Tyrants & Hellions: A Book of Villains for 5th Edition
Created by 2CGaming
Stories need villains. Tyrants & Hellions delivers. Make your game an experience your friends will never forget.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Campaign Add-Ons
about 7 years ago
– Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 01:08:51 PM
Let's Talk About Add-Ons
While a little premature to talk about what happens after Tyrants & Hellions funds, there's been a couple of questions about it, specifically regarding what manner of Add-Ons will be available.
The short answer - everything we have, at a 10% discount for all backers! Here's some details on the various projects, including the Add-On price they'll be listed at. You can add funds to your pledge either through Kickstarter, or through our post-campaign pledge manager, Backerkit.
Funded on Kickstarter, the Total Party Kill Handbook will help you take your game to the next level of challenge and fun with 25 encounters, built for groups from level 1 to level 20, all designed to be dropped right into your existing campaign with minimal prep. More details at 2cgaming.com.
Also funded through Kickstarter, the Trap Compendium contains 50 traps, ready for use in your 5th Edition Roleplaying Game, and the rules to build countless more. The traps in this book offer a true challenge for your players and will make them think twice before rushing in unprepared. More details at 2cgaming.com
Epic Legacy brings Epic play to 5th Edition D&D, providing expansion for all character classes from 21st to 30th level, redefining the heights of power in your campaign world. Enter a new age of adventuring, where you challenge gods to battle, shake worlds with your arcane might, and conquer foes of legendary status. Become a champion in this new tier of play that challenges both players and Dungeon Masters alike. Learn more about Epic Legacy.
Join us on Discord to play Epic Legacy with us (no purchase needed).
Formats: PDF
Add-On Price: $13 USD
The Domes of Ishaq-Zahur adventure is a tabletop roleplaying game module for 5th Edition D&D and Pathfinder in the style of a classic dungeon crawl through an egyptian-themed tomb. Domes of Ishaq-Zahur is Part 1 of the 6-part adventure module, Fate of the Forebears, and includes optional game supplements for your Virtual Tabletop, including Music, Creature Tokens, Maps, Handouts and Objects. More details on 2cgaming.com.
The City of Sands adventure module starts where the Domes of Ishaq-Zahur leaves off, sending a party of heroes from the peril of the desert tombs to the streets of the sandy metropolis, Archensheen. There the players will find themselves caught in the middle of a fierce struggle for political power and ancient artifacts as factions from all across the city vie for control of relics from the Nartheneen's glory days. Choosing a side may make more enemies than it does friends, but can the heroes survive if they choose to stand alone? Again, the module includes optional game supplements, as in Domes of Ishaq-Zahur. More details on Kickstarter.
Again, these will all be available after the Kickstarter concludes through Backerkit. If you want to pledge ahead of time (and save a little overhead checking out in Backerkit), go ahead and increase your pledge by the listed amount.
Shipping Note: Please note, however, that any printed Add-Ons are going to have notably higher costs for shipping internationally. These products are currently stored in the US, meaning extra shipping and customs will be applied to these items. Shipping is not included in the below-listed prices, and will be processed through Backerkit.
That's all for now! Let's push this through!
Steven Gordon - 2CGaming Team
The Final Week!
about 7 years ago
– Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 12:05:25 PM
We've had a great campaign so far, and now it's time to bring it home! We're in the last week, and with a little under $2k to go, I'm confident we'll make it. The campaign was featured in ENWorld's Kickstarter roundup over the weekend, and we have some new backers who just arrived from there. Thank you so much for supporting this project!
Everyone has been doing an awesome job sharing this project on social media, let's keep it up! All of your encouraging comments are much appreciated, and I'm so excited to make this book a reality. To kick off this last week, we'll take a look at the third villain mentioned in this Kickstarter, Whim the Doppleganger.
Whim
Whim Illustration by Ambrose Hoilman
A doppelganger who you can retroactively weave into the backstories of your players' characters, Whim thrives on manipulating and tricking the "statics" (those who can't shapeshift) of the world. Shapeshifting is a primal joy for Whim, and your players may find some of their closest friends and family have been impersonated by the devious doppleganger. Whim may not stay their enemy forever, but even if diplomacy prevails, a shapeshifter is mercurial in form and temperament.
Shapeshifters are a very fun concept that is tricky to do well, especially in a tabletop RPG. One of the greatest challenges is determining how the players can detect an impersonation. If it relies on skill checks and die rolls, a lucky 20 can end the charade before it has a chance to begin. If it's undetectable, the players will feel like their choices don't matter. With Whim, the goal is to spread deceit and paranoia among the party, such that they begin accusing every NPC who behaves strangely. Of course, after they've tried to expose the King as a fake, they'll learn he's the real deal, he just had a bad night's sleep and was feeling grumpy. Red herrings are critical with shapeshifters, if you only call for the relevant skill checks when players are dealing with the shapeshifter, they'll know when something isn't right.
