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.

 

[darjr]

Yeah, the moment I heard that there are still charts to consult for saving throws, etc., in OSE, my enthusiasm for that line cooled. Been there, done that, not going back.

I will probably eventually get the Necrotic Gnome books, but more so I can play in someone else's game and to study the adventures.

And I suspect a lot of people who grew up with a unified resolution system will find the TSRisms of OSE (which is, of course, the point) to be a big barrier to bounce off of.

Shadowdark incorporates the best innovations of WotC D&D (unified resolution system, advantage/disadvantage) and uses those as a jumping-off point for OSR play.

Also she wasn't afraid of jettison things like spell slots.

Every time I hear someone say it's "a lighter 5e" I kinda want to interject. But then I realize she somehow took out the stuff people are not missing and left in enough that it passes the Rorschach test, for many people.

I think that took a real understanding of D&D, in a lot of it's versions, especially 5e, and a good understanding of the OSR experience.

Finally I think she has been really good about useful voids. I think it is one of the strengths of D&D 5e 2014, especially compared to more recent D&D's and other more recent games. It allows folks to run the same game, but make it their own in easy subtle ways.

I know I'm heaping a lot of praise, but dangit I do think a lot of it is warranted.

I might be way off base on all that. Probably am. It doesn't matter though because whatever it is it's bringing in players.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also she wasn't afraid of jettison things like spell slots.

Yeah, it's funny how "bring back spell slots" never shows up on anyone's wishlists for the new spellcasting class.

 

[Scribe]

I think that took a real understanding of D&D, in a lot of it's versions, especially 5e, and a good understanding of the OSR experience.

I said it in response to someone else the other day. Its distilled D&D. Not an edition, but the platonic ideal of what we think D&D would be, when all the noise is cut away.

Its pulling it all together, finding the common good, and removing the rest, and just getting straight into PLAY.

That your character is literally the working version of your character, level 1, is fantastic. "Oh that level 15 ability you wanted? Well most games go to level 8-10" nah, not here.

You are a Fighter, and you are what you are, level 1.

 

[Nightfly]

Yeah, the moment I heard that there are still charts to consult for saving throws, etc., in OSE, my enthusiasm for that line cooled. Been there, done that, not going back.

And that's another virtue of Shadowdark -- it's not just that it has a lot of good stuff, it's maybe even more the absence of bad stuff. Games that are beholden to TSR-era D&D have those bizarre save tables where wands are different than staffs. Better games use a simpler, more intuitive mechanic for saves. But Shadowdark goes a step further and just chucks saving throws completely. I was shocked to realize that I didn't miss them, but Kelsey figured out that having both a DEX check and a DEX save was redundant in her streamlined system.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yeah, it's funny how "bring back spell slots" never shows up on anyone's wishlists for the new spellcasting class.

If somebody said they wanted to stick with 5E, but would be willing to bring in ONE change from Shadowdark, I would make it the spellcasting system.

I've always hated spell slots. I've always thought the gating factor to spell use should be risk.

 

[Aldarc]

I said it in response to someone else the other day. Its distilled D&D. Not an edition, but the platonic ideal of what we think D&D would be, when all the noise is cut away.

Its pulling it all together, finding the common good, and removing the rest, and just getting straight into PLAY.

That your character is literally the working version of your character, level 1, is fantastic. "Oh that level 15 ability you wanted? Well most games go to level 8-10" nah, not here.

You are a Fighter, and you are what you are, level 1.

I do find it interesting that a "distilled D&D" uses a roll-to-cast system instead of a Vancian casting system for its spellcasters. If an edition of D&D did the same, people would be out for blood.

Also she wasn't afraid of jettison things like spell slots.

I like that about Shadowdark. I'm just not the biggest fan of the spell mishap tables, which is one reason I am still not fully on board with the game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I do find it interesting that a "distilled D&D" uses a roll-to-cast system instead of a Vancian casting system for its spellcasters. If an edition of D&D did the same, people would be out for blood.

Which suggests to me, at least, that it's about nostalgia and sacred cows, not what actually is enjoyable in game. (And, speaking for myself, I do not love explaining spell slots again to players in their first few games, nearly every single time.)

If spell slots were so great, surely someone would be trying to bring them to Shadowdark.

I actually toyed with making a custom class that used them in Shadowdark and beyond the intellectual exercise of trying to make a character like Rincewind in Discworld, I realized that no one would actually want to play one other than for testing purposes.

 

[Scribe]

I do find it interesting that a "distilled D&D" uses a roll-to-cast system instead of a Vancian casting system for its spellcasters. If an edition of D&D did the same, people would be out for blood.

Vancian has been dead so long, the ghoul parading around in 5e is not really Vancian anyway, to me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Vancian has been dead so long, the ghoul parading around in 5e is not really Vancian anyway, to me.

I just listened to an episode of Between Two Cairns where they talked about how Vancian spells in Vance were sentient demonic beings, expressed their desires to the caster whose head they were trapped in, and wanted to be cast.

Put those Vancian spells into a game, and now we've got something interesting happening. (No idea if Dying Earth DCC has this take on them.)

 

[Scribe]

I just listened to an episode of Between Two Cairns where they talked about Vancian spells in Vance were sentient demonic beings, expressed their desires to the caster whose head they were trapped in, and wanted to be cast.

Put those Vancian spells into a game, and now we've got something interesting happening. (No idea if Dying Earth DCC has this take on them.)

Thats the other thing. What does Vancian even mean today. Is it slots? Is it specific spells per slot? Is it "I needed to prep this spell last night, otherwise I have no access to it"?