Welcome to The Shadow of Yesterday! This is a fantasy role-playing game set in a world broken and reborn,

 a world that you, the players, get to shape.

If you're not familiar with role-playing games, they're a form of play where you and your friends make up stories. The rules of the game are there to give the story structure. You could call it a "story construction kit."

Stories with this game will be set in a world called Near. Before we learn how to use the kit, let's learn about the world and the type of stories that take place in it.

The world of Near

One hundred years ago, Near had a terrible calamity, an event its occupants call the "Sky Fire." This was most likely a giant asteroid that struck the world. At this time, a large part of Near was united in an empire called Maldor. They spoke one language and had a big multi-cultural society. When the Sky Fire struck, it shattered the world. A portion of the planet opposite from Maldor broke away and became a moon, something the people of Near had never seen before. Between the winter that came from all the dust that clouded the sky and the superstitions aggrevated from this new celestial body, the empire of Maldor fell and the world was depopulated from hunger and cold. Near only has ten percent of the population it once did. Their universal language, a magical tongue that allowed anyone who heard it to speak it, was lost.

This game is set one hundred years after the Sky Fire. Society is just beginning to re-form, and your stories will be set in this rebuilding.

The rules of this game are meant to enable a type of fantasy where things don't necessarily make common sense, but are always full of style, a bit creepy, a bit comedic, a bit dark and violent, and definitely romantic. You'll notice there's quite a few rules in here that have to do with love and sex. The game's setting is intentionally a sketch. It is there for you to fill in with your players and, hopefully, this game gives you a good set of tools to do so. The fundamental tenets of Near can be summed up as:

• No gods.
• No monsters.
• Just people.

What do we do?

You'll make up characters and explore this crazy world. Together you'll fill in the setting with ideas that jazz you and make up stories that'll make you laugh and maybe, I don't know, move you a little.

Most of you will make up one character and play the role of that character until his or her story is done. One of you will have to be the Story Guide, who plays everyone else in the fictional world. The story will be heavily tilted toward the main characters (player characters or P Cs), so you should all have about the same power to affect the story. The Story Guide's job is to just keep that story on track, using all the other characters in the world (Story Guide characters or SG Cs?) to press on the sides of that hot story iron and mold it.

Your player characters in this game will be heroes, most likely heroes with problems. Like the world of Near, your character will be full of possibility, both for good and bad. You'll explore the world, meet interesting people, and either solve their problems or give them new ones.

Credits, thanks, and influences

All the contributors to the The Shadow of Yesterday wiki influenced me with this revision. Fred Hicks of Evil Hat Productions inspired me incredibly with his melding of the original version of this game's "Bringing Down the Pain" with his own game Fate, which I can't say enough nice things about. James Nostack and Brennan Taylor both contributed Keys from the wiki.

A big and hearty thanks to my personal playtesters: Mischa Krilov and Judson Lester.

Andy Kitkowski is a very good man. He worked this text like a ball of sourdough. Keith Senkowski and Ben Lehman also provided invaluable feedback.

Vincent Baker, creator of awesome games like Dogs in the Vineyard, helped more than he knows with his excellent weblog/discussion website called "anyway."

Lastly, as always, the good souls at The Forge outdid themselves with helpful suggestions and insight.

This game was influenced by many media, some of which you'll see below.

RP Gs

The Riddle of Steel by Jake Norwood (Driftwood Publishing) and Sorcerer by Ron Edwards (Adept Press). Two of the best role-playing games out there, they came at the idea that the players set the goals they are rewarded for from different angles. "Keys" in this game are their progeny.

Fudge by Steffan O'Sullivan (Grey Ghost Press). Like you couldn't tell.

Over the Edge by Jonathan Tweet with Robin Laws (Atlas Games): The bonus and penalty dice mechanic.

Dying Earth by Robin Laws (Pelgrane Press) and Shadowrun by Fan Pro?: Attributes as resource pools (from both) and refreshment of these pools (Dying Earth).

