Help bring this project to life!

This is a crowdfunding campaign, but you will be charged immediately (except for shipping). We've hit our goal, but as we continue raising funds, we'll be able to print extra copies for conventions, retail shops, and more. We hope to deliver the digital edition of Tangled Blessings by the end of April, the physical edition by the end of August, and most digital stretch goals by the end of September (due to its size, the House expansion may take longer)! 

Tangled Blessings is a magic academy horror RPG for 1-2 players that uses tarot cards to reveal your fate.

On the eve of your final exam at Brackroot Academy, what mysteries, secrets, dread, and drama will you recall from your last four years of schooling?

Or find it on DriveThruRPG!

Tangled Blessings is a solo journaling or two-player RPG inspired by dark academia media, ghost stories, and graduate school. The core mechanics are based on the ENnie-nominated Anamnesis game by Samantha Leigh.

Featuring a wizarding college, wandering specters, assigned houses, curses, devils’ bargains and more supernatural flavor, Tangled Blessings blends horror and the fantastical to help players craft a story that spans their time at the Academy — culminating in one final showdown against their rival. 

The game only requires a deck of tarot cards and a way to record the story.

Please note: shipping will be collected after the campaign.

Please note: shipping will be collected after the campaign.

If your favorite stories ever involved sneaking around an ancient building, uncovering dangerous secrets, studying in a dusty library, practicing spells on the lawn, or making perilous deals with creatures lurking in the darkness… This game is for you.

If you ever romanticized the university or boarding school experience, add a dash of terrible magic and this game is for you.

This is your chance to study somewhere special and threatening. You’ll find magic mingled with risks. You’ll be a magnet for disaster, but you could also lead others to ruin.

The game is yours and so is the story.

(No game master required!)

Structured Journaling

Even if you've never played a journaling game before, Tangled Blessings makes it easy to dive in, walking you through the simple character creation process step by step. As you play, you'll draw cards from your tarot deck and respond to prompts that guide you through 4 years at the academy. You can record your responses in whichever way pleases you most.

Two-Player

When you play with another person, you'll take turns exploring what the Academy holds for you, adding to each other's memories as you go. Just like in solo play, you'll use a single tarot deck to uncover events where your characters cross paths.

A highlight of many academic-centered tales is the rival. 

In Tangled Blessings, your rival can be your best friend, a family member , a stranger, an enemy, a romantic interest or a combination of relations. Your rival is present in most of your memories at the academy. How your relationship evolves with them is up to you, but at the end of four years, you'll still stand against each other in one final test of academic and magical mastery.

Players start by responding to prompts that help generate their character’s origins. Then they'll discover which house they belong to and who of 22 possible rivals will shadow their time at the Academy. In two-player games, players rival each other, working together to unravel their shared and complicated history at the academy shrouded in darkness.

Finally, they’ll separate the Minor Arcana cards into 4 decks, organized by suit.

Each Minor Arcana deck belongs to a year of study at the Academy. Each Minor Arcana card has an assigned prompt, and players discover them by drawing 3 cards per year of study. After reading the prompt, players draw from the Major Arcana to gain insight and inspiration for answering the questions the prompt asks.

The game sees players all the way through 4 years of school, wrapping up after the final graduation exam.

Praise for Tangled Blessings

“Brackroot Academy doesn't waste any time pretending to be a fluffy, chintzy magic school. The larger magical world doesn't pull its punches, and neither does Tangled Blessings. Danger will find you early and often. The first lesson you need to puzzle out is how to protect yourself... and from whom.”

-S. Kaiya J., designer of Her Odyssey and many other TTRPGs

“This game is beautiful and eerie and you can (and should) romance your rival. Top tier stuff.”

