Evergreen
A tabletop roleplaying game
about heroes by necessity,
companionship on the road,
and a harsh world.
The playtest
We want your feedback
Evergreen is in its first round of public playtest. Download the playtest document to get to know the game and run a session or two. We'll be happy to take your feedback into account and mention you as a playtester when Evergreen is published.
You can find a printer-friendly version of the playtest document here.Don't be a stranger
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The world
She only speaks the language of tooth, thunder and instinct.
As long as the Peoples remember, Nature was there. She is behind every angry bite, every terrible disease and every sweeping storm that befalls them. This is Her world, not yours. Woodcutting is hubris. Mining is a sin. Live like animals, or don’t live at all.
The Peoples endure in their own ways.
The trolls have adapted the best. Throughout their long lives they never take more than the bare essentials, preferring to deprive themselves than offend Nature. They are old, sluggish, resistant to change. Caring and world-wise.
The goblins don’t have the luxury of a long lifespan, so they run. Their caravan-homes have evolved into a travel network for safe passage across the lands. They are small, brash, naïve. Curious and hospitable.
The fauns never had a choice. Once, they lived in the forests. Children of Nature. Since She cast them off, they had to build marble walls to hide from Her anger. They are tired, angry, slow to trust. Loyal and dependable.
Haven is a home for the homeless.
What brought you here, to the edge of civilization? Are you after riches, running away, searching for answers? Whatever it is, Haven has a place for you, and it needs helping hands. Settle in this new home and bask in the wilderness around it. Explore the ancient swampland to the north, travel the misty forests in the south. With every piece of knowledge, every supply route and every discovery, Haven becomes a bit more livable.
How far will you go to ensure Haven’s prosperity? Is it worth provoking Nature to provide for the Havenfolk? Do the Peoples deserve a claim to this world or is Her anger warranted?
The Lands are old,
tempered between Sun and Nature.
Find comfort on the road, riches in forgotten places, answers to your questions. Help each other, or the Lands Under the Sun will swallow you whole. Ancient things have started stirring in the bones of the world, and each piece of knowledge may bring you closer to the inevitable Truth.
The game
Evergreen is a dark fantasy game about people making the best of a hostile world and finding strength in each other. It tells stories of exploration, community, and ancient mysteries.
Regular folk,
not epic heroes
Characters start off as ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Mix and match your character's abilities to make them uniquely yours.
As characters grow, they gain access to more tools rather than raw power. No danger is insignificant, even for seasoned veterans.
Character-driven stories
You decide the stories you want to tell. Your character's goals, drives and flaws shape their story, aid and hinder them, and help them grow more experienced over time.
Journeys, trials and conflicts
Your adventures will challenge you in several ways.
Travel the Lands Under the Sun in far-reaching Journeys and face off against the world and the elements in treacherous Trials. Their rules are quick and simple, perfect for storytelling and high tension.
When push comes to shove, grit your teeth and stand against those who would harm you in bloody Conflict. Tactics and a quick wit may see you through, but remember: sometimes the question is not if you can kill something, but whether you should.
Natural magic
The Green, the magic of the Lands, grants otherworldly abilities to the lucky and the desperate.
The Greentouched have simple talents. They may see in the dark like it was daytime, communicate with a loved one no matter the distance, never get lost, or sweeten the weather when they’re around.
Then there are the Verdants; gifted wielders of the Green who can consciously perform unique invocations by combining aspects of magic. A sinister Verdant might weave harmful and oracular magic together, to rip information out of a poor soul's skull.
A living, breathing settlement
Haven, the players' home base, comes with its own mechanics, and also events, storylines, characters and encounters so you can set up a West Marches-style campaign* without much preparation. The players will help Haven evolve and expand, but they will also be called to defend it against the unrelenting dangers of the wilderness.
If you prefer more room to improvise, Evergreen also comes with modular places, creatures and storylines, not necessarily connected to Haven. A game master can write their own linear or West Marches story and use these elements to flesh it out.
*In a West Marches game, the players start from a safe location and explore outwards, furthering their own goals and uncovering the mysteries of the surrounding wilderness in standalone sessions that potentially connect into overarching stories. In Evergreen, the wilderness and the players' actions will also directly influence that safe location, evolving it over time.
The team
Evergreen is written and laid out by Sotiris (he/him). A physicist by day, forever-GM by night, Sotiris was born in Greece and grew up between bookshelves and fantasy books. He may be pursuing a PhD in physics, but he's still reading and playing ttrpgs like it's his second job. He gravitates towards provocative games with evocative rulesets. In his favorite session to date, his players had to communicate with a sentient tempest during a real-life thunderstorm.
Niki Lampada (she/her) is Evergreen's art director. She puts her Master's Degree in Fine and Applied Arts to use by way of photography, collaborative art projects, and being really opinionated. She loves ttrpgs that are set in weird fictional landscapes, have prominent thematic throughlines, are ripe for pathos, or are "Actually-A-Metaphor". Get in touch with her at the local fantasy bookstore, through her inactive-looking social media accounts, or just shout your hottest takes at the top of your lungs. She'll come for you, eventually.
Gawki, aka Ki (they/them), is Evergreen's cover artist and one of its illustrators. They are a biracial, queer, poly-am, pan, vegetariam, human-passionate artist who focuses primarily on creating content that: reflects what it’s like being these, dabbles in fantasy works, and/or revolves around anything relevant to being in the moment. They enjoy tending to their tiny garden, foraging for ever-elusive mushrooms, and eating tasty food.
Foteini or Fof would be the perfect alias to use, should a goblin wish to go into hiding and avoid being recognized. Alas though, that's just the name of one of the Evergreen illustrators. This human person loves to camp in nature, look at critters and dance about. They teach young humans English for a living, and they like coming up with lil' fun games to do so. They're currently working on an MA that will give them more tools to hopefully get into educational game design and learning sign language — which is really cool, you should try it.
Dimitra Nikolaidou (she/her) is half of Evergreen's editing team. She is an author, translator, researcher and teacher of creative writing. She holds a PhD from AUTh university, on the connection between speculative fiction and role-playing games, and has published various papers on ttrpgs. Her speculative stories have appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Andromeda Spaceways, Metaphorosis, Gallery of Curiosities, Starship Sofa etc as well as in various anthologies; they have also been translated to nine languages. Her Greek-to-English translations have been published in Metaphorosis, Future Fiction, Channel etc. In her free time, she’s found planning trips in strange forests and radicalizing fairies.
The other half of Evergreen's editing team is Victor Pseftakis (he/him). He is a Greek writer, editor and translator. His stories can be found in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Cossmass Infinities, Metaphorosis, and in various Greek venues. His first novel, Enydria, was published in Greek in 2011. His stories have been published in English, Turkish, Italian and German. He teaches creative writing focused on speculative fiction at Tales of the Wyrd, which he co-founded. He holds an MA in creative writing from Kingston University, London.
