A very different and creative look at trolls. These have great personality. Woven Edging will dress your characters in style, and give them a bit of a mechanical edge to boot. Banjamin and Finn Longdog provide a nice pair of NPCs. Battle maps and VTT tokens to round out the pack.

Like the description says this product is a compilation of the print resources from the first eight digital packs, along with the Beowulf Handimonsters.

If you already have the Digital Packs you are not getting any new material, just getting one single file instead of multiple files.

If you do not have the digital packs, and do not intend to run the game on VTT this is a great option. You won't miss the VTT tokens and maps.

The contents is collection of useful materials of all sorts. New Followers and a few new follower traits, new treasures, new monsters, something for everyone.

These two pages of tables do exactly what Jon shows in the video, quickly generate a hall and it's ruler. Although written for the Dark Ages they should work for most pseudo-medieval fantasy games.

Very useful for populating maps on the fly. A few dice rolls and you have a sense of place that will be unique and characterful.

This small book is more than just a collection of pretty pictures. It does collect some of the fantastic art from Beowulf, but for me, the value lies in the comentaries of Jon Hodgson. Jon goes inside the art. He takes us on a journey inside the artists' heads, discussing the how and why of the creation of these images. If you have ever wondered what is behind the art in a game here is a look inside.

Hero gets word of Monster. Hero investigates monster and learns how to defeat it. Hero confronts monster and triumphs. This is the basic structure of adventures for Beowulf: Age of Heroes. The strength of the adventures from Handiwork Games is the variety they build from this simple foundation.

The Elfshot is an adventure that highlights investigation and diplomacy. There are oportunities for combat, but the succesful resolution will require thinking more than fighting.

The adventure, as might be expected from the title, sees our hero encountering the ylves. It is interesting to see how an adventure can be built around creatures that are decidely otherworldly and not given a stat block in the Beowulf rulebook. These are not the elves of D&D.

To start I am not a huge fan of 5e. I don't hate it, but it is not my system of choice.

That being said, I really like Beowulf: Age of Heroes. I am a long time fan of the poem, the Dark Ages, and heroic adventure. Beowulf hits these notes extremely well. It adds elements that bring the game into genre emulation of its inspiration.

First it is designed for duet play. One GM and one player. This replicates the structure of many tales of a single hero against monsters and perils. The hero is not alone however. Rules are given to provide teh hero with a band of Followers. NPCs who largely fade into teh background, stepping forward to offer assitance to the hero at need. This gives the player the advantages of having a larger party without having to constantly juggle a large stable of developed NPCs. There are rules for developing individual followers over time and even potentially promoting them to hero status of their own.

The setting is very much that of the scops' tales, not strictly that of history. There are monsters, dwarfs and elves, but they are not those of standard D&D. Dwarf and elves are not even given game stats, being creatures of mystery. Monsters come in two categories. Regular monsters which can be defeated with a sword, and Monsters which first require the hero to learn the specific means by which they may be vanquished.

The equipment list focuses on the arms and armor of the period. No plate or pole arms, Spears are ubiquitous, so much so that a hero is considered always able to grab one at need. Axes, shields, swords, helmets, and spears are given qualities that make them intersting and give differences one to another.

There are some fun tweaks to rules like Inspiration and Advantage. Inspiration recieves a pool which is divided between the Hero, the Followers, and the Monster. Advantage is combined with an Alignment die which if chosen as the result on a roll grants the Hero Inspiration.

Alignment is changed up. Characters may be aligned with the religion of the Book, the Old Ways, or Neutral. None of these is presented as better or more true. Each may offer advantages and disadvantages during encounters and adventures.

At the beginning of an adventure as Portent is generated. This is a couplet of phrases and determines the initial allocation of the Inspiration pool. It also provides atmosphbere and can be invoked to aid actions in accord with the Portent. The journey to the location of the main adventure is also influenced by the portent, with that shaping the nature of encounters on the Whale Road.

