A beautiful full-colour hardback book collecting all the published BEOWULF Age of Heroes 5e adventures.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Happy Monday!
about 2 years ago
– Mon, Apr 18, 2022 at 10:37:35 AM
Hello, and welcome all our new backers!
We hope you've had a nice Easter weekend, if that's something you celebrate. Here in the UK it's a pretty quiet public holiday, so we've been fortunate to get a bit of a rest at the end of this middle week, powering us up for the last big push in the coming days!
I've not mentioned this yet, but if you'd like to follow us on social media, and help our sharing our updates about the campaign, you can find us:
Awesome wonder-backer BenTheFerg has been kind enough to start a couple threads about this campaign and BEOWULF around various forums, which is so amazingly helpful in getting eyes on us. If you'd like to contribute head to:
And the more people see the campaign, the more progress we make! Speaking of which:
Progress!
Over the weekend we unlocked ANOTHER expansion to the book. If you're new to the campaign, let me explain what each of these adventure expansions offer - We’ve just unlocked the expansion to Seven Stones adventure, which means the book will see flowcharts, dramatis personae, pronunciation guides and more useful stuff added to that adventure. We want to include extra stuff to make each adventure even more of a pleasure to run and re-run. We'll also add in some tips we've picked up over the time the adventures have been out in PDF, and suggestions for expanding the scope of the adventure.
Next up we want to expand the digital pack again, delivering another slice of additional BEOWULF content in the style of our existing Digital Packs. (And if you check those out and think they look cool, all of the written material from them is collected in the BEOWULF Annual, which we detailed in our last update.
The BEOWULF Art Book
Another add on that's worth your time is the BEOWULF Art Book (and indeed it's sibling the brand new as yet unseen Twin Seas Art Book).During our first campaign delivery to US backers was held up by the pandemic causing a backlogue at US customs. So the books for our US backers were held for several months (and funny story - provided us with a $4000 bill to store them - yikes!). In gratitude for our US backers' extreme patience we made the BEOWULF art book, which we gave them all free in PDF, and offered a print copy at a massive discount. It's been a popular little book since.
Each spread shows a piece of art from the BEOWULF book on one page, and the other has a bunch of commentary from me all about. Some of the pieces are mine, so you can get the inside track on how they were made, and what I thought about them.
It also features pages on the work of our other artist contributors - Scott who did all the monster art (and more), Jan who provided the beautiful pencil drawings of the Old Gods, and Paul who did all our amazing graphics and icons.
Book club
Today's book is Beasts, Birds and Gods, Interpreting the Staffordshire Hoard by Chris Fern and George Speake.
I was given this book as a lovely and quite unexpected gift by my friend Tim while I was working on The One Ring Roleplaying Game. I had spoken frequently about just how much inspiration I'd drawn from historical sources, and he gave me this book at a UK Games Expo.
Since this book was published the truly mighty catalogue of the Staffordshire Hoard has been published, and that's an absolute treasure. It's also approximately one million pages long, and costs as many pounds.
This little book presents the absolute highlights of the Staffordshire Hoard in beautiful colour photographs, and gives you lots on information about them. It's a really useful book which by necessity deploys a lot of economy in its descriptions, so it packs a powerful punch for its size. The images are just great, and I think the Staffordshire hoard gives us a real glimpse into the lives of the historical Anglo-Saxon elite, at a time where they were making peace with the new religion of Christianity - something that the poem Beowulf wrestles with. And it's certainly very inspiring for treasure items in BEOWULF!
Beasts, Birds and Gods, Interpreting the Staffordshire Hoard by Chris Fern and George Speake is published by West Midlands History, ISBN 97819050036202.
Discord
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! Tomorrow at 5pm sees us enter the final week of the campaign!
Jon, Jacob and the Handiwork Ships Crew
Happy Friday!
about 2 years ago
– Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 12:50:37 PM
Hello! Welcome aboard new backers! Thank you for joining us!
So, we have unlocked another stretch goal! The Elf Shot by Jacob Rodgers will gain extra material!
Next up it’s Seven Stones by Elaine Lithgow that’s in line for some more good stuff. If we can reach that goal that will see the main book all but complete, but just Ear of Stone and Triple Serpent needing an expansion. That’s really exciting, since that is the main aim of this Kickstarter.
So what's the story with the BEOWULF ANNUAL?
What even is that? Well, during our last Kickstarter campaign we unlocked a bunch of “digital packs” and they’re available to buy on Drivethru right now. These are mini grab bags of content that’s useful for BEOWULF. Each one contains a selection of material, with written articles in pdf, battle maps, music, VTT tokens, videos and more.
We collected all of the written pdf articles, plus some bonus monsters we’d released through our Handimonsters patreon, and printed them in the BEOWULF Annual. It's a handsome softcover, 64 page book in full colour. Here’s the contents page:
It’s a real hoard of extra stuff for playing BEOWULF, and we’ll worth your time. You can add one on by managing your pledge.
Book club
Todays books is The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England from the 5th to 7th a century by Paul Mortimer and Matt Bunker.
I’ve been an avid follower of these two gentlemen’s work for some time. They’re some of the foremost recreationists working in the field of this era, and this book was much anticipated.
Published by Anglo-Saxon books, it's worth knowing that this is a digital print run - particularly given the relatively high price point in comparison to some of our other more mass market book club books. It is however a thick old book, packed with fascinating information on a very specialist subject, with copious photos and diagrams, so it's no surprise the price tag is on the higher side, and I suspect using a digital press allows the publisher to keep the book in print. Once again, it really is the text and copious photographs for which we are here. While as a fancy book lover, I would love to have this work in a glossy coffee table format, I'm absolutely delighted that the book exists at all.
The authors are intensely knowledgable in their field, and it is a fascinating read. I found where they particualry shine is in their deep knowledge of the practical production of swords, and all the supporting crafts.
They aim to follow on from the seminal book of the same name by Hilda Ellis Davidson, a work which has been the touchstone for the study of early medieval swords for a very long time, on a topic which deserves a thorough updating. For me personally, the extra dimension of the practical hands-on experience, and wealth of high quality photographs of recreated objects slightly shifts the focus away from the thrust of Davidson's extremely scholarly and academic work, but that very much reflects changes in the study of history.
It was a pleasant surprise to see Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria in the credits. I’m a bit fan of his YouTube channel, and I can highly recommend that too. We also find Stephen Pollington (author of several of the books I've featured) here too.
At over 472 pages (the page numbers end for several pages recommending other titles from the same stable) this is an in-depth work, perhaps too specialised to recommend for general BEOWULF inspiration. However if, like me you have fallen in love with this era, and can save your pocket money and overlook the digital print run typical of academic books, (and this really isn’t too hard to do given the quality of the text and wealth of images) it’s a worthy investment.
The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England from the 5th to 7th a century by Paul Mortimer and Matt Bunker is published by Anglo-Saxon Books, ISBN 9781898281764
A Precious Discovery
In other news, I made something of an archaeolgical discovery myself today - a cache of Limited Edition books from our first campaign! We'll look at making some of these available here, perhaps with original drawings in them, since I know that's popular. A real souvenir to treasure. More on that later!
Discord
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.
Thanks again! And a happy Easter if that's something you celebrate!
Jon, Jacob and the Handiwork Ships Crew
Campaign is go!
about 2 years ago
– Thu, Apr 14, 2022 at 12:01:50 PM
Hello! Welcome aboard new backers!
The campaign is go!
I have to type fast as we’re a stretch goal down with another fast approaching. We’re yet to name the campaign, and at the moment it’s something of a skeleton awaiting flesh (eww what?) but those bones are… full of ideas. Wow. This is an amazing paragraph. I’ll come back in.
Our as-yet unnamed campaign is unlocked! We’re really excited about this one, as there is a lot of the BEOWULF setting and rules that we are yet to explore.
I don’t want to jump the gun too much on explaining the plan, as it’s still developing in exciting ways. But there is a theme planned, linking a series of monsters to be defeated, with a plot that’s strongly impacted by the actions of the Hero at each turn. It’s going to be really cool. It should also play very differently with different types of Hero.
