Gearing Up for the Journey

 The Hero's Journey, Second Edition is beginning to build a lot of supplements. We've got the core book, The Hero's Companion, The Hero's Grimiore, Of Beasts Brave and True already out there with Adventures & Interludes, By Feather and Coop, Betwixt and Between: A Book of Fairie Lore, and Mischief and Merriment announced. That's seven supplements, plus a core book - not to mention Skaldic Sagas: Heroic Journeys in the Viking Age, which uses the same rules set to tell stories set in a mythopoetic pre-Christian Scandinavian cultures. We've also got more planned for the future.

Some material is repeated in these supplements and that is intentional. One of my favorite roleplaying games and one that was formative for my love of the hobby was West End Games' The Star Wars Roleplaying Game. They were famous for reprinting stats and info across many books and it was often seen as padding or filling pages, but in hindsight I don't think that was the case and its certainly not the case for my own product line.

I loathe when a game supplement refers a reader to another supplement. It makes me feel like they're trying redirect me to spend more money on top of the game's core book and the supplement I'm currently reading. As if I'm some how out of the loop if I don't have all the books. But with West End Games' Star Wars, I never felt like I was somehow missing out. I was part of the game, part of the community, and part of the fun, regardless of what books I did or didn't own. I was included.

I wanted to promote this ethos in The Hero's Journey. That's why the Pugilist alternate for the Swordsman Archetype appears in Of Beasts Brave and True. That way if you don't have The Hero's Companion in which it originally appears you still get full use of the product you've already purchased. The spell Cold Both Fierce and Fell appears originally in The Hero's Companion and is reprinted in Betwixt and Between, as is the Knight Archetype variant Feysworn. 

This is intentional and by design. If you play The Hero's Journey, Second Edition, then you're a part of the game, the community, and you have my thanks and you most certainly have a place at the table. So grab the gear at hand and maybe you'll pick up a new treasure or two along the way. Let's have an adventure.

The Journey into 2021

 Well, 2020 is almost over and for many of us it's been one brutal tribulation after another. Personally, my method of choice when it comes to dealing with stress is to write and I hope that translates into something that both benefits and excites you. So, keeping in mind that 2020 is the Year of Madness and may have an impact on the exact timeline of releases, I wanted to give you a preview of what we've got coming next year for The Hero's Journey, Second Edition.

Again, keeping in mind that 2020 leave a long and nasty trail of complications, here's what we're planning for The Hero's Journey, Second Edition:

Adventures and Interludes: This book has been in development since before the launch of the Kickstarter which funded the creation of The Hero's Journey, Second Edition. The more successful that Kickstarter was, the larger this book became. Well, the fans maxed it out. Adventures and Interludes includes eight pre-written scenarios for The Hero's Journey, Second Edition. Flavored to the themes and tone of THJ2e, it highlights the kinds of stories the game is designed to tell and the elements of play that are important to me as a designer. They include:

• The Curse of Cormac's Hollow: In the forested northern wilderness a small village fears the coming of winter and the terrible curse of a legend-shrouded witch. But not all is as it seems, and and an ancient pact with the Fey Queen of Winter will be their doom if a small band of heroes doesn't find a way to get out of a promise made a hundred years ago by desperate settlers.
• Goblin Promises: Dwarf miners, bound by promise to the stone-dwelling kobolds deep beneath their mine, have been banished. Now, they turn to outsiders to find out what they have done to betray their oath. But what sleeps beneath that mountain could change the world forever.
• The Boggart's Boy: Summer celebration has come to the halfling community of Westwick! But young lad Coby and his strange new friend are stirring up trouble, and amidst the festivities the players will need to find a way to save the boy's soul.
• Errants of Dunvegan: A young prince not yet ready to ascend the throne must prove the strength in his heart by confronting a terrible legacy born in blood and bound forever to an ancestral blade. Lest he learn the lessons of the true nature of a hero from some errant travelers, his kingdom may be consumed by the wrath of a dragon.
• Astride the Beanstalk: A sky giant, fallen from the sky, seeks aid from the small earth-bound folk to reconcile a terrible schism with his children, recover a beloved friend, and maybe even reconcile with those who have turned their back on him and chosen lives of chaos and destruction.
• The Midnight Rider of Loch Dearmad: After recovering an ancient magical sword, the heroes are plagued with nightmares of a terrible midnight rider who craves blood. If they do not find a way to free themselves from this accursed weapon their nightmares will rise to the waking world and drag them down into an abyss of fear and carnage.
• Beastspeaker, Birdsinger: A kindly old Wizard finds himself betrayed and stripped of his magic by a bitter apprentice. In the wake of the strange enchantment that prevents him from drawing upon his power a small team of heroes will navigate the world of birds and beasts to stop the young, imbittered sorcerer from destroying the harmony of the wilderness forever.

