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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:

Pay Over Time Now Available!
5 days ago – Wed, Nov 20, 2024 at 03:23:25 PM

Hi, backers—we have some interesting news!

BackerKit has been rolling out a new feature that allows backers to pay for their pledge over four months instead of all at once. And there are no additional fees, nor interest charged. This option applies only to pledges of $150 or more—you can find more information about it here.

Good news! The Darkest House has been selected by BackerKit to give this new feature a try. So if you’ve been contemplating backing at a higher level, but the one-time payment was a bit daunting, you can now pay for that pledge over four months instead.

It’s easy:

  • Just go to the campaign and click the Pledge Levels tab
  • Choose the pledge level you want to upgrade to and click the Learn More button
  • Click Switch to This Pledge Level
  • And from there you can choose to pay in four installments!

Add-ons also help you reach the $150 threshold, so if you have your eye on any of the great add-ons, you may also be able to take advantage of this feature.

We hope you find this useful.

Thank you very much for your support,
—Team MCG

More Audio Unlocked! Now Let’s Get Visual.
5 days ago – Wed, Nov 20, 2024 at 09:46:55 AM

Thank you, backers, for so quickly unlocking additional audio assets for The Darkest Woods. Monte has big plans for making sound an even more important and immersive aspect of your players’ experiences in the Woods!

As PCs lost in the Woods’ depths are often heard to say: where do we go from here?

The Darkest Woods app is highly optimized for gaming online. (And the book, while built for the physical environment, is also well-suited for online games.) So let’s make those games even more immersive!

At $250,000 we’ll unlock a suite of items to dress up your online game. Things like a set of video backgrounds for games played on Zoom or similar platforms, frames and templates for streamed games, wallpapers, and so on. These aren’t part of gameplay per se, but like the décor in your in-person game space, they’ll make your game just a bit more immersive, atmospheric, and fun.

This is a crowdfunding exclusive. It won’t be part of the product itself; we’ll deliver it separately, just for you, backers of this campaign. This reward will go to backers at all pledge levels.

As usually happens, the pace of this campaign is picking up in its final week. We unlocked the last stretch goal in less than two days, and we probably unlock this one even faster—and have time for more!

But only if you help! We've all seen or supported campaigns that really soared to exciting heights, hitting loads of goals. This only happens because their backers help spread the word. Please take a moment and share these social media posts—or share your own thoughts on why you’re excited about The Darkest Woods!


Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

The Broken Tarot Is Unlocked … and the Woods Are Listening
7 days ago – Mon, Nov 18, 2024 at 11:02:46 AM

Happy Monday, backers! We enter the final week for this campaign with some great news: you’ve unlocked The Broken Tarot! We’re excited to make this unique prop a reality—and to add to what is becoming one of the most immersive horror experiences ever brought to the RPG table.



The Broken Tarot is a set of tarot cards loaded with notes and clues, apparently lost or left behind by someone previously trapped in the Woods. It’s not a full deck, nor is it an original design—there are 50 or 60 cards, all from the classic Rider-Waite Tarot. Some are damaged, and many are marked with hand-written notes. Image files of the cards are included in The Darkest Woods, and now we’re making a physical prop version, too. 

If you’re backing this campaign for all the cool stuff, The Broken Tarot is now part of your rewards. If you’re backing at a lower pledge level, you can get The Broken Tarot as an add-on—but you should really consider the excellent deal you get at the Temple of the Moon and The Dark Lodge pledge levels, which now include The Broken Tarot.

What’s That Sound?

The many rooms of The Darkest House lie, for the most part, wrapped in a sinister stillness. When sound erupts, it’s often unexpected and almost always significant. For that reason, we produced a number of audio files that are integrated into The Darkest House in the same way the many handouts are, made easily accessible through links (in the app) and QR codes (in the book).

The Darkest Woods, in contrast, is often alive with sound. Things move through the underbrush; unseen birds call mysteriously; and the Woods’ many terrors can often be heard before they’re seen. When Monte first began working on The Darkest Woods he wanted to include even more audio. That’s already baked into the design, but Monte wants to integrate sound more thoroughly into the experience.

So at $235,000 we’ll significantly increase the amount of audio assets you get with The Darkest Woods to use in your Darkest Woods games. They’ll be included in both the app and book versions (accessed with a click in the app, and via a shortlink and QR code in the book), and both the standard and expanded editions.

To celebrate announcing this goal, we have some free audio files for you!

