Introduction

In the world of Ald-Amura, Monsters and Humans live in harmony with one another. Humans care for Monsters, providing food and shelter for them, while Monsters lend their power, magic, and might to humanity.

All was well for a thousand years. The world prospered and war was a thing of the past. Then, tragedy struck. First, in the grand city of Tinaris-Mal, an elder wyvern’s rage laid waste to the city, leaving thousands homeless; then, in the cliff-towns of the Twin Snakes, the Great Nue shattered its glass peaks and it was only through the rapid and fearless work of the city’s Monsters that disaster was averted.

Top Monster researchers went to work, and discovered a terrible fact: the elder wyvern and the nue were infected with a deadly poison, one that inflicted horrible wounds and could spread to other Monsters with deadly efficiency. These wounds and the poison work together to send Monsters into an uncontrollable rage. The origins of this poison are unknown, but its effects are everywhere. In time, it came to be known as the False Gold, due to the shiny, viscous fluid the infected wounds produce.

The peace between Humans and Monsters is now an uneasy one. Monsters are afraid of who might be infecting their kind with the False Gold, Humans are afraid of their cities being leveled. Everyone is on eggshells and the beautiful balance that typified Ald-Amura is on the brink of collapse.

This is where you come in.

After the False Gold was identified, schools, universities, and guilds around the world began researching the vile poison, training specialist doctors to treat the sickness and wounds that the poison inflicts and to search for a cure for the toxin. These doctors are more than medics. Their patients have keen intellects and vast magical powers; they may be hundreds of feet tall or be impervious to most tools. These doctors must be brave, strong, and dedicated. They must face danger the likes of which is hard to comprehend and put their lives on the line in death-defying encounters. They must be warriors, inventors, acrobats, detectives, chemists, and above all, heroes.

They are the Monster Care Squad. And this is their story.

Playing Monster Care Squad

In this game, you play as a member of an elite team of Monster Care Specialists. You work alongside your fellow specialists to investigate trouble, diagnose illnesses, and treat the horrible Wounds inflicted by the False Gold. How you will go about this will largely depend on the Monsters your group decides to treat. Monsters range in scale from titanic megafauna to little bigger than your hand and in damage potential from cataclysmic world enders to mischievous trouble makers.

These battles take place in the fantasy world of Ald-Amura, a gentle place where war and fighting are rare and cooperation rules the day. You will find no rules for intentionally inflicting pain on anyone or anything in this game, as the first rule of being a Monster Care Specialist is to Do No Harm.

To play Monster Care Squad, you need some tokens, a few index cards, and something to write with. You also need at least one of each of the following dice:

4 Sided Dice
6 Sided Dice
8 Sided Dice
10 Sided Dice
12 Sided Dice

Optimally, you also have at least two more friends to play the game with, but Monster Care Squad also has some solo rules you can use to play by yourself if you like. If you’re playing in a group, one person will have to be the Guide. This means they control the NPCs, Monsters, and other details of the world. They also get to make a character, but the Guide’s character works slightly differently than everybody else’s.

Starting a Game

Before you begin a game of Monster Care Squad, you should sit down with everyone else playing and work out your Assumptions. Assumptions are like guidelines that will help you understand what kind of a game you’ll be playing, what its themes are, any important safety information, that kind of thing. Everybody who comes to the table will probably have a slightly different idea of what kind of game they want to play, so getting all the players on the same page is really important!

You can do this step any number of ways, but I find the following questions are a good place to start:

What interests you the most about this game?
What stands out about the setting to you?
What kind of Monsters are you picturing while you read the game?
How would you describe a Monster Care Squad character? What clothes do they wear? What do they look like?

You also probably want to investigate how detailed and graphic any gore should be, and make sure to ask about any potentially triggering content. Monster Care Squad is often thrilling and exciting, but ultimately should be comfortable and comforting for everyone at the table. Set up the framework for that experience going forward.

The game comes with a number of default Assumptions, mostly concerning its setting. These show up throughout the book, in the art and lore, but for now, here’s a summary:

The game takes place in Ald-Amura, a peaceful world with a wide variety of biomes, cultures, and peoples, all of which live in harmony with each other and the planet, more or less.
Much of Ald-Amura is dominated by vast deserts and arid rocky landscapes, though more tropical or temperate biomes exist close to the central river. There are mountainous regions and crystal caves in the north, and a chain of islands in the south.
Most people live in large cities in fantastical places, such as a city suspended between two massive cliff faces by magical chains or an enormous glass tower set in a crystal grotto. These are made possible by the magic of Monsters and ingenuity of the working people.
Every community in Ald-Amura has a wide diversity in cultures and peoples. Your characters, and the people your characters interact with, can be imagined however you like. Any expression of gender, sexuality, cultural background, ability, etc. will be respected.
The majority of the people are governed by direct democratic councils made up of workers representing that locality’s most vital industries. Monarchs, emperors, prime ministers, and presidents are considered an archaic thing of the past.
Many options exist for travel—magical trains, flying machines, Monsters, and even more incredible methods—but trekking across the world is a viable option, and is something many do just for fun. Most Monster Care Specialists get to where they’re needed via a combination of riding and walking.
Technology and magic are indistinguishable, and “tech level” fluctuates wildly from place to place.
Time and space are loose in Ald-Amura, and regions of the world often have different, sometimes conflicting, but equally true, histories.
Conflict is rare, fighting is rarer. War has been unheard of for nearly 1000 years. Practically nobody carries weapons, including player characters.
Monsters are sentient and sapient, but are not necessarily verbal. They are respected, cared for, and loved by the people. Even as some of them are driven to destruction due to the False Gold, most people still consider Monsters beautiful or even sacred.
Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Most are around the size of a large mammal such as an elephant, but it’s not uncommon for one to be the size of a dragon or other fantastical creature. The smallest Monsters are about as big as your hand. They are all functionally immortal.
Many Monsters have Destinies, great and magical quests their lives are dedicated to achieving. Many villages and towns exist to support Monsters on these quests.
Wounds created by the False Gold are fantastical and strange and often interfere with the Monster’s powers. They take the form of odd spikes, gold replacing flesh, crystal growths, perpetually burning flames, and so on.
Monster Care Specialists are well trained, capable doctors. They are seen as experts by the average person. People may not be happy to see them in town and they may have reason to lie or mislead them, but generally, Specialists are respected.

If you’d like to learn more about the world of Ald-Amura before you learn about how the game works, feel free to flip to page 51 and get stuck in!