The elven kingdoms are at war. How will your players deal with these ancient armies clashing? That's what you'll find out in Calidar: Alfdain Ascendant, a new campaign guide for fantasy RPGs that's up on Kickstarter now.

From the campaign:

Calidar’s Series 3 project focuses on two warring realms of elves, cursed forests, druids, rangers, and living skyships.

Barring unforeseen production changes, the author, Bruce Heard, is pleased to announce the participation of Thorfinn Tait, master cartographer, and of Jeff Easley for the cover art. Joseph Garcia will contribute internal illustration (b/w inks) and Janet Deaver-Pack line and copy editing.

Depending on the chosen pledge level, Alfdaín Ascendant will include the following rewards:

· A Gazetteer: The core reward is 132 pages, color, 8.5" x 11", PDF format or printed (hardcover or softcover). This book is already written and most of its maps are in their final states as of June 2021.

· A Players’ Guide: About 26 pages, color, PDF format or softcover

· An Adventure Book: 24-68 pages or more, color, PDF format or softcover. The final page count will depend on stretch goals during the crowdfunding event. The more backers, the greater the adventure for the same price.

· Two Conversion Booklets: About 24 pages each, color, PDF format. They provide all game stats from the previous three titles specifically for use with Labyrinth Lord (tm) and OSRIC (tm).

Game System: Calidar is essentially rules agnostic. Game mechanics, concepts, and stats are written in a way that can be easily converted to mainstream TTRPGs (such as the two conversion booklets mentioned above).

The campaign's up and over its funding goal with 27 days left to go.

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The cultures of Asia have many myths and traditions about various monsters and other creatures. If you're looking to bring some of them to your RPG table, you'll want to check out Asian Monsters, a new RPG supplement that's up on Kickstarter now.

From the campaign:

Asian Monsters is a 112-page softcover 5E bestiary featuring over 90 incredible creatures drawn from the myths and legends of Asia. Researched and developed with a diverse team of authors, artists, and cultural consultants, you'll find an awesome array of enemies and allies from Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Tibet, and Vietnam, as well as nations of the western Pacific like Indonesia, Australia, and the Philippines, beautifully illustrated and ready to unleash in your DnD 5E campaign.

The campaign's more than 18x funded with 21 days left to go.

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What's the best way to build a city? Should you have it in a circle like a wheel or as a grid? Well, in Squaring Circleville, you have to help go from the former to the latter. It's not as straight-forward (see what I did there?) as you might think. The game is up on Kickstarter now.

From the campaign:

Spielworxx invites you to experience Squaring Circleville, a new limited release competitive strategy game based on a true historical event!

The town of Circleville, OH was founded with a unique circular road system due to the presence of large earthworks—one in the shape of a square, one in a circle.

The result of founding a town on this site was an urban layout that looked less like a grid and more like the steering wheel of a wooden ship—spokes sticking out in all directions from a central plaza containing an octagonal courthouse, with a concentric ring road wrapping around the plaza, and another ring road around that.

But the townspeople grew dissatisfied with the difficulties the odd roads created and petitioned to have the road system changed from a circle to a more traditional square system. The Circleville Squaring Company was created to de-circle Circleville. Starting in 1837 and lasting for 19 years, the "squaring the circle" project was one of the first large-scale examples of urban redevelopment in the United States.

In Squaring Circleville, you work for the Circleville Squaring Company. You are in the rare position to both deconstruct and reconstruct the town of Circleville. Using a unique rondel system and smart euro-style mechanisms, you will compete to best transform the town and satisfy the will of the people.

The campaign's up and over its funding goal, but there's only 7 days left in the campaign.

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With the new edition of Age of Sigmar coming, all the factions are getting an update. This time around, it's those undead Soulblight Gravelords. Go see how these ghouls, vampires, skeletons, and other nasties are getting changed in the new version.

From the article:

If your idea of fine dining is a chalice of blood fresh from the jugular, you’re in luck. That’s because we’re about to take a look at the dread Soulblight Gravelords and how they’re looking in the new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar.

