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 Welcome ............................................... 04
Playing safe .......................................... 06
Setting up your game .............................. 10
Choosing your character ........................... 11
Getting things done ................................. 30
Mission structure .................................. 42
Running the game ................................... 44
The map ............................................... 48
Sector 3 ............................................... 50
Sector 2 ............................................... 52
Sector 1 ............................................... 62
Evil calibration checklist ........................... 68

Words: Grant Howitt

Art and graphic design: Will Kirkby
Additional words: James Mendez Hodes
Editing and proofreading: Maz Hamilton
Production: Maz Hamilton
Eat The Reich text and game mechanics are copyright © 2023 by Grant Howitt /
Rowan, Rook and Decard Ltd.
Eat The Reich artwork is copyright © 2023 by Will Kirkby

Published by Rowan, Rook and Decard Ltd.

First Edition (2023). Printed in Latvia by Livonia Press on Magno Satin 130g.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed,

or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording,
or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For
permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.

Rowan, Rook and Decard

6 Long Lane
Stannington
Sheffield
S6 6EE
United Kingdom

rowanrookanddecard.com

CONTENT WARNINGS:
This game includes: death, violence, grievous injury to player characters and
non-player characters, blood, vampirism, mental domination, guns, animated
corpses, werewolves, occult magic, fascism, nazis, and Adolf Hitler.
 The year is 1943.
Europe is in flames.

You are a unit of crack vampire commandos

with a single objective:
drink all of Adolf Hitler's blood
and fatally destabilise the nazi war machine.
 WELCOME
Welcome to EAT THE REICH. By using this book, you and your friends
will be able to craft over-the-top stories of action, ultraviolence,
carnage and supernatural chaos together.

WHAT THIS IS:

A tabletop roleplaying game built around a single scenario: the final
vampire mission to retake occupied Paris at the close of the Second
World War.

WHAT THIS ISN’T:

An open-ended campaign game where you can explore the intricacies of
your bespoke character arc.

WHO THIS IS FOR:

Players and gamesmasters who want an all-action pulp adventure ready
to go out of the box, and who aren’t squeamish when it comes to
descriptions of dead fascists.

WHAT IS A ROLEPL AYING GAME?

Every roleplaying game (or RPG) is different. For the most part,
they’re creative storytelling games that you play with a group of
3–6 people for several hours at a time. Over the course of several
sessions of play you’ll build a narrative by following the rules in
the game book – rules that usually govern unexpected or challenging
consequences of your actions.

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WHAT IS THIS ROLEPLAYING GAME?
Most of you will be playing vampires – these are the player
characters. The player characters are the stars of the show and
everything revolves around them. All the player characters in EAT THE
REICH are pre-generated, which means that you don’t have to make them
yourselves – they’re ready to go.

One of you won’t be playing a vampire. You’ll be the gamesmaster (or

GM) instead. The gamesmaster is in charge of everything that isn’t the
player characters. That includes knowing the rules and describing the
world. For most groups you’ll also be deciding when and where to play,
and ensuring that everyone has a good time. It’s a role with a lot of
responsibility attached to it, but it’s a lot of fun once everything
gets going.

If you’re reading this book, odds are you’ll be the gamesmaster.

That’s how these things usually shake out. Now all you have to do is
convince some friends to come over and kill fascists for an evening.

When you’re at the table, your players will be in control of their

character’s actions and their position in the story; your role is to
set up the world, react to their decisions and facilitate use of the
rules. (The rules for EAT THE REICH are dead simple. You can learn
more about them on p30.)

WHAT IS THE HAVOC ENGINE?

The Havoc Engine is a simple, straightforward tabletop roleplaying
system with a focus on action, procedural scenes, objective-based
challenges and freeform player creativity. It’s what EAT THE REICH is
based on. You can learn more about it at rrdgames.com/havoc.

THE UNDERLYING ETHICAL STANCE OF THIS GAME

This game is not, in and of itself, an act of resistance; it is an act
of creativity which reflects our frustration with the real world’s
ongoing nazi problem.

For some players, telling a story of fictional and over-the-top

combat against some of history’s worst people feels fun and cathartic.
For others, reenacting a fight against literal, WW2 nazis feels
depressing or distasteful, or pretending to be a monster feels raw and
upsetting. EAT THE REICH isn’t for everyone, and there’s no shame in
not wanting to take part.

That said, we think that in the real world, if someone indicates

to you that they have chosen to become a nazi, you should consider
violence against them – within, of course, your abilities, safety
and convenience – before they choose violence against you or someone
else vulnerable. We also consider anti-fascist violence meaningfully
different from, say, violence against random orcs in a fantasy game.
Nazis have indicated that they’re evil, harmful, and oppressive to you
by their choices, whereas killing an orc just because they were born
an orc is definitely racist (and probably the sort of thing a nazi
would do).

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 PLAYING SAFE
Everyone at the table is responsible for everyone else’s safety. EAT
THE REICH has the potential to become very upsetting very quickly,
so you owe it to each other to take a few minutes and make sure no-
one’s going to have a bad time. There are a wide variety of safety
tools available for use, and we recommend using the following three as
standard in all your games:

SET EXPECTATIONS. This is a very violent game in which the players rip
nazis to shreds and drink their blood for occult power. It’s not a
horror game for you, because the player characters are so individually
powerful – but it’s definitely a horror game from the nazis’
perspective. If players aren’t up for a big gross stupid evisceration
party, they should play a different game.

LINES AND VEILS. A LINE is an element that you don’t want to see
during the game at all. A VEIL is an element that you don’t want to
see described in detail. Elements can be anything at all, and players
don’t have to give reasons for establishing one as a line or veil.
Some common elements are “no eye trauma”, “no harming children”, “no
sexual assault”, “no torture”, “no slurs”, and so on – anything that’s
upsetting or just unpleasant to participate in or witness. Some people
are upset by things that aren’t common; that’s fine too.

Before the game starts, ask players if there are any lines or
veils they want to establish and make a note of them. During play,
avoid these elements, and be respectful of everyone’s boundaries. If
something is in the book but it’s a line for one of your players, take
it out or change it. Don’t be afraid to pause the game to rethink
something if it’s touching one of these topics.

THE X CARD. Created by John Stavropoulos, the X Card is an index card

with an X drawn on it. By tapping or lifting the card, forming an X
with your hands, writing an X into the game’s group chat, or saying
“I’d like to use the X card”, you signal the other players to pause
what they’re doing, so you can explain a change you need them to make
to the game or narrative. It might be something in the narrative you
find discomfiting or upsetting, a reminder about or a change you want
to make to your game’s calibration of evil (see p68), an element of
someone’s characterisation which you find offensive, or a player
behaviour straining your enjoyment.

Explain the change you’d like in as little or as much detail as you

need; the other players won’t press or challenge you on why you need
the change, they’ll just work together to make it before returning
to play. The X Card allows us to get into intense topics like sex,
violence, extremism, and identity knowing we’ll have a non-judgmental
way to guide each other into safety.

You can also use the TRAFFIC LIGHT system, adopted from the BDSM
community, which has the following three calls to make opting in and
out of experiences very easy:

RED: Call RED when you want to stop the game and to edit what’s going
on.

AMBER: Call AMBER when you want to pull back on whatever’s happening –
make it less intense, less detailed, or just end it and move on.

GREEN: Call GREEN when you’re enjoying what’s happening and want more.

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 There is a wide range of other safety tools available online, and if
the ones suggested here don’t work well for you and your group, you
should take a look around and find some that do.

PLAYING ANTIHEROES
The vampires in EAT THE REICH aren’t clean-cut, idealistic paragons
of virtue looking to liberate the world from the nazi threat. They’re
here for revenge, adventure, to prove themselves, or in Flint’s case
breakfast. The methods they use could be considered to be evil even
when presented in context – they’re monsters, after all.

As a group, it’s important to establish safe boundaries around what

depths of evil the player characters will sink to during the course of
the game. What follows is a suggested list of boundaries; modify it
as you see fit. While this overlaps with the Lines and Veils outlined
on p06, it’s more focused on safely navigating the vampire genre.
(Our thanks to James Mendez Hodez for providing this framework; there
is a more detailed checklist to use with this framework on p68, and
we would encourage you to use this if there’s any ambivalence or
uncertainty in your group about where your boundaries lie.)

What are the acts inherent to the scenario which we will never
question or interrogate? Drinking human blood for power; invading
nazi-occupied France; killing fascists.

What are the acts we will engage with but which could be a point of
conflict between characters? Joy, excitement or glory derived from
killing fascists; collateral damage; harm to civilians.

What are the acts which are reserved for villains (non-player
characters) only? Murdering innocent civilians; fascism.

What are the acts which even villains won’t engage in. Rape or other
sexual assault; deriving sexual pleasure from murder; violence against
children.

NOTES ON TONE AND CONTENT

GENERAL CONTENT WARNINGS
This game includes: death, violence, grievous injury to player
characters and non-player characters, blood, vampirism, mental
domination, guns, animated corpses, werewolves, occult magic, fascism,
nazis, and Adolf Hitler. Some of these can be worked around; the
vampires, the nazis, fascism and Hitler, not so much.

HISTORICAL INACCURACY
EAT THE REICH is not a one-for-one retelling of the actual events that
occurred in France during the second world war. It assumes that the
nazis established a far greater presence in Paris than they did in the
real world. Our reasoning behind this is primarily a shallow one:

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 we thought that fighting nazis in 1940’s Paris would make for an
exciting story, without being overly disrespectful to the memories of
genuine tragedies.

We changed a lot of things about the city: we had the invaders

build extensive structures, we homogenised landmarks, and we included
generic Paris-style elements in the adventure without directly
referencing many particular locations. We hope that this sets a
tone that empowers the GM to play fast and loose with the details
and improvise material on the fly rather than strive for historical
accuracy.

Also, the bit about the vampires is made up.

INNOCENT BYSTANDERS
The vampires’ actions in Paris are wild, unpredictable, and dangerous.
The longer they spend carving a bloody swath through the nazi
occupiers, the more chance they’ll end up hurting or killing someone
they didn’t mean to – or rather, it begins to seem outlandish if they
don’t, even by the standards of narrative already established.

As a table, you’ll need to pick one of the following approaches to

deal with representing collateral damage, or come up with your own
compromise:

A) It is impossible for a vampire to cause serious physical harm

to someone who isn’t in a nazi uniform – just don’t describe it
happening. Innocent civilians are knocked clear of falling debris,
they get away at the last second, or they’re shown stumbling to their
feet once the smoke clears. It’s outlandish, but so is everything else
happening at the table.

B) Some collateral damage is inevitable, and unwilling sacrifices are to

be made to secure victory. Vampires don’t directly harm non-nazis, but
if they collapse a building by driving a tank into it, it makes sense
for them to accidentally hurt and kill people. Don’t revel in it –
that’s not why you’re here – but sketch out the human cost of ending
the war in this manner.

ACTUAL DISCRIMINATION
Racism is one of the fundamental elements of fascism; so too are other
forms of discrimination such as homophobia, transphobia, mistreatment
of people with disabilities, and more besides. But here’s the thing:
it sucks to have actual discrimination at the table. So even if you’re
narrating the actions of card-carrying 1940’s nazis, don’t yell slurs
at the players in character. It’s not a cool thing to do, even if
you’re just pretending for the sake of a game.

Plus, no matter the player characters’ ethnicities, they’re all

undead monsters with nightmare powers and a taste for blood. So
there’s plenty of ways you can describe them in negative terms without
relying on who their parents were, who they love, or what colour their
skin is.

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PLAYING WITH HISTORY
With most games in historical settings, we generally prioritise these
things in this order:

1) The health, safety, and comfort of real people, especially the players
in the game

2) A fun, functional play experience

3) Historical accuracy and detail

You’ll need to depart from history, but as you do…

- Don’t invent new nazi atrocities to communicate that nazis are evil.
Nazis are evil and we already know why. Convincing someone nazis are
worth fighting is outside the scope of this game and your narrative.

- Don’t ascribe humans’ historical crimes to different, supernatural

sources. It absolves those humans of guilt. You’ll notice we have no
secret vampires or cosmic horrors manipulating the nazis. They’re the
same nazis as they were in history, but all the occult stuff actually
works in this game.

