Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! New DM’s Guild products to benefit Extra Life plus more classic Eberron books to go with the big sale on DM’s Guild to celebrate the release of Eberron: Rising from the Last War whose table of contents we’ve now seen and teases for new products in 2020 and that’s JUST the D&D news this week! There’s a LOT more from Paizo, Fantasy Flight, EN Publishing, WizKids, and more!
Wizards of the Coast has been busy with Extra Life releases this week with two new downloads available with proceeds going to charity. The first is the Infernal Font from Descent into Avernus. Not much to say, but this is an actual font file and not just a PDF of the font so you can use it like any other font. The license terms allow for both non-commercial personal use and use on commercial products distributed by the Dungeon Master’s Guild, so it’s almost a must-have for any DM’s Guild creators. The zip file containing the font is available for $10.
The second offering is a 111-page adventure for characters of 5th to 10th level, Infernal Machine Rebuild. From the description: “A fallen clock tower holds components from an ancient artifact. Upon discovery of the components, competing agents look to launch expeditions to uncover additional components scattered across distant places—and times. The now-lost Temple of Moloch and the construction site of the legendary Tomb of Horrors are two of those locations. However great the risks, finding the components demands the effort, for whoever does so can reassemble the fabled Infernal Machine of Lum the Mad!” The PDF is available for $9.99 with proceeds going to Extra Life.
The table of contents for Eberron: Rising from the Last War has been posted by NewbieDM on Twitter. After a fifteen-page introductory prologue, the first chapter is Character Creation which takes up over 80 pages and has rules for Changelings, Dragonborn, Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Goblinoids, Half-Elves, Halflings, Humans, Kalashtar, Orcs and Half-Orcs, Shifters, Tieflings, and Warforged plus sixteen pages on Dragonmarks, ten pages on the Artificer class, and almost forty pages on Group Patrons. Chapter Two is the Khorvaire Gazetteer taking up almost fifty pages and Chapter Three is on Sharn, City of Towers and is almost thirty pages. The rest of the book is taken up by information for running games in Eberron with Chapter Four: Building Eberron Adventures taking up 77 pages along with fifteen page adventure “Forgotten Relics, Chapter Five: Treasures is eight pages of magic items, and Chapter Six: Friends and Foes appears to take up the rest of the book with at least fifty pages of monsters and NPCs. The hardcover Eberron: Rising from the Last War will be available this Tuesday, November 19, with a retail price of $49.95.
If that’s not enough Eberron for you, a lot of classic sourcebooks and adventures have been added to the DM’s Guild and there’s even a pair of bundles to pick them up cheap. The Eberron Setting bundle includes the 3rd Edition book Eberron Campaign Setting and the 3.5e books Player’s Guide to Eberron, Eberron: Sharn, City of Towers, Eberron: The Forge of War, and Eberron: Five Nations for $19.95 (normally $69.95). The Eberron Adventure Bundle has the 3.5e adventures Eyes of the Lich Queen, Grasp of the Emerald Claw, Voyage of the Golden Dragon, Whispers of the Vampire’s Blade, and Shadows of the Last War for $9.95 (a $34.95 value). Additionally, DriveThruRPG has a sale for all other Eberron books available for 20% or more off running until November 25.
We’re not done with Dungeons & Dragons yet as Chris Perkins teased an upcoming product for 2020. In the tweet, Chris says “If you like Curse of Strahd, I think you’re going to love the thing I’m currently working on for 2020. #wotcstaff” Of course, speculation runs from a sequel with Count Strahd von Zorovich, a similar book featuring a Dark Lord like Azalin Rex, a full-on Ravenloft sourcebook, or simply another book focused on a major villain like Vecna or Lord Soth. Either way, any official announcement will likely come during the big spring streaming event (which also has not yet been officially announced).
Speaking of teasing future products, the Spoilers & Swag live stream revealed our first look at Gem Dragons for 5e, the Neutral relatives of the Evil Chromatic Dragons and Good Metallic Dragons. There’s no specific announcement yet as to where the Gem Dragons will show up, but Nathan Stewart states it will be “early in 2020, where we will have some fun ways to get that out there.”
So why announce Gem Dragons all of a sudden if they’re not announcing what book they’ll be in? Well to preview the sapphire adult dragon to go along with the new D&D Sapphire Anniversary Dice Set which includes eleven sapphire dice. Not entirely sapphire, though, as the dice will be made of aluminum but will feature a lab-grown sapphire into the dice and specially balanced to the gem will not affect the randomness of rolls. The set will be limited to only 1974 sets (the year of D&D’s first publication) and retail for $299.99. The dice will only be available directly from Wizards of the Coast with orders opening at 11:00 AM Pacific Time on Thursday, November 21. In case anyone was hunting for a stocking stuffer to pick up for me.
