Fae Nightmares -- Urban Fantasy for Savage Worlds Kickstarter

I'm not going to claim that Urban Fantasy is a great consuming passion of mine -- even if I did try writing my own Urban Fantasy setting and even if most of the TV I watch falls into that genre -- but I will say that RPG settings that encourage gender equality and social interaction are definitely important to me.  So when I practically accidentally discovered that there is a new Kickstarter for a Savage Worlds setting in that vein, I jumped in without a second thought (though I might have been a little drunk at the time, too).  Here's the link and some liberal quoting from their front page.

Fae Nightmares is modern Urban Fantasy Role Playing Game with a North American Twist for the Savage Worlds system.

Enter into a shadow war between two Fae Courts in your own city, as you’re thrown headlong into a world of extremes and contradiction where you have to adapt to a new reality or perish. Play characters who are becoming something less human and more like the beings found in stories—the fae, the monsters, the gods, and everything in between.

Fae Nightmares is a Modern Urban Fantasy setting for the Savage Worlds system, which nods to the genre’s roots in detective and horror stories. With the setting being a modern North American-esq city, Arden, we decided to focus on local stories. There are still Celtic Fae, as North America does have a strong European influence, but we also pulled from Native American stories, urban myths, and lumberjack tall tales. And besides, we have some things that are ridiculously cool and don’t get enough play.

Despite the large city, there’s a small community feel in the game as the number of Fae and Nightmares measure in the hundreds. This, and the shape-shifting nature of many characters, have contributed to the setting being particularly gender neutral, and outright queer friendly. With the smaller “relevant” populations there are some new social mechanics, notably the effect of status within the courts on interactions, and the trickery skill. Both of which reflect features heavily found in both Celtic Fairy Tales and Native American stories.

We have 4 flexible character classes, 5 arcane backgrounds, and edges that focus on your character’s progression into something supernatural. For the GM we have 2 plot point campaigns, a plethora of savage tales, location based encounters, and a selection of magical items. In addition, we have equipment, game and Fae personality generators. In the game generators, we not only have your usual combat games, but also social and investigative focused tables.

We’ve put a lot of work into this book, both the world, and making sure that everything mechanical we added was both necessary and reflected the setting. Over the course of a year, we’ve designed the world and run two playtest campaigns. We’re done most of the writing, the majority of the work left is in paring down and cleaning up the fluff, organizing and stating out the bestiary, and cleaning up changes to a few mechanics. We have a clear goal of what these will be like, but what we really need help with is art, editing, and production costs.

This is where you come in. Our goal is to get the best possible product into your hands. Our minimum goal allows us to commission art for the book, pay for an editor to go over it, and cover the costs of shipping and production of minimal books. At our initial goal we’ll be producing a POD version of the book, with about 30 pictures, but our initial stretch goals work towards commissioning more, and better, art, and a higher quality book with offset printing.

Our secondary goal is to produce the player’s guide we want; organized to reflect the varying levels of knowledge PCs may have of the world, with expanded archetypes for pick-up games or use as NPCs, and actual-play examples of the new mechanics.

We’re hoping you’ll like this world as much as we do, and we’re looking forward to your feedback!

If you’d like to see some other samples of our work, check out issues 6, 8 and 9 of Savage Insider, where we wrote the “Halloween Jack and Jill”, “Corroders”, and “Mask Peddler” pieces.

Thanks! Mariah and Brett

Dark Smile Games.