Character Queue: Alys, A Princess

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.

Alys, A Princess

Born of royal blood, but fostered to a far away land across the sea, Alys found she did not fit in with the other princesses. More interested in learning to read and write, and the wonders these skills revealed, she spurned the traditional crafts of hospitality and needlepoint and the wifely duties expected of her.

Continue reading “Character Queue: Alys, A Princess”

Character Queue: Blaedswith

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 Blaedswith.

“Just like Bald Eadig from last week, Blaedswith is another example of a character who believes strongly in their alignment. Of course, she is opposite from Eadig, taking faith in the tried-and-true wisdoms of the Old Ways.” – Jacob Rodgers

Blaedswith, A Karelian Witch

Born into a community of witches from the East, and wise in the ways of copper amulets, charms and talismans, and the speech of animals and ways of medicine, the beliefs of her people were changed by coming of the new faith. Blaedswith viewed this as a grave mistake on the part of the newly converted, as a great deal of old wisdom was scattered and forgotten.

The copper mines and smithies now make crosses bearing the outstretched arms of the new god, which hold no magic against monsters. Abandoning her home in disgust, she has set sail in search of a more useful life.

Blaedswith knows that there is no lasting victory against the darkness, and in the great weave of time, the age of people will suffer a great and permanent defeat before oblivion. It can only be held back, but that is her Wyrd, and the fates demand that as the last of her witch clan she continue the fight against the old horrors that will inevitably eat the world.

Her youth and training in magic make her a both charming and powerful follower of the Old Ways.

Available as a single STL file or as part of the precast miniatures set.

Play as Eadig in The Hermit’s Sanctuary, our ENnie-nominated introductory scenario for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes, available for free (PDF version) or in print!

CHARACTER QUEUE – BALD EADIG

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 message and 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.

Available as a single STL file or as part of the precast miniatures set.

Play as Eadig in The Hermit’s Sanctuary, our ENnie-nominated introductory scenario for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes, available for free (PDF version) or in print!

Friday News Update – May 7th

Updates for BEOWULF – and a|state!

We now have have FOUR full adventures for our BEOWULF setting. These include our ENnies-nominated intro, The Hermit’s Sanctuary, The Three Ogre Brothers, which comes as part of the main BEOWULF rulebook, plus two adventures more recently released – Horror at Herrogate and The Witches and The Wyrm. And, thanks to feedback from our backers, we’re delighted to release some updated content!

Horror at Herrogate Player-Facing Map
Continue reading “Friday News Update – May 7th”

Friday News Update – March 26th

Join us at the Spring Showcase!

This weekend sees Tabletop Gaming Magazine’s epic Spring Showcase, offering the inside scoop to the gaming community’s up-and-coming news. Find announcements, play-throughs and sneak peeks – and find Jon, on the main stage, at 3pm tomorrow (Saturday 27th March GMT). He’ll be talking everything Handiwork, and what we’ve got coming up.

Join us at the Spring Showcase!

While you’re waiting, you can follow the Whale Road with our trusty Hero, Bald Eadig, who’s finally reaching the end of his adventure. Jump on over to Campaign Coins on YouTube and watch the epic, double-length finale of The Hermit’s Sanctuary – where the foul beast is finally uncovered!

And, if that leaves you in the mood for slaying nasties, then grab Horror at Herrogate, our full-length BEOWULF adventure, from DriveThru. Confront the dreadful dréag, the nightstalker, the breaker of bones, unkillable by mortal hand…

Horror at Herrogate

The .pdf comes complete with three poster-sized battle maps, tokens for VTT, new Follower cards and separate NPC artwork.

And, if you love a good monster, and a good RPG fight, then our Handimonsters Patreon is less than the price of a coffee. Start your week, every Monday, with a brand new 5e beastie – each one carefully designed and drawn, and coming complete with stats, lore, background, and all sorts of scenario ideas.

Plus – there’s loads of bonus content, and there’s loads of FREE stuff too!

Quicksilver Troll

And don’t forget – we’ve got some new goodies in our RedBubble store. Two of Jon’s best-loved designs are now available as photographic prints!

