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 9th – 15th April 2022.
Carbon Grey The Role Playing Game
Core Rulebook
By Magnetic Press Play
The return on the D6 System by West End Games!
Survive the grimness of trench warfare. Dare to soar the deadly skies. Master the art of espionage to uncover the secrets of your enemies. Navigate the social hierarchy and underhanded dealings of both the nobility and the underworld. Learn to manipulate the strange powers that affect the very reality of the world around you. This is CARBON GREY.
Built on the time-tested legacy of the D6 System by seminal developer West End Games, players will be able to dive into the world of CARBON GREY quickly and easily through the new “Magnetic Variant (D6MV)” Rule Set. Taking full advantage of the unique and popular “Wild Die” feature, adventures in CARBON GREY will be as thrilling and cinematic as players dare to imagine.
This Core Rule Book is designed to introduce you to the world of Carbon Grey and the Magnetic Variant of the West End Games D6 System ruleset. It also includes an introductory adventure and some pre-generated characters to quick play.
The Core Rule Book features twenty-four unique character archetypes, gifting you with talents and abilities you choose to make your presence unique and indispensable to uncovering – and perhaps stopping – the hidden machinations manipulating world events. Navigate the treacherous water of nobility as a Sovereign or Free Lady. Silence opposition as a deadly Royal Operative or Reluctant Mentor. Own the battlefield as a Trench Fighter or rule the skies as a Dogfighter. Navigate the underworld as a Moonlighter or Master Spy. Or walk the edge of reality as a mystical Dharman Adept or sentient Fenris Wolf.
With over 50 enemy and monster types to encounter, there is much to discover in the world of Carbon Grey…
The Carbon Grey Role-playing Game is the first to use the Magnetic Variant (D6MV) of the classic D6 System tabletop role-playing game rules by West End Games, rewinding the system back to its classic roots and streamlining it for a modern audience.
Rules variations unique to the Magnetic Variant of the system include Genre Defined Attributes, Streamlined Skills, and Character Quirks and Obligations.
Space/time in Carbon Grey is bent—apply too much pressure and it will snap. We’ve added a special Wild Die to represent this element of chaos to the game—chaos that can cause Continuity Surges, Flux Effects, and more.
Core Rulebook
By Miguel Angel Espinoza
Nahual is a tabletop roleplaying game about brujos nahuales, humans of mestizo and indigenous ancestry that have the power to shapeshift into an animal form. These nahuales hunt angels to make a living, running a changarro—a business—together to sell the products they make from the bodies of the angels they have killed. These are stories about underdogs, struggling to find their place in a Mexican world of fantastical and overwhelming forces.
Inside you’ll find:
- Eight unique playbooks, each built to help you create a nahual whose powers and personality are tied to a particular animal. These are: the Águila (Eagle), the Armadillo, the Jaguar, the Mono (Monkey), the Perro (Dog), the Serpiente (Snake), the Tlacuache (Opossum), and the Venado (Deer).
- Four different types of changarro. Each one unique in the kind of stories you will be telling and in the mechanics that help you tell those stories. They are: the Taco Truck, the Carnicería (Butchershop), the Cantina, and the Vecindad (Housing Unit).
- Innovative mechanics for managing six levels of power, from regular armed thugs to god-like beings!
- Instructions for running Nahual—threat levels, fightning as packs, angel hunting, creating npcs and more—alongside eleven sample non-player characters.
Core Rulebook
By Dave Thaumavore
Fluxfall Horizon is a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG involving players who “lance” or jump from parallel Earth to parallel Earth, originally starting from an ultra-tech future and wrestling with both local problems as well as secret personal objectives.
Fluxfall Horizon includes:
- Powered-by-the-Apocalypse rules: 8 Core Moves, 3 Meta Moves
- Character Creation for 10 playsheets
- How to Prep/Run a Session
- Parallel Earth, Team Goal and NPC generator tables
- Printable GM sheets for tracking PC, Earth and Team Goal details
- Consent questionnaire and consent tracking sheet for GM
- Seven scenarios full of rollable tables for fast GM prep
Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition 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.
