Here at a Handiwork Games we love an accessory, and we pride ourselves on creating very beautiful things that enhance your (and our) gaming life. We’re also careful to make sure they are all entirely optional, our fancy kit is all easily replaced by things you already own.
Just before the festive period we were delighted to receive these samples of our a|state coins and compass ahead of the main production run. As ever our friends at Campaign Coins have outdone themselves with the sheer quality of these metal alloy tokens.
Deigned by a|state co-creator Paul Bourne, the compass is styled as an in-world artefact. Denizens of The City might well have one of these in their pocket to help orient themselves amongst the canals and back alleys. It’s a truly attractive souvenir of the campaign, and a piece of The City, the setting of a|state.
But that’s not all. The a|state compass works with the playmat we’ve created to help streamline the process of playing our a|state adaptation of the Forged in the Dark rules. We’ve also taken delivery of those playmate from our friends at Custom Patriot.
Both of these items could be replaced with a print out and a coin, button or board game counter. But for when your feeling fancy, nothing beats the real thing!
The coins are also intended as in-world items and, like the setting, are a curious mix of the archaic and the futuristic. The coins also have a purpose beyond looking lovely: they’re used in the story telling game The Three Coins. This is an rpg within an rpg – people within the setting of a|state play this story telling game of escapism in the back alleys and bars of The City. As such it needs to be portable, and flipping coins is the perfect way to replace the dice we recognise from RPGs in our world.
The game itself appears in the zine-style booklet The Three Coins, by Morgan Davie. It is presented as an in-world academic study of this folk game. The repressive authorities of The City have impounded this book as unfit for public consumption, but it appears one copy escaped the censor, and had been annotated by a player of The Three Coins. Their various annotations appear throughout.
All of these items are available as part of a late pledge until the a|state second edition PDF is ready – editing is in progress now.
