Welcome back to the Role Playing Games PDF Spotlights column, where we look at some of the PDF’s that have been released in the past week that have caught my eye.
All of the below were released in PDF between 12th-18th February 2022.
Core Rulebook
By Hardy Tales
In 1951, the first mission to the moon discovered vast riches in untapped mineral resources. By 1976, the network of moon colonies is a booming center of industry, commerce, and corruption. Rival nations, corporations, and criminal enterprises jockey for power on the last frontier—and they need help.
In this ultra-lite retro-future RPG, players take on the roles of Troubleshooters: freelance adventurers contracted to solve dangerous problems by any means necessary. This could mean:
- exploring an abandoned colony dome,
- fighting a lunar street gang,
- rescuing stranded prospectors before their air runs out,
- exchanging a kidnapped exec for a stolen machine part,
- or blackmailing a corporate official into supporting the mining unions’ demands.
Every job is different, but on the mean streets of the moon, any job will do.
Solo Super-Spy Roleplaying
By Zozer Games
Shots pass your head as the second assassin turns his motorcycle around to pursue your dirt bike up the Spanish Steps. Close to the church, near the top, you spin the bike around in a circle and wince as half a dozen of Il Drago’s goons emerge to block off the exits, each one raising a gun ready for action. Dammit. You look around – you’re on your own…
No Day To Die is a solo roleplaying game inspired by the greatest series of spy movies ever made. A single player assumes the role of a British government secret agent and then plays out a various high-stakes spy missions in exotic locations around the world. All that is required is a notebook, a pen or pencil, a single deck of regular playing cards, and imagination.
Using an innovative scene resolution mechanic, the game does not rely on verb-noun tables or continual use of yes-no questioning. The plot builds organically to a climax, punctuated by fights, chases, romantic encounters and attempts on your life.
Fights and chases are both played out using a hand of cards from which the player chooses his moves and attacks in a dynamic, exciting and ever-changing game.
Create your agent, draw a card and embark on a globe-trotting mission to save the world. Again.
No Day To Die uses the Card Shark RPG Rules (included).
Traveller Sourcebook
By Mongoose Publishing
Money will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can always get you money… or land, or power, or whatever you are willing to pay them to fight for.
Raise Your Force
Mercenary presents detailed rules for raising and equipping a mercenary force, training your troops and finding the best – or maybe just the cheapest – hardware on the market. Units are rated according to their capabilities in critical areas such as direct combat, aerospace defence or bombardment. Unit Traits provide additional capabilities that can tip the balance of a close-fought battle.
Enter the Marketplace
Some plans do not survive contact with the client, let alone the enemy. Mercenary gives you the tools you need to make sense of a client’s conflicting requirements and figure out what is necessary to complete the contract. Sometimes that is the same as winning the fight… but not always.
Begin Operations
The mission and ticket resolution rules allow large and small-scale operations to be quickly resolved. Referees can abstract routine events and shift focus to where the action is hottest. The scalable battle system accounts for force size, tech level, tactics, level of aggression and a host of other factors.
Lay Down Some Fire
The expanded combat rules deal with life-or-death situations where suppressing an enemy support weapon, getting a shot on target or achieving an instant knockdown can make all the difference.
Deploy Specialists
Rules for specialist troops cover anti-armour tactics, meteoric assault from orbit, hunting snipers and all manner of other situations the typical band of Travellers will never encounter. An array of specialist equipment is also presented, providing the tools for getting the toughest job done.
Level Up: Adventures in ZEITGEIST (A5E)
5E Dungeons & Dragons/Level Up Setting
By EN Publishing
This 285-page guide to the Adventures in ZEITGEIST setting offers a world of steam, sorcery, and intrigue, bringing fantasy gaming to a new era of innovative magic and technology. Whether a conspirator, a constable, a revolutionary, or a vagabond, your adventures will steer the course of a new age.
Adventures in ZEITGEIST offers character options for players to explore this new setting of industrial fantasy, plus advice and adventure hooks for game masters to help them bring to life the world’s great nations, their clashing ideologies, and the mysteries and plots that imperil them.
