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The Darkest Woods

Created by Monte Cook Games

A mega-adventure of primal horrors, mythic witches, and our deepest, most ancient fears that will push characters to their limits and force them to confront truths about themselves, forever changing them. Compatible with all campaigns and RPG systems!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

The Darkest Woods Campaign Came to a Fantastic End!
2 days ago – Sat, Nov 23, 2024 at 01:47:56 PM

Thank you, backers! What a campaign that was. We’re very excited to bring The Darkest Woods into existence, and super happy to have unlocked so many stretch goals to make it even bigger and better. The campaign was scheduled to close yesterday evening, but remained active in "overtime mode" into the night.

We want to tell you a bit about the next steps—and we have some interesting news—but first let’s give credit where credit is due:

While this campaign has been running Monte has been working on The Darkest Woods, while also leading our design team—Bruce, Sean, Dominique, and Shanna—as they move titles like Gunslinger Knights (for the Cypher System) and Dig Your Own Grave (for the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game) toward completion. Bear and Javier handled the graphic design of this campaign and will be making The Darkest Woods as striking as you expect. Jen, Olivia, and Kate have provided answers and are always available to provide support to you, our wonderful community. Teri, Dominique, and Tammie have corralled the words and tamed the logistics. The man behind the curtain was Charles, who planned and ran this campaign.

We all appreciate your support. We love making (and playing!) imaginative, beautiful, and easy-to-use RPGs, and it’s your backing that makes that possible.

Now, here’s what to expect as we move forward from here.

The Immediate Future 

Running a crowdfunding campaign is hard work. We’re looking forward to getting a bit of rest, and the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is right around the corner. You may not hear from us for a little while, but don’t worry. As we’ve said, Monte is already at work on these titles. We’ll post updates any time there’s news share. 

The Next Few Weeks

BackerKit began collecting pledges the moment the campaign closed. But it takes them a full two weeks to release those funds, along with the data on our backers.

In the meantime, we will get the pledge manager fully set up. The pledge manager gives us information we need to fulfill your pledge and lets you manage your add-ons and make any pledge upgrades you want. We’ll notify you when we open the pledge manager, which should be in about three weeks.

The Next Few Months

Once you’ve completed the pledge manager survey, we won’t need anything else from you until it’s time to start fulfilling rewards. We’ll be busy crafting The Darkest Woods in the months to come. We’ll post regular updates, but if you don’t hear anything for a few weeks, don’t fret.

At the same time, please pay attention when you do get communications from us. Our emails and updates include critical information about your rewards.

When Your Rewards Ship

Every time a reward is ready for you, we’ll contact you by email to begin the fulfillment process. Generally, we’ll direct you to the MCG Shop, where you’ll log in, “buy” the product (for free, because you’ve already paid for it through this campaign), and check out.

This is an important part of the process because it ensures we have accurate delivery information for every item we send out. (With thousands of backers getting rewards, it's amazing how many people will change their address over the fulfillment period.) You'll pay for shipping at that time.

Make sure to pay attention to communications from us—don't let our updates or emails go to your spam folder, or otherwise ignore them, because if you do you could miss out on some of your rewards.

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG



So What's Next from MCG?


New statements. New horrors. New lore. New resources for the GM. New options for the players. New adventures by The Magnus Archives creator Jonathan Sims.

The Web weaves. Will you find yourself within its tangles?

Our next campaign delves deeper into The Magnus Archives. Sign up for a notification when the campaign launches!

Overtime Is Rocking! Let’s Make a Poster Map!
3 days ago – Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 06:13:55 PM

Hello, backers—this is so exciting!

TL;DR: Overtime is rocking—if we get to $315K we'll make a poster map! Read on for the details...

We're in overtime, and the pledges keep rolling in. So even though we hit the last goal literally moments before the campaign's scheduled end, let's work toward another!

When we set out to crowdfund a new title, we started with a vision of a complete, well-rounded product that has everything you need to use and enjoy it. Then we build a “sky’s the limit” vision of that product—the ideal version we’d love to make (and use at our own game tables) if money and resources were no object.

Because that’s one of the beauties of crowdfunding: through stretch goals, we can work toward that grander vision, adding features and art and content and extras that really make the product sing and give backers a truly wondrous experience.

Over the course of this campaign we’ve unlocked additional content, deluxe book features, useful accessories, The Broken Tarot, and more. There’s one particular element to Monte’s grand vision that we’d like to bring to life: a poster map.

“Map” may be a bit of a misnomer—like the Darkest House, the Woods isn’t a conventional space, and can’t truly be conventionally mapped. But a large image showing how the many areas of the Woods connect to one another will be useful, and we intend to make it beautiful as well. (And since a poster has two sides, we’ll put striking artwork on the reverse.)

If we can get to $315,000 during overtime, we’ll add this double-sided poster map to the Expanded Edition of The Darkest Woods in print. It will also be a digital file that you can download from both versions of the app (standard and expanded).

We've already hit $5,000 of that since we entered overtime. Can we hit this goal? It would be a stretttch—but that’s why they call them stretch goals! As long as people keep pledging, overtime keeps going. So please help spread the word!

You can find sharable posts here:

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

Thanks for Keeping the Backer Train Going!
3 days ago – Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 05:14:48 PM

Hello, backers!

