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.
Spire RPG by Grant Howitt
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 17th August 2017; 13:03 UTC)
Join the dark elf resistance against their cruel high elf overlords!!!
You are a dark elf. The touch of the sun burns your grey skin, and you hide from the light in twisting corridors, crumbling temples and the lawless undercity of the metropolis known as Spire. The high elves, rulers of the city, alien and capricious, allow you to live here as an underclass forced to beg for scraps.
Your religion, your culture, and your people are being destroyed all around you. You have seen your fathers, your mothers, your grandparents subjugated by the high elves, and you have had enough. You have joined the resistance: the ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, worshippers of a forbidden goddess.
You have sworn in blood that the high elves will fall, that you will destroy them through subterfuge, and insurrection, and terror.
What Is The Spire?
Spire is a new stand-alone roleplaying game from the designers of Unbound and Goblin Quest. It’s like D&D crossed with Unknown Armies, or Gormenghast crossed with Necromunda: a city-bound fantasy horror game of terrible decisions, hard choices, and deeply personal loss.
Spire is a city of a thousand gods: Our Glorious Lady, the light of the moon, beloved of the drow (and her sisters, the dark side of the moon and the eclipse, whose worship is banned by the high elves); the Solar Pantheon, great and terrible, who dominate the city from glittering cathedrals; the ravenous Hungry Deep that slumbers beneath the city; the laughing carrion god Charnel, whose hyenas prowl the bloody streets of New Heaven. Worship of these gods can grant miracles to the faithful - player characters included.
It is a place of industry and profit: human retro-engineers arrive with armfuls of arcane technology dug up from forgotten dungeons of a lost civilisation, then hotwire them into life and sell cheap copies down in the lawless undercity. There are acres of underground lakes brimming with algae; dark farms where the dead hang from spidersilk, their bodies dotted with fungi; and the vast, cursed, never-completed Vermissian, a failed attempt at a subterranean travel network.
It is a place of horror, too: bloodwitches return from the Heart, the rotten hole in reality that is the centre of Spire, carrying mystical blood diseases that rewrite men’s minds; spider-skinned midwives sprout additional chitinous limbs to defend unborn drow; magic masks are sutured to unwilling faces; hearts are plucked out and stored in jars, so that the owner might have eternal, strange life at the hands of the Morticians.
HC SVNT DRACONES: Sound and Silence by Pierce Fraser
(Campaign Ends : Friday 11th August 2017; 18:23 UTC)
HC SVNT DRACONES RPG is a post-humanity roleplaying game where players take on the role of a Vector, a new species created near the end of human civilization that witnessed the demise of their fore-bearers and has struggled through 700 years to etch out a new existence for themselves in the galaxy.
Sound and Silence is the first setting guide. A ore book, full of beautiful artwork, expansive stories, and detailed information about the HSD setting and the roles players can embody there. For Guides, players, and fans alike, this book is the quintisential reference for culture, setting info, and history that didn't make it into the rulebooks.
The book is split into two parts… ‘Sound’ and ‘Silence’.
Sound is the name of the lore compendium intended for everyone’s use. It contains story ideas, descriptions of corp activity, layouts of cities, details on agent interaction so you can flavor your characters better, and a descriptions of unique grottos and universities for inclusion in your stories. Players and Guides can both go through this book without worry of spoiling anything in-game. Sound contains over 100 pages of content and is a great way to inspire people looking for character ideas for themselves of their NPCs.
Silence is the second half of the book, containing detailed accounts of many of the aspects left vague in the HSD core rulebook. Things like the origins of the Palemen, what’s going on with Earth, and who the Shadow Presidents are. It has large sections on the nature of Transcendent technology and what humanity actually found when they made use of Hydra. This book is primarily for Guides, to give them fun things to let the players discover through play. It’s about 100 pages long and includes stories and behind-the-scenes info that make for great hooks in large operations
Dark Obelisk: Druid Enclave (Pathfinder/5E RPG City Setting) by J. Evans Payne
(Campaign Ends : Monday 14th August 2017; 13:03 UTC)
Druid Enclave is over 300 pages of a richly detailed and lavishly map city setting created both Pathfinder and 5th Edition. It can be used in any campaign but will be of particular use to those playing in the Dark Obelisk series of adventures as the city can be used to expand those.
