A BRAND NEW HEART SOURCEBOOK IS COMING!

If you’re the sort of clued-in, right-thinking individual who doesn’t need to read a few hundred words of marketing bumph to be convinced to click on a link, here’s the short version: we’ve got a new Heart: the City Beneath sourcebook coming out later this year. It’ll be great. We’re crowdfunding the whole thing through Backerkit starting on 1st July.

Click here and follow the project to be notified as soon as it goes live.

A promotional image for Ways and Means. Bold text on a mottled red background reads ‘Ways and Means. New hopes and horrors for Heart: the City Beneath. Launching on backerkit soon!’ It is accompanied by an illustration of a ragged looking character who is crouched behind a massive shield which resembles the front of a train, with a cow catcher and headlight. The character is holding a massive hammer and appears to be bracing themselves against an incoming attack. Behind them, a group of scared unarmed people are fleeing up a steep mountain pass. The piece evokes a sense of a desperate defender protecting innocents from an unseen horror.

WHAT’S IN THE BOOK THOUGH?

Ways and Means is more stuff for Heart. Here’s the excellent image that Elaine made, loosely illustrating the contents:

A long image of bold text on red background. It reads 'MORE CALLINGS, MORE CLASSES, MORE GUNS, MORE MAGIC, MORE DRUGS, MORE ALLIES, MORE ENEMIES, MORE FALLOUTS, MORE BOUNTIES, MORE DELVES, MORE WAYS AND MEANS FOR HEART THE CITY BENEATH'

One half of the book - the “Means” half - is player-facing. Here, we’ve got three new classes (the walking druidic fungal colony BLIGHTBORN, the wide-eyed bardic WITNESS, and the 'biblically accurate' dungeoneer CRAWLER), and three new callings (Protector, Artist and Demagogue).

We’ve got rules for Hirelings - spods you can bring along with you to help out on Delves, like the legbreaker, the pole-carrier, the mumbler, the cook, and so on. We’ve got rules for pets, like the watch-hog, the decidedly ignoble heartsblood horse, and the so-called Useless Worm.

We’ve got more guns to shoot things with, more drugs to bung up your nose in search of enlightenment or oblivion, several thousand words on artistic supplies including a paint that’s the metaphysical opposite of blue, black market spells to buy from a shady wizard, real AND fake religious artefacts, and so on, and so forth.

The other half of the book - the “Ways” half - is devoted to Delves, and aimed at the Gamesmaster. We’ve broken down the Heart into domains and come up with hundreds of modular bits to shuffle together and construct into thematic, interesting and dangerous journeys between islands of stability in this red wet heaven. We’re also providing you with dozens of Bounties - one-page jobs that you can plug into any ongoing game to act as a reason for player characters to chuck themselves headlong into disaster.

Illustrated in glorious fashion by Sar Cousins and Felix Miall, and written in gory detail by an all-star team featuring Grant Howitt (that’s me!), Chris Taylor, Elaine Lithgow, Eleanor Hingley, Thomas Manuel, Taylor Navarro, Pam Punzalan, and Finley Palaniki, Ways and Means is jam-packed with stuff.

I always liked sourcebooks with lots of stuff in, and now I’ve had the chance to write one.

GIMME THAT SIGN-UP LINK AGAIN

No problem boss, you got it - follow us on Backerkit here to be as ready as you possibly can for this.

That’s all.

- Grant “Red Wet Heaven” Howitt

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