Welcome back to our weekly look at tabletop roleplaying game, and accessories, crowdfunding roundup! This week we look a new epic campaign for Coriolis, a love story in the ruins of Chernobyl, settings for Powered by the Apocalypse and Savage Worlds, 5th edition monsters, a new urban fantasy RPG, a collection of 15 games in a single book and more gaming pins! 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.
Emissary Lost – Epic Campaign for Award-Winning Coriolis RPG by Fria Ligan
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 5th April 2018; 19:00 UTC)
Coriolis: The Third Horizon, by Free League Publishing (Mutant: Year Zero; Tales From The Loop) is a fantastic – and beautiful looking – science fiction roleplaying game. Emissary Lost is the first part of the epic Mercy of the Icons campaign that will change for the Coriolis universe forever.
Touted as the “Enemy Within” of Coriolis it certainly lauds itself highly, but then coming from Free League/Fria Ligan I’m certainly inclined to believe that the Mercy of the Icons campaign will meet the task.
Emissary Lost will come in the form of a massive full-color book of 200+ pages, lavishly illustrated and printed on the finest paper.
Ozone Plaza is silent. Only a low murmur is heard from the crowds huddling around the info the holo screens in the souq. Yet it heralds a gathering storm. The air is thick with anticipation as you make your way toward the nearest terminal. A reporter on the holo screen speaks gravely:
”The Emissary from Xene has disappeared”...
Street reporters call it The mysticides. Scores of mystics have been found dead, or disappeared without a trace. Who is hunting the mystics of Coriolis? And why? When a friend of the player characters disappears, it becomes personal. Can they solve the mystery before it is too late?
In Emissary Lost, the player characters are thrown into the vast conspiracy that threatens the stability of Coriolis, and in the end, the Third Horizon itself. The book contains two long-form scenarios.
The first scenario, The Wake of the Martyr, takes place on the huge space station Coriolis itself, where attacks on the mystics are escalating. The player characters need to find out who is behind the conspiracy - and not get killed in the process. The hunt for clues will bring them to the bustling Ozone Plaza, to the decadent elite in the Spire, and deep down into the dark of the Cellar.
The Kuan Connection, the second extensive scenario in the book, takes the player characters down to the surface of planet Kua. Here, they will follow a trail of blood through the deep jungles, immerse themselves in the violent politics of the Zenithian colonies, and search for answers in the shadow of the mighty Monolith.
Emissary Lost sets the wheel in motion. The struggle for the Horizon has started – only the Icons themselves know how it will end.
View attachment 95487View attachment 95488View attachment 95489
View attachment 95490View attachment 95491View attachment 95492
The campaign has been doing very well, and has unlocked loads of stretch goals, including a number of extra scenario books ranging from 10 to 64 pages, including the Last Voyage of the Ghazali, The Tailor From Mira and Algebra of the Icons. Many more additional scenarios are still awaiting to be unlocked over the remainder of the campaign (which as of writing still has about two weeks to run).
Flying Circus – A Roleplaying Game of High-Flying Adventure! By Newstand Press
(Campaign Ends : Friday 6th April 2018; 13:55 UTC)
Flying Circus uses a heavily modified version of the Powered by the Apocalypse engine to bring this game of mercenary fighter pilots surviving in a world of machines and magic to life. Written by Erika Chappell (author of Patrol, a game about the Vietnam War and Blackout, a game about women in the London Blitz) the game is set in an “ industrial-fantasy world, where aircraft and air travel are central to life and the fantastic and magical lurks just below the surface. It casts the players as mercenaries trying to hold the world together after the collapse of civilization. Running a company of cutting-edge aircraft in the post-apocalypse is expensive and dangerous, and you're always one mission away from either fortune or ruin.”
Flying Circus features 8 character playbooks, a detailed air combat system, and the ability to freely customize your plane or even scratch-design new aircraft from a set of layouts, components, and materials. It uses ten-sided dice for resolution, twenty-sided dice for certain random elements, and a combination of tokens and printable aids to track game elements.
The game combines the elegance of Powered by the Apocalypse with unique and detailed systems for designing and flying a wide variety of aircraft. You can take to the air in conventional wood-and-canvas biplanes or build unusual vehicles resembling the wildest designs of early flight. The result is a system with enough meaningful crunch to sink your teeth into, while still boiling down to a set of simple moves that can be understood at the table.