Here’s what you’re going to be getting in Issue 11:
New Location: Kraken Cove
A haven for pirates, smugglers, and law breakers, kraken cove is the perfect location to set those sea-fairing adventures.
New Martial Options
Issue 11 introduces a new set of options for martial characters. The martial prowess article includes optional rules for additional effects for each damage type, meaning you can make your enemy bleed, set them on fire, or move them on a critical hit. There’s also several new melee-focused spells.
Group Patron: The Black Rose
The black rose is one of the most renowned assassins’ guilds in the realm. This article provides you with information on using the black rose as a group patron to bind your characters together.
New Monster: The Shellycoat
The Shellycoat is a new CR 3 creature that will serve as the perfect boss monster for low level quests.
Written by Ben Doherty, the shellycoat has a carapace of giant shells and discarded pieces of arms and armor pulled from its victims, victims it lures with its mimicry cries before attacking them with razor sharp claws.
With amazing new art from Hokunin, the shellycoat joins our grown bestiary of SIDEQUEST monsters.
Shadowrun Campaign
By Catalyst Game Labs
All Lined Up
Your eyes have to be everywhere. In front. In back. On the Matrix. On the astral. Threats come from every possible direction and dimension, and runners who don’t keep an eye on every possible danger end up falling to the one they neglected.
The threats are lined up in Denver, a city ruled by a dragon and home to one of the greatest outlaw tech archives in the world. Shadows are aligning and plots are fomenting, and shadowrunners have the chance to learn what’s happening in enough time to make some nuyen and save a few lives—including their own.
The Third Parallel is a campaign book for use with Shadowrun, Sixth World.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Souldbound Sourcebook
By Cubicle 7 Entertainment
The Grund, a venerable Kharadron Arkanaut Ironclad sky-ship captained by the stalwart Brokka Brokkisdotr, takes to the skies in search of adventure and profitable ventures. Yet the skies of the Mortal Realms are far from safe…
The renowned sky-vessel The Grund has featured in a number of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound adventures, such as Crash & Burn, Faltering Light, and Cities in Flame. The Grund Operations Manual gives GMs and players information on The Grund and her crew, and contains everything you need to make The Grund an integral part of your adventures — or even a home base for your realm-trotting games of Soulbound. Whether you’re a GM or a Player, The Grund Operations Manual is your ticket to airborne excitement.
Harnmaster Supplement
By Columbia Games Inc.
Laket is the westernmost keep in the Kingdom of Melderyn. It is primarily a frontier fort and center of administration for the borderland region known as Dyriamarch. The march is a vast area of wilderness that includes the southern Anadel Highlands and most of the woodland plain of Horadir, the range of the Hodiri tribesmen. The warden of the march, Sir Barryn Alaga, has only the most tenuous control over the region.
Laket is the last major settlement on the Genin Trail as it leaves Melderyn. The town bustles with traders and travelers throughout the year but sees a significant increase in activity in the spring and autumn when the large caravans to and from Tashal stop for provisions, repairs, or just a chance to rest and carouse before resuming their journey. Outside the small settled area around Laket, the wilderness presents varied and significant hazards. Other than miners’ paths, there are few trails north of the Horka and south of the Nuem River. The Bujoc, Hodiri, and Solori tribes, along with the Chindra and Moym gargun, make travel in the wilds particularly hazardous. Brave or foolhardy individuals planning to venture off the Genin Trail can usually find local guides and guards for hire in Laket.
The Laket article describes the settlement’s history, government, religion, economics, and military forces. It includes color GM and player maps of the settlement and brief descriptions of many local craftsmen and other locations. The article also features color floor plans of Caer Laket, headquarters of the Dyriamarch Guard, as well as the home and shop of Jaket of Ekair, a merchant and moneylender with plenty of secrets.
Traveller / Cepheus Engine Adventure
By Old School Role Playing
This is an adventure for Cepheus Engine.
The Talamor Consortium has placed scientists in a domed research facility on a vacuum world in their control. It is a recently acquired planet and competitors have wondered why for some time. The world has no known mineral or research value Suddenly this station has gone silent. The consortium is offering a significant amount of money for a mission to find out what has happened and to rescue any living scientists still on the base.
