Urban Fantasy Fridays: The Unexplained (2009)

 AH! It is October again. My favorite time of the year. Last year, on my Fantasy Fridays, I spent some time with urban fantasy games and, in particular, with the idea of using games as a sort of life-path development for my various characters. I actually did a few characters, but I only posted one, my witch, Larina. 

Something very interesting happened while I was doing that. I grabbed a couple of Pathfinder characters and was doing the same experiment on them. I remember sitting in my car one night, waiting for my oldest to get off work, and I began writing a bit on what those two characters would have been like as teens. Then I took it a step (ok, a big step) further and thought: what would they have been like as teens in high school, not in a fantasy world, but in an American high school, specifically in the Midwest.

Those two Pathfinder characters became Stephanie and Faye. I resurrected a bunch of other ideas, and by December of 2025, I had a very good idea about what my town of Jackson, IL, was starting to look like. It has been my obsession ever since, and here I am nearly a year and several thousand words later. If you go through those posts, you can see the ideas that eventually took shape as the Jackson I am talking about now. 

With this collection of Urban Fantasy Fridays, I want to explore other games in my collection that do similar, but not quite the same, things as NIGHT SHIFT does for my Jackson setting/Night World. I am committed to Jackson as a NIGHT SHIFT Night World, no other game fits it quite so well. But, I do want to see what these other experiences give me. I want to make sure I am capturing not only what makes NIGHT SHIFT special, but what makes Jackson so special to me.  For the Fridays in October I am going to pull some Urban Fantasy/Horror RPGs from my shelves and see how they work for me. Some are older games, others are newer but obscure, but all approach the "modern magical world" from different points of view, and all can teach me something.

Last year I went in order, more or less, of life span development. This year I am generally going in order of involvement with the supernatural. From least to most. For example, today's game, The Unexplained, largely deals with normal people dealing with abnormal things. In the last game, Night Life, the characters are the "abnormal things."

So lets get to it!

The Unexplained

by Bradford Younie, 
2009 Carnivore Games, 298 pages.

I talked about the FUDGE game, The Unexplained, way back in 2010. Or, more to the point, I talked about its sister game, Now Playing. Back then, I described it like this: if The Unexplained is the reality, then Now Playing is the TV series based on it. Both are FUDGE games and use FUDGE dice. They are 100% compatible with each other and both top my list as my favorite FUDGE games to date.

While I am looking at this game for possible ideas, I do want to point out that it is, by itself, a perfectly wonderful game. I have not looked at it in detail for over 15 years, and I am surprised at how playable it still is. 

Character creation is easy using a simple point-buy system. I was able to generate NINE characters in under an hour. Likely, I would have been faster, but I was trying to maximize the differences in my characters. 

The Unexplained posits that the characters are part of an organization dedicated to hunting supernatural monsters. Now, the nature of my Jackson kids kinda precludes this. That is fine; it is not a requirement of this game, merely a feature they are adding. 

The Foundation for Paranormal Investigation

The FPI is an in-game conceit that allows the players to get their characters together. It is part "You characters meet in a tavern" and part "You have been recruited by S.A.V.E. or A.R.T.E.M.I.S. or the FBI or SCP or whatever alphabet organization the characters need to join. 

That said, there are some really good ideas for putting together an organization like this and using it in a game. Maybe I'll revisit them someday, but right now I don't need them. My characters meet because they are all in the same school. 

But if this is your thing, then The Unexplained is worth picking up for these ideas. The underlying system is FUDGE, but really, as I showed already, replace the words with numbers, and you can play this almost as if it were Unisystem.

My Jackson Kids

Character creation was so fast and easy that, instead of doing one or two of my Jackson kids. I stated them all. Well. Most of them.  Plus the Character Concept Questionnaire I used from Now Playing was also a huge help. 

I won't add all of them here, but I will give two examples. My witch, Larina, and the reluctant ally, Vera. Why? Vera Rook is becoming a LOT of fun over here. She is just a great frenemy who adds some tension to the group. Plus, she irritates Stephanie and Larina, and that is always fun.