I would be remis if I did not mention the stunning artwork in the book. It is absolutely gorgeous and really helps to establish the feel of the setting.

I had this map printed full size (2 feet x 3 feet) at a local print shop on glossy poster stock. It is gorgeous!

If you are a Pirates and Dragons players, or just a map geek this is one to add to your collection. High resolution, full colour art work.

Further Afield is hands down the best "how to set up a campaign" sourcebook I have seen.

Building off the life-path character generation system in Beyond the Wall Further Afield ensures that every character is tied into the campaign world and that every player is invested in its development.

This supplement also includes four major campaign nemeses that can be used to provide background and overarching plot hooks if desired.

Combining this with Beyond the Wall it should be possible to roll up characters, create a campaign world, and just maybe even play the first adventure in a single long play session.

A rare treasure. Based on the familar rules mechanics of the early editions of D&D, this is not a retro-clone. It truly does something different. Lloyd Alexander, Ursula LeGuin and JRR Tolkien in his lighter moments shine through. "Farmer Giles of Ham" could be a scenario pack for this game. I would add the Princess Bride, Ladyhawke, the Beastmaster and a healthy dollop of folklore to the inspirations.

Beyond the Wall does an excellent job of building characters who are real people with a reason to adventure together. The Village is built along with the characters in a fluid manner. There are hints of a deeper and broader world scattered through the game, "The Endless Pit of the West", the "Sunken City", the deserts of the East. None of these recieve any more fleshing out besides the name, but the names evoke a sense of adventuring possibilities.

This would be an excellent game to introduce new players to RPGing with. I think it would also shine as a convention game. Instead of being handed pregenerated characters with potted backgrounds the players can quickly build their own characters and backgrounds.

A complete Steampunk RPG in a digest sized book.

One Dice provides a nice light RPG requiring only 1D6 per player. It covers skills, combat, experience and more. Resolution is a dice roll+Skill+Ability vs Target Difficulty.

The book is illustrated throughout in the style of the cover art.

The provided "skins" for Automatons, Lost Worlds and Gothic Horror provide good guidelines for any GM wishing to create their own Steampunk world. An alternate 19th Century background is provided as well. These are all optional and the game will not suffer at all if a GM decides to create his own campaign world.

Overall a nice light game to serve with tea and crumpets.

Five reasons for Five Stars:

1. The One Dice a Universal game system. Quick, easy, straightforward, but surprisingly robust rules light generic core mechanics.
2. Pirates! Arr Maties, here there be pirates.
3. Dragons! Flying, magic using, fire breathing, gold loving dragons.
4. Extensive background. Almost the full background from the Pirates and Dragons Renaissance game is in this little book.
5. Stand alone complete game. No need to buy the One Dice Universal core book or the Renaissance Pirates and Dragons book, this is a complete game.

One Dice provides a very quick to learn, easy to run system. The base mechanic is 1D6+Skills/Attributes vs Target Difficulty. It includes magic, character experience, skills, combat, ship bs ship combat and more.

Pirates and Dragons provides exactly what it says it does. Lots of pirates, from four different nationalities plus native Islanders, sea monsters, mythological beings, and of course Dragons! The setting is a riff on the Caribbean of the Golden Age of Piracy, but with magic, spirits, monsters and more. Little detail is given to the world beyond the basic setting, but that is covered in rich detail.

Each of the dragons detailed is a major personality with its own quirks. Some are worshipped by tribes of Islanders, at least one is Undead, some are shapeshifters.

For those who like the idea of Pirates and Dragons but want either a less expensive entry, or a lighter set of game mechanics I highly recommend One Dice Pirates and Dragons.

Should be 4 1/2 really.

A nice light game that I plan to use as filler while waiting for the full crew to show up on RPG night.

The rules are complete, but not ready to play. The GM will need to do a bit of world building first. This is why I knocked off a half-star. Even the three "skins" provided are just enough example to set the ball rolling, they are not complete.

