A beautiful full-colour hardback book collecting all the published BEOWULF Age of Heroes 5e adventures.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
July Update - Book are printed
almost 2 years ago
– Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 06:10:58 AM
Hello!
I've held this update for as long as possible since I was hoping to have both an ETA on the books arriving with us, and even better an actual advance copy to show you. Alas, I have neither, but: the books are printed!
We're waiting on some other items which we're printing at the same time to be completed and then we'll have a better idea of the ETA. I'm anticipating approximately a weeks wait for that info. If I can get my hands of an advance copy before we take receipt of the whole print run I will certainly share some photos and video!
Pledge Manager
The pledge manager is going live soon - couple of things to sort out before that can happen, but this is where we'll collect your shipping payment and shipping address. We're a little bit out of sequence on that one since the book was done so fast!
Everything else is chugging along beautifully, and we should be good to start dispatch as soon as we get the books. The dice trays arrived last week, and the Twin Seas art books should be here very soon too.
Digital Pack
We'll have a digital pack for you in the next couple of weeks. We're also working on a new BEOWULF adventure which isn't part of this campaign. But we might well throw it for you as a digital pack release.
That's it for now!
I think we'll leave this one short and sweet! Makes a change, eh?
Thanks again for all your support - speak to you on the discord!
Jon
PDF updated and KING BEOWULF
almost 2 years ago
– Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 01:26:58 AM
Hello!
Let's squeeze in a cheeky second June update. I hope this finds you well.
PDF update
I have just sent out an updated version of the Trials of the Twin Seas PDF. This is an update to the existing file in your libraries at DrivethruRPG, and you simply need to go there to download the new version.
This PDF has some errata corrections - nothing radical, just grammar and typographical spottings. We've also added bookmarks and hyperlinks.
There may still be some page references yet to be hyperlinked - we tried to catch them all but we're bound to have missed some - they'll be added in due course.
Printing
The books are confirmed as rolling through presses right now, and I should have an ETA early next month. I realise we've never shown the full wraparound cover. Let's fix that now!
Digital Pack Nine
We'll have the first of your Digital Packs heading your way this coming month. This will be BEOWULF Digital Pack Nine - rather than start a new set of numbers, we're simply continuing our numbering scheme. I think that's the simplest thing for everyone. Who wants "Twin Seas Digital Pack 1, General BEOWULF digital Pack 9" as a title?
Inspiration Mats
We have been proofing our new Inspiration Mats, and they're looking awesome. I made some tweaks to the print files, since the first versions were printing a bit too light, and too high contrast. This version is perfect!
Pledge Manager
We're working on the pledge manager right now - it will hopefully open next month, when we'll collect your address and shipping loot. You'll also be able to add further items. New backers will be able to join us in making a late pledge. Exciting times.
KING BEOWULF
An even more exciting piece of news to end with - here's a first look at the cover of our next BEOWULF book - KING BEOWULF! In this high level supplement by Jacob Rodgers your Hero will be ruling whole kingdoms and controlling enitre warbands as they face the challenges of the treasure-seat.
I hope you like it!
That's it for now!
Jon, Jacob and the Happy Handimonsters Battle Band
Alpha PDF is en route to you now!
almost 2 years ago
– Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 09:56:45 PM
Hello!
I've just hit send on the coupons via DrivethruRPG for the Trials of the Twin Seas PDF!
This is an alpha version which doesn't quite have all the bells and whistles in place: we wanted you to get the finished book today, but we'll update the file with hyperlinks and bookmarks in the very near future.
HELP! I DIDN'T GET MY PDF
If you don't receive your coupon in the next hour or so then please run through the following steps, intended to get you your PDF as fast as possible:
1: Check what you pledged for, and that your pledge level includes the PDF, and that your card payment was collected. If you pledged for £1 and are awaiting the pledge manager, it will open soon, when you'll be able to get the PDF.
2: Check your email spam filter - a lot of DrivethruRPG coupons inevitably wind up in spam filters because they're sent en masse from a single source.
