Ballads of Dawn

Ballads of Dawn is a solo tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) by Meridian Inkwell about life in a romantic fantasy world. Using a set of polyhedral dice, a deck of tarot cards, some random tables, and your own creative imagination, you will breathe life into a character living in the feudalistic fantasy realm of Arsaeith. Who are they, how did they come to be here, and what will they do next?

This game is a love letter to the romance fantasy genre and the many sub-genres under that umbrella. There are novels, manga, webtoons, and so many other pieces of media that march under the banner of romance fantasy. If you are familiar with them, you will see many nods to these stories throughout the names, prompts, and tables. However, while experience with roleplaying games and romance fantasy stories may give you more context, it isn't necessary to play or enjoy the game.

• Romantic fantasy genre-inspired world and gameplay. This game will guide you as you craft your character's ballad, which can range from a slice-of-life tale about a baker finding love with their next door neighbor to a modern-day office worker suddenly transmigrating into the body of a duke's spoiled daughter to a multi-generational, dramatic revenge epic that pits a fallen knight against the crown. 
• Draw tarot card spreads to determine what kind of scenes occur each month. The minor arcana cards are used for general scenes, while the major arcana cards differ based on your character's role (commoner, noble, priest/holy knight, or royal) and the season. Gain rewards or incur penalties based on each scene's failure or success.
  
• A d20 stat and skill check system. If you roll your stat/skill score or lower, you succeed in your check! You can also roll critical or strong successes/failures that lead to complications in the scenes.
  
• Relationship progression and transition systems for both platonic and romantic relationships with supporting characters. You can have an enemies to lovers development, kindle a romance with a childhood friend, experience the drama of breaking your longstanding engagement, and more!
• Between your Main Story scenes, perform Endeavors such as gambling, doing research, starting your own business, battling an endless horde of monsters, or writing letters to your friends and enemies.
• A wealth system based on your character's family wealth, income, savings, and debt. Manage your money wisely, or else you may find yourself with less actions that month or even thrown in debtors' prison.

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Ballads of Dawn is currently in development. As of right now, using the rulebook you are able to:

• create your main character (MC)
  •  play through their prologue if desired
• create supporting characters (SC's)
  • develop platonic or romantic relationships with them
• play through the Spring season
• perform all Endeavors except Adventure
• use a mostly-completed Oracle

We are putting what we have up for sale in early access beta for people to support us during development and provide feedback. In return, you can get the game at a much lower cost. The price of the game will rise as more of the book is complete. These are the milestones that we are working towards, with the cost of the book increasing by $3 with each milestone completed.

• Complete major arcana tables for summer
• Complete major arcana tables for autumn and winter
• 50% of art
• 100% of art
• Layout design

This makes the final price of the draft version of Ballads $20. Of course, there will be other adjustments and additions between those major milestones, such as completing the item tables, a Quickstart, Endeavor rules, etc. 

Once the game has been fully playtested and the rules/art/layout finalized, the release version PDF will be $25. By purchasing the beta, you will have access to all future release versions! We will also consider print versions based on how the demand goes. 

Thank you so much for your support and interest in our game!! We are aiming to have the text part of the game done by Q3 2025.

The writer and game designer, Himeutsugi, frequently does streams on Twitch where they work on or playtest the game, so if you're interested in the development, please subscribe there. Art for the game is being done by Sarah Dang.