A city-crawl through a profane realm of the subtle divines of Vedic myth, created in homage to City-State of the Invincible Overlord and serving as a meta-commentary on syncretism, hedonism, and orientalist tropes on India across the history of gaming.
From acclaimed TTRPG writer Brian Yaksha comes The Tiger Princess of Treacherous Tripura, a city-crawl through a profane realm of the subtle divines of Vedic myth. A modern homage to the classic Judge's Guild module City State of the Invincible Overlord, built on the framework of the Old-School Essentials Demonic Grimoire.
At its heart, The Tiger Princess of Treacherous Tripura is a wedding crash adventure set in an authentic version of Vedic mythology. There's not a single ordinary thing going on in Tripura while the wedding is taking place, which gives ample opportunity for players to:
Contend with distant divine in-laws who are unwelcome in the subtle hell.
Stoke the fires of ancient grudges amongst the groomsmen.
Disrupt the best-laid plans of avaricious matrimony in an infernal bazaar.
Sunder the cosmic wheel and indulge in all manners of hedonistic dreams.
Upend the karmic cycle and wreak havoc across all of creation.
A Modern City-State Sourcebook
Even the denizens of Hell fear getting lost in the labyrinth of back streets, impossible waterways, and illusory palaces that make up the city of Tripura. In addition to the adventure, this book includes everything you need to build, manage, and reactively develop a larger campaign in and around the city.
These tools include:
A cast of beings both profane and sublime who call Tripura home.
Hooks, urban scenes, and all manner of unrighteous oddness within the illusory backstreets of each of the three fortresses in thrice-fallen Tripura.
City-crawling procedures to make even getting across town an adventure.
Multiple dungeons reactively generated based on the actions of the players characters and other factions.
Randomizers, generators, and faction tools to stock the streets of Tripura with all of rakshasa, asura, other inhabitants of the lowest of the loka.
Karmic influence systems to allowing player characters to subvert the whims of fate, defy the cruelties of reincarnation, and embrace the illusory nature of an unrighteous reality.
The Adventure Soundtrack
To accompany the exploration of the Vedic underworld, Michael Sollien has collaborated with Brian Yaksha to compose an adventure soundtrack of 10 moody, atmospheric tracks. Expect something that is not quite dungeon synth, not quite dark ambient, and not quite traditional world music. This soundtrack will be available as a digital download to all backers at the PDF tier or higher.
Mudtiles
Mudtiles are handmade, evocative 3x3 gridded modular cardboard tiles designed for 28mm miniatures, standees, and meeples. Build your own Silver Fortress or craft custom dungeons for any old-school adventure game. Combine more packs, or print out extra tiles for even bigger dungeons at your tabletop.
You'll be able to keep up with the project, receive backer-exclusive campaign updates, and have access to the post-campaign pledge manager and add-on store.
RETAILERS: If you'd like to place a wholesale order, back at this tier and send an email to [email protected] for further instructions.
110 NOK (ca. $10): PDF
You'll get one digital (PDF) copy of The Tiger Princess of Treacherous Tripura, the digital (PDF) sheet of printable monster standees, the digital (PDF) map pack, and the adventure soundtrack along with all unlocked digital stretch goals.
175 NOK (ca. $19): Zine
You'll get one digital (PDF)and physical copy of The Tiger Princess of Treacherous Tripura riso-printed right here at Mudknight HQ, along with the digital (PDF) sheet of printable monster standees, the digital (PDF) map pack, and the adventure soundtrack along with all unlocked digital stretch goals.
325 NOK (ca. $35): Deluxe Zine
You'll get one digital (PDF) and physical copy of The Tiger Princess of Treacherous Tripura riso-printed right here at Mudknight HQ, along with an a3 riso-print map poster of Tripura, an a3 riso-printed Tiger Princess poster, the digital (PDF) map pack, a digital (PDF) and printed sheet of paper monster standees, the adventure soundtrack, and all unlocked digital AND physical stretch goals.
92 000 NOK (ca. $10,000): Demon and Market Generators (Digital)UNLOCKED!
Brian Yaksha will design an online generator to spit out asura, rakshasa, and market events with a single click, to be hosted on the official Mudknight website.
105 915 NOK (ca. $11,500): Custom OSE Character Sheet (Digital)UNLOCKED!
Our artist Daniel will design and illustrate an original character sheet, themed after The Tiger Princess of Treacherous Tripura but usable for any and all of your Old-School Essentials games.
119 730 NOK (ca. 13,000): Tiger Princess Character Sheet (Physical) UNLOCKED!
Every backer at the Deluxe Zine tier will get a tear-away pad of 25 a5 character sheets, themed after The Tiger Princess of Treacherous Tripura but usable for any and all of your Old-School Essentials games.
133 545 NOK (ca. $14,500): Tiger Princess Mudtiles (Digital)UNLOCKED!
Mudtiles are our very own handmade, evocative 3" x 3" gridded modular cardboard tiles, designed for tactical combat and exploration using 28mm miniatures, cardstock standees, meeples, or gummy bears. These 40 tiles are themed around Tripura, and can be used to help reactively generate dungeon levels during play.
147 360 NOK (ca. $16,000): Tiger Princess VTT Tokens (Digital)
We'll create a suite of high-quality, universal VTT tokens of areas, monsters, and NPCs for use in your favorite virtual tabletop software.
161 175 NOK (ca. $17 500): Tiger Princess Mudtiles (Physical)
You'll get a handsome, hand-made box of 40 Mudtiles themed around Tripura, so you reactively generate dungeon levels at the table one square at a time.
174 990 NOK (ca. $19,000): Generic Fantasy Dungeon Mudtiles (Digital)
Tripura may be eternal, but it's not the only place worth exploring. These mudtiles are suitable for dark caverns, ancient ruins, abandoned mines, and any other treasure-filled hole in the ground you might want to dive into.
188 805 NOK (ca. $20,500): PC and Retainer Generators (Digital)
Hell is a dangerous place, and your party might end up running back to the material world with a few less members than they set out with. Thankfully, you'll have this one-click Player Character and Retainer generator to get you back in the game quickly.
211 830 NOK (ca. $23,000): Generic fantasy dungeon Mudtiles (Physical)
A second set of physical mudtiles, completely modular and themed around classic fantasy dungeon environments.
225 645 NOK (ca. $24,500): Physical Cassette (Physical)
This is the big one: a physical cassette, printed and boxed right here in Norway, and featuring an additional 10 minutes of hidden tracks by our composer Michael Sollien.
Brian Yaksha is a writer, researcher, designer and developer from a rural backwater in the Northeastern United States. They have contributed thoughts and writings on many award-winning (or nominated) publications within the tabletop RPG sphere for the better part of a decade. They are best known in the industry for their work on Frontier Scum, Pathfinder: Age of Lost Omens, Best Left Buried, Rakehell, Brinkwood: The Blood of Tyrants;as well as editing on Putrescent Regnant and CY_Borg.
Daniel Harila Carlsen (Illustration and Layout)
Daniel Harila is a coffee and sugar-fueled machinery that spews out ink, graphic design and occasionally adventure modules. He’s an educated graphic designer and self-taught illustrator and have spent most of his time (and income) on independent publishing, music and art. Daniel has previously written and illustrated Black Antlers,The Curious Creeps in Crimson Creek, and Duginthroat Divided. He’s happily married and lives in Oslo, Norway.
Michael Sollien (Adventure Soundtrack)
Michael Sollien is known as a sort of hype-man for the Norwegian TTRPG scene. He has been involved in creating games like Dragepust and the upcoming Mørketid, the zine Imagonem, the website Rollespill.info, and for hosting the R.I.S.K. game jams. He’s also a musician, producer, and former record label head, and will conjure up a moody soundtrack for this adventure.
