Old Gods of Appalachia: Deeper Still

Wow, Family!

What a great day it’s been. (And it’s not like it’s over, either!) You’ve kept us spinning like a whirligig all afternoon. The response to this campaign has really bowled us over. Thank you!

Now that the mad rush of the first few hours is starting to settle, let’s talk about stretch goals. We’re over the moon to be making these new books—plus the witch jar, the hats, the dice, and all the other pieces-parts. But we know that with your help we can make them even bigger and better.
Let’s start with the books. For our first goal, we’d like to expand Dig Your Own Grave. This is the player-centric book, chock full of new descriptors, foci, background ideas, and other elements that will enrich your characters, deepening your immersion and authenticity. It’s already intended to be a hardcover (for comparison, most of the player option books we’ve made for games like Numenera, The Strange, and Planebreaker are softcovers), but we think it could be even bigger. So at $400,000 we’ll expand its page count by a minimum of 16 pages.

As exciting as this day has been, we might easily hit that number in a matter of hours—particularly if you help spread the word! If you know someone who’s into Old Gods of Appalachia, horror RPGs, or folklore (or, better still, isn’t yet but wants to be), won’t you tell them about this campaign? You can also follow us and share our posts on these platforms:

While we have you, friends, let’s talk a bit about the wonderful Appalachian and horror creators who are contributing to these books. The bulk of the content—and all of the game design—will be written by our design team, led by Shanna Germain (who led the design of the core game). But we thought it would be interesting and engaging to bring in a few other voices from around Appalachia and in the folk and horror genre. These creators will provide additional bits of color and atmosphere—a page here, a verse there—to take us all deeper into the alternate Appalachia we all love.

We’re going to profile some of these amazing contributors in our updates, starting today with Cherie Priest. Cherie is the author of two dozen books and novellas, including the Booking Agents mysteries Grave Reservations and Flight Risk, southern horror novel The Toll, acclaimed gothic Maplecroft, and the award-winning Clockwork Century series, beginning with Boneshaker. Check out her books today for some excellent, atmospheric horror.

We're elated Cherie is on board and we can't wait to introduce you to the other fantastic voices, too!

Thanks again for your support!

—Team MCG

Hello, Family—

That was … welp, that was fast! You all have funded this campaign in what seems like record time. Your support has warmed our hearts and fired our excitement for these three new books, which are now going to take your games into darker places, make your characters richer and more full of life, and give your game table even deeper atmosphere and authenticity.

This, of course, is a beginning, not an end, and the road ahead promises more treasures. We have many an idea for growing, expanding, and further improving your rewards. We’re looking forward to bringing you even more lore, art, creatures, characters, cyphers, artifacts, locales—and maybe even entirely new items—through stretch goals.

Your enthusiastic response has bowled us over a bit, though, and right now we’re up to our elbows in managing this campaign. Give us just a bit of time to catch up, and we’ll start talking about those goals. In the meantime, thank you so much for an incredible launch!

—Team MCG