Shadowdark Setting Looks Set To Be 2025's First Million Dollar TTRPG Crowdfunder

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Just launched today, the new Western Reaches setting for the Arcane Library's popular Shadowdark roleplaying game (which itself raised $1.3M in 2023) has flown past half a million dollars in the first few hours, and looks certain to join the Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club imminently!

[[Edit/Update--and it's done it! $1M less than 12 hours into the Kickstarter campaign!]]

2025 has been quiet so far this year on the million-dollar crowdfunding front. This new setting is a sandbox environment with new classes and ancestries, and various areas such as the Gloaming Forest, Djurum Desert, and Myre Swamp. It comes in two 200-page digest-sized hardcovers. Also included are new issues of the game's Cursed Scroll zine. The full core set will cost you $129, or $149 for a premium version, with fulfillment expected in December 2025.

At $670K at the time of writing, just 3 hours into the campaign, The Western Reaches is already the 7th most first-day funded TTRPG ever, having just passed 2024's Terry Pratchett's Discworld RPG: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork. It looks set to pass 6th place very soon, which is 2023's Ryoko's Guide to the Yokai Realms - A 5e Tome. Only five TTRPG crowdfunders (so far!) have ever hit the million-dollar mark on the first day. You can see the full ranking at the Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club.

The Western Reaches are an unexplored land of fragile civilizations, majestic landscapes, and forgotten horrors that lurk in the dark.

In the Reaches, you could play as:

• A painted witch from the steppes hunting for the secrets to deeper magic
• An armored knight from the City of Masks guarding frontier villages from attack
• A silent monk from the mountains searching for the assassin who killed his teacher
• A scarred pit fighter from the desert looking to make her fortune outside the arena
• A quick-witted explorer from the jungle who can find any artifact for the right price
• A seafaring warrior from the northern isles who fights for the glory of the Old Gods

This sandbox setting is fast, elegant, and flexible in the signature Shadowdark style. You don't have to memorize lore; you'll discover it as you go. The world moves and grows with you as you explore it.

 

[Aldarc]

Players is one. The number of folks interested in Shadowdark is larger than I expected.

I'm not terribly surprised. Shadowdark basically serves as 5e's version of B/X or a more modernized design of B/X depending on how one wants to look it.

 

[Jahydin]

Well I just went all in on the standard set.

I don't think I've ever been this excited about a TTRPG release.

 

[aiouh]

I think we know what must be done. We need to make a 3rd party player-facing book called Advanced Classes for Shadowdark: Player's Handbook. And if they want even more subclass options we can release a book called Advanced Handbook for Shadowdark: Fighter. Maybe we can then write sandbox modules for it that are called "Fort on the Shadowinbetweencountriesdarklands"

Look, even Kelsey agrees! Note: These classes will be added to the big Western Reaches Player Handbook

1.5M seems like a comfy pass. Wonder what we'll get then. But since margins have come down for the project with the cheaper pledge options I don't expect anything big.

 

[WisdomOfWombats]

• 18 character classes and lots of new art, including the never-before-seen Kyzian Archer, Green Knight, and Monk of Yag-Kesh
• 8 ancestries with new in-world details, including the new half-elf and the kobold

The kickstarter says those are not including the core book, do we have a list (Discord?) on what those are?

• All gear lists, including boats, mounts, and poisons
• All spells for each class listed alphabetically by tier

I'd love if this got added to the license somehow. You can reference things (Mounts from CS2 for example) but it would be great to be able to bundle it into a release...

It's just two ancestries in the Player's Guide to the Western Reaches. There is preview available via the KS page. For the Player's Guide there is a table to randomly roll the ancestry. So, it's the core six plus Kobold and Half-elf.

Classes are from the Cursed Scrolls and I think three (?) more. And yesterday two stretch goals included another two classes designed during the KS and included in the Player's Guide. New classes seem to be: final version of Bard and Ranger, all classes from CS 1-3, plus other classes from CS4-6 like Wyrdling, Delver, Roustabout, Basilisk Warrior, Duelist, plus three new classes in the Palyer's Guide: Kyzian Archer and two others...

 

[Retros_x]

My only problem with this KS is, that I was currently planning to start a SD sandboxgame in May and now I am seriously considering delaying that to the release of this behemoth.... goddamn!

 

[Morrus]

No but since it is derivative of the 5.1 SRD you can make compatible material pretty easily. But to indicate compatibility you have to use a kind of limited bespoke license from them. It is a little disappointing given the game exists as a child of so much open content, but it is what it is.

This is standard practice.

I'm not familiar with this license specifically, but you can indicate compatibility without a license--you can make an iPhone case or car mat for a Ford car and say so. These licenses usually refer to use of a handy logo (such as the d20 logo back in the day, or our Level Up compatibility logo).

It's a way of retaining the ability to remove the logo usage from bad actors. They can still make compatible products--you can't really stop that--but the logo you can control.

 

[WisdomOfWombats]

My only problem with this KS is, that I was currently planning to start a SD sandboxgame in May and now I am seriously considering delaying that to the release of this behemoth.... goddamn!

You could always start out in the region of one of the Cursed Scrolls and then widen the Setting as the Western Reaches books get released. That‘s one of the options I am looking at.

 

[Fenris-77]

You could always start out in the region of one of the Cursed Scrolls and then widen the Setting as the Western Reaches books get released. That‘s one of the options I am looking at.

One one the CS hex maps should be good for a bunch of session of play, for sure.

 

[aiouh]

Also in terms of accessibility, the Quickstart Rules are free and basically contain the entire system, barring high level spells (90% of the playerbase will probably never see), bestiary and magic items.

So if you build a Shadowdark derivative product (totally reworked character classes, bestiary, spells, magic items), it is technically possible to have the customer play your game without giving Arcane Library any money by saying "Refer to page x and y of the Shadowdark Quickstart Booklet for the Shadowdark Core Rules".

What is limited is you reprinting those rules and selling it as your own, which is fair for such a small publisher. It's basically an attribution license that locks higher level character/bestiary/magic item options, which is basically what SRD5.1 does in practice.

 

[mamba]

since margins have come down for the project with the cheaper pledge options

I don’t think that means the margins have come down, as was mentioned here in another thread, it is the big bundles that have small margins / give bigger discounts

the markup goes down as you move up the tiers. The high tiers are essentially wholesale prices (as Kelsey explained it).