So far, we’ve covered the Stormcast Eternals, Orruk Warclans, and Slaves to Darkness, but today, it’s time to cover our first Death faction. In the days and weeks to come, we’ll be bringing you more of these overviews, designed to be informative for both newer and experienced players alike. On that note, let’s learn a little bit more about these deathless servants of Nagash.

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It's Friday again! Woo! Did the week go by quickly for anyone else? It felt like it did for me. That's no complaint, of course. I'm always ready for a weekend. And my thumb is healing up, so hopefully by next week I can start trying to use it again. That'll be really nice. But, for the time being, let's get to some tasty, bite-sized gaming snacks. Today on the platter we have:

New Colors and Pieces Available From Hero Forge

Here is what's new - Hero Forge Pro, Decals, Alchemist Bottles, Drums, Medieval Gown, Should Pads, & Pre-made Digital Packs!

New Sunken Treasure Dice Set Available From Kraken Dice

Did we just catch you checking out our booty? Well don't be shy, take a closer look.

Kraken's Booty: Sunken Treasure releases Thursday, June 10th, at 6pm pdt.

And while we have booty puns that will last forever, this awesome set will not.

Don't miss out on this great set for an your sorry sea dogs, and give dad a gift that will really make him say "Arrrrr, you really do know what eye love".

Virtual Tabletops are a great way to game with your friends when you can't be there in person. I'm in a game that plays on Roll20 every weekend. And soon, if you're all about that Vampire life... err, un-life, you can play Vampire: The Masquerade on the platform. Pre-orders are being taken now.

From the announcement:

Renegade Game Studios is proud to announce an expanded partnership with Roll20, beginning with the release of Paradox Interactive’s Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Roleplaying Game on the Roll20 platform. 

Roll20 is the all-in-one solution for organizing and playing tabletop games online. The virtual tabletop contains a variety of communication tools including chat, voice and video. The flexible toolset and extensive Marketplace offerings allow you to play your tabletop games, your way.

The Roll20 release of Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Core Rulebook will feature all book assets, lore, and information fully integrated for the VTT, ready for you and your coterie to sink their fangs into on day one. This includes loresheets, player token packs, in-world lore articles that can be dragged into your game, and any storyteller characters, Predator Types, Advantages, and Disciplines with in-app drag-and-drop support.

In the Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition RPG tabletop game, you are a vampire, struggling for survival, supremacy, and your own fading humanity—afraid of what you are capable of, and fearful of the inhuman conspiracies that surround you. As a vampire, you suffer the pangs of the Hunger, the relentless and terrible thirst for human blood, but it is vital that you keep up the Masquerade: no humans can ever know that vampires actually exist.

The story you weave with the help of other players and your Storyteller will challenge your character to navigate through their unlife - walking the razor's edge between your lost humanity and the dangers of the Hunger that brings out the monster inside you, all while contending with political and social encounters and avoiding threats that are out to destroy you. This is the original and ultimate roleplaying game of personal and political horror.

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You and your fellow vagabonds are just traveling from place to place as you please when you decide to hop onto a train. Little do you know that this train isn't the Santa Fe Superchief, but is a ghost train and the spirits on board are all too happy to have you as company... forever. That's where you find yourself in Vagrantsong, a new cooperative board game by Wyrd.

From the announcement:

Vagrantsong is a 2-4 player campaign game that takes place on a haunted train, with heavy inspiration taken from American folklore, folk songs, and ghost stories. As a fully cooperative boss-battler, you and your new friends will take on the roles of Vagrants who are trying to escape this ghostly train. You will have to work together to face your fears, reveal the mystery behind the Silver Ferryman, and devise a plan on how to stop it.

Haints, the lost spirits aboard the Silver Ferryman, will do everything in their power to ensure that Vagrants stay just as trapped in this place as they are… It’s up to the players to figure out how to save these lingering souls while also trying to free themselves before it’s too late.

Throughout Vagrantsong’s 20+ Scenarios, you’ll be facing off against many Haints, each with their own unique mechanics, goals, and challenges. Every Scenario is completely different – all killer and no filler!

Haints are fully automated; there’s no need for a game master or another player to take up the role. Performing a Haint’s Action is as simple as drawing a Token from the Bindle bag.

