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by Patrick McElfresh

Another week, another weird bunch of bundles with overlaps. Humble splits out Dune into digital and physical, as well as competes with the older GM's day Fanatical bundle for Pathfinder 2e. Bundle of holding has a Runecairn bundle, which honestly, if you're on RPGGeek...that's probably the most interesting to you anyway. 🙂

As a reminder, I cover bundles from Monday last week to this last Sunday so I can draft the post in advance. I'll cover yesterday's bundle's next week.

Bundle of Holding
:kF::ki::kr::ks::kt:<< these are the links Runs from 4/6/2026 to 4/28/2026

Just the one from Bundle of Holding this week, unless I am mistaken. This Runecairn bundle is described as a "Soulslike Viking fantasy" based on Cairn's rules. Having skipped a lot of these newer video games, including Dark Souls and all that, I don't totally understand...but apparently you die a lot in Runecairn, but that's ok! You just try again. Is that a Roguelike? *shakes fist at cloud*

Ok, so what's in this single-tier, $10 bundle? It includes Runecairn Wardensaga, the Bestiary, a programmer's dozen (16, yes, I made that up) single-page dungeons in Into the Nine Realms, weird-west adaption We Deal in Lead, and 90's horror investigation game Midnight of the Century Primer.

Humble Bundle
:kF::ki::kr::ks::kt:Runs from 4/9/2026 to 4/30/2026
There's another Pathfinder 2e bundle...one is currently available at Fanatical for a few hours more when this post drops. I think this one is a better deal, with the first tier being $5 and including both Player and GM core. These are the post OGL-kerfuffle PF2e books, for those who aren't sure.

I'd still rather see the three core books at this point in one, low priced tier. You're better off with the Fanatical bundle if you need all three.

These are all fantastic deals, if the total item counts are a bit inflated with short Pathfinder Society adventures and map files, and will give a ton of fun.

Tier 1 - 9 items - $5
Pathfinder GM Core
Pathfinder Player Core
Pathfidner Adventure Path: Agents of Edgewatch Player's Guide
Pathfinder Tales: Lord of Penance (ePub)
Pathfinder Tales: Gears of Faith (ePub)
Pathfinder City of Lost Omens Poster Map Folio
Pathfinder Adventure: Little Trouble in Big Absalom
Pathfinder Core GM Screen
Pathfinder Second Edition Beginner Box: Remastered Edition

Tier 2 - 27 total items - $15
Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Haunted Dungeon (PDF/JPG)
Pathfinder Society Scenario #5-07: Sewer Dragon Crisis
Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Theater (PDF/JPG)
Pathfinder Society Scenario #4-16: Dacilane Academy's First Great Prank War
Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Pathfinder Lodge (PDF/JPG)
Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Bigger Island (PDF/JPG)
Pathfinder Map-Tiles: Dungeon Starter Set (PDF/JPG)
Pathfinder Flip Mat: Haunted Dungeons Multi-Pack (PDF/JPG)
Pathfinder Society Scenario 3-19: Mean Streets of Shadow Absalom
Pathfinder Society Scenario 3-18: Dacilane Academy's Delightful Disaster
Pathfinder Society Scenario 3-17: Dreams of a Dustbound Isle
Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-06: Struck by Shadows
Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Tavern Multi-Pack (PDF/JPG)
Pathfinder Flip-Mat: City Sites Multi-Pack (PDF/JPG)
Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-01: Intro: Year of Shattered Sanctuaries
Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Urban Sewers Expansion
Pathfinder Quest: The Broken Scales
Pathfinder Agents of Edgewatch Pawn Collection


