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 2nd – 8th April 2022.
5E Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Setting
By Poison Potion Press
A World In Ruin
The world as we know it has ended. Rending storms are ravaging an arid wasteland, and the last remaining populace took shelter in the OASys, a manmade dome of steel and neon lights. With resources dwindling they turned to the occult and infused technology with eldritch power, just for the machines to awaken, revolt against their makers, and change flora and fauna under its influence.
It’s time to suit up and wield those same ruinous powers to reclaim a chance of survival.
Eldritch Sands is a unique and deadly campaign setting for 5th Edition of the world’s greatest role-playing game, putting you in control of powerful suits called Eldritchtech to face the perils of a dying world. Shape the future by aligning with one of four factions. What will you do when you discover their secrets? Face dangers in and outside the OASys of a world heavily influenced by ‘70s and ‘80s science fiction and horror.
Cypher System Supplement
By Monte Cook Games
Not all monsters are make-believe…
A fire roars through an apartment building. Rescuers struggle through surging flames to reach stranded families—but meanwhile, sparks drift over the nearby gas station.
A train derailment has toppled a truckload of nuclear waste, exposing trapped passengers to the dangerous radiation. But reaching them risks shifting the wreckage—and spilling even more.
A grumbling volcano threatens efforts to rescue lost hikers. When the lava begins to flow, whole towns are suddenly at risk!
Floods. Pandemics. Earthquakes and other crises that put lives and communities at risk. These are monsters of a different sort—and they call for a different kind of hero. First Responders puts a new spin on adventure gaming, introducing systems for mega-challenges that let you take on disasters of all sorts.
First Responders gives you:
- New rules and guidelines for adventure-sized disaster scenarios. As challenging and exciting as any RPG scenario, these are largely resolved through wit and skill rather than combat.
- Roster-style parties. Run multiple characters with different areas of expertise over the course of your campaign, calling up just the right expert for each disaster.
- New character options, including the Responder type and loads of disaster-related gear.
- Half a dozen scenarios—adventure-length disasters that pit your team against terrible odds. Plus everything you need to create your own.
- Easy portability to Numenera and other Cypher System games. Incorporate natural, man-made, or supernatural mega-challenges into any Cypher System game!
Corpus Angelus: The Codex of Good
5E Dungeons & Dragons Supplement
By Dream Realm Storytellers
We are proud to present Corpus Angelus; a book filled with the stuff of heroes, with righteous stories of angels and the brave warriors, clerics, and soldiers that support them in their never-ending struggle to snuff out evil. In over 350 pages, this book contains a great deal of content and new rules of the righteous that can be used by players and Game Masters alike!
As a player, you can use this book to flesh out your heroes and thus your stories, using more than 30 archetypes, 6 races, over 100 spells and more; all of which this book provides and all of which shall help anyone with noble intentions on any endeavor they may undertake.
As a Game Master, you can create more realistic characters with deeper motives using the system of devotions paths, find ways of bringing back the most lost of souls through the system of redemption, and find new ways to bring evil to its knees through the many more thrilling mechanics in the pages of this book!
Keep in mind, this book can be used for both evil and good campaigns. For it takes the purest of hearts to cleanse the most corrupt of souls, and the greatest heroes to defeat the most vile villains.
Beyond the Ring: Adventure and Exploration Through the Ring Gates
The Expanse Supplement
By Green Ronin Publishing
The discovery of the protomolecule changed everything but it was only with the opening of the Ring that humanity began to understand the power and scope of the alien technology. A massive construct out near the orbit of Uranus, the Ring is a portal into a strange non-space known as “the slow zone.” Centered on an ancient alien station, it connects to more than a thousand other portals leading to a thousand different star systems, each with one or more worlds shaped by the ancient aliens who created the protomolecule. Now the aliens are long gone, and the unlocking of the ring gates has opened vast frontiers for human settlement and exploration.
Beyond the Ring advances the timeline of The Expanse RPG to the fourth novel in the series, Cibola Burn, and details the slow zone, Medina Station, travel through the ring gates, and some of the many systems found beyond them, along with tools for Game Masters to design their own systems for characters to explore.
Remarkable Cults & Their Followers
5E Dungeons & Dragons Supplement
By LoreSmyth
Remarkable Cults & Their Followers is the ultimate GM guide on roleplaying evil fantasy factions. This system-neutral sourcebook is compatible with any fantasy roleplaying game ruleset and contains everything you need to create and roleplay your own unique villainous guilds.
This brand-new book brings you exciting, intriguing, and complex evil factions, as well the tools to create your own. This includes villainous leaders and their cronies, rumors, new gameplay ideas, services, information on working for and against cults, gaining ranks and followers, and much, much more. This system-neutral book is not just about religious cults, but instead delights the imagination with a wide range of sinister organizations and factions to add to your game.
Legendary Adventures: Heart of War
5E Dungeons & Dragons Adventure
By Legendary Games
Following the trail of the ancient trekth leads the adventurers to another planet, one already ravaged by the progenitors—Seretse. Once there however, leaving proves to be a difficult task and there is great need for the intervention of powerful outsiders. Elemental armies besiege the asteroid fortress of the prevailing warlord Garajax the Vicious and within his alien chest beats the key to the conflict barring the party’s way to learning more about what threatens their world.
