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Sinister Beard Games are launching their 4th tabletop RPG Kickstarter on October 31st this year, and it's an appropriately spooky one: The Woods at Blight's Hollow is a folk horror tabletop roleplaying game of mystery and imagination illustrated by Corey Brickley (Penguin, Disney, Harper Collins) and written by Oli Jeffery (Quietus, Extreme Meatpunks Forever, Trophy). It concerns the children of Blight’s Hollow, an isolated village surrounded by a trackless forest in a time before electricity and radio, a world of hearthside tales and nights to be feared. Inspired by the works of Guillermo Del Toro, Angela Carter, The Brothers Grimm, Kirsty Logan and Mary Shelley amongst others, this is a tabletop roleplaying game of the darkest fairy tales and the queerest folk-horror.

Mysteries in The Woods at Blight’s Hollow have no set outcome. Using the innovative mystery system seen in hit Grannies-vs-cosmic-horror TTRPG Brindlewood Bay, the players may uncover clues called Breadcrumbs provided by Mother (our name for the Games Master or GM) by Sticking Their Nose  Where It’s Not Welcome, but nobody - not even Mother - knows what the Breadcrumbs mean at the start. Once the players have gathered enough clues, they will Tell a Tale Out of School, collaboratively answering questions that will allow the children to defeat the Beasts plaguing their town. Even though there are no canonical answers to how to defeat the beasts, this system makes it feel like you're really solving the mystery yourself!

Play conducted in the village is, relatively speaking, safe; but the final clues needed to solve any mystery will always require the children to enter the forbidden woods, where their lives and perhaps their very souls are at risk.

The children of Blight’s Hollow may not have the sword and shield of a traditional fairy-tale knight, but they are armed with knowledge and blessings: hearthside tales and nursing rhymes told to them by their grandparents before their parent’s veil of silence fell allow to avoid the most perilous hazards by remembering the fate of the children-within-rhymes. No crown nor mother’s back shall be broken if you have the right tale or rhyme to hand.

Each child also has a Patron Saint assigned to them at birth that grants them powers beyond the realm of adulthood, and perhaps beyond the realm of humanity altogether. Children watched over by Saint Sibel, the Seer, may find themselves possessed of worrying supernatural visions, while those under the guardianship of Saint Lohan, the Crow Wife, have a special relationship with corvids who bring them trinkets and clues. The full book contains 26 saints (one for every letter of the alphabet) bringing a variety of disquieting powers to your characters, alongside darkly comic stories of how they were martyred.

The Woods at Blight's Hollow is a standalone, beautifully illustrated, lavishly printed complete TTRPG.  Within the ~140 page hardback tome you'll find rules for character creation and advancement, a full campaign guide spanning an in-game year, an innovative mystery system, and eleven mysteries to solve and Beasts to defeat.

We hope to see you at The Hollow this Halloween!