Ouroboros: Age of Drowning

OUROBOROS: AGE OF DROWNING

A Tabletop RPG of Alchemy, Surreal Horror, and Thriller Science

What if the catastrophe that destroyed your world was only the beginning?

Set in a fictional world, Ouroboros: Age of Drowning is a narrative mystery horror TTRPG, with victorian aesthetic, about forbidden Alchemy, folklore, political intrigue and the surreal landscapes of the uncharted corners of the world, where reality begins to break apart.

A century after the MeteorFall, the world is still being reshaped by the Drowning: the rising of the seas that swallowed much of the old world and changed the course of human history.

Water is Danger

The seas are rising. Land, civilizations, knowledge and hope have met their watery grave in some parts of the world. In the part you are in, the technocratic Clockwork Faction, paradoxically, uses water in the form of steam in the hopes of salvation, at the same time it controls what people are allowed to know, while outside its Domed Cities, the survivors of the Drowning cling to older traditions, the ritual practices of the Old Ways, and …

Alchemy.

Alchemy is the secret grammar of the world that studies Nature's work and how everything operates through Aether. Aether is the hidden element connecting physical, mental, and spiritual existence. Described in alchemical scriptures it was rediscovered by the Clockwork faction after the Meteorfall.

The Clockwork Faction claims Alchemy is responsible for the Meteorfall and the Drowning. They branded it the Taboo Art. Its practitioners were hunted. Its texts were destroyed. Its traditions were buried. And the official explanation became history. But outside the Domed Cities, the old knowledge survived.

YOUR LEAGUE

You are a member of a League: a group of investigators and specialists brought together by shared purpose to investigate things that the New Order cannot, or will not, explain.

The League’s Founder may send you on missions, or you may pursue your own investigations. These can take you from disappearances and political scandals to drowned ruins, forbidden texts, alchemical experiments, and folklore that everyone else dismisses as superstition.

You will follow clues, question witnesses, research forgotten knowledge, explore the Shallows, and sometimes cross the boundary between Reality and the Otherworld.

Beyond the Domed Cities lie the shifting waterfronts of the Shallows: struggling territories, isolated settlements, ruins, and places where the old world refuses to disappear. The Otherworld touches Reality in places where the boundaries have become weak. In Dreamscapes, fears, memories, myths, and collective trauma can become physical places that can be entered and explored.

Inside the Domed Cities, you will find yourself in a different and full ecosystem than you would find outside of them. You will have to navigate through the upper and lower classes of the enclosed society of the Gentry. You will face the challenges that are only waiting to happen among the competing Leagues and Institutions that are trying to influence humanity’s direction moving forward.

Knowledge, power, survival, reputation, morality, and personal safety will not always point in the same direction.

And sometimes the investigation takes you somewhere that should not be.

A NARRATIVE DRIVEN CHARACTER CENTERED GAME

Ouroboros: Age of Drowning uses a narrative focused dice pool system built around Traits, Specializations, and Focuses.

Rather than reducing every character to a small group of broad attributes, the system gives characters different ways to approach problems.

The same core mechanics support investigation, social maneuvering, survival, combat, occult practices, Dreamscapes, and Alchemy.

PROGRESSIVE DICE POOLS

Your capabilities develop through progressive dice pools, from d6s to d12s, representing growing mastery and affinity.

FLEXIBLE ACTIONS

Decide how much you are willing to risk.

Take a straightforward approach, push your luck, or attempt something more complicated.

For actions that require preparation, time, or several stages, Undertakings allow the table to resolve complex tasks without turning them into endless individual rolls.

CONSEQUENCES BEYOND DAMAGE

In Ouroboros: Age of Drowning, consequences are not limited to physical wounds.

Your character can suffer:

• Physical Harm
• Mental Stress
• Surreality (Subjective perception, hallucinations)
• Loss of Social Credit
• Shadow (Inner Darkness, unknown psyche)

The things you encounter can affect your body, your mind, your position in society, your self perception and your relationship with Reality itself.

