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by Patrick McElfresh

Hey - look up. No, not at the ceiling, at the top of this page. Yeah, that banner. It's the End of Year support drive. Want some Geek Gold? Drop $15 into the pot of your favorite website. :)

No, I'm not actually affiliated with the 'Geek. I just think this is one of the best sites and communities around, so after missing the deadline one year, I set up an annual contribution. If you can afford to, I would suggest you do the same.

It's another exciting bundle week, with some Shadowrun, Worlds without Number, and Classic Traveller. Let's get bundling.

Bundle of Holding
:kF::ki::kr::ks::kt:<< these are the links Runs from 12/1/2025 to 12/30/2025

Coming through for us chummers, Bundle of Holding dropped a Cyber Monday Shadowrun 5th Edition bundle (#3). This bundle adds to the two last week, bringing a number of missions back to our 'decks, if we happened to miss them last time (in June of last year).

The lower tier costs $15 for three scenarios, Splintered State, Lethal Forces, and Toxic Alleys; five convention missions, Boundless Mercy, Firing Line, London Falling, and Sprawl Wilds.

The upper tier is priced at $30 and adds five more scenarios that involve the Cognitive Fragmentation Disorder metaplot - Stolen Souls, Lockdown, Dark Terrors, Bloody Business, and Market Panic; Denver Adventures - Denver Adventure 1: Serrated Edge, Denver Adventure 2: False Flag, and Denver Adventure 3: Ripping Reality.

:kS::ke::kc::ko::kn::kd: Runs from 12/3/2025 to 12/24/2025

Next up is the Worlds Without Number bundle, and all new offering from Bundle Watch frequent publisher Sine Nomine Publishing and designer Kevin Crawford.

It's the distant future, and it's up to you to survive and thrive in the fantasy ruins. This bundle offers the whole line to date in a one tier bundle priced at $13. This includes Worlds Without Number, The Atlas of the Latter Earth, and frontier province gazatteer The Diocesi of Montfroid.

Fanatacal
:kF::ki::kr::ks::kt: Runs from 12/4/2025:?block: to 1/28/2026

Last up this week is a Traveller (Classic) bundle from Fanatical. I thought this might be a re-offer, but I don't see where I covered it...so maybe I'm just confused. Fulfillment is through DriveThruRPG.

Thanks to @Old Man Yells at Cloud for the tip on this one.

Tier 1 - 3 total items - $2
•Adventure 0: The Imperial Fringe
•Book 0: Introduction to Traveller
•Traveller Starter Set


Tier 2 - 24 total items - $9
•Supplement 5: Lightning Class Cruisers
•Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium
•Supplement 3: The Spinward Marches
•Supplement 2: Animal Encounters
•Supplement 1: 1001 Characters
•Short Adventure 8: Memory Alpha
•Book 4: Mercenary
•Books 1-3: Classic Traveller
•Alien Module 3: Vargr
•Alien Module 2: K'kree
•Alien Module 1: Aslan
•Double Adventure 2: Across the Bright Face/Mission on Mithril
•Double Adventure 1: Annic Nova/Shadows
•Adventure 7: Broadsword
•Adventure 6: Expedition to Zhodane
•Adventure 5: Trillion Credit Squadron
•Adventure 4: Leviathan
•Adventure 3: Twilight's Peak
•Adventure 2: Research Station Gamma
•Adventure 1: The Kinunir
•The Traveller Book


Tier 3 - 61 total items - $16
•Supplement 9: Fighting Ships
•Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M)
•Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats
•Supplement 6: 76 Patrons
•Supplement 13: Veterans
•Supplement 12: Forms and Charts
•Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z)
•Supplement 10: The Solomani Rim
•Special Supplement 4: Lost Rules of Traveller
•Special Supplement 3: Missiles in Traveller
•Special Supplement 2: Exotic Atmospheres
•Double Adventure 7: A Plague of Perruques/Stranded on Arden
•Double Adventure 6: Divine Intervention/Night of Conquest
•Double Adventure 5: The Chamax Plague/Horde
•Double Adventure 4: Marooned/Marooned Alone
•Double Adventure 3: Death Station/The Argon Gambit
•Book 8: Robots
•Book 7: Merchant Prince
•Book 6: Scouts
•Book 5: High Guard
•Alien Module 8: Darrians
•Alien Module 7: Hivers
•Alien Module 6: Solomani
•Alien Module 5: Droyne
•Alien Module 4: Zhodani
•Adventure 13: Signal GK
•Adventure 12: Secret of the Ancients
•Adventure 11: Murder on Arcturus Station
•Adventure 10: Safari Ship
•Adventure 9: Nomads of the World-Ocean
•Adventure 8: Prison Planet
•Tarsus
•Beltstrike
•The Atlas of the Imperium (2016 edition included)
•Alien Realms
•The Spinward Marches Campaign
•The Traveller Adventure

by Marcus Bone

The Sundered Skies is a game world set a thousand years after the catastrophic destruction of another world, leaving only the shattered remains of its floating lands. Here you will find humans, elves, dwarves and more attempting to rebuild society in a world where even the glow of the sky can drive you insane.

