[Free RPG Day 2026] Earth & Root

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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For Free RPG Day 2026, Magpie Games published not one book, but six—Adventure Booklet 1: Earth & Root, Adventure Booklet 2: Fire & Brimstone, Adventure Booklet 3: Ash & Steel, Adventure Booklet 4: Air & Wind, and Adventure Booklet 5: Water & Mist as well as the Expanded Rules supplement. These are all for Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game, one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns for any roleplaying game. This is the roleplaying adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, animated series which are inspired by the indigenous cultures of North America and Asia, in particular, China, Chinese martial arts, and the ability to ‘bend’ or manipulate the four elements—water, earth, fire, and air. Only one person can bend all four elements, and he is known as the ‘Avatar’, and not only does he serve as the link between the physical world and the spirit world, but he is also responsible for maintaining harmony between the world’s four nations. In the roleplaying game, the players roleplay characters, or companions, who are capable of bending one of the elements as well as practising martial arts, all with the aim of protecting the world from harm and those unable to stand up to misuse of power.

As with the other four Adventure Booklets, Adventure Booklet 1: Earth & Root originally appeared in Wan Shi Tong’s Adventure Guide, which explores and presents adventures in the different eras of the Avatarverse, including the Kyoshi, Roku, the Hundred Year War, Aang, and Korra periods. Adventure Booklet 1: Earth & Root presents a Kyoshi Era Adventure whose action takes place in Ba Sing Se, the massive, heavily fortified capital city of the Earth Kingdom. Its Lower Ring is home to many ordinary citizens as well as ‘Daofei’, organised bands of criminals and outlaws who live according to sophisticated codes of honour and conduct, as well as honour. The normal hustle and bustle of the Lower Ring have been thrown into chaos as the city’s Anti-Corruption Task Force, led by Yong, a highly diligent earthbender, rips it apart in search of Mengyao, a notorious Daofei has been identified as the kidnapper of the two children of Fire Nation Ambassador Quin. As Yong and his men tear the Lower Ring apart, targeting citizens and criminal alike, the Ambassador has sent in her own highly-skilled Fire Nation guards to find her children as she does not wholly trust the motives of the Anti-Corruption Task Force.

As the lives of ordinary citizen and criminal alike are disrupted in the Lower Ring, the Player Characters are approached by Rangi, famed firebender and companion of the Avatar, to help keep the district stable and to search for Mengyao before any riots break out before she returns with the Avatar. The Player Characters have an advantage in that most of them are former outlaws who live in Ba Sing Se and are trying to make up for their past misdeeds. This gives them a shared connection and backgrounds, even though hidden, may be useful in finding the accused Daofei and keeping the Lower Ring from following into further chaos. They consist of Tao the Adamant, a waterbender who grew up on a pirate ship and lost the person most important to him when they took the blame for a crime Tao committed; Masaru the Bold, a technologist and former thief who wants to turn over a new leaf and still support her family; Sarnai the Guardian, a weapons-user and former criminal who has found a family in the other Player Characters; Jing the Prodigy, a clever potion-maker and concocter who is worried that her creations will fall into the wrong hands; and Quartz the Successor, an earthbender who is heir to a criminal empire, but is not sure if that is what he wants.

Beyond this set-up—and it is a very detailed set-up—the Player Characters are free to approach the problem however they want. To that end, all of the NPCs, groups, and important locations are described in detail and backed up with solid advice for the Game Master. This covers movement around Ba Sing Se, creating more Daofei, ways to escaleate situations and increase the action and tension, handling bystanders and also Rangi and the Aavatar, and exploring various situations that are likely to occur as the scenario plays out. There is advice too for the Game Master on who to set up the scenario if the players are using their own characters rather than the pre-generated quintet which is included in Adventure Booklet 1: Earth & Root. This consists of asking the players why their characters are in Ba Sing Se and how they know Mengyao and the Game Master making adjustments as necessary. It adds too, scope for flashbacks that explore prior incidents or exploits in Ba Sing Se, but this cannot be used too often without an escalating penalty that ultimately, will force the Player Characters to recall events that went badly for them.

Also included are details of the Basic Moves and Balance Moves in Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game—in addition the Moves for all of the Player Characters—and the techniques that are not in the core book, plus the combat exchanges, statuses, and basic techniques. Rangi is also fully described and there is advice too on how to use Legendary NPCs like Rangi. In some ways, the Game Master advice is so complete and feels longer than the broader description of the situation in Adventure Booklet 1: Earth & Root and Ba Sing Se.

