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]Talislanta: The Savage Land by Stewart Wieck[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 1st May 2017; 04:00 UTC)
Talislanta was first published back in 1986 taking inspiration from the fantasy novels of Jack Vance and Michael Moorcock, with nods to H.P. Lovecraft. The game has travelled through a few companies and incarnations over the last 30 years and is now in the hands of Stewart Wieck’s Nocturnal Media for this latest edition. Three versions of the rulebook are being made available through this campaign – one is a complete reworking of the original Talislanta system, one using 5th Edition rules and the last using Open D6 (as Nocturnal Media brought West End Games, the company originally behind the D6 System as seen in games such as the original Star Wars Roleplaying Game).
All the rulebooks will be hardcover, full colour and about 250 pages long.
The original Talislanta game was [hq}set in a strange world of twin suns and seven moons that seemed to be practically overflowing with exotic peoples, places, and creatures. The time was the New Age, a Renaissance-like period that started a thousand or more years after The Great Disaster, a cataclysm that marked the fall of the once-great Archaen Age.
During this era, Talislanta was still a dangerous place, especially in the wilderness regions that lay beyond the walled cities. But for many who lived in the New Age, there was also a sense of hope, and the possibility of greater things to come.
Talsilanta: The Savage Land is a prequel to the original Talislanta game. It takes place just a short time after The Great Disaster, which the inhabitants of this era refer to as The Fall.
This period is like a nightmarish version of our own Dark Ages. All knowledge of spell-casting has been lost, maps are nearly non-existent, and much of the world is unknown. Most of thjose who survived The Fall are illiterate, and governed by superstition.
There are no nations, city states, or even laws. In their place, tribes of warriors, nomads, slavers, and refugees struggle to survive in a hostile wasteland, torn by centuries of warfare and a malevolent magical maelstrom known as the Gyre.
This is the world in which Talislanta: The Savage Land takes place. The world is dangerous and largely unexplored. Anything the inhabitants pre-Fall knew of the world is of little value now. The landscape has shifted. The great nations were sundered. Civilizarion itself has shattered.
This new vision of Talislanta is a world awaiting your discovery![/hq]
[h=3]DCC Lankhmar by Goodman Games[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 26th April 2017; 07:00 UTC)
Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar and world of Nehwon, home to the legendary Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have fascinated fans of fantasy since the original stories were published back in 1939. His works have also graced our gaming tables with Lankhmar: City of Adventure (1985) and the inclusion of the Nehwon mythos in Deities & Demigods (1980) for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons kicking off an eleven year relationship between AD&D and Nehwon. More recently we’ve seen a range of Lankhmar books for Savage Worlds by Pinnacle Entertainment but now Goodman Games are bringing the setting to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game with a glorious boxed set.
The boxed set will contain atleast four books (more might be added during the course of the campaign if stretch goals are hit), a map and tokens for a new rules mechanic called Fleeting Luck. Each of the books will be about 170 pages and will be as follows:
The Compendium of Secret Knowledge (Rules options for DCC Lankhmar)
The Judge’s Guide to Nehwon
Lankhmar: City of the Black Toga
NO Small Crimes in Lankhmar (level 1 adventure)
“DCC RPG is a perfect fit for Leiber’s world and the stories that chronicle it, perhaps more so than any other role-playing game to date. DCC RPG was specifically designed to go back to the classic sword & sorcery stories of Appendix N, the stories that inspired the original fantasy role-playing game, and provide judges and players with the means to replicate the feel of those tales for their own enjoyment. One could say that Leiber and Lankhmar are in the very DNA of DCC RPG, a crucial part of making the game what it is.”
[h=3]Fear Agent for Savage Worlds / The Goon for Savage Worlds both by Shane Hensley[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 17th April 2017; 22:00 UTC)
Pinnacle Entertainment have launched TWO simultaneous Kickstarter campaigns creating new Savage Worlds settings based upon two of Dark Horse Comics graphic novels. Both books are being printed as graphic novel sized games and each will be 192 pages in length.
