Feral: Historical Fantasy RPG

Feral: Historical Fantasy RPG

Feral: Historical Fantasy RPG is designed for traditional tabletop play, set during the North American fur trade during the 18th century, where werewolves and myth shape a brutal frontier. Yes. You read that right. Werewolves during the fur trade. The game, and the world, are rooted in old-school principles: dangerous exploration, meaningful choices, and a setting that doesn't care if you survive... Welcome to traditional gameplay compatible with Troll Lord Games' Siege engine, Shadowdark RPG, D&D 5E/5.5, and maybe more...

Feral draws from Indigenous lore, Old World folklore, and religious belief systems carried across the Atlantic, colliding in a brutal frontier defined by survival and transformation. Spirits walk the forests. Curses pass through bloodlines. Oaths carry real power. And the land itself remembers what has been taken from it.

Based on the successfully Kickstarted Feral comic series, this tabletop role-playing game expands the universe into a fully playable setting, bringing classic TTRPG gameplay into a myth-charged world where belief, land, and blood exact a price.

A Grimdark frontier like no other…

Feral: RPG blends historical horror with dark fantasy in a setting rarely explored in tabletop role-playing.

Colonial North America becomes a pressure point where no single belief system is dominant. All are unstable. All demand something in return.

The result is a setting where magic is not solely learned from spellbooks but inherited, bargained for, sworn, remembered, or endured.

This is grimdark fantasy rooted in history and consequences rather than spectacle.

What you're buying [NEED BANNER]

Chronicle Keeper's Guide

The main offering is a 200-plus-page core rulebook: The Chronicle Keeper’s Guide.

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Built to be system agnostic (with separate handbooks making it playable with specific systems. More on that below!), it introduces the world of Feral and presents more than 20 monsters, spirits and other beings drawn from myth, each adapted for play from the cultures and belief systems meeting across colonial North America.

The guide also includes campaign, chronicle and adventure outlines, character and archtype histories, story hooks, setting lore and everything a Chronicle Keeper needs to guide, teach, coax, misdirect and entice their adventurers.

[MAYBE A TOC/LARGER LIST OF WHAT IT INCLUDES? WHAT'S GOING TO GRAB EYEBALLS]

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The 200+ page Chronicle Keeper's Guide will have a full-colour cover, with a black and white interior on sepia-toned paper. The interior will be uncoated paper perfect for making notes. 

Watch out for stretch goals that may introduce hardcover and full colour options!

Specs: 6.625” x 10.25”

Player's Handbook(s)

Companion player handbooks (three out of the gate) will make Feral playable with systems including Troll Lord Games’ Siege engine, Dungeons & Dragons 5E/5.5 and Shadowdark RPG, allowing groups to enter the world using the rules they already know.

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For the purposes of this campaign, backers will choose which Feral Player's Handbook they want to accompany their Chronicle Keeper's Guide.

The Player's Handbook will be 40+ pages and slightly smaller than the core rulebook for portability and ease of use. 

Specs: 5.83″ x 8.27″

Both physical and digital offers are available, and backers can mix and match where desired, i.e. physical Chronicle Keeper's Guide + physical Player's Handbook, or physical Chronicle Keeper's Guide + digital Player's Handbook, etc.

The World

This is not a realm of heroic fantasy. Like the history it’s built around, this world is one of hunger, cold, isolation, and belief… Where the price of a werewolf pelt can make someone rich, but obtaining it is more likely to make them dead. 

Trading posts cling to frozen rivers. Forests stretch for weeks in every direction. Spirits walk openly. Curses pass through bloodlines. Faith carries power, but also consequences.

Classes

Characters in Feral are survivors first, where power and experience come at a cost, and no role is safe from corruption or consequence.

Playable paths include (but are not limited to):

Houndsman
Relentless trackers bound to beasts, blood, and scent.

Shaman
Spirit walkers who bargain with forces older than the trade routes.

Trapper/Voyageur
Masters of survival, ambush, and brutal practicality.

Scout
Eyes and ears of the frontier, living between wilderness and civilization.

Druid
Land-bound guardians shaped by season, animal, and the natural world.

Templar Mason
Oath-bound warriors wielding faith, steel, and doctrine in a hostile land.

Feral-born
Those born between worlds, carrying the blood of beasts, spirits, or fae. They’re never fully human, nor truly free of the powers that made them.

Each path is grounded in and shaped by the setting rather than abstract fantasy tropes.

Monsters

The creatures of Feral are born out of myth and legend, shaped by generations of belief and culture, while also reflecting the fear and trauma inflicted on the land by colonial expansion.

Werewolves
Born of violence, blood curse, and hunger.

Skadegamutc
A ghost witch that feeds on fear.

Wendigo
Hunger incarnate, born when starvation and taboo strip away what makes someone human.

Wechuge
Corrupted power made flesh, born when forbidden magic strips away what makes someone human.

Gookooko’oo Ikwe
The Owl Woman… a liminal harbinger of death, appearing before betrayal, massacre, or inevitable ruin.

Many monsters are victims. Some are warnings. All leave scars.

Why is Feral: RPG different?

The Feral: RPG isn’t just another fantasy setting with a dark coat of paint.

Instead, it’s…

*Built on old-school gameplay mechanics for tension, speed, and lethality
*Rooted in Canadian history and folklore
*Focused on consequence over power fantasy
*Designed for exploration, survival, and moral choice
*Based on a successfully Kickstarted comic universe

It’s a tabletop RPG that leans into myth and legend, while aligning with classic grimdark fantasy play.

From the page to the tabletop

Based on the Feral comic series on Kickstarter, Feral: RPG expands the universe into a fully playable setting, inviting players to step into the frozen forests, contested trade routes, and blood-soaked myths of the Feral frontier.

Whether you are a 5E/5.5, old-school play veteran or new to tabletop play, Feral offers a campaign setting fraught with danger and adventure, along with new classes and monsters that are unlike anything else you’ve experienced in the TTRPG space.

The goal

The Feral: RPG needs at least $10,000 CAD in order to come to life.

More specifically, this 30-day Kickstarter campaign will help cover:

• A minimum print run 
  60% ($6,000 CAD)
• Production costs (outside of printing) 
  20% ($2,000 CAD)
• Packaging materials 
  5% ($500 CAD)
• Marketing 
  5% ($500 CAD)
• Platform fees (Kickstarter takes 5%, payment processing is 3-5%)
  10% ($1,000 CAD)

Which equals $10,000 CAD, right? You do the math. Don't worry, we'll wait... Also this is a HUGE deal for you US backers. Because this is in Canadian dollars, you're basically getting it for free, right?

The timing

Much/most of the work on Feral: RPG is complete. Writing, illustration, etc. But there are some finishing touches (colouring, adding backer names, stretch goal components, etc.), and then, of course, printing. 

Once the campaign is successfully completed, we'll finalize and print with the goal of delivering before TBD!

The team

Feral: RPG is based on the successfully-Kickstarted set of comics (The Bestiary, Feral #1: The Beast Within, and the upcoming Feral #2: The Colour of Blood) created by Mike Connell (writer) and Kevin Manklow (illustrator). To bring a TTRPG based on the Feral universe to life, we needed some help, so we are joined by Frank Avila (designer/TTRPG consultant). 

Kevin Manklow is an art director and illustrator by trade, and aspiring comic book creator in his spare time.

Kevin is an indie-comic veteran, and after successfully Kickstarting The Bestiary - Feral: A field guide to the new world, he is once again flexing his creator-owned-IP muscles and pitching Feral: The Beast Within.

Mike Connell is a storyteller, known primarily for his expertise in developing content strategies for brands and businesses, freelance journalism and magazine editing, but he is also widely acclaimed for his ability to talk about his plans to write comic books and epic fantasy novels.

In that vein, Mike is giddy with creative fervour after successfully Kickstarting the initial prequel (The Bestiary: A Field Guide to the New World), along with Feral #1, and Feral #2. He is now more-than-pleased to be coming back and exploring the world of TTRPGs (what did you think you were here for?).

You can find some of his writing here.

In our efforts to tell stories that keep growing past the edges of the page, we are working on Feral: Historical Fantasy RPG… a dark fantasy tabletop role-playing game set during the Canadian fur trade, where werewolves and other myths are not stories told by the fire but living forces that shape the land.

While Kevin and Mike are great storytellers, they are woefully ignorant of all things RPG. Enter: Frank Avila!

Frank is a tabletop role-playing game designer and founder of Red Owl Creative, specializing in the adaptation of narrative-driven worlds into survival-focused RPG systems.