Physically, Adventure Booklet 1: Earth & Root is well presented, sturdy booklet.

Adventure Booklet 1: Earth & Root is not a scenario in the traditional sense, but very much more of a highly detailed set-up backed up with all of the background, stats, and advice that the Game Master needs to respond in what will very much be a Player Character-driven story. Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra will enjoy the background too and overall, Adventure Booklet 1: Earth & Root is great support for Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game.

[Free RPG Day 2026] Rescue on Raxil

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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Since its original publication in 2017, titles for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game—the Science-Fiction/Science Fantasy role-playing game published by Paizo Publishing—have been a regular feature of Free RPG Day. Free RPG Day 2026 is no exception, but this year, the scenario is for Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition. This is Rescue on Raxil, a short scenario for five Third Level Player Characters. Its plot and set-up are simple. Raxil is a peaceful, fertile world with a delicate ecology, which is suddenly threatened by the arrival of a clandestine expedition from Absolute Zero, an augmentation research group with little regard for both the effect of their research on the environment and the ethics when it comes to its experiments, and even worse secret backers, Frozen Trove! Despite the best attempts of Absolute Zero, word has got out about its operations and contact has been made off world with the mystical protectors known as the Xenowardens. They have dispatched a team of operatives to land on Raxil, get as close to the Absolute Zero laboratory as possible, and then shut its operations down as well as gathering proof of the connection between Absolute Zero and Frozen Trove.

The scenario is short and so throws the Player Characters into the action in the first of three scenes. They are dropped deep in the forest near the Absolute Zero where they suddenly see two strange creatures. These are Dracotoads, the first signs of Absolute Zero’s activities, two toads spliced with modified dragon glands. The Player Characters can fight them, but two of them have Wildwise Grafts which allows them to talk to animals, so they can use other means to get past the Dracotoads. They can do the same with the next encounter too. The scenario will climax in the laboratory with Player Characters confronting the leader of the Absolute Zero expedition, Feskagazar, a non-binary dragonkin genetic scientist. This is a nicely staged affair with the Player Characters needing to decide whether they want to fight Feskagazar or save the research data they have set to delete.

Rescue on Raxil includes five pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of an Elf Envoy, a Skittermander Witchwarper, a Raxilite Mystic, a Ryphorian Operative, and a Dragonkin Solarian. All are Third Level and all are given a two-page spread which includes a background, advice on playing the character in and out of combat, and relationship to the other Player Characters. Besides the Starfinder Player Core, the scenario also makes use of the Starfinder Galaxy Guide and Starfinder Galactic Ancestries. Maps of the two locations in the scenario are placed inside the front and back cover.

Physically, Rescue on Raxil is as professionally presented as you would expect for Paizo, Inc. It is in full colour, the art and cartography are excellent, and the adventure is well written.

Rescue on Raxil is a straightforward Science Fiction adventure. In fact, too straightforward. Even simplistic. Two of the encounters can be solved by talking and it ends with a big fight at the end. There is not enough variety in the game play or the challenges and it could have done with another encounter to give it some variety and perhaps a little less in the way of character backgrounds for what is a short adventure. Rescue on Raxil is as professional a product as you would expect from Paizo Publishing, but just too short and lacking variety to make it a good one-shot or demonstration scenario.

[Free RPG Day 2026] The Archivist’s Curse

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
The Archivist’s Curse is the quick-start for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the roleplaying game based on Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Scandinavian Folklore as collected and illustrated by Johan Egerkrans, and published by Free League Publishing. It is an investigative horror game set in Scandinavia during the nineteenth century that explores the clash between modernity and folklore.

The Archivist’s Curse is a forty-four page, full colour booklet.

How long will it take to play?
The Archivist’s Curse can be played in roughly a single session or two.

What else do you need to play?
The Archivist’s Curse needs at least six six-sided dice per player and a set of cards numbered from one to ten. These can be taken from an ordinary deck of playing cards.

Who do you play?
The Archivist’s Curse includes five pre-generated Player Characters. The consist of an Occultist, Private Detective, Servant, Academic, and Vampire Hunter, who all five have the ‘Sight’ and can see vaesen.

How is a Player Character defined?

