The Terror Beneath - Inspirations

The Terror Beneath, our investigative RPG of Weird Folk Horror, is out everywhere this month. Hear from author Scott Malthouse about the inspirations behind it, in our first behind-the-scenes blog...

The Terror Beneath is a roleplaying game of weird folk horror investigation set in the wake of the Great War. Using the celebrated GUMSHOE system, players will solve mysteries as part of the Gold Tiberius Society, created to combat the growing threat of sinister pagan gods who threaten to breach the Veil and end all civilisation. In a typical session players will come face-to-face with creatures thought lost to folklore, scientists blending occult rituals and chemistry, witch cults conducting foul rites under the pale moon, cover-ups by secretive government departments, and much more.

Who is Arthur Machen?

The Terror Beneath is based on the works of writer and horror master Arthur Machen, whose name has been somewhat lost to time despite his overwhelming legacy on literature and entertainment. If you’ve ever enjoyed the films of Guillermo del Toro or Ben Wheatley, or the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, then you’ve also experienced the genius of Machen.

A Welsh writer who moved to London to pursue his literary career in the late 19th century, Machen became known for his salacious horror stories that blended pagan terror, occult science, and detective narratives, producing some of the most effective tales of horror ever written. His masterwork The Great God Pan is a testament to his genius – the story of a young girl subject to strange surgeries that open her mind to an ancient god, and the villainous daughter conceived as a result of this “meeting”. The White People is an equally affecting short story about a girl’s descent into witchcraft as she discovers a twisted world inhabited by sinister folkloric beings. The true horror is left unsaid, leaving the reader to slowly realise what has really happened to the girl. Many of Machen’s other stories dealt with squat beings from the dawn of time who still writhe horribly in the Welsh hills, and of the soul and body’s corruption when faced with strange sciences blended with occult rites. Like Poe’s Dupin or Doyle’s Holmes, Machen created several investigators to delve into the lurking horrors present in the city of London and the Welsh wilderness. Dyson and Villiers show up across multiple stories – the template for Mulder and Scully.

The Terror Beneath uses the characters and ideas Machen presents and builds on them further, presenting a world in which many so-called great gods are attempting to pierce the veil between the Otherworld and ours. In this timeline Dyson and Villiers set up the Gold Tiberius Society to keep track of the shadowy horrors all around them. The Society would go on to recruit other characters from Machen’s stories, investigating sites of ‘bleed’, where the energy of the Otherworld spills into our own. At the intersection of these bleed lines could be found terrors beyond mortal reckoning and it was the Society’s job to stop them.

The Investigators 

The players are recruited to join a severely diminished Gold Tiberius Society after a series of tragedies, with only a man named Ambrose remaining. When I was playtesting I found it fun to hand out invitations to my players sealed with gold wax. You see, every investigator has a reason to become a member – they have seen what lies beneath the thin veil of reality. This fact is baked into character creation through the titular Terror Beneath – an event that caused that investigator to question their reality. This could have been witnessing a horned figure in the woods or coded military plans to send soldiers through the Veil.

Characters also have drives – what keeps them going in the face of sheer horror? Maybe they want to make a legacy for themselves or perhaps someone they love has been taken by the source of their terror. The GM can use drives to keep the players motivated to investigate further and create interesting character moments. These moments are bolstered by relationships – who each investigator relies on and who they protect, creating a dynamic environment for roleplay.

The System

The game is powered by GUMSHOE Quickshock by Robin Laws, a perfect system for detective mysteries. The system is based on the premise that you should always discover clues to keep the action going. If you have a certain ability then you will automatically gain a relevant clue by using it. Characters are formed from Occupation Kits and Background Kits, with the former offering investigative abilities to discover clues (for example, the pulp novelist has the Research ability, giving them expertise in finding clues through records, books, and libraries), and the latter giving general abilities that are used to determine if the character succeeds at a task. Whenever an investigator does something where a risk is involved, they roll a d6 and spend as many points as they want from a general ability pool, adding to the roll. The GM sets a difficulty and if the character meets or exceeds it then they succeed.

Part of the beauty of the Quickshock system is how shock and injury is taken. Investigators can be physically or mentally damaged, represented in the game by shock and injury cards. Each card has an impact on the character, both mechanically and narratively. Cards come in both major and minor varieties, simulating degrees of trauma received throughout a session. Often major cards are downgraded to minor after some condition has been met. The major injury Ringing Cranium hinders you physically, but after four hours the card is traded for Blow to the Head which no longer has a physical impact but a mental one. The GM can make their own combinations of injuries or shocks based on what happens to the investigators, but once they have three of injuries or shocks they’re out of the game.

Unique to The Terror Beneath is how Bleed impacts the game. I didn’t want Bleed to be just something that occurred in the fiction, but an element that had a mechanical impact on the characters and creatures in the world. To this end, locations in the game have Bleed levels between 1 and 3, with 3 being the state where the Great Gods of the Otherworld can pass through. Bleed level impacts many of the game’s creatures, with highest levels making them stronger or unlocking abilities. The kicker is that the players won’t know the exact Bleed in an area – only how it affects their characters. This means they need to think about the risk of heading into a location that could be spilling a shed load of Bleed because whatever lurks there may be incredibly tough.

This brings us to the next new element to the game – sorcery. From rotting tomes and crumbling tablets, investigators will get the chance to use forbidden magic to help them in their battle against the darkness, whether performing a seance or banishing the avatar of a Great God. More powerful spells require higher levels of Bleed. Creating a seal to prevent a spirit from passing through requires only a small amount of Bleed energy, whereas summoning a Great God needs much more. Each spell has a shock associated with it, so using sorcery is always dangerous and the most powerful sorceries are able to corrupt your very soul. Investigators can share the load by casting together or by using a spell foci to maintain composure. Foci could mean wielding Excalibur or drinking from the Holy Grail – legendary items that characters will risk their lives to obtain.

Come back next time when I’ll be explaining more about the two settings of The Terror Beneath – the London Metropolis and the Welsh Wilderness.

The Terror Beneath is out 22nd October in the US and 24th October in the UK.

Pre-order now.

• Roleplaying