A character-forward tabletop roleplaying game about the power of shared humanity in a world on the brink.
…An entirely different world. Our world, Vest, is some form of offspring. A descendant stripped naked, and brought low by so much evil. And yet, the ghost of that World Before lingers. Remnants of it exist all around us. Not always something we might reach out and touch. But it’s here nonetheless. In The Dust. Memories. Lingering energy. Physical power. Tastes of a place that teemed with life and bloomed with possibility. Many believe that place to be only a legend. A lie. But there are those who believe that world might be unlocked. Might be brought back.”
– From the introduction to Rhins Gjotaw’s ‘Treatise on Vest’ ca. 453 of the 3rd Cycle
Vigor: Into Dust is a game about surviving, and thriving, in a withered world on the brink. It is a tabletop roleplaying game that utilizes collaborative storytelling and character-forward framing to help players discover who they are and who they might become. As players, you’ll craft the world around you together, and unearth its secrets, as you play.
The final product will be released as a 150+ page hardback, paperback and bookmarked PDF. Included within the guide, you’ll find:
In addition to the above, we are hoping to release a special edition hardback, additional comics by Minerva Fox, setting expansion(s), and maybe even a graphic novel. You can read more about these below.
Backing this project at whatever tier gives you immediate access to the PDF of the Beta version. The Beta is a version of the game that has been in playtest for almost two years now. It will provide you with an overview of how the rules function, details for Vest and its forces, six different Journeys and their corresponding Waypoints, and Rending, a starter module created to help the players get into the thick of playing. That is to say, the Beta’s got everything you need to start playing right away. The Beta is subject to change, and is not necessarily representative of the final published guide.
If you’d like to see/hear how Vigor: Into Dust plays, visit the RESOURCES page on our website.
At its core, Vigor: Into Dust is a game about the power of shared humanity. It’s about forging bonds. It’s about family, friendship. It’s about the redemptive power of connecting with the life and wilds around you. It’s about using all of that to face down unfettered corruption, or else buckle under its weight.
You will create characters who venture off into Vest, seeking answers, seeking aid, following whatever Threads tug at them. Your characters, and indeed the entire game, will hold to this guiding principle: who you are drives what you do.
That concept is the heart of this character-forward storytelling. The unfolding events in your game will be centered on what your characters are about: their values, their struggles, their limits, their triumphs, and their aspirations. Around your characters, you’ll build the world.
At the core of all characters are your Roleplay Prompts – there are three categories:
These Roleplay Prompts serve both a story function and a mechanical function – propelling character advancement, rolls of the dice, and more.
In addition to the Roleplay Prompts, you might find yourself on a Journey, and acquire various Waypoints, skills that allow you to bend the rules, along the way. You’ll draw from your own Vigor and Assets. You might seek out The Dust, and with it do wondrous things. And whether you want it or not, the unbending power of The Corruption will be ever ready to empower you.
You will likely need all of these tools to survive. The odds are stacked against you in this shredded land, where you’re hunted by an impossible evil, held under the boot of an imposing machine, just longing for a taste of a world lost to memory.
The game is set in a place called Vest. This place is plagued by an otherworldly, evil force known as The Corruption. Vest is also host to a very-much-this-worldly evil known as The Hierarchy. In your tale, The Corruption and The Hierarchy will take on any number of forms. They, like all other story elements of this game, are yours to create. Yours to give life. Whatever their form, The Corruption is responsible for decimating The World Before, and The Hierarchy is responsible for perpetuating that destruction.
Vest is what remains. And it’s where you are. All around you are signs of the conflict, memories of The World Before. A World Before that might have been some technomagic utopia, or a song-and-dance version of the High Middle Ages, or a 90s-pop-culture-artifact-worshiping empire of anthropandas. The World Before is yours to create, but whatever it was, it’s deemed ‘better’ than what you have now. And in its collapse, it managed to leave you one final gift: The Dust. Your access to the World Before is granted via this mystical substance. The limits of its powers are unknown.
You’ll notice that this setting is built, in part, on a few tried and true fantasy tropes that, at first glance, might read as fairly generic. That’s by design. Our goal here is to give you a skeleton of a setting, and then give you the means to join together as a Table and give that skeleton flesh and blood, and hair and nails, and eyeballs, and other fluids.
Instead of an exhaustive monster manual, list of factions and NPCs, what you’ll find in Vigor: Into Dust is a system of mechanics that pushes you to discover and approach Vest in ever-changing ways. In addition, you’ll find a section of prompts for the various regions and major forces of Vest specifically designed to facilitate your creativity and access to story. Using the prompts, you’ll be able to create your own intriguing Threads and weave them into your characters and into your story. You might choose to do that worldbuilding up front before you ever jump into your characters. Or you might let the discovery of the world happen as you play into your characters. This collaborative storytelling is as much central to the game as is its character-forwardness.
Jake Householder (they/them) – Jake is a writer, musician, and multimedia artist living in the cold, dark (and – so far – disappointingly unhaunted) woods of rural Maine. To be honest, Jake’s incredible, longsuffering wife and two children have let this obsession with tabletop roleplaying games go on for far too long now and someone should _probably_ put a stop to it. Nevertheless, Jake continues on – fueled by little more than caffeine, and a can-do attitude – to make games filled with moments of heartfelt friendship and staggeringly-overwritten NPCs. @jakehouseholder on Twitter.
Teddy Humpert (he/him) – Teddy’s a writer, researcher, musician, historian, etc. etc. He’s been doing this TTRPG thing for some years now, and has been designing things on the side here and there. Vigor: Into Dust is his venture into real, legit game release, but ideally not the last. Teddy lives in Cincinnati, OH with his spouse, three kids, and their pup. Teddy would like you to make sure you register to vote before the next election. @teddyhumpert on Twitter.
Minerva Fox (she/her) – Hi everyone, I’m Minerva Fox! You may remember my work from such projects as Hearts of Wulin, Demigods, and my fan webcomic, Heavy Metal Sailor Moon. A lot of my inspiration comes from manga and western comics. I absolutely love collaborating and bringing ideas to life with both physical and digital media. You can follow me on social media @blue_troller on Instagram, Twitter, and Twitch!
Megan Lobsinger (she/her) – Megan is a Clinical Mental Health Counselor and long-trained writer/editor. She lives in Cincinnati, OH with her spouse, three kids, and their pup.
Ultimo Maximo – The solo alias for percussionist/multi-instrumentalist Luke Brevoort. Luke is based in Cleveland, OH and co-owns/operates a brewery there. Find more of his music here.
PDF – The PDF edition will be fully bookmarked and hyperlinked to make it as intuitive as possible. You’ll receive the game as a PDF download via our website, emailed to you directly, or we can add it to your library on DriveThruRpg. Every physical version of the game will come with a complimentary PDF edition.
Standard Paperback – 8.5” x 8.5” (it’s hip to be square) Perfect Bound. Black and white interior.
Standard Hardback – 8.5” x 8.5” (we’re talking square biz) Case Bound. Black and white interior.
Special Edition (If we hit our ‘Quality Upgrade’ Stretch Goal) – This would constitute a significant quality upgrade for the production of the hardback edition. If we hit this stretch goal, all backers at the Prized Asset level (and above) would receive this version instead of the standard hardback, at no additional charge. Shipping not included.
Custom Dice – Any backer level including custom dice will receive a set of five custom 16mm dice from Chessex. These pristine polyhedrals will feature custom faces on all six sides, with the Vigor “V” icon taking the place of the 6 – so you’ll know when you’ve really stuck it to the Hierarchy (see mockup above for example). The color scheme and design will hold largely to that shown above; however, we are waiting for samples before deciding on which exact base dice to use.
Original Inks – If you back at the Stitchcraft level, you’ll receive Minerva Fox’s original inks for the associated comic vignette. These will be shipped to you at whatever address you provide, via whatever shipping method proves best. Projected arrival time would be Summer 2020.
STRETCH GOALS
All backers, with the exception of the Lend-a-Hand Tier, will have access to any unlocked stretch goals.
In the case of physical books, we are using DriveThruRpg for both US and overseas production to cut the costs of shipping across the board. Shipping costs for physical books, therefore, will be assessed through DriveThruRPG and ARE NOT INCLUDED in your pledge amount.
THE GUIDE – This is our very first Kickstarter project, and we’ve worked hard to get ahead of potential pitfalls. We’ve consulted with several others in the game design world on how to successfully run a Kickstarter campaign from start to finish. As mentioned above, we will be partnering with DriveThruRpg.com for Print On Demand, in order to hopefully avoid common shipping and handling issues. Beyond that, we are in the process of finalizing writing, creating more art, and playtesting. We have opted to limit the scope of any stretch goals so that production is not greatly delayed. We are going to make this guide as excellent as possible and plan to have it in your hands by this coming summer (2020). We plan to give you at least monthly progress updates. THE KICKSTARTER UNION ISSUE – We’re aware that Kickstarter has been accused of (and has denied) firing people for trying to organise a union, and we stand in solidarity with those still working on that goal. As of the time of writing, the union has not called for creators with planned projects to boycott the site, so we’re going ahead as planned, but we’re monitoring the situation so that we can act if that advice changes. For more on that subject, see this Open letter from Lucian Kahn re: support for the Union: https://necromancy.itch.io/open-letter-in-support-of-unionizing-kickstarter-workers • Also, Learn more about Kickstarter United here: https://kickstarterunited.org/ CLIMATE CHANGE – Register to vote. Vote in small and large elections. Reach out to your representatives. Volunteer for a campaign. The Corruption isn’t just some fictional force in a land called Vest.