Happy Monday, backers! We enter the final week for this campaign with some great news: you’ve unlocked The Broken Tarot! We’re excited to make this unique prop a reality—and to add to what is becoming one of the most immersive horror experiences ever brought to the RPG table.

The Broken Tarot is a set of tarot cards loaded with notes and clues, apparently lost or left behind by someone previously trapped in the Woods. It’s not a full deck, nor is it an original design—there are 50 or 60 cards, all from the classic Rider-Waite Tarot. Some are damaged, and many are marked with hand-written notes. Image files of the cards are included in The Darkest Woods, and now we’re making a physical prop version, too. 

If you’re backing this campaign for all the cool stuff, The Broken Tarot is now part of your rewards. If you’re backing at a lower pledge level, you can get The Broken Tarot as an add-on—but you should really consider the excellent deal you get at the Temple of the Moon and The Dark Lodge pledge levels, which now include The Broken Tarot.

The many rooms of The Darkest House lie, for the most part, wrapped in a sinister stillness. When sound erupts, it’s often unexpected and almost always significant. For that reason, we produced a number of audio files that are integrated into The Darkest House in the same way the many handouts are, made easily accessible through links (in the app) and QR codes (in the book).

The Darkest Woods, in contrast, is often alive with sound. Things move through the underbrush; unseen birds call mysteriously; and the Woods’ many terrors can often be heard before they’re seen. When Monte first began working on The Darkest Woods he wanted to include even more audio. That’s already baked into the design, but Monte wants to integrate sound more thoroughly into the experience.

So at $235,000 we’ll significantly increase the amount of audio assets you get with The Darkest Woods to use in your Darkest Woods games. They’ll be included in both the app and book versions (accessed with a click in the app, and via a shortlink and QR code in the book), and both the standard and expanded editions.

To celebrate announcing this goal, we have some free audio files for you!

Two of those files are for The Darkest Woods. But we don’t want to include any spoilers, so these are simply background tracks, suitable for adding a little mood and immersion to your encounter. The files included in The Darkest Woods will generally be more directly game-related—like the handouts, they’re not just about immersion, but also often contain useful clues or hints. If you’d like an example, there’s a third file borrowed from The Darkest House. It’s what the PCs hear if they switch on the radio in a room called The Shoin. 

This is the final week, and it's common to see the pace pick up quickly as the campaign nears its end. We can hit this goal—and more—with your help. You can find posts about the campaign in our social media streams—it takes just a few minutes to give us a share or two. We work hard to reach new backers, but it's only through your help that campaigns like this really soar!

Are you interested in finding out what Monte’s considering as he’s designing games? Check out his Substack. His most recent post gives some insight into what he’s thinking as he designs The Darkest Woods.

Thanks for your support!
—Team MCG