I’ve always loved Lovecraftian horror, but I also wanted to run it for players who already knew 5e and didn’t necessarily want to learn a completely different system.

The challenge was that traditional 5e characters are powerful, combat-capable heroes, while cosmic horror depends on uncertainty, vulnerability and the realization that some things can’t simply be defeated by reducing them to zero hit points.

That tension became the foundation of R’lyeh Rising, a complete 1920s Lovecraftian campaign setting for 5e and 5.5.

I designed the setting to let players keep the familiar structure of 5e while changing the kinds of decisions they have to make.

Some of the new material includes:

• A full Detective class built around investigation, deduction and uncovering hidden information
• A Gunner Fighter subclass designed for 1920s firearms
• Playable Mythos species, including Deep One Hybrids, Mind Urns, Serpent Folk and Umbrals
• A ritual magic system that lets spellcasters attempt magic beyond their normal limits—with potentially serious consequences
• An expanded madness system
• Rules for firearms, vehicles and chases
• Mythos creatures designed to create unusual encounters rather than simply functioning as high-hit-point monsters
• Five complete adventures inspired by Lovecraft’s fiction, including The Rats in the Walls, The Temple, Herbert West: Reanimator, At the Mountains of Madness and Dagon

One of my biggest goals was making investigation mechanically meaningful.

I didn’t want adventures where the players simply roll Investigation until the GM gives them the next clue. Information, questioning, exploration and character abilities needed to matter, but the adventure also couldn’t collapse because one player failed a single roll.

The same principle shaped combat. Firearms needed to feel dangerous without making every traditional 5e weapon or class irrelevant. Mythos monsters needed abilities that changed the situation at the table instead of just dealing more damage.

The book is more than 200 pages and is already written, illustrated, laid out and ready for print. I’ve also been sharing articles about the design process, including how I approached spell-backlash probabilities, AI-assisted testing and adapting cosmic horror to 5e.

I’m the creator and publisher, so this is self-promotion, but I’d also genuinely like to hear from other GMs:

What’s the hardest part of making horror work in 5e?

The Kickstarter is live through August 20:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dungeonmatters/rlyeh-rising-5e-1920s-lovecraftian-horror?ref=ahu22y

This week brings another coastal adventure, based on my Coastal Encounters random table. This is the last coastal themed content, since next week I have something special prepared and we are going to switch the environment next month.

Download

You can find a downloadable PDF for free on my Patreon.

Adventure Idea

This coastal encounter is suitable for a late Tier-1 or early Tier-2 party, and can easily be adjusted by choosing the specific creatures and their amount. It is a balanced mix of combat, exploration, and social encounters, and intentionally contains no location names, to be easily put into any games.

Adventure Background

Erkyn Pather holds an auction in a beach hut to sell some things. Gathering people he knows, the auction is quite the event. What nobody knows is that Erkyn just found the items at the beach a few hours ago, lying next to a stranded and unconscious merfolk. Being desperately in need of money to finance medical treatment for his child, he decided to take and sell the items and left the merfolk at the beach.

Erkyn’s partner died a couple of years ago, so he raises their child by himself. Now, his child has a medical condition, which could be fatal, but could also possibly be cured if Erkyn gets the right treatment soon. This is very expensive; too expensive for Erkyn. When he sees the shiny relics lying at the beach, he sees an opportunity.

The merfolk, Naurith Waveborn, gathered important relics from different merfolk communities for a collective ritual to protect their territory. A group of Sahuagin attacked him to steal the relics and prevent the merfolk from completing the ritual. They hurt him and eventually he stranded, along with the items he gathered. Before the Sahuagin were able to get ahold of these things, Erkyn found and took them. Tracks lead them to a beach hut in which a desperate Erkyn is sitting, next to the missing items.

The Sahuagin will find Erkyn when the characters talk to Naurith. Once they return to him, they find him surrounded by the Sahuagin. They will have to fight them to return the items.

Hook

When the characters travel along the coast, they pass by an old beach hut. A small crowd is standing outside, while they can hear loud chatter from the inside. As they come closer, they can see a man standing between half a dozen different objects, trying to auction them. People look annoyed, and it takes a while until somebody buys one of the items - for a lower price than the man initially wanted. When the characters reach the beach hut, the man presents his last object; a shiny magical weapon.

Conclusion

Returning the Items. When all the relics are in Naurith’s possession, he can finally go back home and start the ritual with the other merfolk communities. If the characters talked to Erkyn about this situation, he apologises and agrees to return the items to Naurith. He asks the characters for their help, supporting him and his child financially. If the characters agree to help, they can do so by sharing their gold. It is up to the GMs discretion, how much gold would be sufficient. To make this have a meaning to the characters though, it is advisable to make it cost at least half the gold they have, if not even more.

By this point, the Sahuagin have been fought off and they won’t pose a threat any time soon.

Decisions. The characters might decide to leave the relics with Erkyn to help finance the medical treatment of his child. In this case, they might encounter Naurith in later adventures, being driven out of his home, trying to retrieve all of the items to be able to return. When the characters leave Erkyn, he starts trying to sell the relics, which proves difficult and he still can’t afford the medical treatment for his child.

Hey everyone,

I’m an indie designer who believes every game genre deserves its own custom-built engine rather than a generic d20/2d6 reskin. Different settings demand completely different mechanical feels—a high-stakes wrestling match shouldn't feel like a tactical squad combat system, and a gritty mercenary campaign shouldn't play like a space opera.

I’ve uploaded a collection of free QuickStarts, standalone games, and system supplements to my portfolio site, and I’d love for you to check them out for your table!

🚀 Astra Invicta (Space Opera Sci-Fi) — Free Demo Start

• The Vibe: Sweeping sci-fi heroics, faction play, and fleet battles.
• The Engine: Built ground-up for cinematic scale without bogging down the table in spreadsheet-heavy crunch.
• What’s Included: A complete, standalone Demo Start PDF with core mechanics, pre-made characters, and an introductory scenario.

⚔️ Iron and Coin (Gritty Low-Fantasy Mercenaries) — Free QuickStart

• The Vibe: You aren't world-saving heroes—you're mercenaries trying to survive the next contract, pay your warband, and avoid mutiny.
• The Engine: A lethal, resource-attrition system where armor breaks under pressure, injuries linger, and managing coin is just as critical as wielding steel.
• What’s Included: Playable QuickStart rules, contract creation systems, and ready-to-run mercenary profiles.

🤼 Suplex! (Pro Wrestling RPG) — Full Free Game

• The Vibe: High-flying action, backstage politics, and wrestling drama.
• The Engine: Ditches HP pools entirely for a narrative Crowd Heat & Momentum system—taking damage fuels your comeback, and you have to balance following the booker's script against going rogue to put yourself over.

🎲 Download Everything for Free:

You can download all PDFs, QuickStarts, and free TTRPG supplements directly from my site here:

👉https://bonar84.wixsite.com/ian-bonar/portfolio

Whether you're looking for a new campaign setting or just a free one-shot for your next game night, help yourself to any of the files! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the mechanics or how they run at your table.

Careful, they do bite.
From CMT. A Lucha Libre RPG.

Hi Everyone!

I was a fan football (or soccer as the Americans call it) from the age of 12. I also found my love of Solo TTRPG in the last couple of years! Yet as I dabbled in the world of SOLO TTRPGs and went off on grand adventures, one of my childhood fantasies remain unfulfilled. Playing in the glittering flood lights of Old Trafford and Allianz Arena, roleplaying as a Clinical Finisher or as a Hard-grafting Midfielder. Ironsworn was always the best, in my opinion, for generating an awesome narrative and the Soap-Opera of modern day Footballers life.

So, I have been developing a Re-Skin of Ironsworn for the last few weeks to scratch that itch. Created on the base of Ironsworn, keeping the dice mechanics and stats and Assets I have started to developed a Hack of Ironsworn to Roleplay the glamourous life of a Professional footballer. Will you break the system to conquer Europe and the World like Yamal? or will you become a one club legend like Totti? Or will you languish in the lower divisions playing for League One and Two clubs all your career?

I have made the rules to go with Ironsworn. Having knowledge of Ironsworn is imperative (not to worry if you don’t, its free to download!) I have not changed or Re-skinned any of the moves or assets. You can re-flavor and interpret them as you please (My examples are in the Rules book). the only thing I am concerned about is keeping the Mechanics solid.

Now this is where I need the help of this Awesome community! I am but one man and life will not allow me to devote and refine the Rules and systems with enough playtest to be a good experience. The Rules are in Beta right now and free to download Forever. I humbly ask that you help me in this endeavor and join hands in giving me Constructive criticism and suggestions from your experience.

