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. Hopefully you’ll spot a game or two of interest!
All of the below were released in PDF between 8th-14th October 2022.
The One Ring Supplement
By Free League Publishing
After Arvedui the North-kingdom ended,
for the Dúnedain were now few
and all the peoples of Eriador diminished.
This expansion for The One Ring™ RPG is a guide to the peoples inhabiting the Lone-lands of Southern Eriador, the places they dwell in and the hopes they hold for their future in the Twilight of the Third Age. It is intended primarily for Loremasters, who can find among these pages the inspiration they require to bring Middle-earth to life as the Player-heroes explore it.
Core Rulebook
Martin Knight
D100 Space (Book 1) is a solo adventure game in which you will steer a captain on a starship through a galaxy in search of fame and fortune. Your captain will complete dangerous operations, trade, mine and fight fierce space battles across many star systems. With each game your captain will gain wealth, recognition and become stronger and increasingly skilled in their pursuits. All you need to play D100 Space, is a pencil, eraser, a few dice and your imagination.
Your journey begins when you create a captain and start performing the 4 training operations. Once they have been successfully completed your captain will be ready to face far greater challenges and can begin taking on operations across space in an endeavour to gain notoriety and wealth, rivalling that of royal houses and trade lords. Who knows, one day their greatest exploits might even become stories and songs performed at every space station throughout the galaxy.
D100 Space has been designed with a similar game system as D100 Dungeon and uses many of the same mechanics. However, D100 Space is a lot more that a simple reskin of the popular dungeon delving game. It has a galaxy to fly a starship across, with ports to trade with and find missions. There are asteroids, gas formations, dead planets, moons and worlds to interact with.
D100 Space has two core phases. The “Before Your Next Quest” phase from D100 Dungeon no longer exists, but is instead replaced by a galaxy of star systems to explore; and interact with. Whilst the traditional quest phase of D100 Dungeon has been replaced by away missions; where your captain will go it alone on a complex, facility or enemy starship and fight or explore their way to complete specific goals.
Vaesen Sourcebook
By Free League Publishing
In this expansion to the award-winning Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying you will fifind a complete guide to the supernatural British-Irish Isles including the great city of London and the countryside beyond. Mythic Britain & Ireland is written by industry legend Graeme Davis and illustrated by Johan Egerkrans and Anton Vitus.
Key features:
- Information about the British Society, its founders, and headquarters.
- A gazetteer of the sprawling city of London, complete with adventure locations and secret societies.
- A guide to the mythology of Mythic Britain & Ireland, with information on a score of mythological locations across the islands.
- A chapter detailing several mythical beings with stats, background information, story seeds, and variants.
- Three new complete mysteries to play.
Hostile RPG / Cepheus Engine Supplement
By Zozer Games
“War is hell. The super-jungle is hell. Put those two together and you just know there’s zero chance of finishing your tour alive…” – Corporal Mike Simms, 3rd Marine Division
A supplement for the Hostile RPG and Cepheus Engine.
Tau Ceti is a tortured world, fought over by the US-led Community of American States and by Chinese colonists backed by the People’s Republic of Guandong, on Earth. Tau Ceti is an unashamed stand-in for the Vietnam War, an interstellar conflict fought on a jungle world that kills almost as many Americans as the TLA do.
Huge herbivores make life dangerous for the colonists, and the dinosaur-sized predators that hunt them are even more dangerous. Add highly poisonous or aggressive plantlife and a sulfur-tainted atmosphere and you have a very unpleasant world. Now add a decade-long jungle conflict fought by the dispirited forces of the American nations, and a foe that hides in the jungle, vanishes when attacked and launches devastating ambushes and counter attacks, and Tau Ceti becomes a place no-one wants to end up.
But here you are, with the rest of your battalion, coming out of hypersleep in orbit above this glittering emeraled ball. Have you written your will?
Kethos Book 2 : The Lands Beyond
Savage Worlds Setting
By Kethos Project Publishing
“Lands Beyond” is the second setting book for the world of Kethos. This unique fantasy role-playing setting for Savage Worlds covers all of the tropical latitudes of Kethos, from the vast continent of Yanzu to the countless islands of the Tengan Reach and all the other lesser-known islands as well. Campaigns in the Lands Beyond may take a number of directions – exploration of savage jungles and ancient ruins, colonial wars between great powers and their allies, pursuit of glory and treasure as a pirate, even adventures drawn from the myths and legends of people as disparate as the Maori or the Maya.
Enough information is provided that an enterprising referee could easily cast the players as members of any of the many societies and cultures detailed herein. Indeed, this is one of the points of the Kethos setting. All of these different stories are possible in the setting, even overlapping or in combination. Any tales built around the sea would be appropriate for the Lands Beyond. This 180pg setting book includes:
- A detailed, realistic, and most of all playable setting and history for adventures throughout the tropical seas of Kethos.
- Detailed descriptions and statistics of numerous cities and nations in diverse regions of the world, including the city-states of the Tengan Reach, the ancient and terrible land of Azag-Lun, and the bizarre and distant islands of the Lands Beyond!
- New monsters and creatures, new character races, rules for international trade and maritime travel, and much more.
- Immediately useful adventure hooks, significant locations, and interesting non-player characters for every location.
- Numerous useful maps for all levels of the setting.