- This game is not about the Holocaust. The Holocaust is an important

topic, but sometimes, we need to be able to tell stories about
the people the Nazis marginalized which don’t lead into Holocaust
narratives.

- Don’t harangue other players for not knowing World War II facts.
There’s enjoying history, and there’s gatekeeping, and the second
isn’t fun. If someone repeats something offensive or harmful, it’s
fine to correct them gently, but don’t hog the spotlight spouting
military history or make fun of others for not knowing tank
specifications or French customs.
- Don’t pretend humans are helpless without vampire assistance. You’re
using your vampire powers to help, and that’s excellent, but in real
life, humans kicked Hitler’s ass and we probably would have done it
even if he employed witches and werewolves.

To expand on this last point: many war narratives generate pathos by

focusing on the helplessness, passivity, or victimhood of the groups
the Nazis targeted. We want to highlight the fact that every one of
those groups mounted determined resistance to the nazi war machine,
sometimes against impossible odds, sometimes in full knowledge that
they wouldn’t survive, sometimes knowing they would go home to the
countries which defeated the nazis and face hatred there as well.

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 SETTING UP YOUR GAME
If you’ve run a roleplaying game before, you can probably skip this
section. Otherwise, read on:

WHO. You need to get together a group of sexy and exciting people
to play this sexy and exciting game. Reach out to people who you
reckon might be interested; you’ll need between three and six players
total. Show them the iconics and see which ones they’re interested in
playing.

WHERE. You need to pick a place to play the game. You can run it
online if you like – a lot of people do! – but there’s something
about meeting up around a table that really helps with telling stories
together. Some folks play in back rooms of bars, or use a spare office
at their university or place of work.

WHEN. If you have a job with regular daytime hours, you’ll probably
only be able to play in the evenings and weekends. Generally,
it’s more fun to have multiple short sessions than one long one –
especially given that the pace and action of EAT THE REICH can be
a bit exhausting compared to more sedate roleplaying games. Our
recommendation is to pencil in two or three two-hour sessions – that’s
more than enough time to explore Paris and kill Hitler, or die in
the process. (How long a roleplaying game lasts is up to you, your
group and the myriad demands on your time and attention – but we like
keeping them to the 2–3 hour mark.)

WHAT. EAT THE REICH is set up to play out a single story – the
climactic final strike against Hitler in his Paris stronghold. That’s
what’s going to happen. This isn’t a free-roaming sandbox where
players are free to adventure in any direction and find their destiny;
this is an assassination mission. We’ve given you details on lots
of different locations in Paris so whatever route the players take
there’ll be something interesting for them to do.

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 CHOOSING YOUR CHARACTER
In EAT THE REICH, we give you pregenerated characters which you can
play, each of whom has different skills, abilities and background.
They also come with a few character hooks to make play easier. While
the characters’ mechanics are fixed, their backgrounds are entirely
malleable. Keep the parts you like, discard those you don’t, and add
those that make sense during play; you don’t need to start out with a
fleshed-out backstory beyond these few concepts.

You can choose from the following six characters:

- Iryna, a gothic socialite warlock who brought a cavalry sabre from home
- Nicole, a hard-bitten gun-toting Resistance explosives expert
- Cosgrave, an East London wideboy necromancer
- Chuck, a rotting cowboy just trying to get along
- Astrid, who has an ancient predator soul coiled around her own
- Flint, a half-bat monstrosity, who lives in a cave

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 WHO’S WHO
It can be a good idea to recommend certain characters to certain
players if you think they’ll have a good time taking control of them.
Here’s a rough guide on who to give to who:

Iryna is the poshest of all the characters, and probably the

best dressed. She has some abilities and equipment which allow for
interesting descriptions of magic, too. Players who want to be
beautiful and elegant rulers of the night should enjoy playing her.

Nicole has a bunch of guns. If someone likes guns, glorious self-

destruction, or the linear application of extreme violence to complex
problems, they may well like playing Nicole.

Cosgrave is the most magical character, and his abilities come with
the expectation that players will use them in creative ways. Give
Cosgrave to a player who’s comfortable with improvising in the moment.

Chuck is a good-natured cowpoke, but he eats corpses. Give Chuck to

the joker in your group, because he’s incongruous and has plenty of
opportunities to make light of situations.

Astrid is the most basic character in mechanical terms, and she’s

very good at fighting nazis. If a player doesn’t want to make too many
complex decisions and just wants to rip nazis in half, give
them Astrid.

Finally, Flint is a half-man half-bat monster who may or may not

be able to talk. Players who are new to roleplaying or talking in-
character might enjoy the opportunity to play a big friendly dog-like
creature, albeit one that isn’t very friendly to nazis.

PLAYING WITH IDENTITY

This game defines the six player character vampires only loosely,
because they should be as easy to play as possible. It’s up to you
as players to provide detail, as and when you feel it’s exciting,
evocative or appropriate.

So our iconic vampires haven’t got preset pronouns, religions,

sexualities, or neurotypes. The character sheets and art suggest
certain things about their bodies, ancestries, gender presentation,
and cultural backgrounds, but the game still works great if you modify
those identities to fit your creative vision or to evoke your own
real-world identity.

If you, out of character, share a character’s marginalised identity,

we trust you to get it right. If you portray a character with a
marginalised identity you don’t share, that can also be great, but if
you stray into stereotype you might make a player at your table feel
uncomfortable, or develop bad habits which lead you to uncomfortable
interactions with marginalised people later on in the real world.

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 Successfully and sensitively playing a marginalisation you don’t
share is a complex skill, so this is a starting point:

- Take and integrate other players’ feedback on your portrayal

gracefully, not defensively.

- Play this part of the vampire’s identity as a genuine, deeply

integrated element of their character, not an overlay that sits on
top, or a series of stereotypes. That means avoiding cliche, even
if you have to modify what’s written about your character, and
introducing realistic elements from that identity at logical
narrative moments.

- Avoid in-depth identity trauma narratives.

For example, if you’re not gay and you play a gay vampire, it’s fine
to mention that you’ve experienced homophobia, or that you hate nazi
oppression of gay people – but steer away from elaborate descriptions
of anti-gay violence you might have experienced in your backstory.

Some tables may opt into the GM depicting identity-based oppression

in detail. Nazi Germany persecuted people based on race, nationality,
ethnicity, ability, gender, sexuality, and religion; for that matter,
so did other Axis and Allied belligerents, and not always to lesser
degrees. This kind of play is out-of-character hard mode. If anyone
isn’t into it, for any reason, don’t focus on it during this game.

If depicting and fighting oppressive dynamics in bloody fashion

sounds cathartic to everyone at the table, go for it. But take it
slow, and go at the speed of those who are least comfortable and most
affected by the subject matter. Players from marginalised backgrounds
should get to control the degree to which their marginalisation
features in the game.

RELIGION
If you decide to explore religion: Islam and Judaism both restrict the
consumption of blood, although the existence of hypothetical sapient
beings who must drink blood to survive has led to plenty of spirited
debates about whether vampires could profess Judaism or Islam.
(Catholics, conversely, love a bit of blood drinking. But they tend
to restrict their intake to just the Lord’s own personal vintage.)
Jewish and Muslim ethics also generally forbid harmful magic, though
the permissibility of magic for noble ends is, again, the subject of
enthusiastic debate. However, the intersection of vampirism with these
religions also relates to the unfortunate topic of blood libel.
“Blood libel” conspiracy theories rationalise antisemitism by
painting Jews as monsters who drink human blood. Similar conspiracy
theories exist which target other groups such as Muslims. For these
reasons, it’s shitty to depict Jews and Muslims as bloodsuckers in
a hostile context, reinforcing a painful stereotype. That said, in
a vampire game where it’s supposed to be fun to be vampires, and
we’re not singling Jewish or Muslim vampires out, it’s also shitty to
summarily exclude Jews and Muslims from play. If you have Jewish or
Muslim players, they get to decide whether Jewish or Muslim vampires
are, well, kosher (or halāl).
. In general, though, we recommend that
if you include Jewish or Muslim vampires, you keep their religious
practices, expressions, and rituals separate from their acts of
hæmophagy.

13
 IRYNA
and bonne vivante*
Old Money undead occultist
hed vampyr clan
Black sheep of a well-establis
torn apart by nazis
Ancestral home (and family)
on of F.A.N.G. funding
Providing a significant porti
STATS EQUIPMENT
Exquisite hunting rifle
BRAWL 2 (+elevated position)
CON 4 Magic cavalry sabre
FIX 2 (+charge!)

SEARCH 2 Explosive runes

(++concealed)
SHOOT 3
Cigarettes taken from the pockets of
SNEAK 1 hanged men
3 (mark to regain 2 Blood)
TERRIFY
Loot

BLOOD ABILITIES
DARK GLAMOUR. Spend 1 Blood: those nearby are mesmerised by
0 your unearthly visage. (+beautiful surroundings)
1 NIGHT’S WILLING SERVANTS. Spend 1 Blood: summon a swarm of
2 bats under your control. (+old buildings)

3 DEADEYE SHOT. When you use a ranged weapon, SPECIAL: Reduce a

Threat’s Attack rating by 1.
4
5 ADVANCES
6 HELL’S RAVENOUS FIRE. Spend 1 Blood: ignore Challenge on
your next action against a Threat.
7
8 ENERVATION OF THE SOUL. Spend 1 Blood: on your next roll,
gain SPECIAL: Inflict 4 damage to an Übermensch.
9
MANTLE OF THE FELL BEAST. Spend 2 Blood: BRAWL and TERRIFY
10 become 4, all other stats are set to 1, and you cannot use
items. Lasts until the Objective is completed.

INJURIES
1–2 3–4 5–6
SUIT TORN HAIR RUINED SHOULDER INJURY
ABDOMINAL PUNCTURE HEADSHOT ARM REMOVED
(Can’t use + dice) (+2 BRAWL, -2 CON) (May only use 1 item
per turn)
LAST STAND: FORBIDDEN SORCERIES (8D6)
14 * (Bonne morte?)
 NICOLE
Resistance guerrilla fighter and demolitions expert
Packing more heat than a whole platoon
Lost your cell to nazi purges, bitter about it
Bitten by your (now dead) vampire girlfriend
Desperate to meet a glorious end in battle
STATS EQUIPMENT
M3 submachine gun [1]
BRAWL 2 (+flanking)
CON 2 Cut-down Lee Enfield rifle [2]
FIX 1 (+close quarters)

SEARCH 2 Smoke grenades [3] Panzerfaust [5]

(+cover advance) (+++ armoured target)
SHOOT 4
Firebombs [4] Dynamite [6]
SNEAK 3 (++ firetrap) (++++ demolitions)
TERRIFY 3
Loot

BLOOD ABILITIES
SCAVENGER. SPECIAL: Roll a D6 and compare it to the numbers in
0 square brackets on Nicole’s equipment list. Restore 1 use of
1 the weapon rolled.

2 SAPPER. When you use explosives, SPECIAL: reduce an Objective

or Threat’s Challenge by 1.
3
BLINK. Spend 1 Blood: burst into shadows and reform a few feet
4 away. (+infiltration)
5
ADVANCES
6
RAT SWARM. Spend 1 Blood: summon a swarm of rats under
7 your control. (++filth)
8 FEED ON FEAR. When you reduce a Threat rating to 0, gain
9 3 Blood.

10 PITCH BLACK. Spend 1 Blood: plunge the area around you

into shadow; you can see fine. (++ambush)

INJURIES
3–4 5–6
1–2 HAND INJURY
JUST A GRAZE
DAZED LOST AN ARM (May only
BLEEDING OUT (Spend
1 Blood at the start use 1 item per turn)
HEADSHOT (Can’t
trigger specials) of your turn)

(8D6).
LAST STAND: RIGGED TO BLOW
16
 COSGRAVE
Hackney necromancer, taught by your aunt
Medically dead, but can still walk around and that
On the run from East London’s undead mafia
Crooked as a three bob note, but charming with it
Lots of weird black magic tricks

STATS EQUIPMENT
Enormous knife
BRAWL 2 (+never saw you coming)
CON 3 Sawn-off shotgun
FIX 3 (++point-blank)

SEARCH 2 Bottled ghosts

(++pass through walls)
SHOOT 2
Mother Millicent’s stolen soul jar
SNEAK 3 (+++any)
TERRIFY 2
Loot

BLOOD ABILITIES
DANSE MACABRE. Spend 1 Blood: gain full control of a corpse for
0 around a minute, after which it falls apart. (+“Hans, are you
1 okay?”)

