"What is Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea?"
AS&SH™Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea™ (AS&SH) is a role-playing game of adventure played with paper, pencil, dice, and imagination. Participants include one referee and one or more players. The referee prepares and presents the adventure material, including circumstances, challenges, quests, and mysteries faced, and the players create player characters (PCs), including fighters, magicians, clerics, and thieves.
The heroes of an AS&SH game delve dungeons filled with horrifying monsters, lethal traps, and bewildering puzzles; they explore savage wilderness frontiers and hostile borderlands; they probe ancient ruins and investigate cursed tombs; they match steel against sorcery, and sorcery against steel; and they plunder for gold, gems, and magical treasure in a decaying world inhabited by bloodthirsty monsters and weird, alien beings. |
AccoladesAstonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea was originally published in 2012. The following year, it was nominated for several awards:
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‟What Kind of Character Can I Play?”
The most frequently asked question about AS&SH is, "What kind of races and classes are available for game play?" As a sword-and-sorcery themed game, the races are all human, and the 4 principal character classes are derived from the original fantasy RPG, but with some interesting twists, including 22 subclasses. Any race can take up any character class.
RACES
Nine "pure" races of man (Amazon, Atlantean, Esquimaux, Hyperborean, Ixian, Kelt, Kimmerian, Pict, Viking) are extant in Hyperborea, plus two notable hybrid races (Kimmeri-Kelt, Half-Blood Pict). Otherwise, racial admixtures and men of indeterminate ancestry are considered "common" stock.
CLASSES
The most frequently asked question about AS&SH is, "What kind of races and classes are available for game play?" As a sword-and-sorcery themed game, the races are all human, and the 4 principal character classes are derived from the original fantasy RPG, but with some interesting twists, including 22 subclasses. Any race can take up any character class.
RACES
Nine "pure" races of man (Amazon, Atlantean, Esquimaux, Hyperborean, Ixian, Kelt, Kimmerian, Pict, Viking) are extant in Hyperborea, plus two notable hybrid races (Kimmeri-Kelt, Half-Blood Pict). Otherwise, racial admixtures and men of indeterminate ancestry are considered "common" stock.
CLASSES
- Fighter: a swordsman, bowman, or other warrior type
- Magician: a sorcerer who memorizes arcane formul. and casts spells
- Cleric: an armed and armoured mystic sorcerer
- Thief: a nimble swordsman possessed of numerous specialized skills
FIGHTER SUBCLASSES
- Barbarian: an outland warrior possessed of feral instincts
- Berserker: a rampaging shock trooper renowned for unbridled battle rage
- Cataphract (Knight): an armoured horseman and warrior elite
- Huntsman: a wilderness warrior who glories in the hunt
- Paladin: a champion who crusades for justice and Law
- Ranger: a borderland fighter, frontiersman, and defender
- Warlock: a spell-weaving fighter who wields steel and sorcery interchangeably
MAGICIAN SUBCLASSES
- Cryomancer: a sorcerer who commands the elemental power of ice
- Illusionist: a sorcerer who evokes phantasms and manipulates shadows and light
- Necromancer: a sorcerer who practices black magic and communicates with the dead
- Pyromancer: a sorcerer who commands the elemental power of fire
- Witch (Wizard): a sorcerer who brews potions, divines portents, and lays curses
CLERIC SUBCLASSES
- Druid: a mystic sorcerer empowered by ancestral, elemental, and animistic spirits
- Monk: a warrior-priest who strives for physical and mental mastery
- Priest: a chaplain mystic of prodigious spell-casting capacity
- Runegraver: a mystic warrior who carves runic spells on bone, metal, stone, and wood
- Shaman (Witch Doctor): a primal sorcerer who confers with ancestral and totem spirits
THIEF SUBCLASSES
- Assassin: a thief who specializes in murder and intrigue
- Bard (Skald): a warrior, scholar, and weaver of enchanted lyrics and/or music
- Legerdemainist: an adept thief who also commands the power of sorcery
- Purloiner: a religious thief who also practices the esoteric mysticism of a cleric
- Scout: a lightly armed explorer, intelligence gatherer, and stealth master
‟Who Created the AS&SH Game?”
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea was created and written by Jeffrey Talanian, and edited by David Prata. Artists include Ian Baggley, Daisey Bingham, Johnathan Bingham, Charles Lang, Peter Mullen, Russ Nicholson, Glynn Seal, Val Semeiks, Jason Sholtis, Logan Talanian, and Del Teigeler. Our adventure module artists also include the works of Andreas Claren, Mick Fernette, David Hoskins, Diogo Nogueira, and Mike Tenebrae.
AS&SH would not have been possible without the trailblazing efforts of Stuart Marshall and Matt Finch, whose design, development, and publication of OSRIC™ categorically paved the way for AS&SH and countless other traditional gaming publications. Stuart and Matt are to be commended for their courage and innovation.
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is dedicated in fond memory to E. Gary Gygax.
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea was created and written by Jeffrey Talanian, and edited by David Prata. Artists include Ian Baggley, Daisey Bingham, Johnathan Bingham, Charles Lang, Peter Mullen, Russ Nicholson, Glynn Seal, Val Semeiks, Jason Sholtis, Logan Talanian, and Del Teigeler. Our adventure module artists also include the works of Andreas Claren, Mick Fernette, David Hoskins, Diogo Nogueira, and Mike Tenebrae.
AS&SH would not have been possible without the trailblazing efforts of Stuart Marshall and Matt Finch, whose design, development, and publication of OSRIC™ categorically paved the way for AS&SH and countless other traditional gaming publications. Stuart and Matt are to be commended for their courage and innovation.
Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is dedicated in fond memory to E. Gary Gygax.
