Welcome to the Bundles, Freebies, and Sales News, the weekly column at EN World that helps make sure you don’t miss out on big tabletop RPG bundles, charity fundraisers, and sales from around the internet.
Freebies and Pay What You Want
Note: While “Pay What You Want” downloads are available for free, please support the creators if you are able!
Starting out on Itch.io, Alton “Sir Chicken” Wayne released There’s Treasure Hidden in Snake Head Cave, an adventure for the Challengers of Vanth “gonzo science” setting for MÖRK BORG. Old map, buried treasure, monster catacombs, yadda yadda, you read the title and the system, you know exactly what to expect.
Over on DriveThruRPG, Ubique Publications posted Welcome to Grimsbury: Player’s Guide, a roleplaying game of English folk horror. Think The Wicker Man (either the original or the NOT THE BEES! remake), classic Doctor Who, Children of the Stone, and the like. There’s also a Spotify playlist to set the mood and a Discord server to find players and games.
Modiphius released a quickstart for Out of the Ashes, a post-apocalyptic fantasy RPG set after the Great War and the good guys won, but left a world broken and corrupted from the battle. The system is an evolution of the Liminal RPG from Paul Mitchener which was originally Kickstarted back in February 2021.
For players of Hunter: The Reckoning, we have the setting book Caldene detailing a small town in Alberta, Canada, by Blake Ryan. The book can also be converted for use in Hunter: The Vigil, Mage: The Ascension, or Werewolf: The Apocalypse or used for any cold or sub-arctic area.
Old School Role Playing released a new adventure for the Cepheus Engine (the system that powers Traveller), All That Glitters is Gold. The players are sent after a criminal hiding on a desert planet by a respectable looking woman willing to pay well for his arrest (or corpse), but they’re going to have to work to earn their bounty.
And if you want a sci-fi adventure but can never find one for your system of choice, Raymond Towers has a system-agnostic adventure Non-Retrieval. The mission seems simple enough – bring the squad of Space Marines to the outpost, discover why it went silent, and come home. Of course, it’s never that easy, especially when your transport vanishes stranding you on the alien planet.
Over on DM’s Guild, Glenn Huston gives us a third level adventure called Shrine Stalker. The party must deal with a creature ambushing people at a nearby forest shrine.
Bards are the artists of the D&D classes, and Guilherme Zorzon has a new take on the class that explores that with the College of Brushes. You see everything as a blank canvas waiting to be shaped by pattern and shape, translating this ability into controlling the battlefield.
Gnomes rarely get much love, and John Beardify looks to remedy that with The Book of Gnomes featuring five new gnome subraces to bring more variety to the secret world of the gnomes.
The quintessential classic adventure for Dungeons & Dragons is B2: Keep on the Borderlands originally included with the Red Box. David Sweet has updated the adventure for 5e with B2R: Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, an adventure covering level 1-3 with a full map of the infamous Keep along with the monster-filled Caves of Chaos.
I know spooky season is over and many would find this counts, but Fayeloft has a new full player class for 5e in The Clown. There are also three full subclasses including the Circus Clown, Rodeo Clown, and Mime.
Bundles and Sales
Note: I have included end dates when listed for the following sales, but please be warned that those without published end dates may end suddenly so be sure to plan purchases accordingly.
Because this column goes out on Sundays, there are likely to be a lot of big sales next weekend as Black Friday starts, so keep an eye on sites like Amazon for big discounts on RPG products.
9th Level Games has their Thanksgiving Sale 2022 running on itch.io. The sale includes ten RPGs individually or as a bundle featuring Kobolds Ate My Baby!, Savage Sisters, Mazes Fantasy Roleplaying, Rebel Scum, and more.
Bloat Games collected the Hack the RPG Games Bundle. Rather than a typical generic RPG, Hack the RPG is designs specifically to make it easy and fun to create your own roleplaying game using a fast, loose set of rules from a combination of Black Hack and The Blackest of Death Game System. The bundle comes with the core rules along with three example RPGs made with the system ranging from urban fantasy to pulp tomb-diving adventure to 80s cartoons.
Rosethrone Publishing put together a collection for the adventure A Shadow Over the Greatwood for the Swords & Wizardry system along with accessories to help run it. The adventure itself is a sandbox adventure for level 5-7 characters as wild animals start encroaching on human civilizations bringing fears of what lurks in the forest to drive them out. The bundle also includes a three maps of the area annotated for GMs, for players, and an unlabeled map.
Charity Bundles and Sales
Hey, this company seems familiar… EN Publishing has a bundle on Bundle of Holding for Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition! From the publishing arm of EN World, this bundle includes the three core rulebooks for Level Up – Adventurer’s Guide, Trials & Treasures, and Monstrous Menagerie in PDF format along with the introductory adventure Memories of Holdenshire, the Narrator’s Screen, and the introductory issue of the official Level Up zine, Gate Pass Gazette #0.
