# The Silt Verses Roleplaying Game

A folk-horror investigation TTRPG of stray gods, indebted Custodians, and monstrous divinity, using Carved from Brindlewood mystery play inside the world of The Silt Verses audio drama.

## At a Glance

Folk-horror investigation - Carved from Brindlewood / PbtA - 1 Keeper + Custodians - Low-prep assignments, high thematic intensity - Best for mature mystery campaigns

## Why It Fits

The Silt Verses Roleplaying Game gives the directory a strong folk-horror and licensed-audio-drama entry while deepening the site’s Carved from Brindlewood coverage beyond Brindlewood Bay, Public Access, and The Between. It helps readers choose between cozy mystery, analog horror, gothic monster hunting, and religious folk-horror investigation.

## Fit Facts

- Players: 2-5 players + Keeper
- Session length: 120-180 minutes
- Prep: Low
- Price: Paid

## Facets

- Genres: Horror, Modern, Mystery, Mythology and Folklore, Supernatural
- Systems: Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA)
- Mechanics: Campaign, Collaborative Worldbuilding, Investigation, Narrative-Driven, Team-Based
- Themes: Dark, Mature, Political, Psychological
- Decision tags: Licensed, Low Prep, Rules Medium

## Scores

- Complexity: 3/5
- New GM Fit: 3/5
- Roleplay Focus: 5/5
- Combat Focus: 1/5
- Tactical Depth: 0/5
- Campaign Depth: 4/5

## Best For

- Groups that want folk-horror investigation about gods, faith, and institutional pressure
- Tables that already like Carved from Brindlewood clue interpretation and emergent answers
- Podcast fans who want original Custodian assignments rather than a replay of canon

## Avoid If

- You want fixed-solution detective play with one hidden answer prepared by the Keeper
- Your table wants tactical combat, gear, or build optimization to carry most sessions
- Religious horror, sacrifice, body transformation, or coercive institutions are a poor fit for your group

## Explorer Notes

[The Silt Verses Roleplaying Game](https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/the-silt-verses-roleplaying-game.html) is best for groups that want investigative horror to feel religious, strange, and morally compromised. The player characters are Custodians sent into isolated communities to deal with stray gods, terrifying angels, and divine manifestations that cannot simply be cataloged or fought. The question is rarely just what happened; it is what kind of bargain, appeasement, or violence the characters can live with afterward.

It is not the easiest fit for tables that want clean monster-of-the-week heroics, fixed-solution detective play, or horror with a light touch. The game works because it asks the Keeper and players to sit with faith, sacrifice, coercive institutions, body horror, and unsettling divine ecology while using Carved from Brindlewood procedures to let answers emerge from clues.

## What the game is

The Silt Verses Roleplaying Game is a licensed tabletop adaptation of Jon Ware and Muna Hussen's audio drama, written by Gabriel Robinson and Jason Cordova and published by [The Gauntlet](https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/). The official page frames it as folk horror and monstrous divinity: Custodians investigate stray gods and divine manifestations, then decide how to appease, neutralize, or otherwise resolve the threat to the nearby community.

The game does not try to replay the podcast's plot beat by beat. The [official sample](https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/pdf_previews/458507-sample.pdf) says it expands the show's world and encourages tables to make the setting their own. That matters for new players: podcast familiarity helps with tone, but the game is built for original Custodian assignments rather than trivia about canon.

## Publication history and current edition

The game arrived as a PDF release from The Gauntlet in November 2023, with The Gaming Gang reporting a 163-page DriveThruRPG release at launch. The current practical product path is the [DriveThruRPG listing](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/458507/the-silt-verses-roleplaying-game?affiliate_id=1659151), while The Gauntlet's official page hosts the product overview, downloads, and play-aid links.

The visible credits are unusually useful for a reference page. The sample credits Gabriel Robinson and Jason Cordova as writers, Ezra Rose for cover and interior art, Ben Mansky for graphic design and layout, Jason Cordova as editor and publisher, and additional contributions from Jacqueline Bryk, Megan Caldwell, Mike Martens, B. Narr, James Smith, Michael Van Vleet, and Jon Ware.

