One Hefty Update: New Fade to Black Core Rule Book 0.15 Update
With this update, we’re stepping into the next phase of Fade to Black’s evolution. Version 0.15 is the result of months of immersive feedback, playtest insight, and deep mechanical reflection. Nearly every chapter has been revised, expanded, or restructured with one goal in mind: to give Directors and players the clarity, flexibility, and thematic richness this game deserves.
To everyone who participated in the surveys, live plays, Discord threads, and private testing: thank you. Your input helped guide every change below.
Chapter 4: Witnesses in the Dark – Deepened Character Progression
Witnesses—the beating heart of the system—have received their most significant update yet. The goal was to preserve narrative-first play while expanding meaningful mechanical decisions.
New Passive Abilities
Witnesses now choose from a curated list of once-per-session abilities, allowing players to tailor their playstyle without adding unnecessary complexity. Examples include:
Built Like a Brickhouse – Advantage on physical resistance checks like knockback or grapples.
Heroic Haul – Temporarily lift or drag something massive under pressure.
These passives support a range of playstyles, from battlefield grit to desperate gambits.
Strategic Fragment Spending
Fragments are no longer just reactive. Players may now invest them toward long-term strategic perks, including:
Reliable Hands – Spend a Fragment to ignore a failed repair or crafting mishap.
Seasoned Scavenger – Spend a Fragment to find something extra when looting unfamiliar locations.
This change adds meaningful decisions between recovery, progression, and specialized investment.
Talent Milestone System
One of the biggest additions in 0.15: Talent milestones. Six Talents now grant mechanical unlocks at levels 2, 3, and 4, allowing visibility for builds beyond faces including Brute Force Strength Builds:
Brute Force: Become an anchor in Linked Actions, bash through doors, or deliver staggering blows. Being the bruiser you want.
Tinkering: Access Tier 2 custom gear, auto-succeed simple field repairs, or build on the fly. Be that mad scientist or scrappy survivor.
Focus: Gain bonuses on snap reactions, multitask during investigation, or boost precision under stress. Go eagle eye.
Leadership: Rally allies, manage group actions efficiently, and reassert control mid-crisis. Be the leader you want in this world.
Handling: Complex actions have never been better with your handling of the situation. Be surgical with your dexterity.
Investigation: Intuit symbolic details, reconstruct scenes, or detect hidden threats with clarity. Detective in making pay attention.
These milestones reward focused builds while encouraging diverse team roles—particularly physical or investigative archetypes that lacked payoff in early builds.
Companion System Reworked
Barn Cat and Marmot companions have been merged into a single entry, now called “Barn Companion.” This streamlines redundant options while preserving flavor.
Each companion type now has clear drawbacks, benefits, and advantages, ensuring they’re both useful and narratively grounded.
Companion survival is now codified—directors and players can align expectations on how these allies factor into danger.
Chapters 5 & 6: A New Approach to Survival
To reduce overload and improve pacing, the former Struggling for Survival chapter has been split into two new chapters:
Chapter 5: Struggling for Survival
Focuses purely on the mechanics of combat, including:
Initiative, Turn Order, and Escalation
Linked Actions and Fight/Aid/Escape choices
Reaction Rolls—the signature tension mechanic
Manifestation Behavior and Adaptive Threat Dynamics
Combat now flows cleanly and adapts naturally to narrative tension.
Streamlined Combat – Clarity Without Compromise
Combat in Fade to Black has been rebuilt from the ground up to deliver snappy, high-tension encounters without overwhelming players or Directors.
One Action, Three Core Options
Each turn, a player selects one of three streamlined combat choices:
Fight – Engage directly or offensively.
Aid – Support or protect allies.
Flee – Escape, reposition, or disengage.
These core options are reinforced with quick-use action templates—bite-sized examples to guide players through each type of move. These templates eliminate decision paralysis while still allowing full narrative freedom for players who want to think outside the box.
New Initiative System
Initiative is now standardized to keep combat fast and cinematic:
At the start of combat, players roll initiative individually.
Manifestations now act once between each player’s turn, maintaining narrative tension and spotlight balance.
This keeps momentum flowing while avoiding lopsided round structures.
It’s not quite popcorn initiative, but it echoes the same spirit—combat now flows like a thriller, not a puzzle.
These changes remove the ambiguity and slowdown of older versions. Directors no longer need to track arbitrary freeform initiative which made combat chaotic and messy, as well as confusing. Nor balance complex mechanics. So players can now stay immersed in the action. It’s fast, fluid, and just as deadly.
