u/AllenVarney

Through Monday, September 7 we present the new Blue Planet Recontact Bundle featuring Blue Planet: Recontact, the new 2025 edition of the hard-SF RPG from Biohazard Games, published by Gallant Knight Games, about humanity's precarious future on a distant waterworld. On the colony planet Poseidon in the year 2199, after the impoverished Earth re-establishes its authority and discovers the priceless mineral "Long John," political unrest and a hungry alien ecology threaten the colony. On this "Wild Wet" frontier, Incorporate mercenaries wage amphibious proxy wars, GEO marshals struggle to maintain peace, and native insurgents fight for their adopted world.

AD 2078: Investigating an anomaly at the edge of the Solar System, the Prometheus II probe discovers a traversable 'wormhole' (space warp) that leads to the Lambda Serpentis system, 35 light-years from Earth. Ten years later, the United Nations establishes a small frontier colony of genetically engineered humans and 'genlifted' cetaceans on the system's habitable ocean world, Poseidon. Earth's civilization promptly collapses for over a century, but the abandoned colony thrives. Now it's 2199, and Earth's resurgent government(s) and Incorporate States have returned to Poseidon in a gold rush for the life-prolonging xenosilicate Long John. There's a world to explore, an alien ecology to study or plunder, criminals to catch – and the original pioneers are rebelling. Meanwhile, deep in Poseidon's endless ocean, mysterious Nereids pursue unknowable goals of their own.

On this wide-open frontier you can try just about anything, take on just about any profession, and be any kind of person – or uplifted dolphin, orca, or whale. (Play a beluga whale! With a rocket launcher!) Poseidon is a place where life is hard and dying is easy – where GEO marshals enforce the peace and wired mercs patrol deep waters in deadly fighter subs – where corporate greed and human desperation threaten to plunge humanity into a war of survival with an ancient legacy. The 23rd Century will be a time of unprecedented possibilities, not just for institutions and governments, but for real people (and cetaceans) who have the will and courage to build a future for themselves.

Funded in an April 2021 Kickstarter campaign, the 2025 Blue Planet: Recontact edition (the third) offers hard-SF adventure on the contentious frontier of Poseidon, Earth's first extrasolar colony. The new Synergy rules set is a modern evolution of the Second Edition (2000), and Blue Planet's renowned reputation for scientific accuracy is upheld with Recontact's new technological, scientific, and sociological worldbuilding. For fans of media like Avatar and The Expanse, and novels such as Legacy of Heorot, Songs of Distant Earth, and Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, Blue Planet: Recontact continues its decades-long exploration of colonialism and collapse.

In a Free Zone of blighted 22nd-Century Earth, these Recontact rulebooks would cost you US$60, adjusted for two centuries of inflation. But you pay just $14.95 to get both complete rulebooks in our Recontact Collection as DRM-free .PDF ebooks: the Blue Planet: Recontact Player's Guide and the Moderator's Guide (plus the pay-what-you-want Quickstart).

Don't miss your trip to the new frontier. Book passage to Poseidon before this new Blue Planet Recontact offer heads out to Lambda Serpentis Monday, September 7.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Recontact

Through Wednesday, August 26 we present the Inkwell NPC Deck Bundle featuring 13 print-and-cut .PDF decks of system-neutral, ready-to-run NPC personalities from Inkwell Ideas. As the player characters explore a campaign world, they meet the setting's nonplayer characters (NPCs) – threats, rivals, and potential allies. Entirely human-created (no AI of any kind!), each of the 700 cards in these NPC Portrait Decks presents a full-color character portrait and a description with the NPC's personality, quirks, sample dialogue, and means of persuasion, deception, or intimidation. With their wide variety of power levels, backgrounds, and fantasy ancestries, these fun and flavorful NPCs can take any story in new directions at the flip of a card.

The cards focus on each character's background and personality. The few stats used (class, race, level, alignment, ability scores, armor class, and hit points) are easy to convert to another system before the game or even during play.

Each of the 700 characters in these 13 decks has interesting details that can lead to adventures or side-quests: How are the rebels planning to use Prinestia Sellex? Why does Tik Elleth constantly refer to Wizly? How is Princess Klestra planning to save her kingdom? What is Tansall the Scoured's greatest regret? What will Ohn do now that his mission is complete? Who is blackmailing Zelaymor Tynalria? How does Ularian plan to wipe out the elven kingdom? Why is Trayvis known as the "Oathbreaker"?

Why did Quinn's love leave him? What plot did his brother Alvariaus nearly uncover? What trouble is the widow Fanny stirring? When will Styxie reveal her true mission? Is the mission Chono Vurrbilt assigns a deathtrap? Who can replace Sir Rafael as protector of his estate? Are the rumors of Sintram's deal with a fiend true? When will Li carry out her plan to resurrect her god?

Pay just US$12.95 to get all thirteen complete print-and-cut decks in our Inkwell NPC Collection (retail value $65) as DRM-free .PDFs, including Adventurers, Animals, Castle Nobles & Staff, Coastal Townsfolk, and Desert Townsfolk. Fantasy 1, Fantasy 2, Frontier Townsfolk, Henchmen & Hirelings, Monsters, Quest Guardians, Science Fiction, and Tavern Staff & Patrons.

