#free ttrpg resources

[anim-ttrpgs]

What to Play Next with Eureka.

So, now that the pay-what-you-want/free Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy beta has over 400 downloads at the time of writing this (wow!) and has been up for about 3 weeks, I’m sure at least some people have already played Horror Harry’s Haunted House, the free tutorial adventure module we included with the beta download, and are excited to play more!

To that end, I’ve quickly thrown together a non-comprehensive list of adventure modules to run using Eureka, and where you can find them.

Adventure modules, if you’ve never used them, are a lifesaver for GMs. (And also they’re a different thing from those railroady “adventure paths” and crappy 5e adventures that you might be familiar with.)

Official Eureka Adventures

You can find official Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure modules on our Patreon page. Supporting us is what makes Eureka, and our ongoing promotion of many other TTRPG creators, possible.

Horror Harry’s Haunted House

This is an official Eureka adventure module that comes free with the beta linked above. It is a super low-stakes “tutorial” adventure that sees the PCs solving a “murder” in an interactive escape room. The point of this scenario is to be a short and fun way for players to learn the mechanics of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy without risk of their characters dying.

FORIVA: The Angel Game

This is an official Eureka adventure module by A.N.I.M. currently available only to patreon subscribers. Set in the year 1999, this adventure involves the PCs investigating a mysterious threat targeting teenagers.

The Eye of Neptune

This is an official Eureka adventure module by A.N.I.M. currently available only to patreon subscribers. Set on a skeleton-crewed oil rig in the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, this adventure puts the PCs in a tense situation as members of the crew start to disappear one by one...

Free Call of Cthulhu Adventures

Since we have not had the time (yet) to build up a robust library of official Eureka adventure modules, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy has been playtested the most by using Call of Cthulhu adventure modules, and it is designed to work well with them. In fact, in many cases it actually plays them better and smoother than Call of Cthulhu itself!

Chapter 7 of the Eureka rulebook covers how to convert an adventure module from another game for use with Eureka, and its super easy! The only thing that will need to be adjusted will be the HP values of monsters and we have a formulae for that.

What's In The Cellar, a super short adventure where the PCs will investigate a mysterious cellar.

Scritch Scratch, there's rats.

The Derelict, set in the modern-day in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, the thought of a substantial salvage reward drives the investigators to attempt to rescue the a stranded ship, but in doing so they attract the attention of a strange and deadly monster. 

The Lightless Beacon, the ivestigators are unfortunate passengers on a ship heading for Rockport, Massachusetts, on Monday, April 12th, 1926, the night of the new moon. Due to a malfunction at the lighthouse on Beacon Island, their ship founders on nearby rocks, forcing the investigators to take to a small lifeboat and head to Beacon Island for refuge in the growing storm.

Dead Boarder, a murder investigation, which centers on the discovery of a body in a locked room.

Paid Call of Cthulhu Adventure Modules

Even though they aren’t exactly “indie,” just about any non-WotC company that makes TTRPGs is an ally against the monopoly crushing the entire hobby and art form of TTRPGs, so we would love it if you could support them as well as supporting us. Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy wouldn’t exist without Call of Cthulhu, and especially not without Call of Cthulhu adventure modules! In fact they’re like one of the only “big” names out there that still regularly puts out adventure modules, which seem to be a lost artform seemingly everywhere else despite once being being absolutely synonymous with GMing. They’ve been making new official Call of Cthulhu adventure modules consistently for like forty years, and buying and playing these will encourage them to keep doing that.

New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley (pack of adventures)

The Reeling Midnight, by Tom Lynch. introduces Investigators to Arkham's truly decadent party scene. (I've played this one, pretty good.)

Wasted Youth, by Christopher Smith Adair, explores the roots of juvenile delinquency, culminating in a wild chase through the wilderness.

Spirit of Industry,by Oscar Rios, takes Investigators to the village of Dunwich, where they explore old murders and an ancient mystery.

Proof of Life,by Keith Herber, is a tale of extortion and madness in the Lovecraft Country town of Foxfield.

