GM

Hi! I'm Lyme, an independent RPG designer. In 2024, I launched my first crowdfunding campaign. It was for a GMless worldbuilding game called Dawn of the Orcs, about playing mad scientists and evil wizards who build a homunculus army and how those Orcs become their own people. In 2025, to my surprise, Dawn of the Orcs was nominated for an Ennie in the "Best Rules" category (a title that would ultimately be won by the excellent games Triangle Agency and His Majesty the Worm). Now, Backerkit has kindly offered me a chance to make Dawn part of the 2026 Ennies Emporium.

Getting to do a second crowdfund has a lot of value for a self-published designer like myself, because Backerkit is the most cost-efficient platform for me to sell physical books; typical distributors can keep over half of the final sale price of a book, while Backerkit takes only 5%.

I want to offer something extra for people who back the Ennies Emporium campaign, so I've found a very special add-on. Free Flight is a solo RPG by my partner, who goes by HappyHagfish online. Until now, it's only been available as a PDF. For this campaign, she has given me permission to print and sell physical copies of the game. This may be the only time Free Flight ever sees print. Free Flight is about taking a falcon out for its first untethered flight. Even if you're not a fan of solo games, it's a fascinating look into the nonfiction world of falconry.

I'm also tossing in two more games. Cooking With the Orcs is an April Fool's expansion for Dawn that adds cooking mechanics; while it's a silly concept, it's playable and will generate healthy, affordable stew recipes based on your game of Dawn of the Orcs. It's basically a gamified riff on the story of Stone Soup. Fear and Panic is a fast-playing modern horror system with a unique take on fear mechanics; you can use it to run horror adventures from your favorite d100 systems.

You can get digital copies of Free Flight, Cooking With the Orcs, and Fear and Panic for free, so I'll let you look at those and judge for yourself if you'd like physical copies. You can get all three bundled with Dawn of the Orcs at a discount, or add them individually to a purchase as add-ons.

- David Dobelman, Role Playing Exchange and Role Playing Public Radio 

- Christian, DMs After Dark

Dawn of the Orcs is a GMless dark fantasy roleplaying and worldbuilding game for 1-8 players. In Dawn of the Orcs, you create the first Orcs to fight for you, modify them in an attempt to win a terrible war, and tell the story of how they become their own people.

Dawn of the Orcs is designed for high-energy oneshot play. Each game takes around 90-120 minutes. By the end, you will have created an original Orc people, won or lost battles based on your strategic decision-making, and told the story of a grim and chaotic period of history. You may even find yourself creating setting elements that you want to revisit in a different roleplaying game!

- Binary Star, creator of APOCALYPSE FRAME and Celestial Bodies 

From the start of the game, Dawn of the Orcs puts you in the position of some of the most powerful people in your world and presents you with impactful decisions to make. Over the course of playtesting, we found that this makes Dawn of the Orcs surprisingly good for players new to roleplaying games, as well as jaded veterans.

Dawn has serious themes in a fantastic, folkloric setting. Some groups play it as pure Tolkeinic fantasy, some as a satire in the vein of Dr. Strangelove, while others may lean into body and existential horror in the vein of Frankenstein or the works of Phillip K. Dick (incidentally, all inspirations for this game). Some players may choose to make Orcs who strive for dignity despite the violent purposes they are made for, while others may try to build the most horrifying monsters they can imagine.
 
These kinds of stories are familiar ones, which make them great for a game. Even people who don't normally enjoy worldbuilding have an easy time adding on to the story of the Orcs and their creators.

All players in Dawn share a single character sheet to track the development of the Orcs they're building together. After each battle, you meet in Council and decide how to improve your Orcs. Victorious battles give you the time and resources to make the most improvements, but even after defeats you can always make a couple changes. Each change to your Orcs modifies their stats in specific ways, but also gives you jumping-off points for worldbuilding. Particularly high or low stats also trigger worldbuilding moments. Once you've agreed on how to improve your orcs, you use their new stats and a die roll to see if you've won the next battle, and repeat the process through the six major battles of your homeland's invasion.

Groups that want to replay Dawn of the Orcs can randomly swap out up to four of the battles from the original story with any of the alternative four provided at the back of the book. Each of the alternative battles will change the narrative and make the invasion more difficult for the Orcs to repel.

You can listen to Dawn of the Orcs in action with this actual play from DMs After Dark! 

Dawn of the Orcs is a 52-page A5-sized book. It's perfect-bound and printed on 80 lb. uncoated, recycled paper. It's richly illustrated with black-and-white dark fantasy art.

We're keeping it simple. You can get a PDF of Dawn of the Orcs, a printed copy and a PDF, or a bundle with Dawn of the Orcs and Lyme's other games.  There's also a bulk rate for game stores, and some special treats for big spenders: custom game design from Lyme, and custom artwork from Plasmophage.

Both Dawn of the Orcs and Fear and Panic have already been printed. First Flight and Cooking with the Orcs will be printed once the crowdfunding campaign finished. It is my goal to deliver physical copies to backers within 1-2 months of the campaign ending.

This timeline is only an estimate. Any number of events could change it. That said, I have inventories of Dawn of the Orcs and Fear and Panic ready to go in both the US and UK, which will speed up fulfillment and lower risk. PDFs of Dawn of the Orcs will be available for download immediately on backing.

Shipping will be charged after the Backerkit campaign concludes, based on the actual costs to ship to your location. Shipping costs will be collected via the Backerkit pledge manager after the campaign ends.  Shipping costs are unpredictable and can change quickly. Since I have inventories of Dawn of the Orcs and Fear and Panic in both the US and UK, I will ship from the place with the lower tariffs for your location.

Writer and Game Designer: Lyme is a longtime GM and aficionado of actual plays. He has written several horror RPGs, including The Lurking Fear. He claims to be the true creator of 5E but his evidence is often considered misleading. He can occasionally be spotted at conventions and RPG meetups in the Boston area. After three moshpit related injuries he's swearing off metal shows and switching to shanty sings.

Visual Designer and Artist, Dawn of the Orcs: Plasmophage is a transfem artist and graphic designer, based in Seattle. Fueled by a love of scifi and gothic horror, she brings strange and horrible creatures to life through vivid and detailed illustrations. You can view more of her work on Instagram @plasmophage.

Additional Artwork, Dawn of the Orcs: Kira Ghost is a hobby artist with a lot of ideas and not a lot of time. They like trying their hand at different art styles and gladly took on the challenge of drawing dark fantasy illustrations for Dawn of the Orcs. They thoroughly enjoyed it, so the dark creepy themes might just make their way into Kira’s future art.

Cover Artist, Dawn of the Orcs: Simone Tammetta decided one day to work on dark and grim art, and so was born The Raging Barbarian. But then dark and grim stuff happened, so after many fights he became Old Raging Barbarian, as everyone knows him today. Since then, he illustrated for tons of projects from all around the world: ttrpg of any kind, books, card games, dices and more. It is said he's still drawing in some dark cave, growing in power with new abilities and techniques.