Two of those files are for The Darkest Woods. But we don’t want to include any spoilers, so these are simply background tracks, suitable for adding a little mood and immersion to your encounter. The files included in The Darkest Woods will generally be more directly game-related—like the handouts, they’re not just about immersion, but also often contain useful clues or hints. If you’d like an example, there’s a third file borrowed from The Darkest House. It’s what the PCs hear if they switch on the radio in a room called The Shoin. 

This is the final week, and it's common to see the pace pick up quickly as the campaign nears its end. We can hit this goal—and more—with your help. You can find posts about the campaign in our social media streams—it takes just a few minutes to give us a share or two. We work hard to reach new backers, but it's only through your help that campaigns like this really soar!

A Look at Monte's Design Process for The Darkest Woods

Are you interested in finding out what Monte’s considering as he’s designing games? Check out his Substack. His most recent post gives some insight into what he’s thinking as he designs The Darkest Woods.

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG


A Look at The Broken Tarot
19 days ago – Wed, Nov 06, 2024 at 09:05:33 AM

These are difficult and uncertain times, and we here at MCG are feeling the strain as much as everyone. But we have one little bit of good news from yesterday: thanks to you, backers, we've unlocked the luxury upgrades to book version of The Darkest Woods Expanded Edition. This exclusive edition, available only through this campaign, is now getting a couple deluxe finishes—gilding and embossing—to match its very special content.

We’ve made a lot of really nice deluxe editions over the years, and we’re excited this book will now join that vaunted shelf in our game cabinets (while remaining a robust, highly usable book at the game table). We’re perhaps even more excited about our next goal!

Let’s discover The Broken Tarot

The MCG team was at Gamehole Con just before this campaign launched. It’s one of the few times each year we all gather from our corners of the world to spend a few days together. While there, some of us enjoyed (if “enjoyed” is the right word) an excursion into The Darkest Woods, GM’d by Monte himself.

Our lost and bewildered characters soon happened upon what appeared to be an abandoned campsite. Scattered in the dirt near the long-dead ashes of the fire were a number of cards—tarot cards, to be precise.

It wasn’t a full deck—there were 50 or 60 cards, all from the classic Rider-Waite Tarot. Some were damaged, and many had hand-written noted scrawled on them. It became clear, in the encounters that followed, that this was a significant find.

This special (and intentionally incomplete) set of tarot cards is akin to the many other handouts included in The Darkest Woods—and it will be downloadable from both the app and book versions. But, like the Woodfolk Tokens, it’s very much its own thing, and it’s not part of the physical Handouts Set.

But imagine the experience of handing your players real tarot cards—complete with cryptic notes and actual damage—as their PCs discover them. Imagine them poring over each card as they piece together the clues they offer. It’s one more way to build on the immersion of The Darkest Woods. We would like to make these cards!

(To be clear: this is not a usable tarot deck—that's part of why it's called The Broken Tarot. Some cards are missing, and many are damaged. We’re also not inventing this deck from scratch—it’s based on the classic Rider-Waite Tarot.)

Get us to $225,000, and we’ll produce a physical version of The Broken Tarot. It will be added to the rewards of everyone backing at the Temple of the Moon and The Dark Lodge pledge levels. It will also be available as an add-on.

If you're backing for everything in this campaign—the Temple of the Moon and The Dark Lodge pledge levels—you'll get The Broken Tarot for free. And if you aren't? Time to upgrade!

The only way to unlock this goal—and the many others we'd like to hit—is for backers to spread the word. Here are a couple of easy ways you can help. Just click the post and share!



Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG

Huzzah—The Darkest Woods Expanded Edition Gets Luxurious Treatment!
20 days ago – Tue, Nov 05, 2024 at 12:29:04 PM

Thank you, backers, for getting us over the stretch goal—huzzah! Thanks to your support, we'll add painted edges and luxurious cover embossing to The Darkest Woods Expanded Edition.
 
Stretch goal #3 is super cool—The Broken Tarot!
Today is election day in the United States, so we’ll be posting all the details about the next stretch goal tomorrow. But for now, imagine this: You’re GMing a game of The Darkest Woods. You’ve set the scene, and the characters stumble upon a long-dead campfire. Strewn about on the ground are some tarot cards. And right at that moment you hand your players real tarot cards—complete with cryptic notes and damage. How cool will that be!

Please keep spreading the word and luring ever more backers into the Darkest Woods, by sharing these posts on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram. (Just click the posts below!)



Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG