Darkest Hour: A Horror Tabletop Game

Here, a night like any other. 

Rays of sunlight slowly recede over the wilds, the cabin, the steeple, the mausoleum. A gathering of friends, allies, comrades, hunters, united in their cause. They may not yet realize the danger they are in, but a cruel eye turns upon them. Something cursed awakens, stirring to life with the fall of dusk. A hunger claws free from the pitch black.

In the darkest hours of night, hearts tighten as untold horrors bear down. Fangs, claws, the glint of rusted steel and the scrape of bone. Howls and screams resound in the darkness, creeping ever closer.

Will you live to see the light of day?

x x x

Darkest Hour is a horror tabletop game designed for one-shot horror sessions. It can be played as a GMless game or with a GM, and can accommodate 2 to 5 players (with or without a GM) for one to two play sessions totaling 2 to 5 hours. It can be played with as little as the book and three six-sided dice.

Darkest Hour comes ready to play with six haunts:

• The Devil
• The Wolf
• The Ghost
• The Infected
• The Nightmare
• The Killer

Six locations to be haunted:

• The Cabin
• The Cemetery
• The Sanctuary
• The Forest
• The House
• The Hotel

and six hunters:

• The Sleuth
• The Disgraced
• The Faithful
• The Theorist
• The Resident
• The Skeptic

Hunters are embodied by the players over the course of six rounds, the hours: from peaceful and pleasant Gathering before the sun has set, to when the haunt is at its most powerful and the hunter's circumstances are at their most dire: The Blackest Night. Hunters must work together to determine the nature of the haunt, discover its true weakness, and strike decisively to end the haunt at the source before the night is through. Will the hunters banish the evil or fall to the haunt's power, leaving only a Final Girl to fend off the horrors of the night?

x x x

The concept for Darkest Hour originated from an open design concept pitched in a thread by game designer Avery Alder on her (now suspended) twitter, @lackingceremony. It was designed by Emmeryn @GamemakerM and is inspired by horror films of all kinds, and seeks to invoke the same sense of mounting tension and fear as your favorite horror movie.

 Avery Alder's original design concept:

“The party is contending with a haunted house, possessed person, or other spooky phenomenon. Each character has their unique lens through which to understand the phenomenon: psychic, priest, skeptic scientist, detective, resident, and such.

The story starts before the sun sets.

Characters are defined not by a shared set of stats, but by their unique talents. Every talent is tied to the hours.

When the sun is up, talents tied to skepticism, logic, and fact-finding are strongest.

At darkest midnight, they are useless.

As the game proceeds through sunset, dusk, evening, pitch black night, and a return to daybreak, the talents that can help contend with the paranormal phenomenon shift. Everyone feels their hours of weakness and their hours of strength.

The hours dictate what is possible.

It's a mechanic that creates shifting teamwork dynamics and a rotating spotlight, which is always exciting. I think it would work well in a system that cared about linked or cumulative successes.

You're welcome to design this game! After a dozen years, I've realized I won't.”

x x x

Darkest Hour is released under the Creative Commons License Agreement 4.0 and features art by Strega Wolf van den Berg, used under the Creative Comrades license.