Nahual

A Tabletop RPG of Mexican Urban Fantasy
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Nahual  is a tabletop roleplaying game of Mexican urban fantasy. In Nahual you  play as shapeshifting nahuales that hunt angels to make a living. You  run a changarro—a business—together and sell the angels you hunt as different types of products. Caught in the middle of an ancient feud, you struggle to find your place in a world of fantastical and overwhelming forces. 

“When our Spanish ancestors first arrived to this continent they were not alone, with them came their gods and their armies of angels. For our indigenous ancestors, these angels were not the incense vendors of the present day; they were emissaries of destruction. Between the sword of Cortés and the sword of St. Michael, the Archangel, there was no difference, and neither made a clean cut to the roots. The brujos resisted. Nahuales, the most powerful shamans, took on the task of fighting the invading angels.”

—Edgar Clément. Operación Bolivar.

In Nahual, players are angel hunters, descended from the powerful brujos nahuales. They have special gifts that enable them to contend with gods and angels, but their cultural memory has been taken from them—they no longer possess the shamanic traditions to unleash these wonders to their full potential. Many struggle for survival, others look for answers, but all agree on one thing: a nahual lives to hunt down angels.

The game setting is a Mexico filled with fantasy and sci-fi elements, mixed with a maelstrom of violence, inequality, corruption, folklore and fiesta. In this mess, angels prowl the cities, looking for souls to feed upon. Restless humans pray to God and his angels; where there are people hungry for hope and faith, angels thrive.

And yet…there are angeleros—angel hunters. They have the power to fight back, to get rid of the celestial parasites, to free the people. But these are not times for idealism. What is it to be gained by revolution? It is kill or be killed in the concrete jungle. All you can do is look out for yourself and your closest allies, to try to make a living in the face of poverty, decay, and death. And so they hunt.

Of course, everyone wants a piece of heaven, a fragment of the magical flesh of celestial beings. The drug dealers are interested in the “angel dust” made by grinding their bones into an addictive and potent drug. The Church uses the angels as circus animals to lure in worshipers. The corporations are finally beginning to realize the business potential of these creatures, for experimentation and synthetic replication. The politicians… well, they like to get their hands in everything, as long as there is a profit to be made. Con dinero baila el perro.

The nahuales are caught in the middle of all this. They are the drivers of the angel trade. The laborers. And the cheaper the labor the better the profits. The only thing they can do is fill their role and struggle to survive these shark-infested waters in which everyone wants a bite. Freedom? Revolution? There is no time for such nonsense, is there?