Hello again, you lovely people! I’m here to happily announce THE INSTITUTE!’s first major release since early September!
“The Tomb of the Heartless King” is a full adventure for 5th Edition, lovingly hand-crafted by our institutional researchers and product developers (which is me, i was both of those things.) Initially stemming from The Storytelling Collective’s class on ‘How to Write an RPG Adventure’ (excellent class, by the way, highly recommended) I enjoyed this story so much that I figured it deserved to be expanded and polished, and released as its own standalone thing!
The adventure itself comes from my love of old Sergio Leone movies– there’s a particular cinematic struggle in each of them, that comes from these larger-than-life figures all alone in the wilderness, pitted against one another with limited resources. The sort of adventure/survival story that I really enjoy, and that fits surprisingly well with the standard table-top party format.
I designed the whole thing around that particular aesthetic, too– not just the story, but the graphics, NPCs, and all of it, right down to the trade-dress. I really wanted to evoke that sort of ‘Old West Paperback on your Grandpa’s Shelf’ feeling, so I tracked down old book covers on the New York Public Library’s public domain repository for inspiration. I hope the feeling gets across!
“The Tomb of the Heartless King” is the first in a line of regular releases from THE INSTITUTE! for 5th Edition. I’ve got an adventure or two, and a couple of other smaller releases in the works, and with any luck, they’ll be as fun to work on as this one was!
“The Tomb of the Heartless King” is available now for purchase on my itch.io storefront! Likewise, you can follow my releases here, or on my ko-fi page!
IT'S THE INSTITUTE! 