A Player Character in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying is defined by his Attributes and Skills; a Motivation, a Trauma, and a Dark Secret; a Talent and a relationship with another Player Character, a memento, and some equipment. The Attributes are Physique, Precision, Logic, and Empathy, and rated between two and five, whilst Skills are rated between one and five. Motivation explains why the Player Character is prepared to hunt down and confront vaesen, whilst Trauma explains why or how the Player Character gained the Sight; and the Dark Secret is something that the Player Character wants to keep. Each Talent is a special ability, such as ‘Medium’, which enables the Player Character to predict other people’s futures and to contact the dead or ‘Elementary’ which lets a player ask the Game Master to explain how certain clues are connected once per session. A Memento is a possession which the Player Character holds dear that by interacting with it, will help him overcome a Condition.

How do the mechanics work?

The Archivist’s Curse and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying uses the Year Zero Engine. When a player wants his character to undertake an action, he rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to a combination of his character’s Attribute and Skill, plus whatever bonus or penalty dice the Game Master awards, such as from the situation or a Talent. To succeed, the player typically needs to roll a single Success or six—though sometimes it may be more—on any of the dice. Extra Successes can be expended to gain various effects. In combat, this will be more damage, but in other situations it will usually mean learning more information.

If a player fails a roll, he can instead choose to Push the roll. This enables the player to reroll the dice which did not result in Successes in the hope of getting some or more Successes. Doing so will inflict a Condition on the Player Character, either Exhausted, Battered, or Wounded for Physical Conditions, or Angry, Frightened, or Hopeless for Mental Conditions. Suffer too many of either Physical or Mental Conditions and the Player Character will be Broken, meaning that he cannot act.

How does combat work?

Initiative in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying uses Initiative Cards, numbered from one to ten, which determines when a Player Character, NPC, or Vaesen acts each round, though it is possible to swap Initiative cards between Player Characters and/or friendly NPCs each Round. In each Round, a Player Character has a Slow action and a Fast action. A Fast action is typically movement or a reaction—such as dodging or parrying—whilst a Slow action will usually be an attack, whether ranged or melee. Each weapon has a base damage, which can be increased with extra successes on an attack roll, whilst some weapons also grant a bonus to attack rolls. Damage from combat is also inflicted in terms of Conditions.

In general, vaesen cannot be killed or destroyed in combat. Investigators in Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying usually confront and fight a vaesen long enough to perform a ritual that will drive it away or destroy it.

How does fear work?

A Fear test is required if a Player Character encounters a vaesen or magic, the number of Successes required determined by the Fear value of the creature, magic, or situation. Although it can be bolstered by the presence of allies, if a Fear test is failed, the Player Character can suffer from one or more metal conditions, but will be Terrified. In which case, the Player Character will either flee, freeze, faint, or frenzy. A Terrified Player Character can attempt a Fear Test on subsequent Rounds to act normally.

What do you play?

The Archivist’s Curse includes the scenario of the same name. It is not a traditional scenario for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying in terms of its set-up. Usually, after the Player Characters have each had an encounter with one of the vaesen, they are individually invited to join The Society, an organisation dedicated to investigating and cataloguing the vaesen and their clashes with mankind. Unfortunately, The Society was dissolved and nobody has been investigating the vaesen for decades. The Player Characters are handed the keys to its decrepit headquarters, Castle Gyllencreutz, in the Swedish city of Uppsala, and directed to begin its activities once again. In ‘The Archivist’s Curse’ all five Player characters have reasons to visit the National Archives on Knights’ Isle in central Stockholm in Sweden. The set-up also requires that two Player Characters appear first in the scenario, one after the other.

The scenario is entirely location bound in the four-storey building of The National Archives. It combines a haunting and a family tragedy which are revealed over the course of the Player Characters’ investigation and exploration of The National Archives—the Esoteric and Egyptology Sections in particular. There are plenty of handouts, a superb map of The National Archives, and a countdown of weird and spooky events which will drive the story to its climax. Overall, it is a very well done investigation.

However, ‘The Archivist’s Curse’ is set up to tell the story of one particular Player Character, whilst another Player Character has been hired to investigate the other. This calls for careful roleplaying upon the part of the two players assigned those characters. The scenario also does not involve traditional vaesen and players expecting a Nordic threat may be disappointed. The scenario also works best with all five Player Characters.

