Torg Eternity – Tharkold Sourcebook by John Watson and Darrell Hayhurst is a role playing game supplement published by Ulisses Spiele for use with Torg Eternity.
The supplement is available as a PDF from DriveThruRPG for $15.99. It is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed although it was purchased at a reduced price during a sale. The PDF has 146 pages, with two being the front and rear covers, one the front matter, one the table of contents and one is blank.
Welcome to Tharkold… is a piece of in-universe fiction about the death of Tharkold’s High Lord at the hands of Jezrael halfway through the first year of the invasion. This resulted in Tharkold being the only invading cosm currently lacking a High Lord. A sidebar gives a content warning; the cosm of the technodemons is not a nice one and safety tools are recommended.
One Year Later… explains that Tharkold has been a mess since Day One and the situation has only become worse. It covers the basics of the cosm, which is populated by technodemons, true monsters, and the Race, humans from another world who have been enslaved by them. Individuals are dominant or deferential; might makes right. It looks at life in Tharkold in the places ruled by the three current Dukes, one of whom is the Russian president, Vladimir Putin in all but name, the different regions, including the Blasted Lands, economy, religion and militaries, the current state of the war and Core Earth’s response, finishing with a timeline of major events in Year 1.
Character Options starts by looking at the races, which are covered in the normal way. Aspirants are technodemons who have arisen after the invasion of Core Earth. who have chosen a different path and allowed emotion to taint their evil, effectively no longer being evil. Other technodemons practically kill them on sight. The Race are the essentially human people of the Tharkoldu’s home realm, most of whom are thralls but some of whom are the Free. The Race and Tharkoldu will prefer to attack each other, with the Race attacking Aspirants on sight, but will put aside their differences for a common foe. Some are also affected by mutations. New Perks are covered, including some specific to the Race or Aspirants.
Magic looks at the demon magic of the Tharkoldu, though the demons have lost many spells due to something covered later, the Freedom magic of the Race and describes some new spells, some of which now require a Magic axiom higher than that of Tharkold.
Psionics looks at this, as Tharkold is one of the primary cosms where psionics work. It is divided into two types; the Way of the Race and the Psychic Research Institution of Russia. There are new psionic powers and lists of those that may be chosen for the Way and the Institute; these replace the Tharkold – Awakened list in the core rulebook and two of the powers replace those of the same name in that book.
Gear looks at the equipment that’s available. There’s a brief mention of magic items and how some work, though the technodemons have no interest in making them and their presence has diminished. Occultech, however, also requires magic to work as well as a high Tech axiom. There is some general gear, which includes ordinary and less than ordinary items, including CAD printers and armour, which includes some high-tech items, as do weapons, a range of Occultech gear in addition to that from the core book, which includes regular gear and implants, and a range of vehicles. Given the cosm’s nature, this has the highest technology items as well as many items of tech that also require magic.
The Game Master’s Section starts by looking at Tharkold Possibility energy and the colour and symbol that represents Possibilities specific to the cosm.
Warzones looks at the areas invaded by Tharkold. This is different to other cosms, given that the High Lord was killed early on and is currently unreplaced, meaning that the Tharkold reality is controlled by different Dukes. Moscow was the site of the first maelstrom bridge and the site of the nuclear bomb that destroyed it. The Wolflands are those parts of Russia, Poland and the Baltics controlled by President, now Duke, Volkov, though Siberia and the eastern parts of Russia are only nominally controlled by him and are being influenced by Pan-Pacifica. The Mayhem Bloc is nominally ruled by Jezrael but she has no real interest in rulership. The Blasted Land is that area that was contaminated by the destruction of the maelstrom bridge with a nuclear bomb. Finally, Kur isn’t a region but the Torment Grid, Tharkold’s online world that is extremely dangerous; rules for accessing the GodNet in the Cyberpapacy Sourcebook are referenced. Each area is covered, with details on places and groups of importance and different parts of the regions, and common threats that can be encountered in them.
The Invaders starts by looking at High Lord Kranod, the technodemon who allied with the Gaunt Man, and who is now dead. Despite which, his stats are still given. The relationships between Tharkold and the other cosms are given, and in this case it’s somewhat different to normal, because there is no High Lord, so it’s more how the other High Lord feel about the cosm or individual dukes than the High Lord, given there isn’t one. None of them are that fond of Tharkold but the Nile Empire and Pan-Pacifica have uses for the technodemons and the Gaunt Man for Thratchen. The Darkness Device, which currently lacks a High Lord and has a self-destructive streak, is covered, along with stelae and their defences. The three contenders for the position of High Lord, Jezrael, Thratchen and President Volkov, are covered with their stats, and finally the Tharkoldu themselves are covered, with their origin, the Pandasm, which made them rulers of Tharkold though nearly destroying it in the process, previous invasions, the Aspirants and the relationship of demons from Aysle and the Cyberpapacy to Tharkold; the idea of a realm where demons rule is appealing.
