Discovered tucked away in the corners of the NEC floor at the recent UK Games Expo, the indie tabletop roleplaying game Tales of the Kytin Age represents a monumental, decades-long labour of love that might just be a sleeping giant in the indie RPG space. Developed by independent studio Kytinous Games, the core gamebook introduces a deeply realised, quasi-feudal post-apocalyptic Earth where humanity has fallen from the top of the food chain, replaced by giant, mutated invertebrates.
Speaking to Geek Native at the UK Games Expo, designer and writer Jeff Gray revealed that the roots of the system trace all the way back to 1989. After working on the setting for over twenty years, Gray made a critical decision a decade ago to either fully commit to the project or abandon it entirely. Choosing to privately fund his vision, he partnered with artist Yazin Stoilov, who became so enamoured with the post-apocalyptic universe that he has worked exclusively on the project’s distinct, vivid illustrations for the past eight years.
The world of the Kytin Age is set thousands of years after a catastrophic global war involving nuclear, chemical, and nanotechnology weapons decimated our civilisation. During the conflict, the ultra-wealthy abandoned the rest of humanity, retreating into heavily fortified fallout shelters and stasis chambers. However, the technology failed; the stasis machines malfunctioned, keeping the occupants trapped for millennia while the surface world transformed.
When the survivors finally emerged, they found a planet completely overrun by mutated, giant insects. Millennia spent under toxic storms and a poisoned atmosphere mutated the remaining human populations into four distinct evolutionary lineages: the physically altered Neotype, the cellularly adaptive Metamorph, the psychically gifted Telepath, and the Insectile, a hybrid lineage sharing both human and insect DNA. Traditional fantasy elements such as spells, deities, elves, and goblins are entirely absent. Instead, players must rely on physical mutations, specialised combat skills, and gear fashioned from “kytin”, the hard, malleable insect shells harvested from their apex predators.
Geek Native can exclusively reveal that Gray is currently developing multiple major expansions to build upon the established setting. Following the release of the game’s initial supplement, The Ing Sagas: Ribvale, Kytinous Games is actively working on a regional sourcebook covering Franzia, alongside an upcoming supplement tentatively titled Tales of Ing: Bluecliff.
The setting features a striking geopolitical landscape in which the characters are known as “Ings” -descendants of an isolated, fractured England severed from Scotland by rapidly rising sea levels. Facing a sinking nation, these human remnants are forced to flee south across corrosive seas in small boats, migrating toward the mutated shores of mainland Europe.
Currently, the entire project is operating as a passionate, independent endeavour. Gray actively utilises a dedicated Discord server to solicit direct playtest feedback, building and refining the mechanical ecosystem hand-in-hand with the game’s growing community. While the core book and the Ribvale supplement are available in high-quality physical print editions, the creators are actively looking for a publisher to secure broader distribution. With a massive backlog of world-building lore and an active community, the game stands ready for significant expansion if it can secure the right publishing partnership to transition into full-time production.