2 BACK-POCKET HEX. SPECIAL: Reduce a Threat’s Attack rating by 1.

3 PHANTASMAGORIA. Spend 1 Blood: conjure nightmare illusions in the

area immediately around you. (+incorporates the background in a
4 clever way)
5
ADVANCES
6
MEMORY ROT. Spend 1 Blood: remove or implant memories from
7 someone you lock eyes with. (+you were never here)
8 DEATH BURST. Spend 1 Blood: curse a nazi within arm’s reach to
9 explode when they die. (++enclosed spaces)

10 DEAD MAN’S LUCK. After you roll your dice pool, before you
discard dice, reduce the GM’s successful Attack dice by 1 for
each 1 you rolled.

INJURIES
1–2 3–4 5–6
LOST SOME FINGERS SUCKING CHEST WOUND GRIMOIRE DAMAGED
ARM RIPPED OFF SHOT IN THE FACE WARDS COMPROMISED
(-1 to all stats) (+2 TERRIFY, -2 CON) (Can’t spend Blood to
use abilities)
LAST STAND: UNDEAD HORDE (8D6)
18
 CHUCK
Grew up on the wrong side of the tracks,
buried a sibling or two
Loves cowboy movies, honest work,
human liver and the wide open plains
Genuinely decent guy, apart from the “eating people” bit
F.A.N.G. pulled you out of jail after you ate a county sheriff
and half his deputy
Now you’re fighting for freedom, rather than just to survive
STATS EQUIPMENT
Paired revolvers, Betsy and Maria
BRAWL 3 (+duel)
CON 1 Tool belt
FIX 4 (+Jerry-rigging)

SEARCH 2 Cowboy hat

(mark to ignore an Injury or
SHOOT 3 being Downed; hat is destroyed)
SNEAK 2 Loot
TERRIFY 2

BLOOD ABILITIES
ACID SPIT. Spend 1 Blood: hawk up a gutful of fierce acid.
0 (++vs metal)
1 SPIDER SCURRY. Spend 1 Blood: skitter across ceilings and up
2 walls. (+low ceilings)

3 CORPSE EATER. After you roll your dice pool, before you
discard dice, gain 1 Blood if you rolled any 1s.
4
5 ADVANCES
6 ELBOW GREASE. When you roll up your sleeves and take on an
Objective single-handed with the FIX stat, gain SPECIAL:
7 reduce the Objective’s rating by 4.
8 CORROSIVE FLUIDS. When you mark an Injury, reduce the
9 rating of a Threat you’re engaged with by 2.

10 LASHING TONGUE. Spend 1 Blood: your strong, prehensile

tongue extends several yards out of your mouth.
(+restrain)
INJURIES
1–2 3–4 5–6
FLESH WOUND LIMPING MAULED
SHOT FULLA HOLES CRAWLING EVISCERATED
(Spend 1 Blood at the (-1 to all stats) (Can’t use + dice)
start of your turn)
LAST STAND: GO DOWN SHOOTING (8D6)
20
 ASTRID
Ex-fighter pilot, bitten by something after
a crash in the frozen taiga
The parasite soul of a wild predator is
nestled around your heart
Now ancient magic flows in your blood
and wild spirits bow to you
(But in case that fails, you also have a machine gun)
STATS EQUIPMENT
Machine Gun
BRAWL 3 (+enemies in cover)
CON 1 Greatspear
FIX 2 (+receive a charge)

SEARCH 3 Fragmentation Grenades

(++enclosed spaces)
SHOOT 2
Spirit Fetters
SNEAK 2 (+++animals)
TERRIFY 4
Loot

BLOOD ABILITIES
APEX PREDATOR. SPECIAL: Reduce a Threat’s rating by 3.
0
1 UNNATURAL ENDURANCE. SPECIAL: Reduce the GM’s Attack dice by 3.

2 BLOODHUNT. Spend 1 Blood: track targets or search for things

using your sense of smell. (+target fleeing)
3
4 ADVANCES
5
NIGHTMARE REGENERATION. SPECIAL: Clear a marked Injury.
6
SPIRIT STORM. Spend 1 Blood: hurl items like a poltergeist.
7 (++ something sharp AND heavy)
8
TETHERED PHANTOM. Spend 1 Blood: reduce an Objective or
9 Threat’s Challenge by 1 until the end of the round.
10
INJURIES
1–2 3–4 5–6
SPIRITS COWED SIGILS MARRED LIMPING
SPIRITS CAST OUT BLEEDING SHADOWS RUINED LEG
(Can’t trigger (+2 SNEAK, (-1 to all stats)
Specials) -2 TERRIFY)

LAST STAND: UNLEASH THE SPIRITS (8D6)

22
 FLINT
Born in a cave, driven out by nazis
Half-bat, half-human, all nightmare
Monstrous hunter with a taste for blood
May or may not be able to talk (possibly just shy)
STATS EQUIPMENT
Steel gouging claws
BRAWL 4 (+ambush)
CON 2 Grappling hook
FIX 2 (++three or more storeys)

SEARCH 2 Loot:
SHOOT 1
SNEAK 3
TERRIFY 3

BLOOD ABILITIES
RAVENOUS. When you’re in melee combat, SPECIAL: gain 3 Blood.
0
SENSE HEARTBEAT. Spend 1 Blood: you can see the heartbeats of living
1 beings through walls and other obstacles. (+dense cover)
2
IMPROVISED PROJECTILE. Spend 1 Blood: chuck something large and heavy
3 a surprising distance. (+aerodynamic)
4 WINGS. Spend 1 Blood: you can fly. (+aerial combat)
5
6 ADVANCES
7 HELLISH SCREECH. Spend 2 Blood: reduce a Threat’s Challenge by 1.
8 BONE ARMOUR. After you roll your dice pool, before you discard
9 dice, reduce the GM’s successful Attack dice by 1 for each 1 you
rolled.
10
OOZE FORM. Spend 1 Blood: squeeze through gaps, glop around, etc.
(+it’s in the walls!)

INJURIES
1–2 3–4 5–6
TEETH SMASHED SPOOKED HAMSTRUNG
JAW BROKEN (Can’t BROKEN (+2 SEARCH, EVISCERATED
gain Blood from -2 BRAWL) (Can’t use
nazis) + dice)
LAST STAND: FINAL FORM (8D6)

24
 NAZIS
In EAT THE REICH, the nazis took control of Germany in the 1930’s and
rapidly expanded their influence throughout Europe with an aggressive
campaign of invasion, blockading and terror tactics. Unfortunately
for the nazis’ enemies, their technological superiority was only
outmatched by their occult prowess thanks to decades of frantic
research by some of the world’s most skilled and least morally-
upstanding wizards.

The crown jewel of their burgeoning empire was Paris, and it is

here that Hitler planned to unveil his greatest creation so far: nazi
werewolves.
F.A.N.G.
Formed in secret six months ago, this loose-knit organisation of
vampires, walking corpses, morally grey wizards and one hell of an
administrative staff are the Allies’ last chance at victory. As
Hitler prepares to reveal a new breed of fascist lycanthrope, a crack
squadron of F.A.N.G. commandos launch their final mission: to crash-
land in occupied Paris, drink all of Hitler’s blood, and fatally
destabilise the nazi war machine.

F.A.N.G. is led by Commander Slate, a mortal, who reports directly

to the Allied command. Slate’s trademark clipped briefing style and
inspirational speeches have become a hallmark of F.A.N.G. missions,
and her leadership has seen them succeed against the odds on a number
of tense engagements.

There is no official documentation concerning what the acronym

“F.A.N.G.” stands for.

VAMPIRES
Vampires resist categorisation; they’re rare, they’re secretive, and
they eat people who ask too many questions. They all have a few things
in common, though:

- They’re tougher, stronger and faster than normal people.

- They drink blood or eat flesh to survive.

- They possess a level of intelligence similar to humans.

- They can’t handle prolonged exposure to sunlight without immolating.

- They’re (medically) dead but appear alive thanks to blood magic.

Each of the player characters in EAT THE REICH is some form of

vampire, though they’re not all the classic widow’s peak and evening
wear type – F.A.N.G. has found a place for back-alley necromancers,
haggard ghouls and cave-dwelling monstrosities amongst its ranks.

26
DROP COFFINS
Deployment of F.A.N.G. squads is performed via the use of tactical drop
coffins – a method so brutally effective that it is only usable by
operatives who are already dead. A drop coffin is a reinforced steel box
rigged with pressurised cylinders of premium high-quality nuns’ blood* and
some pneumatic shock absorption to protect the structural integrity of the
device.

These coffins are carried over the target site in a high-altitude

bomber, often shielded from enemy radar and scrying by a F.A.N.G.
obfuscationist, and dropped directly into action. No parachutes are used:
these would slow descent, taking away a crucial element of surprise.

The drop coffins plummet several thousand feet through the air before
smashing directly into the ground, turning the occupant into a sort of
mangled paste of gristle and bone. At this stage the nuns’ blood is
released into the coffin and the vampire within can use it to heal any
and all wounds within seconds; after that, it’s a simple matter of kicking
open the lid and descending on whatever luckless fascists they landed
next to.

* All blood willingly donated by members of F.A.N.G.’s

onsite convent, Our Lady Of Perpetual Ruin

27
28
 GETTING THINGS DONE
As a blood-drinking, undying creature of the night there’s very little
the nazis can do to stand in your way. Though they’ll send squads and
squads of soldiers (and more dangerous and weirder things besides)
against you, you can tear through almost any opposition with brutal
effectiveness.

STATS
Every action a player character makes is governed by one of the seven
statistics, or “stats”, listed below.

BRAWL. Kill nazis up close.

CON. Sway nazis with lies, flattery or charisma.

FIX. Repair or modify devices and structures.

SEARCH. Investigate to uncover information.

SHOOT. Kill nazis at a distance.

SNEAK. Avoid detection and minimise disruption.

TERRIFY. Scare nazis into compliance.

When you’re making an action, your stat will form the basis of your
dice pool - read on for details.

TURN ORDER
The GM chooses which player character acts first. Once they’ve
completed the process below, the GM can then choose which player
character acts next. Once every player character has completed their
turn, nazi reinforcements arrive if necessary, and a new round begins.

BUILD YOUR DICE POOLS

When it’s your turn, determine what stat you’re using to achieve your
goals. (There are more details on stats above.) This will mainly be
governed by the sort of things you want to do: if you’re leaping
headlong into a private box at the opera and murdering everyone inside
that’s BRAWL; if you’re tricking a gullible officer into parting with
information that’s CON; and if you’re hurriedly repairing the engine
on your getaway car that’s FIX. Grab a number of dice equal to your
character’s rating in that stat. If your action doesn’t line up with
any of the stats, either change it so it does, or just roll 2 dice and
carry on.

Then, if you decide to use equipment or abilities during your turn,

you can add a dice to your pool for each one you use. If you use a
piece of equipment, spend one use of it. If you use an ability, pay
any costs listed in the ability text – usually, you’ll need to spend
1 Blood. (You can describe using equipment or abilities without paying
the cost to power them, but you don’t get the extra dice.)

30
GO OUT WITH A BANG
The last use of any item of equipment that starts with more than one
use adds an additional bonus dice to the pool. This is to encourage
players to use their items up and loot new ones, which is more
interesting than relying on the same kit for the whole story.

ADD BONUS DICE

Your equipment and abilities have bonus requirements – situations
in which they’re especially useful or potent – which unlock extra
dice when they’re satisfied. The number of + symbols before the
requirement show how many bonus dice you get to roll if you satisfy
the requirement.

For example, Nicole’s submachine gun has the (+flanking)

requirement, so if you describe her attacking enemies from the side to
bypass their cover, you can roll an extra dice as you do it.

Generally, the more awkward it is to meet the requirements, the

more bonus dice you get for meeting it. Alternatively, some powerful
pieces of equipment have a low number of uses, but can be used to gain
additional dice with ease. (For example, Cosgrave’s stolen soul jar
has one use only, but can add four bonus dice to anything it’s used
on.)

