When disaster strikes or menace looms, the best among us don’t run from danger—they run toward it! Heroic books for the Cypher System!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
The Origin Has Fulfilled
almost 2 years ago
– Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 07:05:09 AM
Greetings, heroes—
The Origin, in print and PDF, has fulfilled! If this exciting title is among your rewards, check your email for redemption instructions. (If you missed the email, you can also find the instructions here.)
This is the last of the book titles for the Heroes of the Cypher System campaign. We are still patiently awaiting three more rewards: the Cypher System dice, Cypher System playmat, and GM Intrusion Deck. Unlike our books, these items are not produced in North America, and they’ve struggled with the supply chain and freight issues you’ve probably heard about throughout our economy. (Amazingly, these items went into production before First Responders. In the olden times, we would have expected them early this year, but the modern era demands our flexibility.)
Fortunately, we have good news to report: the GM Intrusion Deck is now en route and expected to reach our warehouses in the next couple of weeks. The other items are not far behind.
In the meantime:
The Newest Cypher System Game is Blowing Away Records!
The Kickstarter campaign for the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game has surpassed 10,000 backers and is closing in on $1,500,000. To put that in context: It’s already one of the top-10 of all time RPG Kickstarters, and is almost twice as big as our biggest previous campaigns. As you might expect, it is loaded with stretch goals and cool extras. Check out the video for a taste of what this game—and the excitement around this Kickstarter—is all about!
The Origin Is Headed Your Way!
about 2 years ago
– Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 03:17:34 PM
Greetings, heroes—
We have something exciting to show you!
In 2017, Oumuamua made headlines as the first interstellar object ever detected passing through our solar system. Everyone remembers that. A web search will tell you all about it.
So why doesn’t anyone remember Nibiru? How it curved out of the night, its trajectory changing so rapidly that scientists could barely track it. How its arc altered, day by day, inexorably toward our own. How the skies blazed when it struck the Earth. How the seas boiled, and the cities burned.
Except the cities still stand, the sky is unburnt, and only an unlucky few of us have nightmares about Nibiru. Maybe we’re losing our minds. Sharing a delusion. And that newfound ability—to turn invisible, to read thoughts, to levitate—is just another shared delusion.
So why are we being hunted down?
The Origin is a gritty and mysterious setting in which characters master emerging superpowers as they face nefarious groups, superpowered opponents, and dark forces somehow connected to memories of a world that met a different fate. It includes new rules for developing superpowers over the course of play; new creatures, cyphers, and artifacts; a bunch of adventure content; and a mysterious backstory for the PCs to piece together: a world that looks at first identical to our own, but has been altered—somehow—in dark and frightening ways.
The Origin has reached our warehouses. If it’s among your rewards in print or PDF, look for your redemption email in the days to come!
Download the Old Gods of Appalachia Primer!
The Things that once slumbered in the hills and hollers, beneath the earth and beyond the eye, have begun to wake. They stir and breathe.
They see you and know your innermost heart, those long dark tunnels of pain and sorrow and secrets.
They call to you in voices deep and dark, voices ancient and unknowable, voices full of pain and promises—and no way to tell between the two.
Come to us, those voices say. We have only just begun.
First Responders Fulfilling Now—Plus The Origin News and More!
about 2 years ago
– Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 04:44:26 PM
Greetings, heroes!
Here’s some great news for you: We have begun the fulfillment process for First Responders. If this exciting title is among your rewards, check your email (if you haven’t already) for instructions on claiming your reward. (Didn’t get the email? You can also find instructions here.)
Next up is TheOrigin. It went to press last week, so if all goes to plan it should ship to our warehouses in less than a month. Then it won't be long until we're fulfilling that title as well!
And that's not all—here's an update on the remaining products you funded through this Kickstarter:
Cypher System playmats are in production now. They should be wrapped up pretty soon, and begin the process of shipping to us. Unlike our books, which are manufactured in North America, these ship to us from China. Overseas freight is unpredictable these days, so we don't know how long the playmats will take to reach us.
The Cypher System dice are in the same boat, literally.
The GM Intrusion Deck is slightly ahead of that curve. This one is complete and beginning the process of making its way to us.
Long before anything human roamed the Earth, the Appalachians towered tall and menacing. The mountains' might was made a prison and tomb for beings of immeasurable malice and incomprehensible madness. A place to hold them; to keep them, perhaps forever, from dimming the light above.
But time marches inexorably on, and even mountains do not retain their grandeur forever. These hills now lie rounded, the walls of the prison grown thin. Things that slumbered soundlessly for millennia begin to stir and become restless. . .
Claim the Sky Has Fulfilled, Plus an Update on First Responders
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 07:32:22 PM
Greetings heroes!
We fulfilled Claim the Sky last week—if you’ve downloaded your PDF copy, we hope you’re enjoying it. Physical copies are winging their way through the shipping system as fast as our warehouses can get them out! (Missed the email? You can find info on redeeming your reward here.)
