A new Kickstarter project offers to drag 5E roleplaying games into a realm of cosmic horror and Soulslike challenge. Chapelwick is a substantial, 400+ page campaign setting that introduces Lovecraftian mystery and Gothic dread to your tabletop. The adventure is set in an unsettling city that crawled out of the sea, where the very streets are your enemy and forbidden knowledge comes at a terrible cost.
We have an interview with Leroy Benson, the lead game designer, where we discuss cosmic horror. Let’s first take a look at the Kickstarter.
The Chapelwick campaign promises a host of terrors and content for a complete adventure running from levels 1 to 13. At its core, the cosmic horror setting introduces all-new game mechanics, including a ‘Mindrift Madness’ system and a ‘Soulslike Death’ system.
The city itself is comprised of 13 unlockable districts to explore, where characters can discover 13 upgrading ‘Malignant Relics’ while being pursued through 13 ‘Nightmare Hunter Encounters’. Players will face formidable challenges, including over 15 multiphase boss encounters and a grim bestiary of more than 69 cosmic horror-inspired monsters. To survive, they will have access to over 13 thematic subclasses and a grimoire containing more than 50 treacherous spells, all brought to life by an immersive soundtrack of over two hours.
Backers unlock the PDF as a reward by pledging $30.
An interview with Leroy Benson
To start things off, could you tell us a bit about Let’s Roll Press? What’s the origin story of the team and what brought you all together to create something as dark and ambitious as Chapelwick?
So – we started like any pre-mid life crisis male friend group in America, blogging. We decided about a month in that it was not for us and turned towards putting our extensive backgrounds in various things to work. Alexander is our business leader – his acumen in direction and leading has been a huge help. Jane – our author, was a late addition after parting ways with the original author. She finished writing the story in a summer. Jardin is our incredible art director. We found him through a friend of a friend and he’s been killing it for us ever since. I’m Leroy – I had a background in video game design and music composition on top of being a DM for almost 20 years.
The tagline for Chapelwick is “the city that crawled out of the sea.” That’s an incredibly evocative image. What was the first spark of an idea that grew into this sentient, shifting metropolis?
Chapelwick started as a fever dream I had while sick with the flu playing Bloodborne one night at 2am. Had the thought, what if these cities were eldritch horrors and what if we flipped the idea of the sunken city upside down? Everything has really grown from what was essentially a bad Nyquil induced writing prompt. I grew up loving and consuming horror, playing games, watching movies.
You mention the game blends Lovecraftian dread with Soulsborne-inspired storytelling. That’s a huge draw for a lot of people. When you say “Soulsborne-inspired,” what parts of that video game experience were you most excited to translate to the tabletop? Is it the difficulty, the oblique lore, the cycle of death and rebirth, or something else entirely?
Everything across the board. Difficulty is a funny question in 5e. Some popular content creators have said that it can’t be done well and I think that really depends on the DM using the tools creators have provided well. I mean yes, players can punch a god to death at high level – because you let them?! We have a lot of mechanics in place that are levers for the DM to pull to shift things in a meaningful fair way. That’s the key. If the players are roleplaying and immersed, it’ll make sense. You’ll have your power users at the table but honestly – I’ve never seen many of them be happy about much of anything (I’m calling myself out here). The lore is dripping with not just cosmic horror, we’re bringing in a lot from what we hold near and dear to our hearts. Death and the idea of rebirth play a key role in mechanical and character development. Also, the soundtrack is going to be a banger. If you’re into gritty orchestral romps you’ll find this enjoyable.
The “Mindrift Madness Deck” sounds fascinating, especially the idea that it can reshape the world itself, not just the player characters. Could you give us an example of how a player’s descent into madness might physically alter a district or an encounter?
This is probably our most iterated mechanic but it’s finally found its footing. We’ve incorporated boardgamesque design with how the cards stack and wreak havoc on the table. Various encounters ranging from environmental, monster, spell, even the subclasses, will cause a madness roll to happen. If a player fails that roll they’ll draw a card from the madness deck. Each card has 4 options for what happens so the player will roll a 1d4. The cards have a track on them that move upwards. So if the player gets another madness card, it goes above the first one and the track then triggers the next madness effect adding to some of the randomness. Once a player passes a certain threshold, they’ll draw a despair card and the overall madness in the city moves forward a click. As the city grows in its madness, worse and worse nightmares come forth etc. We’re really happy with how this has play tested internally and are super stoked to get this in a broader playtesting view.
Cosmic horror can be tricky in a system like 5e, which is often about heroic, high-powered fantasy. How does Chapelwick approach the theme of powerlessness or confronting the incomprehensible when players are still mechanically powerful adventurers?
With any good horror ttrpg – we can pave the way to do things but it’s up to the dm and players to execute it. I’ve had non-horror ttrpgs turn horror on a dime because the DM got a wild hair that night. We’re providing tools for the DM to immerse the players deeply into Chapelwick along with their PCs. Add that to the levers from various death, madness, subclass, monster, boss, and nightmare hunt mechanics, and you’ve got a stacked deck that even new DMs should be able to execute well.
I was really intrigued by the mention of an original, haunting soundtrack. How do you see music being used at the table? Is it meant as general background ambiance, or are there specific tracks tied to key moments, characters, or even mechanical cues?
Music should be used to draw players in deeper. Moments of rising tension and relieving calm can set the stage for greater things. Repeated and excluded motifs can set up and obliterate expectations causing key story moments to land harder, and boss fights to feel more like the doom(tm) music just kicked in on overdrive. It’s meant to be all of the above. Conversation pieces, ambient goosebump inducing crawls, massive orchestral pieces revealing the big bads. My goal is that the players will recognize the motifs I’ve created and maybe even discover some hidden themes amongst the chaos.
You’ve had some very positive feedback from play-testers at conventions like PAX Unplugged. Was there a particular moment during a playtest – a player reaction or an unexpected choice – that made you think, “Yes, we’ve absolutely nailed the feeling we were going for”?
There was actually a moment that I was DMing for a group. They were fighting the last boss of our one shot (Escape from Solitude Heights, available for download via email sign up). 4 of the 6 players were knocked, it seemed like it was the end for the players. The Amalgam squared up on the Cleric and…whiffed. The cleric then used his subclass feature that lets them burn their enemy with an internal flame finally killing the monster. They get everyone stabilized and breathing again. That’s when I let the party know that as they looked out over the expanse, the saw thousands of these creatures crawling through the aether. Clearly a sign that they needed to find an escape immediately. The look on their faces was priceless but also awesome that one of the subclasses felt so good to use in that moment.
For the Dungeon Masters out there looking to run this, your press kit mentions “streamlined accessibility” and putting pertinent information all on one page. What was your design philosophy for making such a complex, atmospheric setting easy and fun to run?
We are designing the book in such a way that it is physically easy to follow. We have inline tables along with encounter blocks that convey the goal and optional outcomes of each fight so the DM doesn’t have to do guesswork if they don’t want to. If they’re like me, and every single module I pick up turns into a homebrew monstrosity, they’ll have easy access to everything they need to make it their own! All of our digital components will be easily referenced including musical queues that match track names in order. So if a DM is just using VLC player for music (like me) they can load them in an order, slap tracks on repeat, and have an easy way to discern what music goes where. There’s so much more to this accessibility piece including the infinity vibe checker that each player gets so they can easily and discretely let the DM know where their boundaries are.
Why did you choose Kickstarter as the platform to bring Chapelwick to life? And what are you most excited about in building a community directly through the campaign?
I love Kickstarter as this is my second one. My first one was Last Epoch in 2017 (video game). The community surrounding ttrpgs on Kickstarter is full of incredibly supportive individuals that want to see all ships rise. The people that work at Kickstarter are also passionate about what we’re doing and have communicated so many times. Hard to beat having someone like that in your corner. We’re raising money for art and printing costs so it just made sense.
Without giving away any major secrets, what’s a small detail in Chapelwick – maybe a specific monster, a strange relic, or a hidden piece of lore – that you are personally proud of and can’t wait for players to discover?
I would absolutely keep an eye on the subclasses in the game. If you play through our prequal one-shot, the subclass ideas may or may not come back in a HUGE way throughout the story. There’s tons of nods to classic literature (our author is an English teacher) so if you’re a Poe fan you’re in the right place. I’m also a massive video game and science nerd so if you find those kind of references in there I’d love to know where you see them.
Thank you, Leroy.
We have until the 14th to back Chapelwick.
Looking at the Kickstarter, I can see that two dozen backers have already pledged for the Deluxe DM’s bundle, which is the reward tier at $265 (about £200). That delivers 18 items, including the Deluxe Cover edition of the book, the Nightmare Serum pin badge as a Kickstarter exclusive, liquid core dice, a spiral-bound (so it lays flat) map back, VTT assets and art.
However, the core rules in digital unlock at $30, and the hardcover of the 400+ page is the reward at the $65 backer tier.
Those supporters who want the deluxe book but don’t include the extras like dice and badges are in the $120 tier. At that level, there’s also digital editions of Mindrift Madness and the core rules. The ‘game-ready’ DM bundle unlocks at $175.
There is a higher tier too, and that’s at $550. This power-backer level includes the exclusive Kickstarter tracker coin, the Bline One Darkstone dice, all the subclass resin dice and all the trophy pins. Otherwise, backers can get into these as add-ons.
