The premise of CODE:BLACK is that aeons ago Capital G Good and Capital E Evil fought a war across the universe, and Evil lost.

Most evil was destroyed, and the really powerful Evils that could not be destroyed were locked away in a transdimensional Prison. A few minor evils not worth bothering with were swept up into the Prison along with the great Evils. Thus Good had the material universe all to itself, and having achieved this penultimate victory….

..disappeared without a bloody trace. The exact nature of Good’s disappearance is not explained in CODE:BLACK, except to say that the universal balance does not allow Good to exist without Evil or vice versa. Some say Good simply ceased to exist; other evidence suggests it transcended this universe completely. (Think of what happened to V’Ger at the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

However it happened, Good disappeared and this created a vacuum in the universe, and the force of this vacuum was greater than the strength of the Prison. It literally sucked one of the minor Evils out of the transdimensional void and back into the universe, weakening the walls of the Prison somewhat in the process.

The minor Evil that was brought back into the universe was an Evil so minor as to be incomplete, in fact it was an Evil that actually had minor amounts of true Good within it, and a capacity to choose between Good and Evil.

It was, as you may have guessed, called the human race.

Yes, in the CODE:BLACK universe, humanity is all the Good that’s left in the universe, and it’s a flawed, tainted Good with plenty of Evil in it. But even having a trace of Good makes humanity better than the other Evils, or maybe just the least of all Evils. (The motto for CODE:BLACK is “It is better to be the lesser of two Evils.”) Some other minor Evils, utterly devoid of Good, escaped too, and many continue to serve the greater Evils lurking within the Prison, striving to bring their masters into the universe, snuff out all Good, and befall the same fate as Good, whatever it is. (It can’t be as bad as eternity in the Prison, they reason.) Other Evils, like Devils, are utterly selfish and don’t want greater Evils coming to earth and upsetting their comfy lives as politicians, lawyers, religious leaders and advertising executives.

Thus CODE:BLACK sets up a fairly original universe, history and setting. It’s not the most original game world Greg Porter has ever written, (You want original? Try Neoterra.) but then again how original can a modern horror/conspiracy universe be after all the variants on the theme that have been done since “Call of Cthulhu” proved the genre worked?

It’s original enough, leave it at that.

The 170 page PDF of CODE:BLACK has the above history, a history of the world after humanity returned to it, a fairly complete history of the organization the Players will usually be working for, “The Brotherhood of Gilgamesh” and a fairly comprehensive description of the modern world in CODE:BLACK terms. (For example, the Pope knows that there is no God and the bible is false. Many politicians are actually Devils, etc.)

We are then treated to a section of rules allowing us to make a player character for CODE:BLACK using the EABA core rules. Then we get the slight modifications to the EABA core rules that are needed to make the CODE:BLACK universe unique.

An example is that Evil creatures can’t use Fate to modify die rolls, as this use of Fate is a manifestation of the little Good that humanity has in it. However evil creatures can use Fate in other ways…

Another rule covers Blindness. Most humans (NPCs) cannot see Evil, they are metaphysically Blind to it and will often, for example, see a horrific vampire as an attractive person. A selfish, evil Devil who has horns, red skin and an utter contempt for the well being of others may be seen as a jowly New York City real estate baron with a terrible hairdo who radiates pomposity and arrogance as he slurs out “Yuh fiyud!” (Sorry, but I cannot pass up a perfectly good slam on “The Dhawnuhld.”)

There are also rules to cover Fear and acquired personality disorders. Get too much of a personality disorder and you go Insane and become a NPC.

Then we get a large section detailing magic in the CODE:BLACK universe. Humans must be careful with magic as magic, unlike fate, is Evil in CODE:BLACK. Use too high a power spell and you suffer the effects of soul staining, which can lead to personality disorders.

There’s a section of creatures in CODE:BLACK, with the usual suspects (Ghuls, vampires, werewolves) plus some other routine creatures like a bargain basement shoggoth that spits objects as projectile weapons, and a few more original creatures I won’t spoil by describing. There are notes to describe how the Blind will see/react to each.

You get some weapons, new weapon rules and a good section of adventure material, scenarios and threads to weave a campaign from.

CODE:BLACK may seem bleak and hopeless, but I think there are some subtle threads of hope in all that darkness. While being part Evil may seem like a curse to humanity, it may also be its eventual salvation, if it has one.

Humans have both good and evil in them, and thus could continue to exist if they wiped out all other Evil, thus unlike Good or Evil they don’t need an external counterpart to exist in this universe, so perhaps humanity has a future if it can keep from being destroyed by Evil. This isn’t stated in the game, but could be a subtle point the writer wished to see if players would find on their own and if true adds a glimmer of hope to the CODE:BLACK universe often missing in some other horror games.

The artwork in CODE:BLACK is so-so, but at least it’s not cheap CGI garbola, and it does the job quite well. The image of the somewhat shabby looking human fearlessly standing toe to toe with a snarling vampire while the Blind masses walk by ignorantly sums up the game universe pretty nicely.

Mr. Porter lists dozens of movies that would make great sources for CODE:BLACK games throughout the product, and while I commend him on this (Hey, he even mentioned two of my favorites right next to each other, including one most people don’t discuss much. I can’t fault him for his taste in movies…) I must chide him slightly for not including a bibliography. Dropping literacy rates are a serious matter, and above most other groups gamers should do what they can to encourage literacy. A bibliography would have been nice, and for myself I will suggest the “Sonja Blue” novels by Nancy Collins as an excellent source of ideas for CODE:BLACK. In the Sonja Blue novels, mythical creatures walk the earth and most humans are Blind to them, and this fits in perfectly with the CODE:BLACK setting.

The CODE:BLACK universe is written for EABA but could be ported to most game systems with a little work. Likewise source matter for other horror games could be reverse engineered into the CODE:BLACK setting fairly well.

If you like modern horror/conspiracy games I suggest you look into Code:Black.

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