Blog

Theseus Protocol for FiveEvil is out now in PDF. 

This first horror scenario takes us into space with Gar Hanrahan. Can you survive waking up on a ship full of randos? Probably not, let’s be honest.

The first PDF scenario for FiveEvil, Theseus Protocol by the mighty Gar Hanrahan (Moria, The Dracula Dossier, Eyes of the Stone Theif) starts off as an ‘alien monsters have infested your spaceship’ bug hunt, which is second only to the dungeon as familiar territory for a roleplaying game.

However, instead of a unified team or crew, the characters are a mismatched bunch of recently defrosted colonists; their skills and specialities are not especially suited to dealing with alien horrors.

Later, the tone of horror shifts, moving from mere survival in the face of alien horrors to something colder and more cosmic.

Ultimately, it’s about being cut off and adrift in a vast and uncaring universe. Fun!

About FiveEvil

FiveEvil is a standalone horror roleplaying game from Handiwork Games, the fiendish minds behind BEOWULF Age of Heroes, a|state second edition and Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland. 

FiveEvil has been carefully crafted to evoke the horror genre by cleverly twisting up the fifth edition ruleset. FiveEvil subverts fifth edition play to defy expectations and concentrate the horror.

By taking the rules you know and fiendishly mutating them, FiveEvil creates a truly intense and unsettling horror gaming experience. This book is also packed with advice and ideas on how to create the very best horror gaming sessions.

The primary setting 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 uncover malign influence, your characters in FiveEvil are regular people trapped in a terrifying situation. You will attempt to survive and escape.

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

This standalone core book contains all the rules you need to create characters and play the game, as well as five sample adventures to show you how best to run FiveEvil, with tons of customisability and replay value.

As a horror game, FiveEvil contains mature themes and is suggested for adult readers.

As of August 21st 2025 we have paused shipping to the USA. This is because of President Trump’s executive order under his emergency powers to impose tariffs on goods coming from other countries. He has removed the prior exemption for orders under $800 being tariff-free. Now ALL incoming goods to the US are effectively taxed at the border, with the person ordering the goods being responsible for paying those tariffs. Because this change was made using an executive order it doesn’t have the usual weight of legislation behind it – no one really knows how to implement it on every single parcel, so the temporary measure of charging a flat fee of $80 has been imposed on all incoming goods.  We don’t want you to get a surprise bill of $80, so for now we’re not shipping to the US. It seems likely that books will prove to be exempt, but for now that’s not clear. As soon as we either have a workaround to charge you the 10% tariff in advance, or books are declared exempt we’re not going to ship to the US. We hope to reopen US shipping as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.

In the latest update to our web store software, our carefully calibrated formulas for charging you shipping have been deleted.

So we can either shut the store and wait for it to be fixed, or stay open and give you (wildly) discounted shipping on larger orders.
Have at it.
https://handiwork.games/shop

The “sale” will last until the bug is fixed. Or we go bust from offering such cheap shipping. Whichever comes first.

And looking great! All pre-orders are packed up and will hit the post tomorrow!

And with that the two new books are off pre-order and are now just regular orders. Nice.

Maskwitches has been nominated for an ENnie award for Best Art, and voting is now open here.

I don’t mind playing the ENnies game – it’s one we voluntarily sign up to play. I also don’t take it too seriously. It’s nice to win awards, of course. And I have real respect for the work that goes into them. 

But it is definitely a game when it’s a public vote: the entrants pre-existing audiences, their ability to spend time canvassing and so on? They’re all massive factors. Some of which we at Handiwork gain from, some are more challenging.

And while again I don’t mind any of this: this is the game we set out to play when we entered, I have some lingering reservation about art as competition and the very idea of “Best Art”.  

So let’s take a look at all the entrants in The Best Art category. This year in particular features some amazing art, and I’m gonna leverage my 25 years of professional art making and art directing in games to take a look at all the entrants and sing their praises, while enjoying their relative merits. 

It’s a cliche, but getting a nomination from the judging panel is a win. After that it comes down to the voting public, which is anyone’s guess. So you know. Let’s stick to thinking of this as a game.

Alphabetically, Maskwitches comes first, so let’s stick to that ordering. There’s a whole blog about the making of it over this way.

Continue reading “Thinking about The ENnies”