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Explore the chilling wilds of a haunted Appalachia in this atmospheric and intimate roleplaying game of cosmic horror based on the hit fiction podcast.
Old Gods of Appalachia: Deeper Still

Old Gods of Appalachia: Deeper Still

Take your Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game adventures to deeper, creepier, and more atmospheric places with three new supplements plus useful and immersive extras. And if you're new to the game, this is a great place to start!
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Thank you, backers, for an incredible campaign! Miss the campaign? For a limited time only, you can still get fantastic deals and access to this campaign's limited-edition items. Click to make a late pledge now!

More adventures. More campaign and character options. Plus special contributions from Old Gods of Appalachia creatures Steve Shell and Cam Collins! There are places in this world that humanity was never supposed to see—walled in by mountains of burning black rock, isolated by a choking canopy of poison flora, woods where tooth, claw, and hunger still sit atop the food chain. Long before our kind ever set foot in these mountains, when the peaks of the Blue Ridge towered above the stars, and the heart of the plateau still rolled with ridges tough as pine knobs, darkness was brought here in cages made of fear. Our tongues do not have the shape to speak the true names of what they are . . . and that's are, not were. They are hunger, consumption, lust—all the things that settle under the heart and below the ribcage. They are the cancer that will one day eat the edges of this universe, and leave nothing in its place. They are not evil. They are not of Hell or the Christian Devil. They simply are.  Welcome, family, to a game and a place like no other. The Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game is set in an alternate Appalachia, a place filled with creatures of the Green, the Inner Dark, and things even more ancient. It’s based on the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast, an award-winning eldritch horror anthology created by Steve Shell and Cam Collins.  In these alternate early 1900s, humanity's encroachment, accelerated by industrialization, mining, and greed, has scratched the surface of an ancient prison filled with beings of immeasurable darkness and incomprehensible desires—and these beings now stir, whispering into our world, finding the seams between a burgeoning modernism and an ancient isolation to work their will and seek their freedom.  Through this game, you'll spin collective tales of hardship, horror, hope, and heart, where every choice requires a sacrifice and your word is (or should be) your bond. Step into the world of the podcast and bring your own stories of an alternate Appalachia to life. Stretch Goals header. Unlocked: $400k Dig Your Own Grave gets bigger! $500K All Your Gods Are Dead expands! $575K More from Cam and Steve; Come Hell or High Water expands. $610k more audio! $650K Poster Map! $690K More props! $740 Even More From Cam And Steve. Locked: $800K A New Product: Good For What Ails Ya! We’ll make a game aid consisting of a set of in-world recipe cards with game effects. The authentic Appalachian meals, which you can actually cook and eat, will include contributions from Cam's and Steve’s family recipes. And Steve will record audio versions as well!
New to the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game? Jump down to The Game for more information about the game, and to download the free Player's Guide. We have pledge levels just for you, too!

Get All of This. See The Darkness Stares Back backer level.
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LORE, ADVENTURES, OPTIONS, AND MORE TO EXPAND AND ENRICH YOUR CAMPAIGN! header. The Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game was released about a year ago. This campaign funds three exciting new books—plus other goodies—to bring more lore, new options, and lush, authentic detail to your characters and adventures. (You need the existing corebook to play. For those new to the game, we have several pledge levels that include it.) Plus we have exciting contributions from the creators of Old Gods of Appalachia. Cam Collins and Steve Shell are personally writing up key locations and lore you know from the podcast. [[head shots of Steve and Cam]] And you’ll find additional atmospheric contributions from well-known horror and Appalachian creators such as: Cherie Priest, Lee Mandelo, Alder Van Otterloo, Matthew Wimberley, Melinda Clayton, Tim Earley, and Jeff Mann. Dig Your Own Grave  For players, Dig Your Own Grave expands character options with all-new descriptors and foci, as well as detailed backgrounds and connections that help establish your character even more firmly in the setting and the story. You’ll also find additional equipment, plus player intrusions and player advice to enhance your gameplay.  All Your Gods Are Dead  And for gamemasters, All Your Gods are Dead is chock full of the kinds of the entities and items you love to put in your games—creatures of great promise and power, an array of non-player characters that your players will love to love (and possibly grow to hate), and a whole slew of new cyphers and artifacts. Not to mention even more ways for those artifacts to come due. All wrapped up with additional GM advice so you can provide your players with the darkest, scariest, deepest Old Gods of Appalachia experience.  Come Hell or Highwater. Get ready to delve into the darkness and scare the bejesus out of your players in the haunted depths of this book. It’s not your typical adventure book. Sure, it has adventures—but it also includes a plethora of locations that are carefully designed and beautifully mapped, and ready to be placed anywhere in the setting. Need to add a dangerous and ancient mine to your adventure? How about a small town full or secrets, a factory haunted by the ghosts of its past, or that kind of cemetery where you just know you need to hold your breath as you pass it in the dark? And there’s more: Old Gods of Appalachia creators Steve Shell and Cam Collins are personally detailing favorite sites from the podcast’s tales, starting with the Walker House. What other locations might they detail for you? Keep an eye on this campaign to find out! All of these locations can be added to any campaign, giving you additional locales chock full of atmosphere and mystery. Old Gods of Appalachia Dice Set and Tin.  Open this unique tin—just like you'd find holding a set of candies, some pomade, or a little sewing kit down at the company store—and discover four beautiful dice designed especially for the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game. The system uses a d20, a d6, and percentile dice, and you get all four in this set. They're custom-marked for special Cypher System results, and—more important—strikingly handsome and perfectly themed for your game.  (If you were an original Old God of Appalachia Roleplaying Game backer, and have the limited-edition dice offered through that campaign, they'll fit nicely in this tin!) Witch Jar. This replica witch jar is a thing to behold, and a powerful ward for your game table or display shelf. It’s an amazing prop for game play—a faithful replication of the sort of item used to create powerful defenses and deter supernatural dangers. When not in play, display it on its lighted base, where it glows with a mysterious light. It’s a unique and amazing item you’ll only be able to get through this campaign! Prop Set Imagine your PCs find an old letter containing a vital snippet for your current adventure—and you literally hand them that document. Or maybe you give them the train tickets they purchase to Paradise, or a business card for that traveling salesman with a very mysterious past. How about some vintage stamps for a postcard, a faded photo of a ghostly figure, or the menu from a small-town diner? These sorts of props build verisimilitude and immerse the whole gaming group in the world you're experiencing together—and the Prop Set gives you roughly two dozen of them for use in your game.  OGoA Resource Deck 2  The original Old Gods of Appalachia Resource Deck is a convenient time saver for GMs, both in prep and at the game table. It contains creatures, cyphers, artifacts, NPCs, and GM intrusions from the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game, putting them in an easy-to-use, easy-to-access format. But not every creature or cypher from the corebook made it into that deck—and the books funded by this campaign are bringing scores of additional items to your game. This 100-card sequel deck will expand the convenience and time-savings of the original.  And More?  That’s not everything! Check out the Add-ons tab for more new items. We anticipate unlocking even more great items for your game—and expanding and improving these—through stretch goals!
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The Game header
The beast tried to shake free, but her grip tightened as she spoke, her taunts becoming a working, a spell of a magnitude she'd never cast before. "You'd undo Sister Amy and Sister Zelda, teaching me to weave strong cloth, to speak true and believe no lies? You'd undo Grandma Karen and Auntie Jonna who taught me the songs and the stories of the old place, so I'd never forget where I came from? You'd undo the blood and the love my mothers shed and bled for me, after you had the very stones to take them from me in the first place? Oh beast, oh beast, I pity you—because in their names, in the names of Edith Nielsen Dooley and Mary Catherine Vivian Dooley, I bind you, I break you, and beast, I cast you OUT!"