## Product line and what you need to play

The official page lists the rulebook in spreads and singles, a character sheet, a reference sheet, six Faith Sheets, Conspiracy Campaign and Confrontation sheets for The Institute, eight Journey Scenes, and eight Assignments. That is enough support for a campaign-shaped start rather than only a bare rules document.

The included Faith Sheets are The Trawler Man, The Pox Martyr, The Saint Electric, The Waxen Scrivener, The Cairn Maiden, and The Watcher in the Wings. They are more than character options: they tie player characters to divine power, obligation, and memory, which is where the game differs most sharply from ordinary investigative horror.

## Play aids and online support

The Gauntlet links an [official Google Sheets character keeper](https://arktosaur.itch.io/the-silt-verses-character-keeper) by Arktosaur. The keeper is released as a name-your-own-price tool on itch.io, lists itself as released, and is designed to track Custodians, assignments, journey scenes, NPCs, gods, locations, personal material, and safety expectations. It is the best first setup step for online play.

Ben Mansky's [layout portfolio page](https://www.benmansky.com/tsv-rpg) is also helpful context because it shows how the book's visual language separates folk gods, the Bureau for the Investigation and Assimilation of Stray Deities, and The Institute. That design distinction supports actual play: factions are not only lore labels, they shape what handouts and procedures feel like at the table.

## Core rules and play structure

The Silt Verses is Powered by the Apocalypse and Carved from Brindlewood. The sample names Apocalypse World, The Between, Public Access, and Ghosts of El Paso as mechanical influences. The practical effect is a fiction-first mystery game where Custodians gather clues, pursue Questions and Opportunities, and use those clues to construct an answer rather than uncovering a single prewritten solution.

The [reference sheet](https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/uploads/7/7/8/1/77811662/tsv_reference_sheet.pdf) makes the session rhythm concrete. The Keeper recaps active Assignments, players handle beginning-of-session choices, and the Keeper introduces a new Assignment when fewer than three are active. Play moves between Investigation Phases, where Custodians seek answers, and Journey Phases, where travel scenes expose personal history or relationships to divinity.

## Characters, roles, and advancement

Player characters are Custodians tied to gods, contracts, and the Bureau's work. The strongest character material comes from Faith Sheets, personal history, conditions, and scenes that ask how each Custodian's relationship to divinity has shaped them. The group is not just solving supernatural cases; it is deciding what service, belief, debt, and survival have done to them.

The game uses a Keeper. That role carries scene framing, Assignments, complications, divine manifestations, conspiracy pressure, and the pacing needed to keep multiple open Questions in motion. The Keeper does not need to build a traditional mystery with one hidden answer, but does need a strong feel for tone, pressure, and when to ask players to commit to an interpretation.

## Signature mechanics

- Assignments: structured investigations give the Custodians specific divine problems while still leaving room for emergent answers.

- Questions and Clues: the table gathers evidence, connects it, and rolls to answer central Questions once enough Clues are in play.

- Journey Scenes: travel between Assignments becomes a procedure for personal history, relationship to divinity, recovery, and new clues.

- Faith Sheets: gods are not only setting material; they shape character identity, power, obligation, and horror.

- The Institute conspiracy: the campaign has a larger institutional threat that can turn separate cases into a broader reckoning.

## What play feels like

A good session feels like a field assignment in a world where divinity is everywhere and never neutral. Custodians arrive at a community under pressure, find the local god or manifestation is tangled in poverty, history, faith, violence, or need, and then decide what kind of solution is possible. Even travel has weight because Journey Scenes ask what the characters remember, believe, and fear.

Compared with [The Between](/item/the-between), The Silt Verses is less theatrical-gothic and more folk-horror institutional: the characters are not glamorous hunters in a city mansion, but indebted agents moving through communities shaped by gods and exploitation. Compared with [Brindlewood Bay](/item/brindlewoodbay), it is much harsher and more religiously charged. Compared with [Public Access](/item/public-access), it trades lost-media unease for faith, bureaucracy, and divine ecology.

## Running the game

The prep burden is manageable because the published book includes Assignments, Journey Scenes, sheets, and a reference structure. The harder work is tonal. The Keeper needs to present gods as materially real and socially embedded, not just as monsters, while giving players enough clues and pressure to decide what their Custodians will do.