Of course, we’ve been working on the other titles you funded as well. First Responders, designed by Shanna Germain and Bruce Cordell, is in layout now. During development, Shanna put some thoughts down about internal playtesting and how designers figure out that a design is done, to give you some insight into the process of making First Responders. Here’s what Shanna had to say—but first, a quick reminder: The Planebreaker Kickstarter ends tomorrow; more details below.
Internal Playtests of First Responders
Last summer, Bruce Cordell and I were hard at work on a book that's a bit unusual for us—First Responders. As you may remember, this book is set in the real world and invites you to play firefighters, medics, hazmatologists (yes, that's a thing!), search and rescue personnel, and so much more. You fight forest fires, climb into barely hanging-on train cars to rescue victims after a crash, rush into collapsing buildings, and work with your rescue dog to dig survivors out of avalanches.
It's been a blast writing and designing this game—but it's also been surprisingly difficult. We all know what it looks like when you go dungeon delving or head off into the wilderness to fight a dragon. But what does the Cypher System look like when the thing you're facing off against is a real-world-style fire, or a hazardous material spill, or a tsunami?
To answer those questions, we've done a lot of tossing around of ideas, a bunch of writing and rewriting, and a whole lot of internal playtesting. In fact, we just finished our third (and probably final) round of playtesting recently.
Playtesting is such a vital part of any game. What looks amazing on paper often falls apart when you put it to the test at the table. That's just the nature of the beast, and it's the best way to take a game from good to great.
Honestly, our first internal playtest was something of a disaster. Which is how all the best first playtests go. Things just weren't quite working as smoothly as we wanted them to, and they weren't quite as fun as we'd hoped they'd be. Your goal in a playtest is to break the system as much as you can. And we absolutely did that. It can be a real ego killer to put all this work into something on paper only to have it fall apart at the table. But that first ego-busting playtest is vital to making the game better.
After that, we went back to the basics, fixing the things that hadn't worked, coming up with new and better ideas for character options, interaction ideas, GM intrusions, equipment, and player and GM advice. Then we playtested the game a second time, using new characters and new scenarios. And we learned that while we'd solved a bunch of things in the rewrite, we'd broken a few things too. And we spotted some things we'd overlooked the first time. The detail-focused second playtest is how you make the game good.
Back one more time to our pens and paper (or in this case, keyboards and writing apps). Our third playtest was really fun. Things were exciting and dangerous. Our characters were smart and resourceful. We arrived on the scene of a hazardous materials spill and started taking care of business. Kicking the fire's ass. Saving people's lives. Helping each other out of danger, like when someone (*ahem* Monte's character) nearly took an accidental nosedive into a bunch of radioactive materials.
There were still tiny things to tweak, little changes to make to enhance the experience and make it even more awesome. But for the most part, the third playtest was that moment when we got to say, "Yes. This is it. This is the game we want to make." In other words, the third playtest is how you make the game great.
Creating a game with such a unique take on disasters and emergency services has been a cool challenge—and we're really pleased with how it's come along. We think you're going to love the new character options, the fun scenarios, and the exhilarating experience of playing real-world heroes.
Path of the Planebreaker
First Responders is a product that is set—perhaps more than anything we’ve ever published—in the real world as we know it. The Planebreaker takes us to an opposite extreme: the outer planes of heroic fantasy. The Planebreaker Kickstarter is unlocking:
Dozens and dozens of new planes (which might make awesome recursions for The Strange!).
The Planebreaker itself, an enigmatic moon-like object that’s home to the city of Timeborne, the Sea of Uncertainty, and deeper mysteries. It’s its own setting, but it strays into other planes—meaning it’s easily encountered in any campaign. (Can you imagine bringing it into a Claim the Sky superhero campaign?)
An entire Planar Bestiary, filled with scores of weird new creatures you can use in your Numenera or Cypher System game.
Planar Character Options, filled with, well, cool character options.
New cyphers, artifacts, and more.
Lots of cool Kickstarter exclusives!
Path of the Planebreaker, the Planar Bestiary, Planar Character Options, the Resource Deck, and everything else funded by this campaign is available for Cypher System or 5e.
Claim the Sky Has Fulfilled!
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 02:43:52 AM
Greetings heroes!
Great news: Last night we began the fulfillment process for Claim the Sky. If you haven’t already, check your email for instructions on claiming your reward and to download the PDF. (Didn’t get the email? You can also find instructions here.)
Cypher System GM Intrusion Deck and The Origin
For those of you who have the early access reward, check your email for links to unedited files of The Origin and the Cypher System Intrusion Deck. We hope you enjoy getting these glimpses of pre-production items and giving us feedback (we welcome your feedback, but it isn't required).
Both of these products go to their respective printers soon, as well as does the Cypher System Dice Set and the Cypher System Playmat . . . so many goodies are off to press or going off to press soon!
The Planebreaker Kickstarter Is Nearing Its End—Don’t Miss Out!
Our current Kickstarter takes you into the planes! We’re funding not just Path of the Planebreaker, but also the Planar Bestiary and Planebreaker Player’s Guide—all of which are being made for Cypher System as well as 5e.
All those great planar settings, just waiting to be explored or added to your Numenera or The Strange game. All those amazing creatures, just waiting to encounter your characters! Don’t miss out—the campaign ends soon!
