About The Fate Codex

by Mark Diaz Truman

This year’s Halloween issue has a special focus on urban horror, a genre that grew near and dear to my heart long before I worked on Urban Shadows. I’m always excited to put together our annual Halloween issue—we featured zombies for Volume 1 and suspense/thrillers for Volume 2—but this year’s issue may be my favorite yet. Urban horror presents our world through a dark mirror, monsters lurking just around the corner from heroes who may become monsters themselves…

We’re proud to have André La Roche return for another piece, contributing an urban horror Quick Start titled Innocence Lost that draws on his piece for the last issue (The Arch). André’s Quick Start is a perfect example of what I love about our mostly-monthly publication cycle: if we get a piece we love in one issue, we can build on it for the next!

In addition to André’s piece, we’ve also got a collection of articles that can fuel more urban horror at your table: a Building Block with horrific pulp pamphlets, systems for escalating conflict in fun ways, and a great essay from Felipe Real on how to run improvisational mysteries in Fate. In other words, this issue has everything you need to make urban horror work in Fate, including a few things you probably haven’t even thought of before today.

Again, thank you for all your support! This has been an interesting and tumultuous year for all of us at Magpie Games, but we’re excited that the Fate Codex still retains your interest!

Editor in Chief
Mark Diaz Truman