Obojima: Tales from Yatamon arrives on D&D Beyond on 27 October 2026. It is the second Obojima book from 1985 Games: a 160-page supplement for the 2024 rules (5.5e) set in Yatamon, the island's biggest city, with three new subclasses including the Neko Duelist Fighter. The hardcover is on pre-order and ships in December 2026.
James has wanted to play a cat with a sword since the first book came out. Tia wants to know why a game with no dragon to kill works at all. Both get an answer below, and the second half turns the free rules into a city of awakened cats you can run this weekend.
The dates: 27 October on D&D Beyond, December in print
Wizards of the Coast lists the book in its Q4 2026 partnered content schedule for 27 October, published by 1985 Games, tagged 5.5e [1].
| Date | What |
|---|---|
| 7 Oct – 6 Nov 2025 | Kickstarter: $859,572 from 7,175 backers [3] |
| 27 October 2026 | D&D Beyond release [1] |
| December 2026 | Hardcover ships (pre-order, US$39.99) [2] |
1985 Games also sells a PDF for US$29.99; its shop page lists it as backordered today [4]. If you backed the Kickstarter, your pledge manager is the place to check, not a blog post.
What's inside: three subclasses, 20 spells, 20 monsters, vehicles
From the publisher's product page [2]:
- 3 subclasses: Neko Duelist Fighter, Coven Patron Warlock, Fortune Rogue
- 3 backgrounds: Raised by Cats, Reporter, Tournament Competitor
- 20 spells, among them graffiti, spell borrowing and summoning effects
- 6 feats, including cat-like abilities and better haggling
- 20 monsters: golems, turtles, spirits and awakened cats
- 10 magic items, including potion sprayers and magical drinks
- Vehicle rules with stat blocks
It is written for the 2024 rules and includes notes for converting to 2014 5e [2]. Lead writers: Adam Lee, Ari Levitch and Jeremiah Crofton; rules development by Jeremiah Crofton and Tony Casper [2].
What nobody outside the backers has seen yet: the subclass features. 1985 Games has named the Neko Duelist; it has not posted the rules text on the product page. If you see a "full Neko Duelist breakdown" before 27 October, ask where it came from.
The first book: Tales from the Tall Grass
Yatamon is a sequel. The first book, Obojima: Tales from the Tall Grass, ran on Kickstarter in August 2023 and raised $2.6 million from 23,416 backers [3]. 1985 Games describes the setting as inspired by the films of Studio Ghibli and The Legend of Zelda [5].
The 2023 announcement lists what that book set out to hold: over 250 pages, 8 subclasses, 3 playable races, 50 spells, 60 monsters, 50 magic items, 8 familiars, 20 weapons, and a potion-crafting system with 130+ ingredients and 180+ potions [5]. The tone is the selling point. The press release for Yatamon calls it "exploration, discovery, and low-stakes storytelling" [3].
That phrase is doing a lot of work.
Why "low stakes" works: games as recovery
Tia's corner. D&D sells itself on stakes: the dragon, the lich, the end of the world. Obojima sells the opposite, and 23,416 people paid for it in a month. That is not a fluke of taste. It fits what we know about how people unwind.
Sabine Sonnentag and Charlotte Fritz measured how people recover from work in their free time. Across 930 people they found four separate recovery experiences: psychological detachment (not thinking about work), relaxation, mastery (a challenge you can learn from) and control (choosing what you do and how) [6].
Leonard Reinecke then asked 1,614 people about video and computer games. People used games systematically after stressful days, and the ones who got stronger recovery experiences from play reached for games more often after strain. Work fatigue and daily hassles both went with more gaming for recovery. The link between fatigue and play was strongest for people with less social support [7].
Now read the Yatamon contents list against Sonnentag's four:
- Detachment: a city of talking cats is about as far from your inbox as fiction gets.
- Relaxation: a tournament, a newspaper, a market haggle. Nobody's village burns if you lose.
- Mastery: vehicles, a new subclass, a potion system in the first book. Things to get good at.
- Control: a Reporter background means the player picks the story to chase.
A campaign where the table picks the errand and the worst outcome is a bad headline gives all four. A siege at level 3 gives one, maybe two. Neither is better. They do different jobs, and Obojima is a book for the Tuesday you need the other job done.
One honest limit: Reinecke studied video games, not tabletop. The recovery measures are about leisure in general, so the fit is reasonable; nobody has run the study on D&D specifically.
Run a cat city tonight with the free rules
You don't need the book to try the feel. The 2024 System Reference Document (SRD 5.2.1) already has what you need: a Cat, the Awaken spell and the Influence action [8].
