Ian Lemke’s Nepenthe Games is suggesting you pay $0.00 for the Nevermore QuickStart, although you can pay what you want.
The hope is that you’re curious and will decide to back the complete RPG of American Gothic Core which launched on Kickstarter this week.
Channelling Melville, Gilman, Wharton, James, Bierce, and, as you’d expect given the title, Poe, Nevermore is set on the eastern coast of America in the late 19th century.
Our would-be heroes explore haunted houses and bleak landscapes only to encounter cursed beasts and evil rivals and fend off despair.
If funded, the book will be 280-pages, black and white, 8 1/2 x 11 hardback with a sewn binding, offset printed in the US, use a new rules engine based on cards and have rules for Baltimore, Maryland, with seven Cabals.
On the surface, there is little difference between the realm of Nevermore and the Gilded Age of our own world. Although a careful observer might notice the odd machine or device that does not quite fit in, the technology is much the same. The same people of historic significance live and breathe.
Grover Cleveland is president of the United States, and Queen Victoria rules in Great Britain. Nikola Tesla has just invented alternating current, and one might meet Frederick Douglas, Susan B. Anthony, Mark Twain, or Harriet Tubman on the streets of any major city.
Yet, there is something not quite right; the shadows are a little darker, people walk a little faster as night falls, and a pervasive sense of dread and foreboding lingers at the back of the mind.
A pledge of $5 will get you a spooky holiday card, but only in the States.
After that, you can support the project and get a reward for $25. That’ll get you the PDF edition and a PDF of the Protagonist Sheets.
Then, at $50, but shipping (extra cost) to certain countries, the signed hardcover is added along with PDF stretch goals.
Backers at $70 face similar shipping restrictions but also get the Nevermore playing cards, wooden nickle fortune/doom tokens and deluxe printed character sheets.
Above that, at $90, there are two copies – ideal if both the GM and table need a copy, $110 for two copies and perks, while there is also a retailer only that offers more hard copies.
The holiday card is due in December; thankfully, the PDFs by July 2023 and the printed goodies in September.
Quick Links
- Download the QuickStart.
- Back the Kickstarter.
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