The Player’s Handbook is the reference guide for players of the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It contains rules for character creation and advancement, backgrounds and skills, exploration and combat, equipment, spells and much more. Dungeons & Drgaons immerses you in a world of adventure. Explore ancient ruins and deadly dungeons. Battle monsters while searching for legendary treasures. Gain experience and power as you trek across uncharted lands with your companions. (adapted from back cover)

You lost your last companion months ago, and now you are running low on food. You set out from the bunker in which you have lived for over a decade. You have one promise left to keep; you just need to get there. Endling is a solo journaling game that uses Hex Flower mechanics, a tarot deck, and two d6s. You crawl through an indeterminate hex crawl using the hex flower to, hopefully, make your way to your journey’s goal - only finding out what goal that is at the end of your game.

A decade ago Blue Rose shook up the RPG scene with its vision of romantic fantasy and inclusive gaming. Now the world of Aldea returns in a new edition using the Adventure Game Engine (AGE), the popular rules that power the Fantasy AGE and Dragon Age RPGs. This beautiful, full-color book contains everything needed to create and tell stories of heroic envoys of the Sovereign’s Finest as they protect their homeland of Aldis from threats like the shadowy Kingdom of Kern and the fanatical Theocracy of Jarzon, as well as monsters and artifacts from the cruel reign of the Sorcerer Kings. Aided by the rhydan—their psychic animal allies—the champions of the Kingdom of the Blue Rose safeguard the light of the world against the power of Shadow. Will you answer the Sovereign’s call?

The NSR Cauldron community zine Sword& has officially released issue 2! We received dozens of submissions which were narrowed down to 8 entries. To the dozens of folks who contributed writing, editing, art, layout, and project management effort: thank you! This zine wouldn’t exist without you! What’s inside this issue? Moon-lighting: Lore and starter kits to help build a space wizard. Alternatives to Spellbooks: technology has advanced the Spell Book into the final frontier. Space Wizard Familiars: six wacky space wizard familiars. Engram Scanner: a short story where a wizard copies a mind to a new body with a ritual and titular scanner.. Most Wanted: the galaxy’s 6 most wanted space wizards. Space Station Nous Eternal: a gelatinous space dungeon filled to the brim with hazardous organic material. Stellar Lichdom: the blackest path of space wizardry. To destroy a being of this scale will be no common labor. Tomb of the Star Mother: a tomb cursed by an ancient diety? Or a crashed spaceship? Play to find out.

Stonetop is a “hearth fantasy” tabletop RPG set in an Iron Age that never was. The players portray the heroes of an isolated village near the edge of the known world. Their adventures focus on dealing with threats to the village and seizing opportunities. These aren’t rootless mercenaries seeking fortune and glory; they’re exceptional people, taking risks on behalf of their friends, family, and neighbors.

Mountain Home is a Forged in the Dark roleplaying game where the players take on the role of a group of founding dwarves setting out to create a new settlement. Dig deep, engage in politics with your neighbors, and secure your future in a strange new land. Mountain Home games take place over the tenuous decades of a settlement’s early existence in a new and remarkable land. The game cycles through both fast-paced expeditions where the characters set out to take control of fate and the steady dig downward as the settlement expands. Within you’ll find: Seven complete playbooks for player-controlled dwarves Four settlement goals that give your dwarves a reason to make their new mountain home All the rules and printouts necessary for your group to engage in daring expeditions, build your settlement, and discover your new mountain home’s fate Procedures for group-driven worldbuilding to make every game your own Chapter art by Juan Ochoa and playbook art by Galen Pejeau Mountain Home is a laid-out, fully functional game. It has an index, working bookmarks, and hyperlinks for navigation but it is still a work in progress. Buying the game now ensures you get all future digital versions of the game released right here. As I polish Mountain Home further, I’m going to be increasing the price accordingly. I’ve released it at a lower price today so I can more easily get feedback and eventually pay for things I can’t do myself, like fill the book with art.

