FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Indianapolis, IN, Thursday, August 3, 2023 — Evil Genius Games is thrilled to make exciting announcements each day at GenCon.
Urban Arcana Reboot
Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of the highly-anticipated Everyday Arcana Line at GenCon 2024. This innovative line will include the following books:
The Everyday Arcana Player’s Handbook is full to the brim with new player options, including rules for playing a variety of non-human species, magical backgrounds, professions, classes, and a full set of spells. Additionally, it introduces the “Shadows Surrounding” setting and provides useful explanations for the many options available.
We are also releasing an Everyday Arcana GM’s Guide. This tome includes tools and advice for running modern fantasy games, the deeper secrets of the “Shadows Surrounding” setting, and a full guide to creating your own Everyday Arcana world. More importantly, it’s where you’ll find a plethora of magical items and other goodies to give as rewards to your fearless heroes.
The Everyday Arcana Bestiary presents you with a massive array of creatures, monsters, and magical beings to include in your games. Here you will find opponents to challenge your heroes at every level, whether you are playing in the “Shadows Surrounding” setting or one of your own making.
“Shadows Surrounding”: the winning campaign setting is a world like ours, but there is a hidden society of magical practitioners and creatures that lurk in the shadows. In 2014 their secret was revealed, and magic practitioners have been coming out of hiding. Now, magic is a growing force, forever altering the world in ways that no one expected. The contest winners are Sam Wamack, Rebecca Paulsen-Wamack, Casey Maas, and Brenna Davis.
Brenna Davis and Casey Maas met four years ago through their shared passion for tabletop RPGs and have an appreciation for diverse hobbies. Similarly, Rebecca and Sam Wamack, married for over 15 years, have spent the last 25 years gaming and are now sharing this love of games with their children. Together these four passionate gamers run and play a variety of games, including their Everyday Heroes campaign, “Shadows Surrounding“, at Natural 20 Works, Casey’s friendly local gaming store in Clarksville, TN.
The Everyday Arcana project is being expertly led by our in-house producer BJ Hensley. BJ is a game designer and author who brings over 15 years of industry leadership and creativity to Evil Genius Games. The founder of Playground Adventures and former VP of Lone Wolf Development, BJ’s work spans major companies like Green Ronin, Kobold Press, Paizo, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Renegade Games and Wizards of the Coast. Based in Indiana, she’s also a devoted gamer, artist, and the proud co-leader (parent) of a six-person adventuring party and their two furry companions.
For more information about Everyday Arcana visit our website to take a look at our Everyday Arcana Mission Statement.
Today at GenCon
GenCon 2023 is off to a wonderful start for Evil Genius Games, with over 100 events across 12 con adventures, selling out swiftly after registration opened. The rapid demand attests to the popularity and high-quality gaming experience Evil Genius Games’ Everyday Heroes system offers. These exciting events that over 600 people will participate in include Cinematic Adventures set in the worlds of Pacific Rim, Kong: Skull Island, Total Recall, The Crow, and more! We are also featuring a special Highlander multi-table gaming event—The Dark Gathering, where one lucky player will walk away with a replica of MacLeod Clan’s sword! Come visit us at the JW Marriott, White River Ballroom E and watch the events unfold. Additionally the Evil Genius team will be leading a Kaiju creation event where our sold out crowd will learn how to build the monsters to terrify heroes in their adventures
Finally, to commemorate the release of our Highlander and Total Recall Cinematic Adventures, we’re raffling a custom-made Highlander inspired gaming table. We’re hosting hourly demos where participants gain a raffle ticket for each game played and every $20 spent. The lucky winner will be announced at 2 pm on Sunday, adding an extra layer of thrill to the event. Must be present to win.
About Evil Genius Games
Evil Genius Games, a Black-owned game publisher, was founded in 2021 to produce modern-day tabletop roleplaying games. With a team of deeply experienced game designers, Evil Genius creates games that are fun and epic in scope. Its first game, Everyday Heroes, is a tabletop roleplaying game set in the modern world. In 2023, Evil Genius will launch several campaign settings based on popular movie licenses such as The Crow, Pacific Rim, Kong: Skull Island, Highlander, Rambo, Total Recall, Universal Soldier, and Escape From New York. More information on Evil Genius Games can be found online at www.evilgeniusgames.com.
Press Contact
Steve Ireland
Marketing
724.982.8737
[email protected]
Pretty much as soon as we announced Everyday Heroes as a spiritual successor to d20 Modern, people began asking, “When are you doing Urban Arcana?” And we’ve been listening and planning, and now the promised time approaches! We’re getting started on Everyday Arcana, our own urban fantasy ruleset. Here is what you can expect, at least in broad terms.
We recently put out a call for contest entries for what will become our core setting for these rules, and we put the finalists to a public vote. We’ve got our finalist in “Shadows Surrounding“, a world where the secret of magic has recently been revealed.
This will be our default world, with examples throughout the text referencing it, adventures published for it, and a whole lot of lore supporting it. But there will also be plenty of advice, options, and examples for creating your own worlds! We want you to be able to play any sort of urban fantasy you like by picking and choosing the pieces you like, and deciding for yourself how they all fit together.
To this end, we’re planning to have hero options that allow you to be magical in a wide variety of ways, and that let GMs zero in on the types of magic they want to use in their own worlds. Magic can be learned, practiced, inherited, or accidentally acquired. Smart Heroes can use plans to retroactively prepare the perfect spell, Wise and Charming Heroes can cast spells through focus points and influence dice, and there will be plenty of spellcasters like the ones we’re all familiar with from more traditional fantasy games.
But there’s a lot more to find here as well. You might also be an Agile Hero pyrokinetic who shoots bolts of fire and punches with flaming fists, a Strong Hero who’s strong due to telekinetic magic that can be extended at a range, or a Tough Hero who can use their life force for magical effects like healing their allies. With these superpower-like classes, anyone can be magical!
Players will also be able to choose from a wide variety of fantasy species, from elves and goblins to vampires and werewolves: enough to fill up your own world, whatever the genre.
For the GMs, there will be hordes of monsters to throw at your players, piles of magic items to reward them with, world-building advice to help you craft your own setting, pre-written adventures to get you started right away, and all manner of other tools, tips, and tricks for you to use.
The Books
We will be launching Everyday Arcana with four books, which will be available in 2024. These books are:
The Everyday Arcana Player’s Guide
This book will be full to the brim with new player options, including rules for playing a variety of non-human species, all sorts of magical backgrounds, professions, and classes, and a full set of spells.
The Everyday Arcana GM’s Guide
In this tome, you will find tools and advice for running modern fantasy games, the deeper secrets of the “Shadows Surrounding” setting, and a full guide to creating your own Everyday Arcana world. It will also contain magical items and other goodies to give to your heroes as rewards.
The Everyday Arcana Bestiary
The Bestiary will present you with a massive array of creatures, monsters, and magical beings to include in your games. Here, you will find opponents to challenge your heroes at every level, whether you are playing in the “Shadows Surrounding” setting or one of your own making.
Shadows Surrounding World of Adventure
This book will introduce players to our official Everyday Arcana game setting: “Shadows Surrounding” In a world like our own, there is a hidden society of magical practitioners and creatures that keep themselves hidden. But in 2014, that secret was revealed and, since that time, magical practitioners have been coming out of hiding. As a result, magic is a growing force in the world and society, but many secrets still remain to be discovered.
I’m super excited to get started on this project. It’s been one that I’ve been looking forward to since the start of Everyday Heroes, and seeing it start to solidify has been a delight. I hope you’re all ready for Everyday Arcana!
Sincerely,
Chris “Goober” Ramsley