DOOMSPIRAL

Doomspiral is a new roleplaying game system set in a dying fantasy world, featuring desperate battles, mysterious secrets and fearsome monsters, inspired by games such as Dark Souls and Elden Ring. This is the latest game from SoulMuppet Publishing, the creators and publishers behind Inevitable, Orbital Blues, Gardens of Ynn and dozens of other RPG systems and adventures. Doomspiral is written by Nick Spence (Gangs of Titan City, Best Left Buried, Heist Game), with additional writing by Zachary Cox (Inevitable, Orbital Blues, Paint The Town Red) with illustrations by Dwyn D’Alton Goode (Brewess).

The world has begun a perilous Doomspiral of decay and despair. Before long it will be dust. It is on your characters, the Forsaken, to reforge the Loom of Fate and either reestablish order or bring this dying world to a swift, clean end.

The world of Doomspiral draws inspiration from the dark fantasy creations of Hidetaka Miyazaki. Exploring this labyrinthine love letter to Dark Souls and Elden Ring, you’ll find a combat system that rewards player mastery, a sprawling and interconnected world that invites you to explore every cave and dungeon, and an enigmatic array of monsters and non-player characters that may help or hinder your Forsaken on their quest to kill the Gods of this dying world.

The Book

The core book of Doomspiral is a ~240 page A4 hardcover book containing everything you need to play the game. It begins with the rules and character creation, then details the Dying Lands of Weftenhaal with an enormous campaign with many varied regions, bountiful treasures and fellow Wanderers both friends and foes, as well as the scores of fearsome and monstrous enemies your Forsaken will face. This campaign length adventure is the most ambitious world SoulMuppet has ever created, featuring the incredible scope, mysterious lore and layered locations you’ve come to love and expect from a Soulslike game.  

The book has been skillfully laid out by Eryk Sawicki of Peregrine Coast Press (Sin Eater, Johnson Squared, Milk Bar), and illustrated with love, care and horror by Dwyn D'Alton Goode. As with all SoulMuppet books, Doomspiral’s design will balance aesthetics with usability, featuring spread based ‘control panel’ and with bold design that full grounds you in the manuscript’s genre. Our design and art direction docs are wild for this project, filled with phrases like “A24 Brutalism”, “should feel like the inside of an abandoned cathedral” and “draws inspiration from particle accelerators and Norse wood carving”.   

We’re maxing out on the physical build of Doomspiral. This huge A4 hardcover book is bound in a metallic faux-leather that will be foiled, heat-treated and debossed for maximum physical luxury. Thanks to these gorgeous physical elements, the foiled and metallic elements will give the appearance that the book is encased in the golden Thread that spills from the heavenly Loom of Fate: the very material our Forsaken seek to grow in power and overcome the Gods.

Reward Tiers

But what are all these gorgeous things? 

First up is a cloth map from Fernando Salvaterra, detailing the dying lands of Weftanhaal, and helping you guide your players to various regions and dungeons that make up the overworld (with more than a few secrets hidden below!). This map will be in full colour, and what we have done now are just the sketches. 

Doomspiral is quite a bit crunchier than a normal SoulMuppet game, so we’re making a much more detailed character sheet that will help you track all of the stats, abilities, items and statuses. We’ll be supplying a digital character sheet to everyone, but also doing a stack of physical ones as part of the higher tier pledges.

After the success of their Paint The Town Red dice sets, we’re also partnering up with our friends at Runefable to fashion some dice for Doomspiral. You can grab a set of Myle’s signature shard shaped D6s, and each has a golden Tether inside it, glittering with strands of golden Thread from the Loom of Fate. They’re available in sets of 4, which is as many dice as either a player or GM should need to play Doomspiral. If you own a set of this dice, you’ll be sure to be able to level up next time you visit a Tether, Bonfire, Sculptor’s Idol or Site of Grace.  

