Light Omens: A Roleplaying Game of Identity and Hope

A Science-Fantasy Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Survival, Identity, and Hope

The world ended. Humanity didn't.

A century and a half ago, the civilizations of Hiraeth collapsed beneath the weight of their own ambitions. They had learned to wield Grim Light, a power capable of reshaping reality, transforming living beings, and creating machines that defied imagination. Their achievements were extraordinary, but the wonders they built came with consequences they could no longer control.

Cities fell. Histories were fractured. Impossible machines were abandoned, and creatures born from the remnants of those civilizations continued to haunt the places humanity left behind.

The world as they knew it ended. And then something remarkable happened.

People kept living.

Generations later, communities have grown among the ruins. Families make their homes beneath broken megastructures. Old machines have become essential infrastructure. Trade routes connect settlements that once believed themselves alone. Traditions have survived, changed, or been rediscovered by people who may never know the names of those who first practiced them.

The apocalypse is history. Its consequences are not. And the future is still being written.

Welcome to Light Omens.

What Is Light Omens?

Light Omens is a science-fantasy tabletop roleplaying game about survival, discovery, identity, hope, consequence, and the difficult work of building a future from what history left behind.

Players take on the role of Seekers, people drawn toward the dangerous, forgotten, and unfinished places of Hiraeth. They might be explorers, engineers, diplomats, scholars, hunters, protectors, thaumaturges, or something entirely their own.

They aren't chosen heroes destined to save the world. They aren't guaranteed victory, and they don't belong to a universal order that decides what is right.

They're people who recognize that something matters enough to act.

Your expedition might uncover a forgotten machine capable of powering a settlement for generations. You might negotiate peace between communities whose ancestors fought a war neither side fully remembers. You might confront a creature born from the ruins of an impossible civilization, or discover a truth that changes everything your people believe about their history.

Whatever you choose, the consequences can outlast the adventure.

The people you protect remember. The communities you change continue living. The things you restore, destroy, or leave behind become part of the world your Seekers must return to.

Because in Light Omens, the question isn't simply whether you succeed.

It's what your success makes possible, what it costs, and what happens afterward.

What Kind of Game Is It?

Light Omens brings together character-driven storytelling, science-fantasy exploration, cinematic action, and consequences that matter beyond a single encounter.

You can expect:

• A world that has already survived its apocalypse. Hiraeth is dangerous, but it is not empty. Communities have rebuilt, cultures have changed, and ordinary people have found reasons to keep living.
• Characters shaped by inheritance and choice. Your Seeker's background influences their story without determining who they must become.
• Exploration with lasting consequences. Forgotten places contain more than treasure. They hold histories, technologies, dangers, and possibilities that can reshape the communities around them.
• Conflict beyond combat. Negotiation, investigation, survival, social confrontation, and physical danger all have a place in the game.
• Cinematic science-fantasy spectacle. Ancient machinery, Grim Light abilities, transformed creatures, collapsing structures, and enormous threats create opportunities for extraordinary action.
• A system where the fiction matters. Relationships, injuries, preparation, environmental conditions, and the consequences of previous choices can influence what happens next.
• Hope as something you actively carry. Hope is not a guarantee that things will turn out well. It is a resource of perseverance in a world where continuing forward can be difficult.

Light Omens is designed for stories that can be terrifying, strange, exciting, intimate, funny, and deeply human, sometimes within the same adventure.

You Can Already Play Light Omens

The Seeker's Field Guide v1.0 is complete and available for free.

After years of development, writing, revision, and playtesting, the Quickplay Edition of Light Omens has reached its first complete release.

This is not simply a collection of sample rules or a preview of an unfinished system. It is a self-contained guide designed to help you learn the game, create a Seeker, and begin playing without needing the full corebook.

What's Included in the Quickplay?

• An introduction to Hiraeth, its history, and the people who inhabit it.
• An explanation of Seekers and the Call that draws them toward unfinished things.
• Streamlined character creation, including five Origins, six Archetypes, nine Reputations, and six Tendencies.
• The BASE6 Blueprint, the core dice system used to resolve uncertain actions.
• The Hope Engine, including Hope, Momentum, Chaos, and Truths.
• Rules for Actions, Conflict, Damage, Injuries, Rest, and Recovery.
• Equipment and Supply rules.
• Guidance for Omen Keepers, the people who facilitate and run the game.
• The Heart Beneath, a complete introductory adventure built around five interconnected situations.
• A consolidated Quickplay Rules Reference for use during play.

Whether you've been playing tabletop roleplaying games for years or you're approaching your first session, the Field Guide provides a starting point for exploring Hiraeth.