You can also roll bonus dice later on, while you’re allocating dice,
if it makes sense to do so.

GM BUILDS THE THREAT POOL

The GM grabs dice equal to the current Attack rating of the Threat
you’re currently engaged with. (Engaged with means: involved with,
actively fighting, or otherwise influencing.)

PLAYER ROLL

CRITICAL +2 damage

discard!
SUCCESS +1 damage OR +2 defence
OR +1 defence OR +2 Blood
OR +1 Blood OR ACTIVATE SPECIAL
GM ROLL

discard! SUCCESS +1 damage

31
 ALLOCATE YOUR DICE
Allocate each remaining dice to one of the following:

- Advancing an Objective

- Eliminating a Threat

- Defending yourself against attacks

- Feeding on nazi blood

- Activating SPECIAL

As you allocate each dice, add one detail that describes the scene as
it happens. If those details satisfy new bonus dice conditions on the
equipment or abilities you’re using, you can roll those bonus dice at
this stage.

When you allocate a success to advancing an Objective, reduce

the Objective’s rating by 1. When you allocate a critical, reduce
the Objective’s rating by 2. An Objective with rating 0 has been
completed, and the vampires have achieved their aims. If the Objective
has a Challenge rating, it absorbs that number of dice before it is
damaged. For example, if you allocate two successes to an Objective
with Challenge rating 1, you will only reduce the Objective’s rating
by 1.

Add details like: clearing a path towards something useful, lending

support to an ally, interacting with the Objective, drawing fire,
distracting attention away from mission-critical actions, and so on.

When you allocate a success to eliminating a Threat, reduce the

Threat’s rating by 1. When you allocate a critical, reduce the
Threat’s rating by 2. A Threat with rating 0 has been beaten back,
and while reinforcements will soon arrive (see p38), they’re not an
immediate problem – they no longer inflict damage. If the Threat has
a Challenge rating, then it absorbs that number of dice before it is
damaged, in the same way as an Objective.

Add details like: ripping nazis in half, laying down covering fire,
cutting off routes for reinforcements, sowing confusion and terror,
and so on.

When you allocate a success to defending yourself, remove one of the

GM’s Attack dice. When you allocate a critical, remove two of the GM’s
Attack dice. (Their dice don’t have special rules for sixes – only
yours do.)

32
 Add details like: incoming fire, enemy advances, ducking into cover,
getting knocked down or thrown around the place, improvising defences,
toughing it out through the pain, and so on.

When you allocate a success to feeding, gain 1 Blood. When you

allocate a critical, gain 2 Blood.

Add details like: drinking nazi blood, plucking out hearts and
tearing them apart with your teeth, using an officer as a human shield
while you drain him dry, and so on.

Specials can only be activated when a critical is allocated to them.

These represent uncanny or exceptional abilities that your vampire
possesses, and allow them to break the rules of the game and do
strange and interesting things. Usually, Specials interact with the
mechanics of the game – so they might let you inflict massive damage,
complete Objectives single-handed, reduce enemy damage, and the like.
Your Specials (if you have any) are listed on your sheet alongside
your abilities.

Add details that shed light on the Special and how it takes effect
in the fiction.

TAKE CONTROL WITH DETAILS

The details here are just suggestions; you can put forward almost
whatever you want as long as the table is enjoying it. In many
roleplaying games, only the GM can describe the world around you and
the actions of the NPCs within – not so in EAT THE REICH. If you want
something to be present in the game, introduce it! You don’t have to
ask “is there a door here?”; instead, say “there’s a door here” or
better yet “I kick in a door and start shooting” and go from there.

The only thing that you can’t narrate is the actions of other named
characters – so that’s the player characters, and any important NPCs
the GM might have to play with during the adventure. Nameless mooks
are fair game. But if you ask for permission first, you can make a
suggestion: “Hey, can you throw me through that barricade?” is fine.

The GM and other players have veto rights over any details you
introduce, so if they want you to change something, respect their
choice and swap it for something else.

Once you’ve allocated all your dice, if the GM has Attack dice
remaining, you roll for a category and mark an Injury. If the GM has
three or more Attack dice remaining, you instead mark all Injuries
in that category and are Downed until another vampire rescues you –
else you’ll be at the mercy of the nazis. (You can learn more about
Injuries on p36.)

33
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BLOOD
Vampires drink blood. To represent each individual vampire’s hoard
of gore, EAT THE REICH uses Blood (with a capital B). Players can
resupply this mystical resource by spending successes to suck it out
of nazis instead of attacking, defending, or advancing the objective.
A vampire can hold a maximum of 10 Blood.

When an ability or rule says that you spend Blood, remove 1 Blood
from your stock. (Healing, and some powerful abilities, require more
than 1 Blood to activate; this is stated in their descriptions.)

At the start of the events of EAT THE REICH, every vampire has 0
Blood: they used all the supply in their drop coffin to fuel their
regeneration. Best get to drinking.

35
 INJURIES
As tough as your necromantic form may be, you can still be hurt
by lucky shots, sufficient weight of fire or the nightmare occult
abilities of enhanced adversaries.

If the GM still has Attack dice remaining when you have no dice
remaining, you mark an Injury on your character sheet. Each character
has unique Injuries and unique problems associated with them.

When you mark an Injury, roll a D6 and tick off the first box in
the relevant category. If you’ve already marked the first box in that
category, mark the second box. If you’ve marked both boxes in that
category, pick an alternate one and mark a box in that one.

When you mark the second box in a category, you’ll be subject to

some kind of penalty associated with the injury – usually one that
limits how you can use equipment and abilities, messes with gaining or
spending Blood, or changes the values of your stats.

DOWNED
If the GM has three or more Attack dice remaining when you have no dice
remaining, you are taken down – pinned under rubble, shot to bits,
briefly paralysed, rendered insensible, and so on. Roll an Injury
category as above, then mark off all available boxes in that category.

Until another vampire comes to your aid, you’re out of the fight.
Rescuing you becomes a new Objective, usually rated between 2 and 4,
but the exact rating is up to the GM. If they can’t rescue you before
moving on, you’ll be captured and at the mercy of the nazis.

SHARING BLOOD
Blood can be freely shared between vampires as long as they’re within
arm’s reach of each other. The precise nature of how Blood is shared
(transfusion, feeding, mystical vibrations, infernal contracts) is up
to the players involved.

DEATH
If you mark all six Injuries, you’re dead. Consult
the LAST STAND section on your character sheet, come
up with some dramatic fiction that lines up with it,
and roll 8D6. Apply them to the current Objectives
and Threats however you like and describe your final
sacrifice before retiring from the game. (If you
have a SPECIAL that lets you heal Injuries, you
can’t trigger it as part of a LAST STAND. It’s your
last stand! Once you trigger it, you’re out of
the story.)

36
HEALING
You can heal an Injury by spending 3 Blood at any time; when you do
so, erase the check mark next to it.

If you mark the same Injury again after you’ve already healed it
once, the mechanical penalties are the same, but you should feel free
to describe it in the fiction with different effects.

OBJECTIVES AND THREATS

Everything in Paris can be divided (mechanically) into Objectives and
Threats.

OBJECTIVES are tasks or challenges that the vampires must overcome

to complete their mission. Objectives form the core of each scene and
chart the party’s progress through the city. Each Objective has a
rating between 2 and 12 – the higher the rating, the more steps have
to be completed before the goal is achieved.

When an Objective’s rating reaches 0, it has been completed. Ask the

player who removed the last point of rating to describe what happens.

For example: the player characters find themselves on the street

outside the German Technology Pavilion. Cutting through here would
allow them access to the plaza adjacent to the Eiffel Tower as well
as giving them a chance to scavenge some interesting experimental
equipment. The Objective becomes:

GET INSIDE THE GERMAN TECHNOLOGY PAVILION

THREATS represent the nazi forces defending the city, who will attempt
to stop the invaders at any turn – the more Threats in play and the
longer they’ve been active, the more danger the vampires are in.
Each Threat has a rating, just like an Objective, but they also have
Attack dice. Attack dice are rolled by the GM when the player acts and
determine whether or not their character suffers an Injury.

For example: the Technology Pavilion is guarded by a squad of

soldiers carrying submachine guns and new-fangled stun batons. The
Threat in this situation is:

Infantry Squad Attack 3

The GM rolls dice equal to the Attack of the Threat that the acting
player character is engaged with (or actively avoiding). If they’re
engaged with multiple Threats, pick the one with the highest Attack.
For each extra Threat in play, they add 1 Attack dice to their pool.

When a Threat’s rating is reduced to 0, reduce its Attack to 0 as

well; the nazis have been killed, routed or otherwise obstructed.
(But they’re not gone for good – see the Reinforcement rules below.)
Vampires don’t run the risk of being injured if they act when there
are no Threats engaged with them – the GM has no dice to roll.

Players can divide up their successes between all present Threats

and Objectives in play as they wish, as long as it makes sense within
the fiction.

37
 REINFORCEMENTS
Paris is crawling with nazi scum. There’s no way that even a force
as capable as F.A.N.G. could hope to put all of them out of action –
they’d be overwhelmed long before they made an appreciable dent in the
defensive forces.

At the end of each round, if a Threat was reduced to 0 rating,

restore its rating by 1D6 and return its Attack to half its starting
value (rounded down). In addition, increase each active Threat’s
Attack by 1 as nazi forces close in on the vampires.

If the GM rolls zero successes on their Attack dice, increase the

Threat’s Attack by 1 once the player has resolved their action. The
end of the round is a good moment to check this has been applied.

The reinforcement rules above do not apply to Übermenschen and

certain other elite operatives, but their Attack rating starts higher
to compensate. When their rating is reduced to 0, they’re dead and the
associated Threat is permanently removed. Ask the player that killed
them to describe a suitably impressive death scene.

REINFORCEMENTS: EXAMPLE OF PLAY

The vampires are in combat with an Infantry Squad (Threat 6, Attack
3) and a Police Patrol (Threat 4, Attack 2). As half of the party
are focusing on tackling the Objective, the other half try to fight
off the nazis first. Focusing on the Infantry Squad, Astrid inflicts
4 damage, and Chuck inflicts 2, so the Infantry Squad’s rating is
reduced to 0.

When the other members of the squad roll to overcome the Objective,
the GM rolls 2 attack dice (the Police Patrol’s attack) rather than
the higher attack of the Infantry Squad (3). If the Infantry Squad was
still in play, the GM would roll 4 attack dice - the Infantry Squad’s
rating, plus 1 to reflect the fact there is an additional threat (the
Police Patrol) still in play.

At the end of the round, the GM handles the reinforcements. The

Police Patrol close in and increase their Attack to 3. The Infantry
Squad regain D6 rating and their new Attack is their original value
halved and rounded down (1).

REINFORCEMENTS CAVEAT
The Reinforcements rules keep the pressure on the vampires. If your
players want a more relaxing time (or you don’t want to faff about
keeping track of ratings and damage), you can ignore Reinforcements
and increase ratings and damage by 1 to 3 points instead. In this
case, when a Threat reaches 0 rating, it’s removed from play.

CHALLENGE
Not all challenges are made equal. If an Objective or Threat has a
Challenge attached to it, it negates successes spent to lower its
rating equal to its Challenge. (So if an Objective is Challenge 2
and you assign 3 successes to it, you’ll only reduce its rating
by 1.) Challenge applies each turn to each vampire engaging with
the Objective or Threat. So if you spend 4 successes on your turn
overcoming a Challenge 1 Objective, it only counts as 3 successes.

38
SCENES
Objectives form the core of each scene, so once an Objective is
completed, the scene is over. (Unless you’ve got multiple Objectives,
as mentioned below.) If the Objective involves moving from one area to
another (and many of them will), the vampires push on and leave the
Threats in play behind. They might return later on, but for the time
being the player characters can catch their breath and establish a new
Objective.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES
When a vampire is Downed (p36) they are given a mini-Objective all of
their own to represent the efforts of their team-mates rushing in to
rescue them. For all other situations, Secondary Objectives represent
useful things that the vampires can do that will assist them with
their mission but that aren’t crucial to their overall success.