At a time when there are hundreds of different roleplaying games readily available at our finger-tips, and where everyone’s ‘top five’ seems to change with the next great wave of gaming ingenuity, I thought it might be worth taking a moment to stop and look back on one of those likely forgotten settings that definitely deserves - at least in my opinion - more attention. Sundered Skies was one of the first games released by the British publisher Triple Ace Games in the late 00s. Written by Dave Blewer (one of the ‘Aces’ of Triple Ace Games), it utilises the 'fast and furious' Savage Worlds^ game mechanics to bring to life a fascinating setting that might not have fit any other ruleset at the time.

Written and presented similarly to other Savage Worlds releases*, the 180-page core rulebook includes everything you need to dive straight into the Sundered Skies, barring, of course, the core game mechanics**. It might be somewhat of a surprise, given the approach of the time for bigger and chunkier rulebooks, but in this slim A5-sized book, you not only get all the unique setting rules and everything you need to create Sundered Skies characters, but also a whole Plot Point*** campaign.

[heading]A Content Breakdown[/heading]
The Sundered Skies Setting book is organised into a dozen sections, with the first third of these dedicated to the players. This first chapters provide an overview of the setting, an introduction to its citizens and social structures, and, of course, most importantly, rules on how to create and equip your own Sundered Skies heroes. After a brief interlude into the magic and religion of the world, we get a rundown of the setting-specific mechanics, which covers everything from the effects of Glowmadness (an affliction that comes from being exposed to the glow of the Void for too long) through to managing your own skyship (as you travel that same Void).

It’s from page 63 onwards, however, that we get into the heart of the setting. Here we are in Game Master-only territory, and while I won’t delve so low as to provide spoilers, I have to say that everything revealed about the history of the Sundered Skies and its potential future (if the player characters do not intervene, of course) is both satisfying and intriguing in the same breath.

From this ‘A World in Hell’ (a very aptly named section indeed), the book then deep-dives into the setting’s central locations, detailing their history, people, and the mysteries that may be uncovered there. This section alone holds enough fantastic ideas and interesting tidbits to keep a gaming group going for many sessions of play, and it is therefore a pleasant surprise when you realise that you’ve not even started with the oh-so world-changing Plot Point campaign that’s included here as well.
Talking about this campaign, the Plot Point is a series of 35+ Savage Tales (i.e. scenario seeds) that will lead the characters through an epic adventure of forgotten lore, lost heroes, and potentially world-changing events. Suffice to say, what these tales lack in detail is more than made up for in their diversity, challenges and the opportunity for great gaming. Better yet, not all of these Tales directly relate to the overarching campaign (and those that are, are clearly marked), so there’s also plenty of opportunity for a Game Master to throw in one of the other published Sundered Skies adventures or even their own scenarios.

[heading]So, what’s so special about Sundered Skies?[/heading]
Well, there is something in the setting and its style that meshes well with my personal sensibilities and gaming tastes. In some ways, the whole text feels both comfortably open and yet distinctly focused on a different type of post-catastrophe fantasy roleplaying. Call it a ‘cozy apocalypse’ if you like, but there is just something entertaining about the Sundered Skies. Give me flying skyships, swashbuckling adventures and a good smattering of demonic horrors, and I’m all in!

Thinking it over further, I have to say the whole setting and its approach to execution are both familiar and unique in interpretation. In fact, you could say that this openness is what really appeals to an aging gamer like me the most. I say that as one week, I can easily run a scenario focused on a single voyage across the open ocean (erk, I mean skies) while the next it's just as possible to tell an intense political mystery that never leaves a single building, all without having to think too much about how the mechanics might work or whether these story feel 'in theme'.

As written, the Sundered Skies setting encourages you to equally run a travel-heavy adventure (where the characters zip from one isle to the next in some great cause) or dark and dangerous dungeon delves (in which the characters face the horrors of the past). From a delectable clash of high fantasy tropes in a low fantasy world, to the corrupting influence of the skies themselves, the world as a whole is set up as an antagonist to the heroes, pulling them towards the adventure but threatening their destruction in the same breath.