Over 100 full colour maps describing both overviews as well as zoomed in buildings and battlemats for both GMs and players are included along with dozens of NPCs such as citizens and council members, along with more than a dozen quests that can be explored.
Battle For The Purple Islands by Venger Satanis
(Campaign Ends : Friday 11th August 2017; 03:23 UTC)
Venger Satanis returns to his popular Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence OSR campaign setting for his latest adventure. The adventure is a 12-15 page PDF that’s a focused adventure involving various warring factions competing for dominance in a purple world gone mad… or is that a mad world gone purple?
You see, much of the dark forces reigning supreme over the purple islands were vanquished by adventuring heroes. They came, they saw, they slaughtered. A few years went by without incident. Everyone started coming to the islands after things quieted down - colonists, anthropologists, big game hunters, sightseeing tourists, etc. But then obscene purple blasphemies deep within the islands began to resurface.
Multiple entry-points for PCs will be provided. The following is the initial conflict...
A courier has raced halfway across the galaxy to send a holographic message to an old hermit living in a mountain cave infested by shadow shoggoths - it's time-sensitive, for his eyes only, and concerns the fate of the entire universe. Upon landing on the purple islands, the messenger was captured by militant talking apes. He managed to escape, but then fell into the hands of a cannibal tribe at the base of the mountain.
Befouled Maze of the Demi-Lich, 5e DnD Adventure Module by Wyrmkeep Entertainment
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 16th August 2017; 22:57 UTC)
Befouled Maze of the Demi-Lich is a 5th Edition adventure for character levels 10 to 12. The module is 16-20 in pages and covers over 12 encounter areas – plus a prologue and epilogue. A map of the Befouled Maze of the Demi-Lich is included along with three new open game content monsters and pre-generated characters which are ready to run if required.
Are you a gamemaster looking for an interesting and challenging adventure for your players that can be completed in one session? Well, I have just what you want: Befouled Maze of the Demi-Lich is a fantasy role-playing game mini-adventure module designed for a band of 6-8 5e DnD characters of 10th to 12th level.
A common saying among the wise is “Curiosity kills the rogue,” but sometimes interesting possibilities seek you out instead of the other way around. And so it is with a party of adventurers who decide to veer into the forest to investigate some strange lights. They find a small shine inhabited by a old, wizened man in grey robes.
He greats the travelers and reveals to them, via a tarot card reading, an intriguing side quest: saving a demigoddess’ beloved companion, who was kidnapping by a lich named Ulsus Malachite and held in a bewitched hedge maze.
The party is a little apprehensive about contending against a lich, even if the undead fiend is in a weakened state, but the old man’s hint of priceless rewards for a successful rescue, including one heart’s desire, makes the endeavor seem worthwhile.
Of course, this maze will surely be full of terrible beasts and devious traps ready to destroy the unwary, but such is way of the adventurer. Will the party survive to claim the prize? And what exactly does the lich gain by this kidnapping? So many mysteries…
Stonehaven Adventurers 2017 by Stonehaven Miniatures
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 26th August 2017; 02:00 UTC)
We’re wrapping up this weeks column with a look at some miniatures. Reaper’s campaign for Bones 4 (which I’m hoping to cover in a later column) isn’t the only miniatures campaign around even if their Bones campaigns tend to be massive runaway successes. There are loads of other miniature campaigns on offer and many of them highly suitable for use with Roleplaying Games. An example of this is the current Stonehaven Adventurers 2017 campaign by Stonehaven Miniatures.
Stonehaven are producing a diverse range of 28mm miniatures suitable for your “role-playing, dungeon-crawling, dragon-slaying and tabletop wargaming” needs. On offer are a host of figures ranging from Human Male Wizard and Male Minotaur Fighter to Female Halfling Samurai and Female Human Squires. Not to mention characters such as the Grippli Rogue, Half-Dragon Spellblade, Half-Orc Warlord, Kitsune Fighter, Kobold Rogue, Dwarf Cannoneers, and a Clockwork Horse.
Each figure is given a ‘point value’ (ranging from 50 points upwards) and each pledge level gives you a set amount of points that you can spend to choose which figures you’d like to receive, from a base $5 ’50 point’ Pledge level up to a $90 ‘2000 point’ level or the $115 one of everything complete set.
**********
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
Spire RPG by Grant Howitt
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 17th August 2017; 13:03 UTC)
Join the dark elf resistance against their cruel high elf overlords!!!
You are a dark elf. The touch of the sun burns your grey skin, and you hide from the light in twisting corridors, crumbling temples and the lawless undercity of the metropolis known as Spire. The high elves, rulers of the city, alien and capricious, allow you to live here as an underclass forced to beg for scraps.
Your religion, your culture, and your people are being destroyed all around you. You have seen your fathers, your mothers, your grandparents subjugated by the high elves, and you have had enough. You have joined the resistance: the ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, worshippers of a forbidden goddess.
You have sworn in blood that the high elves will fall, that you will destroy them through subterfuge, and insurrection, and terror.
What Is The Spire?
Spire is a new stand-alone roleplaying game from the designers of Unbound and Goblin Quest. It’s like D&D crossed with Unknown Armies, or Gormenghast crossed with Necromunda: a city-bound fantasy horror game of terrible decisions, hard choices, and deeply personal loss.
Spire is a city of a thousand gods: Our Glorious Lady, the light of the moon, beloved of the drow (and her sisters, the dark side of the moon and the eclipse, whose worship is banned by the high elves); the Solar Pantheon, great and terrible, who dominate the city from glittering cathedrals; the ravenous Hungry Deep that slumbers beneath the city; the laughing carrion god Charnel, whose hyenas prowl the bloody streets of New Heaven. Worship of these gods can grant miracles to the faithful - player characters included.
It is a place of industry and profit: human retro-engineers arrive with armfuls of arcane technology dug up from forgotten dungeons of a lost civilisation, then hotwire them into life and sell cheap copies down in the lawless undercity. There are acres of underground lakes brimming with algae; dark farms where the dead hang from spidersilk, their bodies dotted with fungi; and the vast, cursed, never-completed Vermissian, a failed attempt at a subterranean travel network.
It is a place of horror, too: bloodwitches return from the Heart, the rotten hole in reality that is the centre of Spire, carrying mystical blood diseases that rewrite men’s minds; spider-skinned midwives sprout additional chitinous limbs to defend unborn drow; magic masks are sutured to unwilling faces; hearts are plucked out and stored in jars, so that the owner might have eternal, strange life at the hands of the Morticians.
HC SVNT DRACONES: Sound and Silence by Pierce Fraser
(Campaign Ends : Friday 11th August 2017; 18:23 UTC)
HC SVNT DRACONES RPG is a post-humanity roleplaying game where players take on the role of a Vector, a new species created near the end of human civilization that witnessed the demise of their fore-bearers and has struggled through 700 years to etch out a new existence for themselves in the galaxy.
Sound and Silence is the first setting guide. A ore book, full of beautiful artwork, expansive stories, and detailed information about the HSD setting and the roles players can embody there. For Guides, players, and fans alike, this book is the quintisential reference for culture, setting info, and history that didn't make it into the rulebooks.
The book is split into two parts… ‘Sound’ and ‘Silence’.
Sound is the name of the lore compendium intended for everyone’s use. It contains story ideas, descriptions of corp activity, layouts of cities, details on agent interaction so you can flavor your characters better, and a descriptions of unique grottos and universities for inclusion in your stories. Players and Guides can both go through this book without worry of spoiling anything in-game. Sound contains over 100 pages of content and is a great way to inspire people looking for character ideas for themselves of their NPCs.
Silence is the second half of the book, containing detailed accounts of many of the aspects left vague in the HSD core rulebook. Things like the origins of the Palemen, what’s going on with Earth, and who the Shadow Presidents are. It has large sections on the nature of Transcendent technology and what humanity actually found when they made use of Hydra. This book is primarily for Guides, to give them fun things to let the players discover through play. It’s about 100 pages long and includes stories and behind-the-scenes info that make for great hooks in large operations
Dark Obelisk: Druid Enclave (Pathfinder/5E RPG City Setting) by J. Evans Payne
(Campaign Ends : Monday 14th August 2017; 13:03 UTC)
Druid Enclave is over 300 pages of a richly detailed and lavishly map city setting created both Pathfinder and 5th Edition. It can be used in any campaign but will be of particular use to those playing in the Dark Obelisk series of adventures as the city can be used to expand those.
Over 100 full colour maps describing both overviews as well as zoomed in buildings and battlemats for both GMs and players are included along with dozens of NPCs such as citizens and council members, along with more than a dozen quests that can be explored.
Battle For The Purple Islands by Venger Satanis
(Campaign Ends : Friday 11th August 2017; 03:23 UTC)
Venger Satanis returns to his popular Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence OSR campaign setting for his latest adventure. The adventure is a 12-15 page PDF that’s a focused adventure involving various warring factions competing for dominance in a purple world gone mad… or is that a mad world gone purple?
You see, much of the dark forces reigning supreme over the purple islands were vanquished by adventuring heroes. They came, they saw, they slaughtered. A few years went by without incident. Everyone started coming to the islands after things quieted down - colonists, anthropologists, big game hunters, sightseeing tourists, etc. But then obscene purple blasphemies deep within the islands began to resurface.
Multiple entry-points for PCs will be provided. The following is the initial conflict...
A courier has raced halfway across the galaxy to send a holographic message to an old hermit living in a mountain cave infested by shadow shoggoths - it's time-sensitive, for his eyes only, and concerns the fate of the entire universe. Upon landing on the purple islands, the messenger was captured by militant talking apes. He managed to escape, but then fell into the hands of a cannibal tribe at the base of the mountain.
Befouled Maze of the Demi-Lich, 5e DnD Adventure Module by Wyrmkeep Entertainment
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 16th August 2017; 22:57 UTC)
Befouled Maze of the Demi-Lich is a 5th Edition adventure for character levels 10 to 12. The module is 16-20 in pages and covers over 12 encounter areas – plus a prologue and epilogue. A map of the Befouled Maze of the Demi-Lich is included along with three new open game content monsters and pre-generated characters which are ready to run if required.
Are you a gamemaster looking for an interesting and challenging adventure for your players that can be completed in one session? Well, I have just what you want: Befouled Maze of the Demi-Lich is a fantasy role-playing game mini-adventure module designed for a band of 6-8 5e DnD characters of 10th to 12th level.
A common saying among the wise is “Curiosity kills the rogue,” but sometimes interesting possibilities seek you out instead of the other way around. And so it is with a party of adventurers who decide to veer into the forest to investigate some strange lights. They find a small shine inhabited by a old, wizened man in grey robes.
He greats the travelers and reveals to them, via a tarot card reading, an intriguing side quest: saving a demigoddess’ beloved companion, who was kidnapping by a lich named Ulsus Malachite and held in a bewitched hedge maze.
The party is a little apprehensive about contending against a lich, even if the undead fiend is in a weakened state, but the old man’s hint of priceless rewards for a successful rescue, including one heart’s desire, makes the endeavor seem worthwhile.
Of course, this maze will surely be full of terrible beasts and devious traps ready to destroy the unwary, but such is way of the adventurer. Will the party survive to claim the prize? And what exactly does the lich gain by this kidnapping? So many mysteries…
Stonehaven Adventurers 2017 by Stonehaven Miniatures
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 26th August 2017; 02:00 UTC)
We’re wrapping up this weeks column with a look at some miniatures. Reaper’s campaign for Bones 4 (which I’m hoping to cover in a later column) isn’t the only miniatures campaign around even if their Bones campaigns tend to be massive runaway successes. There are loads of other miniature campaigns on offer and many of them highly suitable for use with Roleplaying Games. An example of this is the current Stonehaven Adventurers 2017 campaign by Stonehaven Miniatures.
Stonehaven are producing a diverse range of 28mm miniatures suitable for your “role-playing, dungeon-crawling, dragon-slaying and tabletop wargaming” needs. On offer are a host of figures ranging from Human Male Wizard and Male Minotaur Fighter to Female Halfling Samurai and Female Human Squires. Not to mention characters such as the Grippli Rogue, Half-Dragon Spellblade, Half-Orc Warlord, Kitsune Fighter, Kobold Rogue, Dwarf Cannoneers, and a Clockwork Horse.
Each figure is given a ‘point value’ (ranging from 50 points upwards) and each pledge level gives you a set amount of points that you can spend to choose which figures you’d like to receive, from a base $5 ’50 point’ Pledge level up to a $90 ‘2000 point’ level or the $115 one of everything complete set.
**********
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