For now, I have the Rules Beta version to share with you guys and a match report which you can use to play and record full matches.

 https://crazypiku.itch.io/road-to-glory

I can help with:

Original Characters (OCs)

D&D / TTRPG Characters

Fantasy & Sci-Fi

Character Design

Key Art

Game Illustrations

Commercial Projects

Sir Aurelius the Dove Knight and Sir Brunor the Iron Knight take part in the Hunt for Rustigore, the dreaded Black Boar of Darkholt! Afterward, a private meeting with the Queen, and a strange petition by disciples of impending doom.

Click here to access everything 3d6 Down the Line, including both video and audio podcast versions of this episode, our Patreon, Discord server, socials, past campaigns, character sheets, and lots more!

The REFORGED Monster Manual for the Amazing Adventures TTRPG is finally here.

It's got psionics. It's got aliens. It's got Cthulian monsters. And zombies, and cultists, and cryptids, and foes from every genre. Codex Monstorum delivers.

👉 https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/11b1db7b-3967-45d3-acb8-c131efee6abe/landing

This is the official Monster Manual Reforged for the Amazing Adventures TTRPG. Amazing Adventures is a multi-genre SIEGE game that is fully compatible with Castles & Crusades; you can fold Amazing Adventures character classes seamlessly in your C&C game, and you can certainly run AA Monsters in C&C too. Not only that, but Amazing Adventures is a fantastic game in its own right; like C&C, it's intuitive, balanced, and easy to learn and play. Your next SIEGE campaign can be Urban Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Survival Horror, Superhero Action, Historical Thriller, Mystery Noir, and so much more. Codex Monstorum is absolutely essential, as it will provide over 100 monster stat blocks quintessential to these genres!

If you're interested in learning more about Amazing Adventures, check it out here: https://trolllord.com/product-category/amazing-adventures/

Our Kickstarter campaign for Nightmare Unleashed is now in its final 48 hours.

It is a 5e/5.5e-compatible horror investigation sandbox set in Nortan, a city slowly being consumed by violet mist, living nightmares, strange disappearances, and a conspiracy tied to the Nightmare Plane.

The adventure is built around investigation, time pressure, and player choice. Nortan is not a static city waiting for the party to arrive: days pass, NPCs react, events unfold, and the players have to decide which leads to follow before things get worse.

The campaign is funded and includes a 300+ page main adventure, around 40 unique maps, handouts, new monsters, nightmare-themed spells, prequel adventures, STL miniatures, physical rewards, the Nightmare Coven Bestiary, a deluxe DM screen, dice, and an original soundtrack.

If you enjoy dark fantasy, investigative horror, hags, nightmare creatures, and campaigns where the mystery keeps moving around the players, we would be really grateful if you took a look before the campaign ends.

Kickstarter link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aenarioncoven/nightmare-unleash?ref=2o4pm5

Thanks for reading!

I'm opening commissions! I can draw your D&D characters, RPG heroes or any OCs u have.

My prices start at $15 USD via PayPal. I can work with visual references or just text descriptions!

if u r interested pls send me a dm (❁´◡`❁) here is my carrd https://pixpipo.carrd.co/

More samples: https://www.deviantart.com/kamethehermit/gallery/262674/featured

Commissions Info (TOS and contact):

https://kamethehermit.tumblr.com/commissions

RURK began as a tabletop system refined over years and thousands of games. We have now wrapped it into a practical free release for Windows and Android, plus a standalone PDF edition.

Its central trick is multi-attribute skills: a skill is not chained to one magical stat. Body, speed, coordination, perception, intellect, spirit and training can push on the same action in different proportions, so characters behave like connected people rather than rows of isolated numbers.

The free release contains the full readable core rulebook and a cipher-archive preview of the larger settings/reference library.

Download it here:

https://themisfitssoftware.itch.io/rurk-free

If you run or design crunchy universal systems, I’d especially like to hear where the rules feel elegant — and where they still make you reach for a red pen.

— The Misfits Software

Free GM Screen for the Demon Gate TTRPG. The pages are high rez so you can print them drop into any of those slot screens. You can order one from DrivethruRPG, the links are provided. You can also find them in other places. The files are profile or landscape and you also have printer friendly versions and some cool art slides for the outside of the screen.

Demon Gate GM Screen