Bundle of Holding and Mongoose have two bundles for the science fiction roleplaying game Traveller. The first bundle features the Traveller Core Rules 2022 along with two sector sourcebooks, Behind the Claw and Sword Worlds, and a bonus collection that adds on eight additional sourcebooks and adventures.
If that’s not enough Traveller for you, the second bundle is the Traveller Great Riftv featuring the 402-page setting book The Great Rift and the 320-page campaign book set there, Deepnight Revelation. The bonus collection adds on an additional nine adventures and sourcebooks.
Green Ronin Publishing and Bundle of Holding have a super bundle for you with the Mutants & Masterminds Earth-Prime Bundle. I apologize, that pun was beneath me. Anyway, the Starter Collection features the Basic Hero’s Handbook stripped-down core rules along with the Rogues Gallery collection of supervillains and the campaign setting Freedom City. The bonus collection adds on the full Deluxe Hero’s Handbook, the Atlas of Earth-Prime gazetteer, and the teen superhero sourcebook Hero High.
And if you want to power up your Mutants & Masterminds game (seriously, I’m so sorry, I can’t stop myself), we also have the Mutants Power-Up Bundle featuring the Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition Deluxe Gamemaster’s Guide, the Superteam Handbook, and the sourcebook Time Traveler’s Codex.
Pelgrane Press and Bundle of Holding collected a bundle for Cthulhu Confidential, the GUMSHOE One-2-One duet play system for noir horror investigation. The Starter Collection features the Cthulhu Confidential core rules plus the adventures The Howling Fog, The House Up in the Hills, and One for the Money while the Bonus Collection switches from noir mystery into espionage with Night’s Black Agent: Solo Ops along with four more adventures.
Long time readers will know how much I love BattleTech, so I’m thrilled to talk about the Introduction to BattleTech Bundle from Catalyst Game Labs and Humble Bundle. The first tier includes the BattleTech Primer set of introductory rules, the Alpha Strike alternate rules system for streamlined and faster combat, and the BattleMech Manual of technology and ‘Mech building rules. The second tier adds on several campaign sourcebooks and Technical Readouts with new BattleMechs along with the Total Warfare complete rules system for BattleTech, the third tier is a full library of sourcebooks, campaign books, Technical Readouts, faction books, and more while the top level adds on a physical copy of the BattleTech Beginner Box featuring two miniature BattleMech, double-sided poster map, punchboard tokens for other ‘Mechs and terrain, and everything else you need to get started in the wargame of 31st century tactical giant robot combat.
Twin Sails Interactive has a bundle full of digital board games and DLC expansions based on tabletop board games. The highest-tier features a total of 37 Steam codes for Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Splendor, Smallworld, Game of Thrones: The Board Game, Blood Rage, and Mysterium along with expansions to add more options to the games.
If the offerings above in the previous sections weren’t enough maps for you, Humble Bundle collected a huge bundle of maps ready for your favorite VTT with the Virtual Maps: Caves, Camps, and Crypts Bundle. There are three levels with 5, 16, and a whopping 64 separate collections of maps, icons, props, terrain, and more all of them ready to be imported into your favorite virtual tabletop.
The Give the Gift of Pathfinder and Starfinder bundle from Paizo and Humble Bundle has been extended! The base level gets you digital copies of the beginner boxes for Pathfinder 2nd Edition and Starfinder along with a selection of adventures, the second tier adds on the Pathfinder 2e Core Rulebook and Bestiary, the Starfinder Core Rulebook and Alien Archive, and even more adventures with select flip maps, the third tier is a full 41-item library of books for both systems, and the top-tier level adds on the physical edition of the Pathfinder Second Edition Beginner Box (shipping extra).
That’s all for this week! If you know of any bundles or sales starting soon, please contact me on the EN World Discord or send me a message here on EN World. Discount percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number and are based on the standard retail price provided by the site. Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, Fantasy Grounds, and/or DriveThruRPG may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
Freebies and Pay What You Want
Note: While “Pay What You Want” downloads are available for free, please support the creators if you are able!
Starting out on Itch.io, Alton “Sir Chicken” Wayne released There’s Treasure Hidden in Snake Head Cave, an adventure for the Challengers of Vanth “gonzo science” setting for MÖRK BORG. Old map, buried treasure, monster catacombs, yadda yadda, you read the title and the system, you know exactly what to expect.
- Price: Free
Over on DriveThruRPG, Ubique Publications posted Welcome to Grimsbury: Player’s Guide, a roleplaying game of English folk horror. Think The Wicker Man (either the original or the NOT THE BEES! remake), classic Doctor Who, Children of the Stone, and the like. There’s also a Spotify playlist to set the mood and a Discord server to find players and games.