Awaken (level 5, Bard or Druid) turns a Beast with Intelligence 3 or less into a creature with Intelligence 10 that speaks one language you know. It then has the Charmed condition for 30 days, or until you or your allies hurt it. When that ends, the cat picks its own attitude towards you [8].
So a city of awakened cats is a city of former pets, each of whom has decided how it feels about the wizard who woke it. That is a whole campaign hook in one rule.
Influence is how you ask a cat for anything. The GM decides if the cat is willing (no roll), unwilling (no roll, it says no) or hesitant. For hesitant, you roll: Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Performance, or Animal Handling to gently coax a Beast. The DC is 15 or the creature's Intelligence, whichever is higher. An awakened cat has Intelligence 10, so it's DC 15. A Friendly cat gives you Advantage; a Hostile one gives Disadvantage. Fail, and you wait 24 hours before asking the same way again [8].
The odds of talking a hesitant awakened cat round, DC 15 [8]:
| Your bonus | Hostile cat (Disadvantage) | Indifferent | Friendly (Advantage) |
|---|---|---|---|
| +0 | 9% | 30% | 51% |
| +2 | 16% | 40% | 64% |
| +3 | 20% | 45% | 70% |
| +5 | 30% | 55% | 80% |
| +7 | 42% | 65% | 88% |
Two things jump out. First, attitude matters more than your bonus: a +0 nobody the cat likes (51%) beats a +7 silver tongue it can't stand (42%). Second, the Charmed condition gives the charmer Advantage on social checks [8], so the 30 days after Awaken are the time to ask for favours. After that, you live with whatever you did in those 30 days.
That is the Obojima loop in miniature: be kind early, and the city is kind back.
Want a familiar in the party? Find Familiar lists the cat as a form [8]. A wizard with a spirit cat walking into a city of awakened ones is the first scene.
How we got the numbers: exact d20 enumeration. Success on a total of 15 or more; Advantage is the better of two d20s, Disadvantage the worse. The odds are ours; the rules are SRD 5.2.1, not the Obojima book.
Roll it yourself on the main roller: 2d20 drop lowest 1, plus your Persuasion, for a Friendly cat.
Table Talk
James: Neko Duelist. A cat. With a sword. I've read three words of it and I'm in.
Tia: You've read three words because that's all they've published. Wait for the rules.
James: I don't need rules to know I want to be a cat.
Tia: Fair. My problem is the opposite one. People think a game needs a world ending to matter. It doesn't. Recovery needs detachment and control, not a lich.
James: Some weeks I want the lich.
Tia: And some weeks you've had a lich at work all day. Different job. My tip: once a campaign, run one session where the worst outcome is embarrassment. Watch who relaxes.
James: Mine: be nice to the cats in the first 30 days. The table says 51% beats 42%. Charm first, charm second.
References
- Wizards of the Coast (WOTC_Laura). "Q4 2026: Partnered Content Release Schedule." D&D Beyond, 27 August 2026. https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/2235-q4-2026-partnered-content-release-schedule
- 1985 Games. "Obojima: Tales from Yatamon – Hardcover Supplement Book." Obojima store, accessed 28 September 2026. https://obojima.com/products/obojima-tales-from-yatamon-hardcover-supplement-book
- 1985 Games. "Tabletop Fantasy RPG Obojima Tales from Yatamon Secures $859,572 from 7,175 Backers." GlobeNewswire press release, 21 November 2025. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/11/21/3193002/0/en/Tabletop-Fantasy-RPG-Obojima-Tales-from-Yatamon-Secures-859-572-from-7-175-Backers.html
- 1985 Games. "Obojima: Tales from Yatamon PDF." Obojima store, accessed 28 September 2026. https://obojima.com/products/tales-from-yatamon-pdf
- 1985 Games. "1985 Games Announces Obojima, A D&D Campaign Setting." 21 July 2023. https://1985games.com/blogs/news/obojima-the-d-d-campaign-setting-inspired-by-studio-ghibli-legend-of-zelda
- Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2007). The Recovery Experience Questionnaire: Development and validation of a measure for assessing recuperation and unwinding from work. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12(3), 204–221. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.12.3.204
- Reinecke, L. (2009). Games and recovery: The use of video and computer games to recuperate from stress and strain. Journal of Media Psychology, 21(3), 126–142. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105.21.3.126
- Wizards of the Coast. System Reference Document 5.2.1. 2025. CC-BY-4.0. Sections: "Spells" (Awaken; Find Familiar); "Rules Glossary" (Influence; Friendly; Hostile; Indifferent; Charmed; Advantage; Disadvantage); "Animals" (Cat). https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/srd/5.2/SRD_CC_v5.2.1.pdf
