29 August 2023: Official launch of 4E-compatible, fully open-licensed Orcus tabletop RPG
After over two years of development, today the Orcus Hero’s Handbook and Orcus Game Master’s Guide have been released on GitHub and DriveThruRPG as free downloads and print-on-demand from Lulu.com.
(Skip the announcement and go to the downloads)
Orcus is wholly compatible with the fourth edition of the world’s most popular roleplaying game and consists entirely of open content.
Players can combine classes, kits and feats to cover a wide range of character concepts – and thanks to the power system and tactical combat, swashbucklers, tacticians, knights and beastmasters can hold their own alongside demonologists, enchanters, elemental duelists and divinely-inspired priests.
- Print-on-demand copies of the books are available at-cost.
- The game features original and third party content, rather than paraphrasing content from 4E, but it is entirely interoperable with official 4E content.
- Flexible character creation is a priority, with the class, kit and feat subsystems interlocking to allow for a wide range of characters right out of the box. Martial arts, psychic powers, demanding incantations, poisons with out-of-combat functionality and familiars are all included.
- The novel “threats” system makes setting up tactical encounters easy, with a readily available list of level-appropriate terrain features, traps and events for each terrain type. Just add the monsters!
Orcus by the numbers:
- 221 monsters
- 24 ancestries
- 9 classes and 25 kits
- 20 prestige paths and 6 epic paths
- 80 skilled practices and magical rituals
- 138 feats
- 848 powers, including advanced maneuvers and poisons usable by any character
Project lead Chris Sakkas says:
“Orcus would not have been possible without the Open Game License and the community of sharing and collaboration that it cultivated.
“Orcus has entirely new classes, ancestries, monsters and powers, as well as many others based on Open Game Content from dozens of creators across several game lines.
“Our hope is that Orcus will make it easier to publish sourcebooks and adventures compatible with 4E, as well as serving as the foundation for other clones and games.”