Aethermon Studios is an independent game studio created to bring to life the World of Aethermon.
In 2020, at the start of the global Covid pandemic, co-creators Chris and Sarah started working on a tabletop game concept simply called ‘Aethermon’. Lead game dev Chris wanted to distill the essence of his favourite old-school JRPG video games into a tabletop medium, while lead story writer Sarah wanted to expand the characters and lore to make a truly rich and engaging fantasy world.
By 2021 they had more than 45 richly-illustrated magical creatures, thanks to the considerable artistic talents of character artist Fabio; and in 2022, Aethermon Studios was honoured to be one of only four winners of PAX Aus’ 2022 Tabletop Rising competition – bringing with it a table at the largest gaming convention in Australia!
As a small game design start-up, Aethermon Studios planned to seek crowdfunding assistance to bring their ideas to fruition, but knew they would have to prove themselves before launching such an ambitious project onto a difficult and selective market.
Thus, in 2023 Aethermon Studios launched their vanguard project, Aethermon: Collect – a competitive/co-operative open-information strategy card game featuring (by then) all 48 Aethermon characters. Backgrounds artist Miguel added his extraordinary talents to the project, and in August 2023 Aethermon: Collect had a small but successful crowdfunding campaign.
Just two months later, in October 2023, Aethermon: Collect was honoured with the SXSW Sydney 2023 Best Tabletop Game award!
In 2024, in between a busy convention schedule, Chris and Sarah returned to development on their flagship project, Aethermon: Adventure, as it was shaped into a multi-player, multi-hour, JRPG-style tabletop experience featuring all the classic tropes: good guys; bad guys; NPCs; side quests; boss battles; artefacts; and mysterious background stories waiting to be discovered. It even includes fan-favourite monster-tamer tropes such as player battles and evolutions.
Now, in 2025, Aethermon Studios is preparing for their second print run of Aethermon: Collect and their first launch of Aethermon: Adventure, with more games and projects planned in the future.
If you would like to stay up-to-date with Aethermon Studios, then join the AetherRen and sign up to our monthly newsletter. We share game news, project updates, character reveals, behind-the-scenes tidbits, and more, as well as frequent giveaways. Otherwise, look around! There’s plenty to discover on just our website.
Stay awesome, AetherRen!
