Learn the bane, forge the gear, then finish what the dark started.
image slot · Mournwick, the world
The world
Where it happens
Mournwick is a city of gaslit streets and fog-drowned rookeries, built on the scar of the Sundering, the night the veil between the living and the dead was torn. The Pale Houses keep their secrets behind locked crypts, the Drowned Mile swallows its dead, and the Lantern Watch pins bounties on things that bleed wrong. Every creature that stalks the fog came through that old wound or was born from what it let in.
A session breathes like a hunt: a patron, a corpse with wrong wounds, then the slow work of investigation. The first encounter teaches you that your service revolver does nothing, that the thing mends faster than you can hurt it, and that retreat is a victory. The second encounter, once you have named the monster and found its bane, is the catharsis. Silver for the cursed, wood and sunlight for the blood-drinkers, cold iron for the fae: every monster is a puzzle the engine enforces, and only the right gear ends it. Or start AS the monster — Vampire, Werewolf, Hollowed — and live the hunted life, masking among the people who would burn you.
image slot · the pressure that drives play
What drives it
Dread, and the bane you must find
Dread runs from 0 to 10, raised each time a hunter witnesses the truly wrong, fails a save against terror, or draws on a dark gift, and it breaks them entirely at 10. The weakness engine gives every monster a bane, a damage tag (silver, holy, wood, iron, fire) that deals full damage, lands the killing blow, and stops regeneration, while mundane steel is merely halved and can never finish the job. You cannot kill what you do not understand.
image slot · Mournwick, how it plays
How it plays
The systems you can ask for
These mechanics are original to Mournwick — you will not know them from any rulebook. Read them here, then simply ask your gamemaster for any of them at the table; the engine enforces every number.
The Hunt
Every monster is a puzzle — research your quarry step by step until its bane is confirmed.
The Hunter's Journal
Weaknesses you prove in the field are recorded forever; your bestiary grows from lived hunts.
Dread
The horror meter with teeth — it climbs in the dark and eases only by the hearth or a closed hunt.
Defeat has a price
When the monster wins you are marked, infected, captured, or stripped of your silver — never simply gone.
Rituals
Seances, exorcisms, and wardings play out as structured set-pieces with real stakes.
The bane economy
Silver, holy water, blessed oil: expensive, scarce, and the only things that end what hunts you.
“Steel teaches a monster nothing. Silver teaches it fear.”
image slot · the heritages of Mournwick
Who you can be
11 heritages
portrait · Commonborn
Commonborn
The everyman of Mournwick, no curse, just grit.
portrait · Wretched
Wretched
Raised in the Drowned Mile, hardy and streetwise.
portrait · Highborn
Highborn
A Pale House name, where doors and crypts both open.
portrait · Foreigner
Foreigner
From an older country that never forgot the dark.
portrait · Touched
TouchedPremium
Sundering-marked, you feel the wrongness first.
portrait · Bloodmarked
BloodmarkedPremium
A cursed bloodline, the dead look at you and hesitate.
portrait · Foundling
FoundlingPremium
No name, no origin, a mystery the GM will unspool.
portrait · Halfblood
HalfbloodPremium
Fae blood and a glamour, paired with an old iron weakness.
portrait · Vampire
VampirePremium
Start as the blood-drinker: the Thirst, the night, the mask.
portrait · Werewolf
WerewolfPremium
Start as the beast: moon-bound, silver-scarred, hunted.
portrait · Hollowed
HollowedPremium
A body that refused to die, cold blood and a grave-debt.
image slot · the roles in action
What you can do
10 roles
Hunter
The monster-slayer, blade and bane-lore combined.
Alienist
Mind-doctor and investigator, steadiest nerves in the city.
Occultist
Ritualist and slot-caster wielding the Art.
Dragoon
Military veteran, firearms and iron discipline.
Physician
Doctor whose dissection reveals a monster bane.
Sister of AshPremium
Faith against the undead, holy bane made manifest.
GravewrightPremium
Gadgeteer who forges the bane gear that ends hunts.
RevenantPremium
Touched by the curse, a monstrous gift that raises Dread.
MediumPremium
Spiritualist who communes with and lays the restless dead.
MesmeristPremium
Hypnotist of charm and command who masters other minds.
image slot · the arms of Mournwick
The arsenal
Arms, and what they cost
Real rows from the engine's own tables: the dice are the dice, the prices are the prices. Your gamemaster cannot fudge them, and neither can you.
Silver-shot blunderbuss1d12
One salvo costs a week's wage. The werewolf remembers it.
Blessed blade1d8
A season's wages, consecrated edge-first.
Holy water (vial)2d6
Faith, stoppered. Spend it like you mean it.
Wooden stake1d4
Nearly free. Carrying enough of them is the art.
Sun-lantern35 £
Bottled daylight, for things that fear the dawn.
Silver chain30 £
For the hunts where you want it alive.
… and 47 more priced pieces in play.
image slot · what hunts you in Mournwick
The opposition
What hunts you
Every foe is statted before the fight starts; what your party learns about them is recorded, hunt by hunt.
Werewolfbane: silver
The wounds knit shut while you reload.
Wightbane: holy
A dead lord with a will; steel merely bores it.
Redcapbane: iron
A fae delighted by exactly one thing. Run.
Barrow-Lordbane: silver
It remembers being worshipped.
Old Vampirebane: sunlight
Patience measured in centuries, hunger in nights.
Hollow Kingbane: holy
What sits a throne after the kingdom forgets it died.
… and 45 more in the bestiary.
Begin a Mournwick campaign
Connect lorewend to your AI, make a character, and tell the gamemaster you want Mournwick. The free tier plays a full campaign.
Commonborn
Wretched
Highborn
Foreigner
TouchedPremium
BloodmarkedPremium
FoundlingPremium
HalfbloodPremium
VampirePremium
WerewolfPremium
HollowedPremium