Twilight Sword Crowdfunding Haul
Last week, my small crowdfunding haul for Twilight Sword arrived - and looking at the Discord Server and talking with some other people I might have been one of the first. So I thought I'd throw a few pictures and descriptions out there for anybody interested.
In case you don't know Twilight Sword, it's a TTRPG that a lot of people describe as Zelda-esque. While that is not untrue, I would add the disclaimer that it is specifically and heavily Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom inspired, and has less to do with the older Temple-raiding Zelda games.
It utilizes an easy D12 system (which is fun simply because I can use my dozens of D12s, FINALLY) that kind of resembles OSR games, but also doesn't. It's hard to describe in a few words, but you essentially roll under your attributes to suceed a stat roll, there's status effects, resting/camping etc. but also potion crafting and cooking in there.
There's also going to be a solo module digitally released sometime this year, and since I had the pleasure of playtesting that, you'll see a lot more Twilight Sword on my blog in the near future (as soon as the module is out and I can post my playthrough here).
If you're interested in Twilight Sword, you can check it out here: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/twilight-sword/
And if you're interested in how it plays, you can read my first solo test of it (with my own solo rules, not the official ones) here: https://daydreamingmoose.bearblog.dev/twilight-sword-solo/
The Complete Haul
I went a very simple route, and 'only' got the two core books, the Starter Set box, and the Card Chest. While there was a more flashy version of the books available, I went with the simpler option as I mostly do, because I prefer how they look.
The Books
Twilight Sword comes in two books, although only the Core Rulebook is actually required to play. It contains all the rules, simple descriptions of the lore, the world, as well as most ways ('classes'), kin ('races'), equipment and monsters.
Lands of Radia on the other hand contains some crowdfunding stretchgoals in the form of three more kin and two more ways, a load more equipment, and monsters, but most importantly way more information about the world, Radia. While this book is definitely interesting to players as well, it's mostly information for the GM. If you're planning to play solo, I'd also recommend getting it.
Technically you can play the game with your own setting, and the Core Rulebooks gives rules and information on how to do it, but the Lands of Radia book is still very much worth it for all the other stuff and the art alone.
As you can see, the books are very beautiful and very well done. They're stitched in the middle, and mostly lay flat (or I imagine they will, once they've been used a bit). The format is very interesting and fits easily into all kinds of larger pockets or small backpacks/bags.
The Starter Set
The Starter Set is what it says on the box. It includes simplified and abbreviated starter rules (which are still around 70-80% of the complete rules from my estimation and mostly exclude character creation, cooking and potions), six pre-made characters, over 70 cards to hand out (equipment, feats, spells, monsters for the GM), handy cardboard punch-out tokens for the status effects and, of course, a short introductory campaign that's set away from the standard setting, but leads to it (no spoilers here). This includes four map tiles of which I'm only showing the backside here. The characters come in small fold-up sheets as you can see on the photo.
Here you can see some of the types of cards: A number of quests related cards (turned over to not spoil anything), monsters, equipment, cheat sheets, spells/feats and the advancement cards for the heroes in the middle. The four cards to the right are the small map for the campaign.
The Starter Set also contains a set of plastic coins, usable as boons for example, as well as a very pointy dice set with a D4 that looks much more usable than the typical triangular spike.
After putting everything into the box again, there's still more than enough space for the coins as well as several dice sets.
The Card Chest
Lastly I got the card chest. That one is an equally large box as the Starter Set, but nearly filled to the brim with reference cards. There's only a little space left, which I think will be entirely filled if one sleeves all the cards. Or might be useful in the future if there's going to be more cards to put into it (and since the next crowdfunding for Twilight Sword starts in November, that'll likely be the case). The card chest contains everything from both books, so the equipment, ways, monsters etc. from Lands of Radia are in here as well.
Here's the different types of cards laid out, from top left to bottom right we have Monster Cards, Kin Reference Cards, arcane spell cards, map cards for the Lands of Radia, blessing spell cards, 8 stacks of cards for the different ways (Arcane, Shield, Light, Blade, Hammer, Song, Wild and Shadow), loads of equipment cards and some cards for the much rarer artifacts. Personally, I think the monster cards will be the most useful to me as a reference, since it'll be much easier to use during solo play than flipping through two separate books. Combined with the newly released cheat sheet (another stretch goal), and the dice and PDFs that might be my transportable solo kit.
And that's it. I'm very happy with the overall quality of the books and boxes, and despite them being delivered by GLS of all services they arrived nearly completely intact. Only my Lands of Radia has some scuffing on the top of the spine. I'm only mad at myself for not getting the GM Screen as well. I have no idea why I didn't. 10/10 will back again (in November).