Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is a supernatural horror roleplaying video game that takes place in the strange worlds of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Stygian will draw the player into a bleak journey from a ruined Arkham to the very depths of the Abyss. The gameplay experience promises a mix of rich role-playing and turn-based tactical combat in an authentic illustrative 2D graphical style.

In Stygian, you’ll be able to create your character from scratch with a robust selection of archetypal backgrounds with different origin stories, attributes, skills, traits and lastly belief systems that determine how your character replenishes lost sanity, also presenting unique dialog choices.


The narrative of the game is strongly connected to the works of H. P. Lovecraft. In your quest, you’ll use the haunted violin of Erich Zann to lure a fiendish deity and convince the poor wretched protagonist of “The Outsider” to join your party among many others.

The heavy burden of fighting a desperate battle with forces beyond recognition will haunt you to the end of the game. Physical combat will be scarce and difficult, spellcasting will have deep and dangerous consequences, sanity loss will leave its marks on characters as mental illnesses and sometimes the best solution will be running away from the terrors that lurk in the night.

Stygian embraces the original themes of pulp and weird fiction, incorporating them into the computer roleplaying genre, promising a fresh (or putrid from another perspective) breath of air for roleplaying fans.


History
Your former life was in the bliss of ignorance until you’ve awakened to the darkness waiting to devour our very existence on the doorstep of our fragile dimension. Something terrible left its eons-old slumber and the reality as we know it, collapsed. The town of Arkham was pulled somewhere not from this world and its residents are in the shadow of absolute terror. As a survivor of the catastrophe, you should investigate the strange occurrences in the city and survive the rising darkness physically and mentally, if possible…

Feature List
• A hand-drawn 2D world that reflects the mood of Lovecraft and cosmic horror.
• Quests and storylines which capture the iconic themes of Lovecraft. Take part in your favorite horror stories and shape their outcome according to your role-playing style.
• Weirdest of companions will accompany you in your accursed journey. Lonely antediluvian of ‘The Outsider’, a dead WW1 soldier reanimated in the hands of Herbert West, a psychic narcissistic cat from Ulthar and many more will be among your eccentric cast of companions.
• Sanity and the mental state of the character will have an influence on the dialog options. Mental conditions create benefits as well as hindrances. Sometimes being mad in a mad world helps!
• Belief Systems determine how your characters handle the challenging reality around them and help regenerate lost sanity. Belief Systems also offer unique dialogue options thus extending the roleplaying possibilities that players can explore. A rational character gains sanity after completing research on a mythos creature while a divine believer gains sanity after converting a lost soul to the path of God.
• A unique spell system which sometimes takes more than what it gives. The black magic of Stygian is very potent but will cost you your mind, health and sometimes your very soul. Being a master of the true occult is not like flinging colorful missiles from your fingertips.
• Turn-based strategic combat in beautiful 2D Heroes of Might and Magic-like perspective.
• 8 different archetypes with completely unique prologue stories and specialties to breathe life into the Lovecraftian archetypes.
• The struggle is not for saving the world, that battle is lost already. Follow your personal goals for salvation or vendetta in a doomed world.

Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones - Release Date Trailer [Lovecraftian RPG]

About the Author

Ethan Allen was born and raised in the south bay (SoCal). At age 5 he was taken to the theater to see Halloween 2. Since that time he hasn’t been able to bite into an apple because of the fear of chomping down into a razor blade. At age 12 he went to his first haunt (Knotts Scary Farm) and only has missed a handful of years since then. Ethan has an unhealthy obsession with Elvira, 80’s slashers, and universal monsters which is borderline creepy.