This week we’re going to be talking more BEOWULF! We’ve got a designer diary by Jacob, some chat about maps and minis (which are entirely optional, by the way!) from Jon, and we’ll be taking a look at some of the cool things we’re making, and have made for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes, including miniatures!
Credits! Miniatures from Footsore Miniatures, Gripping Beast, Perry Miniatures, Knucklebones Miniatures, with rocks from Warhead Studios. The dice are from Triple Ace Games (their very tasty Viking Dice).
Here’s the poem that Dave composed for The Hermit’s Sanctuary. There will be more poems to be found in the core setting book of BEOWULF: Age of Heroes from Dave and others.
Hwaet!
A far flung isle
Mist mantled, Rune deep.
Surrounded by the whales way
A speck of footfall- firmly set
Upon a blue bright shield
A stone boss boldly sits
Battle-battered by billow maidens
Ancient bearer of grave and grove.
Home of bristle backed boar
Racked by wild winds keening.
Gulls wheeling screech, its scops;
Baleful beaked eagles unlock their wordhoard.
Bitter brine- not balming beer
Is lapped by that wyrd- wrought isle!
Once a holy held place
A blessing not bane to honest kin.
In hearth of deep dwelled slaughter,
Its leavings glut the grey cloaked wolf
Gorges the black ravens bent beak
Feast giver for Woden’s greedy birds.
Moon bleached, snow skinned
Shield breaker, blood drinker
A pale scabbard for a sword host
Of battle- bold warriors!
Hardened hearth-troop wreak their craft
Battle lights sing but do not sever
Blood embers swing –harmless their hewing
No war sweat stricken from war needles striking.
Forge fired, handiwork of smiths
Have no power present there.
Wyrd unravelled, blades bite dulled
Fates weave woe in warp and weft.
About The Hermit’s Sanctuary
The Hermit’s Sanctuary is a free, full-length, introductory adventure for the forthcoming BEOWULF: AGE OF HEROES for 5e!
Designed for one player and one GM, BEOWULF provides unique rules and support for single-player games in the Age of Heroes. Take to the Whale Road as a monster-slaying hero! Voyage to the island of the hermit, and investigate the cause of its woes!
Complete with pre-generated characters, maps, printable accessories, and more, The Hermit’s Sanctuary is entirely free.
Designed for one player and one GM, BEOWULF provides unique rules and support for single player games. Take to the Whale Road as a monster-slaying hero! Voyage to the island of the hermit, and investigate the cause of its woes!
Lavishly illustrated in full colour, The Hermit’s Sanctuary includes:
a complete, 52-page adventure for one GM and one Player
optional poster-sized PDF battle maps for all locations
optional VTT-friendly battle maps for Virtual Tabletops
4 pre-generated characters
printable accessories: inspiration tokens and inspiration pool
blank character sheet
rules reminder sheet
handy adventure flowcharts
About BEOWULF: AGE OF HEROES
One of the oldest recorded stories in Western Europe, the poem Beowulf is an epic tale of hero against monster. And then the monster’s mother. And then a dragon.
BEOWULF is a setting and rules set for 5th Edition, designed for duet play – one GM and one player. Set in the world of Anglo-Saxon myth, no deep knowledge of history is required – the themes are eternal and instantly recognisable, adventures occur in the story-world of the Saxons, and we’ve done all the historical reading for you!
BEOWULF presents a host of new and specially adapted rules to create epic and thematic adventures for your lone hero and his or her companions.
BEOWULF features a unique new set of subclasses: The Hero, with subclasses for each ability score. It has BEOWULF specific backgrounds, and unique rules for sea voyages, inspiration, alignment, followers, a new condition and more!
Explore mythic, migration-era Europe and beyond, solve mysteries, and do battle with dreadful monsters.
With writing and rules design from hand-picked 5e and folklore geniuses, and with art from Jon Hodgson and friends, BEOWULF will be a thing of epic wonder. It will arrive on Kickstarter soon!
As we get ready to share The Hermit’s Sanctuary, the free, full-length adventure for BEOWULF, check out this for a bit of fun – a 2 page Hall for a Hero generator! Create your hall, and King/Queen/Ruler who presides over it with a fist full of dice!
We’re making preparations to deliver you the free introductory adventure to BEOWULF! Layout is almost complete!
The Hermit’s Sanctuary is a full-length, free adventure for BEOWULF, showcasing its unique new 5e rules for play with one player and one GM in the world of dark age myth and adventure! Full of encounters, characters, maps, and locations, it’s an exciting introduction to the monster-slaying Age of Heroes!
Don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter to get the link to download first!
We’re back with loads of new sets, including Back Streets, two flavours of scifi (see below!), Evil Forest and more! Check out the campaign preview here.
Here’s a look at the two scifi sets by guest artist Paul Bourne:
Here’s a strange one for you! HELLENISTIKA, the technicolour turbo-charged Hellenistic Greek era RPG we’re making with Ken Hite features on EN world’s “most anticipated RPGs of 2020” list.
Hellenistika doesn’t actually qualify, being a setting for 5e. So while we’re delighted people are excited about it, and that it was nominated, we can’t really ask for your votes!
However also on the list are a bunch of games we worked on – We provided cover art for Wolves of God, The Hero’s Journey and Through Sunken Lands so we certainly hope they do well, and they’re well worth your time!
Of course with Hellenistika being so highly anticipated we’re sure you’re looking for a progress report. We’re not ready to share anything new on that score just yet. “We’re working on it” remains the headline. We have a meeting with Ken this week, and it’s all chugging along! Once we have some cool stuff to share you’ll find it here!