I'd love for this campaign to demonstrate a campaign structure that was the next step up from the structured approach to BEOWULF adventures we share in the core setting book.
Jacob and myself are going to fight it out as to who will be the author of this first part. We’ll let you know who wins. We also have some additional exciting guest contributors lined up for the remaining sections should we be lucky enough to unlock them!
Half way
Speaking of not wanting to jinx things, we’re just past the halfway point of the campaign today, and if we can continue to make sure every last person on planet earth who might want to play BEOWULF has heard about it, I think we stand a very good chance of unlocking expansions for every adventure. And a good chunk of campaign. But that won’t happen without those shares all over the net, so tell a friend! Thank you!
Book club
Today I’m going to step slightly out of the BEOWULF era and into the Viking age with The Far Traveler by Nancy Marie Brown.
This is a really great read about the travels of Gudrid Far Traveller, a viking-age woman who begins life in Norway, travels to Iceland and then on to Vinland, and finally visits Rome. That in itself should be enough to recommend this as a book! Along the way the author visits various sites connected to the story, and has a journey of her own, if perhaps more of an inner journey than Gudrid’s slightly sharper set of experiences.
Theres an engaging mix of archeology, literary study, and travelogue. We learn about two different versions of Gudrid from the Icelandic sagas, a lot about viking farming, housing, social history and gender roles, and about why the Icelanders don’t like archaeology. We learn a lot about the human frailty of the so-called Vikings, and how their society worked. There’s certainly a lot here to inspire BEOWULF adventures and characters, if we squint past the later era.
While a well referenced book, this is popular history and is a well written, breezy read that won't break your brain. I was pleased to not ever have to backtrack to work out where a sentence began and where it ended, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable book.
The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown, published by Harcourt, ISBN 9780156033978
Discord
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.
Thanks again!
Jon, Jacob and the Near Travellers
Witches and the Wyrm Expands!
about 2 years ago
– Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 08:36:28 AM
Hello! And welcome new backers!
Progress
So! Progress has been really good! We not only unlocked £14,000 goal to add to Herrogate, AND we also unlocked additional material for Witches and the Wyrm at £15,000. Thank you so much for your amazing pledges!
As mentioned on the campaign page, the expansion to the adventures will see scenario flowcharts, dramatis personae, pronunciation guides and more useful stuff added to each adventure in the boo as we unlock them.
Our next stretch goal sees us embark on the creation of a new suite of adventures, but this time structured as a single campaign with connective material and an innovative structure from a bunch of guest writers.
We have a great team lined up, and we'll have more about them in future updates - naturally it would be unkind to announce someone and not reach their goal. I realise a lot of campaigns do this, but we're super softies, so we don't want anyone to feel bad! We will of course let you know who the writers are - we have some familiar names involved, as well as some new faces.
Every backer who pledges at a level that gets the Digital Pack will get each campaign instalment in PDF for free as part of their pledge. Fingers crossed we can get a whole campaign unlocked!
Cald Geist
I thought it might be nice to share some of my (and later the team's) favourite bits from the various adventures and add on books we have on offer.
Here's mine. Cald Geist from the BEOWULF Annual.
He's a monster you can base your own adventures around, or use him as a quest giver or character met along the way. He was a pleasure to write and draw, and he's seen some very spooky use in my own games, where he's become a dangerous and unpredictable advisor to one of my Heroes, who has to take great risks to seek him out.
Book Club
Gosh this is a daunting one to add here. Beowulf: a New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley.
This translation of the poem immediately leapt up my favourites list - I'm a huge fan of Seamus Heaney's Beowulf, and Tolkien's too (though people who know me and my years of work in the Tolkien sphere may be surprised by my criticisms of that but I digress...)
Headley's Beowulf is really energetic and contemporary without sacrificing the story, nor the feel of it. There is copious use of modern language, most famously perhaps the opening word, where "Hwaet!" is rendered as "Bro!". Which personally, I love. Some people have been concerned about "that kind of thing", but for me, the original text is more than robust enough to stand interpretation and vernacular. It would be difficult to argue that the original is not in itself a work written in the vernacular, which warrants translation into phrases which we use and recognise.
