The Red Room

Wrechploitation

Wretched Époque takes place in the period known as the Belle Époque. This is the time and the fictional place where Umberto Eco’s Simone Simonini crosses paths with Jacques Tardi’s Adèle Blanc-Sec, Edgar Allan Poe’s Chevalier Auguste Dupin and Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin, amidst anarchist bombings, the echoes of the Dreyfus affair, the catastrophic side effects of secret societies conspiring in the shadows and the mysterious results of experiences conducted by mad geniuses. Not yet pulp, not quite historical, it is neither the right time nor the right mood for Steampunk or Dieselpunk. Welcome to the wretched times of Nouveaupunk!
Wretched Époque includes:
• OSR rules for playing fin-de-siécle anti-heroes (expanded Wretched rules for sanity and mesmerism)
• Information about fictional and real-world secret societies, cults and conspiracies
• Plenty of villains, among them criminal masterminds, mad scientists, mythical beasts and Lovecraftian abominations
• The Apache Underworld and Parisian law enforcement of the late 19th century, as foes or allies to the characters
• The Beyond, origin of all supernatural menaces in the Wretched universe
• Timeline and guide to the Arrondissements of Paris in the Belle Époque