Moloch Ex Machina
Moloch Ex Machina: Occult Dystopian Roleplaying is inspired by Aleksandr Kuprin's powerful story Moloch and reimagines its themes of sacrifice, ambition, and dehumanization in a near-future setting. The result is a grim, character-driven roleplaying experience that captures the haunting spirit of the original while exploring the oppressive realities of a corporate-dominated society.
This sourcebook plunges you into sprawling, decayed cities where towering monoliths house the elite, and those below endure lives defined by servitude and despair. At the center of it all looms the shadow of Moloch, a symbol of unrelenting greed and destruction. Its presence is felt everywhere, from the relentless churn of industry to the whispers of occult rituals performed in secret corners of power. In this world, every choice demands a price, every action shapes your story, and survival itself becomes an act of rebellion.
What makes Moloch Ex Machina stand apart isn’t merely its dark, dystopian setting, it's the way its design empowers players to take the narrative into their hands. This is a roleplaying game that thrives on collaboration, imagination, and the deep emotional investment of its participants. Every decision carries weight, every character has agency, and every session reveals new layers of moral complexity.
The rules are streamlined to prioritize storytelling, ensuring that mechanics never overshadow the emotional and thematic heart of the experience. Players can create characters molded by this oppressive world, choosing how they confront its challenges, or how they succumb to its temptations. From unraveling corporate conspiracies to confronting the cost of forbidden knowledge, every journey is shaped by the characters’ personal stakes and evolving goals.
Occult elements are woven throughout the setting, offering intrigue and danger in equal measure. Dark powers, rooted in the chilling symbolism of Moloch, tempt those who seek escape or influence. These forces are not easily controlled, and bargains with them come at devastating cost. The question is not whether you can wield such power but whether you can pay the price it demands, and live with the consequences.
Every page of the sourcebook is filled with evocative material to inspire gamemasters and players. Detailed descriptions of near-future corporate enclaves, crumbling industrial zones, and hidden pockets of resistance provide a vivid backdrop for your stories. Supporting characters are fully fleshed out, with their own motivations and flaws, creating layers of complexity in every interaction.
Whether you’re exploring themes of personal sacrifice, exploring occult mysteries, or confronting the crushing weight of systemic oppression, the setting challenges you to craft narratives that linger long after the game ends. It's about questioning what survival means when the cost is your humanity.
With inspiration drawn from Kuprin's masterpiece and updated to reflect near-future anxieties, Moloch Ex Machina: Occult Dystopian Roleplaying offers an experience that's as unsettling as it is compelling. Will you resist the forces that demand your sacrifice, or will you surrender to their power? The choice is yours, but in a world ruled by Moloch, nothing comes without consequence.
All literary roleplaying games published by Lightspress use The Simple Approach system and philosophy, and are completely compatible with one another, making all sorts of interesting crossovers possible.
Clarification
Some of you might remember Lightspress's earlier DoubleZero setting titled Moloch, which explored political corruption through the lens of espionage and occult conflict. While ambitious, it didn’t fully realize my vision and feels ill-suited to today's climate. Reintroducing it now wouldn’t do justice to the ideas at its core.
This new Moloch Ex Machina, inspired by and taking its name from Aleksandr Kuprin's 1896 story, serves as its spiritual successor. In reimagining its themes within a dystopian occult framework of a near-future America, this adaptation offers a more focused and nuanced exploration of power, exploitation, and human cost. It's the vision I always wanted the original Moloch to reflect.
Navigating This Book
Here's what you’ll discover in the pages of this book, expanded and elaborated to provide everything you need for an engaging roleplaying experience:
Overview: We begin with a detailed exploration of Aleksandr Kuprin's original story, its themes, and the historical context in which it was written. This section explains how the story's sharp critique of industrialization and its focus on sacrifice and ambition translate seamlessly into a roleplaying game. Whether you’re familiar with the story or encountering it for the first time, this overview provides the foundation for understanding why it serves as an exceptional inspiration for a near-future, occult-infused setting.
