Our Mission

Tabletop games are the campfire we gather around.

For six years, the group my friend Teddie and I GM for has met consistently; journeying through strange, wonderful, terrifying worlds of our own design. Early on, we hit a wall: these worlds were ours, the characters were ours, but the system handling our dice rolls wasn't. It left us feeling like we had a fantastic car and wonderful people to take a trip with, but the whole thing was running on an engine built for an AC unit.

MUSE became our answer, an engine we started building in September 2022 with no plans to share it beyond our own table. We wanted mechanics that felt like they belonged to the stories we were telling, and a system that got out of the way when it needed to and stepped forward when it mattered.

Five months later, following upheaval in the broader TTRPG community, we realized we wanted to offer players something different: a space to play free from monetary barriers and companies looking to profit off their passion. We'd watched too many people we cared about feel shut out, priced out, or left looking for somewhere to go.

In February of 2023 we shared our first version of the rules, blindly leaping into the fray, learning things the hard way, and doing our best to navigate the waters we’d flung ourselves into. We’re still here now because we learned how to swim.

Later, the FOSS movement changed how I saw both this work and the other things I create. Sharing freely is an act of love, and I think if we all did so more often, we'd find ourselves in a much better place. I've watched what people are capable of when tools are placed in their hands without conditions, and I have longed to be the person providing those tools.

The TTRPG community has given me so much. It's given me a home, helped me feel less lonely; more understood. It's given me an outlet for work I care deeply about, and friends I wouldn't trade for anything.

MUSE is my way of giving back. This little engine is free, and always will be. Every game we release under MUSE will be too. This is our hobby, and we're committed to keeping it that way; not turning it into a job, not putting it behind a paywall. If we’ve done our job right, maybe others can gather around their own campfires, tell their own stories, and feel a little less alone in the worlds they’ve built.

J.P. Sariz
Creative Director
1/28/2026