Urban Shadows Core Rulebook (2nd Edition)

The city hungers, and it's watching you. Urban Shadows drops you into a modern metropolis where vampires, faeries, hunters, and wizards all fight for a piece of the streets and skyscrapers below the surface of everyday life. You are not a bystander here. You are one of twelve richly drawn characters caught between four rival Circles, Mortalis, Night, Wild, and Power, each pulling you toward debts, loyalties, and choices that will define who you become.

This is a story built on relationships, not dice pools alone. Every card you're dealt as a player comes wrapped in obligation: who do you owe, who owes you, and what are you willing to give up to survive the night? Urban Shadows rewards players who love character drama as much as they love clever moves, making it a favorite for tables who want their fantasy personal, political, and a little dangerous.

Inside this core rulebook, you'll find twelve unique playbooks built for very different kinds of power and vulnerability, two ready to play city guides (Chicago and Santiago) loaded with story hooks, clear fiction first mechanics that keep every roll meaningful, and detailed guidance for the Master of Ceremonies running the game. Backroom deals, faction politics, and nightly power struggles are baked into the rules themselves, so the drama never has to be forced.

Urban Shadows has long been beloved for characters who don't fit a single mold, queer, complicated, morally gray, and fully realized. If your table is looking for an urban fantasy game with real teeth and real heart, this is where you start.