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During the Bane War, the Witch armies conquered Morden, but they did not pass beyond its coast. Many refugees fled to the islands of the Discordian Sea, hoping to find freedom and salvation. Some found new lives, but many found only death.

On the Roiling Main - The Discordian Sea

In today's update, Ross explores the origins of the Armies of Light. This bold alliance tried to present a unified front against the Grand Coven's armies during the Bane War. Spoiler: It didn't quite work out the way they'd hoped.

The Armies of Light

Slightly off topic from this weeks blog update, I wanted to drop a last minute mention of our Gen Con seminars. The Accursed team is giving several seminars at the show. We'll likely talk about Accursed a little bit during each of these, and we'd certainly be happy to answer any questions or discuss matters at further length.
SEM1341269 Thursday 11AM: Professionalism in the Gaming Industry Crowne Plaza : Hay Market B
SEM1341270 Friday 9AM: Working with a Licensed Product Crowne Plaza : Grand Central Bllrm D
SEM1341271 Friday 2PM: How to RPG Freelance! Crowne Plaza : Grand Central Bllrm D

This morning's blog update delves deeper into the Enochian religion. Leaders of this faith formed the Order of the Penitent and offer some respite to the Accursed. They also risk their lives in speaking out against the tyrants and the Witches whom they serve.

The Enochian Faith

The Crone is thought to be the very first Witch. She undertook this mantle long before colonists crossed the lightning bridge to Morden.

The First Witch

We had a great time at Gen Con, thanks to all who came to our seminars or had a chance to visit! A few folks were lucky enough to get a sneak peak at some of our interior layout and even the cover art. The feedback we received seemed to be pretty positive on both of those. A few lucky folks even snagged Accursed T-Shirts. We'll give folks a chance to see those when we launch our Kickstarter.

Unfortunately, we did lose track of time a little bit at the show and didn't get a chance to update the forums about Friday's blog post. In case you didn't check the site, Ross explained a bit about three Alchemical materials that are sometimes used in constructing devices and weapons because of their unusual properties.

Technology in Morden

Today, we have another blog update as well. The Chimera's magic is focused on transforming life. She has no tolerance for stagnation.

All Must Change - The Chimera

Even among the Order of the Penitent, there are those who recognize that the Witchmarked can never truly belong among mundane society. Accursed who embrace their Witchmark often strive to find a place that they could make their own permanent homes. A few who share this goal have come together as the Adherents of Aliyah.

The Adherents of Aliyah

We hit a landmark number of likes on Facebook yesterday, when we reached 250. In celebration of that fact, we released our map of Morden - the region where Accursed takes place. That's now visible on our facebook page.

The Grand Coven swept through the nations of Morden using vast armies of mindless drones. The Morrigan created huge numbers of her cauldron-born using every corpse she could find (or quickly create).

The Cauldron-born

With her penchant for recombining life into new forms, the Chimera has devised countless horrors. Few of her banes are identical, but there are patterns that particularly interest her. One of these is the Swamp Kraken, a bane that seemingly threatens any who need access to the body of water in which it dwells.

Chimeric Banes - The Swamp Kraken

For generations, the horrors of the Darkwall Peaks formed an outer boundary to Morden, posing a barrier to exploration and expansion. Unbeknownst to the peoples of the region, it also was a defensive line, keeping the land separate from the Witches — until they finally deciphered its mysteries.
A Black Barrier - The Darkwall Peaks

The Blood Witch created the Dhampir and the vampire, but first, she created something more savage and primitive. The leech-men were the banes she led across the Darkwall Peaks, but abandoned as she mastered the Dhampir witchmark.

Leech-Men - banes of Sanguinara

King Auberon of the seelie fey vanished with the Djinn, after striking her with his blade. Since that time, only the crueler fey have been seen, though they remain every bit as anxious to make deals with mortals.

Capricious and Treacherous - The Fey

The Crone manufactures tools that bear the semblance of life. These include the Golem Witchbreed, but also include things which are much larger—and sometimes much smaller.

Devil Doll - The Manikins

Cauldron-born made up the majority of the armies of the Grand Coven. These hardy soldiers, and countless other undead banes, were created by the Morrigan—the Witch who destroyed Shieldhaven and sundered the clans of Cairn Kainen.

The Morrigan - Keeper of Undead

We wanted to take a slightly different tact with some of the blog posts as we build up to launch the Kickstarter. In today's post, we discuss why we're using Savage Worlds as the game system for Accursed.

Accursed Savages

We're also releasing a new piece of artwork each day, as we continue our countdown towards our crowd funding launch. Over the past few days, we showed off the Mummy:



The Revenant:


and the Vargr:


We'll show another one during the 13th hour today. If you need to see the latest one, at the moment it happens, make sure to Like our Facebook Page or Follow us on Twitter.

During the Bane War, refugees desperately tried to reach safety, anywhere they could. Many took ship to flee the subcontinent. Port Sorrow was the nearest established harbor, and it flooded with the desperate.