Tier 3 - 40 total items - $30
Pathfinder NPC Core
Pathfinder Society Scenario #4-07: A Most Wondrous Exchange!
Pathfinder Lost Omens Grand Bazaar
Pathfinder Lost Omens Pathfinder Society Guide
Pathfinder Adventure Path: Ruins of the Radiant Siege (Agents of Edgewatch 6 of 6)
Pathfinder Adventure Path: Belly of the Black Whale (Agents of Edgewatch 5 of 6)
Pathfinder Adventure Path: Assault on Hunting Lodge Seven (Agents of Edgewatch 4 of 6)
Pathfinder Adventure Path: All or Nothing (Agents of Edgewatch 3 of 6)
Pathfinder Adventure Path: Sixty Feet Under (Agents of Edgewatch 2 of 6)
Pathfinder Adventure Path: Devil at the Dreaming Palace (Agents of Edgewatch 1 of 6)
Pathfinder Lost Omens Absalom: City of Lost Omens
Pathfinder Monster Core
Pathfinder Player Core 2

Tier $ - 41 total items - $45 + S&H
Pathfinder NPC Core (Hardcover)

:kS::ke::kc::ko::kn::kd: Runs from 4/11/2026 to 5/2/2026
Next up from Humble is a large digital Dune bundle. Why emphasize digital? Well, bundle #3 is a physical option again. Scroll down if you're interested in that.

Tier 1 - 4 items - $5
Dune: Wormsign Quickstart
Dune: Agents of Dune Deluxe Starter Set
Dune: Desertfall Adventure
Dune: Core Rulebook Standard Edition

Tier 2 - 9 total items - $10
Dune: Sand and Dust
Dune: Gamemaster's Toolkit
Dune: Desert Flower
Dune: Coriolis Storm
Dune: Shaitan's Bargain

Tier 3 - 16 total items - $20
Dune: Masters of Dune
Dune: The Great Game: Houses of the Landsraad
Dune: Power And Pawns: The Emperors Court
Dune: Fall Of The Imperium PDF
Dune: Fatal Journey
Dune: Kernels Of Doubt
Dune: Time Becomes a Narrow Door

:kT::kh::ki::kr::kd: Runs from 4/11/2026 to 5/2/2026

Dune, again! But this time in Physical. You can get the Core Book for $13 + S&H, add dice and a GM Toolkit for $30, and Sand and Dust, The Atreides Collector's Ed. CRB, and the Deluxe Agents of Dune starter set (and a Modiphius coupon) for $70. Still plus S&H.

by Rachel Carpenter

All videos... are done. And uploaded to YouTube (though still Private for the time being- I just want to double check all the details and the links). Whew. Tired. Eight Elephants & Fireworks for the 4th still haven't been approved for BGG pages... We'll see what happens tomorrow, but I might be ready to open the shop doors...

Thanks for bearing with me! And I hope that some of you step inside and take a peek once my little shop opens. Thank you for all of your support getting to this point, it's been a long ride, and it's not over yet :geek_grin:.

Cheers,
-Rachel

by Marcus Bone

Although Space 1889 was not a massive hit for Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW), the setting and world-building are obviously subjects that intrigue. Since the line first hit the shelves in the early 90s, Space 1889 has seen a multitude of revivals and reinterpretations – ranging from Heliographs' efforts to keep the line in print, to novels written by Frank Chadwick, the game's author, and even a series of audio dramas. And that’s not to mention the game's reboots, including the most recent iteration, Space 1889: After by Strange Owl Games.

For this review, I’ll be taking a look at a 2010 edition that, disappointingly, ended up being a ‘one and done’ publication: Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Space 1889: Red Sands for their Savage Worlds system. I say disappointingly, as in some ways Savage Worlds is the perfect pulpy system for a game in the spirit of Space 1889. While I can see the appeal of releasing everything in one book, I personally think there is just so much more that can't be covered in just 192 pages.

An Aside: I’ve intentionally skipped explaining in detail what Space 1889, GDW's steampunk-driven game of daring action and high adventure, is. What I will say, however, is that if you are into the works of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, or Edgar Rice Burroughs (and indeed, any Victorian speculative sci-fi author), then this is the game for you. To be honest, I can't think of any other RPG that truly encompasses the ideas of Victorian steampunk and the worlds of ether ships, dinosaur-infested Venus, and ancient civilisations on Mars!

The Art & Layout
You always know what you are going to get with a Pinnacle Entertainment product, and Space 1889: Red Sands (hereafter referred to as Red Sands) is no exception. Clearly presented text with plenty of delicious art, the book has a nicely representative cover that includes British Red Coats, Ether flyers and a damsel that is anything but 'in distress'.

The interior art is also of fair quality, with a slightly ‘cartoon-ee’ look that feels quite appropriate for the era. Most of these images are half-page or individual figures, with a single full-page spread used to indicate the beginning of the Game Master’s Section. The maps are a bit of a stand-out in the book, especially those of the inner solar system, Mars and Venus, but then again, how can you go wrong with a good bit of cartography?

The Rules
For the most part, the mechanics in Red Sands are your typical Savage Worlds rules, with modifications to better represent gaming in the Victorian era. This does mean you will need a copy of the Savage Worlds core rulebook (I believe Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition was the current version at the time of this release), which may be a little bit of a hurdle to getting the game to the table, but by no means an insurmountable one (Savage Worlds rule books and PDFs are some of the cheapest on the market).

The rulebook, however, definitely puts its best foot forward in presenting a meaningful yet simple steampunk flavour. You get plenty of new or modified character Edges and Hindrances to help players build a character appropriate for a pulpy Victorian age, and it includes some quite well-thought-out period-appropriate mechanics. The Status statistic, for example, helps reflect the class structure of the time without becoming a burden to play (i.e., it provides a quick way to compare any social advantage that the GM can manage easily), and a Favors mechanic that feels really appropriate to the setting. When helping others, one gains the opportunity for future assistance, or perhaps more importantly, support against any scandal!

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Space 1889 game if it didn't include mechanics on Ether Flyers and ship combat. The liftwood-coated ships of the setting are one of the many aspects that give the game its unique flavour (and I for one have many fond memories of GDW’s Sky Galleons of Mars wargame). In Red Sands, the rules for flyers feel appropriate for a game of pulp action. We get mechanics for ship construction and management, along with unique rules for running ship-to-ship combat (including a nice selection of European and Martian weapons). Thankfully, none of these is so complex as to bog down the game at the table.

The Setting and Content
So, getting to the crux of the book, what sort of stories will you get to tell with Red Sands? Probably unsurprisingly, the focus of most of the supplement (from about page 53 onwards) is on the setting and the adventures that can take place in this alternate Victorian age. Alongside the players' brief introduction to the world, which has an obvious focus on Mars, the Game Master's Section deep dives further into the state of the solar system and, more importantly, how to bring this action-packed potential to life. (This includes a simple, but in-depth, adventure generator that extends the usefulness of the book beyond the already substantial Red Sands Plot Point campaign).
And talking of the campaign (but keeping spoilers to a minimum), Red Sands is an epic steampunk-inspired plot-point story that spans 13 good- sized scenarios, in which the characters - heroes of the Explorer’s Society – will end up on Mars in a desperate attempt to stop a war to end all wars.

Like all of Pinnacle's Plot-Point campaigns, the book includes dozens of individual Savage Tales (that is, one-off adventures not directly linked to the main story) which can be interspersed between the main story beats. Reading it through a couple of times now, I believe the Red Sands campaign definitely taps into all the appropriate pulp-heavy cliches you'd expect to see in a Victorian-aged steampunk story. However, at times it can veer a little too far into the over dramatic. I'd personally tone down some of these aspects, but your mileage might vary!

The book wraps up with a comprehensive bestiary that, once again, focuses more on the Mars setting than on any of the other locations, but this is an understandable decision given the focus of the Plot-Point.

Final thoughts
For what my opinion is worth, Red Sands is a good, almost excellent, entry into what has now become quite a busy catalogue of Space 1889 rulesets. It is probably the most jammed-packed setting books I’ve read for a while, and although I’m slightly disappointed Pinnacle never returned to explore the wider Space 1889 setting further, where it does tread, it leaves few stones unturned.

Final words? Well, let's just all agree, Space 1889: Red Sands is a worthy addition to any fine gentleperson’s library!

A new episode has been added to the database: As The Waters Cover The Sea 20: Knives Out

A new episode has been added to the database: SAFCOcast 42: Galaxiad, with Rob Eaglestone