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.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm glad I backed it this time so I can finally get Shadowdark, but having to wait till December..... My least favorite thing about kickstarter project is the excitement built during the project slowly dies and then at some point I'm like oh yeah I backed that?

I like the feeling, like getting a special time e travel present from myself.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm glad I backed it this time so I can finally get Shadowdark, but having to wait till December..... My least favorite thing about kickstarter project is the excitement built during the project slowly dies and then at some point I'm like oh yeah I backed that?

It sounds like, this time around, digital rewards will be released as they're available. So the core book should be out shortly after Kickstarter releases the funds and some of the new Cursed Scrolls are already close to finished and will be digitally released early as well.

 

[Bae'zel]

I'm glad I backed it this time so I can finally get Shadowdark, but having to wait till December..... My least favorite thing about kickstarter project is the excitement built during the project slowly dies and then at some point I'm like oh yeah I backed that?

At least we'll be getting the PDFs sooner than that. The game is light enough that you could easily print out a couple of pages for yourself to run the game at the table.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

At least we'll be getting the PDFs sooner than that. The game is light enough that you could easily print out a couple of pages for yourself to run the game at the table.

Why back in my day, we printed and bound the PDFs at Kinko's, since no one had hard copies yet!

 

[Reynard]

I am really looking forward to the Shadowdark community to move past replicating old D&D and other TSR games/styles and really start to innovate in the way that the OSE community has. That isn't to say there aren't cool, innovative things happening, but there are also LOTS of examples of trying to recreate old D&D things in SD.

 

[Scribe]

I am really looking forward to the Shadowdark community to move past replicating old D&D and other TSR games/styles and really start to innovate in the way that the OSE community has. That isn't to say there aren't cool, innovative things happening, but there are also LOTS of examples of trying to recreate old D&D things in SD.

I think this is extremely natural.

Look at the Ranger, and contrast with the Wyrdling.

Are both cool? Sure. Is one an 'old D&D thing' and other is playing on tropes of a cosmic horror nature? Yes.

Is the Ranger 'less than' due to being an old D&D thing, or, is the SD Ranger a sublime design, an example of what we know, inherently, the Ranger to be?

(Note: I adore the SD Ranger.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am really looking forward to the Shadowdark community to move past replicating old D&D and other TSR games/styles and really start to innovate in the way that the OSE community has. That isn't to say there aren't cool, innovative things happening, but there are also LOTS of examples of trying to recreate old D&D things in SD.

The system's still pretty new, and it really lends itself well to TSR-era stuff (and there's a lot to mine). Stands to reason IMO, but people will branch out.

 

[Reynard]

The system's still pretty new, and it really lends itself well to TSR-era stuff (and there's a lot to mine). Stands to reason IMO, but people will branch out.

Yeah. I am not expecting or want folks to stop doing "old D&D" stuff with SD. I am just looking forward to the inevitable innovation.

I saw a FB ad for a post apocalyptic SD game and I got excited. then when I went and looked, it was just a SD port of Gamma World. That's cool, I guess. I love Gamma World. But that is still just drawing from the same old well.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah. I am not expecting or want folks to stop doing "old D&D" stuff with SD. I am just looking forward to the inevitable innovation.

I saw a FB ad for a post apocalyptic SD game and I got excited. then when I went and looked, it was just a SD port of Gamma World. That's cool, I guess. I love Gamma World. But that is still just drawing from the same old well.

At the same time, you see more and more Shadowdark folks -- after they've replicated their TSR-era experiences -- picking up stuff like The Monster Overhaul, Into the Wyrd & The Wild and the Stygian Library, which is leading them into new and interesting spaces, even if it appears at first to have familiar elements to it. I think that'll keep on going.

 

[Scribe]

At the same time, you see more and more Shadowdark folks -- after they've replicated their TSR-era experiences -- picking up stuff like The Monster Overhaul, Into the Wyrd & The Wild and the Stygian Library, which is leading them into new and interesting spaces, even if it appears at first to have familiar elements to it. I think that'll keep on going.

You also have to be plugged in to find those things.

Nobody in my neck of the woods is going to walk into a shop and pick Stygian Library off the shelf.