Get this Inkwell NPC Decks offer before it shuffles off Wednesday, August 26.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/NPCDecks

Through Monday, August 31 we present the Frontier Scum Bundle featuring Frontier Scum, the rules-lite Acid Western RPG from Games Omnivorous about helter-skelter gunfights in guttermucked streets, with death following 2d6 days later. You're no-good outlaws on a fictional Lost Frontier – Discharged Deputies, Ghoulish Undertakers, Recurrent Jailbirds, Highfalutin Inventor Sorts – all drifting from one flyspeck town to the next, chasing a payday, a grudge, or just the next sundown. What keeps you from getting clear? The law, rival gangs, and your own bad impulses. You spend your ill-gotten coin on bad whiskey and worse ideas, stay an inch ahead of the marshals, and hope you can ditch this one-horse town afore the gentlefolk figger it were you.

Karl Druid's Frontier Scum started as a scrappy Mörk Borg hack, then grew into its own ENNIE-winning game (Silver, Best Layout & Design, 2023). The stripped-down ruleset is styled as a 19C mail-order catalogue or almanac. Out in these parts, guns hit almost automatically – pull the trigger and go straight to a damage roll – so the only thing between you and a bullet is the Hat Rule. (Instead of losing hit points, you say the shot knocked off your hat. After the gunfight, roll to see if your hat survived.) Burn an Ace to reroll a bad result – get Drunk and watch your stats swap places – fail a Death Check and go out in a d10-minute blaze of glory (or rot from a d4-week mortal wound). Frontier Scum dishes out one-shot bloodbaths and chaotic campaigns for fans of Deadwood, Tombstone, and long one-way rides into the sunset.

What makes Frontier Scum an "Acid Western" and not "Weird"? It's in the baseline, the background level of strange. For most Lost Frontier folk, life is mundane. Ghouls and goblins belong in supernatural stories told around the fire, and only lunatics say otherwise. The real everyday dangers are plain unbridled greed and violence.

But the weird is out there. Stories begin somewhere ordinary, then turn progressively bizarre. Tides of Rot starts as a heist in Dredge-upon-Rock, a port town crumbling into the bay under a storm that won't quit. Floodwaters unearth the folk buried there, and then the dead decide they're not done with the place. Corpse Trail to Hell hires your scum out to the Battercod Lubricate Company to cross the frozen Jetty Sheets and reclaim the ice-locked whaling ship Ichabod Noster – one-tenth of the cargo's value if you hold the ship till spring. The first act is a frosty journey across the ice, following a trail of bodies; the second is a crawl through the abandoned ship, where the howling Flaywinds are the least of what's waiting belowdecks. There is no third act.

"The fantastical should feel fantastical," as the Frontier Scum corebook puts it; "if everything is weird, nothing is." Frontier Scum has no bestiary of supernatural creatures. These exist, but each is custom-made for a given scenario. No two ghosts play by the same rules.

This all-new Frontier Scum Bundle presents almost the entire line for less than the price of a Duke of Death Deluxe Explosives Thrower from the Dalliance Dynamite Co. (grenades sold separately). Pay just US$7.95 to get all four titles in our Frontier Collection (retail value $39) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Frontier Scum corebook, the splattercrawl adventure (with soundtrack!) Tides of Rot, the frozen-wastes scenario Corpse Trail to Hell, and the gunsmith's pamphlet Scumslinger's Arsenal issue #1.

Get this Frontier Scum offer before your Wanted poster curls up and blows off the jailhouse wall Monday, August 31. And bring your hat!

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/FrontierScum

Through Monday, August 24 we present the all-new Dungeon Age Bundle 2, a fresh collection of old-school fantasy scenarios by novelist and designer Joseph R. Lewis in his long-running Dungeon Age Adventures series. Joseph's ancient world of Harth is a classic sword-and-sorcery land of wizards, warriors, and monsters inspired by pulp fantasy authors like Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Michael Moorcock. The works of wizards long past haunt all these evocative settings, and their lost treasures lure adventurers to gather their torches and ten-foot poles for dungeon crawls in the classic manner. Explore a jade palace battleground of undead armies – the vampire stronghold of Araveshti, city of a thousand towers, floating in the void – the Blue Bazaar and Silk Street Tunnel in Carcassay's Spider Quarter – and the Temple of Whispering Eyes, lair of Uthov-Ka, mad priest of cosmic Chaos.

Joseph R. Lewis has self-published more than two dozen novels and dozens of Dungeon Age FRPG scenarios and settings. These tightly focused titles earn praise for their clean layouts, clarity, OSR-style terseness and flavor, and immediate zero-prep page-to-table utility. Unstoppable reviewer Bryce Lynch, at his venerable Ten-Foot Pole blog, lists many Dungeon Age titles – Orbital Vampire City, Carcassay: Titan Rat City, Lovely Jade Necropolis, Wicked Little Delves V1, and half a dozen older titles – that satisfy his exacting expectations. (Content notice: Bryce does curse a bit.)

A standalone follow-up to our first Dungeon Age Adventures Quick Deal in May 2023, this all-new bundle presents ready-to-run one-shot adventures (in three volumes of Wicked Little Delves) as well as wide-ranging sandbox campaigns like Carcassay: Titan Rat City and The Undying Sea that can keep your group busy for months. (And in theory you could explore Orbital Vampire City for months, but they'll eat you first.) These succinct and elegantly written scenarios are written for Shadowdark, Old-School Essentials, Cairn, and Old School Revival B/X-style retroclones. Each adventure or setting fits easily into any ongoing fantasy campaign. You don't need anything from the first Dungeon Age Bundle.

