Mutant Chronicles

Last updated
Mutant Chronicles
Mutant Chronicles.jpg
Mutant Chronicles 2nd Edition cover
Designers Nils Gullikson, Michael Stenmark, Henrik Strandberg, Magnus Seter, Jerker Sojdelius, Stefan Thulin, Fredrik Malmberg
Publishers Target Games
PublicationFebruary 1993
Genres Techno-fantasy, thriller
SystemsCustom

Mutant Chronicles is a pen-and-paper role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic world, originally published in 1993. It has spawned a franchise of collectible card games, miniature wargames, video games, novels, comic books, and a film of the same title based on the game world.

Contents

Mutant Chronicles was developed by the Swedish company Target Games as an independent spinoff to their Mutant RPG series, specifically Mutant RYMD released the year before. Unlike previous Swedish role-playing games, Mutant Chronics was released in English, and focused on reaching an international audience.

The rights to the game are now owned by Paradox Entertainment. [1]

In 2015, Cabinet Holdings acquired Paradox Entertainment Inc. and all subsidiaries and their properties, including Mutant Chronicles.

Story

The game takes place in a distant future where the Earth has long since been depleted of natural resources and abandoned. Humanity has spread to the worlds of Venus, Mars, Mercury, Luna (the Moon, the first settlement following the exodus from Earth), and the Asteroid belt.

Since the exodus from Earth the traditional nation-states of the world have merged into five huge megacorporations: Bauhaus, styled after the culture of continental Europe, the American-influenced Capitol, the Japanese-themed Mishima, the British-inspired Imperial, and the ultra-secretive, ambiguous, high-tech wielding Cybertronic, all of whom use private military forces to fight for resources. Luna itself is considered to be neutral ground and is home to the massive city-state known as Luna City.

The other major power of this universe is the Brotherhood, a fanatical religious organization formed to meet the threat of the Dark Legion, an ancient evil comprising five "Dark Apostles" and their horde of hideous mutants and undead. The Dark Legion is the corporeal presentation of the Dark Symmetry and its members are minions of the Dark Apostles. The Dark Legion commands the most powerful armies of the solar system, including Legionnaires, resurrected corpses of fallen Megacorp heroes and footsoldiers alike; Necromutants, hideously modified humanoids; Centurions, the lethal lieutenants of the Dark Legion; and Nepharites, fearsome, towering behemoths of unimaginable power.

The reign of the Dark Legion began as mankind set foot on Nero, a fictional tenth planet beyond the orbit of Pluto, where they discovered a citadel. As they entered, the Imperial Conquistadors – a group of interplanetary explorers – accidentally broke the First Seal of Repulsion, a thin ring of salt spread around the citadel. Inside, a mysterious iron plate was found, and as it was touched, the Dark Legion was brought to our dimension, and along with it, the Dark Symmetry.

The Dark Symmetry prevents computers, "thinking engines", and other electronic devices from functioning reliably, if at all; this initially caused complete chaos, and then a forced adaptation of the technology used by mankind. The Dark Symmetry also begins to spread plagues, lies, illusions and war on the human population through the five Dark Apostles: Demnogonis, Semai, Muawihje, Algeroth and Ilian, the Dark Mistress, the most powerful wielder of the Dark Symmetry. Thus the First Corporate Wars began. Only through the Brotherhood and its first Cardinal, Nathaniel Durand, were the corporations pulled under one banner, driving the Dark Legion and the Dark Symmetry back to the void where they came from.

This however cost Nathaniel Durand his life as he fought and defeated Algeroth, the field commander of the Dark Legion and master of Dark Technology. A millennium later, the Dark Legion resurfaced, old edicts to keep the evil at bay were broken, and Megacorps began the Second Corporate Wars. Yet again Nero was explored and Dark Symmetry was unleashed. It was also during the period of a thousand years peace that Cybertronic surfaced, and was the first corporation to break one of the edicts: humans must not create or use machines that think like Man.

Editions

Target Games published the two first editions of the game (in 1993 and 1997 respectively). [2] [3]

Mutant Chronicles was one of the first role-playing games translated into English, along with Kult (1993), and Nephilim (1994). [4]

Between 2006 and 2009, a Swedish game company, COG Games, held the license rights to publish a new edition of the role-playing game. [5] In September 2009, COG's failure to deliver any results resulted in their license being revoked. [6]

In 2013, British game company Modiphius announced that it would be releasing the official 3rd edition of the role-playing game. [7] The core rulebook was released digitally in September 2015, preceding the hardback release in December 2015.

Spin-offs

Reception

Craig Sheeley reviewed Mutant Chronicles for Pyramid #6 (March/April, 1994) and stated "The Mutant Chronicles looks like it can and will accomplish what Warhammer 40,000 failed to do, which is to provide an interlinked game background between several games, including bringing a roleplaying game into the mix." [10]

Reviews

Related Research Articles

<i>Mage: The Ascension</i> Tabletop role-playing game

Mage: The Ascension is a supernatural fiction tabletop role-playing game first published on August 19, 1993, by White Wolf Publishing. It is set in the World of Darkness universe.

World of Darkness is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming, along with off-shoots based on these. The series ended in 2004, and the reboot Chronicles of Darkness was launched the same year with a new line of games. In 2011, the original series was brought back, and the two have since been published concurrently.

