Explore your criminal spirit as witches, ghosts, gangsters and everyday people opening a speakeasy for the supernatural in prohibition era Manhattan.
Criminal Spirits is a rules-light narrative roleplaying game. Find out more at GloriousFate.com.
Welcome to a world where ghosts, goblins, mediums and mystics abound. A time when faeries and priests mix and clash with the explosion of crime and culture that is New York City during Prohibition. To a city where an ambitious and reckless entrepreneur without too much concern for the law could accomplish almost anything.
Criminal Spirits is a game of supernatural action and neighborhood connections, where a small found family tries to carve out a unique place for themselves mixing magic and the mundane, the underworld and high society. A place where some Criminal Spirit could make all the difference in the world.
Criminal Spirits is a complete, stand-alone roleplaying game using Glorious Fate, a rules-light narrative roleplaying game of characters with ambition.
Three adventures for Criminal Spirits are already finished and are available in PDF as add-ons for all backers, and are available as Print on Demand from DriveThru RPG.
A twelve page version of Glorious Fate as used in Criminal Spirits is available for free at GloriousFate.com and through a link that is shared to all backers at all levels as soon as the pledge is made. The full Glorious Fate rulebook in PDF is available for purchase as an add-on for all backers, to be delivered shortly after the campaign finishes on October 1st. Physical copies are also available as POD from DriveThru RPG.
Pledges for physical books are only available for backers in the United States of America. We are unable at this time to ship for international orders.
Criminal Spirits Early Bird Special ($25)
Sidle up to the bar early to get our early bird special. The early bird special contains everything in the Criminal Spirits Happy Hour at a reduced cost for our first 50 customers. That is both the physical book and pdf copy, as well as all early access content released during production.
The Early Bird Special is 44% off the anticipated MSRP of $45.
Criminal Spirits At the Bar ($12)
Grab a quick drink and some pretzels and leave with the Criminal Spirits in PDF format. Criminal Spirits at the Bar is the digital only pledge level, getting you access to both the PDF and all early access content released during production.
Criminal Spirits Happy Hour ($29)
Sit down and take your time with some good company. Criminal Spirits Happy Hour is the pledge level for getting a physical copy of Criminal Spirits, as well as the PDF and all early access content released during production.
Happy Hour ends on October 1st when this campaign finishes. Late pledges will be possible at an increased price.
Happy Hour is 33% off the anticipated MSRP of $45.
Criminal Spirits Big Spender ($89)
Well-heeled patrons of our fine establishment are always welcome, and we're happy to deliver your favorite top-shelf drink!
The Criminal Spirits Big Spender level allows you to request a custom artwork of a character or location of your choice, subject to review to insure it fits into the world and the guidelines for the work.
You will receive a signed print of the artwork, an acknowledgement in Criminal Spirits, and the character or location will be written into Criminal Spirits along with the artwork.
All extra proceeds for Big Spender level above the Happy Hour level go directly to the artist, not to project profits. All artwork created for the Big Spender level is in addition to the already planned and budgeted art for Criminal Spirits, so all Big Spenders are contributing directly to the book and will be acknowledged in the book if you wish.
Retailer (By Invitation Only)
Retailers who wish to back Criminal Spirits for multiple copies of the game at a reduced price should reach out to [email protected]. Once verified, they will be given access to retailer only pledge levels.
Criminal Spirits Adventures ($10, $8 for Pre-launch followers)
Get an early start to your adventure with PDF copies of the three already published Criminal Spirits adventures.
Moonshine: The introductory adventure for Criminal Spirits, for introducing players and gamemasters into the world and rules of the game. Swamp Witch's Auction: A black cat walks up to the bar and gives you all a most intriguing invitation. Trouble: A fight between mobsters draws unwanted trouble to your speakeasy, from the law to the church and pagan gods.
All 3 PDFs will be delivered shortly after the successful close of the crowdfunding campaign (early October).