Malice Everlasting,by Oscar Rios, expores Kingsport and old grudges.

The Night War,by Kevin Ross, sees the author of Kingsport, City in the Mists, revisit his creation when a veteran of the Great War is suddenly haunted by deadly nightmares.

A Mother's Love, by Seth Skorkowsky, author of the Valducan series, takes us to the hidden town Innsmouth, with all its squalor, dangers, and dark corruption in a brand new scenario for New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, 2nd Edition. (I've played this one, pretty good.)

The Things We Leave Behind (pack of adventures)

Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home, by Jeff Moeller. The investigators search for an abducted child in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, where time becomes a serious concern.

Forget Me Not, by Brian M. Sammons.  An accident in a TV truck in rural Michigan sees the investigators awake in a ditch with no recollection of how they got there.

Roots, by Simon Brake. Inquiries into a missing teen will teach the investigators that some mid-west communities prefer to be left alone.

Hell in Texas, by Scott Dorward. After a suicide at a church's east Texas Halloween haunted house, strange events threaten the lives and sanity of all those in the vicinity, including the investigators.

The Night Season, by Jeff Moeller, shows that fandom in Anchorage, Alaska, can go too far when reality begins to shift.

Occam's Razor (pack of adventures)

A Whole Pack of Trouble - a group of film students have gone missing while shooting a found-footage style movie over college break. 

Eye of the Beholder - five days ago, a young woman disappeared while working on an art project.

Frozen Footsteps - A Wendigo-obsessed professor heads off to Michigan's Upper Peninsula for some rare (for him) fieldwork and discovers far more than he bargained for.

Dark and Deep - A snuff film is making the rounds in which a woman is mauled to death by a Deep One. Are the film's establishing shots enough to track down the lighthouse was filmed at and get to the bottom of things?

Visions from Beyond - A late-night voicemail left by a friend/relative in need of immediate help followed by them not answering their phone 

The Watchers - the investigators are contacted by a single woman who lives alone and is being watched by unknown people.

A Cleansing Flame - Bodies are being discovered, burned to death, with no known fire starter/accelerant present.

Does Love Forgive? (pack of single-PC adventures)

Love You To Death, Chicago: February 15th, 1929. It’s a cold winter’s day when the investigator’s good friend Hattie May appears in their office at the detective agency. Her beloved pet dog, Highball, is scheduled to be destroyed later today and she needs the investigator’s help getting him back from the Chicago Police Department. It doesn’t sound like too difficult a task, does it?

Mask of Desire, New York: September, 1932. The investigator, together with their two close friends Anna Konrad and Lucas Reston, has been invited to a party at wealthy—and notorious—socialite Madame de Tisson’s swanky apartment on the Upper West Side. Anna is somewhat distracted by her audition tomorrow for Nancy Turner, the famous jazz orchestra conductor. What is the link between the audition and a mysterious parcel that arrives the next day? And, why do so many people seem to be interested in the contents of the parcel?

Night Mother's Moon (stand-alone adventure), investigators are New York City’s street homeless who come together to solve the mystery of something that is stalking and killing the members of their community. (Playing this one with Eureka right now actually.)

[stoutstoatpress]

VAST Guides are here!

By using VAST, you can learn how to add accessibility tags for screen readers to your PDFs, by using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Acrobat.

I'm super excited to release a brand new publishing community resource: VAST (or Visual Accessibility Skills Toolkit).

>> WWW.VAST.GUIDE <<

VAST is a collection of short articles aiming to spread awareness about what visual impairments are, and how folks in the small press industry can accommodate them.

The guides are split into four sections:

Visual Impairment 101 explores what visual impairments are, how visually impaired people navigate digital content, and introduces some current language and definitions (circa 2023).

Screen reading PDFs explores the basics of how screen readers navigate through digital content. Includes video examples!

Using InDesign introduces different tools that designers can use to make their documents more accessible.

Putting Into Practice presents case studies of common structures in roleplaying games, and how they could be given accessibility tags using tools covered in section 3. (Coming soon!)

