Welcome back to our weekly look at tabletop roleplaying game, and accessories, crowdfunding roundup! Each week we’ll be looking at a few campaigns currently running that have caught our eye as well as occasionally speaking to some of the creators about their campaigns, or looking at some of the ‘behind the scenes’ business aspects of putting together, launching, operating and then delivering a crowdfunded project. If you have anything you’d like us to cover, or questions about anything we talk about, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact me directly.
[h=3]Upwind RPG – Treasure Planet meets Studio Ghibli by Biohazard Games/Nocturnal Media [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Friday 11th November 2016; 02:00 UTC)
Biohazard Games, the creators and publishers behind the Blue Planet RPG, have teamed up with Stewart Wieck’s Nocturnal Media to bring their new game, Upwind, to life. The campaign is raising money for the first three products in the line – the core rulebook, The Knight’s Deck Playing Cards and the Prophecy of the Grand Amplifier Campaign and Setting Supplement.
Upwind presents a fantastical setting where the remains of a broken world drift as floating islands through a sky divided unto the Light and the Dark. The Kin inhabit the skylands of the Kingdoms of Light while the Children of the Dark dwell far below where the Light does not reach. The Wind is a powerful force energizing the wondrous machines of the Kin and charging the elemental Potential all Kin wield. Lost technology is the currency of the Kingdoms, scavenged from the remnants of the Masters of the Wind – a culture destroyed long ago in the great cataclysm known as the DownFall.
The young civilization of the Kin has been reborn and struggles both with itself and the Children of the Dark as it strives to recover. Wind-powered skyships serve as the lifeblood of trade and the backbone of defense, while exploration, mystery, intrigue and war form the backdrop of the narrative. The Age of the Grand Amplifier is said to be drawing to a close, the Children of the Dark threaten from below, and the kin misunderstand the truth about both.
Upwind uses a new system called Q, where two potential outcomes are negotiated cooperatively and proposed as stakes which the participants then bid on using a hand of cards. The narrative is then tailored to the winning outcome.
Campaigns focus on the exploits of the Knights of the Explorers’ Guild – storied, skyfaring explorers, scholars, engineers, elementalists and soldiers who search the Twilight Frontier for lost Masters’ caches. The player characters are rare, highly trained individuals with exceptional skills and elemental powers. Duty-bound to the Guild, they lead missions across dangerous skies and expeditions into the unchartered Dark.
The core rulebook will be a full color, 225+ page beautifully illustrated hardcover book. It will contain everything needed to adventure across the endless skies of the Kingdoms in the Light and deep into the Dark. The Knight’s Deck Playing Cards is a custom-designed deck that enhances the Upwind setting. Beyond use in play, every card in the deck features an illustration of a specific settlement, location, or Master’s cache as well as descriptive text. An integrated coordinate system allows players to arrange the cards into an illuminated schematic of the Upwind setting that provides fun and useful insight into the uncanny geography of the game.
Lastly there is the Prophecy of the Grand Amplifier Campaign and Setting Supplement which is packed with new locations, NPCs, Relics, creatures and Master’s caches, and the adventure will draw players deep into the setting. The story takes a band of young Knights from novice recruitment through their Academy training, challenges them with their graduation cruise, leads them on a ranging series of missions across the Realms and then sends them deep into the Dark in pursuit of an ancient legacy. The discoveries they make will upend everything they know about the history of the Children, the Masters of the Wind and the origin of the Kin themselves.
[h=3]Operation Unfathomable by Hydra Collective [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 10th November 2016; 15:54 UTC)
Operation Unfathomable is a weird underworld adventure and campaign setting for Swords & Wizardy and other old school rpgs. The campaign is the second Kickstarter by The Hydra Collective and is written by Jason Sholtis (The Dungeon Dozen).
“A party of experienced adventurers led by the stalwart Prince Eyraen have stolen an artefact from Syantides, Sorcerer-King of Mur, and entered the Underworld on a mission of vengeance. That brave band is lost and presumed dead. Perhaps a smaller, stealthier party can succeed where mighty heroes have failed? You’d better hope so.”
Operation Unfathomable is an internally-consistent, gonzo funhouse that runs like a subterranean wilderness trek instead of a “down the 10 foot hall and kick in a door” affair. There are random elements aplenty to keep GMs guessing as well as players. No balanced encounters to be found here, but the clever setup allows low level characters to drop into the dungeon “deep end” and still have a chance of making it out alive – if they’re smart and wary.
