#Wildsea

[inonibird]

I've been introduced to the TTRPG called Wildsea and now I'm going to make it everyone's problem. This is Beezley. They are bees. That is, I've broken my creative slump by immediately coming up with a character concept that is a variant of the Tzelicrae race in this setting (which is officially described as "Spider-colonies wrapped in humanesque skins; thousands of tiny arachnid minds threaded like beads on a string to produce a full, rich sapience", hive-minded swarms who either create protective shells made of cloth and salvage or unnervingly puppeteer bodies that are no longer needed), but I'm arachnophobic, so...BEES. :D Yes, Beezley found a dead body and built their hive around the skull and there is 100% a sticky, honeycomb-encrusted skeleton under those clothes. :'D

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played THE WILDSEA

By Felix Isaacs

The world is covered in a mile high sea of trees and the remnants of civilization sail the wooden waves on chainsaw ships. Players can choose to play humans with an affinity for spirits, cactus people, moth people, spider hive minds in skin/silk suits, jelly people, mushrooms, or ensouled wrecks/machines.

[tdoth]

W A K E U P O M E N

This place used to be Houston, now it’s something else, something dying. Titans, lords of industry and everything else left are the ones keeping it in a half-life. There’s a rot that runs so deep there’s no saving it anymore, not as it is. There’s salvation and devastation down this path, but you already knew that, Omen. Free the Hue, free yourselves, and free the future - the Titans must fall.

Titanomachy: DREAMS OF THE HUE / Demo Edition is now live, a fully playable version of the full release entering Kickstarter in late Spring of 2025. It contains the full rules, 19 classes, an example Titan and plenty 00's sensibility but-make-it-nightmare art from the incredible Jonatan Anjos and Minerva McJanda.

Built on The Wildsea's mechanical engine, TDotH is a fast and furious queer blitz of a tabletop roleplaying game, shrouded with furious revolutionary anger but cored through with hope for a better future.

Fans of Cyberpunk 2077, Spire, NorCo, Jeff VanderMeer, Neil Stephenson, Metropolis, and the work of Tom Bloom (Kill Six Billion Demons) and Wildbow (Worm, Twig, Pact) will find parallels in the broken world we've built for you to tell incredible stories in.

We hope you join us Omen, there's work to be done.

DOWNLOAD HERE

[birdologist]

my character for a wildsea campaign we're going to be trying :)

[ladytabletop]

LT Reads: The Wildsea RPG

We gotta talk about this game, y’all.

I’ve played and run a lot of this in the last year. It’s got such a unique setting. Here’s the basics.

Once upon a time, the Verdancy happened: an apocalypse of accelerated growth and acidic poison called crezzerine.

But that was then. This is now.

Now, ships with chainsaw prows and leviathan heart engines cut through waves of treetops. Their wakes disappear as the rapid growth repairs broken branches. Mutated wolves and foxes leap from limb to limb.

You build a character with three main elements: Bloodline, Origin, and Post.

Bloodline is what species you are. Maybe you’re a mothryn, recently emerged from your chrysalis. Maybe you’re an ektus, longing for desert sands. Maybe you’re a tzelicrae whose spiders have just finished sewing a new skin.

(Yeah, this is a weird game).

Origin is where you’re from. Did you grow up on one of the few solid landmasses in the trees? Were you preserved in amber for centuries and now have to contend with a foreign landscape? Did you grow up on the waves themselves, with a family on a fleet of ships?

Post is the sort of role you fill on a ship. Maybe you fight with guns. Maybe you brew strange concoctions that heal the soul. Maybe you carry the mail.

Each of these three elements is made up of aspects. Each aspect gives you a specific flavor, and each has a track associated with it. These tracks can be used for special abilities when specified, or they can be marked to designate injury done to your wildsailor.

Tracks in general are the way to measure progress, whether that be in journeys, in combat, or in projects.

You build your dice pool with Edges, Skills, and then any relevant aspects, resources, or environmental advantages you might have. The Firefly (GM) imposes cut if there are factors making the thing you’re trying to achieve more difficult. Your outcome is measured on a scale from triumph to conflict to failure. And doubles means a twist comes into play!

That’s to say nothing of ship-building!

I really cannot emphasize enough how fun and low-prep this game is. And guess what?

The basic rules are free.

There’s an expansion launching on Kickstarter soon for airships and submersibles.

Check it out!!

[boxwithouthingesart]

It has been a week, so I apologise for no comic pages this weekend. But here’s my new TTRPG character! This is Crao, my lichen-form Wildsea player character! 🍄🍃

[anim-ttrpgs]

The vote is open in the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club!

Come and vote on what game we play next!