Pay just US$9.95 to get all eight complete titles in our Dungeon Age 2 Collection (retail value $58) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the campaign settings Orbital Vampire City, Carcassay: Titan Rat City, and Lovely Jade Necropolis; the standalone seafaring RPG The Undying Sea (based on Into the Odd); and three volumes of one-shot, nine-room dungeon crawls for character levels 1-9: Wicked Little Delves V1, V2, and V3. We also include Harthbreaker, a short fantasy RPG rules set that adapts the Apocalypse Engine for adventures on the dying world of Harth.

This Dungeon Age 2 offer goes missing among the Morbid Mosquitoes in the Forest of Bones aboard the Orbital Vampire City of Araveshti Monday, August 24.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DungeonAge2

GURPS 4E Week ends with a journey into darkness as (through Wednesday, August 12) we resurrect, through unholy means, the October 2022 GURPS 4E Horror Bundle featuring terrifying supplements for GURPS, the Generic Universal RolePlaying System from Steve Jackson Games. These supplements – Horror, The Madness Dossier, the Creatures of the Night bestiaries, and a lot of Monster Hunters titles – all require the two-volume GURPS 4E rules from the revived June 2022 GURPS 4E Essentials offer in progress. Or visit Warehouse 23, the SJG webstore, to preorder the hardcover Basic Set, Revised!

The seventh and final offer in a week-long series of launches, this revivified October 2022 GURPS 4E Horror offer once again presents top-quality supplements, dripping with zombie gore, monster ichor, and general horrifying-ness, by star horror-meister Kenneth Hite and many others. Pay just US$14.95 to get all seven titles in this re-animated offer's 4E Horror Starter (retail value $58) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete GURPS Horror 4E; five Creatures of the Night bestiaries – Creatures of the Night 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; and Infinite Worlds: Worlds of Horror. (Many other Infinite Worlds titles appear in our all-new companion offer in progress, GURPS 4E Infinite Worlds.)

And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $29.95 to start, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire 4E Horror Bonus collection with eight more titles worth an additional $87, including Kenneth Hite's campaign The Madness Dossier; five Monster Hunter guides – Monster Hunters 1: Champions, 2: The Mission, 3: The Enemy, Monster Hunters Power-Ups 1, and Loadouts: Monster Hunters; and the undyingly popular Zombies and Zombies: Day One.

This newly risen October 2022 GURPS Horror offer vanishes again into an Anunnaku Reality Subduction Zone Wednesday, August 12.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/G4Horror2026

And that's GURPS 4E Week! Did you miss anything? Aside from the revived June 2022 GURPS 4E Essentials, check the revived Fantasy, Combat Action, Space, Supers, and the all-new Infinite Worlds.

GURPS 4E Week gains superhuman strength as (through Monday, August 10) we revive the March 2023 GURPS 4E Supers Bundle featuring super-powered supplements for the Fourth Edition of GURPS, the Generic Universal RolePlaying System from Steve Jackson Games. These supplements – Supers, Powers, rules expansions, and a lot of Power-Ups – all require the two-volume GURPS 4E rules from the revived June 2022 GURPS 4E Essentials offer in progress. Or visit Warehouse 23, the SJG webstore, to preorder the hardcover Basic Set, Revised!

Pay just US$9.95 to get both complete Fourth Edition supplements in this revived offer's Starter Collection (retail value $41) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks: Supers and Powers.

And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $34.95 to start, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire Power-Up Collection with thirteen more titles worth an additional $102, including four Powers rules expansions – Divine Favor, Enhanced Senses, Totems and Nature Spirits, and The Weird; and the first nine installments in the GURPS Power-Ups series – GURPS Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, 2: Perks, 3: Talents, 4: Enhancements, 5: Impulse Buys, 6: Quirks, 7: Wildcard Skills, 8: Limitations, and 9: Alternate Attributes.

This revived March 2023 GURPS Supers offer ascends to Yetzirah, astral realm of legends and resemblances, Monday, August 10.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/G4Supers2026

Meanwhile, here in the material realm of Assiah, activate your super-senses to locate our revived GURPS 4E Fantasy, Space, and Combat Action, and the all-new Infinite Worlds. And there's still more action ahead for GURPS 4E Week!

The GURPS 4E Week flight path heads straight vertical as (through Wednesday, August 12) we revive the June 2022 GURPS 4E Space Bundle featuring starfaring supplements for the 2004 Fourth Edition of GURPS, the Generic Universal RolePlaying System from Steve Jackson Games.

This high-frontier revival, along with the six other offers launching during GURPS 4E Week, promotes the new 592-page hardcover GURPS Basic Set, Revised rulebook. Visit Warehouse 23, the SJG webstore, to preorder your copy. And check the other GURPS 4E offers we've already launched: Essentials, Fantasy, Combat Action, and the all-new Infinite Worlds. And there are more revivals ahead!

With the Space, Spaceships, and Psionic Powers rules expansions, plus a fleet of Spaceships guidebooks and psionics sourcebooks, this revived June 2022 GURPS 4E Space Bundle can take your campaign to starscapes and mindscapes at the limits of imagination. Pay just US$12.95 to get all three titles in this revived offer's 4E Space Starter (retail value $50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete GURPS Space, Spaceships, and Psionic Powers.