[h=3]The Adventurer’s Guide to Dungeons by Plastic Hand Games LLC[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 26th October 2016; 19:42 UTC)
The Adventurer’s Guide to Dungeons contains 54 double-sided 2.75” x 2.75” square tiles. The tiles, each with a four square grid, feature a variety of floor, door, and wall designs on one side and are blank flooring on the reverse. They line up perfectly in any direction with each other making them perfect for creating endless combinations of dungeon layouts.
The tiles are 300gsm (linen finish), rounded edges and come shrink wrapped and packaged in a custom tuck box making them very easy to store and take to game nights.
[h=3]Eden by Marc Hobbs [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 10th November 2016; 23:59 UTC)
Eden is a tabletop role-playing game about learning what it means to be human. You’ll collaborate to create the setting and then role-play scenes as talking animals and human characters, ultimately weaving a narrative of exploration, self-discovery, and personal growth.
Eden is for 3-5 players and is designed to be played in one session of 2-3 hours. There’s no GM and no prep before play, so you can start creating fiction from the moment you open the book.
The setting of the game is the Garden of Eden, a natural paradise, comprised of whatever habitats you want. All players work together to create a map of the Garden, which you’ll then update as you tell your story. By the end of the game, your map will become a record of the changes your characters made to the landscape of Eden.
Each player creates a human character who is innocent and naïve. Their interactions with other humans are shaped by the lessons they’ve learned from their favourite animal. Your character will explore the Garden, talking with its creatures and trying to figure out how to interact successfully with others. Sometimes this will be an easy task, but frequently, disagreements arise between the humans of Eden, and differences aren’t always easy to resolve.
When you begin play, you’ll choose a species of animal to be your character’s favorite. The animals of Eden can talk, and the animal you choose to be your favorite will be your friend and companion, a ready source of advice and lessons for your character to access whenever they wish. But the animals don’t understand humans. They live and die by their instincts, and can only offer advice based on how they see the world. Sometimes these lessons are useful… but often they are not, and will lead your character to trouble if followed too closely. During scenes, other players will take on the role of your favorite animal, speaking and acting as they feel the animal naturally would.
[h=3]Adventure Realm RPG Game Tiles – Town and Wilderness Set by Red Dragon Gaming [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 31st October 2016; 05:00 UTC)
This campaign offers you 16 double-sided 8” square card map tiles – over 2000 square inches of maps for your gaming table! One of the sides of the tiles shows sixteen top down ‘town’ views, helping you create an urban area for your adventurers. The flipside has wilderness artwork on, which of course can be combined with some of the town tiles for even more flexibility.
The town tiles consist of an inn (two tiles – one lower and one upper floor), Mansion (two tiles – one lower and one upper floor), Stables, Temple, Guardhouse, Blacksmith’s forge, Small shops, Small backstreet housing, Graveyard, Five road tiles (including a town square/crossroads, two straight roads and two street corners). The wilderness set includes four open grassland tiles, two open grassland with crag tiles, three woodland tiles, four road tiles, ruined building, small hut and a camp tile.
[h=3]Adventurers! Revised Print Edition by Gionata Dal Farra [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 9th November 2016; 14:31 UTC)
There are two initial books in The Adventurers! Campaign. The first is the Core Book which includes the Players Guide, the Game Master Guide, Character sheet, Monster Cards and everything you need to play including two settings – Space Rangers (space opera meets space western) & Voodoo Pirates (inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean). The second book, which doesn’t include any rules, is the Fantasy Book which includes three settings – Gothica (supernatural horror set in the Carpathians so grab your rapier and black powder pistol!), Kung Fu Adventurers! (animal kung fu heroes) and The Dungeon (classic fantasy dungeon crawling). Each book will be 100+ pages long.
Adventurers is “a traditional, old school RPG, with strong roots in Fighting Fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons, Savage Worlds and a bit of FATE.”
[h=3]LOOT : A Magic Item Deck by Trilith Studio[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 10th November 2016; 20:27 UTC)
LOOT is a 56 card deck of magic armour and weapons for your 5th Edition campaigns. Each card has a full art piece on one side with the reverse side dedicated to information about the magical item – including its abilities, gold value and some flavour text about the item.
The deck contains 18 common, 16 uncommon, 12 rare, 6 very rare and 4 legendary magic items.
**********
If you like what we do here at EN World (the Forums, Columns, News, ENnies, etc) and would like to help support us to bring you MORE please consider supporting our Patreon. Even a single dollar helps Thanks!
