Haunted Matter - Quickstart

Haunted Matter — Quickstart

A free, complete introduction to low-magic grimdark fantasy action-drama where survival comes before morality. 40 pages with rules and ready adventure.

Haunted Matter is a role-playing game for those who choose drama over simulation and decision over supernatural power. There are no levels, classes, or builds. There is risk, dirt, blood, and pressure.

The system combines the narrative approach of PBTA and BITD with the risk, resource management, and lethality of OSR, along with the morally charged, GM-driven storytelling of traditional games. It provides concrete procedures but demands narrative thinking from both GM and players.

At its core lies a deep, moral story shaped by player choices — something that cannot be improvised. The GM provides structure: situations, clocks, consequences, and dilemmas, while players fill it with decisions and narrative details. I call this play to reveal, in contrast to PBTA’s play to find out, where the story is built from nothing.

It stands out through its shared pool of HP, inventory, and fatigue; narrative dice; fast but tactical combat resolved with a single roll per turn; narrative procedures; splinters — delayed consequences that trigger unpredictably — and a genuinely oppressive, mystical tone.

The quickstart includes the full core rules and a ready-to-play scenario. It’s dense, but this system is built for dense play.

About the included adventure — Red Water:  

A grim tale of ancestral guilt on volcanic wastelands, where memory is a curse and there’s no one left to take revenge on.

The file was translated by AI because it's the only option I can afford for now. I'll get a real translation when the full PDF is ready.

Cover: Zdzisław Jasiński, The Tempest (1925), public domain. Reproduction: National Museum in Warsaw.

Available as a free download — includes the full rules and a ready-to-play scenario: Red Water.