Carts full of corpses slide through the muddy streets of a deserted city. Monks copy manuscripts silently in their cold monastery rooms. A hammer falls again and again on glowing red metal in a blacksmith shop. Fragrant flowers perfume private courtyard gardens. Grim and silent soldiers march the dusty roads in search of enemies, both infidel or faithful. This is the world of the Middle Ages, which our ancestors knew, and which shaped our present.

But beyond this human world, in the most shadowy depths of the woods, in the loneliest cave, in the most obscure cell, in the dimmest chambers of the human heart, legends live. Here, demons haunt castles, elves skulk in the forest, alchemists concoct spells, and witches laugh and laugh around their campfire in a forest clearing bathed in moonlight, as the demon sitting among them raises his goatish head and grins, directly at you, dear reader, saying, “Welcome to the aquelarre; welcome to the coven.”

“Perhaps the best RPG not available in English & one of the most gorgeous RPGs anywhere, Aquelarre deserves a deluxe edition in English.”

Hoy os presentamos algo que nos hace mucha ilusión, por fin ha arrancado el crowdfunding por Kickstarter de Aquelarre, y después de 25 años de ser unos de los juegos de rol más queridos en España o la Península Ibérica y la comunidad Latinoamericana, también será jugado por la comunidad de habla inglesa, y por ende, dado a conocer al mundo entero.

El juego esta siendo lanzado por Stewart Wieck de la empresa Nocturnal Media que conoceréis por otros exitosos trabajos como Pendragón.

Nocturnal Media, LLC is an entertainment media company co-founded and co-owned by Houston-based Stewart Wieck and Oliver Diaz. Established in 2010, Nocturnal Media works in a range of fields from paper publishing to digital media.

Stewart Wieck is a game designer and author of short stories, novels and screenplays. His work is most closely associated with White Wolf Publishing, a company he founded while in high school to publish a magazine dedicated to pen and paper roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons. His work at White Wolf is highlighted by the co-creation of the World of Darkness, a fictional world developed in roleplaying games he co-created, such as Vampire: The Masquerade and Mage: The Ascension. Stewart owned White Wolf for 20 years and operated it under the conviction that games can be art.

Almost 25 years since it was first released in Spain, Aquelarre finally receives an English translation. Aquelarre is available from Spanish publisher Nosolorol in a gorgeous 500-page full-color hardcover edition, and while we’ll also offer a smaller and less expensive b&w softcover, this full-color, deluxe edition of the game is the primary ambition of this Kickstarter project.

Add Aquelarre to your collection and your game rotation and help us make this classic RPG available to players in the original language of roleplaying games.

Like making a deal with a devil, Aquelarre is not for the faint of heart. It’s not an introductory RPG for younger players. The realistic historical setting is dark. Some of the artwork is disturbing. Nosolorol describes this new edition of the game as “more medieval and more demonic than ever” and they are correct on both counts. These are not the watered-down demons that caused trouble for D&D in the 1980’s. This is seriously scary stuff.

Aquelarre is a complete roleplaying game. In fact, it’s a huge and very complete game. At about 500 pages, Aquelarre offers everything you expect to find in a fantasy RPG: character creation, game system and magic system. It also includes detailed information about the medieval Iberian setting, the cosmology of angels and demons, and a bestiary.

It is gloriously illustrated throughout. Examples of the brilliant artwork by Jaime Garcia Mendoza illustrate this project page.

Player characters in Aquelarre begin life in one of five kingdoms that dominated the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages—Castilla, Aragón, Granada, Navarra, or Portugal. Based on their region, characters may be of various cultures—Arabian, Basque, Castilian, Catalan, Jewish, Muslim, and many more. Social position (from nobility to slave) and father’s occupation affect their capabilities, including profession. Of course, personal characteristics (shown on the character sheet below) play their part, too. One such is the Rationality/Irrationality rating, which determines how attuned a character is with the Irrational world, how capable with magic, and how susceptible to it. Rituals of faith depend upon a high Rationality instead. Advantages and Disadvantages help to round characters out.

The game system itself relies mainly on percentile rolls against either characteristic ratings or skills based on those (and on character experience). As might be expected from a game that has thrived for several decades now, rules for combat, weapons, and healing are all nicely detailed, with options to suit a variety of playing styles.

The book also includes considerable detail about medieval life in Iberia, from daily business to social mores to fairy tales, besides the expected focus on angels and demons.

Espero que hayáis disfrutado de la entrada tanto como yo, hasta la siguiente entrada…

… Y como Miguel Aceytuno dijo alguna vez…

“Otros han caído, Aquelarre sigue. Algo tiene el agua cuando la bendicen.”