Glorious Fate ($10)
Seize your Glorious Fate, the complete 140 page rulebook Criminal Spirits is based upon. Get extensive advice on how to use Glorious Fate and expand beyond Criminal Spirits to create your own worlds and different campaigns, including an entire world and campaign created from scratch through step by step examples.
The PDF will be delivered shortly after the successful close of the crowdfunding campaign (early October).
A Night Out ($60) (Limited Availability)
A 4 hour game for yourself and up to 4 friends, with the author of Criminal Spirits. The game will be run online on the Game Map Discord server. Each session will be scheduled after the successful close of the crowdfunding campaign, with the intention to run all games before January 1st, 2027.
Backers of A Night Out can choose to play either the introductory adventure Moonshine or a special adventure being developed specifically for this add-on.
Patronage ($66) (Limited Availability)
The Patronage Add-on allows you to request a custom artwork of a character or location of your choice, subject to review to insure it fits into the world and the guidelines for the work.
You will receive a signed print of the artwork, an acknowledgement in Criminal Spirits, and the character or location will be written into Criminal Spirits along with the artwork.
All extra proceeds above expenses for the Patronage add-on will go directly to the artist, not to project profits. All artwork created for the Patronage add-on is in addition to the already planned and budgeted art for Criminal Spirits.
The Game Map is partnering with local gaming stores to offer special backer tiers for those who prefer to go through their local store or gaming cafe. If your local gaming store is on the list below, visit them to find out how to get your copy of Criminal Spirits without paying for shipping while supporting your local game store.
If you're a retailer with a physical storefront, reach out to me through Backerkit or email to find out how to become a part of the Speakeasy Network and become a destination for backers to order and pick up Criminal Spirits in person.
Visit your friendly local gaming store for your link if it's one of the stores below!
An all-new adventure for Criminal Spirits, with additional all new art, will be written and provided to all pledge levels in PDF format.
$8,000 Spirited Adventures in Print!
A new book combining expanded versions of the 3 existing adventures plus the new stretch goal adventure into one package. This book will be provided in PDF format to all backers who have backed the Criminal Spirit Adventures PDF add-on and will be made available as POD on DriveThru RPG.
Criminal Spirits will be a soft-cover 150+ page, letter-sized book with black and white interior art, including:
An Introductory Short Story and Epilogue.
The Rules in 10 Pages, to quickly start and reference during play.
Magical New York, with dozens of locations and non-player characters for your campaign.
Chapters on ghosts, demons, spirits, the Lords and Ladies and many other magical creatures.
Human magic and religion, what it means and how you could use it in your game.
Examples and roleplaying advice for opening, running and protecting your Speakeasy against the police, the mob and hostile magics.
Guides and walk-throughs for getting the most out of playing Criminal Spirits.
Character Creation for your mystics and witches, your ghosts, spirits and mobsters and your everyday people caught up in this incredible world.
Two Character Sheets. One artistic and evocative to bring out the feel of the world, the other elegant but utilitarian for greatest clarity during the game.
Ten One-page encounters for inserting into any campaign.
Links to game tools and third-party resources for enhancing your gameplay experience in Criminal Spirits.
You're all impatient to get the party started! Below are the anticipated dates. We look forward to receiving your RSVP.
In Short:
3 Months for writing (January 1st: Early access version) 1 Month for editing, feedback and review (February 1st: final PDF) 2 Months for reviewing proofs, printing and fulfilment (In April: physical copies shipped to backers)
All dates are estimates and projections.
October 1st:
Campaign closes. Late Pledges become available.
October 7th:
All pledges that include Criminal Spirits Adventures and Glorious Fate add-ons should have received their PDF copies of Glorious Fate, Moonshine, Swamp Witch's Auction, and Trouble for download.
October 14th:
The first early access chapters will be made available to all backers. As of the time of writing this (July), 5 chapters of Criminal Spirits are completed in second draft form and more will be made available throughout the post-campaign period.