Port Sorrow

The artwork preview continued Monday and Tuesday afternoon with the Mongrel:

and the Dhampir:

Today's the big day. The Kickstarter for Accursed launches at 13:00 EDT today. Ross talks a bit about how we got here in today's post. (We'll start a fresh thread for the Kickstarter with the link at launch time. That way we can keep this one devoted to our blog updates.)

Launching Accursed

We've launched the last two pieces of Kickstarter preview art over the last couple of days. Wednesday afternoon, it was the Golem:

Yesterday, we showed the unadorned cover art:

The Accursed Kickstarter's off to a great start, thanks so much for everyone's support. But, we're not here to talk about the Kickstarter. We're here because we haven't forgotten the blog.

We wanted to take a slightly different tactic with things for the next batch of posts. We're going to focus on the Archetypes and the Professional Edges that we are including in Accursed. These help to offer hooks as players design their characters.

First up in that run of posts is the Knave. These are characters who work to subvert their opponents with words rather than overwhelming them with their martial skills.

The Knave

The background blog posts have been an excellent read. Very interesting setting. Well done!

 gunslingerpro wrote:
The background blog posts have been an excellent read. Very interesting setting. Well done!

Thanks for the kind words! We want people to be as excited about it as we are.

In today's blog update, we discuss Witch hunters. These men and women are bold or foolish enough to still battle directly against the Witches and banes of Morden. Those who manage to survive quickly learn the vulnerabilities of their foes, and remain prepared to engage them.

On Witch Hunters - Malleus Maleficarum

We're continuing our discussion of the different professions by looking at alchemists today. While they must take care to prepare their abilities well in advance of use, these learned men and women sometimes have weapons perfect for overcoming the Witches' banes.

Alchemists - Transformative Agents

As we continue exploring some of the different professions in Accursed, the latest update focuses on the Enochian. Generally itinerant preachers, these men and women devote their lives to spreading the virtues, both through their words and through the examples that they live. The faithful respect their example and often work to replicate their generosity.

The Enochian - Spreading the Virtues

Today we focus on the investigator, whose research can provide characters with the information they need to identify and overcome a challenge. Sometimes, of course, the investigator's interests can create whole new series of challenges.

Investigators - A Light in the Darkness

Today's post discusses the white witches. These bold individuals risk their souls to dabble in the very powers that have already so damaged Morden. Some seek greater power for their own purposes, while others try to turn the evil against the tyrants that have mastered it.

White Witches - Daring Dabblers

The Bane War left thousands of veterans abandoned by their support network. Soldiers who fought for the Alliance had to choose whether to continue to battle for their beliefs without support. Those who fought in the name of the Grand Coven were simply abandoned, as tools that were no longer needed. In both cases, these men and women had well-developed skills that had been honed on the battlefield.

The Soldier - Queen of Battle

In Morden, the Witches are all-powerful tyrants who have conquered the nations and made the populations subservient. Their banes are now the monstrosities that maintain this state of affairs. Through terror, cruelty, and even manipulation, these supernatural entities keep the mundane population from revolting against their overlords.

Creating Banes - Inventing New Horrors

We want to make sure that game groups have fun scenarios to play in Accursed for many years to come. Part of that comes from making sure that there are great ideas built into the rulebook. Another part of that comes from making sure that Game Masters have a nice range of different ideas to pick from before each session. We're working to do our part to supply both of those.

Finding the Hook

We also throw out the gauntlet for a small challenge.

We're continuing our series of adventure hooks for the Accursed game setting with four more presented today. This particular batch is focused on exploiting some of the elements that are characteristic of Morden's different nations.

Casting More Hooks

Today we present a group of adventure hooks that explore the different supernatural elements from Morden. Each of these elements could be explained through Witchcraft, Alchemy, or the mischievous actions of the Unseelie Fey. Gamemasters could use any of these to draw the attention of a campaign towards one of these different elements.

On a Line

We're winding down the Accursed Kickstarter over the next couple of days, but with the way its succeeded, we've been able to start moving forward on obtaining the artwork we need for the core setting book even before it closes. As we've focused on that, it seemed like now was a great time to talk about what has driven our artistic and thematic vision for the setting.

The Art Inspirations of Accursed

We're currently working on the final stages of completing the Accursed core book. We're just waiting on a few last pieces so that we can assemble everything into the game book that we hope will exceed everyone's expectations. Until that's complete, here's something that might pique your interest.

The introductory fiction from Andy Chambers (Kickstarter Stretch Goal #2) had been received and recently approved. We took a little bit of time today to convert that into an ebook format. We've now got it in both .epub and .mobi (Kindle) formats.

Then we went ahead and uploaded it to DriveThruRPG. Because the introductory fiction is part of the setting book, its development costs were already covered. With that in mind, we've listed the book as Pay What You Want, with a default price of $0.00. So, just click the link below to get to the book. Then add it to your cart, entering whatever value you think is fair (if you're seriously considering buying the game book, we don't expect compensation for this). You can then complete check out and download the two different versions of the file.

Link to the Fiction

If you don't have an ereader (or an ereader app for your smartphone), there are a number of different browser plug-ins that can open up the file. (I use epubreader.) A quick google search on "epub reader" should provide you with some options. If you've got a great one to recommend, please mention it in the comments.

We hope you enjoy the short story!