Common People. Uncommon Evil.

Every story needs a villain. Villains create conflict. Conflict creates the call to action every story needs. Without a villain, there's no story!

The best villains are just regular people. They're creepy, insidious, and terrifying. There's room for supervillains — ancient dragons, high priests of a dead god’s cult, fallen angels or demon princes, or high-level half-aberration warlocks, stuff like that — but our villains are the kind of people who live in your neighborhood. No god blood or x-ray vision. Just normal, everyday people who happen to have a gaping, pitiless void where they should have a heart and conscience.

• Kabouter Games is a pico-publisher of tabletop roleplaying game books. From adventures to character options to fully-realized games, we produce high-quality resources for your table. 
• Villains Next Door is our collection of bad guys for fantasy games. We've assembled a diverse international team of game designers to create these villains for you!
• The book contains dozens — more than 30 — of ready-to-use villains, each unique and fully realized.
• Every villain has an associated Fifth Edition stat block. They're also specifically designed to be used in any RPG system.
• Beautiful portraits of each villain, painted by some of history's most famous artists (courtesy of the Rijksmuseum's Rijksstudio program)
• Each villain comes with 3 story seeds around which you can build exciting adventures.
• With your help, we can do our bit to change the way the RPG industry pays creatives. We're committed to paying our writers US$0.10 per word. That's the base. If we exceed our funding goal, that amount increases! Every cent over gets divided among the entire team. If you're as committed to ensuring RPG creatives earn dignified living wages as we are, here's your chance to help.

What You Get

Here's what you need to know about your pledge:

• Where will the funds go? Towards paying our team a living wage, of course! 
• We'll deliver the book in a vibrant, full-color PDF and softcover printed book. 
• If we don't reach our funding goal, the book will still come out — it'll just take a little longer to get to you. That's our promise to you. Our creative and development team gets paid before Kabouter Games management gets a dime.

The Team

Lead Designer: R P Davis

Designers: Sebastian Yūe, Zavier Bates, Sven Truckenbrodt, Marius Brunner, Koen van Eijk, Cat Evans, Lena Meier, The Old Goat, Alan Tucker, Joanna DeLaune, Steve "Jaspor" Orr, Matthias Gildemyn, Brittney Hay, Victoria Blackmore, Nadine Ramey, Matthew Whitby

Editor: Kathleen Harrington

Sensitivity Consultant: Helen Gould

Who Are We? 

Kabouter Games is a pico-publisher of tabletop role-playing games and adventures, creators of Toxandria, the FIRST complete game released under Chaosium Inc's Basic Roleplaying OGL! 

Kabouter Games creates adventures, GM support materials, stuff for players, and more!

Chief Kabouter R P Davis is a veteran RPG freelancer who's written and edited for a passel of pico-publishers, as well as bigger names like Kobold Press, Cubicle 7, Loresmyth, Onyx Path, and Wizards of the Coast. It was only a matter of time before he started his own thing.

What We Need & What You Get

The State of the Project: All text is written. Sensitivity consultation and editing are in process. Layout is scheduled to begin as soon as editing is complete. 

Digital Copies Delivery: PDF copies will ship via DriveThruRPG as soon as layout is completed. That way you'll always have your copy in your DTRPG Library!

Print Copies Delivery: Print copies will be printed and shipped via DriveThruRPG. Backers will receive a discount coupon, allowing them to receive their softcover book for the cost of printing and shipping. You can check estimated print cost here (about 80 pages, standard color interior), and shipping costs here. This method helps insure prompt delivery to most places on the planet.

Risks & Challenges

Not a lot can go wrong at this point. Please note that the global pandemic has had an impact on shipping, and that might mean shipping delays for physical books.

Your Impact

Your contribution will make the difference between Villains Next Door remaining a dream and having it see the light of day. Your support will also help us help other indie creators in these trying times by hiring them to work on the project.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you can't contribute, it's okay! Times are hard. You can still help us succeed! Get the word out by making some noise about our campaign on social media and using the Indiegogo share tools.

We love and appreciate you!