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CASKET LAND

Created by Marie Enger

An occult western inspired RPG zine.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

CASKET LAND - CRUACH. 2 days left to fund!
about 4 years ago – Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 01:43:20 PM

CASKET LAND - CRUACH - the second campaign in the CASKET LAND SERIES (I can't believe I'm actually able to use that word now?!) is in its final 2 days of funding RIGHT NOW. Right here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bones/casket-land-cruach

Last year's campaign was such a wild ride, and so many of you have come up to tell me you loved the game (when you do it in person it makes my day seriously every time!).  I'd been telling folks since Gen-Con that THIS, the CRUACH campaign, was the thing I was most excited about - and it's true! With support (some from you all survivors, some from new bodies thrown into the wastes) CASKET LAND CRUACH is shaping up to be a brutally beautiful and bleak game. You can learn more about it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bones/casket-land-cruach - but look - the flavor text is so swampy and atmospheric, it'd be a crime to not include just a little taste of what's to come here as well...

The Ferryman dips their oar into the stagnant water, the red algae kicks up and all in the party (save the Cultist, who cackles in mad devotion) moves to cover their mouths. You had survived life, the great dust storms that whipped black dirt against your walls, windows, and bones, the plagues that tore through what remained of your settlement after the monsters destroyed it over, and over, and over again. Nothing could have prepared you for this foul and brackish nightmare.

You glance at Loam, holding his book tight, staring out across the blood choked swamp. For the first time, you see the madman step back. Doomed hands rise up, reaching, begging, and collapsing into the damnable red sludge only to rise up and reach yet again.

The sounds, the birds screaming in parallel with the cultists who stalk the area around you, the croak of death and stink of decay, the shadow of something worse beneath your raft, this place, this place is this place is... there is no coming back from this, there can’t be. This is the end this is the end this is the trees bend under the weight of the red lichen that grows upon it, their color all but drained into a sickly pale, their branches crumbling away. The stench, like blood and salt and rot, like blood and salt and rot, like blood and salt and rot, the feeling of terror oozing over the water and into your very soul, there is madness here there is madness here there is madness…

Loam grabs your shoulder, the sharp pain of his touch burning down into your bones, you gasp in pain, for a moment the madness that now clouds you cleared. In his other hand he grips his book, growing red around the edges…

Coming here was a mistake.”

You don't have to do this. There is still time to run.

Thank you all so much for supporting Casket Land. Without you this game simply would not exist - and I'll always be grateful! If you're gonna be at Pax East, be sure to come say hello (booth 8120!) and let me thank you in person!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bones/casket-land-cruach

THE BONES OF THIS PLACE.
over 4 years ago – Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 11:53:02 PM

 I've been meaning to come to you with THE BONES OF THIS PLACE for a while.

In 2018 something happened and my body started becoming something new. It did this without my permission, without caring what I needed or who I believed myself to be.

You’re trapped in your skin - even if you don’t want to be. There are things you can do to change yourself, but there are parts of you, deep down in the dark, that shift without your control. You’re bound to these dark places, unable to escape. I became acutely aware, and troubled by this knowledge as my skin and bones started to twist into something I didn’t set out to be. It consumed, consumes, me still.

In 2018 I went to my partner’s childhood home in Seaside, Oregon.

He had grown up as an army brat, moving from place to place, but he always talked fondly about the wreckage of the Peter Iredale, the skeletal remains of a ship that went aground in 1906. The beach surrounding the bones of the ship was littered with large pieces of driftwood, whole trees practically, that had washed up on this stretch of lonely shore. The starkness of the water, the dull sand, the pieces of wood that breached the sand like broken vertebrates, it all pulled at me. It almost felt like an ache in my spine. It was beautiful and frightening.

This combination of the beautiful loneliness and unknown pull of the wreckage and beach twisted around the unwanted transformation I was undergoing and ARE, the hooded figure who wanders the stagnant beach, was created.

This is a different path than other Kickstarters I’ve done. NOSFERATU! was irreverent but kind hearted, Casket Land was a game that brought people together. THE BONES OF THIS PLACE is a move to atmospheric eldritch fiction. I want it to be a beautiful artifact that draws you in and leaves you beautifully empty.

