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The Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game
Welcome, Family, to the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game.
Old Gods of Appalachia is a roleplaying game of the Green, the Dark, and things even more ancient, in which player characters protect what’s important and try to know the unknowable. It is set in the Alternate Appalachia of the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast, a captivating eldritch horror anthology created by Steve Shell and Cam Collins, and the winner of the 2021 Discover Pods Best Overall Podcast and Best Audio Drama or Fiction Podcast awards.
The Old Gods of the Appalachia Roleplaying Game is a standalone tabletop RPG driven by the Cypher System. It’s a hefty corebook with everything you need to play, including complete rules; character creation; extensive lore of Alternate Appalachia in the 1920s and 1930s (plus guidance on playing in other time periods); a bestiary of creatures and entities from the Green, the Dark, and elsewhere; magic; equipment; adventures; and more.
With the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game, you step into the world of the podcast and bring your own story of Alternate Appalachia to life.
Old Gods of Appalachia is a roleplaying game of the Green, the Dark, and things even more ancient, in which player characters protect what’s important and try to know the unknowable. It is set in the Alternate Appalachia of the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast, a captivating eldritch horror anthology created by Steve Shell and Cam Collins, and the winner of the 2021 Discover Pods Best Overall Podcast and Best Audio Drama or Fiction Podcast awards.
The Old Gods of the Appalachia Roleplaying Game is a standalone tabletop RPG driven by the Cypher System. It’s a hefty corebook with everything you need to play, including complete rules; character creation; extensive lore of Alternate Appalachia in the 1920s and 1930s (plus guidance on playing in other time periods); a bestiary of creatures and entities from the Green, the Dark, and elsewhere; magic; equipment; adventures; and more.
With the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game, you step into the world of the podcast and bring your own story of Alternate Appalachia to life.
414 pages, Hardcover
Published July 1, 2023
7 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Shanna Germain
146 books130 followersShanna Germain claims the titles of writer, editor, leximaven, vorpal blonde and Schrodinger's brat.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 29, 2024
The Old Gods of Appalachia podcast is on top of the world and now it has its own tabletop roleplaying game. And, most shockingly of all, it isn't a 5e hack.
Monte Cook is a.. divisive figure in the TTRPG industry. Some of that is deserved. Some of that is people deliberately misinterpreting his ivory tower article. And this isn't even his company's first foray in to podcast-based game design. But it was one of the most hotly anticipated games.
So, how does it stack up being shackled to the Cypher system?
This is my first Cypher system game and there's a lot to like here. I like the focus on having a gaggle of consumable items to use on rolls. The basic mechanic is pretty simple in theory but I think having to remember that the actual roll to beat is difficulty level times 3 is, perhaps, a bit needless. I like all the different little character options that help create a pretty nuanced character out of the gate with a decent toolkit to use.
Cook has always had a decent head for mechanics.
But.. there isn't a lot of horror in this game based on a horror podcast. The Cypher system is a pretty good generic universal system with a lot to like about it. But none of it really translate well to theme. This book strikes me as hitting a niche that a lot of GURPS supplements end up in: it's a fantastic resource for the genre or property being detailed made by people who care deeply about the subject but the, y'know, game part of it isn't really holding up its end of the bargain.
The game is playable but it is also a minority of the page length. Which is probably for the best. If you got the game because you're a fan of the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast, the book is here for you. There are *exhaustive* gazetteers of the various settings of the show with full lists of prominent NPCs (including show protagonists and antagonists) and plot hooks/module ideas for each locale. There is so much detail packed in here that I think it is functionally a print of the podcast's showbible. If you're a fan of the podcast, you'll like this book. And maybe you'll even play the game, too.
There are two sample adventures in the book and they are really well done. The first has a pretty basic premise and is extremely open ended as to how the players solve it up to and including a rain check to find a solution at a later date. The second module has a single cataclysmic event that can generate up to 5 different plot points. This is the one that interests me most because it does not force the PCs on any particular route but sets it up so that no matter where they look there's a story to uncover if they choose to do so. It's fantastic and rewards player buy in with the NPCs and investment in the story they are creating and gives the GM as much or as little as they want to build the plot up with.
The artwork on this piece is generally pretty fantastic. I hadn't been at all familiar with the podcast when I backed it. I backed it because of how evocative the cover art is. The interior art rarely disappoints giving good character portraits, slice of life scenes for the setting, and excellent creature artwork.
So, where do we land? It's an excellent companion to the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast dressed up in a very pretty costume. If you like the podcast, you'll like the book. The game part of the book is the most disappointing which is a weird thing to say about a TTRPG core rulebook. I think there's a lot to like about Cypher but it just looks to me like it'd be a bit clunky in practice.
Monte Cook is a.. divisive figure in the TTRPG industry. Some of that is deserved. Some of that is people deliberately misinterpreting his ivory tower article. And this isn't even his company's first foray in to podcast-based game design. But it was one of the most hotly anticipated games.
So, how does it stack up being shackled to the Cypher system?
This is my first Cypher system game and there's a lot to like here. I like the focus on having a gaggle of consumable items to use on rolls. The basic mechanic is pretty simple in theory but I think having to remember that the actual roll to beat is difficulty level times 3 is, perhaps, a bit needless. I like all the different little character options that help create a pretty nuanced character out of the gate with a decent toolkit to use.
