The setting presents an endless expanse of identical 1950s houses, where citizens maintain emotionally repressed “happy faces” despite alien meddling and supernatural censorship. Included in the book is Freaks from Beyond the Hayze, a 15–20 hour adventure for 5th-level characters that pulls a party into this monochrome world while they search for a missing Paladin.
The Horror of the White Picket Fence
Serenity Springs is a world literally devoid of colour, a design choice intended to unsettle players used to vibrant fantasy landscapes. Loos explains that the setting was born of an interrogation of “destructive mythology” and of how modern society often romanticises the past to justify current political decisions.
“I’m angry at how my country mythologises its past to validate horrible decisions in the present,” Loos says. “I am creating Serenity Springs to interrogate this destructive mythology. The lore and mechanics are designed primarily for fun, but they’re also full of critique.”
This critique extends to the “Hayze,” a supernatural force that enforces strict rules. The name itself is a reference to the Hays Code, which heavily censored American cinema for decades. In the game, this manifests through warped navigation rules, where driving always takes ten minutes and walking always takes an hour, regardless of distance, and the labelling of all non-humans as “Commies.”
Mechanical Tension: Censoring the Stat Block
One of the most significant challenges in 5e roleplaying games is maintaining a sense of horror once characters reach higher levels and possess reality-warping magic. Serenity Springs addresses this by “breaking the rules” of information.
The signature mechanic is the censorship of violence. When a character takes damage within the Hayze, the Game Master does not reveal the numerical value of that damage.
“When I ran Serenity Springs for my players and they got attacked for the first time, their look of horror was priceless when I told them it would be ‘much too violent to tell them how much damage they took,'” Loos notes.
To determine their remaining health, players must use a bonus action to make a Medicine check against the creature’s AC. This lack of certainty forces 5th-level veterans to reconsider their usual “tanking” strategies, as they can no longer precisely track their proximity to death.
A Unique Visual and Auditory Identity
Visuals for the project avoid AI-generated imagery, instead opting for a “kitbashed” style. Using public domain artwork from 1950s magazines found on Archive.org, layout artist Excalibird has constructed a visual language that feels “unintentionally unsettling.” This is supplemented by bespoke illustrations from the artist Spagheggi for more specific elements, such as the Xiculans – classic Roswell-style grey aliens.
The atmosphere is further heightened by a modular synth soundtrack composed by Clayton Davis. The music ranges from eerie 50s lounge themes to “60s spy fiction” for the setting’s G-men, and even what Loos describes as “theremin ass theramin” for the alien invaders.
Launch Details
Grinning Portal Games, which officially registered as an LLC in January, is positioning Serenity Springs as a complete package for GMs looking to inject psychological tension into their existing campaigns.
The Kickstarter campaign is scheduled to go live in mid-March 2026. Interested players can follow the project on the Kickstarter pre-launch page or via Loos’s updates on Bluesky.
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