<i>Werewolf: The Apocalypse</i> Tabletop role-playing game

Werewolf: The Apocalypse is a role-playing game of the Classic World of Darkness game series by White Wolf Publishing. Other related products include the collectible card games named Rage and several novels. In the game, players take the role of werewolves known as "Garou". These werewolves are locked in a two-front war against both the spiritual desolation of urban civilization and supernatural forces of corruption that seek to bring the Apocalypse. Game supplements detail the other shape-shifters.

<i>Wraith: The Oblivion</i> 1994 tabletop role-playing game by Mark Rein-Hagen

Wraith: The Oblivion is a tabletop role-playing game designed by Mark Rein·Hagen. It is set in the afterlife of White Wolf Publishing's classic World of Darkness setting, in which the players take on characters who are recently dead and are now ghosts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Target Games</span> Tabletop role-playing game publisher

Target Games was a Swedish publisher of role-playing games active from 1980 until the year 1999 when they went into bankruptcy proceedings. Until the mid-1990s they published their Swedish roleplaying games under the brand name Äventyrsspel.

<i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness</i> Role-playing game based on the comics

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness is a role-playing game based on the comic book created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The core rulebook was first published by Palladium Books in September 1985 – before the Turtles franchise achieved mass popularity – and featured original comic strips and illustrations by Eastman and Laird. The rules and gameplay are based on Palladium's Megaversal system.

The Enemy Within campaign is a series of adventures for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay where hidden powers of Chaos plot the destruction of the Empire. It was originally published by Games Workshop in the late 1980s. Praised as a detailed campaign that actually told a story, it was voted the best RPG campaign of all time by Casus Belli magazine.

Warzone is a tabletop miniature wargame based on the Mutant Chronicles universe and role-playing game. It features squad-based combat at a skirmish level, although vehicles and large models were introduced in later supplements to the main rule book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of tabletop role-playing games</span>

The following is a timeline of tabletop role-playing games. For computer role-playing games see here.

Free RPG Day is an annual promotional event by the tabletop role-playing game industry. The event rules are fairly simple: participating publishers provide special free copies of games to participating game stores; the game store agrees to provide one free game to any person who requests a free game on Free RPG Day.

<i>Aliens Adventure Game</i>

Aliens Adventure Game is a combat-oriented role-playing game published by Leading Edge Games in 1991.

<i>Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of</i> Pen-and-paper role-playing game

Robert E. Howard's Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of is a sword and sorcery pen-and-paper role-playing game set in the world of Conan the Barbarian, the fictional Hyborian Age. Both the character and the setting were first imagined by author Robert E. Howard. Howard's original literary work has since spawned a vast franchise of novels, comic books, films, video games, board games, role-playing games, etc. Following this tradition, Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of is the third officially licensed Conan role-playing game. The two precedent games were Conan Role-Playing Game (1985–1988) and Conan: The Roleplaying Game (2004–2010), although there also had been supplements for independent generic systems, like GURPS Conan (1988–1989).

<i>Freak Legion: A Players Guide to Fomori</i>

Freak Legion: A Player's Guide to Fomori is a supplement published by White Wolf Publishing in 1995 for the horror role-playing game Werewolf: The Apocalypse.

<i>Comme il Faut</i> Tabletop role-playing game supplement

Comme il Faut: All Things Right and Proper is a supplement published by R. Talsorian Games in 1995 for the fantasy steampunk role-playing game Castle Falkenstein.

The Masquerade is a 1994 live action role-playing game published by White Wolf Publishing.

<i>GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade</i> Licensed adaptation of Vampire: the Masquerade for GURPS

GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade is a licensed adaptation of White Wolf Publishing's horror role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, written by Jeff Koke and published by Steve Jackson Games in 1993 for the third edition of their GURPS rules.

<i>Fall of London</i> 2020 tabletop game supplement for Vampire: The Masquerade

Fall of London is a tabletop role-playing game supplement released in March 2020 by Modiphius Entertainment for use with the fifth edition of the game Vampire: The Masquerade, and is part of the larger World of Darkness series. The book has players take the roles of vampires who wake up in London in 2012 after having been unconscious since the 1940s, and who are sent on a job to acquire five artifacts around the city while vampire hunters from the Second Inquisition ready a secret attack on the local vampire community.

<i>Inferno</i> (board game) Board game

Inferno is a combat board game that was published by Global Games Company in 1996.

<i>Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness</i> RPG supplement published in 1988

Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness is a 1988 role-playing game supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay published by Games Workshop.

References

  1. "Pressmeddelande Stockholm" (in Swedish). Archived from the original on May 15, 2001. Retrieved 2001-05-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  2. "Mutant Chronicles: The Techno-Fantasy Roleplaying Game - 1st Edition". RPGGeek.
  3. "Mutant Chronicles: The Techno-Fantasy Roleplaying Game - 2nd Edition". RPGGeek.
  4. Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. p. 91. ISBN   978-1-907702-58-7.
  5. "Delayed release". COG Games. Retrieved June 17, 2008.
  6. "Closing statement". COG Games. Retrieved September 17, 2009.
  7. "Mutant Chronicles" (3rd ed.). Modiphius. Retrieved March 20, 2013.[ permanent dead link ]
  8. Winter, Bryan. "Welcome to Dark Eden Central". thewinternet.com. Retrieved January 25, 2007.
  9. "Mutant Chronicles Golgotha (1996) comic books". www.mycomicshop.com. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
  10. "Pyramid: Mutant Chronicles". www.sjgames.com.
  11. "Casus Belli #078". 1993.
  12. "Casus Belli #083". 1994.