Over the years the Liminal Horror RPG website has evolved from simple SRD to full blown hub for everything LH. As it has shifted I've really wanted to make it usable for visitors and as accessible as possible. One of the way's I want to do this is highlight different parts of the website to showcase what cool things are hidden within!
Most people will probably be going to the website for the fully searchable web hosted rules kept here (for quick table reference): https://liminalhorrorrpg.com/deluxe/
RESOURCES
is a fantastic and newer section of the website that hosts a bunch of free to use (in your games, in your publications) materials that is worth taking some time to explore.
FACTIONS
To start it off we have the three main factions in Liminal Horror. These factions were important enough that we wanted to make sure they had an open license for use in your publications as well.
PANOPTICON: Panopticon is a megacorp that dabbles with the weird. Given its size, not all parts of the organization are aware of the actions of different departments, with many internal groups acting at odds with each other. Only very specific departments are even aware of the existence of the paranatural. Their wide ranging scope and scale means there is ample opportunity for conflict and interaction with the Investigators. Many scenarios can be based around Panopticon’s misuse of the weird, or their attempt to control if for their own financial gains.
THE ARCHIVIST: A faction of one, the Archivist is best summed up as a patron to Investigators. His primary goal is the cataloging and safe storage of Resonant Artifacts while maintaining the health and safety of bystanders. In direct opposition to the larger factions, he is seen as an elusive threat to their acquisition and taming of the strange. The Archivist’s would likely contact the Investigators directly, offering them information and resources while steering them in a direction beneficial to his own elusive goals.
THE BUREAU: The Bureau is designed as a somewhat generic stand-in for the paranormal government investigative division. In many scenarios, standard law enforcement are going to be ill prepared to manage the horrors, but not the Bureau. They’re best used when you’d like to add additional pressure, complications, or even an antagonist. The Bureau’s goals will often align with the Investigators, but not their motivations or intentions, and the Investigators themselves may very quickly become a target.
CATALOG OF HORRORS
The Catalog of Horror aka Our Bestiary. We wanted to provide a bunch or ready to use monsters for your games. This is an ever evolving list (and can also include community additions, see below). I like to add these, pulling from fiction and other ttrpgs to create a robust resource for play.
ADDING MONSTERS
I wanted to provide a template for community members to submit monsters for inclusion on the site, and so I added a easy to use template. This way the community resource can group. Its worth noting there can be more than one interpretation of the same monster!
RITUALS EXPANDED
A list of 83 Rituals that can be used by monsters, NPCs (and some Investigators)
FALLOUT EXPANDED
A resource collecting an array of open licensed Fallouts from different modules (that were originally presented in Investigators all together). These include fallout examples from The Bloom, The Bureau, General. Fallout as well as Legacy Fallout. This also includes a reproduction of the creating custom fallout advice.
RESONANT ARTIFACTS = MAGIC ITEMS
A collection of Resonant Artifacts alongside advice on creating your own!
DIGITAL TOOLS
As Liminal Horror continues to grow, there is a plethora of digital tools and aids that come up for it. Many build upon already available resources, while some present completely orignal content.
The best way to keep up to date on the available digital tools (especially third party tools) is to search the Liminal Horror Library for perchance or for tools.
First Party Tools
As a means of showcasing what is possible, the Liminal Horror Dev Team has created a few digital tools for Facilitators:
Investigator Generator: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-investigator-character-generator
Location Generator and Stocking Procedure: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-location-generator-and-stocking-procedure
Backgrounds: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-backgrounds
Archetypes: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-archetypes
Cult Generator: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-cults
Legacy Spell Generator: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-spells
Rituals: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-rituals
Liminal Horror NPCs Generic/Odd: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-generic-odd-npcs
Horror seeds: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-horror-seeds
Omens: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-omens
Location Generator and Stocking Procedure: https://perchance.org/liminal-horror-location-generator-and-stocking-procedure
Searchable Rules Reference
This site acts as a digital tool in that it is a fully searchable rules reference that can be launched from a phone. It is not only the foundation for the game, but acts as the progenitor of the digital tools for Liminal Horror.
USEFUL LINKS
A collection of blogs, essays, and resources for ttrpgs. This is a non-comprehensive list that also is a working document. Many of these have inspired the dev team in our approach to Liminal Horror, while other entries are things we thing would be helpful to inspire Facilitators when writing their own LH content. Use this to mine for inspiration and harvest for parts when you are creating your own things! There is an unlisted way these are presented, but half of the fun is trying to figure out why they are clustered together.
Liminal Horror Deluxe Edition Appendices Illustration © Zach Hazard Vaupen (2025)
Useful Links
Survive, Solve, or Save: Pick Two by Sean McCoy: “horror games should put to you a choice in any given situation, which is that you can either survive the terror, solve the mystery, or save the day…But you should only be able to do 1 to 1.5 of those things.”
D&D Doesn’t Understand What Monsters Are by Throne of Salt: “A monster is a symptom that somewhere, somehow, the world has gotten fucked up.”
Violent Encounters by Sean McCoy: “rethink these scenarios, to reframe the imaginary space they inhabit so that no matter where you fall on the rules-lite to rules-might spectrum, your encounters have real stakes.”
The ICI Doctrine: Information, Choice, Impact by Chris McDowell: A way to run a game that emphasizes player agency.
