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 19th-25th March 2022.
Core Rulebook
By Coyote & Crow LLC
Science Fantasy Roleplaying in an Uncolonized Future
More than 700 years ago, a massive disaster changed the course of history. The world was plunged into centuries of darkness, but the event also introduced the Adanadi — the Gift — a strange mark that appeared on all life. This mark would have an enduring impact on humanity. Centuries later, the Earth is healing. New, advanced nations have risen. Ancient legends stir.
Coyote & Crow is a tabletop roleplaying game set in an alternate future where colonization of the Americas never happened. In this world that is both familiar and entirely new, you’ll take on the role of heroic characters adventuring in a changing landscape.
Coyote & Crow is a bold look into a different future full of possibilities and fresh perspectives, created and developed by a diverse, Indigneous-led team.
Witcher Supplement
By R. Talsorian Games Inc.
A Celebration of the Art, Chaos, and Science of Magic!
It’s said that magic is equal parts art, chaos, and science. That it’s a blessing, a curse, and progress itself. Through the notes of escaped Nilfgaardian Director of Magic, Glynnis var Treharne, you’ll put that saying to the test, uncovering the secrets of the primal forces of magic. How will you use this primordial chaos, and how will it change you?
A Tome of Chaos is a supplement for the Witcher TRPG which gives you a number of new spells, invocations, rituals, and hexes as well as a collection of magic items, dark rituals, and magical miscellanea to take your game to new heights.
Featuring:
- New Magic: Explore a library of new magic including: spells, invocations, rituals, hexes, signs, runes, glyphs, elixirs, and magic items.
- Explore the Dark Arts: Bend dark forces to your will with rules for summoning the spirits of the dead, making deals with demons, and creating mutant monstrosities.
- Priests, Druids, & the Gifted: Expand the boundaries of magic at your gaming table with the separate and expanded Priest and Druid Professions and new rules for granting mundane characters minor magical talents.
- And More: Learn how magic is taught across the Continent, follow the stories of Director Var Treharne, and experience the dangers of Goetia in a gripping adventure.
Untold Encounters of the Random Kind
Systemless/5E Dungeons & Dragons Supplement
By Loke BattleMats
Untold Encounters of the Random Kind is a tool to generate ideas, encounters and even entire adventures for fantasy RPG Games.
This book is designed to work with your existing RPG system, and we provide a 5E conversion guide in addition to our own system agnostic mechanics.
This book contains over 1000 random encounters, 6 mini 5E pre-written adventures, adventure generators, and is packed full of random tables.
The book is broken into 3 main chapters – Town Encounters, Wilderness Encounters and Dungeon Encounters.
These chapters are further broken down into sections to allow you to find encounters most relevant to your specific scenario. Of course we also provide roll tables to randomise your choices, or you can simply choose the encounters you like the look of.
Each chapter contains hundreds of relevant random encounters, and also entire Adventure generators so you can roll up an entire campaign should you so wish.
So pick up your dice and roll up an encounter on us!
Runecairn Rules & Adventure
By Odin’s Beard
In a long-forgotten age, a raging war shattered and devastated the worlds of gods and men. Now green life blooms amidst the ruins of the lost worlds. Wondrous and terrible beings roam the Nine Realms. Civilisation stumbles forward, fresh and reaching.
Fate carves the skein anew but there are loose threads, lost long ago in the wars, with no place in the tapestry. These threads must seek the fire within and weave their own path.
Strap on your bearded axe and linden wood shield, delve into the forsaken barrow and cleanse the draugr within. They will overhwhelm you at first so prepare to die. But when you wake up at the bonfire, you’ll know what to expect for your next attempt. Parry their attacks, disarm them, and hack them to pieces. Defeat the mad jotunn within and claim the soul remnant they protect.
Death is not the end.
What is Runecairn: Wardensaga?
Runecairn is a Soulslike Norse fantasy RPG by Colin Le Sueur for 1-3 players. Character creation is quick and intuitive, dynamic combat is intense and reactive. Wardensaga combines the Runecairn: Core Rules, introductory dungeon crawl adventure Beneath the Broken Sword, and newly introduced Advanced Rules in an 84-page deluxe edition with cover art from ground-breaking artist CROM.
Wardensaga Features:
- Set in a Norse fantasy world some time after Ragnarok
- Core gameplay designed for 2 players, one Warden and one Adventurer
- Streamlined d20 roll-under rules based on Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave
- Soulslike mechanics such as resurrecting at bonfires, respawning monsters, and dynamic combat
- Quickstart dungeon crawl adventure Beneath the Broken Sword, perfect for new players
- 4 core starting classes: Warrior, Scout, Seer, Skald
- 2 new advanced classes: Berserkr, Pyre
- New options for solo play with a rune-based oracle
- New random delve generator for creating Norse dungeons
- New options for 3 or more players with summoned allies (jolly cooperation!) and invasions
5E Dungeons & Dragons Supplement
By Necromancer
Nearly 600 new magical items, spells, monsters, and mystical tattoos for your campaign!
Tome of Wondrous Items — the companion volume to our acclaimed Tome of Alchemy — offers a vast array of resources for creative game mastery. Learn about the fascinating-but-disgusting brain jar, the ring of the smoke wyrm, the terrifying rod of necromancy, the staff of the arch-spider, the wand of runes, and the scepter of the heavens!
What else is lurking inside the Tome of Wondrous Items?
- All the Basics: Chapters filled with magical armor, rings, rods, scrolls, staves, wands, wondrous items, and weapons!
- Magical Tattoos: As a bonus (and because the author loves his tattoos and skin art in general), the book contains an appendix covering magical tattoos: how to get them, how to use them, and their powers.
- Otherworldly Items: Not all magic is of this world. Using otherworldly items often comes at great peril. Normal identification magic yields nothing; the only sure way is a combination of research into dusty tomes and dangerous experimentation. If weird tech items such as golem suits and energy projectors are your thing, you’re covered and energized.
- New Spells: New spells such as obfuscate nature and suppress item, as well as optional rules for dealing with magical conjunction and panoplies of items!
- New Monsters: Some of these wondrous items summon strange things. Be wary of the spell moth!
5E Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Anthology
By Laidback DM
10 One-Shots. Are YOU ready to load up?
SHOTGLASS ROUNDS Volume 1 is a collection of the first 10 adventures in the Shotglass Rounds series. These One-Shots for 5e & OSR are for the DM who doesn’t like to prep! Flexible, convenient, super-charged excitement in a compact package that won’t have you sitting up for hours doing prep for your next game session! Each adventure is designed for a 4-5 hour game and includes 2 new monsters, 2 new magic items, a full-size player’s map with grid & a full-size grid-less player’s map!
10 Rounds of Adventure, 21 new monsters, 22 new magic items. Load up and fire away.
A.C.E.#9: Accidently Anthropmorphic Animal Heroes
The Awfully Cheerful Engine Adventure
By EN Publishing
WHEN EVIL STRIKES AT THE HEART OF THE CITY
Dog detectives, boxing kangaroos, and, yes, ninja turtles fight to save the streets from the wiles of the evil Whistler.
Create your accidentally anthropomorphic animal hero and foil the plans of evil masterminds and cunning villains. Choose from dozens of wisecracking, crimefighting, vigilante animals. Arm yourself with ninja weapons and supercars, and save the day before the police catch up with you!
Accidentally Anthropomorphic Animal Heroes is the latest exciting adventure for the Awfully Cheerful Engine!
Land of the Rising Sun – Folklore Bestiary
Chivalry & Sorcery / Land of the Rising Sun Sourcebook
By Brittannia Game Designs Ltd
For centuries the Japanese have called their islands the Land of the Rising Sun. Set in Feudal Age Japan, this sourcebook for 5th edition of Chivalry & Sorcery features a Bestiary drawn from the folklore of the Japan of legend.
Within these pages you will find details of more than a hundred yokai, or creatures from Japanese folklore, along with game stats for Land of the Rising Sun.
This is more than just another book of monsters to kill, though. Like all creatures from folklore, wherever they may come from, each entity in this book has its own story, its own cultural significance, and its own particular challenges. Some may be overcome by force, but others require a more thoughtful approach. Some are linked to Japanese social mores and attitudes, and others to Buddhist or Shinto theology.
5E Dungeons & Dragons/Beowulf Adventure
By Handiwork Games
Of old in Ireland, there was the Fianna. A full accounting of the deeds of this band of heroes is too long to write here; be assured they were many and glorious. Every man and woman of the Fianna was supremely skilled in one fashion or another, and all were peerless warriors. They travelled the length and breadth of the island of Ireland, fighting monsters and performing marvellous feats that are still retold in poetry and prose to this day.
All that, though, was long long ago. The time of the Fianna has passed; all but two were slain in the bloody slaughter of the battle of Gabhra, and that was five hundred years ago if it’s a day. Ireland is a holy country now, an island of saints and scholars, converted to the Church by Saint Patrick and his followers. On this isle, the Age of Heroes is passing, and soon all that remains will be the stories recorded by the monks in their great books.
