Hearthkeeper's Almanac: 5e+ Faewild Quests & Tavern-Builder

🍻 Slaying Dragons & Pouring Flagons

Always ready with a warm welcome and a full mug, Berwyn and his tavern, The Oak and Antler, are the heart and soul of Amberglow Village. At his side are Naevith, always quick to serve a hearty meal, and the fairy Vim, the true mastermind behind their operation. To travelers, they may seem like simple tavernkeeps, but when trouble stores in the Tanglethorn Forest or mysteries arise in their village, this trio sets aside their aprons, dons their adventuring gear, and answers the call to protect their home. This, dear friends, is just a taste of what awaits you in The Heathkeeper’s Almanac!

In this 5E D&D supplement, you'll find rules that allow you to run your very own tavern, bakery, tea shop, or more! Alongside the Festivals & Fae Adventure Book and our Tavern Cookbook, you'll have all you need for a cozy, tasty, & immersive game night!

🎲 Preview PDF

Click here to view a preview of our project, including the Hedgewitch class, the Oath of the Fae Knight Paladin subclass, new spells, and more!

🍄 Campaign Overview

🏡 Run Your Own Tavern, Bakery, & More!

Our dynamic hearthkeeper rules let you run any cottagecore shop or business you can imagine, whether it's a tavern, a pumpkin patch, a tea house, or more! After building your hearth you can upgrade it, earn income, and craft items to bring on your adventures, like restorative food from a bakery, potions from an herbalist shop, and even animal companions if you run a hatchery or kennel.

Complete with hearthkeeper backgrounds, like the Inheritor and plucky Upstart, and new hearth skills like Agriculture, Cooking, and Crafting, you'll have all you need to be a full-fledged hearthkeeper without sacrificing the magical and martial capabilities of your adventurer... Because, while tending to your hearth is important, so is defending it! 

Manage your earnings to purchase supplies, make repairs, and pay for upgrades and improvements, but be careful - while your village is quaint, the seasons can either help or hamper your efforts.

Shore up reserves to weather the blizzards of Winter, stave off wildfires and the scorching heat of Summer, and prepare for torrents of Autumn rain... Also revel in the bountiful good times by attending festivals, exploring the Tanglethorn Forest, and investigating a barrelfull of low-stakes village mysteries filled with clues, colorful NPCs, and all the cottagecore charm you can handle!

🥐 Tavern Recipes & Comfy Cooking

Tilly's Tavern Cookbook is not only a list of recipes - it's a thematic collection of appetizers, mains, desserts, and sides that also serves as a lore guide to the region of Briarheath! Follow renowned culinarian, Tilly Thistletop, as she recounts her travels across the land and relays to you the dishes inspired by the locals and locales she's chanced upon.

And if food isn't quite enough, the Elixirs & Brews Drinkbook has every cocktail, mocktail, and tea recipe you'll ever need for sipping 'round the table!

Our approach to the cookbook is to offer comforting, delicious, and accessible recipes for experienced and amateur chefs alike to prepare for an unforgettable game night. Rustle up some meat & cheese hand pies, wyvern-tongue stuffed peppers, berry scones, award-winning citrus-and-dark chocolate shortbread, and an assortment of other sweet and savory delights!

Want to see more? Check out this video of Ian, our lead cookbook author and chef/owner of The Space eatery in Champaign, IL as he chats about the cookbook and whips up a batch of kefir taverncakes!

🧝‍♂️ New Player Options

3 New Cottagecore & Fae Classes

Some say the boldest of heroes are those who wish to revel in mirth and happiness rather than to venture forth with blade and banner - enter our 3 new classes!

Wield magic and learn witchy skills like wand lore, potion brewing, and soothsaying as a homey Hedgewitch or cast spells and bolster others through sheer joy and the thrill of trickery as a dancing, flask-sipping, dice-rolling Merrymaker! However, if food is your calling, you can summon magical sustenance as a baker, chef de cuisine, or butcher Culinarian to empower allies and bake, boil, and chill your way through enemies!

