Wilderfeast, the new RPG on Kickstarter, asks you to cook what you kill

Wilderfeast, the new tabletop role-playing game currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter, has a curious little tagline: “You are what you eat.” It’s a game about hunting down gigantic monsters, eating their meat, and thereby gaining their powerful abilities through potent mutagenic effects. But this isn’t just another take on the popular Monster Hunter series’ epic set-piece battles, or an attempt to move in on Kingdom Death: Monster’s territory. Instead, creator KC Shi has clearly done her homework, leveraging her own love of ecology to spin clever mechanics into what could be your group’s next campaign.

World of Wilderfeast, Shi told Polygon, is a post-post-post-apocalyptic take on our own planet Earth. Shi told Polygon that geologically, so much time had passed since the formation of the Seven Continents, the One Land has reformed, becoming a Pangea like supercontinent with scars visible millennia after abuse. It’s made worse by the presence of powerful megafauna. These are giant, massive creatures, like the kakwari. This 13-foot tall descendent from the peacock has razor-sharp feathers with claws to match, as well as a matching beak. Making matters worse, some portion of its already deadly animal population has come down with the frenzy — an incurable disease that turns them rabid with hunger and rage.

A peacock-like megafauna called a kakwari, from Wilderfeast by KC Shi. — The peacock, which is normally calm and docile, was the inspiration for this kakwari.

The hagsechu is a scorpion that spins fire from its tail. A monster from Wilderfeast, by KC Shi. — Hagsechu is a burner that can be used on a stovetop.

“Players are only hunting frenzied monsters,” Shi said during a recent video call. “There is no other option but euthanasia for them. They can’t be cured, and if they are allowed to rampage, then they’ll harm the ecosystems they’re in and spread that disease to other monsters.”

Shi explained that the game would have four phases. Free play will be the most common, with creativity, character bonding, and social encounters taking up most of players’ time. After the trial, the players venture into nature to find frenzied creatures. Here, they’ll search for tracks, forage for food and resources, and generally begin to piece together elements of the larger ecosystems around them. After the battle, comes the hunt.

But as players begin to learn more about the animals that inhabit the One Land, hunting won’t be the only option available to them.

“The long term idea I have is for Wilderfeast to involve rehabilitating monsters,” Shi said. “So as you’re journeying along you find some that are injured or sick, and you bring them home and you feed them. You can feed them the ingredients that you found on your journeys. This is the cycle that every journey revolves around. [being] the hunt — the big, flashy, dramatic violence — but then throughout that you have to make sure you’re also supporting and restoring the habitats around you.”

A wind-swept and arid land, nonetheless populated by thick, sinewy, hair-like vines. A tiny rodent, with hind legs like a kangaroo and the head of a mouse, nibbles at a root.

Player characters explore a sinkhole, which appears to be filled with advanced technology — perhaps an underground engineered habitat of some kind.

High in the trees, wilders make their homes in delicate wooden buildings. Intricate latticework runs along the tops and bottoms of main branches, while farmers harvest hanging crops.

This is where players will sit down, give thanks and then explain in great detail the various dishes they’ve brought to share with other players at the table. big payoff in every adventure will be the wilderfeast itself — the game’s fourth phase of play. That’s where players will sit down, give thanks, and then explain in great detail the various dishes they’ve brought to share with the other players at the table. The Wilderfeast Quickstart — available now as a free 78-page digital download — is filled with glorious illustrations of fantastical food that look pulled straight from The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. And it’s those items on the menu that will contribute to players leveling up their characters, gaining new abilities, and ultimately preparing for the next tier of play.

“I wanted the cooking system to be relatively free-form and allow for creativity,” Shi said. “So you can combine these ingredients in basically any way. It’s pretty easy to understand how they work. […]It’s up to you how you combine the ingredients. You know those small meals you prepare along the way? They can provide small bonuses for you and encourage you to make cooking part of your day-to-day adventuring.”

All the while, they will gain a deeper understanding of their fantasy world.

“One of the main things I want to implement in Wilderfeast,” Shi said, “is this idea of, just like in a traditional Dungeons & Dragons game [where] you’re picking up bits and pieces of lore about like the demons or wizards or what have you, in this game you are slowly learning about the ecosystem. […]Learn what you have to do [these monsters]What they eat and the natural food found in their surroundings. Then you must learn to gather these foods and how you can make the monsters eat those foods. And so that lore is central to the game.”

Another big draw for the extended campaign will be that players themselves will help to unravel other mysteries in the game — like the precursor races whose creations still litter the landscape. Among them are the Conductors, whose mysterious, ley-line-riding trains still race around the apocalyptic landscape “following a schedule set for them thousands of years ago,” Shi said.

A blue character with a large, cleaver-like weapon stands on a bluff. In the distance a town sits on the back of a giant tortoise. — The last Chamig is discovered by a wilder.

The game’s first major adventure, now in development, will task players with tracking down and saving the last chamig — a massive, tortoiselike creature that may well be the last of its kind.

“The adventure delves into the past of the world,” Shi said, “and that you are assembling the pieces of a device, a mysterious device, known only as the Resurrection Machine. […] There’s this central idea that every adventurer still has to hunt frenzied monsters. There’s this central idea that every adventurer still has to hunt frenzied monsters. [your] auxiliary goals, the overarching thing that links them all together, is this quest to restore a species back to its place.”

Wilderfeast has already met its original funding goal, and currently stands at more than $125,000 earned — a modest sum for a TTRPG on that platform. Physical and digital rewards will be available. The product should arrive by September 2024. A copy is available for only $24. It runs until Sept. 26, 2009.

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