‘The Archivist’s Curse’ can be played as a one-off scenario, but it could also be used as a prequel, especially if the players decide to keep the same characters from the scenario. This can be as a prequel to both the Vaesen – Starter Set and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying itself, the former providing a short, but effective introduction to Castle Gyllencreutz and the activities of The Society. Another option is as a prequel to Vaesen: City of my Nightmares, an urban-based campaign set in and around Stockholm which involves a scenario in The National Archives.

Is there anything missing?
No. The Archivist’s Curse has everything that a Game Master needs to run the included scenario.

Is it easy to prepare?
Yes. The Archivist’s Curse uses a familiar set of rules in the Year Zero Engine and their explanation is very clear and includes several examples of play.

Is it worth it?
Yes. The Archivist’s Curse is well-appointed with great artwork, good handouts, and a superb set of floorplans of The National Archives. The scenario is excellent and a very good introduction to Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying.

The Archivist’s Curse is published by Free League Publishing, and is available to download here (coming soon).

[Free RPG Day 2026] All Bets Are Off

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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With Everyday Heroes, publisher Evil Genius Games did for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2022 what d20 Modern did for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition in 2002. That is, facilitate and handle roleplaying in the here and now, in the world we see outside our windows, on our television screens, and at the cinema. It went even further though by doing something not actually included in the rulebook. This is providing access to a number of source and scenario supplements all based upon a surprising range of films. In fact, a range of films which nobody expected to see turned into roleplaying material despite their popularity in the hobby such as The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure and Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure. For Free RPG Day 2026, the publisher has contributed the scenario, All Bets Are Off.

All Bets Are Off carries the subtitle ‘A Free RPG Day adventure that proves every great heist fails at the escape’ and whilst the scenario does involve a heist, it remains to be seen if the escape fails. The scenario is designed for gang of four or five First to Second Level Heroes who together make up a professional heist team known in criminal circles as the ‘Stacked Deck’. However, since Everyday Heroes casts its protagonists as Heroes, the protagonists in the scenarios are only ‘technically’ criminals. Or rather, the Heroes are criminals with a heart who research organized crime money laundering locations, plan elaborate heists, and steal veritable fortunes from them. The money is then split between the members, their helpful associates, and their two clandestine benefactors, the Always sisters, Grace and Charity.

At the start of this adventure, the Stacked Deck has just performed a perfect, by-the-numbers hit on the Cold Cash Castle, a local casino well-known to be a front for the Rasmussen organized crime syndicate. The heist has gone off perfectly, and the team made it out of the casino, and is making a dash for its getaway van. All Heroes need to do is clamber aboard, but as soon as the vehicle is in sight, its tires are screaming and belching smoke as it drives away! Which leaves the Heroes in the lurch and needing to make their way across twenty blocks of the city to get to the planned pick-up point.

All Bets Are Off is a chase scenario. The Heroes have exited the casino, clown masks on in true American heist fashion, guns in hand, and black holdalls full of cash slung over their shoulders, with Syndicate Agents on their tail. How exactly they get across the city is detailed in numerous scenes, in turn using the environment and overcoming any number of challenges. These include diving down alleys and climbing fire escapes, dodging barely leashed guard dogs, facing down corrupt cops on their tail (how did they find them so fast?), and getting out from under the sight of a red sight dot, before finally trying to get past a police blockade. This is one of two scenes where the Heroes get to be inventive in how they overcome the problem, along with an encounter with a restaurant line chef as she steps out of the kitchen and is surprised at their sudden appearance. 

The scenario is intended to be played in a single session and comes with multiple endings depending on how well the Heroes have done. It includes notes on how to use it with ‘E.G.O.’, the Evil Genius Organized-Play Programme and also comes with six pre-generated Heroes. They are all Second Level and include an ex-MMA fighter, a sharpshooter, a bodyguard, a sleuth, and a leader. They all come with some background, fairly broad in detail. The inside front and back cover include a map of the streets that the Handler can use if she wants to employ miniatures.

Physically, All Bets Are Off is decently presented. The artwork is excellent and the Handler should use it to show her players various scenes in the scenario.

