The Snarl RPG, Chicago, IL (2026)

02/24/2026

Unlike other fantasy settings, the Snarl is not awash with murderous tomb robbers.

When we set out to design the world of The Snarl, we specifically avoided certain fantasy tropes. Specifically, we steered away from the faux-feudalistic politics and economies that are the default for most games.

Despite its unusual environs, The Snarl was once (and still largely is!) a place of abundance. Food and the resources needed to survive are readily available to small-scale groups. The vertical environment of skyscraper-sized trees makes farming and agriculture challenging, which puts constraints on the number and sizes of large settlements.

With society organized on a smaller scale such as clans and towns, things are more collectivized. Amongst locals, resources are shared and gifted. When traveling or interacting with strangers, barter is common.

So how does this work within an RPG, where PCs are normally incentivized to kill monsters and take their treasure? In The Snarl, people do not adventure for gold and wealth — they are driven by other motivations: protection, exploration, archeology, socio-political conflicts, etc.

Rest assured, there is still loot — of a sort. First, there are goods, which are tangible items that have value to the Weald’s communities: rare foods, artisanal goods, tools, art, and other staples. These are largely handled in the abstract but can be defined by the GM for flavor (or via a random table). Goods are used to trade with strangers for gear and supplies the party needs for their kits.

Second, there are arcana — rarer, more valuable items. These are often cultural artifacts, perhaps holding significance to a particular clan or faction. They might also include items crafted from rare materials, such as sword crafted from the rare star-metal (metal otherwise not existing in the setting). It also includes things like uncommon medicines, unusual saps, and the unusual major arcana, or magic items of the setting.

Arcana are not hoarded to gain wealth, however. Instead, they are gifted to others. Gifting raises your status with that particular group or faction, until they count you as one of their own. When you achieved peer status with a group, they gift gear and other resources to you without the need for barter.

Arcana are, of course, a major source of plot hooks. Thieving arcana from a rival tribe is a favorite way of stealing thunder — the common practice of one-upping your neighbors and rival groups for status.

Read more about The Snarl on our website dev blog!

02/19/2026

They might look like fairies, but the insectoid veetlings should not be underestimated!

Veetlings are a species of small, winged anthropomorphic insectoids, notable for their speed, maneuverability, stealthiness, and mischievousness. Though sociable, veetlings have a reputation for being fierce and carnivorous.

Veetlings sport two pairs of dragonfly-like or butterfly-like wings, four fingers and toes, sharp teeth, and dual sets of forward-facing dark eyes. Their heads come in a variety of shapes, typically mounted on long necks. They smell with their antenna and hear with tympanal organs on their head, but unlike other insectoids breath and speak through their mouths.

Veetling mothers lay single fertilized eggs that almost always hatch identical twins. As they grow, veetling children go inactive for a day several times a year to molt until they reach adulthood. Veetling twins often stick together throughout their lives, maintaining close relations, but it is not uncommon for them to go their separate ways as adults.

Read more about The Snarl on our dev blog!

Art by on IG

01/29/2026

For folks who have already downloaded our open playtest, we updated the packet today to fix a small error with the kalioctera character and also to add a zone map for combat. There's a direct link to the zone map itself in the comments below.

01/26/2026

Part 2 of the Open Playtest for our weird fantasy RPG -- The Snarl -- is now live!

It includes most of the rules, a starter scenario, and pre-gen characters. Check it out on our website!

01/08/2026

Strixen are sleek birds of prey, adapted to hunting in the darkness of the Tangles and Mulch. Though they are not impeded by bright light, they have a strong distaste for it. Few strixen make the sun-lit Canopy their home.

Strixen have lengthy tails, distinctive tall ears, and long velvety feathers shaped for silent flight. Their beaks are sharp and sometimes curved for tearing meat. Vicious talons mean they are always well-armed. Their hands are extensions of their wing bones. They cannot easily use their hands in flight, so they grip and carry with their prehensile feet instead.

Strixen have excellent low-light vision, with large eyes, and use echolocation to perceive in the deep dark. Their ears move independently, allowing them to triangulate sounds more efficiently. Their heads can swivel three-quarters of the way around, enabling them to perceive in multiple directions without turning their torso. Strixen are often described as having intense focus—sometimes characterized by an unblinking stare.

Strixen generate clicks with their tongues for echolocation. They can hear each others’ clicks, but use slight variations in frequency or intonation to avoid confusion. Strixen have developed a language called “clickspeak” for private vocalizations that only strix and veetlings can hear.

Strixen take partners, but rarely for life. Partners often groom each other. They lay small clutches of (2–4) eggs and share responsibilities for raising hatchlings.

It is not uncommon for a strix to regurgitate part of its meal (or at least the indigestible parts such as bone, exoskeleton, or fur) in the form of pellets to clear out its gullet. “Casting” out a pellet is considered normal and healthy, not impolite. Some other species (particularly scrills) consider strix pellets to be a delicacy.

Read more about The Snarl on our dev blog!

01/06/2026

Hey folks!

We're putting the final touches this week on Part 2 of the playtest, which will be the first batch of rules and a starter scenario. If you're interested,, now would be a good time to organize your friends for a game session later this month or next!

In the meantime, the setting material -- part 1 of the playtest -- has been live since x-mas. If you haven't seen it, pop on over to our website and check it out! If you've given it a read, we'd love to hear what you think! Drop your comments below or send us feedback at [email protected]!

Also, we have a pre-launch page up for the kickstarter, which we'll be running later this year. Please head over there and drop us a follow -- link is in the comments!

12/23/2025

We are gearing things up for the Snarl RPG Open Playtest! To get started, we’ve posted the entire setting chapter of the book, so you can read up on the world and all of its weirdness. Grab the PDF on our website (link in comments)— it’s also available on DriveThruRPG and Itchio.