LEAGUE MEMBERS

You play members of a League bound together by a shared purpose and are funded by the League Founder and other benefactors. Each member have certain talents skillsets or unique abilities that are useful to the mission.

Abominations, shunned by society due to their extraordinary physicality and peculiar appearance, are welcomed within the league for that exact same reason.

Mad Scientists, driven by invention, experimentation, and the forbidden possibilities of Alchemy. They become obsessed with the Work.

Mediums, stand between two worlds. Able to sense the Otherworld and its influence on Reality, further down the road they can get lost in the shifting between one and the other.

Mystic, is a seeker of hidden forces and metaphysical truths. They can be driven to insanity or become corrupted if they are not ready for it.

Scion
Someone whose social position provides access, influence, and connections. Privilege comes with a price.

Everyman, adaptable and capable of finding a way through almost any situation. It is easy to lose yourself when you wear so many hats.

Outsider, an individual who experienced a truth that places them outside conventional society, on the fringe, a loner whose distance provides a different perspective.

Develop your character through Focuses. Mundane Focuses provide practical expertise, while Mystical Focuses take you deeper into the metaphysical side of the setting.

Your abilities, social position, relationships, decisions, and experiences shape the investigator you become.

SOCIAL CLASS MATTERS

The New Order is not an equal society.

The privileged Gentry, living at the top of society, begin with greater access and influence, but their position gives them more to lose when their reputation and status begin to collapse.

Those living outside the privileged classes at the bottom, the Dispossessed, may have fewer resources, but can endure the harshness of society, the world, and their inner darkness in ways the affluent, who have everything to lose, cannot.

Your position in society is part of the story. It can create obstacles or new story hooks to play.

WHAT MAKES OUROBOROS DIFFERENT?

Ouroboros: Age of Drowning is built around three ideas: a different approach to the RPG system, a specific style of investigation and horror, and a world where different layers of reality directly interact with each other.

1. A SYSTEM THAT SUPPORTS INVESTIGATION

The core system moves away from the traditional model of broad attributes and highly specialized skill lists.

Characters have different ways to approach the same problem.

The system gives players control over risk and complexity. The emphasis is not simply on whether you succeed or fail, but on how you approach a problem, what you are willing to risk, and what the consequences of your actions become.

This makes investigation, decisions, consequences, and character development part of the game's core mechanics rather than elements secondary to combat.

2. A SETTING BUILT AROUND INVESTIGATION, HORROR, AND THE SURREAL

The world of Ouroboros combines Victorian inspired science, steampunk technology, occult practices, horror, mystery, and surrealism.

These elements determine the kind of stories the game is designed to tell.

• The investigation itself becomes part of the story.
• A piece of folklore can be a clue.
• Political intrigue can be influenced by the supernatural.
• A scientific discovery can lead somewhere that science cannot explain.
• And sometimes, discovering the truth is more dangerous than remaining ignorant.

The Blue Harvest, Vol. I of King's Ark Saga is designed to demonstrate this style of play directly, combining investigation, mystery, horror, and exploration while gradually introducing the stranger aspects of the setting.

3. A WORLD WHERE DIFFERENT REALITIES INTERACT

The third pillar is the relationship between the different layers of the world.

In Ouroboros, the physical world is only one part of the setting.

Your character exists simultaneously within a physical, socioeconomic, political, psychological, and metaphysical reality.

What happens in one can affect the others.

• Your social position and affluence determine the assets you can access.
• Political decisions can affect entire communities.
• A forgotten myth can provide a clue to a real event.
• Collective psychological traumas can manifest within a Dreamscape.
• An encounter with Aetherika can change how you perceive the ordinary.

And the deeper you investigate, the more these boundaries begin to overlap.

The different layers of the world react to one another, and the characters are caught between them.

WHY I MADE OUROBOROS: AGE OF DROWNING

I have been playing and thinking about tabletop RPGs for almost three decades. I played everything from traditional tabletop campaigns to more experimental games, homebrew systems, and LARP. Along the way, I was not only interested in playing the games, but also in understanding what made some games work, what made others fall short, and what kind of experiences they could create around a table.