Reality starts by looking at the axioms of Tharkold. It explains that though on the surface it looks like a robust and powerful cosm, in truth it is crumbling and could topple within a generation. Social is the joint highest axiom, rather surprisingly, given the cosm is a horror show, and has led to a growth in psionics. Tech is equal to Social, but the technology was gained through war and is tilted towards war and domination. Magic used to be higher, but has fallen a lot and now is a problem; spells that used to work no longer do and Occultech itself depends on magic. Spirit is the lowest, as miracles weren’t as effective against the technodemons and the gods didn’t help.
This is followed by details on World Laws, which are how the axioms are realised. The Law of Domination divides everyone into those who have power and those who do not; those with more power dominate those with less. The Law of Ferocity has no game mechanic beyond Cosm cards, but it means everyone is willing to fight. The Law of Pain results in inflicting pain on others removing damage from the inflictor; inflicting pain literally feels good.
The minor laws are the Law of Conservation of Evil; evil cannot be destroyed, except under very specific circumstances, only turned into a new form, so there is always more and more evil which becomes embodied in new technodemons. Destroying a technodemon does not destroy their evil. The Law of Cynicism is pretty self-explanatory; the cosm is cynical. The Law of Haunts means that there is a literal pall over the cosm, though spirits cannot manifest.
The Delphi Council briefly explains that the Council is engaged with a game of brinkmanship with Volkov; neither side trusts each other but Volkov is, nominally, an ally. It then gives an overview of important NPCs in the Council related to Tharkold, including a Russian agent and an Aspirant. Following this are resources that the Council has access to in the cosm, which includes documents, safe-houses and transportation, though some of these require cooperation with Volkov. Next are the various ongoing operations related to Tharkold that the Council is running. Finally, there are some details on the Race, including the Free, some information on the rise of psionics that’s unknown and a couple of Race contacts as well as an enemy.
Adventures explains Tharkold can be a complicated cosm as it’s a mixture of several different elements that don’t fit together, though the realm is split into three main themes of play. Almost everything is covered by the theme of apocalypse, and scarcity, violence, abuse, redemption, tension and consequences are themes. A sidebar notes that the cosm covers sensitive topics and how to navigate them. The tone of the cosm is mean and needs to feel like that, which does mean that demons and darker content will need dealing with. Finally, there are rules on how to handle dominance challenges, dominance of the strong over the weak being a central part of the cosm.
Threats is the bestiary and starts with the common gospog, though currently there are no gospog of the fifth planting extant. There are various abominations, including some created in the Blasted Land, NPC enemies, less-powerful demons, including transformed ones from Aysle and the Cyberpapacy, environmental dangers, threats in Kur and details on various vehicles, both Russian and from Tharkold.
Eternity Shards covers these items, which are rich in Possibilities. They all have special powers, and this covers the ones associated with Tharkold and Russia.
Torg Eternity – Tharkold Sourcebook in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with the major sections and subsections linked. The table of contents is to a similar level of depth. Navigation could be a lot better. The text maintains a two-column format and some errors were noticed; it looks as if the blank page was supposed to be the index, for one thing. There are a variety of colour illustrations, up to about a half page in size. Presentation is decent.
As is the usual case with cosm sourcebooks, this is not a game in and of itself, being an expansion of the core rules, focused on one cosm, and the campaign setting for one of the invaders. Tharkold, the cosm, is a mess. It is heavily dependent on magic, but the Magic axiom is declining, lower than all of the invading cosms bar Pan-Pacifica and the Living Land, and barely above Core Earth’s. Unlike the other cosms, there is no single ruler, and it also covers a range of themes, although all have common themes of brutality to them. This is definitely one of the nastiest cosms, and it may be more than some players want to deal with, and removing some of the nastiness nullifies the point of the cosm to a large degree. It is brutal and nasty and is supposed to be brutal and nasty; that’s why there are so many content warnings in the book. Torg Eternity – Tharkold Sourcebook can be found by clicking here.
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