Keeping Heretic’s RPG alive

Non-entities fascinate me.

Once upon a time I found myself in possession of an rpg called Heretics. It was little more then a short run A5 booklet but great things do come in small packages. I wish I still had a copy. Its concepts are little more then memory to me but it was memories of this little booklet that drew me to Whispering Vault and Unknown Armies after years of Call of Cthulhu.

Adepts are great, Avatars are fantastic – time to let the Heretics enter the fray.

A Heretic was a person who would by normal standards be considered insane. Each heretic believed in something completely and utterly despite it being conventionally untrue (dead people can talk to you on the phone or the demons come if you stare into the flames, for example).

They were not Adept’s however; the horse rode them.

Their personal conviction and belief was so strong however that it could fool reality itself into conforming. This reality crack also allowed them to exert their influence in other ways (special abilities) my favourite of which was being able to step into realities shadow (a great place to hide bodies).

Heretics could see the creatures that were un-alive, creatures that longed for existence but couldn’t have it, couldn’t affect it, trapped in realities shadow. When the loony screams out that his body is covered in spiders – perhaps he is right. They were cannibalistic and some were downright dangerous, especially to heretics who could see and acknowledge their existence.

My favourite bogey was the pack of monstrous dogs that follow people unseen when walking alone at night down darkened streets. The rare sensitive soul may notice their presence and the pack would be granted just enough “reality” to come through to the real world and tear their victim to pieces.

The games true enemies were the shadow borne who had gained enough reality to live and affect the real world, which had enough intellect and personality to exist (leading to some real Gaimanesque villains). They crave Heretics who feed their desire to be real, making them stronger.

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Life as a heretic was hard and marred by Fugue states. Sparked by an event related to their “insanity” it could have several outcomes.

1) The fugue situation is entirely within the Heretics head. When resolved normal people just witness the heretic freaking out, wandering insanely.

2) The fugue situation occurred within the Heretics head but infects some (or all) onlookers so they act crazy (mass, shared hallucination).

3) The heretic believes it – reality makes it so.

The nasty thing was that the heretic would never know what was real until afterwards (possibly). It was a licence for the GM to mess with his players heads.

“don’t look behind you, you may think you heard an animal growl or the pad of paws but for Christ sake don’t look behind you!”.