As noted on our playtest page, this is part 1 of the open playtest. Early next year we’ll kick out the basic rules, some prebuilt characters, and a short scenario for you to actually run a playtest with and get a feel for the system. If you have a gaming group, set aside some time in late January or February to run some sessions! And then a bit after that we’ll post the full character creation rules, so you’ll have everything you need to give the entire system a spin before we launch our kickstarter campaign.

11/21/2025

Let's talk about the Snarl's action economy.

We went through many iterations of the rules before settling on a 3-action economy for The Snarl. In other words, on your turn, your character has 3 actions to spend. The specific things you can do are defined as moves, and each move costs a specified number of actions. Most moves use a single action, more complex ones cost 2 actions, and something that consumes your entire turn takes 3.

If you’ve played Pathfinder 2 you are familiar with this kind of economy. Ours is similar, and it’s nothing new or groundbreaking on its own, but it does include some twists to fit with our other mechanics. We chose it over systems that broke down your actions into different types (like D&D’s action/movement/bonus actions, or Draw Steel’s main action/move/maneuver) because we preferred its more open-ended aspects.

On top of your 3 actions, you also get a single reaction each turn. Reactions may only be used when their triggering conditions are met. For example, if someone disengages from melee with you, you may use your reaction to take an Intercept move and get a free attack in.

We’ve talked before about how we handle positioning and movement with zones in combat (links below). In our system, movement is tied into you the moves you make. If you want to take a Disengage move and switch from the engaged zone to the skirmish zone, that costs 1 action — and your opponent can use their reaction to make a free attack. If you instead take a withdraw move, costing 2 actions, you move from engaged to skirmish with triggering an Intercept attack.

In combat, you can choose to spend all of your actions making attacks. However, each attack after the first is more difficult and inflicts a jolt (links below) upon you, so it comes with a cost, as you are opening yourself to attacks. Characters who end their turn in the skirmish zone must also spend 1 of their 3 actions making a Skirmish move or they take a jolt (if you’re not dashing around to avoid attacks, you’re an easier target).

Naturally, there are abilities that cut down the action costs of certain moves, make it easier to make multiple attacks, and so on. There are also plenty of moves to spend your actions on that don’t involve attacks, from bolstering your defenses and protecting others to distracting opponents or taunting them.

Overall it’s a pretty straightforward system and we’re happy with it, though of course we are still refining some of the action costs. That’s where you can help out with our upcoming open playtest!

11/13/2025

Who doesn’t want to play a carnivorous plant?

Scrills are a carnivorous, motile plant species known for their patience and cunning. Their caterpillar-like bodies can slither like a snake or crawl along on dozens of millipede-like legs, though they often raise up their front half when interacting with others. Their flower-like frill can be raised up to approximate a face. Multiple vine-like arms manipulate objects as dexterously as hands. They wield a barbed and sometimes venomous whip-like tongue against prey. Their blooms are aromatic and patches of their skin are phosphorescent.

Scrills are hermaphroditic, each expressing both male and female sexual characteristics—and gender identities—over the course of their lives.

11/04/2025

Optimized characters are fun, so but so are flawed-but-capable characters! So our char-gen rules provide options for both.

Every gaming group has experienced the player character who has constructed the most optimized character possible — every character creation choice is based on what will make the most powerful fighter, the best spellcaster, the sneakiest thief, etc. Your entire party may be built that way. There are guides online for optimal builds that rate every spell, feat, weapon, etc. And why not — you want your character to be good at what they do so they can do heroic things and pull off kickass stunts!

If you play the same game a lot, though, you notice the inevitable — optimized characters are almost all built the same. There’s no rogue who is not an olympic-level acrobat, no barbarian who is not as stacked as Schwarzenegger, no wizard who does not have fireball bookmarked in their spellbook. Let’s just say it — optimized characters can be kind of vanilla and boring over repeated play.

Your gaming group has also probably experienced the player character who breaks the mold — who is intentionally built inefficiently. Maybe the player wants a challenge, or they settle all chargen choices with dice rolls, or maybe you’re playing an OSR game where your stats are completely random. The bard who isn’t as smooth as they think they are, the warlock who fumbles spells but delivers a mean punch, the druid who gets lost in the woods. Non-optimized characters are often flawed, but they’re also more fun, as long as you’re comfortable with sometimes failing! Not only do you get more diverse characters this way, you also encourage more creative roleplaying as the PCs need to work around their flaws to resolve problems. At the same time, you don’t want a character who is completely useless and not fun to play, so there needs to be some middle ground.

When designing character creation for The Snarl, we opted to include non-optimization as a specific but balanced choice. You can make a fully optimized and heroic character if that’s your thing, assigning your stats so that they line up with your character’s primary strengths. Kick ass and be the hero! But if you want a character who sticks out from their peers, who is non-optimized and who has flaws but is still capable, there’s a an option for that as well. In this case, you pick your path first and then assign your stats randomly. To keep it balanced, you start off with a decent amount of Grit — points that let you modify dice rolls in certain situations. You may not be the ideal person for the job, but you can still pull it off when the stakes are high!

One thing we’ll be playtesting is how much Grit the non-optimized characters should start with. We think we’ve settled on a good balance, but we need more people to give the system a spin to be sure.

If you want a sneak peek, we’ve posted a draft of the chargen rules to our patreon. If you back it, you’ll get access to that plus a few other Snarl previews and several years of Eclipse Phase content. You can also keep an eye on out for our open playtest — we’ll be kicking that off soon!

The Snarl RPG

02/24/2026

02/19/2026

01/29/2026

01/26/2026

01/08/2026

01/06/2026

12/23/2025

11/21/2025

11/13/2025

11/04/2025

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