
The above-mentioned cosmology, with its Archetypes, Avatars, Godwalkers, Invisible Clergy, Chargers, and Checkers, is presented clearly and reinforced throughout the text. Characters in Unknown Armies have the capacity to modify reality as we know it, even to ascend to a sort of godhood, but only if they’re willing to pay the prices required to do so. Player-characters are individuals with the obsession and drive to dive into the Occult Underground and somehow come out the other side still alive, albeit undoubtedly changed forever. This trade-off of innocence for experience, of comfort for power, lies at the heart of Unknown Armies. Characters exposed to traumas gain “Hardened Notches” that help them deal with further traumas at the expense of cutting themselves off from their humanity. There are five meters (Helplessness, Isolation, Violence, Unnatural, and Self). Naturally, messing around with the laws of the universe can get one hurt, both mentally and physically, and this is where Shock Meters come in. Magick in the game is the knowledge that reality is completely malleable, and the will to use that knowledge. The only thing they help your character do is suck and die.") Another favorite line: "Failed notches are entirely bad. (The book drips with clever writing like that. But please don’t confuse the "magic" of the GM screen/slipcase with the "magick" in the game-as the text says, "Magick-with-a-k is willpower times understanding equals get your wish." But wait! That’s no slipcase! It’s actually the GM screen, held together by magic (or magnets…whatever). What is most immediately noticeable about the new edition of Unknown Armies is that it comes in three volumes (titled Play, Run, and Reveal) inside a slipcase. Stolze is this time joined by a raft of talented developers-Cam Banks, Shoshana Kessock, Ryan Macklin, Chad Underkoffler, Monica Valentinelli, and Filamena Young-who have updated and streamlined the game’s percentile-based mechanics, and also brought the cosmology into the 21 st century. Now Unknown Armies is back in a brand-new third edition.


Back in the days of yore known as the late-90s, a role-playing game called Unknown Armies, written by John Scott Tynes and Greg Stolze, fired gamers’ imaginations with its heady blend of post-modern occultism and transcendental horror.
