BEOWULF. a|state. Maskwitches. Cold City:Hot War. FiveEvil
Today’s big news is that Map Tiles 2 are available to buy right now!
We kickstarted this second round of gorgeous tiles, and now all our backer rewards are dispatched, so now Map Tiles 2 can be bought by everyone!
If you’re in the US, you’ll want to get them from DrivethruCards.com
If you’re pretty much anywhere else, then head to the Handiwork Games store
To learn more, read on!
Finding unique high-quality visuals for your VTT games can be a pain. We have just the thing: Our digital map tiles combined with our Digital Scenery ranges allow you to make endless battle maps and locations for your players to explore. By using the painted .png scenery as tokens in your preferred VTT app you can customize any location to make it a unique adventure.
Browse the full range here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/10726/Handiwork-Games/subcategory/26693_30773/Jon-Hodgson-Maps
Don’t miss the great value digital tiles bundle, and the super convenient Scenery Bundle.
All Map Tiles from Jon Hodgson Map Tiles 2 kickstarter have now been dispatched! Which means that the tiles will go on sale tomorrow! If you’re in the US, they’ll be available on drivethrucards.com, and if you’re based anywhere else you can grab them here at our webstore.
Wave One tiles are available now.
Supplied in sets of 30 tiles, Jon Hodgson’s double-sided, card-stock map tile sets will fit in a coat pocket and won’t break the bank.
The art is all hand-made using digital painting programs rather than 3d renders, so everything has a nice handmade feel that blends right in with painted miniatures.
They’re six inches square – It’s a great balance of flexibility, allowing you to build very different encounter maps from a few tiles, with extreme portability. 210 tiles will fit in your bag with ease and allow endless set-ups on the fly.
Here’s a free VTT map for the weekend! This is based on the Jon Hodgson Maps Evil Forest tiles: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xrk8y9615tg4tfn/Evil%20Forest%20VTT%20map.jpg?dl=0
You can get the digital Evil Forest Tile Set here.
And there’s a super value mega bundle of ALL Jon Hodgson Maps digital tiles here.
Have a great weekend, stay safe, play games!
We’ve released two digital map tile sets today! Water Tiles and Linking Tiles 2.
Digital Map Tiles are an easy and effective way to build complex maps for VTT adventures in a fraction of the time it would take to create them from scratch. With no limit on how many times you can use a given tile, the possibilities are almost endless. And with Linking Tiles allowing sets to be joined together, your VTT adventures will never be the same again!
These tiles allow you to link different sets together, in a variety of combinations.
These tiles provide links between
Cavern, Dungeon, Heathland, Forest, Mountain Pass, Backstreets, Water, Evil Forest, Hillfort and Desert.
And between Utopian Scifi and Dystopian Scifi
They’re really useful tiles that add a ton of value to other sets.
Once all our backers have their physical tiles we’ll be making the print versions available!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/301006/Jon-Hodgson-Map-Tiles–Linking-Tiles-Set-2-Grid
Expanding on a feature from the Wave One Extra Detail tiles, this set gives you loads of options for lakes, rivers and streams, or even the sea. You can build islands, and shorelines, and includes a bunch of water tiles to create open water. This set is perfect to mix up your wilderness adventures. The Water Set connects to the Heathland Tiles.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/297163/Water-Tiles-With-Grid
You can also grab ALL our Digital Tiles in one great value bundle here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309487/Jon-Hodgson-Map-Tiles-Wave-One–Wave-Two-Digital-Pack
Evil Forest Digital Tiles are now live on DrivethruRPG! This digital set contains files for both gridded and ungridded tiles, as well as “fuzzy-edged” .png tiles.
Currently available as digital files, the physical versions will be made available as soon as all our Kickstarter backers have received their tiles!
Digital Map Tiles are an easy and effective way to build complex maps for VTT adventures in a fraction of the time it would take to create them from scratch. With no limit on how many times you can use a given tile, the possibilities are almost endless. And with Linking Tiles allowing sets to be joined together, your VTT adventures will never be the same again!