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Wildsea

Honestly, I dragged my feet with this one for a few reasons 1: it's a biiit on the pricier side, its $25, breaking one rule in my submissions, but I think this is fine 2: I kinda refused to read it in general? it looked like it'd be fun aesthetic with lazy gameplay, something a lot of TTRPGs fall into, sadly This is not true! Wildsea demonstrates a fundamental understanding of game design, as well as having a really really fun aesthetic! Wildsea takes my favourite trope (non-water oceans), and sets it in a massive jungle, your cast builds their character as well as their ship, massive hulking machines made to cut through branches and leaves, and keep the sailors protected from dangerous radiation. Fire is rare, nearly non-existent due to its inherent danger, just a spark could destroy entire settlements, culture is varied, people are strange, and the sea is evershifting, after all, trees grow, branches change layouts, things change. Overall, Wildsea should be checked out, its a fun time!

[snaillesnaille]

my wildsea character wrynwood <3

[amity206]

Not Sky but have some doodled sillies for a Wildsea campaign I’m playing. You should totally play Wildsea it’s so much fun

[thiccremoch]

TTRPG Shoutout

Recently discovered and fell in love with the Wildsea TTRPG as one of my favorite settings in recent times. The system itself is based on the Forged in the Dark system that utilizes the bones of Blades in the Dark. It’s a narrative driven dice pool system with varying degrees of success and failure that, combined with the less mechanically intense abilities and player features, allows for quick improvisation and out of the box thinking based on loose mechanics (not to say that it’s rules light, more that it’s less chunky than something like D&D, Pathfinder, Wrath & Glory, and other more mechanically driven games).

But, what really pulled me in is the truly unique setting. 300 years prior to the modern day of the game, an apocalyptic event known as the Verdance occurred that led to mountain-sized trees growing all across the world (and cacti in some places). Now, post-verdance, people travel this ocean of leaf and branch with ships that have—and I need everyone to take this in…

Ships that use Chainsaw Engines* to carve across the waves of wood and vegetation.

It’s… so cool. Plus, the art direction and feel of the setting is absolutely phenomenal. You have different Bloodlines (Species/Races) that range from Humans +, living cacti, sapient spider swarms in discarded humanoid skins (usually consensually post-mortem), and more, you can play as someone who got trapped in oceans of sap that hardened into amber, and only now 300 years after the Verdance have they been freed with no memories and strange powers. You can play as a TEA WIZARD who has magical TEA that grants BENEFITS WHEN YOUR FRIENDS DRINK YOUR TEA… it’s perfection.

It’s so fun, I can’t recommend it enough (also because I had a character idea and I NEED to play it, but my immediate game group is stuck in long term campaigns we can’t pause to play a new game ;-;)

*Technically there are multiple methods of locomotion, but chainsaw engines are the coolest.

[cannibalhalflinggaming]

"The gorgeous book and art catches your eye, but what makes Wildsea unique in its worldbuilding vision is that there’s follow-through. The concept is outlandish: The world has been overrun by a veritable forest of massive trees, and your characters ‘sail’ across it on a ship that’s essentially a giant chainsaw. From this base concept comes many of the underlying setting assumptions, and they help the world feel cohesive even though it, at a high level, works very differently from our world. In an ocean of wood fire is catastrophic, so there is taboo against open flame. That affects how things are cooked, which in turn affects culture around food. The ‘spits’, settlements above the treetops, are threatened by the constantly growing and shifting flora, so impermanence is, once again, reflected through the whole culture. The game sticks the landing on creating something new by thinking through the core concept they present." - @levelonewonk

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played THE WILDSEA

By Felix Isaacs

The world is covered in a mile high sea of trees and the remnants of civilization sail the wooden waves on chainsaw ships. Players can choose to play humans with an affinity for spirits, cactus people, moth people, spider hive minds in skin/silk suits, jelly people, mushrooms, or ensouled wrecks/machines.

[tdoth]

TITANOMACHY: Dreams of the Hue | Omens 01 & 07

Art credit to the incredible Jonatan Anjos

RORY | background: WESTERN TRANSPLANT | hustle: AUGMENTATION REPOSESSION SPECIALIST | specialty: ORGANIST (L)

YESENIA | background: CONGLOMATON | hustle: DATALIST | specialty: OSTRAKON (R)

An Omen can't be too afraid to get their hands wet, and some callings end up with much, much wetter hands than others. Here we revisit an old friend, (our Repo, Rory), and meet a new friend dealing in the nightmarish realm of wetworks - Yesenia.

The Ostrakon deals in the realm of Dreams and the unconcious minds, even the whispers of it that remain after death. Using latent augmentations, Ostrakons can take control of recently deceased, plunge into memory, and discover exactly how far the mind can go before it breaks.

We've been very, very busy these past few months! Two successful con showings at both Big Bad Con and PAX Unplugged have led to now dozens of playtests and 4 ongoing campaigns! We couldn't be more excited to barrel towards crowdfunding in April, and to start to see the end phases of TDotH campaigns.