On the ground, you play the fast and exciting life of these mercenary pilots, finding work, getting drunk, and making terrible decisions. These rules are unintrusive enough that you can get through them quickly and get back in the air, but you can also play out the interpersonal drama of characters burning out at the edge of human tolerance in-between their death-defying missions. Gain and break each other's trust, hire help to keep the planes running, fall in love in every town, drink away the stress before you break down, and then get back into the air the next morning and do it all over again.
Flying Circus isn't just a game about combat; it hinges on themes of identity, how we build, adopt, and discard identities as we move through life. The game's eight character types each explore a different corner of the world of Flying Circus, showing the unique perspective of a survivor. From trained soldiers raised in military holdouts to talented farmboys and farmgirls taking their first steps into a larger world, each character has a different approach to stress, survival, and intimacy.
These characters start from very different places, but as they come to trust one another and grow closer they can begin to take on aspects of one another. You will go from a group people from very different backgrounds brought together by circumstance to close friends, comrades, and lovers, forging new identities in the skies.
Monsters of Feyland for 5th Edition by Cawood Publishing
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 14th April 2018; 22:00 UTC)
Cawood Publishings new campaign is looking to produce two books exploring the mysterious world of dark and light that exists just around the corner, The Feylands.
Monsters of Feyland is a 108-page full color, hardcover (or pdf) book filled with 100 monsters for 5th edition, illustrated by fantasy/comic artist Travis Hanson (Life of the Party/Role for Initative).
Each monster will have a color illustration, stat block, and background information. Many of the monsters will be fey, but other types of monsters will also be included. There will be arch fey, centaurs, elves, faeries, dragons, giants, gnomes, goblins, hags, magical trees, nymphs, unicorns, witches, undead, and much more. The collection of creatures will also include a wide range of challenge ratings.
Into the Feyland is a 5th edition module for characters levels 1 to 3.This PDF will be about 40 pages long and provide enough resources to run a sandbox style game. It will include monsters from the Monsters in Feyland collection.
In addition to the above two books, higher pledge levels will also include the Feyland Map Book (a book of a dozen maps with a fey theme including forests, caverns, and buildings) and the Feyland NPCs book (containing twenty detailed 5th Edition NPCs including their stat blocks and a bio that includes a backstory, personality, bond, ideal, flaw and equipment).
Freedom Squadron – A Savage Worlds Setting by SpyGlass Games
(Campaign Ends : Tuesday 10th April 2018; 16:00 UTC)
Written and designed by Sean Patrick Fannon, Freedom Squadron is a love letter to 80’s cartoon action heroes for the Savage Worlds system. Freedom Squadron is based on the Venom Assault board game created by SpyGlass Games and Sean has worked with the worlds designer, Michael Knight, to not only bring the game to life but also expand on the setting.
The campaign is funding two books, The Freedom Squadron Commando’s Manual (used to created characters and containing essential background history to the world, it’s current geo-political status, the structure of Freedom Squadron: Global Operations Force, and loads of weapons, equipment and vehicles), and The Freedom Squadron Plans & Operations Manual for Gamemasters, which also includes the innovative Plans & Operations phases rules which is a special set of rules designed to integrate the planning stage of a mission with actual game play. The Plans & Operations Manual works in conjunction with a special set of cards, known as The Plans & Operations Deck. This deck allows for the randomization of mission parameters to be set forth, while still leaving the specifics of the mission vague enough to be able to be integrated into any situation. The result is immersive, fun, and fast.
It is the year 2051. After the startling discovery of VENOM—a paramilitary organization and global conspiracy that's been interfering in world events since the end of the 19th century—the United Nations and leaders of the free world have been shaken to their core. In the aftermath of World War III, which they started, VENOM's clear goal is world domination, and they will stop at nothing to achieve it.
The world's response? Choose the greatest hero of the war, General Abraham Steel, and charge him to recruit an elite fighting force to oppose VENOM and protect liberty for all. That force, comprised of the best-of-the-best from all over the globe, is Freedom Squadron!
