New Art and New Stuff!
11 months ago
– Fri, May 02, 2025 at 01:58:34 AM
Hello everyone!
I hope you all have had a great week. Today I wanted to share some sketches for some new art, and share some news about two much requested new add-ons!
New Art
First up, the art. Below you can see sketches of a Baloran Channeller and an Aos Sí Draoi, illustrated by the amazing Clara-Marie Morin. These will appear in the Species chapter of the book, where we get into the nitty gritty of each of the new species you’ll be able to play. We also shared some early concept work in a previous update, which you can check out here.
New Add-ons
During the campaign we got lots of requests to add the cloth map as an add-on, and also to offer additional copies of the fold-out map and sticker sheets. We couldn’t get these live during the campaign as I needed to speak to our print partners, but now that everything is settled down I’m glad to say that we can offer both! Once the pledge manager opens (likely in a week or two) you’ll be able to add both the cloth map and the fold-out map (plus a set of three sticker sheets) to your order — at a discounted price!
Thank you so much for your enthusiasm for both these add-ons, I’m delighted to be able to offer these to all of our backers.
We’ll be back next week with another update. In the meantime, check out some of these awesome projects from some of our friends. And remember, be sure to join the Discord to chat with other backers — and me!
Scepter of the Lightbringer
Our friends at Elderbrain are in the final hours of their latest Kickstarter for the amazing Scepter of the Lightbringer campaign! Check it out here.
Scepter of the Lightbringer is a 700+ page D&D 5e campaign, live now on Kickstarter, blending urban investigation with sandbox exploration. As a supernatural heatwave sparks chaos across the city of Drayl, players are drawn into a deadly struggle between a vampire-led underworld and the fanatical cultists of a fallen theocracy.
The massive world features three richly developed cities, hundreds of NPCs, encounters, and locations, plus new urban-themed dungeons, monsters, items, poisons, tools, subclasses, feats, and spells. It’s fully written, edited, and ready for quick fulfillment—including VTT support for Roll20 and FoundryVTT, free downloads, and an Elderbrain Soundscapes app.
Higher tiers include the chance to become an NPC in the adventure, which was shaped by the input of over 3,000 community members.
Dungeons and Naggins
If you’re a fan of all things Irish (and I’m guessing you are!), check out the latest Kickstarter from Steve Bennett, another amazing Irish creator. Steve just launched an expansion for his award winning Dungeons and Naggins party game. Check it out here!
‘Spansion Packet for Dungeons and Naggins! More Cards, more Craic, more Chaos! The award-winning Irish Comedy Board Game is back!
As living costs increase, more and more young people are getting into board games for a great value night in or out. Connecting with friends by putting down your phone, picking up some dice, and having a laugh together.
Dungeons and Naggins, quenches the thirst for an authentic Irish comedy board game. With gorgeous art, and a hilarious Irish theme, Dungeons and Naggins is designed to be simple for new players and non-gamers.
Up to 8 players can fight together as mighty heroes like The Pintman and new Bartstaff, to battle fearsome enemies like the TV Licence inspector and Faeries! Survive new hilarious encounters such as Inflation or Mass, and gather enough items like Spice Bags and tasty pints to survive the dungeon!
Steve is launching the new ‘spansion packet on Kickstarter, where you’ve got a second chance to get the game cheaper and faster by supporting it early. The new expansion to the game has more cards, chaos dice, and 2 new hero cards (now for 2-8 players). You’ll also get extra rewards and add-ons including: tote bags, colouring books, and badges!
So, grab your friends and embark on an epic journey filled with quests, challenges, and maybe a few drinks!
Sláinte!
A Closer Look at the Setting Guide
12 months ago
– Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 03:13:43 AM
Hey all, hope everyone is having a great week.
After we took a look at the core rulebook last week, today I wanted to give you all a look at what's coming in the Tír Nascath Setting Guide. Let us know what you’re most excited about below!