And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $34.95 to start, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire 4E Space Bonus collection with ten more titles worth an additional $94, including six more installments in the Spaceships series – Spaceships 2: Traders, Liners, and Transports, 3: Warships and Space Pirates 4: Fighters, Carriers, and Mecha, 5: Exploration and Colony Spacecraft, 6: Mining and Industrial Spacecraft, and 7: Divergent and Paranormal Tech; three psionics sourcebooks – Psis, Psi-Tech, and Psionic Campaigns; and the pulpish retro-future campaign Tales of the Solar Patrol.

Get this revived June 2022 GURPS 4E Space offer before it vanishes into the Red Hive on the lakes of Titan, beyond reach even of the Solar Patrol, Wednesday, August 12. And more GURPS 4E Week revivals are ahead!

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/G4Space2026

Through Monday, August 3 we present the Everspark and More Bundle featuring Everspark, Load the Simulation, Nexalis, and other indie RPGs by designer Cezar Capacle. In the past five years, this prolific Brazilian creator has published more than 40 games in many genres and formats, ranging from games you play while you're asleep to tender games about saying goodbye, to a tower defense game where you're a cow defending your farm from a zombie attack. (And he contributed Not a Demon to our October 2023 Novel Writing Game Tools 2023.)

Cezar's recent standout game, Everspark, is an easy-to-learn, zero-preparation, fast-moving fantasy game that says YES where your current rules say NO. Playing alone or in a co-op group, you can finally realize the hopes of your earliest gaming days, when the rulebook cover promised epic quests, inventive action, and badass action. This all-new offer gives you the complete Everspark rulebook in .PDF, along with four other original and accessible Capacle RPGs, for a bargain price that will spark your enthusiasm.

[Note: Many of our offers are hosted on DriveThruRPG, but these games aren't available on DriveThru. Download your files from your Wizard's Cabinet on the Bundle of Holding site. The links below go to the games' sales pages on itch.io.]

Pay just US$12.95 to get all five complete games in our Capacle Collection (retail value $80) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:

• Everspark: The widely praised zero-prep fantasy game for 1-4 players, young or old, that reignites the carefree joy of your earliest roleplaying. Pull in published adventures from any action-oriented game, or build your own world during play. Bring a pad of sticky notes.
• Load the Simulation: Play solo or with 1-4 players (no gamemaster needed) in tense, probing training simulations aboard a massive starship on a centuries-long journey through deep space.
• Nexalis: Sail the Nectar, a cosmic magical ocean, in bright fantasy stories of exploration and character growth in a mesmerizing and ever-evolving world.
• Against the Wind: A solo or co-op sandbox game, blending traditional and narrative procedures, about your nomadic journey across a relentlessly harsh frozen landscape.
• Insurgent: A vivid high-action game of rebellion against tyranny, where you take a stand for freedom and look good doing it – in a good cause, of course.

This all-new Everspark and More offer goes missing in the Celestial Nexus, an entrancing vortex of astral energy that births islands and renews the world in a constant cycle of creation, Monday, August 3.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Everspark

Through Thursday, July 30 we revive (for a third time!) the March 2016 HackMaster Bundle featuring HackMaster, the parody-turned-real FRPG introduced in the pages of the Knights of the Dinner Table comic. This revival promotes Kenzer's new Kickstarter campaign for the HackMaster 25th Anniversary Edition. Sign up to get notified when the campaign launches!

HackMaster has one of the most unusual origins in the hobby. It first emerged in the late '90s as a pure fiction, the system of choice for B.A. Felton and his enthusiastic players in the gaming magazine Shadis. In 2001, armed with an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license from Wizards of the Coast, Kenzer and Company released HackMaster "4th Edition" – a not-quite-parody of the AD&D 1E/2E rules that captured the spirit of the game seen in the comics. (There were no prior editions; "4th" was part of the spoof). HackMaster won that year's Origins Award for Game of the Year.

HackMaster evolved into a full-fledged, full-featured RPG, spawning more than 40 add-ons, supplements, and game aids. In 2011, as the original license was expiring, Kenzer started a long transition to a new version of HM. This "fifth edition" (unrelated to D&D Fifth Edition, which was still three years in the future) removes most of the parody aspects. The new game mechanics, written from scratch, incorporate the Honor, Skills, and Count-up systems from Kenzer's 2007 Old West RPG Aces & Eights. And HackMaster got a new setting: the Kingdom of Kalamar, made popular in a long line of Kenzer supplements released in the D20 boom.

In a March 15 blog post titled "We Have Not Yet Begun to Hack," Kenzer's Jolly Blackburn announced a new 25th Anniversary Edition that would "take HackMaster to the next level! This anniversary edition holds even more options and rules-tweaks that allow for more flexibility and adventure, without sacrificing the grit and satisfaction of hacking your way from peasant to conqueror. HackMaster is a game of trials and challenges, where every inch of success is hard-fought, with death always lurking just around the corner. But this game is also about the hero's journey, going from ordinary to exceptional. [...] In HackMaster you don't begin epic; the game becomes epic with you as it unfolds. HM XXV provides an experience that satisfies the core of your soul, knowing that your striving and struggling truly pays off in a glory that was fully earned."

