Everyday Arcana Mission Statement

Pretty much as soon as we announced Everyday Heroes as a spiritual successor to d20 Modern, people have been asking, “when are you doing Urban Arcana?” And we’ve been listening, and planning, and now the promised time approaches! We’re getting started on Everyday Arcana, our own urban fantasy ruleset. Here’s what you can expect, at least in broad terms.

We recently put out a call for contest entries for what will become our core setting for these rules and put the finalists to a public vote. We’ve got our finalist in Shadows Surrounding, a world where the secret of magic has recently been revealed.

This will be our default world, with examples throughout the text referencing it, adventures published for it, and a whole lot of lore supporting it. But there will also be plenty of advice, options, and examples for creating your own worlds! We want you to be able to play any sort of urban fantasy you like by picking and choosing the pieces you like, and deciding for yourself how they all fit together.

To this end, we’re planning to have hero options that allow you to be magical in a wide variety of ways, and that let GMs zero in on the types of magic they want to use in their own worlds. Magic can be learned, practiced, inherited, or accidentally acquired. Smart Heroes can use plans to retroactively prepare the perfect spell, Wise and Charming Heroes can cast spells through focus points and influence dice, and there will be plenty of spellcasters like we’re all familiar with from more traditional fantasy games.

But there’s also more to find here. You might also be an Agile Hero pyrokinetic that shoots bolts of fire and punches with flaming fists, a Strong Hero who’s strong due to telekinetic magic that can be extended at a range, or a Tough Hero that can turn their life force into magical effects like healing their allies. With these superpower-like classes, anyone can be magic!

And players will also be able to choose from a wide variety of fantasy species, from elves and goblins to vampires and werewolves. Enough to fill up your own world, whatever the genre.

For the GMs, there will be hordes of monsters to throw at your players, piles of magic items to reward them with, world building advice to help you craft your own setting, pre-written adventures to get started right away, and all manner of other tools, tips, and tricks for you to use.

I’m super excited to get started on this project. It’s been one I’ve been looking forward to since the start of Everyday Heroes myself, and seeing it start to solidify has been a delight. I hope you’re all ready for Everyday Arcana!

Sincerely,
Chris “Goober” Ramsley