I think it’s also important to mention that while the majority of the playable species are those you’d typically find in your ‘normal’ fantasy game, most here are presented with twists. For example, the Elves have a plant-based heritage, and no qualms, it seems, creating a servant race of ‘uplifted’ animals to work for them, while the Glowborn may be what comes when the perpetual void glow changes rather than destroys. There’s so much mystery and adventure to be had from this book alone that while a few additional scenarios were released in the years following Sundered Skies' release, they aren’t really necessary to deliver a great time at the table****.

Having read this setting book several times, I’m constantly impressed by just how much it covers in such a small page count. That said, this approach – focusing closely on the details – leaves little room for anything close to extravagance in its use of language. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of descriptive detail, but the emphasis is on facts and detail rather than spending too much time building a fully rounded world. *****

So, in summary, go track down a copy of this setting book! Even if Savage Worlds isn’t your ‘cup of tea’, the world, story and style of the Sundered Skies should appeal to anyone interested in exploring something other than your typical fantasy experience!


^ - Savage Worlds was one of those systems growing in popularity around this period, at least in my locality and burgeoning social media circles.

* Note 1 – I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Savage Worlds has a specific design aesthetic, but pick up any of the SW setting books, no matter which of the many publishers it might hail from, and you will get a very similar design, content layout and book structure. None of this is bad by any stretch of the imagination, but looking at it now, this approach does feel a little dated.

** Note 2 – Sundered Skies was released to be played under the Savage Worlds Explorer Edition (SWEX) rules. I believe part of the agreement to licensees was that the core mechanics would be available via a rulebook released by Savage Worlds’ owners, Pinnacle Entertainment Press. This was designed to be cheap and readily available, at a rock-bottom price of something like $10 for the printed book, if I recall correctly.

*** Note 3 – You can think of Plot Point campaigns as a series of interconnected mini-adventures (called Savage Tales), designed for the Game Master to flesh out into individual scenarios. These campaigns usually cover setting-changing events, and tell a series of stories that focus on the player characters as heroes in their own epics.

**** Note 4 – I’ll caveat that by saying the Sundered Skies Companion is definitely worth getting, as it provides more detail on several aspects of the setting and society among the skies.

***** Note 5 – This sort of detail, I suppose, was meant to come from the other supplements released for the setting, such as the Island Guides. Unfortunately, whether due to interest, sales, or just other opportunities, we only saw a couple of such products produced.

by ced1106g

Overview: Deep Below is essentially a scaled-down version of "Five Leagues from the Borderlands". If you don't have time for a long campaign, don't have a lot of miniatures (I think HeroQuest should work!) and terrain, or just want to do some dungeoncrawling (you do get a settlement to visit and improve between delves!), Deep Below is an inexpensive set of rules for miniature skirmish games in a dungeon. (If you don't have dungeon terrain, I think you can "translate" the dungeon terrain rules to something above ground. Or pick up Battle System's Dungeon terrain set!) The ruleset is designed so you can use Five Leagues rules in Deep Below, and vice-versa.

Your Miniatures: Deep Below has made an effort for the enemies to use any monster miniature. While most generic fantasy skirmish games call for specific miniatures (eg. orcs), Deep Below provides Combat Profiles (Speed, Combat SKill, Damage modifiers, Toughness, and Armor) and Traits (eg. Fearless, Poison) so you can select a profile and traits that match best your miniature collection. However, enemies do have class types: grunts, elite, and leader, so you will want to design your enemies appropriately (eg. an armored warrior, ork, and goblin for HeroQuest). For boss and solo monsters, the game has Side Quests, which include the Enemy Champion, and the Roaming Horror (and you can use Aberrations or other rules from the original Five Leagues book).

Characters: The races in Deep Below are: Human, Derzkan (goblinish things), Dwarves, Grey Elves, and Weaslings (or any bitey anthro). Again, you may use characters from Five Leagues, with minor conversions (eg. Deep Below does not use Proficiencies, so Deep Below characters moving onto a Five Leagues campaign will gain Proficiencies normally).

Scenarios: Scenarios boil down to "find five things", referred to as Battlefield Features, with plenty of tables of variants thrown in. For example, the Notable Location Table may say the scenario is in the Grey Elf ruins or have Alerted Foes, and add a Complication and Reward for victory. The scenarios don't have the specific thematic variation that the original Five Leagues had (eg. raiding an enemy lair). The four types of features are: Peculiar Features, Investigations, Wanderers, and Noise. (Noise are hidden markers that represent enemies and are added as a scenario continues.) You may check for Difficult Battles, or add a Side Quest. These are generated during table setup. Essentially, you use the same generator for a scenario, but have many tables that "make things interesting".

