This hand-drawn and coloured map covers the streets and alleyways from the Skinners’ Hall and Steelyard in the west, to the Tower of London and the fields beyond the wall to the east. The Adventures Window of the Soul and The Gong-scourer’s Baby unfold on these streets – both kicking off across the river in Southwark.

The PDF provides a large format map, including layers that feature the wards on one and churches and notable inns on the other. In addition, as the world of Dee continues to develop and expand, the “living map” will be updated with more layers and content that will be freely available to those who purchase it.

Adventures

Adventures features six investigations — both in London and across the countryside of Tudor England. The adventure is available in All Rolled Up’s web store now in both print and PDF, and will see face-to-face release at Dragonmeet.

Ex Libris — Written by Paul Baldowski, Illustrated by Evlyn Moreau, Cartography by Paul Baldowski

In 1593, the Agents of Dee set out to Deptford in search of a lost remnant from the sacking of Mortlake, Dee’s home. The paper trail indicates the owner of a home in Deptford village received an annotated copy of The Book of Dead Names, and Dee wants it back.

The problem? He isn’t the only one who wants it.

Window of the Soul — Writing, Illustration and Cartography by Paul Baldowski

While there’s nothing like Southwark for an evening of entertainments in the drinking holes, brothels and bear-baiting pits, the Agents of Dee find their evening interrupted by a brawl in the street that takes a disturbing turn.

There’s more afoot than drunken revelry, it would seem, but can the Agents uncover the threat before it escalates beyond their control.

The Gong Scourer’s Baby — Written by Paul Baldowski, Cartography by Dyson Logos

The Queen has taken ill and departed London, along with Dee, on the advice of her close counsel. Before he departs, Dee requests that the Agents investigate a miracle baby, born to a Gong Scourer in Southwark. While the babe might be a hoax, the trail leads into a darker place and an unholy plot.

The Monk’s Cowl — Written by Paul Baldowski

Henry Denny, the leaseholder of Waltham manor, sends word of a monstrous threat harrowing travellers passing through Waltham Forest. John Dee sends the Agents to the market town of Waltham Abbey to investigate. As one of the favoured hunting grounds of the Queen, the Agents must resolve the matter with haste—who would dare to disappoint Her Majesty?

The Harrowing of Harlow Hall — Written by Richard August, Cartography by Paul Baldowski

“A former agent hath shewn himself to be in league with ruinous powers. Investigate and deal with him, as thou deem most fit.” Doctor Dee sends the Agents to investigate the grounds and owner of Harlow Hall.

In Fertile Soil — Written by Paul Baldowski

Charged with investigating a potential target for recruitment into the Sanction, the Agents travel to the tiny village of Soulgrave where a woman stands accused of killing a newborn through an act of witchcraft. But did she? The Agents must determine the truth of the matter even as the villagers gather kindling and sticks for the pyre…

The book includes a range of maps and hand-outs, as well as a short section on using the adventures as the basis of a campaign.

Abaddon’s Puppet

Which, as it happens, is something that this third-party licenced adventure — Abaddon’s Puppet — does, too. Written by Steve Hatherley, the adventure outlines a heinous plot that can become part of a campaign and include some of the existing investigations. Steve has written about his process with running The Dee Sanction on his blog.

In February 1587, Elizabeth I had Mary Queen of Scots executed, an event that eventually led to the attempted Spanish invasion of Britain in 1588. Before that, however, King Philip of Spain plotted to have Elizabeth overthrown in favour of her Catholic cousin.

This is one of those plots.

If you have already picked up Adventures or the individual investigations available on DriveThruRPG, you will appreciate the terse guidance of this adventure. Distilled into timeline, clues, personalities and locations, it’s a concise frame for adventure.

Available on itch, now.

This Kickstarter is the culmination of weeks of effort getting the building blocks of production, publicity and pledges in order. It is also the satisfying conclusion to seven years of tinkering with the setting, background concepts and, most recently, settling on the crunch framework of the game mechanics.

The core of the Kickstarter is the book, available in PDF (the Page), softcover (the Gentlefolk) and a cloth-bound hardcover version with a foil-blocked sigil of the Black Seal on the front (the Courtier).

For those who want a little bit more, there’s the Agent of Dee (limited to 75 backers), which offers a Kickstarter Exclusive All Rolled Up game roll with a metal buckle. The versatile, compact hobby wrap can hold more than 100 polyhedral dice, plus up to 10 pens and pencils, as well as index cards or a small notepad. It will feature a badge and, as I say, a metal buckle closure — something that generally only appears on the high-end oilskin Adventurer series All Rolled Ups.

The campaign will fund a 60-page black-and-white illustrated compact book (A5, 148 x 210mm/5.8 x 8.3 inches), 95% written at the time the Kickstarter starts and tested over several years.

If we hit the £3,000 goal for the Kickstarter, we’ll add more art, more content and enhance the range of initial digital material available to support the game.

Beyond the base Goal of £3,000, stretch goals will add:

•  More Art (£4,000) – We will add two additional full-page commission pieces by the talented Evlyn Moreau to the Core Book.
•  PDF Adventures #1 through 4 (various) – Over the course of playtesting the game, many adventures have been run, taking the Dee Sanction from the heart of the Ossulstone Hundred in the shadow of the Tower to the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the wilds of eastern Europe.
•  Longer Bestiary (£6,000) – The Core Book contains a two-page bestiary. At this stage, we will expand that count to four-pages in total.
•  Tudor Mini Guild (£8,000) – We will commission Evlyn to create twenty mini character portraits in the style of her Fabulous Mini Guild. All backers of virtual or physical product will receive a copy of the PDF version to print out or use online as tokens.
•  Ossulstone Map (£10,000) – First glimpsed at Dragonmeet in 2019, the part of London at the heart of many Dee Sanction investigations is that which lies in the shadow of the Tower of London. A work-in-progress, at this level all backers of virtual or physical product will receive a copy of the PDF version to print out or use online.
•  Sanction Journal (£11,000) – The Dee Sanction encourages a play style that weaves tales across different dates, places and characters. Rather than restrict character information to just a sheet, a Sanction Journal – also known as a Book of Days – provides copies of the character sheet interspersed with a mix of gridded, lined, and dotted paper. All backers of virtual or physical product will receive a copy of the PDF version to print and use.

If we hit the high end, we have more stretch goals in mind, but those will have to wait!

The Actual Play content on the page features both the adventure from the core book — Lost in Translation — and one of the stretch goal adventures — Ex Libris (in somewhat shortened form).

All being well, there are busy months ahead, with the final polish to apply on the core book, artwork to wrangle, and (hopefully) adventures to write. Head over to the Kickstarter shortly and pledge your support to the Queen and The Dee Sanction.

Today, I have:

1. Tweaked the rules for completing tasks
2. Created an updated ‘character sheet’
3. Added 8 new cards to the character stack
4. Asked nicely for a special All Rolled Up dice bag

The task resolution system now supports losing something to push for success. You might get hurt, lose faith, or fall flat with a damning slap to the ego. Power, Penance, and Prestige can each take temporary or more permanent damage – the former ticked off in the boxes, the later written out as something more permanent.

So, you could tick off a Power, which indicates a twist, bruise or cut; three ticks mean something more permanent, like a broken bone, a minor concussion, or the loss of your favoured weapon.

The new character sheet has spaces at the bottom for your three character creation cards – in order A, B, and C – and room at the top for marking your state of wellbeing.

I have added more character cards – two new professions, three new affiliations, and three new bad books. That means I now have just one short of 12 cards for each – with the books falling short at 11. That works out as quite an array of skills, backgrounds and suggested period-appropriate names.

Finally, my wife was good enough to offer to make an All Rolled Up dice bag for my game – and I helped pick out material. I can’t guarantee that anyone else would want a bag in the combination of fabrics selected – but, you never know. I’ll post a picture when it’s done.

Aside from getting a handout or two prepared for the game, I should be ready for Expo (and tomorrow evening).