Moralinth: Dark Passengers

There are a few different themes and features that gives the Moralinth RPG its unique feel: from the combined insanity and corruption the players face, an industrialised world re-awakening to magic, to the Victoriana/Gothic-Horror fantastical game world itself and the presence of the all-consuming Blight, these elements all come together to make Moralinth.

Another unique part of the game are Dark Passengers.

What are Dark Passengers, exactly?

To quote the core rulebook directly...

What a Dark Passenger is tends to be open to interpretation. Some see it as a manifestation of The Dark through the soul of someone with The Spark. Others see it as a figment of madness or ones' own conscience projecting into the world. Regardless, each Dark Passenger is unique, and each can only be seen, heard, sensed or detected by their host (the PC or any other Dark-Touched individual). Other PCs and NPCs (whether they have The Spark or not) cannot perceive any Dark Passengers other than their own, and Dark Passengers cannot perceive each other.

As previously mentioned each Dark Passenger is unique and each may look, converse, act and behave differently from one another even if they share similar personality traits.

A Dark Passenger is an extra extension of the player character (or PC), that is almost like a secondary character with its own drives, motivations, needs and agenda. As mentioned above, characters in Moralinth need to be able to fend off insanity and corruption at every turn, and the underlying energies of the world are, themselves, a corrupting force. Within each player character lies a dormant Dark Passenger, and some players can go the entire length of the character's life without ever awakening it. For most though, a push too far or exposure to otherworldly influences can awaken the character's Dark Passenger and from that point onward, they never truly leave.

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What having a Dark Passenger means

A Dark Passenger is like a personal, localised haunting; a being that can help or hinder but only through suggestion, insight and manipulation. They are incorporeal and cannot affect the world in any meaningful manner, nor can they be affected by external sources, except for mental cohesion by their host. Anyone who has had any contact with The Dark (including all PC's) have the potential to manifest a Dark Passenger.

Many Dark Passengers are linked to their host via a psychic link and often appear as people they once knew (especially dead acquaintances) but are warped in some way. Though a Dark Passenger cannot be perceived by anyone other than their host, their appearance never changes once they first awaken and manifest.

Dark Passengers come and go as they please (they are controlled by the Narrator as an NPC) and may help or hinder the player character as they see fit. Though they can be a useful source of information and will not actively seek to destroy their hosts' body, this does not mean they will not manipulate or coerce them into doing what they feel is best. The Dark Passenger cares nothing for the player's mental state, in fact should a character become irredeemably insane the Dark Passenger takes over, which is obviously to the Passenger's benefit. The host - regardless of how corrupt they might become - are aware that the Dark Passenger is inherently evil. More than one well-meaning Dark-Touched has been driven insane by their Dark Passenger.

Dark Passengers become more powerful just as a PC does, increasing in ability as a PC does so. Though they are unable to affect the world directly – no matter how far they advance – a Dark Passenger becomes more potent in other ways, the longer it is with a host, gaining new powers that it can share with the host.

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How a Dark Passenger affects the game and their Host

Image by Elti Meshau

Though the most common way a Dark Passenger effects a PC is through the narrative and their social interaction with the host, while manifested the Dark Passenger grants their Host “boons” which are beneficial to the PC and encourage them to keep the Dark Passenger around.

These are in addition to being able to assist with any observations and suggestions the Dark Passenger might make, but the boons should always be used with caution as the agenda of a Dark Passenger is often long-term, vicious and complex.

Basic Dark Passenger Rules:

Though the specifics of how they work varies from Moralinth: Cypher Edition and Moralinth: 5e, the fundamental basics for both are the same:

- Manifestation / Repression:

Once a Dark Passenger has awoken in a host, they can be forcefully manifested or repressed as a single action. If the Dark Passenger resists, the PC must succeed a check to force them to to do so. When Manifested any Dark Boons the passenger offers are active. When repressed, the character has no access to these Boons.

- Manifestation Localisation:

When manifested, a Dark Passenger cannot stray more than short range from the host, who act as their anchor to this dimension.

- Geas of Lonely Silence:

When a Dark Passenger awakens the host finds that no matter how hard they try, they cannot tell others about them. Something stops them from doing so and is different for each person. Some find they stutter uncontrollably, others find they lose their voice and some find they tell people, but the people they tell don't seem to listen or immediately forget. Regardless, PC's with Dark Passengers soon learn to not bother trying to tell others about their “guest”, and the Dark Passenger themselves reinforce this by constantly reminding the host others won't believe them or think them mad to even suggest it. Even through mind-control, a character cannot speak about their Dark Passenger to others. Players are encouraged to come up with how this specifically affects their characters.

- Terror and Beauty:

When a Dark Passenger awakens and first manifests, they take on an extreme visage: either hauntingly beautiful or monstrously grotesque. No Dark Passenger has a visage that is “normal” or easily forgettable, and this image always shakes the host at first (though this causes no mechanical difference in-game.)

To ascertain how a Dark Passenger looks, the Narrator / DM can choose what they feel appropriate or allow the effected player to roll randomly to determine how the Dark Passenger looks. The Passenger can have any form from humanoid to bestial or otherworldly and be horrific, alien or alluring, but regardless of how they look the character (and player) are aware they are completely supernatural. Examples might include:

Your Dark Passenger takes the form of a person who has suffered injuries that have left them crippled and broken, such as a broken limb, neck or back. The Passenger constantly drips blood from various parts of its body. Regardless of whether it is from wounds, seeping from orifices or weeping tears of blood, the dripping is constant, and you are used to the sound of the blood splashing on cobblestones. The blood like the Dark Passenger itself, seems to be invisible to everyone else. Smelling constantly of rotting, decaying meat, the Dark Passenger's sickly-sweet scent seems to only be smelt by yourself and tends to arrive before they do. Having a companion that smells of death coming and going is something that you never truly become used to.

or

Your Dark Passenger exists only in two dimensions, appearing on and moving across flat surfaces such as floors, walls and ceilings, furniture, windows and the like. They animate as if in freeze-frame, moments caught between paintings.

The voice of your Dark Passenger – a voice only you can hear – is pleasant, with a soothing melodic tone to it that reminds you of safer, better times. The Dark Passenger represents the classical definition of beauty, looking as if they have stepped from an expertly captured oil painting. Their movements seem slightly blurred to the eye, and the closer you get to them the more you can see tiny dotted details as if they were actually made of canvas and paint.

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So there is a quick and summarised version of what players can expect from Dark Passengers in-game, though obviously the Core Rulebook goes into considerably more detail. Hopefully it'll give people some ideas ahead of the games' release as to possible ideas for Dark Passengers - one of the many unique features of Moralinth.

Happy Gaming!

- Adam