All Bets Are Off is short and simple. Arguably, it is not just simple, but simplistic too. Although its various scenes are thematically appropriate, too many of them come down to simple dice roll and beyond that, there is not a lot for the Heroes to really do. The scenario could easily be played through in a couple of hours and the Handler may want to add another encounter or two, perhaps have the Heroes hide out in a department store as Syndicate agents from the casino they just robbed stalk them or a race through a restaurant kitchen where an appropriately cinematic fight can take place. For a quick and easy-to-prepare demonstration game, All Bets Are Off is fine, but will need more if a Handler wants to better show off Every Day Heroes or use it her campaign.

[Free RPG Day 2026] Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules is the quick-start for Wizard Riders, the post apocalypse roleplaying game of (mostly drunk) wizard bikers riding maguscycles they are bonded to across the world in the very far future of Orth under a red sun.

The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules is a thirty-nine page, 10.28 MB full colour PDF.

How long will it take to play?
The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules includes the scenario ‘The Vanishing of Dotshire’. It can be played in roughly a single session.

What else do you need to play?
The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules needs a standard set of polyhedral dice per player.

Who do you play?
The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules includes six pre-generated Player Characters or Wizard-Bikers. They include a lucky Wizard-Biker, a Natural Wizzer Wizard-Biker, a Wizard-Biker who likes to plan, a perceptive Wizard-Biker, an ace maguscycle-riding Wizard-Biker, and a threateningly ambidextrous Wizard-Biker.

How is a Player Character defined?

A Wizard-Biker in the Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules is defined by his name, and then six attributes, which are Brawn, Twitch, Daring, Brains, Presence, and Fortune. Of the six, Twitch is a Wizard-Biker’s dexterity and agility, whilst Fortune is his Luck and points that can be spent to activate special powers. Each attribute also has one or more associated skills. Each attribute and skill has is represented by a single die type, typically ranging from a ‘d4’ to a ‘d12’. An attribute or a skill can be marked as having an ‘Upgrade’, for example, ‘D8+Upgrade’. This means that a die in the Feat Pool for any action involving that attribute or skill can be upgraded to a larger size. A Wizard-Biker has a Gift, an advantage which grants him a bonus under certain circumstances. For example, ‘Juryrigger’ allows a die to be re-rolled for a Repair Feat whilst ‘Ambidextrous’ lets a Wizard-Biker make attacks with both hands in one round and only suffer a single Downgrade to each attack. This also includes ‘Wizzer Power’, which can be taken multiple times, each time granting the Wizard-Biker a spell-like power.

How do the mechanics work?

The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules uses what it calls the ‘Dice Core’ system. When a Wizard-Biker wants to attempt an action, it is called a ‘Feat’. His player assembles a ‘Feat Pool’ of three dice consisting of a Skill Die, an Attribute die, and a Feat Die. For Standard Feats, such as breaking down a door or punching someone, the Feat Die is a ‘D8’, but is a ‘D6’ for Complex Feats liked a called shot or attempting trauma care. The player then applies any Upgrades or Downgrades to any of the dice in the ‘Feat Pool’. Upgrades can come from the skill or attribute, or from the situation, as can Downgrades. The dice are rolled and totalled, the aim being equal to or beat a Difficulty Rating, which can range in value from four or ‘Rookie Rider’ to twenty-two or ‘Ace Rider’, with thirteen or ‘Standard’ being the median Difficulty Rating. If the result is exceeded by three or more, a Critical Success has been achieved and for every three-point threshold on the roll after that, a further Critical Success is achieved. A roll of three on the Feat Pool’ indicates a Critical Failure.

A Wizard-Biker also has Plot Points. In the Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules, these can be spent to perform a ‘Counterstrike’, ‘Defy Physics’ when the Wizard-Biker is riding his maguscycle, ‘Doubletime’ to move extra fast in combat, ‘Interfere’ in the actions of an NPC or other Wizard-Biker, or trigger ‘Natural Healing’.

How does combat work?

Initiative is determined by a simple roll, but after the first round, a player can spend points of his Wizard-Biker’s Daring attribute and then roll a die to change his Initiative value. The more points spent, the larger the die size can be rolled. This will come at a loss of Focus, especially on a given target. Attacks are opposed rolls between a ‘Feat Pool’ of a Weapon Skill, Attribute Die, and Feat Die for the attacker and a ‘Feat Pool’ of the Armour plus the Twitch and Daring attributes. Weapons inflict a base value in terms of damage, but this increases the more Critical Successes a player rolls. Three Critical Successes will also damage the defender’s armour, inflicting a Downgrade to future Defence rolls.

