It’s been one week since we launched Hollows. There’s still a long time to go before we see how far this infection spreads, but reality rots a little further with every passing hour. 

We’re about £7,500 away from our next stretch goal, an additional Hollow written by Jay Dragon (Wanderhome, Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast) and illustrated by MÖRK BORG’s Johan Nohr. It’s an emotionally raw tale of childhood harm, and one where the question of whether to save the Lord or doom him looms large over the adventure. 

Their collaboration is a triumph to be sure, but this is not the pinnacle of our ambition.

After Jay and Johan’s scenario, we look at making the component kit even more substantial with upgraded finishes and adjustments to some of our designs. If we get our way, opening the box will feel like delving into a Hunter’s case of accoutrements, painstakingly assembled and well-used for planning and reviewing the conflicts that might kill them – or did kill them. 

Once we’ve made Hollows’ presence in the real world even more weighty and… Hollows-y… we’ve got additional Hollows coming. The next warped little worlds come to you from an ENNIE and Indie Groundbreaker Award-winning TTRPG designer (and research scientist), and a Bram Stoker Award-winning author. We invite you to speculate on who that might be in the comments. 

We’re gradually incorporating your questions about components, scaling, and other topics into the FAQ. Keep asking, and we’ll keep answering. 

FAQ this way.

Clearly you enjoy games that are dark as pitch and thoroughly violent, because you’ve backed Hollows. On that basis we suspect you’ll like Vast Grimm too. This brutally horrific sci-fi RPG, where the stakes are only the trifling matter of keeping humanity alive until (and maybe beyond) the death of the universe, has a Backerkit campaign for three new sourcebooks. Vast Grimm Horde: No Safe Haven adds a setting book, a dungeon crawl through derelict space barges, and a starter adventure to introduce new players to Vast Grimm. From the looks of it, it’s real unpleasant. In a good way.

They’re funded and tearing through stretch goals, including adventures from guest creators and an online character builder. And they’ve got patches. We haven’t even got patches. 

Check out Vast Grimm Horde on Backerkit.

That’s what the shotgun tells you. That’s what it wants you to believe. It is immediate and indiscriminate violence in physical form. It promises absolute destruction at the pull of a trigger; an attack without patience or restraint that sends even the fiercest foe reeling. It wants you to fire it. It needs you to fire it, over and over until there’s nothing left but splatter. 

The Shotgun’s a simple, highly effective weapon. Load, aim, fire, repeat. The design hasn’t changed in centuries; it doesn’t need to. 

In Hollows, the Shotgun’s what you choose if you want to regularly cause huge amounts of damage. The sawn-off variant is superb up close, the long-barrel at range. The repeater needs less reloading, so offers even more bang for your buck, as it were. 

It’s a berserker weapon; the essence of fury and intimidation. Tier 1 abilities let a Hunter do things like batter an opponent with their empty Shotgun while they reload; knock an opponent back with the blast; deal more damage when the Hunter’s injured; or unnerve an opponent with their rage when a Shotgun attack misses. A Hunter can even arrange their build so their Shotgun yells at them until they reload it, which is damaging but doesn’t cost an action. 

Later abilities refine and concentrate the Shotgun’s violence. You’re fearless; your bloodlust gives you counterattacks; you’re so riled up you barely notice injuries. By Tier 3, you cause such massive damage you make the Entity easy pickings for your companions and you’re at your most dangerous when you charge directly into an Entity’s snarling jaws, blowing chunks off it as you approach.

Every Weapon in Hollows has a specific outlook, and represents a specific facet of human deficiency. The Shotgun’s perspective is simple: violence solves everything. The more rapid and massive the damage, the better the solution works. It wants to break things to prove they can be broken, to prove its own strength. 

The Shotgun tells its wielder: don’t hold back. Do the unthinkable. Kill and maim and ruin. The world is a web of social mores designed to hold you down, but you can blast clean through it. 

The thing is, the Shotgun knows it’s lying. It knows violence can’t solve everything. It just doesn’t like to think about what happens after the shot is fired and the smoke clears; that it is empty, and powerless, and open to retribution. What it desires is intoxicating but impossible: no waiting and no need for recovery, but only an endless instant of fury.

That’s the truth of the Shotgun: hurting and killing until the consequences catch up to you.

We thought "yeah, it'll slow down after the first day, probably take us a while to start hitting stretch goals." Thank you for proving us wrong!



We've just passed £120,000, meaning we're going to make a podcast explaining why we made Hollows, how we designed it, and possibly unpicking some of the deep thoughts buried in amongst the monster carcasses. This one's for everyone who backs at the House tier or above. Powering through £100,000 is a huge achievement and we're commemorating it with a metal challenge coin, which you can use as an Entity token in Hollows. It's both beautiful and functional, and if your pledge includes physical stretch goals you'll get it automatically (otherwise, it's available as an add-on).



