Published in 1991 by Games Designers’ Workshop, Dark Conspiracy 1st edition saw the publication of numerous supplements and adventures, which included not only a boardgame (Minion Hunter), but also a promotional video cassette that was exclusively sent to retailers!

Dark Conspiracy (GDW 2100)

Description – Core Rulebook
AuthorLester W. Smith
Published – 1991
Page Count – 336 pages (Softcover)
ISBN – 15-58780-76-9
PDFDark Conspiracy Rulebook

Shapes that rip and tear. Shadows that live in corners.

Windows in space and time that lead to realms of madness and decay. A dark, lurking horror that feeds off the echoing anguish of a billion tortured souls. This is the center of a twisted, sinister conspiracy which threatens the very existence of all humankind. Set in the near future, the world of Dark Conspiracy is dramatically altered from today and is fraught with peril and challenges. The Metroplexes, where most of the world’s population lives, are a blend lawless gang turf and corporate fortresses ruled by men and women powerful enough to be above the law. The countryside is sparsely inhabited, its natives suspicious and violent. And increasing areas of countryside are turning into Demonground, from which few humans return. When an ancient, brooding evil is released from its dimensional prison, humankind’s worse nightmares come to life. What is the link between this sinister horror and the mysterious holes in the ozone layer, the rise of empathically aware humans, and the alien visitors from another star system?

For the few men and women perceptive enough to recognize the danger and resourceful enough to fight it, the battle to recapture humankind’s birthright will be long and costly.

Can you push back the dark?

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New Orleans (GDW 2101)

Description – Supplement/Campaign
AuthorEric W. Haddock
Published – 1991
Page Count – 80 pages (Softcover)
ISBN – 15-58780-80-7
PDFNew Orleans Sourcebook
Site Review[Review] New Orleans

Something’s prowling the fringes of the city. Something from the swamps, something old and wicked, with a legion of servitors at its disposal. People in the outlying ghettos have been disappearing, the only clue to their fate a thin trail of blood and stagnant water leading to the sewers. A panic is seizing the city. Fistfights and street battles are occurring at an increasingly frequent rate. It’s becoming difficult to travel from one sector to another without a well armed guard. Now someone is dumping tons of toxins into the swamps, leaving dead wildlife bloating in the host Louisiana sun. And the megacorps are blaming it on one another. Can you unravel the mystery, without falling prey to the deadly swamps, the secretive corps, or the panicked citizenry of New Orleans?

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Darktek (GDW 2102)

Description – Sourcebook
AuthorCharles E. Gannon
Published – 1991
Page Count – 104 pages (Softcover)
ISBN – 15-58780-84-X
PDFDarktek Sourcebook
Site Review[Review] Darktek

Behind the shadows of our world, the Dark Ones lurk, plotting humanity’s ruin. Their Dark Minions stalk us, armed with horrific devices, the products strange and hideous sciences. Human agents capture what they can, hoping for weapons that will aid them in their fight. And in some secret strongholds, individual ETs who have escaped the darkness labor side by side with human scientists, creating items to hold the Dark Ones off. Meanwhile the megacorporate sector pursues technologies that pander to the wealthy. For many, HiTek is the truest symbol of high status.

Worn like a coat of arms, it distinguishes the movers and shakers from the increasingly disenfranchised hordes of ‘commoners’ below. In this volume, you will find items ranging from the gruesome biologic weapons of the Dark Minions, to the futuristic constructs of the ETs, to the most advanced in human technology. But all belong to the world of Dark Conspiracy, a world that is itself ever more a product of DarkTek.

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Heart of Darkness (GDW 2103)

Description – Campaign
Author – Creede & Sharleen Lambard
Published – 1991
Page Count – 72 pages (Softcover)
ISBN – 15-58780-86-6
PDFHeart of Darkness Adventure

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS – the Dark Lady, a sorceress of ancient Baghdad, has lain in mystic stasis, her mind imprisoned through the power of a legendary gem.

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS – a hideous race of parasites has chafed at the wards barring them from Earth, and has labored to aid the Dark Lady who could free them.

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS – the Servants of the Dark Lady have sought to destroy the mystic opal called ‘Heart of Darkness,’ to release their evil mistress into the world once again.