The Darkest Woods is in overtime mode—so long as backers keep pledging, the campaign will remain open! (This is a relatively new feature on BackerKit, and it’s turned out to be a great way to reach gamers who learn about the campaign—or decide to pledge—at the very last minute.)

We unlocked the bookmarks upgrade just before the campaign’s scheduled closing. Normally that would be it, but. . .

What if there was another stretch goal?

We have loads more ideas for The Darkest Woods, but one in particular that would make a great final upgrade. If overtime mode keeps going, we’ll announce this goal and keep pushing toward it!

Please help give the campaign one more push—and stay tuned. If this momentum keeps up, we’ll announce another stretch goal shortly!

In the meantime, we invite you to join the Cypher Unlimited Discord, where MCG fans are talking about The Darkest Woods and this campaign right now. You can also check out our social media profiles for posts you can share tonight to help spread the word and keep overtime mode going!

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

Expanded Edition Upgraded! Let’s Talk Bookmarks
3 days ago – Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 09:17:54 AM



Wow, what a week we’re having! You have unlocked yet another stretch goal, and we’re now doing a second round of upgrades to The Darkest Woods Expanded Edition. This is going to be a really wonderful physical book—one that will take a place of pride on any gamer’s shelf—and we can’t wait to make it!

It's the final day of this campaign—and the last day is often one of the most exciting and fast-paced. If past campaigns are any guide, we can squeeze in at least one more stretch goal before it closes.

An early goal added a set of bookmarks to The Darkest Woods. These aren’t just any old bookmarks, though. Here’s an explanation from one of the early campaign updates:

The Darkest Woods app is built to provide everything you need on a single screen, so that as you GM online you never have to flip back and forth between displays. The interactive environment lets us put content into accordions, on tabs, in pop-ups, or in other formats that make it handy when you need it, but keeps it out of your way when you don’t. And we can fit an almost infinite amount of content on a single screen.

We replicate a lot of that in the book through its unique layout, which is highly mindful of the GM’s needs and the way you use the encounters at the table. But for some elements—like an NPC who could potentially appear in many locations—it’s not practical, or a good use of the book’s space, to reprint material over and over. So, just like with a conventional RPG book, we’ll detail the item in one location. But now the GM has to flip pages and keep track of info from multiple parts of the book.

That’s where these bookmarks come in. Each one will have information about a recurring element of the Woods. Once the PCs are looking for Annie, for example, the GM would use the Annie bookmark to mark the page corresponding to her location, and if Annie shows up in that area, voila, the GM has her info right there. In some cases, you might be able to track info about the item or character right on the bookmark.
 
That earlier stretch goal unlocked at least four of these. As he’s worked on The Darkest Woods over the course of this campaign, though, Monte has come to think the book could use more—possibly six or so. We’d also like to make the bookmarks more interactive when appropriate, and even make some for The Darkest House. That’s right: if you own The Darkest House in hardcover format already, or are getting it through this campaign, you’ll get bookmarks to make your use of that book even easier! We’ll unlock these bookmarks at $295K.

Remember: YOU Make It Happen!

We’ve had an exciting influx of new backers this week—that’s what’s unlocking these stretch goals so quickly. How are these gamers discovering the campaign? By backers like you spreading the word!

There’s just one day left—and thousands of gamers who would love The Darkest Woods, but haven’t even heard about it yet. We’re doing our best to reach them—won’t you help, and push us over the top on this stretch goal and maybe even more?

Right-click to download these graphics and share them online. Remember to include a link to the campaign (mymcg.info/tdw), and tag Monte Cook Games!


Or click through to any of our social media accounts and share our posts!

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG
 

Online Graphics Unlocked!
4 days ago – Thu, Nov 21, 2024 at 09:59:30 AM

Hello, backers! Wow—in less than a day you unlocked another stretch goal! We will now produce a set of graphics for use with your online game. It’s an exclusive reward just for backers, and every backer will get it.

Having just unlocked support for online play, let’s turn our attention back to the book—and specifically The Darkest Woods Expanded Edition. This book will be available only through this campaign, so we’re looking forward to making it as beautiful as it is practical. We’ve already unlocked one upgrade to the book, but there’s so much more we’d love to do!

At $270,000 we’ll add more deluxe features to the Expanded Edition. The feature we’re most excited about is “invisible ink” on the end sheets—hold the book under UV light and you’ll see additional ghostly hidden artwork. (But we’re still working with our print vendor on the specifics, so we can’t absolutely guarantee it’ll happen.) That’s just one aspect of this goal, though. We’re looking at additional satin ribbons, a paper upgrade, and other deluxe features.

As with the earlier upgrade, we’re focusing on features that will make this one of the most striking books on your game shelf—while remaining functional and practical at the game table.

If you’ve seen the deluxe edition of the Cypher System Rulebook, The Weird, or the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game, you know we’re experts at crafting truly unique and stunning deluxe versions. We’re really looking forward to the cool things we can do with this book.

We have two days left to help new backers discover this campaign. With your help, that’s plenty of time to unlock this stretch goal—and more. Here are a few graphics that are great for sharing. Just right-click on any of them to download it, then share it on social media along with a link to the campaign. The more people we reach, the more we can unlock before the campaign ends on Friday!


Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG