Savage Worlds Freebies, A Kickstarter, and Chupacabra Con

We have two free products, a Kickstarter, and a Con to announce.

Visionary Comics produced a new web comic titled What A Man's Got To Do written by Pinnacle Entertainment Group's own Matthew Cutter. The 67 'page' work gives a nice taste of Deadlands for any of you unfamiliar with Pinnacles Weird West setting. You can also find a large number of Deadlands product reviews on this blog.

The second free product is a primer for PEG Inc's newest setting, The Last Parsec which corresponds to the full product's Kickstarter. The primer discusses the foundational aspects of the setting such as travel, communications, races, governments and corporations. Like the comic above, it's only a taste of the setting but would make a good handout for your players.

The Last Parsec was inspired by the Shane Hensley's play of TSR's Star Frontiers. I loved that setting. We played everything they published for it and then some. For more information, check out The Last Parsec design diary PDF.

The Kickstarter for The Last Parsec is well underway. At the time of this writing is is $30,000 over goal with 380 backers. Pinnacle handles Kickstarters in a very smart way but this isn't unusual for PEG. They know their audience well and found a way to fund additional content for their settings before release. I always pick the $35 level which gives the PDFs but I'm tempted to go print with this one.

So, big things are a comin'.

Speaking of which, I'll be at Chupacabra Con running a few sessions including one on Savage Saturday night. Come on out if you can. The guest list includes some Savage heavy hitters:

• Cam Banks
• Clint Black
• Daniel Burrow
• Shawn Carman
• Jamie Chambers
• Jeff Dee
• Preston DuBose
• Brian Engard
• Sean Patrick Fannon
• Emily Foster
• Sean Hanson
• Malcolm Harris
• Shane Lacy Hensley
• Kenneth Hite
• Steve Kenson
• Geoffrey Kuhns
• Diesel LaForce
• Robin D. Laws
• Steven S. Long
• Caitlin Mills
• Cory Mills
• Jason Morningstar
• Kevin G. Nunn
• Donna Prior
• Jennifer Rehnay
• Michael Satran
• Ross Watson
• Ed Wetterman
• John Wick

We look forward to seeing you there.

Deadlands Noir - A New Savage Worlds Setting by Pinnacle via Kickstarter! Part 1 of 3

Welcome to the Savage Troll's entry for January's RPG Blog Carnival. This month's carnival theme is New Beginnings so it seems only appropriate to highlight a new Savage Setting from Pinnacle Entertainment Group:  Deadlands Noir. Think "Raymond Chandler does Deadlands" and you get the idea.

DLN PreRelease and New Orleans Map

Words: John Goff, Shane Hensley, Clint Black, and Sean Preston

Pictures: Cheyenne Wright, Aaron Acevedo, Jordan Peacock, and Mercenary Art Studio

Pages: 144

Price: $19.99 ( .pdf on DTRPG )

Blurb: Deadlands Noir is a pen-and-paper roleplaying game set in the world of Pinnacle Entertainment’s award-winning Deadlands universe. It includes new Edges, Hindrances, and powers, as well as new rules for handling detective work, the state of the Union and the CSA in the Depression-era, a complete Plot Point campaign, and of course, more monsters and ghouls than you can shake a smoking .45 at.  Deadlands Noir is not a complete game. It requires the Savage Worlds core rules to play. 

Review: Last Sons - Deadlands Plot Point Campaign

Product: Last Sons - Deadlands Reloaded Plot Point Campaign
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
People: Shane Lacey Hensley, Matthew Cutter
Price: $34.99

Pinnacle continues their release of Deadlands’ plot point campaigns with Last Sons, adventures in War’s domain. The story picks up with The Flood left off taking your posse into the Disputed Territories of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and the Sioux Nation.


For those those of you not up to speed on the Deadlands setting, below is a little alternate history.

