Fearsome Wilderness: The RPG is coming to retail on September 28th

Dystopian entertainment. Expendable reality stars. Convicted criminals who will stop at nothing to survive. Now broadcast live 24/7 from the Fearsome Wilderness!

A new tabletop roleplaying game from the creators of Fearsome Wilderness: The Board Game and Miniatures Collection is coming to retail on September 28th, 2023.

Con Air meets Lost? Or is this roleplaying game more The Running Man meets the Revenant?

Survive the wilderness, wrangle North American cryptids, uncover its mysteries, and let your miserable adventures entertain the galaxy on September 28th.

Written by Matt Cross and Ian Baaske
Design and Layout by Matt Cross
Art by Willis Harrower, Bud Wheeler, Johan Aberg, Juan Francisco Fonseca Hernández, and Tony Midi

Fearsome Wilderness: The RPG is a 255 page book that includes:

A player-centric, story driven experience
Easy rules based off the Year Zero Engine by Free League Publishing
16 different Character Archetypes to choose from
A world map to explore with hexagons designating Sectors in the wilderness
A prologue scenario which introduces players to the characters and setting
12 location scenarios that include story elements, mysteries to investigate, NPCs to interact with, maps to explore, as well as a countdown of events and hooks to lead the characters on their adventure
One major plot twist which leads the characters to a climatic 2-part ending scenario
25 fearsome critters that players may encounter in the wilderness each with their own unique stats, descriptions, weaknesses, and attack styles
36 interaction nightmares for players to experience while unconscious, along with unique rules associated with the characters’ Nightmare Levels and instructions to create your own nightmare encounters
Over 50 potential projects to upgrade your shelter
Quick reference charts and general information about wildlife, animal threats, hunting, fishing, foraging, trapping, filtering water, starting a fire, and many more details to inspire your wilderness survival roleplaying
An easy guide to randomly generate wilderness Sectors offering limitless possibilities

Fearsome Wilderness: The RPG uses dice pools and other easy to learn mechanics from the Year Zero Engine. If you’ve ever played Mutant: Year Zero, Forbidden Lands, Coriolis, Tales from the Loop, Things from the Flood, Alien the RPG, or Vaesen, we hope you’ll feel right at home.

Also available are 3D printable miniatures compatible with the game, online random generators, a roll20 character sheet, 6 pre-generated characters, a wilderness journal, a template for creating your own custom cryptids, and a 3rd party license for fans to create their own wilderness adventures.

About the game:

In Fearsome Wilderness: The Roleplaying Game, a spaceship full of prisoners, previously part of an extended hibernation program, crash on a mysterious wilderness planet and must struggle to survive with not much more than a brightly colored prison jumpsuit, crash wreckage, and a glitching AI robot. To make matters worse, hibernation has done strange things to your mind. Every night, there is a chance you will experience terrible dreams of hideous creatures and unhappy endings. The game plays in both worlds of sleeping and wakefulness and the lines between the two often blur.

The planet is covered in forest and survival will be difficult. The prisoners will need to make tools and live off the land by foraging, hunting, fishing, trapping. A shelter is crucial and will need to be upgraded. Whether you plan to live in the crash wreckage, find a cave, build a log cabin, or an epic treehouse, you need a secure home base. The game includes over 50 potential projects to upgrade your shelter.

Strange mythical cryptids called fearsome critters lurk in the shadows. The game features art and stats for 25 fearsome critters from North American folklore including: Agropelter, Axehandle Hound, Ball-Tailed Cat, Cactus Cat, Dingmaul, Dungavenhooter, Glawackus, Goofus Bird, Gumeroo, Hidebehind, Hodag, Hoop Snake, Hugag, Jackalope, Jersey Devil, Joint Snake, Sidehill Gouger, Silver Cat, Snallygaster, Snipe, Splinter Cat, Squonk, Teakettler, Tree Squeak, and Wampus Cat.

Explore a singing wheat field, a howling cave, or follow a ghost to its graveyard. Make friends at a lonely church, uncover a bunker hatch, or seek truth at a research station. Will you muster the courage to investigate a decrepit barn, climb down the creepy well, or enter the abandoned amusement park? Eventually your characters will bump into a transparent dome that covers the area and things may look bleak.

Once the Prisoners have pieced together that their presence in the Fearsome Wilderness is not an accident, they’ll soon learn that they are being observed. With the secret out in the open, the Prisoner’s A.I. robot companion will begin to remark on Prisoners’ ability to be entertaining and will also encourage them to put on a good show. She may also break the fourth wall, speaking to whatever audience may be watching. She may also add more structure to their daily broadcasts by setting up contrived situations or insisting they play games or do “team building exercises”.

A.I: “Consider it a career. Your new job title: Entertainer. Remember, you criminals have no rights so this is compulsory but look at you! In a world with 99% unemployment you found a job!”

Who is profiting from all this? Will you ever escape the wilderness? What the hell is a Dungavenhooter? Choose your archetype, decide why you were imprisoned, pick a dark secret, settle on a name and begin your adventure. You begin with no gear. You are stranded in the wilderness and night approaches.