Empire of Satanis

By Darrick Dishaw
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Paperback, 63 pages
* * * - .
 (8 Ratings)
Empire of Satanis
Price:$7.08
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A role-playing game with the potential for the characters to become horrible and unspeakable Gods, using their weird forms of black magic to enter the human universe and change it forever! This is a Lovecraft inspired RPG where the players have a lot of control over the story and their characters. Contains a Color Sphere of Influence system that determines a character's personality, style, and spell domain. More than a dozen alien, demonic races - unique in the scifi/fantasy/horror genre. Innovative and dynamic mechanics for motivating characters to do evil and dark acts... also a new system called Story Alteration where players can directly influence the adventure's path.
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Apr. 15, 2009 By Justin Margulski
"Re: Worst RPG of All Time? Download and find out!"
Could you please post a link of someone other than you who is calling this the worst game of all time. Based on your review I read it expecting it to be utter tripe, that I could read it with a good bottle of rum and mock it mercilessly, but when I read it, I found it to be staggeringly average.

The resolution system is not similar to World of Darkness. It is exactly the resolution system used in Shadowrun with all the fiddly bits and annoying minutia stripped out. And this makes it average, not as slow and bogged down as D&D or Shadorun, but not as slick and narratively inspiring as PDQ or Cold City.
... More > />The setting does kind of promise you that you will be playing depraved sinful things vying to become Cthulhu style gods, but then you actually get into it, it's actually a cheesy low-budget horror version of Houses of the Blooded. And that makes it average, probably something new in 2005 when it was published, but now bypassed by more recent and advanced games.

Because the races and places lacked artwork I didn't find any of them really compelling, but the guy is a painter so maybe that can be fixed.

The thing about switching up who could be GM was a bit slick. It allows the last player to succeed at a Story Alteration roll to assume the GM position. This allows everyone to have a character and allows the group to switch up which character is the patron and driving force of the adventure and which characters are the one's mainly fighting and solving problems. A lot of games could benefit from a mechanic like this. If you were playing a superspy game and one player succeeded at an agency manipulation roll it would make sense for some change to happen behind the scenes, switch GMs and send the characters in a new direction.

And the game merits some hilarious absurdity points for having a skill called Candy-Land Magic, and a stat called Hideous Paradise. Hideous Paradise is such a catchy name for anything that when I read it I sighed a little that the whole game wasn't called Hideous Paradise.

Speaking of skills and stats, character creation is ultra fast. You get 36 points to spread around, many of which you will be spending in groups of 2 since attributes and all the more desirable skills cost 2 per level. Character creation happens so quickly and easily that if you were sitting around with your friends and they wanted to play Houses of the Blooded but they were all too drunk and in too much of a bad mood to make HOTB characters with all their attendants and rivals and family members and other NPCs then this would be a great game to pull out, because it allows all the amazing magic, viscous maneuvering and underhanded conflict of HOTB, but is much simpler.

Ultimately this book was average, which by definition made it better than half the role playing games I've ever seen. But also not quite as good as the other half. < Less
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Mar. 29, 2007 By Samuel Friedman
"Hail Satanis and Welcome a New Age of Dark Roleplaying"
It is the natural evolution of most RPG gamers to rise from simplistic dice-heavy rules-laden games to games that require thought, imagination, and the ability to actually play a role. Satanis is one of the latter, using its flexibility and simply elegant rules to foster character developement and great interation.

Starting from humble beginnings as a dream of darkness, the game developed into an entire world in which one must ask the question "What are good and bad? And if being bad feels so good, who would dare try to stop me!?"

Some say that evil is necessary to define good, and thereby try to turn that evil into... More > some sort of noble rogue. Unlike these attempts to lead fairly "light" games down darker paths which inevitably end up with domesticated demons descended from divine dissidents, Satanis embraces the philosophy that evil defines itself.

After all, once you've taken on the role of an other-worldy demonic beast, "good" becomes a disease that must be erased from the universe. And who better suited to the task than You?

Perhaps one of the most entertaining points of Satanis is the motivation: power, horror, control, fear ! It is Your goal to undermine your opponents, establish cults and gain followers who will bow to your will, instill fear in non-believers, eradicate your enemies.

Simple mechanics are truly the driving force by which all these other points become clear. The one draw-back to the simple rules comes in some situations dealing with quanitfying the results of certain actions (just how much damage does a puddle of acid do?) However, this allows the Game Master to add His own flair in describing the result without divulging exact damage numbers. "the foul shambling zombie's left leg melts off in a bubbling puddle, but he's still lumbering towards you." Since players and GM need not worry about cumbersome rules, they have the opportunity to make their character and narrative ability shine.


A great game for slightly more experienced players, as well as for players looking for a quick-to-pick-up game with one of the most unique twists out there!


'Alam Asfar < Less
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Feb. 23, 2007 By Bob Johnson
"Worst RPG of All Time? Download and find out!"
By all means, experience this, the rpg that many are calling the worst of all time (and in an industry that includes FATAL and World of Synnabar, that's quite an achievement). The game system consists of a dice pool system not dissimilar from that found in White Wolf's Storyteller rpg (but with D6 instead of D10 -- ho hum), married to a hilariously inept writing style and a design that claims to be inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft, but which actually reveals that the author doesn't know the first thing about HPL's work or the real meaning behind his stories. Empire of Satanis reads much like the power fantasies of a death-metal... More > worshipping high school freshman who's been beaten up by the wrestling team one too many times. In many ways, it is actually a work of genius, and while reading it I began to wonder whether it wasn't all one big prank on the gaming community, much like the recent fake game "Encounter Critical." When you read it, ask yourself -- can anyone create such an inept, ludicrous and downright hilarious game on purpose? If it is indeed a joke, then its author deserves kudos for excellent work and the sheer chutzpah needed to so ably skewer the black-metal satanist crowd. If Empire of Satanis is truly a real work, intended to be taken seriously, it is even funnier still, though this marks its unfortunate creator as a truly pathetic individual. Regardless, check this game out -- it's easily worth the price! < Less
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Product Details

Copyright by Lulu, Inc. (Standard Copyright License)
Edition First
Published March 1, 2011
Language English
Pages 63
 
Binding Perfect-bound Paperback
Interior Ink Black & white
Dimensions (inches) 8.5 wide × 11.0 tall

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