The Dresden Files RPG

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The Dresden files RPG is a roleplaying game from Evil Hat productions. The game is set in the urban fantasy world of the popular Dresden Files books written by Jim Butcher - the World of Darkness, if folks decided "Fuck brooding! Gimme my bourbon, I wanna sock the bastards!" The game was released on June 23rd, 2010.

The game mechanics uses the FATE System, a riff off of the FUDGE generic rpg system, already make popular by Spirit of the Century. The Dresden Files RPG is the first official "version 3.0" instance of the FATE System.

DFRPG is maybe the most popular FATE adaption. Its main drawbacks are the generally overpowered magic-users (vanilla mortals FTW!) and the fact that every mention on /tg/ causes a very special avatarfag and his army of hateboys to appear.

City Creation

Probably the best-kept secret of the game, the city creation rules are a great toolkit allowing for players to collaboratively build the kind of city they want to adventure in.

The Actual Dresden Files

They're pretty awesome, seriously, go read them. Private Eye/Wizard Harry Dresden takes on the forces of evil with his magic, his wits, and a near endless supply of old pop culture references. I'll try to summarize them without spoiling them, if it seems that i'm putting in the most exciting bits, i'm not, they're just that great.

• 1) Storm Front: not the author's best work but not terrible. Involves curses, a drug ring, and naked battles with a demon (its less kinky than it sounds).
• 2) Fool Moon: widely regarded as the worst book in the series but still pretty passable. Has werewolves out the wazoo (totally not furries, trust me).
• 3) Grave Peril: this is where shit gets good; Vampires (WoD variety, not Twilight shit, you'll learn to hate them for completely different reasons though) and a scary-ass powerful ghost.
• 4) Summer Knight: Faeries (the old folklore "Steal Children and Mutilate Livestock/People" kind, not the Disney kind). Its got badass Dark Eldar-type Faeries, slightly less badass Craftworld-type Faeries, and everything in between. Also, the sobering after-effects of losing a loved one and emotional crap like that. Also, don't call them faeries to their faces (its like a racial slur).
• 5) Death Masks: to sum it up, atheist warriors of heaven, conquistadore vampires, Fallen Angels, and a villain so evil that he makes Honsou look like Sanguinius. Seriously, he's so evil, that a Fallen Angel literally older than the concept of time thinks that he's one of the most evil things ever.
• 6) Blood Rites: a pretty good read despite the ridiculous premise. Two different flavors of vampire and porn stars. Manages to be pretty awesome.
• 7) Dead Beat: one of the best if not the best book in the series. Dresden fights necromancers and rides a zombie T-rex,if that does not sound awesome you are very clearly disturbed. Also, theres's a Warhammer Fantasy easter egg that rhymes with Shmeinrich Shmemmler.
• 8) Proven Guilty: tracking down monsters that feed on fear at a horror movie convention.
• 9) White Night: most of the details are spoilery, but basically, something's hunting magic users and framing Harry.
• 10) Small Favor: the villain from Death Masks comes back and tries to start the apocalypse again AND Harry has to deal with Faeries again. Includes dolphins, a hostage situation, and a donut, don't worry, it'll make sense.
• 11)Turn Coat: this one's bad guy might second closest thing to pure evil since that guy from Death Masks, it may be even more evil than him. Also, there's a magic cop who was framed for a murder he didn't commit and now he's on the run from his former allies while he tries to clear his name. Will he find out who's responsible? Will he get revenge? Will I stop trying to make this sound like an 80's television show? MAYBE.
• 12) Changes: a whole bunch of spoiler, like paradigm shift, next level spoiler. It's a bit more of a thriller than a mystery but this is where shit gets real in the series. Do Not start with this book, or any one that comes after it. They're amazing but they'll ruin the whole series for you and they usually require some prior knowledge of the series to fully appreciate.
• 13) Ghost Story: Pure unadulterated spoiler, sorry. But it recaptures some of the noir atmosphere from the earlier books and sets you up for the next story arc.
• 14) Cold Days: an assassination/training montage, followed by ballroom dancing, followed by investigation, followed by H.P. Lovecraft references, followed by more investigation. And insane Faeries throughout the entire books. Also, Santa's there, which is awesome, except when you learn that Santa is inspired by Odin, who also happened to be the inspiration for Khorne (which might actually make it even more awesome).
• 15) Skin Game: tied with Dead Beat for the best book. Imagine Oceans Eleven, but replace breaking into a casino with breaking into the Underworld, and replace a buttload of money with the Holy Grail.

Factions, Races, and Supernatural Nations

The White Council: A collection of the most powerful mortal magic users on the planet (wizards) that's existed since the Dark Ages (maybe even before). Is extremely powerful but is ridiculed by the other factions for being obsessed with tradition and inflexible (which it is, to an extent). What most of them don't seem to realize that without the Council acting as an Inquisition for magic users by upholding the Laws of Magic, the rest of them would be forced to contend with insane black magic users breaking reality left and right, shattering the masquerade and burning them alive from the inside out for shits and giggles. Also, the Council would have phenomenal political and destructive power if it weren't constrained by the very Laws it upholds and if it weren't run by conservative geezers obsessed with the status quo. If a human breaks the Laws of Magic, the Council's grey cloaked Wardens drag them to a random black site and cut their head off, no exceptions, no second chances (mostly). Since mortal magic users exude a murphyonic field around themselves, complex electrical devices short out around them (shit breaks when they're nearby). This isn't that much of a handicap, since they only short out stuff built after WWII and then only if its complex like a computer, and even then it mostly happens when they actually use their magic. Most of them have found magical work arounds. This EMP effect is actually relatively recent, wizards have a probability effect that changes from time period to time period, it used to give them warts or cause fires to burn weird colors.

The Fellowship of St. Giles: Named after the patron saint of outcasts and lepers. These guys are composed mainly of half-vampires who hate full vampires, but they take all types of outcasts. If you're a fugitive from the White Council who thinks they can still do some good, they'll take you. If you're a monster who hates your own kind, they'll take you. If you want to be a weird edgy guy and an underdog with a sense of justice, you're basically these guy's. The catch is, a lot of the stuff they do in the name of fighting evil is pretty shady itself. They're not as powerful or well entrenched as some other factions so they rely on the underworld(the criminal one) a lot more. As a result, its not very hard for their enemies to have them branded as terrorists by mortal authorities.

Vampire Courts: Largely unrelated supernatural predators that all feed off of humans parasitically. They are also called "Anthrophages"

• The White Court of Vampires: psychic vampires that can walk around during the day. They can inspire a specific emotion in mortals which they use as a conduit to extract their life force. They mainly inspire and feed off of lust but they can also eat fear and despair. Very pale and very beautiful on the outside, but their souls are bound to a hideous demon called the Hunger, which provides longevity and super strength in return for life energy. They cannot create more vampires from mortals but when they have actual children (the old fashioned way) they don't tell them about their heritage until they grow up and lose their virginity. Upon having sex for the first time, the dormant Hunger awakens and completely devours their partner's life force, leaving the new vampire traumatized and confused. The vampire parent then swoops in and tells they child of its heritage and how normal this is and that it was okay to kill the human, after all, it was only food. The parent then may or may not rape the child to display dominance. Needless to say, they all have massive psychological baggage, creating a self sustaining cycle of trauma. The only way to escape this fate (if they naturally feed on lust) is to lose one's virginity to one who is in True Love with the young vampire, as White Vampires who feed using Lust are harmed by True Love (which is actually pretty fucking hard to find), a dormant Hunger will be killed by the first exposure to True romantic Love. They mainly inhabit first world countries since they prefer refinement and sophistication (being the physically weakest of the types of vampire), where they try to use their influence to create an atmosphere of zero inhibitions, zero limits, zero restraint. They also have a really annoying habit of calling humans Bucks and Does.
• The Red Court of Vampires: mesoamerican blood sucking vampires. They can create a beautiful disguise or "flesh mask" over a hideous bat-like body (without wings), but the flesh mask combusts in direct sunlight. They are physically stronger than the White Court and they pacify their prey with narcotic saliva (no, really). They reproduce by turning people into half-vampires. The half vampire then gains an insatiable thirst for blood and super strength, but retains their human appearance and mind(well, most of it). Upon killing a human by draining their blood, the transformation completes and their strength increases, turning them into a deluded blood addict with an unjustified god complex (they actually have to kill someone by feeding off of them, its a metaphysical thing, so no, they don't get full powers but drinking a body's worth of blood from blood banks). They're mainly concentrated around Central and South America, where they use their connections to the cartels to benefit from human trafficking.
• The Black Court of Vampires: Classic "Bram Stoker's Dracula" vampires. They have all the folklore weaknesses, garlic, crosses, running water, etc. In appearance, they resemble rotting or mummified corpses so they can't pass for human without using magic to create illusions or make people ignore them. They compensate by hitting like fucking trucks, being nigh un-killable by conventional means, and being able to create more vampires extremely quickly (no half or dormant stage). The more powerful ones can walk around in sunlight freely, like Dracula did originally. In fact, the novel "Dracula" was written as a secret guide to killing them, as a result they are almost extinct, with the survivors being extremely good at being hard to kill (which means not popping up and making more vampires whenever they want). Most of them are hiding all over the world.
  • Renfields: the Black Court's thralls and dumb muscle, humans who have been brainwashed into mindless killing machines, the process is irreversible and the Renfields end up killing themselves after a few months