The Starfinder Character Operations Manual is in the middle of release, so it’s time for the final preview from the book, this one on downtime activities. Not just for roleplay anymore, the downtime activities have real in-game benefits like manage course to reduce travel time, maintain readiness for an initiative bonus for space encounters, and even lounging will give you a morale bonus. In case you missed any of the other previews, Paizo has also conveniently collected them all plus links to the live streams covering the book. The Starfinder Character Operations Manual is available now in PDF, should be arriving in game stores soon, and has a mass-market release date of November 26 with a retail price of $39.99.
Remember that really cool Cursed Earth map for Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD previewed a few weeks ago? You can now get it as a poster! The Cursed Earth Poster Map is a full-color A2 size poster (which is just about 24” by 16” for my fellow Americans) available for £14.99 (about US$19) and currently on sale for only £12.99 (about US$17) plus shipping. You can also pre-order Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD: The Cursed Earth in softcover and PDF from EN Publishing. Disclosure: EN Publishing is the RPG publishing arm of EN World.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week, we’ve had a slew of reviews and other news items!
Cubicle 7 released new art previews for the revamped Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory. The post, in addition to the above image from artist Mark Gibbons, also gives our first peek at the progress on the updated version of the game since Cubicle 7 took over management of the line. From the post: “This is just one of the many amazing pieces of art in our upcoming Rulebook. We are making great progress on the PDF – the whole team are dedicated to completing the best quality product we possibly can. We will share more on its release as soon as its possible to do so. We really do appreciate your patience. Until then, may the Emperor protect you!”
WizKids announced for the pre-painted D&D Icons of the Realms: Descent into Avernus line with the Arkhan the Cruel and The Dark Order pack. The character of Arkhan the Cruel was created by Joe Manganiello and has appeared on live streams including Critical Role and Force Grey. The new miniature line features six figures designed by Manganiello including Arkhan, his bodyguard Torogar Steelfist, Death Cleric Krull, one of Arkhan’s Berserkers, a White Abishai, and Arkhan’s pet manticore Chango. The set will hit store shelves in March of 2020 with a retail price of $39.99.
Also due out in March 2020 are more unpainted miniatures for the Dungeons & Dragons Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures including several new dragons and dragonborn, monster packs featuring slaads, satyrs, wolves, ettins, and more, several undead and shapechangers including liches, mummies, beholder zombies, death dogs, doppelgangers, wererats, weretigers, and more, and several player character minis for new race and class combinations with low-level and high-level variants. The miniatures will be available for $4.99 each except for the young dragons, behir, and balor miniatures which will be $14.99.
There’s also the new unpainted miniatures for the Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts line. There will be several new player character miniatures including a male human sorcerer, female human oracle, male elf magus, and others available for $4.99 per pack. In addition, there will be several larger minis available including a hydra and a gargantuan skeletal dragon available for $29.99 each and two other monsters sets, hobgoblins and ogres, which will retail for $49.99 each. These will also be available in March 2020.
Fantasy Flight Games released two more previews of their upcoming products. In the Genesys Expanded Player’s Guide, we get a look at how the book will help both gamemasters and players create the world they want to play in from rules to worldbuilding. There’s also a brief preview of the first four entries out of ten for the Environments and Factions charts, which look like random charts to flesh out the world on the fly. In the sourcebook for Legend of the Five Rings, Path of Waves, we get a preview of what’s in store for gaijin characters. Not just strangers in a strange land, gaijin have their own cultures that they bring with them to the lands of Rokugan and this preview shows how gamemasters can create their own cultures and how they fit into the struggles between the Great Clans. There’s also a look at one of those cultures, the Ivory Kingdom. Neither book currently has a release date, but the Genesys Expanded Player’s Guide will retail for $29.95 while the Legend of the Five Rings: Path of Waves will retail for $49.95.
The full schedule for this year’s PAX Unplugged convention has been released. This year there are not one but two Acquisitions Incorporated live events, the first on Saturday Night with the main crew at Acquisitions Incorporated Live and the second Sunday afternoon with the Acquisitions Incorporated C-Team Holiday Special. There will also be events from Glass Cannon, Dice Tower, Shut Up & Sit Down, Worldbuilders with Patrick Rothfuss, Storytime with Eric Lang, and more events all weekend long. Tickets are still available for all three days individually as well as three-day passes and the convention will take place on December 6-8, 2019, in Philadelphia, PA.