READ THE SEEKER'S FIELD GUIDE v1.0 FOR FREE

The Quickplay is currently published through LegendKeeper rather than as a downloadable PDF. It can be read online, and players can use the existing v0.7 character sheet or track their Quickplay characters with ordinary notes.

A dedicated Quickplay sheet and pregenerated characters are not required to use the guide.

The game is already playable. This Kickstarter is about giving the complete first edition the professional publication it deserves.

The Hope Engine

At the heart of Light Omens is the Hope Engine, a tabletop roleplaying system built around meaningful uncertainty, narrative context, and lasting consequences. The system is designed to keep the story moving while making the choices players face feel important.

The BASE6 Blueprint

When an action carries meaningful uncertainty or risk, players build a dice pool by combining two parts of their Seeker:

• An Attribute: Body, Mind, or Soul.
• An Approach: Force, Finesse, or Focus.

These determine the base number of six-sided dice rolled. Abilities, preparation, circumstances, and other effects can upgrade dice into twelve-sided dice, creating opportunities for stronger results.

Rather than asking players to choose from a long list of narrowly defined skills, BASE6 asks two questions:

• What part of yourself are you relying on?
• How are you approaching the problem?

A Seeker might use their Mind with Focus to decipher a damaged archive, their Body with Finesse to cross unstable machinery, or their Soul with Force to confront someone determined to break their resolve.

The same challenge can invite different approaches, and those approaches can lead to different consequences.

Success Doesn't Always Mean Control

One of the central ideas behind the Hope Engine is that accomplishing something and controlling its outcome are not always the same thing.

Imagine a settlement whose power system is failing. A Seeker reaches an ancient machine and manages to reactivate it. The lights return. Water pumps begin working. Homes that have been dark for weeks finally have power again.

But the Test doesn't achieve enough Successes to maintain Control. The Seeker accomplished what they intended. Unfortunately, the machine's activation also awakens something buried beneath the facility. Now the settlement has power, but the expedition has created a new problem.

That's the kind of consequence Light Omens is interested in exploring.

A dangerous choice might achieve something important while introducing an unexpected cost. A confrontation might end without violence but leave a relationship damaged. An expedition might recover exactly what it was sent to find, only to discover that returning it home raises questions nobody is prepared to answer.

The story moves forward. What changes is the price, the uncertainty, and what the characters must decide next.

Hope, Momentum, Chaos, and Truths

The Hope Engine also uses resources and narrative elements that give weight to the changing situation.

• Hope represents a Seeker's ability to persevere. It matters when the world places pressure on their resolve, and when continuing forward becomes difficult.
• Momentum represents opportunities, preparation, and the advantages that a group creates together.
• Chaos represents escalation, uncertainty, and the ways circumstances can become more dangerous or complicated.
• Truths are meaningful facts established within the fiction. An injury, a damaged bridge, a trusted relationship, a hidden route, or a community's growing distrust can become relevant to how events unfold.

Together, these elements help connect the rules to what is happening in the story. The Hope Engine isn't intended to remove danger or guarantee success. It's intended to make the consequences of action matter.

Hiraeth: A World Worth Carrying Forward

Hiraeth is a world shaped by extraordinary ambition and the consequences of that ambition.

Long before the present day, civilizations learned to harness Grim Light and use it to accomplish things that once seemed impossible. They created machines capable of reshaping landscapes, transformed living beings, and pushed the boundaries of what technology and thaumaturgy could achieve.

Their achievements changed the world. Their collapse changed it again.

The remnants of those civilizations are everywhere. Broken infrastructure continues to influence how settlements grow. Forgotten facilities contain technologies that might save lives or destroy them. Altered ecosystems thrive in places where the natural world and the unnatural have become inseparable.

And beyond the relative safety of established communities, countless places remain unexplored, misunderstood, or deliberately avoided. But Hiraeth is not simply a landscape of ruins.

It is a living world.

People raise children, argue over politics, celebrate holidays, trade goods, preserve traditions, create art, and form relationships. Some communities have built their identities around preserving what came before. Others believe the past should be transformed or left behind.

Not everyone agrees about what humanity should become.

Cultures, Philosophies, and Inheritance

The people of Hiraeth have developed different ways of understanding their place in the world.

Aethernauts explore the boundaries of reality and the forces that shape it. Technocrats pursue systems, infrastructure, and technologies intended to endure. Mythoterics confront transformation and the complicated relationship between humanity, instinct, and the forms life can take. Revenites explore memory, ancestry, continuity, and the boundaries between life and death.

These philosophies are not moral alignments. They are perspectives shaped by history, survival, and generations of disagreement about what should be preserved, changed, or abandoned. And no single philosophy holds every answer.