Characters: This section introduces the central figures from the original book, breaking down their motivations, personalities, and roles within the story. It also offers guidance for creating original characters that feel authentic to the setting, while accommodating diverse player preferences. The character creation system is included here in full, providing players with the tools to craft nuanced personas who can navigate the dystopian and occult themes at the heart of the setting.
Factions: Kuprin's story hints at power structures and organizations that shape its world, and this section expands on those ideas. You’ll find descriptions of factions explicitly mentioned in the original text, alongside new organizations crafted to deepen the setting's complexity. Suggestions are provided for integrating these factions into your sessions, along with ideas for inventing new ones that align with the tone and themes of the setting.
Setting: This chapter investigates the time period and environment Kuprin described, updating it to a near-future context. The oppressive industrial cityscapes, corporate enclaves, and forgotten corners of society are all complexly detailed, providing a vivid backdrop for storytelling. Suggestions for expanding beyond the source material are included, encouraging players and gamemasters to explore and personalize the setting further while keeping its spirit intact.
The System: Here, you’ll find the complete rules for The Simple Approach, the streamlined system that powers this roleplaying experience. Every mechanic has been carefully adapted for the unique needs of this setting, ensuring that roleplaying feels intuitive while supporting the story's themes of power, sacrifice, and moral complexity.
Beat Chart: To assist gamemasters in structuring their adventures, this section breaks the original story into its essential beats. These can be used as a template to recreate the story's narrative arc or remixed into something entirely new. Each beat is explained with flexibility in mind, offering ideas on how to adapt them to different characters and scenarios.
Prequels: This chapter provides inspiration for stories that precede the events of the story, exploring the world's history and the origins of key factions, characters, or events. These ideas allow players to dive into the setting's past and uncover the seeds of its dystopian present.
Side Stories: Parallel narratives add depth and dimension to the setting. Here, you’ll find suggestions for creating stories that run alongside the original story, focusing on characters or events that interact with but don’t directly influence the main story. These tales elevate the broader narrative and offer new perspectives on familiar elements.
Sequels: For those interested in pushing the timeline forward, this section presents ideas for sequels that explore what happens after the story's conclusion. These scenarios explore the long-term consequences of the characters’ choices and the ongoing struggles within the setting.
Crossovers: This chapter is dedicated to blending the setting with other literary works, imagining what might happen when characters, themes, or elements from different stories intersect. These crossovers open the door to fresh, unexpected narratives that challenge and inspire.
Reference: The final section is a wealth of practical resources. Here, you’ll find stock characters, creatures, and equipment ready to be used in your sessions, along with advice for converting this material into other roleplaying systems. Whether you’re looking for quick inspiration or ways to integrate this setting into your existing campaigns, this reference chapter has you covered.
302 pages. PDF and epub files included.
Moloch Ex Machina: Occult Dystopian Roleplaying is inspired by Aleksandr Kuprin's powerful story Moloch and reimagines its themes of sacrifice, ambition, and dehumanization in a near-future setting. The result is a grim, character-driven roleplaying experience that captures the haunting spirit of the original while exploring the oppressive realities of a corporate-dominated society.
This sourcebook plunges you into sprawling, decayed cities where towering monoliths house the elite, and those below endure lives defined by servitude and despair. At the center of it all looms the shadow of Moloch, a symbol of unrelenting greed and destruction. Its presence is felt everywhere, from the relentless churn of industry to the whispers of occult rituals performed in secret corners of power. In this world, every choice demands a price, every action shapes your story, and survival itself becomes an act of rebellion.
What makes Moloch Ex Machina stand apart isn’t merely its dark, dystopian setting, it's the way its design empowers players to take the narrative into their hands. This is a roleplaying game that thrives on collaboration, imagination, and the deep emotional investment of its participants. Every decision carries weight, every character has agency, and every session reveals new layers of moral complexity.
The rules are streamlined to prioritize storytelling, ensuring that mechanics never overshadow the emotional and thematic heart of the experience. Players can create characters molded by this oppressive world, choosing how they confront its challenges, or how they succumb to its temptations. From unraveling corporate conspiracies to confronting the cost of forbidden knowledge, every journey is shaped by the characters’ personal stakes and evolving goals.