I’m hoping to bring you a 9x6 48 page hardcover piece - the main story, as well as concept art and explanations of what exactly, ARE and WAS are.

I know I've asked a lot of you all, patience, opinions on gameplay, to be part of something I'd never done before...but this...This is the best thing I've ever done. This is my best attempt to come to terms with what's happening inside of me. It's personal, it's important. It has less than 48 hours to finish funding and become my true vision. 

As always, I'm grateful. 

UPDATE: UK, EU, and Everywhere Else Shipping!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Aug 14, 2019 at 01:15:12 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

CASKET LAND - CRUACH - AND THE RELEASE OF THE HEK TREASURY
over 4 years ago – Tue, Aug 13, 2019 at 01:56:54 AM

Casketeers, 

It was amazing meeting so many of you at GEN CON! I honestly didn’t expect so many people to come up and tell me they backed the game, but it felt like I was always saying “thank you!” It made the weekend, and I can’t wait to do it next year!

If you weren’t at GEN CON, and didn’t get to ask me in person what the big Casket Secret is...well, now it’s time to let you in on it. 

Casket Land - CRUACH - is coming in September. 

Where as in the HOMESTEAD campaign, you squared off against a brutal false-matriarch out for blood and water, in CULTS you’ll face the crazed cult leader TIGNERMAS, his followers, and the great and terrible thing they’ve pulled out from the shadows. 

You’ll notice that instead of the typical CASKET LAND logo, there’s just one word - FEN. 

Tignermas’s story has been one I’ve wanted to tell for a long time. I’ve spent years refining it, deciding what drives this particular death cult, what makes Tignermas (or TIG) so fanatic, what horrible events led them to spill blood at the feet of a golden rock…waiting for my chance. 

CRUACH is not that chance. I want you all to be able to explore the horror on your own - FEN is my chance. The HEK TREASURY is my chance. 

So many of you folks at GEN CON were shocked that my day job was...comics. Anytime I’m not doing CASKET LAND, I’m working on eldritch stoner horror, irish folklore horror, trippy shit, any 90s comic that needed a short from someone who drew like an alt 90s comics dude…I’ve actually been doing this for 6 years. 

I work at a studio in St. Louis, HEK. Hurtt, Enger, Kindt. We bought a studio off route 66 in January, and for the first time, we’re creating a book truly collaboratively - the HEK TREASURY. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ohhek/hek-treasury?ref=a5o1mr

We will each be doing at least 3 new, unique, beautiful and bizarre stories for this showcase. Matt is focusing on a future where a ruined humanity hides within, and relies on help from MECHS, Brian on a world so transformed by reckless genetic engineering that it’s become unrecognizable, hostile, lethal. 

I’m telling you about TIG. I’m telling you the story of a man pushed to the brink and a swamp soaked in blood. I am giving you the backstory for a CRUACH that is more terrifying than HOMESTEAD. I’m telling you who you’re up against, and why you’ll need every item and trick at your disposal to save the settlement, to save yourselves. 

 I’m telling you a story of LOAM - your guide in this hostile land. For everyone who wanted an insight to the wrapped madaman, this is the place to get it. You’ll see his home, a glimpse of his book, and a deeper look into the world of CASKET LAND. 

I’m telling you about QUAKER - a man stranded on a rotting moon, surrounded by the corpses and voices of his dead comrades...a man who’s beginning to hear the babble of something deep and all encompassing. 

If you loved the setting, art, and atmosphere of CASKET LAND - you’re going to love the HEK Treasury. 

We’re running the Kickstarter for the next month. As with Casket Land, support and sharing is always appreciated. My hope is that this kickstarter, this book, gets you excited for future projects from HEK, and from me. 

Like before, I’m thanking you again. Your support allows me to create projects I love - and the HEK TREASURY is one of them


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ohhek/hek-treasury?ref=a5o1mr

UK, EU, and Everywhere Else Shipping!
over 4 years ago – Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 11:44:01 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.