Appalachian Themed RPG Setting

[DastrdlyDave]

Hello everyone, this is my first post. Thanks for all the info over the years!

I recently became enamoured with Southern Gothic and Appalachian based stories. So naturally I am wanting to infuse my campaign (or at least a part of it) with some of that feeling and culture. I would love to incorporate some form of old world folklore as well, such as Brothers Grimm sort of stuff.

So does anyone know of any good rpg resources that deal with that style of game? Even just some other reading material would be fine. I live in East Tennessee so I have a ton of inspiration already but I could always use more.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You've just described The Chained Coffin from Goodman Games.

It's for Dungeon Crawl Classics, but that means it should work pretty well (with a little conversion) for most D&D-descended games.

EDIT: Hmm. That preview page is pretty mediocre, Goodman Games. The Kickstarter page does a much better job of making it clear this is an Applachian-flavored campaign setting based in large part on the writings of Manly Wade Wellman.

 

[innerdude]

Hello everyone, this is my first post. Thanks for all the info over the years!

I recently became enamoured with Southern Gothic and Appalachian based stories. So naturally I am wanting to infuse my campaign (or at least a part of it) with some of that feeling and culture. I would love to incorporate some form of old world folklore as well, such as Brothers Grimm sort of stuff.

So does anyone know of any good rpg resources that deal with that style of game? Even just some other reading material would be fine. I live in East Tennessee so I have a ton of inspiration already but I could always use more.

Having lived all over East Tennessee for a couple of years (Kingsport, Knoxville, Morristown), I'd say your own observations would be the best route. Go visit the Smokies and take the bike ride around Cade's Cove and let your imagination go. Maybe go visit the University of Tennessee or ETSU and talk to some people in the American Studies / Folklore departments for ideas on resources.

Re-read "The Devil and Daniel Webster." The History Channel had an interesting documentary a while back on Prohibition-era Appalachia "moonshiners." Listen to the song "Copperhead Road" by Steve Earle and really "grok" the lyrics.

In my mind some of the major themes of Southern Gothic art and writing is the exploration of mysteries that are close at hand---not traveling far away to get experience, but to face the inner "demons" of the soul / earth / nature near home.

Pretty much any RPG resource related to the historic U.S. colonial era would be of value.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Pretty much any RPG resource related to the historic U.S. colonial era would be of value.

The first one that jumps to mind here is Northern Crown. Even if you don't use everything from it, there's plenty of good monsters and it's an idea mine.

 

[DastrdlyDave]

Thanks so much for the replies guys! Sorry about taking so long to reply, I have been busy at work for the past couple weeks and it slipped my mind.

I actually found The Chained Coffin and Northern Crown. Have you read them? If so, how are they?

I feel like the most difficult thing about running a game in that sort of setting is going to be getting my players to really feel that Southern Gothic feeling of slight unease and mystery. My players tend to be more murderhobo-like and I'd love to make this more thought provoking and unsettling. Part of that may be due to me running D&D 5e but I love the system and they probably aren't wanting to learn something new right now.

 

[WayneLigon]

I'll reiterate: read the works of Manly Wade Wellman. This is his big forte; mountain magic and folklore. His Silver John stories and novels are the definitive guide to doing tales set in that region.

http://www.whitetreeaz.com/cd/slvrjohn.mp3

 

[DastrdlyDave]

Thanks for the suggestion Wayne. I will give some of his works a read this weekend.

 

[Benji]

I'd also suggest Rage Across Appalachia for werewolf the apocalypse for a modern take (not that I know it's accuracy as I'm english) as well as 'kingdom of the willows' for changeling the dreaming. While it's got lots to do with atlanta, it is about southern gothic as a whole.

 

[Voadam]

If you want U.S. Colonial era RPG material then you also want to check out Colonial Gothic by Rogue Games. A bit more of a secret WoD witch hunter in New England focus but a lot of sourcebooks and adventures for the era. Note that it uses its own rule system. There is also a True20 version of the setting by Gun Metal Games. Northern Crown is the d20 Atlas Games fantasy colonial era setting with things like the viking colony of Vinland having survived instead of falling and bunches of magic in addition to the muskets. Atlas Games does good stuff, I really like their 3.0 Fantasy Bestiary (which I contributed to) and African based fantasy continent setting Nyambe.

 

[qstor]

I 2nd the idea of Northern Crown. I converted a few of the monsters to 5e on my blog.