ORBITAL gives us airlocks and control panels, pensive faces looking out into the cosmos, improvised fixes for critical systems, military-sponsored subterfuge, warm embraces in the cold vacuum, frantic struggles in zero-gravity and unknowable ancient technology, asking WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT? Imagine an all-consuming interstellar war, spread across a vast galaxy and involving trillions of willing and conscripted participants. Then imagine a lone space station, floating in the cosmos, that is somehow set apart from this conflict. Through significant effort and fortuitous circumstance this place has remained unaffiliated and relatively peaceful, providing a sanctuary for the lovers and thinkers who refuse to side with the two warring powers. But this hard-won neutrality is not secure, not even slightly. There’s always someone offering vital resources in exchange for a little influence, or plotting to displace our leaders, or smuggling military equipment into forgotten corners of the station. Holding off these myriad threats is an informal network of dependable sorts, each with a stake in the continuing vitality of the station. These characters; politicos, artisans, brokers and so on, may not be officially recognised leaders—but their influence is felt strongly across the community. They might not get along — they might not even like each other. But they are united by their belief that the station is a cherished place that must be protected. The question is: when the pressure is rising, can they put their differences & personal motivations aside for the good of the community? ORBITAL employs the No Dice, No Masters system, utilising the core structure & mechanics from the wonderful Dream Askew by Avery Alder. This means two main things: There are no dice —players use tokens when they want their characters to take action, making 'moves'. Strong moves, which show the character at their best, require a token to be spent. Weak moves, which show the character's flaws or worst impulses, earn you a token. These tokens help you to weave dramatic arcs for your characters with far more control and simplicity than capricious dice, and make it easy for just about anyone to jump in and start playing. There are no masters—each player controls both a character and a share of the role of game master, taking responsibility for all of the NPCs and narrative pressures within one aspect of the setting (for example, THE INTERSTELLAR WAR or THE SCUM & VILLAINY). It's more like you're all taking turns playing the antagonists & introducing complications, rather than playing a game entirely without a GM.

Uniquely flexible mechanics. An unforgettable game cosmos. Politically charged cosmic fantasy at its weirdest. Set in a paradoxically bleak and vibrant superfuture, Stillfleet is a sci-fi tabletop roleplaying game that empowers players with simple, intuitive mechanics and hundreds of options for powers. Built on a foundation of political tension between the Co. and its medieval market-worlds, Stillfleet is its own timespace paradox: it’s a rules-light system with hundreds of options for powers. And it’s a genre-vaporizing work of science fiction that you can hack apart and make your own. The much-awaited full rules for Stillfleet—professionally designed and illustrated—are now available in a single PDF of 352 pages! As heard on the real-play podcast Fun City Ventures, the game uses simple rules that take only minutes to learn. The Stillfleet Core Rulebook offers much more, including: 10 classes of Co. voidminer (PC) 22 playable sapient species Hundreds of advanced powers, nanotech “blooder” powers, and deeply Weird hell science powers An entire chapter full of strange archaetech (weapons, cooking utensils, nanotech body modifications…) Rules for stiffworks (timespace gates) Settings on major and minor provinces as well as the floating hulks of dead spaceships Over 20 full encounters with dangerous aliens (statblocks) An elegantly designed character sheet An online character randomizer by Aaron H. Dozens and dozens of gorgeous original, full-color illustrations by Ethan Gould and others Intricate, worlds-building graphic design systems by Erich Lazar Play as a tech-hacking banshee, a peacemaking witness, a reality-warping tremulant, a giant bug, a strong AI trapped in a flash drive, a talking cactus, a void elf from the Dyson-sphere-enclosed Wytch Planet, Tnín… The choices are yours. The cosmos of Stillfleet is hilarious and horrifying. The struggles, all too real. Voidminer—what will you do to resist the temptation of power? To liberate the provincials? To survive?

