BEOWULF. a|state. Maskwitches. Cold City:Hot War. FiveEvil
Tomorrow sees the release of the first Cold City/Hot War report. These regular free PDF reports will bring you behind-the-scenes info, extra historical inspiration, and ideas on things to read to learn more about the Cold War period.
To be among the first to get it, and for a direct link straight to your email in box, sign up to the Handiwork Games newsletter at www.handiwork.games/newsletter
Malcolm and Jon were delighted to be invited onto the Smart Party RPG podcast to talk Cold City and Hot War. Check it out!
https://www.whatwouldthesmartpartydo.com/2023/11/16/hot-war-cold-city/
We made our RPG Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland as an art experiment with an early version of AI. Which very quickly proved itself to be something we were not keen to be involved in: over a very short space of time it moved from an interesting new planet to explore to something else entirely. So we’ve left it behind.
But the Maskwitches game remains good, and we want to remake it with new all handmade artwork, which is well within our powers to achieve. It’ll be a long term project, but that’s ok.
While we will lose some of the especially weird reflexive nature of exploring the deep past through the eyes of something so contemporary and unknown as AI, we feel it’s worth continuing the game in a new direction.
And so here is a candid look at the first outing of the model we’ve made for the cover, a sort of horrific “Girl’s World” from the other side. Enjoy.
BEOWULF Age of Heroes offers duet play for 5e – that’s one GM and one player. This way of playing provides a bunch of exciting aspects:
1: It’s easy to get a game – just phone a friend!
2: It makes for a great fill-in session when your regular group aren’t available. And you can pick it up and put it down much more easily with just one player!
3: You can really explore the world through the eyes of one character, and get really deep into how they see that world, since they’re the only one in the spot light. It makes for some really intense sessions!
4: The campaign world can unfold around your character, with every scene and every challenge being “for” them – whether it’s about their strengths or their weaknesses.
5: While BEOWULF is inspired by the epic poem and the times that spawned it, we pride ourselves on doing the reading so that you don’t have to. If you want to play a game in the vein of the action adventure fantasy TV show “Vikings” you can do that! If you studied the poem and know all about the era, you can do that too! We provide the framework, you fill in the details you’re comfortable with.
6: Because there’s just one player, you’re never waiting for your turn. Which allows us to build in more tactical options for those who want them. There are weapons with a bit more detailed effects – helmets and shields are the armour of the day in the Age of Heroes, and weapons that circumvent those are very important. With just one player we could add some more detailed effects without holding up the flow of the game that emphasises the themes of the setting. You’ll also get to decide what your Followers are doing, and which of their Gifts you want to make use of. Be careful though – many of their Gifts will cause them to become spent until the next Long Rest!
7: Making 5e work for just one player inspired us (pun intended) to create a series of entertaining and engaging rules that build on 5e. The Inspiration Pool, Followers, the Alignment Die, the Defeated condition and more!
You can get a great deal on all three BEOWULF Age of Heroes hardback books at our kickstarter now!
While KING BEOWULF goes from strength to strength, we’re also hard at work on other future titles. Today we’re very happy to announce Cold City and Hot War will be returning!
Originally published in their first editions in 2007 and 2008, we’re honoured and delighted to announce our plan to publish new editions of both Cold City and Hot War in 2024.
These won’t just be new editions of these cult UK indie games: designer Malcolm Craig, now a senior lecturer in history at Liverpool John Moores University, will be working with Handiwork Games as an integral part of his research work into the history of nuclear war in roleplaying games.
These new editions will form part of an impact study – a look at how historical research in combination with roleplaying games can affect the understanding of history and affect the wider culture. Not only will the games be brought up to date in these new editions, but they will contain additional fascinating contextual information about the history of the post-war 20th Century. This is intended to enrich the settings of both games, providing a whole new level of verisimilitude and sheer playable information. It will also be an experiment in ground-breaking presentation and the contextualisation of roleplaying games within our wider culture.
Jon and Malcolm discuss the project in more detail in this video:
As part of the process we’ll be publishing regular updates as free PDFs, videos and web updates, introducing some of the new concepts, and talking about how they bring history and gaming together. These will provide a fascinating insight into both the design process and the history of the periods covered in both games.
This promises to be a unique endeavour, and we’re really looking forward to bringing you more!
In the divided city of Berlin, things hide in the darkness. Things that must be destroyed.
Those that seek out these horrors are riven by suspicion, mistrust and political ambition. The four occupying powers of Britain, France, the USA and the USSR all have their own agendas.
In Cold City, characters are defined not just by who they are and what they are like, but by the views of the other characters and the trust that they have in them.
London. Winter. 1963.
It is a year since the Cold War went hot.
And this was not just a nuclear war. Far more sinister, darker weapons were deployed.
Survival and re-building are all that matter now. But human nature and tragic circumstances mean that everyone has their own ambitions.
Into this maelstrom steps the Special Situations Group, a motley band of men and women tasked with the jobs too dirty or dangerous for anyone else.
This post follows on from the previous part here.
Part one covers the thinking behind the direction of this cover, but now let’s turn our attention to some of the things depicted in the image.
The main character we see on the cover is kitted out based on more recent recreations of Early English warrior elites. It’s not super clear if this is a man or a woman Ruler being depicted, and that’s all for the good, but let’s call them “he” for the purposes of this blog. The “King” part of the title is right there. (Check our free preview where we discuss the issue of gender, rulers and “Kingdoms”)
FiveEvil by Morgan Davie (a|state, Diceratops Presents, Doctor Who RPG) is 5th Edition completely dismembered and reimagined to deliver the horror genre. We’re neck deep in writing and play testing, but in honour of the upcoming Halloween weekend we present five things you WON’T do in FiveEvil:
Your character’s won’t get the chance to benefit from anything so predictable. When you act, the horror acts. Can you do the thing? Because the horror will also do its thing at the same time.
In today’s KING BEOWULF update, we talk about The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki. A huge influence on KING BEOWULF. In this instance the Penguin Classics Edition, translated by Jesse L Byock.
Let’s take a look at The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki!
This book was a big influence on the development of KING BEOWULF. I pulled it off the shelf at just the right time to turbo-charge where KING BEOWULF needed to go, and what it needed to address as a book. I had a lot of unformed questions, and King Hrolf was there to answer.
Continue reading “Stop! Kraki Time!”
Hello. Jon Here.
A few people have asked questions about this topic, and there are some heroes in the sorry tale which I would like to highlight. It also feels like a story that should be told definitively and in one place. So without further ado, the whole sorry tale of our missing Twin Seas pallet, in detail, for your reading pleasure. And once this story is told here, we can point to this post without having to retell the story. ever. again.
We’ve been remiss in not updating the blog!
It’s all going on over at the KING BEOWULF kickstarter! We funded in just 2 hours, and we’ve been smashing through stretch goals ever since!
The campaign is currently way over £14,000!
And check out this lovely graphics describing what happens in each season in a Kingdom game:
