Hellwhalers - Starter Guide

What is Hellwhalers?

Hellwhalers is an indie TTRPG of nautical and Christian-religious horror, designed by Moss Powers (Brewist Tabletop Games) in collaboration with Bogus Cheesecake. The premise is as bleak as it is captivating: you play as damned whalers, condemned to sail the lightless oceans of hell, hunting a monstrous leviathan known as the Hellwhale. Slaying the beast is said to earn you a place back in God's graces. Whether that promise holds is another matter entirely.

The game draws on the imagery of 19th century whaling - the obsession, the isolation, the violence - and filters it through a lens of theological horror. Think Moby-Dick by way of Dante's Inferno. The scale is intimate: one voyage, one crew, one impossible quarry. Every session pushes the whalers a little further from shore and a little deeper into damnation.

How does the system work?

Hellwhalers is built on a token-based system loosely inspired by Belonging Outside Belonging, with significant structural changes. Players earn souls - the game's currency - by leaning into their character's vulnerabilities, exposing their flaws in roleplay, and putting themselves in difficult positions. Spending souls allows you to resolve challenges, take the spotlight, or push through moments of crisis.

What makes Hellwhalers mechanically distinct is the gambling mechanic. Every in-game midnight, the crew gathers around a Sic-Bo board - a game played with three six-sided dice - and bets their collected souls. The results are procedurally generated through the gambling outcomes, creating a shifting series of daily events, complications, and twists. It turns each session's rhythm into something genuinely unpredictable.

To summon the Hellwhale itself, the crew must collect enough souls to pulse a blackened, disembodied heart kept locked away by the captain. Pulse the heart, and the whale is called. Then the real fight begins.

The game uses six base playbooks - character frameworks with thematic moods, signature moves, and starting items. Resource management runs alongside the roleplay: the crew tracks weaponry, food, and repair supplies as the voyage wears on. There is also a fishing minigame featuring six varieties of ghastly sea life, and 54 collectible lore pieces spread across nine storylines, leading to one of seven possible endings.

The Guide in Hellwhalers plays the captain - a foul-tempered NPC who drives the crew forward. This is different from most TTRPG setups where the GM is a neutral arbiter. Here the Guide has a role to embody, with mysteries attached to the captain that unfold through play.

What do you need to start?

The core Hellwhalers book is everything you need. It is available as a PDF and in physical form. The physical edition comes in a standard version and a deluxe version that includes a cloth Sic-Bo playmat. A Complete edition bundles the core book with the expansion, Book of Leviathan, in both print and PDF. The expansion is a 40-page zine that adds new crew options, new horrors, new gambling consequences, and additional endings.

There is no free quickstart, but community copies of the PDF are periodically made available through the itch.io page.

You will need three six-sided dice and tokens of some kind to track souls - poker chips or any small counters will do.

Who is this game for?

Hellwhalers is a strong fit for groups who want horror with a specific, committed aesthetic. The religious imagery is central, not decorative - players who are uncomfortable with Christian-religious themes should know that going in. The game includes content warnings and safety tools for the heavy subject matter.

It suits groups who enjoy narrative-forward play but want more structure than pure freeform storytelling. The resource management and gambling mechanics give sessions a tangible rhythm. It is probably not the right pick for groups looking for tactical combat, character progression over multiple campaigns, or a wide-open sandbox.

The game works best run as a complete arc: one voyage, from start to the Hellwhale encounter. It is not designed for open-ended long-term campaigns.

How does it differ from other systems?

If you know Blades in the Dark, you will recognise some DNA here: the resource tracking, the procedural structure, the sense of a crew up against the clock. But Hellwhalers is narrower in scope and far more specific in tone. Where Blades gives you a criminal empire to build, Hellwhalers gives you a single damned voyage with a fixed destination.

Compared to Call of Cthulhu, another touchstone for horror roleplaying, Hellwhalers is lighter mechanically and leans much harder into its central metaphor. There is no investigative framework. The horror is not discovered - it is sailed into, eyes open, from session one.

The Belonging Outside Belonging influence is felt in how roleplay is mechanically rewarded, but the addition of a Guide and the Sic-Bo gambling make it structurally distinct from other BOB-inspired games.

Where do you start?

Start with the core book. Read the introduction and the playbooks before your first session - the playbooks are the quickest way to understand what kinds of characters and stories the game supports. Let each player choose a playbook that interests them before the first session, and spend some time at the table establishing the crew's shared damnation.

The Guide should read the captain's playbook and the procedural tables carefully. The gambling mechanic is central to the daily rhythm, so it is worth running a practice round before actual play begins.

Online resources are limited given how new the game is, but the Brewist Tabletop Games itch.io page and the broader indie TTRPG community on forums like Reddit's r/rpg and Itch.io comment threads are good starting points.

Recommended products at Netherbook

For a complete Hellwhalers experience, the physical edition of the core book is the natural starting point - the playmat in the deluxe edition is genuinely useful at the table rather than just decorative.