That being said, we need more! Please join us in our community Discord, and check out our free Demo Edition on itch. Thanks as always!

~Sillion

DOWNLOAD HERE

[birdologist]

Last of the moth gang! My and my partners' Wildsea party.

[klerothesnowman]

Why You Should Play A Different TTRPG, but without treating you like an idiot this time

As the anti WotC discourse continues to intensify I am once again reminded that nerds are famously really, really bad at selling people on things.

I don't blame us for it, we're all neurodivergent here, it's a safe space. But now that D&D is becoming a little "Ethically Challenging" to continue to engage with and let's be completely honest here guys, isn't inspiring much hope with its recent releases it's becoming increasingly pertinent to encourage people to reach out to other RPG games.

You've no doubt heard the refrain before, someone tries to do a political Game of Thrones-esque campaign in 5e and someone chimes up and says "5e isn't designed for this you should play a DIFFERENT game." It's a conversation we've been circling the drain around for so long. And the thing is, these people are kind of right, but with enough wrong in their argument that makes it unhelpful. Because look, you've been running your political 5e game for a while, or you've been watching a Crown of Candy, you have SEEN it work, you KNOW it can work. So when people come at you with the absolutist argument of "A campaign like this can't work in 5e" they've already lost the discussion. A campaign like that CAN work in 5e. But. It will work in 5e despite 5e. It will work, but only after the DM has invented reasons you can't use magic to solve the problem, either by preventing you from doing it in the first place or by introducing magical counters to that magic. And if it's the latter, that tilts the board a little further, because now the setting is one that has high powered mages deeply involved with the political game. Great if that's what you're angling for, but a bit of a problem if you're not.

The gameplay of a game informs how the game feels to play. D&D has a lot of mechanics for combat, and not a lot of mechanics for political RP. To bring up A Crown of Candy again, everyone playing that game is a skilled improv actor, they can rock the Political RP. But how often does things turn into a big fight? That's the game of D&D rearing itself again.

But look, you've probably heard this before right? Even this isn't a new argument. But here's what I think people miss out on. Showing examples from the other side of the fence.

This whole post has actually been an excuse to talk about Wildsea

The Wildsea is a cool indie RPG that my group has been playing recently. It's a post apocalyptic game where flora grew at an absurdly accelerated rate, covering the entire world in rapidly growing trees and vines. Now, people live on the top of mountains or bits of earth pulled up by the trees, and sail across The Wildsea on big ships with chainsaws on the front that cut their way through the treetops. It's weird and mysterious, with a lot of character options to make weird and mysterious characters. But also, crucially, the various aspects of its design from how it handles travel, character building and conflicts reward creativity and narrative focused play in a way that 5e just doesn't. And it all comes together to invoke a very specific vibe.

In Wildsea your character is built from three options, your Bloodline, your Origin and your Post. All three of these options give you access to an equal number of potential "Aspects" for your character. As an example, one character could have the Bloodline of an Ektus, tall cactus people, the Origin of Anchored, the ghost of a deceased Wildsailor and have the Post of a Char, the ship's Cook.

These three options are all really whacky in of themselves, but what's cool is that how important they are depends on how much you invest into them. If you primarily want to play a Cactus Person, who defends themselves with their spines and filters water through their flesh, you can take more Aspects from your Bloodline. If you want to play a Ghost, floating through walls and throwing around objects like a poltergeist you take more Aspects from your Origin. If you want to be Sanji from One Piece, constantly on the look out for cool ingrediants to cook with, you take more Aspects from your Post. All options are equally viable, and available to you.

Compare that to 5e. In 5e (specifically 5e, I haven't messed with the new stuff) your character is built from three point five options (Plus Feats, but I'll get to them). Your Race, your Background, your Class and your Subclass. Your race gives you extra bonuses to your stats and some flavour abilities. Your Background gives you extra skill proficiencies and a flavour ability. Your class and subclass meanwhile give you your entire suite of gameplay options.

As an example, one character could have the Race of Dhampir, a half vampire, the Background of Noble and the Class of.... Let's say, Rogue with the Subclass Swashbuckler. I'm trying to make something like Alucard here, from Castlevania. The son of Dracula, using his vampiric powers for the good of humanity.

Baseline, this is pretty good. But... What if I wanted to lean into the Vampire aspect really hard? As a Dhampir I gain access to the ability to walk on walls and a bite that deals 1d4 damage and restores health/boosts my next roll. And that's kind of it. It's not something I can build my entire character around, that 1d4 damage gets out classed very quickly. What if I wanted to go all in on being a noble? Well my options are even bleaker there, as your Background only gives you a single hyper specific ability that wont be applicable to anything else.

