This Mortal Coil
A downloadable horror game
In This Mortal Coil, you play a space traveler-turned-necromancer on a quest to achieve eternal life by constructing a magical device known as an anchor. You'll create undead thralls to do your bidding, gather energy to power your quest by harvesting living creatures, and master the forces of the Negaverse.
Along the way, you’ll explore fantastic worlds, battle terrifying creatures, and negotiate with cosmic horrors to unlock the secrets of immortality.
This Mortal Coil is both a standalone science-horror setting/rulebook for Liminal Horror and a toolkit for incorporating necromancy and space travel into your own Liminal Horror, Cairn, and other Into the Odd inspired games.
What you get
The 140-page, A5-formatted game book contains:
- The complete rules needed to play
- A map and description of the Alfajiri stellar system
- New character creation options
- Ten spacefaring backgrounds
- Ten horrifying fallout
- New equipment suitable for a space horror game
- Rules and spells for all your necromantic, undead-creating needs
- Rules for ships and space travel
- Guidance for the facilitator about creating adventures
- Spark tables and sample facilitator characters
- Twelve nightmarish creatures
- New dark and malevolent magic items
Check out Necroblaster, the official character generator...
Disclaimers + legal stuff
This Mortal Coil deals with themes of death, undeath, and body horror, and is therefore suitable for ages 13 and up.
The full text of This Mortal Coil is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, which means that it is perpetually and irrevocably available for others to reuse, remix, and republish in their own games and support materials.
Copyright © 2023 by David Garrett. Text licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
This Mortal Coil is an independent production by Amalara Game Studio and is not affiliated with Goblin Archives LLC. It is published under the Liminal Horror Third Party License. Liminal Horror is copyright by Goblin Archives LLC.
This work is based on Cairn, written by Yochai Gal and licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution -ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Purchase
In order to download this horror game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $20 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Community Copies
Support this horror game at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.
Community Copies
If you need a little necromantic space horror in your life, but you're not in a position to pay, please feel free to take a community copy.
Development log
- This Mortal Coil in printAug 24, 2023
- It's done!!! This Mortal Coil is now complete!Aug 13, 2023
- Pre-proof pre-releaseJul 18, 2023
- The grand plan!May 12, 2023
- Look at what you've done!May 06, 2023
- Glorious updatesApr 16, 2023
- Player-facing mapMar 27, 2023
- More community copiesMar 17, 2023
Comments
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Quick rules question, what happens when someone sells their soul and you complete the quest? Do they drop dead, you have to wait until they die or can people just live normally while being soulless?
Hi hi! I made a This Mortal Coil Character and Ship autosheet!
I wanted to ask if I'd be alright to publish it? Given it contains most player-side info - Thank you! Love the game btw and looking forward to running it!
That’s awesome! I’d love to see it!
(BTW - you don’t need to ask my permission. I published it under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA so that anyone could create their own materials for it, but heck yeah, consider this an enthusiastic endorsement!)
Sweet! Thank you I'll put it up in a bit!
And ye I know I just like asking for permission anyway to be extra sure lolSuper cool game, David!
Aw! Thanks so much!
thank you so much for the community copy. I’m a disabled pensioner so really appreciate when generous creators make their hard work available to those who can’t afford it
I’m happy to do it! I hope you enjoy it.
this looks fantastic! any chance of a physical release?
The saddle-stitched hardbacks are en route from the printer at this very moment! They’ll be available from the Amalara Game Studio store, Exalted Funeral, and Ratti Incantatti. I’ll post links above as soon as they’re ready to go.
It's been really cool to watch this come together. Can't wait to see the final project!
Love the solar system map layout, David.
Thanks! That went through a lot of revisions to get to this point.
The concept looks dope man! Will you post more spreads?
Sure! I’ll post a handful more tonight when I’m back in front of my home computer.