Some weeks are more eclectic than others, and this is definitely one of those weeks in Pick of the Day land. Epic high fantasy mages; dark post-world-eating beast survival; emerging godlings; were-everything; and a sci-fi sector to explore and shoot up. The holidays are inexorably plummeting towards us, so it's great time to start tagging what you want to give to who - especially your favorite Game Master! Note that I use affiliate links in all my posts as a way to generate additional revenue for my efforts; I make my Picks, however, based on the desire to share a wide variety of things with you. Thank you for your support.
CLEMENT SECTOR
Been a lot of talk online about this Traveller variant, featuring a new sci-fi setting gaining in popularity called the Clement Sector. Now they’ve released a core book that stands as its own game, blending core Traveller design with their own Cepheus Engine (effectively, a refined retroclone of the classic rules). As the buzz increases, now’s a good time to check it out in this era of renewed interest in sci-fi RPGs.
Join the adventure as Clement Sector, one of the most popular and fastest growing science fiction settings, expands with its own rulebook! Using a unique blend of The Cepheus Engine and the 2d6 Science Fiction OGL rules, Clement Sector: The Rules builds on those to create a framework for action packed role-playing game excitement!
Fight epic space battles! Explore new worlds! Become a pirate! It’s all possible in Clement Sector and these rules provide the foundation for your exploits!
Use these rules for your own settings or, in concert with The Clement Sector Core Setting Book, strike out on an adventure in the Clement Sector setting. It’s in your control!
Be sure to look out for the Clement Sector Core Bundle which gives you these rules, The Clement Sector Core Setting Book, and The Anderson and Felix Guide to Naval Architecture at a 20% discount to the everyday price.
Join the adventure! Don’t get left behind!
SHAINTAR: MAGE GUILDS & SCHOOLS
The last of the Shaintar books for the Kickstarter are flowing out of Savage Mojo, and this one covers the various guilds, schools, and other organizations that practitioners of the sorcerous arts gather under for knowledge, understanding… and other purposes. This is the Black Lantern Report: Mage Guilds & Schools.
Meet the irrepressible Brenna McIntyre, senior student of the School of Seven Stars and Brother Spark of the Black Lanterns.
Given that our Brother is in a place of magic, he chose to err on the side of caution and not file his reports in the normal way. Instead, she sends letters home to her “parents” and other family with no one the wiser that the family she writes too is us. Her reports seem innocuous but she’s provided us a great deal of information on the names and locations of these schools along with the types of magic you’ll likely find being practised.
She’s also provided us with the names and abilities of several of her teachers along with a number of new spells, applications and items that an up and coming sorcerer can use to remember certain types of spells better or enhance one of their senses or abilities.
You’ll find what you need to develop a history for a character or NPC that includes these schools, what a person would study there and how their days are structured. You’ll also find some new magic items, gear, edges, powers, spells and applications too.
LUNAR KNIGHTS
Do you want were-beasts? Because this is how you get were-beasts! Specifically, how you get were-creatures and lycanthropes for your Pathfinder campaign, from the House That Knows Pathfinder, Rogue Genius.
Everyone knows about lycanthropes, right? They get grumpy in moonlight, dislike silver, and should avoid hickies. What more is there?
Actually there’s a whole world of werebeasts and werecultures, just waiting for you to discover!
Lunar Knights presents a world of shapeshifting options, from campaign options on how to handle lycanthropic curses, variant lycanthropes based on various mythologies, new shapeshifting-themed class features (ranging from the barbarian’s lycanthropic stalker to a sorcerous lycanthropic bloodline), new feats, new forms of lycanthropy, and even lycanthropy-specific prestige classes—including the dire lord, moon priest, and even the lunar knight!
So pack some extra wolvesbane, polish your silver sickle, and get ready for a big dose of the hair of the dog that bit you!
TEN BURIED BLADES
I once referred to Godbound as “Scion-meets-Rapture: the Second Coming.“ It’s an Old D&D gaming experience oriented around an after-the-end, new beginning world where new gods arise, so it’s way beyond the 10′ poles territory.