Though we’ve written some into the location descriptions, Secondary

Objectives are often invented on the fly by the GM in response to
player actions or improvised details in the scene. When a player
completes a Secondary Objective, they choose one of the following
effects to trigger:
- Reduce a primary Objective by D6
- Reduce a Threat by D6
- Gain D6 Blood
- Reduce a Threat’s Attack by 2
- Reduce a Threat or Objective’s Challenge by 1
- Gain access to an unusual or powerful piece of equipment

You don’t have to use this mechanic for everything the players want
to do – their off-mission actions can often just be folded into the
general narration. But it can be fun to give a player a spotlight
moment as a reward for trying something interesting.

A Secondary Objective should have a rating equal to roughly half

that of the main Objective.

LOOTING
Once per Objective, if you find something interesting and want to keep
hold of it, write it down in your LOOT slot on your character sheet.
Work with the GM to determine a bonus requirement for it (look to
existing pieces of equipment for inspiration, or select one from the
list below). After that’s done, it functions as a piece of regular
equipment with three uses and a single bonus requirement. Remember,
the last use of any item of equipment that starts with more than one
use adds an additional bonus dice to the pool.

When a location contains a particularly impressive piece of

equipment, it’s listed underneath its description within the scenario
– these will generally have different numbers of uses or increased
bonus dice, so keep track if so. Sometimes these come with a
Secondary Objective attached – clear the Objective, and you unlock the
equipment.

39
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FLASHBACKS
Once per session, when you roll 2 successes or fewer, you can trigger
a flashback to spur yourself on to victory – you won’t let Hitler
win this easy. Roll on the flashback tables to define a question, or
choose one that appeals. Answer it by describing a brief scene that
happened on a past F.A.N.G. mission – the other players can help.
Where the table states [character], randomly determine or choose a
player character from the ones present at the session.

When your flashback is over, add 2 dice to your pool, then roll all
of your dice again. The second result stands.

FLASHBACK CONTEXT
(If you roll the same as another player, it happened on the same
mission)

1) On board a plummeting aeroplane

2) Rescuing P.O.W.s in a thunderstorm
3) Assassinating a nazi general at the opera
4) Extracting a spy from behind enemy lines
5) Stealing a cypher machine from a submarine
6) Sabotaging a field gun with improvised explosives

FLASHBACK QUESTION
1) You saved [character] from certain death. What nearly killed them?
2) You recruited [character] to F.A.N.G. What did it take to get them on
board?
3) You owe your life to [character]. How did they save it?
4) [character] taught you a few tricks. What was the most important
lesson?
5) You won’t let [character] see you fail like this. What do you respect
most about them?
6) You won’t let [character] see you fail like this. What do they most
respect about you?

41
 MISSION STRUCTURE
BRIEFING
Read or paraphrase the following to your players:

The year is 1943. Europe is at war.

Illuminated by the dull red lights of the bomber’s hangar, Commander

Slate paces back and forth on the steel plates of the plane’s floor.

“The last six months have led us to this point. This is our final
move. Your mission is to kill Adolf Hitler in his zeppelin atop the
Eiffel Tower.”

[Number of players] reinforced steel boxes hang from the roof. From
behind bullet-proof glass in the lids, eyes stare forth with fierce
determination. Your eyes.

“It’s hot as hell down there, folks. Once you arrive, you’ll be
swarmed with nazi scum until this is done and dusted.”

She walks over to a large lever mounted towards the front of the
bomber.

“Godspeed, and good luck.”

She salutes the drop coffins and throws the lever. The hatches open
and you plummet from the plane towards the lights of Paris at dusk.

COFFINFALL
Ask the players where they want to drop into Paris; thanks to occult
counterwarding built into the Eiffel Tower that messes with their
obfuscation hexes, they can only select a point within Sector 3.

Whatever location they choose, it’s going to form the basis of the
opening scene where all the vampires are introduced. Establish it as
peaceful, calm and maybe even pleasant before the drop coffins smash
into it from several thousand feet. Then: chaos, screaming, clouds of
dust and falling rubble, disorder and violence.
Each coffin slams into the ground at terminal velocity, mangles the
occupant to paste, and instantly rejuvenates them with pressurised
release of top-quality nuns’ blood. As each player character bursts
out of their coffin and begins to tear apart the defenders of Paris,
this is their opportunity to make a dramatic introduction and show off
what they’re about.

GM: take this opportunity to introduce the Threat, Objectives

and Blood mechanics to the players while the stakes are still low.
Increase all the Objective ratings within this opening area by 2–4, so
each vampire gets to make a proper entrance.

42
ONWARDS
After the dust settles on the drop site, the game begins in earnest.
The flow of play goes like this: the players pick a direction as they
hot-foot it through the streets of Paris, and the GM manages the
Objectives required to get there. Each location on the map will form
the crux of an action scene, so Objectives are mainly focussed on
traversal through these spaces. These Objectives are fairly generic
– if something more specific comes up during the course of play, feel
free to swap them out for something that better fits the way the game
is flowing for you.

If there’s nothing particularly interesting happening in a location,

hand-wave past it and progress onto the next exciting thing that
happens. EAT THE REICH is a series of explosive fights, not a game
about precise logistical concerns.

ÜBERMENSCHEN
In EAT THE REICH, the greatest weapons in Hitler’s arsenal are
the living tools of destruction known as Übermenschen. These
supernaturally-augmented warriors have a chance of going toe-to-
toe with a vampire and not dying – some are powerful enough to maybe
even kill the vampire. That makes them a pretty big deal. Also, their
supernatural augmentation means that their blood is jam-packed with
occult power, and drinking it allows a player character to choose one
of the advances on their sheet and activate it.

These are the setpiece fights of your game, and one of the few
times the characters are going to be threatened right from the start
of a scene, so it pays to foreshadow them. As the players approach
an Übermensch location, tip them off that something dangerous is
going to happen. Each Übermensch enemy entry contains a few suggested
foreshadowing elements you can drop into play; spread them liberally
throughout the city. If the players avoid their locations, then have
the Übermenschen follow them.

THE CLIMAX
The climax of EAT THE REICH happens when the vampires board Hitler’s
command zeppelin, fight their way through a cadre of hunters, kick a
werewolf to death and then kill Hitler. If this isn’t what ends up
happening in your game, that’s absolutely fine. Just try to make it
thrilling, and remember: this isn’t a game where the nazis get to win!

THE EPILOGUE
As the vampires ride off into the sunrise, the game is over. Go around
the table and ask for a couple of sentences about each surviving
player character detailing what they do after the war.

43
 RUNNING THE GAME
TONE
The intended tone of EAT THE REICH has three main elements:

ULTRAVIOLENT. Violence is very present but not intimate, or

personal, or necessarily vindictive. It’s joyous and glorious and
celebratory. It’s so far from actual violence that it counts as a
different thing entirely – a spectacle, far removed from the real-
world elements of pain, fear and anger.

Similarly, when vampires get injured, it’s gross. Their inhuman

bodies can take more punishment than makes sense; they can lay dormant
for hundreds of years; disembowelment is more of an annoyance than a
serious danger to them; and they could probably survive decapitation
if you got the head on ice quickly enough. It’s the same spectacle,
but this time a testament to the incredible endurance of the central
characters in this game.

IMPRECISE. This isn’t a game about tactical positioning or bullet

drop or complex resource management. It’s a series of big stupid
action scenes. Don’t worry too much about what player characters can
and can’t do in physical terms – the only consideration you have in
this regard is keeping things consistent. (So: if a vampire finishes
their turn on a roof and then they start their next turn twelve feet
underground, the player needs to at least put in some narrative as to
how they got there.)

When describing the forces opposing the vampires, you don’t need to
worry about how many there are at any given situation. Until a Threat
hits rating 0, it can fight – bring in additional soldiers, have guys
get back up clutching a sidearm, have squads of seventeen if you need
to.

OVER THE TOP. You don’t have to sustain this for very long. You’re
not writing a six-part HBO miniseries – you’re describing a Parisian
murder spree in vulgar detail with your mates for a few hours. Don’t
worry about holding back stuff for the end of the story. Go hard, and
encourage your players to do the same. More things will come to you,
and the players will make decisions you’d never imagined, and you’ll
build everything together and it’ll be better for it.

PACING
EAT THE REICH runs hot. That is to say: it has a lot of action, and a
lot of things happen right after each other, and the player characters
are rarely told that they can’t do something – more that they can’t do
it yet. There’s no opportunity to hang back and discuss tactics, or
chat with an NPC for half an hour, or piss about on a shopping trip.
The final assault on Paris begins before the start of the game.

Don’t try to punch through the whole game in one session, unless you
feel like sustaining that pace for about five hours. Split it up into
two or three evenings and take your time with it. If players start
trying to slow the pace, let them – but do it in flashbacks, either
with the flashback mechanic on p41 or by cutting back to a briefing
session that took place before the events of the game.

If you try to play EAT THE REICH in the most efficient way possible,
you’re probably not going to have a lot of fun. This is a game about
luxuriating in telling a story, not maximising your damage output.
GM: use your initiative to mix things up if you need to. Make numbers
bigger for bigger groups. If your players decide to burn down

44
 Objectives and avoid Threats, make the Objectives harder. Change the
map, move the Übermenschen, make the game your own. This isn’t a board
game, and nothing here is sacred: you can change the experience to
create something that will give your group what they’re looking for.

CONVENTION GAMES
Running EAT THE REICH at a convention has a different set of
expectations: players (who you may not know very well) turn up and
expect a whole story, start to end, in about three hours. In this
case, rather than letting the table mediate the pace of the game,
you’ve got a clear end in mind: at the start of the third hour of the
game, the vampires should enter Sector 1 on the map.

It’s your job to make this happen. So cut past bits you’d linger on,
skip sections, remove nazi resistance in areas to allow players to
breeze through them without opposition, give them an armoured truck to
drive headlong into the endgame, reveal the hidden rocket boosters on
the base of the Eiffel Tower, etc.

Now: this is a tricky game to run at conventions, because it’s

splatter horror and deserves a good long list of content warnings.
If you’re planning to run this, be extra careful and deliberate about
setting up your safety tools, and make sure your players know in
advance what they’re getting into.

PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHAOS

In a lot of roleplaying games, the players ask questions about the
world, the GM answers them, and then the player characters react to
that information. EAT THE REICH has a more malleable approach to the
shared reality of the world: the fine details of the imagined space
don’t really matter because they don’t affect the mechanical systems
underneath it. Players are free to describe their actions however they
please. They can dictate the world around them, too, and even the
behaviour of nearby NPCs if it reinforces their fiction. The player
characters are the stars of the show.

So: encourage players to invent details on the fly, and provide

opportunities for them to mess about in the fiction. An idling staff
car, a loose hand grenade, a sentry standing next to an open window,
an incompetent guard willing to believe anything – these are all
opportunities for players to exert their will on the world.
Provide potential and let players use it however they wish;
build a buffet of things to break and subvert, and marvel at
their capacity to surprise you in what sort of silly shit
they’ll attempt.

WHEN NOT TO USE THE RULES

We can’t promise to cover every eventuality that might come
up during play, and furthermore, what the rules do might not
always be what’s best for your table at any given moment. What’s
important is that everyone has fun, not that you follow each of
the rules to the letter – so feel free to change them. Or get
rid of them. If you don’t feel like rolling dice for a while and
instead just telling a story together, we’re not going to stop
you doing that. You’ve already purchased the book – our work
here is done. What happens next is up to you.

45
 BEING A NAZI (FOR PRETEND)
Look: it might come up. You’re in control of everything aside from
the player characters, and a lot of that everything in this game is
nazi soldiers. For the most part, your descriptions will be limited
to the defenders desperately trying to kill vampires and dying in
entertaining ways as a result, and we can all agree that’s fine. This
game is anti-nazi propaganda. It’s a place for imaginary nazis to get
their teeth kicked in.

But be careful when you embody an NPC directly; taking on the role
of someone whose heartfelt beliefs are so absolutely reprehensible
as part of a fun game you’re playing with your friends can be tricky
to handle whilst making sure everyone is enjoying themselves. (Not to
mention if anyone overhears your conversation free of context: “Don’t
worry, I was only pretending to be a nazi” isn’t a great defence,
even if it’s true.) Don’t verbalise slurs; describe what’s said if you
really need to, and don’t be specific. And don’t physically act out
any of the stereotypical nazi gestures.

