Wretched Époque is an OSR RPG set in the historic period known as the Belle Époque. That’s sort of 1781 to 1914, France-ish and here’s a Wikipedia page about it.
In Wretched Époque we;re dealing with the time and (fictional) place Umberto Eco’s Simone Simonini crosses paths with Jacques Tardi’s Adèle Blanc-Sec, Edgar Allan Poe’s Chevalier Auguste Dupin and Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin.
That means anarchists expressing their frustrations and desires with bombs, the Dreyfus affair, secret societies and mad geniuses. That’s not actual history, but, as The Red Room, who publishes the game, argues, it’s not steampunk either.
Available this week, there’s a Pay-What-You-Want, but $0.00 suggested there’s a Wretched Époque Quickstart.
The quickstart is 61-pages long and is almost the complete set. It misses sanity, rules, and magic.
That means there are rules for secret societies, cults and conspiracies. Speaking of cults, there are (and the game has rules for) Lovecraftian abominations, mythical beasts, and rules for criminal masterminds.
It’s not just criminal masterminds to oppose but also the Apache Underworld and Parisian law enforcement of the late 19th century as well.
As The Red Room argue, it’s not steampunk, so what is it? Nouveapunk, they say.
Quick Links
- Quickstart: Wretched Époque quickstart
- Complete rules: Wretched Époque
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