People looking for a ready to play light game would likely be better served by picking up one of the forthcoming genre adaptations.

I am actually planning on using this most with the settings from other games that I don't want to have to teach yet another set of game mechanics to my players to enjoy. Once they get these rules down, which should be all of five minutes, they can jump right in to any setting.

I thought the inclusion of supers as a skin was an interesting choice. It is not a genre I play much an I wondered how such a light game would handle four-colour action. It actually looks to handle it pretty well. As I read through the powers and skills I found myself mentally building certain famous comic book heroes who matched the traits. Not every power that I would have liked to see was present, but there was a good list.

The Sci-Fi skin is for a humans only universe, which is a bit of a disappointment to me. I like aliens in my soap opera. But it should be easy enough to borrow some abilities from the Fantasy and Supers skins. The rules for starships could easily be used for Mecha or other vehicles and are surprisingly elegant.

The fantasy skin presents fairly standard Elves, Dwarves and Humans, with a spell casting system. I think that "Magic" an optional attribute for worlds with spellcasters could form a good basis for psionics as well.

No art beyond the cover, which is a pity as that is fun and it would have been nice to see more.

Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!]

Majus is Goblinoid's venture into urban fantasy, specifically Fantasy Noir. It covers much the same ground as Dresden Files or Mage:the Ascension.

Like other games in the Pacesetter line this one is based around the Action Table. A simple percentile dice roll on a one page table determines the outcome and degree of success of almost any action in the game.

The game is truly Old School in that it sketches but does not detail its background for GMs and players. There is a background included in this game, and it is a good one, but it can easily be ignored without causing major problems.

There are separate systems for Paranormal Talents and Magic. This is because they represent different abilities. Paranormal Talents tend to be narrowly focused psychic abilities. Magical "adits" are broad skills at using Magic to alter reality. Because magic is treated as skills there is no need for pages and pages of spell lists, components, etc. the components, chants, props etc used to invoke magic will vary from Mage to Mage depending on their tradition and training. Powerful and experienced mages may be able to cast magic merely by focusing their will upon the desired result.

The descriptions of the background to the Great Game and the Towers of the Maji are worth reading even if this background will not be use as they contain a number of examples of magical items, enchantments etc which will provide guidance for CMs and players to create their own.

The bestiary chapter includes a number of familiar creatures, but with new origins and abilities. These can provide some surprises for players who think they know it all.

A final note is that the game uses the same mechanics as Chill, Rot World, Crypt World and Time Master allowing elements from those games to be brought into Majus or magic to be brought into those games.

This is the adventure that I played for 16 hours straight! We ran hero ugh it three times at Carnage convention and each time it felt like a different adventure.

This is an excellent introduction to Fate of the Norns:Ragnarok.

Players will soon get a handle on the Runic Gaming System which is a large part of what makes FotN:R both unique and so rich in Biking character.

Somewhat unusually for starting quests this adventure allows the players the chance to grab some famous artifacts and to run shoulders with the more-than-human representatives of the gods and giants, possibly even choosing to work for one, the other, or both.

The art is also worth a mention. The cover gives a taste of the style. I find that it enhances the immersive feel of the game, looking very reminiscent of period artwork.

If I could give this game six stars I would. I played it for 16 hours straight at Carnage last year and felt I only barely scratched he surface.

The presentation is first rate with a unique style of art that really evokes the feeling of period artwork.

The Runic play system is full score for evoking the Viking feel. It provides ever changing tactical engagement and allows players to be involved continually, even when in other rules the character would not be active.

The game is set during the End of the World. A bold move, but one that strongly encourages epic play. This is the saga of heroes, not the story of apprentices gone adventuring. Players are free to choose alliance with either the gods or the giants. Neither is entirely siding with the "good guys" or the "bad guys".

If you like epic tale telling, Vikings, and heroic adventure, this is the game for you.