O.D.I.N.

O.D.I.N. is a free modern occult-horror TTRPG for groups that want to play a cell of secret agents investigating whatever comes through rifts in reality. It suits tables that like case files, handouts and characters whose abilities have a lasting cost, and it is easy to try because the whole English line is a free PDF download.

It is a weaker fit if you want a rules-light evening with almost no tracks to watch, or if your group prefers ordinary investigators with no powers of their own. The core dice pool is simple, but the full game adds class prices, strain, trauma, psi or magic resources, and a large supporting library. English print editions are not out yet.

What the game is

O.D.I.N. (Occult Dynamics Intelligence Network) is set in the present day, mostly in Europe. The players are agents of an organisation that officially does not exist and has spent decades closing rifts through which something enters that does not belong. The organisation has no public flag or mapped headquarters. It has Holds, files and people who, the game says, can never go home.

David Ger wrote the game and publishes it under O.D.I.N. RPG. The current foundation book is the Core Rulebook, Second Edition, an 89-page free PDF. A cell is three to six agents plus a Game Master, who also acts as the cell's handler. Missions arrive as color-coded files, from routine observation to cases that officially do not exist.

Publication history and editions

The game was written in German, and the English books follow the German editions. The current English line is built around the Second Edition core. As of November 12, 2026, the official site lists 24 English books plus the Halloween mission Hop-tu-Naa, character sheets and handouts, totaling more than 2,200 pages, all free and available without an account.

German editions are appearing one by one as paperback, hardcover and Kindle books on Amazon. The publisher says English print editions will follow once the German series is complete, and that the PDFs will stay free. Rules, world and text are by David Ger. The publisher states that the illustrations are AI-generated.

What you need to play

To start, you only need the Quickstart: a 38-page PDF with short rules, four ready-made agents and the mission "The House by the Reservoir," written for one evening of about three to four hours. Each person needs eight white and eight colored six-sided dice, plus a character sheet. The color of the colored dice does not matter, as long as they are distinct from the white ones.

Beyond the first evening, the Core Rulebook is the foundation and does not require any other book. Chapters I to III are enough to begin. Game Masters add the Game Master's Book (136 pages, for the GM only) and, for a first campaign, The Door. A browser character generator walks through creation question by question and exports a personnel-file PDF. After missions, you can enter XP there and advance the agent.

The rest of the line

Once you have the core, the line is unusually complete for a free game. There are six class books (Agent, Scientist, Psion, Thaumaturge, Soldier and Investigator), plus Arsenal, Shadow Officers for high ranks, a Game Master's Screen, The Registry (a 390-page creature book), The Other Services, Holds of the World, Random Files, The Map Room, and Card Sets and Game Aids.

Published adventures include the Quickstart mission, the campaigns The Door, Foreign Bodies (twelve missions) and Nordlicht 1977, the Grey Files (eight missions), and Hop-tu-Naa for Halloween. Most of those titles have separate handout PDFs. Lone Operative: Alone in the Field is the solo book and requires the Core Rulebook. There is also Veilrift, a free co-operative board game set in the same world, for one to six players with no Game Master, in print-and-play or in the browser. Veilrift is a board game, not a replacement for the TTRPG.

Digital tools and VTT support

O.D.I.N. has a free official Foundry VTT system for version 14 and later, with sheets, dice, class trees, compendiums and the published adventures, installed from a manifest listed on the Virtual Tabletops page and developed at the project's GitHub repository. There is also a free browser table at odin-rpg.de, with no account, plus support listed for Owlbear Rodeo, Let's Role, Realm VTT, Quest Portal and a Discord dice bot.

Core rules and play structure

Resolution uses only six-sided dice in two colors. White dice come from the attribute and succeed on 5 or 6. Colored dice come from the skill and succeed on 4, 5 or 6. You roll them together and add the successes. The Game Master sets a difficulty from Easy (1 success) to Impossible (5). Training is more reliable than raw talent: without the skill you roll only white attribute dice, and some psionic and magical skills cannot be attempted untrained at all.

Extra successes above the difficulty are the margin, which makes the result better and, in combat, adds damage. Three or more successes above the difficulty is a critical success. A botch happens when the test fails and more dice show a 1 than the number of successes rolled. Bonus dice are always white, with a cap of +3. Penalty dice remove white dice first, then colored ones. If a pool falls to zero, you may still make a desperation roll: one white die, where only a 6 is a success and a 1 is a botch.

A mission starts with a file. White files are observation, grey files are investigations (the usual starting point), red files call for immediate intervention, and black files are officially non-existent and sit with the Council. The handler briefs the cell, then the group investigates through nodes, places and people in whatever order they choose. Knowledge gathered earlier is meant to matter in the confrontation.

Characters, classes and advancement

Every agent has nine attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Willpower, Charisma, Manipulation and Composure. There are 63 skills, grouped as physical, mental, social, psionic and magical, each tied to an attribute. Values cap at 6 and reach that cap only through experience.

There are six classes, called branches, each with five subclasses. On top of wounds, strain and trauma, every class pays a price that is tracked on the sheet:

• Psion (the Choir): psi powers, shielded by a helmet of Alloy S. Price: Resonance.
• Thaumaturge (the Collegium): crystals, spells and rituals. Price: Whisper.
• Soldier (the Hammer): combat, ash silver and the arsenal. Price: Echo.
• Agent: cover identities, infiltration and deception. Price: Fade.
• Scientist (the Institute near Bern): prototypes and technology. Price: Contamination.
• Investigator: traces, open files and the Wall. Price: Suspicion.