Fae Courts: Beings from the spirit world closest to the real world. They are extremely diverse in mentality and appearance but all share two similarities, they cannot tell an outright lie (but can still deceive people with precise wording) and iron burns them to the touch. They also have an obsession withe the number three. Traditional morality like good and evil doesn't really apply to them. Changelings are offspring of humans and faeries, upon reaching puberty, their faerie traits partially manifest and they can choose to either embrace their fae side and become full faeries or choose to retain their humanity (and original personalities) and become fully mortal. Until they choose, the changeling remains in a half fae state; mortal but having partial faerie mentality(read :mental illness) and traits that vary based on the nature of their fae parent. Faeries can either actually care for their offspring or treat them like absolute shit, like I said before, extremely diverse. The Faeries are ruled by the Sidhe nobles, who would be elves if they weren't batshit crazy supermodels with cat eyes and a hard-on for scheming, murder, and faustian pacts. They don't like being called faeries, to them its the equivalent of calling humans apes, technically true, but not really accurate.

• The Unseelie Court/The Winter Court: the "wicked" court embodying the season of winter, cold logic, ruthlessness, and predatory instincts. Not necessarily "evil" but super crazy and super dangerous.
  • Queen Mab: the de facto leader of the Winter Court and a ruthless, hyper logical ice queen. Her likes include torture, machiavellian schemes, and metaphorically emasculating Harry Dresden. Do not piss her off, EVER, she'll either destroy everything you hold dear or torture you to the point of insanity, then heal you so she can start all over again.
  • Maeve: Mab's irresponsible, nymphomaniac, queen bitch daughter. Is literally insane (like she has dementia).
  • Mother Winter: possibly the scariest character in the Dresden Files. Imagine every wicked witch story ever, distilled into a being of godlike power with the disposition of of a cranky grandmother from the old country.
  • Lea / The Leanansidhe: Mab's handmaiden/henchmaiden, and possibly the second most powerful creature in the Unseelie Court outside of all three queens, is Harry's godmother. Comes from Celtic mythology where the Leanan Sidhe was a beautiful muse who would offer inspiration at the cost of driving the artist insane and putting them in a premature grave. She commands a pack of hunting hounds which may be Cu-Sith, or Black Hounds.
  • Malks: psychotic cheshire cats that travel in packs
    • Cat Sidhe/Cat Sith: Is said to be the progenitor of all Malks.
  • Fetches: shape shifters who feed on fear, notable for making a White Court Vampire who literally ate fear nearly shit himself in terror
  • Trolls: hairy, man-eating brutes who are afraid of sunlight, serve the Queen as bodyguards and blacksmiths
  • Hobs: hairless, eyeless baboon-like monsteres who are also afraid of sunlight, the compensate by conjuring supernatural myrk that covers their surroundings in darkness and extinguishes all light sources
  • Shellycobbs: amphibians who like to drown people
  • Manticores
  • Giant bats
  • Swamp Hags
• The Seelie Court/The Summer Court: embodying the season of summer, passion, empathy, understanding, and growth. Seem "good", but they're also largely paranoid, lawful stupid, and distrustful of anyone who doesn't conform to their own standards of virtue. Prone to favoring art and superficial "goodness" over practicality and inner fortitude.
  • Queen Titania: Mab's sister and de facto leader of the Summer Court . She follows her heart , even if it tells her to kill someone who she doesn't like despite the consequences (although she can sometimes control herself). Is currently estranged from Mab.