Inside, you’ll discover:
- A detailed overview of Llanjr, its nations, geography, and history.
- New deva, gnoll, goblin, kobold, lizardfolk, and minotaur heritages.
- Sixteen new subclasses like the Gadgeteer fighter, the Urbanist warlock, and the Executore herald, as well as the new quick-witted Savant class.
- New Archaeologist,Faction Agent, Investigator, and Riven Mind backgrounds.
- Six cultures to help ground your character in the world of ZEITGEIST, including the Bloodmarked gnolls, De Guerra orcs, and the philosophical Dialecicians.
- A dozen feats to show your devotion to the grand social movements shaping the world, like tinkering Technologists, the secret society of Vekeshi Mystics, and the Skyseers who glimpse prophecies in the movements of the planes in the night sky.
- Over thirty new magic items, such as the absurdist web, blood of the hollow widow, countermagical handcuffs, and the hat of hats.
- Tools for proper modern heroes, like an astounding array of firearms, the finest monster-repelling apotropaics science can devise, and arcanotechnological innovations such as lantern blasters, asomatous canvas projectors, and planarite-fueled dirigibles.
- Monsters ranging from the dreamborn srasama-fey of Elfaivar and the emotivore malice beasts to the pride of Pemberton Industries: B.E.A.R. – the battle enhanced animalistic replicant.
5E Dungeons & Dragons Adventure
By The Night Owl
The Angels & Devils Trilogy is a series of adventures for the world’s greatest roleplaying game (5e).
The dwarven stronghold Cragtop Citadel has fallen prey to a devil incursion. The people of the Vermilion Highlands are unaware and unprepared. You must unravel the citadel’s mysteries and escape with your life. Explore the highlands and light the celestial beacons. Can you claim the legendary sword Devil’s Bane from a fallen angel? Before all is over, you must face the general of the infernal armies: the pit fiend Baaldemor. The fate of the highlands rests on you!
This 140-page book contains the adventures:
– The Secret of Cragtop Citadel
– Devil’s Bane
– Wrath of the Pit Fiend
plus the Heaven & Hell Codex with new game material.
The book features:
– player handouts, including an adventurers’ map of the region in “explorers’ style” (in both a DM and a player version) by cartographer Thomas Rey
– stunning monster, character and other images by commissioned professional illustrators such as Verena Biskup (The Dark Eye RPG), Iromonik, and Daniel Kang
– print and VTT versions of all site and battle maps, rendered in great detail by Venatus Maps and RustyMaps
– detailed NPCs with illustrations and full descriptions of their agendas and how to roleplay them
– new monsters, including new types of angels (celestial agents, fallen angels), new types of devils (cutter devils, slithering devils), hellfire lions that can drag their prey with them to Hell, spellblooded pixies, and more
– new celestial and infernal magic items, including the angel blade Devil’s Bane, ligthning bolas, hellfire braziers, and more
– Legend & Lore revealing secrets about The Infinite War between the angels and devils, as well as the forbidden Dark Roads under the mountains
– Angelic blessings and boons, diabolical cultists and their infernal powers, dwarven treasure and name tables, and more
The trilogy is designed for a party of levels 6-8 and the DM can adapt the difficulty level. The trilogy can be played as a sequel to the adventure To Catch A Unicorn, but this isn’t required
Get ready to travel back to a time of angels – and devils!
Mythras Adventure
By Earl of Fife Games
Brave the Maze of Mezeria! There is but one chance for glory, but many for death. Venture forth with skill and guile or join the doom of a long dead civilization. The Maze of Mezeria is a 62-page adventure for Mythras. Your players will explore a labyrinth full of secrets while fighting for their very survival. The Mythras Core Rulebook is required for this adventure.
In this adventure you will find;
- A 62-page adventure that should last 10-20 hours depending on playstyle;
- A fully keyed map of the Maze of Mezeria;
- New adversaries, including Blobs, Cannibals, and more;
- A full adventure summary, keyed for quick reference at the table;
- And much more!