Occult elements are woven throughout the setting, offering intrigue and danger in equal measure. Dark powers, rooted in the chilling symbolism of Moloch, tempt those who seek escape or influence. These forces are not easily controlled, and bargains with them come at devastating cost. The question is not whether you can wield such power but whether you can pay the price it demands, and live with the consequences.
Every page of the sourcebook is filled with evocative material to inspire gamemasters and players. Detailed descriptions of near-future corporate enclaves, crumbling industrial zones, and hidden pockets of resistance provide a vivid backdrop for your stories. Supporting characters are fully fleshed out, with their own motivations and flaws, creating layers of complexity in every interaction.
Whether you’re exploring themes of personal sacrifice, exploring occult mysteries, or confronting the crushing weight of systemic oppression, the setting challenges you to craft narratives that linger long after the game ends. It's about questioning what survival means when the cost is your humanity.
With inspiration drawn from Kuprin's masterpiece and updated to reflect near-future anxieties, Moloch Ex Machina: Occult Dystopian Roleplaying offers an experience that's as unsettling as it is compelling. Will you resist the forces that demand your sacrifice, or will you surrender to their power? The choice is yours, but in a world ruled by Moloch, nothing comes without consequence.
All literary roleplaying games published by Lightspress use The Simple Approach system and philosophy, and are completely compatible with one another, making all sorts of interesting crossovers possible.
Clarification
Some of you might remember Lightspress's earlier DoubleZero setting titled Moloch, which explored political corruption through the lens of espionage and occult conflict. While ambitious, it didn’t fully realize my vision and feels ill-suited to today's climate. Reintroducing it now wouldn’t do justice to the ideas at its core.
This new Moloch Ex Machina, inspired by and taking its name from Aleksandr Kuprin's 1896 story, serves as its spiritual successor. In reimagining its themes within a dystopian occult framework of a near-future America, this adaptation offers a more focused and nuanced exploration of power, exploitation, and human cost. It's the vision I always wanted the original Moloch to reflect.
Navigating This Book
Here's what you’ll discover in the pages of this book, expanded and elaborated to provide everything you need for an engaging roleplaying experience:
Overview: We begin with a detailed exploration of Aleksandr Kuprin's original story, its themes, and the historical context in which it was written. This section explains how the story's sharp critique of industrialization and its focus on sacrifice and ambition translate seamlessly into a roleplaying game. Whether you’re familiar with the story or encountering it for the first time, this overview provides the foundation for understanding why it serves as an exceptional inspiration for a near-future, occult-infused setting.
Characters: This section introduces the central figures from the original book, breaking down their motivations, personalities, and roles within the story. It also offers guidance for creating original characters that feel authentic to the setting, while accommodating diverse player preferences. The character creation system is included here in full, providing players with the tools to craft nuanced personas who can navigate the dystopian and occult themes at the heart of the setting.
Factions: Kuprin's story hints at power structures and organizations that shape its world, and this section expands on those ideas. You’ll find descriptions of factions explicitly mentioned in the original text, alongside new organizations crafted to deepen the setting's complexity. Suggestions are provided for integrating these factions into your sessions, along with ideas for inventing new ones that align with the tone and themes of the setting.
Setting: This chapter investigates the time period and environment Kuprin described, updating it to a near-future context. The oppressive industrial cityscapes, corporate enclaves, and forgotten corners of society are all complexly detailed, providing a vivid backdrop for storytelling. Suggestions for expanding beyond the source material are included, encouraging players and gamemasters to explore and personalize the setting further while keeping its spirit intact.
The System: Here, you’ll find the complete rules for The Simple Approach, the streamlined system that powers this roleplaying experience. Every mechanic has been carefully adapted for the unique needs of this setting, ensuring that roleplaying feels intuitive while supporting the story's themes of power, sacrifice, and moral complexity.
