Channel Your Inner Saruman And Create Your Own Orcs With Dawn of the Orcs
You might not be an evil wizard, but history will remember you as one.
Sit around a council table with your fellow Sages to tell the tale of how you worked together to create the first Orcs, how you improved them, and what they became.
Dawn of the Orcs is a GMless dark fantasy game that combines roleplaying and worldbuilding. 1-8 players take on the roles of scholars, wizards and mad scientists — a Council of Sages tasked with protecting their defenseless homeland from an invading foe. Their solution is to create the first Orcs. The Sages collectively decide on how to craft and modify their Orcs. Each new modification provides both specific changes to the stats of the Orcs and a jumping-off point for worldbuilding. Over the course of the game, the Orcs fight a series of battles against the invaders, using their stats and a humble six-sided die. Victory in battle gives the Council of Sages more time and resources to modify the Orcs, but even a string of defeats will make for a unique story.
Binary Star, creator of APOCALYPSE FRAME and Celestial Bodies, had this to say about the game: "Dawn of the Orcs is a fantastic little communal storytelling game about desperate sorcerers creating an army of monsters to fend off an invasion. But it goes deeper than that: you'll quickly run into find yourself thinking about the all-consuming nature of violence and warfare, the underlying motives of seemingly-aligned leaders, and the way that a societally-designated underclass can change as their place in society shifts over time. Very much worth your time!"
Indie RPG designer Lyme and visual designer Plasmophage have worked together to build Dawn of the Orcs, playtesting it rigorously and carefully crafting the final product. Dawn of the Orcs features evocative black and white art by Simone Tametta, Plasmophage, and Kira Ghost, printed on 100% recycled paper.
Dawn of the Orcs is available on Kickstarter starting November 19th, 2024. Backers can expect a digital edition before the Winter Solstice, and a physical edition in February of 2025.
