(Crowdfund Quest) Mouseborn RPG

Crowdfund Quest is a new column that takes us on daily expedition into tabletop crowdfunding with a look at a current project in the tabletop gaming world.

I’ve personally been waiting for Mouseborn RPG to launch for a while, having signed up to their prelaunch sometime ago. I really liked what I’d seen, and read about, the campaign and jumped in to back it on Day 1 as soon as I got the email letting me know it was live.

Mouseborn is a new 5th Edition powered fantasy roleplaying game set in a world of small woodland creatures - mice, rats, frogs, moles. and newts are all playable races in the game.

Don’t be fooled - the tiniest of heroes leave the biggest pawprint. Gather your party, and follow their tiny footsteps into a grand adventure!

The game is set in a once peaceful forest which now stands on the edge of collapse due to political tensions and environmental decay. The players take on the roles of the small forest-dwellers that have been caught up in the aftermath of The Great Schism… a conflict that arose due to differenmt ideologies between the appointed heirs of Old Mossback, a wise old turtle who had ruled the Wooded Valley for as long as anyone could remember.

To avoid chaos after his death he adopted two heirs - one mouse and one rat - with the inention to form a joint government and uphold the balance through shraed rule. His heirs were raised as brothers and were inseparable. Edrin, The Mouse King heir, devoted himself to studying the history, customs, ancient laws, and primal spells of the forest. Korrin, The Rat King heir, devoted himself into metallurgy, rudimentary engineering, and the development of new forms of applied magic.

When Old Mossback eventually died the entire valley mourned, and an era that many believed to be eternal come to an end. As the mourning faded, the cracks began to appear.

For some time, the balance between the brothers was maintained. Edrin, The Mouse King was concerned with preserving traditions and order above all else. Korrin, The Rat King, promoted modernisation.

But Edrin believed that Mossback’s government should be preserved in all its glory and splendour. He wanted to keep the forest exactly as Mossback had left it, imposing his rule through strict laws that preserved ancestral precepts. Meanwhile, Korrin tried to implement modernisation. He saw the Mouse King as stuck in the past and kept his research into metallurgy a secret. With the help of the moles, he began to exploit iron mining and built a clandestine forge near the valley.

Tensions hardened, and the Mouse King began to view these changes as a direct threat to his rule. He accused the Rat King of being reckless, imprident, and oblivious to the consequences of his experiments. Gradually, the Mouse King sought new alliances to curb the Rat King’s impulses/ He won over the birds and frogs, and with their support, he issued edicts that, in practice, prohibited development and invention.

Faced with the destruction of his work, King Rat chose exile over submission to his brother’s will. He led his workers, followers, and admirers north to the swamps to found a new civilisation.

The rats left willingly, and in the months that followed, others joined them: moles in search of prosperity, newts eager for freedom to experiment with forbidden fungi and pyrocraft, toads fleeing the rigid hierarchy of the frogs, insects attracted by the food cycles of the emerging industry, crows, marginalised from avian society and seeking political relevance.

The once unified valley was divided into two incompatible civilisations. The Kingdom of the Mouse and the Kingdom of the Rat.

This mitigration gradually became known as The Great Schism.

Harsh winters, as well as the consequences of the Great Schism, have led to a period of discontent, scarcity, and hardship in the Mouse Kingdom. A strange fog seems to be spreading further and further south, and on humid days a foul-smelling effluvia appears on the river carrying dead fish, with some evil disease killing the trees, and old tensions resurfacing to awaken new grudges. The Council is deeply fragmented with the frogs complaining about poisoned waters, moles reporting tremors under the toots and the silence of their northern relatives, newts warning the forest is out of balance and pointing out that predators have not been seen for weeks. Even whilst the birds claim neutrality, they spread whispers about the groves that are rotting and dying.

Find yourself in these small travellers as the political landscape of Mouseborn unfolds. The Mice, Birds, and Frogs support The Mouse King Edrin, in his fight for the forest to remain as it once was during the peaceful reign of the past. Or join the Rats, Salamanders, and Moles in the revolution to modernise the forest, with The Rat King Korrin.

Who will you support and defend? Do you have what it takes to protect your woodland community from those who seek to destroy it?

The game introduces four new classes.

Rotwaevers - eerie spellcasters that draw strength from decay itself, raising fallen creatures of the forest back into their service.

Rootseers - builders and breakers of the underground wqorld. Armed with sturdy hammers they carve through stone and root to create the woodland tunnel system. Their natural senses allow them to sense danger early on.

Featherlights - patrol the skies above the forest canopy with unmatche speed and grace. These aerial fighters dive into action spearing enemies with deadly momentum.

Irontails - the disciplined defenders of the Northern Marsh. Some fight on foot in tightly formed shield walls while others ride massive toads across muddly marshlands and flooded terrain.

The game also brings in new enemies, such as Redcoils, Insect Swarms, and Plains Fixes, as well as a range of new spells in the form of Water Magic, Earth Magic, Air Magic and the forbidden Fire Magic.

The campaign offers the Mouseborn hardcover book, which comes in both a standard hardcover and a leatherbound slipcase edition for collectors. Six sets of dice have created for the six signature characters (Frog Paladin, Mouse Fighter, Salamander Mage, Rat Skirmisher, Mole Rootseer, and Songbird Featherlight) featured in the game, plus a seventh deluxe set for the Acorn Druid. The signature characters are also the focus for a set of enamel pins.

The campaign also offers a number of miniatures. The miniatures are 32mm scale and cover adventurers as well as monsters.

One of the things I also liked about the campaign was the ability to mix and match items through the add-ons, as everything is available as extras and the miniature sets are also broken down so you can chose specific single mniniatures should you wish to, as well as the Pay Over Time option, that allows you to split your payment over four months if you’d prefer to, if your original pledge is $150 or more.

The Mouseborn RPG crowdfunder is on Backerkit now and ends on 3rd July.