A Jumpstart for World of Darkness: Ghost Hunters
By Onyx Path Publishing
How many times must we witness a hapless group of aspiring ghost hunters spend a night in a “haunted” house before we accept it for the cheap source of jump scares and bottled hysteria that it is?
These places house no ghosts. These people know nothing of the undead. These “ghost hunters” do not understand real fear.
Well, now they’re coming to my house, and I feel it’s high time someone put a damn good fright into the impetuous living.
Who knows? Maybe before the night’s out, they’ll join the ranks of the dead, and keep me permanent company.
The Longest Night includes:
- A condensed version of the Storyteller System for use in any World of Darkness 20th Anniverary game.
- A full chronicle taking ghost hunters from their arrival at an old, haunted house, through to their departure — as living or dead — the morning after. Perfect for a one-shot or convention play.
- A selection of ready-made characters, all playable straight from the pages of this book.
Lex Arcana Adventure
By Acheron Books
Ave Custodes and Demiurges!
A new adventure has been released for Lex Arcana!
A strange episode happened near the city of Iguvium, along the Via Flaminia: a private letter received from the Prefect of the Praetorium tells of a small village shrouded in an aura of mystery and a rather particular occurrence relating to the surrounding forest. The Custodes are then sent to shed some light on the matter!
This PDF contains:
• A 20-page adventure set in various locations in Regio VI, Umbria
• 5 trials to face against a cunning antagonist and his slaves
• The map of a typical village built around a mansio
• A new piece of equipment, the Caestus, combat glove, commonly used by gladiators.
Outbreak: Undead (2nd Edition) Supplement
By Hunters Entertainment
Another year of amazing content, the longest and most helpful release since we’ve ever started publishing over ten years ago! Not only will you see an example of a scenario from start to finish, you will see all new ones.
The Outbreak: Undead.. Second Edition Annual marks yet another successful collaboration between the developers and the fans and it is our proudest annual so far!
In this edition you will find…
• A full scenario walkthrough
• A previously unreleased finale to the scenario “The Old Man and the Z”
• Unique missions
…and a host of other surprises released throughout the 2020 run of Free Content Friday.
Maps
By Rustymaps
Havrec Castle
Need a castle for your next campaign? Check this map!
Versions:
– Day (also with gridd)
– Night
– Winter
– Winter night
– Desert
5E Dungeons & Dragons Setting
By Compass Publishing House
“The leather-draped delver peered down the hall at her companions, hesitant to follow into the chambers of the slumbering beast. The halls of the dungeon were beginning to wear her down: each time they returned rested and resupplied, the dungeon was different—recognizable, but in an unfamiliar pattern like a sliding puzzle that moved its earthen bones around them.
Progress seemed impossible. Even when they won a triumphant day of battle, returning to Prism with treasure and glory in hand, the dungeon spat in their faces the moment they returned, an indignant and untameable wolf with an endless hunger… and yet, there was something alluring about it all. The dungeon promised her a wild and unpredictable life of glory and hardship—an adventure without bounds, one whose call she was entirely unable to resist. She pushed on to catch up with her friends.”
EIDOL: the Endless Dungeon is a weird-fantasy campaign setting for the fifth edition of the world’s oldest roleplaying game.
What is Eidol?
The world of Eidol is a prison planet, constructed by an ancient spacefaring culture to imprison the Great Goddess, Pandora. To keep the goddess’s agents at bay, the cube-shaped planet consists of six sprawling dungeons, ever-changing their layout and contents—a challenge that never ends, luring delvers into the depths of the world in pursuit of treasure, glory, and a wish granted by the Maiden of the Dungeon herself.
What’s in the Book?
EIDOL is a fully-illustrated 180 page campaign setting funded successfully on Kickstarter. The book includes:
- A new system for building fleshed-out characters, replacing races with ancestries, cultures, and secrets
- A new Eidol-themed subclass for all twelve classes
- Six joinable factions to fill your campaign with intrigue and conflict
- The Delve system, a simple low-prep way to run megadungeons on the fly
- A detailed gazetteer of all six major regions of the planet
- 20 new magic items, 12 new spells, 3 new feats, and lots of new equipment
- 60+ new stat blocks, including creatures and NPCs
Dark Stars Sourcebook
By Darkstars Universe
Delve into the barely legal world of corporations. Shadowy organisations or out in the open blatant for-profit structures which oppress the masses by giving them what they want.
