Crowdfunding for New Edition of DARK CONSPIRACY

[Morthrai]

For Immediate Release

Uhrwerk Verlag/Clockwork Publishing is proud to launch their Crowdfunding for a new edition of Lester Smith’s DARK CONSPIRACY, a dystopian action horror roleplaying game. First published in 1991 by Games Designers Workshop (GDW), DARK CONSPIRACY was a startlingly original action-horror game, depicting a bleak, retro-futuristic, totalitarian America where corporations rule everything and the countryside has been abandoned to violent gangs and alien horror.

The game line flourished and spawned a trilogy of novels, a board game, ample support in gaming magazines, a wide range of sourcebooks and adventures, and a variety of fan-produced magazines, each dramatically expanding the scope of the setting. Despite being out of print for years, the game maintains an international base of passionate enthusiasts, with many calls for its return.

In DARK CONSPIRACY, the players taken on the roles of normal citizens in an era marked by a Greater Depression, drawn into investigating the sinister alien horror that has infiltrated human society. With a variety of high-tech weapons and paranormal abilities, these “hunters” wage a clandestine war against and battlefields ranging from sprawling, dystopian metroplexes to the open countryside, haunted by weird creatures and corrupted by alien influence. The ultimate horror is that this malefic force is apparently aided by human collaborators, corporations and governments who have sold humanity out for their own survival and profit.

This new edition updates the game system and setting to modern sensibilities and heralds a robust line of accompanying sourcebooks and accessories. The team is led by veteran author and designer Jason Durall (RuneQuest, Conan, Basic Roleplaying, Serenity, Achtung! Cthulhu, The Laundry Files, World War Cthulhu, etc.), and consists of a wide and diverse team of talented newcomers and industry veterans, with additional team members to be announced.

The crowdfunding launches Thursday, April 11, 2019 (2 PM eastern time, 11 AM pacific time), and runs until May 7 on www.gameontabletop.com

It includes the DARK CONSPIRACY core rulebook, a gamemaster screen/resource, an adventure anthology, an equipment sourcebook, a guide to paranormal phenomena, and a bestiary describing the bizarre and horrific creatures of the Conspiracy.

www.gameontabletop.com
https://www.facebook.com/DarkConspiracy

About Clockwork Publishing/Uhrwerk Verlag

Uhrwerk Verlag was founded in 2009 by Patric Götz. Previously, he already has gathered extensive experience in the field of roleplaying, first, as an employee in a games store, then working at a wholesaler and finally, as publishing director and CEO at Ulisses Spiele. The first games published by Uhrwerk were the German versions of Hollow Earth Expedition and Deadlands Classic in 2009 as well as the license for the western continent Myranor for The Dark Eye.

In the following years, Uhrwerk also published further games with great success, among them more and more German self-prodcutions like Malmsturm, Contact or Dungeonslayers. But they also continued extending the publisher‘s list with translations of English games such as Numenera and Achtung! Cthulhu. Since 2013, Uhrwerk Verlag (under the label Clockwork Publishing) also captures the English-speaking market.

With a successful kickstarter for a translation of the German version of Space:1889, the English version of the game was financed.

At the same time, Uhrwerk Verlag focuses mainly on the production of Splittermond, its own German fantasy roleplaying game.

Today, about a dozen employees are permanently emplyoed at Uhrwerk Verlag. On average, three to four roleplaying publications are issued per month. Uhrwerk Verlag already successfully carried out several crowdfundings.

[Marcus Bone]

An update! Currently funding at 72% - I encourage you to pop over to the DC Crowd Funding site and join in!

[Phulish]

Yay! waiting til payday!

[Morthrai]

Currently at 93%

[Phulish]

If they make the goal early, can we still fund it?

[Morthrai]

If they make the goal early, can we still fund it?

The campaign is set to run until May 5th so you should be OK

[Phulish]

Great!

[Morthrai]

I am pleased to report that the crowdfunding goal was achieved last night UK time so Dark Conspiracy 4e lives! Now let's see about those stretchgoals...

Official Update from Clockwork:

On behalf of the Uhrwerk Verlag/Clockwork and DARK CONSPIRACY development teams, thanks for your support!

It’s been a long road so far getting to this launch, but we’re incredibly excited to bring this game to an all new generation of players, as well as bringing it back for those who remember it kindly.
One amazing about working on this new edition of DARK CONSPIRACY is seeing how weirdly — and terrifyingly — prophetic the original game was.

In this world as well as that depicted in the original edition of DARK CONSPIRACY, we have…
massive economic inequity causing massive social rifts
global financial collapses brought about by banks acting recklessly
the utter deterioration of middle America
fearmongering by immense corporations and increasingly irrelevant governments
oil wars
walls as a solution to fear
the abandonment of the Rust Belt to drug gangs
the rise of nationalism in Europe and elsewhere
industrial pollution rendering water undrinkable
climatological collapse

…and even worse.

Almost 30 years later, all of this has come to pass. Even the more cyberpunk/dystopian aspects are there to some degree, with cyborgs, privatized police forces, the release of classified documents revealing We Are Probably Not Alone After All, and more.

It is a paranoid, dystopian future in which everything is connected in web of lies, and at the center of it all is a glistening black heart of evil, the Dark Ones who have subverted our governments, wrecking our societies, hollowing out our countries, and corrupting our planet to their own ends.

So, given the choice between curling up in a fetal ball and hoping for an end, what is there to do?

We can fight back, and that’s what DARK CONSPIRACY gets to the heart of. Here, you can take on the roles of common people pushed too far, ready to work together to pursue evil where it hides, and to take back what has been stolen.

Don’t believe the lies. Shine a light on the Conspiracy and see what it reveals.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

With this new edition, we’re updating the setting, which, if anything, has gotten even darker.

We have got some monstrously great stuff in the pipeline and to be revealed in stretch goals to come. Our team grows increasingly diverse and we’ll be introducing more of them in updates to come, and letting you know what the new DARK CONSPIRACY holds in store for you.

*From all of us at Clockwork and on the Dark Conspiracy team*

[ReHerakhte]

, I so wanted to join in on the crowdfunding but my finances are critically short at the moment so I'm happy to see that the funding was achieved
At the moment it's at 104% so the first stretch goal is within reach.

[Morthrai]

, I so wanted to join in on the crowdfunding but my finances are critically short at the moment so I'm happy to see that the funding was achieved

I was only able to pledge at the level I wanted because payday falls in the middle of the campaign. I would also have been SOL otherwise!

[Morthrai]

It's the final day of the Dark Conspiracy 4 crowdfunding campaign, so if you're interested now is the time! It's only about $1300 short of the next stretch goal so it would be cool to add one more right at the end. Cheers!

https://www.gameontabletop.com/cf189/da ... orror.html