Welcome back to the “Role Playing Game PDF Spotlights” column, where we look at some of the PDFs that have been released in the past week that have piqued my interest. There’s a bumper crop of titles that I wanted to feature so I’ve split the column in to two parts this week. You can read Part 1 here.
All of the below were released in PDF between 22nd-28th January 2022.
Never Mind the Dice Rolls Issue 5
RPG Magazine
By NMtDRzine
Issue 005 (28 pages) is our New Beginnings issue featuring:
- Reviews of RuneQuest Starter Set and Mutant: Genlab Alpha.
- Player Skills: Old Character/New Character.
- Lore & Order: The history of Judge Dredd in RPGs.
- Ghost Car: A cyberpunk scenario.
Core Rulebook
By Modiphius
“From that island at the end of the world, no soldier returned without tales of wonder. Walking forests, talking fae, enigmatic shapes half man and half beast; things that you ought not to believe unless you see them yourself.” – Kaato the Sage on the invasion of Avallen
Inspired by Celtic mythology in Roman Britain, Legends of Avallen is a roleplaying game that takes you to a mystical island occupied by faithless invaders. For now, peace has been called but it balances on a sword’s edge as all seek to tame the Otherworld—a parallel realm home to fae, demons, dragons, and gods.
On Avallen, the greatest legends rise from humble beginnings, and yours will be no different. The shepherd ordained as a Druid, the bard reborn as a Fae Touched, the thief who found glory as a Gladiator. What tales will be told of you? Will you mend the rifts between worlds, or delve into their depths for fame, fortune, and power?
Legends of Avallen is a complete tabletop roleplaying game in one incredibly illustrated 244-page book.
Features:
- Quick character creation with deep character growth. Witness your humble townsperson rise into legend with 40 profession, martial, magic, and legendary ability schools.
- Engaging mechanics that reward ingenuity. Setup allies in combat, uncover motivations in parleys, craft gear from slain monsters, and navigate risks on epic journeys.
- An original ruleset that needs just a deck of regular playing cards. Get creative with your surroundings and work together with your friends to earn more cards for checks.
- Extensive guides, tools, world lore, and a bestiary full of Celtic creatures to help Gamemasters craft their own unique quests.
- Includes “Quest for the Sealing Stone”, an introductory adventure that teaches your aspiring heroes the game rules as you play.
Torg Eternity Sourcebook
By Ulisses Spiele
Fear will consume you …
Orrorsh is the realm of gothic horror. Cultivated and perfected by the Gaunt Man, Orrorsh is without doubt the most dangerous of the invading cosms. The Nightmares of Orrorsh now stalk and prey upon ords and Storm Knights both.
Orrorsh invaded India and surrounding countries, spreading like an infection in the Night of Screams. Since then, the realm has barely expanded, but its zones are turning Pure.
Now the Hellion Court work towards furthering the Gaunt Man’s sinister plot to drain Core Earth of its Possibility Energy, as he has done to countless cosms before. Corruption tempts those with power and the Gaunt Man is always delighted to turn a hero into a villain.
You play the heroes of this gothic horror realm. Detectives, occultists, monster slayers, Sacellum priests, and even those Cursed to be monsters themselves attempt to thwart the evil plans of the Gaunt Man and stop him from becoming the TORG.
INSIDE YOU’LL FIND:
• New Perks, Spells, Miracles, and gear for players.
• New Threats and foes to encounter, including Nightmares, which can regenerate Possibility Energy.
• Details of the Warzones within Orrorsh and Ravagons, savage beings loyal to the Gaunt Man.
• Plot hooks and events from the first year of the Possibility Wars.
Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Sourcebook
By Renegade Game Studios
How dreadful, how perverse, how malicious would a Kindred faith need to be, to be considered “forbidden”?
Within this book you will learn of religions stricken from the records of vampire scholars. Within, you shall find a collection of beliefs, some pernicious enough to collapse domains, others so focused that they possess only a handful of coteries the world over.
Each faith is clandestine.
Each religion is taboo.
Cainites consider these beliefs anathematic to the fragile existence of Kindred society. Vampires do not advertise themselves as members of these cults: they plot, they survive, and they worship in secret. If they do not, they will surely be hunted to their final deaths, as threatened archons and Princes seek to silence their forbidden thoughts.
Forbidden Religions includes:
- A wide selection of belief systems, some widespread and cloaked in secrecy, others extreme in their focus, from Golconda-seekers and Gehenna cults to infernal religions and churches dedicated to methuselahs.
- New powers, rituals, and coterie types befitting these religions.
- New optional Loresheets, Merits, and Flaws, for use at character creation or to build into your characters as they gain experience.
SIDEQUEST Issue 8 January 2021
5E Dungeons & Dragons RPG Magazine
By Icarus Games
SIDEQUEST is the monthly RPG magazine focused on providing you with usable 5e compatible material, as well as articles to inspire your creativity, and it’s packed with options for GMs and players alike.
Greetings gamers and welcome to the preview for issue 8 of SIDEQUEST magazine.
Liminal Adventure
By Modiphius
The crew receive an anonymous note reading, “The werewolves are going to chase down and kill a man tomorrow night on top of Ilkley Moor.” Werewolves killing people? And who sent the note? There’s time pressure to find out if the crew are going to help.
Contains:
- A case note for Liminal suitable for both a one-shot and a continuing campaign.
- Links to werewolf politics and an ancient faerie gift.
- Based in the North Yorkshire moors.
They Came From the Snake-Filled Submarine
They Came From Beneath the Sea Scenario
By Onyx Path Publishing
Snakes are bad news at the best of times, but nobody wants snakes in their submarine. Nobody but a Director of They Came From Beneath the Sea!, that is!
Embrace the havoc of a snake-filled submarine with this fully playable They Came From Beneath the Sea! scenario, which includes:
- Five playable protagonists to DIVE DIVE DIVE right into the action!
- Three nasty reptilians representing different snakey threats!
- A full plot to explore and run, perfect for one-shots and convention play!
5E Dungeons & Dragons Supplement also suitable for any fantasy system
By CZRPG
Urban Encounters & Quests is a supplement for any fantasy system, with specific guidelines for 5e, which aims to help you save prep time and impress your players.
This product offers you 6 detailed encounters, each with a battlemap, to complement your adventures without the need of having preparation.
Here’s a summary of what you get in this product:
- 26-pages gorgeously laid out with amazing artwork
- 6 detailed encounters
- 6 battelamaps with 12 versions (gridded and gridless, 2k resolution)
- 4 new creatures
Black Void Supplement
By Modiphius
UNDER NEBULOUS SKIES is packed with new setting material, character options, powers, equipment, Void vessels, and the first opus of the grand campaign trilogy.
The book’s 320+ pages are bursting with beautiful art, new creatures, original sentient species, gorgeous maps, intriguing NPC’s and much, much more.
Reconciling the fractured and clashing human factions of Llyhn could bring benefit to all, but playing them out against each other to gain advantage might be the only viable option to survive and uncover the aspirations of an obscure entity with its gaze fixed firmly on the descendants of Earth…
Features:
- The Travelogue section takes a deep-dive into the Kimah and Dhaarese districts, where more than 30 new locations, multiple notable people, gangs, and factions provide Arbiters with even more options for exploring the Eternal City.
- The new Player’s options include new Flaws and Talents, exciting halfblood backgrounds, enticing Void sphere options, new skills and much more giving players a wider selection for character individualization than ever before.
- The equipment section details new exotic weapons, esoteric commodities, peculiar substances, as well as details for acquiring and constructing Void vessels.
- In this, the first opus of the Grand campaign, a desperate cry for help from an unfamiliar human settlement, leads the protagonists deep into the underworld of Kimah, amongst nefarious gangs crushing or enslaving anyone getting in their way. In gloomy warrens, amid thugs and thieves, the protagonists discover that the conspiracies go much deeper, and they find themselves in a pursuit leading them far from home.