Players take on the role of those who've heeded the call to action. They are new Recruits who must first earn their stripes to become Commandos. Eventually, if they live up to the expectations of trainers like Sandbar, Corporal Carnage, Preedatore, and Blindsight, they may earn their Code Names and carry the fight to VENOM anywhere in the world... and beyond!
Liminal RPG by Paul Mitchener
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 29th March 2018; 11:03 UTC)
I have a number of Paul Mitchener’s games and highly recommend him. His latest game, and first Kickstarter, is a 200+ page full-colour book dealing with Liminals – “those on the boundary between the modern day United Kingdom and the Hidden World- the world of secret societies of magicians, a police division investigating Fortean crimes, fae courts, werewolf gangs, and haunted places where the walls between worlds are thin.”
The players portray Liminals - those who stand between the mortal and magical realms, with ties to each. Examples of Liminals include:
The magical world has a basis in British and Irish folklore and legends, along with ghost stories and modern day popular takes on the supernatural in fiction. Inspirations from fiction include the "real world" fantasy novels of Ben Aaranovitch, Jim Butcher, Emma Bull, Susanna Clarke, Harry Connolly, Neil Gaiman, Benedict Jacka, and Helene Wecker.
The player character Liminals form a crew, sharing knowledge and assets, with common goals. Together, the crew take on cases, dealing with the affairs of the hidden world, especially as it affects the ordinary world at large. These cases further both the goals of the crew and the drives of its individual members.
The crew has relationships with more powerful groups - the factions of the setting. The cases a crew take on affects these relationships, with knock-on effects on the challenges the crew faces in the future.
Major Factions include:
Chernobyl, Mon Amour Roleplaying Game by Juhana Pettersson
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 29th March 2018)
Chernobyl, Mon Amour was originally published in Finnish in 2016 by author and game designer Juhana Pettersson (who also designed, among other things, the fantastic Ikuisuuden laakso (The Valley of Eternity) RPG in 2009 where the players take on roles of heroic tragic penguins shunned by their brethren). Chernobly, Mon Amour is a “freeform roleplaying game about love and radioactivity set in the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation.”
In Chernobyl, Mon Amour you play a Ukrainian criminal who flees the long arm of the law to the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation. The concept is based on a Ukrainian folk story about a criminal who fled to the Zone and became so radioactive that the authorities had to leave him there.
You know that there is no return from the Zone. Your crimes are such that society will no longer accept you, and the only thing you have left is the possibility of a new life in the radioactive forest. As you settle into the Zone and meet its inhabitants, you start to yearn for something more. You want love.
Playing out these love stories amidst a radioactive society of criminals is the core experience of Chernobyl, Mon Amour.
Chernobyl, Mon Amour is a Finnish tabletop roleplaying game built with a strong focus on character immersion and experiencing the game world through the character's subjective viewpoint.
The mechanics of Chernobyl, Mon Amour are minimal to the point of non-existent, at least if seen through the lens of traditional roleplaying game design. Instead of stats and dice, the functioning of the game is coded into the setting, Game Master and player advice, as well as the design of preparatory workshop exercises.
The game is not easy for the Game Master, as it requires the GM to handle running everything to allow the players to focus on their character-based experience.
As a point of comparison, Chernobyl, Mon Amour has a similar relationship to mechanics-based roleplaying games as Nordic Larp has to larp utilizing complex rules systems. In both cases, complexity of mechanical simulation and game design is sacrificed for a more nuanced, personal feel to the game.
Protocol Fantasy Game Omnibus by Postworldgames Jim Pinto
(Campaign Ends : Friday 30th March 2018; 18:53 UTC)
The Protocol Fantasy Game Omnibus collects all of the fantasy Protocol games that Jim Pinto has released to date along with five brand new games – bringing the collection to 15 games - and also expanded rules. All in one 220+ page volume. Stretch goals could add even further games to the collection.
The games included in the book are as follows…
Queen of Hate – players take on the roles of characters who serve the queen, but who await to hear the judgment for her crimes.
Back To The Grave – is a story roleplaying game about consequences and desperation. Characters are grim heroes in a Gothic fantasy world tasked with traveling through the lands of the dead in search of a dead king.
Black Dragon Inn – is a story roleplaying game about a party of adventurers returning from a hard-fought quest.
Clockwork Girl – is a story roleplaying game about courage and fate. In the land of toys, the clockmaker has disappeared and the slow winding-down of clockwork creations has begun.
Damascus – is a story roleplaying game about aging heroes — heroes who’ve been given one final shot at glory. But as they take up blades and banners for king and country, a question arises: who is the glory for?
The Doom King – is a story roleplaying game about a tired leader who has brought his nation to the edge of ruin
Five Broken Swords – is a story roleplaying game about adventurers in a fantasy world on a long and unfulfilled quest. The quest has dragged on for years. The adventurers are old, tired, and ready to give up.
Highland Clearances – is a story roleplaying game about the displacement of family, the dissolution of culture, and the end to a way of life. Set in the Highlands of Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries, the Highland Clearances were a series of evictions that led to the wide-spread use of crofting. Characters are members of a family displaced by the changing economic climate, as the rural world is replaced.
Home – is a story roleplaying game about soldiers in a fantasy world returning home after a long and costly war. Being on the losing side, the characters must overcome adversity, national tension, and a lack of resources as they navigate the roads and wilderness.
Home II – Flipping the script on Home, this spiritual sequel puts the characters in a near untenable situation. Characters are prisoners of war, being marched deep into enemy territory. Under constant watch and marched — sometimes until death — the characters have no hope of escape. Perhaps death is the only option. Or will opportunity present itself?
Scions of the Last Age – is a story roleplaying game about duty and tarnished honor in an age of magic. Characters are pious and respected members of a fantasy community who must fulfill the final request of a fallen hero — bringing her remains home.
Svazany Rukojemnikov – (Bound Hostage) is a story roleplaying game about life in a shell-shocked city of historical merit, caught between two warring armies. The front line of the battle has shifted back and forth through the city numerous times, leaving the townspeople to be rescued by one army, only to have the city invaded and occupied by the opposing force in a recapitulation months later. With no end to the bloody war in sight, the city has become a refuge for those who traffic illicit goods, while its citizens trudge through their shattered lives, bearing the final cost. The only constant is war.
The Mist Cycle – The Mist Cycle is a series of three Protocol games all set in the same universe. Inspired by the works of Neil Gaiman and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night, these games are not comedies, but dark tales of a world where fae and humanity collide on the edge of the Mist.
The Protocol Game system is an elegant way of playing through a story without a gamemaster, in just a matter of two to three hours. Each game uses the same core principles of scene framing, while creating very different experiences through the use of roles, goals, relationships, and world building questions.
The alchemy behind why Protocol works is so simple.
Players take turns as directors, drawing poker cards to determine the scene's focus and type. There are no dice. Everything is resolved with drama points and a single deck of poker cards.
Tabletop Relic Pins by Rob Yeo Design
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 31sy March 2018; 14:00 UTC)
This weeks ‘Pins of the Week’ are from Rob Yeo Design and take the form of four magical relics that will help you on your way. The initial set include Spell Bound, Dungeon Lord, The Beast and Dragon Born, with The Hero having been unlocked through a stretch goal already and Arcane Might looking likely to be unlocked before too long. Further stretch goals haven’t been revealed but I’m guessing will take the appearance of further pins you could pledge for.
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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!
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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
Emissary Lost – Epic Campaign for Award-Winning Coriolis RPG by Fria Ligan
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 5th April 2018; 19:00 UTC)
Coriolis: The Third Horizon, by Free League Publishing (Mutant: Year Zero; Tales From The Loop) is a fantastic – and beautiful looking – science fiction roleplaying game. Emissary Lost is the first part of the epic Mercy of the Icons campaign that will change for the Coriolis universe forever.
Touted as the “Enemy Within” of Coriolis it certainly lauds itself highly, but then coming from Free League/Fria Ligan I’m certainly inclined to believe that the Mercy of the Icons campaign will meet the task.
Emissary Lost will come in the form of a massive full-color book of 200+ pages, lavishly illustrated and printed on the finest paper.
Ozone Plaza is silent. Only a low murmur is heard from the crowds huddling around the info the holo screens in the souq. Yet it heralds a gathering storm. The air is thick with anticipation as you make your way toward the nearest terminal. A reporter on the holo screen speaks gravely:
”The Emissary from Xene has disappeared”...
