The Cypher Character Builder is now live—and other exciting updates!
14 days ago
– Tue, Aug 25, 2026 at 09:16:44 AM
Hello, backers—
And happy Tuesday! We’ve got some very exciting Cypher news lined up for you, but first:
You’ve chosen the second creature to be added to the Cypher Bestiary II! Cypher Bestiary II will now include the…
Wyvern (which originally appeared in Expanded Worlds)!
Does that mean the Chain Demon will not be included in the Cypher Bestiary II? Not necessarily, but we have the better part of 2,000 previously published creatures to choose from, and only so many we can fit into the book.
The Cypher Character Builder is now live!
Monte Cook Games is excited to announce the public beta release of the Cypher Character Builder, a world-class tool for building and managing tabletop roleplaying game characters for the Cypher RPG. It’s part of the growing Cypher Tools suite of online game tools, and like all of those tools, it’s free to use!
With Cypher Tools, character creation is quick, efficient, and fun. Just jump into the Character Builder, choose your type, descriptor, and focus, make a few choices about abilities, skills, and Pool points, and you’re ready to play. The Character Builder includes all the types and character options included in the
Cypher Character Rulebook, with more to come as future releases further expand the options.
Read on and try it for yourself at the Monte Cook Games site!
Miss the Cypher Con AMA with Sean K. Reynolds, Bruce R. Cordell, and Monte Cook?
Our next poll is live! Help us pick a free sticker for every backer.
Your opinion is shaping what this campaign becomes. We’re conducting a poll every single weekday throughout this campaign to hear what you want to see published in Cypher Decoded and the Cypher Bestiary II. Some polls—like this one—will even add a free bonus item to your rewards!
We’re going to make a handful of vinyl stickers, and every backer gets them, no matter your pledge level. Help us choose the next design—it’s goodest boy versus baddest boy!
Vote for your choice! This poll will close tomorrow morning.
Psst…have a friend who’d love Cypher?
While Cypher—Advanced may be a campaign built for expanded and upgraded campaigns, it’s also a perfect entry point to the world of the new edition of Cypher! Whether you want to start with a professionally GM’d session on
StartPlaying Games, or start flipping through the
Cypher Character Rulebook now, we have an amazing slate of activities, events, and announcements lined up!
Help us spread the word about Cypher—Advanced to make this campaign the biggest and best it can be!
Thanks so much for your support!
—Team MCG
A new week for Cypher—Advanced is here!
15 days ago
– Mon, Aug 24, 2026 at 08:43:38 AM
Hello, backers—
Happy Monday! We had an amazing launch week, especially given the surprise nature of this campaign, and can’t thank you enough for all the excitement. Let’s keep the good vibes going!
Last Friday, we opened our first genre poll, detailing two possible new genres that Cypher Decoded could explore: Espionage and Cozy Fantasy. The results are in! Read on to find which of these genres will be included in Cypher Decoded.
But first…
More exciting news on the way!
Stay tuned in the next few days for exciting Cypher announcements! We have so much to tell you, but can't say too much right now—you'll have to keep an eye on this campaign, and your email inbox, to learn more.
Sign up to play Cypher on StartPlaying Games!
150+ professional GMs are ready to run exciting, memorable Cypher games for you! No matter your experience with Cypher—whether you’re a diehard veteran or just discovering us through the new edition—start playing in just one session.
Get $10 off your game with code SPC26!
A new genre has been added to Cypher Decoded!
We’re conducting a new poll every weekday throughout this campaign. Some will unlock free bonus stickers, added to every backer’s rewards. And others, like yesterday’s, add more content to your books!
As Scott Viverito so succinctly commented on the poll: 009 reporting for duty.
With a conclusive 67% of the votes, you’ve unlocked espionage!James Bond. Jason Bourne. Atomic Blonde. Espionage is coming to Cypher!
Let’s pick a creature to add to the Cypher Bestiary II!
Cypher Bestiary II will detail many new creatures, along with a selection of creatures from older Cypher System products, which will not only be updated to Cypher, but also be given the full Cypher Bestiary treatment with loads of new lore, variants, and more.
Which of these two expanded world beasts would you most like to see in the new book?
Vote for your choice! This poll will close tomorrow morning.
Thanks so much for your support!
—Team MCG
(Want to help spread the word about this campaign? Borrow our graphics!)
New Add-Ons, New Genres, and more 'news'!
18 days ago
– Fri, Aug 21, 2026 at 08:43:12 AM
Hello, backers—
Your help spreading the word is really paying off, and momentum for this campaign remains amazing! You’ve also helped us pick a creature for Cypher Bestiary II in our first daily poll. Thanks so much for the support, and for helping us shape these books!
We have a sticker to show you, but first:
New add-ons
You’ve asked for it, and we’ve listened. We’ve added a slate of new add-ons. These include forthcoming campaign settings for Cypher, such as Predation and The Strange; extra copies of items this campaign is funding, such as Pocket Cypher; and the very useful Cypher Deck and Manifest Cypher Deck, both of which are coming out this autumn. You can add these items to your pledges now.
Watch party tonight!
Join us tonight to see the premiere of an award-winning short film about MCG!
This film, profiling Monte Cook Games, was created by Pioneer Productions in conjunction with a segment of All Access with Andy Garcia, the series of short educational films for PBS. MCG’s games, along with owners Shanna Germain and Charles Ryan, were featured in the All Access segment about RPGs. With much of the same footage, Pioneer also created a short film profiling MCG specifically, and it recently won two Telly Awards (for editing and social impact).
This will be the public premiere! The film itself is about 10 minutes long, and will be hosted by Charles and Shanna, who will also discuss and answer questions about it.
Join us tonight at 7:30 EDT (4:30 PDT) on the Cypher Unlimited Discord server!
A FREE bonus reward!
As part of this campaign we’re going to make a handful of vinyl stickers, and every backer gets them, no matter your pledge level. Yesterday’s poll wasn’t even close—you chose this design in a landslide!
Let’s pick a genre
We have so many great ideas for Cypher Decoded and Cypher Bestiary II that we’re not going to be able to squeeze it all into the books! So we’re asking you to help prioritize our choices with a new poll every weekday throughout this campaign.
Cypher Decoded will, among the many topics it touches, include a bunch of new genres—complete with new types, genre abilities, and genre-specific optional rules. Which of these two genres—Espionage or Cozy Fantasy—would you most like to see in the book?
Vote for your choice! This poll will remain open over the weekend, and we’ll announce the winner on Monday.
Thanks so much for your support!
—Team MCG
What an Amazing Start!
19 days ago
– Thu, Aug 20, 2026 at 09:58:58 AM
Hello, backers—and everyone reading this who hasn’t yet joined us!
Can we be real for a moment? When we decided to run this campaign as a pop-up event with no forewarning or signups, we had no idea how things would go. But wow—you have knocked our socks off! We had an astounding first day, with well over 1000 backers taking us over $100K. Thank you so much!
The momentum is fantastic, but this is a short campaign. We don’t have long to reach new backers, so if you can help spread the word we’d really appreciate it.
You’ve chosen the first creature
We closed the first of our daily polls this morning. Cypher Bestiary II will detail many new creatures, but we’re also including many past favorites from older Cypher System products, which will not only be updated to Cypher, but be given the full Cypher Bestiary treatment with loads of new lore, variants, and more. And you’re helping choose which ones we include.
It was tight for a while: up through yesterday afternoon the votes were neck-and-neck. But ultimately the Inexorable pulled ahead decisively.
Cypher Bestiary II will include the Inexorable (which originally appeared in the Planar Bestiary for Cypher System). Does that mean the Capricious Caterpillar (originally in The Strange Bestiary) will not be in Cypher Bestiary II? Not necessarily, but we have the better part of 2000 previously published creatures to choose from, and only so many we can fit into the book.
Thanks for voting. We’ve opened a new poll—more on that below. But first:
Cypher Con kicks off tonight with a Design Team AMA!
