Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game review: "A world filled with superstition and real evil"

The product of a highly successful Kickstarter campaign, the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game turns the world of the anthology horror podcast into an appropriately spooky and narratively driven tabletop experience. While it has plenty to offer listeners who’d like to face the agents of the Inner Dark using secrets passed down by grannies, it also delivers enough compelling lore to build a new audience looking for a novel spin on horror.

The Old Gods of Appalachia podcast is set in an alternate version of early 1900s Appalachia, where the mountains entomb ancient horrors that stir under the picks of miners digging ever deeper into the darkness. These monstrosities can whisper to the desperate, granting them powerful boons in return for service. But they can also be fought with the strength of a tight-knit community, magic passed down for generations, and the raw might of the land itself.

This is a great game for fans of folk horror, where you’ll be delving into remote settlements ruled by witches and haunted woods where you may be lost forever. It also has the themes of corruption and ancient evil found in Lovecraft stories without the specific baggage of the Cthulhu mythos – a title whose influence looms large over many of the best tabletop RPGs. 

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Features & design

• Hugely evocative art
• Book is mostly about providing plot-hooks
• Includes a consent checklist for your players

The book is packed with quotes from the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast, and players and especially GMs are encouraged to listen to get more of the vibe and stories from the setting. Still, it’s not a requirement given how much detail is put into fleshing out Old Gods of Appalachia’s version of each of the region’s states, their key points of interest, and the people and terrifying supernatural entities that live there. A large map insert shows off the scale of the area and relative locations of its cities and towns.

The art is also highly evocative. Images provide cozy set dressing (like a family in their root cellar stuffed with mason jars of pickled vegetables) and also builds on the horror with pictures of ghosts and mythological creatures.

In a more down-to-earth move, giving players an included consent checklist is encouraged as the historical setting includes spooky supernatural elements but also mundane horrors like racism, torture and police brutality. However, the book itself doesn’t dwell much on the real-world issues, letting GMs decide how much actual history they want to use in their alternate Appalachia.

While there are two short adventures included at the end of the book, the game mostly gives GMs tons of plot hooks to work with as players explore the world. They’re encouraged not to worry too much about fitting into the narrative of the podcast, making the setting their own as they tell stories about sinister company towns, preachers with too much power, and spectacular mining disasters.

Gameplay

• Cypher system focuses on narrative over rigid mechanics
• Increased focus on GM intrusions to build horror
• Characters are complex with rich connections to the other PCs and the world

The Old Gods of Appalachia RPG uses the Cypher system introduced in Numenera and further developed in the Cypher System Rulebook. It easily could have been a setting book considering how many pages are spent laying out the game’s main rules with just a few modifications like changing the name of the Warrior character type to Protector or the Shepherds Spirits focus to Fears No Haints.

But Old Gods of Appalachia does make good use of the Cypher system, particularly its eponymous single-use items. There are a huge variety of thematic boons that players can find, from an herb-filled candle that can stop someone from dying while it burns to apple pie so good it will restore some of your strength. 

The Old Gods of Appalachia RPG also builds on the Horror Mode optional rule in the Cypher System Rulebook, making it progressively easier for the GM to add in intrusions that make life harder on the players as powerful entities begin to take notice of their actions and move against them. Artifacts, magical items that in the core system may be depleted based on the results of a die roll, instead can 'come due.' When that happens, they become inert until the players pay some thematic cost like a blood sacrifice or doing a favor to the witch who made the artifact in the first place. The mechanical impact is largely the same, but it’s a great use of the game’s theme that all power comes with a price. 

Should you buy the Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game?

If you’re a fan of the Old Gods of Appalachia podcast or generally interested in folk horror, the Old Gods of Appalachia RPG provides a rich setting to play in and a strong introduction to the versatility of the Cypher system. The game provides plenty of material to dream up characters and plots in a world filled with superstition and real evil. 

The Old Gods of Appalachia RPG would have been better value for Cypher veterans as a setting book that didn’t reprint the core rules, but could still be worth adding to the collection of anyone looking for fresh ways to scare their players.

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