In October 2018 we start the annual “October Horrors” sequence of horror and supernatural roleplaying games with two all-new collections featuring the Weird Wars settings from Pinnacle Entertainment. First, the Weird War I Bundle for Pinnacle’s fast-furious-fun Savage Worlds RPG revealed the ancient evils rising from the trenches of World War I. Its companion offer featured Weird War II, with Savage Worlds and d20 System action in every theatre of World War II.
Having already visited Vietnam and ancient Rome, Pinnacle’s Weird Wars line has developed a consistent backstory and premise for the emergence of supernatural menace during violent conflict. Throughout history a globe-spanning cabal has sought power using the tabula bellum, the “tablets of war.” The tablets describe how the energy released at the moment of a person’s death can be captured and harnessed. Tremendous loss of life, as in a war, can bestow vast powers and even supernatural abilities on those properly prepared. At various times the warmongering cults based around this forbidden knowledge called themselves the Sons of Ra, Horns of Ba’al, Gatekeepers, or New Dawn. But in each era, heroes have fought the cultists’ dark ambitions.
Weird War I
In Weird War I, intrepid soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilians must struggle against ancient evils unleashed in the Great War to End All Wars, 1914-18. (By the way, 2018 marked the centennial of the Armistice.) This Weird War I Bundle presented DRM-free .PDF ebooks of almost the entire line of Savage Worlds sourcebooks and supplements funded in Pinnacle’s successful February 2016 Weird War I Kickstarter campaign.
There were eight titles in this offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $45), including the Weird War I Player’s Guide and War Master’s Handbook (plus the free Savage Worlds Test Drive rules), five collections of Weird War I Archetypes (pregenerated characters) — American, British, French, German, and Civilian — and the print-and-fold Horrors of Weird War I Figure Flats character standups.
Those who paid more than this offer’s threshold (average) price also got this offer’s entire Bonus Collection with eleven more titles worth an additional $50, including five Weird War I adventures (Raid on Fort Douaumont, The 13th Warrior, Hellfighters, In Vino Veritas, and No Man’s Land), four Combat Maps (Bridge, No Man’s Land [map], Trenches, and Village), and the War Master Screen Inserts of useful reference charts for Pinnacle’s Customizable Gamemaster Screen. After launch we added Twilight of the New Dawn, a capstone adventure set in the final year of the Great War that should serve as the culmination of any Weird War I Plot Point campaign.
Weird War II
Weird War II debuted in 2000 for the d20 rules system, and in 2009 Pinnacle followed up with a new WWII core setting book and supplements for Savage Worlds. This all-new Weird War II Bundle included all the books in both the Savage Worlds and d20 lines. There were three Savage Worlds titles in this offer’s Savage Collection (retail value $28.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the Weird War II core setting book (2009), the adventure Island of Dreams, and the three-part miniatures campaign Ardennes of Darkness (and we included the free Savage Showdown miniatures skirmish rules).
This offer’s d20 Collection added seven d20 System sourcebooks and scenarios from 2000-2001, worth an additional $50, that cover every theatre of World War II. You can guess each book’s subject from its striking title: Blood on the Rhine, Afrika Korpse, Hell Freezes Over, Land of the Rising Dead, Dead From Above, and Hell in the Hedgerows. (We also include the Horrors of Weird War II bestiary.)
Ten percent of each purchase of these Weird Wars offers (after gateway fees) went to the charity chosen by Pinnacle Entertainment, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