Tír Nascath Setting Guide
Learn the history and secrets of the lands of shadow with the Tír Nascath Setting Guide. It has everything you need to run games in the world of Beyond the Woods! Here's what's inside:
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1. Keeper of the Old Lore: This chapter gives the GM advice on running the game, including the core tenets of Beyond the Woods to get player buy-in, advice on running your first session and prepping future sessions, and guidance on building a campaign.
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2. Céad Darach: This is a chunky chapter that gives over 25 pages of information on the city of Céad Darach. What is daily life like, who runs the city, how do people live, what do they do for entertainment, plus dozens of locations throughout the city.
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3. Beyond the Woods: This chapter gives the GM insights and secrets about the world, the threats and hazards the players will face, and information on gateways to the Otherworld. It also includes over 20 unique locations that you can drop anywhere in the world.
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4. Chance Encounters: This chapter expands on the encounters presented in the corebook, breaking them down by terrain. It brings the total count up to 90 encounters! (30 in the core, 60 in the setting guide)
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5. Treasures of the Past: Advice for the GM on rewarding players, including a collection of tables to roll on for treasures and equipment found while exploring. This chapter also includes 5 ancient artefacts, each with their own adventure outline that can be used as a focus for an entire campaign!
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6. Bones of the Earth: Tír Nascath is filled with forgotten dungeons and abandoned villages, and this chapter gives the GM tools to create their own ancient ruins. It offers dozens of tables to let you create a new location on the fly and suggestions for how to include them in your game.
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7. Lost and Damned: The land is filled with spirits and monsters, and this chapter presents a collection of creatures from Irish myth, including the Sluagh, the Avartach (Irish vampire), and the Olliphéist (sometimes known as the Irish dragon). Future books will add even more Irish monsters to Beyond the Woods!
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Adventures: Thanks to your overwhelming support, the Tír Nascath Setting Guide will include 7 ready to play adventures! We’ve already started to get pitches in from our guest writers, and we can’t wait to share more.
So that's what you can expect from the Tír Nascath Setting Guide, if you want to know what’s in the Core Rulebook, check out this update. What are you most excited about in each book? We’d love to hear from you. And if you want to join the discussion, be sure to join the Discord to chat with other backers — and me!
Thanks again for all your support. We’ll be back next week with another update. In the meantime, check out some of these awesome projects from some of our friends.
The Gunslinger’s Guide to Rexfald
The kind folks over at Gneiss Games have reached their goal on their Kickstarter The Gunslinger’s Guide to Rexfald, a Wild Western fantasy campaign setting and adventure for 5th edition full of guns, grit, and glory!
Ride across an endless frontier as you engage in winner-take-all showdowns, bond with Mount Companions, and sling over 100 new Frontier Firearms each with custom art. It has Wild West subclasses, it has dozens of new mounts to ride, it has spells and frontier diseases and bounties and so much more!
They’ve already hit 5 stretch goals! Check out their next stretch goal for More Diseases! We’d love to see them hit it! Click here to check it out.
The Lord of the Rings Fountain Pen & Ink Collection
Our friends at Ferris Wheel Press have launched an amazing campaign celebrating Middle-earth with The Lord of the Rings Fountain Pen & Ink Collection. Explore this collection of high-quality fountain pens and inks created to commemorate The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Practice and perfect your Tengwar calligraphy with this collectible stationery set, crafted by a company with 15 years of history.
Click here to check out the campaign before it ends!
A Closer Look at the Core Book
12 months ago
– Tue, Apr 15, 2025 at 09:53:31 AM
Hello friends!
After a whirlwind end to the campaign last week we took a few days for some much needed R&R, but now we’re back at it — and diving into making the books! Today I wanted to share a chapter breakdown of the core rulebook, to give you an idea of what you can expect. We’ll dive into the setting guide in a future update.
Just a quick note before we dive in, the Pledge Manager will be open in a few weeks but there’s nothing you need to do right now. We’ll be in touch as soon as it's open. Now, on to the corebook!
