BEOWULF. a|state. Maskwitches. Cold City:Hot War. FiveEvil
The second PDF scenario for FiveEvil is out now!
It’s the early 90s, and while London is booming, you’re struggling. But good news. You’ve got a job which will save your family-run asbestos removal company. It’s a rapid turnaround government contract under the streets of London. What could possibly wrong? Oh no. Everything.
Glasshouse is a 27 page, bookmarked PDF with 5 pre-generated characters.
We’re excited to reveal the first print supplement for FiveEvil: Netherworlds.
Down into the basement to confront the nightmare man…
Creeping into the sewers to face the laughing killer…
Sneaking into the carnival to find the missing girl …
It’s the moment of supreme dread: when you muster your courage and step into the horror’s ultimate domain: the netherworld. A place of enormous danger and continual threat, where you will be pushed to the limit and never able to lower your guard.
Can you survive? Can you conquer what waits here for you?
This book shows you how to bring netherworlds into your FiveEvil games. Learn how to design netherworlds that can give your players nightmares, and find out how to run them for maximum terror.
Don’t let the realms of horror you imagine turn into tedious dungeon adventures at the table. Use these techniques to harness the full terrifying power of netherworlds, and lead your players places they will never forget.
Contents:
• Why netherworlds are special. A discussion of how to make exploration
scenarios work well for the horror genre.
• Complete guide to netherworld design. A fully detailed step-by-step guide to
designing a netherworld, from a scary basement to an entire country overrun by
horror. Develop its purpose and identify denizens, special qualities, and random
encounters.
• Exploration round by round. A procedure to follow that handles everything you
need to manage when your characters venture into a netherworld.
• Ready-to-use netherworlds. Discover a twisting sewer, a ruined space
colony, a city under the spell of nightmare, and more horrific environments. Each
netherworld is fully described using the rules in this book, and comes with
extensive advice on how to build your own scenario around it and which horror
suits the netherworld as the ultimate threat.
• Campaign scenario “A Lament”. A short campaign in duet mode, or easily
adapted for a group. Your Dad married someone you’ve never met, and moved to
a town you’ve never heard of, and then you found out he’s really sick. That’ why
you’re here, in this weird town in the mountains, trying to work out what’s what.
First, you’ll make sure he’s okay; and then the real work starts. This place has
secrets, and you aren’t going to leave without finding out what they are.
FiveEvil: Netherworlds is written by Morgan Davie, illustrated by Scot Purdy and Jon Hodgson. We’ll have more information about the release date soon.
We love a straight-forward tool at Handiwork Games (make of that what you will) and we’re delighted to be able to share with you the FiveEvil Character keeper.
Simply head to the link, make a copy, and edit away to your wicked heart’s content.
You can also grab pre-made characters for the first scenario in the book, Wakefield House, in the same format here.
Backer copies of FiveEvil are arriving with our UK backers, and heading out to everyone else right now.
You can pre-order your print copy of FiveEvil here, or get the PDF – currently in the Halloween Sale at DrivethruRPG here.
FiveEvil is a standalone roleplaying game from Handiwork Games, the fiendish minds behind BEOWULF Age of Heroes, a|state second edition and Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland.
FiveEvil is designed to evoke the horror genre via a set of clever twists on the underlying fifth edition ruleset. Less a version of 5e, FiveEvil is a ruleset about 5e, making use of its subversion to defy expectations and intensify the horror.
Make no mistake: this book is not just some 5e stats for horror entities and a couple of rules tweaks. This is media-literate deconstruction of the primary RPG paradigm of the day!
Whether it reads as a game about what 5e could have been in the hands of an extremely capable indie designer, or a celebration of just how far the rules of 5e can be stretched, is up to you.
The primary setting focus is modern day horror, inspired by the work of Stephen King, and moody, character-driven horror films like The Ritual, The Descent and Jacob’s Ladder, alongside mini-series like Midnight Mass by Mike Flanagan, and the scariest of Twin Peaks episodes.
Rather than seeking out evil in order to vanquish it, or investigating clues to battle malign influence, characters in FiveEvil are regular people trapped in a terrifying situation attempting to survive and escape.
FiveEvil was created and written by Morgan Davie, features art by Scott Purdy and Jon Hodgson, and boasts graphic design and layout by Paul Bourne.
Hello! Let’s have a FiveEvil update!
We were especially impressed with the opening chapter of FiveEvil as we were editing it.
