Demon Gate

The apocalyptic dark fantasy tabletop roleplaying game. Survive the brutal combat and the horrors of a doomed world. Can you become legendary heroes powerful enough to quest against the soul gates and change the fate of the realm? Find it here on DrivethruRPG!

The Setting

The tormented world of Koth has suffered through several catastrophic events that have all been foretold by the prophesy. That one day our plagued realm would become one with the Black Plane and our kingdoms would fall into perdition. You must be one of our heroes, even if your deeds have been black like Baal’s soul. You are one of the valiant, brave enough to walk our world and delve into the mysteries of the ancient ones that came before us. You are a survivor and one of the few who are left to battle the demons left behind by the Void Gods. It is foretold that great heroes will quest against the soul gates, to shatter the doors to the Spirit World and save our world from the clutches of thralldom. To save us all from the teeth in the darkness.

Game Mechanics

Arcanum Syndicate games primarily use the Chaos System and variants thereof for their game mechanics. The Chaos System is created by us at Arcanum Syndicate and it uses your basic set of polyhedral dice for gameplay. In combat, you will use your d20 as your primary attack and defend die. You will roll your d20 to hit just as you will try to match or beat your attacker’s result with a d20 when they attack you. For example; if your attacker rolls a 12 you must roll a 12 or higher to defend. In doing so, you often have additional dice to assist you in this endeavor, or have modifiers due to abilities, talents, and situational modifiers like cover.

To attack you gain action points, usually everyone starts with 2 action points. Any type of action or attack takes action points to do. Drawing a weapon is one action point, using a quick attack is 1 action point, using a heavy attack is 2 action points. Aiming is 1 action point and firing is another. You will gain modifiers at times due to your combat skill or specializations in the weapon you are using. When in melee or unarmed combat you have choices such as quick attack or heavy attack, also known as the Rage Attack. If you land a successful hit with a rage attack you deal x2 power damage..When using projectile weapons you may fire for 1 action or aim for 1 action. Aiming grants you an additional d4 to hit or sometimes a +2 to hit depending what setting you are playing. When using magic, each spell costs a certain amount of action points to use.

When defending you have a few options as well. You may attempt to dodge, or you may attempt to block if you have a shield or a melee weapon or something to block with. You must roll a d20 adding any modifiers due to your dexterity attribute, or any cover you may have, such as a shield or if you are hiding behind something. Tie goes to the defender, so you want to match or beat your attacker's roll. Sometimes you may even spend your actions on concentrating to defend and go into what is called a defensive stance, this grants you bonuses to your frontal attacks for the next round of combat. Don't forget though, there are literally hundreds of talents and abilities you may unlock that grant different types of bonuses, for each class, race, and character. You can end up being the same class as another player but have many different types of abilities due to the way you wish to shape your character, the game is highly customizeable.

Damage is rolled and determined by the type of weapon you use and it is given modifiers due to your attributes or the quality of the weapon. Armor, toughness, and fortitude are all used to soak different types of damage, so if you are hit your Total Armor Value will deduct a certain amount of damage from the result before taking from your hit points.

Your eight primary attributes are split by Physical Attributes, Mental Attributes, and Social Attributes. These are: Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Body (BOD), then Perception (PER), Intelligence (INT), Willpower (WILL), and finally Charisma (CHR) and Allure (ALR) or Physical Beauty (PB). Your character skills are tied to your attributes and all draw from the rating of your attribute. Thus, if you have a high dexterity all character skills that are tied to it will increase in level if it increases in rank. The skills and attributes use a separate system from the resisted rolls of combat. Although the attribute and skill rolls may still be resisted by enemy rolls, these go off a ladder system and not the d20. Each time you increase an attribute or skill your dice rank or level increases as well from d6, to d8, d10, d12, d8+d6, 2d8, d10+d8, 2d10, d12+d10, 2d12, d20+d6, etc. This continues to a very high level for it is possible to reach epic levels in the game. You are either given a target number to reach by the GM during a skill or attribute check due to the tasks difficulty or one will be created by an enemy roll.

In Demon Gate and Chaos you are given Soul Points which keep track of your spirit and how much you have left. Each time you die and come back you roll the Lazarus Die and take bits from your soul (let’s hope that is not too often). As well if you do happen to die permanently and travel to the Spirit worlds of Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven and keep playing the character Soul Points will become a part of your game as a type of currency that you may use. The more Soul Points you possess the more powerful you can become in the Spirit World. In life, if you were to modify a body part and lose an arm or replace it with cyberware this can take from your Soul Points.

Finally, you have what is called Spiritual Influence. This is kept track of on a percentile. The GM uses S.I. for times of dire importance or when a character wishes to pray to their gods or god. Even if a character does not believe they are still given a chance for the spirits of ancestors and such sometimes watch over one. Spiritualists characters begin the game with a higher percentile. This is a percent chance that is rolled by the GM to alter certain situations and often to save your life. You might call it luck or divine intervention if you like. The more you tithe and do things for the Spirit World the higher this will go. Points are awarded by the GM for actions in favor of your god. There are no alignments in this system, but there are what are called Paths. The Path of Light, Shadow, and Dark are loose explanations of the character’s personal belief systems or the paths they follow.

You are given rewards for your roleplaying and battle prowess by the GM in the form of Saga Points or Cool Points depending upon what setting you are playing. You are also granted Reputation Points. These are kept track of by the player cumulatively. Each time you are given them you tally them to your total. Total Cool Points and Saga Points will let you know how many points the character has achieved in all their travels and will grant you your next level. You also keep a separate list of these points so that you can spend them on your character and save some to activate certain abilities that are gained when you advance in level. Each character class is given specific class abilities that make them unique. You can gain abilities and talents to use that will allow you to pull off some cool moves during the game.

Your reputation points are awarded due to people learning who you are. With each new level of reputation whether it is good or bad rep (honor or corruption) you are granted bonus abilities and talents for increasing your Fame. This also allows you a greater chance at becoming a local hero or villain. In which case, you may be feared in one town, or idolized in another. There is a chance to be recognized that the GM may roll if you seek an audience with a city official, lord, or king. Those who are not known usually must get lesser paying jobs and quests, or just travel the realms on their own free will.

In Demon Gate Survival is a large part of the game settings and you must be wary of food, provisions, and water. There are tables for hunting, crafting things due to gaining units of supplies from what you kill or salvage. You may use these items you collect to trade, sell, or craft. Choosing the right skills during character creation is a good way to secure your survival. We have added a physical and mental condition monitor to your character sheet. This is a great mechanic to utilize for the build up of dread and is primarily used for survival. As your physical or mental condition starts to degrade, it will also begin to horribly affect your stats so you will want to keep fed, keep warm, and keep mentaly stable. Each nick on the condition monitor will erode your status so keep it in the green.

We do hope you enjoy our systems and our creations. Good luck traveler and good gaming in the world of Demon Gate. Oh and if you want the game Click Here!

a monster or demon coming from the forest

Elves, high elf, shadow elf, and dark elf

Character Sheets

The character sheets here are for download in PDF format. The new sheets on Roll20 are ready to go and can be found under the Chaos System... Demon Gate for those who wish to run the game using Roll20. For printer friendly and fillable PDF version click on the cover art for Demon Gate Character Sheets.