The Hidden Isle is a pen and paper RPG that uses Tarot cards instead of dice, set in the 16th century on the secretive island of Dioscoria. It focuses on roleplaying and collaborative storytelling.
This is a game about swashbuckling adventures across Europe and the Middle East, stealing forbidden texts from oppressive regimes, protecting an island of outcasts using ancient magic, and toppling empires with just the right speech at just the right time.
If you are familiar with Tarot then The Hidden Isle will resonate with you all the more, but no experience with Tarot is necessary. To help you feel like a mystical oracle and stay inspired, we’ll provide you with tables and guides to help you quickly understand each card draw.
Narrative heavy, rules light. While the game does have rules, their purpose is to enrich and drive your narratives. The game is designed as a collaborative storytelling experience.
Play and character growth intertwined. Each character has a burden—an emotional weight they carry—and an ideal to live up to. Become your truest self, or succumb to your worst impulses.
A vibrant 16th-century world. Dioscoria is described in loving detail, as are major cities of the time such as London, Istanbul and Venice. No historical knowledge is needed.
A wide array of characters. Play as an Illusionist, Scoundrel, Occultist, Prowler, Champion or Hunter. More characters are added each Campaign!
GM can plan or improvise. Scenarios can be planned ahead of time by the Seer, or improvised at the start of a session for GMs short on time.
Tarot cards instead of dice. They’re used for everything from scenario inspiration, to character backstories, to divination, to skill checks. No Tarot experience is required. Any deck can be used, but we recommend the Sefirot deck.
Dioscoria: a hidden isle of sages, adventurers, and ancient wisdom. Within the walls of this secret city are gathered the misunderstood, the persecuted, those unjustly punished for the way they live. Here they can flourish, and return to the world to wage their secret war against injustice and ignorance when they are ready.
1562: It is a dangerous and disrupted time. Europe has embraced the innovations of gunpowder, and is using it to tear itself apart along religious lines. The Ottoman Empire is poised to break either Vienna to its west or the Safavid Empire to its east. European colonisers are spreading along the coastlines of the world like a hungry parasite. The Inquisition accuses, tortures and executes its victims across the Catholic world.
It is also a world of alchemy and sorcery. English magicians pry the mysteries of the stars. Ottoman scholars unravel the hidden design of the creator. Dioscorian mystics have mastered techniques to peer beyond the veil of time, and steer the world towards sanity.
Into this maelstrom step the agents of Dioscoria. Dioscoria's actors, magicians, assassins and paladins stand ready to defend the helpless and preserve wisdom. As these agents tackle scheme after scheme, and topple tyrants, cults and demonic forces, will they live up to their ideal selves, or embrace the darker parts of their own humanity?
Character generation: Characters’ backstories—their childhoods, their adult life, their emotional burdens and their ideals—are generated by consulting the Tarot for inspiration.
Burdens and ideals: Every character has a burden and an ideal. These are habits that threaten to engulf you, or values you are striving to live up to. Use them during play to make challenges easier, or become the person you want to be.
Skill checks: The Agent and the Seer each draw a hand of cards, based on the Agent’s skill and the challenge’s difficulty. Each plays a single card; the highest wins. The suit’s skill (swords, wands, cups or pentacles) acts as a trump suit.
Fortune cards: To avert failure, Agents may spend a fortune card to turn a failure into a success. Agents can jump in and help each other when all seems lost.
Solo mode: A favored Stretch Goal has been reached. Now you can play as an Agent in solitaire mode. The Cabinet of Extremis has chosen you to carry out their will on more dangerous missions than regular Agents undertake. You can also find the preliminary rules among the playtest materials.
Visions: Each Agent is blessed before each mission, and can receive glimpses of the past, present or future. Visions can be used to gain useful information, peer into a character’s fate, or add tension and stakes to a scene.
Harm: Harm can be physical or spiritual. Agents are usually harmed because of a failed challenge. Harm can severely impede an Agent, and lead to permanent trauma if untreated.
Abilities: Each character class has unique abilities. Occultists can curse with the evil eye. Performers can imitate their target perfectly. Hunters can spread panic by dispatching their enemies from the shadows. Just make sure your ability isn’t causing you more harm than you can tolerate!
Contacts: Your friends and allies in Dioscoria can help you grow. These personal connections help you train, prepare and reflect on yourself, and can teach you abilities you would otherwise never have access to.
Territories: Dioscoria, and other cities, change over time: in response to player actions, or inspired by Tarot draws. This can create a unique geopolitical landscape: a world that branches off from our own history.
Scenario divination: For GMs who don’t want to prep ahead of time, scenarios can be generated on the fly by drawing Tarot cards and consulting the “Vision guide”. If you chain these scenarios together, you can generate entire campaigns with nothing more than a Tarot deck and a little imagination.
The Hidden Isle is inspired by Forged in the Dark, and its core is formed from that system’s style and dynamics. However, this is not just a reskin with Tarot cards: The Hidden Isle is an original and coherent game with its own feel and rhythm.
The Sefirot brand and all its content have always been strictly focussed on quality and creators. Therefore we assure you that no AI was used in the creation of our products and we try our best to respect the creators we work with by keeping communicative and transparent about everything we can!
230+ pages of beautiful, elegantly laid out material. Bound in hardcover, clad in gold foil.
Complete game rules, including character creation, NPC generation and scenario generation using Tarot cards.
Five classes, each with eight unique abilities!
A flexible magic system featuring seven schools of magic and seven magical sources.
33 specialized items for your Agents to draw on during each mission.
24 historically inspired magical creatures.
A full, dedicated chapter on Dioscoria: its culture, origins, and a tour of the city.
