The campaign has ended but you can still pre-order the game.

It's not so much a sound as it is a pressure. Low and constant, shaking away anything else that might challenge it for your attention. And then, all too quickly, it recedes from your ears, leaving you to feel the gentle waves splashing against you on some kind of shore. Questions start to race through your mind. Is this a forest? Where are you? WHO are you? Who are the others you see pulling themselves out of the water and why is this place so bright without any sun?

This is how players start their journey in Lethe. It's also most of what they will know about their characters before starting…

Lethe (pronounced “liːθi:” or “Lee-Thee”) is a TTRPG for 1-6 players and 1 GM where players are a group of individuals in an odd and dreamlike world. They wake up on the shore of a river knowing only their name and are tasked with finding who they used to be and how much of that person they want to be going forward. Only the GM knows the character backstories or their stats, skills, and abilities. The players must play to find out who they used to be and who they wish to become.

A mock-up of the cover. Design subject to change.

The world of Lethe is inspired by a combination of Alice in Wonderland, Over the Garden Wall, and the Divine Comedy. Things are dreamlike and just different enough to confuse the characters.

• Unique gameplay that has the player start with a blank character sheet which is filled in throughout the game.
• Players uncover their stats, abilities and their backstory as they play.
• Great for beginner players. Easy to learn mechanics that are quick to pick up.
• A dreamlike setting with the ability to customize as much as you wish.
• Tell a wide range of stories from comedic to serious to scary.
• A comprehensive guide for GMs to help make sure they are able to tell the collaborative story they wish to tell.
• Designed to give the players moments of empowerment and catharsis, but on their own terms.

A mock-up of the book. Design subject to change.

Lethe uses a simple d6 system that has players rolling an amount of dice and seeing how many successes they achieve. The harder the difficulty, the more successes needed. The amount of dice being rolled, is determined be the players stats, so they won't know what they are capable of until they try. The rolls and amount of dice can be altered as they lean more about their past.

As players recover their memories (Lethe's equivalent of "leveling up"), they are given the choice of whether to embrace or reject these parts of their past. This is the core question at the heart of the game: As you rediscover your past, how much will you let it affect your future?

Here is a preview of the character sheet the players will be filling in through the course of the game:

For GMs the game is a little more complicated. You will craft the characters, their memories and the challenges the players will encounter as they try the learn who they were. Don't worry though, the game has a number of resources to help you do this.

For example, to help you create characters that your players will actually enjoy playing, there is a pregame survey to hand out. Not a typical survey, this is more "vibes" based to help paint a picture of the character with questions like:

• If your character were a type of fruit, what would they be?
• Describe your character with a single verb.
• What would be their go-to coffee order?

The initial funding will be distributed as follows:

When we get to $1000, Chris will write an adventure for the main setting of Lethe. It will be included with all rewards.

The adventure will include a selection of pre-made characters (Stats, Memories, and all), and a number of challenges designed to lead to the characters to regain their memories.

You can play the adventure as it is with very little prep, or use it as inspiration for your next game.

At $1200, Logan will write an alternative setting for the game! It will be included with all rewards.

A setting that revolves around a coming of age story and invites the players to reinvent themselves as they step into adulthood.

"The step from childhood to adulthood is momentous. In your village, each teenager takes part in an age-old ceremony you've known about from birth. Guided by elders and ancestors, this is your chance to reinvent yourself, and perhaps find yourself for the first time."

This will also unlock a second physical and digital book that all stretch goals will be included in.

At $1400, Lola will write an alternative setting for the game!

A Cyberpunk setting that sees the players try to reclaim the missing data of their memories

"When you're reborn, datastacks corrupted. Explore a new world where making yourself anew is as simple as installing a patch to overwrite your data or reclaiming the code that made you who you were."

At $1600, Armanda will write an alternative setting for the game! It will be included with all rewards.

"An alien cyborg race has dominated Earth. They put humans in stasis and feed on theirmemories. Everything was beautiful before. Now you’ve woken up. What is real"

At $1800, Brent will write an alternative setting for the game! It will be included with all rewards.

"Last night you followed strange but alluring music form the wood, driven to find its source. You awaken now in a glade of beauty and twilight, unsure of much besides your name, and the certain knowledge that if...when the music comes again, you will continue the dance which brought you here. Faerie may be fickle, but what they take, they hold."

Chris (he/him) has been interested in photography since he realized, at a young age, that it was Spider-Man's day job. Initially, he tried to avoid the arts to distinguish himself from the rest of his artistic family. However, the art eventually caught up with him and he earned a BFA in Photography. He has also pursued a lifelong interest in game development and has both created and published several TTRPGs, including Soft Focuses and Totally Real Human Adults. He is almost certainly not three kobolds in a dress shirt. You can find the various places Chris has a presence over at crlegge.carrd.co.

*Bio coming soon* timidcryptid.carrd.co

Logan (he/him) is a trans and queer game designer on Wurundjeri Country. He makes games of connection and self reflection, and is working on a podcast about lyric games! Find him in all the places via: logantimmins.carrd.co.

Lola Johnson is a Neurodistinct QTPOC TTRPG player and writer. They write adventures and standalone TTRPGs as Johnson Ofair, focusing on themes of introspection and community in their games, whilst encouraging different forms of creation and making as forms of play. Outside of TTRPG's they dye yarn under the heading of Third Vault Yarns and have many other creative pursuits. You can find their games at johnson-ofair.itch.io and their twitter @thirdvaultyarns.

Armanda (she/her) is a queer TTRPG designer from Argentina who focuses her work on solo games' design, as Paranoid Android, Log Lady and Cordelia Needs a Kingdom. She has been part many indie projects, such as Banda's Grove by Pandion Games, and Skyrealms, by IKO and Evlyn Moreau. She's a published poet and a sommelier. She lives with her girlfriend, her three dogs and her cat, in a small town by the hills. You can find her at armanda.carrd.co.

Brent (@DorklordCanada on Twitter) is a freelance editor and writer of both tabletop roleplaying games and speculative fiction. Over nearly twenty years Brent has edited for On Spec Magazine: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic as well as Wayfinder magazine. He has worked on numerous roleplaying games and supplements, most recently Court of Blades, Tavern Tales, Paranormal Inc: Bust More Ghosts, and My Mother’s Kitchen. You can find links to everything Brent is up to at DorklordCanada.ca.