Heart: The City Beneath RPG
A red wet heaven slumbers fitful under the city of Spire.
Stock note: Heart is currently out of stock in most places. The fastest way to get hold of the new printing is likely to be to pre-order it through the Dagger in the Heart campaign here.
Heart: The City Beneath is an award-winning complete tabletop roleplaying game about delving into a nightmare undercity that will give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of – or kill you in the process.
It is a dungeon-crawling, story-forward tabletop RPG from the designers of Spire that focuses on what characters have to lose in pursuit of their dreams in the chaotic darkness beneath the world.
Sharing a setting with Spire, Heart expands the unreal world beneath it. It uses an expanded and updated version of the Resistance system, the mechanics that power Spire, to help you tell stories of desperation, hubris and adventure in the City Beneath.
Stock note: Heart is currently out of stock in most places. The fastest way to get hold of the new printing is likely to be to pre-order it through the Dagger in the Heart campaign here.
WHAT’S IN THE BOOK?
- Full rules for playing and running games of Heart
- Nine strange character classes and five dangerous callings
- 21 Zenith Abilities – the ultimate expressions of power – almost all of which kill the user when activated
- Over 50 landmarks to explore such as predatory pubs, entropy machines, community centres in churches devoted to forbidden gods, cursed underground stations, vast subterranean forests and portals to multiple heavens
- Over 30 adversaries to avoid, put down or get killed by such as the cannibalistic Butcher, the pathetic Feral Psychopomp, mad trees, train worshippers, burnt-out occultists and Flightless Owl Hives
- Over 40 gorgeous full-colour illustrations by Felix Miall
- An extensive gamesmaster advice section with guidance for all experience levels
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Complete the Collection
Looking to get the entire Heart Collection?
Critical acclaim for heart
In 2021 Heart: The City Beneath won a total of seven ENnies, including golds for Best Setting, Best Writing and Best Layout. This is the highest number of ENnies for a single product in the history of the awards.
Reviews
James –
This is my game of the year, I picked it up after a friend raved about Spire for about an hour.. and I did not regret. perhaps the most rewarding game I have played
Matt –
Heart is a ton of fun where you delve through a body horror nightmare in search of redemption, enlightenment, adventure, or more.
It does a great job of encouraging players to "drive their characters like they stole them" - by making it fun to take fallout - and of making prep easy for the GM by tying character advancement to hitting "beats" - goals that players pick to fulfil such as "take Major Blood fallout" or "Persuade an NPC Witch to help you".
These beats tell you exactly what pla…
Heart is a ton of fun where you delve through a body horror nightmare in search of redemption, enlightenment, adventure, or more.
It does a great job of encouraging players to “drive their characters like they stole them” – by making it fun to take fallout – and of making prep easy for the GM by tying character advancement to hitting “beats” – goals that players pick to fulfil such as “take Major Blood fallout” or “Persuade an NPC Witch to help you”.
These beats tell you exactly what players want and make it easy to guide them in a direction that you can prep AND have be fun, but with still plenty of room for improv.
Sammy (verified owner) –
Been looking for a new game and this one really speaks with me, really fits what I am looking for in my settings and games I run.
George G (verified owner) –
A high quality tome that’s beautifully illustrated and written with passion, well worth every penny. Looking forward to getting this on the table with my friends.
On a side note: I’m based in Portugal, and the turnaround time from ordering with Rowan, Rook and Decard to cradling the book lovingly in my arms was a matter of days – very impressive and top marks for customer service. I’ll be ordering from you again in the very near future!
Chris W (verified owner) –
Heart is a place your characters will melt into. (Sometimes literally.) Because so little here is defined outside the breadth of your imagination, it can be intimidating for a GM comforted by clear narrative arcs to stand at the beginning of the vast and organic fiction your group can create. But you delve forward anyway. The system wills it. Your characters and their stories, interwoven with the horrors and havens you uncover, will become monuments in this deeply strange and intensely personal …
Heart is a place your characters will melt into. (Sometimes literally.) Because so little here is defined outside the breadth of your imagination, it can be intimidating for a GM comforted by clear narrative arcs to stand at the beginning of the vast and organic fiction your group can create. But you delve forward anyway. The system wills it. Your characters and their stories, interwoven with the horrors and havens you uncover, will become monuments in this deeply strange and intensely personal world.
Anne Halliwell –
I didn’t think I would find a game I loved as much as Spire. This one is nasty, cathartic, and weirdly hilarious. Highly recommend.
Andy Raff –
I backed Heart on kickstarter after playing the quickstart. I’ve been running a very enjoyable game now for a while, and having a blast. The rules are straightforward, giving us time to focus on action and weirdness. The book itself is absolutely bursting with places to explore, and hooks for adventure. Great fun. If you like dungeoneering or exploration games its worth a read even if you never run it due to its sheer inventiveness
Sid –
Incredible aesthetic and prose fill the book on top of the mechanics that seems odd at first read, but play very smooth once you sit down at the table.
Had players steal some magic tree sap from skeleton king to pay back a debt they owed, only for their debt holder to get ripped in half by a hideous angel and explode like a SpongeBob bit. It was a fantastic time!