Hello! Jon here. Just a very brief, slightly exhausted blog post to say a huge thank you for all your amazing support throughout 2021. We’re all slowing down and stopping work over the next couple of days. Jacob is finishing up BEOWULF backer dispatch right now. Scott’s been finishing up some client work, Paul’s been hard at work on a|state (late pledges close very soon!), and I’ve just made BEOWULF Digital Pack Seven live. Grab that as a wee Christmas present to yourself. You deserve it.
Our webshop will remain open over the festive period, but orders will be processed weekly until the New Year. We’ll pop a notice on the store to this effect.
We’ll be back with a crowd funding campaign for a print collection of BEOWULF Adventures, we’ll have the Handimonsters Annual and the BEOWULF Annuals out, we’ll be delivering a|state in PDF and thereafter print (gosh what a book that will be!). We’ll be unleashing The Forest Dragon Farmer on the world, as well as a couple of things we’re not ready to talk about yet.
Thanks again for all your support, while it’s ben a very tough year for everyone, we feel very lucky to be able to do what we do, and blessed to have such a great community growing around us. We hope you have a very safe and restful festive season, however you’re choosing to celebrate. And here’s to a hopeful New Year.
Character Queue is an ongoing series where we dive deep into our pregenerated characters that we made as part of our introduction to our BEOWULF:Age of Heroes roleplaying game. We were fortunate enough to fund sculpting and casting these characters, so not only do they appear in character sheet form but as professional miniatures as well.
Our character today is Blaedswith.
“Just like Bald Eadig from last week, Blaedswith is another example of a character who believes strongly in their alignment. Of course, she is opposite from Eadig, taking faith in the tried-and-true wisdoms of the Old Ways.” – Jacob Rodgers
Blaedswith, A Karelian Witch
Born into a community of witches from the East, and wise in the ways of copper amulets, charms and talismans, and the speech of animals and ways of medicine, the beliefs of her people were changed by coming of the new faith. Blaedswith viewed this as a grave mistake on the part of the newly converted, as a great deal of old wisdom was scattered and forgotten.
The copper mines and smithies now make crosses bearing the outstretched arms of the new god, which hold no magic against monsters. Abandoning her home in disgust, she has set sail in search of a more useful life.
Blaedswith knows that there is no lasting victory against the darkness, and in the great weave of time, the age of people will suffer a great and permanent defeat before oblivion. It can only be held back, but that is her Wyrd, and the fates demand that as the last of her witch clan she continue the fight against the old horrors that will inevitably eat the world.
Her youth and training in magic make her a both charming and powerful follower of the Old Ways.
Wow, what news we have for you. More details on the forthcoming Handimonsters 2021 Annual, a sneak peek at a|state accessories and lots of details on BEOWULF Age of Heroes!
BEOWULF: Age of Heroes
We’re almost done getting all the BEOWULF rewards out, BEOWULF hits the top ten best sellers, and Digital Pack Seven is almost ready, and you can order the Art Book in both PDF and the Print Edition.
Kickstarter US Shipping Wrapping Up
It’s been a big task getting the books to the US during the global shipping crisis, and a challenge while we waited for them to get through customs, and of course fulfilling any successful kickstarter has a lot of moving parts, but we’re almost there! We’re wrapping up the last few backer orders and starting to get the preorders into the process. Most backers have got their rewards now and we anticipate the great majority of those still in progress will arrive before the end of this coming week.
BEOWULF hits the Top Ten!
We were delighted to learn that BEOWULF Age of Heroes was in the top ten best selling Historical RPGs of 2021! Find out more at Geek Native.
Digital Pack Seven Coming Soon!
Our next BEOWULF Digital Pack will release before the end of the month. It will bring some new Followers and some new Gifts and Burdens to the game, present some more monsters to challenge your Heroes and more!
Art Book Available Now!
The BEOWULF Art Book in PDF form is now available for everyone. If you are located in the US and backed the BEOWULF: Age of Heroes kickstarter, then check your email/spam folder for a free coupon for this PDF as a thank you for your patience.
The BEOWULF Art Book print edition is a compact and beautiful 32 page booklet in full colour. It’s 210mm x 210mm square, and packed to the brim with BEOWULF art and commentary.
The free PDF will be sent to you via DrivethruRPG coupon within 24 working hours of ordering, and the print book will be dispatched in the new year 2022 – it is at print right now. We are sending books from both the UK and the US, so it should arrive very early in the new year.
Please note: If you are a US-based BEOWULF backer we have sent a discount coupon for you to use on this book as a thank you for your patience during the global shipping crisis.
a|state Video Review of Accessories, Late Pledge Window Extended
We’ve received the very first samples of the Compass and Coins from our friends at Campaign Coins – check out the video:
We’re keeping the pledge manager open just a little bit longer… we realise how busy this time of the year is and we want to make sure everyone who’s interested has a chance to put an order in.
Handimonsters 2021 Annual, Preview of Mad Man Jack
The pre-order for the Handimonsters annual will open in the new year!
