Beasts: Quickstart Rules

No gods, no devils. Just beasts.

In Beasts you play a group of teenage child soldiers fighting an insidious enemy hellbent on the silent conquest of humanity. The enemy is a secretive organization, covertly taking control of people’s minds, bodies, and will. Should the enemy’s invasion ever become known to society at large, they would shift their strategy to full-out war against humanity, something you know that would result in the loss of a staggering amount of lives. You and your friends have the power to transform into animals. Will this power be enough to turn the tides of the invasion? Probably not, but you are our only hope. 

How far will you go to win this war? And what will be left of you when it is over?

Beasts is a Powered by the Apocalypse game inspired by the Animorphs book series. 

The barebones (for now) 19-page quickstart guide has all you need to play a session with your friends. 

• Beautifully designed Character Sheets
• Session 0 information for building a world
• Character creation rules
• 16 moves for a full gameplay experience
• GM tips and information for running a multi-session campaign with a climactic ending

Tell the story of teenagers who try to hold on to their convictions in an impossible war. The question is not whether they will get through this with their humanity unscathed - but rather how far they will have to go to have any chance of winning.

With the ability to turn into animals, you'll use your animal forms to spy on the Enemy, discovering their secret plots, and use the gathered intel on missions to sabotage them. Be careful to keep your cover, though. You still need to go to school and pretend everything is OK. You never know who's head the Enemy is already in.

You might turn into an eagle to follow someone from above, sneak into a secret meeting as a mouse, or fight off dangerous otherworldly monsters as a bear.
 

Why No Crowdfunding?

Let's be honest here. Big crowdfunding campaigns are stressful and expensive. 

* Rather than spend 20-50% of any crowdfunding funds on stuff that isn't the book, we'd rather a bigger percentage of that go to making this book happen.

* Rather than ask you to risk your money in a product that may never exist, we'd rather give you something tangible for your money. 

Thus,

Purchasing the quickstart guide helps fund the full book.

If funding goals are met, we'll get to work on a full PDF (or maybe even a print run if things go super well). Owning the $7 quickstart guide will give you a $15 discount on the finalized PDF or printed out book, when they are eventually (we hope!) funded and created. So you don't have to pay for the full PDF until it is made, and you'll pay less than if you wait.  

Breakeven Celebration:

This is when we've sold enough to cover the costs of the cover art, logo design, and character sheet design. We'll celebrate by adding 7 new Traits to the quickstart guide (free update for everyone who purchases) to really expand character creation options.

Victory Assets:

We'll celebrate this Victory by adding a planned Assets system to the quickstart guide (again, free update). Assets are advantages gained by characters on missions by achieving Victories over the Enemy. Assets can range from some useful intel to a secondary team of allies to help fight the Enemy when your characters are elsewhere.

The Full Text

We'll produce a 100+ page PDF.  Anyone who's purchased the Quickstart Guide will receive a $15 discount on the PDF (so you'll save $8). The PDF will have Public Domain animal pictures (and maybe some pictures of your pets, we'll see!) as well as the full content of the quickstart guide and some extra stuff:

• More worldbuilding questions and tables to help groups really flesh out the Enemy and any otherworldly Allies their characters might have.
• Even more assets
• Even more character Traits
• Tools and tables for incorporating Weird Science into the game.
• Expand on the framework for GMs to create interesting, intense campaigns that challenge the Player Characters to decide between Assets and advantages over the Enemy and holding on to their Convictions.
• Three sample scenarios in case your table just wants to jump right into the story.
  • Merfolk from deep in the sea use magical amulets to control people's minds.
  • 10th dimensional beings reprogram people as though they were computers.
  • Colonies of insects wear people's skin like suits.

• Professional design and layout by Francita Soto, something along the lines of the following sample:

Book + Lineart

We'll add lineart by Lucas Nascimiento throughout the book!

Inspiration

We'll add a chapter to the book with articles written by all sorts of smart people about Biology, Weird Science, Science Fiction, and whatever else might help inspire you in your campaigns

The Book I would Love to Make

All of the above, plus even more awesome full color art and even more content.