Street reporters call it The mysticides. Scores of mystics have been found dead, or disappeared without a trace. Who is hunting the mystics of Coriolis? And why? When a friend of the player characters disappears, it becomes personal. Can they solve the mystery before it is too late?
In Emissary Lost, the player characters are thrown into the vast conspiracy that threatens the stability of Coriolis, and in the end, the Third Horizon itself. The book contains two long-form scenarios.
The first scenario, The Wake of the Martyr, takes place on the huge space station Coriolis itself, where attacks on the mystics are escalating. The player characters need to find out who is behind the conspiracy - and not get killed in the process. The hunt for clues will bring them to the bustling Ozone Plaza, to the decadent elite in the Spire, and deep down into the dark of the Cellar.
The Kuan Connection, the second extensive scenario in the book, takes the player characters down to the surface of planet Kua. Here, they will follow a trail of blood through the deep jungles, immerse themselves in the violent politics of the Zenithian colonies, and search for answers in the shadow of the mighty Monolith.
Emissary Lost sets the wheel in motion. The struggle for the Horizon has started – only the Icons themselves know how it will end.
View attachment 95487View attachment 95488View attachment 95489
View attachment 95490View attachment 95491View attachment 95492
The campaign has been doing very well, and has unlocked loads of stretch goals, including a number of extra scenario books ranging from 10 to 64 pages, including the Last Voyage of the Ghazali, The Tailor From Mira and Algebra of the Icons. Many more additional scenarios are still awaiting to be unlocked over the remainder of the campaign (which as of writing still has about two weeks to run).
Flying Circus – A Roleplaying Game of High-Flying Adventure! By Newstand Press
(Campaign Ends : Friday 6th April 2018; 13:55 UTC)
Flying Circus uses a heavily modified version of the Powered by the Apocalypse engine to bring this game of mercenary fighter pilots surviving in a world of machines and magic to life. Written by Erika Chappell (author of Patrol, a game about the Vietnam War and Blackout, a game about women in the London Blitz) the game is set in an “ industrial-fantasy world, where aircraft and air travel are central to life and the fantastic and magical lurks just below the surface. It casts the players as mercenaries trying to hold the world together after the collapse of civilization. Running a company of cutting-edge aircraft in the post-apocalypse is expensive and dangerous, and you're always one mission away from either fortune or ruin.”
Flying Circus features 8 character playbooks, a detailed air combat system, and the ability to freely customize your plane or even scratch-design new aircraft from a set of layouts, components, and materials. It uses ten-sided dice for resolution, twenty-sided dice for certain random elements, and a combination of tokens and printable aids to track game elements.
The game combines the elegance of Powered by the Apocalypse with unique and detailed systems for designing and flying a wide variety of aircraft. You can take to the air in conventional wood-and-canvas biplanes or build unusual vehicles resembling the wildest designs of early flight. The result is a system with enough meaningful crunch to sink your teeth into, while still boiling down to a set of simple moves that can be understood at the table.
On the ground, you play the fast and exciting life of these mercenary pilots, finding work, getting drunk, and making terrible decisions. These rules are unintrusive enough that you can get through them quickly and get back in the air, but you can also play out the interpersonal drama of characters burning out at the edge of human tolerance in-between their death-defying missions. Gain and break each other's trust, hire help to keep the planes running, fall in love in every town, drink away the stress before you break down, and then get back into the air the next morning and do it all over again.
Flying Circus isn't just a game about combat; it hinges on themes of identity, how we build, adopt, and discard identities as we move through life. The game's eight character types each explore a different corner of the world of Flying Circus, showing the unique perspective of a survivor. From trained soldiers raised in military holdouts to talented farmboys and farmgirls taking their first steps into a larger world, each character has a different approach to stress, survival, and intimacy.
These characters start from very different places, but as they come to trust one another and grow closer they can begin to take on aspects of one another. You will go from a group people from very different backgrounds brought together by circumstance to close friends, comrades, and lovers, forging new identities in the skies.