October through December:
Early access chapters, art and other components of the books will continue to be shared with backers, along with updates on writing progress.
January 1st:
The Early Access version of Criminal Spirits will be made available in PDF form to backers. This version may be without the final layout and editing passes.
January:
Final editing and feedback from the Early Access Version.
February 1st:
The final version of Criminal Spirits will be sent in PDF form to backers.
In February:
Criminal Spirits will be sent to the printers for printing the proof copy.
In March:
The proof copy will be reviewed, edited, reprinted if necessary, and approved for final production.
April 2027:
Physical Criminal Spirits copies are shipped to backers.
Digital products will be fulfilled through DriveThruRPG.com.
Shipping is only available within the United States. No shipping destination outside the United States will be accepted during fulfilment.
If you backed this campaign through one of the Speakeasy programs, shipping to your participating local game store for pickup will be free. You will need to bring photo ID to receive your copy of Criminal Spirits.
Shipping for all other backers will be charged after the Backerkit campaign concludes, based on the actual costs to ship to your location. Shipping costs and final destination addresses will be collected via the Backerkit pledge manager when the product is ready to ship (estimated April 2027).
Shipment costs will be calculated at the time of fulfilment from a fulfilment center inside the United States of America.
Short of personal catastrophe or illness, I am confident that the writing will be completed in December as projected. This is my 4th roleplaying book and my third with this artist, who has delivered very consistently on or before all of my deadlines. The first playtest campaign of Criminal Spirits began 1 year ago this September, and the game has been played over both multi-month campaigns and dozens of one-session events.
Six chapters, over 20,000 words, of setting information, NPCs and character examples are already written. You can find drafts of several of the chapters on The Game Map Patreon. This is in addition to the ruleset of Glorious Fate, which will be condensed and streamlined for Criminal Spirits.
The Game Map will be taking on the risk of printing cost increases in 2027. All physical books will be printed inside the United States of America and be available only to backers within the USA, which will avoid the risk of importation delays and other international shipping and purchasing risks.
Shipping and fulfilment costs are the greatest uncertainty with printing in 2027. Avoiding potential problems with international shipping was a major reason for deciding not to offer international shipping for this campaign. Books will be shipped to backers within the United States of America either directly from the printer or through a fulfillment house depending on the number of books printed.
The uncertainty on the cost of shipping is why shipping will not be charged until we are closer to the date of fulfillment.
If you live near one of our Speakeasy partners, the best way to eliminate your shipping costs is to back the special pledge level to have it delivered directly to them.
I've put out four books already. Why crowdfund now?
Criminal Spirits, if funded, will have the highest up-front costs of any book I have released. The minimum funding level is the level that should cover the costs for getting the book out, not counting my own time. If this campaign succeeds beyond that, then I hope to leave Print on Demand and bring in stock of Criminal Spirits for distribution through gaming stores and distributors.
And of course, by putting Criminal Spirits here on Backerkit people who would never have heard of it will learn about Criminal Spirits and Glorious Fate. I hope many of you will back it and follow future releases both here and directly to stores.
Criminal Spirits uses the Glorious Fate system, a highly modified version of Fate Accelerated by Evil Hat Productions. If you enjoy what you see here, check out their webpage at Homepage - Evil Hat Productions for many other fantastic rules-light RPGs.
Evil Hat released Fate Accelerated under creative commons license for anyone to work with, something I obviously appreciate greatly. This work could not have been published as it is without it, and Glorious Fate would never have been made without the decades of playing Fate systems I've enjoyed.
Evil Hat is not endorsing or supporting this project in any way.
This work is based on Fate Core System and Fate Accelerated Edition (found at https://www.faterpg.com/), products of Evil Hat Productions, LLC, developed, authored, and edited by Leonard Balsera, Brian Engard, Jeremy Keller, Ryan Macklin, Mike Olson, Clark Valentine, Amanda Valentine, Fred Hicks, and Rob Donoghue, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
