Historica Arcanum: The City of Crescent does three things, two of which might be seen as a shakeup. The third is a sizeable pre-written adventure that blends in the first two.
Firstly, Historica Arcanum wants to lean into the idea of taking real-life culture and turning it into fantasy. Sometimes this results in objections, but the publisher Metis Media is Turkish, and The City of Crescent focuses on near Eastern culture.
Secondly, the supplement introduces a career system to 5e. Tempted? Hundreds of backers are.
If you’re not certain then there’s a free sample download that Metis have made available. You need to trade your email address for it, but they promise never to spam and only to give you Kickstarter updates.
The City of Crescent leans into what some might consider taboo. It reimagines fantasy races into non-Eastern cultures. However, we’re told upfront that that’s the plan;
Tabletop role-playing games have, in our experience, been dominated by the same western cultural backdrop for a long time. But with a lot of truly amazing indigenous creators bringing their own cultures, this has started to change. This is what inspired us.
On top of this, we think ignoring world’s cultures due to fear of contributing to stereotypes is just as dangerous as the stereotypes themselves, because in this case; those cultures are not accessible to the players who genuinely want to immerse themselves in those worlds. Nobody quite frankly “dares” to make content for these amazing cultures, and consequently, players don’t get exposed to anything new other than what the current perspective deem “safe”. This is the status quo that what we wanted to challenge.
A pledge of $19 will get you the PDF, your name in the book and access to the pledge manager for last-minute upgrades.
Stepping up to $49 transforms the book into a hardcover and provides the Alchemy RPG virtual tabletop access. Hundreds of gamers have gone for this tier.
It’s quite a leap to the next reward tier. $150 will get you both editions (hardcover and digital) and the collector’s edition box. In addition, there’s the Mini Sets Vlad Tepes and Shadowactor & Djinnmaster, an exclusive GM screen, an A2 print map, dice with Instabulite Turquoise and Gold, plus unlocked STL files for minis.
There are other pledges available, but these main ones are all due in April 2022.
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