The Woods, At Night

There are wrong things in the neighborhood - the nights are getting longer, and colder, and things prowl in the dark. They tap on windows with branches and slam shutters and shed doors. Adults and older kids don’t notice, but you do. You can hear the dogs barking and the cats yowling, and you know that something isn’t right.

You talk about it at recess, or pass notes during class. Other kids see it too, so you know you’re not alone. They’ve also seen the thing in the tree stretching out it’s long, craggy fingers towards your neighbor’s house; they’ve heard the child-like screams of a doe, fleeing in panic from the lights in the woods; they’ve smelled the foul rot out in back of the school where the old well used to be and heard the scratching from below.

The dark will try to draw you in - to eat you whole, make you fall from your perch, or drown you in the mud. It comes at you in the deep night, when the windows are left open to let the cool air in. It will come at your parents, your friends, your pets. So you must be brave; set out with sling and lucky coin, with books and wits. Keep them safe, if you can.

The Woods, At Night is a structured roleplaying game for 3-5 players that takes a few hours to play. One person will play The Darkness, the rest will play kids. It is a game about the fears of children and the bravery kids show in the face of those fears, real or not.

Play takes place in three phases as the kids scheme and head off into the woods to save their neighborhood.