Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy May 29th 2025 Update

Horror Harry's Haunted House has also been updated with a couple tiny tweaks. 

CHANGE LOG 

WHOLE BOOK

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 436. (Was 302 in last public release.)

We also released Eureka adventure modules “The Eye of Neptune” and “FORIVA: The Angel Game” into free beta on itch.io. Scroll up to find the link!

We also just released a small expansion for Eureka that was intended to just be an April Fools thing but spiraled into an actual full expansion, check out Eureka: The Fanservice Files here! https://anim-ttrpg.itch.io/eureka-the-fanservice-files 

And another mini-expansion!

https://anim-ttrpg.itch.io/eureka-the-xxx-files 

And a short-story set in the world of Eureka!

https://anim-ttrpg.itch.io/eureka-cold-open 

Added a bunch more art and made a lot of it smaller - this has resulted in some snoops looking a little crunchy with the lines aliasing a little, but that will be fixed in the final release - we just need to convert them all to vectors.

CHAPTER ONE 

Alright alright we’ll put the examples of play back in at some point but we will need to simplify and rewrite them a bit.

Many small clarifications and typo fixes.

Fixed typo in Buying Food.

Clarified only one exacerbating factor applies at a time. 

Added sidebar to “Composure” explaining that the system doesn’t simulate ordinary life, it tracks mental state during adventures (which are high-pressure and stressful).

Clarified the purpose of the Quick Terms section

Moved the Heat section to Chapter One.

Made racism of cops in Eureka more mechanicized. 

Generally clarified and cleaned up the Heat section.

Specified that Heat passively decreases at the end of each day.

Added a sidebar clarifying things about advanced prosthetics 

Clarified that when an investigator is paying for medical treatment, any resulting Financial Stress Composure roll happens after their treatment concludes.

Clarified injured and incapacitated statuses 

Wrote what happens if a character fails two of the same type of injury rolls

Fixed oversight so that incapacitation does not affect Wealth rolls.

Clarified how to make a roll and its equivalent in Quick Terms.

Added damaged snoop

Added Split the Party art

Added Maggie example investigator

Added Elia example investigator

CHAPTER TWO

Many small clarifications and typo fixes

Made Kleptomaniac Trait also give a bonus to Pickpocketing

Clarified Real Capybara Hours and Wicked Traits, that they don’t apply a modifier in situations where the character is unconscious or something like that.

Fixed a typo in the Forgery write-in skill.

Clarified when rolls apply for Femme Fatale. 

Adjusted Property Modifiers of just about everything. In general, vehicles now have lower PMs and stationary residences have higher PMs.

Added PMs to “Other Property.”

Added bags (portable items with their own PM) to “Miscellaneous” 

Added new possibility for Partial Successes to Wealth rolls to obtain items.

Changed how the Burnout Trait works. It is now an ability that can be activated each time the investigator earns a Eureka! Point, and lasts until they take Penetrative Damage as a result of the Trait.

Temporarily took out the Ask Questions Later Trait.

Moved Inhuman NPCs and Custom Traits to Chapter Two. 

Gave boats, planes, and helicopters a very basic set of acceleration values. Won’t be more detailed because they don’t come up as much and also because we didn’t hit that stretch goal in the kickstarter. 

Added a sidebar about taxis 

Added much more guidance on how interpersonal skills should be called for and rolled.

Changed the “Poverty” Fear in “Tiers of Fear” to “Financial Stress” because some people thought that it was supposed to be a fear of poor people and not a fear of the effects of becoming poor. Yes people really read it that way. 

Added a reminder under the Wealth skill to modifiers for buying food. 

Added “Car Crashes” to optional Fears

Made Comfort Item Trait have a +/-2 instead of a +/-1. 

Made it so Real Capybara Hours doesn’t provide a bonus to Composure rolls for the individual who has the trait.

Completely redid the Ask Questions Later Trait and added it back in. 

Added “Six Days from Retirement” Trait 

Added “Disrespect” to the Mandatory Fears.

Clarified that I’m Okay, You’re Okay can only be used once per scene.

Clarified that what skill rating is “average” varies from skill to skill

Clarified Threaten even more.

Made it so the Perfectionist trait ability cannot be used with Composure rolls nor with rolls from Elementary! or Woo-woo.