The Voices of Heresy bundle is still available on Humble Bundle. Featuring audiobooks and audio dramas set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the full bundle is worth more than $600 but even the $1 level gets you books like Horus Rising, False Gods, Iron Corpses, and more with the full $18 level getting you more than 20 DRM-free mp3s. This bundle runs until Wednesday, November 27. There’s also the Design Like a Designer Bundle with books invaluable to someone looking to self-publish or freelance in gaming with books on layout, graphic design, building your brand, career advice for freelancers, and more. This bundle is available until Monday, November 25. And if you have something a bit more advanced in mind, the Unreal Engine Game Development bundle features over a thousand dollars in tools, assets, and training to create your own video game using the Unreal engine. This bundle is available until Tuesday, November 3.
Part toolkit for modifying 5e and part adventure, 5th Evolution: Whitechapel brings gaslight adventure to the 5e ruleset. The package features an eight-page comic, twenty-four encounters set in London 1888, ten locations around the Whitechapel neighborhood, new character archetypes, and more as you track down the notorious Jack the Ripper. The PDF is available for a $10 pledge or add on the softcover for $20. This project is still shy of its $10,000 funding goal but has until Friday, November 22 to cross the finish line.
If you want some classic cyberpunk for FATECore, Brainjacked puts you in the role of an elite cybermercenary whose memories have been erased and replaced by a creation. It’s up to you to determine whether you want to stick with your false life or see if you can track down who you used to be. The PDF is available for a £9 (about US$12) pledge, or for £13 (about US$17) you can either add on an at-cost Print-on-Demand copy or unlock the digital stretch goals, or for £16 (about US$21) get both. This project is fully funded and has until Thursday, November 21 to unlock its stretch goals.
That’s all from me for this week! Don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com, and you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitch where I’ll be finally finishing up Shadowrun Dragonfall with guest Kevin R. Czarnecki this Sunday, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube for videos on gaming history, RPG reviews, and gaming Let’s Plays, or you can listen to the archives of the Gamer’s Tavern podcast. Until next time, may all your hits be crits! Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
Wizards of the Coast has been busy with Extra Life releases this week with two new downloads available with proceeds going to charity. The first is the Infernal Font from Descent into Avernus. Not much to say, but this is an actual font file and not just a PDF of the font so you can use it like any other font. The license terms allow for both non-commercial personal use and use on commercial products distributed by the Dungeon Master’s Guild, so it’s almost a must-have for any DM’s Guild creators. The zip file containing the font is available for $10.
The second offering is a 111-page adventure for characters of 5th to 10th level, Infernal Machine Rebuild. From the description: “A fallen clock tower holds components from an ancient artifact. Upon discovery of the components, competing agents look to launch expeditions to uncover additional components scattered across distant places—and times. The now-lost Temple of Moloch and the construction site of the legendary Tomb of Horrors are two of those locations. However great the risks, finding the components demands the effort, for whoever does so can reassemble the fabled Infernal Machine of Lum the Mad!” The PDF is available for $9.99 with proceeds going to Extra Life.
The table of contents for Eberron: Rising from the Last War has been posted by NewbieDM on Twitter. After a fifteen-page introductory prologue, the first chapter is Character Creation which takes up over 80 pages and has rules for Changelings, Dragonborn, Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Goblinoids, Half-Elves, Halflings, Humans, Kalashtar, Orcs and Half-Orcs, Shifters, Tieflings, and Warforged plus sixteen pages on Dragonmarks, ten pages on the Artificer class, and almost forty pages on Group Patrons. Chapter Two is the Khorvaire Gazetteer taking up almost fifty pages and Chapter Three is on Sharn, City of Towers and is almost thirty pages. The rest of the book is taken up by information for running games in Eberron with Chapter Four: Building Eberron Adventures taking up 77 pages along with fifteen page adventure “Forgotten Relics, Chapter Five: Treasures is eight pages of magic items, and Chapter Six: Friends and Foes appears to take up the rest of the book with at least fifty pages of monsters and NPCs. The hardcover Eberron: Rising from the Last War will be available this Tuesday, November 19, with a retail price of $49.95.
If that’s not enough Eberron for you, a lot of classic sourcebooks and adventures have been added to the DM’s Guild and there’s even a pair of bundles to pick them up cheap. The Eberron Setting bundle includes the 3rd Edition book Eberron Campaign Setting and the 3.5e books Player’s Guide to Eberron, Eberron: Sharn, City of Towers, Eberron: The Forge of War, and Eberron: Five Nations for $19.95 (normally $69.95). The Eberron Adventure Bundle has the 3.5e adventures Eyes of the Lich Queen, Grasp of the Emerald Claw, Voyage of the Golden Dragon, Whispers of the Vampire’s Blade, and Shadows of the Last War for $9.95 (a $34.95 value). Additionally, DriveThruRPG has a sale for all other Eberron books available for 20% or more off running until November 25.
