The monsters of folklore were real. Then the plague came.
Folkborne reimagines folklore monsters as playable civilizations struggling to survive cultural extinction.
Folkborne takes place in a medieval world where ancient non-human peoples have survived for centuries by remaining hidden in forests, caves, ruins, marshes, and mountain passes. Humans know them only through distorted stories: nursery rhymes, church warnings, tavern rumors, missing-person tales, and illustrated bestiaries.
When a devastating plague spreads across the kingdoms, desperate rulers and religious authorities blame the Old Folk. Hunters are paid to destroy them. Villages burn sacred groves. Alchemists dissect captured creatures. But the truth is more complicated. The plague may be tied to a broken covenant between humans and the hidden world.
You enter this age as one of the Folkborne.
Seven steps through the plague age.
- 01Explore plague-haunted regions
- 02Gather resources, relics, rumors, allies
- 03Make choices with villages and factions
- 04Build and upgrade hidden settlements
- 05Unlock lineage powers and rituals
- 06Shape reputation among humans and Folk
- 07Respond to outbreaks, hunts, wars, and supernatural events
Modes of play.
Story Campaign
Follow the mystery of the plague and the rise of the Folkborne.
Settlement Survival
Build a hidden monster refuge across seasons of disease and war.
Faction Sandbox
Choose conquest, coexistence, secrecy, or spiritual restoration.
Co-op Future Concept
Multiple players manage different Folk lineages within a shared hidden court. Design target — not yet promised.
The six pillars.
Playable Folklore Beings
Become creatures inspired by world folklore — each with unique powers, taboos, needs, and unfinished business with humanity.
Monster Civilization
Grow a hidden settlement. Recruit exiles. Write laws. Decide whether your society lives beside humanity, beneath it, or apart.
Reputation, Not Morality
Villages remember kindness, terror, bargains, disappearances, and broken oaths. They may fear and revere you in the same breath.
Plague and Superstition
The plague rewrites politics, faith, medicine, and fear. Every sickness becomes an accusation. Every death becomes a blade.
Faction Diplomacy
Negotiate with human kingdoms, plague doctors, church inquisitors, witch circles, merchant leagues, and rival Folk clans.
Ritual Magic, Old Customs
Rites, masks, songs, bones, herbs, moon cycles, and ancestral relics. The world bends for those who remember the old words.
“The plague did not create the Old Folk. It revealed them.”— From the Folkborne Codex