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

​

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.

 

[Fenris-77]

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.

I've published a bunch of stuff for Shadowdark and I've found the license very easy to work with. Referencing the main rulebook for existing rules is exactly the way to go.

 

[Velderan]

What I'd really like -- now that it won't add to the count of stickers they're responsible for -- is a $1 physical tier Backerkit option. Limithron provided one in the fall and it meant people could buy in during the Pirate Borg expansion campaign and then have several months to save up the money for all the stuff. (It was a similarly huge campaign of expansion stuff.)

For that campaign, was there a cutoff date to add physical rewards later? It could be that since this material is mostly done and will likely be sent off to the printers sooner than many crowdfunded campaigns, she wants to have an idea of how many books and such to produce sooner rather than later. That would make some level of sense.

That having been said I was a late backer to the initial campaign after hearing so many people rave about how good the PDF material was. I was able to back the campaign through Backerkit, they immediately gave me the PDFs, and then didn't charge me for anything until the physical rewards were nearly ready to ship so with that precedent.. it is kind of strange to not offer folks the ability to do what you're suggesting.

 

[aiouh]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shadowdarkrpg/western-reaches/comments

 

[Bill Zebub]

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".

The McKinsey consultants were all, "Ms. Dionne, you'll never sell anything this way...."

And Kelsey is all, "$2.6 million over two kickstarters, and counting..."

 

[aiouh]

Actually, I'm wrong. The license is actually much more open. You're allowed to reprint verbatim passages of text from the entire bestiary, spell list and magic item list. huh! So I guess, technically you could restate the entire game within the shadowdark license and offer it for free. (Without the art, implied setting and random table contents, because those are intellectual property)

 

[Reynard]

Actually, I'm wrong. The license is actually much more open. You're allowed to reprint verbatim passages of text from the entire bestiary, spell list and magic item list. huh! So I guess, technically you could restate the entire game within the shadowdark license and offer it for free. (Without the art, implied setting and random table contents, because those are intellectual property)

Except, you know, the rules. Classes aren't there. Actual gameplay rules aren't there. Carousing isn't there, or random encounters, or travel. Exactly what would you be reprinting?

What the license allows you to do is make monster, item and spell cards, and reprint those things in an adventure or supplement for convenience.

 

[aiouh]

Except, you know, the rules. Classes aren't there. Actual gameplay rules aren't there. Carousing isn't there, or random encounters, or travel. Exactly what would you be reprinting?

What the license allows you to do is make monster, item and spell cards, and reprint those things in an adventure or supplement for convenience.

Again

You may freely use and reference the genereal concepts of Shadowdark RPG, such as the rules and game mechanics. (...) You may not print verbatim passages of text. (...)

From the website:

FAQ on The Shadowdark RPG Third-Party License

This FAQ is about how to publish your own material for Shadowdark RPG using its license, the Shadowdark RPG Third-Party License V1.1!

www.thearcanelibrary.com

Q: Section 2 of the license says, “you may not print verbatim passages of text (no matter the length) from the game, with the exception of monsters, spells, and magic items.” Does that mean I can’t write game rules, like talents, with your same wording?


A: This is a bit of a gray area in the copyright world. Separating game mechanics (not copyrighted) from creativity (copyrighted) can be tricky with TTRPGs.


If something is purely a mechanical rule that would be difficult to express in any other way, such as certain class talents (example: “+2 to Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence stat”), then you can use the exact same wording.


But if a talent has mixed in creativity/flavor that goes beyond minimal game mechanics wording (example: “1/day, DC 15 CHA to hypnotize a target in near, focus duration”), then you’d want to avoid using that same wording.


Generally speaking, if it would be very difficult to write something in any other way (without sounding absurd) to work within the game rules, then it’s okay to proceed.

 

[Fenris-77]

Except, you know, the rules. Classes aren't there. Actual gameplay rules aren't there. Carousing isn't there, or random encounters, or travel. Exactly what would you be reprinting?

What the license allows you to do is make monster, item and spell cards, and reprint those things in an adventure or supplement for convenience.

No, its better than that IMO. For example, I did a rat-men bestiary spread for a recent project (read Skaven) and I could have used all the rat-adjacent entries fomr the main book in full if I had so desired. I ended up just using references to conserve space, but I think it's more useful than just making cards. Same with spells and being able to add them to NPCs or whatever.

 

[Bae'zel]

If there's a pledge manager later, I may get the spell cards after all. I found them useful for other RPGs.

Also if they make bestiary cards. I just might...

 

[Fenris-77]

If there's a pledge manager later, I may get the spell cards after all. I found them useful for other RPGs.

Also if they make bestiary cards. I just might...

Apparently Kelsey doesn't like how the variable sized bestiary entries format onto cards. Shrug. We may have to take that one on ourselves.