Come all ye metalheads, behold this system-agnostic TRPG sourcebook for my fellow chaos goblins

Photo of the Glumdark book
(Image credit: Exalted Funeral Press)

If you're also a child of darkness, a headbanger, or otherwise a conduit for all things grotesque and distressing to normal folk, I think I've found the perfect grimdark TRPG resource for you as a game master. Right now Exalted Funeral are Kickstarting a pretty grim sourcebook for messed up tabletop roleplayers such as ourselves, and I can't wait to get stuck in. The best part is that it's system agnostic, so while you could use it to supplement your D&D campaign, you could just as easily use it to spice up a game of Thirsty Sword Lesbians or some other obscure tabletop RPG.

Either way, Glumdark seems to offer everything we twisted souls desire from a sourcebook, in a way that it's not tethered to any of the best tabletop RPGs in particular. You might even use it along with Exalted Funeral's own Dolmenwood TRPG by Necrotic Gnome, if creepy-as-heck fairytales are your bag. I expect it works exceptionally well when paired with a setting like that of Mork Borg, since the vibes are similarly abominable. *Smiles creepily*

Screenshots from the Glumdark site

(Image credit: Lettuce (left), Vil (right))

For this we have Matt McGlintlock and Christopher Drellow to thank, so think of them as you send off your player characters as the accidental target of drunken hunters, or as a wrongly-assumed friendly dog's dinner.

Fun fact, the project was almost called "Blocko's Wild Imaginarium", but Glumdark won out. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about that little tidbit from Drellow in his interview with The Vintage RPG Podcast.

If that sounds like something that floats your freaky boat, you can back the Glumdark Kickstarter campaign until February 22. It's $24 for the digital PDF plus an STL file for the little Glumdark spider mascot that you can 3D print at home, and full access to the Glumdark site that you'd otherwise have to be a patron for. Otherwise it's $36 for the physical copy, plus all of the above, as well as the option to add stickers, T-shirts and even a patch for your jacket onto your pledge.


For more recommendations, why not check out the best D&D books.

Katie Wickens
Freelance writer

Katie is a freelance writer with almost 5 years experience in covering everything from tabletop RPGs, to video games and tech. Besides earning a Game Art and Design degree up to Masters level, she is a designer of board games, board game workshop facilitator, and an avid TTRPG Games Master - not to mention a former Hardware Writer over at PC Gamer.