3: If your email address here at Kickstarter is the same as your DrivethruRPG address you can check your notifications at DrivethruRPG.com, where the file might be waiting for you - this isn't foolproof, but it might work, so it's worth a try!
4: If you've gone through all of those steps and still don't have a coupon, then by all means please drop me a line either here on KS via KS Message or via email at [email protected]. Please bear in mind that coupons do glitch or simply go missing every time we send them out. We've certainly never left anyone without a PDF they pledged for!
EXTRAS
There are also a ton of extras coming your way from the original PDF releases - all the battle maps and VTT tokens. They'll be added in due course, and you'll get an update from DrivethruRPG when that happens.
We hope you enjoy this first look at the PDF!
Jon and the team
It’s the final Wednesday. The countdown will soon be upon us!
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Jun 07, 2022 at 04:59:10 PM
Welcome new backers! How are you doing today?
Well now. £20,000! Who'd have thunk it? Look how far we've come!:
So that's Ear of Stone Expanded, with only the Triple Serpent remaining to expand, and the book will be fully enlarged to the maximum it can go. I think with your help sharing word of the campaign over these next few days, plus the 48 hour call out, we should see an expansion to this last adventure. Fingers crossed!
And then we start unlocking the new campaign in earnest! If we can reach the amazing total of £22,000, then everyone at a reward level will get the second part of the campaign for free in PDF.
Pagination
We've been planning how the book will shape up if we do manage to reach that milestone, and it's coming in at a hefty 240 pages. Which will be a great size. We'll have a new opening introduction to each adventure, and then the main text of each will remain largely the same. We have a few additions we want to make based on playtest feedback over the last year, but at their core these adventures are tried and tested!
Of course, this is all academic if we don't unlock those goals, so do keep telling your friends about the campaign, and chat up BEOWULF on forums, discords and reddit if you can! (And hey - we completely understand if that's just not your style! Please don't feel bad if you don't feel especially safe posting on forums. We get it. If however you are a gregarious forumite or full-on Redditor, then please think of us!)
Book Club
Let's have a two for one to celebrate 20k!
The Prittlewell Prince: The Discovery of a Rich Anglo-Saxon Burial in Essex by Museum of London Archaeology Service AND The Vale of York Hoard by Gareth Williams and Barry Ager.
Both of these books are distinguished by their small size and very reasonable price tag, while being packed full of photographs and inspiring information about historical Anglo-Saxon life.
Aside: folks sometimes ask us, why do we always say "historical Anglo-Saxons"? Well, it's an unfortunate thing. The term "Anglo-Saxon" is well understood by the reader in this context, but not a term the people it refers to would have used in their own time. It is also a term that's been widely and egregiously misused outside of this specific context. With each passing year it becomes less popular in historical circles for bothits inaccuracy, and just how much it is misused to erroneously refer to a modern cultural or racial group. We don't have any truck with that kind of thing - we're only interested in historical Anglo-Saxons because of things liketheir inlaid jewellery and their ship burial traditions and their miserable epic poetry (with apologies to Stuart Lee),which we believe containuniversally enjoyable human stories. And we endeavour to make it clear that "the Anglo-Saxons" were a historical,disparate,migrant people, who converted to a middle-eastern religion, andthat they inhabited a much wider world than was once thought. We go into more detail about this in the core setting book.We find somecomfortand utility in adding "historical" to help get that across.Thanks for asking. :)
Back to the books! So these little volumes are just full of things to inspire an adventure, location or NPC. I'm struck by the similarities between these hoards and the Galloway Hoard, detailed in a previous update. Both books are of very high production values, in full-colour on great paper stock, despite being very reasonably priced.