Welcome to the Dark Stars Corporations Book. To use this book, you will need the Dark Stars book. Other books including Off the Rack and the Colonization book are fully compatible with this book. If you found this book through the FWB setting and game, this is also compatible with the Equipment list in FWB. What can you expect? Some descriptions and write ups of corporations, scenarios revolving around corporations and new equipment.
- Rules for creating and operating corporations.
- 3 full scenarios with NPCs.
- New perks for corporate characters.
- Write ups of major corporations.
- New equipment and vehicles.
System Neutral Settings
By MacGuffin & Co
Welcome to your new career! Odd Jobs is a collection of fun, bizarre and dynamic system-neutral settings to be used in tabletop roleplaying. Each puts the players in a strange profession, with fascinating bite-sized worlds demanding to be explored!
- 11 characterful micro-settings, from magical ancient Rome to surreal post-apocalyptic psychoscape.
- Short, manageable campaigns of 3-4 sessions, plus plenty of extras.
- System neutral design for use with whatever RPG system you like.
So grab some friends, some dice and get stuck into some weird and wonderful roleplaying worlds.
Settings included:
- Ghost Ship
- Twisted Rails
- Not Far to Bermuda
- Guardians
- Atlantis City
- Duskhollow PD
- MIX: Missing In X-mas
- Primetime Colosseum
- Wizard’s Staff
- Start-Up Culture
- Fixer-Upper
5E Dungeons & Dragons Adventure
By Grayfisher
Welcome to Micklemass, finest city for a hundred miles. But lately the people of the outer city have been facing two rising threats. A crime gang led by someone named the Scarlet Rat has been harassing citizens and exerting control over their lives. Meanwhile, kobolds are increasingly raiding supplies and making nighttime travel dangerous.
The outer city needs help, but the City Guard doesn’t have the strength to stop the problems.
Tunnels of the Scarlet Rat is an immersive 5E adventure made to take players from level 1 through to level 3 and includes:
- 10 new monsters, including 6 new types of kobold
- 5 new magic items
- Over 30 NPC’s fleshing out a living city
- 19 illustrations of monsters, magic items, NPC’s, and adventure scenes
- DM and player maps for the city and multiple locations
Dig into the clues and discover the secrets of the Tunnels of the Scarlet Rat.
Monstrous Compendium Planescape Appendix III
2E Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Sourcebook
By Wizards of the Coast
How does a Berk fight something he can’t even understand?
Things’re different on the Inner planes. Oh, some bashers might say they’re deadlier, or harsher, or just plain weirder, but the truth is, they’re merely different. And on planes full of nothing but searing magmas, swampy ooze, glittering mineral, utter desolation, or life incarnate, is there any wonder that a body’d find creatures as alien as any the multiverse has ever seen? Things that eat color, leaving a victim fully transparent. Beasts that spread life like a virus, animating all things around them. Spirits that form bodies by forcing hundreds of smaller animals to act as one. It’s enough to make a sod long for a pit fiend.
Liven up any Planescape or AD&D campaign with Monstrous Compendium Appendix III, which features 128 pages of monsters that lurk on the Inner Planes, the Astral Planes, and the Ethereal Plane — some of the strangest and most inhospitable environments of the multiverse. Most of the critters are brand new, though a few old favorites have been updated. This book also provides a detailed look at the ecology of the planes in question, not to mention an appendix of inner-planar creatures that’re more like animals than monsters. And, of course, all-new illustrations vividly bring each of these exotic beings to life.
The third volume created for the PLANESCAPE campaign, this MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM appendix features a multitude of creatures from the Inner Planes-seventeen extreme worlds, including Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Smoke, Ooze, and more. Select specimens from the Astral and Ethereal Planes round out the ranks of this monstrous new horde.
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Voices From The Pulpit 