12+ Thematic Subclasses

Choose from over 12 new subclasses filled to the brim with cozy charm and fae power! Summon fae spirits and form binding pacts as an Order of the Faeknight Paladin, conjure the enthralling yet toxic power of blossoms as a Circle of Wildflowers Druid, and tread the veil between the mortal world and the faewild as a Fae Forager Rogue.

Would you rather wade into battle with a raging spirit animal by your side? Try the Path of the Beast Friend Barbarian! Want to meticulously collect and analyze herbs in order to turn them into potent spell-empowering material components? Then the School of Herbology Wizard is for you!

New Playable Lineages

A bundle of new character lineages accompany our new class options! Play as a tiny, nimble Fairy flitting strategically around the battlefield or as an antlered Solthir to wield powerful magic and weapons alike. For maximum coziness, play as a Forest Folk and customize your own anthropomorphic adventurer from a chiding magpie to a badger!

✨ Powerful Spells & Fun Familiars

Summon a herd of hedgehogs, call on the powers of home to inspire allies, and blast foes with mysterious faefire with over 50 new spells! Whether you are healing and protecting, imbuing weapons with fabled lore, or dishing out damage, these new spells add just as many exciting new tactics and abilities as they do aesthetics! After all, who wouldn't want to cast spells like Arcane Acorn, Bountiful Harvest, Dewdrop Shield, Wrath of the Seasons, Faefire Vortex, and Loyal Lightning Bug?

🎲 Multiple Ways To Play

Defend your village, explore the ominous Tanglethorn Forest, and venture into the mystical world of the faewild in the Festivals & Fae campaign (levels 1-12) or embark on a series of intriguing village mysteries for a more casual, homey experience... And don't forget to run your tavern or bakery while you're at it! As a matter of fact, you could run an entire campaign as a village sim if you wanted to!

However, our favorite way to play is to mix all three play styles together for an epic and cozy experience full of heart and adventure; run your hearth between dangerous faewild quests and solve cozy mysteries while you heal, upgrade your hearth, and plan for the adventure ahead!

🎉 Celebrate Adventure & Coziness with Friends

Why create a tavern-building, cottagecore 5E supplement? The answer is simple.

Life is stressful, and we believe tabletop gaming should be a place of escape, not exhaustion. Over the years, we've played countless thrilling D&D sessions filled with relentless battles, dark and sinister themes, and endless enemies lurking around every corner. We fully understand that conflict, strife, and loss are core parts of what makes D&D exciting...

But sometimes, you just need a breath of fresh air. A moment of cozy levity. A warm, fresh-from-the-oven snack around the table with friends as you nerd out about the tavern you're running together and how to prepare for the coming Harvest Festival.

So pull up a chair, grab a homemade scone, and roll the dice with us. Set out for village life, epic adventure, and the warmth of your own hearth!

Stretch Goals

After the design and printing phases of our project are done, we will be shipping from our fulfillment partner, Magicraft-Roll4Initiative, to you! To help navigate turbulent and fluctuating shipping costs, we will collect shipping fees separately from this Kickstarter via BackerKit once we are ready to begin the shipping process.

Timeline

• Kickstarter campaign ends: May 2nd, 2025
• BackerKit pledge manager opens: June 2025
• Writing, playtesting, and edits: June - September 2025
• Product design, layout, and more playtesting: September - November 2025
• Digital reward fulfillment begins: December 2025
• Manufacturing begins: January 2026
• Overseas freight: February - March 2026
• Physical rewards fulfillment begins: April 2026*

*The timeline above is reasonable, but not guaranteed. To stay ahead of potential shipping turbulence, we have posted a delivery date of September 2026 for physical goods in the event that delays occur... However, we'll be sure to get your products to you as soon as reasonably possible!