Monsters of Feyland for 5th Edition by Cawood Publishing
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 14th April 2018; 22:00 UTC)
Cawood Publishings new campaign is looking to produce two books exploring the mysterious world of dark and light that exists just around the corner, The Feylands.
Monsters of Feyland is a 108-page full color, hardcover (or pdf) book filled with 100 monsters for 5th edition, illustrated by fantasy/comic artist Travis Hanson (Life of the Party/Role for Initative).
Each monster will have a color illustration, stat block, and background information. Many of the monsters will be fey, but other types of monsters will also be included. There will be arch fey, centaurs, elves, faeries, dragons, giants, gnomes, goblins, hags, magical trees, nymphs, unicorns, witches, undead, and much more. The collection of creatures will also include a wide range of challenge ratings.
Into the Feyland is a 5th edition module for characters levels 1 to 3.This PDF will be about 40 pages long and provide enough resources to run a sandbox style game. It will include monsters from the Monsters in Feyland collection.
In addition to the above two books, higher pledge levels will also include the Feyland Map Book (a book of a dozen maps with a fey theme including forests, caverns, and buildings) and the Feyland NPCs book (containing twenty detailed 5th Edition NPCs including their stat blocks and a bio that includes a backstory, personality, bond, ideal, flaw and equipment).
Freedom Squadron – A Savage Worlds Setting by SpyGlass Games
(Campaign Ends : Tuesday 10th April 2018; 16:00 UTC)
Written and designed by Sean Patrick Fannon, Freedom Squadron is a love letter to 80’s cartoon action heroes for the Savage Worlds system. Freedom Squadron is based on the Venom Assault board game created by SpyGlass Games and Sean has worked with the worlds designer, Michael Knight, to not only bring the game to life but also expand on the setting.
The campaign is funding two books, The Freedom Squadron Commando’s Manual (used to created characters and containing essential background history to the world, it’s current geo-political status, the structure of Freedom Squadron: Global Operations Force, and loads of weapons, equipment and vehicles), and The Freedom Squadron Plans & Operations Manual for Gamemasters, which also includes the innovative Plans & Operations phases rules which is a special set of rules designed to integrate the planning stage of a mission with actual game play. The Plans & Operations Manual works in conjunction with a special set of cards, known as The Plans & Operations Deck. This deck allows for the randomization of mission parameters to be set forth, while still leaving the specifics of the mission vague enough to be able to be integrated into any situation. The result is immersive, fun, and fast.
It is the year 2051. After the startling discovery of VENOM—a paramilitary organization and global conspiracy that's been interfering in world events since the end of the 19th century—the United Nations and leaders of the free world have been shaken to their core. In the aftermath of World War III, which they started, VENOM's clear goal is world domination, and they will stop at nothing to achieve it.
The world's response? Choose the greatest hero of the war, General Abraham Steel, and charge him to recruit an elite fighting force to oppose VENOM and protect liberty for all. That force, comprised of the best-of-the-best from all over the globe, is Freedom Squadron!
Players take on the role of those who've heeded the call to action. They are new Recruits who must first earn their stripes to become Commandos. Eventually, if they live up to the expectations of trainers like Sandbar, Corporal Carnage, Preedatore, and Blindsight, they may earn their Code Names and carry the fight to VENOM anywhere in the world... and beyond!
Liminal RPG by Paul Mitchener
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 29th March 2018; 11:03 UTC)
I have a number of Paul Mitchener’s games and highly recommend him. His latest game, and first Kickstarter, is a 200+ page full-colour book dealing with Liminals – “those on the boundary between the modern day United Kingdom and the Hidden World- the world of secret societies of magicians, a police division investigating Fortean crimes, fae courts, werewolf gangs, and haunted places where the walls between worlds are thin.”
The players portray Liminals - those who stand between the mortal and magical realms, with ties to each. Examples of Liminals include:
- A magician who acts as a warden to protect unaware mortals from supernatural menaces;
- Someone of mysterious birth who is perhaps half Fae. In any case they are caught up in Faerie politics whether they like it or not;
- A burglar who steals supernatural relics;
- A werewolf who still has many ties to ordinary people;
- A dhampir, striving to do good despite their vampiric infection;
- A mortal detective who knows some of the real strangeness out there.