A Seeker's Origin is only one part of who they are. The culture that raised them, the experiences that shaped them, the reputation they've earned, and the choices they make all contribute to their identity.

Because Light Omens is interested in the difference between what we inherit and who we choose to become.

A World of Wonder and Danger

Hiraeth can be beautiful, strange, and terrifying.

An expedition might travel beneath a ruined megastructure large enough to cast an entire district into shadow. It might cross a region transformed by unstable Grim Light, investigate machinery that has continued operating for generations without human oversight, or encounter creatures that should not exist.

Seekers may face hostile communities, dangerous terrain, corrupted machines, monstrous transformations, and threats powerful enough to overwhelm entire settlements. When conflict becomes unavoidable, Light Omens embraces cinematic, high-impact action.

Seekers can fight across collapsing structures, leap between moving machines, channel extraordinary abilities, confront enormous creatures, and combine their strengths against dangers no one could survive alone. But the scale of a conflict is not what makes it important.

The reason for fighting matters just as much as the fight itself.

Why I Made Light Omens

I'm Jayden King, the creator of Light Omens.

I've always loved stories about impossible worlds, extraordinary people, and the things we're capable of when confronted with something larger than ourselves. But I've also spent a lot of time thinking about what happens after the extraordinary moment has passed.

What do people inherit from the generations before them? How do communities preserve themselves through loss and change? How do we decide which parts of our history deserve to be carried forward, and which parts we have a responsibility to leave behind?

As a Black creator, those questions have a particular significance to me. Identity, belonging, inheritance, and the complicated relationship between who we are and how the world perceives us have all influenced the way I approach storytelling.

I wanted to create a world where history matters without determining everything a person can become. Where communities have complicated pasts but aren't defined entirely by their suffering. Where people can disagree about the future, make mistakes, and still find reasons to build something together.

And I wanted a game where hope wasn't treated as naïveté.

Hope doesn't mean everything will work out. Sometimes people fail. Sometimes things are lost forever. Sometimes the best decision available still hurts. But I believe there's something meaningful about choosing to care anyway. About making room for people to change, finding belonging in unexpected places, and working toward something better even when you cannot guarantee the outcome.

That's what I wanted Light Omens to explore. Not a world without darkness, but a world where the darkness doesn't get the final word.

A Game About People

For all its ancient technologies, extraordinary abilities, and terrifying creatures, Light Omens is fundamentally a game about people.

It's about the people who live in the settlements your characters protect. The people whose histories you uncover. The people who disagree with you, challenge you, depend on you, or become important to you in ways you never anticipated.

It's about communities that are imperfect but still worth caring for. And it's about the possibility that the things we do today might matter to people we'll never meet. I don't believe a game needs to offer easy answers to tell hopeful stories.

Sometimes the most meaningful thing a character can do is choose to help someone, even when they cannot fix everything. Sometimes the victory is not saving the world. Sometimes it's making sure someone has a world worth waking up to tomorrow.

Keep Hold of Your Hope. Carry Forward Your Light.

What We're Bringing to Life

The goal of this Kickstarter is to fund the professional completion and publication of the first digital edition of Light Omens.

The full corebook is intended to provide the tools needed to create Seekers, explore Hiraeth, resolve challenges and conflicts, build expeditions, and run ongoing campaigns shaped by the choices players make.

Unlike the streamlined Quickplay, the complete edition is being developed to offer a broader range of character options, deeper rules and setting material, and more extensive support for long-term play.

The First Edition

The planned digital corebook will include:

• Complete character creation: Expanded options for creating Seekers with distinct backgrounds, identities, capabilities, and paths of development. (Done)
• The full Hope Engine: Rules and guidance for Tests, resources, narrative consequences, conflict, and the changing circumstances of play. (Done)
• Equipment and resources: Tools for preparing expeditions, managing supplies, and interacting with the technologies and materials of Hiraeth. (Done)
• The world of Hiraeth: History, cultures, philosophies, threats, and setting information to support exploration and storytelling. (In Progess)
• Omen Keeper guidance: Advice and tools for preparing situations, managing consequences, portraying the world, and running campaigns. (In Progess)
• Professional editing and layout: A cohesive, readable rulebook designed for practical use during play. 
• Original commissioned artwork: Illustrations that communicate the people, environments, technology, and atmosphere of Hiraeth. (In Progess)
• Digital accessibility: A searchable, navigable PDF with appropriate document structure, bookmarks, hyperlinks, and other accessibility features supported by the final production process.

The precise contents and final page count will be confirmed as the manuscript moves through editing and production. The goal is to deliver a complete and usable first edition rather than inflate the book with material that cannot be sustainably produced.

