RPG CROWDFUNDING NEWS – Daggerheart, Curseborne, Shadow Scar, and more

We’ll look at a Daggerheart accessory, a player’s handbook for a Storypath Ultra RPG, several core rulebooks, animations, memorials, and more.

Daggerheart Class Packs from Darrington Press

• END DATE: Thu, October 30 2025 9:00 PM EDT.
• CROWDFUNDING ON: Kickstarter
• SYSTEM(S): Daggerheart
• PROJECT TYPE: Source cards
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $175 + S/H for the 9 decks and a PDF of the core rulebook
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Did you get Critical Role’s Daggerheart TTRPG? If you enjoyed it, here’s an official accessory for the game. These packs of cards give you everything you’ll need to play levels 1 to 10 of a character class. You’ll get 76 cards per class that cover ancestry, subclasses, and all the powers a class can access. If you want your Daggerheart character sheet to be in card format, this Kickstarter is a good option.

Curseborne Player's Guide from Onyx Path Publishing

• END DATE: Fri, October 31 2025 2:00 PM EDT.
• CROWDFUNDING ON: Kickstarter
• SYSTEM(S): Storypath Ultra
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $30 for the PDF and the POD discount coupon for the book
• TRY BEFORE YOU BUY: The PDF of the Curseborne: Ashcan Edition is free during October
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Onyx Path Publishing is the home of White Wolf’s The Chronicles of Darkness (Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken) and all of the anniversary editions of The World of Darkness (Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse). However, since Renegade took over the WoD license and released the 5th editions of those lines, OPP’s CoD output has dwindled. Curseborne rectifies that situation with a d10 dice pool horror TTRPG produced by Onyx Path’s crew of designers and artists. I played a beta version of Curseborne at Gen Con 2025 (here), and the session provided what I always wanted, a unified world of horror characters using the Storypath Ultra system. The powers and the fiction where blended in a logical way that they could co-exist. It lost the Anne Rice charm of The Masquerade, but the exchange is a fuller take on that same concept of hiding in a crowd that allows gamers to play what they want and create a found horror family. This Kickstarter provides the player’s handbook for the game, a must if you want to get the most out of this setting.

Shadow Scar TTRPG Core Rulebook from R. Talsorian Games

• END DATE: Sat, November 1 2025 2:59 AM EDT.
• CROWDFUNDING ON: Kickstarter
• SYSTEM(S): Mosaic System
• PROJECT TYPE: Core rulebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $19 for the PDF of the book
• TRY BEFORE YOU BUY: Shadow Scar - Eyes in the Darkness is free at DriveThruRPG (this is the same book as R. Talsorian’s Free RPG Day 2024 offering)
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? R. Talsorian Games combines multi-versal yokai slaying, ninjas, stealth, and beautiful artwork in this great new addition to their catalog. In this setting, monsters are trying to resurrect the Goddess of Death, and you stand in their way. The core rulebook gives you 292 pages of rules about the Veil War that you fight to save the multiverse and the d6 dice pool system you’ll use to navigate travel, tasks, and combat. I picked up the starter set to Shadow Scar at Gen Con. While I recommend checking out this Kickstarter for the core rulebook, I also recommend that starter set for the books, adventures, dice, and more.

Torch & Dagger from Adventures Await

• END DATE: Fri, October 31 2025 9:28 AM EDT.
• CROWDFUNDING ON: Kickstarter
• SYSTEM(S): An original system
• PROJECT TYPE: Core rulebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $20 for the PDF of the book and a POD discount coupon
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Grimdark fantasy using a d6 dice pool system. This game reinvents the wheel with a new fantasy RPG. What grabs me is the artwork, it’s simple Mike Mignola-inspired work, but effective at conveying the feel of the world. If you like grimdark fantasy and d6 dice pools, check out this Kickstarter.

Journey to the Quest: An Animated Pilot from Theater of the Unaligned

• END DATE: Mon, November 3 2025 8:00 AM EST.
• CROWDFUNDING ON: Kickstarter
• PROJECT TYPE: Animation
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: CA$25 to access to the episode and more
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Theater of the Unaligned are a group of friends that decided to animate their D&D adventures. Not quite as “live” as Critical Role, this is scripted and animated to great comedic effect. They’ve completed many episodes and what to expand their content from web animation to a proper pilot. It worked for Critical Role, and I feel that Theater of the Unaligned has a funny product with Journey to the Quest that their short pilot – about 3+ minutes depending on stretch goals – could be picked up by a streamer. If you want to support comedy, fantasy, and fan dreams, this Kickstarter is worth a look, and the video gives you a good idea of what the creators aspirations are.

