The Blackest of Deaths

It's Grim & Dark
Beware, those adventurers faint of heart, those who are afraid to die...this game may not be for you.
I enjoy the grim and dark genre of fiction. If you play at my table you will inevitably be introduced to the darkness that lives in my mind. Born of a harsh reality-based world view, tempered with years spent in the psychology field where I witnessed countles stories of human misery, my mind easily goes to some darker places. I am not talking gross-out stuff like spilled guts and buzzing flies and piles of smelly puke. Just the grittier realities of existence imagined in a pre-modern reality where life is cheap and hygiene is poor and sanitation is virtually unknown. Bad teeth, bad breath, bad tempers and lawlessness. A world where most people do not fear divine retribution, justice or death. Life is known to be short, brutal and dirty, so why would anyone expect something different?
Why would anyone want to play in such a world? Hope! Hope for something better. Hope for found riches and the pleasures that money can buy. Hope for glory and fame. Hope for revenge and retribution. It doesn't take much imagination to envision something better than the status quo in a grim-dark setting.
The Blackest of Deaths is among the darkest fantasy role-playing games I have yet to encounter. The grim (and perilous) RPG field includes some stand-out games such as Zweihander, Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play and Shadow of the Demon Lord. In The Blackest of Deaths author Eric Bloat of Bloat Games creates a default milieu where your character's future is bleak. Death is foretold and the PC doesn't even gain levels. In Eric's own words:

The Blackest of Deaths refers to those sad adventurers who were critically wounded while adventuring in dungeons and other underground dwellings, left behind by their adventuring party, to slowly bleed out and die as the last of light from their torch burned dimmer and dimmer until all that’s left is the black and the death.

The Blackest of Deaths is the name Eric chose for his new fantasy game. Eric Bloat is not a new name in the small press, old school genre of role-playing games. His previous offerings include Dark Places & Demogorgons and Survive This!! Vigilante City. Mr. Bloat designs and publishes fun games. He seems to embody the very definition of passion driven, do-it-yourself game publishing. With The Blackest of Deaths Bloat Games has given me a game that fits perfectly with my personal hobby hope.
As I write this I am awaiting my print-on-demand copy and am referring to the digital reward copy from Mr. Bloat's The Blackest of Deaths Kickstarter. At 105 pages and lots of illustrations the book may seem a bit short at first, but Eric makes good use of the words he uses to express his idea for a fantasy RPG. Along with the title and a bit of colorful text, the illustrations and everything sets the tone of a grim and dark world.
The core system is a clever adaptation of rolling a d20 against a target number and adds a d6 for determining Benefit or Hindrance. Scores of 2-5 on the d6 are ignored. a score of 6 grants a Benefit and a score of 1 results in a Hindrance which can be combined with success or failure as determined by the outcome of the d20 roll. There are 6 possible outcomes of a roll, success, success with benefit, success with hindrance, failure, failure with benefit and failure with hindrance. It is up to the referee (with possible input from the player) to narrate the resulting outcome. (Some helpful guidance and suggestions are given in the GM section.)
Being inspired by the old school of play, The Blackest of Deaths is a fantasy "race and class" based RPG, but there are no vanilla characters represented. After determining scores for the familiar six attributes, the player chooses whether their character will be a dwarf, elf, goblin or human. The classes are Assassin, Barbarian, Monster Slayer, Necromancer, Ranger and, Street Rat. Each is a hardened veteran - there are no novices. Three classes Monster Slayer, Necromancer and Ranger are spell casters.
The Blackest of Deaths is a complete game including advice on running ...Deaths as intended, a monster bestiary and encounter table and the treasures you may win and random generation tables. A character sheet is included as a separate file.
The Blackest of Deaths is a game of clever mechanics and tone. As the author states in his introduction it comes from a position of old school principles and philosophies. The Blackest of Deaths is not a game designed to play over-powered heroes who frolic through every challenge. "No, in this game you are not the heroes, you’re greedy fools, adventuring into secret or forgotten places; dangerous places!" As Eric advises, "YOUR CHARACTERS WILL DIE!"