A full colour 64-page softcover book covering a range of monsters that we released during 2021 along with bonus material, this print edition will cost £10.95 ($15.99 US), plus shipping. Preorders open next week, and we will print in both the UK and US for fast delivery.
A devilish sort of fellow, Mad Man Jack is quite dangerous, with his abilities to leap over moderately sized buildings and do horrendous damage with his claw-hand. Fortunately, he’s only found in cities. You’re not planning to visit one any time soon, are you?
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Editing continues, art-making continues, as does work on the accessories. Layout of completed chapters also continues – there’s a whole of continuing going on!
Let’s have a look at some new art from Paul. Always a treat, and we can’t wait to see these in situ.
Playmats
The play mat has gone through several iterations since the campaign ended. The initial version we showed was a barebones mock-up, which has now had much more attention from our graphic designer Paul Bourne.
We’ve been through a couple of versions, just making sure we’re really happy with how it all prints on neoprene. As you can imagine, printing on neoprene, with its fabric weave texture is a little different than printing on paper.
We now have the final version.
We’ve decided to stitch the edges. We don’t really need to – unstitched mats work just fine, but it does look so good! Little bit more expensive for us, but it’ll be a lovely thing when you get it.
Coins
The design process for these was very straight forward and have been done for a while. We just got these photos from Campaign Coins of real actual metal coins, and we should get out hands on these first few very soon. I’m very happy with how these look. They’re 30mm across, so the a set of four should be a solid handful, as well as being appropriately portable for playing The Three Coins.
Compass
This one proved a little more tricky to get right in the final stages of pre-production. We’ve elected to update the design – the cracks behind the City sigil presented a small risk of not working out quite how we wanted. So we’ve added a background design like the one on the coins.
I think it looks great! And there’s zero risk of anything looking odd. Just like the coins we just got these photos of the real thing. I can’t wait to own one – great work as ever from our friends at Campaign Coins.
Summary
So in summary excellent progress all round. We’re slightly behind schedule on editing due to the surprise arrival of BEOWULF books in the US, which has taken up some team time in processing those. But nothing I’m concerned about. I’m monitoring that closely and if we need to bring in some extra help we will do.
In terms of PDF delivery, I would prefer not to force the team into a crunch to beat the impending Christmas break, which they all deverve to enjoy without being worn ragged ahead of time. Given that I’m satisfied with some very high quality work and great progress towards our goals, I think it’s likely to be a new year delivery for the PDF. I’m sure we’d all rather get it right than do it fast.
Late pledges
Late pledges are due to close this week. We might opt to keep them open a little longer. We’ll see!
So Inspiration is key component of BEOWULF: Age of Heroes. Jon and Jacob both love the 5e inspiration mechanic, but find that the core rules don’t make full use of the mechanic. BEOWULF seeks to change that, and provide — ahem — inspiration for new ways to use the mechanic.
The Hero’s Adventure
BEOWULF is primarily designed for duet (one player, one gamemaster) adventuring and we suppose that our Hero is keen to receive omens and wise words before chasing after a nigh-undefeatable Monster. This process creates the Portent, a scrap of Anglo-Saxon poetry that might become important over the course of the adventure. The Portent also fills the Inspiration Pool – there are four components to the Portent and with each component, an Inspiration Token is placed either in the Hero section, the Follower section, or the Monster section of the Pool.
One More Inspiration Token
There are five tokens in the set, four for the Portent and the Inspiration Pool, one for the Hero themselves. In BEOWULF, there are many ways to earn Inspiration and several ways to spend it. One of the most effective ways ties into Advantage. In the game, heroes are either aligned with the Old Ways, the traditional set of gods that are known by many names across the Two Seas of northern Europe and their foretellings of epic wars against the Monsters; or the Church, a new set of beliefs spreading from southern Europe and bringing the promises of freedom, literacy, and personal salvation. When you select your Alignment Die and you’re rolling with Advantage, you receive Inspiration. As long as your faith prevails, you can use this feature over and over.
At the Moment of Need
So what do you do with those Inspiration tokens in the pool? Well, when it’s a dramatically appropriate time, you can use the token to give Inspiration to the appropriate type of character. For example, the player might draw a token from the Follower pool to give a Follower advantage on a check or attack, or to activate a special Gift. The GM might draw a token from the Monster pool to activate a special feature belonging to the Monster or just to give it advantage on an important attack or skill roll.
Howdy! We’ve got some late-breaking news for you and lots of fun stuff for BEOWULF, Handimonsters and a|state. Let’s get into it!
a|state
The pledge manager for late pledges is closing on 15 December, just a few days away! This is your last chance to get in to the ground floor of The City, after this you’ll be able to preorder the game at retail pricing.
Step inside a baroque urban nightmare, the world of a|state. In The City you’ll fight off threats to your canalside home, trying to make this grim and haunted place safer and better, somehow.
a|state brings a new, hopeful approach to the much-loved Forged in the Dark ruleset. Your ability to Care counts as much as your ability to Fight.