Finally, we have something a little special. Doomspiral’s artist Dwyn makes these incredible handmade cloth banners using a method called Batik, a wax-resist technique where hot molten wax absorbs into the fabric, creating linework when the banner is dyed. We’re offering a select few of these as high level pledges, and you can grab 1 of the 12 available banners, each dyed colour of your choice (from a shortlist) and emblazoned with an image of one of the 6 Gods of Weftanhaal. You’ll be able to choose from: 

• The wise God of Fate, Moirannesse
• The angered Rainlord, Gwyndain
• The noble Lord of Cities, Emyrriad
• The Shepherd of the Dead, Gentle Ahm
• The Lady of Winters, Linnea
• The twin Masters of Desire and Obsession, Carwyn & Ceridwen

They’re huge, roughly 4.5ft long and 1.5ft wide, completely bespoke, made of 100% cotton calico and honestly some of the most gorgeous pieces of art we’ve ever seen at SoulMuppet HQ. Nick and Zach both already own one in their houses.

Stretch Goals

We’re going to keep stretch goals minimal, as the adventure we’ve created already provides the best From Software inspired RPG we know how to make. When we add goals, we want to focus on ones that add value for everyone and won’t delay our timelines. 

FUNDED - £20k: New Quest and NPC from Nick: Motley the Crow: Nick and Zach have a few extra fellow Wanderers up their sleeves they want to unleash upon this crumbling world. First up is Nick writing Motley the Crow, this weirdo is a mischievous little freak, who is as likely to shove you off a cliff as sell you items. 

FUNDED - £30k: New Quest and NPC from Zach: Aegnmere of Basseyngad: Zach is going to write Aegnmere, a much more serious and dour fellow from the icy city of Basseyngad, whose waterfalls and rivers have frozen over in an endless winter. Who knows what he is doing in Wefthanhaal? It’ll surely be a quest of greate ymport. He’ll never let a little hardship slow him down! 

FUNDED - £40k: Zach writes: How to write a Doomspiral Campaign: While writing Doomspiral came naturally to Nick, the Duke of Dodge-Rolling and the Baron of Boss Fights, Zach had to practice quite a lot more. They’ll sit down and offer you tips on making your own monsters, regions and equipment, in case you want to write some Doomspiral of your own, with some examples from their own project Curse-Rotten Corvast.   

FUNDED - £50k: Team Payrise: At SoulMuppet we love profit sharing. While we’re committed to ensuring everyone involved is paid above industry standard right from the beginning of the project, we’re also baking in several Payrise stretch goals as a bonus for everyone to match the success of the campaign. We’re doing one at £50k, and another every £25k until we drop (un)dead. 

£60k: Curse-Rotten Corvast: Zach will pen Curse-Rotten Corvast, an additional adventure zine that can either weave into Weftenhaal or act as a shorter, standalone adventure (at a slightly higher level). This grimy dungeoncrawl zine is set in a mountaintop Corvast Castle, ruled by the feared Curselords and filled with all manner of despicable characters and monsters, and is written by SoulMuppet’s own Zachary Cox (Inevitable, Orbital Blues, Paint The Town Red). Corvast will be a free PDF to all backers at any pledge level, and we’ll be doing physical add-ons on Backerkit. 

£70k: Character Keeper: Doomspiral is a complicated game with tons to keep track of. Alongside the character sheets and beautifully edited rulebook, we’re also commissioning a Google Sheets Character Keeper to help you play the game online, and even act as a referencing tool for characters and monsters in play. If we hit this goal, we’ll make the character keeper free for everyone. As an example of a previous SoulMuppet character keeper, check out this one for Inevitable. 

We’ll announce further goals as we traverse through the campaign. So keep your eyes out!

The System

Doomspiral is built around an innovative combat system that rewards skill expression, player engagement, and a perilous amount of pushing your luck. The game uses nothing but D6: the squarest dice. Combat revolves around your Stamina Die, a representation of your Forsaken’s spirit and endurance. You take actions by rolling as many of these dice as you like, and you can take as many actions as you have the Dice to do so. The only risk is making sure you leave enough to protect yourself from your foes once your onslaught is done…

To aid you, your character will master potent abilities and harness mighty equipment to see them safely through. Call upon the arcane powers of Geomancy, powered by the shape of fate itself, enact the Arts of War in terrifying displays of martial prowess, invoke the powers of the Gods themselves with Sacred Psalm, bring your carefully curated suite of alchemical Decoctions for devastating effect, or invoke wild and unpredictable fires with the Forbidden Names of Flame. 