**********
If you have a forthcoming Kickstarter, or see one that excites you, please feel free to drop me an email on angus.abranson@gmail.com You can follow me on Twitter @ Angus_A or on Facebook where I often post about gaming.
Until next week, have fun and happy gaming!
Angus Abranson
[h=3]Upwind RPG – Treasure Planet meets Studio Ghibli by Biohazard Games/Nocturnal Media [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Friday 11th November 2016; 02:00 UTC)
Biohazard Games, the creators and publishers behind the Blue Planet RPG, have teamed up with Stewart Wieck’s Nocturnal Media to bring their new game, Upwind, to life. The campaign is raising money for the first three products in the line – the core rulebook, The Knight’s Deck Playing Cards and the Prophecy of the Grand Amplifier Campaign and Setting Supplement.
Upwind presents a fantastical setting where the remains of a broken world drift as floating islands through a sky divided unto the Light and the Dark. The Kin inhabit the skylands of the Kingdoms of Light while the Children of the Dark dwell far below where the Light does not reach. The Wind is a powerful force energizing the wondrous machines of the Kin and charging the elemental Potential all Kin wield. Lost technology is the currency of the Kingdoms, scavenged from the remnants of the Masters of the Wind – a culture destroyed long ago in the great cataclysm known as the DownFall.
The young civilization of the Kin has been reborn and struggles both with itself and the Children of the Dark as it strives to recover. Wind-powered skyships serve as the lifeblood of trade and the backbone of defense, while exploration, mystery, intrigue and war form the backdrop of the narrative. The Age of the Grand Amplifier is said to be drawing to a close, the Children of the Dark threaten from below, and the kin misunderstand the truth about both.
Upwind uses a new system called Q, where two potential outcomes are negotiated cooperatively and proposed as stakes which the participants then bid on using a hand of cards. The narrative is then tailored to the winning outcome.
Campaigns focus on the exploits of the Knights of the Explorers’ Guild – storied, skyfaring explorers, scholars, engineers, elementalists and soldiers who search the Twilight Frontier for lost Masters’ caches. The player characters are rare, highly trained individuals with exceptional skills and elemental powers. Duty-bound to the Guild, they lead missions across dangerous skies and expeditions into the unchartered Dark.
The core rulebook will be a full color, 225+ page beautifully illustrated hardcover book. It will contain everything needed to adventure across the endless skies of the Kingdoms in the Light and deep into the Dark. The Knight’s Deck Playing Cards is a custom-designed deck that enhances the Upwind setting. Beyond use in play, every card in the deck features an illustration of a specific settlement, location, or Master’s cache as well as descriptive text. An integrated coordinate system allows players to arrange the cards into an illuminated schematic of the Upwind setting that provides fun and useful insight into the uncanny geography of the game.
Lastly there is the Prophecy of the Grand Amplifier Campaign and Setting Supplement which is packed with new locations, NPCs, Relics, creatures and Master’s caches, and the adventure will draw players deep into the setting. The story takes a band of young Knights from novice recruitment through their Academy training, challenges them with their graduation cruise, leads them on a ranging series of missions across the Realms and then sends them deep into the Dark in pursuit of an ancient legacy. The discoveries they make will upend everything they know about the history of the Children, the Masters of the Wind and the origin of the Kin themselves.
[h=3]Operation Unfathomable by Hydra Collective [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 10th November 2016; 15:54 UTC)
Operation Unfathomable is a weird underworld adventure and campaign setting for Swords & Wizardy and other old school rpgs. The campaign is the second Kickstarter by The Hydra Collective and is written by Jason Sholtis (The Dungeon Dozen).
“A party of experienced adventurers led by the stalwart Prince Eyraen have stolen an artefact from Syantides, Sorcerer-King of Mur, and entered the Underworld on a mission of vengeance. That brave band is lost and presumed dead. Perhaps a smaller, stealthier party can succeed where mighty heroes have failed? You’d better hope so.”
Operation Unfathomable is an internally-consistent, gonzo funhouse that runs like a subterranean wilderness trek instead of a “down the 10 foot hall and kick in a door” affair. There are random elements aplenty to keep GMs guessing as well as players. No balanced encounters to be found here, but the clever setup allows low level characters to drop into the dungeon “deep end” and still have a chance of making it out alive – if they’re smart and wary.
[h=3]The Adventurer’s Guide to Dungeons by Plastic Hand Games LLC[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 26th October 2016; 19:42 UTC)
The Adventurer’s Guide to Dungeons contains 54 double-sided 2.75” x 2.75” square tiles. The tiles, each with a four square grid, feature a variety of floor, door, and wall designs on one side and are blank flooring on the reverse. They line up perfectly in any direction with each other making them perfect for creating endless combinations of dungeon layouts.