We’re not done with Dungeons & Dragons yet as Chris Perkins teased an upcoming product for 2020. In the tweet, Chris says “If you like Curse of Strahd, I think you’re going to love the thing I’m currently working on for 2020. #wotcstaff” Of course, speculation runs from a sequel with Count Strahd von Zorovich, a similar book featuring a Dark Lord like Azalin Rex, a full-on Ravenloft sourcebook, or simply another book focused on a major villain like Vecna or Lord Soth. Either way, any official announcement will likely come during the big spring streaming event (which also has not yet been officially announced).
Speaking of teasing future products, the Spoilers & Swag live stream revealed our first look at Gem Dragons for 5e, the Neutral relatives of the Evil Chromatic Dragons and Good Metallic Dragons. There’s no specific announcement yet as to where the Gem Dragons will show up, but Nathan Stewart states it will be “early in 2020, where we will have some fun ways to get that out there.”
So why announce Gem Dragons all of a sudden if they’re not announcing what book they’ll be in? Well to preview the sapphire adult dragon to go along with the new D&D Sapphire Anniversary Dice Set which includes eleven sapphire dice. Not entirely sapphire, though, as the dice will be made of aluminum but will feature a lab-grown sapphire into the dice and specially balanced to the gem will not affect the randomness of rolls. The set will be limited to only 1974 sets (the year of D&D’s first publication) and retail for $299.99. The dice will only be available directly from Wizards of the Coast with orders opening at 11:00 AM Pacific Time on Thursday, November 21. In case anyone was hunting for a stocking stuffer to pick up for me.
The Starfinder Character Operations Manual is in the middle of release, so it’s time for the final preview from the book, this one on downtime activities. Not just for roleplay anymore, the downtime activities have real in-game benefits like manage course to reduce travel time, maintain readiness for an initiative bonus for space encounters, and even lounging will give you a morale bonus. In case you missed any of the other previews, Paizo has also conveniently collected them all plus links to the live streams covering the book. The Starfinder Character Operations Manual is available now in PDF, should be arriving in game stores soon, and has a mass-market release date of November 26 with a retail price of $39.99.
Remember that really cool Cursed Earth map for Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD previewed a few weeks ago? You can now get it as a poster! The Cursed Earth Poster Map is a full-color A2 size poster (which is just about 24” by 16” for my fellow Americans) available for £14.99 (about US$19) and currently on sale for only £12.99 (about US$17) plus shipping. You can also pre-order Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD: The Cursed Earth in softcover and PDF from EN Publishing. Disclosure: EN Publishing is the RPG publishing arm of EN World.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week, we’ve had a slew of reviews and other news items!
- Beth Rimmels has a full review of the re-release of Tyranny of Dragons.
- Richard Jansen-Parkes takes a look at the new Robotech Roleplaying Game.
- Andrew Peregrine gives us a full take on Tales of Equestria, the official My Little Pony roleplaying game.
- The seventh adventure in EN Publishing’s War of the Burning Sky adventure path, Trial of Echoed Souls, is now available for 5e.
- The Dungeons & Dragons Rick and Morty Starter Set is now available for pre-order.
- Mike Myler gave us the historical Elizabeth Bathory aka The Blood Countess last week, but no we have an undead variant that matches the rumors of the infamous bloodthirsty Countess.
- Jonathan Tweet talks about the art direction and rules refinement during the development of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition.
- Rob Kuntz goes back even further to before D&D was even released to talk about the development of immersion in his and Gary Gygax’s games.
- M.T. Black’s look at the classic publications of D&D continues with Issue #27 of The Dragon published in July 1979.
- Egg Embry is back once again with the week’s RPG crowdfunding projects ending soon in the RPG Crowdfunding News.
Cubicle 7 released new art previews for the revamped Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory. The post, in addition to the above image from artist Mark Gibbons, also gives our first peek at the progress on the updated version of the game since Cubicle 7 took over management of the line. From the post: “This is just one of the many amazing pieces of art in our upcoming Rulebook. We are making great progress on the PDF – the whole team are dedicated to completing the best quality product we possibly can. We will share more on its release as soon as its possible to do so. We really do appreciate your patience. Until then, may the Emperor protect you!”
