Imperium Maledictum is a skill-based d100 roleplaying game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. I purchased the PDF from Drivethrurpg and enjoyed it so thoroughly that I special ordered the hardcover (I even had to import it from the UK). This is my review of the book and the game system.
Cutting to the chase: This is an amazing RPG system, and I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone looking for a scifi Call of Cthulhu. You don't have to be a fan of Warhammer 40,000 for this to work well. It's a solid game system that leans heavily into the investigation of forbidden knowledge in a science fantasy setting. If you happen to be a Warhammer 40,000 fan, then this book has great new content, including a whole new sector of space for you to explore.
In a previous article, I complained that in D&D rules, a difficulty class (DC) must be set. Usually it's either the author of a published adventure, or the Game Master. Of course, the story of even a published adventure is extremely flexible, so usually a Game Master ends up setting a DC for everything the author of the adventure couldn't foresee. Once a DC is set, a player rolls dice and adds bonus numbers in an attempt to reach that number.
The trouble is, there's no way to know what that target number ought to be. There's usually a table in the rulebook that attempts to describe how you might settle on a number. It's usually 5 is easy, 10 requires effort, 15 requires specialized skill, and 20 is highly improbable. Sometimes there are some trite examples, almost suggesting you can equate a player character shooting an arrow through a window to a player character attempting to balance a live ætherwing on the back of a trill plant in hopes of triggering a confoundational implosion. The things that players come up with during a really good game session can and should defy simple classification, and as a Game Master I don't necessarily want to be the arbiter of how difficult it is for a character to use a skill they claim to be good or bad at. Heck, were it up to me every DC would be 2, because it's fun to succeed and it usually takes the story in some crazy directions, but in that case why are we using a system with dice rolls at all?
There are a few systems out there that have managed to transcend the requirements of setting a target number or difficulty class, and Imperium Maledictum is one. When building a character, a player spends build points to boost one of several attributes and skills. The result is the threshold number.
During the game, the player must roll under the threshold number to succeed at a task using that skill or attribute. The Game Master never sets a target number. All of the numbers required to play the game are on the player's character sheet.
It's a beautiful and liberating system for players and Game Master alike. But it manages to be flexible nevertheless, because Imperium Maledictum uses the concept of Success Level (SL). After a player rolls, the Game Master may take into account what number was required to succeed, and what the player rolled. If the roll was a full 10% or 20% better than required, then the player character has succeeded at the task and gets some circumstantial benefits in addition. A roll that's 30% better is basically a critical success. The inverse, naturally, is true for failure.
Combat isn't much different from any other skill test in the game. To attack, you either use your Ballistic Skill (BS) for a ranged weapon, or your Weapon Skill (WS) for melee. You can acquire weapon skill specialties, which might boost your test threshold with specific weapons. Your target takes damage equal to your weapon's damage rating, plus a point of damage for each Success Level you've exceeded your threshold by. Damage is reduced by armour, assuming the target has armour on the location you've hit (and the location is determined by a roll).
A player character with psychic abilities (called a "psyker" or, pejoratively, a "witch") can cast spells. However, spellcasting is not without risk. In Warhammer 40,000, magic comes from a hellish dimension known as the Warp, and when you invoke it you are filled with a Warp charge. Should this charge exceed your limit, you must roll on the Perils of the Warp random table. Effects range from losing your voice for a few hours to opening a rift in reality and letting a demon through.
It's too much fun to resist, and in every game I've played so far, the player has done nothing but tempt fate.
There have been several RPG systems developed for the Warhammer 40,000 universe. You might think that seems redundant, but interestingly all of them have a distinct feel from one another. Playing Wrath & Glory, for instance, is a power fantasy, with big burly space marines, powerful cyborgs, and murderous nuns in an epic struggle across wartorn battlefields. The system is designed for it, with player character archetypes designed largely for combat, and game mechanics to manipulate who's got the advantage from moment to moment. Even the dice suggest the brutality of the setting, because 6-sided dice don't leave much room for degrees of success. You either succeed or you fail in Wrath & Glory, because there is no "almost survived" in war.
Obviously you don't have to play non-stop war in Wrath & Glory any more than you do in D&D, but if you want to emphasise combat then the game definitely supports it. Imperium Maledictum is designed for nuance, which also doesn't mean you have to play it any one way but it does make it easy to lean into investigation and intrigue. There are skills like Awareness, Discipline, Logic, Rapport, and Stealth. There are no character profiles in the book for iconic 40k archetypes, like space marines or sadistic space elves or insectoid aliens. You can go into combat, of course, but you can also play around combat as much as you want. It feels more like Shadowrun or Call of Cthulhu than D&D.
On Drivethrurpg, Cubicle7 describes Imperium Maledictum as a game where "players must weave their way through the complicated web of competing factions that make up the Imperium. They must navigate a realm where a whispered accusation can be as deadly as any bolter, plumbing the depths of the most lethal hives and navigating the often far more insidious threats that grace the courts of the highborn." If nothing else, it's a game system that lets you embrace social intrigue and mystery.
On the one hand, it's easy to imagine that most players picking up Imperium Maledictum are going to be familiar with Warhammer 40,000 already. But as someone who only started playing games within the Warhammer 40,000 universe a few years ago, I've experienced first-hand the effects of the assumption of familiarity. We all do it, but it's better not to assume that everyone coming to the gaming table is familiar with a setting or a game mechanic just because they happen to have read a few 40k novels, or played Space Marine 2, or walked by a Warhammer store once. Fortunately, Imperium Maledictum recognises this and, in my opinion, is perfectly suitable for any player looking for a skill-based science fantasy setting.
You don't have to know that space marines exist, or that there's a carrion Emperor of Mankind back on Terra, or that Terra even matters, or what the Warp is. You can read Imperium Maledictum with zero knowledge of Warhammer 40,000 and run a game for friends who also have zero knowledge of the setting. As long as you're happy with a science fantasy setting, everything you need to know is in the book.
Imperium Maledictum is specifically set in the Macharian sector, and the galaxy is a really big place. It's safe to assume that the Macharian sector has developed in whatever way you want it to have developed. You'd be in a perfectly defensible position even against the most ardent of lore experts. Not only is the galaxy vast, but recent in-world events have split the galaxy in half, separated by an almost impenetrable breach in reality. For all anybody in the Macharian sector knows, they're the only sector left in space. This conveniently liberates Game Masters and players from having to know anything about Warhammer. You can invent your own lore, your own variant of the 40k setting based solely on what's in the book.
It's not exactly a generic setting. The lore contained in the latter chapters of the rulebook describe a structured society and a governmental system that's nowhere near, for instance, Star Wars or Star Trek. It's got character, no question about it. But there's plenty of flexibility.
Whether you know 40k or not, the Macharian sector is a great setting. The Cubicle7 team has written lots of great lore around its founding, its development, and its current status. I've been using it for my wargame campaigns because it's a rich and complete little setting. I'd be happy for a source book with even more detail.
If I had to get rid of all my roleplaying books but one, this is likely the one I'd keep. It's combination of science fiction and fantasy means it's suitable for basically any speculative fiction story, and its game mechanics are clean, refined, and easy to manage. Imperium Maledictum is a great game system.
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