How I Run Into the Odd by Chris McDowell: “Someone asked how I prepare for a game of Into the Odd, so it’s time for some rapid fire tips on how to run a game exactly like I do (which you won’t want to do).”
Difficulty in Bastionland by Chris McDowell: “There are other ways to make vaulting over a garden fence feel different to scaling a brick wall crowned with barbed wire.”
34 Good Traps by Chris McDowell: The “measure of a good trap: “At least one part of it is immediately visible. / It allows interaction and investigation. / It has impactful consequences for the victim.””
Foreground Growth by Chris McDowell: How to explore character change without explicit progression mechanics.
Casing the Join: A Framework by Dice Goblin: “The party is planning to infiltrate a semi-public location – partially open to the public, but with secrets laying inside. Time for a stakeout!”
Time, Gear & Skill: A Different Approach To Skill Checks by Dice Goblin: “Performing actions involves time, gear, and skill.”
Ransacking the Room by Mindstorm Press: “A way to break down searching into three choices with informed outcomes for each.”
Interesting Social Situations by Rise Up Comus: “how to make social encounters more interesting and give more space for player choice.”
Running a Game by Luke Gearing: A system for how to prepare for a game.
Techniques to Writing Adventures by Luke Gearing: A great place to start.
Writing Rooms In Pairs by Sean McCoy: “You can think of these rooms as sequels and prequels to the rooms you’ve already come up with. Setups and punch lines.”
Pointcrawls & Emergent Play by Yochai Gal: A look at how pointcrawls can inspire creation and emergent play at the table.
Encounter Checklist by Prismatic Wasteland: “A checklist you can use to improve your TTRPG encounters.”
Tension Cheatsheet by Mindstorm Press: “Ways to add more tension to situations in RPGs.”
A Small Rant About Investigation In RPGS by Sean McCoy
Landmark, Hidden, Secret by DIY & Dragons: “Information can be landmark, or hidden, or it can be secret. This division can apply to locations on an overland maps, objects within dungeon rooms, and even to details about locations and objects that the players encounter.”
16 HP Dragon by Sage LaTorra: “You don’t need 2500 hp to make a fight scary or hard.”
Derelictcrawl Procedure by emmy verte: “A turn based system for your sessions that increases risk and elevates the Warden’s tasks.”
Overloading the Encounter Die by Necropraxis: Where the overloaded encounter die began… “Almost every turn result means something.”
Exploding the Encounter Die by Prismatic Wasteland: “I use an exploding, overloaded encounter die (the Alarm Die) to simulate the dungeon reacting against the player-characters’ intrusion and to provide a risk vs. reward tradeoff.”
Overloading the Random Encounter Table by Prismatic Wasteland: “A all-in-one roll for random encounters, reaction, surprise, and distance.”
THE UNDERCLOCK: Fixing the Random Encounter by Goblin Punch: “The Underworld is not just a basement or a cave. The Underworld is a place that hates you. It is hostile architecture. It hates you in a way that only the blind tonnage of stone and cold air can have. It hates your lively blood. It hates the sunshine warmth still lingering on your skin.”
Writing NPCs by Luke Gearing: “When writing NPCs, you can communicate 2 or 3 things, or 4 related things.”
Problem Solving Combat by Lithyscaphe. An examination of ORS style combat and breaking the cage of “Roll Initiative.”
If Your Torches Burn for only One Hour your NPCs will be More Important by Rick Stump. A great examination on how resource variables entangle PCs with the world and NPCs.
Negotiating with Monsters: Common PC Errors by Dungeon Fantastic. A look at how players negotiate with monsters and some common pitfalls.
False Hydra by Goblin Punch: “Common wisdom holds that false hydras come from the ground. They spontaneously originate as undifferentiated masses of flesh. Potatoes that sprout from no seed. Supposedly, they germinate in response to lies, and that each falsehood causes a false hydra to swell larger.”
Doppelgänger Dos & Don’ts by Prismatic Wasteland: “advice and best practices for running doppelgängers.”
Welcome to Gulch! by Mindstorm: “Welcome to Gulch! A modern day starter town for RPGs.”
Excerpts from the Lighthouse Field Guide, Part 1 by Throne of Salt: A collection of lore and anti-cannon for a modern horror setting that is perfect for a Liminal Horror game.
Excerpts from the Lighthouse Field Guide, Part 2 by Throne of Salt: A collection of lore and anti-cannon for a modern horror setting that is perfect for a Liminal Horror game.
Excerpts from the Lighthouse Field Guide, Part 3 by Throne of Salt: A collection of lore and anti-cannon for a modern horror setting that is perfect for a Liminal Horror game.
Excerpts from the Lighthouse Field Guide, Part 4 by Throne of Salt: A collection of lore and anti-cannon for a modern horror setting that is perfect for a Liminal Horror game.
Why creating a website/blog/newsletter to archive work matters
Rediscovering the Small Web by Parimal Satyal
Plain old webpages still matter by Felix Plesoianu
Cyber Mauseoleums (Or the Argument Against Deletion) by neonaut
Every site needs a Links Page / Why linking matters by Daniel/Melon
The Geocities Gallery by restorativland. A restored visual gallery of the archived Geocities sites, sorted by neighborhood.