About the Name, Maleficarum?
Every project needs a name, and sometimes the right one arrives long before you can justify it. That is exactly what happened with Maleficarum, the title of my gothic folk horror TTRPG.
Let’s get one thing out of the way—Yes, the word is technically wrong.
In Latin, malefiarum would mean something like “of the witches,” but even that is a bit crooked, grammatically speaking. And that is precisely why I kept it.
The sound of it, harsh, whispering, slightly off, fits the tone of the game far better than a perfectly correct term ever could. Folk horror thrives in the space where things feel familiar but not quite right. A crooked word for a crooked world.
The title also carries a deliberate echo of the Malleus Maleficarum, the infamous “Witch Hammer.” That book is a historical horror in its own right: a poisonous mix of superstition, misogyny, and invention, responsible for real suffering. It is not a source of truth, only a record of how lies can become weapons.
My game does not draw from the content of that book, but from the shadow it casts. The fear, the paranoia, the way communities can twist under pressure, turning folklore into accusation and ritual into justification.
The World of Maleficarum
The game is set in England in the year 1645, during the English Civil War. More precisely, it takes place in East Anglia, a region that became one of the epicentres of witch hunting during this period. It is a landscape of flat fields, lonely marshes, and isolated villages, where superstition and fear could spread as quickly as smoke on the wind.
In the world of Maleficarum, witchcraft is real. Witches exist. Satan exists. The supernatural is not imagined; it is woven into the soil, the hedgerows, and the whispered stories of the countryside.
But I want to be absolutely clear!
This does not justify the real-world horrors committed in the name of God.
the torture, persecution, and murder of women, and sometimes men, accused of witchcraft were acts of cruelty, fear, and manipulation. They were evil, full stop.
My game explores a fictional world where the supernatural is real, but it does not excuse or romanticize the atrocities of history. Instead, it uses the setting to explore dread, isolation, and the tension between belief and truth, without ever forgetting the real suffering that inspired the myths.
The title stays because it feels right. It is crooked, evocative, and slightly unsettling. It sounds like a word that belongs in a field at dusk, carved into a weathered stone, or whispered by someone who refuses to step any closer.