Shadowdark Setting Looks Set To Be 2025's First Million Dollar TTRPG Crowdfunder

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Just launched today, the new Western Reaches setting for the Arcane Library's popular Shadowdark roleplaying game (which itself raised $1.3M in 2023) has flown past half a million dollars in the first few hours, and looks certain to join the Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club imminently!

[[Edit/Update--and it's done it! $1M less than 12 hours into the Kickstarter campaign!]]

2025 has been quiet so far this year on the million-dollar crowdfunding front. This new setting is a sandbox environment with new classes and ancestries, and various areas such as the Gloaming Forest, Djurum Desert, and Myre Swamp. It comes in two 200-page digest-sized hardcovers. Also included are new issues of the game's Cursed Scroll zine. The full core set will cost you $129, or $149 for a premium version, with fulfillment expected in December 2025.

At $670K at the time of writing, just 3 hours into the campaign, The Western Reaches is already the 7th most first-day funded TTRPG ever, having just passed 2024's Terry Pratchett's Discworld RPG: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork. It looks set to pass 6th place very soon, which is 2023's Ryoko's Guide to the Yokai Realms - A 5e Tome. Only five TTRPG crowdfunders (so far!) have ever hit the million-dollar mark on the first day. You can see the full ranking at the Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club.

The Western Reaches are an unexplored land of fragile civilizations, majestic landscapes, and forgotten horrors that lurk in the dark.

In the Reaches, you could play as:

  • A painted witch from the steppes hunting for the secrets to deeper magic
  • An armored knight from the City of Masks guarding frontier villages from attack
  • A silent monk from the mountains searching for the assassin who killed his teacher
  • A scarred pit fighter from the desert looking to make her fortune outside the arena
  • A quick-witted explorer from the jungle who can find any artifact for the right price
  • A seafaring warrior from the northern isles who fights for the glory of the Old Gods
This sandbox setting is fast, elegant, and flexible in the signature Shadowdark style. You don't have to memorize lore; you'll discover it as you go. The world moves and grows with you as you explore it.


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Morrus

Morrus is the owner of EN World and EN Publishing, creator of the ENnies, creator of the What's OLD is NEW (WOIN), Simply6, and Awfully Cheerful Engine game systems, publisher of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, and co-host of the weekly Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast. He has been a game publisher and RPG community administrator for over 20 years, and has been reporting on TTRPG and D&D news for over two decades. He is also on the socials.
WisdomOfWombats said:
The new books will remain proprietery, Kelsey said somewhere on the Discord. Which I fully understand. Generic system is one thing, but Western Reaches contains so much world-building stuff.
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The main system is also proprietary, largely. The Shadowdark license is pretty restrictive when it comes to what you're allowed to reproduce from the original source - only Monsters, Spells, and Magic items. No other game text is open content for 3pp licensed products. You cannot reproduce any rules text for a derivative product.
 

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SpellObjectEnthusiast said:
The main system is also proprietary, largely. The Shadowdark license is pretty restrictive when it comes to what you're allowed to reproduce from the original source - only Monsters, Spells, and Magic items. No other game text is open content for 3pp licensed products. You cannot reproduce any rules text for a derivative product.
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Yeah, but you can freely use the mechanics, which is maybe more important.
 


Fenris-77 said:
Yeah, but you can freely use the mechanics, which is maybe more important.
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They aren't open, which means you can't reproduce them.

I still wish there had been an SRD. I am kind of an Open gaming purist and do not like it when people profit largely from other folks work and then close off their own.

Now, Shadowdark is not particularly heavily based on existing Open Content, so I am not as irritated as I was with, say, Monte Cook Games during their d20 era or MCDM. But, still, a Shadowdark SRD would have been good.
 

Reynard said:
They aren't open, which means you can't reproduce them.

I still wish there had been an SRD. I am kind of an Open gaming purist and do not like it when people profit largely from other folks work and then close off their own.

Now, Shadowdark is not particularly heavily based on existing Open Content, so I am not as irritated as I was with, say, Monte Cook Games during their d20 era or MCDM. But, still, a Shadowdark SRD would have been good.
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You can't use the text or trade dress, but the mechanics themselves aren't protected (because they can't be). Anyway, this is true of every game and nothing new.
 


Fenris-77 said:
You can't use the text or trade dress, but the mechanics themselves aren't protected (because they can't be). Anyway, this is true of every game and nothing new.
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But SD is a derivative game, built on both the 5E SRD and various OSR games/TSR era games. When you do that, you are using Open Gaming sources, and so you should give back in an unencumbered way. The easiest way to do that is an SRD in CC.
 

Fenris-77 said:
Yeah, but you can freely use the mechanics, which is maybe more important.
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This isn't granting anything you couldn't just do already. You don't need a license to use game mechanics that you've rewritten with your own words.

The main thing the shadowdark license offers that you cannot simply do license-less is to specifically replicate Monsters, Spells, and Magic items.

No shame to Kelsey, shes gotta get that bread, but its not the same as a fully open system like Black Hack, for example. I couldn't make Mechadark where I adapt shadowdark fully to a new setting as my own product, but The Mecha Hack can exist, and use as much text from Black Hack as they like.
 

SpellObjectEnthusiast said:
The main thing the shadowdark license offers that you cannot simply do license-less is to specifically replicate Monsters, Spells, and Magic items.
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I think the thing it lets you do is put a Shadowdark compatibility logo on your adventure or supplement -- which, to be fair, IS something Arcane Library should maintain control over.
 


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