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS – the Brothers of Ahmed have dogged the heels of the Servants, seeking the knowledge to destroy the Dark Lady for once and all time.

YESTERDAY – your characters found a clue leading to the Heart of Darkness. Can they tread the tangled path to the Dark Lady’s destruction without falling prey to the many dangers along the way?

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Hellsgate (GDW 2104)

Description – Adventure
Author – Julia Martin
Published – 1992
Page Count – 64 pages (Softcover)
ISBN – 15-58780-97-1
PDFHellsgate Adventure

Through the millennia, it has known many names: Set, Surtur, Hel, Kutulu, Tiamat. The legends of this being stretch back beyond the memory of humankind. It is the Great Dark One. The source of misery, the bringer of despair, and the wellspring of human suffering.

Imprisoned in ages past, it has bided its time. When humans crawled from the evolutionary muck, it waited. As the first civilizations arose, it waited. When humanity first reached out for the skies, it waited. It waited for a time when it could be free to rule and torture.
That time has come. NASA’s newest Comsat is beaming a strange and unknown signal to Mexico. The gods of the ancient Mayans are rising anew. Strange and horrible creatures stalk the night. These disparate threads hold the secret of the Dark One’s return. The way is open for the coming of the Great Dark One.

Hidden away in this tangled skein of threads lies the terrible secret that can breach the walls of reality and herald the arrival of the greatest evil ever known.

The secret of Hellsgate.

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Minion Hunter (GDW 2105)

Description – Boardgame
AuthorLester W. Smith
Published – 1992
Page Count – N/A (Box)
ISBN – 15-58781-03-X
PDFMinion Hunter Boardgame
Site Review
[Review] Minion Hunter

Description from BoardgameGeek:

Minion Hunter is the simplified board game version of GDW’s Dark Conspiracy RPG.

Players move around the outer edge of the board trying to build up their cash, weaponry, equipment and four categories of ability points. In the middle of the board is a map of the USA and a progression track of Dark Minion plots represented by cards, which have city names on the backs and monster names and attack scores on the fronts.

Once players are strong and rich enough, they can enter the map and fight the enemies shown on the cards that are currently on the track. The enemy cards move down the track after every player turn. If they reach completion, the corresponding Dark Minion (Nukid, ETs, Morlocks, or Fey) gains points toward taking over America.

Players must boost their own success scores while also cooperating to keep the Dark Minions from snatching victory from all players.

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Dark Races Compendium: Volume 1 (GDW 2106)

Description – Sourcebook
Author – Various
Published – 1992
Page Count – 104 pages (Softcover)
ISBN – 15-58781-05-6
PDFDark Races Sourcebook

Creatures of the Unknown.

It’s one thing to face a threat you understand. It’s quite another to encounter an unknown horror.

Legends warn us of evil things stalking our world, but they are contradictory and confused, often giving more misguidance than aid. Still, a vague warning is better than no warning at all. While only a fool trusts the legendary accounts entirely, only a greater fool faces the Dark completely unprepared.

This is the quandary for heroes who oppose the Dark Races. How much can legendary accounts be trusted? An unheeded warning can be fatal – or worse. But a false one is just as dangerous. The only surety is that nothing is sure.

This first Dark Races Compendium is designed to maintain that sense of horrifying mystery central to Dark Conspiracy adventures. Within the pages of this volume, referees will find more than 50 Dark Minions from the feverish visions of a dozen and a half different authors. Many of the creatures herein are the stuff of often-repeated legends of darkness. Others spring from more private nightmares. Together, they will take your campaign to realms of horror your players could never expect.

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Among the Dead (GDW 2107)

Description – Adventure
Author – Mark Galeotti & Loren K. Wiseman
Published – 1992
Page Count – 80 pages (Softcover)
ISBN – 15-58781-07-2
PDFAmong the Dead Adventure
Site Review[Review] Among the Dead

As the Earth slips further into chaos and despair, some places have far less to slide:

One of New York City’s largest children’s hospitals, funded by ‘private donations,’ is being used to provide orphans as human raw material for some unspeakable purpose. This could have gone on for a long time, had not one of the nurses stumbled on part of the secret. She vanished, just another victim of the city’s lawlessness, but leaving a worried and suspicious uncle.