Please note these files are intended for Virtual Table Top, on-screen use, and as such, they are not suitable for home printing.
Evil Forest Tiles are also available as part of this great value bundle: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309487/Jon-Hodgson-Map-Tiles-Wave-One–Wave-Two-Digital-Pack
The physical Backstreet tiles will go live as soon as all Kickstarter backers have their sets!
Our Backstreet Digital Tiles are now live on DrivethruRPG! This digital set contains files for both gridded and ungridded tiles, as well as “fuzzy-edged” .png tiles.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/…/2…/Backstreet-Tiles-with-Grid
You can also get these tiles as part of our amazing tile bundle, which has ALL of the available digital Jon Hodgson Map Tiles for a bargain price!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/…/Jon-Hodgson-Map-Tiles-Wave-O…
The physical Backstreet tiles will go live as soon as all Kickstarter backers have their sets!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309487/Jon-Hodgson-Map-Tiles-Wave-One–Wave-Two-Digital-Pack
After two smash-hit Kickstarter campaigns, the digital tiles are now available for everyone to buy!
And we’ve made this super bargain bundle deal! Each set of digital tiles sells for $3.99, and this set of SIXTEEN sets costs just $19.99. That’s a saving of almost $44!
Digital Map Tiles are an easy and effective way to build complex maps for VTT adventures in a fraction of the time it would take to create them from scratch. With no limit on how many times you can use a given tile, the possibilities are almost endless. And with Linking Tiles allowing sets to be joined together, your VTT adventures will never be the same again!
From Wave One:
From Wave Two:
Please note these files are intended for Virtual Table Top, on-screen use, and as such, they are not suitable for home printing.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309487/Jon-Hodgson-Map-Tiles-Wave-One–Wave-Two-Digital-Pack
We’ve been adding Map Packs to our DrivethruRPG store!
Map Packs feature poster-sized PDFs, which come in plain, gridded and hexed versions. There are VTT versions of everything, alongside handy “home print” files which are sliced up into A4 or US Letter chunks for easy printing at home.
Here’s a rundown of what’s available:
The latest one, just released today, is Buildings Pack 1, which features maps for a variety of halls, a shop and a mysterious house in a quarry. It’s Pay What You Want with a suggested price of $3.99.
Chasm Run is also Pay What You Want, and is a set of four really big maps that join together to form a long gully – perfect for a chase or prolonged battle.
Ruins Pack 1 is $3.99 and contains a bunch of really useful maps! A large ruined fortification, a set of ruins covered in webs, the same one without webs, and a bonus mini ruined house with a cellar.
Handiwork at DrivethruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/10726/Handiwork-Games
Jon: As part of The Hermit’s Sanctuary, the free introductory scenario for BEOWULF, we wanted to include a bunch of battle maps. It’s worth mentioning here at the outset that BEOWULF doesn’t rely on battle maps. Theatre of the Mind works just as well. Like in any 5e game, they’re purely optional.
But we love a good map hereabouts, and painting miniatures is something that’s been a very useful diversion in these times of lockdown.
I’ve been running a Patreon for almost 2 years now, supplying painted battle maps for people’s games. I also made a load of them for our recent collaboration with Onyx Path Publishing on the Scarred Lands Creature Collection. And so it seemed like a good idea to include some with The Hermit’s Sanctuary.
I specialise in really big maps, mostly because… I can! Digital delivery and virtual tabletops make these really accessible. But I also like to print them out and use them in the traditional way with miniatures. Today I’m taking a look at how that’s all shaped up.
So here’s the map of the Sanctuary itself.
For my games, I went to town and picked up a bunch of animal minis from Warbases. They’re just across the Firth of Forth from Handiwork HQ, so it’s nice to shop local! They do a great line in farm animals, so I’ve added some geese, Jacob sheep. I already had a couple of pigs for a BEOWULF Hero concept I’m working on – a seer who has oracular pigs as her followers. Must get on with that! As you can see, I’m no master painter, and I gave these a very quick paint job, but they’re a nice addition to the table.
