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.

 

[Scribe]

I don't buy that at all. A lot has happened in gaming and geek media in 50 years and it is silly to call it bad, unless you are just married to the stuff that made you happy at 12 years old

I see Shadowdark as cutting back a lot from the "D&D Branch" while adding back some other, older, things. It makes perfect sense that people would want to get their favourite tropes either as Dungeons, Ancestries, or Classes, into that more distilled version. At least it makes sense to me.

The melee classes people wanted?

Paladin, and with 100 less votes, Barbarian, but if you looked at the comments it was 'A conan barbarian'.

Thats an old take, and its what came up more often than anything else I saw in the comments.

I dont know, there is a lot of talk around how SD pulls at various nostalgic strings. "Turn around, go back" seems appropriate.

 

[DarkCrisis]

OSE has definitely had more time to innovate, and I suppose they don't necessarily have the same fanbase. I am interested in OSE but have never picked any up, for example, while I pretty much swallowed SD whole (as much as my finances will allow) once I took a nibble.

I love OSE but even with it being able to be used with ascending AC etc it still is like 3 systems holding hands.

Roll low for this. Roll high for that. Etc. SD is just easier. It’s probably bare none the easiest D&D-like ive ran.

 

[Scribe]

It’s probably bare none the easiest D&D-like ive ran.

Yes. Its got that Goldilocks effect going on, where its super simple, yet is able to be pulled in a bunch of directions with ease to fit whatever archetypes you may be interested in.

I mean 'official' classes we are near 20, and there are just a ton of possibilities remaining.