It contains this really amazing set of muscular and compact guidance on playing the game, the horror genre, and safety tools. Morgue has done a brilliant job on it.
We didn’t think it was the right thing to just flow these thoughts into 2 columns – they’d get lost, and each piece is really powerfully written and deserved a bit more. We want the reader to slow down and take each one in, and to be able to track back, reread and reflect on them. They really are important.
So we’ve laid out the first chapter in a slightly more involved way, and we thought you might like to see a couple of sample spreads. The underlying art isn’t quite final yet, but it shows where it’s going. There’s more to each of these sections than is shown here, but you get the idea hopefully.
Morgue has been playing FiveEvil with some really talented friends from Aotearoa New Zealand, and we have the video evidence to prove it!
Playing with Morgue are
• Julz Burgisser from Fate of Isen
https://www.fateofisen.com
• Brendon Bennetts the DM from Dungeons & Comedians
https://dungeonsandcomedians.com/
• Brad Thompson from Cutting Words
https://www.youtube.com/c/cuttingwords
And from the world of improv theatre, Caitlin Penhey.
Look out for the full video of a session of a special version of Wakefield House, one of the scenarios included with FiveEvil releasing this week on YouTube!
We’ve received some lovely commentary on FiveEvil from Paul Beakley of the Indie game Reading Club. Check it out!
https://www.indiegamereadingclub.com/indie-game-reading-club/fiveevil-an-unlikely-winner/
We were delighted and honoured to see this shared in Thomas Manuel’s Indie RPG Newsletter.
(also featured was Thomas’ excellent interview with our own Malcolm Craig about the Cold War and RPGs: https://www.rascal.news/how-the-cold-war-influenced-rpgs/ )
And it was nice to see Tabletop Sentinel pick up the story too: https://www.tabletopsentinel.com/u/profile/59a2720e-b8a0-4c7e-b5cc-0fb5427d2fc9/social-post/celtic-carnage-scotlands-handiwork-games-unleashes-irish-horror-with-fiveevil
FiveEvil is working through stretch goals on Kickstarter right now.
In Splinter Five we reach the throbbing climax of the scenario, and a fateful showdown with the creature Plisken.
Who will get out alive?
Additionally there’s:
All for FREE!
Part Five has been added to the Splinters title at DrivethruRPG, so if you already picked up any part you’ll have them all!
FiveEvil is our upcoming horror hack for 5th Edition. And make no mistake, it’s not just some 5e stats for some monsters and a spooky adventure seed or two.
It’s a thorough reworking of the very soul of 5th Edition, aimed at subverting what you know and expect to facilitate horror gaming. We’ve completely replaced combat, we’ve mutated the action economy, stat blocks are completely different, Inspiration becomes Desperation and more changes, both subtle and wide ranging switch up everything you’re familiar with to twist it into a whole new experience. You’ll know how to play, while play edges you out into the completely unfamiliar and unnerving.
FiveEvil gives you everything you need to play. Check out the slightly redacted contents page. We’ve removed any spoilers from the scenarios included, but these scenarios are worthy of mention. These aren’t just one-shot play throughs which you’ll use once and then never play again: these scenarios demonstrate important templates for FiveEvil play, and are packed with reusable play information and guidance.
• There is a bunch of support to learn more about this amazing horror hack of the fifth edition rules ahead of the crowd-funding launch:
• Find out the basics here at our site.
• Get a free, playable scenario that builds in parts, alongside a ton of behind the scenes design notes and inspirations. We’re up to part four all in the single DrivethruRPG title.
• Check out Five Evil designer Morgue Davie interviewed by unpleasant skeleton Clive Evil.
• Sign up at the Campaign page to be notified on launch at the end of the month.
Jon posting. Alright? Here’s an interesting idea. It’s been suggested by a number of people on the ole socials that FiveEvil appeals as a cure for the more generally cosy feel that D&D seems to be headed towards.
And ok, maybe. If you like. Generally speaking, we don’t work in direct opposition or reaction to things like that. It’s not in our nature to be contrarians of that type. And we thoroughly support D&D proposing a wide variety of play styles. That’s all cool with us.
So we aren’t deliberately making our new horror 5e rules, FiveEvil, in direct response to a perceived shift of official D&D towards cosier themes. We’ve been working on it far too long for that!
But the suggestion that FiveEvil can serve as an antidote to happy fantasy is nonetheless an interesting one, because it’s a polarity which had never occurred to us: cosy vs horror.
Continue reading “FiveEvil: A cure for the cosy?”