Potvory is a tabletop adventure role-playing game that offers a new look at traditional Slavic mythology through a queer lens. It invites players to re-examine established cultural narratives while collectively telling an exciting story of unlikely heroes.

From the stone walls of Prague to the shores of the Volga river, people tell stories of Rusalky – the feminine spirits of people who died virgins, or Hejkal – the shapeshifter that lives in the forest and can take any form they wish.

Potvory is based on these folk stories of monsters who defy traditional gender expression and their condition in a changing world, rapidly advancing and leaving them behind. We propose that these creatures, and many others, were queer-coded to show how scary and alien they were. But in Potvory, we encourage players to embrace these “monstrous” traits and play the vilified characters in the roles that usually belong to traditional “heroes”.

anto_nie & Maxim Shchapov are two thirds of a newly emerging art game studio TVORA .