- Price: Free
Modiphius released a quickstart for Out of the Ashes, a post-apocalyptic fantasy RPG set after the Great War and the good guys won, but left a world broken and corrupted from the battle. The system is an evolution of the Liminal RPG from Paul Mitchener which was originally Kickstarted back in February 2021.
- Price: Free
For players of Hunter: The Reckoning, we have the setting book Caldene detailing a small town in Alberta, Canada, by Blake Ryan. The book can also be converted for use in Hunter: The Vigil, Mage: The Ascension, or Werewolf: The Apocalypse or used for any cold or sub-arctic area.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $1.00)
Old School Role Playing released a new adventure for the Cepheus Engine (the system that powers Traveller), All That Glitters is Gold. The players are sent after a criminal hiding on a desert planet by a respectable looking woman willing to pay well for his arrest (or corpse), but they’re going to have to work to earn their bounty.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $3.00)
And if you want a sci-fi adventure but can never find one for your system of choice, Raymond Towers has a system-agnostic adventure Non-Retrieval. The mission seems simple enough – bring the squad of Space Marines to the outpost, discover why it went silent, and come home. Of course, it’s never that easy, especially when your transport vanishes stranding you on the alien planet.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $1.00)
Over on DM’s Guild, Glenn Huston gives us a third level adventure called Shrine Stalker. The party must deal with a creature ambushing people at a nearby forest shrine.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $0.50)
Bards are the artists of the D&D classes, and Guilherme Zorzon has a new take on the class that explores that with the College of Brushes. You see everything as a blank canvas waiting to be shaped by pattern and shape, translating this ability into controlling the battlefield.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $0.50)
Gnomes rarely get much love, and John Beardify looks to remedy that with The Book of Gnomes featuring five new gnome subraces to bring more variety to the secret world of the gnomes.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $5.16)
The quintessential classic adventure for Dungeons & Dragons is B2: Keep on the Borderlands originally included with the Red Box. David Sweet has updated the adventure for 5e with B2R: Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, an adventure covering level 1-3 with a full map of the infamous Keep along with the monster-filled Caves of Chaos.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $4.95)
I know spooky season is over and many would find this counts, but Fayeloft has a new full player class for 5e in The Clown. There are also three full subclasses including the Circus Clown, Rodeo Clown, and Mime.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $3.00)
Bundles and Sales
Note: I have included end dates when listed for the following sales, but please be warned that those without published end dates may end suddenly so be sure to plan purchases accordingly.
Because this column goes out on Sundays, there are likely to be a lot of big sales next weekend as Black Friday starts, so keep an eye on sites like Amazon for big discounts on RPG products.
9th Level Games has their Thanksgiving Sale 2022 running on itch.io. The sale includes ten RPGs individually or as a bundle featuring Kobolds Ate My Baby!, Savage Sisters, Mazes Fantasy Roleplaying, Rebel Scum, and more.
- Price: 20% off
- End Date: November 25, 2022
Bloat Games collected the Hack the RPG Games Bundle. Rather than a typical generic RPG, Hack the RPG is designs specifically to make it easy and fun to create your own roleplaying game using a fast, loose set of rules from a combination of Black Hack and The Blackest of Death Game System. The bundle comes with the core rules along with three example RPGs made with the system ranging from urban fantasy to pulp tomb-diving adventure to 80s cartoons.
- Price: $9.99 (44% off)
Rosethrone Publishing put together a collection for the adventure A Shadow Over the Greatwood for the Swords & Wizardry system along with accessories to help run it. The adventure itself is a sandbox adventure for level 5-7 characters as wild animals start encroaching on human civilizations bringing fears of what lurks in the forest to drive them out. The bundle also includes a three maps of the area annotated for GMs, for players, and an unlabeled map.
- Price: $1.99 (64% off)
Charity Bundles and Sales
Hey, this company seems familiar… EN Publishing has a bundle on Bundle of Holding for Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition! From the publishing arm of EN World, this bundle includes the three core rulebooks for Level Up – Adventurer’s Guide, Trials & Treasures, and Monstrous Menagerie in PDF format along with the introductory adventure Memories of Holdenshire, the Narrator’s Screen, and the introductory issue of the official Level Up zine, Gate Pass Gazette #0.
- Price: $24.95 (76% off)
- End Date: December 6, 2022
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
Bundle of Holding and Mongoose have two bundles for the science fiction roleplaying game Traveller. The first bundle features the Traveller Core Rules 2022 along with two sector sourcebooks, Behind the Claw and Sword Worlds, and a bonus collection that adds on eight additional sourcebooks and adventures.
