WHAT IS PENNY DREADFULS?
Penny Dreadfuls is a Victorian horror setting for the game Savage Worlds.
THE STORY
Characters coming from different walks of life n Victorian England get involved with the business of monster hunting. They rise through the ranks, collecting magical artifacts along the way, that they either destroy, hide from those who would use them for ill purposes, or learn to use at the peril of their very souls!
THE SETTING
The game takes place in London starting on January 1st, 1865. It is a city of swirling fogs, gaslights, and crumbling mansions. Gentlemen in tophats bearing gold topped walking sticks, climb out of carriages to visit ostentatious balls, while prostitutes plying their ancient trade in the dark and garbage strewn streets east of the Thames River docks get their throats ripped out by walking corpses and die anonymous deaths to the chorus of slamming shutters and deadbolts in the ramshackle tenements on either side. Gaunt faced men in broken spectacles stumble into the libraries of Oxford or Cambridge, seeking lost and weathered tomes, while trembling clerks excuse themselves from their watch, daring not to stand in the way of those so corrupted by the demonic forces of ancient magics. In the unbridled forests outside of Cornwall and Wessex, farmers cower in their cottages, wondering whether the not too distant howling they hear will leave them sorting through bloody entrails on the next morning, trying to discern which of their fellow neighbors was unfortunate enough to get caught out on the night of the full moon . . . .
And yet somewhere not far from the woman of the night who was just devoured by one of the other creatures that make it their home, a grave looking man with a deep scar on his right cheek whittles stakes with a knife that has known much blood of its own in the distant theatre of the Crimea. He has devoted his life to a battle for the survival of mankind itself, far more significant in his mind than the petty territorial squabbles for which so many of his comrades fell in his last tour of combat. The grizzled soldier stuffs the wooden spikes into a satchel, hangs a small silver crucifix around his neck and then steps out into the fog, perhaps for the last time. Two miles away, right off Fleet Street in a fashionable two hundred year old rowhouse, three middle aged gentlemen sip Port from crystal goblets and talk in hushed yet earnest tones, dare they risk taking on the Spirit of Camden Road with the untested scepter on the table before them? It lays on the oaken surface glimmering in mysterious contempt, the undecipherable runes around its head almost whispering to the men, "after all, I am your only hope."
This is the world of Penny Dreadfuls, brave heroes fighting the darkness in the glory days of gothic horror, the mid Nineteenth Century. The game is Gothic, not Steampunk, so the towering heights of real or imagined Nineteenth Century technology do not exist in Penny Dreadfuls London. There are no Dr. Frankensteins running around, though one might very well encounter an alchemist or two . . . Nor is Penny Dreadfuls Victorian fantasy, like Victoriana or Gaslights. There are no orks or elves, only vampires, werewolves. ghouls and all the other denizens of the genre of supernatural horror.
The setting is loosely historically based, with some liberties taken with that history. The technological progression of history is largely left intact. At the same time, because of the focus of the powers that be on using magic over technology to gain advantage, the game world is slightly less technically advanced than the real world in 1865. The setting is also dreadful, as the name suggests, so although the Anatomy Act of 1832 all but ended the practice of body snatching for medical cadavers in the real world, the practice is alive and well in Penny Dreadfuls, that act never having been passed. There are also many details of life in 19th Century London that I will accidentally get wrong, it being a time and place so remove from our own. As with any Savage Setting, Penny Dreadfuls in no way reflects the real world. It is a purely cinematic interpretation of a genre of fiction that has been surprisingly neglected in roleplaying games, in spite of its centrality in the common cultural imagination.
THE FREE PENNY DREADFULS BASIC RULES
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pyw1xAmGT7sjHbkyc0aJxafEsmKJCQwZcRXYHVMVruA/edit?hl=en_US
SAVAGE WORLDS DELUXE
This is needed to play the game, though the Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition with the free updates from Pinnacle will work too. http://www.studio2publishing.com/shop/index.php?manufacturers_id=20&sort=&filter_id=124
The alternative, if you are a player, not running the game, is to Download the Free Savage Worlds Test Drive rules here
http://www.peginc.com/Downloads/SWEX/TD06.pdf
which should give you enough to make a quick character, then look at the Updates from SWEX to Savage Worlds Deluxe on the Pinnacle Downloads Page (Savage Worlds Deluxe is a newer, slightly altered rule set from those the Test Drive was originally written for):
http://www.peginc.com/downloads.html
Note that I have let characters in my current campaign start at Veteran level, so if you are just joining that campaign, use the Advancement Rules in the Test Drive to bring your character up to Veteran.