VAST was developed by Brian Tyrrell (me!), and disability advocate and accessibility consultant Yubi Coates. Visually impaired consultants and InDesign experts were brought in to corroborate the guides.

All of the information in the guides is up to date, and we’re committed to reviewing and updating the guides in 2024 and 2025.

This project was completed using a small pot of funding provided by Creative Scotland’s Create: Inclusion program in 2022.

[mc-illustrations]

✨ Free TTRPG Character Portraits ✨

A set of tieflings ready to inspire your next PC or NPC! You can download them for free here☕

[pandiongames]

The Hints and Hijinx Game Jam is live!

Come, join us mystery makers, sleuths, detectives, game designers and writers!

The Hints and Hijinx system is a purpose-built solo mystery system that's easy to design mystery games for, & puts the power of deduction in the hands of the player.

The Creator's Guide is free, and includes all the resources you need to make a solo mystery game of your own - even copy and paste rules, and layout templates in .afpub and .pdf formats.

Discover a string of solo mystery journaling games to keep you on the edge of your seat. Whether it is a coffee caper at a café, or uncovering who is stealing from dreams, put on your cap of deduction and become the only Detective that can solve the case.

Check out the main website for all the resources and links:

Want to read the condensed core rules real quick? Here ya go:

And make sure to check out the games people are making!

[bekandrew]

Free Resource Downloadable

The Further Reading Section of "Operation Lavender," a trans-focused adventure for Trinity Continuum: Aberrant set in the Southern US and written by a Southern trans guy, is up on my Patreon for all members. https://www.patreon.com/posts/operation-108488268

[alartsandstuff]

Yesterday I finished this map! I'm actually happy with the result- and I hope in getting better with práctice ❤️

This is based on a coffee shop of the fae My party visited once, but it's also, of course, up to your use! You can find the PDF free to download in My Ko-Fi shop

Hope You have a Nice day or night!! I'll be glad to update when I finish the second floor.

[tashisha]

Homebrew subterranean cave map, feel free to use this for your own adventure!

[voidambassador]

Hey everyone! Its me again. So it looks like D&D 5e isnt looking too great. Uh oh.

But dont you worry buddy have i got multiple hundreds of rpg pdfs for you. Looking for something specifif? Interested in general? Need genre or feeling recommendations? Ill hook you up, just hit me up.

[educationaldm]

Free resources for D&D? Yes, please. I highly recommend taking a look at Donjon. 

Any others you would recommend?

[anim-ttrpgs]

The free shareware copy of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy was released last week!

I'm only just now making a big post about it because I worked about 21 hours (nearly) straight to get it up and ready before the weekend.

This version is free, and you can download it from out website here. The download link is on our website.

Download it, read it, play it, give it to your friends, upload it somewhere else, do whatever with it, it’s shareware. It’s a free demo that you can send or put wherever you want.

In case you haven’t heard, to find out what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy even is, click here (link to the big master post that announces the patreon)

This free version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy we have released comes with everything you would need to play the game: Investigation rules, PC creation rules with tons of options, combat rules, a peak into the supernatural, a pre-written adventure module where the PCs will solve a murder, and four pregenerated PC character sheets—plus blank character sheets so you can make your own.

All of this is free, and we’re giving it out to promote the full version, going to Kickstarter in early 2024.

You can also actually get your hands on the full prerelease build early by subscribing to our Patreon for $5.

This will unlock for you:

Character progression rules.

More firearms combat options.

More melee combat options.

Full, complete, and VERY robust options for creating supernatural PCs.

Two additional horror-mystery adventure modules, each with their own pregenerated PCs if you need them.

Thank you all for supporting us and getting us this far. We look forwards to sharing many more of our creations with y'all.

[isilienelenihin]

Thanks to that post I just reblogged y'all get to hear about Tesssarae, my fave of my ttrpg characters.

Like 99% of my characters she's a rogue, with the Scout archetype so she's all about charging into battle and then flanking enemies with Tobias, her direwolf companion (that's right, she took the feat that lets you get an animal companion and she went with LORGE FRIEND PLZ).

Tobias gets advantage on any check to find a kabob stand within smelling distance.

Tessarae likes alcohol and reverse pickpocketing Staniel, mostly with fruit. She also likes getting other party members drunk and into mischief.

She failed a perception check so hard that she created a new deity (knife god, he exists now in that campaign, she converted the party's healer who is also her drinking partner and failed the same perception check).

One of her favorite moves is Pocket Sand, which she throws at people when she wants to leave like Grunkle Stan throws smoke bombs.

The party was taking forever to make a decision and she's very much a "here for the gold and also you guys are my only friends" kinda girl so she ate some hallucinogenic berries that she definitely knew were hallucinogenic because she was bored.

[calsdice]

Cal's NPC Collection

The list ahead is filled with all the NPCs I have created for your use! All NPCs created below are are fully fleshed out (some also have art and stat blocks for Dungeons & Dragons 5e).

All NPC related content will be found under the tag 'cals npc collection,' including content not on this list such as random ideas and concepts I don't flesh out. NOTE: If you use my NPCs in created content (in recorded or streamed gameplay etc.) please give credit where you sit fit! Please do not actively monetise my work. ✧ ˚ 　· 　　 .

[[ Content to be added ]]

[canonkiller]

Hi, I'm Canon. I'm a disabled artist with some kind of gender and homosexual tendencies. You might have seen my usernames around in posts about loving OCs, or complaining about video game inaccessibility, or attached to one of the worm-centric comics I made, like these ones:

I hate having to ask for help when there's already so much going on, but I am also At My Limit.

To make a long story short, I am very disabled in multiple ways and I am living in a very inaccessible (and often directly disability-hostile) home. While I live with family, they do not provide assistance (financial or otherwise) and our rural location and the glacial pace of Canada's social services have left me A Bit Fucked. (Whatever you think Canada's health care provides, either it doesn't, or it takes half a year to even book an appointment.)

I've asked for help in the past with smaller goals, but costs continue to add up - and this time, finally, I may be able to actually make permanent accessibility changes to the household... if I can fund it myself. On the amount I get from the disability support program in my province, I can't do that; I would have to stop eating for months to afford even one of the major renovations in that time, and, obviously, I can't do that.

What kind of accessibility updates would this be going towards?:

A wheelchair ramp at at least one exit of the house; there are four potential exits, and all of them are currently multiple sets of stairs without railings.

A stair lift (for upstairs access) or a walk in tub (for downstairs access), depending on what my family will agree to

Dressers / storage that I am physically capable of opening

HRT (guess what isn't covered by Canada's health care, apparently!)

A whole mess of medical appointments (vision, prescriptions, dental, infinite various symptom testings) and transportation to and from those appointments (guess what else isn't covered!!)

A functional freezer

Physiotherapy 👍

Food 👍👍👍

And how can you donate?:

Donate directly to my Ko-fi page

Pledge monthly to my Ko-fi membership tiers

Order a commission from me (you'll be added to a queue; I can't provide completion time estimates right now)

Buy my premade digital goods (TTRPG resources, bases, tattoo tickets, etc) through Ko-fi or itch.io

Buy my art on physical goods through Redbubble or INPRNT

Buy designs / adoptables I've made through Toyhouse

Buy things off of my Amazon accessibility wishlist

I'm trying to buy used and second-hand / go through free stuff groups where I can to save costs, so I don't have a fixed goal and genuinely every bit helps. I really want to be able to get back to functioning somewhat normally, and due to Circumstances - as embarrassing as it is - I can't do that on my own, and I can't keep struggling with it the way I have been.

Thank you for your time, and any help you're able to provide. Reblogs are welcome and appreciated.

[corsairesix]

So many “how to find free/budget TTRPG art” guides are just like “Pixabay exists” and that’s it. Even with the resources, it’s difficult to actually find usable art, especially if you’re looking for illustrations and not photos, and ESPECIALLY now that you have to wade through AI stuff on a lot of these websites

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

@starshinescribbles developed this incredible resource for ttrpg creators, and it’s too good not to share!

Pictures, sounds, fonts, frameworks, and no AI shit!