MOONGRAVE is a feature length FIST hack about burying a magical girl for the safety of your town.
It is, by turns, melancholic, somber, hot-blooded, and badass.
The PDF is 32 pages, with a dense but extremely professional layout. It feels like something out of the 80s or 90s indie scene and is just missing some photocopier smearing or patches where the text is too dark or too light. This is not a negative.
The book's tone is conversational and the writing is breezy and casual, and it does a great job conveying information quickly and easily despite the density of the text.
Rules-wise, MOONGRAVE sticks pretty close to FIST, using the simplified PBTA format for rolls. However, it gets a little more creatively loose with Traits. You start with two, as usual, but you gain more during play as the result of rolls, and Traits can be negative as well as positive. MOONGRAVE's play structure is also more rigorously defined, and follows a single week of pilgrimage---playable as a short campaign.
The setting is likewise familiar but different. The World Of Graves has a gothic fairy tale sense to it, but it also feels like it lies at the intersection between Final Fantasy X, Darkest Dungeon, and Madoka Magica. It's clearly and coherently built, but operates heavily on vibes and suspense.
For players, there are a lot of character creation options to pick from, and coming up with appropriate character concepts for the setting is easy and fun. There are also a lot of mechanical safety nets built into the first phase of the game, and getting stomped in an early combat doesn't mean you're out for the duration.
For GMs, there's a full bestiary, there are encounter tables, and the game is clearly broken up into phases with specific instructions on how to run them. Anything in between the phases is just storytelling, and simple to spackle into the cracks between the hard mechanics. The party treks to their magical girl's designated grave, then treks back. On the way back, one by one, they die. These expectations are set clearly and early, and the game's tone supports these expectations.
Overall, Moongrave is a fantastic title. It leans a little on the GM grokking it, but if it clicks with you it will click hard. The setting is fun. The stakes are meaningful. It's *extremely* easy to roleplay the characters and to present to the table their place in the world. This is a rad game made well. If anything I've said here sounds even a little interesting to you, you should get it.
Minor Issues:
-Page 10, "any Encounter doesn't simply give you a reward" that doesn't simply give you a reward?