Our Team

Amanda - Operations, Editor, Cookbook Co-Author

Amanda is the warm hearth that keeps this project running as she tends to the little details that bring it to life. Whether fine-tuning layouts, editing text and content, or co-authoring Tilly's Tavern Cookbook (she's also an award-winning baker!), she ensures everything feels as rich and welcoming as a perfectly baked blueberry scone. With a love for all things comfy and an eye for organization, she helps shape our world and makes our crazy dreams reality.

Jeremy - Creator, Lead Game Designer

Jeremy crafts mechanics and lore that blend cottagecore coziness with mystery and adventure. As the lead game designer, he stokes our creative fire to ensure players can explore a world brimming with deep lore, bustling taverns, and untamed wilds. Jeremy has previous TTRPG experience from working on game mechanics for Pericle: Gathering Darkness to creating classes, characters, adventures, and even more as a third-party 5e creator on multiple others. With experience and a passion for tabletop storytelling, he weaves together game mechanics and cozy aesthetics, inviting players to gather around the table to laugh and strategize together as they embark on heartfelt journeys through villages, the faewild, and beyond!

Ian - Head Chef, Cookbook Co-Author

Ian is the driving and innovating culinary heart of this project! Not only is he an award-winning owner and chef of The Space in Champagne-Urbana, IL, but he's also a massive D&D nerd himself! As a matter of fact, his last character was a halfling barbarian with a knack for the culinary arts!

As Head Chef and the lead co-author of Tilly's Tavern Cookbook, he blends the culinary arts with fantasy storytelling as he crafts dishes that feel straight out of a bustling tavern or a cozy cottage kitchen. Whether developing rustic recipes or weaving together food and game lore, Ian ensures every bite is as flavorful and immersive as every roll of the dice.

Laura - Lead Artist

Laura brings our world to life with whimsical artwork! She loves painting creatures and characters in colorful and spooky settings and weaving dynamic compositions that tell rich, immersive stories, whether it's the warm glow of a bustling tavern, the eerie beauty of an enchanted glade, or hidden mysteries lurking just beyond the firelight.

She has worked with renowned clients including Darrington Press (Critical Role), Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG), Cephalofair Games, Fire Opal Media, Metal Weave Games (Baby Bestiary), Studio Agate, the Colour Tarot Project, and Onyx Path Publishing. Her artistry has been featured in Infected by Art Vol. 8 and the upcoming Infected by Art Vol. 12, as well as exhibitions like Con Before the Storm and Light Grey Art Lab. See more of her work at lauragalli.com!

Luisa Sipia - Artist

Luisa is the artist behind our cantankerous-but-cute orc barista, Xera! Her artistry brings out the cuter, fluffier side of cottagore and we're loving it! You can find her art around our Kickstarter page and on Instagram @luy_co!

Special thank you to Matt Olick at Prelaunch Club for help with design and promotions!

Our Partners

Role4Initiative is a family-owned business dedicated to crafting premium accessories for tabletop RPGs. Since 2009, they’ve been designing innovative products that enhance gameplay, from dice to dungeon tiles and more. Based in Portage, MI, they bring expert craftsmanship and a passion for gaming to every project they produce. 

Mystic Tome Productions knows that human-created art, stories, and other media are the heart of tabletop gaming and we pledge to use only human-created content in our products. The use of AI in our Kickstarter is a necessity due to a lack of funds and, as soon as we have successfully funded Hearthkeeper's Almanac, we vow to deliver only human-created content. 

What is currently AI-created? Three of our background art pieces have been created with the help of AI, however our Kickstarter video, character art, the remaining background art, and all other materials are 100% human-created. 

Our artist is Laura Galli and she is exceptional - 100% human and 100% amazing! You can check out her bio and portfolio in the Our Team section above. Thank you for your understanding and your support!

Environmental commitments

Our products are made with high-quality materials that offer long-lasting designs. You can learn more about how Kickstarter encourages sustainable practices with creators.