On another part of the globe, Moscow, amidst the ruins of a Russia blighted by pollution, war, hunger, and fear, there stands an age-old figure of unimaginable evil. Once he was called Koshchey Bessmertny, Koshchey the Undying, and he became the dark enemy of Russian fairy tales and folklore, a name to whisper when the moon passed behind a cloud. In the 1930s and ’40s, they called him another name, and he became the sinister mind behind the deaths of millions in the Siberian Gulag.

What he does not know is that the disappearance of a simple provincial nurse threatens to bring these loose strands together into the noose that may at last catch him. If, that is, the players are able to face and overcome the horrors waiting them… Among the Dead.

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Empathic Sourcebook (GDW 2108)

Description – Sourcebook
Author – Various
Published – 1993
Page Count – 120 pages (Softcover)
ISBN – 15-58781-10-2
PDFEmpathic Sourcebook

More than a state of mind.
Do SORCERERS walk among us?
Is ASTRAL PROJECTION possible?
Are EMPATHS dangerous?

The Empathic Sourcebook contains expanded and refined rules for the Empathy attribute and its related skills, as well as entirely new skills, and information concerning Empathy skills practiced by humanoid ETs who remain free from the Dark. Also included are more combat-related Empathy skills and descriptions of numerous organizations important to empathic characters, from psychic test labs to empathic secret societies.

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Proto-Dimensions Sourcebook: Volume 1 (GDW 2109)

Description – Sourcebook
Author – Ted Kocot & Loren Wiseman
Published – 1993
Page Count – 140 pages (Softcover)
ISBN – 15-58781-14-5
PDFProto-Dimensions Sourcebook

I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more… this looks more like Pittsburg as painted by Hieronymous Bosch…

How do you open a portal to another place? How do people use proto-dimensions for rapid movement to a location miles away. If there is such a thing as a doorway to another reality, can it be locked? Why is it easier to dimension walk from Demonground? Are there safe havens in the proto-dimensions? Where did the proto-dimensions come from? Are there other worlds in the proto-dimensions, other races — allies or enemies? What are the Plaguelands?

These questions, and many others, will be answered in the Proto-Dimensions Sourcebook, Volume 1. There are rules for proto-dimensional travel by means of empathic power or by the use of technological devices far beyond the ability of humans to create. All the details of dimension-walking are covered, telling how to stay alive while doing it. Players will learn how to build an interdimensional portal — or how to destroy one.

Further, the Proto-Dimensions Sourcebook describes 12 different proto-dimensions, ranging from tropical paradise to a sulphurous hell, from the vastness of a perpetual sky to surreal landscapes populated by creatures from out of a nightmare, from a world where everything is normal except for the color to a world where nothing is as it seems.

If you are a Dark Conspiracy referee, you will be able to incorporate the proto-dimensions into your campaign with relative ease. If you are a player, your character can now take the battle to the enemy’s backyard.

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The Lost Video (GDW 2110)

Description – Promotional Video
Author – N/A
Published – 1992
Page Count – N/A
ISBN – N/A

This promotional video was produced to be an resource for retail stores, providing them with a tie in for the Dark Conspiracy RPG. Very dated and cheesy (although with good production quality) it demonstrates GDW’s desire to explore new ways of promoting their games. This digital of this was kindly archived up on You Tube by Lee Williams.

Promotional video for GDW’s Dark Conspiracy roleplaying game, first released in 1991. This video was made to be played in game stores to promote the RPG and was thought to be lost forever, until a VHS copy turned up in a storage box in the archives. Another example of the Dark Conspiracy game refusing to die! 

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Ice Daemon (GDW 2111)

Description – Adventure
Author – Creede & Sharleen Lambard
Published – 1992
Page Count – 16 pages (Folio)
ISBN – 15-58781-24-2
PDFIce Daemon Adventure
Site Review –
[Review] Ice Daemon

For as long as the icy winds have blown across the Arctic plains, it has hungered after humanity, its bite the kiss of frozen death.