Beat Chart: To assist gamemasters in structuring their adventures, this section breaks the original story into its essential beats. These can be used as a template to recreate the story's narrative arc or remixed into something entirely new. Each beat is explained with flexibility in mind, offering ideas on how to adapt them to different characters and scenarios.
Prequels: This chapter provides inspiration for stories that precede the events of the story, exploring the world's history and the origins of key factions, characters, or events. These ideas allow players to dive into the setting's past and uncover the seeds of its dystopian present.
Side Stories: Parallel narratives add depth and dimension to the setting. Here, you’ll find suggestions for creating stories that run alongside the original story, focusing on characters or events that interact with but don’t directly influence the main story. These tales elevate the broader narrative and offer new perspectives on familiar elements.
Sequels: For those interested in pushing the timeline forward, this section presents ideas for sequels that explore what happens after the story's conclusion. These scenarios explore the long-term consequences of the characters’ choices and the ongoing struggles within the setting.
Crossovers: This chapter is dedicated to blending the setting with other literary works, imagining what might happen when characters, themes, or elements from different stories intersect. These crossovers open the door to fresh, unexpected narratives that challenge and inspire.
Reference: The final section is a wealth of practical resources. Here, you’ll find stock characters, creatures, and equipment ready to be used in your sessions, along with advice for converting this material into other roleplaying systems. Whether you’re looking for quick inspiration or ways to integrate this setting into your existing campaigns, this reference chapter has you covered.
302 pages. PDF and epub files included.
Moloch Ex Machina: Occult Dystopian Roleplaying is inspired by Aleksandr Kuprin's powerful story Moloch and reimagines its themes of sacrifice, ambition, and dehumanization in a near-future setting. The result is a grim, character-driven roleplaying experience that captures the haunting spirit of the original while exploring the oppressive realities of a corporate-dominated society.
This sourcebook plunges you into sprawling, decayed cities where towering monoliths house the elite, and those below endure lives defined by servitude and despair. At the center of it all looms the shadow of Moloch, a symbol of unrelenting greed and destruction. Its presence is felt everywhere, from the relentless churn of industry to the whispers of occult rituals performed in secret corners of power. In this world, every choice demands a price, every action shapes your story, and survival itself becomes an act of rebellion.
What makes Moloch Ex Machina stand apart isn’t merely its dark, dystopian setting, it's the way its design empowers players to take the narrative into their hands. This is a roleplaying game that thrives on collaboration, imagination, and the deep emotional investment of its participants. Every decision carries weight, every character has agency, and every session reveals new layers of moral complexity.
The rules are streamlined to prioritize storytelling, ensuring that mechanics never overshadow the emotional and thematic heart of the experience. Players can create characters molded by this oppressive world, choosing how they confront its challenges, or how they succumb to its temptations. From unraveling corporate conspiracies to confronting the cost of forbidden knowledge, every journey is shaped by the characters’ personal stakes and evolving goals.
Occult elements are woven throughout the setting, offering intrigue and danger in equal measure. Dark powers, rooted in the chilling symbolism of Moloch, tempt those who seek escape or influence. These forces are not easily controlled, and bargains with them come at devastating cost. The question is not whether you can wield such power but whether you can pay the price it demands, and live with the consequences.
Every page of the sourcebook is filled with evocative material to inspire gamemasters and players. Detailed descriptions of near-future corporate enclaves, crumbling industrial zones, and hidden pockets of resistance provide a vivid backdrop for your stories. Supporting characters are fully fleshed out, with their own motivations and flaws, creating layers of complexity in every interaction.
Whether you’re exploring themes of personal sacrifice, exploring occult mysteries, or confronting the crushing weight of systemic oppression, the setting challenges you to craft narratives that linger long after the game ends. It's about questioning what survival means when the cost is your humanity.
With inspiration drawn from Kuprin's masterpiece and updated to reflect near-future anxieties, Moloch Ex Machina: Occult Dystopian Roleplaying offers an experience that's as unsettling as it is compelling. Will you resist the forces that demand your sacrifice, or will you surrender to their power? The choice is yours, but in a world ruled by Moloch, nothing comes without consequence.
