The cozy-dark TTRPG of deliciously magical jam is only 15 days from launch, and we couldn't be more excited!
Early Birds and Returning Backers
If you back Midnight Muscadines within the first 48 hours of launch, you will automatically receive a free traveler's stickers sheet! Track your travels across Nimm, adding the stickers to your character sheet or journal.
For our returning backers from Badger + Coyote and Substratum Protocol, you will get a free map of Nimm print! Never get lost again on a journey to Palefire, nestled along the Penumbral Mountains.
Our editor, Eric, and I have been hard at work finalizing the last bit of the mechanics and systems to ensure they all work well together, and we're incredibly excited about the gameplay. The rules are finished. We've crafted a narrative-focused system with abilities, items, magic, and feats that allow players to approach adversaries and challenges truly however they imagine - a medium-light crunchy system to power stories and adventures from one-shots to campaigns.
II. Adventures, Mysteries, and Festivals
With the mechanics wrapped up, we've been digging deep into the setting of Nimm and the Wildernight. Towns are being constructed, cafés and shops are being populated, and festivals are being planned! M. Allen Hall is hard at work writing locations, NPCs, and encounters for every town in Nimm, and dotting the Wildernight with settlements, landmarks, and mystery to uncover.
In Midnight Muscadines, there are a multitude of ways to seek adventure:
Classic adventures such as a point-crawl around a dormant volcano and Wildering Folk settlement searching for muscadines, while outwitting vying guilds.
Open-ended mysteries full of clues to uncover, like discovering who is stealing lanterns from town, threatening to ruin the Festival of Stars.
Attending Festivals, arecozy one-shot adventures filled with local drama, gossip and mini-games to participate in.
Art by Galen Pejeau
III. Delicious Magical Jam
Collecting ingredients, making jam, and casting spells from your jam jar. It sounds so whimsical, but how does it work? With 52 ingredients, and room for 4 in your jar, there are thousands of combinations you could create, how did we fill the book with all of them?
That's the neat part: We didn't!
The creation of your magical spell is left to you by combining the ingredients' descriptions in interesting ways. This combination of words and their meanings to create something new is one of the powerful tools players have. Let's look at the two ingredients below and see if we can come up with a couple of ways they could combine:
Two ingredients, Clingsweets and Mothwings can be combined in a multitude of ways.
The basic magical effect of ingredients is boxed in yellow, but you may take their full description into account when combining them in your jam jar.
Clingsweets influence a being's attitude, and grow on long vines and embody compassion, while Mothwings are mighty ingredients that can prevent nightmares or counter a resurrection that's occurring, and have been known to indicate safe places to sleep and repels evil.
Here's some possible spell effects you could have when combining Clingsweet and Mothwing:
Influence the nightmares of a being
Counter a being's influence over another
Counter a being's compassion
Form a den (a "safe place to sleep") inside a tree trunk ("base of trees")
Embody a nightmare
An embrace of vines that resurrects a being.
Revive a being's friendliness (or hostility!)
You can see how two players using the same ingredients can have drastically different spells. When adding a third or fourth ingredient, combine the new ingredient with the existing spell's description to create something new yet again. Because of the variety of spells you can create, we recommend writing down your favorite jam recipes and their effects!
What are some other spells that you could create from these two ingredients?
Because magic is so wild and powerful, there is a limit to its usage. After four uses, you'll draw a card to see if the jam skunks - or spoils. If the card's suit matches the slot an ingredient is in, remove it and that ingredient's effects on your spell. Your magic is always in flux. When leveling up, you'll have the option to improve your jar to allow more uses before you risk skunking the jam, and can even create more jars to carry.