Cook has always had a decent head for mechanics.
But.. there isn't a lot of horror in this game based on a horror podcast. The Cypher system is a pretty good generic universal system with a lot to like about it. But none of it really translate well to theme. This book strikes me as hitting a niche that a lot of GURPS supplements end up in: it's a fantastic resource for the genre or property being detailed made by people who care deeply about the subject but the, y'know, game part of it isn't really holding up its end of the bargain.
The game is playable but it is also a minority of the page length. Which is probably for the best. If you got the game because you're a fan of the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast, the book is here for you. There are *exhaustive* gazetteers of the various settings of the show with full lists of prominent NPCs (including show protagonists and antagonists) and plot hooks/module ideas for each locale. There is so much detail packed in here that I think it is functionally a print of the podcast's showbible. If you're a fan of the podcast, you'll like this book. And maybe you'll even play the game, too.
There are two sample adventures in the book and they are really well done. The first has a pretty basic premise and is extremely open ended as to how the players solve it up to and including a rain check to find a solution at a later date. The second module has a single cataclysmic event that can generate up to 5 different plot points. This is the one that interests me most because it does not force the PCs on any particular route but sets it up so that no matter where they look there's a story to uncover if they choose to do so. It's fantastic and rewards player buy in with the NPCs and investment in the story they are creating and gives the GM as much or as little as they want to build the plot up with.
The artwork on this piece is generally pretty fantastic. I hadn't been at all familiar with the podcast when I backed it. I backed it because of how evocative the cover art is. The interior art rarely disappoints giving good character portraits, slice of life scenes for the setting, and excellent creature artwork.
So, where do we land? It's an excellent companion to the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast dressed up in a very pretty costume. If you like the podcast, you'll like the book. The game part of the book is the most disappointing which is a weird thing to say about a TTRPG core rulebook. I think there's a lot to like about Cypher but it just looks to me like it'd be a bit clunky in practice.
July 20, 2024
I finished the Old Gods of Appalachia RPG today; it's been one that I've been nibbling at in the background, and tended to get put to one side when reading for conventions or the hot, new, shiny arrived. Like a lot of the Monte Cook output, it's high quality and large in size (414 pages). Unlike most of their output, it's tied to a third party property, the podcast of the same name. I picked it up on impulse at Furnace back in October, as I'd been enjoying the first season of the podcast (which is refreshingly not Cthulhu-based horror and properly spooky in parts). The podcast is set in Appalachia in the early 1900s and before, so covers a broad range of time. The railroads drive through the land, and coal and other materials are extracted, as men dig deep towards the darkness in company towns.
The game uses the Cypher System, which I've never played but seems pretty straight forward. You roll a D20 trying to beat a target number based upon on the level of the opposition (challenge, creature, npc). You don't get dice modifiers; rather the level used can be shifted based on skill, equipment and by spending from the appropriate attribute pool. This means the game falls into the same kind of narrative space that lighter engines such as Tripod do.
However, character design is more involved and nearly put me off the book. There's a lot of reference material; my advice for the first time reader is not to bother; most of this only needs to be read if you want to create a character and are choosing what kind of long term path you want to take. It's detail the GM doesn't need to know and is for the player to bring to the table.
The setting is mapped over wonderfully; different parts of the dark and twisted Appalachia are explored with references back to the series episodes when appropriate, and the players can have their characters drawn into the ongoing conflict between the Inner Dark and the Green. The creatures are truly horrific and different too. The game concludes with two scenarios; one is very much built for a starter GM, whereas the second is a more involved open-ended scenario which could kick off a game.
I had been wondering whether I'd keep this or not, but the creatures and scenarios tipped the balance for this. I may well run a session to see how it feels in play. It's a nice and different creeping occult horror sitting, with some really evocative source material. Some of the illustrations had me remembering Carnivale, which can only be a good thing.
More detailed review here: https://delta-pavonis.blogspot.com/20...
The game uses the Cypher System, which I've never played but seems pretty straight forward. You roll a D20 trying to beat a target number based upon on the level of the opposition (challenge, creature, npc). You don't get dice modifiers; rather the level used can be shifted based on skill, equipment and by spending from the appropriate attribute pool. This means the game falls into the same kind of narrative space that lighter engines such as Tripod do.
However, character design is more involved and nearly put me off the book. There's a lot of reference material; my advice for the first time reader is not to bother; most of this only needs to be read if you want to create a character and are choosing what kind of long term path you want to take. It's detail the GM doesn't need to know and is for the player to bring to the table.
The setting is mapped over wonderfully; different parts of the dark and twisted Appalachia are explored with references back to the series episodes when appropriate, and the players can have their characters drawn into the ongoing conflict between the Inner Dark and the Green. The creatures are truly horrific and different too. The game concludes with two scenarios; one is very much built for a starter GM, whereas the second is a more involved open-ended scenario which could kick off a game.
I had been wondering whether I'd keep this or not, but the creatures and scenarios tipped the balance for this. I may well run a session to see how it feels in play. It's a nice and different creeping occult horror sitting, with some really evocative source material. Some of the illustrations had me remembering Carnivale, which can only be a good thing.
More detailed review here: https://delta-pavonis.blogspot.com/20...
June 2, 2025
Creepy and riveting. Wholly original setting for a TTRPG.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews