Adventure awaits! Or was it fierce battles?

Salt Flats is a 31x34 hex-large battlemap of an unforgiving, sun-baked plain, low on cover that you’ll have to use strategically, and full of devious obstacles, as the remnants of what once must have been a great lake appear shallow but are deadly and deep. With little cover, you have to be fast or willing to take some punches to win!

The map is compatible with the official hex sizes and nomenclature of BATTLETECH, but can also be freely used in any other wargaming context. The map is provided as one large image, as well as four equally sized 15x17 inch images, which is the standard map size used in official Battletech products.

It comes print-ready (300 dpi PDF files) as well as high-quality JPGs for your convenience. For ease of use with home printers, the map is also provided as A4 sheets in PDF format. Be aware that these do come with significant bleed!

You’ve attracted the attention of a demon, an intangible being of pure malice who wants nothing more than to cause as much misery as possible, starting with you.

Luckily, you can do magic.

Choose a ritual, a focus, and a binding, and repeat them until your demon leaves or for the rest of your life.

Pick Up is a one-page comedy/parody RPG to be used as a party or drinking game about bad decisions and worse pickup lines.

2024-Compatible Quick GM Reference Guide

This reference guide is built to help GMs quickly find the information they need to keep the game moving, with less time digging through rulebooks and more time being an epic storyteller.

The guide highlights the information GMs reach for most when running an adventure or answering player questions. It is presented in a clear, easy-to-navigate format, so you can find what you need in the moment without taking on a level of Exhaustion.

Thoughtful layout and visual cues make key information easy to spot at a glance, while illustrations reinforce important rules and concepts. It is designed to be practical first, without feeling like someone cast Wall of Text.

Playing D&D should be fun, so you’ll also find touches of humor, pop-culture references, and visual elements throughout, making this more than just another rules document.

This PDF includes both full-color and printer-friendly black-and-white versions. It is designed for standard letter-size viewing and printing. If you would like to print it as a booklet or spread on 11x17 tabloid paper, choose your printer’s booklet, multiple pages per sheet, or tabloid layout options in the print dialog. Availability depends on your printer and paper settings.

2024-Compatible Quick Player Help Guide

This reference guide is built to help players spend less time figuring out rules and more time having fun by using our tools.

The guide highlights information players reach for most by presenting it in a clear, easy-to-navigate format. Everything is organized for quick access, so you can find what you need in the moment without breaking character.

Thoughtful layout and visual cues make key information easy to spot at a glance, while illustrations reinforce important rules and concepts. It’s designed to be practical first—without feeling like someone cast Wall of Text.

Playing D&D should be fun which is why you'll also find touches of humor, fun pop-culture references, and visual elements throughout, making this more than just another rules document.

This PDF includes both full-color and printer-friendly black and white versions. It is designed for standard letter-size viewing and printing. If you would like to print it as a booklet or spread on 11x17 tabloid paper, choose your printer’s booklet, multiple pages per sheet, or tabloid layout options in the print dialog. Availability depends on your printer and paper settings.

Cortex Lite is a sleek and simple tabletop role-playing game compatible with the Cortex Prime RPG. Created to teach readers and players the acclaimed Cortex system, it’s also a “generic” ruleset you can use to run fiction-first, character-centered games of exciting conflicts and entertaining challenges in any setting or genre!

As an example of how you can customize Cortex Lite for your own settings, this download also includes LiteSide, a fantasy space opera expansion for the game that allows you to play rebel heroes resisting an oppressive galactic empire. Take on the role of a roguish smuggler, impetuous planetary royalty, a farmhand from the fringes of the galaxy, a devoted android, a hotshot pilot, a deadly bounty hunter, a secretive mentor, the last of an extinct order of psychic knights, and more.

Download now and get Cortex Lite in multiple formats (pages, spreads, and booklet PDFs, plus Markdown), plus character sheets (with a form-fillable option), and a Compatible with Cortex Lite Logo you can use when making your own licensed Cortex games (yes, this is us granting you permission, subject to limitations of the larger Cortex Community or Commercial licenses).

Find out more about Cortex, which powered some of the most beloved licensed roleplaying games of the past twenty years, by picking up the Cortex Prime Game Handbook. 

Join our community of players, GMs, and creators on the Cortex Discord

Cortex Lite is a production of Xine Ink, publishers of Xine, the world's greatest (and so far only) Cortex community 'zine!

In the shadowed depths of the Virellen Wilds, where the trees twist like serpents and the moon rarely touches the ground, stalks a creature both feared and revered—Rhazhka Thornmaw. Her fur ripples in hues of brown, orange, and yellow, blending seamlessly with the forest’s autumn canopy. Black claws curve like obsidian sickles, and her many horns crown her head like a twisted diadem. Her red eyes glow with primal awareness, and her teeth—razor-sharp—flash only when prey is near.