WizKids announced for the pre-painted D&D Icons of the Realms: Descent into Avernus line with the Arkhan the Cruel and The Dark Order pack. The character of Arkhan the Cruel was created by Joe Manganiello and has appeared on live streams including Critical Role and Force Grey. The new miniature line features six figures designed by Manganiello including Arkhan, his bodyguard Torogar Steelfist, Death Cleric Krull, one of Arkhan’s Berserkers, a White Abishai, and Arkhan’s pet manticore Chango. The set will hit store shelves in March of 2020 with a retail price of $39.99.
Also due out in March 2020 are more unpainted miniatures for the Dungeons & Dragons Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures including several new dragons and dragonborn, monster packs featuring slaads, satyrs, wolves, ettins, and more, several undead and shapechangers including liches, mummies, beholder zombies, death dogs, doppelgangers, wererats, weretigers, and more, and several player character minis for new race and class combinations with low-level and high-level variants. The miniatures will be available for $4.99 each except for the young dragons, behir, and balor miniatures which will be $14.99.
There’s also the new unpainted miniatures for the Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts line. There will be several new player character miniatures including a male human sorcerer, female human oracle, male elf magus, and others available for $4.99 per pack. In addition, there will be several larger minis available including a hydra and a gargantuan skeletal dragon available for $29.99 each and two other monsters sets, hobgoblins and ogres, which will retail for $49.99 each. These will also be available in March 2020.
Fantasy Flight Games released two more previews of their upcoming products. In the Genesys Expanded Player’s Guide, we get a look at how the book will help both gamemasters and players create the world they want to play in from rules to worldbuilding. There’s also a brief preview of the first four entries out of ten for the Environments and Factions charts, which look like random charts to flesh out the world on the fly. In the sourcebook for Legend of the Five Rings, Path of Waves, we get a preview of what’s in store for gaijin characters. Not just strangers in a strange land, gaijin have their own cultures that they bring with them to the lands of Rokugan and this preview shows how gamemasters can create their own cultures and how they fit into the struggles between the Great Clans. There’s also a look at one of those cultures, the Ivory Kingdom. Neither book currently has a release date, but the Genesys Expanded Player’s Guide will retail for $29.95 while the Legend of the Five Rings: Path of Waves will retail for $49.95.
The full schedule for this year’s PAX Unplugged convention has been released. This year there are not one but two Acquisitions Incorporated live events, the first on Saturday Night with the main crew at Acquisitions Incorporated Live and the second Sunday afternoon with the Acquisitions Incorporated C-Team Holiday Special. There will also be events from Glass Cannon, Dice Tower, Shut Up & Sit Down, Worldbuilders with Patrick Rothfuss, Storytime with Eric Lang, and more events all weekend long. Tickets are still available for all three days individually as well as three-day passes and the convention will take place on December 6-8, 2019, in Philadelphia, PA.
The Voices of Heresy bundle is still available on Humble Bundle. Featuring audiobooks and audio dramas set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the full bundle is worth more than $600 but even the $1 level gets you books like Horus Rising, False Gods, Iron Corpses, and more with the full $18 level getting you more than 20 DRM-free mp3s. This bundle runs until Wednesday, November 27. There’s also the Design Like a Designer Bundle with books invaluable to someone looking to self-publish or freelance in gaming with books on layout, graphic design, building your brand, career advice for freelancers, and more. This bundle is available until Monday, November 25. And if you have something a bit more advanced in mind, the Unreal Engine Game Development bundle features over a thousand dollars in tools, assets, and training to create your own video game using the Unreal engine. This bundle is available until Tuesday, November 3.
Part toolkit for modifying 5e and part adventure, 5th Evolution: Whitechapel brings gaslight adventure to the 5e ruleset. The package features an eight-page comic, twenty-four encounters set in London 1888, ten locations around the Whitechapel neighborhood, new character archetypes, and more as you track down the notorious Jack the Ripper. The PDF is available for a $10 pledge or add on the softcover for $20. This project is still shy of its $10,000 funding goal but has until Friday, November 22 to cross the finish line.
If you want some classic cyberpunk for FATECore, Brainjacked puts you in the role of an elite cybermercenary whose memories have been erased and replaced by a creation. It’s up to you to determine whether you want to stick with your false life or see if you can track down who you used to be. The PDF is available for a £9 (about US$12) pledge, or for £13 (about US$17) you can either add on an at-cost Print-on-Demand copy or unlock the digital stretch goals, or for £16 (about US$21) get both. This project is fully funded and has until Thursday, November 21 to unlock its stretch goals.
That’s all from me for this week! Don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com, and you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitch where I’ll be finally finishing up Shadowrun Dragonfall with guest Kevin R. Czarnecki this Sunday, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube for videos on gaming history, RPG reviews, and gaming Let’s Plays, or you can listen to the archives of the Gamer’s Tavern podcast. Until next time, may all your hits be crits! Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