After the Solar Wars almost nothing was left…. Empires demolished, cultures destroyed, the Legion scattered across the void as a shadow of it’s former self. All that remains is the 3TR-N5 station, Eternus. Looming in the middle of the space, an impossible structure of rings within rings, constantly shifting, whirring, and changing. Surrounded by the inky blackness of space and the vast ruins from generations of a war that slowly whimpered out. For decades now Eternus has survived on the salvage of bygone eras, small outlying colonies, and asteroid mines. Feed with the sweat, toil, and blood of Drifters, those desperate few willing to leave the safety of the rings and go… Through the Void. Through The Void is a minimalist POSR (Post Old School Renaissance) inspired RPG for 1-7 players by Tony Vasinda and the Plus One Team. The core rules of the game fit on 2 sheets of paper. Explore abandoned asteroid mines, hulking relics of the solar wars, and lunar labs. Through The Void provides the character creation, rules, and procedures you need to build thrilling space adventures, and all you need are pencils, dice, and a few hours with your friends.

We were comrades, we were family. We were once the heroes of this galaxy. We stood against the tide of darkness and prevailed, again and again. We were comrades, we were family. But our family fell apart. Our shared past is full of shame, trespasses, and secrets. We parted ways, vowing to never see each other again. And now, our greatest enemy has returned. Manipulating from the shadows, they grow stronger than ever. No one else believes the threat is real. Only the CAPTAIN has a chance at defeating this enemy, once and for all. The CAPTAIN will have to bring the crew back together again. But will they go with them into the void once more? Can the crew trust the Captain again, who left disappointment and heartbreak in their wake? The Inspiration ONCE MORE INTO THE VOID is inspired by the tv show Star Trek: Picard, and the video game Mass Effect 2. One of the players is a Captain who must make amends, face the consequences of the past, and try to bring back together their old crew. Reminisce about the past, fall in love, get in messy entanglements, see if you can survive the final mission! The Game ONCE MORE INTO THE VOID is based on the brilliant structure of MOBILE FRAME ZERO: FIREBRANDS by Meguey and Vincent Baker. No GM, no prep, just grab a deck of cards and tokens and you’re good to go! The game is best played over 1-2 sessions. Choose from 9 mini-games to play, starting with the RECRUITMENT MONTAGE and ending with the final mission, ONCE MORE INTO THE VOID. The mini-games are: RECRUITMENT MONTAGE - Getting the crew together JUST LIKE OLD TIMES - A battle to prove ourselves ONLY ONE SHOT TO MAKE IT RIGHT - A training montage BLOWING OFF STEAM - A night out with the crew WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE - A confrontation THE LAST TIME WE TOUCHED - Possible intimacy I NEVER DID TRUST YOU - Possible betrayal ONLY IF WE HAVE THE TIME, CAPTAIN - Loyalty mission ONCE MORE INTO THE VOID - The final mission

Songs for the Dusk is a Forged in the Dark science-fantasy tabletop RPG for an MC and 2-5 players. Create a crew of brave and compassionate adventurers called striders, ground them in a community of your own design, and watch as they figure out what it means to build a better future together. Play a valiant Aegis, a clever Scholar, or a transcendent Witch; run missions as a crew of unbreakable Rangers or as a group of charming Silvers. Meet fresh new spirits, grapple with old human conflicts in a new context, and hear the notes of a new physics humming beneath the surface of the world—or better yet, channel transcendent powers and conduct the music of the cosmos yourself. In the downtime between missions, your striders can relax with each other or local NPCs, work on personal or technical projects, or even improve the very community they live in. You’ll do more than just build a place you love—you’ll have the chance to help it grow and change alongside you. Songs for the Dusk contains the following: A rules PDF in full color Playbook, crew, and rules reference sheets Quickstart adventures and appropriate sheets for players and the MC

Maze Rats is a 2d6 RPG and sandbox toolkit for old-school-style adventuring. It contains a single, compact page of rules, a one-page character creation guide, a hand-drawn character sheet, and eight pages of 36-item random tables, rollable with two six-sided dice. Each page contains 9-12 tables, covering spell generation, monster generation, NPCs, treasures, cities, wildernesses, and dungeons. If you run (or have always wanted to run) open sandbox adventures, Maze Rats offers everything you need in a compact, easily-referenced format. Also included is two pages of advice for preparing and running open-world games in the OSR style. Character are extremely quick to generate, making it great for convention games, one-shots, or introducing new players. The game is highly lethal, and assumes a style of play where caution is essential to long-term survival. It is technically classless, but the leveling options allow players to specialize in fighting, thievery or wizardry or some mixture of the three. Magic is simple and chaotic, with new randomly-generated spells filling the magic-user’s head each night. Everything about the game is designed to be as clean, fast, and intuitive as possible, while driving players towards creative solutions rather than brute force.