Shot & Splinters – Napoleonic OSR Gaming
OSR Core Rulebook
By Northern Stranger Games
UNE – 1805. Napoleon’s armies have achieved victory on the continent. French and Spanish men o’war prowl the seas in search of plunder. Only the Royal Navy safeguards England’s shores against invasion. The fate of millions rests on the shoulders of a few seamen, battling against the relentless tide.
The war will be won at sea.
Shot & Splinters is a tabletop roleplaying game of naval adventure, inspired by Horatio Hornblower, Aubrey & Maturin, and Richard Sharpe. Drawing on history but not beholden to it, the game is set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, thrusting your characters into the heart of the conflict.
As a hack of Luke Gearing’s epic dark fantasy hexcrawl Wolves upon the Coast, the game remixes and updates the razor-sharp OSR mechanics to include deafening volleys of musketry and fuisillades of cannon.
At the helm of their own warship, the players are free to explore the Bay of Biscay, combing the inlets and islands for vulnerable prey. Each captured ship has the chance of making a character’s fortune, with large prizes providing enough coin to set a sailor up for a life of luxury.
There’s all sorts to uncover, from shipwrecks and buried treasure to ruined castles filled with smugglers. Superstitious sailors might find strange, eldritch things along Brittany’s ancient coastline.
The game consists of a main rulebook, a hex map, and Dalglish’s Gazetteer, which explores each hex in detail.
Shot & Splinters is still in development, and Dalglish’s Gazetteer will be updated with more hexes to explore and things to encounter. A third volume, Midshipman Goodacre’s Primer will provide useful historical background for GMs and players alike.
Core Rulebook
By Lame Mage Productions
New Second Edition of the Kingdom, a GMless role-playing game about communities, by Ben Robbins, creator of the award-winning game Microscope.
Kingdoms are all around us. They are the communities that unite us. Your Kingdom can be any group or organization that interests you. You could explore:
A school for wayward wizards…
A revolutionary pharmaceutical company…
An anime fan club…
The first settlers on Mars…
As you play, you’ll confront your Kingdom and your characters with Crossroads, critical decisions that may change your community forever. What will your Kingdom do? What will it become? Strive to make your Kingdom live up to your ideals… or watch as it burns. The Kingdom is in your hands. The question is: will you change the Kingdom or will the Kingdom change you?
This new edition is a complete rewrite of the original Kingdom rules to make the game easier to learn and play. It also adds LEGACY mode, which turns your Kingdom into a whole interconnected campaign. Explore the past and future of your community to see how it changes across time.
For two to five players. No GM. No prep.
Core Rulebook
By Shouting Crow
You are a hedge witch. You live in a little cottage in the woods and spend your days looking after the forest. Sometimes you have to do tough things the old-fashioned way. There’s a lot of work to be done, and you only have a little bit of magic.
Scrape your knees and get back up again in this cozy journaling game about the value of a hard-learned lesson and failing forward.
Hedge Witch can be played alone or with a friend. You will need two six-sided dice and a standard deck of playing cards including two Jokers.
Your downloads include a 20-page illustrated player’s handbook and the postcard sized minigame “Flycatcher”. Everything is available in both full colour and b/w printer friendly versions.
Traveller/ Cepheus Engine Sourcebook
By Moon Toad Publishing
A “Bounty Hunter” is a private agent working for an organization (usually a commercial organization, rather than a Government Department) with a financial interest in a person or property, who captures fugitives or criminals, or recovers such property, for a commission or “bounty”.
The occupation normally operates outside of the legal constraints that usually govern law enforcement officers and other agents of a polity. This is because, due to interstellar travel, with its many and varied worlds and government types, it is simply not possible for official agents to conduct these tasks, due to the scale and complexity of the diplomatic, legal, and financial challenges.
Shotglass Rounds #12: The Goblin Jarl
5E Dungeons & Dragons/OSR Adventure
By Laidback DM
In the Gatehouse Fortress of Shun-Zin, the Goblin Jarl Schemes…
SHOTGLASS ROUNDS are PDF-only One-Shots for 5e 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 new monsters, full-size player’s maps in grid & grid-less versions!
The Goblin Jarl is a complete, multi-part 2nd-level adventure with new monsters, new magic items, and multiple new and old school maps! It’s an old school-style adventure designed to be used with 5e, Old School Essentials (OSE) or OSR games, and comes with 5e and OSE/OSR monster listings and 5e and OSE rulings.
The Goblin Jarl can be played as a One-Shot or as the first adventure in the old school-style Dungeon Duumhaven mini-campaign, designed to take PCs from 1st – 5th level!
Amazing Universe Adventure: Heroes Assemble
Mutants & Masterminds Adventure
By LPJ Design
All stories about superheroes have a beginning, and this is yours! What started out as a simple sunny day turns into a chance meeting with local superheroine, the Knightress, and turns into a battle with the world-known terrorist organization, Helix. And from there, you are drawn into a world of super-heroics and covert agencies like the Espionage and Governmental Law Enforcement Divison better known as EaGLE. Where does it go from here? You will have to see it! This adventure contains everything you need to know to start adventuring in the Amazing Universe including complete write-ups for the terrorist group, Helix, and all the villainous agents and allies with them. Test your heroes’ mettle and give your players what they really want-Amazing Adventures!
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 