New Release GM's Map 34 'Victorian Members Club'

 An exciting new release in our GM's Maps range, 'Traditional Members Club'.  Popularised in the Victorian period the first clubs actually appeared in London in the Georgian period and many still exist today.  

The first Gentlemen's clubs were established in the upmarket west end of London. These clubs were open only to the aristocracy and the Landed gentry. With names like 'Whites' and 'Boodles' they took on some of the roles of coffee houses.

 As the 19thcentury progressed there was something of an explosion in the number of traditional members clubs. 

 Clubs like 'The Reform Club' (Membership of which was restricted to those who pledged to support the 1832 reform act and thus included both peers of the realm and gentlemen of middle-class status) and the purely fictional Diogenes club of which the equally fictitious Sherlock Holmes was a member sprang up all over. By the 1880s London alone had over 400 such members clubs catering only to men and only to those of the middle and upper classes. By now clubs were appearing all over the world form the USA to India.

With the expansion of the numbers of clubs came an expansion in their services as well. These 'Reform clubs' offered middle-class men all the comforts of an aristocratic home. Gambling and coffee were still offered as was an extensive staff employed by the club for the comfort of the members, but many of these new clubs also offered accommodation for members who wished to stay the night (or several nights). At this time some of the older clubs also began to offer overnight accommodation, although this was by no means adopted by all of the original clubs.

By the 21st century, several of the remaining clubs had lifted the embargo on Women joining and so opened up to a wider range of members.

From Sherlock Holmes to Phileas Fogg and Hercule Poirot some of the greatest fictional characters have been members of such clubs, and now your PCs or their Antagonists can too!

Find this product Here

There are a wide number of ways to use the Traditional Gentlemen's Club in your RPG campaigns and we encourage you to let your own imagination run wild. We do have a few suggestions for you but don't feel these are the only possibilities. A usual we would love to hear from anyone who has a unique or unusual idea for how to use the map in their scenarios.

The club may provide a home base for the PCs. The club can be used in much the same way as the stereotypical 'Meet at the Inn' introduction often used in fantasy scenarios, where the PCs are all members of the club and it is this membership that draws them together to begin their joint adventure or investigation. Perhaps a fellow member is in trouble and the PCs represent other members who 'Refuse to let a chap down, especially when he is a member of our club, by George!'.
Perhaps the club itself wants to find some valuable treasure or solve some mystery and the party are members who have stepped up tot he challenge. Members of the club may be patrons or sponsors of the party and may set them a task which leads to their adventures. Of course, some of the clubs resources, such as the library may well be placed at the parties disposal.

A late night discussion in the par may fire the imagination of party members who determine to undertake some great tasks, such as circumnavigating the globe, or perhaps other members lay a wager that the party are not able to complete some challenge or other.

The club may also be the sight of a haunting or the scene of some mystery (a murder or theft, perhaps) that the party determine (or are retained) to investigate.

Alternatively, of course, it may be the PCs antagonists who are members of the club. Perhaps the party are inspired to steal something from the clubs vault or some work of art upon the walls of the drawing room or standing in the coffee room.

They may be planning to confront some arch nemesis who rarely leaves the confines of his club, or they may need to read some rare tome that the club has in its library but will not let them see. Perhaps the rumours of occult rituals or disturbing activities in the club are not just gossip and it is up to the party to put a stop to it.

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GM's Map 32 'Cathedral' Launched

The latest addition to our 'GM's Map' range is now on sale on RPGNow.

The Cathedral, a stone edifice of incredible beauty and design, the pinnacle of the stone mason's art and centre of a diocese.  In historical games, the Cathedral may be the sight of some mystery that the PCs are determined to solve, the murder of a bishop or member of the congregation, perhaps?  Or is some clue to an ancient riddle or blasphemous secret hidden in its architecture, vaults or statuary?

A perfect venue for both Gothic and Eldritch horror.  Perhaps the Cathedral is haunted by some ghost or entity that is growing increasingly malevolent or which knows some secret the PCs must convince it to reveal to them. Eldritch horrors may lurk within the vaulted halls or be trapped beneath the consecrated floors, scheming to escape and wreak their vengeance on humanity.