  • Aurora: Titania's daughter, believes that the ends justify the means
  • Mother Summer: Possibly the most level headed character in the Dresden Files. Imagine everything compassionate and understanding distilled into a being of godlike power with the disposition of everyone's favorite grandmother
  • Gruffs: goat headed satyrs who are really good at killing trolls, and anything else Titania points them at.
    • Eldest Gruff The eldest Gruff, is a serious badass. He's also pretty bro-tier.
  • Centaurs
  • Giant bees/wasps
  • Elfs (the shitty halfling kind)
• Wyldfae: all the faeries who aren't part of Summer or Winter. More populous than both courts but more fragmented. It Winter and Summer are Cold War Warsaw Pact and NATO, the wyldfae are everyone else.
  • Ogres: huge thugs who hire themselves as muscle to summer or winter, basically less hairy, more humanoid trolls who moonlight as mercenaries
  • Goblins: killers obsessed with the concept of hunting (doesn't matter what, so long as its entertaining), ruled by the Erlking/Herne the Hunter, no two Goblins have the same physical appearance, they can vary widely but they all have red eyes, they have been compared to "ninja terminators"
  • Tylwyth Teg: benign shapeshifters, their king, Gwyn ap Nudd, is the reason why the Cubs lose so much, he's behind the Billy Goat Curse (but he's gotten over the insult that started the curse in the first place, he just keeps it going out of a sense of tradition, he's actually a huge baseball fan)
  • Kringle: Yes, that Kringle, Santa Claus is a Fae. You may either rejoice or scream in terror.
    • (Note) The Seelie/Unseelie Kings: These positions are taken by powerful Wyldfae who represent the opposite "morality" of thier court, but have a similar theme. The current Summer King is The Erlking who represents the passion of the hunt, nature red in tooth and claw, and the primal empathy between hunter and hunted, while the current Winter King is Kringle who represent togetherness and giving during bleak times, a moment of kindness in coldest Winter.

The Fomor: millennia ago, when the Sidhe were a nobody faction of proto-elves hanging out in Ireland, they fought and defeated a race of weird-ass guys called the Fomor and drove them into the sea. As it turns out, driving one's enemies into the sea was really popular thousands of years ago and the Fomor met and subjugated a whole bunch of outcasts from all over the world, eventually turning into weird frog-men united by a burning hatred for the surface world. They like to abduct humans and animals, mutate them with magic, and sell them as living weapons to the highest bidder. A weakness they share with the Fae is being burned by iron, since they used to interbreed pretty heavily back when the average Fomor didn't look like Kermit the Frog.

Svartalves: The setting's version of dwarves. Surprisingly, they're not alcoholic berserkers with scottish accents, but xenophobic grey-aliens with goatees. They're still extremely greedy and vengeful, not to mention bloodthirsty warriors. They have a reputation for being THE neutral faction, their schtick is basically "you don mess with us, we don't mess with you." Tend to sell their services as magical craftsmen

Regular humans/ Vanilla Mortals: mocked and derided as prey and cattle, most predators don't appreciate how dangerous an angry mob of confused and scared humans can be. In fact, most haven't noticed that torches and pitchforks have been replaced with assault rifles and attack helicopters. In the supernatural community, involving human law enforcement in a supernatural dispute is the equivalent of waving around a nuclear warhead. (Un)Fortunately, most humans will try to rationalize and forget most encounters with the supernatural so they can get back to their normal lives. So the masquerade in the Dresden Files isn't a massive conspiracy of epic proportions, its more of a series of low to medium level bribes and coverups.

