If you were a fan of Sinister Beard Games’ Quietus (which Aaron selected as one of several tabletop RPGs to play on Halloween), then you’ll probably want to keep an eye on their Kickstarter launching today for their folk horror RPG, The Woods at Blight’s Hollow. Inspired by the likes of Guillermo Del Toro, Angela Carter, The Brothers Grimm, Kirsty Logan and Mary Shelley, The Woods at Blight’s Hollow campaign will run until November 30. And from the looks of things, it’s already well on its way to reaching its initial £8,000 goal.
Illustrated by Corey Brickley and written by Oli Jeffery (who penned Quietus, as well as other tabletop RPGs Extreme Meatpunks Forever and Trophy), the story centres on the children of Blight’s Hollow, an isolated village surrounded by a trackless forest in a time before modern amenities, in a world of hearthside tales and nights to be feared. The mysteries in The Woods at Blight’s Hollow have no set outcome. Using the innovative mystery system first seen in the hit Grannies-vs-cosmic-horror tabletop RPG Brindlewood Bay, the players may uncover clues called Breadcrumbs provided by Mother (the Games Master) by “sticking their nose where it’s not welcome”, but nobody – not even Mother – knows what the Breadcrumbs mean at the start.
Once the players have gathered enough clues, they will “tell a tale out of school”, answering questions that will allow the players aka children to defeat the Beasts plaguing their town. Even though there are no canonical answers to how to defeat the beasts, this system makes it feel like you’re really solving the mystery yourself. Play conducted in the village is safe, but in order to gather the final clues needed to solve any
mystery, the children will need to enter the forbidden woods, where their lives and perhaps their very souls are at risk.
Seeing as the player characters are children, they won’t have any traditional weapons with which to defend themselves. Instead, they are armed with knowledge and blessings: hearthside tales and nursing rhymes told to them by their grandparents that allows them to avoid the most perilous hazards by remembering the fate of the children-within-rhymes. Each child also has a Patron Saint assigned to them at birth that grants them powers beyond the realm of adulthood. For example, those children who have Saint Sibel, the Seer, may find themselves possessed of worrying supernatural visions, while those under the guardianship of Saint Lohan, the Crow Wife, have a special relationship with corvids who bring them trinkets and clues.
The current campaign will be to produce a ~140 page hardback tome for The Woods at Blight’s Hollow, which will include rules for character creation and advancement, a full campaign guide spanning an in-game year, an innovative mystery system, and eleven mysteries to solve and Beasts to defeat. There are also several stretch goals, which include extra touches for the book, including a forward by author Kirsty Logan on horror in fairy tales.