Fear Agent
Based on the amazing comic series by Rick Remender, Tony Moore, and Jerome Opena, the Fear Agent Roleplaying Game is a pulp setting for Savage Worlds with more twists than an episode of the Twilight Zone!
After Earth is devastated by an interstellar war between two alien races, the few surviving members of humanity are dragged kicking and screaming into a complex galaxy of terror and adventure they didn’t even know existed.
Fortunately – or maybe unfortunately, we told you there are some twists – Texan Heath Huston bands together with others of his ilk to form the Fear Agents, a ragtag collection of survivors intent on revenge.
What happens next? Well, that’s up to you, the newest recruits in what is almost certainly a suicide mission. But it will be one hell of a ride!
The Goon
The Goon Roleplaying Game is based on the multiple Eisner Award-winning comic, The Goon by Eric Powell.
This game ain’t about heroes, oer se. More like antiheroes. Join the Goon’s crime syndicate – or play as Goon, Franky, and the rest of their crew – and fight off the rival gangs what’s encroachin’ on your turf, while you collect on Goon’s debts and whatnot. You might also succeed at fighting off the tide of bleak suffering that’s set to consume yer soul. Then again you might not!
But while you’re contemplatin’ the psychology and so forth, make sure to watch out for Zombie Priest and his legions of groanin’, brain-chomping zombies; they’re a constant hassle. If that ain’t bad enough, there’s crazed-yet-brilliant Dr. Hieronymus Alloy and his robots goin’ on a rampage every other week. You also want to keep a lookout for swarms of chug-heads… what they call “changelings.” Yeah. They’re nasty little buggers.
Believe me, pal, we ain’t even got to the worst of it yet. You sure you wanna join up with Goon’s crew?
[h=3]Dhovaine – A new role-playing game from Higher Grounds by Raymond[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 15th April 2017; 15:49 UTC)
Dhovaine is a 352-page full colour ‘science fantasy’ roleplaying game from Ray Machuga and Higher Studios.
“ I am very excited to announce the newest game I have been working on called Dhovaine. It is a science fantasy game set in a modern world with hints of futurism and steam punk. The game has a comprehensive rules system based on a 3d6 mechanic that prioritizes storytelling and legendary actions. If you're a fan of unique, never-before-seen systems, dig into comic books like Wayward and Locke & Key and also enjoy settings like Warhammer 40K, Final Fantasy, Witcher 3, Malifaux and World Of Darkness then you're going to love Dhovaine.
Dhovaine is set in a possible alternate timeline to Earth. Much like Earth, civilizations have risen and fallen. Each, of them, having their own cultures, technology, faiths and traditions. Today, the people of Dhovaine possess an advanced level of technology similar to Earth's, if not a little further advanced. Even though mortals of Dhovaine live at this higher level of technology, there is still a great deal that they do not understand about the world. Technology exists from historically significant and technologically advanced cultures that modern people simply do not understand. Some of this mysterious technology is still in use today. Some of that forgone technology has been studied in order to assist in some of the most recent technological advances in weaponry, transportation and communication. Still other bits of this technology is unusable and completely foreign to the people of Dhovaine. Twisted, seemingly maleficent constructs sit completely unused in warehouses as well as old ruins, waiting to unleash heir power. This setting, called Dhovaine, is ready to provide players with all manner of story and challenge to those who would brave it.
The game system of Dhovaine is intended to be fast-paced and story driven, while still being involved and complex. It is intended to assist in driving the story that the group would like to create, and to help devise and design the imaginative places and events that the Fatemaster needs to describe as well as the actions and stories of the player characters as they join the Hunters and defend mortal civilizations against the legendary and dangerous monsters that inhabit the world. Everything about the system is devised with those things in mind.”
[h=3]EXUVIAE: Relics of House Dragonfly by Sean Smith[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Sunday 30th April 2017; 11:58 UTC)
EXUVIAE has me intrigued. For starters it’s a horror-noir setting… and I do love me some horror-noir. It’s also created to easily springboard one-shots without any preparation, something that’s always useful especially if you’re time strapped or a player short for your regular games night and still want to roleplay. It also uses a pack of playing cards to “procedurally generate an investigative roleplaying game, keeping track of the knotting conspiracy and the Chandleresque interruptions.” Plays for one to four players, plus one gamesmaster, for one session of about four hours.
“It’s the forties. You live in a bayside city that’s secretly under the control of an insect cult. Tonight you’re going to prove that to the world…”
The characters in EXUVIAE will be investigating a conspiracy, but they don’t have to be investigators by trade: you could be a taxidermist, a mayoral candidate, an aspiring journalist. You’ll begin play determining what three things you’re skilled in and what are your connections to the city and the conspiracy. As the game progresses, your skills and contacts will simplify and complicate matters of investigation.
During play, the difficulty of your actions will be simple, tricky or challenging: the value of the card you draw will determine if you achieve outright success, a complication, or incur an oversight or catastrophe. But noir is not a genre where you act unimpeded: if you ever draw a face card, you’re interrupted in your task.
You’ll be using these cards to build up the conspiracy: developing by suit and value according to the rules of a solitaire variant. However, the more you piece together of the conspiracy, the more the insect cult takes notice, the more of their resources they throw against you.
[h=3]100 5e NPCs by Limitless Adventures[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 1st May 2017; 05:59 UTC)
There’s no beating around the bush with this latest Kickstarter from Limitless Adventures – it offers exactly what the title suggests… 100 NPCs for D&D 5th Ed to help populate your games and give the DM a handy collection of personalities to help, or hinder.
Each NPC comes with a description, 5e stats, treasures and three adventure hooks – making a total of 300 adventure ideas within the books pages! The NPCs come from a number of different environments and as the book is called Limitless NPCs vol 1 there’s a very god chance we’ll be seeing future volumes if successful!
**********
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]Talislanta: The Savage Land by Stewart Wieck[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 1st May 2017; 04:00 UTC)
Talislanta was first published back in 1986 taking inspiration from the fantasy novels of Jack Vance and Michael Moorcock, with nods to H.P. Lovecraft. The game has travelled through a few companies and incarnations over the last 30 years and is now in the hands of Stewart Wieck’s Nocturnal Media for this latest edition. Three versions of the rulebook are being made available through this campaign – one is a complete reworking of the original Talislanta system, one using 5th Edition rules and the last using Open D6 (as Nocturnal Media brought West End Games, the company originally behind the D6 System as seen in games such as the original Star Wars Roleplaying Game).
All the rulebooks will be hardcover, full colour and about 250 pages long.
The original Talislanta game was [hq}set in a strange world of twin suns and seven moons that seemed to be practically overflowing with exotic peoples, places, and creatures. The time was the New Age, a Renaissance-like period that started a thousand or more years after The Great Disaster, a cataclysm that marked the fall of the once-great Archaen Age.
During this era, Talislanta was still a dangerous place, especially in the wilderness regions that lay beyond the walled cities. But for many who lived in the New Age, there was also a sense of hope, and the possibility of greater things to come.
Talsilanta: The Savage Land is a prequel to the original Talislanta game. It takes place just a short time after The Great Disaster, which the inhabitants of this era refer to as The Fall.
This period is like a nightmarish version of our own Dark Ages. All knowledge of spell-casting has been lost, maps are nearly non-existent, and much of the world is unknown. Most of thjose who survived The Fall are illiterate, and governed by superstition.
There are no nations, city states, or even laws. In their place, tribes of warriors, nomads, slavers, and refugees struggle to survive in a hostile wasteland, torn by centuries of warfare and a malevolent magical maelstrom known as the Gyre.
This is the world in which Talislanta: The Savage Land takes place. The world is dangerous and largely unexplored. Anything the inhabitants pre-Fall knew of the world is of little value now. The landscape has shifted. The great nations were sundered. Civilizarion itself has shattered.
