R. Talsorian Games Inc., who we know from the Cyberpunk RPGs and The Witcher, are currently live on Kickstarter for Shadow Scar.
Starting life as a Naruto RPG, Cody Pondsmith has been working on Shadow Scar since he was a kid, and now there’s a free download quickstart and a Kickstarter.
In the multiverse known as the Mosaic, sinister monsters from Japanese folklore manipulate events from the shadows. These yokai have a singular, cataclysmic goal: to resurrect the fallen Goddess of Death, Izanami, and in doing so, tear down the very fabric of reality. Standing against this existential threat is a clandestine organisation of shinobi agents. The Shadow Scar Agency trains its operatives in the ancient arts of ninjutsu, dispatching them across the many worlds of the Mosaic to wage a secret war and foil the yokai’s dark machinations.
Gameplay in Shadow Scar emphasises cunning and strategy over brute force, where infiltration and stealth are a player’s greatest weapons. Agents must carefully outmanoeuvre their targets’ heightened senses, including night vision and keen hearing, to successfully complete their missions. The game is powered by the new Mosaic System, an intuitive and easy-to-learn engine designed to allow new players to jump into the action quickly. Everything needed to tell these tales of intrigue is collected in the Shadow Scar Core Rulebook, a 292-page, full-colour, hardbound book that contains all the material required for the shadow war.
The Mosaic is a vast multiverse with a wide variety of different worlds. Across the Mosaic you can find worlds where sapient plants have consumed the civilizations of mankind, worlds where people use magic to bend the forces of life and death to their will, and dimensions that appear to be 16 bit videogames of high adventure. Among these worlds are the four realms where the Veil War is being fought. These worlds are infected by yokai and the evil forces of Yomi which seek to drag them down into the abyss.
Backers get the full rulebook in PDF with a pledge of $19, and R.Talsorian Games Inc. will deliver that in November, right after the Kickstarter ends.
At $49, backers get the Shadow Scar core rules in hardcover and PDF. The PDF is sent straight away, but the physical book has an estimated delivery date in April next year.
R.Talsorian Games Inc has a starter set planned and that, with the core rules, unlocks as a reward for backers at $79. The Mask of the Green Demon adventure module is also included.
After this, there are two retailer modules.
