The Summer of Lovecraft TTRPG

UNLOCKED STRETCH GOALS INCLUDE: A pinback button, bookmark, 3 new adventures, 3 location pamphlets and more!

What is Summer of Lovecraft?

Welcome to Summer of Lovecraft, a cosmic horror tabletop RPG set in the late sixties. Join the Society of the Unbroken Night as they face down slithering horrors in dark alleys, mind-warping cultists at concerts, reality-shattering drugs, and death stalking the mist-shrouded streets in a desperate attempt to prevent the skies themselves from splitting open and unleashing eldritch destruction upon the earth. 

Summer of Lovecraft is powered by the Mothership 1e rules-lite d100 Panic Engine system, hacked and twisted for adventures on terrestrial Earth in the sixties. The same streamlined mechanics for violent encounters, easy-to-learn character creation system, and tense stress and panic mechanics you know from Mothership, with new rules for investigations, conversations, and magic. 

You play as a member of The Society of the Unbroken Night. The SUNs is a ragtag group dedicated to stopping evil in any form and in the 1960s, you have your work cut out for you. Eldritch horrors are stretching the barrier between worlds thin, oozing into ours and corrupting the residents. Cultists display uncanny magic abilities, drugs seem to leave users with horrific mutations or control their thoughts. Something huge is moving in the fog-shrouded bay, citizens are going missing during concerts and protests. All that stands between them and doom is you, a Volkswagen Bus, and a pocket full of courage. 

The Summer of Lovecraft Core Collection contains everything you need to play! All five essential saddle-stiched core books and a metal SUNs challenge coin. All of the Summer of Lovecraft books are zine-sized, saddle stitched and printed in black and white on uncoated paper. We actively encourage you to doodle, annotate, scribble, and make notes in the books.

THE CORE BOOKS:

The Summer of Lovecraft Core Rule Book is a stand-alone ruleset with all of the essentials for playing the game. Summer of Lovecraft is built on the SUNS System, which is a hack of Mothership's Panic Engine that adds extra layers and flavor for more investigative adventures and tweaks the interstellar rules for play focused on Earth. More specifically - the US in the 1960s. (It remains compatible with Mothership, in case you want to relive your dreams of playing a horror-drenched version of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home!)

The Summer of Lovecraft Core Rule Book includes:

• Completely stand-alone (no prior knowledge of Mothership needed)
• 40* pages, black and white, saddle-stitched
• 4 playable classes
• 40+ skills
• An introduction to the Society of the Unbroken Night
• The 1960's: a primer
• Groovy tools, weapons, pinback buttons, and gear
• Rules for investigations and combat
• Magic and eldritch horrors
• Streamlined character creation tools
• ...and more!

The Society of the Unbroken Night 1960s Handbook: This is a setting guide to the world of Summer Of Lovecraft as viewed from the members in the 1960s. Written as a player-facing handbook, it delves into the history of the society and expands on their missions and resources. Designed as something you can give to the players, this book works as a convenient introduction to the SUNs themselves, as well as the city and world of the game. It also includes pages at the back for notes.

The Society of the Unbroken Night Handbook includes:

• 40* pages, black and white, saddle-stitched
• Insight into the SUNs' history
• A guide to the state of the world 
• How the horrors are affecting the world
• What to look for and how to fight them
• Members of the society
• Horrors and threats
• Blank pages for player notes

The Manual: This is the essential supplement for The Man - the player who is acting as the game master. It gives added insight into the lovecraftian horrors invading the world, the SUNs organization, running the game, and provides plenty of tools for building adventures, creating NPCs and experiencing the sixties through the eyes of a rag-tag group of desperate heroes.

The Manual includes:

• Characters and NPCs to help the players 
• Tools and tables for generating encounters and citizens
• Resources like the SUNs archives, informants, safe houses, requisitions and more
• Adventure hooks and tools for generating one-shots
• Equipment, weapons, magic items, and vehicles
• Advice and tools for running sessions of Summer of Lovecraft

THE ADVENTURE MODULES:

Adventure Module-The Jackrabbit: This adventure takes you to a small town where people are disappearing. But those people may have never existed in the first place... Written by Kris McClanahan

Adventure Module-The Screaming Wind: This adventure will pit your party against a cult leader and her oddly ethereal followers who are performing a ritual that could destroy an entire city. Written by Kris McClanahan

Unlocked Adventure Module-Psychotic  When a woman mysteriously disappears from a remote truck stop, the strange, but overly helpful local inn keeper becomes the prime suspect. You think you know the story. You’d be wrong. Dead wrong! An adventure by Ben Cowell. 

Unlocked Adventure Module-Lovegrove Ranch Game designer Lester Burton brings us a new adventure set in a hippy commune with a dark secret and a strangely familiar cult leader. [This module is unlocked in digital format so far]

Unlocked Adventure Module-The Basement Tapes An adventure by Richard August that puts the investigators on the trail of a hard to find album and the enigmatic band that made it. 

Unlocked Adventure Module-KR0WLY-FM A new pirate radio station has popped up out in the southern desert of South California. It hosts a popular late night/early morning radio call-in show with advice on the esoteric, and occult. Frequent attempts by local authorities to shut down the station have failed. 

The midnight highway gets weird, and with DJ "Billy Goat" Higgins at the mic, it's getting even weirder at the border. Written by Alan Bahr! [This module is unlocked in digital format so far]

Unlocked Location Pamphlets- The Church of IA!, Goodenough Pharmacy, The Backstage Three tri-fold pamphlets with a map of the location on the interior, adventure hooks and NPCs on the outside. Easily throw the band into the backstage of a concert venue, a 1960s pharmacy, or a strange church/cult. [The backstage is still locked so far]

This collection of NINE saddle-stitched books, three pamphlet adventures and a few dice dice are all you'll need for hours of adventure and madness. The books are the perfect size to throw in your bag and take to your bandmate's house, local head shop, or cult getaway in the woods. All of these will cost over $150 at retail and you can get them for $59 in this project!

All of the books will feature original artwork by Kris McClanahan, drawn in a mix of pencil, ink, mixed media, and digital with a loose, wild style to match the vibe of zines, newspapers, and concert posters from the 1960s, drawing inspiration from the photos and art.

Optional Add-Ons: 

Player's Handbook Empty Journal - $15

This is a journal for players to use as they play the game. It will have a character sheet, pages to track clues, locations and encounters, doodles, and notes. It will be 18-24 pages long and printed on heavier, uncoated paper. It will also include approximately 4-6 pages of solo player tools at the back, including tables and oracles! This add-on is designed for a player to fill with their own notes about their encounters - draw in them, make notes, and in a way, create an in-world artifact to pass on to the next outlier. 

It will also work as a simplified solo player reference book, with tables, charts and oracles designed to streamline playing Summer of Lovecraft by yourself!

Printed Character Sheets - $15

This will include 20 pre-printed character sheets - a Kickstarter Exclusive! They will look like an old-school ditto'd paper. (A popular method of duplication similar to xerox that used distinctive purple ink) 

4-Pack of Empty Journals - $40

Get four of the empty player's handbook journals at a discount!

Stretch Goals

We have a variety of cool extras to add to the world as funding progresses. Any unlocked digital items will be FREE for backers of the Digital Collection or Complete Collection reward levels and any unlocked physical items will be FREE for backers of the Complete Collection. Unlocked Stretch Goals will also be made available as add-ons.

Read more about unlocked Stretch Goals 1-7 in Update #2!

Read more about unlocked Stretch Goals 8-13 in Update #3!

• UNLOCKED: Printed Item: Lovegrove Ranch Adventure A printed version of Lester Burton's adventure is unlocked!
• UNLOCKED: A new Digital Adventure from Alan Bahr Game designer Alan Bahr will bring us an as-yet untitled adventure!
• UNLOCKED: Digital Location: Backstage A map and hooks for adventures in the wings of a concert venue.
• UNLOCKED: Printed Item: The Basement Tapes Adventure A printed version of Richard August's adventure will be unlocked.
• UNLOCKED: Printed Location Pamphlet: Backstage A printed tri-fold pamphlet map and hooks for this location.
• UNLOCKED: Printed Item: KROWLY-FM A printed version of Alan Bahr's adventure will be unlocked.

Pledge Levels

There are a couple of simple Pledge Levels for you to choose from: The Core Rulebook, The Digital Collection, or The Complete Collection.

The Core Rulebook is just that: A printed and PDF version of the Summer Of Lovecraft Core Rule Book. All of the essential rules you'll need to play the game. 

The Digital Collection is for you folks that prefer to stay mobile. It has PDFs of all the content in the Complete Collection and comes with any digital stretch goals we unlock.

The Summer of Lovecraft Complete Collection is the whole enchilada. It includes printed copies of all unlocked books, a metal SUNs coin and ALL Stretch Goals. You'll also get all of the items in digital format. Over $150 worth of content for sixty bucks!

How to play

In Summer of Lovecraft, you play a member of The Soceity of Unbroken Night (The SUNs) - a secret group of people fighting to prevent the destruction of our world by eldritch, otherworldly or extraterrestrial threats. They have existed for decades, working in the background to investigate cryptids, battle vampires, banish demons, and defeat evil worldwide. By the 1960s, the SUNs have gone underground, operating behind the scenes to stop a tear in reality that is allowing Lovecraftian horrors to directly touch the minds and bodies of humanity as a much larger threat presses at the bars of its cosmic cage...

Your character will join the SUNs  as an Outlier that will provide you with equipment, support and guide your initial STATS: Strength, Speed, Intellect, Charm, and Combat. These represent how well you perform under pressure and extreme circumstances.

Summer of Lovecraft is a d100 roll-under system. If you want to do something (or not do something!) you attempt to roll d100 under your relevant Stat or Save. Skills add to your test to improve your odds. If you roll under, you succeed. If you roll over, you fail and you gain 1 Stress or Sanity, depending on the test. These accumulate, eventually bursting forth in the form of a Panic Check as the stress of the world and the madness of lovecraftian horrors overwhelms you.

Panic and Sanity Checks

You have a Critical Failure whenever you roll doubles over your Stat/Save and you have to make a Panic Check. To make a Panic Check you roll a special die only used for Panic Checks: a d20 called the Panic Die. If you roll under your total Stress, you freak out and look up what happens on the appropriate table. If you roll over your current Stress, then you keep your calm and sanity... for now.

The Panic table is one of the elements of the Mothership experience that we love the most and had to bring into Summer of Lovecraft. The mounting stress and insanity over the course of a session really drives home the bizarre events and trouble your characters encounter. 

Every roll in the game has the potential to inflict conditions, drive you insane or push you ever closer to the undulating edge of the seething horrors on the other side of reality.

Violence

Violence is DEADLY in Summer of Lovecraft. Humans are already a dangerous lot, and these fanged, tentacled horrors are even worse. Characters are weak mortals and can only take a few wounds before dying. Each Wound can absorb a certain amount of damage before it's lost. When a character loses a Wound they have to roll on the Wounds table.

Each category of Wound has its own table, and any Wound is potentially deadly. Players won't know if any given Wound will be their character's last. Avoid violence whenever possible, make sure you grab any edges you can find. When death inevitably occurs, be ready with a new character. We have built the setting and system to encourage players to build multiple characters. You can always meet up with the party as a new character at a coffee shop, find a phone booth to call an old character for advice, or visit the grave of an old, but foolish former member of the SUNs.

Experience

Unlike traditional fantasy games, the SUNs system is not designed for characters that advance in levels when they kill orcs or loot bodies. There are no experience points or level progression, but your character can learn new things and expand their skills. You'll also build a network of connections and possible playable characters you can inhabit while your first character is nursing a shattered leg. 

With the current atmosphere around tariffs, imports and international shipping, our current plan is to print domestically in the US. We have secured quotes for the books and coins to that end. However, if the climate has improved by the time the project ends/we are ready to print, we may move our printing to an international location to allow us to print a few extras that aren't available in the US. We will be sure to keep backers updated on any changes. (We really want to do a boxed set with this, but it will depend on manufacturing options and funding. Stretch goals! )

Shipping

Shipping will be charged after the campaign ends through our pledgemanager, Pledgebox. We won't charge shipping until closer to when the game is ready for release as shipping rates are in constant flux. We will be fulfilling the project ourselves unless it grows large enough to be able to hire a logistics company to do fulfillment. 

UNITED STATES: $9
CANADA: $32
EUROPE: $45
REST OF WORLD: $45+

These rates are estimated shipping prices from PirateShip based on an estimated final weight of the complete collection reward level. 

Unfortunately, global shipping conditions may prohibit us from shipping to certain countries and the estimates at this moment are as close to an educated guess as we can achieve. We apologize for the inconvenience and we hope the Digital Version will be sufficient to induce madness if you would prefer.

All digital rewards will be filled and distributed by DriveThru RPG! 

About us

Ben Cowell: The amiable Mr. Quarter Ben lives in a cold, dark cave in Idaho. When he emerges every six weeks to sprint betwixt trees in a blurry fashion, he is usually spotted carrying board games, old RPGs, cheap comics or a long lost carving of some forgotten lore. He is the twisted brain behind the lore and chaos of Summer of Lovecraft.

Kris McClanahan: An ennie-nominated RPG artist and creator, Kris lives in an old roadhouse in rural Pennsylvania with a pack of five dogs that are often mistaken for cryptids. He is a full time designer, which usually means he is eating potatoes or popcorn and releasing weird indie games. He is responsible for the art, game design, layout, publishing and pretty much anything he can't convince his brother to do.

Pancóga Games is the mad combination of the two brothers, together at last! (Yes we are actual brothers.) Pancóga also means Pancakes in Irish.

AI Statement

Pancóga Games does not use any AI-generated images or content whatsoever. Everything in the game was written and drawn by our hands.