Hello, hello, hello!
As promised in our previous update, today we’re diving (not so) deep into The Ruins of Elementia, our dungeon delving campaign frame – plus, a sweet little treat at the end!
In The Ruins of Elementia, a city’s ruined legacy beckons from below, calling those bold enough to brave its collapsed structures and dive deep into a seemingly bottomless pit for elementally empowered boons and riches.
Your adventure sets you at the edge of a massive sinkhole, the product of a cataclysmic event that swallowed up an entire city, the few remaining ruins and survivors the only witnesses to what was once a bustling mining operation. Though the true cause of this event remains a mystery, theories abound, ranging from sabotage to excessive greed and hubris.
The survivors make due with what little they can scavenge from the ruins, but when resources start to run dry, diving into the massive crater presents a golden opportunity to those brave enough to risk their lives for the treasure buried deep in its collapsed corridors: elementia, the byproduct of the barrier between the Known World and each of the Elemental Layers, that seeps into the earth and solidifies into crystals.
But deep in the dark, derelict corridors of this ancient mining operation, something stirs, lurking in the shadows. What will you find, once you dive into The Ruins of Elementia?
The Ruins of Elementia is our old school dungeon crawling inspired campaign frame, and no dungeon crawling adventure is complete without… Dungeons!
But building your own dungeon from scratch can be tedious work – it’s no wonder many BBEGs have their minions do that for them – so we took inspiration from OSR style games and came up with our own twist on a dungeon building tool set, with the Dungeon Cards*.
Dungeon Cards* are a jumping off point, providing the GM with a base structure for whatever dungeon they are building, listing off characteristics, traits and elements as well as the recommended number of rooms for the chosen dungeon.
The GM then selects a number of the Room Cards* from the different elemental dungeon domains* (👀) to build out the dungeon, each of which provide different challenges, loot and narrative hooks to be used as adventurers explore these ruins.
But of course, dungeon delving is only worth it if the treasures found make up for the dangers faced, so The Ruins of Elementia also includes looting mechanics as well as introducing crafting rules to enable daring adventurers to discover how they can use elementia, the strange crystal-like byproduct of the barrier between the Known World and each of the Elemental Layers to grant their equipment elemental traits — or trade this invaluable resource for other materials they might need.
On the other hand, exploring these tunnels is not an easy task. Resources must be managed wisely and the crawl only goes as far as your supplies last. With Resource Countdowns* inspired by Black Hack’s Usage Die, you will need to manage them on your expeditions and restock them as you are able when you return to the surface.
*Names and layouts subject to change
We’re far too excited to share more of Tales & Twists with you guys, so we have decided to give you a more concrete sneak peek into A Sweet Resistance! You can now head to (ITCH.IO) to grab your very own preview of our whimsically rebellious campaign frame!
Friendly reminder that this is just a little taste of things to come, with samples of both the setting and mechanics, to tide us over as we wait for the campaign’s launch this fall!
Here’s a shout out to the amazing solo RPGs coming soon as part of the RPG Party 2026!
The Long Watchis an uncanny solo RPG, where you play as a Beaconer, a keeper of a peculiar type of lighthouse, stationed alone somewhere in time, space, and reality. Your job is to guide transdimensional travelers safely through our plain, guard your patch of the universe against threats and solve odd mysteries that reach your station.
Not another survival horror game about the terror in solitude, The Long Watch has you dealing with transdimensional shenanigans with very little budget, little PTO and questionable training. What awaits at the next watch? There’s no way to know. But expect things to get weird.
Kraldum is a solo fantasy-adventure RPG inspired by mudlarking and classic dungeon-delving. Oh, you’ve never heard of mudlarking? Neither had we, but now we’re obsessed! Mudlarking can be defined — in the broadest of strokes — as searching river shores at low tide for items of value, and its origins trace back to Victorian London.
In Kraldum, you’ll brave the tides as you hunt for treasure and — if you make it out alive — see what your spoils are worth in the city above, which can be as dangerous as the tides themselves. As you hone your skills and gather resources, you’ll uncover stories of the city’s past and the foreshore’s secrets.
Kraldum is a game for solo roleplayers who enjoy dice-driven action and imaginative world exploration, featuring an original system and unique card-based item discovery mechanics inspired by the tide’s ebb and flow.
Myco//Drift is a biopunk TTRPG where players take on the role of genetically altered pilots bonded to Myco Suits — skyscraper-sized fungal bio-mechs. In a world transformed by alien spores and titanic insects, former child soldiers in a war that humanity barely survived now wander the fungal wastes, connected to the alien hive-mind their biomechanics suit through the strange network known as the Myco Drift.
As I was writing this update, I learned of Tim Curry’s passing, which hits particularly close to home because one of his characters was the seed that led to the creation of Dies Tenebris, our industrial horror campaign frame.
I remember vividly being a young goblin – maybe six or seven years old -, sitting on my grandma’s living room floor, transfixed by this malevolent being of soot, smoke and slime rising from within a tree-chopping machine.
Several years later, I was listening to a playlist of villain theme songs (as one does), and Toxic Love came on. We had been workshopping ideas for campaign frames, and in that seedy, jazzy ode to all things toxic, I found my very own twisted muse. Dies Tenebris was born that day.
Tim Curry’s unwavering dedication to being deliciously menacing, camp and larger than life has been an inspiration all my life, and I can only hope Dies Tenebris is a worthy tribute to his legacy. – Nadja
“Don’t dream it, be it” – Radahn
For a more in depth look at what we’ve been working on, make sure to follow us on social media!
This is it for now, we’ll catch you on our next update!