RYNE PRESS KIT

RYNE is a roleplaying game about communities enduring in the footsteps of failing titans. It’s a Powered by the Apocalypse inspired game focusing on emotion and connections, exploring the lives people create in a vibrant fantasy world.

You might play as a warrior sworn from violence, a scribe of a dead language, the speaker who interprets a titan’s song, or a spirit tethered by connection to your community.  You’ll collaborate to tell stories of travel across esoteric landscapes, bartering with the envoys of indifferent gods, healing fraying titans, and keeping your community steadfast in a world bigger and stranger than you. Touchpoints include Tales of Earthsea, Shadow of the Colossus, Studio Ghibli and the ever-changing tales of folklore.

CONTACT US

This world is fraying.
The knots which hold Ryne together wear thin and we don’t know how much longer they will hold. The only thing which stops the world’s threads from snapping are the Remnants—strange colossi, the broken husks of old gods. Millennia ago, their spirit was torn from their mundane and they were torn asunder. Now the Remnants exist as half-things: the Vacant—titans of stone, salt, clay, feather, flesh, and branch; and the Echoes—ethereal giants of idea, dream, illusion, feeling, emotion, and concept. The world is a patchwork of their influence. From the flower-lined cliffs of an Echo of lament, to the argon rivers of a Vacant of preservation, they are the world.
And us, the people who call this world our home? We weave our lives in their shadows. 
If we’re lucky, we thrive from the bounty granted by indifferent titans. If we’re not, we scrabble from place to place, or live under the yoke of their demands. We too have adapted to their influences—we are scaled, we photosynthesise, we can read in starlight, or communicate through the static of our skin. Even at the best of times, we live according to the Remnants’ whims. As the titans falter and fall, we must face the ruin of their absence.

RYNE – 2026

RYNE is releasing in Q3 2026, following a successful crowdfunding campaign in August 2022. The result is filled with beautiful art, evocative worldbuilding, and rules for travelling Ryne’s paths and inhabiting its communities. Also available are a fabric book wrap which functions as a world map for play, and a set of postcard maps and stickers to help track and shape your journey.

Print specifics: 

  • 344 full colour pages
  • hardback A4, with matt laminated wibalin* cover
  • printed by CPI in the UK
  • Retailing at £45

* a durable and all natural, fully recyclable paper with a lovely embossed texture

Community copies of the RYNE pdf are made available proportional to sales, to ensure those who might otherwise be unable to access the game get the chance to play too.

QUICK HOOKS

Things we think are really cool:

    • Titans aren’t there to be fought and conquered
      Instead they are unknowable entities, always lurking on the horizon, capable of both creation and destruction. You explore these Remnants through the eyes of the communities, ecosystems, and people that surround them.
    • Roll with your emotions
      These emotions aren’t pre-set, but unique to your character. When you roll, how things turn out will be shaped by how you’re feeling, your connections to your companions, and the mood of the space you’re in.
    • Characters can get really interesting and weird
      Humans can have wings, shells, electric skin, mycelial tendrils, or anything you can dream of. You can play any rolebook as a ghost, or without a spirit at all…
    • Robust tools for journeys and communities
      Rules that focus on the wonder of the world, inhabiting places long established, and truly getting to understand the places you inhabit.
    • Tell stories of change and growth
      Shaped over five years of play and recording, RYNE is a PbtA game designed to tell long stories. Advancement isn’t just about getting new stuff, but adapting old moves, and watching your characters change with the world around them.
  • Designers

    Adam Dixon & Thryn Henderson

  • Publisher

    Furtive Shambles

  • Development

    Crowdfunded: August 2022
    indiegogo page
    Printed: June 2026
    Distributed: August 2026

  • Artists

    A Liang Chan
    Beck Michalak
    Ben Swinden
    Beth Fuller
    Danielle Taphanel
    Francesca Ross
    Joseph Eichstaedt
    Lho Brockhoff
    Nadhir Nor
    Olivia Sullivan
    Shel Khan

  • Editors

    Jenn Martin
    Helen Gould

FeaturesStory SeedsRolebooks
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FEATURES

  • 10 rolebooks, including: the Fledgling, a teenager finding their way in the world; the Heart, an artist, leader or revolutionary who embodies a concept; the Tethered, a ghost at home in their new form.
  • 4 story seeds, worldbuilding prompts that shape your game: a caravan fleeing a destructive force, a community facing change, scholars trading the secrets of the remnants, pilgrims on a long and difficult journey.
  • Emotions and relationships. Your character’s emotions are their stats. Their mood influences how things go; as they change and grow, so do the emotions on their sheet. They also have connections with other players, characters, factions, places, ideas and more. These connections can be called on throughout the game, and are shaped by how your character feels about that entity.
  • Feeling is at the heart of everything. Geographical features, communities and landscapes have moods. The GM uses emotions to define NPCs, the remnants and their supernatural servants.
  • Spirit is real—magic is shaped from it, ghosts wander freely. Any rolebook can be played as a ghost or grounded (someone without a spirit).
  • A unique setting for you to make your own. The book blends details and examples from the world, with tools for creating territories, Remnants, communities, threats and seasons.
  • Geared for long-term advancement, based around change, growth and in-fiction milestones.