This is a powerful adventure to get your group started in this very interesting world, where they must learn to master their power before the world masters them.
In the market town of Gongfang a restless magistrate oppresses the people, forcing them to surrender sons and daughters to serve a mysterious sorcerer on Red Crow Mountain. In the countryside, a wealthy rice broker torments the common folk with his extortionate exactions, driving the desperate into the forest to escape his thugs and bandits. And beneath those green boughs there are whispers of an illicit god, of a Golden Lord who will bring justice to the afflicted. Gongfang’s fragile peace cannot last. But who will strike the blow that ends it, and who will pick up the fragments that remain?
Ten Buried Blades is an introductory adventure for the Godbound role-playing game of heroic demigods, available in both a Free Version and a Deluxe Edition. The misfortune-plagued border town of Gongfang is presented for the heroes’ attention, with a fistful of calamities and sinister figures for the PCs to encounter. As an introductory adventure, Ten Buried Blades is written to help the novice Godbound GM and is structured to answer many of the questions that come up when you’re hurling a pantheon of young divinities against an uncaring world.
Within these pages, you’ll find….
BELLY OF THE BEAST
Something about facing the darkness of the world and kicking it square in the nethers seems to be of high appeal these days, and here’s another powerful example of the trend. It’s post-apocalypse in one of the strangest ways, though in the same neighborhood as The Day After Ragnarok. The Kickstarter got some solid attention, and it’s clearly climbing the charts.
A tabletop RPG about callous survivors scavenging the abyssal guts of the world-eating Beast that consumed their home.
You are a scavenger. Driven by the primal instinct to survive, you venture into the depths of the Evergut in search of some remnant of the past that will postpone your inevitable digestion.
The land was resplendent once; sprawling forests, massive ranges, glittering coastlines. Hundreds of clans, nations, and empires carved their homes from mountain and glen – living and killing and loving beneath the sun-kissed boughs.
But that was a lifetime ago. For generations the survivors have known nothing but sorrow. The Hungry God consumed all, leaving the world as little more than a skinned carcass moaning to be put out of its misery. Millions were swallowed during the Great Devourer’s gluttonous feast; and yet, humanity pressed on.
Belly of the Beast is a tabletop roleplaying game focusing on scavengers: brazen survivors that plumb the depths of a world-eating monster’s guts, scouring the remains of the mighty Empires that were eaten by the Beast.
System
The core mechanic uses the well-tested Ethos Engine (Vow of Honor, Hunt the Wicked). It is a d6 dice pool in which you gain and spend dice toward your Instincts (Greed, Violence, etc), and roll against the most relevant Skill’s rank. The more successes you roll out of your d6 pool, the better your outcome.
The game is certainly task-resolution oriented, and focuses on grim and gritty people and their personal stories, rather than epic or high fantasy.
Setting
Take the trappings of a late-medieval Byzantine Empire and throw it through a blender. The Beast is a monster the size of a mountain range, and it has happily gobbled up all of the world’s surface — including its cities, people, and artifacts. You’re one of the survivors, either recently swallowed in the Beast’s inexorable buffet, or you were born there in the last 60 years, eeking out a living within the cavernous innards of the Evergut.
~~~~~
This week, I started a new regular column over at the Stuffer Shack called Life of a Big Irish Gamer. It's a bit more open-ended that most of what I post here on E.N. World, so if you've ever wondered about the life I lead, where I find my inspirations, and what I am up to in the grander scheme, check it out.
Not much gaming this weekend, due to some very pressing deadlines. As well, as the newly-promoted Captain of the HMS Reliant - the Denver chapter of the Royal Manticoran Navy, which is the Honor Harrington Fan Club - I've got a huge all-hands crew meeting as we pull the Reliant out of dry dock and get her flying again.
I do love geekdom!
The Adventure Continues!
