For the past few years I’ve been fortunate to have regular contract work with the fine folks over at Archetype Entertainment, primarily on their “Exodus” project. I’ve helped out a little bit on the videogame itself, but the bulk of my effort has been on the tabletop roleplaying game, set in the same universe and showcasing many of the cool locations, creatures, items, and concepts that will appear in the videogame.

If you haven’t heard of Exodus yet, I strongly encourage you to check it out: https://www.exodusgame.com/en-US

Traveler’s Handbook

As for the tabletop roleplaying material I’ve been involved with, this has been an exciting year. All three of the books we’ve been working on have been announced and one of the books is already available for purchase (I just received my copy, and its lovely!)

The Traveler’s Handbook is a player’s guide with all the core information needed to make characters, while also learning more about the amazing universe that is Exodus. And it is loaded with art. I believe it is still available to order.

Exodus Tabletop Roleplaying Game (Tools)

To help out a bit with some of the more complicated Exodus things, I might build little utilities to host on itch. I’ve made two to start:

• https://brentknowles.itch.io/lightspeed – A time calculator to help calculate how much time passes for Travelers using the Gates of Heaven to travel near the speed of light.
• https://brentknowles.itch.io/lucky-exodus – A simulator to make “Lucky Exodus” rolls. These rolls are made when a Traveler departs on an Exodus and the number of rerolls available to them depends on how well they’ve managed their relationships with the people they care about on their homeworld.

Exodus Encyclopedia

The next book slated for release is the Exodus Encyclopedia. The best way to think of this is that it is the “monster manual”, with all the creatures needed to run exciting Exodus adventures. This is another beautiful book, with page after page of fantastic creature art, along with stat blocks made to match the newer standards that Wizards of the Coast have developed recently for the Dungeons & Dragons game.

In addition this book has loads of information on powerful Exodus items, and how Travelers can use or dissect these items to further humankind’s technological research.

This was a very fun book to put together. I especially enjoyed developing stat blocks that built on the original creature design notes and the art created for each.

Star Heist

And if you’d like to see what playing the Exodus tabletop is all about, James Ohlen, the studio director of Archetype and the creator of these Exodus books, ran a very fun campaign called Star Heist. Check it out on YouTube.