New Hobby Releases PDF Spotlight: 25th December 2017

Welcome to out latest 'New Releases' column. This week we're just showcasing the 'Role Playing Game PDF Spotlights' section of the column as most distributors are shut between Christmas and New Year so no new physical games will be hitting stores next week. We'll be back with the regular, full-sized, column next week to kick off the new year. I hope the column has helped you discover some new and exciting games over the last twelve months and continues to do so in 2018! Enjoy the holidays whatever you're up to and, without further ado, here are a selection of new PDF releases from the last week...


ROLE PLAYING GAMES PDF SPOTLIGHTS

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Vanagard
Core Rulebook
By Pendelhaven

Welcome to Vanagard.

It is the dawn of the universe and Yggdrasil, the tree of life, has given birth to new worlds awaiting exploration and discovery. Play as Freya's chosen- the Van-Folk, as they work together overcoming challenges in a brave new world.

Vanagard is a collaborative story-telling game for 2-6 players. The players take turns weaving a tale and presenting challenges to others at the game table. The Van-Folk can gain new skills, treasures and spells as they increase their fame and renown.

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The Great Rift
Traveller Supplement
By Mongoose Publishing

The Last Great Unknown in Charted Space

Only the boldest dare venture into the depths of the Great Rift, crossing the abyss of empty space to find unexplored star systems and forgotten wonders. Deep in the Great Rift lie ancient mysteries, strange alien races and human cultures who have not seen offworld contact in centuries. Portside rumours speak of giant creatures capable of interstellar flight, and of starship wrecks belonging to no known race.

From the cold war of the Islands Cluster to the isolation of the Boulderfield, the Great Rift is a place of varied and insidious danger. A miscalculated jump means a slow death in deep space – yet Travellers are willing to take the risk.

What awaits the intrepid voyager who finds an undiscovered star system or deep-space object? What secrets lie within the Great Rift, hidden in the vast emptiness or forgotten by ordinary starfarers? There are great risks here, it is true, but with them comes the chance to be the first people in history to stand on a new world and gaze upon what no-one else has ever seen.

Inside this set you will find:

Book 1: The Great Rift – A Traveller’s guide to the Great Rift, how to traverse it, and explorations of Corridor sector and the Riftspan Reaches.

Book 2: Touchstone & Afawahisa – Continue exploring deeper into the Great Rift with Afawahisa and Touchstone sectors.

Book 3: Reft – The worlds and peoples of the most populated sector of the Great Rift.

Book 4: Deep Space Exploration Handbook – What is beyond Charted Space in the cold void of the Great Rift? Push further into the night with this guide to deep space phenomena and the spacecraft that traverse it.

Plus three giant double-sided posters illustrating the sectors of the Great Rift and the mysterious Phobetor system.

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New Paths Compendium – Expanded Edition
Pathfinder Supplement
By Kobold Press

Choose Your Path!

Shadows are falling across the land: monstrous things stir in the depths, schemers spin their plots in the towers of the powerful, and unholy threats rise from the grave to menace the living. It’s an age of terrors and wonders…and heroes!

This expanded, hardcover edition of the New Paths Compendium gives you all-new options to create your new favorite character. You’ll find 12 new and expanded Pathfinder RPG classes from level 1 through 20—plus feats, spells, archetypes, and resources to build and play a character to challenge anything the GM throws at it!

The expanded New Paths Compendium includes:​


  • [*=center]All-new Warlock, Tinkerer, Priest, and Trickster base classes, with favored class options for all classes
    [*=center]Totally revamped Savant and Archer classes
    [*=center]Death feats, available to heroes who have been raised from the dead
    [*=center]New battle feats and new spells
    [*=center]And much more!

There’s a big world of adventure and peril out there – make a hero that it won’t soon forget!

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Dawning Star: Fate of Eos
Fate Rulebook
By Blue Devil Games

A full re-imagining of the critically acclaimed Dawning Star setting, using the Fate System rules. Fate of Eos advances the Fate rules to with a bit more crunch to serve as a sort-of bridge from the original d20-based setting to this new version.

The book includes a full history of Dawning Star including recent events along with rules for character creation (including making your own species), tech, and the mysterious psionic phenomenon known as Red Truth. It features dozens of new skills, stunts, and more, and offers entirely new ways to use Fate, such as a more robust damage system new kinds of aspects.