Through the great ice age, the time of its greatest power, it hunted freely, its might unchallenged. But with the glaciers’ disappearance, it retreated from the Earth.
Since that time, it has yearned to return, to sate its bloodlust once more. For this ancient and evil creature, the stars are right and the time is now. To stalk the Earth again and sheath the land in a glittering blanket of coldest ice, it returns.

In this folio adventure set in an ice-ravaged southern Texas (in July!), referees will find a 16-page scenario booklet, an 11″ x 17″ full-color map of the Ice Daemon’s lair, and two full-color pages detailing four new Dark Conspiracy creatures.

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PC Booster Kit (GDW 2112)

Description – Supplement
AuthorLester W. Smith
Published – 1992
Page Count – 16 pages (Folio)
ISBN – 1-558780-125-0
PDF – Not Available
Site Review – [Review] PC Booster Kit

Kick into High Gear

Take your characters to new heights of performance with this optional rules supplement for Dark Conspiracy. Included are:

  • Rules for playing younger, more highly skilled characters.
  •  Enhanced PC background options.
  • Exciting new careers.
  • Expanded combat rules, allowing for true expertise with specific weapons.
  • An improved skill system.
  • Rules for creating Renegade Extraterrestrial PCs!
  • Everything necessary for expanding to a D20 task resolution system.
  • And an updated, full-color character sheet suitable for making either color or black and white photocopies.

A new dark age has come, and the world desperately needs heroes. With this expansion kit, your character can be among the very best.

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Nightsider (GDW 2114)

Description – Adventure
Author – Dr Michael C. LaBossiere
Published – 1992
Page Count – 32 pages (Folio)
ISBN – 15-58781-37-4
PDFNightsider Adventure
Site Review – [Review] Nightsider

There’s a logical explanation for everything… but it isn’t always the truth.

Fang Island has long been a popular vacation resort for those wealthy enough to enjoy such things. The top-secret military base at its northern end has made the island even more attractive, adding a sense of security in a dark and sometimes deadly world. But now all contact with the island has been suddenly and mysteriously cut off, and it is under military quarantine. No one is allowed to cross the cordon; they’re turned back for “security reasons” to protect “a wonderful scientific breakthrough.”

Meanwhile, on the coast, people are disappearing in the woods. But locals insist that there is no reason to be alarmed. People do get lost in the wilderness, and rural regions have been known to attract wandering axe murderers on occasion. No need to propose some great “conspiracy” theory to explain a few missing persons, or even several grisly deaths.

It’s a little harder to explain whole cars disappearing – with everyone inside – as they travel down a busy highway. But it isn’t impossible. Perhaps these people don’t want to be found.
Or maybe there really is something dark and sinister going on. Some otherworldly evil that ties these events together. If there is, you better discover what it is and defeat it… before you join the ranks of its prey.

Nightsider consists of a 32-page book with three ready-to-play, interlinked adventures (enough for at least three to six play sessions) inside a beautiful full-color, four-panel map screen.

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Minion Nation: The Minion Hunter Expansion Kit (GDW 2115)

Description – Expansion (For Minion Hunter)
AuthorLester W. Smith
Published – 1992
Page Count – N/A (Folio)
ISBN – 15-58781-36-6
PDFMinion Nation: The Minion Hunter Expansion Kit

The Minion Hunter Expansion Kit.

If you’ve played Minion Hunter until you know every encounter by heart and have memorized every card, this kit will inject a new level of mystery into your play.
If you’ve just begun playing Minion Hunter, this kit will provide you with options and background to make your play more satisfying than ever.

If you’ve never played Minion Hunter…you’re missing out on a good time. Included in this package are:

  • New rules options, for grimmer, yet more cooperative games.
  • Expanded encounter tables, for further variety in play – including a table of random Plot Card results!
  • 16 new Equipment Cards, including Empathy-enhancing items, a second Wildey Wolf (for two-fisted shooting!), and even minion equipment you can capture at Dark Encounters!
  • Designer Notes, with topic-by-topic, space-by-space, encounter-by-encounter comments to further flesh out your understanding of Minion Hunter and its treatment of the Dark Conspiracy horror RPG world.

A new Dark Age has come. Never has the world been so grim…nor the battle so heroic!