Agents begin as Cadets and can rise through Agent, Senior Agent, Veteran and Shadow Officer. XP comes from files and missions and is spent on class-tree nodes, attributes, skills and powers. The Quickstart's ready-made agents cover Investigator, Soldier, Psion and Thaumaturge; Agent and Scientist are in the core book.

Signature mechanics

The two-color dice pool is the obvious hook, but the class prices are what give the game its bite. Each price rises through play (open cases, silver carried, overload nodes, crystals kept overnight) and can trigger when a check goes badly, so a power you rely on can answer back. Combat is short and dangerous: a round is about three seconds, each character gets one move and one action, and two or three solid hits can take an agent out. Defence and damage are simple formulas, and characters drop to a wounded state at half Hit Points.

Strain and horror sit alongside hit points. A horror test (Willpower plus Mental Resistance) is called when something supernatural, cruel or incomprehensible appears, from Uncanny (1) to Cosmic (5). Failed tests add strain. At the strain threshold the agent takes a trauma such as Nightmares, Phobia or Paranoia, and a third trauma at once means withdrawal from active duty. After a mission, a Stress Management test can reduce leftover strain.

What play feels like

A typical session feels like a briefing, then a free-form investigation with paper files and handouts, then a confrontation that is riskier if the cell skipped the homework. Dice come out when failure would change the situation, not for every minor action. Between the class prices and the horror track, even a successful mission can leave marks that follow the agent into the next file.

The table fantasy is closer to a secret service that already knows the occult is real than to ordinary civilians stumbling onto it. Psions and thaumaturges bring open supernatural capability to the player side, which changes the tone from purely helpless investigation.

Running the game

The Game Master prepares a file, plays the handler and holds the secrets that players are not supposed to read in the Game Master's Book or in GM-only supplements such as The Registry. The GM book opens with safety tools (session zero, boundaries and veils, the X-Card, dosing horror, debriefing), then the setting's hidden chronicle, class-linked building blocks, a threat atlas, artefacts and cell resources (money, trust and time). Random Files and Holds of the World help if you want to build missions yourself.

The main prep cost is getting comfortable with the file structure and the number of tracks on an agent sheet. The Quickstart and the pre-written campaigns reduce that work. A common pitfall is treating the class prices as flavor and forgetting to advance or trigger them, which removes a large part of what makes the classes distinct.

Campaign fit

The Quickstart, Grey Files and Hop-tu-Naa support one-shots and short stands. The Door is the suggested first campaign. Foreign Bodies and Nordlicht 1977 extend that into longer play, and Shadow Officers covers promotion, a cell of one's own and an endgame. Replacement characters are easy to justify inside an organisation that already treats agents as expendable on paper, though the rank and price tracks reward keeping the same people alive.

Solo play is officially supported. Lone Operative uses an oracle of white and colored dice, file color and pressure, clues and revelation, a handler you play against, solo combat and a solo campaign, plus the included operation "Operation Last Trail." It is written for one player without a Game Master, and it still needs the Core Rulebook.

Reception and awards

As of November 12, 2026, there is not much of a public review record to summarize. The DriveThruRPG publisher page for ODIN RPG exists but lists no products and has no ratings. The itch.io page carries the full free PDF set and only a handful of short comments, which praise the size of the line more than they describe play. No award listings turned up in this research pass. Current reception is early and thin.

Where it is strongest

• A complete free line: core, quickstart, class books, GM book, campaigns, tools and a Foundry system, with no account required.
• A clear investigation loop built on files, handouts and nodes, with a first-evening mission already in the Quickstart.
• Class prices and horror/strain tracks that make powers and success cost something over time.
• Official solo support, a first-party Foundry system and a browser character generator.

Where it can frustrate groups

• The full game has more moving parts than the two-color dice slogan suggests, especially once class prices, strain, psi or magic, and several supplements are in play.
• English hardcover or paperback editions are not available yet, so the current line is PDF-first (and German print, if you read German).
• Public play reports and reviews are still scarce, so you will be relying on the official books more than on a large community of actual-play advice.
• The illustrations are AI-generated, which some groups will not want on the table even when the rules and setting text are human-written.

Content and safety notes

This is a horror game about occult threats, trauma, strain and agents who may be damaged or pulled from duty. Horror tests go up to a Cosmic difficulty, and class prices can involve voices, suspicion, contamination and the slow loss of a cover identity. The Game Master's Book treats safety as a starting chapter, including session zero, the X-Card and debriefing. Use those tools. The publisher notes that the game uses AI-generated art.

Best starting path

Download the Quickstart from the official books page or from itch.io and run "The House by the Reservoir" with the four pregenerated agents. If the table wants to continue, add the Core Rulebook (chapters I to III first) and build new agents in the generator or on paper. Game Masters should read the Game Master's Book next, then The Door. For a solo try, add Lone Operative after you have the core. If you play online, start with the official Foundry system or the browser table.

The official site also points to the O.D.I.N. Field File Jam on itch.io, a free jam running from October 16 to November 15, 2026.

Research notes

Last checked November 12, 2026. Sources: the official English site and FAQ, the rules summary, the Core Rulebook and Game Master's Book pages, the full books list, the Virtual Tabletops page, the itch.io product page (including its AI disclosure), the DriveThruRPG publisher API for ODIN RPG (publisher 31934, product count 0), and the Let's Role system page. RPGGeek has an entry for the game; the page itself could not be fetched from this environment (HTTP 403), so it was not used for facts.