Monte Cook’s ‘Knights of Dust and Neon’ Heads Into Final Week of Crowdfunding on a High Note
Knights of Dust and Neon is a trio of books highlighting gunslingers in the weird west, cyberpunk times, and dark vaporwave?
The Cypher System can’t stop and won’t stop. Monte Cook’s flexible game engine of descriptive item-based gameplay is all about fitting your weird hero ideas into a variety of strange, dark settings. And nowhere is that more readily apparent than in Knights of Dust and Neon, the latest crowdfunding campaign for a trio of books revolving around gunslingers in the Cypher System.
Of course, you get the weird/fantasy west flavor you’d hope for in High Noon at Midnight. Here, magic and horror and demon ghosts abound alongside cowboys riding into town with magic bullets loaded into their six-shooters. In Neon Rain, you get to be a cyberpunk gunslinger. Easy. Then there’s Gunslinger Knights which is a higher concept setting, you are a knight riding a motorcycle with a revolver full of holy bullets to do battle with dark entities.
It’s the sort of thing you’d pull up a synthwave playlist to try out. At any rate, all three of these are part of a massive crowdfunding campaign entering its final week on Backerkit. Let’s take a look.
Knights of Dust and Neon on Backerkit
As mentioned, Knights of Dust and Neon is a trio of books. If you’ve ever played Numenera or Predation or The Stars are Fire, you’ve encountered it. But if not, in a nutshell, the Cypher System revolves mostly around setting up your character as a narrative force in the world and using the titular Cyphers: single-use items that have powerful abilities. You might have a magic potion, a specialized gadget, a cool app on your smartphone, or a magic bullet—the possibilities are endless.
But you have these powerful single-use items that you’re meant to use. It’s pretty easy to grasp, but fiddly to talk about. And while it may not be the right kind of crunch if you’re used to/looking for more of a D&D vibe, it does help emulate a wide variety of genres. Which you’ll see in each of the three books.
Neon Rain takes your Cypher System game into the cyberpunk realm. Install cybernetic upgrades and dance on the edge of what it means to be human. Use virtual reality to hack into a corpo mainframe and dodge guardians and traps built by hostile AIs. Smuggle designer drugs, or tweak with your own body chemistry and risk addiction and death. Chase and be chased at breakneck speeds on futuristic highways under a night sky.
High Noon at Midnight is packed chock-full of ideas for games set in an uncanny world of magic, horror, and even advanced tech fused with six-shooters and wanted posters, card games in smoky saloons, and showdowns at high noon. Find loads of player options, including new descriptors (like Trigger-Happy) and foci (Gambles it All Away) along with cyphers, artifacts, equipment, and more. The GM also gets a wealth of campaign-building advice for an alternate west, optional rules (including a few for using a card deck at the table), creatures, adventures, weird set pieces, and a complete pre-made setting called The Ghost Range.
In the tradition of Cypher System setting books like Gods of the Fall and Predation, Gunslinger Knights is a hefty hardcover book detailing a unique campaign setting, along with character options, cyphers, equipment, monstrosities, and more. Play a Gallant Wayfarer who Makes the Impossible Shots, a Grim-Faced Stormbringer who Repels Sorcery, or a Stalwart Knight Superior who Slays Dread Beasts. Face down the relentless threat to Sancara—become a gunslinger knight!
Fundraising for Knights of Dust and Neon ends April 12th.