We're not stopping, though. The next stretch goal is at £150,000, and it's one of Chant's favourites. Jay Dragon (Wanderhome, Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast) is going to write a Hollow about the awfulness of boarding school, which promises to explore a Hollow born from suffering, not wickedness. It feels important to tell you at this point that you can redeem the Lord of a Hollow. Jay's Hollow will be illustrated by Johan Nohr (Mörk Borg), so it's going to be spectacular.

When we hit that stretch goal, we're going to have at least three printed Hollows to go with the core book, so we're going to package them up in a presentation box that we're quietly pleased with. More on that when we get closer to the goal.

Thanks again for your support, and also for the feedback you've shared with us in the Backerkit comments. It's great to know what you're thinking and, therefore, what we should be thinking about. 

Onwards! 
Chant (with assistance and graphics from Mina)

The Weapons are one of the coolest parts of Hollows and we haven’t said much about them yet. That’s primarily because there are ten of them, and we were worried if we tried to describe them all in the detail they deserve on the campaign page, people would simply stop reading. 

But believe me, we’re very eager to talk about the Weapons, so we’re going to spotlight each one in turn in its own blog post. First, there are things about Weapons you should know.

WHAT IS A WEAPON?

Weapons, capital “W” Weapons, are tools of destruction and pain. In the hands of a Hunter they are a focus for something greater and more terrible than the simple act of violence; they are a means of taking one’s turmoil and focusing it outwards on others. 

This turmoil – born from a bearer’s seed – can rewrite the world in broken and bloody patterns. A knife, any old knife you might find in a kitchen drawer or a soldier’s pack, just cuts things. The Knife, your Knife, the reflection of your razor-sharp will to make an impression on a world that never gave you a fair go, can make you move faster. It can send your stomach lurching in response to danger before any of your mortal senses know what’s going on. It can carve binding sigils (that it understands, and you do not) with your hand into the hides of those who would oppose you. It can bleed a beast twice your size dry in minutes.

Like demons resting on your shoulders, Weapons push, prod and provoke their bearers into action. This communication comes in dozens if not hundreds of forms, and each Hunter’s relationship with their tools is different and gruesomely unique. You might find your Sword in your hand when vicious thoughts intrude upon your consciousness, as if to agree with them. Your Book could manifest runes daubed in blood (whose, though?) denoting important objects and pathways. Your Knife, ever discreet, might carve messages into your arm while you’re distracted.

NOT ANY KNIFE. YOUR KNIFE. 

A Weapon always looks special. Weapons matter to their bearers; these aren’t simple tools or interchangeable devices, but personal expressions of belief. Every single Weapon has been customised in some way, either by its owner or one of the many artisans of the Isles, and each is just as distinctive as the Hunter that carries it. A Hunter would never mistake their Weapons for anyone else’s.

Custom details, unusual materials, personalised etchings and attachments and unique construction are commonplace. A Pistol that uses special gunpowder that must be mixed specially before a Hunt; the tattered flag of a fallen regiment hanging from the head of a Spear; a Staff wrapped in wool and leather harvested from the bearer’s parish for a better grip.  

As a Hunter grows in power, so too do their Weapons. Tier One Weapons are mundane, if unusual-looking; Tier Two Weapons are twisted by their time in Hollows, and transmute their materials into something stranger and more profound. Hilts of blood-red ivory clasp around matte-black steel; leering faces grow around muzzles to spit keen death; vibrant scenes of torment are stained prismatic into blades. A Tier Three Weapon is a thing of dark wonder.

Watch out for future updates to see which of the egotistical murder devices won the bloody scrap to be first in the spotlight. Or tell us which one you're most interested to see in the comments: Shotgun, Sword, or Knife? 

All art by Sam Lamont (Moonskinned)

That video up there, that's our live action Hollows trailer, in which two grimly determined Hunters blast their way into a former landlord's vile Hollow to purge his rotten little pocket of reality from the face of the Isles. It's a great summary of Hollows: atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife, grit and determination in the face of monstrous odds, and really big fights.

It's also 90 seconds of Grant Howitt (yes, that Grant Howitt, the Honey Heist guy) and our community lead, CJ, slamming shutters, conducting seances, and firing prop weapons. They had a great time, and Producer Chant is not jealous at all. 

That's not the only big Hollows reveal today. If you're following the project, there's more content underneath this paragraph. If you're not, you should follow now so you can see the SECRET CONTENT.