Used in a fantasy setting the Cathedral is a great place for friend and foe alike.  Perhaps the PCs need to seek out one of the clerics in the cathedral to recruit them to their party or ask them for help or perhaps the cathedral is the home of some malevolent sect that the party are sworn to bring down.  A necromancer may have already seized control of the building, or be trying to do so, in order to summon back the dead interred in the crypts beneath to add to a growing army of the dead.

Even in a post-apocalyptic world, the cathedral may still stand, a rallying point for desperate survivors or the home of a nefarious apocalypse cult that seeks to enslave those who dwell nearby or spread its message in a new post-apocalyptic crusade.

In this product, you will find floor plans of the cathedral itself, its towers and lofts and the crypts beneath for you to work into your games however you see fit.

Comming soon to the range: 'Medieval Manor House'

GM's Map #31: Secret Underground Laboratory Out Now!

Available from RPGNow

What sinister experiments are taking place in the secret laboratories deep beneath the ground?

What secrets lurk there that could save or damn mankind?

This map pack details a 4-storey secret laboratory complex with security, accommodation and several labs in which various nefarious experiments can take place.

Or perhaps the laboratories are humanities last best hope to stave off global disaster?

Whatever is going on down there, one thing is for certain, someone else wants to know about it.

Since the enlightenment humanity has had a love hate relationship with science. It has driven our culture and our development, expanded our knowledge, extended our lie expectancy, eradicated certain diseases, improved our ability to fight other diseases. It has given us modes of transport and communication that have effectively shrunk our world. The knowledge we have gained has revolutionized every aspect of our lives. Yet, from the early days many have also viewed it with suspicion. From those who saw it as a challenge to religion or a blasphemy against god to the Luddites who saw the rise of industrialization as a threat to their livelihood. Much of our science fiction, even from the early days of the genre, has warned of the dangers of meddling in things we do not entirely understand or which may be dangerous and mysterious. Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' (which itself is in part inspired by a far older story, as evidenced by its subtitle 'A modern Prometheus') is a famous example but our literature is littered with examples. The American sci-fi of he 50s cautioned us against robotics and atomic physics (just listen to old episodes of classic radio drama such as X Minus one or Dimension X for examples).

Our horror and post-apocalyptic literature are also littered with examples of the science run amok theme.

It isn't all negative, of course, in superhero literature scientists are often the villains but are also often the heroes or the cause of how a hero comes to be. In many SF or disaster tales, it is a band of plucky scientists working around the clock in a secret laboratory that are often depicted as humanities only hope of survival.

With these things in mind, the potential for a secret laboratory complex in RPGs is staggering.

The PCs may represent the secessionist, trying desperately to hold back some global disaster or simply trying to escape the facility as some menacing alien dimension rips its way into our world it the theoretical physics laboratory (one for the 'Pandora's Wake' players among you, perhaps?).

They may be a band of covert operations specialists tasked with raiding the laboratory and learning its secrets for a rival government or corporation.

Perhaps they are escapees who had been held here, destined for a ghastly fate as experimental subjects?

Let your imagination run riot.

If you come up with a particularly interesting idea for how to use this map, we would love to hear about it! You can email us at gethsemanegames@gmail.com and let us know. If you give us permission, we might even publish the idea on our blog 'Whispers from the Other-Verse', giving you the credit of course.

Entropy Effect Postponed till 2018

It is with a little disappointment that I have to announce I have had no choice but to postpone the release of our forthcoming contemporary Sci-fi/Horror/warped reality RPG 'The Entropy Effect' until 2018.

As many of you may know I had planned to release the game for Haloween this year but that was not to be due entirely to circumstances beyond my control.

This has been quite a difficult year for me on a personal level, marred with a series of bereavements.  I tried to maintain my planned work schedule as best I could despite this but by the middle of the year my Grandfather, with whom I was very close, fell terminally ill and I chose to spend as much of the time he had left as I could with him.  By the middle of summer, his health had taken a particularly sharp downturn and he was admitted to hospital.  My family and I spent a significant portion of each day by his bedside and work was placed very much on the back burner. Since his passing, I have returned to work but by then the project was too far behind for me to complete it on time without the quality suffering significantly.

I have put years of my life into Entropy Effect and I want it to be the best I can make it, so I decided to postpone it until next year rather than rush it.

I am truly sorry for the inconvenience, I know many of you were looking forward to it, but rest assured the project is still in the works and will be launched as soon as I feel it is ready.


Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding.