Cubicle 7 has followed up on their announcement for their upcoming Victoriana RPG with a few more details as to what will be included within the new Player's Guide. We also got to see a wonderful new cover by Antonio De Luca!

Victoriana Player's Guide // Cubicle 7

This Player's Guide will feature all of the rules that you need for making characters to suit the magical and steampunk world of Victoriana. You'll be able to dive into Penny Dreadfuls (Adventures), full of action but also social interaction and investigation.

Here is how the Player's Guide breaks down...

• Introduction: An introduction to the world of Victoriana and an overview of this fantastic alternate version of the year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.
• Character: An overview on designing player characters (known as Associates) to participate in penny dreadfuls. This chapter focuses on Associations (the types of challenges you’ll face), Lineages (there are six distinct lineages of Humanity, each with its own traits, including the aethereal Elderen, the powerful Gruagaches, and the industrial Muirlochs), and Upbringing (your social class and the skills and contacts you’ve acquired since your birth).
• Roles: In Victoriana, your class refers to your social station, so what other OGL games call character classes, we call Roles. Your Role reflects your special skills and talents, and how you contribute to resolving penny dreadfuls. There are eight roles: Adventurer, Animist, Confidant, Dodger, Gadgeteer, Mystic, Scrapper, Sleuth, and Thaumaturge, along with several archetypes for each. You might be a noble Astrologer, an anarchic Demolitionist, a sleuthing Occultist, or a two-fisted Valet.
• Goods & Services: This chapter offers a wide selection of armour, weapons, and other equipment your Associates need in order to navigate the many challenges of a fantastic Victorian world. From unusual firearms and magical relics, to clockwork limbs, you will find an impressive array of incredible items to prepare your party on their adventure.
• Magic: Magic and science aren’t so easily separated in Victoriana. Animism is the drawing of power from combining ingredients found in the natural world; Gadgeteering is the application of magic to fuel otherwise impossible technological marvels; Psychodunamy is the ability to touch the Aether with your mind, and Thaumaturgy is the exploration and exploitation of magic in its rawest form. Other magics exist as well, including Maleficium, in which you make contracts with the entropic Pallid Ones to perform magics ordinarily denied.
• Rules: This chapter tweaks the 5th edition OGL rules to emphasise Victoriana’s distinctiveness. There are new skills as well as advice on how to apply both old and new skills to investigations and social interactions. Given the prevalence of magical and technological vehicles in this setting, rules for vehicle chases and combat are also provided.
• Encyclopaedia Victoriana: An expanded look at the social classes, cosmology, religion, and revolutionary movements of Victoriana.
• London: This chapter provides a short, handy guide to London, the Centre of Empire and the setting for Victoriana’s penny dreadfuls. There is information on the various parts of London, crime and punishment, technologies, and social affairs, such as the home, education, customs, fashion, and leisure. In short, it’s everything you need to make your Associate feel like part of a living world!

I like the twist to the traditional classes and backgrounds as well as the emphasis on alternative ways to approach magic. It's also neat to see more emphasis on twisting and shaping the 5th Edition system to work for investigations and such. I am all for a Steampunk/Fantasy adventure through the streets of London.

It'll be a while before this is released but in the meantime, I am very eager to learn more. We'll see if we can get a chat with Cubicle 7 all about it!

Are you tempted by a Victoriana adventure?