The Prittlewell Prince: The Discovery of a Rich Anglo-Saxon Burial in Essex by Museum of London Archaeology Service, ISBN 1901992527
The Vale of York Hoard by Gareth Williams and Barry Ager, publihsed by The British Museum Press ISBN 97780714118185
Social Media and Discord
If you'd like to follow us on social media, and help our sharing our updates about the campaign, you can find us:
Don't forget to swing by the discord for a chat! We have a nice friendly community and it’s not too fast moving, so it’s easy to join in. If you’d like to join up, point your browser at www.discord.me/handiworkgamers Give Jacob or me a shout out when you land that you're a Twin Seas backer, and he'll give you the keys to the super secret awesome backer channel.
That's it for now!
Jon, Jacob and the Handiwork Seaborn Monsterfighter Crew
Like
The Twin Seas Book is Fully Expanded!
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Jun 07, 2022 at 04:58:05 PM
Hello, and welcome new backers!
We did it! Every adventure in The Trials of the Twin Seas will get its own expansion, with dramatis personae, flow charts, GM advice and more. The book will come in at a mighty 240 pages, which is a great size.
We're heading into the final few days, and that all important 48 hour email. We are just shy of 1000 people watching the campaign so if a few of them jump on board in response to the email, we should be looking good!
Next up we have the second part of our BEOWULF PDF Campaign. The as-yet unnamed Campaign will be another series of new adventures which we will create and deliver to you in PDF, as part of your pledge. Everyone who's pledge includes the Digital Pack will get the BEOWULF Campaign PDFs at no extra charge.
These adventures will be linked with "connective tissue", and form a structured story arc across them all, so it's a pretty exciting addition!
We also have coming over the horizon another Digital Pack - taking the total you'll receive for free as part of your pledge to 4. You can check out the contents of our existing digital packs at DrivethruRPG. The one's we're unlocking on this campaign will be all new content for BEOWULF and include PDF articles, battle maps, VTT tokens, monsters, music and more!
Story Cards
Book Club
Ok, back to the big glossy coffee table books for a Friday!
Early Medieval Scotland: Individuals Communities and Ideas by David Clarke, Alice Blackwell and Martin Goldberg.
I (Jon) was delighted to find this recently published book in the book shop of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
It's been a matter of some vexation to me that there's a significant piece of Scottish history missing from their bookshop offering - it tends to go from "Celts" to "Vikings" to "Braveheart" to "Jacobites", which is understandable from one angle - we live in a post-Neil Oliver world, where pop-history mystification is the order of the day, tourists are the customers, and we need to appeal to the largest number of people in the most accessible way possible. Ok. I get that.
But this isn't really the whole story of Scottish history in the Early medieval period. We don't have iron age Celts and "savage" Picts being suddenly conquered by the Vikings and making Scotland even more cool. And with the recent discoveries at Tap o'Noth we live in a golden age of discovery about Scottish history in this period.
At one time the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria stretched North of the Firth of Forth (which I can see out of my window as I type this in Falkirk). That piece of the puzzle of Scottish history was nowhere to be seen in the Museum bookshop, which seemed a shame.
So I was delighted to see this book published, which very directly addresses all my concerns. It's a fantastically high-end production, beautifully laid out, with copious full colour photographs of some of the marvellous things to be found from this period in the Museum of Scotland collection. I'm an especially big fan of the St Ninian's Isle chapes found in Shetland, and their associated artefacts - which appear to have inspired the sword hilts of the Rohirrim in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies. These are shown in really nice clear photographs, which obviously outclass my own efforts to snap them through the glass! If you fancy exploring the Northern end of the early medieval world in the British Isles, then this one is for you!
How is this not already in a BEOWULF adventure? It gets a full page picture in this book.
Early Medieval Scotland: Individuals Communities and Ideas by David Clarke, Alice Blackwell and Martin Goldberg is published by National Museums Scotland, ISBN9871910682029
Social Media and Discord
If you'd like to follow us on social media, and help our sharing our updates about the campaign, you can find us:
Don't forget to swing by the discord for a chat! We have a nice friendly community and it’s not too fast moving, so it’s easy to join in. If you’d like to join up, point your browser at www.discord.me/handiworkgamers Give Jacob or me a shout out when you land that you're a Twin Seas backer, and he'll give you the keys to the super secret awesome backer channel.