—The Holiest Days of Bone and Shadow, Chapter Three: Something Old, Something New


The Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game is a complete standalone tabletop RPG driven by the Cypher System, the popular, critically acclaimed game engine lauded for its elegance, ease of use, flexibility, and narrative focus. Intuitive character creation, fast-paced gameplay, and a uniquely GM-friendly design make the Cypher System perfect for the world of Old Gods of Appalachia, and a joy to run and play.

Cypher System characters are built from the concept up. A descriptive sentence provides not just an easily-understood overview of the character, but also the mechanical basis for skills, abilities, and stats. And the Cypher System gives players amazing narrative engagement, rewarding player-driven subplots and giving players resources to bear on the tasks and situations they most want to succeed at.

GMs find the Cypher System amazingly easy to run. Dice rolling is pushed out to the players, freeing up the GM's bandwidth for crafting an engaging narrative and filling it full of imaginative detail. Encounters are easy to prep for—or even create and run on the fly. And robust narrative tools help the GM build and maintain tension, throw in exciting plot twists, and keep the game paced at an exciting pitch.

Explore These Books and the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game

You can take a look at the game's basic rules, walk through the process of creating a character, and explore the rich—and often eerie—setting, with the Old Gods of Appalachia Player's Guide. And if you'd like some new character options, creatures, artifacts, adventure ideas, and other items you can use in your game right now, download Special Delivery, a sneak peek containing excerpts from the three titles we're funding through this campaign.

They're both free in PDF—download them now!

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Pledge Levels header
We have pledge levels for just the new items, if you already have the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game. If you're new to the game, though, you might want to look at the "New to the Family" levels—these include the RPG corebook!

New to the Family. $70. The Old Gods of Appalachia corebook. Click through for details!
Company Store-Retail Only. $195. This one's just for brick-and-mortar retailers. If you're a retailer, click through for details!
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Add-Ons header

You can select add-ons after choosing your pledge level. Some of these are existing items, perfect for making the most of your Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game campaign; others are new and may be available only through this crowdfunding campaign!


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Timeline header

December 2024 (as soon as we close the pledge manager): existing books, supplements, and add-ons. Summer 2025: Dig Your Own Grave, most new add-ons. Fall 2025: All Your Gods Are Dead. 2026: Come Hell or High Water, remaining new add-ons.
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The Amazing Team Behind the Old Gods of Appalachia RPG. Monte Cook Games has been publishing highly praised, award-winning, innovative RPGs since 2012, including lines such as Numenera, Invisible Sun, No Thank You, Evil!, Ptolus, Stealing Stories for the Devil, and of course the Cypher System. We pride ourselves in works that are imaginative, fun, easy to play and GM, and beautiful—and crowdfunding campaigns that, for well over a decade now, have consistently delivered big and on time.  Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game Lead Designer Shanna German (she/her) has been writing, editing, and designing for over 30 years. She's won numerous awards for her work, including multiple ENnies, the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game of the Year, the C. Hamilton Bailey Poetry Fellowship, and the Utne Reader award for Best New Publication. A founder and co-owner of Monte Cook Games, Shanna's design work includes Numenera, No Thank You, Evil!, Predation, and the forthcoming Tidal Blades Roleplaying Game.  Old Gods of Appalachia co-creator Cam Collins (she/her) is a native of Wise County, Virginia, where she cut her teeth on the spooky folklore of the region, and a lifelong gamer. Before writing and performing on OGoA, she produced and co-hosted Appalachian Arcana, a podcast featuring regional folklore, true crime, cryptids and other creepy tales.  Old Gods of Appalachia co-creator Steve Shell (he/him) also grew up in Wise County, and has been fixated on the occult and supernatural happenings since childhood. In addition to writing and voicing multiple characters including the ever present Narrator for the Old Gods podcast, Steve has been a nationally ranked slam poet, a stage performer, and) the producer of The Knowne World Bardcast, a podcast focused on the music and oral traditions of medieval reenactors.  MCG's General Manager Tammie Webb Ryan (she/her) is also a native of Wise County. She brings a wealth of Appalachian experience and lore to the project (and also happens to manage the company's business operations on the side). The first non-founder to join the MCG team, Tammie has worked as an editor and businessperson in the RPG industry for over 20 years.  Cypher System designer Monte Cook (he/they) is well known for his work on D&D (particularly as the co-designer of 3rd Edition) and titles such as HeroClix, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Ptolus, Planescape, Arcana Evolved, Numenera, and Invisible Sun. Over a career spanning 30+ years, Monte has won just about every gaming industry award, including a great many ENnies and Origins Awards, and is an inductee into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design's Hall of Fame.  Our team also includes renowned and award-winning game designers Bruce R. Cordell (he/him), Sean K. Reynolds (he/him), and Dominique Dickey (they/them). Our Art Director Bear Weiter (he/him) and Graphic Designer Javier Beltrán (he/him) make our products so attractive and easy to use. Teri Litorco (she/her), Managing Editor, wrangles the words and projects. Jennifer Walls (she/her), Kate Evans (she/her), Olivia Ryan (she/her), and Charles Ryan (he/him) interact with our fans and customers and keep the business rolling along smoothly.  Our team is small, but we deliver big!