Ahead of the HM XXV Kickstarter that launches soon, this revived offer once again presents all three massive HackMaster Fifth Edition core books – the Player's Handbook with the rules system, the GameMaster's Handbook with additional rules and extensive advice, and the monumental Hacklopedia of Beasts monster manual. We also include the Frandor's Keep setting and several adventures and supplements. Together they provide everything you need for a complete campaign using this remarkable Old School game.

Pay just US$12.95 to get all five titles in this revived offer's Player Collection (retail value $57) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete 405-page HackMaster Player's Handbook; two collections of priest spells, Zealot's Guide: Book 1 and Book 2; and the adventures In the Realm of the Elm King and its sequel, Legacy of the Elm King. As a convenience, we've also gathered many free HackMaster downloads from the Kenzer and Company website.

And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $27.95 to start, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire Gamemaster Collection with three more titles worth an additional $95, including the HackMaster GameMaster's Guide, the Hacklopedia of Beasts, and the campaign setting Frandor's Keep.

Make sure all the knights at your dinner table get this revived March 2016 HackMaster offer before it vanishes again Thursday, July 30. (And sign up to get notified about the HackMaster 25th Anniversary Edition Kickstarter campaign.)

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/HackMaster2026

Through Friday, July 31 we present the Thrones & Bones Bundle featuring Norrøngard, the fantasy campaign setting from novelist and designer Lou Anders at Lazy Wolf Studios.

Introduced in Frostborn (the first novel in Lou's Thrones & Bones trilogy), Norrøngard is a cold, harsh realm inspired by Norse myth and Scandinavian folklore – a land beset by undead horrors, marauding trolls, mercurial spirits, and monstrous beasts. Threats mount from within and without, and the barbarism of ancient days may soon return. The rocky tundra, the dark forests, the ice-covered wastelands, and the tall mountain ranges are home to marauding trolls, capricious elementals, malevolent spirits, serpentine dragons known as linnorms, and greedy, baleful barrow-haunting undead, the draugr. Deep under the Svartálfaheim Mountains, the dark elf faction known as the Underhand plots against the surface world, and from the Ymirian Mountains the troll king sends his minions farther south than he has dared in ages. While the great dragon Orm Hinn Langi appears to sleep, younger linnorms across the land vie for the title "King of All Serpents." Meanwhile, encased in his prison of eternal ice, Vandrvargr, the great wolf, schemes for his release – a freedom that some say heralds the end of the world.

In this challenging environment, heroes emerge to perform deeds worthy of the skalds. Earn your honor exploring the heights of the Ymirian Mountain Range and the dark Raven's Wood. Risk all to gain the knowledge of rune magic. Contend with powerful vaettir in the mysterious Wyrdwood, or brave the caverns of Svartálfaheim. The berserkers and shield maidens of ancient days may have vanished into myth, but Norrøngard is ever in need of new heroes. You may meet an early demise as a troll's breakfast or a linnorm's lunch. But if you survive, you can carve out or conquer domains of your own.

Funded in a February 2021 Kickstarter campaign and several follow-ups, the Thrones & Bones RPG line originally supported Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and later switched to the free and open Black Flag Roleplaying system (2024) introduced in Tales of the Valiant from Kobold Press. Each Thrones title is written for one system but adapts easily to the other. Whether your campaign uses ancestries or lineages, Inspiration or Luck, alignment or Doom, these Thrones & Bones ebooks have what you need to keep cool in the frozen north. (Also, Kobold Press provides a free Tales of the Valiant Conversion Guide.)

Pay just US$9.95 to get all six titles in our Setting Collection (retail value $69) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Norrøngard Campaign Setting, along with both the Player's Guide to Norrøngard (Tales of the Valiant ) and Player's Guide (5E), the Norrøngard City Maps, and the 5E character sheets; and the introductory adventure The Aptrgangr's Challenge.

And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $19.95 to start, you'll level up and also get our entire Adventure Collection with five more titles worth an additional $83, including the three-scenario compilation for character levels 1-4, The Bense Trilogy; the seven-scenario anthology for levels 3-8, Sagas of Norrøngard; and three standalone adventures: Fury of the Forsaken (level 4), Tomb of the Frost Giant (level 5), and Vengeance of the Valravn (level 7).

In a burst of cold fire the great wolf Vandrvargr breaks free of its icy prison and devours this delectable Thrones & Bones offer Friday, July 31.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/ThronesBones

Through Tuesday, July 28 we present the Vast Grimm Bundle featuring Vast Grimm, Brian Colin's standalone Creation Curation RPG of bizarre space-opera horror inspired by the artpunk fantasy RPG Mörk Borg. It's 663 years since The Six devout disciples raided the Primordial Mausoleum of THEY and unleashed a plague: six strains of parasitic würms that infected most of humanity. Those consumed by the larvae mutate into a zombie-like alien hive-mind known as The Grimm. You've joined other miserable survivors in a Legion, because there's strength in numbers – and also, you hope at least one of your crew is slower than you are.

In Vast Grimm you play a MAnchiNe, Soul Survivor, Lost Technomaniac, Twisted Biochemist, Emo|Bot, or Treacherous Merc – maybe all of them in sequence, because these meatbags die fast and gruesomely. (Good thing there's an online Vast Grimm character generator.) But with their Irritating Idiosyncrasies and Battle Scars (for that extra level of filth), technomagical Tributes that implode in Cataclysmic Condemnations, and addictive drugs like Rocket Stick and Berserker Stim, your hapless crews – "Guardians of the Galaxy fighting Alien parasites and the Reavers from Firefly" – live lives as bright as the lime-green, neon-piiiink spreads of these psychotronic adventures. Try to save what's left of humanity, earn enough cred sticks to go out gloriously, or build a Gate of Infinite Stars so you can escape this life before it collapses.

This all-new Vast Grimm Bundle gives you almost the entire line to date – everything you need to fight frenzied battles for survival as the Universe inches closer to inevitable demise. It'll be fun! Pay just US$9.95 to get all seven complete titles in our Vast Grimm Collection (retail value $70) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the pay-what-you-want Vast Grimm Skeleton Crew rules (also available as a free Skeleton Crew .PDF on the Creature Creations website); the introductory adventure A Grimm Outlook; three adventure sourcebooks – Helltrap Barges, Into the Asteroid, and No Safe Haven; the Grimm Solitude solo rules; and the skirmish miniatures rulebook Sqwürmish.

This Vast Grimm offer disappears into the Gate of Infinite Stars when the 'verse collapses Tuesday, July 28.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/VastGrimm

Through Monday, July 27 we present the new Oldskull Generators Bundle featuring random generators from Kent David Kelly for old-school FRPGs such as OSRIC (based on the 1979 First Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) and other fantasy retroclones. Create detailed campaign elements quickly and easily – treasures, monsters, characters, adventure hooks, whole dungeons, and even entire game worlds – for tabletop, virtual, and solitaire play. Kent's densely packed Generator supplements present thousands of old-school ideas inspired by AD&D 1E, formatted in tables (D10, D100, D1000) for ease of use, and supported by cover-only artwork and very limited graphics. And the seven-title D1000 Master Tables series maximizes the potential of the magic item tables in the appendices of the AD&D 1E Dungeon Master's Guide. Just roll three ten-sided dice, or try =RANDBETWEEN(1,1000) in a spreadsheet, to bring up a specific, unique item full of evocative detail:

>[519-520] Dweomered Long Sword +1

>(XP Value 640, GP Value 3,200)

>The sword glows with amber-hued light. This blade belonged to a Marilith demoness. This blade's steel was magically made free of all impurities, in the secret tradition of Colada the Pure.

>This is a unique intelligent sword (Intelligence 12, Ego 2). Spirit Entity: This soul sword of Tartarus is the incarnation of a damned Neutral Evil hero. This Neutral Evil sword was made in worship of Hel of the Halls of the Slain, Nordic Goddess of Death. Alignment: Neutral Evil. Form of Communication: Semi-Empathy. Known Languages: None. Primary Ability: Detect Gems (5' Radius).

Though compatible with any B/X-style fantasy retroclone, each D1000 Master Tables book carefully follows the AD&D paradigm. All results are presented in ascending power tiers and gold piece values, so low rolls always provide treasure for neophyte adventurers, and high rolls can create finds fitting for high-level heroes and dragon troves. No two items are alike.

Pay just US$17.95 to get all thirteen titles in our Generative Collection (retail value $115) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including all seven D1000 Master Tables supplements – Magical Swords I and Swords II, Magical Armor and Shields, Rods, Staves, and Wands, Magic Potions, Magic Scrolls, and Miscellaneous Magic – plus the Oldskull Dungeon Generator, Game World Generator - Deluxe Edition (along with its Tyrrhenia Map Pack), Monster Generator, D100 NPC Generator – and put them all together with the Adventure Generator.

We presented the Game World, Monster, D100 NPC, and Adventure Generators in our Castle Oldskull Bundle in March 2019 and again in July 2022. The other eight titles in this offer, all new to the Bundle of Holding, have a combined retail value of US$75. All titles in this offer are the Human-Artistry Editions, which use no AI artwork.

This new Oldskull Generators offer descends a [58-59] Sluiceway through a [84] Pipe Mouth, Sludge-Filled into a [91] Trapezoidal and Large room holding a [78-80] Monster Lair with Trapped Treasure and triggers a [13] Cascade of Metal Spheres that beckons [695-699] Vulture People AKA Feasters of Anaxagoras and, well, let's just say the offer goes away Monday, July 27.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/OldskullGenerators

Through Wednesday, July 15 we revive the January 2021 Palladium Mutants and Ninjas Bundle featuring the After the Bomb and Ninjas & Superspies game lines from Palladium Books. Designed by the late Erick Wujcik (Amber Diceless Roleplaying), these 1980s mutant and ninja RPGs and supplements remain some of the finest books Palladium has published. This revival once again gathers Ninjas and its standout companion Mystic China, along with the After the Bomb product line, for a bargain price.

Pay just US$12.95 to get all eight titles in this revived offer's Starter Collection (retail value $120.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Ninjas and Superspies Revised rulebook (1990) of martial arts and espionage action; the After the Bomb Second Edition rulebook, about a post-holocaust Earth ruled by intelligent animals; the road-warrior sourcebook Road Hogs; and five issues of Palladium's in-house magazine, The Rifter, with Ninjas articles and scenarios: The Rifter 03, 04, 05, 06, and 07.

