wm HORIZON Sec am NEW ROLEPLAYING FRONTIERS vi Ai : eee Naat fig ‘ eI 5 y ober - he F (joa esetIntroduction 2 (Chapter 1: Character Archetypes 4 ‘The Bully 5 ‘The Dreamer 7 ‘The Jock 9 The Nerd 10 ‘The Normal Kid ‘The Outcast 4 ‘The Popular Kid 15 ‘Chapter 2: Skills and Feats 10 Skills 18 Feats 23 Origin Feats 2B New Feats 2 ‘Chapter 3: Facing the Darkness 28 Starting Equipment 28 Focuses 28 Horizon Welcome to Hoxizow. You ure holding the second in a nw line of self-contained RPGs for the 420 System, pub lished by Fantasy Flight Games. Our goal for the Hoxizow line i to explore the farthest possible reaches for new set- tings, themes, and mechanics, and we want to take you with us. Just as importantly, every Hoaizox game will remain completely compatible with the 420 rules you already know, so you can pick up the book and start play- ing immediately, Hoaizos can play as many roles in your gaming life as you want ito. For some it wll be an occasional break from the regular game. For others it will be the foundation for now campaign setting, Some may add other gaming ele- ‘ments to the rules we present here, others will pick their favorite rules from HORIZON games and use them to aug ment other games. Whatever you do with this new line, we hope you'll enjoy pushing roleplaying to the edge as much as we have, And now: Grim. Infrodaction Our project is almost finished. The length and breadth of Germania have been scoured by Jacob and I, and I believe the land to have been raped of allt ean give us. We are rapists, I am certain. The creatures and folk behave exactly as that vile book said they would. I pity them, and hhope their souls find sanctity in their new world, as it was not granted to them in ours. Or should I pity myself instead? We brothers do this under duress, Ihave always claimed. But tere i a reward And we could have said no, all those years ago, despite the tomprations she offered and the promises she gave. But we did not. Mere humans, we, unlike the tales we have bound. Those are immortal. And immorial, I would guess, must be their hatred of us, —Withelm Grimm, the eleventh day of October in the Year of our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Seventeen. ‘Weapons and Armor 29 AC Bonuses 32 Really Special Equipment 32 Imagination 3 Ineantations| 36 Combat 38 Despair 30 Chapter 4: Oh Brave New World 40 Lay of the Land 40 Laws of the Land 2 Encounters 4 Places of Note 4 Humans 48 Animals 54 Fantastic Creatures 53, Appendix: Telling Tales ol Grimm is a roleplaying game of imagination, dreams, and nightmares. Players take up the roles of ehildren, drawn from our world to a place strangely familiar but thoroughly terrifying. In the Grimm Lands, a rotting, patehed-together Humpty Dumpty rules from a broken Wall; the Great and Awful Forest moves af its own volition; the Dragon amuses himself with the eapering skins of those who sought to escape from the Grimm Lands and failed. It is a place where the Devil is a constant nuisance and the Seven Dwarves want more than simple housecleat Grimm is a 420 game of twisted fairytales, where children face horrific comruptions of the cherished stories that once ‘amused and excited them, and the monsters are eager 10 find out what little boys and girls are really made of Everyone knows thatthe Brothers Grimm scoured their native land for folk stories and compiled them in a book called Kinder-und Hausmarchen (Children and Houselold Tales), which the world eventually came to know as Grimms Fairy Tales. What few know is that their search served another purpose. The characters of the tales and the ‘monsters of legend were real. Some believed that the devil himself ereated these monsters to plague humanity. Others hneld that the monsters arose from the minds of the people of Europe as personifications of humanity's darkest fears. ‘The exact nature of the monsters is lost to time, but it is known that the Brothers Grimm undertook an obsessive quest to locate and record theit times’ strange people, places, and events Why exactly they chose to do so, and how they did so, Js unknown, There are occasional references in their jour nals to a creature named Melusine. She is deseribed as a Woman, yet seemed more and less than a mortal, She alter- nately threatened, cajoled, seduced, and begged the broth- ers to complete their cataloging, hounding their heels to the last story and rhyme. The brothers do not admit to the reward offered by this dark temptess, nor do they even fully explain what she demanded of them They hint only that, whatever thei actions, they were not pure of heart ‘The results of their efforts are not known to the general populace. To those who have entered the Grimm Lands, however, and found their way out, i is all too obvious In cataloging these stories for Mchisine’s amusement, they formed a world apart, Those whose stories were mystical-A SF Cneckerboarg TS eredoms ly captured were damned to populate this other place, the Grimm Lands, for etemity. The Grimm brothers are fong. since dead and dust, and Melusine may or may not have shuffled off a mortal coil. Regardless, their legacy lives on. fall peopl, its only children who see the doors to the Grimm Lands, and of them, only the most imaginative can make their way through. Oftentimes, a child slips through by accident, the Lands themselves groping hungrily for new victims. When a much-coveted morsel of humanity slips into the Grimm Lands, all ofits ereatures compete for the child’s attention, How the denizens of the Grimm, Lands deal with the children varies. Some enjoy the chil dren, exulting in their laughter and joy. Most, however, have far darker desires, They may erave the succulent flesh of a plump child to feed their inhuman desires. Or perhaps: they simply enjoy dealing out sugary spoonfuls of horific pain, reveling inthe shrieks of the frightened and desperate captive. The children unlucky enough to find themselves in the Grimm Lands are sure to find that they have a very deally and treacherous path to tread if they ever hope to leave it sane, much less alive. These are their stories and there might not be & happy ending.