Evolution Pulse - The new frontiers of human evolution
Pulse is a roleplaying game for strong hearts — so strong their beats can reshape reality.
In a distant, dark future move characters unique of their kind, fighting the fury of the Hekath — inter-dimensional monsters that devoured and destroyed the world — to protect a humanity that now exists only within the high walls of the SafeZones.
The catastrophe began in a mysterious past. Immense hyper-technological cities expanded steadily across the globe, run by Artificial Intelligences that helped mankind shape a radiant future and evolve. A black box, containing something dark and alien, was discovered in Antarctica in the year 2917 — and opened. Everything began to move and mutate to the rhythm of the human heart, whose will makes the most hidden desires come true. The end of the world took nine hours.
Billions of heartbeats created billions of micro-upheavals at the particle level. The resulting energy manipulated and changed reality, with a small percentage of dispersion converting into negative matter. Anti-reality accumulated as well, and upon reaching critical mass it generated a creature energetically inverse to the world, one that devours matter to keep alive the process that created it: the Hekath. The immense cities were abandoned, destroyed or devoured; the droids became scrap; the Great AIs — Nirvana, Eden and Olympus — after bringing humanity to safety, became old bulwarks of bygone days.
The AIs created the first SafeZones, isolating the remaining cities to save humankind, each following its own philosophy.
Nirvana created genetically modified humans able to voluntarily control their own hearts and perform manipulations of reality: the Proxies, protectors of the originals and seekers of the genetic seed surviving in the LostZones.
Eden brought cryogenic sleep upon the survivors and, by manipulating brainwaves, created the Hyonos — Thoughtforms made of solid light, avatars animated by the will of the sleepers.
Olympus grafted body-control technology onto part of the population, creating machine-men able to keep their impulses in check, inhibiting the reality-altering effect. The zones controlled by Olympus became among the safest, but also the furthest from humanity. The Hydrah, the new cybermen, cannot manipulate matter, but can perform mechanical upgrades on their own bodies.
Some humans who came into contact with the Hekath had their genome irreversibly corrupted, and now carry a darkness that makes them ferocious and relentless, changing their bodies — tentacles, claws or bone plates appear, in some cases forever, witnesses to the slow degeneration afflicting them. They are known as the Obscura.
Since the apocalypse, the world has become a dark, violent, cruel place. Everything disappears, swallowed by the fury of the Hekath. The SafeZones expand slowly, while entire populations of LostH live in the ExData, the remains of the immense megalopolises that once ruled the world.
The Hekath
Mysterious entities made of antimatter, the Hekath are the masters of the world: ferocious predators of the vast abandoned areas and a threat to every community of LostH and to the SafeZones. Classified by danger and strength, there are the MKAlpha, brainless monsters driven by blind instinct; the MKBeta, sentient and versatile, whose mutations have specialised them for various tasks; and the MKGamma, unique beings often humanoid in shape, with identifying names, able to hold their own against many Operatives at once. At the centre of it all stands the Hekath known as ‘The Seal’, an immortal and seemingly omnipotent being guarding the Black Box itself.
The game system
Evolution Pulse lends itself to being played with the Fate Core system and with Fate Accelerated. The Fate system is quite versatile, and you can decide which rules to use to deepen the various aspects of play. Each character has their own unique, characteristic Approaches for facing adventures, specific Stunts, and a series of suggestions on how to handle aspects and consequences in play. This system grants enormous creative freedom, and we recommend it to those with a fondness for narrative games.
The manual contains guidance on how best to adapt the system to the setting, and presents world and mechanics effectively and concisely, accompanied by evocative, raw artwork.
Expansions
If you are a veteran, Evolution Pulse - Echi Oscuri offers new insights into the base Archetypes and the world at large.
Monju, the AI of the ExAsia Confederation, created a SafeZone protected by the Adepts of Quiescence — pure-genome humans trained to nullify the effects of the Black Box, who fight by manipulating time with CrHono technology — and by the Kami, powerful cybernetic servants.
As a GM, you will find narrative hooks for developing plots on multiple levels. It also contains Fall Alone, a set of rules for solo play, designed to guarantee an engaging and very personal experience.
Evolution Pulse - Valhalla Rising is a manual containing a game scenario, divided into three macro-blocks, with the full description of unique Servers, their inhabitants and the dangers threatening them.
Three distant worlds united by the shadow of Valhalla, the outcast AI exiled by Eden and Nirvana during the great Hekath invasion, which seems to have found a way to control the Hekath and bend them to its commands. Also introduced are the Synir, synthetic artificial bodies hosting AIs, and the Einheriar, augmented humans ready to sacrifice themselves to defeat the Hekath.
The new edition
Evolution Pulse - Rinascita
Evolution Pulse Rinascita is an innovative setting, born from the collaboration between The World Anvil and Black Box Games, based on the Evolution Pulse universe. Rinascita re-imagines an ancient world at the mercy of mysterious alien deities.
By opening a mysterious black casket, Alexander of Macedon accidentally invited beings of immense power to Earth. Once summoned, the mightiest among them infects the people with the Igisum Duga, a mark that grants supernatural gifts and chains its bearers to the Divines. The Castes of the free peoples are determined to defend their borders against the advance of a newborn Empire, while an army of ferocious mythological creatures refuses to cede dominion over the natural world to the Hekath.
The new Monad Echo system
“Evolution Pulse Rinascita” uses version 2.0 of the Monad System, the Monad ECHO — a lighter, leaner version of its predecessor. It introduces new elements with a negative view of randomness, handled both through d6s and through a pool of points already defined in the original Monad System as “Soma”.
Once the difficulty of an action is set, the Master of the Sintum communicates it to the player involved, who must match the proposed difficulty threshold starting from a base attribute with a given score, spending Soma points and rolling a number of dice no greater than the proposed difficulty level — choosing how to mix Soma points and dice.
Beyond this, depending on the situations arising during the story, the Master of the Sintum can assign “bane dice” (dice that fail the action on a 1 or 2) or “boon dice” (dice on which a 1 does not count as failure) during the resolution of actions.
For further information and to purchase the manuals, here is a useful link.