Schism by Jared Sorensen (Memento-Mori Theatricks): The idea of character "transcendence."

Books and authors

I was sort of a late-comer to weird fantasy, but once I started, I couldn't put it down. The two writers who most influenced this game are Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard. Both of these authors took a different direction from the high fantasy written before them: dark, gritty fantasy where people, not gods, made a difference. In addition, they were much less derivative of European myth than their predecessors. Leiber especially gets recognition: the way he painted the world of Lankhmar was amazing and has informed every session of this game that I've run. The decline of civilizations, great empty walled cities, and black forests of Near are all Howard. "Red Nails" and "Beyond the Black River" were the two stories that had the most direct influence over this game. An article in the February 2003 Discover magazine, "How Was the Moon Formed?" was also a huge inspiration.

To see photographs of the World of Near, I recommend a book called Secret Corners of the World, produced by the National Geographic Society. The images of places and people in this book were instrumental in painting a picture of Near.

Characters

Characters represent all sentient beings in your game. While not every stranger met by the players' characters may be fully fleshed out in terms of mechanics, all characters that could be created in the game should be able to be created with these rules. In order to define who a character is and what that character can do, there are four mechanical pieces: Pools, Abilities, Secrets, and Keys.

Pools

Pools are resources the player can spend during the game in order for their character to push harder, do more, and perform amazing feats. There are three pools: Vigor, Instinct, and Reason.

Vigor represents the character's reserves of physical power, wherewithal, and mental toughness. Characters with high Vigor are often known for bulging muscles, scarred faces, calloused hands, the "thousand-yard stare," and crushing strength.

Instinct represents the character's reserves of animal-like reactions, both physical and social. This ranges from cat-like reflexes in combat to pheromone-like sexual attraction. Characters with high Instinct are often known for their graceful motion, penetrating eyes, amazing hearing, stunning appearance, or sexual prowess.

Reason represents the character's intelligence and mental power. This could range from book knowledge to an uneducated, but highly practical mind. Characters with high Reason are often known for their vocabulary, ability to identify plants and animals, skill at games of chance, or power over others.

Pools are measured in points, and each pool ranges from one to infinite points, although a pool of more than 10 points is highly unusual. During the game, these points are spent to do better than normal or perform unusual feats, but are not permanently gone. Think of each one as a container of reserves: these reserves can be spent, but you can refill the container. The scores on each player's character sheet represent the maximum points in each pool - the size of the container - and players will get a chance to refresh their characters' pools to their maximum.

Pool refreshment

Whenever a pool is not at its full level, it can be refreshed, restoring it to its full level by the character performing an in-game action.

Vigor is refreshed whenever your character engages in an act of physical exertion (including physical abuse, such as drugs, drinking, staying out all night) with another character, specifically for the intent of enjoying yourself.

Instinct is refreshed whenever your character engages in an act of social pleasure (examples: a date, going to a party, playing a game of chance) with another character.

Reason is refreshed whenever your character engages in an act of intellectual stimulation (examples: a night at the opera, a philosophical debate, playing a game of skill) with another another.

Abilities

Abilities are representations of a character's skills both learned and innate. Some examples of abilities are Sailing, Tracking, Sword-fighting, and Oratory.

Abilities are always associated with a pool. This is shown by writing the name of the pool - or an abbreviation - after the ability name, like this: "Stealth (Instinct)" or just "Stealth (I)." This pool is the resource from which characters draw their strength with that ability. This pool can be used to increase one's chances with an ability. Some game effects apply to all abilities that are associated with a specific pool.

There are three abilities common to every character. These are called innate abilities. They are purely reactive, and cannot be used to initiate action. They are only used to protect your character. They are:

Endure (Vigor)

    This is your character's ability to push on and persevere though pain and fatigue. It is used to test the limits of a character's 

physicality and fitness.

React (Instinct)

    This measures the quickness of a character's body and mind. It is as much "how quick the character notices something" as
 "how quick the character moves."