK. An isolated temple of exorcists? An underfunded government office tasked with investigating the paranormal? One legendary vampire hunter who retired and passed their legacy down? A union group representing actual spirit mediums? All these are fine. Just no Magic SHIELD. Big organizations that uphold the status quo are more a bad guy thing. The best you can get out of the magical authorities is 'doggedly neutral', and even that is due to their pact with the Five Old Men.