Sinjin
A downloadable tabletop RPG
down in the swamp, where nothing good grows . . .
A century ago, the Black Heron College performed an experiment into the nature of Death and caused a great disaster. The site of this catastrophe came to be known as The Saint John Forbidden Territory.
A hundred by hundred yawning miles of sawgrass, palmetto hammock, winding river, and overrun industry—all reclaimed by the Dead. In the territory, the land forgets itself, geography flexing and twisting like a straining muscle, the progression of days stuttering and jumping like a broken zoetrope.
You are a freelance exorcist, compelled or driven to enter the Territory. You wield the remnants of Death's instruments: arts and tools left over from Her now-unfinished work. It is your duty to carry on against the growing disaster. The depths spread, and the Dead stand against you.
Put them back in their graves.
Sinjin is a game about necromancers remediating a haunted exclusion zone in 19th century pastiche not-Florida. To play, you'll need a few people, pens and paper, and at least one set of polyhedral dice.
This game uses an adapted version of the 24XX system by Jason Tocci, which you can find here.
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Development log
- Sinjin is available!Nov 01, 2023
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First: For whatever reason, this game doesn't properly display on itchio searches. 'Sinjin' finds a user with that name, and only a user with that name.
So if you've found this page, good job.
Now, Sinjin is a horror exploration rpg set in industrial age undead florida. Think Sabrael + Annihilation. Or, to put it another way, Hunt: Showdown.
The PDF is 77 pages, with an ethereal but easy to read layout and a clean black and white aesthetic.
Sinjin's core rules are simple. Roll some low dice, succeed on at least one 5+. HP is GM fiat. Traits and equipment matter, but are also partly subject to GM interpretation.
Maps in Sinjin change, fluctuating with each scenario, and they also have a Depth subsystem that determines how spooky they are. If the overall setting gets to a certain Depth, the game ends and the world of the dead breaches into the land of the living.
There's an interesting necromancy subsystem, where you can take souls as skills (i.e. blacksmith, thief, etc,) and if the use of a soul goes wrong it deactivates until the end of the scenario. However, like everything else, how this works is at least partly GM fiat.
Progression is likewise simple and nuanced. After each job you complete for a a faction, you get a few coins, a unique artefact, and an opportunity to improve your dice.
Sinjin gives good advice to the GM, and it spells out important locations, items, and creatures, but it really wants the GM to run the game as more of a cooperative story with a few mechanical terms as guideposts, rather than use the mechanics as a foundation to build a story on top of. Depending on who you are as a GM, this might make it the perfect game or it might clash constantly with your style.
Even if it does clash, though, the writing is lovely. It's evocative and interesting and paints a very vivid picture of the game's setting without leaning too heavily on concrete details.
For folks who like refereeing, I think Sinjin is a prize. It feels to me almost like an adjudicated wargame, only focused on plot rather than combat result. So if that's you---or if you like osr, southern gothic, or Hunt in general---I'd strongly recommend checking this out. It's a great read, and I think it'll click really hard for some folks.
Eerie, novel and absolutely sublime - Sinjin blends an evocative necromancy system with a Zone expedition worthy of the greats like STALKER and Annihilation. It feels familiar enough to easily grasp as a GM, while doing plenty to blaze new trails and bring its unique setting to life ~ I really can't recommend this enough!