But while Heroes may be fading from Ireland, there are still monsters…
Written by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan (The One Ring RPG, Dracula Dossiers) and beautifully illustrated by Jon Hodgson (The One Ring RPG, Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer Historical), and Scott Purdy (Numenera, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Pathfinder), is suitable for Heroes of level 5 to 6.
100 Events for a Cyberpunk City
Systemless Sourcebook
By Azukail Games
This supplement has 100 events for a bad future version of a cyberpunk-era city. Many involve violence, usually against other inhabitants of the city, and many are potentially dangerous, especially if the characters get involved. They can be used as background flavour or as a source of potential adventure hooks.
This PDF supports Adobe layers and the page backgrounds and images can be disabled to make printing easier.
Here are some sample results:
- A van has been parked in an alley, its rear doors open. A person in the cargo area of the van, wearing serval guns and knives, is handing boxes down from the rear to two more people standing at the rear.
- Alarms start sounding from a corporate tower and the doors shut. Blast shutters start coming down over the windows and the exits.
- An advertising drone flies past overhead, projecting a hologram advertising the upcoming local gig of a well-known musician. A group on the street below, dressed in the manner of a known rival of that musician, start shooting at the drone.
- An advertising banner on the side of a public mass transit vehicle has clearly been hacked, as it’s now showing rather explicit material instead of an ad.
- An all-black van with blacked out windows cruises slowly past. The van is riding low on its armoured wheels and looks to be heavily armoured.
Soulbound Sourcebook
By Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd
Embrace the Waaagh! and become a Champion of Destruction!
Champions of Destruction allows players to create the most brutally cunning — or cunningly brutal — characters for Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound! Become Da Boss, set out across the Mortal Realms in search of a good scrap, and face down the biggest, baddest, creatures in all of the realms! The book features new Destruction aligned Species, new Archetypes, new Talents, tooth splittingly destructive new spells, Miracles and more.
Champions of Destruction contains:
- A head-scratching look at the gods of Destruction, and why they might stop scrappin’ long enough to beat a group of Soulbound into shape.
- Mechanics for wielding the power of the Waaagh!, recruiting a gang of like minded bruisers to join you in your rampage, and becoming Da Boss of your own warband.
- Options to play as brutal Orruks, cunning Kruleboyz, spiteful Hobgrots, diminutive Grots, belching Ogors, and rock-smashing Troggoths, as well as advice on who your character needs to crump to become Soulbound, and dozens of sample Short- and Long- term Goals.
- Over 20 new Destruction-aligned Archetypes, such as the Squig-riding Boingrot Bounder, Waaagh! blasting Weirdnob Shaman, flame-belching Ogor Firebelly, wicked Kruleboy Gutrippa and many more.
- Over 50 cunning and brutal Talents, 60 powerful Miracles from the Gods of Destruction, and 70 spells all drawn from bizzare Lores of Magic wielded by Grots, Orruks, and Ogors.
- Dozens of new pieces of equipment and artefacts to get your mitts on, and swing at your enemies.
- Over 25 new Endeavours for Destruction characters to undertake between adventures, such as squaring off against Da Boss, capering under the Bad Moon, or beating armour into shape with your bare fists.
- Advice for Gamemasters and players on running Destruction-focused campaigns, as well as statistics for a gibbering mountain of Squigs, Grots, Gnoblars and other minions and mounts to beat down or boss around.
Infinity Sourcebook
By Modiphius
Hypercorps, megacorps, empresas. The corporate battlefields of the Human Sphere are as vicious as a Friday night at the Gambate Cantina and as deadly as Paradiso’s Cauchemar cats. From the top-tier lobby backstabbing in Santiago di Neoterra and Concilium Prima to the very real backstabbing among Submondo’s most vicious criminals, the hypercorps’ influence permeates every aspect of humanity’s existence.
Leviathans of apparent corruption, lacking soul and empathy, the hypercorp is the epitome of all of society’s sins and injustice, or so the hard-line terrorists rant in the deep corners of Maya and Arachne. Yet, the hypercorps sustain billions of people all around the galaxy, and no matter what the general consensus, they are here to stay for the hypercorp is the very essence of the Human Sphere.
Before there was PanOceania and the Second Great Space Race, the hypercorp was already gestating, pushing humanity into space, into greatness through the development of technologies and new political systems. The great nations (yes, even the Nomads!) owe much to the hypercorp!
Of course, the hypercorporations of the future are also responsible for the worst tragedies the Human Sphere has suffered since before the coming of the Evolved Intelligence. Indeed, the stories of tragedies like Helicon, the Caledonian Massacres, Luna, Jupiter, even the Japanese Uprising all include one or more hypercorps with bloodied hands.
