RPG Print News – The Arcane Library, Free League, Chaosium, and More

Not new RPGs this week, but collections of core rules and supplements that work well together. If you want to start a new campaign with some support, these RPGs have you covered.

Note: RPG Print News covers recent RPG releases and some classics, reprints, and sales available from retailers. It does not cover products that are available directly to customers only through Kickstarter or as print on demand.

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Shadowdark RPG (2024 four gold ENNIEs: Product of the Year and more) | Shadowdark Cursed Scroll Zine 3: Midnight Sun by The Arcane Library

• SYSTEM: D20 fantasy
• PRODUCT TYPE: hardcover core rulebook/softcover zine
• RETAIL PRICE: $59/$14.99
• OTHER RPG NEWS: Shadowdark Interview and 2024 ENNIE Award Winners
• DESCRIPTION: In the ENNIE award winning Shadowdark, PCs are dungeon crawlers using magic, steel, and wits to delve into mysterious ruins, lost cities, and monster-infested depths seeking wondrous treasures and long-forgotten secrets. But time passes quickly and if an hour of real time passes, the torches all go out. And no PC can see in the dark. Another way to explore the rules is in the Viking inspired Midnight Sun. PCs are fierce sea wolves who sail their dragon prow longboats over the dark waves as the midnight sun rises above the frozen northern isles. Inside: a 0-level gauntlet adventure; mountainous islands ruled by drakes, warrior clans, and the enigmatic Old Gods; two new classes: seer and sea wolf; rules for new spells, boats, swearing oaths, arctic sea encounters, and a raid into the unsuspecting Wortwick Monastery; and 12 monsters including the angelic warrior Valkyrie.

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Twilight: 2000 | Hostile Waters by Free League Publishing

• SYSTEM: Year Zero Engine
• PRODUCT TYPE: boxed sets
• RETAIL PRICE: $59.93/$41.80
• OTHER RPG NEWS: review of Twilight: 2000
• DESCRIPTION: These two box sets can be combined to link three maps depicting the world of Twilight: 2000 from Poland to Sweden. The PCs are survivors of World War III in a world that took a different turn of history. The setting is bleak, but there is still hope. In the midst of so much destruction, the PCs might build something new. Twilight: 2000 includes: a Player’s Manual (and the machine gunner is wearing a Dio shirt, so extra points there), a Referee’s Manual, an 864 x 558mm double-sided full-color hexagon travel map, 15 dice, 6 modular battle maps, four battle maps, 108 cardboard tokens including fighters and vehicles, 52 encounter cards, 10 initiative cards, and five blank character sheets. Inside Hostile Waters: combat and travel rules for marine environments, military watercraft large and small, new factions, new scenario site: the USS Maine Ohio-class nuclear submarine, two sample waterways the Vistula river and the Göta Canal, 26 encounter cards, 16 modular battle maps, six scenario site battle maps, battle map tokens for boats and ships, and a double-sided full-color 864x558mm travel map for northern Poland and southern Sweden, connecting the maps in the core set.

Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy Rules Tome | The Hole in the Oak | The Incandescent Grotto by Necrotic Gnome

• SYSTEM: D&D Basic and D&D Expert
• PRODUCT TYPE: hardcover supplement
• RETAIL PRICE: $40/$15/$15
• OTHER RPG NEWS: review of The Hole in the Oak
• DESCRIPTION: Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy Rules Tome combines D&D Basic and D&D Expert by Moldvay and Cook with exceptional layout and readability. Seven classes, 34 cleric spells, 72 magic-user spells, rules for adventuring (dungeons, the wilderness, and at sea), stronghold rules, over 200 monsters, and over 150 wondrous magic items. The Hole in the Oak and The Incandescent Grotto presents the Mythic underworld for beginning PCs and can be played separately or combined into a large three level dungeon with over 115 keyed encounter areas. The Hole in the Oak tree leads PCs down to a maze of root-riddled passageways, the former chambers of a wizard, and an underground river where a reptile cult once built their temples. Covers 60 keyed areas in a quick-reference, bullet point format. A bubbling stream cascades into a hole in the earth, leading to a series of underground watercourses and The Incandescent Grotto. PCs who delve within discover odd mosses and fungi, a ruined temple complex, and the lair of a crystal-eating dream dragon. Includes 57 keyed areas.

Troika! Intro Bundle by Melsonian Arts Council

• SYSTEM: unique 2d6
• PRODUCT TYPE: softcover core rulebook and a hardcover adventure
• RETAIL PRICE: $40.35
• OTHER RPG NEWS: Troika!: An Interview with Daniel Sell
• DESCRIPTION: In Troika! a cosmopolitan group of PCs explore a science-fantasy multiverse. They fly on golden barges across the humpbacked sky, help dying gods, solve confounding crimes, plunder dead worlds, and meet strange and Baroque people. Includes: 36 backgrounds like the thinking engine (robot with amnesia), more than 70 spells, 36 enemies with a random mien, and a hotel adventure filled with unusual and sometimes dangerous guests. Slate & Chalcedony is adventure that possess a transdimensional threat. Two towers appeared from nowhere and now sit at the center of a growing circle of blight where the rivers have soured and the circle of dying grows. Armies have been sent to the towers to topple them and none have returned. The whole world will soon be a blackened desert unless the PCs intervene. Contains over 70 weird rooms, new and unpleasant spells, a cast of NPC wizards that delved too deep into arcane excess, Gentle Hurmin the pig, no fewer than two dark lords of apocalyptic proportions, and a classic dungeon crawl. Many additional adventures are available as well.

Call of Cthulhu RPG | Arkham by Chaosium

• SYSTEM: Basic Roleplaying
• PRODUCT TYPE: hardcovers
• RETAIL PRICE: $54.95/$59.99
• DESCRIPTION: Based upon the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft, in Call of Cthulhu the PCs are investigators who travel to strange and dangerous places, uncover foul plots, and stand against the terrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. Within strange and forgotten tomes of lore the PCs discover revelations that man was not meant to know. They may very well decide the fate of the world or they might die horribly or go insane as the secrets they uncover and monsters they encounter take their toll. Or the PCs could be trapped in one location like the haunted town of Arkham. With 290 locations like Miskatonic University detailed across nine neighborhoods, the city cries out for a sandbox-style campaign. Also contains Gossip & Rumors to use as scenario seeds and over 80 fully-detailed NPCs with their own secrets. A GM could run this for a large group of players who come and go weekly. If at least four PCs are available, then something haunting that has to be investigated begins. Includes two Arkham city map posters (one designed for players and one for the GM), a poster-sized copy of the front page of the Arkham Advertiser to use as a prop, and new rules and skills for PCs.

Charlie Dunwoody participates in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program and the Noble Knight Games’ Affiliate Program. These programs provide advertising fees by linking to DriveThruRPG and Noble Knight Games respectively. If you like the articles at EN World please consider supporting the EN World Patreon.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

If you're interested in doing an interview for EN World about owning a (1/3) game store in 2024 drop me some contact info please. We'd have to concentrate on RPGs and hopefully you see some game play in your store, but I think it would be a worthy conversation. I think my editor would accept the submission.

If it counts for anything, I'd certainly like to see more of that sort of content. There's a fair bit of reporting about publishers here but little if any about the retail side of things, and stores thrive on exposure as much as any part of the industry. Let's hear more about the good stores out there and how they're making their business work in today's environment.