Cypher Con is an annual online convention for MCG games, held by our good friends at the Cypher Unlimited Discord. This year’s Cypher Con starts tonight and runs through the weekend!
Join us for the opening event: A live AMA with Monte, Sean, and Bruce. It’s tonight at 8:00 p.m. EDT (5:00 p.m. PDT). Bring your questions about Cypher and Cypher Decoded!
And stick around all weekend. There are at least a few games that still have open seats. Preregistration is now closed, but you may be able to join games on the day. You can find more information on Cypher Con on the
Cypher Unlimited Discord server (see the #player-sign-up-guide channel).
(And even if you can’t make Cypher Con,
check out the Cypher Unlimited Discord if you aren’t already a member. It’s a fantastic, welcoming community and a great place to connect with other Cypher and MCG gamers!)
Stickers!
We’re conducting a new poll every weekday throughout this campaign. Many, like yesterday’s, will help choose content for Cypher Decoded or Cypher Bestiary II. And some—like this one—will add a free bonus item to your rewards!
We’re going to make a handful of vinyl stickers, and every backer gets them, no matter your pledge level. Help us choose the first design. Which do you prefer?
Let us know what you think—we’ll announce the winner tomorrow!
Thanks so much for your support!
—Team MCG
Cypher—Advanced! Is Funded!
20 days ago
– Wed, Aug 19, 2026 at 11:47:23 AM
Welcome, backers, to our surprise Cypher—Advanced! campaign! Thank you for jumping in so quickly; for a campaign that was not announced ahead of time, and had no signups, you’ve funded us in amazing time!
A short and different campaign
As you’ve undoubtedly noted, Cypher—Advanced! is a little different from the typical crowdfunding campaign. And not just because of its surprise appearance! It’s quite short—only about half the length of our usual campaigns. That means there’s limited time to spread the word and draw in new backers.
And here’s an even bigger difference: we are maxxing out the books from day 1. As of right now, these books are as big as we’d normally shoot for through stretch goals. Monte, Bruce, Sean, and Shanna (and the rest of us here at MCG) are super excited about what we’re doing with
Cypher Decoded and the new bestiary, and we’re cutting straight to the chase with as much content as we can reasonably squeeze into the books. We will not be expanding them through stretch goals.
And because this flash campaign is adding new products to a planned pipeline full of Cypher supplements, we packed everything we can reasonably make into this campaign up front—so we won’t have stretch goals at all.
But we still need your involvement, because. . .
You’re going to help us define these books!
The ideas for Cypher Decoded’s many options came up during the design process for the new edition of Cypher. Along the way, the team identified dozens of potential genres that make for great Cypher games—far more than we could fit into the Cypher Character Rulebook and even the forthcoming Cypher Character Options. Genres and types are just one aspect of Cypher Decoded, but they’re a pretty big part.
Likewise, over the years we’ve designed hundreds of creatures for Cypher System—well over 1500, in fact. Cypher Bestiary II will detail many new creatures, along with a selection of creatures from older Cypher System products, which will not only be updated to Cypher, but be given the full Cypher Bestiary treatment with loads of new lore, variants, and more.
How do we pick from among so many options? That’s where you come in. We’re going to hold polls every weekday throughout this campaign and get your thoughts on the genres and creatures to include in these books. So while we won’t be making them bigger through stretch goals, the hefty content we’re including will be shaped by your preferences!
Also: stickers!
Backers (and the MCG team!) loved the sticker polls we held during the campaign that funded the new Cypher edition. So let’s make a few more! Our daily polls will also include a few sticker choices, and every backer of this campaign will get the chosen sticker, for free, as a bonus reward.
Other cool reveals
We may have a few more fun things to reveal over the course of this campaign. And it’s an exciting time for Cypher in general, with the launch of the
Datasphere Deck Tool today, the
StartPlaying Games event (announced yesterday), and other cool announcements on the way. Stay tuned!
This is a unique campaign, and we think it’s going to be a lot of fun!
Thanks so much for your support!
—Team MCG
Here's our first daily poll of the campaign:
