Cold War Signals

Some records were classified, then ignored. Others were copied too many times to know which version came first.

Cold War Signals is a system-agnostic tool for historical roleplaying. It treats the Cold War not as a resolved standoff, but as a pattern of systems, secrets, and suspicions that still echo. When a record resurfaces, the story doesn’t return to normal. It realigns. It remembers.

This book treats Cold War tension as an active story element. Use it in any setting shaped by surveillance, ideology, or incomplete truths. The focus is on mistrust, distortion, and stories told to keep other stories from being told.

This Book Contains

Each section serves a different purpose. Together, they offer a modular approach to storytelling that treats Cold War paranoia, policy, and fallout as present-tense forces with unfinished consequences.

Narrative Framing: A series of tools to help you explore what the Cold War demanded, what it protected, and what it erased. This framing treats propaganda, secrecy, and plausible deniability as narrative levers that still hold weight.

Scene Tools: Practical methods for showing Cold War influence in the present moment. These tools help you frame tension, behavior, and surveillance not as background, but as story-changing events. Use them to make mistrust visible.

Character Archetypes: Ten detailed examples of characters shaped by Cold War logic. Each one carries orders, scars, loyalties, or contradictions passed down through systems that never fully shut down. They can support player characters, unsettle alliances, or signal what still hides in plain sight.

Story Complications: A collection of narrative shifts that follow Cold War exposure. These moments don’t clarify. They ripple. They reveal how much was built on pretense and how far people will go to keep the performance going.

Worldbuilding Prompts: A set of questions designed to explore how societies internalize surveillance, betrayal, and control. These prompts help define who benefits when trust fails, and what happens when no one knows who’s still listening.

Adventure Hooks: Ten scenarios that begin when the script slips. Each one opens a file, misfires a failsafe, or triggers a routine no one admits authorizing. They don’t begin with truth. They begin with what someone still believes.

The Cold War ended on paper. The mechanisms never stopped.