~SPF
CLEMENT SECTOR
Been a lot of talk online about this Traveller variant, featuring a new sci-fi setting gaining in popularity called the Clement Sector. Now they’ve released a core book that stands as its own game, blending core Traveller design with their own Cepheus Engine (effectively, a refined retroclone of the classic rules). As the buzz increases, now’s a good time to check it out in this era of renewed interest in sci-fi RPGs.
Join the adventure as Clement Sector, one of the most popular and fastest growing science fiction settings, expands with its own rulebook! Using a unique blend of The Cepheus Engine and the 2d6 Science Fiction OGL rules, Clement Sector: The Rules builds on those to create a framework for action packed role-playing game excitement!
Fight epic space battles! Explore new worlds! Become a pirate! It’s all possible in Clement Sector and these rules provide the foundation for your exploits!
Use these rules for your own settings or, in concert with The Clement Sector Core Setting Book, strike out on an adventure in the Clement Sector setting. It’s in your control!
Be sure to look out for the Clement Sector Core Bundle which gives you these rules, The Clement Sector Core Setting Book, and The Anderson and Felix Guide to Naval Architecture at a 20% discount to the everyday price.
Join the adventure! Don’t get left behind!
SHAINTAR: MAGE GUILDS & SCHOOLS
The last of the Shaintar books for the Kickstarter are flowing out of Savage Mojo, and this one covers the various guilds, schools, and other organizations that practitioners of the sorcerous arts gather under for knowledge, understanding… and other purposes. This is the Black Lantern Report: Mage Guilds & Schools.
Meet the irrepressible Brenna McIntyre, senior student of the School of Seven Stars and Brother Spark of the Black Lanterns.
Given that our Brother is in a place of magic, he chose to err on the side of caution and not file his reports in the normal way. Instead, she sends letters home to her “parents” and other family with no one the wiser that the family she writes too is us. Her reports seem innocuous but she’s provided us a great deal of information on the names and locations of these schools along with the types of magic you’ll likely find being practised.
She’s also provided us with the names and abilities of several of her teachers along with a number of new spells, applications and items that an up and coming sorcerer can use to remember certain types of spells better or enhance one of their senses or abilities.
You’ll find what you need to develop a history for a character or NPC that includes these schools, what a person would study there and how their days are structured. You’ll also find some new magic items, gear, edges, powers, spells and applications too.
LUNAR KNIGHTS
Do you want were-beasts? Because this is how you get were-beasts! Specifically, how you get were-creatures and lycanthropes for your Pathfinder campaign, from the House That Knows Pathfinder, Rogue Genius.
Everyone knows about lycanthropes, right? They get grumpy in moonlight, dislike silver, and should avoid hickies. What more is there?
Actually there’s a whole world of werebeasts and werecultures, just waiting for you to discover!
Lunar Knights presents a world of shapeshifting options, from campaign options on how to handle lycanthropic curses, variant lycanthropes based on various mythologies, new shapeshifting-themed class features (ranging from the barbarian’s lycanthropic stalker to a sorcerous lycanthropic bloodline), new feats, new forms of lycanthropy, and even lycanthropy-specific prestige classes—including the dire lord, moon priest, and even the lunar knight!
So pack some extra wolvesbane, polish your silver sickle, and get ready for a big dose of the hair of the dog that bit you!
TEN BURIED BLADES
I once referred to Godbound as “Scion-meets-Rapture: the Second Coming.“ It’s an Old D&D gaming experience oriented around an after-the-end, new beginning world where new gods arise, so it’s way beyond the 10′ poles territory.
This is a powerful adventure to get your group started in this very interesting world, where they must learn to master their power before the world masters them.
In the market town of Gongfang a restless magistrate oppresses the people, forcing them to surrender sons and daughters to serve a mysterious sorcerer on Red Crow Mountain. In the countryside, a wealthy rice broker torments the common folk with his extortionate exactions, driving the desperate into the forest to escape his thugs and bandits. And beneath those green boughs there are whispers of an illicit god, of a Golden Lord who will bring justice to the afflicted. Gongfang’s fragile peace cannot last. But who will strike the blow that ends it, and who will pick up the fragments that remain?
