EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self

EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self is an in-development tabletop role-playing game designed by Molly Rhinebeck and Luke Varner. It centers on personal growth, the bonds between friends, and awesome fights between superpowered soul-ghosts.

First Edition
EIDOLON 1.0 is a Powered by the Apocalypse game. It is feature-complete but has yet to receive a public release. It can be found on the EIDOLON Patreon to those who subscribe for $5/month or more.

Setting
The default setting of EIDOLON is the here-and-now of the real world. This can be freely modified to suit the needs of the game, or the setting can be replaced entirely. The only requirement is that the setting should feel concrete and contain The Undertow.

The Undertow
(See also: The Undertow)

The Undertow is the source of the supernatural within the EIDOLON world. The rules only describe what role it plays, but offers no requirements for what it looks like. It is a parallel world that is formed by and influences the 'collective unconsciousness' of humanity, akin to Tartarus, the Midnight Channel, and the Metaverse from the Persona franchise.

Gameplay
(See also: Moves)

Most actions in Eidolon that are not guaranteed to succeed are done by rolling two six-sided die and adding any relevant modifiers to the result. Most actions done this way have three outcomes: a success if the result is 10 or higher, a partial success if the result is between 7-9, and failure if the result is 6 or lower. In some cases, failure may look similar to a success but with unintended consequences, in others it may result in a straight punishment.

Eidolons
(See also: Eidolon)

Eidolons are the core mechanic of EIDOLON. They grant superpowers and other supernatural abilities to their users. The game offers various Playbooks to choose from, each with a Mad Lib-esque prompt for a superpower.

The Phantom Clock
The Phantom Clock is a longer-term tension mechanic. A small number of moves run the risk of advancing the Clock, and it does not reset between sessions. Once it hits a particular threshold, one of the players' Eidolons goes berserk and the user needs to overcome a personal confrontation.

Ties
Overall, ties represent a party's connections within itself and with significant non-player characters. Individually, ties are the views that players hold about other characters. Ties offer flavorful connections, and stronger ties improve a player's ability to help or hinder the person they have a tie with.

Combat
Combat is done in a phase-based system called 'Crashes'. Enemies have a pre-set Crash limit, and escalate through them whenever they are significantly narratively disadvantaged. Though not required, enemies tend to act more desperate at higher Crashes, pulling out moves and tactics that are either more powerful or more risky than before.

Second Edition
Shortly after EIDOLON 1.0 became feature complete, work was started on a second version of the system that did not rely on the Powered by the Apocalypse rule system. It is actively in-development, and has yet to receive any form of release.