I come to you with unmatched good news!

The glorious tabletop RPG Swords Without Master1 is being released as a standalone book!

The game is live on kickstarter, awaiting your support to manifest itself in the most glorious and fitting form: a book, custom dice, and a true dragon’s hoard of art in the form of eidolon card folios!

Draw Your Swords!

map by Ripley Matthews

Treasures for the Mind

What excites me most about playing Swords Without Master? The genre-ful feast the game entices you to imagine as you play!

Your rogues: sworn to those whose names they hold; armored in remnants of adventures past; gleaming with determination, obsession or glorious doom.

Your realm: writhing storm clouds over thrice-cursed swampland; a dessicated dragon corpse hollowed out into an unearthly church; crumbling castle ruins hiding an ephemeral market of artifacts, amulets, spells and swords.

All of you at the table alternately feted and foiled by the whim of the dice — driven into stories both jovial and glum, given gifts of both mysteries and morals, and so much more.

Begin Your Quest!

eidolon by Jabari Weathers

Treasures for the Eye

What brought me into the inner workings of this endeavour?

I have the honour of contributing to this glorious game as the art director! I have been working with Epidiah Ravachol and Nathan D Paoletta at Unwritten Earths to make sure that the illustrations are as wondrous and strange as the game deserves, and I am over the moon with what we have in store for you!

What wonders await you in this new edition?

There will be beautiful cover art from the brilliant Erin Vest, whose work captures the wonder, mystery, glumness and joviality we love in Swords Without Master!

The book will be filled to bursting with glorious interior artwork, all of it held together with evocative glyphs designed by Elemei!

We are also creating beautiful folios of artful tarot-sized eidolon cards, to inspire you as you play!

The kickstarter is launching with four folios of 6 cards each:

Master Selu Fyrmyor’s Pilfered Charts of the Knowable World
maps by Ripley Matthews, Fernando Salvaterra, Arlin Ortiz and Kyle Latino

An Age Before Time
illustrated by Goran Gligović

The Sepulchre of Astonishments
illustrated by Jabari Weathers

Trials of the Stargazers
illustrated by me, Shel Kahn

Peruse Our Treasures!

eidolon by Goran Gligović

Treasures for the Hand

Some treasures cannot be available forever – hand-made custom low-vision accessible tone dice, say.

The unparalleled Jaydot Dice is crafting tone bones – pairs of oversized (20mm) 6-sided dice to help you roll for glum or jovial tones. They will be distinguishable visually and through touch, and due to the skilled labour involved in each set, they are limited edition kickstarter exclusives.

If these speak to you, do not miss this chance to snag a set!

Tell Your Story!

eidolon by Shel Kahn
  1. Previously only available in Worlds Without Master Issue #3 ↩︎

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post’s permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post’s URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)

15 responses to “Swords Without Master has arrived!”

Likes, Bookmarks, and Reposts

  • Holle
  • the girl with Jean Seberg hair
  • Sean Poppe
  • nolandda
  • goshdarnheck
  • Gather Around Projects
  • Matt Caulder (They/He)
  • arcane jelly cult ➡️ gen con
  • Cristian
  • Victor Díez Bildosola
  • "Eppy-Deppy-Diah!" a thing I say at the end of every episode.
  • the girl with Jean Seberg hair
  • Matt Caulder (They/He)
  • IPR @ Gen Con Booth 449
  • "Eppy-Deppy-Diah!" a thing I say at the end of every episode.