Delve into the city of shadow and light.

From Vortex Verlag, the creators of The Straight Way Lost, comes a crowdfunding campaign for another massive book. Serenissima Obscura is the book you need to run a campaign in 1507 Magical Renaissance Venice.

Welcome to this center of the Magical Renaissance with its splendid palaces, intricate conspiracies and dark secrets. In this era of enlightenment and discovery, in a time when magic fills the world, Venice shines bright by day, but when the night comes, more than just shadows fill the streets and canals. And whilst mortals fight for supremacy in the government, an ancient evil awakens in the dark twin of the metropolis. No one is safe in this place where the stones come to life and nightmares crawl out of the lagoon.

This 400 page book doubles as a setting and a modular adventure. The first part, the setting guide, provides details about society, factions, and everyday life in an alternate history Venice. Given it’s Venice we’re talking about, you can expect a ton of intrigue and political machinations, with a good dose of darkness, magic, and horror. The book also includes more than 150 NPCs (historical and imagined, adventure hooks, and lots of useful lists.

What about the second part, the adventure? Actually, it’s 27 separate adventures, designed with modularity in mind, so they can be connected into a massive campaign. These adventures focus on investigation and horror, matching the flavour of the setting. And to help with the flavour even more, you will also find more than 80 stat blocks for creepy monsters, villains, and NPCs. In addition, new classes and species are also included, specifically the Gonneslinger, the Merchant, the City Druids and the children of the Lagoon.

But what system is used for this setting, I hear you ask. Campaign settings tend to be system-agnostic, and Serenissima Obscura enhances that by using shorthand universal stats to make things easy to adapt to your system of choice. However, you will also find character options and rules for 5e. Furthermore, fans of Ars Magica have the option to get the “Ars Magica Guide for Serenissima Obscura” as an add-on.

As mentioned at the start, Vortex Verlag has produced another great book, The Straight Way Lost. Based on its quality, we can guess Serenissima Obscura is going to be another staple for anyone interested in Magical Renaissance.

You can check out the campaign here. It will be live until the the 26th of June.