The tiles are 300gsm (linen finish), rounded edges and come shrink wrapped and packaged in a custom tuck box making them very easy to store and take to game nights.
[h=3]Eden by Marc Hobbs [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 10th November 2016; 23:59 UTC)
Eden is a tabletop role-playing game about learning what it means to be human. You’ll collaborate to create the setting and then role-play scenes as talking animals and human characters, ultimately weaving a narrative of exploration, self-discovery, and personal growth.
Eden is for 3-5 players and is designed to be played in one session of 2-3 hours. There’s no GM and no prep before play, so you can start creating fiction from the moment you open the book.
The setting of the game is the Garden of Eden, a natural paradise, comprised of whatever habitats you want. All players work together to create a map of the Garden, which you’ll then update as you tell your story. By the end of the game, your map will become a record of the changes your characters made to the landscape of Eden.
Each player creates a human character who is innocent and naïve. Their interactions with other humans are shaped by the lessons they’ve learned from their favourite animal. Your character will explore the Garden, talking with its creatures and trying to figure out how to interact successfully with others. Sometimes this will be an easy task, but frequently, disagreements arise between the humans of Eden, and differences aren’t always easy to resolve.
When you begin play, you’ll choose a species of animal to be your character’s favorite. The animals of Eden can talk, and the animal you choose to be your favorite will be your friend and companion, a ready source of advice and lessons for your character to access whenever they wish. But the animals don’t understand humans. They live and die by their instincts, and can only offer advice based on how they see the world. Sometimes these lessons are useful… but often they are not, and will lead your character to trouble if followed too closely. During scenes, other players will take on the role of your favorite animal, speaking and acting as they feel the animal naturally would.
[h=3]Adventure Realm RPG Game Tiles – Town and Wilderness Set by Red Dragon Gaming [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 31st October 2016; 05:00 UTC)
This campaign offers you 16 double-sided 8” square card map tiles – over 2000 square inches of maps for your gaming table! One of the sides of the tiles shows sixteen top down ‘town’ views, helping you create an urban area for your adventurers. The flipside has wilderness artwork on, which of course can be combined with some of the town tiles for even more flexibility.
The town tiles consist of an inn (two tiles – one lower and one upper floor), Mansion (two tiles – one lower and one upper floor), Stables, Temple, Guardhouse, Blacksmith’s forge, Small shops, Small backstreet housing, Graveyard, Five road tiles (including a town square/crossroads, two straight roads and two street corners). The wilderness set includes four open grassland tiles, two open grassland with crag tiles, three woodland tiles, four road tiles, ruined building, small hut and a camp tile.
[h=3]Adventurers! Revised Print Edition by Gionata Dal Farra [/h]
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 9th November 2016; 14:31 UTC)
There are two initial books in The Adventurers! Campaign. The first is the Core Book which includes the Players Guide, the Game Master Guide, Character sheet, Monster Cards and everything you need to play including two settings – Space Rangers (space opera meets space western) & Voodoo Pirates (inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean). The second book, which doesn’t include any rules, is the Fantasy Book which includes three settings – Gothica (supernatural horror set in the Carpathians so grab your rapier and black powder pistol!), Kung Fu Adventurers! (animal kung fu heroes) and The Dungeon (classic fantasy dungeon crawling). Each book will be 100+ pages long.
Adventurers is “a traditional, old school RPG, with strong roots in Fighting Fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons, Savage Worlds and a bit of FATE.”
[h=3]LOOT : A Magic Item Deck by Trilith Studio[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 10th November 2016; 20:27 UTC)
LOOT is a 56 card deck of magic armour and weapons for your 5th Edition campaigns. Each card has a full art piece on one side with the reverse side dedicated to information about the magical item – including its abilities, gold value and some flavour text about the item.
The deck contains 18 common, 16 uncommon, 12 rare, 6 very rare and 4 legendary magic items.
**********
If you like what we do here at EN World (the Forums, Columns, News, ENnies, etc) and would like to help support us to bring you MORE please consider supporting our Patreon. Even a single dollar helps Thanks!
**********
If you have a forthcoming Kickstarter, or see one that excites you, please feel free to drop me an email on angus.abranson@gmail.com You can follow me on Twitter @ Angus_A or on Facebook where I often post about gaming.
Until next week, have fun and happy gaming!
Angus Abranson