Choose from ‘The Sacred Grove’, a haven of light and rest…

The Sacred Grove

…or ‘Monster’, for when you need to kick some butt!

Monster!

If you have a favourite design, then do tweet us @GamesHandiwork and let us know!

Keep up with all the news, when you join us on our Socials:

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Rawr. Stomp. Nomnomnom.

Friday News Update – March 19th

Horror at Herrogate is here!

Written by Marco Rafalà (The One Ring, Star Trek Adventures, Lex Arcana, How Fires End) and illustrated by Jon Hodgson, Horror at Herrogate is a full-length .pdf adventure for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes.

Horror at Herrogate

Nightmare lingers at the small fishing settlement of Herrogate, threatening the people and the treasure seat of the lord Thorfinn. Dare you confront the dreadful dréag, the nightstalker, the breaker of bones, the creature unkillable by mortal hands…?

But you’re a Hero. Seriously, how else would you spend your weekend?

Horror at Herrogate

The scenario comes with three poster-sized battle maps, tokens for VTT, new Follower cards and separate NPC artwork to show to your players.

Grab it now from DriveThru!

If you have time left after all that, catch Jon and Jacob on our blog, talking swords, Vikings, how BEOWULF has gone, and what happens next…

Draeg

Or you can spend it watching the latest episode of The Hermit’s Sanctuary, from our friends at Campaign Coins. This week, Bald Eadig, still bowed with grief, is going monster-hunting…

Plus: check out some of Jon’s absolutely gorgeous painting. Here are some of our BEOWULF minis… 

Blaedswith, Eadig and Uthman

And a glimpse behind the scenes…

Where the Magic happens!

If you’d like to grab EVERYTHING (and we do mean everything) BEOWULF, the Bundle of the Mighty is now available in our store. And this includes the whole BEOWULF experience:

BEOWULF setting and rules (compete with .pdf copy)

BEOWULF compass rose and Inspiration tokens, both by Campaign Coins

BEOWULF Inspiration mat, design by Paul Bourne

BEOWULF dice tray, design by Paul Bourne

BEOWULF real metal miniatures set, figures by Richard Dickens

BEOWULF digital miniatures .stl pack

BEOWULF All Rolled Up, design by paul Bourne

BEOWULF art cards, designs by Jon Hodgson and Paul Bourne

BEOWULF goodies!

And you can grab them lovely maths rocks as well…

Viking Maths Rocks go click-clack

Keep up with all the news, when you join us on our Socials:

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Friday News Update – March 12th

And first up – our MAP TILES are back in stock!

Map Tiles

Find these in the Handiwork Games store and on DriveThru, and this includes all of our big Tiles Bundles, to bring every kind of adventure to your tabletop. And don’t forget, our Digital Map Packs – ideal for your VTT games – are still on SALE.

Next up – congratulations!

This goes to Simon H J Williams, who’s won himself a print copy of The Hermit’s Sanctuary, complete with original sketch by Jon. Which is winging its way, even as we speak.

If you didn’t win this one, worry not – there will be more competitions soon…

The Hermit’s Sanctuary

To follow The Hermit’s Sanctuary adventure, join the Campaign Coins team, over on Twitch. This week, the fifth instalment sees our Hero, Bald Eadig, get to grips with ‘Baleful Grief’ – and we hear rumours that the Eadig/Thormund/Saewine love triangle may be heating up…

Stat a Hero of your own, with this week’s podcast! Those all-round-renowned RPG geniuses (genii?) Jon and Jacob talk you through the first part of creating your Beowulf Hero character, so they’re armed and ready to… erm… break benches.

If you’d rather listen, you can also find it on Spotify and on anchor.fm.

A Hero, of course, needs an adventure. Make your awareness checks for Horror at Herrogate, a new full-length BEOWULF scenario coming up at DriveThru – very soon!

Horror at Herrogate

If you backed the original Kickstarter, your Hero gets their Horrors for free – we will send you the .pdf next week.