TTRPGs gradually became more than entertainment for me. They opened the door to an interest in mythology, art, literature, folklore, and the ways different cultures use stories to understand the world. They also became a way of exploring ideas that are difficult to examine directly: identity, transformation, fear, belief, and the relationship between what we understand and what remains unknown.

The more I explored these subjects, the more they became intertwined with my interest in Alchemy.

Alchemy has been particularly fascinating to me because it sits at the boundary between several worlds. It can be understood as an attempt to transform matter, but it also carries a rich language of symbols, archetypes, correspondences, transformation, and hidden meaning. It connects scientific curiosity with mythology, philosophy, spirituality, and the human desire to perceive nature with sincerity and find what lies beneath the surface of things.

That led me to a question:

What would it be like to dive deep into the subtle workings of Alchemy, and how would our perception of symbols, myths, and the world around us be affected?

As I developed the game, it became a way to explore archetypes and dreams, how allegories and patterns are interpreted, and how they can form the backbone of stories that remain in our collective memory for generations.

I became fascinated by the idea that old fables, even when they survive in history as happier tales, often contain dark lessons within them. The archetypes they embody are what allow them to remain relevant and, in a sense, immortal.

I also wanted to explore the relationship between knowledge and power, the stories societies tell themselves, the fear of what lies beyond our understanding, and the possibility that the things we dismiss as superstition may contain truths we have forgotten.

I wanted to make a game where investigation wasn't simply a sequence of skill checks.

Where folklore could actually be evidence.

Where horror could emerge from understanding rather than simply encountering a monster.

Where Alchemy could function not just as a supernatural power, but as a way of understanding the world.

Ouroboros is the game I wanted to play.

And now I want to build it into a game I can put on your table.

INFLUENCES

The game was also inspired by my fascination with: 

Anime 
Ergo Proxy, Fullmetal Alchemist, Mushishi, Paprika, Jin roh, Spirited Away, Perfect Blue, Ghost in the Shell, Serial Experiments Laine, Steamboy, Aoi Bungaku, and Moryo no Hako. 

Books and films (surreal fantasy, Victorian horror, steampunk), 
The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Jules Verne’s Robur the Conqueror and Le Sphinx des Glaces (An Antarctic Mystery), Edgar Alan Poe’s A Descent into the Maelström, and Murders of Rue Morgue, The Windup Girl; Neil Geiman’s Sandman, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycleand The Dispossessed, Terry Pratchett's Hogfather.

Videogames 
BioShock, The Witcher, and Dishonored.

WHAT YOU ARE BACKING

The Kickstarter is for the physical and digital release of Ouroboros: Age of Drowning, beginning with the core Player's Book and the first volume of the King's Ark Saga.

THE PLAYER'S BOOK

This book contains the game mechanics and gives players what they need to create characters and understand the world they are entering.

It includes:

• Core rules
• Character creation
• Archetypes and Focuses
• Factions
• Races
• Religions and institutions
• Equipment
• Regions and geography
• History of the world
• Aetherika and Dreamscapes
• The foundations of Alchemy
• The cosmology of Ouroboros: Age of Drowning

BLUE HARVEST

The second main book is a complete Campaign, and the first volume of the King's Ark Saga.

It is a story of branching alternate paths that introduces a specific part of the world, its mysteries, its tropes, and the way Ouroboros works at the table.

Through the story, the Arkitect will encounter specific Dreamscapes, Aetherika, Rituals, mysteries, and situations that demonstrate how these elements can be used in play.

The goal is not only to give you a story to play.

It is also to show you how to create your own and adapt the game to the players and the characters.

Together, the two books give you both sides of the experience:

The Player's Book gives you the world and the tools to create your character.

The Blue Harvest gives the GM a complete story and a practical example of how the world works at the table.

THE BEGINNING OF A LARGER STORY

Ouroboros: Age of Drowning is designed as the beginning of a larger setting and campaign.

The King's Ark Saga will continue beyond Volume I, expanding the world through new Stories, locations, mysteries, and encounters with the forces above and below the Drowning.