The Übermenschen in EAT THE REICH are the speaking roles for the
GM, and they’ve been designed with an eye to keep them at arm’s reach
from the whole dyed-in-the-wool nazi bit so you can play them a little
easier. Dämonenblut is written as a hedonistic serial killer with
superpowers; Rust-Witch is so overloaded with raw chaos she’s broken
through into a sort of enthusiastic murderous solipsism; Stahlsoldat
is an unfeeling machine; and the Werhund is a frantic beast. You can
wrap yourself in them for a while without having to oppress or kill
any particular social or racial groups.

But not Hitler. So he doesn’t get a voice.

46
ON ACCENTS
If you want to do accents for different nationalities, that’s up to
you. In play, generally we don’t. Mainly because, as non-natives, we
struggle to come up with a different German accent for every nazi so
they all just sound like the same guy, and also because accents are
one of those things which can be actively harmful if you’re not on
point.

If you do want ways to differentiate your characters vocally, the

accent style popularised by The Death of Stalin and Chernobyl can be
a solid choice: transpose familiar accents from your country onto
another country and go from there. But if your Bavarian lilt is as
reliable as your Stuttgart twang and you can always pivot with ease
into a Dusseldorf brogue then, by all means, go for it.
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48
 PLANNING YOUR TOUR OF PARIS
Each of the locations on the map holds an interesting scene, challenge
or fight, and the bits in-between are less exciting. When the players
aren’t actively overcoming an Objective or fighting a Threat, you can
put the rules to one side and do some free roleplay.

There’s no right or wrong number of locations that the player

characters should travel through before the final confrontation with
Hitler - instead, it all depends on your group, how much time you have
put aside to play, and what sort of story people are interested in
telling. Visiting 4 locations works just fine - so does visiting 15.
We recommend 2 or 3 locations per sector.

RETREAT
If the players want to pull back from an objective or threat, they
can: make a new objective (Escape!), with a rating that makes sense
given the fiction you’ve established. When the new Objective is
fulfilled, the vampires can move back to their previous location on
the map or off to a different one entirely, but they shouldn’t end up
closer to the Eiffel Tower than they were before by retreating.

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49
 SECTOR 3
Starting sections.

Many of these places will still be occupied by civilians when the

vampires reach them – they’ve not had time to clear out, or the
confusion of the assault has left them hiding in place rather than
attempting to flee to safety.

The nazi threat here is minimal (by the standards of the rest of
Paris), with police patrols and off-duty infantry squads supported by
the occasional armoured car. If things are starting to get boring,
feel free to throw in a Sniper Team or Paratrooper Squad to provide
some interest.

PLACE DE LA SIRÈNE
Classy area with bistros, cafes and boutiques. Well-to-do families
drink coffee and eat pastries at outdoor tables, and a mermaid
fountain graces the centre of the square.

Objective:
Get out of the open and into cover (6)

Enemies:
Police Patrol x 2

GRAND MAGASIN MARTIN

Sprawling, multi-level department store selling most anything you
can imagine (that can be imported from Germany). State-of-the-art
escalators ferry fur-coated customers up and down between sections and
overworked staff rush to and fro to fulfil orders.

Objective:
Find your way out of the maze-like building (6)

Enemies:
Infantry Squad (sent in to find the vampires)

Armoured Car (waiting outside)

GRAVEYARD
A new, German-only graveyard with memorials for many of the officers
who died during the conquest of France. When the vampires arrive, a
military funeral is just wrapping up as the swastika-marked coffin
is lowered into the ground; there’s a squad of soldiers here who
were ready to fire a rifle salute but now turn their guns upon the
invaders.

Objective:
Ruin that funeral (6)

Enemies:
Infantry squad (unprepared but still armed)

50
HÔTEL L’ÉTOILE
Very swish hotel that caters to the families of visiting dignitaries.
One of the last functional grand pianos in Paris takes pride of place
in the sixth-storey bar, which is precisely where the plummeting drop
coffins will smash into if this is chosen as a drop site.

Objective:
Make a suitable entrance (6)

Enemies:
Some nazi officers having a drink x2 (same stats as Police Patrol)

CATACOMBS
Paris is home to many tunnels, sepulchres, forgotten mausolea and
the like – natural places for vampires to hang out. This location
represents a major entrance to the underground network, but navigating
to other parts of the city will be difficult thanks to centuries of
disrepair and deliberate obfuscation. That said, if it’s getting
dangerous on the surface, ducking into the tunnels might allow the
vampires to escape attention for a while.

Objective:
Get into (and subsequently out of) the subterranean labyrinth
(6, Challenge 1)

Enemies:
Armoured Infantry Squad (scared out of their wits)

SAINT-MÉDARD CHURCH
Paris is lousy with churches; this is one of the more impressive
examples of the form, with well-maintained stained glass windows, oak
pews and a grand central altarpiece. It’s empty when the vampires
arrive (or it becomes empty very quickly if it isn’t) but nazi troops
soon show up and start shooting the place apart.

Luckily, the old folk stories about vampires fearing holy symbols or
sacred ground are just religious propaganda, and the player characters
suffer no ill effects upon entry.

Objective:
Punch a hole in the attacking line and get out of there (8)

Enemies:
2x Infantry Squads
1x Sniper Team (in an adjacent building)

Loot:
Particularly huge cross (++swing for the fences)

51
 SECTOR 2
The bulk of the assault will take place in Sector 2 as the vampires
make their way toward the central objective.

THE GERMAN TECHNOLOGY PAVILION

German technology has come along leaps and bounds in the last half
decade, and this exhibition hall aims to show that off to the public.
Experimental fuel sources hum and glow ominously in the darkness of
the after-hours hall, informative display boards sing the praises of
new-fangled alloys and a deactivated, state-of-the-art quadrupedal
weapons platform stands proudly in the centre of the arena.

Objective:
Storm the pavilion and get out the other side (9)

Loot:
Prototype beam emitter: (++++properly calibrated before firing)
Loose, glowing fuel source (++near flammable material)

Enemies:
Stahlsoldat

Secondary Objectives:

Power up the weapons platform (5)

Jam a prototype fuel source into the tank and get it up and running.

Completing this Objective gives one player access to the following

pieces of equipment that do not occupy Loot slots:

Quadrupedal weapons platform (+shrug off incoming fire)

Microwave array turret (+++anti-tank)

52
Stahlsoldat
The first of what Hitler hopes will be a legion of half-man, half-
machine warriors – pistons replace muscles, steel replaces skin, and
the troublesome parts of the brain are cut away until only the bare
instinct of killing remains. In a move that some would describe as
unwise, Hitler opted to have a dormant Stahlsoldat on display in
the German Technology Pavilion instead of using a suitably enormous
mannequin.

The pavilion is loaded with atmospheric monitoring equipment:

finely-tuned thermometers, infernal barometers, pressure sensors and
light-reactive plates. When the Stahlsoldat connects itself to the
array with an armoured cable plugged into the base of its neck, it can
sense the world around it with uncanny accuracy – tracking targets
through walls, fighting whilst blinded and deafened, and dodging
incoming fire before anyone pulls a trigger.

THREAT 6

ATTACK 4 (pneumatic claws and scattergun)

CHALLENGE 2 (Inch-thick armour)

Powering up: While the Stahlsoldat is a lone operator, it takes a

while to spin up to its full potential. It uses the reinforcement
rules as normal, but is defeated when it is reduced to 0 Threat.

Foreshadowing: Banners strung up on the outside of the technology

pavilion promising the future of warfare, suspicious hissing and
grinding as it powers up, steel shutters trapping the vampires inside
the pavilion they just broke into

Blood flavour: Bleach, pine tar, petrol.

METRO STATION
None of the trains are currently running, but the Metro makes for an
excellent means of slipping through the city undetected – if that’s
the sort of thing the vampires want to do. Miles upon miles of rail
tunnels, maintenance shafts and public thoroughfares allow for access
to almost anywhere in the city, if you’re clever about it. But when
you’re underground, you’re much easier to trap. If you found a working
train (or repaired a malfunctioning one) you might be able to speed
beneath the streets until you’re chased down by motorcycles and enemy
trains on adjacent tracks.

Objective:
Cut through the metro tunnels (10)

Enemies:
Armoured Infantry Squad x2 (sent in to look for vampires)
Motorcycle Squad (dispatched if you get a train working)

53
 EXPENSIVE-LOOKING GARAGE
Few people owned a car in 1940’s Paris, and for many of those that
did, it was a status symbol. Most of the vehicles in this garage
belong to German expats or diplomats who want to be seen driving
something expensive. They can’t handle much in the way of punishment
from enemy fire, but on an open road they can achieve a fair lick of
speed.

Objective:
Steal something flashy and get the hell out of there (8)

Enemies:
Infantry Squad in an Armoured Car (giving chase)
Sniper Team (on an adjacent rooftop)

Loot:
Open-topped Italian speedster (++stunts)
Reliable German import (++tight turns)
Unremarkable French jalopy (++go unnoticed)

LE COCHON NOIR, French Resistance Hideout

A run-down backstreet bar made up entirely of interconnected
basements. Smoky, dark, badly-ventilated rooms hold dozens of hard-
bitten partisans with a fierce grudge against the nazi invaders. The
French Resistance has a hideout here, and F.A.N.G. have warned them
ahead of time to expect the vampires’ arrival.

Objective:
Lose the nazis by hiding in the bar (6)

Enemies:
2x Police Patrol
Infantry Squad in an Armoured Car (who turn up halfway through)

If the vampires would like to team up with the resistance fighters,

use this Secondary Objective as nazi forces assault the bar:

Team up with the Resistance (4)

Repel the attack on the hideout and help resistance members escape.

Completing this Objective gives one player access to the following

equipment that does not occupy a Loot slot:
Guerrilla Squad (+flanking manoeuvre)

54
MUSEUM OF EUROPEAN WARFARE
This sprawling and poorly-maintained museum contains tools of war from
a thousand years ago up to the modern day; weapons, armour, siege
engines, banners, uniforms and more line the glass cabinets and moth-
eaten exhibition spaces. It would be a perfect route through the city,
too, if only a desperate nazi warlock hadn’t animated empty suits of
armour, preserved warrior mummies and one (1) of the horses that was
buried with Napoleon in an attempt to repel the vampire invaders.

Objective:
Smash through the museum before you’re overwhelmed by the undead
(8, Challenge 1)

Enemies:
Einherjar
Museum Guards (same stats as Police Patrol)

Loot:
Painstakingly maintained masterwork greatbow (++ silent killer)
Still-functional improbably loaded cannon (+++ immobile target)
Turncoat warrior mummy (+bandage restraints)
Napoleon’s undead horse (+trample)

Einherjar
THREAT 7

ATTACK 3

Painless: Each dice in the GM’s Attack pool that shows 1 increases
this enemy’s Challenge by 1 for this action.

Bloodless: Player characters cannot spend dice to regain Blood whilst

engaged only with the Einherjar.

Haunted suits of armour and warrior mummies brought to life by grim

nazi wizardry.

55
 JARDIN DE FÉE, Illuminations and Amusements
Nazi-built amusement arcade and illuminations – popular with young
soldiers looking to take girls on a cheap date. The crowning glory of
the park is Europe’s third-largest ferris wheel, but a wide variety
of carousels, carnival games and lit-up displays provide plenty to do
otherwise. In their rush to flee the vampire assault, the civilians
staffing this park fled without shutting down the machinery, so many
of the lights and attractions have been left running.

Objective:
Navigate a collapsing fairground whilst hunted by an entropy witch
(10, Challenge 1)

Enemies:
Tank crew (abandoned their tank after the Rust-Witch bricked it; same
stats as Police Patrol)
Rust-Witch (riding the detached ferris wheel towards you)

Rust-Witch
Rust-Witch (just “Rust-Witch” – she had her true name removed by a
team of surgical occultists) uses golden technology harvested from
Atlantean satellite ruins to manipulate the forces of chance and
decay. Of all the Übermenschen in Paris, she is the most difficult to
control and has a penchant for wild chaos.

Raw entropic power harvested from catastrophes runs through her blood.
Machines malfunction, metal rusts, supports snap and failsafes fail
in her presence; when she focuses her attention, the results can be
catastrophic.

THREAT 10

ATTACK 6 (Drains the life from you, buildings collapse, planes fall
out of the sky)

Aura of Misfortune: Players discard rolls of 1-4 rather than 1-3 when
engaged with the Rust-Witch.

Solo: This enemy does not use the Reinforcement rules.

Rust Curse: At the end of each round, after every player

character has acted, choose a player character. One piece of
their equipment, chosen at random, rusts or otherwise degrades into
uselessness.

Foreshadowing: Carrion birds spiral around above the fairground, a

completely useless tank has been abandoned by its crew on the edge of
the area of effect, a fighter plane passes over the park and tumbles
towards the ground

Blood flavour: Stinging nettles, pop rocks and tonic water.

56
 EXHIBITION OF DEGENERATE ART
This collection of art that the nazis deem antithetical to German
values has been deliberately badly-framed and hung, and is
surrounded with mocking commentary. Most of the really good pieces
are snapped up by nazi officers for their private collections –
the remainder are burned in the adjoining gardens on a regular
basis. Tonight, in fact, marks one of the largest burnings of art
on record, and the now-unattended flames are spiralling up towards
the night sky. Vampires with an eye for art can uncover lost
masterpieces by Van Gogh, Picasso and other European luminaries in
the back rooms – but getting them out of Paris intact won’t be easy.

Objective:
Undertake a very quick and violent gallery tour (8)

Secondary Objective:
Track down a lost Van Gogh or something (4)

Completing this Objective nets you no mechanical benefit but, on the

other hand, you’ve got a lost Van Gogh (or something) and you can
flog it for cash or hang it up in your next castle.

Enemies:
Infantry Squad in an Armoured Car, smashing through the wall
Art-Burning Brigade (as Police but Attack 4 on account of the
flamethrowers)

CONCERT HALL
Was once festooned with beautiful (if gaudy) 17th century decor, but
it’s all been ripped out and replaced with stark architecture and
on-the-nose murals of hard-working Germans. This place seats about
a thousand at full capacity – but it’s nowhere near full, as most
people fled when news of the vampires reached them.

Unfortunately for the performers, the Übermensch known as

Dämonenblut (real name Franz Vogel) was one of the people who didn’t
flee, and now he’s demanding that they finish the performance as
planned after ordering that all the doors be locked. It’s Wagner
– Hitler’s favourite – and by the time the vampires arrive, the
singers are rushing through the second act. Each time one of them
misses a note, he executes another trapped audience member.

Objective:
Hustle through the corridors and make your way towards Hitler,
ignoring the Übermensch (4)

Enemies:
Dämonenblut

58
Dämonenblut
Dämonenblut’s real name is Franz Vogel, and he’s a popular movie
star. After some indiscretions around torturing and killing his co-
stars came to light, the Reich stepped in to make the allegations go
away in exchange for his participation in the Übermensch program.
As the vampires close in on Hitler and Paris burns, Franz takes the
opportunity to engage in some cruelty whilst at the opera.

When calm, he looks normal – striking, handsome even – but when he

grows angry or frustrated, obisidian-black ichor pumps thick through
Franz’s body like molasses thanks to the implanted heart of a lesser
demon in place of his own. Horns, teeth and claws sprout from his skin
and rend foes asunder; they snap off in the wound, and more burst
through ragged holes to replace them.
THREAT 12

ATTACK 4 (claws, toxic ichor, spiralling teeth)

CHALLENGE 1 (physical pain is a distant memory)

Solo: This enemy does not use the Reinforcement rules.

Foreshadowing: Posters displaying his handsome human face announcing

his starring role in an upcoming propaganda film, horns and teeth
discarded on the floor or growing from the walls, trapped opera-goers
cowering in fear.

Blood flavour: A jar of chicken fat with a cigar stubbed out in it.

59
60
 COMMON ENEMIES
Police Patrol Sniper Team
THREAT 4 THREAT 3

ATTACK 2 ATTACK 6

A group of civilian enforcers CHALLENGE 2

with pistols, batons and
handcuffs. Solo: This enemy does not use
the Reinforcement rules.
Infantry Squad
Sharpshooters and spotters
THREAT 6 hiding in concealed positions

ATTACK 3 Paratrooper Squad

Ten jack-booted soldiers with
rifles and submachine guns. THREAT 6

Armoured Car ATTACK 3

THREAT 4 Rapid Deployment: When you add

to the Paratrooper Squad’s
ATTACK 2 Attack through Reinforcement,
add +2 Threat rating.
CHALLENGE 1
Dropping from planes flying
Solo: This enemy does not use overhead to engage the vampire
the Reinforcement rules. menace.

A steel-armoured wheeled troop Tank

transport with a machine gun
bolted to the top. THREAT 8
Armoured Infantry Squad ATTACK 6
THREAT 6 CHALLENGE 2
ATTACK 3 Solo: This enemy does not use
the Reinforcement rules.
CHALLENGE 1
A rumbling, roaring behemoth
Steel plates and toughened with a single-shot cannon
leather make these troopers mounted atop a turret.
hard to put down.
Vampirjäger Cadre
Motorcycle Squad
THREAT 8
THREAT 10
ATTACK 6
ATTACK 3
Anathema: Attack dice generate
All vampires gain the following 2 successes each on the roll of
SPECIAL when engaged with the a 6.
Motorcycle Squad:
Solo: This enemy does not use
CRASH AND BURN: Inflict 3 the Reinforcement rules.
damage to the Motorcycle Squad.

Skilled riders on fast Five oath-sworn hunters

motorcycles. When they go down, carrying blessed bullets, holy
they stay down. water sprayers, sharpened
stakes and firebombs.

61
 SECTOR 1
Endgame locations.

AMMUNITION AND VEHICLE DEPOT

A collection of cars (some armoured, some not) for use by nazi
officers. Most of the vehicles in here are fairly unremarkable four-
wheel drives or half-track command cars, but root around a bit and
you’ll find the souped-up bullet-proof black Volkswagen of your
dreams.

Objective:
Scramble across the motor pool (8)

Secondary Objective:
Raid the ammunition dump (4)

Upon completion of this Objective, each player restores all uses of

any firearms, grenades or similar weapons.

Enemies:
Motorcycle squad (speeding between cover)
Infantry Squad (guarding the place)
Tank (roaring out of a hangar after the vampires defeat one enemy)

Loot:
The souped-up bullet-proof black Volkswagen of your dreams
(++ front-mounted machine guns)

NAZI PLEASURE GARDENS

You can only attend so many celebratory galas in the Eiffel tower
before you get tired of cramming into well-appointed observation
chambers and waiting in line for your turn on the elevator. As such,
the area around the tower has been remade into pleasure gardens
intended for use by nazi officers and their families.

Cunningly designed by some of the Third Reich’s foremost landscape

engineers, the gardens recreate a pastoral Austrian scene in
the middle of Paris. Unfortunately for the nazi defence forces,
the winding pathways, thick copses of trees and charming ersatz
waterfalls provide excellent cover for an invading gang of vampires.
Unfortunately for the vampires, they also provide excellent cover for
snipers.

By the time F.A.N.G. gets here, the party is in full swing. Great
tables heaving with meat and bread and beer line the faux village
square, and the upper echelons of the nazi forces are celebrating
Hitler’s upcoming announcement. They’re either too drunk or too
confident to believe that the vampires constitute a serious threat.
Time to set things straight.

Objective:
Blitzkrieg the garden party (8)

Enemies:
Carousing Officers (same stats as Infantry Squad)
Sniper Team x2

62
THE EIFFEL TOWER
Built to celebrate the 1889 Paris World Fair, the Eiffel Tower
remains one of the most enduring symbols of Paris – and France in
general. Upon the nazi conquest of the city, the structure was retro-
fitted with the latest in German technology. Elevators rocket up the
structure, dazzling electric lights blaze out into the night air,
and a rudimentary communications aerial has been supplanted by high-
bandwidth broadcast technology.

Also, there’s a zeppelin attached to the top of it containing Adolf

Hitler, a cadre of nazi vampire-hunters, and the world’s first nazi
werewolf.

Objective:
Ascend the Eiffel Tower (8, Challenge 1)

Enemies:
Armoured Infantry Squad (waiting for you)
Paratrooper Squad (landing on the top and sides)

THE FÜHRER’S ZEPPELIN

In a word: sumptuous. In another word: airborne.

This repurposed dirigible has been outfitted with marble, silk,

gold and mahogany. Grand staircases lead to mezzanine levels loaded
with Hitler’s own paintings (all of them without artistic merit) and
treasures plundered from throughout Europe, Northern Africa, Tibet and
Nepal.

The crucial element of the zeppelin, and where the vampires will
meet Hitler, is the Broadcast Suite located towards the front of the
vehicle.

Objective:
Reach Hitler’s Broadcast Suite (6, Challenge 1)

Enemies: Vampirjäger cadre

From here, the climax of the game is a fight against the Werhund
Übermensch. If this Threat is reduced to 0, Hitler is at your mercy.

63
 HITLER’S BROADCAST SUITE
An elaborate set has been constructed to give the impression of power
and superiority: great banners hang from every wall, an iron and
basalt lectern stands atop a staircase, and – in direct opposition to
zeppelin operational safety guidelines – a roaring firepit occupies
the centre of the chamber. Here, Hitler has been awaiting the arrival
of the invaders with anticipation, because he has an ace up his
sleeve: that werewolf we keep mentioning.

His intention is to broadcast live footage of the slaughter to every

receiver in Europe – of which there are few in 1943, but it’s enough
to make a point. F.A.N.G.’s desperate assault is the Allies’ last
hope, and to nullify it on camera is to win the war.

Hitler poses no direct threat to the vampires; he is weaker than the

average German soldier and hopped up on so many amphetamines he can
barely shoot straight. Unfortunately for F.A.N.G., and thanks to the
latest advances in nazi occult research, he is protected by a
full-blown lycanthrope.

Werhund
Multiple infusions of cursed
wolfblood and implanted canine teeth
against the spinal column has given
this soldier the ability to transform
into a half-man, half-hound with
impossible strength. Even a vampire
should fear the nightmare hand of the
werhund!

THREAT 10

ATTACK 5 (claws, teeth, limb-ripping

strength)
CHALLENGE 1

Rending Claws: When marking an Injury from the

Werhund, check off all available boxes in the
section rolled, not just the highest available one.

Regeneration: The Werhund’s challenge cannot be lowered

by any means.

Solo: This enemy does not use the Reinforcement rules.

Foreshadowing: A full moon hanging ominous in the sky, terrible

howling heard echoing across the city, mutilated corpses of nazi
soldiers that the vampires aren’t responsible for

Blood flavour: Sweat, meat, cheap leather.

64
 THE FINAL SCENE
Now: Hitler’s face-to-face with a squad
of furious, bloody Allied vampires, with
nothing left to fall back on. In a game
with a tone like EAT THE REICH, the bad guy
should have a dramatic final monologue,
right? Wrong!

Fuck it. He doesn’t get one. He runs

like hell as soon as the vampires arrive
and he’s cowering in a locked room with an
empty Luger when they defeat his protectors
and corner him. He’s been coordinating the
defence this whole time, it’s gone wrong at
every turn, and he’s out of options.
He doesn’t even get to sound confident and
use long words to give him the impression of
majesty, or honour, or any of that bullshit.
Kill him. War’s over. Go home.
WHAT DOES HITLER’S BLOOD
TASTE LIKE?
Amphetamines.

67
 EVIL CALIBRATION CHECKLIST
Here are four degrees of bad behaviour, with examples of some of the
limits you might want to apply to your game. Your table can go over
the individual bullet points and discuss whether you want to move them
up or down the scale. You’ll probably have a couple points you want to
add or subtract yourself.

Evil inherent to the setting which we will engage with, but

never question or interrogate.
- Vampires drinking human blood to survive.

- Killing nazis.

- Enjoying killing nazis.

- Killing nazis in over-the-top, ultraviolent, even cartoonish ways.

(The game kind of assumes you’re gonna do this last one but nothing
actually breaks if you just stab someone regular-type instead of
killing them in some extraordinarily gory manner).

- Property destruction.

Evil which we will engage with, but which may be a point

of conflict between characters.
- Europeans making snarky comments about other European cultures.

- Helping or working with nazis who say they’re only nazis under
coercion or threat.