- Price: $12.95 (87% off) with variable-cost Level Up option
- End Date: November 28, 2022
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
If that’s not enough Traveller for you, the second bundle is the Traveller Great Riftv featuring the 402-page setting book The Great Rift and the 320-page campaign book set there, Deepnight Revelation. The bonus collection adds on an additional nine adventures and sourcebooks.
- Price: $9.95 (88% off) with variable-cost Level Up option
- End Date: November 28, 2022
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
Green Ronin Publishing and Bundle of Holding have a super bundle for you with the Mutants & Masterminds Earth-Prime Bundle. I apologize, that pun was beneath me. Anyway, the Starter Collection features the Basic Hero’s Handbook stripped-down core rules along with the Rogues Gallery collection of supervillains and the campaign setting Freedom City. The bonus collection adds on the full Deluxe Hero’s Handbook, the Atlas of Earth-Prime gazetteer, and the teen superhero sourcebook Hero High.
- Price: $14.95 (75% off) with variable-cost Level Up option
- End Date: November 21, 2022
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
And if you want to power up your Mutants & Masterminds game (seriously, I’m so sorry, I can’t stop myself), we also have the Mutants Power-Up Bundle featuring the Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition Deluxe Gamemaster’s Guide, the Superteam Handbook, and the sourcebook Time Traveler’s Codex.
- Price: $14.95 (77% off)
- End Date: November 21, 2022
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
Pelgrane Press and Bundle of Holding collected a bundle for Cthulhu Confidential, the GUMSHOE One-2-One duet play system for noir horror investigation. The Starter Collection features the Cthulhu Confidential core rules plus the adventures The Howling Fog, The House Up in the Hills, and One for the Money while the Bonus Collection switches from noir mystery into espionage with Night’s Black Agent: Solo Ops along with four more adventures.
- Price: $12.95 (72% off) with variable-cost Level Up option
- End Date: November 24, 2022
- Charity: Cochrane Reports (10%)
Long time readers will know how much I love BattleTech, so I’m thrilled to talk about the Introduction to BattleTech Bundle from Catalyst Game Labs and Humble Bundle. The first tier includes the BattleTech Primer set of introductory rules, the Alpha Strike alternate rules system for streamlined and faster combat, and the BattleMech Manual of technology and ‘Mech building rules. The second tier adds on several campaign sourcebooks and Technical Readouts with new BattleMechs along with the Total Warfare complete rules system for BattleTech, the third tier is a full library of sourcebooks, campaign books, Technical Readouts, faction books, and more while the top level adds on a physical copy of the BattleTech Beginner Box featuring two miniature BattleMech, double-sided poster map, punchboard tokens for other ‘Mechs and terrain, and everything else you need to get started in the wargame of 31st century tactical giant robot combat.
- Price: $1/$10/$18/$30 (91% off at top tier)
- End Date: December 3, 2022
- Charity: Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society (user-defined, default 5%)
Twin Sails Interactive has a bundle full of digital board games and DLC expansions based on tabletop board games. The highest-tier features a total of 37 Steam codes for Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Splendor, Smallworld, Game of Thrones: The Board Game, Blood Rage, and Mysterium along with expansions to add more options to the games.
- Price: $6/$12/$15 (92% off at top tier)
- End Date: November 25, 2022
- Charity: Worldbuilders
If the offerings above in the previous sections weren’t enough maps for you, Humble Bundle collected a huge bundle of maps ready for your favorite VTT with the Virtual Maps: Caves, Camps, and Crypts Bundle. There are three levels with 5, 16, and a whopping 64 separate collections of maps, icons, props, terrain, and more all of them ready to be imported into your favorite virtual tabletop.
- Price: $1/$10/$18 (95% off at top tier)
- End Date: November 24, 2022
- Charity: Navy-Marine Cops Relief Society (user-defined, default 5%)
The Give the Gift of Pathfinder and Starfinder bundle from Paizo and Humble Bundle has been extended! The base level gets you digital copies of the beginner boxes for Pathfinder 2nd Edition and Starfinder along with a selection of adventures, the second tier adds on the Pathfinder 2e Core Rulebook and Bestiary, the Starfinder Core Rulebook and Alien Archive, and even more adventures with select flip maps, the third tier is a full 41-item library of books for both systems, and the top-tier level adds on the physical edition of the Pathfinder Second Edition Beginner Box (shipping extra).
- Price: $5/$15/$25/$45 (91% off at top tier)
- End Date: November 31, 2022
- Charity: The Carl Brandon Society
That’s all for this week! If you know of any bundles or sales starting soon, please contact me on the EN World Discord or send me a message here on EN World. Discount percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number and are based on the standard retail price provided by the site. Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, Fantasy Grounds, and/or DriveThruRPG may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
