OldMoon is an RPG available sometime in 2025 from Exalted Funeral. The creator, Humberto Tramujas, was kind enough to tell me a little bit of how he designed his game and what GMs and players can look forward to on this alien medieval moon.
CD: Thanks for talking with us, Humberto. How did you come up with the concept of a medieval society on an alien moon? Did the idea start out that way, or did it evolve into this final concept?
Humberto Tramujas (HT): It started out that way. I think it was back during the pandemic. I was watching lots of Star Trek, and one night, probably because I was more susceptible to it, I saw a UFO. I’m not the type of guy that believes in these things, and a quick Google search made me figure out what it was, but for that split second, it was cool. Then it came to me: Why do aliens have to be super high-tech? Us humans came a long way, from discovering fire to Yuri Gagarin. If these societies are in a space-traveling state, they have to pass through all these other stages we lived through in their civilization, including the Middle Ages.
CD: What led you to the ruleset you decided to use, and how do those rules reflect the setting?
HT: The rules are the setting. I created the moon and its species, trying to avoid classic fantasy ones, and after that came the rules. I like “race as class,” although in OldMoon it’s “species as class.” So, with different species came different classes and styles of gameplay. It started as a DCC (CD: Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG) hack, but in the first weeks, I figured out that if I wanted the rules to reflect the setting, I would have to start from scratch. The moon has all sorts of unique rules, biomes, and creatures—it is impossible to detach one from the other. People asked me if they could play in the setting but use their system of choice. To be honest, I don’t think so, but the game is made of so many toolkits that the other way around is super easy to do. I’ve playtested the game with several classic adventures, and giving them an orbital twist (pun intended) makes things really interesting. It is not a retroclone nor does it use any other previous system as its base, but it includes similar systems (exploration, morale, dungeon crawl, combat, etc.). However, the mechanics behind them are different. It’s like using a new recipe to bake the same cake. The system is made to feel similar (being medieval fantasy) but different in “where this medieval setting is.”
CD: What type of characters can players create, and what abilities are they likely to have?
HT: What makes OldMoon so different is its species. We have the Hogros, beings that fall from the sky inside meteorites when they are born; the Slynx, mutated cats that can manipulate cosmic radiation to cast spells; the Lupirons, small feral people who can smell nature and its connections to the beyond; the Caligar, who are born with no shadow and are only whole when they find one; and, of course, the Humans, who, in this context, don’t remember their super-technological past. Exyon could not exist without its species, and its species could not exist without Exyon. The term “species” is really important to me, as they are not races deviating from the same thing. One can point out that elves, humans, dwarves, and halflings are all humans (demi-humans in the classic term from our hobby). They are basically the same, with a little difference in their stature and other small physical features. But they all reproduce in the same manner. In OldMoon, they are different species, as we are a different species from dogs, birds, and fish. Each species has its biological particularities, and from these particularities come their mechanics and abilities. Long story short, each species has its core mechanics, but each has, more or less, a classic fantasy class related to it.
CD: What tone and/or style of campaign do you think OldMoon is best suited for?
HT: Some may say that OldMoon is sci-fantasy, space fantasy, medieval times with a hint of alien tech, or one of my favorite definitions: It’s a “f*$# around and find out” type of game. And I don’t know who is right in that case. To me, it’s just good old sword and sorcery in a new setting. You can play any kind of campaign that you usually play in a sword and sorcery game, but expect the feeling of wonder and unfamiliarity you had with it back when you started playing these kinds of games. In game terms, we have two distinct definitions—the Journey and Adventures. A character experiences a series of Adventures during their life that will result in a great Journey. An Adventure can last one to four sessions, while the Journey is the sum of all the Adventures the characters participate in. Adventure styles can be combined and woven into the game. They can have a principal focus, like roleplay, dungeon crawling, investigation, searches, combat, exploration, and so on, but the best ones are a mix of all different styles of gameplay. A Journey may contain elements that tie the narrative together, such as recurring villains and NPCs or MacGuffins, but it could also just be a collection of episodic Adventures connected only by the presence of the same characters. On that note, all characters in OldMoon are considered adventurers—not superheroes or demigods. Their core motivations are to survive on this harsh moon. So you can play forever with the same character (as long as they stay alive) on their Journey, going from place to place, or you can take a more Conan-like structure, where in one Adventure, you are in one place on the moon, and in another, you are older and in a completely different scenario. That’s up to you.
CD: How do you envision a GM using OldMoon, and what type of adventures do you see a GM running?
HT: I see OldMoon as a toolbox to create adventures. There are several tables to create situations and places for players to explore, and what to do with them is up to the GM. Usually, they will guide players through a desolate world where survival is the primary goal. Adventures revolve around navigating dangerous landscapes filled with ancient ruins, hostile creatures, and strange technologies left by lost civilizations.
CD: For a first-time GM, where do you suggest they start a campaign?
HT: Remember when I said that it started as a DCC hack? The one thing that remains from this period is the level-0 funnels, here called Cosmic Trials. The book has a complete Cosmic Trial for GMs to start and kind of a starting region (there’s a chapter where I teach how to generate a region with the rules and tools of the game, and there’s a complete one that I did while teaching the process). So GMs can start with the Cosmic Trial, create their own region (there are 19 different biomes with hundreds of tables for each), or use the example one in the book.
CD: I know you playtested OldMoon with your game group. Any interesting war stories to share?
HT: I reached out to my friends, and they sent so many good ones. A cool one came from when we were testing the magic system of the game. Spells are called Arcane Words, and they are translated from the signs of the Cosmos. They function as commands that affect reality. So instead of Fireball, we have the Arcane Word Animate, which can have the same effect if the caster uses it on a torch, for example. How it is interpreted and manipulated happens on the table with the GM and players collaborating. In one session, the players were in a dungeon with framed paintings of warriors, and a creature started attacking them. They were about to die when the caster successfully animated the painting to make the warrior fight alongside them. It was epic. Another funny one is when they climbed a mountain to get a platinum egg from a giant alien crow. One character got decapitated, another fell off the cliff, and when they finally managed to kill the beast, they got back and forgot to take the egg. Many of the cooler moments came when the systems and rules made unpredictable things happen, like when they rested atop a small sand island, which turned out to be a giant crab that carried them away as they slept. Or when they were abducted by a flying saucer and ended up in a pocket dimension. Once, they were hiding from the Eclipse (a meteorological event that changes all the rules in the game, making them super strange), and a rice sack transformed into a giant monster. What I recommend to GMs is to use the tables as catalysts for their imagination and let the weirdness of the moon take control of the game.
CD: Thanks for talking with EN World and me. Anything else you’d like to share?
HT: Thank you! I’m super happy to be talking about my game. For too long, I thought only my friends would know about it, but then came Exalted Funeral, and now the game will be released! I want to invite those reading to follow me on social media. My username is @lupironpress on all platforms. I’m mainly on Instagram, but I want to make a YouTube channel to talk about the game, too. We also have a Discord group (link: Discord), and if you are interested in the game, please reach out. OldMoon comes out in 2025 and there is no set date yet, but you can sign up for the email to be notified when it comes out here: OldMoon at Exalted Funeral.
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