Ash Island
A downloadable game
Ash Island is a roleplaying game of pain, darkness, despair, and hope for a GM and one or more players, set in a fog-shrouded New England town on a small island dominated by an evil force that manifests the characters' own inner demons to torment them.
You take the role of anchorites, unfortunate souls bound to the dark spirit of the island by the unique suffering of their own personal sins or trauma. You answered the island's siren call and find yourself trapped in a ghost town full of dangerous monsters. Unarmed and alone, you must use your talents to explore, arm yourself, and find a way to escape. Of course, you can't just run away. There's something else you have to do first...
Using an innovative blackjack based rules system, Ash Island is a personal survival horror story game based on the Ruled by Night SRD and inspired by "Silent Hill", "Shutter Island", "Identity", "1408", and "Twin Peaks".
The 88-page book contains several maps of different parts of Ash Island, because you never know where your own personal hell will drag you.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $15 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Exclusive content
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Community Copies
If you really need a relaxing trip to Ash Island, but can't currently afford a ticket on the ferry, take a community copy and enjoy a relaxing stroll along the beach or through one of our many fog-shrouded woodland hiking trails. You may never leave!
Download demo
Development log
- PostcardsSep 15, 2023
- Added more sample pagesOct 09, 2020
Comments
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In case you are still monitoring this, I have a important rules question: I don't think I get the table for the effect of Stealth draws. To me, it seems like there would never be a 2-6 or 7-11 result. Why would a player ever want to stop on those results? Even if they are currently on 11, they might draw a 10 (which comes out as 21: Perfect!) or an ace (which is then treated as a 1, so still okay).
The only scenario I can imagine is when a character and/or the island has a lot of conditions and you want to minimize drawing to avoid activations, but ... since the Guile or Violence draws afterwards end up drawing even more cards, I do not think you meaningfully draw less.
Can anyone explain what I am missing?
You can use talents or equipment to discard a card on a draw. Usually this is done to get rid of a bad card. It seems unlikely, but once in a while a player will decide to discard a good card because they think that it's better for the whole group to face a bunch of zombies or something than to activate a particular condition that they aren't ready to reveal. Mainly, the negative effects of 2-6 are just a motivator to draw more cards to get more conditions into play.
Thanks for the insight!
Minor rules question. The chart on page 18 says 12-17 earns a hope token but the flow chart on page 19 does not list this under the same outcome range. Which is correct?
The GM plays a Pain token and the players gain a Hope token.
hi there fabulous creator. Just curious if there’s any more community copies available? Thank you in advance
A really good take on Silent Hill or No-End House style stories as a ttrpg. Makes great use of the Trophy/Ruled by Night system to create character-driven survival horror that can go horribly wrong, while also giving players a lot of tactical options in play that lead directly into narrative. Jam-packed with maps, points of interest, and eerie ephemera to fuel your incursion to the Island.