"What is the HYPERBOREA RPG?"
HYPERBOREAHYPERBOREA 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 a HYPERBOREA 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. |
AccoladesHYPERBOREA 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?”
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.
CLASSES
Four principal classes and 22 subclasses are available for play.
PRINCIPAL CLASSES
FIGHTER SUBCLASSES
MAGICIAN SUBCLASSES
CLERIC SUBCLASSES
THIEF SUBCLASSES
RACES
Twelve primary races with notable to diminishing populations are extant in Hyperborea. Nine are considered “pure” races; two are hybrid races; and one (the largest) is a mélange of indeterminate ancestries and/or racial admixtures.
Twelve ancillary races are measured to be either less populous, on the brink of extinction, or not properly surveyed by the sages of Khromarium. Of these, ten are considered “pure” races; one is considered a somewhat recent hybridization; and one is deemed a consequence of otherworldly tampering.
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.
CLASSES
Four principal classes and 22 subclasses are available for play.
PRINCIPAL CLASSES
- Fighter: An elite warrior and battle technician such as a swordsman, bowman, or spearman.
- Magician: A thaumaturgical sorcerer who studies arcane formulæ and casts spells.
- Cleric: An armed and armoured ecclesiastical sorcerer who channels the divine.
- Thief: A cunning and nimble swordsman possessed of numerous specialized skills.
FIGHTER SUBCLASSES
- Barbarian: An outland warrior possessed of feral instincts and wilderness supremacy.
- Berserker: A rampaging shock trooper renowned for unbridled battle rage.
- Cataphract: An armoured, duty-bound horseman, soldier, and warrior elite.
- Huntsman: A wilderness warrior who glories in the hunt and subdues beasts.
- Paladin: An honour-bound champion who crusades for justice and Law.
- Ranger: A borderland fighter, frontiersman, and nemesis of otherworldly horrors.
- Warlock: A spell-weaving fighter who wields steel and sorcery interchangeably.
MAGICIAN SUBCLASSES
- Cryomancer: A specialized sorcerer who masters the elemental powers of cold and ice.
- Illusionist: A sorcerer who evokes phantasms, manipulates shadows, and bends minds.
- Necromancer: A wicked sorcerer who practices black magic and communicates with the dead.
- Pyromancer: A specialized sorcerer who masters the elemental powers of heat and fire.
- Witch: A sorcerer who brews potions, reads portents, works spells, and lays curses.
CLERIC SUBCLASSES
- Druid: A mystic sorcerer empowered by ancestral, elemental, and animistic spirits.
- Monk: A warrior-priest who strives for physical, spiritual, and mental mastery.
- Priest: A sorcerer of prodigious, ecclesiastical spell-casting capacity and divine favour.
- Runegraver: A mystic warrior who carves runic spells on bone, metal, stone, and wood.
- Shaman: A primal spiritualist who practices both ecclesiastical and thaumaturgical sorcery.
THIEF SUBCLASSES
- Assassin: A thief who specializes in murder, subterfuge, disguise, and intrigue.
- Bard: A warrior, scholar, sorcerer, rogue, and weaver of enchanted lyrics and music.
- Legerdemainist: An adept thief who practices the thaumaturgical sorcery of a magician.
- Purloiner: A hallowed thief who practices the ecclesiastical sorcery of a cleric.
- Scout: A lightly armed spy, intelligence gatherer, and subterranean explorer.
RACES
Twelve primary races with notable to diminishing populations are extant in Hyperborea. Nine are considered “pure” races; two are hybrid races; and one (the largest) is a mélange of indeterminate ancestries and/or racial admixtures.
- PRIMARY RACES: Common, Amazon, Atlantean, Esquimaux, Hyperborean, Half-Blood Pict, Ixian, Kelt, Kimmerian, Kimmeri-Kelt, Pict, Viking
Twelve ancillary races are measured to be either less populous, on the brink of extinction, or not properly surveyed by the sages of Khromarium. Of these, ten are considered “pure” races; one is considered a somewhat recent hybridization; and one is deemed a consequence of otherworldly tampering.
- ANCILLARY RACES: Anglo-Saxon, Carolingian Frank, Esquimaux-Ixian, Greek, Lapp, Lemurian, Moor, Mu, Oon, Roman, Tlingit, Yakut
‟Who Created the Game?”
HYPERBOREA was created by Jeffrey Talanian. Editors have included Ben Ball, David Prata, and George Sedgwick. Artists and cartographers have included Ian Baggley, Ben Ball, Daisey Bingham, Johnathan Bingham, Andreas Claren, Mick Fernette, Jim Forzese, David Hoskins, Charles Lang, David Miller, Peter Mullen, Russ Nicholson, Diogo Nogueira, Joseph Salvador, Glynn Seal, Val Semeiks, Jason Sholtis, Logan Talanian, Skye Talanian, Del Teigeler, and Mike Tenebrae.
HYPERBOREA 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 this game and countless other traditional-styled gaming publications. Stuart and Matt are to be commended for their courage and innovation.
The first two editions of this game were dedicated in fond memory to E. Gary Gygax. The third edition of the game is dedicated to John Eric Holmes.
HYPERBOREA was created by Jeffrey Talanian. Editors have included Ben Ball, David Prata, and George Sedgwick. Artists and cartographers have included Ian Baggley, Ben Ball, Daisey Bingham, Johnathan Bingham, Andreas Claren, Mick Fernette, Jim Forzese, David Hoskins, Charles Lang, David Miller, Peter Mullen, Russ Nicholson, Diogo Nogueira, Joseph Salvador, Glynn Seal, Val Semeiks, Jason Sholtis, Logan Talanian, Skye Talanian, Del Teigeler, and Mike Tenebrae.
HYPERBOREA 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 this game and countless other traditional-styled gaming publications. Stuart and Matt are to be commended for their courage and innovation.
The first two editions of this game were dedicated in fond memory to E. Gary Gygax. The third edition of the game is dedicated to John Eric Holmes.