Damage can come from an attack in combat, suffering too much Fatigue, and so on. Wounds are recorded on a Wound Track with each Wound suffered applying a Downgrade to skills and attributes, and ultimately Feats, before the Wizard-Biker is knocked out or killed.

How does magic work?

A Wizard-Biker has a number of Special Powers which can be freely cast. They include Aether Lance, which gives him a lighter-than-air lance he can wield whilst riding his maguscycle; Deadeye’ grants a random number of Upgrades to apply to ranged attacks; Fireball does exactly what you expect; Ghost Hand gives a Wizard-Biker an extra hand to control at range; and Special Powers such as Smoke Cloud and Oil Slick give effects that can be used on the road. Every Special Ability has five Power Levels, so a Wizard-Biker can improve and specialise. In addition to extra effects, increasing the Power Level of a Special Power also increases the size of the Feat Die that a player adds to the ‘Feat Pool’ he rolls for the Special Power. Some twenty-one Special Abilities are detailed and all six sample Wizard-Bikers have three or four Special Abilities.

Do Wizard-Bikers Get Bikes?

Yes. A Wizard-Biker in Wizard Riders has a maguscycle. It has stats for Handling, Build, and Zoom. These are when a Wizard-Biker wants to do something extra with his maguscycle than simply go at top speed. A basic Riding Feat roll is done in two stages. First, a Riding Feat roll to gain Upgrades, and second, the Vehicle Feat roll to do the desired action, modified by the Upgrades previously generated. The rules for chases are supported by a good example of play and they also cover vehicle damage and passenger damage. All of this requires a Bond between the Wizard-Biker and his maguscycle, the process of which is also detailed. This Bond has multiple levels and each level grants a bonus to the bonded rider.

What do you play?

The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start Rules includes the scenario ‘The Vanishing of Dotshire’. The Wizard-Bikers’ club is running low on supplies. The beer is flat, the snacks stale, and the power coils for the members’ maguscycles are running seriously low. When they ride to the village of Dotshire in search of new supplies, they discover it swirled with fog. The Wizard-Bikers must ride into the fog to reach the village and find out what is happening and what caused it. It is a short, single-session scenario.

Is there anything missing?
No. The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start has everything that a Game Master needs to run the included scenario.

Is it easy to prepare?
No. The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start is a different ruleset and will be unfamiliar to most players, so it requires a higher degree of teaching. Also, the Game Master will need to copy out all of the Player Character Wizard-Bikers onto character sheets.

Is it worth it?
Yes. The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start feels a bit underdeveloped in places, but it is a solid introduction to the rules and world of Wizard-Riders. Its combination of setting, Player Character type, and themes manages to be both silly and surprising given the usual gaming content that the publisher releases, but all the more fun for that.

The Wizard Riders: Quick-Start is published by Catalyst Game Labs, and is available to download here.

[Free RPG Day 2026] Age of Vikings Quickstart

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
Age of Vikings Quickstart: Further Adventures in a Land of Sagas and Mystery is the quick-start for Age of Vikings: The Roleplaying Game, the low fantasy, deeply historical game published by Chaosium, Inc. and designed to help tell stories of home, hearth, and honour, myth and magic, and bring new sagas to life.

The Age of Vikings Quickstart is a thirty-nine page, 8.38 MB full colour PDF.

How long will it take to play?
The Age of Vikings Quickstart includes the scenario ‘Belly of the Beast’. It can be played in roughly two hours.

What else do you need to play?
The Age of Vikings Quickstart needs a standard set of polyhedral dice.

Who do you play?
The Age of Vikings Quickstart includes four pre-generated Player Characters. They include two warriors, an archer, and a skaldic poet.

How is a Player Character defined?

A Player Character in the Age of Vikings Quickstart is defined by his name, his Passions and Devotion to a single god, characteristics and skills, and personality. A Player Character’s Passions represent his values and emotional desires, and in play, they can drive him to act (and mechanically grant a bonus) and bring him into conflict with others. He starts with three: Honour, Loyalty (goði), and Love (Family). The seven characteristics are Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power, and Charisma. These are rated between three and eighteen, although the minimum value for Size and Intelligence is eight. Skills include combat skills and standard skills. A Player Character’s Devotion is made to the gods that he most values and can draw upon for inspiration, represented by points of Dedication that grant him a bonus when acting according to their ideals and then spent. For example, the ideals for Baldur are light, happiness, and peace, whilst those for Óðinn are magic, war, and wisdom.

The Player Characters in the Age of Vikings Quickstart are stripped down versions in comparison to those that can be created using the full rules in Age of Vikings: The Roleplaying Game. What is not included are the Spirit Animal, Family details, and extra Devotions that such Player Characters will have. Full versions of the demonstration Player Characters are available, but not all of the rules in Age of Vikings are used in the Age of Vikings Quickstart. An experienced Game Master for Age of Vikings could easily run the scenario in the Age of Vikings Quickstart using standard Player Characters, whether the demonstration versions or ones created by the players.

How do the mechanics work?

The Age of Vikings Quickstart uses the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine as its mechanics and is thus a percentile system. Rolls equal to, or lower than the value of the characteristic roll or the skill, and a character succeeds. A characteristic roll is typically a characteristic multiplied by three, but can be higher or lower depending on difficulty. Any result of ninety-six and above is always a failure and can be a fumble, whilst a roll of one twentieth a Critical success (the full rules also also for a Special success).

Rolls can be augmented with another skill or Passion. A successful augmentation roll will apply a bonus, which will be better with a Critical success. A failed augmentation levies a penalty whilst a Critical failure results in the temporary despair of the Player Character. Devotion points can be spent to gain a bonus and Player Character can also call upon his Wyrd to change his fate. This turns a failed roll into a successful roll, but at the permanent cost of a point of Power. Do this too often and a Player Character’s Wyrd or fate has played out.

How does combat work?
The combat rules in the Age of Vikings Quickstart and Age of Vikings are skill-based. Order of action is based on Dexterity, and during a round, a combatant can move, act or attack, and defend. Attacks can be dodged or parried and armour deducts damage, as does a shield, but only a few points in each location. Damage is done by location, but if the Hit Points in a particular location are reduced to zero, a limb becomes useless, the combatant is left bleeding to death, or knocked unconscious and dying. Damage done to locations is also applied to general Hit Points and reducing those will knock a combatant unconscious. First aid is available, but natural healing takes weeks. (Age of Vikings includes rules for healing magic.)

How does magic work?

The Age of Vikings Quickstart does not include rules for magic. Age of Vikings: The Roleplaying Game details two types of magic. These are Rune magic, which uses the Elder Fúþark and can be cast relatively quickly, and Seiður magic, which requires ritual casting and takes much longer to cast.

What do you play?

The Age of Vikings Quickstart includes the scenario ‘Belly of the Beast’. It beings in media res with the Player Characters waking up to find themselves in a strange tunnel after their boat encountered the kraken! They must extract their boat before it gets crushed and attempt to climb up out of the temple. Fortunately, the Player Characters are not alone in the tunnels and can find allies who will help them as they try and find their way out. They will also encounter monsters. The fight is clearly staged with advice and instructions for the Game Master on when the Player Characters act, what they might do, and how the monsters work. The final scene is treated in the same way.

‘Belly of the Beast’ is short and linear, but it clearly teaches the rules and advises the Game Master on how to handle and stage its encounters. There is some limited opportunity for roleplaying, but the main focus of the scenario is on action and combat. As its title suggests, the action of the scenario takes place within the belly of the Kraken from which the Player Characters must escape. It is a great set-up and the tale of escaping from it is worthy of a saga.

Is there anything missing?
No. The Age of Vikings Quickstart has everything that a Game Master needs to run the included scenario.

Is it easy to prepare?
Yes. The Age of Vikings Quickstart is direct and to the point and the advice makes the rules easy to understand and the various scenes easy to run.

Is it worth it?
Yes. The Age of Vikings Quickstart is a well done, solid introduction to the basics of Age of Vikings: The Roleplaying Game. It clearly explains both rules and the action of the scenario.

The Age of Vikings Quickstart is published by Chaosium, Inc., and is available to download here.