Necessary evil, virulent cancer on society, or beacons of light in the darkest moment of humankind’s history? However you decide to approach them, remember this: the hypercorps’ power extends their tentacles all over the Human Sphere, and if you awake their anger, there is nothing that will stop them until they own you and everything dear to you.
The Hypercorps Sourcebook includes:
- The detailed story of the hypercorps and the Human Sphere, from the Incorporated States’ foiled attempts to the PanOceanian political lobbies.
- The most renowned and powerful hypercorps in the galaxy, their areas of influence, ambitions, and hostile take-over tactics!
- Corporate adversaries. From the lowest errand boy to the haughtiest Executive Officer, they are all willing to live by their company’s code of values and attain the coveted Loganto status!
- Ideas on how to run a campaign with the real villains and heroes of the Human Sphere–the hypercorp–at its center.
- Rules on how to create and run your own hypercorp, megacorp, or even the humble corporation!
Rancid Canyons of the Floating Death Sheep
Dungeon Crawl Classics Adventure
By MonkeyBlood Design
Yarrowbone is known for its delicious cured and smoked meats. Folk travel for hundreds of miles to sample the delightful tastes and textures of the villager’s meaty products. There’s a problem though. Something is ravaging the livestock populations out in the badlands leaving dismembered and disembowelled sheep out rotting in the midday sun.
Yarrowbone’s leader, Hester Cerese, is worried and the farmers and shepherds are having to graze their flocks elsewhere to keep the dwindling meat supply safe.
Unfortunately, as the herd animals have not been reared and fed on the vegetation found in the badlands, the taste of their meat isn’t the same, and consequently, the locals are getting restless as sales have declined.
Several groups, including an angry mob of locals have gone out to try and hunt whatever is devastating their livestock, but they too have generally ended up as carcasses for the vultures.
Only one person has lived to tell the tale and he refuses to go out there again. Most of the bodies of those villagers killed have been recovered. Two are still missing.
The inhabitants of Yarrowbone are getting desperate and need some hunters and/or heroes to find the missing settlers and save their precipitous meat industry from whatever is destroying it.
Rancid Canyons of the Floating Death Sheep is a low level adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC).
The adventure features the following.
- The detailed village of Yarrowbone featuring NPCs and 22 locations (can be used as a base for any future adventure).
- Immersive NPC and building art.
- Six pieces of cool cartography.
- Three new juicy magic items.
- Seven tricky new adversaries.
- Five engaging mapped encounter locations.
- Table of additonal adventure hooks.
- Table of NPC names.
- Information on fitting the adventure into the Lost Wyrld setting of The Midderlands.
5E Dungeons & Dragons Adventure
By Top Table Productions
13 new 2 to 4 hour adventures to be easily implemented into your campaign for level 1 to 6.
Illustrations by Nathan Botha and Dice and Development. Graphic Design by Top Table Productions.
Let’s find some treasure!
This 50-page full-color book includes:
- Over 20 battle maps
- Game Master’s Advice
- Adventure Hooks
Mork Borg Adventure
By Yog’du Games
More scum have disappeared in the Blood Tree Wood in the past year than normal. No bodies have been found in more than a year. Located in a small province between the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead and the Bergen Chrypt, a handful of hardy locals from the village of Borda eke out a miserable but relatively stable income from harvesting Blood Tree Sap. Many of these harvesters have gone missing in recent months, vanishing while out tending the trees. Lord Felbane grew alarmed by the loss of revenue, and then his twin children vanished from inside his home two weeks ago. His wife, the Lady Gurntch, has cloistered herself and will not see anyone. Last night the advisor hired to find the children, the Forlorn Philosopher Aerg-Tval, went missing with a bloody trail heading into the forest.
All of these calamities are taking a toll on his business, and he is now beyond desperate.
The lord is a wealthy man, and he has decided to use his wealth to solve his problems in the most final way. He commissioned a huge posse, led by a brutal Fanged Deserter calling himself Captain Bemulg, with orders to sweep the Blood Tree Wood of foul creatures, discover the source behind the vanishings, and most importantly to find his children.
RPG Rulebook and Sourcebook
By OddFish Games
We all know your cat is ready to play tabletop rpgs with you. they been letting you by jumping on map and batting dice minis around. How to RPG with your Cat is a Tabletop RPG where your cat, as a minion of chaos, acts as the dice. This game can either be played as a standalone RPG or integrated into other existing RPG. Take on new adventures with your cat in How to RPG with Your Cat!
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 