Duskheap Beacons

You are a robot.

Small. Quirky. Pieced together from the worn, everyday components of an earlier time.

An unlikely hero, poised to venture into the detritus and wrack of the past.

Seek and recover secrets, support emergent communities, stave off unknown threats & cobble together a new era!Duskheap Beacons is a complete table top role-playing game.

It is built on the solid chassis of Into the Odd and is compatible with its broad family of games, especially Eco Mofos. It aims for weird hope, solarpunk, small scale, tough odds, and problem solving.

In Duskheap Beacons robots are built lego-like from the ground up. Individual stats are separate, reconfigurable components, and functional modules are attached to this core architecture. More modules may be added, modules may be swapped, and robots may integrate their core OS with a wide variety of archaic systems and vehicles!

Contents

• Core rules, odd and new, include complete procedures for robot assembly and 96 modules that define your robot.
• Three Robot Technical Sheet variations
• The Detroit Sounds source book introduce the flooded city, The Eerie marshes, the looming hulks of Moto, denizens, Ayes, trade goods, and robots of the region.
• Hive of The Scalder is an adventure crawl up through the crumbling Bell Island arcology, dealing with  a heavy water purification problem, jealous Ayes, and aggressive amphibians.
• A fistful of sample robots ready to drop into your game!

Paid Downloads 

These include a zip file containing the following PDFs (B&W, clear layout, formatted for printing, and easily configurable into booklets. Hive of the Scalder contains three illustrations)

• Duskheap Beacons core rules 
• Character Technical Sheets (three styles)
• The Detroit Sounds source booklet
• Hive of the Scalder starter adventure
• Sample robot characters
• .txt files of all content (compatible with most screen readers)

Free Downloads  

• Duskheap Beacons SRD pdf (Core rules with barebones layout)
• Character Technical Sheets (three styles)
• Sample robot characters

The SRD can also be accessed as a doc here

Format & Design

The format refracts the modular nature of the robots in the game. Each spread contains a distinct set of information and has premarked punch holes to ease assembly. Pages not of interest or that don't pertain to a particular campaign, session, or character can be easily tucked away, not printed, or discarded. 

I am a designer with a significant visual disability, and parsing and manipulating images is not very accessible to me. There will be differences in letter tone, nuances of fonts, or other fiddly design bits I am unable to decipher. I did work with an artist for the Hive of the Scalder, Michael Nagara, who was very excited about the project and pushed the vision for the game in amazing directions! You can contact them at kitsuneyamahitoshi2013@gmail.com

Want More? Need Access Support?

Physical copies are available at no charge in exchange for something you made. Please email for specifics dodocahedron.games@gmail.com

Please contact me to discuss other accessibility options, more detailed resources for using screen readers, and community copies!!

Thanks to The Lost Bay + Iko, the Eco Mofos team, and Yochai Gal for encouragement and fostering a collective and communal  spirit in game design. Thanks to Ryan, Kurt, Chrysta, both Micheals, Nat 20, the library crew, and Anne of the Woods.

Eco Mofos is by David Blandy - davidblandy.itch.io

Into the Odd is by Chris MacDowall - bastionland.com

Wait! There's More!

Putting the Game Together 

The game materials are designed to be physically assembled. While there are multiple pathways, we recommend the following 

1. Print contents out single sided.
2. Punch holes using the guide on the top sheet. While there are guides on every sheet, production and print variation means the holes do not always line up. 
3. Line up the holes inside a file folder or similar for a cover.
4. Use brads to attach contents to the cover (see photo!)

Please contact us for your own handmade copy!

FURTHERMORE...

If printed single sided the core rules may be connected to make a robot of your own!

I'm here to help!