Wightchester: Prison City of the Damned (PDF)

A CITY OF THE DEAD. A PRISON WITHOUT ESCAPE.

In 1666, the Great Comet passed across the sky and the dead rose from their graves.

The rising was worst in England, where the mass graves of the Great Plague and the recent Civil War disgorged their dead. Whitchester was overwhelmed, sealed behind its walls and cut off from the rest of the kingdom.

It became Wightchester: the Prison City of the Damned.

The city now serves as a prison for criminals, dissidents and others condemned by the restored monarchy. Cast through the gates, they are expected to survive among the ruins, reclaim the city from the undead or die in the attempt.

Wightchester: Prison City of the Damned is a complete, self-contained city-crawl setting combining alternative history, survival horror and old-school fantasy roleplaying.

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

Wightchester is not a linear adventure with a prescribed route or conclusion. It is an enormous open setting in which the players determine their own objectives.

Will they:

• Attempt to escape the prison city?

• Find and fortify somewhere to live?

• Search the ruins for food, weapons and other supplies?

• Deal with the city’s surviving inhabitants?

• Explore Wightchester’s streets and buildings?

• Attempt to clear the entire city of the undead and earn their release?

The game is intended to be deadlier and more brutal than traditional fantasy adventure. Character death remains a genuine possibility, and the campaign develops through the choices made during play.

A COMPLETE CITY-CRAWL

The book provides an Early Modern walled city packed with locations, history, intrigue, mystery, horror and death.

Each character enters Wightchester as a condemned criminal. Players can select or randomly determine the crime that brought them there, immediately giving each character a reason for imprisonment and a place within the setting.

The city’s history is traced from prehistoric times through the Dark Ages and beyond, providing historical context for the streets, buildings, institutions and buried secrets found within Wightchester.

INSIDE YOU’LL FIND

• A complete, self-contained city-crawl setting.

• 500 pages of historical horror and old-school adventure.

• An alternative seventeenth-century England overrun by the dead.

• The sealed prison city of Wightchester.

• A table of crimes for creating condemned characters.

• A detailed history of Whitchester and its transformation into Wightchester.

• Extensive locations to explore throughout the city.

• A complete bestiary for all supported systems.

• New rules and character classes for Mörk Borg.

• Support for 5e D&D, Grimdark 5e, Mörk Borg and OSR games.

• Multiple possible campaign objectives, including escape, settlement and reclamation.

PDF EDITION

• 500-page digital PDF.

• Complete city-crawl campaign setting.

• Written by James “Grim” Desborough and contributors.

• Published by Postmortem Studios.

• Originally released in November 2022.

A free, playable preview is also available separately.

This book requires one of the supported roleplaying systems or another suitably compatible old-school ruleset.

CONTENT NOTE

Wightchester is a dark and deliberately unforgiving horror-fantasy setting involving plague, imprisonment, religious and political persecution, historical violence, disease and the walking dead.