''Weird Wars'' is a series of horror

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

s set during past and future wars and published by

Pinnacle Entertainment Group Pinnacle Entertainment Group is a publisher of role-playing games and wargames. History When Shane Lacy Hensley decided to create a 19th-century miniatures game he contacted Charles Ryan's company Chameleon Eclectic about publishing it. The resul ...

. The original release, ''Weird War II: Blood on the Rhine'' was set during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and utilized the D20 System. The second release, ''Tour of Darkness'' was set during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

and employed the ''

Savage Worlds ''Savage Worlds'' is a role-playing game written by Shane Lacy Hensley and published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. The game emphasizes speed of play and reduced preparation over realism or detail. The game received the 2003 Origin Gamers' Choi ...

'' rules set. A third release, also for ''Savage Worlds'', ''Necropolis'' was set in the future on a war-torn planet.

Setting

In the original ''Weird War II'', players play as

Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

soldiers during the Second World War. The setting presents a supernatural element, and characters face (and drive) haunted vehicles, fight

mutant In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. It ...

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

soldiers and investigate the supernatural. Heroes who face the supernatural can be offered membership in the Office of Supernatural Investigations (OSI), which then allows them to take the OSI Chaplain and OSI Adept Prestige Classes (which grant access to Divine and Arcane Magic respectively). Magic is handled differently in this setting than in other d20 settings, being cast by means of Runes and causing Fatigue to the caster.

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...

and his Nazis have their own magic-users: Blood Mages, who can be amongst the toughest foes the players later face. Blood Mages are essentially Adepts of Evil Alignment, which grants them the power to draw upon the 'innate evil' of places such as

Death Camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

and

battlefield A battlefield, battleground, or field of battle is the location of a present or historic battle involving ground warfare. It is commonly understood to be limited to the point of contact between opposing forces, though battles may involve troops ...

s. Because the only difference between a Blood Mage and an Adept is Alignment, it is possible to play an Allied Blood Mage, though not recommended, as both the OSI and the Sons of Solomon (a secret organization devoted to hiding the supernatural) will come after them if they are discovered. Magic is low-powered in this setting; Mages only receive spells up to the 5th level, and the only offensive powers in their arsenal are Magic Missile and Cloudkill, which blend in better with the chaos of the battlefield, mimicking bullets and clouds of poison gas respectively. The books in the setting are: *''Blood on the Rhine'' - the Core rulebook *''Afrika Korpse'' - Sourcebook for Africa and Egypt *''Dead From Above'' - Sourcebook for aircraft and several flying monsters *''Horrors of Weird War Two'' - Beastiary, expanding the list of monsters from Blood on the Rhine and the various Sourcebooks *''Land of the Rising Dead'' - Sourcebook for the Pacific Theatre *''Hell in the Hedgerows'' - Adventure book, containing three adventures{{cite journal , url=http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login/article.html?id=3580 , last=Pook , first=Matthew , title=Hell in the Hedgerows , journal=

Pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

(online) , publisher=

Steve Jackson Games Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and (until 2019) the gaming magazine ''Pyramid''. History Founded in 1980, six years after the cr ...

, date=2002-08-07 , accessdate=2008-07-11 *''Hell Freezes Over'' - Sourcebook for the Russian Front

References

External links

''Weird Wars'' Fansite
Historical role-playing games Horror role-playing games D20 System Pinnacle Entertainment Group games Role-playing games introduced in 2001