- Patriotic nationalism (in the sense of classical nation-states, rather

than white nationalism).

- Vampire exceptionalism (vampires acting like they’re better than

humans).

- Drinking (some of) the blood of innocent people, and/or consenting

individuals.

- Drinking (all of) the blood of nazis.

- Militarism.

- Other crimes.

- Property destruction of cultural treasures like the Arc de Triomphe.

68
Evil which will happen, but the players won’t do it, and will
oppose it when it shows up.
- Murdering innocents.

- Fascism.

- Cruelty (including forms of violence unrelated to achieving your

objectives, like torture).

- Ableism, racism, sexism, queerphobia, religious intolerance.

- Europeans making snarky comments about other European cultures which

cross over into punching down: making fun of the French for being
effeminate, for example, is rooted in shitty attitudes toward gender
and sexuality, and only villains do that.

- Any other violations of war crime statutes.

- Violence against animals.

- Magical mind control.

- Blood libel.

Evil no one does, even villains.

- Sexual assault.

- Violence against children.

- Any item in the foregoing scale can also be veiled (see p06) which
means that if it happens, it doesn’t happen on screen, or it isn’t
described in detail. By default, saying slurs aloud and doing Roman
salutes is veiled: if they happen, just say that some Nazi does it,
don’t act it.
 EAT THE REICH WAS INSPIRED BY…..
FILM AND TELEVISION
Danger 5

I adore Danger 5. It’s a pulp action comedy show set during WW2, it
features a gang of international mavericks who fight nazis and attempt
to kill Hitler (every week), and it was filmed in Australia for about
a tenner. It’s very funny and stupid and is about as close to a direct
relative of EAT THE REICH as you can get.

Inglourious Basterds

Actually? Honestly? I didn’t like it. Went on too long. Christoph

Waltz was good in it, though, but he’s good in everything, so just
watch something else he’s been in.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Look: not a great film. We can all agree on that. But the Mina Harker
bits are very close to what I was aiming for with EAT THE REICH, and
I’ll say about 40% of it was a similarly daft anachronistic romp.
Comic’s a bit grim for me, but it’s Alan Moore, so it’s worth sticking
with.

The Suicide Squad

This is actually a lie because I finished the first draft of this game
and then watched The Suicide Squad (the 2021 one with John Cena in it,
not the 2016 one with Jared Leto in it) almost immediately after doing
so but: yes, absolutely. The tone, visuals and characters are bang on.

Hellsing

An anime which gave me my first taste of vampires-as-superheroes. It

features a powerful protagonist and his various upgunned friends who
fight against – well, just sort of generic baddies in the original
series, but a bunch of nazis in the OVA remake. I could take or leave
the plot but it’s very good at showing cool protagonists fighting
dozens of mooks at once.

The series has dated terribly and the OVA is honestly a bit violent
for me, even as a man who wrote a game about tearing nazis in half, so
take this recommendation with a pinch of salt.

70
GAMES (DIGITAL OR ANALOGUE)
Wushu (Daniel Bayn)
An action-forward, fiction-forward RPG that
time. Wushu was published in the early 2000swas years ahead of its
rule – the more details a player contribute and included a brilliant
s to a scene, the more dice
they roll and the more effective their chara
cter is. This leads to
fantastic levels of player engagement and invol
wheeling cinematic style that makes for very vement, and a free-
campaigns. exciting, if very short,

Wushu was the first game I ever ran as an adult

impression on me – many of my early games are , and it left a huge
rules slapped around the sides to push play just Wushu with more
in certain directions. In
fact, EAT THE REICH is pretty much a very compl
once you get down to the core of it, and that’ icated version of Wushu
s no bad thing.
You owe it to yourself to read Wushu. Go get
the PDF.
Hollowpoint (B. Murray, C.W. Marshall)
Hollowpoint is a game about bad people doing
awful things for
terrible reasons. It focuses on hyper-competent
unfathomable violence for reasons that are operators engaging in
and has a lot of detail on the mechanics ofonly briefly alluded to,
of simulating two equal sides fighting one modern combat. Instead
another, the game models
up-gunned player characters punching through
staying mobile to avoid getting surrounded. police resistance and

I found the back-and-forth of scene resol

the tone of the game, and the way it treatsution hard to grasp – but
combat, have inspired a
lot of EAT THE REICH. Full credit to Hollowpoin
list, which I have stolen pretty much whole t as well for its stat
sale.
DIE (Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans)
Written as a tie-in with the comic book of
the same name, DIE focuses
on a group of flawed individuals who get sucke
fantasy kingdom that offers them everything d into a nightmare
they’ve ever dreamed of.
So: nothing like EAT THE REICH. But it uses
with 4+ successes and 6+ specials which I saweda dice pool mechanic
place for this game. Thanks for that, Kiero off and stapled in
n!
Havoc Brigade (Grant Howitt)
So: I wrote this game. It’s basically the same
you play orcs and you have to kidnap a princ as EAT THE REICH but
e, and I wrote it a decade
ago. But if you liked this and want more over-
it a look; it’s on our website. It’s also the the-top action, give
Havoc Engine, which is the beating heart of true foundation of the
available as a system reference for you to EAT THE REICH, and is
hack yourself.
Wolfenstein
The newer ones, anyway – I was born too late
ID and Bethesda took the concept of murderingto enjoy the originals.
possible and pushed it as far as it could go. as many nazis as

71
 FURTHER ADVENTURES
have stolen his
Once Hitler’s dead, and the vampires(or crashed it
zeppelin and flown it off to Lond on
rette money),
into the Seine, or pawned it for ciga t to tell
the game is over . EAT THE REIC H is buil
the world and
one story. But if you want to explore ideas that
you’re feeling creative , here are some
up your own
you’re welcome to elaborate on and make in this book.
scenario s usin g the rule s pres ente d

MAKING THE PAIN RUN ON TIME

not airdrop into
Everyone loves Italian food, so why vital fluids?
Rome and consume all of Mussolini’s , a historic
He’s hanging out in the Villa Torlonia tion s both
palace riddled with subt erra nean addi
t being an
ancient and modern - the most importan otype of the
airtight bunker which contains a prot . Try to kill
first Ital ian bipe dal weap ons plat form
him before he gets it powered up.

HIROEATO
ated slap-bang in
The Imperial Palace of Japan is situ red in gardens,
the midd le of Toky o on an isla nd cove
features. Emperor
woodland and charming architectural hauled the
Hirohito has holed up insi de and over
ceful area
island’s defences, turning the once-pea e pits, machine
into a deat htra p of barb ed wire , spik
anti -per sonn el mine s. Get in there.
gun nests and
DAMN
FRANCO MY DEAR, I DON’T GIVE A
the assault
Join celebrity guest George Orwell inco’s summer
on the Pazo de Meir ás, Fran cisc o Fran
up with several
retreat, as the Spanish leader holes ? A magic sword,
squads of armed men and - what ’s this
es beneath
unearthed from the forbidden sepulchr ires in a
Barcelon a Cath edra l? That behe ads vamp
single stroke? Wild. Anyway, drink him.

72
YOU WINSTON, YOU LOSE SOME
Churchill was a real piece of shit –
even by 1940s standards – and he pullracist
truly wretched stuff in India before ed some
he got
into the whole “leading Britain to vict
shtick. He’d never expect you to to ory”
him on account of the fact you’re a try and eat
de facto UK
Government employee, but more fool him.
a grand victory celebration at Buckingh He’s at
with the King. Grub’s up. am Palace

A FEAST FIT FOR A KING (TO BE EATEN

AT)
Fuck it. Drink the King too – saves
a trip.
You’re gonna let him tell you what to
a vampire! He’s just got an expensiv do? You’re
the right dad. But make sure not to e hat and
immortality crossed with hereditary turn him:
terrible combination. rule is a

73
 HACKING TOGETHER YOUR OWN VAMPIRES
We get it. We created six beautiful vampires for you to play, but
that’s not enough. You want to make your own special little monster
to run around Paris and kill nazis. Who can blame you? We did it
ourselves six times, after all. So here’s a quick and dirty guide to
making your own bloodsuckers.

GO HARD ON THE CONCEPT

Start at the top. What’s your vampire about? What’s their deal?
What part of the classic vampire ethos do they embody? Are they an
evening-wear, aristocracy-of-the-night, real cape-and-balcony kind of
revenant? Are they a counterculture punk cursed with immortality? EAT
THE REICH is not a complex or intricate game, so there’s no room for
complex or intricate characters. Work out what your vampire’s deal is
and then tilt towards it at every opportunity.

RESKIN
The easiest option: pick one of the existing characters who sounds
about right and change their descriptions, but keep all the mechanics
the same. For example: want to make a gruff ex-SAS engineer who
became undead as part of a failed supersoldier program? Take Chuck,
everyone’s favourite gunfighter, and mess with the fiction.

- Paired Revolvers become a Cut-Down Submachine Gun

- Cowboy Hat becomes a Lucky Deck of Cards

- Tool Belt becomes Sapper’s Kit

- Acid Spit becomes Rust Curse

- Spider Scurry becomes Temporary Additional Limbs

- Corpse Eater becomes Implanted Nun’s Heart

- Elbow Grease remains as-is

- Corrosive Fluids becomes Undead Knife-Fighter

- Lashing Tongue becomes Terrifyingly Long Arms

As you can see, there’s a bit of negotiation here – you may need to
tweak your concept a little to fit the mechanics, but the Havoc Engine
is loose enough to accommodate most reimaginings.

HACK
The second-easiest option: pick bits from characters you like and
combine them together. Let’s imagine a Jekyll and Hyde-style character
who’s transforming into and out of a beastly shape as they fight.

Cosgrave’s stats seem like a good jack-of-all-trades, so we can

start with those. For abilities (most vampires get three), we can use
Astrid’s Apex Predator and Unnatural Endurance, and Flint’s Ravenous
- they’re all Specials, so the way that they only trigger on rolls of
6 evokes the idea of a character who’s not quite in control of their
abilities.

74
 For equipment, we can take Nicole’s M3 Submachine Gun and Iryna’s
Cigarettes Taken from the Pockets of Hanged Men, but change the
description to Vials of Mysterious Serum and leave the mechanics the
same. To give them something to do in melee, let’s round it out with
Flint’s Steel Gouging Claws.

For advances, it feels interesting to give them more opportunities

to control their powers, so we’ll pick three abilities with the Spend
Blood requirement. Iryna’s Mantle of the Fell Beast seems appropriate,
as it’s transformation-themed, as are Chuck’s Lashing Tongue and
Flint’s Bone Armour.

Your character will need some Injuries that match their theme.
Astrid’s Injuries seem to fit nicely, as one of them takes away the
ability to trigger Specials and the character relies on them to get
things done. (Don’t just pick whatever’s the most powerful! Pick
whatever would make for an interesting story instead. EAT THE REICH is
not a game that requires character optimisation.)

Finally, pick a last stand. Flint’s Final Form seems like the
obvious choice here.

DO IT FROM SCRATCH
The hardest option is doing it all from scratch. When we made our
iconic characters, we didn’t use a strict system, and instead used
what felt right and played well. Feel free to mess with or completely
disregard these guidelines:

- Rank one stat at 4, two at 3, three at 2, and one at 1.

- Create three to four items, using the existing ones (and the Loot
examples on p39) as a guide.

- Create three starting abilities that tie into your concept: one
Special, one Spend 1 Blood, and one of your choosing. This offers a
mix of intentional and unintentional power, which is fun. As with
equipment, the more awkward it is to trigger an Ability’s bonus
conditions, the more dice it should grant.

- Create three advances. Advances can either unlock new abilities like
the starting ones, or make your vampire more survivable (for example,
Flint’s Bone Armour and Cosgrave’s Dead Man’s Luck).
- Create three injuries. One of them should subtract 2 from the
character’s highest stat and add 2 to a different one, because that
opens up a story beat where they use different tactics for a bit.
One of them should limit spending or gaining resources in some way
(for example: can’t spend Blood, can’t drink Blood, can’t spend 6s on
Specials, can’t use Equipment, etc.). One of them generally makes life
harder: it reduces stats, increases default Challenge or otherwise is
just broadly negative.

- Come up with a Last Stand. This is as easy as writing down a vaguely

evocative phrase and then jotting “8D6” next to it, and you’re done.

75
76