Medieval Nights - Live on Kickstarter... (and, a question...)
Medieval Nights is now live on Kickstarter (here) - and anthology of ten adventures for a medieval fantasy setting based on real medieval stories (poems, legends, and "true stories"). There is a core book, plus a rules booklet for Mythras Imperative (or if you prefer, Ars Magica or DnD).
When we did House of the Crescent Sun the Mythras rules, stats and guidelines were in a black and white PDF, with no print version. For this we wanted there to be a glossy, full-colour premium printed booklet of the Mythras rules and stats. So, all backers get the full colour Mythras rules as a PDF, and there's the option to get a physical book, too.
The focus is on telling genuinely medieval stories, drawn from actual medieval sources, to give players a rich, unusual set of stories that are firmly rooted in the medieval world.
The full list of stories in the anthology is:
- Famine and Pestilence - the dead are walking, and spreading pestilence with them (from an incident recounted in the Annals of Burton Abbey).
- The Witch of Berkley - a woman has made a deal with the forces of hell, but does not want to pay the price (from the Gesta Regum Anglorum of William of Malmesbury).
- Cold Christmas - creatures crawl from the darkness to plunder a snowbound farm (based on the Icelandinc legends of Gryla).
- Wolfpit Gate - after a fire at a church, two strange children wander through the fields of a sleepy village (based on the "true story" of The Green Children of Woolpit).
- The Devil at the Cradle - the couple's two previous children were murdered on the night of their birth, and now a third has been born and must be protected (another "true story", this one from the 12th Century writer Walter Map).
- The Faithful Wolf - a story of loyalty, betrayal, and a man trapped in the body of a wolf (based on a tale by the 12th Century author, Marie de France).
- Stolen Hearts - robberies from a cluster of remote farms lead to a story of dark magics and subjugation (based on a passage from the 10th Century bishop Burchard of Worms).
- The Cloak of Beards - chasing down a kidnapper sounds simple, but when the brigand has the strength of 20 men victory may require heroic efforts (based on an episode in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain).
- A Night At Rose Hall - a roleplaying-only (no combat) pair of incidents based on love and romance (weaving together several medieval stories - Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, the Arthurian Dame Ragnelle story, and Der Rosendorn.)
- A Maiden's Honour - a maiden and a local knight vanished decades ago, but ever since the ghost of an angry knight has been seen in the woods (based on a story from Giovanni Boccaccio's 14th Century collection, The Decamaron).
If we beat the funding goal then we'll do even more stories as PDFs, starting with:
- Morfynsland - a setting and story seeds that lets players explore a mysterious wild region called Saint Martin's Land, following on from the Wolfpit Gate (Green Children) story.
- Predators and Prey - a sandbox story of a family of werewolves, based on the old Irish Cóir Anmann.
... but if the campaigns a massive success I'll happily do PDFs for another 10 or 20 stories - we've got a bunch in note form that didn't make it into the main anthology. So the better the campaign does, the more adventures will be included.
So, if that sounds intriguing, the Kickstarter page is here. Back it, or tell your friends (or both!) :-) The more backing we get the more I can write - so, thank you for your support!
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Finally... as a question....
When I did The House of the Crescent Sun (a medieval fantasy campaign), most of the Kickstarter backers were Ars Magica fans... but when it went live on DriveThruRPG it was the Mythras version that people mainly bought. This makes me suspect that I'm very, very bad at reaching out to the Mythras community. So if anyone has any suggestions on how I can spread the word, I'd love to hear suggestion!