What’s inside Heart of War:
- An adventure on a different world for PCs of 22nd level.
- Statistics for elite alien shock troops, the alien warlord, and armies of elementals (earth and fire).
- The Heart of Primordial Flame, a potent artifact that offers whoever takes it great power—but not without cost.
- More details about the mysterious Trekth and the effects of their world runes.
- Pregenerated adventurers of 22nd level for every class.
- A printer-friendly black and white file in addition to the regular PDF.
5E Dungeons & Dragons Adventure
By Grim Press
A 5e Compatible multi-floor dungeon crawl optimized for 4-6 players of 3rd level.
Huxley has always been a quaint and peaceful town. Farmers, merchants, artisans, and other laborers have come together in the good times and bad, fostering a sense of camaraderie and intimacy in the relatively secluded town. But in the last few months, several people have gone missing, vanishing in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Moreover, a religious organization called the Foretellers has set up outside town, claiming to be gathering alms for the poor and asking for prayers and donations to aid their cause. Many of the townspeople, however, are not convinced as the disappearances and the establishment of the Foretellers coincide with each other. Now, after a series of well-known adventurers have failed to solve these mysteries, can the adventurers succeed where others have failed?
Fate’s Clouded Gaze contains the following:
- ENGAGING ADVENTURE – Every room is filled with encounters (combat, social, or riddles) and GM narration
- 5 FLOORS – Each represented with printable battlemaps (Grid & No-Grid versions, with a GM numbered map for each floor)
- 11 MAGIC ITEMS – Unique treasure for your player’s to find on their journey
- 4 UNIQUE MONSTERS – New beasts with statblocks and art to challenge your players
- FULLY ILLUSTRATED – Captivating art throughout the adventure
Astonishing Adventures: Star-Crossed
Mutants & Masterminds Adventure
By Green Ronin Publishing
High school life comes with intense rivalries: the in-group versus the out-group, the weirdoes versus the normals, the heroes versus the villains. But when a school’s goal is to create a better future, an “us versus them” mentality only holds their students back. And so, the Claremont Academy is opening its doors to help open hearts, inviting students of the mysterious Elysian Academy to Freedom City for a week of friendly,
intermural collaboration and competition! And while Headmaster Summers expects “spirited hijinks” from these visitors, no one could suspect that every student is in dire danger as the stars align for sacrifice!
Star-Crossed evokes classic super-powered teenage rivalry tropes, harkening back to comic book scenarios where teen teams face off against their young criminal counterparts, often on a recurring basis, as members of competing organizations or schools. Star-Crossed also sets up another classic scenario, where opposing hero and villain factions are played against each other by a primary manipulator, all to
serve a sinister ultimate purpose.
Star-Crossed is an adventure for 4-6 PL 8 heroes. Like many Hero High adventures, it is a roleplaying-heavy adventure with lots of opportunity for drama, rivalry, and friendship, and you should be prepared to juggle the personalities and attitudes of six different teenage villains over the course of the adventure. This adventure assumes the heroes are students at the Claremont Academy, a school for young superhumans located in Freedom City, but it can easily be set anywhere on Earth-Prime or your own setting that incorporates a similar “super hero school” for younger heroes.
Astonishing Adventures brings you exciting, ready-to-run scenarios for Mutants & Masterminds, Third Edition, complete with all the action and villains you need to bring the story to life!
Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2
Systemless Supplement
By Kobold Press
Learn to Build Worlds with Titans of Fantasy and Tabletop!
The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2, features 15 stars of tabletop roleplaying games and fantasy fiction, including Gail Simone, Keith Baker, Veronica Roth, Ken Liu, Kate Elliott, Mike Shea, Tobias S. Buckell, Shanna Germain, Gabe Hicks, the Dungeon Dudes (Monty Martin & Kelly McLaughlin), Jeff Grubb, and more.
Middle-Earth, Faerûn, Westeros, Eberron, The World of the Wheel, Exandria … these richly-detailed fantasy worlds have captured the imaginations of legions of fans worldwide. These settings offer worldbuilding that launched a thousand—or a thousand thousand—dreams.
Whether you’re worldbuilding because you want to write the next Game of Thrones, intend to build a rich, vibrant world to enthrall the players of an upcoming tabletop RPG campaign, or you’re just curious to find out how all these creators did it, the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2, puts a team of master world-architects at your side.
Featuring practical essays and roadmaps for the intrepid worldbuilder to follow, this anthology shows you how to:
- create a pantheon of gods
- incorporate technology into your fantastical environments
- build great settings that look beyond our own history and cultural expectations
- design a world in just 30 minutes
- leave space when building a world so the characters can help bring it alive
The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, Volume 2, features 15 stars of tabletop roleplaying games and fantasy fiction, such as Gail Simone, Keith Baker, Veronica Roth, Ken Liu, Kate Elliott, Mike Shea, Tobias S. Buckell, Shanna Germain, Gabe Hicks, Jeff Grubb, the Dungeon Dudes (Monty Martin & Kelly McLaughlin) and more.
The Dark Crystal Adventure Game
Core Rulebook
By River Horse Games
Hello, and welcome to The Dark Crystal Adventure Game!
This book contains everything you need to play in and run your own version of Thra. Create Gelfling Characters, dive into a fantastical world of Henson creatures, and rise up against the Skeksis.
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Voices From The Pulpit 