Larina Stephanie Nichols

Profession: The Scholar* (I am using the Professions more like archetypes)
Paranormal Society: Jackson Public High School
RankAge: 16 
Income: Good
Luck: 3
Size: Medium/0

Attributes
Brawn: Mediocre
Agility: Fair
Stamina: Fair
Reasoning: Superb
Perception: Good
Will: Fair

Gifts
Attractive
Single Minded (Magic)

Faults
Curious
Obsession: Magic
Quick-Tempered

Psychic Abilities
Mental Psi: Psychometry (Fair), Telepathy (Fair)
Physical Psi: Telekinesis (Fair)

Skills
Astrology (Fair), Athletics (Mediocre), Concentrate (Good), Computers (Fair), Decipher Script (Fair), Drive (Mediocre), Gather Information (Good), Language, Greek (Poor), Language, Latin (Poor), Mythology (Good), Occult (Great), Parapsychology (Fair), Research (Good), Ritual, Wicca (Fair), Search (Good)

Vera Diane Rook

Profession: The Reluctant Ally* (I am using the Professions more like archetypes)
Paranormal Society: Jackson Public High School
RankAge: 16 
Income: Great
Luck: 3
Size: Medium/0

Attributes
Brawn: Fair
Agility: Fair
Stamina: Fair
Reasoning: Good
Perception: Great
Will: Fair

Gifts
Attractive
Increased Income
Patron: Rook Family

Faults
Blunt and Tactless

Psychic Abilities
Mental Psi: Psychometry (Good)

Skills
Astrology (Good), Bluff (Fair), Cryptozoology (Fair), Drive (Good), Gather Information (Fair), Ghost Hunting (Fair), Intimidate (Good), Occult (Fair), Persuade (Good), Religions (Good), Research (Fair), Ritual, Wicca (Fair), Sense Motive (Good)

This run is where we learn that Vera's family is Jewish. She is a witch yes, but her religion is Jewish. Much like Larina's religion is Wicca. Vera is a bit of a lapsed Jew, but I think I want to work more of it into her character later on. 

The images, as it turns out, are from the day after Larina's 16th birthday. Her birthday was on a Friday, and this would have been the next Saturday. 

Remember, with all these "Poors" and "Fairs," they are still just kids.

Though looking at the art of these two, they seem to be less Larina "Nix" and Vera "Raven" of Jackson and more Larina "Creepy" and Vera "Shadow" of Carbon Vale. 

-- 

The Unexplained is a lot of fun. I have never really connected with FUDGE, but this game makes me want to try it again.

Links

• PDF from DriveThruRPG
• Carnivore Games
• Sheets
• Facebook
• Willow & Tara stats

#RPGaDAY2026: Day 14 Regard

 Vera is a character I keep seeing differently with regard to the world she is in.

Take Jackson, IL for instance. There you have Vera Rook as a rival; she is sharp and selfish, with a dangerous edge to her because she will do as she pleases. Yet Jackson allows for some development. When, in the future, she becomes Megan’s adoptive mother and uses the name Vera Connors, my view of her shifts. The bad girl act is gone in favor of someone who has made a choice for love and protection. But to become Vera Connors, divorced mother of two and now adoptive mother of Megan Connors, she had to be Vera Rook first.

Or did she?

We get a slightly different Vera Rook in Carbon Vale. Here, one thing was changed. Vera's mother left her father and traveled south to finish her degree, taking teenage Vera with her. This Vera Rook saw her mother stand up for something better than what she had. Instead of becoming bitter and sullen, this Vera became open to the idea that better things happen because you can make them happen. I am not sure of what her future holds, but it is likely she will not become Vera Connors in this world.

And in Yog, she is Veyra Shadowraven. You see her through the haze of sword and sorcery and the light of a dying world there. A darker figure with more shadow and a name to match. Where Vera in Jackson has to improve herself, Veyra in Yog is left to make of her legend what she will.  The ruling class of Yog calls her a terrorist and a subversive. An "evil witch." She agrees with all of those and keeps on doing what she has always done, working to improve the lot of witches everywhere in Yog.

That is the nature of regard in gaming. 

It puts a different light on the same girl under a different set of rules, altering the character while leaving the core intact.

Each Vera shard is real and as valid as the other. She is just shaped in regard to her world. 

West Haven/Yog NPC

Friday, Associates and Loving & Giving: 

Constance, no last name, is a West Haven caretaker who welcomes Yog refugees with soup, blankets, and no questions. She is a former Yogian slave and now refugee who escaped to West Haven. Katrina of West Haven removed her brand with powerful healing magic, and now she spends her days trying to show the same kindness to others.

Jackson Soundtrack

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

Jackson, IL: NPCs, The Ones Who Know

One of the big hooks in the Jackson, IL NIGHT SHIFT game I am using is that the adults in the game know a little bit of what is going on. That is to say they know Jackson has more than its fair share of weirdness going on. 

Case in point. Devil Chairs or Witch Chairs. These are chairs found in many cemeteries across the Midwest. If a cemetery has one they typically have one, or maybe two. My real hometown of Jacksonville, IL (which Jackson is based on) has five. That town isn't normal. (Normal is about 120 miles NE of Jacksonville!)

There are also other teens who have figured out what is going on. These NPCs will interact with the PCs but may or may not get involved for their own reasons. 