The magical world has a basis in British and Irish folklore and legends, along with ghost stories and modern day popular takes on the supernatural in fiction. Inspirations from fiction include the "real world" fantasy novels of Ben Aaranovitch, Jim Butcher, Emma Bull, Susanna Clarke, Harry Connolly, Neil Gaiman, Benedict Jacka, and Helene Wecker.
The player character Liminals form a crew, sharing knowledge and assets, with common goals. Together, the crew take on cases, dealing with the affairs of the hidden world, especially as it affects the ordinary world at large. These cases further both the goals of the crew and the drives of its individual members.
The crew has relationships with more powerful groups - the factions of the setting. The cases a crew take on affects these relationships, with knock-on effects on the challenges the crew faces in the future.
Major Factions include:
- The Council of Merlin, Britain's oldest, richest, and most traditional magical order. It dates back to just after the end of Roman rule in Britain, and regards other magical groups as unworthy of note.
- The Court of the Queen of Hyde Park, who claims to rule over all Fae in London, and to be influential in other Fae Courts throughout Britain. And her chief rival, The Winter King, exiled in the highlands of Scotland.
- P Division, an obscure division of the UK police force handling paranormal crimes in the mundane world. Those in the mainstream police regard P Division as cranks, and a posting there as a career dead end. But P Division knows how vital their work is.
- The Sodality of the Crown, a cabal of vampires who work behind the scenes to influence both national and international politics.
- The Order of St. Bede, a church organisation who not only act against supernatural threats to ordinary people, but labour to cover up all evidence of the supernatural, especially magicians who perform their magic too blatantly.
Chernobyl, Mon Amour Roleplaying Game by Juhana Pettersson
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 29th March 2018)
Chernobyl, Mon Amour was originally published in Finnish in 2016 by author and game designer Juhana Pettersson (who also designed, among other things, the fantastic Ikuisuuden laakso (The Valley of Eternity) RPG in 2009 where the players take on roles of heroic tragic penguins shunned by their brethren). Chernobly, Mon Amour is a “freeform roleplaying game about love and radioactivity set in the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation.”
In Chernobyl, Mon Amour you play a Ukrainian criminal who flees the long arm of the law to the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation. The concept is based on a Ukrainian folk story about a criminal who fled to the Zone and became so radioactive that the authorities had to leave him there.
You know that there is no return from the Zone. Your crimes are such that society will no longer accept you, and the only thing you have left is the possibility of a new life in the radioactive forest. As you settle into the Zone and meet its inhabitants, you start to yearn for something more. You want love.
Playing out these love stories amidst a radioactive society of criminals is the core experience of Chernobyl, Mon Amour.
Chernobyl, Mon Amour is a Finnish tabletop roleplaying game built with a strong focus on character immersion and experiencing the game world through the character's subjective viewpoint.
The mechanics of Chernobyl, Mon Amour are minimal to the point of non-existent, at least if seen through the lens of traditional roleplaying game design. Instead of stats and dice, the functioning of the game is coded into the setting, Game Master and player advice, as well as the design of preparatory workshop exercises.
The game is not easy for the Game Master, as it requires the GM to handle running everything to allow the players to focus on their character-based experience.
As a point of comparison, Chernobyl, Mon Amour has a similar relationship to mechanics-based roleplaying games as Nordic Larp has to larp utilizing complex rules systems. In both cases, complexity of mechanical simulation and game design is sacrificed for a more nuanced, personal feel to the game.
Protocol Fantasy Game Omnibus by Postworldgames Jim Pinto
(Campaign Ends : Friday 30th March 2018; 18:53 UTC)
The Protocol Fantasy Game Omnibus collects all of the fantasy Protocol games that Jim Pinto has released to date along with five brand new games – bringing the collection to 15 games - and also expanded rules. All in one 220+ page volume. Stretch goals could add even further games to the collection.
The games included in the book are as follows…
Queen of Hate – players take on the roles of characters who serve the queen, but who await to hear the judgment for her crimes.
Back To The Grave – is a story roleplaying game about consequences and desperation. Characters are grim heroes in a Gothic fantasy world tasked with traveling through the lands of the dead in search of a dead king.
