Setting Expeditions: Code Black -- Part I

Code: Black is an RPG that acts as a Kitchen Sink Setting for your supernatural / preternatural / weird sh*t campaigns.

That's a very broad amount of genre ground to cover, but the overall premise of the setting allows for a campaign that can tackle

• straightforward "monster showdowns" ala From Dusk Till Dawn and Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight;
• spooky atmospheric hauntings ala The Eye, The Grudge and The Ring;
• professionals taking on the weird ala X-Files, Supernatural, Dog Soldiers, and the little known film Double Vision (starring Tony Leung and David Morse);
• reality-bending, "the world you know is wrong" extravaganzas like Hellraiser and Silent Hill;
• science-gone-wrong outbreaks like Resident Evil and almost any zombie apocalypse movie;
• humans tampering with the natural order of things as in the cult film Cube and the riffs on The Island of Dr. Moreau;
• old standbys like cthulhoid elder gods, demons and devils, and trapped ancient evils.

RPG-wise, the setting feels like a mashup between Stalking the Night Fantastic & Chill, marinated in the juices of Kult, lightly seasoned with some Call of Cthulhu. The flexibility of the setting's recipe allows for the infusion of the ridiculously complex political structures of White Wolf's World of Darkness, the down-the-rabbit-hole weirdness of Over The Edge (especially the mystic sh*t crew), and the fantastic work Pelgrane Press has put into releases like Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulhu.

System isn't really much of a concern here; it's statted out for BTRC's entry into the Univeral RPG System arena (EABA), but you can make use of whatever gear and creatures you already have in your system of choice and just add the elements you need.

Up Next: Key Elements of the Setting