Review: Hell on Earth Reloaded

Product: Hell On Earth Reloaded
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
People: Shane Lacey Hensley (Author)
Price: $24.99 for full version, $14.99 for player's guide

My second experience with Savage Worlds was in a Post Apocalyptic setting of my own creation. I documented some of the action on the RPTools.net forum. Thus I have a special fondness for PA settings combined with Savage Worlds.

I was pleased to see Pinnacle released another setting book in their award winning line of Deadlands products: Hell on Earth Reloaded. Like most Savage Settings, this one takes the a genre and applies a Savage twist. Aside from the normal PA problems with mutants, psykers, and road gangs - the players must also contend with horrors from another dimension and their minions.

Deadlands Comics

Visionary Comics recently published a series of comics based on Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Deadlands RPG. Each comic highlights a facet of the Deadland’s setting with varying degrees of success. I will say for the Deadlands RPGer, they are all worth reading since they help illustrate the setting to the non-Deadlands initiate. Their other value is giving the veteran Deadlands dweller a new view of the beloved RPG setting. 

For the non-gamer, Deadlands is a genre mash-up of the Wild West, Horror, and Steampunk called the Weird West. It features card shark spell casters, mad scientist inventing infernal devices, quick draw gun men, preachers that can call down actual fire and brimstone, and shamans on first name basis with nature spirits. There's lots of Kung-fu action as well.

Review - Deadlands Reloaded: The Flood

Deadlands Reloaded - The Flood
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Author: Shane Lacy Hensley, Matt Cutter
Price: $19.99 on DriveThruRPG

The Savage Troll continues its trek through Deadlands and I must admit, it's a scary journey. Those of you who read the reviews of the Player's Guide and Marshal's Handbook will be glad to know this review will ere on the side of brevity. While I believe in exhaustive reviews of rule books, adventures - such as this one - need to remain far more secretive. We don't want to give away any surprises to your posse.

Deadlands is easily the largest property in the Pinnacle Entertainment Group's product line. The 15+ year old setting has seen four RPG systems with a mountain of supplements including rule books, adventures, trail guides, and plot point campaigns. The Flood is a plot point campaign centering around the starved region of the West coast.

Review - Deadlands Reloaded Marshal’s Handbook Explorer's Edition

Deadlands Reloaded Marshal’s Handbook Explorer's Edition
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Author: Shane Lacy Hensley
Price: $19.99

The only thing to fear is fear itself, unless you’re a character in Deadlands. In that case it isn’t Fear but the thing generating it you have to worry about.

In Deadlands, Fear feeds evil in a very real way. It generates energy to feed the Reckoners. The Manitous bring that energy to the Reckoners who use it to spawn even greater terrors.The Manitou’s job is to Terrorform the Earth for their masters.  It’s a vicious cycle that ends when Earth has turned into a mirror image of the Reckoner's home, called The Deadlands so the they may walk the Earth and feast on humanity's fear first hand.

It’s the job of the heroes - called a posse - to fight the plots, persons, and panics that infest the Weird West. Sadly, humanity generates a great deal of fear on its own. The two American nations may have a truce but their spies and provocateurs cause all sorts of mayhem, especially in the disputed territories of Kansas, Colorado, and what’s left of Oklahoma.

Review - Deadlands Player's Guide

Product: Deadlands Player's Guide - Explorer Edition
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Authors: Shane Lacy Hensley, B.D. Flory, and Matt Cutter

Price: $14.99

Pinnacle Entertainment Group launched another in the line of their flagship setting, Deadlands. This release contains all the information you need to generate a character, from concept to creation.

Deadlands is a genre mashup of the Wild West, Horror, and Steampunk settings called the Weird West. It features card shark spell casters, mad scientist inventing infernal devices, quick draw gun men, fire and brimstone preachers that can call down actual fire and brimstone, and native American shamans on first name basis with their nature spirits. Oh, and lots of Kung-fu action as well.

The eight-time, award-winning setting began as it's own rule set back in 1996. It's been ported to d20 and GURPs, and finally settled into the Savage Worlds system with Deadlands:Reloaded. The most recent rule books, Player's Guide and Marshal's Handbook, come in the oh-so-convenient explorer's edition format.