The Crooked Moon: Folk Horror in 5E by Legends of Avantris
Created by Legends of Avantris
A 400+ page Folk Horror tome for 5th Edition. Brave the dark wood, beware the witching hour, and weave your own dreadful folktale.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Crooked Moon Tarot - Minor Arcana Preview!
4 months ago
– Sun, Jan 28, 2024 at 12:21:23 PM
Hey gang! We hope that you all had a wonderful, relaxing, and safe new year. Now that 2024 is well underway, we wanted to kickoff the year's monthly (minimum) updates with our most highly requested preview.
When we launched The Crooked Moon and showed off the tarot deck, only cards from the Major Arcana were ready to reveal, and many folks asked if the Minor Arcana would be illustrated just as beautifully. We're happy to say that the answer is YES!
Introducing the Tarot Artist!
First, we wanted feature the incredible artist of Crooked Moon Tarot, Leonard Schellauf!
We asked Leonard to introduce himself to the Crooked Moon community, and here's what he said:
"My name is Leonard and I’m a self-taught artist from the rolling hills of Styria, Austria. The old landscape I grew up in gains more and more space in my art lately. A landscape where pagan tradition meets Catholicism, where myth and religion intermingle. The Tarot, with its colorful pantheon of archetypes, helped me find a path out of a very dark place and is a constant companion of mine ever since."
Known online as TofuRevolution, Leonard weaves fantasy and pop culture inspirations with spiritual themes to create beautifully evocative and thought-provoking art. As soon as we discovered his work, there was no question that he was the right person to illustrate the entire 78-card deck. Here's what Leonard said about how he's approaching the project:
"While the deck is mostly inspired by the original Waite-Smith deck, it often twists its themes and turns the cards upside down. It also combines classic folk horror, old fairy tales and traditional witchcraft with modern fantasy into one dark deck of cards."
Without further ado, let's take a look as some of the cards from the Minor Arcana! We'll include Leonard's thoughts on a few of the cards as well.
Minor Arcana Preview!
Eight of Swords: "The swords are ruling high up on the mountain tops, representing intellect and clarity. The ragged cliffs of the landscape are reflecting the tragic story of this suit, which entails misery and misfortune."
Nine of Cups: "The water will help the seed grow into something deep and frightening. Bring forth what usually lurks beneath."
Four of Wands: "The life and energy of the wands gets twisted into an eldritch version of itself, powered by comic powers beyond comprehension. It is a weird and twisted life, but life nonetheless."
Seven of Coins: "In the dark forest wealth and fortune can grow, but at what cost?"
If you've been paying attention to the teasers in The Crooked Moon Discord or have checked out our playtest materials, you may have noticed a running theme in the eight cards we chose to show off today: They all feature one of our lineages of Druskenvald! Other cards will feature subclasses, major characters from the adventure, and generally evocative imagery that touches on themes within The Crooked Moon.
More Updates!
Building the Design Team: With our new producer Elisa Teague on board, we have been building a roster of world-class TTRPG writers to help us take The Crooked Moon to the next level. We can't wait to announce who is joining the team, so stay tuned for our next update!
Playtest Surveys Live: We released our initial playtest materials last month, and the feedback surveys are now live! If you haven't seen them yet, please Join The Crooked Moon Discord and follow the steps within to gain access and submit all your feedback on the lineages, subclasses, and spells that were included in the playtest!
Fill Out Your Backerkit Survey: Backerkit surveys were sent out at the beginning of last month, but we have seen some folks in the Discord still asking about them. If you have not yet filled out the Backerkit survey, please check all your emails for it. If you do not see any such email, please make sure you email [email protected], and we'll get you taken care of.
Work continues on The Crooked Moon every day, and as always, we're totally committed to making this a book you'll absolutely love. There's tons of really cool stuff in the works that we're not quite ready to show off and announce, so keep an eye on our updates in the coming months.
Again, thank you so much for your support and for joining us on this journey!
— Mikey and the Avantris Team
Elisa Teague Joins The Crooked Moon! Happy New Year!
5 months ago
– Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 02:12:17 PM
Hey everyone! I hope that everyone has had a restful, joyous, and safe holiday as we rocket toward the end of the year. We've been trying to find some similar rest and time with family amidst working on The Crooked Moon, and we have some incredibly exciting things in the works, most of which I can't share quite yet. HOWEVER, I can make one huge announcement:
Elisa Teague Is Joining The Crooked Moon Team as Producer!
After the incredibly surreal and touching success of The Crooked Moon, we became even more committed to making the book the best it can possibly be (along with all of the extra goodies), and decided to bring in world-class talent across the TTRPG industry to help us achieve that. The first step in that quest was finding a top tier producer, and we're incredibly thrilled to announce that the legendary Elisa Teague is joining the team as the Producer of The Crooked Moon!
Elisa Teague is a 23-year veteran in the Tabletop Games Industry, and in addition to designing many popular board games including Betrayal at House on the Hill: Widow's Walk, Kingdom Hearts Talisman, and Geek Out!. She has written for D&D's Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, the Gloomhaven RPG, two Marvel Multiverse RPG sourcebooks, the Wardlings campaign setting, and the upcoming Welcome to Nightvale RPG, among many others.
As a Producer and Lead Game Designer, she was behind the Essence20 Roleplaying System and its best-selling G.I. JOE, Transformers, Power Rangers, and My Little Pony RPGs and their sourcebooks, as well as books for the fifth edition Vampire: the Masquerade and Hunter: the Reckoning lines and was Associate Producer on the upcoming Adventure Time RPG.
Now, she'll be joining the Legends of Avantris team as Producer of The Crooked Moon, where she'll share her expertise and work with us to oversee the final writing, mechanics design, art, layout, and production of the game, and she'll even be contributing her own writing as well!
Elisa wanted to share a few words with The Crooked Moon / Avantris community:
"I can't wait to show off our amazing plans for The Crooked Moon, as we unleash our talented roster of RPG creators into this unique world. As a creature who is most powerful at the witching hour myself, Druskenvald is a place that resonates deeply within me, and I'm so thrilled to join the Legends of Avantris community of players where folk horror lives and breathes."
We're so excited to have Elisa's amazing talent on board, and we're super excited to share more exciting announcements next year!
Happy New Year from Legends of Avantris!
This has been an absolutely wild year for all of us. To think that it started with launching our very first merch store on January 1st, and then less than a year later, we played a live show on the main stage of PAX Unplugged after concluding the biggest D&D Kickstarter of all time. It still hardly feels real, honestly!
This year has been supremely life changing for all of us, and we couldn't have done any of it without all of your incredible support, passion, and love. So on behalf of all of us at Legends of Avantris, thank you, we love you, and happy new year!!!
- Mikey and the Avantris Team
Playtesting Is Live, Backerkit Surveys Are Going Out, and It's Final Hours for Imaria: The Pillars of Power!
5 months ago
– Tue, Dec 05, 2023 at 08:33:19 PM
Hey all! I've got some great news!
The First Crooked Moon Playtest is LIVE!
We launched our initial playtest on the 1st that runs through 9th level! With these materials, you'll be able to try out:
All 13 Lineages of Druskenvald.
5 Subclasses including the Oath of Castigation Paladin, Way of the Pestilent Haze Monk, Circle of the Old Ways Druid, College of Whistles Bard, and Harvest Domain Cleric.
The awesome folks from Backerkit have fixed the errors that were previously not allowing qualified backers from claiming their Pumpkin King and free Horned King Dice, and have been sending out small batches of surveys to confirm that the bug has been resolved.
Therefore, the survey sends will ramp up over the coming days to hopefully get to all backers by the end of the week! Please keep an eye on your email to access your survey as soon as you receive it.
PLEASE NOTE: If you'd like to upgrade your pledge, you can do so by clicking the small linked text that says "Switch your Pledge Level," as shown in the screenshot below. You will not lose any Kickstarter exclusive perks by upgrading your pledge!
Our friends at Lynnvander Studios are in the FINAL HOURS of their Kickstarter Campaign for their new setting guide and adventure book featuring the world of Imaria! If you love chronomancy and psionics, or if you want to implement new mechanics for building an airship, overhauled inspiration, group patrons, and more, check out Imaria: The Pillars of Power before the campaign ends TOMORROW!
And that's it for this update! We've got some exciting things in the works as we continue to hammer away on The Crooked Moon! Stay tuned for the excitement, and as always thank you SO much for your support!
- Mikey and the Avantris Team
Another Backerkit Survey Update and Elyse's Guide to Magic!
6 months ago
– Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 04:54:31 PM
Hey everyone! As we prepare this week's playtest and get ready for PAX Unplugged, I come bearing news!
Another Backerkit Survey Update!
The Backerkit survey is completed, and we initiated a "smoke test" yesterday, sending out the survey to a small percentage of backers, to catch any errors in the survey.
There was indeed an error! A technical issue caused a glitch for certain backers who were eligible to receive their Pumpkin King and Horned King dice sets to not be able to opt-in to receive them in their order.
Backerkit developers are working to solve the issue as we speak, and as soon as the glitch is fixed, we'll be able to initiate another smoke test. If that test has no issues, we can send it out to all backers!
If you are one of the few who received a Backerkit survey already, you will get a NEW Survey once everything is resolved.
Also, please note that you will not immediately be charged for any additional add-ons or tier upgrades you make. You will have until the end of December to make any changes to your order before we "lock" your order and charge your card. If, at that point, you need to add on additional items, you'll have to do this in a new, separate order. After the new order is placed, please reach out to [email protected] so we can combine your orders! And then, starting next year, we will be locking orders and charging cards once a month on or around the first of the month.
REMINDER: Tax and shipping will not be collected via Backerkit until we fulfill The Crooked Moon next year.
As always, if you need any help at all with your pledge or anything else, please reach out to [email protected]
Thank you for your patience as we work to get everything right!
Our friends at Draco Studios are big fans of magic in TTRPGs, and they are in the FINAL HOURS of a Kickstarter campaign for their new 5E magic tome: Elyse's Guide to Magic!
In the book, you can find a new spellcasting system, rules for summoning magical spirits, a bunch of player options, and more! The campaign ends in less than 24 hours, so check them out NOW!
I'll be back soon with more information on the playtest, as well as news on the Backerkit survey as we receive it!
Thank you SO much for your incredible support!
- Mikey and the Avantris team
Backerkit Survey Update, Playtest Announcement, Ring of Chaos with Matthew Lillard, Guesting at PAX Unplugged!
6 months ago
– Wed, Nov 15, 2023 at 02:49:18 PM
Hey gang! We hope everyone has been having an awesome November! Since our last update, we've been hard at work writing The Crooked Moon and reaching out to awesome potential partners with tons of industry experience to ensure that we deliver you the best possible 5E supplement we can!
Backerkit Survey Update!
And most importantly, we've been working on the Backerkit Survey to get ready. Since this is our first rodeo, we want to make sure we get this right, so we're taking extra time and precautions as we get all our ducks in a row. Our plan is to send out at the end of November or early December at the latest. Thanks so much for your patience as you await it!
On December 1st, playtest material will become available! We're still deciding the best way to distribute these materials, so stay tuned closer to the playtest date.
2 weeks later, a Google Form will be made public to collect feedback with clear specifications of what we're looking for.
You will have 2 Months to play games and submit feedback to the form, which will Close January 31st, 2024.
Next, we wanted to let you all know about an awesome board game that's live on Kickstarter now called Ring of Chaos by our friends at Beadle and Grimm's, including the one and only Matthew Lillard of Scream, Scooby Doo, and FNAF fame!
The game is a chaotic free-for-all themed around classic DnD tropes that's sure to lead to epic moments and lots of laughs with your friends, so check them out before the campaign ends December 5th!
To celebrate the launch of the campaign, our friend Matthew Lillard came out to play a D&D one-shot based on Ring of Chaos. It was an absolute joy to play with Matthew, and things sure got pretty wild immediately! You can watch the session here:
We're Guests at PAX Unplugged!
Do you want to talk to us about The Crooked Moon in person? We're excited to announce that we're special guests at PAX Unplugged, December 1st-3rd in Philadelphia, PA! We'll be doing a Crooked Moon-themed live show that will also be streamed on the PAX Twitch channel, and hosting an official Avantris meet-up. If you're going to be there, come say hi!
Again, thank you so much for your support and your patience as we dive headfirst into the world of TTRPG publishing. We're so excited to show you what we've got cooking up when we reveal the playtest materials next month!