Long before the battle even starts, you can customise your character’s gear to suit your playstyle; arm yourself only lightly and wring every last advantage out of every last Stamina Die, or trust in your armour to protect you as you move slowly but inexorably towards your foe. Throughout your journeys, you will find stronger and stranger equipment too, which grant additional abilities, or have quirks you can benefit from.

As risky as combat is, the boon for the Narrator to manage the load is in the Move Table. Each enemy you encounter is represented by a few stats, a list of moves numbered 1 to 6, and a set of Move Dice. Much like characters spend their Stamina Die to act, each die roll is a move that the enemy will do in the turn. A mystery to begin, as you fight you can learn more about each foe and their capabilities, until you dance around them with impunity… This turns up in intensity for the many Boss Fights of Weftenthaal, where the shape of the tables twists and buckles to present new dangers and challenges, with their Move Table changing as they pass into new phases. 

The system also contains rules for exploring the wasted worlds, both for Exploring accursed ruins where danger lurks around every corner and the darkest depths promise the greatest rewards, and for Travelling the greater world where the crest of every hill reveals new adventure - and danger. You’ll also encounter a cast of Fellow Travellers, with their own afflictions and goals, who might journey with you, or request the hard-won fruits of your labours. Each dances along the lines of Ruin and Hubris, for happy endings are few in this time-wasted age, and the paths to peace are hidden and hard-won.

As you traverse the world, emboldened and strengthened by the perils you’ve faced and overcome, you’ll grow in capability and flexibility - enough to return to trials you have been rebuffed by, and to overcome the greater challenges that still await you.

Leave no stone unturned, ye Forsaken. There are secrets deep as bone beneath these hallowed grounds.

The World

Doomspiral is set in Weftenhaal, the realm of Gods, centered around the imposing holy city of Tar Valarn. While this campaign begins in the Valley of the Faithful and ends at the Loom of Fate, you can explore this sprawling realm as your wanderlust leads you.

Whether you choose to descend into the cyclopean Necropolis of Amn to fight the Shepherd-God of the slumbering dead, venture into winter-gripped Halfgrave Forest to find the World’s lost summer, or trudge through the curse-poisoned waters of the Mirrormire matters not. All that matters is that you kill the Gods, seize the Loom of Fate, and decide the destiny of this crumbling world.

Weftenhaal is sprawling, interconnected and labyrinthine, filled with unusual characters, terrifying monsters and ancient relics. Exploring every nook and corner of the world would take years of adventuring, and even then you might not discover all of its mysteries. The tale of your Forsaken is yours to forge, but uncovering the history of this decrepit civilisation is a task unto itself.

The Characters

Doomspiral’s characters are the Forsaken, deathless humans whose cruel fate is to face monumental adversity, doomed to never die until the world around them crumbles into nothingness. 

Characters begin as one of 36 starting backgrounds that have ventured to Weftenhaal. You might play a sword-armed Rain-Dancer from the Valley of Rains, or a mighty Stalvaggar Knight from the great walled city. You may be a Scholar of Erzo Aarioch and student of sorcery, or a Dreaming Oracle from the sleeping land of Na’ru. Equally you might play a miserable Lantern Seller or a lowly Tomb Robber. 

These starting backgrounds impact where you came from and shape your starting equipment and abilities, but by acumulating new equipment, Ancient Powers and Thread you will earn the power to topple the Gods through both raw power and endless customisation.

Quickstart

At SoulMuppet we’re strong believers of a free quickstart to allow folks to experience our games quickly and with as low an entry barrier as possible. The Quickstart for Doomspiral gives you everything you need to explore the dreary seaside prison of Saltcrag, leading up to an epic boss battle against the Pharos Warden. 

The Quickstart is perfect for quickly introducing you and your players to the key mechanics of Doomspiral with six character backgrounds and a short starting adventure that you can explore in a session or two. You can grab it on our webstore here. 

The Team

You can find out more of what the team thinks about Doomspiral in the following press appearances and articles: 

• Nick and Zach chat with TTRPG Inside Native. 
• Zach chats with Dan Arndt from Fandomentals. 
• Announcement on Rascal. 
• GeekNative covers the Doomspiral Quickstart.
• Blood Disgusting covers the Doomspiral Launch.