Join the incredible communicty of Cypher System gamers on the Cypher Unlimited Discord.
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Fulfillment & Shipping header

Digital Rewards and Add-ons
Your digital rewards (PDFs) will be delivered using BackerKit’s Digital Distribution feature. When a digital reward is ready for you, you will receive a message via BackerKit with a link to download your digital reward. We will also deliver digital rewards through our online store and on DriveThruRPG, since many backers prefer to maintain their libraries of PDFs on one of those platforms. (You can use any or all of these platforms to download your PDFs; the files will be identical no matter which you prefer.)
 
Physical Rewards and Add-ons
Your physical rewards and add-ons will be delivered through our online store, the MCG Shop. When a physical reward is ready for you, you will receive a message sent through BackerKit with a link that will take you to the MCG Shop to pay for shipping and redeem your reward for free.
 
We offer a variety of domestic and international shipping methods from which you can choose. As of this writing, basic domestic shipping is $9 per shipment, but we do not control future postal rates, so that cost is subject to change. International shipping is calculated by destination and shipment weight.

For detailed information on shipping and our fulfillment process, visit our Crowdfunding Reward Fulfillment page.

This project is customs friendly. No extra custom charges! Rewards bound for the UK, EU, US, AUS, and NZ will be delivered duty free or duty paid.


About Our Fulfillment Centers, Taxes, and Duties

We operate our own warehouse in the U.S. and work with trusted global fulfillment partners in Europe and Australia. We do everything in our power to get your rewards into your hands as quickly, reliably, and affordably as possible.
 
United States: Your rewards will be fulfilled by our shipping center in the United States.
 
Canada: Your rewards will be fulfilled by our shipping center in the United States. You will be responsible for import duties, taxes, and brokerage fees (if applicable). Please note that our books are printed in Canada, and thus they are not subject to import duties; however, they are subject to GST. Items not manufactured in Canada, such as dice and decks of cards, are subject to import duties and GST.
 
South America, the South Pacific, and Asia: Your rewards will ship from our shipping center in the United States. You will be responsible for import duties, taxes, and brokerage fees (if applicable).
 
The EU and UK: Your rewards will be filled by our shipping center in England and will ship DDP (Deliver Duty Paid). UK and EU backers will not pay import duties, but will pay VAT where applicable.
 
Australia and New Zealand: Your rewards will be filled by our shipping center in Australia. Backers in Australia and New Zealand will not pay import duties and taxes.

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