A one-shot scenario for Wretched New Flesh, by Judd Goswick, centring around the goals of Hagashira Aerospace and its inner turmoil over technologies developed using alien technology and telekinetic propulsion.
Today is The Red Room’s first birthday and, as previously announced, later today we will raffle our birthday giveaway (a $20 Big Geek Emporium voucher, a softcover copy of Wretched Role-Playing Game and a Wretched t-shirt of your choice). Tomorrow we will announce the winners. If you have made purchases from the Red Room store during this month keep an eye on our social media/ blog/ YouTube channel.
We also want to announce the release of Wretched Bastards Second Edition. Unlike the first edition, this is not a full game, but a campaign setting, with a few rules changes/ additions. You will also need a set of rules, such as Wretched Role-Playing Game to delve into the world of Antillia. Today is the last day the core book will be FREE at our store, so if you haven’t picked up yet, now it’s the time. However, the setting information was expanded for the second edition and it also includes The Seven Bastards, previously released as a separate book. Do you really need this if you have purchased the first edition and The Seven Bastards? Probably not, though there’s more info about the world of Antillia than in both those books combined.
Today it’s my birthday, so I’ve decided to give you guys something: Orpheum Lofts, the scenario that started my late role-playing game career at 45, is free until tomorrow at the Red Room store. Just use the coupon code “bday”. And stay tuned; there will be another birthday in three days!
Wretched New Flesh is a large core book with a lot of content and last year we’ve released All Bets are Off, the alternate setting of near-future Lisbon. However, we have not released any new content for Wretched New Flesh since then. Fear not, for we are about to remedy this.
Soon, we will be launching the next instalment of Wretched Verses, titled Press the Flesh. This one-shot scenario, penned by Judd Goswick, transports players to the intriguing locale of Avalidad. Additionally, we will be debuting the first in a series of micro-settings that explore cities within the New Flesh universe. The inaugural setting features Novanexus, a French city inspired by the films of Jacques Tati, such as Playtime, Traffic, and Mon Oncle(admittedly, this may seem like an unconventional source of inspiration for Wretched New Flesh, but strangeness is a vital part of New Flesh).
Right after that, we will release Wretched New Flesh – Orbital Decay a gritty science-fiction sourcebook. Building upon the surreal and nightmarish world of New Flesh, Orbital Decay explores the depths of human ambition, desperation, and depravity as we venture beyond Earth’s atmosphere, establishing orbital stations and colonies on other planets within the solar system. This expansion draws heavy inspiration from iconic films such as Alien, Aliens, Outland, Escape from New York, Stalker, Solaris, Event Horizon, and Pandorum, expertly weaving themes of isolation, claustrophobia, desperation, fear, and horror into the fabric of its narrative.
In this scenario, the PCs take the roles of agents of the Criminal Brigade tasked with investigating a sensitive case: The abduction of a wealthy family’s young and only child. It should take place in late 19th century or early 20th century Paris, as in most Wretched Époque scenarios. You can purchase it at The Red Room Store or Big Geek Emporium.
Our low-magic, dark-fantasy world Wretched Bastards will be released soon, this time as a setting, instead of a full game. When the core book was released almost a year ago, we were still uncertain if players would be interested in embodying greedy and lewd scoundrels. However, the response was positive, and we quickly realized we had tapped into a market open for this type of gameplay. As a result, we shifted our focus to developing Wretched into a full game line. Our exploration of new genres, including western, investigative and exploitation horror, space opera, and post-apocalyptic action, led us to introduce new mechanics and refine existing ones. Then came the OGL fiasco and we decided to cut ties with with a licence that offered no guarantees and which we didn’t actually need in the first place.
With the release of the revised Wretched Role-Playing Game core book, we were able to move forward with our plan to create setting books instead of full games for our second editions. We wanted to provide fleshed-out settings for our players, and thus the world of Antillia grew. While we understand that many gamers enjoy creating their own settings, we believe having a developed world will be useful for game masters looking for a quick and easy setting for Wretched Bastards. In this second edition, you’ll find an expanded Antillia with a whole world to explore, even if it’s not yet thoroughly described.
We’ve also included The Seven Bastards campaign setting in the main book, so players can dive right in. Finally, we’ve added some new mechanics suited for fantasy games to round out the Wretched system and provide even more options.
Blood in the Arena is a Wretched scenario inspired by the TV show Spartacus, where the players take on the roles of gladiators in the Rutilus Ludus, a training school for gladiators in the Vitualyan city of Nervea. As slaves, they have no choice but to fight and entertain for the pleasure of their wealthy Roman masters. As tensions between the slaves and their lanista, Gaius, simmer and eventually boil over, the players will find themselves caught in the middle of a rebellion that could change the course of history. They will need to navigate a world of political intrigue, backstabbing, and cutthroat combat in order to survive and achieve their freedom. (48 pages)
Stubbornness is starting to kick in again after several people reminded me this week that the existence of the Red Room motivated them to start (or restart) publishing. I don’t handle compliments well, but this is different; not actually a compliment, but more like stating a fact. It makes sense: We came out of nowhere, no one had ever heard about us outside of this small rectangle of land in the Iberian Peninsula (and even here, only a handful of people in the “community” had met us) and after a few months, we had a moderately successful tiny independent RPG publisher. Granted, it doesn’t take many triumphs for a tiny independent publisher to enjoy moderate success, but it took a lot of work and persistence and a very welcoming reception by not just the OSR audience but also several people who had been in the business for decades, like Grim Jim, the RPGPundit and Venger Satanis. The moderate success didn’t last long, but like hell we’m going to give it up that soon and give those woke cunts a reason to celebrate. As long as we don’t lose money (we refuse to do this as vanity press), we’re here to stay. That’s the Wretched spirit!
