Every day cannot be a holiday
Much to month about.
Necrotic Gnome, the publisher responsible for popular retroclone RPG Old-School Essentials, is partnering with Exalted Funeral to host a collaborative crowdfunding project on Backerkit. Old-School Essentials Month will run through May 2026 and, like its Mothership and Mausritter cousins, invite independent designers to launch their own OSE projects under a shared banner. Themed months are interesting twists on the crowdfunding formula and benefit from tapped-in creator followings, which OSE definitely boasts.
But, hoo boy, the calendar is already getting crowded.
Let’s take stock of a given year, assuming you’re interested in a general range of non-elfgame RPGs. February is both Zine Quest on Kickstarter and the independent Zine Month offshoot that spawned in protest a few years back. Backerkit cut its own piece of the small-form, stapled pie by adding ZineTopia to the same month. Speaking of -Topias, late March/early April brings along Pocketopia, an event that differs from ZineTopia in ways you can understand if you squint hard enough at the description.
October is the aforementioned Mothership Month on Backerkit, which has notched two successful years in its belt, and Gamefound’s RPG Party. This invitational showcase of projects is a bit more curated, but I’ll count it. Backerkit immediately returns in November with Mausritter Month, alternating one rules-lite system with robust 3rd-party support for another. Necrotic Gnome and Exalted Press have opted, at least, for a relatively empty block – oh, wait, no, Pocketopia 2026 is now happening in May, as well.