[Free RPG Day 2026] From Here to There

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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From Here to There: A Free RPG Day OSR Hexcrawl is a simple, straightforward hexcrawl. It is setting agnostic and can be dropped easily into a Game Master’s campaign, ideally somewhere in between locations that the Player Characters might want to travel to, hence the title. It is published by Third Kingdom Games, best known for its ongoing Populated Hexes series collected in Populated Hexes Monthly Year One, Populated Hexes Monthly Year Two, Populated Hexes Monthly Year Three, and Populated Hexes Monthly Year Four. What this means is that the publisher has form when it comes to creating hexcrawls. The scenario is written for Player Characters of First to Fourth Level and for use with two different rules systems. One is Old School Essentials from Necrotic Gnome, whilst the other is Bree-YARC, retroclone inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, but still based on the ‘B/X’ version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. What this means is that mechanically, From Here to There, will work with a lot of other retroclones, whilst in terms of its story and setting, it is easily adapted to other fantasy roleplaying games and would work just as well. This is because the fantasy of the setting is itself low key. The Player Characters are going to be facing bears, brigands, deer, Orcs, skeletons, zombies, and so on. The only creature that is particular to Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy is the Stirge and that is easily replaced.

From Here to There is set in a heavily forested valley, some thirty-to-thirty-six miles wide and about fifty miles in length. Roughly every twenty miles along the rough track that runs along its length is a camp site where the occasional merchant caravans of mule-trains usually stop. There are rumours of a ancient magical fountain that can restore the dead to life to be found in the valley, barrows the final resting places of ancient kings are believed to dot the sides of the valley, rumours of an Orc tribe preying on anyone who leaves the road, and mumblings of brigands attacking the merchant caravans. The Game Master can simply drop the valley into her campaign setting and just have it as a route from ‘a’ to ‘b’, but there are several ways in which it can be used. The Player Characters might follow up on rumours to search for treasure in the valley or have a map suggesting that there is treasure in the region; the Player Characters might be hired to protect a merchant caravan; or they might be hired to discover who is ambushing the merchant-caravans. Or even a mix of the three.

Across the valley, there are twenty-one sites of potential interest to the Player Characters. Their descriptions are marked as either ‘Landmarks’, ‘Hidden’, or ‘Secrets’. ‘Landmarks’ are found without needing to search for them; hidden features need to be searched for, but this takes rather than requiring a die roll; and secret features can only be found if they are searched for and a die roll is made. Exploring the valley is built around the rumour table and the encounter table as the Player Characters wander from one hex to the next. Some locations have a set encounter, such as a solitary grizzly bear who will only bother the Player Characters to decide to camp out in his hex or an area where a rare herb grows, but others contain more random encounters. The more obvious such encounters include the camp sites where there is a chance of a caravan having made a stop, but others include the possibility of an abandoned bear trap being triggered, disturbing a nest of yellowjackets and getting stung, and so on. Others though, serve the general plot of From Here to There, in particular, pointing to the activities of the brigands. For example, the Player Characters encounter a caravan that is later the victim of the brigands’ predations. It is also in  encounters such as these that are the most opportunities for roleplaying. Lastly, there are two locations that are more detailed with individual maps and will make more time to play through, one of which is the brigands’ base of operations.

Both of the set locations use cartography by Dyson Logos, so are very good. The scenario has two other maps though, both of the valley. One is a simple hex-grid map using mapping symbol, so can be used as a map for the Player Characters. The other map is pictorial and actually pleasingly attractive. It is a pity that the players are unlikely to get to see it, because it is for the Game Master’s eyes only (though if adapted to a VTT, the Game Master could reveal the map hex by hex).

Physically, From Here to There is decently done. The maps are good and the artwork, though not extensive, does a reasonable job. One notable factor which sticks out is that the stat blocks for both monsters and NPCs are combined for both Old School Essentials and Bree-YARC. The stats for the latter are done in red, so do stick out a bit, at least initially. The Game Master will get used to it.

As written, it is fair to say that From Here to There: A Free RPG Day OSR Hexcrawl is perhaps a bit bland. However, that affords the Game Master flexibility in terms of how it is used. It can be used as an area to explore or as area to be travelled through again and again, with perhaps the Player Characters learning new rumours each time and uncovering more of its secrets as they travel back and forth. The Game Master will probably want to add some detail and flavour to the NPCs that the Player Characters might run into, as not all of them are detailed as they might be. The scenario is low-key enough that the Game Master has scope to adapt the setting to her own campaign, changing names and encounter types as necessary. Overall, however it is used, From Here to There: A Free RPG Day OSR Hexcrawl is an enjoyably low-key, low fantasy scenario.