Roderick Morgan, II, aka "Morgan Highstar"

Morgan, as he is known, is the "protector" of St. Michael's Catholic School and Academy. The "Academy" part is the older name and is used by the honor students. Morgan (and never, ever "Rod") is a psychic and covers the same role that Stephanie, Faye, and Larina cover for Jackson Public High School. 

Morgan, though, is a reluctant protector. Not because he can't, he is more than capable. He is reluctant because he doesn't really want to protect anyone. Well...he is doing it to prove his intellectual capabilities and his psychic ability, not because he actually likes any of the students at St. Michaels. On the contrary, he actively dislikes most of them. But it would wound his pride if a poltergeist or a demon got into the school. 

Morgan is a psychic and a rationalist. He doesn't believe in the supernatural. All the phenomena he encounters, he thinks, are the result of psychic interference. So ghosts, demons, hags, and the lot are all manifestations of the townspeople's own fears and psychic garbage. Psychic patterns or matrices. They believe the town is haunted, so they find ways to make it so. He finds it deeply offensive that others can't have the same mental discipline he does.

He also can't stand witches. 

Not hate per se. But they represent everything he thinks is wrong with this town. They feed into the superstitions and believe them themselves. The problem is also is that they are effective. He would argue that they are effective because they contribute to the problem. So it galls him anytime someone with magic shows up. And it destroys his world anytime Larina beats him in chess.

Concept: Psychic and intellectual snob with grades to back it up.
Song: "Subdivisions" by Rush
Quote: "A haunting is not a mystery. It is an unresolved pattern with delusions of personality."

Morgan is a 4th-level Psychic. He is a little more powerful than the other NPCs, but he is also doing all the work on his own. He is based on Morgan Highstar. 

Morgan is related to the Morgan Chemical family. His father, Roderick Morgan I, was not directly involved but is a professor at MacAlister College. They have a name and money.

Vera Rook

Vera is another witch at Jackson Public High. She and Stephanine go way back to Kindergarten together where they have always been rivals. She picked on Faye for loosing her parents and now she has set her sights on Larina as her newest target. 

Very is smart, incredibly cool, and popular. If this were the 2000s she would be described as a "mean girl." In the 1980s, we would have just called her "stuck up." 

Vera's deal is that she is a witch, and she could help, but she won't unless it somehow benefits herself. So there will be times when she pitches in and a lot more times when she just won't.  

While I don't want to make her into a cliché, I do admit I am having fun playing with the clichés. She is the worst qualities of the other witch NPCs distilled into one character with wit and flawless eyeliner.

Concept: Rival witch.
Song: "Cities in Dust" by Siouxsie and the Banshees
Quote: "And I care...why?"

Vera is a 2nd level witch. But don't expect her help or anything. Vera is brand new, but I rolled up her Pathfinder 2nd Ed and AD&D 1st edition character Veyra Shadowraven. Yes, more clichés! Might need to post all three stats one day.

Stephanie: "Ugh! Why is she such a bitch?"
Larina: "Why won't she help?"
Faye: "Why does she look so cool?"
Stephanie and Larina: "What?"
Faye: "What?"

The Rooks are also an old Jackson family. She would be a family tradition witch.

Kyra Bellamy 

Kyra: "There is evil in this town. It's old, and it is angry."

Kyra Bellamy is sharp, watchful, and not nearly as willing to take people at face value as they might hope. She has a serious streak, a cautious intelligence, and the habit of looking at the people around her like she is trying to solve them before they become dangerous. That wariness makes her seem distant, but it is born more from care than cruelty. Kyra wants the truth, even when it is uncomfortable, and she has little patience for sentimentality when the stakes are real. In a town built on secrets, that makes her both valuable and dangerous.

Kyra is the daughter of Rev. Jonah Bellamy, III. Preacher at "The Old Landmark Missionary Baptist Church", a predominantly African-American Baptist church. Kyra loves her church. Sundays are a day of dressing up, singing, worship, and, of course, the Sunday-afternoon cookout her father hosts. Yes, Kyra ends up working, giving out food, and is on her feet all day in a dress, but she still loves it, and when the local children ask "Miss Kyra" really nicely, she gives them extra Mac n Cheese. Ok, she gives them extra even if they don't ask.

The trouble is, Kyra is having a crisis of faith. Jackson is evil. She knows this. And there are witches walking the halls of her school. Some, like Faye and Vera, are easy to spot. Others wear a friendly face like Stephanie, and others look nice, like Larina, but Kyra sees the barely contained magic underneath. She doesn't understand how these girls can be allowed to walk around like they are normal.

Now, please keep in mind, Kyra is a good kid. She is just mistaken about what a witch really is. 

