Good Friday to you all, I have something to share with you tonight as I procrastinate getting a heads start on the 2025 adventure series tonight I wanted to do a game introduction to Wilderfeast. Now I wish this was a paid promotion but alas, it is not. This is just me getting a bit hyped up over a game that I’ve spent a few hours (ok more than a few) reading and also run a few of my old and new players through an introductory adventure.
Wilderfeast is a TTRPG like I haven’t really experienced before, a simplified attribute and skill system, the dice mechanics are similar to games I’ve played like Soul bound with a d6 determining success on the venture or outcome but with a twist. If you focus up on your human side and training you roll a d8 that determines both damage and degree of success, or… you can go wild and give into the beast lurking at the surface and roll a d20 instead, with a cost and worse consequence if you fail.
That’s way to high level for this game but there is a fair bit to unpack. The game revolves around finding ingredients and cooking food. Yup, that’s right, finding ingredients and cooking food. Did I mention that the key ingredient in your most significant meals is… Monsters…
A fun hybrid between monster hunter and Dungeon Meshi, Delicious in Dungeon. You are the rangers, caretakers and balance bringers of the world who have a sacred calling to fight against the curse-like-virus called “Frenzy” where normally placid, or still angry monsters, get angrier, meaner and hungrier. You have to stop them and to ensure that their tainted bodies don’t spread the virus you ritualistically cook the meal and eat it to consume the tainted meat.
The catch. Each meal turns you more monstrous. If you eat an piscine monster you may grow fins and find yourself swimming faster, you eat a flying monster like a bat, bird or dragon you may mutate wings and be able to fly to get your dinner. A new meaning to fast food.
By enhancing yourself with monster traits, styles (attributes) and skills you get stronger, strong enough to take on the real villains of this story. Giants. I didn’t mention there were Giants yet did I? Well there is and they are blessed with near immortality, near unbeatable strength but cursed with the Hunger. They need to eat (sound a bit attack on titan now doesn’t it?).
The System
Each Hunter uses a specific hunting tool to take down monsters… but they are a bit different as each weapon is a large cooking instrument. We have Spits (spears cross harpoons, like a skewer really), Pans (Pan…s… yeah its a 1:1 match there), Cleavers (great sword like knives), Mits (ok ok ok, these are like boxing gloves mixed with punch-daggers and brass knuckles. These can hit HARD), Twine (for tying up roasts, ATAT walker legs, etc.) and a Torch (like a flame thrower that roasts your meat, heats up the other tools like a cleaver so it can slice monsters like a hot knife… through butter….)
Each tool has its own anime-esque techniques that feel like monster hunter combo moves but play more like a Bankai or some other finishing move. They also determine your starting Styles, your attributes, from Mighty, Precise, Swift or Tricky.
Mighty is pretty easy. Swing hard with everything you have and cleave through rocks, trees, shells, meat, bone, what ever you need to. Generally favoured for Mits, Pans or Cleavers.
Precise is for targeting a specific part and delicately removing that poisonous sack from the four metre puffer fish or for following a precise map to get through the area safely. Generally found for Cleavers, Spits or Torches.
Swift is focusing on speed, striking with a lashing whip from your tool, moving quickly through a clearing to avoid the predators or swiftly climbing a tree for the best fruit. This is favoured of Mits, Spits and Twine.
Tricky is being stealthy, being deceptive or particularly technical. It can range from stealthily (or trickly) snatching eggs from a nesting bird, deceiving a predator into following a false trail or scent or feinting in combat. this is favoured from Pans, Torches and Twine.
You can have between 0 and 5 in a Style which determine how many dice you roll to try and succeed on a test. Success is measured on rolling a 5 or 6 on the d6. So the more dice you roll (law of averages say that a score of 3, the starting highest score for your character, should have 1 success per attempt). To boost this chance you have skills which range from Strikes and Shots used in combat to Calls to mimic a predator of a creature that’s hunting you to get them to flee, Grab to snatch a set of keys from a poachers belt or Traversal and Search which is used on the trail – to move through the hostile and dangerous lands and to search for ingredients to use in your cooking respectively.
The finishing part is TRAITS – that’s what you inherited from your monstrous meals. Now there’s two or three pages of traits in the book but they range from passives that half damage against a certain style like Natural Armour and Natural reflexes , to granting an alternative form of movement (climbing, swimming, flying, digging and even Floating…) but also more specific combat ones like Venom, Burning body, Fire breath or Electric Shock. All of these when added together, and the fact you mutate either your Style, Skills or a level in a Trait make for a really diverse, complex and yet straight forward system.
The game revolves around Signs – basically Monster Hunter quests on a board – where if you ignore them for too long things get worse for the human and monster communities as you fail to do your job as a Wilder. These may be reports from scouts, a migration of monsters from their native feeding or hunting grounds as they are pushed out or the destruction of a village that you were helping to rebuild.
The last thing I want to touch on as it will appeal to a great many of us is that the other aspect of this is caring for monsters, not just hunting them to extinction for their traits. Rehabilitating monsters and forming bonds with them, their pack (or community) or even gaining a life-long pet and companion is another core part of the game I am excited to experience in the coming weeks(s).
Brazen Wolfe Tabletop 
