The Revenant Society Review
Death was only the Beginning…
So you died… It’s alright, it happens to the best of us… Fortunately you have learned that there is life after death… Unfortunately there was a problem with your scheduled demise and your memories are clouded… You have been informed that your death was somehow linked to a time-shattering event… You must go back to the living-world and follow the clues to piece together what is keeping you from moving on… But you are stuck in a time-loop until you solve the mystery… If you fail to solve the mystery, you will be stuck in the time-loop forever, doomed to relive your failure til the end of time…
Hey, friends! We are back from Hoop & Stick Con and while we were there, Abby and I had the pleasure of being introduced to The Revenant Society. As of the writing of this blog, The Revenant Society is live on Kickstarter, has reached its initial funding goal, and has unlocked several stretch goals! (If you look closely, Abby and I were fortunate enough to have our initial thoughts included on their Kickstarter page!)
We were honored by the opportunity to play this game hosted by Julie Ahern, Project Manager for Van Ryder Games–publisher of The Revenant Society. Shout out to Julie who was an amazing Fate Weaver for our game! Julie really brought the NPC Greta to life! Greta is a low level bureaucrat who was very concerned with us getting our afterlife paperwork complete and not really interested in our lamentations about being dead or stuck in a time loop forever. Click here if you want to learn more about Greta.
It truly was a special treat to be able to play this game before the Kickstarter even launched [and we realized that funnily enough it was the first time that we had ever played a role playing game together without me as the GM].
Pre-2020, Abby and I had a standing game of T.I.M.E Stories which we very much enjoyed. For the longest time this scratched the itch of both mystery solving and time travel. However, T.I.M.E Stories was always missing the roleplaying element for me which is obviously prevalent in The Revenant Society–as it is a proper Roleplaying Game. For me this game is a great blend of mystery, time-travel shenanigans, and macabre role playing. [As Abby will tell you, one of my day dreams is to picture myself as a 1920s hard-boiled, black-coffee drinking, private detective.]
One of the most unique aspects of The Revenant Society is of course the time loop mechanic. In our first playthrough we went through three loops total and soaked up all of the information we could. It was neat to see what changed with each loop. And when we failed and started the next loop over, we did so armed with new knowledge. We highly enjoyed this aspect of the game.
I also love the aesthetic of The Revenant Society and the Art Deco really speaks to me. It evokes a bygone era of gilded excess and mystery. To me, the 1920s always evokes an aura of mystery. It is the era of Hercule Poirot, Call of Cthulhu, The Great Gatsby, and so many more stories. It is a time of jazz, prohibition, gangsters, and flappers. . .and I love it!
Other aspects of The Revenant Society that we enjoyed were the clue cards and how the players were encouraged to be creative in deciding how the clues related to their character and their demise. It was fun to build your character’s backstory as you went along and it really added to the roleplaying. We only saw a few clue cards, but even so, it was really neat to try to piece together how all of our previous lives fit together using just fleeting images.
As a fan of Call of Cthulhu and other Horror RPGs, I really liked the macabre nature of The Revenant Society as well. There is something desperate and visceral about trying to solve the mystery of your own death before you are trapped reliving your own failure for all eternity. This is driven home by the concept of the Watchers whose presence pervades the RPG. Watchers are unfortunate beings who stepped through a doorway to limbo and are now trapped between worlds for all time. Doomed forever to only watch, powerless to affect the world around them. They especially hate Revenants. Why should you get a second chance to move on to the afterlife? They would love nothing more than to see you fail. In our playthrough, we had three watchers maliciously observing us at one time!
I also really liked the undead powers or “moves” as they are called in the RPG. These are supernatural powers granted to you by your new unusual undead nature. These can range from abilities useful in a conflict to manipulating mortals to gaining new clues from the Fate Weaver [aka the Game Master].
All in all, The Revenant Society is a really fun new twist on time traveling and roleplaying and we hope you’ll get to play some modules with us in the future . . . just as soon as we figure out how to get out of this time loop!
Take Heart!
Karington Hess
Game Master and Founder of Open Heart Games