Star Trek Adventures Sourcebook
By Modiphius
This 22-page PDF contains player character statistics for the crew of U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031 as seen in season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery. The PDF includes Captain Christopher Pike, Commander Saru, Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets, Commander Michael Burnham, Ash Tyler, Ensign Sylvia Tilly, Philippa Georgiou, Lieutenant Spock and Commander Jett Reno. It also includes player rules for Kelpiens, statistics for several supporting characters, and game statistics for U.S.S. Discovery.
Access to a Star Trek Adventures core rulebook is required to use these characters and rules in play.
Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Adventures
By Crit Academy
Includes 6 fifth edition one-page adventures that are designed to be modular. What does that mean? It means that you can easily toss them into an existing setting, regardless of its theme. As the Game Master you can choose to make them short side quests from your normal game, run them as a one-shot, or add content to extend them to a full adventure. While the encounters and situations are set up to be a complete story, you can add additional rooms, characters, or encounters to each one to twist and shape it to best fit your GM style. You can easily change out the monsters and trap damage listed in the adventures with something similar that is level appropriate to the party. If you are unsure, consult the table in the DMG on pg 274. It provides the damage ranges appropriate to challenge rating levels.
Cepheus Engine / Traveller – Hostile Scenario
By Zozer Games
A scenario for Zozer Games’ Hostile setting by David Cooper/ Brass Jester.
The PCs are corporate troubleshooters dispatched to ever-dark Nevermind, an Off-World colony reliant on an Erebus fusion powerplant. But the plant, and the survival of every colonist on Nevermind, is at stake. The colonists are caught between the avaricious goals of two sinister Euro corporations.
Prelude to Freedom. With three scenarios, maps, encounter tables, building and vehicle plans , NPCs and colony profiles that can all be reused in your own scenarios.
Advanced Fighting Fantasy Adventure
By Arion Games
Who knows what5 monstrous creatures lie in wait in the Citadel of Chaos?
Deep inside the Citadel of Chaos the dread sorcerer, Balthus Dire, is plotting and scheming the downfall of the goodfolk of Salamonis. His battle plans are laid, his awesome army is gathering, and attack is surely imminent.
Summoned by a desperate plea for help, only YOU and your companions can undertake a mission which strikes at the very heart of Balthus Dire’s nightmare world.
The Citadel holds a dark and dangerous peril for anyone foolhardy enough to venture through its gruesome gates. And yet venture you must, for your mission lies at the heart of the Citadel. Many dangers lie ahead and your success is by no means certain. Powerful adversaries are ranged against you and often your only choice is to kill or be killed!
This extensive adaptation of the classic Gamebook will provide a challenge to Heroes (and Players) both novice and experienced!
Contains:
Prologue ideas to get the Heroes to Citadel
A four Act adventure with 85 Scenes
Black Sorcery – a new Magic style
Additional Lore
Pregenerated Heroes
High School Battlemaps: Pack 1
Map Pack
By KidneyBoy
High School Pack 1 (East Wing)
Schools are a great location for adventures, whether your PCs are bike-riding investigators, super-teens, super-cops, or post-apocalyptic survivors. There are endless possibilities.
The East Wing of Sourmount High holds the auditorium, the science lab, the music/drama room, and a teachers’ lounge. When things get too intense, step outside and shoot some baskets.
Details
The pack includes 12 variations of the map (45 total map images), plus a reference image.
- Vintage (1920s/30s)
- Modern
- Modern Arrangement 2
- Vintage Abandoned
- Modern Abandoned
- Thing in the Science Lab
- The Thing has Escaped!
- Modern Barricaded
- Vintage Barricaded
- Empty (no furnishings)
- Vintage Cultists
- Modern Cultists
Every variation comes with gridded/ungridded versions. Every variation except ‘Cultist’ comes in both night/day versions (the cultists only come out at night!).
Also included is a reference image that makes the layout clear.
34 x 33 squares (2380 x 2310 px)
Designed for use with VTTs
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 