Into the Mother Lands: A Sci-fi RPG by PoC Designers

When Eugenio Vargas spoke to us on our podcast back in November about this Afrofuturist RPG, it was still months away. Now the game has hit Kickstarter, and has made over $100K in the first couple of days!

Into the Mother Lands - An Original Afrofuturist TTRPG

Setting book for Into the Mother Lands RPG!!!

www.kickstarter.com

Imagine if African explorers had set sail for the New World long before Europeans did... but got transported to a new planet instead! This planet is developed by a civilisation of African descent.

Choose from five cultures and several professions such as the Bio Priest or the Spine Ripper.

The team behind Into the Mother Lands is a group RPG designers, all people of colour, led by Tanya DePass, the founder of the non-profit group I Need Diverse Games.

You can pick up the PDF for $25 or the hardcover for $50, plus an array of dice, screens, maps, sheets and more.

Podcast #127 Into the Mother Lands with Eugenio Vargas

This week, Morrus and Peter are joined by Eugenio Vargas to talk about Into the Motherlands. In the news, Gale Force 9 sues Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything released, Comic Relief Plays D&D Part 2, and more plus a brand new sketch about the...

www.enworld.org

 

[Ixal]

I'd love to see more cultures used for inspiration in RPGs, as there's so much I don't know.

As a white Australian, I've grown up knowing very little about African cultures. An RPG based on some of these has the real potential to be new and exciting exciting me.

I do sit in the camp however of needing to know what system they'll use before backing it. I wonder how many others are in that space also?

I doubt that the culture of the Musalians will have much in common with the actual culture of Mali of that time.
As far as I understand it, Mali of that time was, also, defined be the split between the Muslim population and the one following the native religion which Musa tried, not to unite but to peacefully convert. As mentioned he was a devout Muslim and responsible for building many mosques including the university of Timbuktu (which was a religious school).

So Islam was part of their culture, yet from all I heard religion will not be a big part of this game apart except for the Bio Priest and they don't sound like they will follow a version of Islam.
So while the backstory is rooted in the real world I do not think this is intended to have any other connection to the real world. It is a pure fantasy (sci-fantasy) game.

And with 3000 years of separation it wouldn't even make sense if their culture would resemble the culture of Mali anyway.

 

[Morrus]

So is tghis another swordfall?

How so?

 

[Grendel_Khan]

If you want an RPG more directly influenced by real African cultures, look out for The Wagadu Chronicles for DnD5e. Sadly, it is funded on Kickstarter as a computer game, but the RPG books were added in one of the goals, so may become available via DriveThruRPG Print-on-Demand.

Also, Jerry D. Grayson, has some interesting Afro-Futurism using the Open d6 System.

The Wagadu Chronicles looks like a great read, even for us 5e haters. If the printed materials wind up anything like what they previewed for the video game it seems like they'll get into some really cool ideas beyond the usual Euro-style murder-hobo-ing about.

 

[CubicsRube]

I doubt that the culture of the Musalians will have much in common with the actual culture of Mali of that time.
As far as I understand it, Mali of that time was, also, defined be the split between the Muslim population and the one following the native religion which Musa tried, not to unite but to peacefully convert. As mentioned he was a devout Muslim and responsible for building many mosques including the university of Timbuktu (which was a religious school).

So Islam was part of their culture, yet from all I heard religion will not be a big part of this game apart except for the Bio Priest and they don't sound like they will follow a version of Islam.
So while the backstory is rooted in the real world I do not think this is intended to have any other connection to the real world. It is a pure fantasy (sci-fantasy) game.

And with 3000 years of separation it wouldn't even make sense if their culture would resemble the culture of Mali anyway.

Totally. Not expecting real world history. But using an inspiration from a source I'm unfamiliar with has the potential to be a fresh take in my mind.

 

[Bagpuss]

I doubt that the culture of the Musalians will have much in common with the actual culture of Mali of that time.

Wonder if they have done much research in that department at all. From the kickstarter and the little I've seen of the AP, it seems other than the idea of ships leaving Malie and a few of the names there it seems to ignore it's roots, to be just sci-fi fantasy.

And with 3000 years of separation it wouldn't even make sense if their culture would resemble the culture of Mali anyway.

It's only 1000 years on according to the Kickstarter.

 

[Ixal]

It's only 1000 years on according to the Kickstarter.

In the intro of season 2 of their streamed session it says 3000. I also read 1500 somewhere. So that number seems to be very much in flux.

 

[MGibster]

Posted in wrong thread

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Pledges flattened out in a big way. Wonder if they just hit a ceiling, once the stream's fanbase finished showing up to the campaign, or is the system question part of the problem? I don't really have any theories, but I think it's weird for them to hit $200k and still not sort out the system...and also this is flat-out bizarre:

How are you going to include a dice set add-on and still not tell people what system you're using? What if the final system only uses one or two of those dice types, and needs lots of one kind? I realize you can use dice for whatever game you want, but still, this seems real silly to me. Show your support for our game by...rolling these dice when you play 5e....

 

[Morrus]

Pledges flattened out in a big way.

All Kickstarters do that. There’s a distinctive U shape to the graph of every Kickstarter’s pledges.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

All Kickstarters do that. There’s a distinctive U shape to the graph of every Kickstarter’s pledges.

Absolutely. But I have an unhealthy obsession with watching TTRPG Kickstarters, and this seems like a very precipitous drop to me. Way steeper than Auroboros or Coyote & Crow, for example.

It's obviously a super successful campaign already. I just thought it was interesting how much it's already slowed down.