Desert Birds – A Post Apocalyptic, Cosmic Horror, Crafting TTRPG – For Children!
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.
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 usefull 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. No need to do adult stuff if you can play games together instead, right?
Interested to learn more or to help me out?
Join the crowdfundr campaign to help make this game come to life or share the campaign with friends and/or on social media!