Something I am always keen to mention about this translation is the quality of the poetry here. It is fantastic on every page. There are some truly wonderful kennings, which are clearly the work of someone who knows and loves the original. Or at least has a sincerely meaningful relationship to it, and the Old English language.
If you're looking for a different, really accessible take on the poem, or a new spin on it which is full of humour and pathos for those who are already familiar, you won't go far wrong with this one. Be warned it contains some suitably Anglo-Saxon swearing, if you're reading it with younger readers.
Maria was kind enough to provide us with the foreword to BEOWULF Age of Heroes, which was really kind, and we're huge fans.
Beowulf: a New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley is published by MCD x FSG Originals, ISBN 9780374110031
Discord
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.
Thanks again!
Jon, Jacob and the doughty crew of the longship Handiwork
Happy Tuesday! So close!
about 2 years ago
– Tue, Apr 12, 2022 at 09:27:37 AM
Hello!
As I type we're soooo close to our next stretch goal, and I fear I may need to either type really really fast or accept this update may miss it! We're so excited to start work on expanding these adventures if we can make it there! We want to add useful stuff like:
Dramatis Personae
Flowcharts
Pronunciation guides
Suggestions for the GM, if they want to: add more combat, reduce combat and so on.
I think that will really polish up the book!
Updates to the PDFs
In news that might just be useful to you if you already have some of the adventures in PDF - this morning I updated a bunch of the files on DrivethruRPG to ensure there was no duplication of file names. That seems to have caused some trouble with the wrong maps getting attached to the wrong products. Hopefully that's all sorted now. I also added some players maps and addtional tokens where I thought they would be useful. Enjoy!
The Gaming Gang
Jeff from the Gaming Gang was kind enough to take a look at BEOWULF Age of Heroes in The Gaming Gang dispatch. Check it out:
You can't get that tray anymore, I'm sorry - it was the campaign tray for the last BEOWULF kickstarter, so if you have one, treasure it. If you don't grab the new design before they all go!
Tempest
While you're here, we thought you might like to check out another campaign, with a seafaring 5e-angle!
Tempest is a dark nautical setting and sourcebook for D&D 5e inspired by the myths and legends of the golden age of sail! Featuring a selection of seaworthy original races and subclasses for players to explore such as the Bilge Rat rogue and the College of Shanties bard. You’ll find a pirate’s bounty of spells and magic items in there too, not to mention enough gunpowder to choke a kraken! It even has a completely new system for ship combat and crew management that has all the flavour with none of the micromanagement! And did we mention the bestiary of leviathan sized baddies yet?
Tempest brings true swashbuckling to your table with great mechanics and fantastic art wrapped in a tome of the upmost quality front to back!
Let's see... what's today's book? I am literally deciding as I type.
Ok.
By the Fire, Sami Folktales and Legends, collected and illustrated by Emilie Demant Hatt, translated by Barbara Sjoholm.
Another handsome little hardcover, this time with a dust jacket, this book shares some really brilliant stories of the Sami people. I was really struck by the economy of these tales. We're all used to quite rambling, or repetetive tales, which build a rhythm to a twist or crescendo. Sami tales are much shorter, and often present a very simple moral tale, or thing that happened.
Some of my favourites here are where we see stories from elsewhere told through a Sami lens. The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus makes an appearance which absolutely blew my mind, although the translator and editor make no comment on how far this story has travelled. The introduction and afterword give you some really good information about the Sami people and their struggles.
Another book which is well worth your time if you want to look outside the mainstream of early medieval legend.
By the Fire, Sami Folktales and Legends, collected and illustrated by Emilie Demant Hatt, translated by Barbara Sjoholm, ISBN 9781517904579, published by University of Minnesota Press
Discord
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! Thank you so much for all your support! Remember to keep sharing that campaign. If everyone brings a friend, we'll actually have a whole other campaign of adventures! It's that easy! :)