Create Troublemakers such as the deft and deadly Ghostfighter, the caring and curious Lostfinder, the persuasive and passionate Activist, and the striking and stealthy Sneakthief. If they can trust each other they might have a chance.
Defend your corner from selfish authorities, angry gangs and heartless industries, and deal with the spiralling consequences of your own actions as you struggle for a better tomorrow.
Bringing the wine-dark visual vibes of Dark City and The City of Lost Children, a|state delivers Dickensian anti-Thatcher sparks and knives sci fi.
We have just officially announced the Handimonsters Annual! This collects the monsters that we have released over the previous year into a stunning professionally-printed full-colour softcover book! We will soon be opening this up to preorder, with our current plans being to ship from both our UK and US warehouses, in order to give you the best possible rates on shipping.
BEOWULF: Age of Heroes
US shipping has resumed after the Thanksgiving holidays. We expect another week or so of mail processing. Packages are coming from our warehouse in Georgia and travelling via Priority Mail so we hope that almost everyone will receive their packages in short order (some packages, like APO/FPO, necessarily take longer).
For your patience, we will be sending all US Backers a PDF of the BEOWULF Art Book, which features our favourite BEOWULF art pieces, commentary from the artist and notes for including the imagery and situations represented in your BEOWULF games.
This book will also be available in print, at a vastly reduced price to US Backers.
We recently announced a forthcoming Kickstarter project to collect the already-released digital adventures in a printed format. We’re also decided that we will be collecting the material from Digital Packs 1 to 7 in a book format. This project won’t be a Kickstarter, but a preorder that will release very soon.
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Here at Handiwork we produce lots of economical products that support our larger offerings. Here’s a few things we offer that make quick and easy gifts for anyone on your holidays list.
Huge Dice
For BEOWULF: Age of Heroes we produced a series of extra-large dice to work with our Wyrd alignment/advantage system. But they’re impressive enough to use for any d20-based game!
Another bonus item we unlocked during the BEOWULF Kickstarter was a series of professionally sculpted miniatures. If you’re looking for unique Migration Era/Viking minis, we’ve got a fabulous set for you! Available in cast white metal and STL files for printing (resin machine highly recommended).
We’ve been hard at work bringing our patrons at Handimonsters.com brand-new 5e monsters every single week of the year. And now, since we have such a horde of wild and wonderful unique beasties, we’re going to publish them in an annual!
It’ll be a handsome, full colour softcover book, in the region of 64 pages, available direct from our webstore, and of course in PDF from DrivethruRPG. Every monster gets its own page, with it’s own unique stat block, abilities and actions, along with its own stunning piece of art. Since we’ve built this horde up over a year, they’re all unique killer, and absolutely no filler!
Our monsters are designed by Jacob Rodgers (Adventures in Middle-earth 5e, The Ruins of Symbaroum 5e, BEOWULF Age of Heroes) and illustrated by Scott Purdy (Pathfinder, Numenera, BEOWULF Age of Heroes)
We’ll have more information on how you can get your hands on one very soon. And be sure to swing by www.Handimonsters.com to check out the free stuff and subscribe!
What a bunch of news we have for you today! There are updates on Forest Dragon games, Handimonsters, a|state, and BEOWULF: Age of Heroes.
BEOWULF: Age of Heroes
Digital Pack 6
We have released our sixth set of digital add-ons for BEOWULF. This is the first one backers are not getting free as part of their pledges. It’s packed with PDF articles, maps, VTT tokens, and music.
Packages continue to wing their way across the country and our warehouse will continue to pack and ship backers’ rewards, with a bit of an interruption for Thanksgiving. We hope to have our shipping done early next month.
a|state
Late pledges for a|state are closing soon! Our kickstarter for this early 2000s British RPG classic smashed all expectations, and there’s a small window left to make a late pledge.
In a|state you’ll band together to try to make a life in your corner of the endless City better, bringing the ability to Care to Forged in the Dark games.
As you’d expect from Handiwork, there’s a host of useful and beautiful accessories available to check out at the late pledge page.
Handimonsters
This week we released our last Dungeon Construct of the year, the Throne Mimic for Handimonsters. Enchanted with the power to draw creatures to itself, it then grabs and devours them. You can get it and over 50 other monsters at www.handimonsters.com!
We are also hard at work at assembling the annual, a print compilation of our first year of Handimonsters that will collect all of our beautiful art and tricky monsters into a physical form. We’ll have more to talk about here soon.
Forest Dragon Games
Let’s take a quick look at the Forest Dragon Farmer. In the game, you collect crops by growing them. This requires a Field, some Seeds, and a Helper. Each of them need to match (for example each of the above cards have a green plant symbol, so this is a matching set). Keep making sets in order to win the game!
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Sign up for our newsletter and you’ll get extra offers, insights and snippets of info.
Join us on Discord, just point your browser at www.discord.me/handiworkgamers and that will generate you an invite. Sometimes you have to cut and paste for the bot to do its magic. Say hello to everyone and find channels for all your favourite releases.
