Through Monday, January 20, 2025 we present the Fabula Ultima Bundle featuring Fabula Ultima, the Need Games RPG inspired by Japanese-style console RPGs. In Fabula Ultima you tell epic stories of would-be heroes and fearsome villains, set in fantasy worlds filled with magic, wondrous locations, and uniquely bizarre monsters. Your group can freely shape the world in any of several styles (High Fantasy, Natural Fantasy, and Techno Fantasy), developing kingdoms, peoples, histories, villains, clashing factions, world-shattering perils, and extraordinary heroes of many shapes and sizes. Mix and match 15 videogame-inspired character classes (arcanists, shapeshifters, battle mages, paladins, scholars, explorers, tinkerers, weaponmasters, death knights) to create your ideal character. The Game Master gets all the tools needed to create your heroes’ dark mirrors, the Villains. Make a choice and fight for what you believe in.
Need Games styles Fabula Ultima as a “TTJRPG” – a “tabletop Japanese (or Japanese-style) Roleplaying Game,” inspired by JRPG videogames such as Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, Octopath Traveler, The Legend of Heroes, and the Final Fantasy series, among many others. The setting emphasizes fantastic yet light-hearted, even bizarre action; heroic destinies, challenging battles, clever tactics, and the cost of defeat; and the grandiose agendas of larger-than-life boss villains.
Though it presents no canonical setting, Fabula Ultima does establish “Eight Pillars,” principles that should inspire the players as they create the world together:
- Ancient ruins and harsh lands
- A world in peril
- Clashing communities
- “Everything has a soul”
- Magic and technology
- Heroes of many sizes and shapes
- “It’s all about the heroes”
- Mystery, discovery, and growth
“JRPG videogames share some major elements,” says the corebook introduction. “They tell fantastic stories in which extraordinary individuals confront the darkness that threatens their world, growing and learning to trust each other. Only by struggling together and casting aside their suspicions and differences will they save what they hold dear. This may read like a common premise, but JRPG worlds – often wondrous and bizarre – are built around the protagonists and act as a reflection of the doubts, hopes, and feelings driving their actions. The process of discovering the setting goes hand in hand with understanding who is accompanying us in our journeys.
“Unlike a videogame, you won’t play through a prewritten plot and grind for experience by slaying monsters for hours or carrying out duties for quest-givers. Instead, you build your own story together little by little, and you will be rewarded for playing your character in a way that fits their role and identity in that story.”
This all-new Fabula Ultima Bundle presents the entire line for an unbeatable bargain price. Pay just US$14.95 to get all four titles in our Fabula Ultima Collection (retail value $58) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete 360-page full-color Fabula Ultima core rulebook, the Atlas: Techno Fantasy and Atlas: High Fantasy sourcebooks, and the GM’s Toolkit.
This Fabula Ultima offer heads to the Silver Monolith, faces an elite boss thornshark, and vanishes beneath the waves Monday, January 20, 2025.