The main failure mode is treating it like either a puzzle mystery or a lore tour. If the Keeper hides the answer too tightly, the Carved from Brindlewood engine loses momentum. If the table only tours podcast concepts, play can become reference-heavy. The strongest campaigns use the source world as a pressure system and then let the Custodians create new sins, bargains, and revelations inside it.

## Campaign fit

The game can support a focused short arc around one or two Assignments, but the official materials clearly point toward campaign play: multiple active Assignments, repeated Journey Phases, Faith Sheet development, and The Institute as a conspiracy frame. The first session should establish boundaries and introduce the Bureau, a first Assignment, and each Custodian's relationship to faith.

## Reception and awards

DriveThruRPG currently shows a small review count but an extremely positive rating average for the product. External reviews are also favorable. Le Repaire de Gulix praises the distinctive world, the way setting emerges through Faith Sheets and assignments, and the robustness of the Carved from Brindlewood system, while warning that the themes need table buy-in. Playful Void highlights the phased structure and cinematic intent, and community discussion often compares it to other Brindlewood-derived mysteries.

The useful caveat is that the game's strengths are specific. It is excellent for groups that want weird faith, folk horror, personal history, and collaborative mystery interpretation. It is a poor fit for groups that want the source podcast recreated exactly, a puzzle-box mystery with one canonical answer, or horror themes that can stay comfortably in the background.

## Where it is strongest

- Folk-horror mysteries where gods, worship, and institutions shape every practical choice.

- Groups already interested in Carved from Brindlewood mystery procedures.

- Campaigns where travel, faith, and personal history should produce clues and consequences.

- Tables that want a licensed game to create new stories in the source world rather than replay canon.

## Where it can frustrate groups

- Players who want traditional deduction with one hidden GM-authored solution.

- Groups that dislike religious horror, coercive bureaucracy, sacrifice, body horror, or bleak institutional pressure.

- Tables that need tactical combat, gear, or character builds to carry most sessions.

- Podcast fans who want to play the original protagonists instead of original Custodians.

## Content and safety notes

Use a strong session zero. The likely content includes religious coercion, ritual sacrifice, body transformation, institutional exploitation, violence, poverty, faith trauma, divine possession or contamination, and communities trapped between survival and worship. The official character keeper explicitly includes safety and expectation tools, which is a useful signal about how the game expects tables to approach tone.

## Best starting path

Start with The Gauntlet's official page, then buy the PDF through [DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/458507/the-silt-verses-roleplaying-game?affiliate_id=1659151) if the table wants the full game. Download the reference sheet and set up the official character keeper before session zero. New groups should begin with a published Assignment rather than inventing a god, a Bureau problem, and a conspiracy clock all at once.

## Research notes

Last checked: July 23, 2026.

- [The Gauntlet official product page](https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/the-silt-verses-roleplaying-game.html)

- [DriveThruRPG product page](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/458507/the-silt-verses-roleplaying-game?affiliate_id=1659151)

- [Official DriveThruRPG sample PDF](https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/pdf_previews/458507-sample.pdf)

- [The Silt Verses reference sheet](https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/uploads/7/7/8/1/77811662/tsv_reference_sheet.pdf)

- [Official character keeper on itch.io](https://arktosaur.itch.io/the-silt-verses-character-keeper)

- [Ben Mansky layout/design notes](https://www.benmansky.com/tsv-rpg)

- [Glowing Roots Press page for Gabriel Robinson](https://glowingroots.carrd.co/)

- [The Gaming Gang release coverage](https://thegaminggang.com/game-news/the-silt-verses-rpg-has-arrived-from-the-gauntlet)

- [Le Repaire de Gulix review](https://www.gulix.fr/blog/2025/01/lecture-de-role-the-silt-verses-en.html)

- [Playful Void review](https://idlecartulary.com/2023/12/19/i-read-the-silt-verses/)

- [Cytochrome Hear interview with Gabriel Robinson](https://cytochromehear.wordpress.com/home/eelers-choice/interview-with-an-rpg-conspirator/)

## Links

- Explorer page: https://www.ttrpg-games.com/item/the-silt-verses
- Agent JSON: https://www.ttrpg-games.com/api/games/the-silt-verses.json
- Publisher or official site: https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/the-silt-verses-roleplaying-game.html
- Reviews or retailer page: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/458507/the-silt-verses-roleplaying-game?affiliate_id=1659151