A storytelling game about a lone wanderer on a futile quest in a withering world Knight Forlorn is a storytelling game about a lone wanderer on a futile quest in a withering world, drawing much inspiration from games such as Dark Souls and Diablo. Through improvisation and collaboration, you will craft and narrate the story of the knight’s struggles. You’ll shape and portray the world together and take turns portraying the knight as they explore it. Influences: Dark Souls by Hidetaka Miyazaki / FromSoftware, A Game of Voices by Amos Persson, Se och göra i Aliatra by Simon Pettersson, Lovecraftesque by Josh Fox and Becky Annison / Black Armada Games, The Quiet Year by Avery Alder / Buried Without Ceremony

Lavender Hack is a grand strategy fantasy role-playing game of strict time records, mismanaged party resources, diplomatic incidents, magical mishaps, starving in the wilds, running out of light in a dungeon, facing mutiny on the high sea, and going broke in service to your company’s wild ambitions! Lavender Hack is a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game with a focus on strict time records, exploration, diplomacy, trade, downtime, and getting as much wealth as possible. In many places, it works like 80’s era old school fantasy role-playing games, but it has some newer tech as well, such as success with cost, aspects, usage dice, and tighter procedures to support strategic modes of play.

You are the first Heroes who have reached the Evil that rules over the realm. The Quest was difficult and full of sacrifice. But despite all this, victory will not meet you. The ones who come after you, however, may still have a chance–provided you can pave the way. You will fall, but you are not The End. PREQUEL is a tactical storytelling game of heroic sacrifice for 4-5 players.

Agnostic is a GM prep method for creating a one-shot adventure for your favorite TTRPG with all of your favorite books you never get to use in you games. It’s also packed with a bunch of extra random tables to help you get unstuck in your prep! Agnostic is a black & white, 28-page zine (dice and chalk not included). The book is deliberately esoteric, and not designed with the beginner GM in mind. Agnostic is intended for the GM that has been in the hobby so long that they have a stack of gorgeous books and zines that just never seem to get used for a game. Well now, you can use all of them to prep an indulgent and forbidden one-shot adventure!

A system-agnostic zine of… you guessed it, wyrms! Book of Wyrms is a bestiary, detailing a variety of creatures spanning from tiny to gargantuan, mischievous and clever to downright sadistic. You can utilize the mythos we present here as a stepping stone to tell your stories, an obstacle to be overcome for your players, or perhaps even as a pet your players can learn to love. Let your imagination run free!

A SYSTEM-NEUTRAL ADVENTURE BY SC ORMOND Broken Heart of the Castle is a system-neutral gothic fantasy adventure steeped in mystery, romance, and tragedy. Players can expect to meet fascinating humanoid and bestial NPCs and be presented with opportunities for creative problem-solving.

Designed and drawn by hardcore monster enthusiasts, MONSTROUS is a system-agnostic tool, the Game Manager’s go-to reference for telling better stories through monsters. In it, Kyle “Map Crow” Latino’s lavish illustrations bring to life dozens of classic monsters from myth, legend, and high-fantasy RPGs.

CLAIM A BETTER FUTURE In a ruined and terraformed world where most of humanity is under the yoke of a brutal regime, the former workers of a once-remote factory - now known as The Collective - have risen up to create a future of freedom from oppression. You are an Ace - a highly skilled pilot referred from a Division in The Collective and assigned a humanoid combat vehicle known as a Frame. You and your Strike Team of fellow Aces must take on The Collective’s greatest threats, ensure its survival, and carve a path for its continued success.