In short, it's all about building scenes of intrigue and deception. Whim will include a lot of optional variants with suggestions like passing notes to the players, calling them into another room for a brief discussion, and other ways to tweak the flow of the game in unusual ways. Whim is one of the more unusual villains in the book, but he keeps to the core goal: take a classic villain idea (evil shapeshifter) and expand it into something awesome.
Thank you again for your support! It's so great to see so many people coming together to back this project and make it a reality. Let's see if we can hit some stretch goals in this last week!
Steven Gordon - 2CGaming Team
50% Funded!
about 7 years ago
– Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 09:49:54 AM
As many of you noticed, we reached 50% funded yesterday! Thank you so much for sharing this project with your friends and on social media, we couldn't do it without your help!
This week is blog and news outreach week for us, we'll be reaching out to all sorts of Tabletop RPG news sites. We've gotten a lot of support from them in the past, and we hope we will again! To celebrate hitting 50%, let's take another behind the scenes look at one of the villains you'll see in the finished book.
The Silver Knight
Black and White Illustration of the Silver Knight by Ambrose Hoilman
While Purgos was inspired by a villain in one of my campaigns, the Silver Knight is based on a character I played in someone else's game. The version I played was a Lawful Good Paladin, not a villainous Hellion, but the concept is very similar. Much like the Dread Pirate Roberts of Princess Bride fame, the Silver Knight is a title, not an individual. Born of an ancient compact between Orcish deities and the Goddess of Fate, the mantle of the Silver Knight follows three rules:
There will always be a Silver Knight among the Orcs.
When the time is right, the chosen will discover the armor and axe.
A Silver Knight must die in glorious battle.
It's not the kind of job that has a retirement plan. Though each Silver Knight is a potent threat on their own, the real danger is that this enemy can't be defeated just by killing them. Will your players seek to break the compact between the gods? Or will they try to imprison the current Silver Knight for eternity, preventing the next incarnation?
My favorite part of creating Hellions like the Silver Knight is designing the actual villain. I love monster design, and Hellions have to be powerful and interesting enough to stand completely on their own. It can be a real challenge, especially when you aren't sure what level the players will be when they fight them. There's a lot of playtesting involved, and since my design philosophy is to try to make monsters too strong, then tone them down... those first test runs are brutal.
That's all for this update, thank you again for all of your support, keep it up and we'll get this project funded!
Steven Gordon - 2CGaming Team
48 Hours and 25% Funded!
about 7 years ago
– Thu, Apr 06, 2017 at 03:31:00 PM
What an awesome start! Everyone here at 2CGaming is blown away by your support, thank you so much! Creating Amunrahx was an absolute delight, and I can't wait to write the rest of the villains.
We have black and white illustrations of some of the villains you'll see in the finished book (the finished ones will be in full color, of course!), and while they did pop up in the Kickstarter video, I want to share one of them and pass along some information about who this mysterious, skeletal villain is.
Purgos - Former High Wizard of Khorrenthal, current Lich
Beautifully illustrated by Ambrose Hoilman, Purgos is representing Liches in Tyrants & Hellions. A bit about her is in the project description, detailing her backstory, but I want to talk about the origins of her design.
Purgos appeared as a villain in one of my personal campaigns, and I'm very excited to refine and improve her evil schemes into a truly terrifying foe. One of my main goals with Purgos was to give her a reason beyond "I want power" for throwing away her humanity and becoming a Lich. She did it to save her people. Does that excuse the act of unspeakable evil she committed to attain immortality? That's up to your players to decide.
This is a good opportunity to talk about the title of the book, Tyrants & Hellions. The villains in the book are split into two categories, some are Tyrants and some are Hellions. Tyrants, like Sauron at the time of The Fellowship of the Ring, rely on minions (an army of orcs), evil artifacts (the one ring), and lieutenants (the ringwraiths) rather than being a threat themselves. Hellions are the opposite. Hellions are like Smaug, they don't need minions to be a threat because they are the threat.
And of course, some villains are both. These villains, like Purgos, are called Archvillains. With the power of a Hellion and the army of a Tyrant, she's a force to be reckoned with.
If you'd like to read more about my thought process behind the categories of villains, I've written a series of blog posts on the 2CGaming website, which I'll link here:
Lastly, I want to share a personal thank you for all the wonderful, positive feedback about the sample villain, Amunrahx the Intrepid, because it's put a smile on my face for the last 48 hours. I love this work, and I couldn't do it without your support.
That's all for this first update! It's been an awesome start, and I hope it will continue! A huge thank you to everyone sharing this project on social media, please keep spreading the word!
