A dark pulp setting with modern story elements that is compatible with the Dungeon World system.
So everyone who is already getting audio will receive 10 additional tracks.
Our next backer goal is 250. We hit that and I double the Monster Tomb page count.
Thanks everyone!
Ws
I can't tell you how much it means to me to be able to do this project. Without you, it never would have happened.
Sorry to double update you today, but I don't think the stretch goal idea is working for this Kickstarter, so I'm scraping it in favor of a 2 backer goals. Here they are
200 Backers = 10 More Fantasy Audio Tracks.
250 Backers = 50 more Monster Tome Pages.
That's it. To unlock everything, we just need to fund and hit these backer numbers by the end of the Kickstarter on Saturday. This puts everything within our reach. Thanks everyone.
A spot in THE CULTIST pledge level has opened up, so if you want to help create a cult for Rothaen grab it before it's to late. We are quickly coming to the end of the Kickstarter so keep telling everyone you can about us!
With five previous Kickstarters, we have created a lot of audio tracks for RPGs. If you want all the past Kickstarter audio rewards plus everything we've put out through 2016 back THE SONIC SORCERER pledge level.
Every city and town has undertakers. Many are connected with temples, while others are tradespeople who run mortuaries. These men and women also travel to rural areas to help the grieving deal with the loss of a loved one. Undertakers serve a vital service in communities, even if some of the communities they serve shun them for handling the dead, like in Asi or Ulevin. It can be a thankless job indeed.
One does not become rich burying corpses, and this reality prompted the more entrepreneurial and morally shady of the bunch to create a secret society called The Morticians. They started during the Athix Empire’s bloody civil war over two hundred years ago. The empire’s elven slaves were in full revolt, and the barbarians in the north wanted their independence. Corpses started to pile up on all fronts, and more and more people started working as undertakers. Many of these new workers saw opportunities in the death business. They started to market their skills to people with deep pockets. At first it was just a handful of people in the city of Athlea, the Athix Empire’s capital, but as the war dragged on, their numbers swelled. Today, every city or town has at least one Mortician among their undertakers.
The Morticians sell bodies to necromancers, make sure bodies disappear forever for the mafia and nobles alike, and will even help usher a living person into the afterlife. All of these activities require a network of people who can keep their big traps shut, and that is not cheap. The Morticians take their jobs very seriously and only allow those who have proven themselves as skilled undertakers with the right temperament. Many times, as with any trade, being a Mortician is a family affair. Becoming a Mortician is a great honor; leaving them is never an option.
In game terms, The Morticians can be antagonists or contacts depending on what side of the law you are on. Discovering them can be a whole campaign, or players may even want to join their ranks. The Morticians see corpses as nothing more than raw materials and money in the bank. They have insured people’s silence through well-played blackmail schemes over the years. The Morticians are not to be trifled with.
Play to find out…
Thanks everyone!
Wes
(Hamish Cameron is a good friend of mine and a great writer who will be contributing to The Realms of Rothaen.)
The tune Chantor Kilida-to-Gipoti was humming reached a natural pause as he crumbled the last carbonated pieces of the lilyroot into place to complete the circle. He made a sweeping gesture with both hands and almost fumbled his new tune as he remembered his lack of magical servants. Pause. “Keke-da!” Resume. His two assistants rushed forward out of their dozing to light candles and drip wax in the three pointed star formation. He sighed internally, careful not to disrupt the rhythm of his new tune as the spell started to take shape within the careful binding structures he has assembled. As he wrestled the magic inside the bindings into the shape of a viewing portal, the bead of sweat that rolled from his brow was not from the ambient humidity–he had lived in Taseki all his life, he was used to that. The sweat was fear. He could feel the air chill in the room as the curse siphoned off any residual magic outside the bindings, lacing its way with icy fingers through the extremities of his body. As it stopped at his diaphragm, and the bindings held, he grimaced, satisfied, and focused his attention fully on the luminous portal at the center of the three-pointed-star. “Por-tal!” he sang, “show me the da-ay, the em-pi-re fell.”