Beyond the Woods Core Rulebook
The corebook has everything you need to play Beyond the Woods, or to run hexcrawl campaigns in your preferred setting. Here’s what’s inside:
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1. The Known World: An introduction to the world of Beyond the Woods and the lands of Tír Nascath. Gives insight into what to expect from the game, changes to 5th edition, and information on exactly what your character knows about the world when they leave Céad Darach.
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2. Character Creation: This chapter guides you through character creation, using a new Lifepath system to generate your Ability Score bonuses, gain proficiencies with various skills and tools, learn about your childhood, discover your role in Céad Darach, and build a life and history for your character within the city.
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3. Species: Details on each of the five Species (Aos Sí, Baloran, Changeling, Daoine, and Púca) including physical description, their place in the world, their relationship with their origin and those around them, and then the mechanical bonuses (or penalties) they receive.
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4. Classes: This chapter describes each of the six new Classes — Channeller, Draoi, Hunter, Mage, Storyteller, and Warrior. It details the life of each class, their purpose within Céad Darach, why they would leave, and then explains the various class features and subclasses (three for each class thanks to you!).
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5. Rules: New rules for exploration, survival, encumbrance, hexcrawling, and anything else you need. This chapter is very close to what you’ll find in the Quick Start, but includes some new mechanics we haven’t shared yet, including Luck and Heroic Sacrifice.
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6. Talents: This chapter includes dozens of Talents to customise your character. Talents are a little like Feats, but mechanically weaker — but you get them more often. They offer a lot of flavour and variety to help make your characters feel different.
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7. Equipment: Contains all the equipment you’ll need to (hopefully) survive your trip beyond the woods! Includes tonnes of new adventuring gear (or new rules for existing gear), such as hunting traps, healing salves, iron filings, noise traps, and more. This chapter also includes information on how commerce and trade works within the city, the price of food, and the cost of mounts and how much they can carry.
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8. Bastions and Outposts: Eventually you will get so far from Céad Darach that returning to the city could take months. This chapter gives you new rules for establishing bastions and beyond the city. These can be isolated ruins that you’ve secured as a safe place to rest, or a long-forgotten village that you are rebuilding. You can build up these bastions, add new features, and even bring settlers from Céad Darach to help you establish a new home.
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9. Magic: Much of the ancient magic of the world has been forgotten or lost. This chapter gives spell lists for each of the spellcasting classes, lists Rare spells that can be found in the world, and Lost spells that have been forgotten forever. This chapter also includes a collection of brand new spells unique to Beyond the Woods.
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10. The Unknown World: This chapter is for GM’s eyes only! It gives advice on running the game, the themes and tone of the world, and secret knowledge about the past and current state of Tír Nascath. This chapter also includes dozens of encounters for GMs to use as their players explore the world.
So that's what you can expect from the Beyond the Woods Core Rulebook. What are you most excited about? We’d love to hear from you. And if you want to join the discussion, be sure to join the Discord to chat with other backers — and me!
Thanks again for all your support. We’ll be back next week with another update. In the meantime, check out some of these awesome projects from some of our friends.
Sláinte
The Planar Codex
Following a successful Kickstarter, our good friends at Daggerwood Games have just released The Planar Codex for 5e. I’ve known the team behind this for years and worked with them on dozens of projects, so I know for a fact that they do good work. Definitely pick it up if you’re planning a planar campaign!
The Planar Codex for 5e D&D features 108 new subclasses, 18 new species, 36 new spells, and 54 new feats, each themed around one of nine familiar planes of existence like the Iron Hells, the Immutable City of Cogs, the Bright Wylds, the Scintillating Fey Courts, and the Shadowscape.
Everything you find in this book is rigorously mechanically checked and balanced alongside existing 5e options to make sure they can drop into your game without disturbing the balance, all while introducing new approaches and mechanics to allow each option to feel unique and representative of the planes that inspired them.
Want to play a hulking hell-forged war machine who grinds their enemies beneath their iron-shod heel? Try a shackle soul Ironmonger from the Iron Hells.
