Unknown Armies is a game about obsessed people trying to change the world.
It’s about getting exactly what you want, only to be left wondering “what the hell was I thinking?”
when you do get it.
It’s about humanity, and the horrors that come with testing the limits of being human.
It’s about the unnatural and occult power that people wield.
And it’s about the consequences of using that power to realise their obsessions.
The default setting is the world we know, tainted by a hidden layer known as the occult underground.
The supernatural exists. Not usually overtly, unless you know what you’re looking for.
Demons exist – they are people who have died with their obsessions unfulfilled. Faeries too – the innocents who have died before they emerge into the world.
Between the dead and the unborn are the broken and obsessed. They are people who create enough existential problems to keep the world tilted off its axis.
These are the characters whose journeys are played out in Unknown Armies.
Some might be Avatars, who embody one of the prevailing cultural archetypes. They channel powers derived from their alignment with the human experience.
Others are Adepts. They harness a different type of magick to twist the fabric of reality to meet their own desires.
And then there are those who are just broken. They may not have the focus needed to be an Adept, nor the discipline to be an Avatar. But they are still obsessed enough to bruise reality.
On Armies Unknown is a guide through some of the richness and complexity of playing in a world of Unknown Armies.