Gaming Table and your Terrain: The game system suggests a 3x3 table, but it's just a suggestion. 2x2 tables will have "quicker" games, and 4x4 areas will let you "move around and dodge enemies". Terrain on the board is determined randomly, and, again, presented more like suggestions than anything required. You'll still end up with a "large underground cavern with ruins and multiple smaller areas" more than the RPG (and HeroQuest) board design of a dungeon subdivided into separate small rooms that you kick down the door. If you don't have an extensive set of dungeon terrain, you should be able to translate the terrain to something above-ground, though you'd still want some house-sized structures (eg. ruins or abandoned houses). Deep Below divides terrain into generic abstract types: Individual (eg. a barrel or mushroom; provides Cover from ranged attacks); Block (eg. huge boulder, cannot be entered into); Area (eg. ruins, rubble, forests, provides Cover, is Difficult terrain, other rules); Field (eg. shallow lakes), Linear (eg. walls, Cover and other rules).

Combat: Eh, I'll be lazy and refer you to the "Five Leagues from the Borderlands" reviews, as combat is similar enough. Throw dice and stuff. Whee. As noted, in addition to placing enemies on the board, the Noise mechanics add unrevealed enemies as Noise markers to the game board. Resolving these Noise markers counts toward scenario victory, so bloodthirsty players should be satisfied.

Rune Magic: Deep Below's Rune Magic, however, is a definite difference from "Five League's" magic system. Even non-Mystic characters can cast runes. Runes replace spells, and essentially boil down to six Functions: Binding (cannot Move), Destruction (damage), Healing, Repulsion (pushed back), Shifting (pass through terrain), and Tunneling (create passage). A non-Mystic has to obtain their runes. A Rune Mystic creates a rune every Campaign Turn. (You pretty much have a scenario each Campaign Turn.) Runes are single-use items. Again, the "Five Leagues" magic system can be used in Deep Below.

Ending the Campaign and Determination: Sadly (: unlike "Five League's" ending of the campaign after defeating two factions, the dungeons are endless! Your party has a Determination score, which increases as you win, but decreases as you lose. If it drops to zero, a random character leaves the party (thankfully, your Determination score bumps up)! Also, thankfully, you can spend your way to increase Determination. As for ending the campaign, the game pretty much says it's up to you and your story when you want to end. Or, roll against how many characters have died or retired. But, on a happier note (: the author notes you can now use your party to start a campaign of "Five Leagues from the Borderlands"!

Conclusion and PDF: I recommend Deep Below as an introduction or dungeoncrawl expansion to Five Leagues from the Borderlands. Deep Below has enough new content for experienced Five League players, who can purchase it as part of the Five Leagues from the Borderlands Compendium. If you pick up the Compendium, I particularly recommend the PDF and separating out (printing out) the Deep Below section, since it's written as a standalone game (though I trust it's not difficult to add The Ancient Land of Dust and Paths in the Wilderness to Deep Below!).

by Alexandre Correia

Day 3257. December 1, 2025. Offline...

Hello, Dear Reader.

It's that time of the year again, December Offline. The month when I try to unplug the laptop from the power socket, turn off mobile data from the phone to make it dumber, and try to remember what it was like to live without a screen on my face for most of the day.

Bye bye 2025... and yes, I know it's misspelled and I don't care.
The last trip down south has delayed my preparations for December Offline, so you might "see" me around the Geek during the first week or so as I finish things in the backstage. And there's an ongoing PbF RPG session I'm playing that doesn't deserve to go mute for a month, so I'll try to pitch in once a week.

Besides those trickles of digital residues, I have great plans for this month. Maybe too great, we'll see.

A trip down south to play games in Lagos with the folk from Até à Lua. A few quiet mornings in Tavira, reading some book with a coffee nearby and the sound of a winter river in the background. I'll run my first 10k race in two weeks, and Christmas will likely be next to the in-laws' fireplace. All this, of course, if the greatest of plans, taking over at least one third of the month, pans out as I expect. A place I've been meaning to "visit" for the last decade, a return, even if momentarily, to a travel lifestyle that infused me with tremendous energy and inspiration.

Too cryptic? It's on purpose. Like that life-changing first time, I will carry writing tools with me to snap a snapshot of the present lest it escapes memory. And in due course, I'll share those snapshots, literally and in literary form, with you.

Just not here, though. And you'll probably have to wait more than usual to find out. But I will share it. What's the purpose of life if not to share it with others anyway?

The lure of the road, by Santander.
In the meantime, I leave you with the usual fare of Browsing Games entertainment. Lost session reports with friends and family. Solo wanderings. Several unboxing riddles and Archival posts from long ago. The latter have served me well this year when I had to travel to more remote areas. They will serve me again this month. In a way, I'm also going to a remote place.

See you soon, Dear Reader. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I love all of you and already miss you.

⭐⭐⭐
One year ago: ...late bethlehem...One year later: N/A

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