Yesterday we announced the BEOWULF Art Book and gave away coupons for a free PDF our very patient US backers. Today we have opened the PDF for general sale and the print edition for preorder. Let’s talk more about each in turn:
The Art Book PDF
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. The book is full of beautiful art, informative detail, and inspiring ideas for BEOWULF games.
BEOWULF Age of Heroes Art Book, PDF $3.99
The Print Edition Art Book Preorder
The BEOWULF art book 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.
Our very patient US-based kickstarter backers are taking delivery of their BEOWULF Age of Heroes books about now, with the last round of packages heading out from our US dispatch centre. As a thank you for their amazing patience we’ve decided to put together a BEOWULF art book, which they’ll be getting free in PDF, and at a reduced price for the print version.
The PDF will go on general release this week, and we will open pre-orders for the print version soon. The booklet is 32 pages long, in full colour. It’s a cute square format, 21cm (~8 inches) square.
Each spread features a piece of art from BEOWULF Age of Heroes, along with some exclusive commentary about each piece, and how it might inspire your adventures.
The BEOWULF Art Book is now available for US Backers! Once they’ve had a chance to redeem their PDFs and get their discount codes, we will open up the PDF and print books for orders. The books are being ordered in short run batches in the UK and US, so the wait for the print book will be a short one.
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 Eadig.
“Bald Eadig is a character that represents one extreme of our alignment system. He is a true believer in the new church and its messageand vocal about those beliefs. But he exists in a world where he’s often the exception rather than the majority and his confidence often provides excellent roleplaying opportunities as others react to him or he has to negotiate a situation among those who feel differently.” – Jacob Rodgers
Bald Eadig, Wrestling Hero
There are a great many dark places in the world, and the Book teaches that the faithful should bring the light, and with it burn out evil wherever it may be found. Blessed with the barrel-chested strength that comes with middle-age, a distinct lack of hair, and a devotion to the word of the Book, Bald Eadig means to carry the news of the saviour far and wide, and in doing so battle the forces of darkness as an example to all. Where he can’t bring the benefits of writing and contemplation, he will bring his big stick.
Possessed of a simple knowledge and an earthy goodness, Bald Eadig is a fearsome enemy of the darkness. He has helped build priory walls, defended pilgrims, and guarded monks. Now he is setting out on the swan road to find the greatest enemies of the Church – the very devils of hell and the sons of Cain.
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.
The three questions we get asked whenever we talk about BEOWULF are why two players, why 5e, why Beowulf?
Let’s talk about it!
So the duet play feature at the heart of BEOWULF Age of Heroes is really the driver behind everything we’ve added to the 5e rules. And the reason we decided to develop a duet play mode is tied up with the other two aspects – looking back it’s a bit of a tangled knot!
So, why 5e? This gets asked even more now we’re also doing a|state with Forged in the Dark. Why are we even in that over-populated, “uncool” 5e space? Primarily, believe it or not, because we just like it! (We like a lot of different stuff!)
Having all worked extensively on Adventures in Middle-earth in our previous jobs, and through that to some degree rediscovered “the world’s favourite roleplaying game”, we wanted to go further and do even more with it, and the team were very keen to get back to that system.
Speaking for myself, I find 5e is a collection of quite clever parts, which can be modded tremendously easily. I love stuff like inspiration and advantage – I think they’re really smart. And sure, game historians out there will know that 5e isn’t the first rules system to use these things. But all wrapped up together with a bunch of core assumptions already dealt with? It’s a really interesting space to play in.
And hey, I get it that for some people there are sacred cows within that game set up which are just too unpalatable. That’s ok! But I think it’s a fun ruleset to play around with, and it’s by and large very easy to play, and very easy to get a game together.
Talking of which, this is one of the big drivers behind the choice to make BEOWULF duet – one player and one GM. The look of delight on so many playtester’s faces when they realised they need only find one other person in order to run a campaign was proof we were onto something good. We’ve all struggled to schedule a game, and being able to call one other person and fix a time to play is really powerful.
There’s also a less obvious benefit – you can run the same adventure for several players. So if you have a group of players, BEOWULF makes an excellent pick up game if you can’t run your usual session. Each time you run it is different, but as GM you get more and more familiar with the material, and it gets better and better. There’s a lower cost to generating those good times, given the ease of re-running BEOWULF adventures.
And of course, BEOWULF also works for group play. Everything we built onto 5e to make duet play simple lifts right out.
So why BEOWULF at all? Right at the beginning of Handiwork Games we sat down and chatted about what we’d like to make. The idea of an early medieval/low fantasy/dark ages setting just kept coming up. It’s an era I find really fascinating, and have been interested it most of my life. There’s detail there if you want to study, and it’s readily available at your local library or bookshop. But equally it works as “dark ages-flavoured” heroic fantasy, without any need to read anything.
I don’t like to harp on too much about other games we’ve worked on and that are clearly other people’s babies, but it’s key to the existence of BEOULF – working on a Tolkien RPG for the best part of a decade, and being a key player in imbuing it with that dark ages flavour, you inevitably find your way to Beowulf, and I wound up having a lot of knowledge that couldn’t easily be used in a Third Age Middle-earth setting. It had to come out somewhere!
I also think my art style which, however weird I feel about saying it, was a big tick in the plus column of things we had to work with at the birth of Handiwork Games. My style, and the style that Scot Purdy brings, work well for these subjects.
And from a different angle, if you cook it down in game terms, the lone hero who seeks out monsters and slays them, fits together with the 5e rules in a really interesting way. Making that inevitable combat a real set piece, and the unashamed climax of an adventure is just cool.
Somewhat surprisingly, the poem prompted us to bring a level of mechanical focus on social interaction and investigation to 5e. The poem has a lot to say about how people and life are affected by interactions with the various monsters, and that was important to bring to the table. I’m really proud of those sections of the game that bring huge mechanical support to interacting with NPCs to unravel the mystery of the Monster.
BEOWULF Age of Heroes for 5e is available now* from selected UK and EU stockists, and from our webstore. It is also available with a range of adventures and additional digital content at DrivethruRPG.
*Please note that BEOWULF stock for US backers is currently being shipped. Once caught up with this process we will have more information about US shops and direct orders.
Character Queue is a new 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.
So let’s explore our first character, Cwenhild:
“Cwenhild is a type of character I don’t feel we see a lot of in roleplaying games – a more mature woman of more generous proportions. Whereas in real life I see a lot of people who fit this general mould. It seems a shame that we don’t have many heroes of this broad type. Cwenhild has lived, raised a family, and lost a family. One hopes that through her vengeance-inspired adventures she might find some happiness!” – Jon Hodgson
Cwenhild, the Widow-Matron of the House
When her husband was slain, Cwenhild mourned for a year and then set about putting the affairs of her hall to rights. Ruling wisely and cautiously, she waited for her three sons to come of age and rule her lost husband’s kingdom. Yet, one by one they were taken: as they flowered into men so they were cut down by war or taken away by creatures left over from ancient times. Now she is alone, with no one else to fight the growing abundance of monsters that herald the end of days and the snuffing out of all good things.
But no straw-death for Cwenhil. No longer the spinning wheel nor the pots of the hearth for her. She has bade broken open the barrow and taken up her husband’s mail and his spear. Too long has she spent weeping and awaiting tidings at the edge of the battlefield. Now she will be the bringer of bad tidings to those who take sons and husbands.
Cwenhild is a traditionalist of the old ways. The evidence of the inevitable end of the world is all around her.
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.
Links
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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).