This new vision of Talislanta is a world awaiting your discovery![/hq]
[h=3]DCC Lankhmar by Goodman Games[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 26th April 2017; 07:00 UTC)
Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar and world of Nehwon, home to the legendary Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have fascinated fans of fantasy since the original stories were published back in 1939. His works have also graced our gaming tables with Lankhmar: City of Adventure (1985) and the inclusion of the Nehwon mythos in Deities & Demigods (1980) for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons kicking off an eleven year relationship between AD&D and Nehwon. More recently we’ve seen a range of Lankhmar books for Savage Worlds by Pinnacle Entertainment but now Goodman Games are bringing the setting to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game with a glorious boxed set.
The boxed set will contain atleast four books (more might be added during the course of the campaign if stretch goals are hit), a map and tokens for a new rules mechanic called Fleeting Luck. Each of the books will be about 170 pages and will be as follows:
The Compendium of Secret Knowledge (Rules options for DCC Lankhmar)
The Judge’s Guide to Nehwon
Lankhmar: City of the Black Toga
NO Small Crimes in Lankhmar (level 1 adventure)
“DCC RPG is a perfect fit for Leiber’s world and the stories that chronicle it, perhaps more so than any other role-playing game to date. DCC RPG was specifically designed to go back to the classic sword & sorcery stories of Appendix N, the stories that inspired the original fantasy role-playing game, and provide judges and players with the means to replicate the feel of those tales for their own enjoyment. One could say that Leiber and Lankhmar are in the very DNA of DCC RPG, a crucial part of making the game what it is.”
[h=3]Fear Agent for Savage Worlds / The Goon for Savage Worlds both by Shane Hensley[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 17th April 2017; 22:00 UTC)
Pinnacle Entertainment have launched TWO simultaneous Kickstarter campaigns creating new Savage Worlds settings based upon two of Dark Horse Comics graphic novels. Both books are being printed as graphic novel sized games and each will be 192 pages in length.
Fear Agent
Based on the amazing comic series by Rick Remender, Tony Moore, and Jerome Opena, the Fear Agent Roleplaying Game is a pulp setting for Savage Worlds with more twists than an episode of the Twilight Zone!
After Earth is devastated by an interstellar war between two alien races, the few surviving members of humanity are dragged kicking and screaming into a complex galaxy of terror and adventure they didn’t even know existed.
Fortunately – or maybe unfortunately, we told you there are some twists – Texan Heath Huston bands together with others of his ilk to form the Fear Agents, a ragtag collection of survivors intent on revenge.
What happens next? Well, that’s up to you, the newest recruits in what is almost certainly a suicide mission. But it will be one hell of a ride!
The Goon
The Goon Roleplaying Game is based on the multiple Eisner Award-winning comic, The Goon by Eric Powell.
This game ain’t about heroes, oer se. More like antiheroes. Join the Goon’s crime syndicate – or play as Goon, Franky, and the rest of their crew – and fight off the rival gangs what’s encroachin’ on your turf, while you collect on Goon’s debts and whatnot. You might also succeed at fighting off the tide of bleak suffering that’s set to consume yer soul. Then again you might not!
But while you’re contemplatin’ the psychology and so forth, make sure to watch out for Zombie Priest and his legions of groanin’, brain-chomping zombies; they’re a constant hassle. If that ain’t bad enough, there’s crazed-yet-brilliant Dr. Hieronymus Alloy and his robots goin’ on a rampage every other week. You also want to keep a lookout for swarms of chug-heads… what they call “changelings.” Yeah. They’re nasty little buggers.
Believe me, pal, we ain’t even got to the worst of it yet. You sure you wanna join up with Goon’s crew?
[h=3]Dhovaine – A new role-playing game from Higher Grounds by Raymond[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 15th April 2017; 15:49 UTC)
Dhovaine is a 352-page full colour ‘science fantasy’ roleplaying game from Ray Machuga and Higher Studios.
