Not The King is Dead: Retribution RPG Kickstarter

I’m sure that – like me – many of you are awaiting the release later today of the first set of rewards from the Rippers Resurrected Kickstarter, but did you know that there’s another Savage Worlds supernatural setting Kickstarter still going?

Obatron Productions, the current publishers of Savage Insider and my frequent publishers, are running a campaign to fund Retribution, a paranormal fantasy setting. I call it “paranormal” rather than “horror” because many of the concepts seem to me to lean closer to parapsychology and spiritualism than you normally find in a setting full of ghosts. Since the advertising copy specifically states that player characters may find themselves allied with the dead, I would definitely slot it into tales of mediums and psychics. 

(I doubt Vickey and Bob Beaver would agree, but I kinda find myself thinking “fantasy Ghostbusters.”)

 

Retribution character sheet
See what I mean about parapsychology?

As of October 27th, the campaign has 12 days more to run – and it’s been stuck at the same amount for a couple of weeks. I was the first backer and I obviously have a vested interest in helping Obatron Productions succeed (who will publish my weird articles otherwise?) but I also know from personal experience that Vickey and Bob are good people who love Savage Worlds. Savage Insider has helped a number of us reach a bigger audience, and it certainly provides a much-needed intermediary between fandom and professionals. Can’t we give them a bit more of a boost?

(Oh, and Vickey has previously announced that she’d be happy to give interviews. I’m stupidly busy – you can count on me to pretty much fall off the map at the end of October as I get busy writing TKiD – so would anyone else like to take her up on the offer?)

The Retribution Kickstarter runs until November 8th. More information can be found at Obatron Productions.

From the Kickstarter page:

Nutshell

Retribution is a supernatural fantasy setting for Savage Worlds, requiring a copy of any edition of the Savage Worlds rulebook. With some patience and creativity, it can be converted to other systems.

Key Points of Interest

• PCs can be any of the six primary races (human, elf, dwarf, orc, gnome, half-folk) or hybrids of them.
• If a PC dies, there is a chance she will be transformed into a playable ghost (spirit).
• Besides the general fighter, cleric, magic-user, and other, familiar character types, Retribution offers Edges and Hindrances to create specialized characters such as unjailers who work to free entities who have been bound to this plane unwillingly, necromancers who study mastery of the dead, exomancers who have the power to work with extraplaner beings, and others that add to the Retribution experience.
• Necromancy is more than just animating skeletons or raising the dead as zombies, covering also medium arts, binding spirits, and working with other aspects of death.
• Exomancy is much like necromancy, but applies only to those who come from beyond the mortal realm.

Play Possibilities

 

Venture across the sea from the original homelands to Agador to escape a troubled past; seek to restore your ancestral village, leading to any number of options; portray a group of ghost hunters who want to banish any who don’t belong; assemble a group to search for relics of bygone days; work the trade routes, protecting merchants and finding adventure; be part of the burgeoning Agador Guard, who keep out pirates, or at least keep them under control; quest to release trapped spirits or try extra-planer entities who mean harm; or become part of the new political structure satisfying your own interest in power.

 

Retribution Setting Summary

 

The Great Betrayal – the civil war of Agador – led to the sundering of the veil between the physical realm and many others. Play in a world where the planes of existence have leaked into Agador, introducing ghosts set upon retribution for their deaths, allowing entry of previously unknown entities, and upsetting the natural order of the land.

 

Many are dead-set on wreaking havoc or have other mysterious agendas. However, not all are hostile. Some seek unjailers who can send them back to the planes from which the magical attacks and malicious intent pulled them. Others wish to explore what is here. There are those who are trapped by necromancy or exomancy. A few see themselves as new guardians of Agador.

 

This is a land of opportunity and peril. A place where the natural and supernatural collide. The Great Betrayal nearly destroyed all who inhabited it, but survivors and questors choose not to let it die. Join the ranks of descendants who are determined to restore order and bring renewed prominence to the island nation. Come to Agador to prove your strength and test your mettle. Break the cycle of Retribution.

Backstory

 

More than a hundred years ago, elvish explorers discovered an undeveloped island. They set up camps and cataloged their discoveries. Word spread across the other lands. Intrigued, many sailed to new lives. For decades, the fledgling island nation grew in peace, with small settlements taking hold near the shores and in the wilds in between.

 

Side by side, all manner of people worked the land: its fields, stones, and trees. Some sought more than they had. Whispered half-truths spread from small town to port city and all assemblies in between, sparking unrest. One by one, allies turned upon each other, seeing foes where friends had stood.

 

Fighting broke out. Families were divided. Civil war consumed the nation. Just as the violence reached its apex, some who’d been searching for answers – suspecting Agador had been sucked into a manufactured crisis – found proof of their hypothesis. It was too late.

 

Each side had ramped up all manner of fighting, engaging the deadliest of magical attacks and counterattacks that any had ever seen. Alas, in a fearsome display of power, the fighters of Agador did something none knew was possible and was not at all intended: they tore into the veil between the physical world and that of the dead. The recently departed flooded back into the mortal realm. The chaos did not stop there. The act reverberated across planes, allowing creatures beyond their imaginations to cross into their world.

 

In the span of just a few minutes, the civil war – The Great Betrayal – ended and a new, much more desperate one began.

 

And Now

 

It’s been 50 years since the war ended and Agador united to defend itself against those who don’t belong. While many of the unearthly beings have been dispelled, banished, or otherwise stopped from occupying the physical world, the fabric holding the planes apart has never completely healed.

 

Several leaders are attempting to rebuild Agador, returning it to the splendor and purpose it achieved before The Great Betrayal. They’ve reached out to the faraway homelands inviting adventurers, merchants, and anyone else who will come in peace. They’ve rallied descendants of the first settlers, as well, hoping to harness their ambition as heirs of lost settlements. It is up to those who accept the challenge to quell the ongoing quest for retribution while aiding in the reformation of the once-proud nation.