# Katanas & Trenchcoats *Created:* 2023-08-10, *Modified:* 2026-11-10 ![[Katanas and Trenchcoats (cover).png]] **Katanas & Trenchcoats** is a love letter to the supernatural melodrama of the 1990s — immortals with awesome blades, brooding vampires, scheming werebeasts and the occasional car wizard, all of it played at a pitch that the game itself calls *sexy, badass and countercultural*. It began as a joke about the decade's urban fantasy and turned into a real game with a real system under it. ## Setting The setting is the **Darkest Cosmos**, and the book is deliberately strange about what that means: it is not just a place but a *who* — a living, metatextual personality that wants dramatic, tragic protagonists and will interfere to get them. It speaks to the **Herald** (the GM) and through the Herald to the table, and it is treated as another player sitting alongside everyone else. The world itself is an urban-fantasy nightscape: immortal secret societies, vampire bloodlines, werebeast packs, technomages, and mortals who wander into the wrong club and leave changed. The book takes a **seeds-and-garden** approach to canon — the setting chapter hands you ideas to plant rather than a fixed history to memorise, and tells you to change the garden as you play. The protagonists are **immortals** (or vampires, werebeasts and other splats), each defined by a splat, an identity, edges, and a set of **Ambits** — the actions the Darkest Cosmos wants them to take, which are also how they regain their power. ## Mechanics ### Dice pools Every action is a pool of **d10s** — the relevant **Essence** (Potency, Cunning, Finesse, Tenacity or Apeiron) plus a **Domain** (Flow, Heist, Sway, Discern, Force, Forge or Shroud), adjusted by edges and circumstances. Each die that comes up **7 or higher is a hit** (10s read as 10), and 10s **explode**: roll another die and add it to the count. The player's hits are compared with the Herald's: - more hits than the Herald — **success**; - more hits with **at least 5** — a **dramatic success**; - the same number of hits — a **messy success**; - the same number, with both sides at 5+ (or both at zero) — a **dramatic tie**, or **upheaval**; - fewer hits — a **setback**, and a Herald win at 5+ is a **dramatic setback**. ### Pneuma **Pneuma** is the fuel behind a protagonist's tricks: a pool of up to **15**, spent to add dice, reroll misses, and activate splat features and blessings. The Herald doesn't get the same toys, which is deliberate — the game wants an asymmetrical table. ### Resolve and Anguishes Harm is narrative rather than hit-point accounting: **Resolve** is the character's staying power, and **Anguishes** are the physical, psychological and metaphysical punishment that lingers across episodes. A dramatic success inflicts more Resolve damage; some splats (the immortal's Awesome Blade, for one) make that sting harder. ### Sequences and showdowns The game frames action in two engines: **sequences**, for suspense and investigation, and **showdowns**, for the fights the story has been building toward. A sequence plays out over several exchanges with escalating stakes; a showdown is a single high-stakes exchange, often with its own rules for ties and dramatic outcomes. ## Editions - **Katanas & Trenchcoats: Episode 1 — Welcome to Darkest Vancouver** (2015) — the original 22-page release. Not held. - **Pre-edit build** (January 2019) — the full text before editing, circulated to backers. *Held.* - **Katanas & Trenchcoats RPG, 3rd edition** (Galileo Games, 2022) — the current edition, with the Pneumatic System, Pneuma, Essences and Domains, and the sequence/showdown engines. *Held* (the 345-page build; an earlier Revision 0 build is also held). ## References - [Katanas & Trenchcoats — Galileo Games](https://www.galileogames.com/katanas-and-trenchcoats) — the publisher's page for the current edition. - [Katanas & Trenchcoats — DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/153380/Katanas--Trenchcoats-Episode-1-Welcome-to-Darkest-Vancouver) — the original Episode 1 release. - [Katanas & Trenchcoats — Kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanmacklin/katanas-and-trenchcoats-retromodern-roleplaying) — the 2016 campaign for the full edition. - [Katanas & Trenchcoats — RPGGeek](https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/185864/katanas-trenchcoats-episode-1-welcome-darkest-vanc) — the edition listing. - [Review: Katanas & Trenchcoats Episode 1 — Diehard GameFAN](http://diehardgamefan.com/2015/04/07/tabletop-review-katanas-trenchcoats-episode-1-welcome-to-darkest-vancouver/) - [Game Dev Chat: Brennan Taylor on 1000 Arrows and Katanas & Trenchcoats — BAMF Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpo_VnKvmh0) — the 3e designer on the game.