Lenora McRoberts, of Lenora's Tiny Hut, is crowdfunding The Shrouded Coast, a 5e mini-setting 'zine.
Question: Give us the elevator pitch of your project.
Answer: The Shrouded Coast is an Americana-inspired 5e mini-setting zine featuring unique player options, creatures of folklore and legend, and much more!
Q: Is this your first venture into ZineQuest? If so, can you talk a bit about why you decided to do it, and what you'd like to get out of it?
A: This is my first kickstarter! My husband Sean, who is partnering up with me on The Shrouded Coast as a co-writer and designer, has worked on another Kickstarter though. He brings some good ideas and Kickstarter experience to the table. I'd had this idea for awhile and we had fleshed some of it out awhile back, but for some reason, Zine Quest was just very on our radar this year, so we were just talking about it more and finally decided to take the leap. I think "growth" has been an important word for us this year. Sometimes the growth came from unforeseen and unfortunate things happening, like me being laid off from a job I'd had for almost 8 years, but The Shrouded Coast felt like another opportunity to see more growth. I have my fingers crossed that i'm right!
Q: Tell us something that excites you about your project.
A: With having this idea for an Americana inspired setting, we had to be really careful and intention about what that would look like. We are not writing alternative history and we're not writing other people's stories. America, the real country, has darkness and true evil in its history. We acknowledge that without trying to wash it away or replicate it. What we've tried to do is take fun, interesting, and even spooky things that feel familiar, but breath fantasy role playing life into them. Someone on Twitter asked if we'd be including a specific creature from the folklore of one of the First Nation tribes. My simple answer was, "no, that's not my story to tell." We are very excited to tell stories and share content inspired by locations from colonial to pre victorian New England. We're excited to introduce people to the port town of New Hope and the mysteries outside its gates. You never know what strange creatures and NPCs you might run into on the Shrouded Coast.