The central tenets of Devilry Afoot and the activation mechanic

Devilry Afoot is almost complete, with just some supporting photography to be completed before publication - scheduled for the end August 2024. Ahead of release, I will be sharing a few snippets from the rules to help players prepare for what's to come.

Devilry Afoot is intended to be played as a pseudo co-operative game, pitching a small number of brave monster hunters against the forces of the Devil. Players control parties of two to six fully fleshed out characters each with their own strengths and weaknesses, sometimes supported by sundry followers, against monsters whose actions are randomly automated by the game mechanics. Games should be fun, but challenging. Of course, written as a co-operative game, Devilry Afoot also lends itself to solo play. 

By default, games of Devilry Afoot are assumed to take place during the Devil’s hour or witching hour. Exactly when that is varies from place to place. Some say it is the hour from 3am-4am, 12 hours after the presumed death of Jesus of Nazareth. Others situate the Devil’s hour to an hour either side of 3am, or perhaps the hour after midnight. Regardless, it is a time of darkness when all goodly and god-fearing souls should be asleep.

Several central tenets colour the rules:

• Despite the moonlight, vision and line of sight is hampered by the darkness.
• Shadows should be dangerous places.
• Generally speaking, the monsters know where the humans are, even when they can’t directly see them.
• Monsters are not always rational, and irrational creatures can make irrational actions.
• If god-fearing souls are asleep in their beds, what past traumas and dark secrets drive the hunters into the dark places to face the Devil’s minions? Heroes they might be, but flawed they certainly are.
• Players are encouraged to be proactive in building a narrative around their activations and the monsters’ actions and responses. It is more fun if the barghest fled because of the shot fired at it, rather than because the dice rolled a 1.
• Lastly, it is hoped that players will take a collegiate approach to their games. The rules are intended to belong to its players. If something doesn’t fit your narrative and all players agree, feel free to tweak what you need to make a compelling storyline.

The activation mechanic

A game, or hunt, in Devilry Afoot takes place over a number of turns. During each turn, all models on the table will have the opportunity to be activated one or more times. Th order in which models are activated is determined randomly by drawing initiative tokens from a bag.

At the start of each turn, one token per character is placed in the bag. Character tokens should all be the same colour, so if there are four characters, there will be four tokens of the same colour placed in the bag. A single token of a separate colour is added to the bag if any innocents are present on the table. Each monster profile in the rules shows how many activation tokens should be added to the bag for that type of monster. A coven of witches will have two activation tokens, but a werewolf will get four. Each monster type gets a different colour of activation token.

Over the course of a game turn, tokens are drawn randomly from the bag. The colour of the token will indicate which type of model may activate.

Each character may only be activated once per turn, in an order determined by the players. However, when they activate, they roll 2d10 against their Resolve value (modified by various factors such as proximity to a light source, number of wounds suffered, whether monsters are already in base contact etc). They may carry out up to two actions - or one, or none - depending on their rolls.

Each time an innocent or monster activation token is drawn, all models of that type (i.e., all witches, or all ghouls) carry out one action determined by a d10 roll on a table. While each monster token only allows for a single action to be carried out by each creature, all monsters will have multiple tokens in the bag and will thus carry out multiple actions at different stages over the course of a turn. The unpredictability of the monsters is ensured through both the random activation sequence, and the d10 roll to determine their action.

So get your activation tokens ready. You'll not need many - 20 (five each of four different colours) should see you right. We use coloured meeples, but you could equally use coloured dice, playing cards, or tiny scrunched up pieces of coloured paper; anything so long as activation order can be randomised.