• Criminal Underworld: most organized crime probably has some connections to the supernatural, they may not be directly involved in it, but they probably know about some of the supernatural predators and organizations in a given area and try to give them a wide berth. Some crime lords have a preference for hiring half-demon hitmen and ancient norse security consultants.
• Venatori Umborum: The Hunters in the Shadows or the Hunters of the Shadows depending on the translation, although it is more accurate to call them "The Shadows of the Hunters" (See Venatori below). A secret society composed of humans with a lot of knowledge about the supernatural but not a lot of magic power. Dedicated to fighting monsters that prey on humans and pretty good in an actual fight, but they mainly specialize in preventing the (complete) corruption of human government and laws by supernatural predators, hoarding knowledge, and distributing knowledge to others in order to be able protect themselves. Basically lawyer/librarians with flamethowers.
  • Venatori: The original hunters, and the reason the Venatori Umborum exist. The Venatori exist to combat a race of beings known as the Old Ones (yes those Old Ones), in a conflict called the Oblivion War that has been going since the dawn of humanity. They do this by wiping out all mortal awareness of an Old One and thusly consigning him/her/it to Oblivion. The Archive was created to lead this war and her reason for existing that's given in the main books is her cover story. (These guys only show up in the Short Story Backup). The Venatori Umborum were created as a smokescreen for these guys due to the fact that they are fucking with Elder Gods and their cult servants. Fun-Fact: the Venatori almost consigned the Faerie Courts to Oblivion, but Mab got the Brothers Grimm to write their Tales, and Gutenberg to distribute them leading to the Fae being firmly ensconced in the public consciousness. The organization appears to have been corrupted by the White Court in an effort to drive out competition for the top of the food chain. The Archive, as a construct bound to a set of specific rules, cannot intervene and is relegated to providing information to the Venatori. If the White Court puppet masters actually grasped the importance of their tasks instead of eliminating "poachers" so they can slake their Hungers in peace, they never would have tried to wipe out he Fae since the Fae safeguard reality from even worse beings. TL;DR: Les Mysteres + Keepers of the Source + Division Six
• The Paranet: a recent faction of low level magic users and concerned citizens, its an online community that tries to distribute knowledge about the supernatural for self defense without things like giving up one's humanity or going through complex and humiliating initiations.
• The Church: way back in the olden times, the Catholic Church tried to crack down on the more evil parts of the supernatural community. Unfortunately, they got carried away and started a shit show called the Inquisition. Nowadays, they're real sorry about that, to the point of trying not to actively involve priests in the supernatural. The "Ordo Malleus" (guess where Jim got that from) limits itself to providing a support network for those dedicated to fight evil with the power of faith. Another subset of the Church are the Knights of the Cross, who wield a trio of swords made with the nails used to crucify Jesus. Contrary to first glances, Knights of the Cross don't have to be catholic or even religious, all they have to do is have sufficient inner strength and the belief that evil should be opposed. There are only at most three at a time and they fight next level apocalyptic stuff so they have a high turnover rate.

Order of the Blackened Denarius: pure, unrepentant, fucking, evil. Thirty fallen angels trapped in the thirty coins used by the Romans to bribe Judas Iscariot. The coins basically act like the One Ring, tempting and corrupting whoever holds them with promises of power, eventually tricking the unfortunate host into giving up his or her free will and becoming little more than a beast of burden in the thrall of the fallen. The group's overarching goal is to cause the apocalypse, but its much more complex than that. The leaders of the group believe that its unlikely that they'll actually cause the end of the world, but they can still advance the cause of Hell while trying. Subsequently, their plots are constructed such that if the lose, they're still able to cause pain and suffering and weaken the forces of good, for example: if they're stopped from obtaining nuclear warheads, they'll still have caused multiple deaths, widespread panic, and significant human suffering in the process of trying. Their philosophy is to push the world closer and closer towards Armageddon, creating an environment of chaos and terror. Put in the words of their de facto leader: "Apocalypse is a frame of mind." Known Coins and Bearers