In the meantime – all you painters! We’re delighted to share the skills of the wonderful Sonic Sledgehammer Studio, making a gorgeous job of our white metal minis. Chosen by Sonic’s fans, the Hero Ibn Uthman is first for the brush. Once a trader and writer, he was exiled for using his prodigious ability with words – and returning to Baghdad was no longer an option.

Check out Sonic’s awesome painting…

Pop over to our friends at GeekNative for a chance to win our Bang & Twang card game. It’s fast and fun and easy to learn, great for kids and an ideal family game – but look out for the Forest Dragon!

Chomp.

Keep up with all the news, when you join us on our Socials:

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Map Tiles Goodness

Friday News Update – March 5th

Grab yourself a cup of tea (or a mug of mead), because it’s been a packed week at Handiwork Games

First up – join our World Book Day Twitter giveaway. Follow us at @HandiworkGames and RT our tweet to win a print copy of The Hermit’s Sanctuary, our BEOWULF intro-adventure, complete with an original sketch from Jon.

The Hermit’s Sanctuary with Original Sketch

Thanks to our friends at Campaign Coins, you can follow the live play-though of The Hermit’s Sanctuary over on YouTube. This week, Bald Eadig meets… the SEA RAIDERS!

You can also follow Pellam’s Wasteland on YouTube for a solo play campaign.

And, of course, you can join Jon and Jacob over on our own YouTube channel, for our BEOWULF podcast. This week, it’s all about the 5e rules!

Or, if you’d rather just listen, find it on Spotify and on anchor.fm.

BEOWULF art – The Arrival

Gaming for good, and launching Tuesday 9th March – a fantastic charity offer, sold in aid of The Trussell Trust. This mini-deck and map pack will fuse Jon’s bestselling Map Tiles with the fantastic RPG encounters of Venger’s Decks, offering you the perfect backstreet package, ideal for any campaign.

The Streets

And every sale is for a good cause. Find out more, here.

Handimonsters – new pricing!

In more news: Handimonsters! Our 5e monster Patreon is now at a new price, with easy-to-understand tiers. And this week’s monster is FREE! Add some giantish romance to your adventure with the Hölingean, tattooed and magical. They like summers of idle dalliance, and keep human mages as pets.

Holingean!

And catch Jacob, talking Handimonsters, over at d20 radio!

And finally – we’re very pleased to be involved with Heinzcon! Offering a wonderful programme of gaming related events and panels, this will take place in Twitch – and you can catch Jon (again – he’s been a busy fella) talking everything from BEOWULF to a|state.

Keep up with all the news, when you join us on our Socials:

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Facebook @HandiworkGames

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Bald Eadig – Wrestling Hero.

Friday News Update – February 26th

And it’s time for a SPRING SALE!

Jump on over to DriveThruRPG, where our JON HODGSON MAP TILES are 20% OFF. These include our best-selling Dungeon Tiles, plus SF Tiles (Uptoian and Dystopian), and Tiles offering Forests, Caverns, Desert, Hillforts, and everywhere else you can escape to roll dice. And all of these come with free digital files.

Digital Map Tiles

You can also find all of our digital scenery packs, featuring everything from walls and posts and logs and sticks, all the way up to fireplaces and furniture. 

Perfect backgrounds for all your lockdown gaming adventures!

And, taking you down the Whale Road this week, we have two brand new BEOWULF videos. Join Bald Eadig in the third instalment of The Hermit’s Sanctuary adventure, presented by our friends at Campaign Coins. This week, The Search…

Join Jon and Jacob, discussing the first chapter of our BEOWULF setting in this week’s podcast, over at our YouTube channel.

If you’d rather just listen, you can find it on Spotify and on anchor.fm

Beowulf Minis, painted by Jon.

If you’re on Pinterest, we have a brand new profile showcasing our artwork, minis, monsters, forthcoming titles and more. Please go give us a follow!

a|state playtest version – coming soon!

And if you’re waiting for a|state, then watch this space – we will have news of the playtest version, coming soon!

Get the news about a|state and everything else, when you join us on our Socials:

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Beowulf Character Sheet – grab your dice and start rolling!