A practical "Advice for Seers" chapter, giving you extra tools to help you run a game of The Hidden Isle.
A detailed section on the world of the sixteenth century,containing extensive lore on five major cities of the time, from various parts of the known world.
Tarot tables and references to help you understand any card, giving you multiple prompts for any situation to aid inspiration.
Additional materials for printing at home such as character sheets, reference sheets, Tarot tables are available via digital download.
As this ENNIES EMPORIUM flash sale only consists of already existing products (with the exception of the exclusive print), the time until fulfilment will be mostly occupied by sorting all the pledges out, preparing assets and making sure everything will go smoothly! We are aiming to ship as soon as possible but conservatively aim at beginning of October to begin shipping!
Shipping is now a form of madness. We will do our best to retain our sanity and yours.
Please note that shipping costs are not included in pledge levels. Shipping will be charged post campaign! VAT is included in all our rewards and add-ons for backers within the EU. Additional taxes or custom fees may apply to backers outside of the EU.
Regarding customs fees: global tariffs are an ever-changing mystery, subject to the whims and machinations of world powers. This is a chaotic situation, and it is difficult to know where things will stand by the time we reach fulfilment. We are in close contact with our shipping and logistics partners and are working hard to find the best, most cost-effective solution for both you and us. We will share regular updates with you regarding this process as soon as possible. We sincerely appreciate your understanding and patience during this process.
We are NOT able to deliver to: The Russian Federation, Belarus
To celebrate our apperance in Ennie´s Emporium, you can now get a GOLD-FOILED limited new print which will be revealed in the last few remaining days of the campaign. This will be an A5 printed version of "The Lovers" tarot card which has never been released as a print before, so you don´t have to worry that you might already have this print. Any order including a physical item will receive this as a free add-on! 💌
By pledging for the project it is assumed you acknowledged and agreed on the following terms and conditions:
By backing this project — you acknowledge that you are not guaranteed to receive products in the exact specification they are presented on this campaign page. The products are still under development, and may still change in size, appearance, or content. We will do what is humanly possible to deliver all pledged items to a quality you would expect and to meet all your expectations.
Refunds — We will fully refund any pledges, no questions asked, within 14 days of the campaign’s end. We will continue to refund your pledges after this period with a 10% deduction from the refund, to cover the fees we already had to pay to Kickstarter and/or BackerKit. We will stop offering refunds when we close the Pledge Manager.
We are planning to start the fulfilment process in July of 2024, but that may move to a sooner or later date. You will be notified of any changes in monthly campaign updates.
Shipping and Fulfilment —If you confirm your pledge prior to final address confirmation and initiation of distribution notification via email, you agree that our responsibility to you is to ship your order as entered into our pledge manager system, that title and risk passes to you upon delivery to a common carrier for such shipment, and you are responsible for import duties or any other duties that may be payable to the relevant tax authorities, providing correct address information and ensuring this address is deliverable by normal methods.
Fulfilment and Survey Deadline — By backing the project, you are responsible for providing up to date email addresses on the PledgeManager, and for reading updates as they come out to be informed of all project related information and the deadline dates. Tracking info will be automatically sent to provided email addresses, and it is your responsibility to follow up on your packages should problems arise. Also, please supply an email address that you use on a regular basis. Failure to confirm mailing addresses prior to final request and distribution notification will be taken as agreement that all obligations have been met and no further action or effort is required on the part of Causa Creations.
We will attempt to alert you via the methods provided by BackerKit, primarily e-mail, prior to distribution of rewards to avoid any issue, but once we’ve made all reasonable efforts, we must move on with other business and will be unable to make exceptions.
Damaged or Missing Items, Lost or Misdelivered Packages — In case of damaged or missing items, report the issue to [email protected] within 30 days of your packages’ arrival. In the case of lost or misdelivered packages, you have 60 days from the ship date to report the issue; we will subsequently follow up on the items or resend them.
Note:For our dear Brazilian backers and those who live in countries with notorious import checks: we want to warn you about customs, since during the fulfilment of our previous campaign we discovered that these fees can be extremely high. Do consider backing us for only the Digital Version, and acquiring the Spheres of Heaven Tarot deck from Amazon or other assorted book vendors: this would still let you play the game, while avoiding extortionate fees.
ENNIES EMPORIUM 2026
🗳️ CAST YOUR VOTE for the 2026 ENNIE Awards now through July 19th!
The ENNIE Awards(the “ENNIES”) are an annual, fan-driven celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying games. Dedicated to recognizing outstanding achievement, the ENNIES honor the designers, writers, artists, and publishers whose creativity and passion shape the hobby. As a true people’s choice award, final winners are determined by online votes from the global gaming community.
This year, in collaboration with BackerKit, nominees from 2025 are coming together to further celebrate all the amazing games and products that were part of the ENNIES last year by launching ready-to-ship projects featuring their dominated game/product.
MORE ABOUT THE ENNIES
Founded in 2001, the ENNIES began as an online awards program hosted by EN World, the leading D&D/d20 system fan site, in partnership with Eric Noah’s Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News. Originally owned by Russ Morrissey until 2019, the awards have grown alongside the hobby itself. What started as an internet-based recognition program has evolved into a prestigious annual awards ceremony held at Gen Con.
Over the years, the ENNIES have expanded beyond their d20 roots to celebrate excellence across the full spectrum of tabletop roleplaying games. With categories recognizing everything from core game components to beloved product types, fan-driven websites, and more, the ENNIES provide fans with a meaningful way to acknowledge exceptional work—and to say “thank you”—to the creators who make tabletop roleplaying games extraordinary.
Let’s celebrate these amazing creators one more time, and who knows, you may discover your new favorite game within.
