History TabletopGame / Anathema2011

''[[http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/105033/Anathema Anathema]]'' is a tabletop RPG by End Transmission Games. From their [=DriveThruRPG=] page:

"In this roleplaying game for two to six players, you play a Shroud. Once human, you are now an angel of death tasked with the culling of millions of human lives. To do so, you will use the powers of war, pestilence, famine, misfortune, atrophy, and despair at your fingertips to kill men, women, and children indiscriminately. This horrible act is nothing less than necessary, to decrease the surplus population of Earth in order to save the entire human race from extinction.

How can you kill millions of people to serve the Balance while clinging to the tatters of your humanity?"

This task is given to you by a mysterious force, known as "the Balance", which was also responsible for turning you into a shroud. The human being that birthed a shroud is called a husk. New shrouds have very few memories of their life and some may have none at all. A large part of the game stems from players finding (or not finding) ways to cope with the horrible things they have to do while holding on to (or letting go of) what remains of their humanity, as well as discovering their past and why The Balance chose them.

Well, that and stunning amounts of murder...

Shrouds are divided into three broad categories (the Violent, the Lost, and the Kindly), based on what they were like in life. These categories determine how a player gains and loses will, their motivations, and the way in which they are most likely to rebel against The Balance. Shrouds also wield a number of powers to help them carry out their grim task. These powers are divided into the dominions of war, misfortune, atrophy, famine, pestilence, and despair. A shroud's primary dominion is determined by how they died, but players are not limited to that dominion alone. So, you have a wide variety of powers at your disposal and the one you're best at is whichever one is the most similar to what killed your husk, meaning that you get to spend your unlife making people suffer the same way that you did.

Oh, but it gets better! Players have a finite amount of will and quite a few ways to lose it. When you run out of it, you suffer utter annihilation.

Happy murdering!

* InfantImmortality: Completely averted.

[[http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/105033/Anathema Anathema]] is a tabletop RPG by End Transmission Games. From their [=DriveThruRPG=] page:

How can you kill millions of people to serve The Balance while clinging to the tatters of your humanity?"

Shrouds are divided into three broad categories (The Violent, The Lost, and The Kindly), based on what they were like in life. These categories determine how a player gains and loses will, their motivations, and the way in which they are most likely to rebel against The Balance. Shrouds also wield a number of powers to help them carry out their grim task. These powers are divided into the dominions of war, misfortune, atrophy, famine, pestilence, and despair. A shroud's primary dominion is determined by how they died, but players are not limited to that dominion alone. So, you have a wide variety of powers at your disposal and the one you're best at is whichever one is the most similar to what killed your husk, meaning that you get to spend your unlife making people suffer the same way that you did.