Ten Buried Blades is an introductory adventure for the Godbound role-playing game of heroic demigods, available in both a Free Version and a Deluxe Edition. The misfortune-plagued border town of Gongfang is presented for the heroes’ attention, with a fistful of calamities and sinister figures for the PCs to encounter. As an introductory adventure, Ten Buried Blades is written to help the novice Godbound GM and is structured to answer many of the questions that come up when you’re hurling a pantheon of young divinities against an uncaring world.
Within these pages, you’ll find….
- Challenges and encounters built to match a pantheon of newly-created Godbound. Some can be overcome by divine force, while others compel the PCs to deal with situations that don’t yield so easily to a bolt of celestial fury.
- Notes on the Dulimbaian border town of Gongfang, the sinister monastery on Red Crow Mountain, the country estate of Big Feet Zu, and the hidden temple of the Golden Lord
- Tips and examples for using divine Influence to change the situation in Gongfang
- Information on what the Dulimbaian government might do when a pantheon of demigods shows up in a border town
- Conversion notes for moving the adventure to a different location in your campaign
- A brand-new True Strife, the fearsome Strife of Torment Defied for the damage-sponge titans of your group
- Several new Dulimbaian theurgic invocations
- A new low magic path, the Way of Pure Petitions for the austere adepts of Dulimbaian magic who bring luck and banish evil spirits with their sacred writings.
BELLY OF THE BEAST
Something about facing the darkness of the world and kicking it square in the nethers seems to be of high appeal these days, and here’s another powerful example of the trend. It’s post-apocalypse in one of the strangest ways, though in the same neighborhood as The Day After Ragnarok. The Kickstarter got some solid attention, and it’s clearly climbing the charts.
A tabletop RPG about callous survivors scavenging the abyssal guts of the world-eating Beast that consumed their home.
You are a scavenger. Driven by the primal instinct to survive, you venture into the depths of the Evergut in search of some remnant of the past that will postpone your inevitable digestion.
The land was resplendent once; sprawling forests, massive ranges, glittering coastlines. Hundreds of clans, nations, and empires carved their homes from mountain and glen – living and killing and loving beneath the sun-kissed boughs.
But that was a lifetime ago. For generations the survivors have known nothing but sorrow. The Hungry God consumed all, leaving the world as little more than a skinned carcass moaning to be put out of its misery. Millions were swallowed during the Great Devourer’s gluttonous feast; and yet, humanity pressed on.
Belly of the Beast is a tabletop roleplaying game focusing on scavengers: brazen survivors that plumb the depths of a world-eating monster’s guts, scouring the remains of the mighty Empires that were eaten by the Beast.
System
The core mechanic uses the well-tested Ethos Engine (Vow of Honor, Hunt the Wicked). It is a d6 dice pool in which you gain and spend dice toward your Instincts (Greed, Violence, etc), and roll against the most relevant Skill’s rank. The more successes you roll out of your d6 pool, the better your outcome.
The game is certainly task-resolution oriented, and focuses on grim and gritty people and their personal stories, rather than epic or high fantasy.
Setting
Take the trappings of a late-medieval Byzantine Empire and throw it through a blender. The Beast is a monster the size of a mountain range, and it has happily gobbled up all of the world’s surface — including its cities, people, and artifacts. You’re one of the survivors, either recently swallowed in the Beast’s inexorable buffet, or you were born there in the last 60 years, eeking out a living within the cavernous innards of the Evergut.
~~~~~
This week, I started a new regular column over at the Stuffer Shack called Life of a Big Irish Gamer. It's a bit more open-ended that most of what I post here on E.N. World, so if you've ever wondered about the life I lead, where I find my inspirations, and what I am up to in the grander scheme, check it out.
Not much gaming this weekend, due to some very pressing deadlines. As well, as the newly-promoted Captain of the HMS Reliant - the Denver chapter of the Royal Manticoran Navy, which is the Honor Harrington Fan Club - I've got a huge all-hands crew meeting as we pull the Reliant out of dry dock and get her flying again.
I do love geekdom!
The Adventure Continues!
~SPF
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