Urban Shadows returns with an expansive second edition

Urban Shadows has a new second edition brimming with updated content:

Magpie Games brings urban fantasy roleplaying back to the streets with the retail release of the second edition of Urban Shadows. Available now online and at your local game store, the updated edition of this award-winning urban fantasy title features new playbooks, new faction mechanics, and completely revised materials from the first edition, but with the same big city danger, political drama, and devious fun fans have come to expect.

“I had a chance to check out Urban Shadows 2e early at the GAMA Expo this year. and was so excited to see all the cool updates,” says Taylor Robinson of Taylor’s Tavern Tales. “Not to mention, the artwork in the book is phenomenal and captures the moody, tumultuous vibes perfectly. My favorite types of games to play are always based around political intrigue, and when you add vampires, wizards, mortals, and more in the same unstable city, I am here for it!”

Urban Shadows revitalizes the urban fantasy genre for the 21st Century, offering an ever-changing landscape of political intrigue, personal drama, and supernatural thrills easily accessible to players and game masters of all levels. As a flagship title for Magpie Games, the team has put everything they can into improving upon the first edition of Urban Shadows to create a new game that lives and breathes both during and between sessions.

“We were delighted to return to Urban Shadows with all the tools and experiences we’ve gained as designers and publishers over the last ten years. There are so many things in this book—new playbooks like the Sworn and the Imp, the new faction turn, the updated Circles—that we simply didn’t know how to make a part of the game back in 2015,” says Mark Diaz Truman, CEO of Magpie Games and lead designer for Urban Shadows. “Everything from the basic mechanics to gamemaster tools to the layout and art has been reviewed and rebuilt, all in the hopes that we bring the best version of this game to tables all over the world.”

Since the original publication of Urban Shadows nearly ten years ago, it has become regarded as a foundational text for the Powered by the Apocalypse engine, one of the original games to make use of the new framework for roleplaying games pioneered by Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, and Monsterhearts. Updating the urban fantasy genre with a new vision of cities and the people who live within them, Urban Shadows combines that cutting edge game design, a deep love for the 90s, and a keen understanding of urban politics to create a new take on the genre that breathes new life into stories of monsters who haunt our darkest shadows.

At launch, you’ll be able to pick up a variety of accessories for Urban Shadows, including:

• A new and improved 250-page core rulebook with beautiful art that stands out on any game shelf
• A four-panel MC Screen, featuring tools, tables, and full-color art, and a Campaign Notepad with 50 double-sided pull-off sheets
• A new set of dice, including five custom dice, a pair of “Urban Shadows” dice, and four dice themed to each of the cities’ Circles
• A flexible rubber sheet dice tray with a fabric cover and buttons, featuring full-color artwork from the game

Several Urban Shadows products are exclusive to the Magpie Games website, including a Deluxe Edition core rulebook that features a gorgeous, foil-stamped black cover with invisible designs revealed only by blacklight, an enamel pin set featuring the icons for each city Circle, and a journal set featuring full-color game art on the cover and 30 dot ruled pages.