Tired of fighting all day? With Desert Birds, you and your children could build a village instead!

This post-apocalyptic, exploration and crafting based TTRPG with slight Cosmic Horror elements is meant for all ages and is the perfect vacation away from all these games where you have to fight your way through your campaign, while still offering combat mechanics for those who really do not like vacations.

But first... What is Desert Birds?

You play as a group of children, teens and/or young adults, all named after birds, who live in a mysterious village. When the world died some decades ago, a small girl was found in the ruins. She never grows older, and she never wakes up from her sleep, though the people who live close to her can communicate with her in their dreams. More even: despite always sleeping, she reacts to her surroundings just like a normal girl would do. That's why a small village formed around her to care for her. You grew up in this village and the elders now made a great suggestion: it's time for the younger people to take command of the village to make it more attractive to young people, and therefore also to the girl, who they call Eni.

You can explore the surrounding desert, even the remaining forests far away, and, but thats just between you and me: even space. Get some treasures and some valuable materials to build and expand your village - or live a life as a nomadic tribe and get ready to explore the world fully with everyone always around.

And who knows, maybe you can uncover the truth about Eni, about the apocalypse that turned most of the world into a desert, and also why the people living in space do nothing to help people down here on planet Earth.

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The game is based on "Powered by the Apocalypse" kind of games and uses many mechanics that are inspired by it. Technically speaking, it probably is a game powered by the apocalypse in itself, if you so want. However: Many core mechanics had to be reworked, as the game has a focus on community, crafting and exploration instead of combat and threats, but you can still fight evil and beasts if you wish. Most of the time, your players will either build and expand the village, or they go out on exploration and scavenging to get more materials, read journal and diary entries from before the apocalypse or loot valuable treasures to trade them for other useful stuff. Thirteen different character archetypes, all nicknamed after birds, make it incredibly easy to have a diverse player experience and to offer something for everyone. The game itself, but also the nature of the "Powered by the Apocalypse" system, makes it incredibly easy to implement your own in basically no time to expand on it even further.

One more thing though: The game is not only meant to be played with children, but you can also totally play a child as a character. That's why all explicit stuff of the "Powered by the Apocalypse" frame and system was replaced by friendship and bonding mechanics.

With Desert Birds you get an encounter based game filled with exploration locations in the desert, some forest areas as well as lots of city ruins. Even some space locations are to be found for late game adventures.

You will also get thirteen (13) different classes to get a diverse player experience right out of the box as well as many additional ways to customize and diversify your player experience.

There is of course also the instruction on how to build a village and survive in a post-apocalyptic desert.

The standard edition features a few short stories while the extended version features a lot more stories as well as some deeper lore introductions so you can learn all about the deserted world and the people who live there.

The crowdfunding campaign is part of the Tabletop Nonstop Event on Crowdfundr and aims to get the funds for artworks, maps and logos for the game, as well as a professional proofreader. Both by paying artists as well as getting art equipment myself.