Three thousand years ago the world of Nyobekeer changed. The Cascade, a cosmic event with magical consequences, was the harbinger of powerful monsters called Breakers. Soothwardens were created to fight this threat, and together these warriors protect the souls of the living.
In Soothwardens, you play as one of the many gifted protectors of reality. Traversing Nyobekeer, a world split apart and reshaped into a ring-like continent by mages long past, you will encounter the many peoples and creatures of the land. Like you, monsters on a separate plane of existence roam, looking for cracks in reality to break through. When these Breakers find their way in, it is your job to hunt them down alongside your partner. Together you will protect, together you will fight, because what you do cannot be done alone.
Soothwardens is a Luckless game, meaning there are no dice, no cards, and no random outcomes. Using two resource tracks, you will investigate, hunt and fight Breakers. Throughout every aspect of play, Wardens will also deal with the Link to their partner(s), explore the world, and help communities along the way.
Wardens operate through an intense and intimate magick called a Link. This connection allows for two things that a Warden needs. One: it is a tether to reality, allowing them to return safely while fighting in the Break. Two: it allows the Linked Wardens to sense how the other is fairing in their fight. They feel their pain, they sense their emotions, and they use this Link to heal and care for each other. Wardens are each other’s spear and shield. A confidant for the words they’ll never say. A union, and one no Warden would wish to have ripped from them in the midst of a fight against the Breakers.
Soothwardens can only exist as either pairs of two Linked Wardens, or as Triplets with a rare Hopper that bonds three characters together. After selecting how your characters are bonded, you’ll then choose a Paradigm Path to follow, with Paradigms (or patterns) like: Power - 1, Speed - 2, Fabrication - 3, and Range - 4, or Fabrication - 1, Speed - 2, Range - 3, and Power - 4. Wardens also have special Talents that further customize play, as well as a weapon, crafted through magick that takes the shape of any weapon the Warden desires, called a Dirge.
Playing Soothwardens features:
Creative freedom in combat and magick
A deep character bond that informs the narrative and introspective roleplay
Our goal is to just focus on delivering a great game to you, and we wanted our pledge tiers to reflect that accordingly.
If you back at The Physical Soothwardens level, you’re getting a 200+ page tome, with gorgeous spreads showing off the beautiful world of the Sooth, plus guest writing from creators like Josephine Kim!
In case you do need extra gear though, you’ll also get a bundle of Power Tokens and a few Character Keeper sheets if you back at The Complete Soothwardens level as well. A PDF copy comes with any physical reward tier.
Finally, The Full Library level gives you everything from The Complete Soothwardens, plus physical and versions of The Corrupted: Evolution, an updated version of Navaar's first game.
For each campaign Plus One EXP runs, we set a rate that allows us to pay the creators better if the campaign does well. For Soothwardens, every time we hit or loop $10,000 the creative team gets an incremental pay increase.
We believe that all of us should succeed together even if it's in incremental amounts.
Navaar Seik-Jackson (He/Him) is a game designer, podcaster, and occasional performer of Actual Play. His biggest personal game projects are The Corrupted and Soothwardens, and he’s written for Wandering Blades and Paizo’s Pathfinder 2e. All of this stems from a love of storytelling, and Navaar enjoys sharing his joy for the hobby, and working to ensure marginalized voices have a seat at the table. You can find him and his work at https://navaar.carrd.co/, or on Bluesky at navaarsnp.bsky.social.
Joshua Clarke is a Barbadian illustrator, writer and old school dinosaur nerd. His art combines a love of the natural world, history and literature with bold colors and strong narrative flow, all in service of the two pillars of Afrofuturism and Afrofantasy.
Zak Goggins is an illustrator based in Los Angeles,CA. Their main inspirations: speculative fiction, architecture, and textiles stem from their love of set design. Their goal continues to be transportation through creativity.
Josephine Kim is a TTRPG producer and cofounder of BadHouseRPG alongside Fabian Lelay. As a long time storyteller and GM, she has fashioned multitudes of lore for various games.
Wes Franks is a writer, designer, and producer specializing in interpersonal slice of life horror, fast-paced sci-fi and high stakes drama. Experience for yourself with some of their own work like 86, COME ON IN, and This Old House or the work they have contributed to The Between, Public Access, and other games in the miasma of life. https://bsky.app/profile/carrion-comfort.com
Joan Zahra Dark is a writer, game designer and occasional actual play performer that loves getting people organized. They're currently based in Chicago.