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Gamemaster Screen & Player References
Star Trek Adventures Accessory
By Modiphius Entertainment

The official Star Trek Adventures Gamemaster Screen is a PDF of a three panel screen to help power your Star Trek missions. The exterior features beautiful rendered artwork of Starfleet vessels and Romulan cruisers, while the inside cover contains useful rules references, tables, charts and random generators for Gamemasters so the 2d20 system is at your fingertips!

The PDF Gamemaster screen contains:
• Beautiful artwork for a 3 outer facing panel screen.
• Rules references for Task Difficulty, Momentum spends, Conflict tasks, and Non-Player Character special rules.
• PDF Reference tables for weapons, damage, and NPC crews.
• PDF reference sheets for bridge positions on one side and player aids on the other side.
• Reference tables come in both white on black and black on versions for ease of reading.

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Legendary Brawlers
Pathfinder Supplement
By Legendary Games

Join the Fight Club!

Strap on your brass knuckles; Legendary Brawlers takes the brawler class to new heights of versatility than ever before with its incredible array of options. The whopping fifteen archetypes will bring the battle to the foes in ways they would never expect: turn magic wands and bags of treasure into deadly tools of melee combat as a lethal study or a sumpter, extend the reach of your brawler's flurry as a combat sibyl, dance on the wind as a fleetfoot, send enemies flying as a knocker, and more! Brawler arts expand your combat options even further, providing alternate specialty moves to knockouts and awesome blows, and a host of new feats and magic items will help refine your pugilistic prowess. And if that's not enough to slake your thirst for battle, you can explore the potential of the urban aggressor prestige class or run the brawler alongside another favorite class as a variant multiclassing option! Finally, the book shows off two unique NPCs in the form of Edelhyde Slagg and Witt the Rimetailed, a duo of bitter rivals that can be added to your campaign, allowing your players to side with either brawler in their efforts to best their foe. Pick up this 36-page expansion to your Pathfinder campaign today and Make Your Game Legendary!

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Ex Astoria
Cthulhu Confidential Adventure
By Pelgrane Press

Bone-chilling L.A. Mythos Noir from the Newsfiles of Vivian Sinclair

You are Vivian Sinclair: a sharp-dressing, straight-talking, New York investigative journalist. Equipped with your smarts, your notebook, and your unerring nose for a good story, your job is to scour the streets of the City of Dreams and dig up its darkest secrets.

A brawl between picketers from the miner’s union and scab laborers working on the Winn Water Tunnel has turned into a riot, and Vivian Sinclair is on the scene reporting. But it seems the scab workers are the least of the miners’ concerns. Can Viv prevent further injuries and an environmental disaster?

Ex Astoria is the fifth adventure for Cthulhu Confidential. This one-GM, one-player RPG drops your hero into a noir nightscape where, beneath the merely human corruption, an eternal evil lurks: the malign, cosmic indifference of HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos!

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W20 Changing Ways
Werewolf: The Apocalypse Supplement
By Onyx Path Publishing

The Garou Nature
The Garou are warriors of Gaia. Part human, part wolf, and part spirit they look like what humans think of as werewolves but are so much more. Though most come into the world as humans or wolves, that state does not last. Wolf-born gain a spark of human intelligence after their Change, while those born to humans must cope with the instincts of a hunter, and the burning need to be part of a pack. Those poor wretches born to two werewolves grow up never knowing any different, and that leaves them with a unique outlook on the world. Beyond their fluid bodies and warrior’s minds, each Garou has the blessings of the spirit world that empowers their fight for Gaia.

Red in Tooth and Claw
Changing Ways is an in-depth look at what it means to be a werewolf, both on a personal level and as part of a pack. It digs deep into what it feels like to have bones re-knit after breaking, the range of senses available across all forms, and the sudden heady rush of the Gifts and Rites bestowed by spirits. It also provides a look at what life is like for lupus and metis werewolves, characters who have had experiences alien to any person. It shows the many ways that werewolves organize in packs, and how those packs are designed as groups of warriors, rather than aligned to the behavior of wolves.

Changing Ways contains:​


  • [*=center]A detailed look at what it means to grow up as a lupus or metis werewolf, and how that colors a character’s perspective.
    [*=center]More information on what it feels like to be a werewolf, a creature that changes in both body and mind.
    [*=center]Frameworks and organizations for packs, along with new tactics and systems for forging the pack as part of play.

