Liminal Horror System Reference Document v3.0

SRD assembled by Goblin Archives from work written and created by the Liminal Horror Dev Team (Goblin Archives, Josh Domanski, Zach Hazard Vaupen, Jarrett Crader). This SRD is built off of the Liminal Horror Deluxe Edition (2025).

Version History:

Version	Date	Notes
v3.0	8/2/2025	Full SRD v3.0 released to public

SRD Location:

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Liminal Horror SRD v3.0.

Some handy additional links are:

Main Website Hub: https://liminalhorrorrpg.com/
Community Discord: https://discord.gg/ptHUNSVDrJ
Liminal Horror Library: https://liminalhorrorlibrary.com/
Newsletter: https://goblinarchives.substack.com/
Annotated Archive of Game Design Resources: https://liminalhorrorrpg.com/Annotated%20Archives/
Adventure Writing Resources: https://liminalhorrorrpg.com/resources

WHAT IS THE LIMINAL HORROR SRD V3.0?

This system reference document is a collection of mechanics, rules, and content that can be used by designers to freely make and publish ttrpg products that are compatible with the Liminal Horror RPG. Liminal Horror at its base is a rules-lite, adaptable survival-horror roleplaying game about normal characters and their struggles against monsters that haunt the night. The game focuses on surviving the weird and investigating horrors, blending simple, old-school inspired rules with modern, narrative first principles.

This SRD is aimed at designers, writers, and publishers who’d like to create adventures and scenarios for the Liminal Horror system. This document includes items that can be used in publications either directly, or as exemplars with accompanying design commentary to help write your own versions.

Some Liminal Horror specific terms within this text are:

Facilitator: The person that runs the game. In other ttrpgs this may be called the GM (game master) or DM (dungeon master)
Investigators: These are what we call the player characters.
Scenarios: This is the current term we have for adventures (published or not). These are synonymous with mysteries, adventures, modules, etc.
Horrors: Monsters or other monstrous NPCs.

WHAT THIS ISN’T

Some SRDs are player-facing rules that intend to teach you how to use the game. This SRD isn’t one of those and instead is intended for designers who are interested in writing adventures, scenarios (and hacks) for Liminal Horror. If you are a player wanting to learn the rules, you can:

Read the rules for free on the Liminal Horror RPG website.
Check out the Liminal Horror Deluxe Edition for an in depth look at the rules (both for players and for Facilitators).

ADDITIONAL ADVICE

The Liminal Horror Deluxe Edition Chapter 2 (Facilitator’s Guide) has a bunch of detailed essays and advice on many of the topics here in the SRD v3.0. If you are looking for a more in detailed examination of many of these topics, we’d recommend you pick it up (either digitally or physically). While a lot of that text is not open licensed for direct use/copying, the advice can be used to bolster your design and make the best scenario possible!