BEOWULF. a|state. Maskwitches. Cold City:Hot War. FiveEvil
If you’ve picked up the codebook PDF recently, we hope you’re enjoying a|state second edition!
We have a range of additional PDFs on DrivethruRPG to expand your play experience, and we thought it might be helpful to lay them out here:
We’re in the process of remaking all the art for our tabletop roleplaying game Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland. Jon takes delivery of a box of new things to be used in the new artwork. Hilarity ensues:
a|state second edition is available at a massive discount as part of the Forged in the Dark Games bundle on DrivethruRPG.
The deal lasts for just one day. Don’t miss out.
We were delighted to help our friends at Fenris Games provide some props for a BBC kid’s TV show “Lagging”.
The episode is live now on BBC iPlayer for those of you in the UK/with a VPN.
For those without, here’s some screenshots!
As you can see, also featured are some excellent scenery pieces and minis by Fenris Games and some awesome miniatures from Bad Squiddo Games.
The digital versions of our tiles are currently reduced for a very limited time at DrivethruRPG, and remain reduced on our website as we make space for… could it be more, new tiles?!?! Stay tuned.
Digital Pack 14 for BEOWULF Age of Heroes is coming!
This collection of additional resources for BEOWULF Age of Heroes is an Old Ways special, featuring an article about what evidence we have for pre-christian religion in the Early Medieval period and how to deploy that in your games, a collection of sample Old Ways places of worship, 3 NPCs who represent the Old Ways, and more!
You can get Digital Packs one to thirteen at DrivethruRPG now, or grab all the articles collected into the two BEOWULF Annuals in print or PDF!
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
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”)