From Backwards Tabletop comes Backwater: Southern Gothic Horror Tabletop Roleplaying, a survival horror style game seeing you play as a warden in post-apocalyptic Louisiana, Mississippi, and southern Arkansas. There is a solo version, but generally you’re looking at a table of three or more people, one of whom is running the game. To play, you’ll need a copy of the quick-start guide or core rulebook, and dice.
Immediately I’m a fan of how Backwater tells you what it is about: southern gothic explores social issues relating to fear, poverty, religion, and alienation where the real horrors are often humans themselves. The game explicitly states that it not only approaches the genre with a reflection on American history, but its present as well.
Players are wardens who, broadly speaking, come in four different types: savants (brains and faces), seekers (explorers and thieves), seers (psychics and magic users) and slayers (ranged or melee fighters). While these determine starting abilities and a vague path for future, the original system upon which Backwater is built (called Backbone) allows for plenty of flexibility so that your wardens feel unique, and aren’t pigeon-holed. Even within the initial options, there’s so much choice for background, traits, and ideals (to name a few) that even a party with two savants would wind up with very different builds!
I enjoyed that there are a solid dozen quest hooks and item related quests that come with the book, along with a plethora of lore about the region, its people, and dynamics between them. Everything you need to build a full campaign is in here and, if jumping in and giving it a go is more your speed (as it is mine) there are pre-generated character sheets to let you get right to playing one of those fun quests!
Available on Itch for $19.99 USD, Backwater offers a rich environment or storytelling that made me long for an in-person gathering with friends around a table. All the devils are in Backwater, so they say, so while death is a certainty staying dead might be… negotiable. What’s not to enjoy?
The original version of this text was published in GothHoblin’s Grimoire.
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