Kyra also likes things she knows her father would never approve of. She is on the track team, and she is quite good. She likes secular music and is enthralled by MTV when she goes over to friends' houses. And what confuses her most of all is she thinks she also likes Meriko in a more than just-friends way.

Concept: The Preacher's Kid
Song: "Dear God" by XTC
Quote: "Just because I’m polite doesn’t mean I agree with you."

Kyra is a 1st-level Theosophist. She is based on the Pathfinder iconic cleric Kyra. Kyra is here to provide some tension. She is not evil, quite the opposite, but she also wants to protect her family, her church, and her town. She isn't 100% sure where the evil is coming from. 

Spoiler: Kyra manages to come to terms with all her doubts. Later on she becomes a preacher of her own church, one that is a little more welcoming. 

Meriko Hayashida

Meriko: "So what is your deal? You are all witches, right?"

Meriko Hayashida is composed, intelligent, and far more perceptive than most of her classmates realize. She comes from a family that values discipline, accomplishment, and maintaining appearances, and she wears that training with quiet elegance. But Meriko is no passive observer. She notices patterns, remembers details, and understands more than she says. There is a calm confidence to her that makes her hard to rattle, and when she finally chooses to speak plainly, it tends to matter. She may not seek the center of the story, but she is far too smart to remain at its edges for long.

Meriko's father is a professor at MacAlister College. She has an older brother at Mac. Her parents want her to be more traditional, like her brother, but that is not Meriko's way. She discovered that dressing in what she calls "Ninja wear" or what Americans think Japanese people wear, she can really get under her parents' skin. She is also a tech junkie and shows off the new CD player "she got from Japan." Actually, she bought it in St. Louis, but since it's a Sony, it technically comes from Japan. 

Meriko is also something of a kleptomaniac and often shoplifts. She doesn't need these things, her family is very well off, but she likes the thrill of it. On the rare times she catches her, she fakes crying and speaking in Japanese, explaining she doesn't understand American customs and don't send her home to her super strict parents, she will dishonor them, and she lays it on so thick that most shop owners tell her to forget it just so they can get this hysterical girl out of their shop. The second she is out, she drops the act and shows the thing she actually stole.

Her best friend is Kyra. They relate because their families are both so strict and conservative. Meriko makes mixtapes for Kyra and labels them "French Lesson 1" and "Chemistry Notes" Kyra doesn't like the lies, but she loves the music Meriko picks for her.

Meriko also feels like Kyra is "more than a friend," but doesn't know how to act on that.

Concept: The Sharp One
Song: "Voices Carry" - 'Til Tuesday
Quote: 仕方がない。 Shikata ga nai. "It can’t be helped."

Meriko is a 2nd-level survivor. She is based on the Pathfinder iconic thief Merisiel.

Renee Sylvi Jäneläinen

Sylvia: "Now there is a face I did not expect to see darkening my threshold."

Renee: "Hello. Godmother."

Renee Jäneläinen is a girl of winter light and long dark nights, carrying with her the sense that she belongs to colder places and older tales. Thoughtful, self-contained, and a little mysterious even when she is being kind, Renee has the air of someone raised to respect things most people would laugh off until it was much too late. She is not dramatic, not loud, and not interested in making herself the center of attention, but there is depth in her that people feel even before they understand it. In Jackson, where so many dangers hide behind familiar faces, Renee stands out precisely because she seems to understand that the world has always been stranger than it looks.

If asked why she came to Jackson from her hometown of Jakobstad in Finland, she will say something simple like "I wanted to perfect my English," but she is already better than some of the locals. Or something odd like "I LOVE American Rock n' Roll," which is technically true; she has knowledge of classic rock that even impresses Faye.  In truth, Renee is not completely sure why she picked Jackson, other than that she was drawn to it. When she got here and felt the town's magic she knew she had picked the right town. 

AND for reasons I have not 100% figured out myself, I introduced her by having her walk into El Espejo Oscuro, and saying to Sylvia Velasco, "Hello. Godmother." I am not sure what I was thinking, other than it hit me one day, and I could not put it down. I still need to figure this one out.

Concept: The Foreign Exchange Student
Song: "In Silence" by Fra Lippo Lippi.
Quote: "Voin ymmärtää ja kunnioittaa pimeyttä ilman että tulen osaksi sitä."
"I can understand and respect the darkness without becoming a part of it."

Renee is a 2nd-level witch, but she tries to hide it. Renen is a nod to all the great foreign exchange students we used to get and all my friends who also went off to become foreign exchange students as well. Renee is also a witch and has her own reasons to keep her power quiet. Renee is based on Rhiannon. So it is possible that she and Morgan will have some dealings in the future. Likely not positive ones. 

These five NPCs are here to either help or impede the PCs as needed. Their motivations are complex.  While they have basic concepts, they are not basic characters.