Unearthed Spoils (Vol.V): Surviving the Arctic
5E Dungeons & Dragons Supplement
By Grim Press
Unearthed Spoils Digital Magazine – Volume V contains the following:
- MAGIC ITEM SET – Rebuffing the cold’s deathly grip, this magic item set allows its wearer to survive in an arctic environment.
- MAGIC ITEMS FOUND IN THE ARCTIC – Items imbued with magical properties might be hard to find in the frozen wastes, but they do exist.
- MAGICAL SPELLS – Spells designed to freeze your foes or bolster your defenses by harnessing winter’s chill.
- ARCHETYPES – Three new subclasses that favor the cold tundra.
- GM VARIANT RULE: COLD WEATHER TRAVEL & RESTING – Rules outlining the hinderances of various cold weather conditions when taking a long rest, given a player’s general preparedness.
- ENCOUNTER: FROZEN KEEP DEFENSE – Defending the Frozen Keep is a short encounter for Game Masters to drop into a long-running campaign.
5E Dungeons & Dragons Supplement
By Underground Oracle Publishing
“It doesn’t matter whether you call them gods or aeonians or extraplanar creatures. There are forces at work in this world far beyond mortal scope. We should count ourselves lucky that these particular beings concern themselves with the good.”
– Quinarys Ellavoss, Veil Watchman
When speaking of celestial power, images of certain types of iconic heroes are immediately brought to mind. The paladin astride their gleaming steed leading the charge toward evil. The cleric beseeching her deity to heal her allies during the heat of battle. The warlock reaching out to the nebulous heavens to grasp the golden hand of a being willing to grant him power. But these traditional champions are far from the only types of adventurers who search for answers among celestial beings or the divine and find themselves wielding powers greater than themselves as a result.
This supplement introduces new celestial-themed options for Players and Game Masters, including two new archetypes, spells, feats, and relics that can be bestowed on adventurers who place themselves—either through deeds or devotion—in the realm and notice of celestial beings.
This supplement includes:
- 2 new celestial subclasses; the College of the Celestial Chorus and the Blessed Brawler
- 5 new spells
- 5 new feats
- 5 new wondrous relics
Core Rules & Adventure
By Aether Void
Space Marines are standing their ground on the massive stone walls of New London, adding their firepower to that of the Redguards. The pandemonium persists for what seems like an eternity, filled with the ear-piercing screeches of Eldritch Horrors and the shouting of men. The gauss rifles of the grey-clad Marines sharply contrasting with the bolt action rifles and belt-fed machine guns used by the Redguards. Meanwhile on Far Haven, a world lightyears away from New London, a Dryad sorceress from the mystic forests on Far Haven, spurned by her lover, flies into a blood rage with murderous intent. Unfamiliar with the concept of firearms, she forces her will onto reality, setting his entire village on fire in an act of retribution, with the charred remains a silent witness that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Aether Void is a ttrpg where multiple genres come together in the same universe, allowing you to mix and match elements from Fantasy, Steampunk, and Sci-fi however you’d like. Its game system is highly customizable, allowing for psychological roleplay, and rewarding smart play. Also, it can be rather deadly for those who are willing to take unnecessary risks.
In Return of the Ancients, the players take control over a variety of characters, all of whom have been abducted from their own world by a corrupt faction known as the Technocrats. After the spaceship transporting them crashes near some old ruins, the adventurers have their chance to clear the ruins and take their revenge (or profit from a newfound alliance). The story continues in Prism Bræk, where after ending up on a futuristic space station the characters find themselves locked up. The goal is deceptively simple, escape from your cell and find a way off the station.
With this Full Color version of Return of the Ancients you have everything you need to start playing Aether Void, including the Aether Void ruleset and our first one-shot adventure!
Please note: Some of the links in the post above may be “affiliate links”. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item the author of this post will receive an affiliate commission.
Voices From The Pulpit 