Creator and Writer: Nick Spence

Nick Spence (they/them) is a game designer and writer now stirring from their slumber beneath Blighted England, creator of such horrors as the grimdark empire-builder Gangs of Titan City, the hideous bestiary The Hunter's Guide to Monsters, and the quirky criminality of A Heist Game. Dread what now they dredge from fathomless depths... Their favourite Dark Souls / Elden Ring NPC is Hawkeye Gough.

Illustrations: Dwyn D’Alton Goode

Dwyn D’Alton Goode (she/they) is an illustrator/artist who is haunted by visions of medieval ghosts, and has been (re)creating them professionally for over a decade. They are the primary artist on Doomspiral, working with Nick and Zach’s equally accursed imaginations to build a deep respect for the dignity of sorrow and ruin throughout the whole project. They have worked in video game design and concept art for over four years, with Brewess from Fairer Games LTD currently in production, releasing in 2026, and a small self-published art book of short stories called The Calling coming next Spring. You’ll probably find them by a river in the woods looking for good rocks. Their favourite Dark Souls/Elden Ring NPCs are Siegfried of Catarina, and Lucatile of Mirrah.

Project Management and Additional Writing: Zachary Cox

Zachary Cox is the JellyMuppet (they/them) and they've been bad at Dark Souls for years. They have been Nick's trusty right hand (and secondary pen) throughout this whole project, helping out at almost every stage and role in the creative process, as well as leading on Project Management and Art Direction. You may know them as the the Director of SoulMuppet Publishing, the creator of Inevitable and Paint The Town Red and the co-creator of Orbital Blues and Best Left Buried. Zach is a seasoned RPG creator and producer, who makes ideas into books. They dabble in everything from printing, distribution and product/project management. Their favourite Dark Souls/Elden Ring NPC is Big Hat Logan. 

Editing: Cody Faulk

Cody Faulk (he/him) makes games that help people tell stories with their friends. Cody has worked on many games during his designer/writer/editor career, but most notably, he was lead designer for Cubicle 7's Warhammer 40K RPG Imperium Maledictum. He's edited multiple SoulMuppet titles and hopes to help bring many more amazing games to life. His favorite Dark Souls/Elden Ring NPC is the turtle pope, which he assumes is named Pontifex Testudolio. (Zach notes his actual name is Miriel, Pastor of Vows, and he's not really a pope...) 

Layout: Eryk Sawicki

Maps: Fernando Salvaterra

Fernando Salvaterra (he/him) is a Brazilian illustrator in love with RPGs, fantasy cartography, random tables, strange secluded places and mysterious trinkets. He has illustrated maps for RPG projects such as Uncaged, Hark! Says The Frog Magus, Wagadu Chronicles, How to Defend Your Lair, Demiverse, Overisles, Vynestra, HELLPIERCERS, Arium, Tomb of a Thousand Doors and others. His Favourite Dark Souls/Elden Ring NPC is Blaidd, The Half-Wolf.

Dice: Runefable / Myles Garstang

Myles Garstang (he/him) is the dicemaker at RuneFable. He spends his spare time horrifying his friends with Dark Souls/Elden Ring inspired eldritch abominations in his home TTRPG games. He jumped at the chance to create some dice for DoomSpiral as Soulmuppet gave him loads of creative freedom to play with new techniques and create something really special! RuneFable is well known for providing bespoke artisan dice for indie TTRPGs and actual plays and you may know their dice from projects such as Paint the Town Red, Drakonym, No Place Like Homebrew, Oxventure: Wyrdwood Season 2. Myles favourite Dark Souls/Elden ring NPC is anything with way too many limbs.

Shipping

Due to the constant global turmoil we find ourselves in, it is difficult to estimate the final cost of shipping this far in advance. We are doing our level best to mitigate these challenges and make sure we get you a fair deal. No part of this project will be manufactured in China to avoid the impact of tariffs or other trade restrictions. 

We'll be charging shipping at a later date via a pledge manager on Backerkit. You will be able to add new items there, supply address details and alter your pledge, right up until we begin fulfilment. We’ll be using the SoulMuppet store to supply you with digital rewards, which will be released as soon as they’re available, as well as providing PDFs through DriveThruRPG and itch.io codes. 

We have two points of fulfillment, one in the US and one in the UK. Our non-US orders are all fulfilled by our UK warehouse. We will be prepaying EU VAT and Import Duties, and you will be charged the appropriate amount via Backerkit, so there will be no surprise charges.