Want to play a sentient fungus golem who uses clockwork and ingenuity to create mechanical familiars? Try a sybinid Mechanist rogue from the Immutable City of Cogs.
The planes are more vast than you realize. Pick up a copy of The Planar Codex so you don't have to face them unprepared!
Fae: The Wild Hunt
The Kickstarter for Fae: The Wild Hunt — 10th Anniversary Special Edition brings to life 350 pages of dark epic fantasy bound up in a foiled dust jacket and hardcover boards, sprayed edges, colour end papers, chapter art, slip case and a brand new map.
Fae: The Wild Hunt is the first book in the completed Riven Wyrde Saga by award winning author Graham Austin-King, an epic fantasy set in a world torn apart by war, where ancient knowledge of the fae has been lost to myth.
A coming of age story packed with dark magic, fierce battles and political intrigue, Fae: The Wild Hunt is perfect for fans of Patrick Rothfuss, Peter V. Brett, and Brandon Sanderson.
We Did It — Thanks to YOU!
12 months ago
– Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 12:03:59 PM
‘Mighty oaks from little acorns grow’
Dia dhaoibh a chairde, hello friends, Emmet here. I am almost at a loss for words. After 30 incredible days, the campaign for Beyond the Woods is now over and thanks to your incredible support we raised €202,450. I’m absolutely blown away. Go raibh míle míle míle maith agat, a thousand thousand thousand thanks yous to each and every one of you.
I founded Old Oak Games nine months ago and have spent every day since building to this moment. I hoped, dreamed, rationalised, estimated, checked spreadsheets, rechecked spreadsheets, and tried to reassure myself this was going to work. But no matter how much I planned, I knew the success of Beyond the Woods would rely on one thing — you. The support and enthusiasm I have received from backers, other creators, artists, writers, and everyone in the community has been overwhelming. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
We have planted the acorn, now we can watch it grow.
What Did We Unlock?
After we smashed our funding goal, your support helped us unlock a bunch of stretch goals! So what exactly did we unlock?
- A beautiful hand-drawn character sheet illustrated by Samantha Rustle.
- Six new subclasses, one for each class, for a total of 18 subclasses.
- 10 new Talents and 10 new Spells
- Three brand new adventures for the Tír Nascath Setting Guide, each written by a different guest writer: Chris Doyle, Elaine Lithgow, and Gary Moloney
But That's Not All...
With just over one hour to go, we crossed the €200k mark and unlocked our final stretch goal! This means the incomparable Gareth Hanrahan will lend his considerable talents to Beyond the Woods and pen a new adventure for the Tír Nascath Setting Guide!
Late Pledges
If you missed the campaign, don’t worry! Late pledges will be open here on Kickstarter for the next two weeks. If you miss out on that, we will also be opening late pledges through Backerkit in a few weeks!
Follow Us and Join the Community
Be sure to follow us on all the various social media platforms below to stay up to date, and join our wonderful Discord community to ask questions and chat all things Beyond the Woods.
Facebook | Instagram | Tiktok | Discord | Bluesky | Twitter
Stretch Goal Unlocked: More Spells!
12 months ago
– Wed, Apr 09, 2025 at 09:06:12 AM
Well that didn’t take long! We just reached our €175k stretch goal so we’ll be adding 10 brand new spells to the Beyond the Woods Corebook! Much of the magic of the world has been lost, but Mages willing to leave the safety of Céad Darach may be able to rediscover ancient and powerful incantations buried in ancient ruins — if they can survive the journey there and back.
Our next and final stretch goal is a big one! If we reach €200k, we will be joined by our final guest writer, the legendary Gareth Hanrahan. Gar is an award winning TTRPG designer and fantasy author who has penned adventures for The Lord of the Rings, Night’s Black Agents, and much much more. We’d be over the moon to have Gar lend his talents to Beyond the Woods, so please be sure to share the campaign so we can unlock our final stretch goal!
Until tomorrow, thank you again for your amazing support!