And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $27.95 to start, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire Bonus Collection with thirteen more titles worth an additional $158.50:

• Mystic China, Erick's well-regarded Ninjas sourcebook and supplement for the supernatural East
• Five more After the Bomb supplements: Book 3: Mutants Down Under, Book 4: Mutants of the Yucatan, Book 5: Mutants in Avalon, Book 6: Mutants in Orbit, and Adventures in the Yucatan
• Four more issues of The Rifter (#14, 16, 25, 50) with Ninjas & Superspies articles ( 14, 16, 25, and 50) plus three issues with After the Bomb material: 41, 61, and 77

Get this revived January 2021 Palladium Mutants and Ninjas offer before it disappears into darkness once again Wednesday, July 15.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/MutantNinja2026

Through Monday, July 20 we present the Colostle Bundle featuring Colostle, the single-player journaling RPG from creator Nich Angell at Draconeer Games about exploring a world-sized castle. The Colostle is vast, rooms beyond impossible rooms, floors above floors extending infinitely in all directions. Mountains, valleys, towns, cities, and even oceans fill its rooms. The vaulted ceilings are so high they are shrouded by misty clouds. Many features from normal-sized castles are present at gargantuan size, such as staircases, windows, doorways, balconies, towering statues, pillars disappearing into the clouds, and long gloomy corridors.

Every Room of the Colostle sees daylight thanks to its Brazier, a huge burning light source hanging high in the rafters. At night the Brazier dims to a gentler white light. No one knows how or why this happens.

Although all manner of threats exist in the wilds, such as strange beasts and barbaric people, the greatest dangers are the Rooks, hulking stone automatons that patrol mindlessly in the wilds of the Colostle's rooms. Rooks are the only source of magic in the world. Hunters target Rooks, looking for tech they can scavenge, artifacts they can sell, or magic crystals that grant unpredictable powers.

Atop the columns live Gargoyles, winged reptilian creatures that swoop from on high to pick off unsuspecting travellers far from civilization. They carry their victims high above the clouds to their stone nests in the Rafters, wide beams overgrown with jungle heated by the nearby Brazier.

Explorers talk of strange lands far out in the Colostle; jungles spreading up massive staircases, icy polar regions encasing huge human skeletons in glaciers, thin arid corridors between rooms, filled with desert sands blown through huge windows. Any combination of lands, peoples, and the castle itself is possible. Who knows what you will find when you step out to discover what secrets it holds?

Funded in a sequence of successful Kickstarter campaigns starting in January 2021 and continuing through the recent Colostle: The Moat, Colostle is a solo RPG rulebook and setting for adventure in the Roomlands. Using a standard deck of playing cards, check the prompts and rules in the book to see what you discover on your adventures across the Battlements, the Oceans, the Grand City of Parapette, the frozen Tundroom wasteland, and the far-distant empire of Kyodaina. Combine prompts as you like, then decide how your character reacts. Record your growing legend in your personal Roomlander Journal. (Colostle designer Nich Angell teaches how to play the game.)

[Note: Many of our offers are hosted on DriveThruRPG, but these Colostle titles aren't available on DriveThru. Download your files from your Wizard's Cabinet on the Bundle site.]

This all-new Colostle Bundle gives you the core rulebook (including rules for two-player co-op play), the Dungeons and Kyodaina supplements, and play aids – everything you need to fill dozens of Roomlander Journals with your journeys from the Dungeons to the Rafters and everywhere between. Pay just US$14.95 to get all eight titles in our Colostle Collection (retail value $62.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Colostle Core Rulebook, the Dungeons and Kyodaina expansions, and four print-and-cut Job Decks of prompt cards: Apothecary, Cartographer, Inventor, and Researcher.

It's a great place to explore, though you wouldn't want to paint it. This Colostle offer goes missing, purloined by the Cult of Shards in the Hanging City of Oubliette deep in the Colostle Dungeons, Monday, July 20.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Colostle

Through Wednesday, July 8 we present the Mappa Mundi Bundle featuring Mappa Mundi, the RPG of exploration and ecology from Three Sails Studios. You are a Chronicler, one of a team of specially trained explorers, researchers, diplomats, and protectors sent out into a fantastical world like our own, a place taking its first hesitant breaths after a century of ecological catastrophe. Beyond the towns and cities of the settled worlds wait the Wilds, now inhabited by gargantuan monsters. The old maps are useless, the old stories forgotten. The land has lost its history. Your job is to write the new history – to give the new world its voice.

With their four Abilities (Traversal, Exploration, Deduction, and Observation) and an array of Skills and Interactions – armed with nothing but courage and dedication – Chroniclers trained by the Mappa Mundi Institute travel a world that is sometimes mistrustful, certainly difficult, and often dangerous. Having sworn an oath to Do No Harm, Mappa Mundi Chroniclers negotiate danger without the aid of weapons. Their mission? To learn about, engage with, understand, and document the world: its Monsters, Creatures, environments, and cultures.

As a narrative-driven zero-combat system, Mappa Mundi challenges players to accomplish their mission to document the world and write its new history without inflicting violence. Mappa Mundi asks one question: How do you save a world without doing harm?

Powered by hope (and a successful February 2025 Kickstarter campaign), driven by curiosity, exploration, and a fascination with the natural world, Mappa Mundi is a rules-light non-combat game that gives players significant agency over the world they're exploring, while reducing the creative storytelling burden for Narrators. As Archivists, Diviners, Fixers, and Guardians, your group can focus from the beginning on creating tense stories of discovery and phenomenal wonder. Focus on the elements you're interested in. Build the world you want to see. Save it in the way you want.

In the Introduction to the pay-what-you-want Mappa Mundi Quickstart rules, the Three Sails design team lists the game's influences: historical and fantastical travel narratives and chronicles like the Shanhai jing ("The Classic of Mountains and Seas"), the accounts of Ahmad ibn-Fadlan and Ibn Battuta, and The Travels of Sir John Mandeville – RPGs like Monster Care Squad, The Quiet Year, and Ryuutama, and video games like Legend of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Pokémon, Death Stranding, and Dragon Quest Monsters – and, lastly, "Mappa Mundi is in many ways a direct response to the Monster Hunter series.

"Mappa Mundi seeks to give creative control to its players. The game equips players with the tools, both mechanical and creative, to create and shape its world to their own tastes, interests, and experiences. It seeks to reject the logic of colonialism, extraction, and ecocidal violence, and asks its players to give themselves over to experiences that may be beyond their initial understanding. The trust you place in Mappa Mundi is paid back throughout your gameplay experience."

On the Gnome Stew blog during the February 2025 Kickstarter, Tomas Gimenez Rioja posted an extensive overview: "What is Mappa Mundi?"

This all-new Mappa Mundi Bundle gives you everything you need to track and document magnificent monsters in the transformed world of Ecumene a century after the Flux. Pay just US$9.95 to get both titles in our Mundi Collection (retail value $40) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Mappa Mundi - An Exploration + Ecology RPG core rulebook (plus the pay-what-you-want Quickstart and Solo Supplement) and the four-adventure anthology Chronicles of the Wilds V1. As a convenience to customers, we also include the free preview versions of two other Three Sails RPGs, City of Espers and Gallows Corner.

This Mappa Mundi offer disappears into the blackened city of Binvladkrai in the Kikal Rift Wednesday, July 8.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/MappaMundi

Through Monday, July 13 we present the Torchbearer Bundle featuring Torchbearer, the FRPG of desperate adventure from The Burning Wheel. You're a born-to-lose vagabond, out of options. Cash slips from your hands as easily as the blood from your wounds. But there's lost loot out there, in forlorn ruins full of terrible monsters. If you salvage it, it's yours to sell or keep.

Funded in a smash April 2020 Kickstarter campaign, Torchbearer Second Edition adapts the core rules, character builds, and conflict system from the Mouse Guard roleplaying game to a grimmer, harsher world. Forget recovering all your hit points after a short rest: Torchbearer expeditions tax your body, your mind, and your very nature. To survive, you must carefully manage food, water, and light resources. To excel, you must fight for what you believe in. To prosper, you must fill your bags with loot and treasure. These competing needs create a tension unique to Torchbearer. You balance these factors in every decision you make. The deeper you venture, the heavier and more costly each decision becomes. Still, this life is your only hope to prosper. If you're lucky, smart, and stubborn, you might win out.

Torchbearer makes the logistical and physical challenges of dungeon-crawling interesting and fun. You must carefully husband resources like gear, tools, light sources, food, and water. The inventory system makes these easy to track, but the decisions around who should carry what, what you absolutely must bring with you, and what can be left behind are fraught. The bookkeeping is easy. The decisions are hard.

One of your most precious resources is time. As you delve into haunted ruins and other desolate places, you grow hungry, thirsty, exhausted, and so on. These are the elements of the character's "damage" track. Neglect your characters' needs for too long, and they eventually sicken and die. Planning and teamwork can help, but inevitably you'll need to return to town to rest, recuperate, and restock essential supplies. Better hope you score some loot first.

In these trials and tribulations, you learn who your character really is. Your character has a belief, a goal, and an instinct, all challenged at every turn. Facing, overcoming, or turning away from these challenges earns rewards. Your traits help and hinder you. Your fellow players can assign your character new traits or upgrade existing ones based on how they perceive the character.

Like The Burning Wheel, Torchbearer is a technical game that rewards mastery. You don't start this game as a hero, but with perseverance and dedication you may become one. Or you might choose to become a hardcase who's only in it for the treasure. You'll discover through play.

Pay just US$14.95 to get our entire Rulebook Collection (retail value $65) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete two-volume Torchbearer Core Set (consisting of the Dungeoneer's Handbook and the Scholar's Guide), the Lore Master's Manual of optional rules, and the Scavenger's Supplement with new character classes, traits, weapons, denizens, and summoning spells.

[Note: The Scavenger's Supplement isn't available on DriveThruRPG. Get it from your Wizard's Cabinet download page on the Bundle site.]

And if you pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $19.95 to start, you'll level up and also get our entire Adventure Collection with three more titles worth an additional $35, including the six-scenario Cartographer's Compendium, the full-length adventure Bridge of the Damned, and the mini-scenario Ghost Tower of the Illmyr Fens.

We presented Torchbearer First Edition (2013) in the November 2014 Cornucopia 2 and again in the January 2020 Classic Hits offer. This is the 2021 Second Edition.

This Torchbearer offer succumbs to Hunger, Anger, Fear, Exhaustion, Injury, and Sickness Monday, July 13.

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Torchbearer