Kyle Tam (she/her) is a dreamer, writer, and full-time complainer from the Philippines. Her games include Indie Groundbreaker Nominee We Wander Beneath Radiant Lights, Beloved, and Primadonna. You can find her on Blusky at @PercyPropa, or find her work at whatkylewrites.carrd.co.
Quinn Blackwell is a writer and a ttrpg designer with a love of telling stories that linger. His work explores intimacy, inheritance, and the quiet horror of living in complicated bodies and places.
Lexi McQueen (he/she/they) is a black queer nerd who loves to tell epic stories that empower her and her players to haunt the narrative and take big swings. Though he has written for many projects, Lexi’s passion for music has spilled into the work he’s done all over the TTRPG space. She has worked on themes for All The Witches: The Kickstarter, Laurie House, and Strix U. You can find Lexi looking for the next adventure, and touching the most cursed of objects.
Daniel Kwan is a Canadian podcaster, game designer, and cultural consultant. You might know him as the co-host and showrunner of the Asians Represent! podcast. As a freelance narrative designer, some of his notable works include Candlekeep Mysteries, The Dragons of D&D, Dragon Delves, The Ultimate Micro-RPG Guide, Avatar Legends, Dark Archive, and the Tian Xia series. He is currently putting in the final touches on his latest tabletop RPG, Wandering Blades - a wuxia game of violent melodrama in the style of old school TTRPGs.
Quinn Murphy (founder of Thoughtcrime Games)'s journey with RPGs started when he "inherited" his brother's copy of Chainmail at the age of 11 Since then, he's written for a wide range of products and companies, including (but not limited to): Paizo (Pathfinder, Starfinder), WotC (Dragon Magazine), Kobold Press(Lost City, Kobold Quarterly), Magpie Games (Our Last Best Hope), Onyx Path Publishing (Trinity Continuum: Aeon), Simon & Schuster (The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book).
Meadow Lawson is a professional GM, an indie ttrpg designer, and the winner of the 2025 CRIT Award for Best D&D Player. She loves heartfelt, dramatic, action-forward stories that highlight the importance of community and connection. Meadow is the producer/showrunner, character artist, and game designer of the actual play Hex Heist: Wandless & Wired which spotlights an all-black table telling such stories.
Connie Chang (they/he/she/ta) is a trans, Chinese-American, ENNIE-winning game designer, screenwriter, and actual play performer who's been featured on Polygon, The New York Times, and Dimension 20's Adventuring Academy. Formerly a narrative designer at Bungie, you can find them running the ENNIE-nominated and 2024 Audio Fiction World Cup-winning Transplanar RPG, working on the itch.io Top Physical Games bestseller GODKILLER RPG, or making videos for their 55,000 YouTube subscribers and 176,000 TikTok followers.
Spencer Campbell (he/him) is an award winning RPG designer publishing under the name Gila RPGs. Some of his best known games include Slayers, RUNE, NOVA, and the LUMEN system. Find his work at gilarpgs.com.
Jeremy Cobb (he/him) is a professional TTRPG creator, GM, actor, writer, and worldbuilder. In addition to his work as cohost and Resident GM of the award-winning podcast 3 Black Halflings, he's also worked with NeverEnding on the book Anansi's Tapestry of Lives and as the creator of the setting for the book City of the Black Rose by Roll & Play Press.
"...Building a world that is explicitly non-colonial and non-capitalist is EXACTLY the sort of game we need now. We can't get there in real life if we can't go there in our imagination." – Meguey Baker, Apocalypse World
"Soothwardens is not only about the link between its Wardens; it links the intimate and the tactical, creating an exciting space for players to explore." – Quinn Murphy, Thoughtcrime Games
“Soothwardensis For the Lesbians." - Alyssa Gabrielle, adisasterqueer games
Plus One Exp has a great and robust retail program. In order to not lock up your funds, and to avoid platform fees, we encourage retailers to sign up for our retail partnership program by emailing [email protected] and pledging $1 to follow along.
Soothwardens is about 80% complete at the time of launching, and we’re fairly confident in being nearly finished after the crowdfund ends for a quick digital release, printing and distribution in a few months.
Shipping will be charged in fulfillment once we’re ready to send books out. US Shipping will be ~$10-15 from Plus One Exp UK Shipping will be ~£8-12 shipping from Peregrine Coast Press
Other Locations will be ~$15-24 shipping from Peregrine Coast Press or Plus One
