HELLWHALERS is an original TTRPG of both nautical and Christian-religious horror. Play as damned whalers, sailing hell’s oceans to hunt a monstrous leviathan whale in a bid for redemption of your immortal souls. 

Whalers will earn souls through roleplay, challenges, and gambling, eventually collecting enough to pulse the Hellwhale’s disembodied heart, a blackened, grisly organ kept locked away by the captain. To pulse the heart is to summon the monster you seek: the dreaded Hellwhale. Slaying this titan of Hell’s waters is said to earn you a place back in God’s graces.

Choose Your Playbook

The Hot Tempered

Hell is the flame. The flame is the forge. You are the tool, the red-hot weapon. Your wrath against the infernal and divine alike permeates every motion you take, every decision you make.
Whose right is it? To put you in the world, to say you failed, to put you in this horrid place? God’s? You spit on the notion. You will rage against the powers of Heaven and Hell until your wick turns to ash and the world is smoldering around you.

Lure: When someone stands by your split-second decision, they gain a soul.

The Guilty

You’re in Hell, and you deserve it.
The people you hurt, the crimes you committed. Each sin weighs on you like an invisible chain, dragging you to the bottom of this infernal cesspool, where you belong. That’s what you tell yourself, anyway.
They say good deeds don’t matter in Hell, that repentance is a living man’s gift. Yet, what other recourse exists within your tortured mind? You accept the lord’s punishment, strive for forgiveness, and perhaps one dawn your guilt will be absolved.

Lure: When someone affirms that something isn’t your fault, they gain a Soul.

The Weary

Another day in Hell. Your Hell.
At first, you struggled. The sensation of flesh being torn from your bones and serrated hooks being run through your intestines hurt for the first several hundred years, but such things dull with time. All things do.
Things don’t change in Hell. What reason is there to fight? To do anything? You’ve been through things like this before, and you probably will be again. A new deal, a new bargain. Will anything be different this time? You doubt it.

Lure: When someone reminds you to rest, they gain a Soul.

The Greedy

Hell isn’t so bad. So long as you know what to do.
Devils torture indiscriminately, and there’s not a shortage of scapegoats here. They say only an evil man thrives in Hell, but you’re not nearly as bad as the one who put you here.
There’s very few things that are valuable in Hell. But as in life, as in death, and if anything can make your situation better, you want it. You need it. After all, this is Hell, and no one is going to help you but you.

Lure: When someone offers something useful to you, they gain a Soul.

The Pious

Prayer strengthens the soul. It guards against suffering and delivers peace. True in life, and true in death. The balm of the soul brings comfort, even in the torments of eternal damnation.
God is great, and God is just. He provides the means of salvation to his flock, and fervent hope in His holy name will prevail against the trials of Hell. He sees our struggle and hears our prayers. All is part of His holy plan.

Lure: When someone reaffirms your moral compass, they gain a soul.

The Haunted

The human mind has the uncanny ability to remember certain things in precise detail. Yet, for a soul in Hell, memory is nothing more than another instrument of the Grand Torturer. Like a sponge, you’ve absorbed horror after horror, a shallow wreck in the face of evil and malice.

Lure: When someone comforts or honors your pain, they gain a soul.

Check out a Playthrough

Materials

Suitable for 2-5 players and one Guide, who plays the captain, a foul tempered figure driving the whalers ever onward in a maddened quest for the whale’s flesh and blood.

Gambling plays a central role in the gameplay loop, creating a procedurally generated series of events each day. Gambling takes place on  a Sic-Bo board, a game played with three six-sided dice.

Credits

Game Concept and Rules by Moss Powers
Narrative by Bogus Cheesecake and Moss Powers
Art Direction and Layout by Kaye Mahoney
Linocut and Digital Prints by Albert Johnson, Lepish Susano,  and Charles Torok

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