Breaking: Urban Shadows Stretch Goal
Plus, Back Again from the Broken Land available in Codex: Home
Some exciting pieces of news from Cloven Pine Games.
First of all, I am writing a stretch goal playbook for a very exciting RPG Kickstarter. Magpie Games is putting out a revamped and punched-up second edition of Urban Shadows, their game of Corruption and Debt amidst the secret supernatural side of a major city.
The Kickstarter has fully funded and is blowing through stretch goals. At $175,000, I will contribute The Restless, a playbook telling the story of a former inmate of the underworld facing the challenges of reintegration in the land of the living.
Urban Shadows turns heavily on the mechanic of Debt, and the Restless owes a huge Debt to Society that they struggle to get out from under—but by fulfilling their Vows (promises like “save the life of a stranger” or “find a new place to call home”) they have a chance to clear that Debt and begin anew.
Back the Kickstarter here to help unlock this goal! We only have about 70 hours left in the Kickstarter. I’m very excited to contribute to the game.
Another update I’m happy to share: we just published a game in Codex magazine called Back Again From the Broken Land. Designed by me (Alexi) and Leah Sargeant (a fantastic writer and designer who happens to be my wife), Back Again From the Broken Land is a game about small adventurers returning home after a calamitous war, laden with stories to tell and burdens to bear. It is meant to be played in one or maybe two sessions, and is based on the more contemplative stretches of works like The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
You can find Back Again from the Broken Land in Codex: Home, an issue of Codex magazine published by the Gauntlet gaming community. For now (and probably for the rest of November) you can receive Codex: Home by backing the Gauntlet on Patreon at the $6 level or higher. Eventually, Codex: Home will be available to non-backers on DriveThruRPG, likely for $9 like other recent issues. In Codex, the game features wonderful illustrations by Amanda Lee Franck.
You can watch Leah run the game in this Actual Play video on the Cloven Pine Youtube channel:
Looking forward to hearing from more folks as they play the game! As always, please feel free to reach out and share play reports with me. If you share a particularly cool detail about your session, I might even share it in this newsletter.
Gamefully Yours,
Alexi