Currently in development: The Sometimes Kingdom RPG
From the mind of artist Ethan Gould, The Sometimes Kingdom RPG is a textured retro-fantasy about places, spaces, climes, magic, and change.
Torn from the pages of secret history, crumpled, folded, and scrawled upon for a thousand years, The Sometimes Kingdom RPG takes place in the weatherly realm of Seasons’ Keep, hidden sister world to Earth. Seasons’ Keep is an island-stuffed place where the seasons are places and the dead don’t always die. The traditional antagonists of fantasy called a truce with humanfolk and reached social parity centuries ago. Now skeletons and the other undead, giants, ThE FaE, dæmons, and talking animals break bread together with humanfolk in a world barely keeping the uncanny complications of magic at bay.
In this world, time is bent, and the default state of everything, given enough time, is “alive.” Seasons’ Keep pilfers its record players and muscle cars from the world next door, with unforeseen effects on magic.
To keep the Fourish Isles—Spring-Side, Summerside, Copia and Interhart—in one fractious piece, the Four Schools of Seasonal Magic have been hammered into place to make sense of an abundance of magic. At the apex of the Schools stand the Defenders of The Realm, a handful of disgustingly powerful magic wielders, who do battle with the horrible nightmares threatening the world.
For every! Single! Other! Problem! In! The world! The Council of Seasons, in its great wisdom, has revived the olde Questing Network. But now it’s the modern era, and Adventurers are fully unionized contractors doing good deeds (whatever that means). Powers and spells are dangled like carrots for Adventurers to Heed the Call, sign up for Quests, “for to aid the Realm, in the spirit of good cheer and helpfulness between the seasons!” Please, absolutely please join up, there are so very many problems and monstrosities, and—
Deeply thought-out locations with societies, factions, fashions, dangers, and breathcatchingly weird vibes fill the world of the game.
Players can choose from 4 core classes, 12 vocations ranging from Knights and Needles to Booksmagers and Body Witches, 8 species, dozens and dozens of spells, magical items, and powers with meaningful connections to setting, character, and story, and the 4 Schools of Seasonal Magic—whole new rules for casting magic in the Grit System! The Sometimes Kingdom RPG invites new and experienced game players alike to explore a world constantly at risk of becoming unmoored, where magic and modernity are being hashed, clashed, and crashed together, day by day.
The environment in each isle is locked to one of the four traditional seasons, and, over time, the peoples of each season have developed their own special magical practice… And, over time, the dead have risen as skeletons, forming a stable, infrastructure-conscious government of the undead… And, over time, the giants have made war and upset the balance of Season’s Keep.
If you’ve ever wanted to play a talking pelican who can summon a magical “intangerine” orange tree to locate buried treasure, then you’re ready to punch your ticket on the Marrow Network, hop on a ribcage-train, and enter The Sometimes Kingdom RPG!
The Sometimes Stream
As we develop the game, you can follow along with The Sometimes Stream—our live playtest sessions—on Twitch. You can also listen to The Sometimes Stream as a podcast (coming soon).