Story Seeds

Each game of Ryne starts with selecting a story seed – a short worldbuilding game where you collaboratively imagine a piece of the world and decide the kind of story you’d like to play through.

  • The Change brings stories of omens and upheaval; exploring what it’s like to live in a territory undergoing seismic, likely irreversible, change. You play as people trying to understand why the landscape you call home is falling apart.
  • The Path brings stories of travel and exploration; imagining Ryne’s landscapes and towns, meeting their inhabitants, exploring their lives. You play as a group taking a long journey, encountering new landscapes, places and people.
  • The Work brings stories of people trying to change something; seeking to gather knowledge about the world, trade strange secrets or harness a gods power. You play as a group taking on a project to make a new truth, building a future as others try to tear it apart.

RYNE also includes a story seed called The Eager, which skips the worldbuilding mini game and guides you through starting play, learning about the world and characters as you go.

RYNE features the following rolebooks for players: each of them can be played as a ghost (a person who only has a spirit), grounded (a person who only has a body), or entwined (a person with body and spirit together).

THE BINDER
A creator using threads of spirit to imbue artefacts and machines. Theirs is a story of experimentation, and creation. They use strands of emotion to work.

THE FLEDGLING 
A teen experiencing the wider world. Theirs is a story of growth, experience, and leaving childhood. Their emotions start unfixed, changing as you roll with them. They learn the basic moves as you play.

THE GUARDIAN
A deadly fighter with a charge in their care. Theirs is a story of parenthood, protection, and violence. They have another rolebook for the charge, whose respect you’ll have to work to keep.

THE GUIDE
A wanderer who knows their landscape thoroughly. Theirs is a story of travel, wilderness, and direction. They have home terrains they’re at ease with.

THE HEART
A devotee of an idea, representing it through their work. Theirs is a story of faith, art, and tested fealty. They have concept they champion, and their bond with it replaces one of their emotions.

THE TETHERED
A ghost grounding themselves in the people and places they know. Theirs is a story of history, connection, and temperance. They must maintain their connections to keep tether for their moves.

THE SKILLED
A drifting worker, relying on their own skills to get by without connection to concept. Theirs is a story of talent, dedication, and disconnect. They make use of their facets in place of emotions.

THE UNRAVELLING
A reckless weaver of spirit, using the Remnants’ power for themself. Theirs is a story of magic, power, and self-annihilation. They use knots of concept for their spells, each time risking their end.

THE VOEK
A scholar, studying the nature of Remnants. Theirs is a story of language, knowledge, and burden. They seek fragments of a dead tongue, which they can keep safe, or risk forgetting to aid their work.

THE WEAVER
A user of patterns, skilled in practical magic. Theirs is a story of prophecy, ritual, and getting the work done. They weave spirit to cast their patterns.

GALLERY

TESTIMONIALS

The game is simple and beautiful. Using elegant playbooks, you walk through a strange new world, dividing your attention between its wonders, your fellow journeyers, and your own emotions.

The Emotions and Strains sub-system is so innovative! A rare feature that won my game tinkering heart.

I was lucky enough to MC a nearly complete version of Ryne on stream earlier this summer.

What an absolutely stellar game.

Ryne is a beautiful system that brings deep emotional impact and adventure to the table. Play testing with my friends has made me feel closer and like I know them better through the colorful stories and characters we’ve made.

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ABOUT THE CREATORS

Furtive Shambles is a game design co-op based in Yorkshire, UK. It’s made up of Thryn Henderson (they/he) and Adam Dixon (he/they), alongside other occasional collaborators. Our other projects have included Small Town Skeletons, a game about teenagers who happen to be skeletons trapped in the curse that is their hometown; Mixtapes, a series of one-page games based on pop bangers; and Into the Flames, a horror game about an accursed pilgrimage stalked by ghosts played around a campfire.

If you’d like to talk to us more about RYNE, our co-op, or game design, then we could:

    • Give an interview about the game, an element of its design, the world, our development process
    • Do some worldbuilding or character creation with you for a stream or podcast
    • Run a session of the game for you
    • Support you to run a session of your own
    • Talk endlessly about trans perspectives on game design, folklore and storytelling

THESE FLIMSY RITUALS

Ryne was originally developed for the actual play podcast These Flimsy Rituals. We wanted a game that could help us tell the kind of thoughtful, introspective fantasy stories that we love. When nothing else really fit, we decided to create a game of our own.