The first edition is planned as a digital release.

Physical books, expanded illustration packages, additional supplements, and other formats are possibilities for the future, but they are not requirements for this campaign's core deliverable.

Where Development Stands

Light Omens is not beginning development with this Kickstarter. The game has already undergone years of worldbuilding, writing, rules development, revision, and playtesting.

Already Accomplished

• A substantial corebook manuscript. The primary rules, worldbuilding, and foundational material have been developed, with further editorial and production work still required.
• A complete Quickplay Edition. The Seeker's Field Guide v1.0 is published and available to read and play for free.
• A functioning game system. The BASE6 Blueprint and Hope Engine have been developed through actual play and continued revision.
• An introductory adventure. The Heart Beneath gives new groups a starting point for experiencing Hiraeth.
• An active community. Players and supporters have helped explore the world, test mechanics, offer feedback, and contribute to the game's development.
• Actual play development. Light Omens is being brought to the table through recorded and streamed games, including the upcoming flagship campaign, First Light.

What Remains

The remaining work is substantial, but its purpose is clear.

The full manuscript needs professional editorial attention to strengthen clarity, consistency, and presentation. Artwork must be commissioned and integrated. The rulebook needs a cohesive layout, digital navigation, accessibility work, and final quality assurance.

Some material will continue to be refined as the game moves through production and further testing. That is why this Kickstarter matters.

The foundation has been built. The campaign will help fund the work needed to turn that foundation into a professionally published game.

Why Kickstarter?

Developing a tabletop roleplaying game independently requires an enormous amount of work, but writing and designing the game are only part of the process.

A finished publication also needs the expertise of people whose work makes a book clearer, more accessible, more beautiful, and more useful.

I've been able to bring Light Omens this far through my own labor, continued playtesting, and the support of people willing to explore a world that, for a long time, existed mostly in my head. But I also recognize the limits of what I can reasonably accomplish alone.

Professional editing matters because the person who wrote a manuscript is not always the best person to catch its inconsistencies, unclear explanations, or assumptions.

Artwork matters because Hiraeth deserves to be experienced visually, not only described. Its cultures, creatures, environments, and technologies should have an identity that reflects the world being created.

Layout matters because a tabletop roleplaying book isn't simply something people read from beginning to end. It's something they return to, reference, navigate, and use while playing.

And accessibility matters because a game about community should make a serious effort to welcome people into that community.

Where Your Support Goes

Funds raised through this campaign are intended to support:

Professional Editing
Editorial work to improve the manuscript's clarity, organization, consistency, and readability. This includes the attention needed to make the rules easier to understand and use.

Original Artwork
Commissioned illustrations that establish the visual identity of Hiraeth, including its people, environments, technology, and threats.

Professional Layout and Digital Production
The design and production of a cohesive digital rulebook with readable typography, consistent page structures, useful navigation, and a presentation that supports play.

Accessibility and Quality Assurance
Work toward a searchable, bookmarked, hyperlinked, and appropriately structured digital publication, along with testing and corrections before delivery.

Publishing Expenses and Contingency
The fees, production expenses, and reasonable contingency needed to fulfill the campaign responsibly.

A detailed funding breakdown will be provided with the finalized campaign budget.

The intention is to prioritize the essential work required to deliver a complete digital first edition before expanding into additional features or formats.

Rewards and Supporting the Project

The campaign is being developed around a digital-first reward structure, keeping fulfillment manageable while offering supporters meaningful ways to help bring Light Omens to publication.

Planned Reward Levels

$1 | Seeker
A way to contribute to the project and follow its development, even if you aren't looking for a copy of the complete rulebook.

$25 | Digital Edition
The planned primary reward for supporters who want the finished digital first edition of Light Omens.

$40 | Digital Deluxe
An expanded digital reward for supporters who want to contribute more and receive additional digital material.

The exact contents of each reward tier, including any supplemental materials or recognition benefits, will be confirmed before launch.

The campaign may also offer a limited number of higher-level opportunities for supporters interested in contributing to the creative life of Hiraeth. Any such rewards will be scoped around what can realistically be delivered.

The goal is not to create an overwhelming catalog of rewards. It's to make supporting the publication straightforward and ensure that what is promised can be fulfilled.

The Road to Publication

The planned Kickstarter launch date is January 15, 2027.

If the campaign is successfully funded, the project will move into the next stage of professional production.