“ I am very excited to announce the newest game I have been working on called Dhovaine. It is a science fantasy game set in a modern world with hints of futurism and steam punk. The game has a comprehensive rules system based on a 3d6 mechanic that prioritizes storytelling and legendary actions. If you're a fan of unique, never-before-seen systems, dig into comic books like Wayward and Locke & Key and also enjoy settings like Warhammer 40K, Final Fantasy, Witcher 3, Malifaux and World Of Darkness then you're going to love Dhovaine.
Dhovaine is set in a possible alternate timeline to Earth. Much like Earth, civilizations have risen and fallen. Each, of them, having their own cultures, technology, faiths and traditions. Today, the people of Dhovaine possess an advanced level of technology similar to Earth's, if not a little further advanced. Even though mortals of Dhovaine live at this higher level of technology, there is still a great deal that they do not understand about the world. Technology exists from historically significant and technologically advanced cultures that modern people simply do not understand. Some of this mysterious technology is still in use today. Some of that forgone technology has been studied in order to assist in some of the most recent technological advances in weaponry, transportation and communication. Still other bits of this technology is unusable and completely foreign to the people of Dhovaine. Twisted, seemingly maleficent constructs sit completely unused in warehouses as well as old ruins, waiting to unleash heir power. This setting, called Dhovaine, is ready to provide players with all manner of story and challenge to those who would brave it.
The game system of Dhovaine is intended to be fast-paced and story driven, while still being involved and complex. It is intended to assist in driving the story that the group would like to create, and to help devise and design the imaginative places and events that the Fatemaster needs to describe as well as the actions and stories of the player characters as they join the Hunters and defend mortal civilizations against the legendary and dangerous monsters that inhabit the world. Everything about the system is devised with those things in mind.”
[h=3]EXUVIAE: Relics of House Dragonfly by Sean Smith[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Sunday 30th April 2017; 11:58 UTC)
EXUVIAE has me intrigued. For starters it’s a horror-noir setting… and I do love me some horror-noir. It’s also created to easily springboard one-shots without any preparation, something that’s always useful especially if you’re time strapped or a player short for your regular games night and still want to roleplay. It also uses a pack of playing cards to “procedurally generate an investigative roleplaying game, keeping track of the knotting conspiracy and the Chandleresque interruptions.” Plays for one to four players, plus one gamesmaster, for one session of about four hours.
“It’s the forties. You live in a bayside city that’s secretly under the control of an insect cult. Tonight you’re going to prove that to the world…”
The characters in EXUVIAE will be investigating a conspiracy, but they don’t have to be investigators by trade: you could be a taxidermist, a mayoral candidate, an aspiring journalist. You’ll begin play determining what three things you’re skilled in and what are your connections to the city and the conspiracy. As the game progresses, your skills and contacts will simplify and complicate matters of investigation.
During play, the difficulty of your actions will be simple, tricky or challenging: the value of the card you draw will determine if you achieve outright success, a complication, or incur an oversight or catastrophe. But noir is not a genre where you act unimpeded: if you ever draw a face card, you’re interrupted in your task.
You’ll be using these cards to build up the conspiracy: developing by suit and value according to the rules of a solitaire variant. However, the more you piece together of the conspiracy, the more the insect cult takes notice, the more of their resources they throw against you.
[h=3]100 5e NPCs by Limitless Adventures[/h]
(Campaign Ends : Monday 1st May 2017; 05:59 UTC)
There’s no beating around the bush with this latest Kickstarter from Limitless Adventures – it offers exactly what the title suggests… 100 NPCs for D&D 5th Ed to help populate your games and give the DM a handy collection of personalities to help, or hinder.
Each NPC comes with a description, 5e stats, treasures and three adventure hooks – making a total of 300 adventure ideas within the books pages! The NPCs come from a number of different environments and as the book is called Limitless NPCs vol 1 there’s a very god chance we’ll be seeing future volumes if successful!
**********
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