• Anduriel/Nicodemus For the purposes of the stories, essentially the leader of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. As close to evil as it is possible to get in the series, and disgustingly/delightfully creepy. Anduriel may or may not be completely subservient to Nicodemus, it can listen in on anything said within hearing distance of any shadow on earth (only one shadow at a time though and you can ward against its prescence)
• Unknown/Deirdre Nicodemus's daughter/lover. Demon form looks like a red scaled Medusa with hair made of serrated steel blades.
• Ursiel/Rasmussen A giant demon bear who loves brute force.
• Lasciel/SPOILERS Lasciel is known as the Web-Weaver, the Seducer, or the Temptress, and is described as "a rebel angel among rebel angels".(she's not a mary sue, it means she's as much of a treacherous bitch to the rest of the Fallen as she is to everyone else). Her sigil is vaguely reminiscent of an hourglass, and she likes to take the shape of an attractive woman. In combat she takes the shape of a cloud of purple smoke wrapped around her naked host.
• Saluriel/Quintus Cassius: a Fallen angel bound to an incompetent boob. Also known as Snake-Boy.
• Thorned Namshiel/Unknown Tessa's sorcery teacher, enjoys picking pockets. Looks like an emaciated man with thorns all over its body.
• Imariel/Polonius Lartessa (Tessa) Nicodemus's Wife/Arch-rival in creating the Apocalypse. Talk about a match made in Hell. Currently has the appearance of a 15/16 year old girls (she was a child prostitute in Ancient Rome) and is (as of Skin Game) batshit, fucking crazy. Imariel transforms its's host into a humanoid praying mantis that can dissolve into smaller mantises.
• Akariel
• Urumviel
• Magog/Sanya (Redeemed Bearer) and we've just broken the naming scheme. Magog looks like a gorilla with horns
• "Obsidian Statue": Nickname only.
• "Shaggy Feathers" Nickname only.
• "Green Antlers" Nickname only.
• ???/Rosanna Tessa's second in command, her coin is unknown. Looks like a succubus with goat hooves. Manipulative type.
• Varthiel
• Ordiel
• ???/McKullen We literally know his name and that's it.
• Tarsiel

This leaves 12 unknown coins either being held secure by the church, or out in circulation

Scions: sometimes, for whatever reason, a human will have a child with a demon or supernatural creature. This child, if it is not miscarried or stillborn, is often insane, deformed, or both (since having six arms and claws made of bronze aren't exactly compatible with normal human biology). However, sometimes the child or "Scion" has a human appearance and gets access to some of the badass powers of it's non-human parent.

• Grendelkin: Yes, that Grendel. They can only reproduce with virgins, after drinking enough Honey Mead.
• Temple Dogs / Foo Hounds: An example of a non-human scion breed, Foo Hounds are said to be descended from a celestial spirit and a mortal hound. The current guess for their mortal breed is Caucasian Bear Hounds. They are seriously scary stuff to the point where an Archangel refers to one as "Little Cousin".
• Jared Kincaid/The Hellhound: imagine the skills of Deadshot mixed with the looks of Deathstroke. He NEVER,EVER misses. He's hundreds of years old and he looks like he's in his late 30's/early 40's. A bodyguard who moonlights as a freelance mercenary and assassin. He managed to stir up the fan-base something fierce by claiming to be as "human" as Harry, which means either, Harry is not fully mortal at some point in his family line, or Kincaid was lying his ass off, and the TVTropes Wild Mass Guessing page has tied itself in knots discussing this.

Ghouls: man-eating monsters who hire themselves out to the various nasties of the world as muscle (when mind-raped or addicted thralls just won't do), the have an insatiable craving for human flesh. Appear as vaguely humanoid creatures with elongated limbs and dog-like snouts, but they can assume the appearance of humans with plain, unremarkable features.

• Uber-Ghouls: Take a ghoul, cross breed it with the T-1000, and add in enough nightmare fuel and pure squick to make it truly nightmarish. You've got an Uber-Ghoul. These things are seemingly immortal as the one time they've shown up they demonstrated the ability to pull themselves together when reduced to nothing more than rotten, chunky salsa.

Forest People/Bigfoots: yep, they're real, and they're actually pretty polite (with some exceptions). They have agreements with Native American tribes where they provide education and access to resource while the tribes provide them with an interface for the mundane community (lawyers, bank accounts, fast food). Very strong magic users, thankfully, many are pacifists, but the violent ones can fuck shit up something fierce

External Links

• Developers page
• PDF preview