Hey, itch. Nice to meet you. My name is Jesse Harlin. I'm a composer by trade, but I'm also a huge fan of TTRPGs.

As I'm sure many other people did, I started working in earnest on a pet project during the pandemic. It's taken shape as Arrhenius, a brand new tabletop roleplaying game. Arrhenius is set in the far-future dystopia of the year 100,000 during the next Ice Age.  The grand-descendants of humanity do their best each day to survive among the ruins of frozen utopias.

The game is a narrative-based exploration, adventure, and combat game that uses the standard polyhedral set of dice.  Players play as one of 5 different Heritages of far-future humanity: the subterranean Dorrem, the nomadic Ekavir, the gene-manipulated Muters, the synthetic Ozzits, and the opportunistic Scabs. The game doesn't have classes and instead uses a Profession system that allows players to create characters that have any background they wish. Want to spelunk through abandoned futuristic ruins as a 4-armed mutant archeologist? Go crazy. Want to be a swarm of nanobots that also happen to be the physician of a small border town out on the glaciers? No problem. How about a burly subterranean security enforcer for a crime boss who traffics in illegal surface technology? You got it. 

After working on it for 4.5 years, the finish line is in sight and I've set up a page for the game on itch here: https://jesseharlin.itch.io/arrhenius. I've started to post dev logs about the game as well as some of the art I've commissioned. I'm planning on posting more and more as I finish up the game.

I'm writing the last chapter now and commissioning some of the last pieces of artwork. If any of this sounds interesting to you, please consider checking the game out, giving it a follow, and adding it to your collection. Thanks in advance! 

- Jess

I've been posting dev logs explaining the different character creation options available to players in Arrhenius. To start, players can choose from 5 different Heritages when they create a new character:

Dorrem - https://jesseharlin.itch.io/arrhenius/devlog/662010/children-of-the-ice-part-1-the-dorrem
Ekavir - https://jesseharlin.itch.io/arrhenius/devlog/663039/children-of-the-ice-part-2-the-ekavir
Muter - https://jesseharlin.itch.io/arrhenius/devlog/665303/children-of-the-ice-part-3-muters
Ozzit - https://itch.io/blog/669492/children-of-the-ice-part-4-ozzits
Scab - https://itch.io/blog/674312/children-of-the-ice-part-5-scabs

New art for Arrhenius from German artist Kim Hu (www.kim-hu.com).  I love Kim's composition and use of color. Plus, she's absolutely fantastic at drawing destruction and rubble. Perfect for the ruins of Arrhenius's glacer-destroyed retro metros.

As my main day job is music, I’ve started working on an official companion soundtrack for Arrhenius. This is a taste of it so far as I try and find the sound. The concept so far is “fossilized synthwave.” We’ll see how it shapes up! 

This is called “The Puskizzat.”

https://youtu.be/GV5FDkrxoUY