Reworded Gangway Trait so it is more compatible with certain paranormal Traits

Fixed Close Combat Skill snoop

Fixed None of My Business Trait snoop

CHAPTER THREE 

CHANGED THIS FROM CHAPTER 2.5 TO CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER FOUR

Many small clarifications and typo fixes

Fixed one of the entries on the obstacle tables saying “light cover” instead of “heavy cover”

Fixed a sentence that didn’t have an ending in Turns, Rounds, and Movement.

Added a reminder that taking damage prompts an appropriate Composure roll or morale loss. 

Updated some examples in Chapter Three and also added more art

Clarified that Composure does apply a cap to Weight Class

Removed a special thanks credit per that person’s request

Added a note that Eureka really works best with 3 or fewer players and you really should not go beyond 4. 

Changed this chapter from chapter 3 to chapter 4

Also changed chapter 2.5 to chapter 3. 

Added snoops demonstrating different types of cover

Added Investigator vs Investigator snoop

CHAPTER FIVE

Heavy copy-editing on the first few sections

Removed certain things like “spotlighting” and other basic Narrator principles for review and rewrites. Some of this is probably going back in once we re-evaluate it.

Removed “How We Play Eureka.” Playing by the rules in the book should already outline the intended experience, and many options given in that section are just RAW now.

Changed “Jumpscares” from an optional rule to a normal rule. It is still used at discretion. 

Tweaked the way jumpscares work. Jumping characters must have their actions declared before the “something” is revealed.

Moved the “Heat” section to Chapter One

Tweaked and clarified the entire module writing guide

Added a new section under writing Truths, “Nested Truths (A.K.A. Two Kinds of Cookies).

Clarified reasons for setting restrictions

Took out “Designing Areas for Shootouts.” 

Moved Inhuman NPCs and Custom Traits to Chapter Two. 

Took out Writing Custom Monster Traits. We will probably rewrite it later. 

Completely rewrote many entire sections of Chapter Five. 

Like a bunch of sections

Got rid of the “Bad Guys” section. 

Changed this chapter from chapter 7 to chapter 5.

Added “No Time Travel” section.

Added “No Masquerade” section

Added explicit guidance to the module writing guide about module writers being allowed to ban certain traits if they think that are not a fit for the scenario they have written 

Added conversion snoop

CHAPTER SIX

Changed vampire sunlight composure roll from +5 to +7, it was still way too intense even at +5

Added another fan-submitted hunting table entry (those are still open, contact us at anim.contactus@gmail.com if you want to submit your own.)

Gave gorgons an additional small bonus to their second Swallowing Hold when swallowing live prey.

Clarified a sentence in the “The Gentry” section of the Fairy rules. 

Added some new snoops to the mage powers.

Added a temporary author’s note about the vampires and Christianity.

Edited a fan submitted hunting table entry at her request. 

Since bags are now usable by all investigators, fixed the text regarding those for Fairies. They also get a bit better PM modifier with bags than with homes and vehicles.

Added several more fan-submitted hunting table entries. 

Changed this from chapter 8 to chapter 6. 

Added two new fan-submitted hunting table entries.

FINALLY got to doing some real copy-editing on this chapter

Rewrote the introduction to the chapter 

Rewrote “No Masquerade” 

Removed People as Prey section

Gave gorgons the option for a tail, based mechanically off of the succubus tail from The XXX-Files.

Changed how the Psychic Detective Mage Power works. 

Added another fan submission hunting table entry.

Changed the name of the Monster Essay section to “Takers” and rewrote it a little.

Rewrote the section “The Less You Know the Better” and renamed it to “Mysteries and the Inexplicable”

Rewrote “Believable Skepticism” section.

Fixed some typos

Added some author’s notes as quick patches for stuff we haven’t properly got to in editing yet

Made more clear that the paranormal stuff does not have to be used if your group wants to do mundane mysteries with an all-mundane party, we designed Eureka to be able to do mundane or paranormal mysteries well.

Partially rewrote “Monsters are ‘Overpowered’ by Design” and changed its name to “Stop Worrying About “Balance’”

Better codified the composure roll that is made when using paranormal powers and keyworded it. 

Added Gorgon Trait snoop

Added Living Doll Trait example investigator

Added Living Doll Trait art