Black Dragon Inn – is a story roleplaying game about a party of adventurers returning from a hard-fought quest.
Clockwork Girl – is a story roleplaying game about courage and fate. In the land of toys, the clockmaker has disappeared and the slow winding-down of clockwork creations has begun.
Damascus – is a story roleplaying game about aging heroes — heroes who’ve been given one final shot at glory. But as they take up blades and banners for king and country, a question arises: who is the glory for?
The Doom King – is a story roleplaying game about a tired leader who has brought his nation to the edge of ruin
Five Broken Swords – is a story roleplaying game about adventurers in a fantasy world on a long and unfulfilled quest. The quest has dragged on for years. The adventurers are old, tired, and ready to give up.
Highland Clearances – is a story roleplaying game about the displacement of family, the dissolution of culture, and the end to a way of life. Set in the Highlands of Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries, the Highland Clearances were a series of evictions that led to the wide-spread use of crofting. Characters are members of a family displaced by the changing economic climate, as the rural world is replaced.
Home – is a story roleplaying game about soldiers in a fantasy world returning home after a long and costly war. Being on the losing side, the characters must overcome adversity, national tension, and a lack of resources as they navigate the roads and wilderness.
Home II – Flipping the script on Home, this spiritual sequel puts the characters in a near untenable situation. Characters are prisoners of war, being marched deep into enemy territory. Under constant watch and marched — sometimes until death — the characters have no hope of escape. Perhaps death is the only option. Or will opportunity present itself?
Scions of the Last Age – is a story roleplaying game about duty and tarnished honor in an age of magic. Characters are pious and respected members of a fantasy community who must fulfill the final request of a fallen hero — bringing her remains home.
Svazany Rukojemnikov – (Bound Hostage) is a story roleplaying game about life in a shell-shocked city of historical merit, caught between two warring armies. The front line of the battle has shifted back and forth through the city numerous times, leaving the townspeople to be rescued by one army, only to have the city invaded and occupied by the opposing force in a recapitulation months later. With no end to the bloody war in sight, the city has become a refuge for those who traffic illicit goods, while its citizens trudge through their shattered lives, bearing the final cost. The only constant is war.
The Mist Cycle – The Mist Cycle is a series of three Protocol games all set in the same universe. Inspired by the works of Neil Gaiman and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night, these games are not comedies, but dark tales of a world where fae and humanity collide on the edge of the Mist.
- Lady Winter – is the most mythic game of the series. Drawing upon Arthurian and Shakespearean stories, the game details the lives of characters awaiting Lady Winter and her blessings. Considered a favorite Protocol game in the series by most, this game involves a lot of background and inspiration unparalleled in the other games.
- The Goblin – is a tale of redeemed nobility, as goblin lords attempt to name a new monarch. Thirteen goblin tribes have gathered to elect a new leader, while appealing to the Fates for their blessing. The newly appointed goblin monarch can make an appearance in Lady Winter.
- Walpurgis Night – is based on an album by Fates Warning, entitled Awaken the Guardian. It involves humans engaging in debauched and hedonistic activities as the presumed end of the world approaches. But is the world really ending? Or is this an excuse to behave without consequence? Once again the Fates make an appearance in this final Mist Cycle installment. While there is no specific order these games need to be played, Walpurgis Night requires the most understanding of the Land of Mist to work effectively.
The Protocol Game system is an elegant way of playing through a story without a gamemaster, in just a matter of two to three hours. Each game uses the same core principles of scene framing, while creating very different experiences through the use of roles, goals, relationships, and world building questions.
The alchemy behind why Protocol works is so simple.
Players take turns as directors, drawing poker cards to determine the scene's focus and type. There are no dice. Everything is resolved with drama points and a single deck of poker cards.
Tabletop Relic Pins by Rob Yeo Design
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 31sy March 2018; 14:00 UTC)
This weeks ‘Pins of the Week’ are from Rob Yeo Design and take the form of four magical relics that will help you on your way. The initial set include Spell Bound, Dungeon Lord, The Beast and Dragon Born, with The Hero having been unlocked through a stretch goal already and Arcane Might looking likely to be unlocked before too long. Further stretch goals haven’t been revealed but I’m guessing will take the appearance of further pins you could pledge for.
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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
