The Wretched, A Decaying TTRPG of Desperate Survival

The Wretched

The Wretched is a dark, rules-light tabletop RPG about broken relics, desperate seekers, and a world on the edge of collapse. Inspired by myth, memory, and decay, it uses a familiar 5e-inspired framework—but strips it down to what matters most: survival, choice, and consequence. Character creation takes minutes. Combat is brutal and fast. Magic is dangerous and fragile. The real game happens in the quiet moments between — when you wonder who, at your table, has already fallen to something darker.

The Wretched Book and the Wretched Deck of Cards

At the heart of the game lies The Wretched Deck—a set of cryptic cards that offer secret powers and hidden dangers. Drawn in silence and kept secret from the rest of the table, these cards give players secret advantages… but one of them hides The Wretched. You’ll never know for sure who it is—until it’s too late. Every session is a slow unraveling, as you face the world’s ruin and your own. Will you bring back what was lost, or fall into the same mistakes again?

The System

The Wretched runs on a fast, stripped-down system inspired by 5e—light enough to fit on two pages, familiar enough to play without learning new dice mechanics. But what makes it truly different are its two layered systems: Relics and The Wretched Deck. Relics replace traditional leveling with narrative milestones, granting powerful abilities only when your group dares to claim them—forcing hard choices about who grows stronger and who gets left behind. The Wretched Deck adds a hidden layer of risk and paranoia, letting players secretly draw cards that grant strange powers… at a cost. One card hides The Wretched, a traitor among you—or perhaps no one drew it at all. Every session is a gamble between trust, desperation, and decay.

The Classes

Making a character in The Wretched takes minutes—choose a class, roll your abilities, and gather your gear. As a Seeker (a player character in The Wretched), you’ll take on one of five classes, each with unique abilities that define how you survive, support, or sacrifice. There’s no leveling table or XP grind—your real growth comes from the Relics you claim. Every relic bonded grants your class new powers, but claiming them is a group decision… and trust is fragile. The stronger you become, the more the others will wonder—what price are you willing to pay to bring back what was lost?

The Echo

In The Wretched, the GM takes on the role of The Echo—the last witness to what the world has already lost. Running the game is fast and focused, with clear objectives, simple prep, and plenty of room to improvise. Combat feels tactical and tense, but without the grind—monsters don’t give XP, and every fight is dangerous by design. Statblocks are light and fully compatible with 5e, but streamlined to use just two ability scores: Body (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution) and Mind (Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma). This keeps encounters fast, pages uncluttered, and your focus where it belongs—on the choices your Seekers make, and what they’re willing to sacrifice.

How Print on Demand Rewards Works

How Print-on-Demand Rewards Work

The $10 reward tier gives you access to the digital version of The Wretched plus a Print-on-Demand code for both the book and the deck.

This includes:

• A full-color, 100-page PDF of the game
• A print-ready version of the 37-card Wretched Deck
• A code to print the physical book and/or deck at cost via DriveThruRPG

You’ll still need to pay DriveThruRPG separately for printing and shipping. As of now, the prices are:

• Hardcover book (100 color pages, letter size): $13.70 USD
• 37-card deck: $6.91 USD

That means your total cost for physical + digital (book, deck, and PDFs) will be around $30.61 USD plus shipping.

Reward Tiers

In addition of the our new project, The Wretched, in this campaign we are offering different tiers that include rewards from our previous Micro Dungeons campaigns. 

The Wretched + Digital Micro Dungeons reward tier includes, in addition to the digital and print on demand versions of The Wretched book and deck, all the 40 available digital editions of Micro Dungeons.

• A full-color, 100-page PDF of the game
• A print-ready version of the 37-card Wretched Deck
• A code to print the physical book and/or deck at cost via DriveThruRPG
• 40 digital editions of Micro Dungeons. Each one includes 5 dungeon crawling adventures, easy to run on the fly.

The Wretched + Compendium + Catch-up reward tier includes everything in the previous tier plus the print on demand code for the Micro Dungeons Annual Compendium 2024. This is also a print on demand code, for a 240-page premium color, landscape letter-sized hardcover book, and the print cost at DrivethruRPG for this right now is around $43.21usd.

• Everything in the previous tier
• Micro Dungeons Annual Compendium 2024, print on demand code.

The Collector Box + Catch-up Bundles reward tier includes everything in the previous tier plus our two previous Micro Dungeons Compendiums, the 2022 and the 2023. This last one comes in a Collector Box with extra content:

• Everything in the previous tier
• Micro Dungeons Annual Compendium 2022 (Hardcover already printed and ready to ship)
• Micro Dungeons Annual Compendium Collector Box 2023 (already printed and ready to ship)

The 2023 Collector Box includes:

• Micro Dungeons Annual Compendium 2023 Hardcover book
• Micro Dungeons 2023 Character Sheets
• A set of 7 polyhedral Dungeoneering Dice.
• A two-sided Dungeon and Forest Foldable Battlemat.
• A Micro Dungeons 2023 Game Master Screen.

The photo below are the two printed 2022 and 2023 Annual Compendiums and the Collector box. You'll get the book outside of of the box (in there will be the rest of the Items), but the box actually fits both books perfectly.

Addons

In addition of some of the individual products included in the Pledge Tiers rewards, in this campaign we are offering other products as addons: 

• Bestiarium: Scales & Decay, with more than 350 pages full of dragons and undead, all of them with interesting backstories and combat strategies, more than 300 monster statblocks for the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
• Adaptable Encounters 1st, 2nd and 3rd Compendiums, each one with has 100 encounters on different environments. The books include the statblocks of any new monster in the encounters. The first one is a printed hardcover, and the 2nd and 3rd compendiums are Hardcover Print on Demand on DrivethruRPG.

A photo of everything offered as addon:

Fulfillment

We have been learning over time and analyzing the best way to send rewards from our campaigns.

On delivery day, every backer in a reward tier will receive an email, to your registered email in Kickstarter, from our official website. If, after the delivery day, there are backers who did not receive the email for any reason, it will be resolved within a reasonable time.

This will include a link to our pledge manager at the ND Hobbies website. There you can manage all the different types of rewards:

• Digital Rewards: You can download them directly without needing an account, or you can add them to your ND Hobbies account library.
• Physical already printed: For this you'll have to pay the shipping cost in checkout of the pledge manager, and you need an account at our website for this.
• Print on Demand. In the pledge manager there will be links for each Print on Demand product you pledged for. These will take you to DrivethruRPG's website to finish your purchase (as explained before in this campaign).