Coming February 1st to Kickstarter!
 

About our Kickstarter:

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Rebirth of a groundbreaking roleplaying game

It has been twenty-five years since the first release of the Everway diceless roleplaying game designed by Jonathan Tweet (D&D 3rd Edition, Over the Edge). The time is right for it to return in this stunning new format for its Silver Anniversary.

Packed with full-color art, setting and quest maps, more than 100 new creatures, four quests, and new rules options, the Silver Anniversary Edition is the definitive edition of this indie classic.

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With Everway you can:

  • Create mythic, larger-than-life heroes by telling a story based on artwork and assign stats, powers, and magic to fit your story.

  • Use the more than 200 included pieces of art or provide your own to create your heroes, realms, and quests.

  • Select a card drawn from the tarot-like Fortune Deck to moderate game play and to help define your heroes or background characters.

  • Explore the multiverse setting, where thousands of worlds called spheres are connected by mystic gates that the heroes can travel between.

  • Tell stories that are highly multicultural, epic in scope, and deeply connected to the symbolism, magic, fortune, and deities found everywhere among the spheres.

The Fortune Deck is a beautiful oracle deck, usable for tarot-style readings or for moderating action in an Everway game (more on that below). It is arranged in a pyramid of 36 cards, with each tier of cards having a relationship.

New for the Silver Anniversary Edition, we have also created the Season Deck of 41 never-before-seen cards that function as the minor arcana. These cards are arranged into 4 suits based on the seasons, with the rank of each card corresponding to part of the mythic Hero's Journey. It also contains a card called The Heavens.

 
 

The Basic Fortune Deck is all that is required to play Everway, and it includes just the 36-card Fortune Deck in poker-sized cards. The Deluxe Fortune Deck has 77 tarot-sized cards and includes both the Fortune Deck and Season Deck. It also adds elemental, planetary, and zodiac correspondences directly on the cards as shown above. The Fortune Deck acts as a major arcana and the Season Deck as a minor arcana.

We've included several ways to use the Fortune Deck and Season Deck together or separately. We know you'll love the new look of these cards, as well as how well they work as an oracle deck.

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Diceless System

Game actions are ruled by the Three Laws of Action:

1. The Law of Karma says what should happen based on common sense and character abilities.

2. The Law of Drama says what makes the best story, increasing excitement.

3. The Law of Fortune says what does a card draw from the tarot-like Fortune Deck suggest should happen.

The gamemaster can discuss with the players what each Law suggests, then ultimately uses a blending of these Three Laws to narrate what happens in response to heroes' actions.

Creating Heroes

Everway is a tabletop roleplaying game for a gamemaster and one or more other players. Players create mythic heroes that are spherewalkers, or individuals that can travel between many worlds in this mythic fantasy game. There are multiple aspects to creating a hero.

1. Vision

Pick 3 to 5 vision images and tell a story about the people and things you see in those images. Is one of the people shown your hero? Your enemy? Your best friend? You decide.

2. Identity

Name your hero and choose their adventuring motive linked to one of the seven classical planets of antiquity (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn). Choose a card from the tarot-like Everway Fortune Deck to represent your hero’s Virtue (advantage), Fault (flaw), and Fate (destiny). Each of these choices may affect gameplay.

3. Elements, Powers & Magic

Everway heroes are mythic beings built from 20 points, assigned to Elements and optionally to Powers or Magic. Let your hero’s story guide how best to assign these points.

Elements are the natural abilities of what your hero can do: think (Air), act (Fire), endure (Earth), and sense (Water). Each Element ranges from 3 points (average human) to 6 points (mythic hero).

A Power is a supernatural ability from your story that lets you perform some epic feat. Powers cost points based on their frequency in game play, major impact on gameplay, or versatility in game play.

Magic is the supernatural ability to create fantastic effects dynamically during gameplay. Your hero’s style of magic may be wildly different than the typical “wizard.” They might be a mage that casts spells through dance. They may have animated tattoos. They may have blessings from their deity. Whatever you can imagine.

4. Questions

Once you have created your hero, other players then ask you questions about your hero. Exploring details about your hero's background lets you fill in the gaps and understand how your hero relates to the other heroes. You can revisit the Questions process many times after you start playing to refine your hero based on their new experiences.

Creating Quests & Realms

The gamemaster can create quests and realms in a similar fashion as players create heroes. They select vision images that represent aspects of the realm and use a Fortune Deck reading to inspire the nature of the realm or quest that the heroes will encounter, perhaps tying vision images to specific events or specific background characters that the heroes will encounter during play.

Here's an example of a realm created from a fortune reading and some vision images:

 
 

We weren't satisfied with a simple re-release. We wanted to make it bigger, better, more accessible with larger fonts, and more awesome! Here are a few things you'll find in the set.

Book 1: Players

  • Full-color, 368-page book for players to learn the core rules of the game.

  • More than 200 full-color vision art pieces for hero and quest creation.

  • Expanded details on using Magic.

  • A comprehensive guide to the 36-card tarot-like Fortune Deck is included in the book, with the ability to "draw" a card by flipping to any page of the book.

  • Expanded Roundwander campaign setting, with a full-color map of the realm the city of Everway is the capital of and more details on the Roundwander provinces.

  • A Quick Start Guide is included in the book to summarize the most important rules and references for hero creation

  • A dozen ready-to-run heroes are included so that you can jump right in.

Book 2: Gamemasters

  • A full-color 400-page book to dive deeper into how to run Everway games.

  • Detailed guidance on how to run combat, handle wounds, design quests and realms, reward players with boons, and more.

  • Numerous new rules options to help gamemasters run games to their and their players' taste.

  • More than 100 new creatures to help populate your games.

  • 4 ready-to-run quests (each the length of a full module) to get you started in your adventures quickly.

  • Beautiful full-color maps for each quest's realms: 17 maps total!

  • This book can also be used as a Fortune Deck by turning to a random page.

Basic Fortune Deck

  • Poker-sized 36-cards in a poker-sized Fortune Deck with full-color art.

  • Cards represent the Virtue or special advantage, Fault or special flaw, and Fate or destiny of each hero.

  • Cards are drawn during play to help determine the course of events.

  • Gamemasters use fortune readings to develop realms and quests.

  • 48-page digital edition for the extra Key to the Fortune Deck.

Deluxe Fortune Deck

  • Tarot-sized 36-card Fortune Deck--like the Basic Fortune Deck and used for the same purposes, just at a larger card size with a different card back. The Fortune Deck functions like the major arcana in tarot cards.

  • Includes an additional 41-card Season Deck with 10 cards for each season plus a card called The Heavens which functions like The Usurper in the Fortune Deck. The Season Deck functions like the minor arcana in tarot cards, with each season modeled on The Hero's Journey.

  • Cards from the Season Deck can be used as Usurper (or wildcard forces) in your regular Fortune Deck, or can be used independently or combined with the Fortune Deck in play.

  • The Deluxe Fortune Deck also includes 7 double-sided instructional cards for more information about using the deck.

  • The combined Deluxe Fortune Deck can be used independently as a tarot-like oracle deck.

Vision Collection 1

  • The first set of 84 vision images (7 sets of 12) that are included in Book 1: Players are also available in card format for ease of use in play.

Vision Collection 2

  • The second set of 84 vision images (7 more sets of 12) that are included in Book 1: Players are also available in card format for ease of use in play.

 

Live now on Kickstarter!

Check out our Kickstarter page.