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London or The Haunted City
1879 Sourcebook
By FASA

This volume describes the London of 1879's alternate history in massive detail. From the gambling dens and brothels of the East End, to the manufactories along the Thames, to the elegant shops of the high street and the fashionable residences of the West End, the great metropolis is laid out ready for exploration and adventure. The inner workings of British politics, the secrets of the Research and Development departments, and the machinations of the secret societies are laid out for the enterprising gamemaster to inflict upon their players. With this book, one could run an extensive campaign in the 1879 game world without ever leaving the Great Smoke!

1879 is a roleplaying game set in the late Victorian era of an alternate history, with low-level magic, high-level adventure, and vast possibilities as the Age of Steam gives way to the Age of Electricity. London, or The Haunted City, is the first gazetteer volume, detailing the home of the Rabbit Hole and the capital of the British Empire. Geography walks through every borough and provides game-ready locations and Adventure Hooks. Transportation covers not only how you get around in London, but how The Knowledge works. Communications deals with telegraphy, the Royal Mail, how the post and trains work together, and that new-fangled telephone device. Politics describes the governance of the British Empire, one of the primary industries in London. Everybody keeps track of the Royal Family, so there's a bit of a writeup on them in here. Criminals doesn't just talk about types of crime endemic to London. It discusses the law in relation to the sorts of activities player characters are likely to get up to. Further chapters include History, Business, Culture, and Magic. At the end is a complete adventure, Baby Boojum, in which a kidnapping goes hysterically wrong.

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Festivals & High Holy Days
Pathfinder/d20 Supplement
By Skirmisher Publishing

Every calendar is peppered with holidays and annual causes for celebration. From local village festivals to grand revels that consume empires, no campaign setting is complete without holidays to mark the passage of time with jubilation and ritual observance. In addition to adding greater realism and flavor to campaign, holidays also offer unique benefits to adventurers who celebrate during downtime or take a break from their quests to get into the spirit of the season.

"Festivals & High Holy Days" contains entries for a dozen holidays and details on how to use them in role-playing games, to include the benefits they can bestow upon those participating in them.

This mini-sourcebook has been specifically designed for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game but can be used with any OGL-based game pretty much as-is and easily adapted to any related or successor systems.

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Seven Years of Fantasy Weather Volume 2: The Iceland of the Sagas
5E/OSR/Generic Supplement
By Campion & Clitherow

Adding weather to your fantasy adventure game campaign can be fun, but most systems are either too simple to be satisfying or too complicated to be practical. SEVEN YEARS of FANTASY WEATHER gives you seven years of realistic weather for 2556 days. Each twelve-hour day or evening entry includes information on temperature (in Celcius and Fahrenheit) weather events - fog, thunderstorm, blizzard, etc. - amount of rainfall/snowfall, occurrence or possibility of lightning, wind speed, wind direction, phases of the moon, effect on movement rates and chance of getting lost. It's an almanac for the fantasy gamer. No more annoying die rolling or consulting an app or online program to generate a random or patternless result. With FANTASY WEATHER you can see all of it at a glance. Whether you're using Dungeons & Dragons 5e, an OSR retro-clone or any other current or past game or mechanic, this is the last word on weather for your roleplaying needs, This second volume simulates the weather patterns of Medieval Iceland and the climate described in the Sagas. Good travels! May the wind be always at your back!

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GURPS Spaceships
GURPS Supplement
By Steve Jackson Games

GURPS Spaceships is the long-awaited companion to GURPS Space, presenting rules for TL7-12 spacecraft, from tiny lifeboats to giant dreadnoughts. It covers spaceship design, travel, and operations, along with a (mapless) space combat system.

The ship design and operation rules in GURPS Spaceships are more abstract than those found in GURPS Vehicle Design or GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars . . . but they're much faster, with a minimum of math and a maximum of colorful options. It takes only minutes to build even the largest spaceship . . . and wrapped around the design system are basic space travel and combat systems to get you into space right away.

GURPS Spaceships doesn't include detailed finance, trade, or hex-grid based combat rules . . . but these are on the way! It's the core book in a series whose other volumes will present examples of ready-to-use spacecraft and comprehensive rules for commercial space flight, warfare, exploration, ports, industry, and other aspects of space travel.

GURPS Spaceships requires only the GURPS Basic Set, but GURPS Space is highly recommended for its guidelines on stardrives, characters, campaigns, and settings.​


Please note: Some of the links in the post above may be “affiliate links”. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item the author of this post will receive an affiliate commission.
 

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