Rhazhka is a beastkin, born of ancient bloodlines that mingle mortal flesh with the wild’s fury. Some say she was shaped by druidic rites gone awry. Others whisper she is the last of a forgotten race that once ruled the forest floor. Whatever the truth, she is a hunter unmatched—tracking with silence, striking with precision, and commanding beasts with a guttural tongue known only to the wild.

She wears partial armor scavenged from fallen foes, reforged to fit her feral frame. Though she rarely enters the Guild Hall, she is a recognized dungeoneer. Contracts that involve cursed beasts, unnatural predators, or forest corruption are her domain. She does not speak often, and when she does, it is in clipped phrases or growls. But her loyalty to the Guild is unquestioned.

Rhazhka Thornmaw is not tame. She is not civilized. But she is a force of nature—and nature does not ask permission to act.

A millennium ago, the city of Lydiphon was dragged underground by its Sorcerer King in a desperate attempt to avert disaster. The ritual failed. The city lies shattered in a network of volcanic caves, its marble buildings half-fused with the rock, its people long dead. Only the mechanical constructs remain, endlessly maintaining ruins no one inhabits.

Almost no one. A clan of kobolds has settled among the wreckage, farming fungus and arguing about mangoes. A blind hermit searches for mechanical eyes. And somewhere in the dark, the Rocktopus hunts.

The Lost City of Lydiphon is a 48-page dungeon adventure for Shadowdark RPG, suitable for characters of level 1–2 and easily adapted to any old-school ruleset. It features 30 keyed rooms across five distinct areas, complete encounter tables, original monsters, magic items, and faction-based roleplaying opportunities with a divided kobold clan.

Designed as the first level of a megadungeon with two exits to the depths below. Contains all necessary monster statistics, maps, and treasure — no additional books required beyond the Shadowdark QuickStart rules.

Tideshear is a small city sitting on the coast of the North-Eastern tip of
the Queendom of Aeforenn. Consisting of eight small islands and the
coastal environs, home to the Empire’s most prestigious Academy, and
near the ancient, enchanted Faebanndrim forest, the population of the
city swells in the summer as pilgrims come for the forest, and in the other
months when students come from all over the Empire to attend school at
the Lunet-Galliard Academy.
But even a seemingly idyllic and peaceful place such as Tideshear is not
immune to plots, dangers, monsters, and dark magics.

Broken Empire: Tideshear is a system agnostic Setting Book, containing
all the information a Game Master needs to incorporate the City of
Tideshear into their own game system and campaign.

Game Masters can look forward to descriptions of:

-The City of Tideshear and the eight Island Districts, their character,
more than 75 short descriptions of the important places within the city
and the people that own or operate them.

-The Lunet-Galliard Academy, its history, principles, staff, students, and
how it operates.

-The Old Academy Ruins, a place from which many strange threats may
emerge.

-The Faebanndrim forest and surroundings, why pilgrims visit this holy and
enchanted place, the Summerbloom Court of Fae and the Red Brine Hag
Coven in the corrupted boughs of the Grimspinney.

-Ten Adventure Seeds - short one or two page adventure frameworks for
each area separated into sections of Opening Act, The Plot Thickens,
Climax, and What Happens Next, offering sample adventures showcasing
the kinds of threats to the region.

-Optional Faction Rules for the region.

-A primer on the Peoples of the Broken Empire, of which Tideshear is a part.

-A primer on the Gods of the setting, their Domains, Clergy, and Orders Militant.

-Maps of Aeforenn, Tideshear, and the Old Academy Ruins.

-Beer and Wine Menus for the various wineries and breweries in the city.

Brammek Dorran was born in the frostbitten reaches of the Dwanen Mountains, where the wind howls like wolves and the stone itself seems to resist life. Forged in hardship, he was among the Emberblood dwarves—clans known for their volcanic tempers and unmatched strength. Bare-chested in blizzards, wrestling cave beasts for sport, and wielding weapons that would break lesser men, Brammek became a living echo of the mountain’s fury.

His red mane and thick goatee mark him as a son of the Emberblood line, and his stature—short but impossibly broad—makes him a wall of muscle and grit. His weapon of choice is a massive saber, curved and brutal, paired with a wooden shield that bears a jagged blade protrusion—used not for defense, but for offense. Yet even without steel, he is lethal. His fists have shattered bone, his roar has scattered brigands, and his presence alone has turned the tide of skirmishes.

Though many dwarves remain in their ancestral halls, Brammek chose a different path. He descended from the mountains and joined the Dungeoneer’s Guild, believing that his strength should serve more than survival—it should serve the people. He takes contracts without hesitation, especially ones that threaten villages.

He does not speak often, but when he does, it is with purpose. And when he fights, the mountains remember.