Fully Funded on Kickstarter!
In the satirical setting of Adventure College RPG, heroes blog their battles on Witchtagram, dodge magical blackboard pointer drones, and unite around a common enemy: Finals. The 60-page Student Handbook includes modular magicpunk gadgets, species, backgrounds, + reputation tracks, as well as multiple chapters of lore with two full page maps, dozens of NPCs, and more!
You can get this 5e compatible content now on drivethrurpg.com! Click below for PDF or print! You can also join the Fiona Shade Stories Discord to find others to game or geek out with. We run one-shots there sometimes, always encourage others to do so, and discuss RPG questions of the day! Read more below about the Student Handbook.
The Adventure College RPG Series
The Adventure College Student Handbook contains playable races, backgrounds, a catalogue of magicpunk items, and lore galore! This booklet also includes a setting primer, two full page maps with chapters detailing them, and gorgeous artwork by professional illustrator Ellie Erhart.
The Student Handbook is only the first in a series of planned publications – all D&D 5e compatible, magicpunk / steampunk, and modular mechanics that can be taken into your own settings. Already on drivethruRPG, these include the Teacup Dragon Companion, Three Magicpunk Subclasses, and Quick Study Cards. However, this booklet stands alone as a source of character options and inspiration for your game.
On April 25th, the Adventure College Student Handbook Kickstarter launched! This Kickstarter supported FSS business startup, publishing software, and other costs required to release the booklet in both print and PDF formats through drivethruRPG. Stretch goals allowed for additional art and content – two full-page maps, dozens of NPCs, magicpunk gear, and more!
The Adventure College Setting
Under a peak that scrapes the sky, the college town of Vernadeut thrives. On moonlit nights, spectral stairways descend from doorways made of moonbeams. These doors bridge the mountaintop with the divine, benign Elysium.
West of the mountain, the Forest of Arden sprawls, taking inspiration from Shakespeare and Roger Zelazny’s settings of the same name. The forest bridges Terra, Vernadeut’s plane, with that of the fey. Two notable races within the Student Handbook claim their dynasties here: arborstars, living trees taking humanoid forms, and pookahs, shapeshifting shepherds of magical beasts.
Spirits of the dead travel the central river of a disc-shaped realm called Styx, a plane in some ways reminiscent of Norse and Greek mythologies. The maritime hels dwell along the riverside. Their generations are replaced by infants which wash ashore mysteriously, while the oldest among them guide the departed sagely.
On Terra, magic and artifice collide in the magicpunk society which Vernadeut and Adventure College belong to. The reebies represent this intersection, cheating death by augmenting their shapes with spare limbs and other parts scavenged (or poached) from fresh bodies.
Corporations and garage mechanics alike build powerful arcane contraptions, many familiar to our own world, while society struggles to adapt. The governing nation, Toferrin, organizes a Moonlight Patrol to guard interplanar portals. When malevolent spooks of Styx and cruel eccentrics of Arden give local militia the slip, when misspelled technomancy creates monstrous atrocities, and whenever rats invade tavern basements, adventurers rise to the occasion. Toferrin aims to regulate adventurers as a licensed class of errant knights, graduated from Vernadeut’s Adventure College.
The Student Handbook
Custom character backgrounds poke fun at media depictions of college as well as actual student life. They incorporate technomancy, gameworld culture, and faction identities. Current background titles include: Collectivist Anarchist, Debtor’s Heir, Diplomat’s Scion, Mechanic, Pledgie, Pop Culture Aficionado, & Scholarship Student.
Magicpunk gadgets parody modern technology. Shenanigans and creative play are encouraged by iCrystals, Witchtagram, the Nindondo CrystalSwap gaming set, and more! New artisan’s tools reflect city life and college fads. Plus, the Barista Kit enables the coffee-fiend or tea-devil in any party – especially helpful for sober players who want to avoid the brewer’s supplies. Magical cosmetic and assistive devices support inclusive play and character customization.
Take-it-or-leave-it lore chapters introduce the college, town, locals, pantheon, Witchtagram, and reputation systems.