Fans of Charles Stross’ unique blend of Lovecraftian horror, espionage, and workplace comedy will be thrilled to learn that the second edition of The Laundry Roleplaying Game has landed on DriveThruRPG.
This TTRPG dives deep into the world of The Laundry Files novels, putting players squarely in the shoes of unassuming British civil servants tasked with saving reality from otherworldly horrors.
For those unfamiliar, The Laundry Files series by British author Charles Stross brilliantly mashes up the cosmic dread of the Cthulhu Mythos with the mundane absurdity of government bureaucracy. Imagine a world where magic is not a mystical force but a dangerous, applied branch of mathematics, meaning that a well-crafted spreadsheet can be just as potent as an ancient grimoire in summoning horrors from beyond. The protagonist of the initial five novels is Bob Howard, a former IT consultant who is conscripted into “the Laundry,” the highly secretive Q-Division of the SOE. Their mission? To keep occult threats and the knowledge of how to summon them firmly under wraps from the unsuspecting public. The series is celebrated for its dry wit and satirical jabs at the labyrinthine nature of government agencies, a theme that Geek Native readers, who appreciate a good chuckle alongside their eldritch abominations, might find particularly appealing, as previously noted in our coverage of similar genre mash-ups.
While the series draws inspiration from the cosmic terror popularised by H.P. Lovecraft, it carves out its own distinct universe. In Stross’s vision, the most powerful magicians aren’t robed cultists but rather the diligent scientists and mathematicians who meticulously study these phenomena. The setting weaves a secret history, revealing how historical thinkers might have inadvertently stumbled upon the occult applications of their groundbreaking work.
The Laundry Roleplaying Game equips players with everything needed to send their agents into the most perilous corners of both their city and realities far beyond their pay grade. Expect to grapple with mind-shattering terror, navigate high-stakes espionage, delve into esoteric occult mathematics, and, perhaps most terrifying of all, confront an endless mountain of paperwork. For a Laundry agent, the work is truly never done; even death is, apparently, no excuse to clock out.
As agents in The Laundry RPG, players will find themselves with a rather unique set of responsibilities, including:
- Battling the soul-crushing endlessness of Civil Service paperwork.
- Preventing unscheduled incursions and reality excursions from other dimensions.
- Enduring thrilling (and probably mandatory) training courses designed to ensure missions are completed on time and within budget.
- Utilising highly restricted and potentially sanity-blasting equipment, such as the infamous Hand of Glory, the devastating Basilisk Gun, and the absolutely essential Necronomiphone.
- Venturing to an array of exciting locales, from the canals of Amsterdam and the sunny shores of Saint Martin to the decidedly less exotic, yet equally dangerous, Dunwich and Milton Keynes.
- Investigating rogue applications of advanced mathematics that, if left unchecked, could unravel the very fabric of our reality.
The game is published by Cubicle 7, and the new rules are now available on DriveThruRPG.