Gary Gygax Memorial Game Table for Dungeons & Dragons Fans from Gygax Memorial

• END DATE: Fri, October 31 2025 1:00 PM EDT.
• CROWDFUNDING ON: Kickstarter
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons
• PROJECT TYPE: Memorial and adventures
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $250 for the PDF of the adventures and dungeon as well as an engraved paver stone at the memorial
• ADDITIONAL REPORTING: Read Morrus’ article on the memorial here
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Many roleplayers believe that a memorial to Dungeons & Dragons should exist, and this project hopes to create the definitive statue. The idea has Gary Gygax sitting at a gaming table overlooking a dungeon map, ready for gamers to take a seat. If funded and built, this memorial would appear in a park in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for fans to enjoy. Backers can be immortalized in this project by purchasing paver stones that will be engraved with their names. If you want to support this tribute to the first roleplaying game, check out this Kickstarter.

What's OLD is NEW Bestiary For Fantasy, Modern, & Sci-fi from EN Publishing

• END DATE: Thu, October 16 2025 6:00 PM EDT.
• CROWDFUNDING ON: Kickstarter
• SYSTEM(S): WOIN
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: £50 + S/H for the PDF and print version of the book plus VTT assets
• AI STATEMENT: “This product contains no art or any other content created by generative artificial intelligence. We work with a large, international team of talented freelance artists and writers.”
• DISCLAIMER: EN World is a subsidiary of EN Publishing
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This WOIN Kickstarter campaign ends tomorrow!

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[Charles Dunwoody]

Glad to see Shadow Scar is finally on the way. Curseborn looks intriguing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Man, that Mike Mignola-style art is perfect for a dungeon crawler. (As fans of Darkest Dungeon already know.)

 

[Dire Bare]

Is Curseborn part of the World of Darkness setting? Or the Chronicles of Darkness setting? Or it's own setting, but same genre?

 

[Kyasanur]

Is Curseborn part of the World of Darkness setting? Or the Chronicles of Darkness setting? Or it's own setting, but same genre?

It's a separate thing. After White Wolf closed, Onyx Path Publishing (OPP) picked up WoD and created a bunch of other games based on the system, the Storypath system, which they now own. Paradox, who own the WoD IP, pulled WoD after Onxy Path published the Anarch and Camarilla books (that's a post on its own). This is OPP's own version of goth horror.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is OPP's own version of goth horror.

I get that they're probably exhausted by the idea of trying to create a photocopy of a photocopy of the World of Darkness, but the Curseborn splats are so idiosyncratic, they just don't scratch my itch for urban fantasy/horror games.

Maybe I'm the outlier, but I would have preferred them to go at the core concepts one more time, freed from having to line stuff up with the WoD, and an eye towards making mixed-type groups work well together (a great idea that people have wanted since the early 1990s), but still giving us standard-ish vampires, werewolves, mages and changelings as some of the choices.

 

[Kyasanur]

I get that they're probably exhausted by the idea of trying to create a photocopy of a photocopy of the World of Darkness, but the Curseborn splats are so idiosyncratic, they just don't scratch my itch for urban fantasy/horror games.

Maybe I'm the outlier, but I would have preferred them to go at the core concepts one more time, freed from having to line stuff up with the WoD, and an eye towards making mixed-type groups work well together (a great idea that people have wanted since the early 1990s), but still giving us standard-ish vampires, werewolves, mages and changelings as some of the choices.

I'm on the fence about Curseborne, myself, but I think these are the kind of problems they are trying to fix. WoD was terrible for mixing your monsters. The principle here is you choose what you want to be, whether ghost or vampire or were-whatever, and its all balanced to play together. Did they succeed? I don't know, but seems like a good direction.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm on the fence about Curseborne, myself, but I think these are the kind of problems they are trying to fix. WoD was terrible for mixing your monsters. The principle here is you choose what you want to be, whether ghost or vampire or were-whatever, and its all balanced to play together. Did they succeed? I don't know, but seems like a good direction.

I haven't looked at it recently, but last time I looked at the splats, they didn't feel like traditional vampires, etc. Maybe I looked at the wrong doc or they've revised them since.