Sage Council

Welcome to the city of Sage, its fate is in good hands. Well, your hands…

Sage Council is a comedic story game about being the city council in a fantasy town. The people who have to clean up the mess adventurers make, handle permits for monsters, and generally keep things running smoothly.

The players take the role of the council members, people who got there by hook or (more likely) by crook. This card-based roleplaying game is Discworld meets Yes, Minister or Parks and Recreation, where the fantastic meets the bureaucratic and where there are more dragons than competence.

With one eye on the polls and the other on your purse, navigate the challenges facing a modern medieval metropolis, keep your vested interests happy, and use dirty tricks to make sure you're re-elected with gold to spare.

This GMless game for 4-6 players is designed to be played in a single session, with the event deck and card packs providing tons of replayability. 

You can back us for a print & play digital version, or for Print on Demand card decks to be delivered through DriveThruCards. 

Please note that there are additional components required (tokens/poker chips for tracking gold, a six-sided die, and a printed character sheet for each player, which is provided digitally).

Sage Council

The core game consists of;

• Approximately 54 cards (split between Event cards and Malarky cards),
• Player sheets,
• A rulebook,
• A popularity tracker and Chair reference sheet.

These are provided digitally for print and play at all backer levels, higher tiers will have the Event and Malarky decks physical rewards (see below).

While not necessary, we also suggest having tokens of some kind to track gold for each councilor.

Reward Tiers

[Locked] Stretch Goal $2000 NZD: Card templates

Want to craft your own card to fit in with the aesthetic of the game? 

We'll put together fillable the Event and Malarky card templates and provide them digitally for all reward tiers. These will be useable with LibreOffice, a free download, and will make cards that blend in perfectly with the existing material.

Thank you all again so much for making this campaign a success, we'll be hard at work to get the game into you hands!

How to Play

Sage Council is played across a single session. The players take on the role of elected Councilors for a borough of Sage, with one taking on the role of the Chair. The Chair draws event cards and selects one to introduce to the councilors.

The councilors then debate what to do before the Chair calls a vote on the options proposed by the councilors with the one that has a majority being passed. Along the way, councilors can use Malarky cards to earn gold, win votes, or play dirty tricks on their esteemed colleagues.

Each round represents a season and after a year has passed the councilors are up for re-election. The choices the council has made will have benefited or irritated the various constituent groups in the city of Sage, affecting your chances of getting back into office and getting to line your pockets again. 

The lowest scoring councilor is voted out and becomes the Chair for the next round, where their opportunities for graft are limited. The game ends after a certain number of years have passed (depending on the player count), with the richest player being the winner.

There's a lot more to the game, including building the city together, riots and how different packs of cards will present storylines. Back the project and help us reach our goal to get the full game in all its glory!

For more info, you can check out the quickstart rules on itch.io or RPG Trader, that include everything you need to play an in-game year.

Be aware that we're still playtesting and some rules may change before the final release, though the core mechanics will remain.

The Expansions

We offer an expansion double pack, two expansions that you can add to any game of Sage Council;

• The Lizardfolk: Replace your Human constituents with Lizardfolk, the haughty aristocrats who aren't entirely sold on this new-fangled democracy thing. Adds new Event cards to replace the core Human cards and a seasons mechanic.
• Travelers: Expand the game with visiting groups who come to the city of Sage each year, bringing their own opportunities for a crafty politico. The Travelers add new mechanics as the various groups move between the city boroughs.

The expansions add 16 new cards to the game (6 Lizardfolk Event cards, 8 Traveler cards and 2 token cards).

Where are things at now?

Sage Council is a project in development. We have a solid prototype together that we will continue to playtest and refine over the coming months to deliver you the best possible game.

We need your help to fund the proofing and finishing touches of the game, as well as the development of the expansion packs. We anticipate this process taking 3-5 months after the completion of the campaign.

Want to try the game for yourself? Download the quickstart rules and play through a full year of the game at home.

Shipping and Fulfilment

Once we have completed the design phase, the digital rewards will be sent to a nominated email in the form of DriveThruCards codes (no account required to redeem).

Physical rewards will be sent through DriveThruCards, at which point they will charge shipping. See here for a shipping estimate for your region, please be aware these may be subject to change between now and campaign fulfilment. An account is required to redeem physical rewards.

We anticipate fulfilling digital rewards between Nov 2026 - Jan 2026, and sending out codes for physical rewards 1-2 months later.

Meet the team

Kelly Whyte is an independent TTRPG designer based in Aotearoa New Zealand, she's best known for the Lineages of the Long White Cloud series.

Cam Banks of Rusty Sellsword Design is an experienced TTRPG designer and developer behind Cortex, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and many more.

Pentragon-zei is our fantastic artist, having previously worked on projects like Lineages of the Long White Cloud, Flock to Me, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Gay.

No AI

This project does not use AI for any of the art, writing, editing or anything else.