All literary roleplaying games published by Lightspress use The Simple Approach system and philosophy, and are completely compatible with one another, making all sorts of interesting crossovers possible.
Clarification
Some of you might remember Lightspress's earlier DoubleZero setting titled Moloch, which explored political corruption through the lens of espionage and occult conflict. While ambitious, it didn’t fully realize my vision and feels ill-suited to today's climate. Reintroducing it now wouldn’t do justice to the ideas at its core.
This new Moloch Ex Machina, inspired by and taking its name from Aleksandr Kuprin's 1896 story, serves as its spiritual successor. In reimagining its themes within a dystopian occult framework of a near-future America, this adaptation offers a more focused and nuanced exploration of power, exploitation, and human cost. It's the vision I always wanted the original Moloch to reflect.
Navigating This Book
Here's what you’ll discover in the pages of this book, expanded and elaborated to provide everything you need for an engaging roleplaying experience:
Overview: We begin with a detailed exploration of Aleksandr Kuprin's original story, its themes, and the historical context in which it was written. This section explains how the story's sharp critique of industrialization and its focus on sacrifice and ambition translate seamlessly into a roleplaying game. Whether you’re familiar with the story or encountering it for the first time, this overview provides the foundation for understanding why it serves as an exceptional inspiration for a near-future, occult-infused setting.
Characters: This section introduces the central figures from the original book, breaking down their motivations, personalities, and roles within the story. It also offers guidance for creating original characters that feel authentic to the setting, while accommodating diverse player preferences. The character creation system is included here in full, providing players with the tools to craft nuanced personas who can navigate the dystopian and occult themes at the heart of the setting.
Factions: Kuprin's story hints at power structures and organizations that shape its world, and this section expands on those ideas. You’ll find descriptions of factions explicitly mentioned in the original text, alongside new organizations crafted to deepen the setting's complexity. Suggestions are provided for integrating these factions into your sessions, along with ideas for inventing new ones that align with the tone and themes of the setting.
Setting: This chapter investigates the time period and environment Kuprin described, updating it to a near-future context. The oppressive industrial cityscapes, corporate enclaves, and forgotten corners of society are all complexly detailed, providing a vivid backdrop for storytelling. Suggestions for expanding beyond the source material are included, encouraging players and gamemasters to explore and personalize the setting further while keeping its spirit intact.
The System: Here, you’ll find the complete rules for The Simple Approach, the streamlined system that powers this roleplaying experience. Every mechanic has been carefully adapted for the unique needs of this setting, ensuring that roleplaying feels intuitive while supporting the story's themes of power, sacrifice, and moral complexity.
Beat Chart: To assist gamemasters in structuring their adventures, this section breaks the original story into its essential beats. These can be used as a template to recreate the story's narrative arc or remixed into something entirely new. Each beat is explained with flexibility in mind, offering ideas on how to adapt them to different characters and scenarios.
Prequels: This chapter provides inspiration for stories that precede the events of the story, exploring the world's history and the origins of key factions, characters, or events. These ideas allow players to dive into the setting's past and uncover the seeds of its dystopian present.
Side Stories: Parallel narratives add depth and dimension to the setting. Here, you’ll find suggestions for creating stories that run alongside the original story, focusing on characters or events that interact with but don’t directly influence the main story. These tales elevate the broader narrative and offer new perspectives on familiar elements.
Sequels: For those interested in pushing the timeline forward, this section presents ideas for sequels that explore what happens after the story's conclusion. These scenarios explore the long-term consequences of the characters’ choices and the ongoing struggles within the setting.
Crossovers: This chapter is dedicated to blending the setting with other literary works, imagining what might happen when characters, themes, or elements from different stories intersect. These crossovers open the door to fresh, unexpected narratives that challenge and inspire.
Reference: The final section is a wealth of practical resources. Here, you’ll find stock characters, creatures, and equipment ready to be used in your sessions, along with advice for converting this material into other roleplaying systems. Whether you’re looking for quick inspiration or ways to integrate this setting into your existing campaigns, this reference chapter has you covered.
302 pages. PDF and epub files included.