    In addition to the eight adventures, there's several new Heirlooms and Aspects, and more than a few new strange creatures. Everything in this book is designed specifically for use with The Hero's Journey, Second Edition core rule book. Adventures and Interludes contains enough material for months of heroic gaming and I hope you'll love using the material in this book as I did writing it.

Next up, with an aim for a Q2 release in both Print-on-Demand and PDF is By Feather and Coop. This short supplement will bring the feathered fancies of chickens to The Hero's Journey. You heard me right: chickens. As whimsical as spring itself, this supplement will introduce a new Lineage (the Bantam), new magic, new Heirlooms, new optional rules, and a few new creatures. A bit of light fun that can be used to add a bit of levity to your legendarium while still remaining 100% balanced with existing material for The Hero's Journey, Second Edition.

The third quarter of 2021 is where things start to get even more exciting. Continuing the partnership with Gallant Knight Games, we're hoping to launch a small Kickstarter to fund the publication of Betwixt and Between: A Book of Fairie Lore for THJ2e. This is a massive book. To give you a comparison, the core rules for The Hero's Journey, Second Edition clocks in at around 70,000 words. Betwixt and Between is over 60,000 words. It's chock full of fey and fairy goodness for your legendarium. In addition to cover art by Jon Hodgson and interior art by Nic Giacondino, you'll have new content like...

• Five new Lineages: The immortal Ever-Child, the melancholy Sea Born, the heroic Summer Born, the feral Wildlings, and the frigid Winter Born.
• Three variant Archetypes: The Rhymer, a bard variant who can hear the song of fate and foresee what is yet to come. The Fey Knight, previously appearing in The Hero's Companion but presented here for those who don't have that product, they have sworn their serve to the strange nobles of the fey court. The Enchantress, a wizard variant who has not only mastered the mysteries of fairie magic, but can steal the very essence of such incantations and claim them as their own.
• New Character Options: Become one of the fey-touched, and have your character's destiny altered forever. Whether you're the Seventh Son of the Seventh Son, served at the forge of Wayland himself to become a Smith-Crafter, or have become the uncanny Marquis de Carabas himself, an encounter with the fey may change your life forever!
• New Rules and Information: The nature of the fey and their strange realm of Fairie is explored in detail. This includes crossing the mysterious and wild border between the Mortal Realm and Fairie, whether it be through mushroom rings, or even in your own dreams. The many domains of Fairie, from the grand Summer Lands and Winter's Hollow, to lesser (but no less legendary) realms like Avalon, Tir Na Nog, Wayland's Forge, or the Pixie's Parlor.
• New Fey: Of course you knew there'd be new fey creatures! Twenty five new fey are introduced in Betwixt and Between. Ranging from the clever little Flower Fairies to the brutal Lord of the Wild Hunt, you'll explore the vast diversity and unsettling strangeness that is the Fair Folk.
• New Magic: In addition to including the spell Cold Both Fierce and Fell (which originally appeared in The Hero's Grimiore and is reprinted here for easy reference), you'll also find a plethora of ways to protect yourself against the fey, what happens when you suffer a Fairy Curse (and how to break it), and the strange magic of Fairie Charms that sometimes comes to Changelings.
• New Magical Items: New Aspects and Heirlooms will be introduced. Whether you're wearing strange Goblinized Armor, or drawing on the uncanny magic imbued in a child's tooth that has yet to be claimed by the Tooth Fairy, you'll find all manner of strange artifacts in the last pages of Betwixt and Between.

We're hoping that if Betwixt and Between funds, we'll be able to get it out to you by Q4 of 2021. The book is written, the cover art is done, and its currently in editing.

Our other Q3 news is the release of the short supplement Mischief and Merriment, which will deal with festivals and celebrations. You'll find a few new human variant Lineages, along with four new Archetype variants: The swordsman variant Jongleur, the bard variant Mummer, the burglar variant Prestidigitator, and the yeoman variant Paladin. We'll also explore seasonal festivals that can be easily inserted into your legendarium and allow player characters to take unique Festival Actions that have an impact on their future adventures in the seasons to come. There will, of course, be a few new creatures - including the appearance of a mythic being or two commonly associated with the holidays. Finally, it'll have new Heirlooms and Aspects, like the Gift-Given Aspect which can only be received and never earned by spending your own Myth Points.

By Q4, we hope that Betwixt and Between will be in your hands and that will give you new content for The Hero's Journey to look forward to through out the year. Don't be surprised if you see the occassional THJ2e article pop up now and again in Gallant Knight Games' periodical TinyZine. While it focuses on the wonderful minimialist TinyD6 system, publisher Alan Bahr has graciously offered me a few pages to help fans of the game get their fix between quarterly releases.

Now, like anyone else, you're probably wondering "Yeah, that sounds great.... but what about after that?" Have no fear. We've got plenty of content still in the works that isn't mentioned above and I think that the journey has only just begun.,