From the team who brought you Necrobiotic…

Sink into a world of the macabre. The remnants of humanity’s essence now reside in the shell of dolls. Moving among the carcasses of the world left behind. Inspired by the movie 9 and the many works of the Quay Brothers. 

We ask you to join us in creating the most horrific TTRPG. Through porcelain lenses. See the nightmares birthed by the phantasmagorias and never forget the ones you will die alongside. 

There were three of them. Each one carries with them a passion for their children. Each one encompassed the anatomy of a vine. 

The Rose sprouted from the top. Seeking the sun. 

The Rot drips on its lengthy vine. Under the shadows and content in its place. 

Then the Grey. The dirt. Devoid of the vine and a part of something wholly different. 

Become a part of one of the Ziggurats. Silver and glass pillars breaching the sky. The home of us who remain. Each one seeks their own path. One seeks humanity, one despises it, the other too alien to even acknowledge such bygone amusements.

The Gear System

Porcelain Soul uses a standard deck of playing cards per player. You create the player character you form from a deck of cards based on your character’s proficiency.

At the start of play you take a breath, drawing a hand of 6 cards and, during a scene or conflict, you play 1 to 2 cards depending on if you are trained in the associated skill or not.

Success is a suit that matches the action taken or a combination of cards that adds up to 8. Successes will be used to move the narrative forward or counter consequences.

Choosing which cards to play from a hand allows the players to decide which actions succeed and how, but every action has consequences!

Consequences are the only tool in the hand of the DM and they drive the momentum of the narration.

Players will be able to modify their decks, adding higher cards, removing lesser cards, and buying more face cards that give special abilities. For a deeper look into the mechanics, take a look at the Necrobiotic quickstart link, which is a very similar system.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/357881/Necrobiotic-Quickstart

New Characteristics

Porcelain (Hearts)

It's about the shape, structure and shell of the character. Strength, Speed, Agility and Aesthetics. The ability to resist a nightmare that drags her into a room. The strength with which the doll interacts with the world.

Sinew (Diamonds)

The nerve, his will and determination. The one that keeps her steadfast in the face of temptations, horrors, or sudden memories too big for such a small body.

Soul (Clubs)

The only thing that really is the engine of the character. You need to understand her emotions (too big for such a small body) her perception of the world around her, and also her life force. The absence of Soul makes an object.

Ziggurat (Spades)

The training, preparation, study, culture and knowledge of the doll. Truth depends a lot on the Ziggurat in which it was received but there are also researchers outside the box.

The idea for Porcelain Souls came about from the empty spaces in the horror genre. The tension-building pauses that some of the greatest works of our decade have learned are some of the most important aspects of horror. The whys, the wonders, and the fantastical glimpses of shadows which trigger the imagination and ask us to dive deeper.

Porcelain Souls aims to bring people into a place that is wholly unfamiliar with a perspective of uniqueness that constantly makes the reader feel as if they are a fish on land. Using the uncanny visage of dolls we capture a semblance of humanity that is close enough for us to relate to and yet so distant to inspire the fight or flight response in some people. As the basis of the horror, we have only upward to go. To places using the works of the greatest horror photographers who have captured the heart of the fantastical and terrifying. 

To summarize, Porcelain Souls will put you on an unfamiliar path, and send you down a journey of passion, where you will inevitably fall in love with the world, seek more, and be left wanting. 

This Crowdfundr project will help us produce the digital and physical versions of our quickstart for this game. We are doing this project in two stages, to ensure the team is well prepared and funded to produce the project at the highest quality level. If this does well, we will continue to work on our dynamic and engrossing full masterpiece.

The Team