My character is my Class, and my Class is a linear path that's decided for me in the first three levels. I've chosen Swashbuckler, but what if the reason I wanted to play a Swashbuckler was so that I could use my charms and Panache to bedazzle and beguile my opponents? Well... Panache is a skill that you don't get access to until level 9. If I chose this class for this character fantasy, I'm not going to be able to achieve it until half way into my character build, meaning a very large chunk of the campaign is going to involve me not doing what I wanted this character to do.

What's more, if someone else is playing a Swashbuckler our characters are effectively going to be played exactly the same. The Vampiric Noble Swashbuckler will be indistinguishable from the Renegade Drow Street Urchin Swashbuckler during play.

The image of a party of adventurers sitting around the campfire is pretty iconic to D&D. The downtime is very important to players roleplaying, it gives everyone a moment to stop, have their character relax, and provide an environment to discuss things with other players. There's a reason there are so many commissioned art pieces of PCs interacting around a fire. There's a reason Baldur's Gate 3 made it the place you primarily interact with your party members.

The thing is though... Are you actually encouraged to? Mechanically, this is a Long Rest. It's how the majority of classes restore their abilities and that's basically it. The opportunity is there to do more through RP, but the encouragement and reward to do so is entirely on the player. How many times has your D&D party gone. "Okay we camp and do a long rest"? Be honest with me here. You're not thinking too deep about it. It's a moment to stop because you need to stop for the next combat encounter. There is nothing encouraging you to do more than that than your own desire for it. For some groups that's enough, but not every group can do that, sometimes a group really needs a little push in the right direction.

It's the same with traveling. The D&D party traveling from location to location is equally as iconic. But in practice what does that actually look like? Same with when I asked how often your D&D party brushed over the rest, how often do they brush over the travel? How often do you just have one or two "Who goes on watch tonight?" rolls and call it a day?

In Wildsea, traveling across the treetops on your chainsaw boat is the game. It's what it's all about. There's a whole ass character sheet for your vehicle for when you need to get gnitty gritty with it, but typically your travel journey will be handled by a montage of actions. Instead of just having a single PC making an obligatory "On Watch" roll, characters can take a variety of tasks like watching the weather, tending the engines, cartographizing, working the helm. Your characters are encouraged, required, to take a position on the ship and work.

What's more, "resting" isn't really a thing like in D&D. Much of the itemization of Wildsea revolves around managing specific resources, Salvage, Specimens and Whispers (which is magic stuff that I wont really be touching on.). Instead of health points your skills and equipment can take damage, which you can recover during these montages. You can use Specimens to cook meals which heal your wounds, you can use Salvage to repair your broken equipment or make new things. Specimens and Salvage can also come with extra tags, providing bonus effects when used. You can also gain Aspects for yourself and your ship that provide recurring access to these resources, or ways to improve them and add tags.

What this translates to in gameplay is that traveling in Wildsea becomes a combination of doing your job on the ship, your chores and your personal projects. You might find it weird that I'm describing a task as a "Chore" positively, but I think it's the perfect description because it sells an aspect of the game world, and the game itself.

The Wildsea is a post apocalypse setting. A major aspect of this game's world is all the different ways that people have adjusted to living in this environment. Having a series of menial tasks like tending to your night garden and hauling up the fishing trawlers that attract bugs to eat puts you, the player, in this environment. By making meals your method for healing it puts you, the player, into a position where a well cooked meal is something immediately desirable from a practical position. It makes getting your group together for a big dinner impactful, not just from a roleplay position but from a mechanical one too. It makes roleplaying a person just trying to get by in this world the gameplay. It encourages you to care about meals and salvage.

There's no guidance for this stuff in 5e. In fact, 5e discourages it. If you want your character to be a chef in 5e there are two options to you. Proficiency with Cook's Utensils and the Chef feat. The Cook's Utensils provide you with the ability to cook meals. If you roll above a 15 the meal is "Gourmet". This doesn't really mean anything. It also allows you to "Prepare Meals" that give a whole single hitpoint more when you rest. It's not very impactful. Meanwhile the Chef Feat allows you to also cook meals, "provided you have ingredients". There's no reason to seek certain ingredients of a higher grade or anything, and in my experience it's more likely for the DM to turn around and say you don't have access to ingredients to try and make narrative tension rather than reward the player for keeping track of them. These meals you can cook restore a little bit more HP, and can provide temporary HP too.

The thing is, Feats in D&D are something you have a very limited amount of, and they're not created equally. Chef is more useful than some, but taking Chef still means your combat ability is diminished. Taking Chef means you can't take feats that are more versatile and impactful.

This is why people encourage you to play games tailor made to deliver on certain vibes and themes rather than playing everything in 5e. Because they can more effectively deliver the experience that you're looking for, without needing to struggle against the system in the first place. It guides people toward certain behaviors and rewards choices that suit the vibe. Even the best roleplayers can do even better with a bit of guidance.