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If you've wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons but you or your group isn't fluent in English, it can be rough to get game materials that you can use. Well, Wizards of the Coast is going to start trying to help, expanding their range of products into different languages. The first wave of these releases has been announced for later this year.

From the announcement:

In North America, Dungeons & Dragons is more popular than ever, having racked up seven years of continuous growth since the launch of the game’s fifth edition in 2014. It’s now time to duplicate this success outside of North America, creating a truly global D&D community and getting us considerably closer to making the world’s greatest roleplaying game available to everyone across the globe. Today it is my pleasure to give you some of the first details of what we’re doing to make that happen.

Earlier this year, Wizards of the Coast resumed direct control over localized versions of D&D in French, Italian, German, and Spanish, and started planning new releases for these languages. Other languages may be added later. We’re now making the final preparations to launch our own translated D&D products for the first time.

To make D&D as successful in other languages as it is in English, we’re making a significant, long-term investment. Steps we’re taking include:

• Hiring dedicated team members to work on these products
• Investigating new printing and production vendors outside the US and China
• Undertaking extensive translation reviews and updates of existing content
• Commencing new translation work on multiple titles
• Collaborating with our local market teams in Europe and Latin America to get these products into the hands of fans, old and new

So, what should you expect?

This September we’ll launch our first products—the three core rulebooks, and the Essentials Kit—in four new languages. Then, beginning next year, we’ll kick off a roughly quarterly cycle of new releases, bringing our latest and greatest titles to a truly international audience, many for the very first time. When possible, we’ll align release dates across all four languages, making it easy to know when the next D&D release is coming.

We are thrilled to make our beloved game accessible to more people around the world than ever before. Bienvenue, Willkommen, Bienvenidos, Benvenuti!

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Orruks are generally known as big, nasty brutes. So, the ones in charge tend to be even bigger and nastier. Add to it that they often ride even biggerer and nastierer brutes into battle and you have yourself the Killaboss. We get a look at the one coming in Dominion, the new starter set for the new edition of Age of Sigmar in this preview.

From the article:

While the Kruleboyz are known mainly for their cunning schemes and sneaky tactics, the orruks that survive long enough to claim a position of authority grow much taller and stronger than the rest of their kind. They become so strong, in fact, that they can even take down one of Sigmar’s champions, which you may have witnessed in the new edition’s phenomenal cinematic trailer.

Known as Killabosses, these leaders rule their tribes with an iron fist, always looking out for the next aspiring usurper aiming a stikka at their back.* When they ride to war, they often do so on the back of a vicious canine monster called a Great Gnashtoof, which is capable of tearing off an ogor’s head in one swift bite. This makes these units even more fearsome combatants than usual, as their foes come under a hail of razor-sharp strikes from fang, claw, and stikka while the boss on top issues all kinds of cunning commands.

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Fantasy Flight Games has announced a new board game set in the Arkham Horror Universe. It's called Unfathomable and it takes players onto the SS Atlantica, a ship trying to make it across the Atlantic to Boston, but will the ship actually make it there? That's up to you and your fellow passengers to decide... unless you're the one trying to put it to a halt.

From the article:

The year is 1913. The steamship SS Atlantica is two days out from port on its voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Its unsuspecting passengers fully anticipated a calm journey to Boston, Massachusetts, with nothing out of the ordinary to look forward to. However, strange nightmares plague the minds of the people aboard the ship every night; rumors circulate of dark shapes following closely behind the ship just beneath the waves; and tensions rise when a body is discovered in the ship’s chapel, signs of a strange ritual littered around the corpse. This voyage began like any other, but now it seems that the Atlantica may never reach its destination.

Fantasy Flight Games is thrilled to announce Unfathomable, a brand-new board game in the Arkham Horror Files universe!

Immerse yourself among the passengers and crew of the SS Atlantica in this game of hidden loyalties, intrigue, and paranoia for three to six players. Some players are humans who are fighting for the survival of the ship, while others are traitors sent aboard the ship by mysterious beings to ensure that it never reaches port! Because player loyalties are hidden, determining who is friend and who is foe is critical to winning a thrilling game of Unfathomable.

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