Eldritch Wastelands: the Weird South for Shadowdark RPG

What is this? 

This here's a rules-lite RPG hack called Eldritch Wastelands: The Weird South (or just "Weird South" for short). It's built straight off the Shadowdark RPG from The Arcane Library, but cranked up with a gonzo, southern-fried post-apocalypse vibe. Think Gamma World mutants meet Thundarr the Barbarian, Mad Max convoys tearing through bayous, eldritch horrors squatting in abandoned Awful Houses, and folks slingin' hoodoo, scrap-tech, and shotgun blasts against cosmic gators and psychic possum kings. 

You’re backing a shotgun-blast of pine sap, diesel fumes, swamp fog, and cosmic horror straight through the heart of tabletop adventure.

What We’re Raising Funds For:

Eldritch Wastelands: The Weird South is a 200-page, black and white, fully illustrated tabletop roleplaying game setting built for Shadowdark RPG. It takes the haunted backroads of East Texas and Northwest Louisiana and filters them through apocalypse, folklore, mutation, rust, and revelation.

Eldritch Wastelands is a post-apocalyptic RPG of dark reclamation, high adventure, savage conflict, freakish mutants, and chaotic magic. In the ruins of the old world, players join together as scrappers, daring scavengers and survivors who venture into kudzu-choked wastelands, shattered cities, twisted pine forests, poisoned lakes, and nightmare swamps, in search of fortune, secrets, and survival.

But the wastes do not give up their treasures easily. Scrappers must battle raiders, cultists, altered beasts, deadly environments, and terrible powers rising from the wreckage of the past. Those who endure may win more than loot, staking their claim in the trade enclaves and faction-held strongholds of a brutal new age.

Choose from pure strain humans, mutant freaks, half-dead graveborn, grey aliens, sentient robots, bestial wildlings, scrapmages, redneck warriors, psionic weirdos, and other strange new and unique classes/origins as you fight to survive and make your mark on the wasteland.

Clean water is gold. Gasoline is precious. Cults worship new gawds. Crazed warlords and powerful Voodoo Queens rule the wastelands. Snake oil actually works. Sometimes.

This campaign funds:   

• Oodles of evocative professional illustration in gritty ink line art by  LC Freitas Art, Kennon James, Galfinor Art, JE Shields, Del Teigeler, Brian Walker, and Sgt Dave. 
• Layout, editing, and print production
• U.S. printing for softcover and hardcover editions Standard Digest Size, (6”x8.5”)
• Stretch goals that add expanded classes, adventures, and weird tables.   

• 8 Origins (Ancestries/Races) 
• 10 Classes 
• Over a 160 Alterations(Mutations) and Defects           
• 100 Backgrounds 
• 6 New Gods  
• 12 New Mounts 
• 20+ Gizmos 
• 50 Snake Oil Concoctions 
• 15 Cyberware Implants  
• 50 Funky Magic Tattoos
• New Rules for Improved Critical Hits, Critical Fumbles, Exploding Dice, Lingering Wounds, Cinematic Combat Stunts, and cool new uses for Luck Tokens.
• 100+ New Critters with illustrations and simple rules for making more
• Complete encounter tables   
• Extensive hazards and traps  
• Simple cinematic rules for chases, vehicles and upgrades 
• Oodles of helpful tables and charts for when you get stuck or need that Creative spark  
• Over a Dozen Loot Tables 
• Two Whole Adventures: a Gauntlet, and a level 1 Adventure to wet your appetite for the Weird South
• Charts and tables to help you create New Settlements, adventures, and more! 

New Classes in Eldritch Wastelands

Why This Matters

The Weird South is personal.

It’s the piney woods. The swamp towns and lake pirates. The rusted signage. The hush before a Weirdstorm when the frogs go quiet. It’s giant crawfish boils, barbecue smoke and backwoods superstition. It’s that one gas station that sells fireworks, bait, and something in a jar that probably wasn’t meant for human consumption.

This book turns that texture into usable, runnable tabletop fuel.

Not generic wasteland.
Not generic fantasy.

This is hog-demon HELLBILLIES.
This is Rose City ruled by towering matriarchs.
This is Ratchet City neon rot and Boss City brute politics.
This is the end of the world told with a drawl.

How We’re Making It Happen

The manuscript is real. The setting is built. The classes/origins exist. The mutation tables are extensive, and all of this has been rigorously play-tested.

Who I Am

I’m Matt Gullett, one of the creators behind The Long Con, an East Texas tabletop convention, and Long Con Press, publisher of well-received RPG adventures. I organize game nights/clubs. I run tables. I build worlds that people actually play in.

This project isn’t speculative.
It’s field-tested in one-shot chaos, convention crunch, and long-running campaigns.

I care about this because it grew out of a campaign I've lovingly crafted and played for years built from years of lore, culture, and real gaming tables. It deserves to be printed right.

If you back this, you’re not funding a concept.
You’re funding a region.
A tone.
A voice.

You’re helping the Weird South rise from the red clay with teeth showing.

Let’s light the Piney Woods afire. 

STRETCH GOALS

$10K Hellbilly STL- Unlocked! 

$12K Formfillable Character Sheet - Unlocked ! 

15K - Road Atlas of the Weird South (PDF) supplement packed with:

• Random road encounters
• Weird landmarks
• Rowdy Honky tonks
• Creepy Gas stations
• Bizarre Roadside cults

Fulfillment

Shipping
Shipping will be charged at a later date

Timeline

A 48-hour early bird exclusive

A cool Weird South sticker just for the fearless faithful that git-on-it in the first forty-eight hours. 

This Kickstarter's physical products are only available for shipping to the US.