Category: Urban Shadows RPG: Discussion

Ok so I’m officially giving Urban Shadows the full read through, and I have a couple of nuance-y questions about the rules as written I just want to be fully clear on.

– The Wizard’s Sanctum Sanctorum specifically mentions “spell ingredients” but the only ingredients listed in wizard spells are personal objects from others that one would assume they don’t have bags and bottles of (“Oh we need the Governor’s fingernail clippings? Third shelf from the back”). Is the intent here more for uses of power during Let It Out? Or something else?

– Spectre harm is a little confusing to me. Regular people can’t interact with the Spectre, so it’s probably safe to assume mundane harm from guns or knives doesn’t do anything, even when physically manifested, right? So supernatural harm is the only thing that can harm the Spectre’s corpus, and they reform in a few days. But what exactly triggers the “spirit passing on permanently” bit of the End Move if not supernatural harm?

– The Tainted’s Tendrils in the Dark explicitly says “assume your demon form and go to work”. I assume this means that the patron’s job requires immediate attention, but not all of the jobs you select are really things that need immediate demon-form attention. (“I need you to smash into this building and negotiate the fuck out of this demonic contract!”). Is the intent here that the “right now” job be one requiring violence?

– You can gain things by calling in Debts, but what about stuff that is… minor or not debt worthy? It’s apparent that the characters have different levels of starting wealth, but it’s not exactly clear how to manage this. The Fae can probably easily buy a round of drinks for a local bar, but I doubt The Hunter could. It seems a little silly to require The Fae to have a Debt with the bartender or something to do it. Should this be entirely managed by fiat alone?

Tell me about your Chicago setting! How did you split factions across the city? What neighborhoods did you use? Which Faction has the most fixies?

I’m prepping for an upcoming game set in Chicago, and I’d like to see what others have done.