I’m a sucker for weaponizing anything that isn’t already a weapon. Afterlife weaponizes ghosts!
The adventure opens with content warnings and safety tools, always appreciated. (Bonus points for explaining the Lines and Veils process.)
Before we get to the adventure, a couple nice surprises: There are three new supernatural Traits: Phase, Invisible, and Possessed, which allows you to temporarily surrender control in a sort of Devil’s Bargain. (Roll a d6 to determine who you attack!) The new Roles are even better, but I’m admittedly a sucker for them and always want more. Spirit Hunter, Haunted, and Returned all make for fine character concepts. It’s almost a built in group concept right there.
Afterlife takes place on a CYCLOPS sea platform off the coast of Norway. FIST ops are sent in to investigate, and quickly run across resistance. The scenario itself feels almost like a dungeon crawl sans map, complete with random encounter tables.
If I had one request it’d be for a bit more roleplaying opportunities. This is obviously an action horror scenario, but a quick mention of interrogating scientists makes me wish for one or two colorful mad science types, perhaps named characters with conflicting agendas. I did notice one typo – “determine the sites purpose” – but otherwise the text seems solid.
The adventure has a nice, clean design, very easy to read, with a large font and single offset column of text. It almost reminds me of an old videogame manual, so instant nostalgia points right there.
Afterlife reads like a cross between the opening of The Expendables (2010) and Ghost Ship (2002). If you’re looking for a lot of action and a creepy, sterile atmosphere crackling with the supernatural, you came to the right place.