That day had been a long time coming, but for most of the Chantors and Song Magi of the Taseki Empire, it was sudden, shocking, and brutal. For centuries, the Song Magi of Kipata, the 1st city, had expanded their magical and political influence through Taseki-Kadi, the land mass that foreign scholars and sailors now call Murwata Island. Their society and government was collectively shaped by the magical chants, canticles, arias, and madrigals sung by generations of practitioners of the Taseki magical tradition. In time they came to be guided first by the leading Song Magi, and then by the Chantors of the Forty Cities. The island thrived, the people were content, the Song Magi grew prosperous… and divided.
As far as Taseki historians, arcanists and antiquarians have been able to piece together from sparse written evidence and the fragments of magical divination from the time before the curse, out, the Taseki magi-musical tradition (or Song Magic as it is commonly known) was based on the magical principle of the Harmony of Voices Unified. In essence, this principle held that by acting in magical concert, the magic of the song was amplified, and the different parts and harmonies of the singers would exert a cohesive influence on the whole spell. The particular styles and expressions of individual singers would weave together to form a stronger magical harmony.
Murwata Island is over 3000 miles from end to end. As long as the Chantors of the Forty Cities maintained their commitment to the Harmony of Taseki-Kadi, the Empire remained strong, but local divergence in tradition inevitably drew the attention of some Chantors away from the Harmony and it weakened. At least, this is the prevailing theory among the historians in what remains of the Taseki Empire. What is not debated is the Day of the Curse.
290 years ago, on the day of the Festival of Lights in Sogado, the 34th city, the Harmony failed and Taseki-Kadi ripped apart. Waves of magical energy resonated throughout the island, sundering the magical communications networks that kept the Forty Cities harmonized. Civilization as they knew it was destroyed. From the ashes emerged the Murwata Island they now know: the rebel republic of Wisgo, the poisoned lands of Malo (formerly Sogado and its neighbours), the lee-lands now called Chrysom, overrun by barbarians.
Now the Forty Cities exist in the archaic name of the Harmony only. The Song Magi of Taseki are divided under the yoke of the curse. Choral singing attracts demonic forces so the magi sing alone. The Harmony is broken. Factions within the remaining Thirteen Cities pursue their own goals. The Reunifiers plan to recover Taseki-Kadi by conquest. The Reharmonizers hope to resettle the Lost Cities and re-sing the Harmony. The Seekers focus their individual energies on discovering the origin and workings of the Curse and reversing it. For the Arians are united only in their belief that the Curse arose because the Harmony was too heavy; the way forward for each of the remaining cities lies in local variations of the Taseki traditions. The various factions use, abuse, and collaborate with the peoples and groups of Malo, Chrysom, Wisgo and beyond to serve their own vision for the cities of the former Taseki-Kadi, and their interpretation of the Harmony of Voices Unified.
Hamish Cameron is a writer, game designer, and historian raised and trained for adventure in New Zealand and now venturing deep into the wilds of the infamous "New England". He is best known for The Sprawl (2016), a game of mission-based cyberpunk action, but he has been playing and running Dungeon World at conventions across New Zealand and the US since 2011 or so. He publishes RPGs as Ardens Ludere (http://www.ardens.org) and board games as part of Cheeky Mountain Parrot Games. You can find him tweeting merrily at @peregrinekiwi and @thesprawl_rpg.
On Saturday the 15th, 8pm PDT The Rothaen Kickstarter comes to an end and we will be funded. It is written in the Tomes of Destiny to be so, but that is not why I want to speak to your this fine day, NO! What I ask you now is shrouded in the fogs of uncertainty. It's simply this brave adventurer, will you fight? Will you pick up your sword, ready your spell, pray to the gods, Cry 'Havoc" and let slip the dogs of gaming?
Your task is a simple one, your battlefield is vast, and your reward could be great. Fight for Rothaen. Spread the word of the setting far and wide, tell your friends, sound the alarm! For once these mere 5 days fade into history, the battle is done. We must seize this moment and fight for all that is great in tabletop RPGs. We must tell the real world about the fantasy fiction world of Rothaen. Only then will we truly be victorious. Do not let these wonderful stretch goals go gently into that good night. Fight with me gamer friends, and chisel your stories across Rothaen!
