In an unprecedented move, upstart tabletop roleplaying game company Dicetale Games will be releasing not one, but two (that’s TWO!) 250-page Primer books for its upcoming roleplaying game Blood and Doom. Not content with just releasing a typical 25- to 50-page Quickstart, the company originally announced it would make a 150-page Quickstart available for free, before Kickstarting its dark fantasy TTRPG on the 21st of March, 2023. In a move that might be a first in the tabletop game business, it will be churning out no less than 500 free pages that allow players and Game Masters to already experience Blood and Doom as a full-fledged game – almost half of what will be made available as both printed and PDF core books after the Kickstarter wraps.
In the same breath, Dicetale Games has announced its Blood and Doom Open Game License, an irrevocable agreement that will allow content creators and publishers to release open game content – a move that opens up the world of Athyr and its game system to creatives everywhere in the world.
What Is a Tabletop Roleplaying Game?
A tabletop roleplaying game is a collaborative story usually created by 2 to 6 players – each taking on the role of a single Character – and a Game Master. The Game Master – called the Doomsayer in Blood and Doom – acts as the Characters’ senses and plays the part of all Non-Player Characters (or ‘NPCs’) the adventurers get to meet. Important actions are governed by a dice-roll and influenced by Abilities, Skills, and situational modifiers.
Some of the most influential and best-known TTRPG include Dungeons & Dragons (as seen in Stranger Things, Critical Role, and The Legend of Vox Machina), Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy Role Play, and Traveller, but there are hundreds of great tabletop roleplaying games out there and now, Blood and Doom is ready to join that cast!
What Is Blood and Doom?
In Blood and Doom, players take on the parts of heroes in a doomed world where the influence of degenerated cults is slowly corrupting all seven regions. As these cults and — by extension — the horrific extra-dimensional creatures they worship gain power and influence, bizarre things start to happen: the lands of Athyr may change, creatures might transform into twisted versions of what they formerly looked like, diseases and natural disasters rage across the fields, and the cultists themselves develop evermore frightening abilities.
What’s Included
The first book is the Blood and Doom: Core Ruleset Primer, which 4 fully playable Classes and their 8 Archetypes, plus some information on the other 5 Classes and 10 Archetypes.
The second book is the Blood and Doom: Doomsayer Codex Primer, which includes 2 starting adventures (Faces of Evil and The Seven Jewels of Azul-Ra). It also incorporates 6 pre-generated Characters and 2 of the game’s 12 cults, described in glorious detail, as well as guidelines on how to build your own adventures or campaigns and 100 pages of setting background, covering large parts of Ethennia and Istha. As an added bonus, we’re giving you a host of Monster Stat Blocks.
The Faces of Evil adventure will introduce you to the trading outpost Ashar, where people have been vanishing mysteriously while the connection of the Temple of the Stars with the city’s patron deity, Aurelia, is inexplicably failing.
The Characters are hired or otherwise motivated to investigate these freak events, which will lead them on a dark path towards answers perhaps best left unknown.
The second adventure, The Seven Jewels of Azul-Ra, sees the Characters get their hands on a treasure map leading them deep into the Jungles of Mararoka, where dinosaurs form a very real threat to adventurers and where two opposing factions inhabiting the region might seriously complicate the Character’s quest.
And then there’s the cults…
The first cult you will be able to get to know is the Yiukashin. Its members believe that their Herald of Doom, Dhaos, was dispersed through space by the gods and who want to create three horribly blasphemous Receptacles to summon Dhaos to Athyr and absorb all living souls.
The second cult is the Sheddai. Its cultists believe that their Herald, Lanesh, will judge all humans unworthy and enslave them, with the Sheddai themselves becoming rulers of the world.
Both cult chapters include their history, their creed, their hierarchy, the monsters that serve them, spells and rituals they can cast, and best of all: fully fleshed-out ‘Doom Levels’, offering Doomsayers all they need to know about the plans of the cult, what will happen if they fail to achieve certain goals, and what the next stage of their grand plan will be should they succeed.
This includes the cultists themselves becoming more powerful or gaining access to more spells and monsters to summon, as well as corrupting effects that can have devastating effects on the region the cult operates from.
What This Means For You
The two Blood and Doom Primer books are written by creator Ferruccio Argento and his team of award-winning writers: Jason Walters, Jason Durall, Michael Surbrook, Steven S. Long, and Dirk Vandereyken. Also, we’re proud to include ideas that were launched or shaped by the late Darren Watts, a great and exceptional human being who sadly passed away when 2023 hit. He will be sorely missed.
Both books will be in full, glorious color, and the PDFs will be made available through Drivethrurpg, this website, and other channels. If you’re a subscriber, we’ll send links to the PDFs to you automatically, before anyone else will be able to download them.
This is our gift to you, our fans. You’ve been remarkable, we’ve been loving talking to you at our booths during conventions, and sharing ideas with you has been a blessing. We thought you deserved a great preview of what our tabletop roleplaying game is about and this is what you’re getting.
To drive home our point, we’re also trusting you with an Open Game License – an OGL that will allow you to create Blood and Doom content, keep the copyright, and keep whatever earnings you make. We know there are some amazing (budding) designers among you and that’s why we’re adding the stipulation that the agreement is irrevocable.
We trust you all to come up with some great stuff that will make us proud and keep us on our toes, forcing us to keep supplying you with the very best artwork, setting information, rules, adventures, miniatures, accessories, and supplements we are able to make.
Stay vigilant, brave adventurers, as Blood and Doom is almost upon us!
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