For the main NPCs in the scenario, I needed some quite particular figures. These ended up coming from a wide range of sources.
The Housekeeper is a personal favourite, from Gripping Beast. She’s a cracking miniature.
The Builder is a really lovely figure from Perry Miniatures. He’s one of their First Crusade Pilgrims, which makes him a bit out of period, but civilian clothes don’t change tooooo much in this era, so I think it works.
The Provisioner is from Gripping Beast – he’s the attendant in their Saxon bishop set, who is perfect for that NPC.
The Hermit himself is a monk from Perry Miniatures. He’s not a perfect fit for the NPC description, but it’s a nice model.
The Boy was the trickiest match to find. I couldn’t find any early medieval children figures that fitted the bill. It was wonderful that an old friend Matt who runs Knucklebones Miniatures volunteered to sculpt me one. If you fancy getting your own, I’m sure Matt will send you one for a reasonable payment!
While avoiding spoilers, the Sanctuary map might feature two or three times in the scenario, depending on how it plays out, and the details of the scenery add quite a few options to the potential second and third usages.
Next up is a map for the Battle at the Standing Stone, which may or may not occur in the adventure, depending on the actions of your Hero. This is a nice big open map, set on the moors of the Hermit’s island home. Again, no spoilers, but I can imagine some running around on this one… Our Monster here is robustly played by a Red Box Games troll.
In this playthrough, we’re using the regenerated character Alys (who I always considered something like an early medieval, welsh Hermione Grainger).
We’re using a Footsore Miniatures Shield Maiden for her figure. Footsore also provided one of the followers. I highly recommend their work. Their new range of Anglo-Saxons is gorgeous.
For additional followers, Victrix Vikings and Anglo Saxons and Anglo-danes are perfect. There’s also a character model from Bad Squiddo in there, who I highly recommend! (I expect we’ll use her model for a Hero at some point in my games)
There’s an additional variant map included for another optional battle, which I haven’t set up, since I didn’t need it for this play-through, but it’s worth mentioning – it’s a flexible map that could easily see use in other games.
The Walled Graveyard map created a lot of nerves for the player in this run through! Can’t say any more than that! Physically, this is the smallest map, and I don’t know if that added to their worries?
The Ruin is a personal favourite location. It’s based on a ruined broch, not that the characters in the scenario know this. There’s one of the very few lowland brochs close to Handiwork HQ, in the form of Tappoch Broch, and we’ve very much taken it to heart, making dice trays featuring it! The broch ruin is another map that might come in handy for other adventures, It’s a nice big one!
In this image you can see the Inspiration Pool at work – you get a printable one, along with some tokens, as part of the Hermit’s Sanctuary. There will be neoprene mats and really gorgeous metal tokens available as part of the BEOWULF kickstarter.
The map of… this location, let’s call it, is filled with spoilers, so there’s not much to say. I just hope that your Hero ends up seeing this one when they’re well prepared! The stones here are from Warhead Studio.
This is probably the most useful map to use in play, even if you’re doing theatre of the mind. Printing it on A4/US Letter and using counters might come in handy, as one of the potential climactic battles is something of a mini-game to itself. This is a common feature of scenarios in BEOWULF – the battle against the big Monster always has some kind of cool twist to make it really memorable.
We have our own range of miniatures being designed right now by our dear friends at Cold War Miniatures, and the initial range includes all the pre-generated characters from the Hermit Sanctuary. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the renders!
We’re very close to having pre-production examples on hand – the last piece of character art is heading over to be sculpted today! We showed him in progress earlier in the week – here’s the more or less finished art. He’s a doomed hero archetype, searching for an enemy worthy enough to gift him a heroic death.
The Hermit’s Sanctuary is available absolutely free here. It includes all the maps in this article, as PDF posters, jpeg versions for VTT, and sliced up easy-to-print versions.
There’s a Tabletop Simulator package for it here.
You can find out more about BEOWULF here.
The dice shown are from The Dice Dudes
The dice trays are from us! Get one here.