New System: Witness Defense (WD)
When a character cannot react—whether stunned, surprised, or overwhelmed—their Witness Defense (WD) provides a passive defense fallback. The default WD is 5, but can adjust (4–6) based on traits or conditions. This removes ambiguity and simplifies Manifestation attacks in chaotic moments.
Reactions Remain at the Core
Reaction Rolls are still central to Fade to Black—but with clearer timing and structure, players can now anticipate danger without second-guessing the system by having trmplates to lean on if they can't think of anything.
Defense: Choose Wisely
Witnesses now have Witness Defense and Reactions. But there is a catch as is most survival. When defending, you can only choose one of them. Want to rely on pure defense, lean towards witness defense. Think the dice is in your favor and your talents are relatively able, turn to reactions. But whichever you decide, once the decision is made, there's no turning back.
Chapter 6: The Cost of Survival
This entirely new chapter covers:
Stress and Breaking Points
Health and the Destructible Body
Scars, Consequences, and Recovery
Death and What Comes After
It separates combat mechanics from character consequence, helping Directors build tension without flipping between rules.
Chapter 7: Tools of Survival – Crafting, Customization, and Resource Play
Crafting and customization have been rebuilt from the ground up.
Weapon and Gear Overhaul
All weapons and gear have been rebalanced and cleaned up.
New Weapons, Gear and Minor Items were added including the Baseball Bat, Hand Crank Radio, Sports Drink, Alcohol, and newly updated Leather Jacket.
Advanced Customization System
Players who invest in Tinkering milestones can now access Tier 2 customizations, including permanent upgrades flashlight mods and signature gear.
ExampleTinkering 4 Witness can craft a weapon complex pressure plates or makeshift bombs and improvised flamethrowers. Or a signature weapon that add +1 to their roll.
Scrap Economy Introduced
Minor scrap types and upgrade materials are now formally added to the game’s economy including metal scraps, nails, plastic bottles, glass bottles and cloth.
Further development will be introduced for breaking down your gear, weapons and minor items for these scraps. For now it is up to the Director for anything outside the items indicated.
Directors and players can now track how scavenged parts support real survival without managing currency or weight systems.
Chapter 2: The Fade – Expanded Lore and Future Horizons
Lore updates now more clearly define:
The nature and boundaries of The Fade
The culture of Kyah Peak
Revised formatting for set pieces and timelines
A map of Kyah Peak is in production and will be added next patch.
Return of Modular Stories outside of Kyah Peak
Directors once again have tools to run adventures outside Kyah Peak, including movement support for narrative travel arcs. These were heavily requested during testing and are now back in a more usable format.
Chapter 9–10: Director Tools for Narrative Power
Chapter 9: The Director
The NPC creation system has been streamlined and clarified.
New scenario seeds offer structured starting points for different tones (investigative, tragic, high-stress, symbolic).
Chapter 10: Stories Yet Told
A brand-new Scenario Builder has been added, featuring:
Randomized roll tables
Story structure scaffolding
Tone and escalation guides
Whether you’re prepping a one-shot or a campaign, this tool makes launching stories fast and intuitive.
All-New Chapter: Manifestations and Threat Design
The Manifestation section has been split off into its own full chapter and deeply expanded:
New Manifestation Types
Lesser – Lesser, more common threats.
Greater – Powerful adversaries with symbolic resonance.
Grand – Unique horrors tied to regional Fade influence.
Phenomena – Abstract, reality-bending effects.
Symbolic – Deeply narrative-driven and hard to categorize.
Lingering – Persistent environmental or psychological effects that survive past the encounter.
Creation Tools & Templates
Directors now have:
Step-by-step guidelines for building new Manifestations
Templates for symbolic manifestation, reaction behavior, and escalation paths.
Templates for All 6 Manifestations so you can create your own or roll them up with the new rolling tables.
Rolling tables for quirks, weaknesses, themes, and narrative ties
Stat Blocks (In Progress)
Lesser Manifestations now include partial stat blocks. The full enemy reference section for all types is underway and will release in a future version.
Final Notes
Version 0.15 is our most ambitious update to date. It doesn’t just refine Fade to Black—it grows the system to support more diverse characters, more adaptable survival encounters, and more powerful tools for narrative horror.
We’ll continue to evolve this game alongside our community. If you’ve been testing, commenting, streaming, or quietly sharing feedback—thank you.
The dark still whispers. But now, you’re better equipped to face it.
—
Jordan
Head of Cinderlight Games