The intended process is:

• 1. Final Manuscript Preparation. Complete remaining writing and prepare the manuscript for professional editorial review.
• 2. Professional Editing. Work through editorial feedback, clarify rules language, resolve inconsistencies, and prepare a publication-ready manuscript.
• 3. Artwork and Visual Development. Commission and review the remaining illustrations required for the first edition, establishing a cohesive visual presentation for Hiraeth.
• 4. Layout and Accessibility. Bring the edited manuscript and commissioned artwork together into a navigable, readable digital rulebook.
• 5. Review and Quality Assurance. Check the completed publication for errors, broken references, readability issues, accessibility problems, and inconsistencies introduced during production.
• 6. Digital Fulfillment. Deliver the completed first-edition digital rulebook to eligible backers.

Some of these stages may overlap depending on production requirements and collaborator availability. A specific fulfillment schedule will be established using the finalized scope, professional estimates, and the resources available after funding. The priority is to set a realistic schedule rather than promise an unnecessarily aggressive delivery date.

Risks and Challenges

Independent tabletop roleplaying game development involves uncertainty, and I want to be transparent about the challenges involved in bringing Light Omens to publication.

Production Capacity
Light Omens is an independently developed project. Much of the design and coordination work is handled by me, and I intend to keep the scope of the first edition manageable.

The campaign's digital-first approach is intended to reduce the complexity and financial risks associated with printing, shipping, and physical fulfillment.

Editorial Revisions
Professional editing may reveal sections that require additional writing, restructuring, or mechanical clarification. This is part of the reason the campaign is seeking editorial support in the first place. Those revisions may affect the production schedule, but they are important to delivering a stronger book.

Artwork and Layout
Commissioned creative work depends on collaborator availability, production timelines, revisions, and the final scope of the publication. The budget and schedule will need to account for those realities rather than assume that every part of production will proceed without delays.

Accessibility
Digital accessibility is an important goal for the first edition. The final implementation will depend on the production workflow, the capabilities of the software used, and the expertise available within the funded budget. The campaign will distinguish committed accessibility deliverables from additional improvements that may require further resources.

Communication
Backers deserve to know how the project is progressing. I intend to provide meaningful development updates throughout production, including milestones reached, challenges encountered, and any necessary changes to the expected schedule.

The purpose of this campaign is not to promise that nothing unexpected will happen. It's to establish a realistic foundation for completing the work and communicate openly as that work progresses.

More Than a Rulebook

I want Light Omens to become a world people can continue exploring through their own stories. The first edition is the foundation for that possibility.

There are already stories being written, games being played, and people finding their own ways to connect with Hiraeth. Projects such as Omen Chronicles and the upcoming First Light actual play are part of that growing creative world.

In the future, there may be more adventures, setting expansions, fiction, audio productions, interactive experiences, and eventually physical editions. But those are possibilities, not promises being funded by this campaign.

Right now, the priority is the game itself.

A complete first edition. A world people can explore. A system people can learn and use. A foundation strong enough for other stories to grow from. And perhaps most importantly, a game that people can make their own.

Because the moment someone creates a Seeker, gathers friends around a table, and begins asking what their characters will do, Hiraeth becomes bigger than anything I could have written alone.

That's one of the things I love most about tabletop roleplaying games. You build a world, and then you invite other people to leave their mark on it.

Join Us in Hiraeth

If you've made it this far, thank you.

Whether you've followed Light Omens for years, played in one of its earliest sessions, recently discovered it through an actual play, or are encountering Hiraeth for the first time, I'm grateful you're here.

There are several ways to become part of this journey.

Read The Seeker's Field Guide
The complete Quickplay Edition is free to explore. Create a Seeker, learn the Hope Engine, and begin playing.

Join the Light Omens Discord
Meet other players, ask questions, share feedback, and become part of the community helping the game grow.

Explore the LegendKeeper Wiki
Discover more about Hiraeth, its people, histories, places, and mysteries.

Visit the Light Omens Website
Find development updates, project information, and more ways to explore the world.

Take the Origin Quiz
Explore Hiraeth in an interactive way and find out which Ancestral Origin you, or your future Seeker, comes from.

And if this is a project you believe in, consider following the Kickstarter or sharing it with someone who might connect with what we're building. Every pledge helps move Light Omens toward professional publication. Every person who shares the game helps someone new discover Hiraeth.

The Future Is Still Unwritten

The old world is gone. Hiraeth survived.

Its people have inherited wonders, mistakes, histories, and responsibilities they never asked for. They cannot change everything that came before them, but they can decide what happens next. And in some small way, that's what this campaign is about too.

Taking something built through years of work, imagination, community, and persistence, and giving it the chance to become something more. I hope you'll be part of that journey.

Keep Hold of Your Hope. Carry Forward Your Light.

Jayden King
Creator of Light Omens
Ebonmane Ink Creative Studios