Walton Wood (Editing)
Walton Wood is a seasoned editor of TTRPG manuals and supplements. He has several dozen titles to his credit, including books from Exalted Funeral, Games Omnivorous, Stockholm Kartell, and many other small presses and indie publishers. He is the founder of Ex Libris RPG, a co-founding worker-owner of Bogfolk, and blogs at Liber Ludorum. He holds a PhD from the University of Florida and is a professor of composition at Newlane University.
Emil D. Kaaen (Indexing)
Emil D. Kaaen is the publisher of at least one local Norwegian analog TTRPG zine, an avid play-tester, and Imagonem-affiliate. He also works on the digital files for Mudknight, specifically arranging indexing and bookmarks, to make sure the PDFs are quick and easy to navigate. Emil is a highschool dropout, works a day job as an integration consultant / developer, and has a deep affinity for weird and janky video games created before 2005.
Dai Shugars (Marketing)
Dai Shugars is a graphic designer, commercial artist, and accessibility consultant. He also publishes books, manages crowdfunding projects, runs Space Penguin Ink's social media accounts, and very occasionally writes things. Dai currently resides on a farm in the Kenyan highlands with his wife, children, four dogs, and three or four dozen chickens (depending on how close to suppertime it is).
The Tiger Princess of Treacherous Tripura will be produced with riso-printing using high-definition monochrome colors, real halftones, and given ample attention to dithering so as to produce a work that invokes the sensations of a comic book of yesteryear — while actually being built for modern comfort and usage. Crisp text and hand-inked illustrations, layered color by color with subtle imperfections by design, allowing each printed copy to be a bespoke work in its own right.
As with everything produced at Mudknight Media, we are using an analog technology for that additional holistic touch. Cost-effective, environment-friendly and printed with vegan inks to bring your imagination to life on every page while preventing anyone to have to save vs poison or death! Now that's printing sorcery!
Digital fulfillment will be handled on BackerKit. Physical fulfillment will be handled by Space Penguin Ink, LLC. Shipping will be charged post campaign via BackerKit. We are trying to keep shipping as low as possible, but can't guarantee there will be no import fees. Import fees and customs charges are the responsibility of the backer. We will also endeavour to provide shipping options that include tracking in BackerKit.
Estimated shipping costs are as follows. We are using weight-based shipping, and you will be charged shipping via BackerKit for the total weight of your pledge and any add-ons.
United States: $8 – $9
Canada: $16 – $23
United Kingdom: $16 – $23
EU: $16-23
US Territories and ROW: $19 – $26
Note that these are shipping estimates, based on projected book weights. These estimates are subject to change.
Unfortunately we cannot ship to the following countries at the current time:
Mudknight Media started out as a Norwegian bedroom publisher in 2024. We've embarked on a quest to become a self-sustained printing house and distributor with our own in-house creatives and a focus on mutual aid, community, and (of course) games!
Beautiful books, made with care, played in good health; that's the Mudknight's oath.
Old-School Essentials Month
Old-School Essentials Month is a group-collab project led by Exalted Funeral and Necrotic Gnome, featuring a new 176-page OSE book — the Demonic Grimoire — and sister projects from 16 other renowned creators in the OSE community.
The theme of OSE Month 2026 is: DEMONS! Get ready for hordes of new monsters, adventures set in the realms of hell, fiendish new character options, and lashings of blood-dripping art.
Group Achievements
We will be announcing a series of achievements tied to the success of all OSE Month projects jointly! To start with:
All projects funded: When all OSE Month projects fund, we will arrange a community Ask Me Anything session on Discord, featuring creators from across the projects. This will be a chance to chat with the OSE Month creators about their projects.
Old-School Essentials (OSE) is a role-playing game of fantastic adventure inspired by classic games of the 1970s and 1980s. Players delve into forsaken ruins, battle fearsome monsters, explore haunted forests and perilous mountain ranges, sail the high seas in search of lost lands, recover fabulous treasures, and unearth secrets of ancient magic.
