Darkness Reforged - SRD (Version 0.3)

03 Feb, 2026

DARKNESS REFORGED is an urban fantasy roleplaying game of Gnostic Horror about people caught in a City that should not exist—an artificial reality forged from the Darkness by post-human powers. Players portray professionals and outcasts who survive the City on its own terms while secretly navigating a second, supernatural life as some of the few who have seen behind the Veil. Play is driven by tightly wound narrative loops—personal, supernatural, and communal—that generate pressure, fallout, and escalation through an alternating cycle of Nights and Daytime. Resolution uses a dice pool of d6s, every roll a wager with known risks and settled stakes. Success always comes at a price, failure leaves scars, and players quickly learn when to push through and when to take the loss. Things spiral, the group’s Veil is burned, and in the end the City always balances its Ledger. The characters must decide whether they will feed on it, break it open, or reshape it—knowing that every choice reforges both themselves and the world around them.

Setting

The Setting of Darkness Reforged is the City, an artificial reality built out of the Darkness by post-human powers. The Characters are one of those few that have peeked behind the Veil, forced to live two lives, one mundane and one supernatural.

Flow of Play

The Flow of Play alternates between Nights, when the Group pursues a clear Objective to a decisive conclusion, and Daytime, when Players can take Daytime Moves and the GM rolls on the Ledger, allowing the City to react and to call in the Debts generated during the previous Nights.

Core Elements

Game mechanics are built out of:

• Dice Pools - pools of d6s rolled to generate successes.
• Resource Pools - reserves of power or assets that can be spent to buy extra successes.
• Tags - narrative descriptors, often strange or unnatural, that can be invoked when the fiction calls for it. Tags come in two types:
  • Positive Tags that allow a Character to attempt otherwise impossible actions.
  • Negative Tags that limit a Character’s available options.
• Actions - Player activity that advances the Objective of the Night toward its decisive resolution.
• Daytime Moves - Player Daytime activity that deals with the aftermath of the last Night and prepares for the next.

Loops

Player Characters are built from Loops - stand-alone packages of narrative and mechanical elements representing a pattern of behavior a Character repeats, no matter the cost. Characters start with one Civilian Loop and one Supernatural Loop.

A Loop contains:

• Loop Dice - a Dice Pool used for Actions the Character might have undertaken repeatedly in the past within this pattern.
• Hook - a permanent Negative Tag that draws the Character into the Loop and into trouble.
• Edge - a permanent Positive Tag the Character relies on to escape trouble.
• Source - a Resource Pool representing reserves of inner strength or caches of external assets, spent to cover costs incurred while navigating the Loop.
• Reset - a Daytime Move that replenishes the Source and eventually brings the Character back to the Hook.

The Group

The Characters as a unit, the Group, has its own Loop.

The Group Loop contains:

• Resonance - a Dice Pool that can be used by all Characters instead of their own individual Loop Dice Pools.
• Veil - a communal Resource that represents protection from City attention and intervention.
• Impetus - a permanent negative Tag that reflects the common purpose of the Group, the one thing that they cannot ignore.

When Veil runs low, the GM can escalate consequences for Accepting Failure, Resolving Marks, and Ledger rolls during Daytime.

There is no dedicated Reset Move for Veil - it is slowly refreshed as the Characters exercise their civilian Loop Resets, going about their normal business.

Resonance serves as a measure of the collective power of the Group:

• Resonance and Veil share a single 10-point track, marked from opposite ends. Increasing Resonance immediately reduces the maximum Veil.
• Resonance can never exceed the lowest individual Loop Dice Pool (civilian or supernatural) among the Characters.
• No individual Loop Dice Pool or Source can be higher than Resonance+2.
• If all individual Loop Dice Pools are at least Resonance+1, and the Group makes a choice that changes the City irrevocably, the GM may increase their Resonance by 1.
• Resonance may never be decreased.

Tags

Tags determine what Actions are possible, what situations recur, and how consequences are framed in the fiction. They do not directly modify Risk or Cost - any impact arises through the fiction.

All Tags must describe something already present in the narrative - they formalize what is established rather than create new facts. Play first, then name.

• The GM may create temporary Tags, especially as a result of a Player Accepting Failure or Taking a Mark, following the fiction-first principle.
• Players may create temporary Tags by spending Veil, formalizing elements already established in the narrative.

Nights

At the beginning of each Night:

• The Group commits to a clear Objective, to be pursued to its decisive conclusion.
• Each Character starts with 0 Cuts.

Whenever a Character attempts an Action:

1. The Player states their intended Effect, and how they make it happen.
2. Is the Action possible at all (by Common Sense, Genre Conventions or Table Precedent)? Is there a Tag that enables it (positive) or hinders it (negative)?
3. The GM decides the Risk (default 1) and the Cost (default 2).
4. The Player rolls the appropriate Loop Dice Pool, after replacing some of their Loop Dice by Risk Dice (different color d6s) as specified by the GM.
   If a Tag was invoked, they also replace 1 Loop Die (for positive Tags) or 1 Risk Die (for negative Tags) with 1 Tag Die before rolling.
   Only one Tag may be invoked for a given Action.
5. The Player counts their total successes:
   • Loop Dice generate 0 successes on 1-3, 1 success on 4-5 and 2 successes on a 6.
   • Risk Dice generate -1 success on 1-3, 0 success on 4-5 and 1 success on a 6.
   • Tag Dice generate 0 successes on 1-3, 1 success on 4-5 and 1 success + 1 Cut on a 6.
   • Total successes may be 0 or even negative.
6. If total successes$<$1, the roll is a Failure; the Player has two options:
   • Accept Failure: The GM describes how things get worse - and you earn 1 Cut. Cuts can be spent to Push Through or saved to fuel Character advancement.
   • Push Through: If the Player has enough Cuts to raise the total to exactly 1 (1 Cut = 1 missing success), they can pay and continue as if the roll was a Success. Only Cuts, not Resources, can be spent to Push Through.
7. If total successes$\ge$1, the roll is a Success; the intended Effect happens.
   If total successes$<$Cost, then the Player has again two options:
   • Pay the Cost: Pay 1 Resource per missing success. Only Resources, not Cuts, can be spent to Pay the Cost.
   • Take a Mark: Pay nothing, but receive a Mark - a complication that might show up immediately or later that Night, whose severity is proportional to the unpaid missing successes.

At the end of each Night:

• Unspent Cuts become Scars, which can be spent to evolve the Character.
• Temporary Tags fade, unless the GM decides otherwise or the Players invest Scars to make them permanent.
• Unresolved Marks become Debt and are recorded on the Ledger, to be activated when the GM rolls on it during Daytime.

Daytime

During Daytime, each Player may take two free Daytime Moves. These include:

• Take a Reset to restore a Loop's Source. Civilian Resets also restore 1 Veil.
• Gather Info and Assets. This Action may create Resource Pools or Tags that can be used during the following Night.
• Resolve Debt, removing it from the Ledger.
• Refine a Loop, spending Scars to permanently improve it:
  • Increase the Loop Dice Pool (cost = new level).
  • Increase the Source Pool (cost = old level).
  • Adjust a Tag (Hook or Edge) to better reflect the fiction (cost = 1 Scar).

After these Daytime Moves are complete, the GM rolls on the Ledger, which may result in:

• Omens and Rumours
• Debts Called In
• Rivals Make a Move

The Players may take additional rounds of Daytime Moves. After each additional round, the GM rolls again on the Ledger.

Some results may trigger a reactive Night, especially if the Group's Veil is low, immediately ending the Daytime.