-J.C. Darcy, writer, game master, and producer

What you get

The physical zine is 5.5" x 8.5" and 68 pages in length. It will be printed in black and white on 80lb paper with a 100lb soft-touch cover. The game contains over 60 thought-provoking prompts to guide players through their academic careers, as well as sections that cover what goes on during summer break. While designed to be finished in one sitting, there are natural pauses in between school years that make playing the game across multiple sessions seamless. Players don’t have to track stats, health, or spell slots.

Please note: shipping will be collected after the campaign.

The campus

Interviews and Actual Plays

• Listen to Planet Arcana'sAMAZING two-player playthrough featuring incredible sound design. 
• Read Kaden Ramstack's Journal
• Watch Ghost Candle play.
• Cassi Mothwin interviewed by Wintry D&D
• Listen to Errant Adventures solo playthrough

Content Warnings

This is a horror game that explores the harmful areas of academia. You will find mention of dark magic, rituals, murder, death, violence, depression, suicidal thoughts and ideation, isolation, claustrophobia, and self-harm.

A good chunk of Tangled Blessings is complete from a writing standpoint. Playtesting is done, and we’re still working on editing, layout, artwork, and proofing. Those things are happening right now!

We’re hoping to release the game digitally by the end of April and have the game physically in your hands well before fall.

Since this is my first campaign, I'm keeping stretch goals simple. The first stretch goal is to hire an artist to create emblems for the five houses within Brackroot Academy. I see the potential for future projects set at Brackroot and having official crest art for each house will be fun for players, and be usable in merch. You can take a look at our guest artist's portfolio here.

Our next stretch goal is to turn those crests into stickers for anyone who orders a physical edition. The stickers will be on a single sticker sheet.

Digital stretch goals will go to everyone who backs the campaign. They will be sold separately after the campaign.

Cassi Mothwin @CountessCassi

Designer, Illustrator, Layout Artist

Cassi is an award-winning indie tabletop RPG designer, illustrator and solo actual play streamer. Her first work, What Crooked Roots, is a bestseller on DriveThruRPG and explores folk horror encounters in 5e. Her second work, Clean Spirit, is a GM-less token-driven game that asks players to explore the space they live in and how that translates to their relationships. Her last project, The Sticker Game, blended audio drama with stickers to create a unique solo storytelling experience. When not writing tabletop games or tabletop content, she’s usually found playing them.

Joshua @Chase0the0Ghost

Production Assistant

Joshua is a biologist by day (who also attended grad school) and brings his years of analytical reading to the team. He loves storytelling tabletop RPGs in all forms and has an ever expanding character list ready to go. 

Cylinda @delvecandles

Owner, Delve Candles

Cylinda lives in Decatur, Georgia with her wife and their son, where she designs and hand pours each batch of Delve Candles. She loves games of all kinds, stories, fishing, and beer — all of which are better when shared with friends. Delve Candles is proudly: queer owned, Latina owned, and woman owned.

Erin @erinterrupted

Editor and Proofreader

Erin is a 30-something year old mother of four (3 fur babies, 1 naked kitten) who spends entirely too much time writing things that will never see the light of day. By day, she's a web developer and content author, but by night she's a crime-stopping vigilante that serves justice with eight years of editing and proofing experience.

Claire @anddreadful

Stretch Goal Guest Artist

Claire is an art director and graphic designer with five years of professional experience in PR and marketing, and many more years experience being a dork online. She plays Dungeons & Dragons an unconscionable number of times per week and loves cats, gothic horror, and renaissance faires.

We’re working with the incredible folks at Ratti Incantati and Peregrine Coast Press to ship the standard physical edition of the book. This will help keep costs low! Big thanks to these teams! Please note: shipping will be collected after the campaign.

Tangled Blessings is proudly a part of Zine Month, an indie TTRPG community initiative celebrating projects from people instead of corporations. Visit ZineMonth.com to learn more and use #zimo2023 when sharing! 

Risks and challenges

This is my first zine, but I have a ton of support from people who know how this stuff works. There may be delays, but since most of the book is done, there is little standing in the way of successful delivery.