Iron Kingdoms – Borderlands and Beyond Kickstarter Preview


by Matt Goetz

As the season turns to autumn, it’s the perfect time to sit by the fire with a mug of warm cider and to put our feet up with a good book.

May I suggest three?

We’re making plans for our next Iron Kingdoms: Requiem Kickstarter campaign. And like all of our RPG releases before, this one promises to be stuffed with all sorts of fun, new, and weird content for you to enjoy.

This time, we’re turning the spotlight away from the kingdoms of humanity and on the lands just to the east, where the dwarves, elves, and others have made their home since before humans managed to figure out the whole “civilization” thing. Encompassing a region we’re calling the borderlands (and beyond! It’s right there in the title!), these books open up a whole new part of the continent for you to explore and, hopefully, survive.

Working with the team of Borderlands and Beyond, The Borderlands Survival Guide, and the new Shadow of the Seeker adventure has been a treat. We were able to venture into the overgrown forests and looming mountains of Ios and Rhul to explore the depths of the Glimmerwood and the sunbaked lands of the Bloodstone Marches.

Let’s check out what you’ll have to look forward to:

Borderlands & Beyond is the core release, similar in scope to the Iron Kingdoms: Requiem core book. It starts with a deep-dive into the history and geography of the region before giving you all the goodies you could want: five new playable races, including farrow, pygs, and soulless; three brand-new classes; and twenty-five subclasses (let us spell it out: 25 subclasses!), as well as new backgrounds and adventuring companies tailored for playing in the borderlands. Whether you’re looking forward to creating a pyg bushwhacker, an Iosan fane knight guardian, or something even stranger, you’ll find plenty of options!

From there, the book dives into new spells for the classes, including a set of animi for warbeasts. These 110 new spells range from the feral destruction wrought by the Wurmtide to the mind-bending wall of decrees.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an RPG release if it didn’t offer you goodies for a character to purchase, so we made sure to include an exciting selection of new armor, weapons, and items, as well as rules for buying and outfitting your own Rhulic steamjacks and Iosan myrmidons (in both House Shyeel and House Vyre flavors!) with everything you need to mix and match weapons systems and upgrades to get the perfect war machine for your adventuring company.

Of course, if there are warlocks and animi in the book, you know there need to be warbeasts as well! With Borderlands and Beyond, you’ll be able to bond with a range of different warbeasts in the Devourer, Dhunian Farrow, and Trollblood resonances.

Yeah, I said “Devourer.” This new resonance represents warlocks connected to the Beast of All Shapes and his predatory offspring but who haven’t necessarily been taken in by the Circle Orboros. That means a brand-new selection of warbeasts like Thornwood maulers and widow bears are waiting to join you in battle!

The Borderlands Survival Guide keeps up the pace. This book contains new variant and optional rules to make your life a little more interesting…or even a lot more interesting. In it, you’ll find rules for dealing with deadly environmental hazards, diseases, and poisons, as well as new ways to handle the resources your steamjacks need to function and a set of more in-depth (and challenging) rules for healing and resurrection that harken back to the earliest edition of the Iron Kingdoms. The Survival Guide goes on to give you rules for a bunch of new magical items and ancient relics, rules for some of the darker occult presences in the borderlands, and a ton of new monsters—some familiar faces that haven’t been around for a while and a whole bunch of never-before-seen creatures to test your mettle. Do you have what it takes to defeat the iron-scaled gray tatzylwurm? What will you do when a gorgandur rises from below the soil? Well, you’ll soon have the opportunity to find out…

Last but not least, Shadow of the Seeker is a new adventure that takes you from the mountains of Rhul to the heart of Ios. Ever since Iron Kingdoms: Requiem came out, we were teasing something significant that has gone down in the elven homeland, and now you’ll be able to witness its effects firsthand. I don’t want to spoil any surprises here, but if you’re looking for an adventure with a dark and mysterious backdrop and high stakes on the line, then you’re in for a treat when you confront a former Seeker who has set in motion a plot that puts the word “beyond” in Borderlands and Beyond.

We’re all excited for you to get your first look at the new RPG offering we have in store. Be sure to keep an eye out for when the Kickstarter campaign goes live so you can grab an early bird pledge. And keep an eye on the stretch goals: we have even more great stuff in the works!

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