We’re at Tabletop Scotland this weekend.

This morning we were struck by the volume of ABSOLUTE LEGENDARY POWERHOUSES of Scottish role-playing games that will be right there in the halls this weekend!

Dave Allsop and Jared Earle will be on the Nightfall Games booth. SLA Industries is an absolute legend of Scottish roleplaying – the quintessential Glasgow-informed splatterpunk gorefest, where something way more intelligent lies underneath it’s mega-violent outer trappings. As well as creator of SLA Industries, Dave is an iconic contributor to Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering. In addition to writing on SLA, Jared does layout for a variety of hit games, including recently Carbon Grey, nominated for an ENnie award for its production values. 


SLA, Demon Dog and Terminator RPGs will all be at their compact and bijou booth. So packed with good stuff it’s like a black hole of talent wait what


And SLA was in many ways one of the guiding lights for a|state – arguably the RPG Falkirk to SLA’s Glasgow. Malcolm Craig and Paul Bourne, the creators of first and second editions of a|state, Cold City and Hot War will be at the Handiwork booth. Malcolm was a founding member of The Collective Endeavour in the early 2000s, which paved the way for much of what we find in the current UK indie scene.


These four characters have a massive depth of industry experience, and are always happy to chat and share what they’re up to right now.

Also around will be me, Jon Hodgson. Of course I’m way too humble to mention it, but I’ve twice been invited as an Industry Insider Guest of Honour at US Gen Con, I know a thing or two about making games and I’m probably best know for my art in The One Ring first edition, Dragon Warriors, D&D and all that jazz. While sadly born in England, I’ve been living in Scotland 20+ years, so I guess am tolerated as “part of it”. I run Handiwork Games, publishers of a|state, BEOWULF, Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland and other fine gaming books. We’ll have (almost) all our fine gaming products available at the show!


Next door to Handiwork Games are Pelgrane Press, and Cat Tobin has a long connection to Scottish RPGs, in fact a very early contributor to a|state! Now of course uses her time much more fruitfully running the mighty ENnie awards-hoover that is Pelgrane Press, out of Ireland. Cat is a legend, and a guiding star to anyone looking to run a values-led publishing games company.


Legendary games designer Gregor Hutton will be around too- Gregor was instrumental in the second edition of a|state – the very initial conversations about making it happen, and bringing it to Forged in the Dark occurred right at Tabletop Scotland! Gregor is perhaps best known for being awesome, but also for 3:16 – an absolute smash hit RPG coming right out of Edinburgh.


There’s a vast depth of talent hidden in the TTS trade hall, be sure you don’t miss out if you’re looking for advice on publishing games, or want to catch up with what’s new.


Anyone from Tales of Gargentihr, the other big Scottish RPG of legend in attendance?

King Beowulf

It’s been a while since we’ve spoken about KING BEOWULF, the kingdom stewardship supplement for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes!

With our commitment to delivering all physical rewards on The Trials of the Twin Seas* before launching any new BEOWULF book, we’ve had a bit of extra time to work on KING BEOWULF, and we’ve put it to good use.

During this additional development time, we have hit on some really exciting new directions and, in the name of seizing that silver lining, we’ve decided to fully pursue them – building on the first version of the KING BEOWULF manuscript towards something even more unique!

This week we’ll be releasing a free 4 page PDF introduction to some of the concepts we’ve developed for KING BEOWULF. We’ll add it to all the BEOWULF: Age of Heroes core book at DrivethruRPG, as well as making it its own title for free download.

Most excitingly, we will have a number of printed versions of this introduction available at Tabletop Scotland this weekend!

Very soon you’ll be able to sign up to be notified when the kickstarter for KING BEOWULF launches.


*In case you missed it, the US stock of Kickstarter rewards were “lost” by the shipping company, and this has caused us a real problem – we’re a small company, and we’ve had to work very hard to replace those lost rewards. But we’ve done it and they’re all shipping out right now!

The beautiful replica Fuller disc brooch in the image above is by https://glitterbeards.co.uk, and used with permission.

FiveEvil playtest opens

We gave our newsletter subscribers a chance to get in first, but now we’re opening the FiveEvil play test to everyone!


FiveEvil is a dedicated horror adaptation of fifth edition by Morgan Davie. It’s a radical reinterpretation of 5e, with many changes to the base game to facilitate creepy, atmospheric horror games. Find out more here.

We ask that only one person per group sign up to help us manage each group, collate feedback and ensure your accurate names make it into the book.

Playtest packs will head out late August.

Sci Fi Backdrops book – preorder now!

You can pre-order the forthcoming Sci-Fi Backdrops book right now at the Handiwork Games web store (or the Bad Squiddo store if you would prefer!)

Jon is almost done painting the 32 backdrops which will be included – here are some demos with some beautiful Bad Squiddo minis, and prints made with our office printer.

FiveEvil

FiveEvil is a set of new roleplaying rules from Handiwork Games, slated for release later this year. FiveEvil is designed to evoke the horror genre via a set of clever twists on the underlying fifth edition ruleset. The primary focus is modern day horror, inspired by the work of Stephen King, and moody, character-driven horror films like The Ritual, The Descent and Jacob’s Ladder, alongside mini-series like Midnight Mass by Mike Flanagan, and the scariest of Twin Peaks episodes.

Rather than seeking out evil in order to vanquish it, or investigating clues to battle malign influence, characters in FiveEvil are regular people trapped in a terrifying situation where fighting isn’t likely to help.

There are also plans afoot to cast a wider net with scenarios set in different eras: a key feature of FiveEvil is the ease with which it creates settings and scenarios woven together.

FiveEvil was created and written by Morgan Davie, features art by Scott Purdy, Jon Hodgson and friends, and boasts graphic design and layout by Paul Bourne.

Morgan Davie, FiveEvil Designer: “I love 5e and I love horror gaming and in FiveEvil we get to push both of them somewhere unprecedented. a|state has shown we love exploring new pathways with beloved game systems, and this one is heading into wild new places. It’s a dream project, and I look forward to giving everyone nightmares.”

Jon Hodgson, Handiwork Games: “Morgan has proved his uniquely powerful and insightful design chops with both a|state and The Three Coins. When he pitched this stripped-back take on 5e, purposefully built to deliver a particular flavour of horror gaming, I was really excited. Having now played it, I can confirm it absolutely delivers on its promise to subvert so many of the expectations in 5th Edition, bringing something really fresh to the gaming table. I love it, and I can’t wait for us to share it!”

Closed play tests are complete, and we will be inviting play testers to the next round of testing soon. A printed book will be funded on kickstarter later this year.

Backdrop Books Pre-orders open!

Miss the 7 day quickstarter campaign for 2 books of painted backdrops? By (massive) popular demand we’ve opened a pre-order here! We’re expecting to deliver these backdrop books in October this year.

The commercial licenses are not yet available, but stay tuned, they’re coming soon!

Jon Hodgson Maps Backgrounds Book

We’re running a mini-kickstarter to fund a print run of a book of backdrops to use with your minis and models. Jon has painted quite the collection of these, and while there are two sets available at DrivethruRPG, we think it’d be a great idea to make a book of them, so you don’t need to print them at home.

Here’s the low down in a sneak peek at the Campaign Video:

Sign up to be notified of the launch – the campaign is just 7 days long, so don’t miss out!:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonhodgsonmaptiles2/jon-hodgson-maps-backgrounds-book