*AGodIAmNot: Despite its powers, The Balance is not God and there is no established presence of divinity in the game universe.
*AchillesHeel: Shrouds can't be killed by any human weapons, can fly as fast as a commercial jet, move through walls, become invisible, and have magic powers, but they can be killed by other shrouds and will be utterly destroyed if their will drops to 0.
*AmbitionIsEvil: The Violent gain will from being exceptionally good at what they do and may approach their task with a disturbing level of gusto.
*AssholeVictim: Excluding The Kindly, shrouds get to pick a preferred type of victim. They're probably this.
*BlackAndGrayMorality: Either meet a daily murder quota or let the Earth and all of humanity die a slow, horrible death.
*BlankSlate: The Lost. All that they know about their husks is that they were average people.
*CallAHitPointASmeerp: You don't have "hit points", you have "anathema".
*CameBackStrong: Shrouds are much stronger and faster than they were in life.
*CameBackWrong
*CastFromHitPoints: Dominion spells
*CrapsackWorld
*{{Determinator}}: The Balance and shrouds. In fact, if a player ''stops'' being this, other shrouds will annihilate them.
*DrivenToSuicide: Shrouds with the Despair dominion can decrease a target's will. If a human's will drops to 0, they become suicidal.
** If a shroud's primary dominion is Despair then it means that their husk committed suicide.
*EveryoneHasStandards: All shrouds have a type of person that they're particularly adverse to killing. Doing so causes them to lose will.
*{{Flight}}: All shrouds have the ability to fly.
*FullBodyDisguise: Shrouds can disguise themselves as humans, but it's difficult and being touched by a human destroys the effect.
*GhostlyChill: Often the only indicator that a shroud is near.
*GoodWingsEvilWings: All shrouds have wings. What they look like is up to the player.
*TheGrimReaper: Players have to murder humans in order to continue existing and to ensure that the world doesn't become catastrophically overpopulated. Players can also choose to have their shroud superficially resemble a grim reaper.
*HighTurnoverRate: If your character is upset or horrified at being turned into a shroud, at least they probably won't be one for very long...
*IdentityAmnesia: All shrouds to an extent, but The Lost have this the worst.
*InfantImmortality: Completely averted.
*{{Intangibility}}: Shrouds are incorporeal unless they choose not to be.
*{{Invisibility}}: Shrouds can make themselves invisible whenever they feel like it.
*IronicHell: The game is this for Kindly shrouds.
*JumpedAtTheCall: The Violent. Individual ones may not particularly enjoy what they do, but they sure get the job done.
*MercyKill: Players can attempt to limit themselves to this as much as possible.
** Technically, all of the murders are this, since the only other option is to let the world be rendered uninhabitable.
*{{Necromancer}}: Shrouds don't naturally occur. The Balance creates them out of dead humans.
*NiceGuy: The husks of Kindly shrouds were dedicated to helping others.
*PersonOfMassDestruction: The player, if they want to keep existing. This trope especially applies to players who specialize in the War dominion.
*PlagueMaster: Shrouds with the Pestilence dominion.
*PunchClockVillain: The Balance doesn't enjoy what it does and neither do most shrouds.
*RabbleRouser: One of the war dominion powers allows you to cause people in a given area to riot. It can affect up to ''ten square miles''.
*RapidAging: The effect of Atropy dominion powers.
*RefusalOfTheCall: The Kindly and the Lost have to do this to some extent.
*SanityMeter: Will represents your will to live.
*{{Seekers}}: All shrouds, but The Lost are primarily motivated by trying to learn about their past life.
*SerialKillerKiller: Refuse to do your job and The Balance will send other shrouds to destroy you.
*TrueNeutral: The Balance creates shrouds and makes them kill strictly out of necessity. It makes no claims to be either good or evil and is entirely impersonal.
*UndeathAlwaysEnds: Depending on what kind of shroud you play as, certain actions will decrease your shroud's will to live. When will hits 0, the character is annihilated.
*WalkingDisasterArea: Shrouds with the Misfortune dominion.
*WalkingWasteland: Players with the Famine dominion can pollute water sources, destroy nearby food and drink, and make people become fatally dehydrated.

[[http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/105033/Anathema Anathema]] is a tabletop RPG by End Transmission Games. From their DriveThruRPG page:

*{{Badass}}: If a shroud is one of The Violent, its husk was a talented killer.

Oh, but it gets better! Players have a finite amount of will and quite a few ways to have to decreased. When you run out of it, you suffer utter annihilation.

Shrouds are divided into three broad categories (The Violent, The Lost, and The Kindly), based on what they were like in life. These categories determine how a player gains and loses will, their motivations, and the way in which they are most likely to rebel against The Balance. Shrouds also wield a number of powers to help them carry out their grim task. These powers are divided into the dominions of war, misfortune, atrophy, famine, pestilence, and despair. A shroud's primary dominion is determined by how they died, but players are not limited to that dominion alone.

Oh, but it gets better!

Players have a finite amount of will and quite a few ways to have to decreased. When you run out of it, you suffer utter annihilation.

Well, that and gratuitous amounts of murder...

This task is given to you by a mysterious force, known as "the Balance". A large part of the game stems from players finding (or not finding) ways to cope with the horrible things they have to do while holding on to (or letting go of) what remains of their humanity. The human being that birthed a shroud is called a husk.

[[http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/105033/Anathema Anathema]] is a tabletop RPG by End Transmission Games. Players take on the role of "shrouds"; the spirits of former humans, tasked with culling the world's population on behalf of a mysterious force known as "The Balance". Players must meet a kill quota or risk annihilation. A large part of the game stems from players finding (or not finding) ways to cope with the horrible things they have to do while holding on to (or letting go of) what remains of their humanity. The human being that birthed a shroud is called a husk.