Player Guide

in Degenesis: Rebirth

New Players Checklist:

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1. Read "What is Degenesis?"
2. Read the summary of each of the Cultures. If you'd like to dive deeper into their lore, check out their "In-Depth Look" Article.
3. Read the summary of each of the Cults. If you'd like to dive deeper into their lore, check out their "In-Depth Look" Article.
4. Spend some time looking over the Game Mechanics or at least the Cheat Sheet
5. Take a look at the various Concepts options for your characters. They're not only there for bonus' to your skills and attributes, but also help determine your characters personality and motivations.
6. Check out the Character Creation Guide and get ready to make a character!

What is Degenesis?

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Eshaton. That’s what they call the end of the world. The day when fire rained from the Heavens, burning the land, scorching the people. The planet trembled, heaving in pain like a feverish person in agony. And though Earth endured, it was forever changed.

When Eshaton fell and the Bygone people perished, they took with them ten thousand years of culture. The survivors scavenged and fought for food and clean water. Empty-eyed, they stared at the rotting vehicles of their ancestors, wandering aimlessly through the ruins of a once great civilization. A civilization they had shed long ago, casually, a matter of fact, like a snake shedding its skin. Free of morals and ethics, as naïvely as children they looked upon their devastated world, upon landscapes tortured by the elements, upon toxic restricted areas. They only knew that they must hold their ground against this new environment or succumb to it.

Time passed. The smoke above the great craters blew away, and the people had once more erected a cultural framework around their lives. It was still shaky, and the nails were few and far between. Now and then, a civilization crashed down with a din – but the building blocks were reused. Botch jobs, but a new start after years of decline. The year is now 2595, 522 years since the Eshaton, and Europe has fractured into many opposing Cultures. The people of Borca cling to the relics of the Bygone age. Frankans thrash around in the Aberrants’ pheromone net. Purgare is a land split between a burnt hellscape and lush fertile plains, but both are shattered by the feud against the Psychokinetics. The Pollners wander from oasis to Fractal Forest before even the last green area is devoured by the Sepsis and the Biokinetic plague. Hybrispania is torn apart by a centuries long struggle for liberation and a time anomaly growing in its heart. And beyond the Mediterranean, Africa is resplendent in gold and lapis lazuli even as it struggles for its existence against strange, aggressive vegetation.

Seven Cultures, thirteen Cults, countless Clans. Which peoples, philosophies, or faiths will prevail? Those that conjure up past glory? Or those that have erected a brave new world upon the ruins of human arrogance? In the craters’ shadows, something is stirring. Is there a future for Mankind at all?

Degenesis is about hope and despair. It is about people and the conflicting priorities of human civilization, daring to ask how far our race has truly come since we climbed down from the trees. The world of Degenesis is like a ruined Garden of Eden, containing the secrets and spoils of both good and evil, of ignorance and enlightenment, of barbarity and virtue.

As a role playing game, Degenesis presents this world to Players who portray characters (“PCs”) faced with this inhospitable future. They’ll need to make a stand that will influence the path of their lives and the fate of those around them, if not the world and civilization at large – for better or for worse. It’s up to them.