20-05-2025
Voyage Of The Unity For Avatar Legends RPG Launches On Kickstarter
The collaboration between Beadle & Grimm's and Magpie Games brings together the hit role playing ... More game Vatar Legends with the luxurious quality of a boxed set full of a top shelf immerwive experience.
Beadle & Grimm's Pandemonium Warehouse is best known as a company that creates deluxe versions of Dungeons and Dragons adventures that enhance the story experience. They've branched out in the past few years to provide premium accessories for other games as well. They have partnered with Magpie Games to create a campaign for Avatar Legends, the Avatar: The Last Airbender role playing game called Avatar Legends: Voyage of the Unity.
'Gen Con 2022 was really a special year for all of us industry folks,' said Mark Diaz Truman, co-founder and CEO of Magpie Games. 'After two years of not having a full Gen Con, the emotions were really high for all of us—just to be back in the same space!—and stuff like the ENnies felt incredibly special. When we won an ENnie for Root: The Roleplaying Game, I remember Matthew Lillard grabbing me as I came off the stage and hugging me, telling me we needed to talk about doing something together with Beadle and Grimm's. And when we got on a call with everyone from the B&G team, it was really obvious that we shared a lot of the same excitement about making really innovative, exciting RPG products that would last for years and years. One of the most exciting parts, though, was that the B&G team is great at doing stuff Magpie Games doesn't do very often—stuff like scrolls and in-game artifacts. So when we started talking about what we could do together, something for Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game was just so appealing because it gives us a chance to make these beautiful items that I know Avatar fans are going to love!'
'Part of what made the timing of this project work out so well was that,' said Matthew Lillard, co-founder of Beadle & Grimm's, 'since we weren't racing to meet someone else's publishing deadline, we were able to take the time to work with Magpie Games to really build out something that we were all excited about. We both latched on immediately to the potential of setting a series of adventures around the Unity and its voyage, and we were able to take the time to really build out what those stories could be. The time also allowed us to benefit from Magpie Games's experience of running their own Avatar Kickstarter, working closely with Paramount and Avatar Studios, and creating a much-beloved game world that we were only too happy to jump into with them!'
'Our kids grew up with Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph,' said Charlie Rehor, co-founder of Beadle & Grimms. 'Honestly we probably liked the show even more than they did if that's possible. And so we were really interested, nervous, and ultimately impressed by the skill and love that Magpie Games put into the Avatar Legends game. And then, as we kept bumping into Mark Diaz Truman and his team at conventions, we found out, not surprisingly, that they were really cool and wanted to work with us as much as we wanted to work with them. We have a lot of experience making really expansive, detailed deluxe boxes for RPGs like D&D, Pathfinder, and Critical Role, and last year we released a box set for Candela Obscura with some adventures that we wrote. So when the idea of doing a new adventure and premium edition for Avatar Legends came up, we felt like we were ready to do it right. We've been moving into creating our own content more and more since we started Beadle & Grimm's, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity and challenge for Beadle & Grimm's now.'
Avatar Legends allows players to create characters in the universe of Avatar: The Last Airbender just as memorable as anyone from the show. The game features mechanics to highlight the internal struggles of these characters as much as their fighting styles or their bending skills. While Avatar Legends may be based on a kids show, it has plenty of adult fans who want to mix martial arts action with deep character development at the gaming table.
'Every aspect of the game is built around making meaningful, consequential decisions that affect your balance and the balance of the world around you,' said Rehor. 'I personally grew up playing D&D, which to be clear, I love. One of the things you realize after you play a bit, is that one of the most entertaining things that can happen at the table is rolling a 1. When you first start playing, of course, a 1 is just a disaster. It's an automatic failure, and then even worse stuff happens. But unlike a lot of combat in RPGs, a 1 in D&D has no real mechanics other than 'whatever you did didn't work.' But what that one becomes is an opportunity to tell a story about what went wrong. Not 'You miss', but 'I swing my sword, trying to knock down the goblin, and slip on a banana peel, lose my grip, and the sword flies across the room and embeds itself in a door frame.' In Avatar Legends, everything you do, even in combat, is a scene you're building together with the GM. Success or failure are equally important, consequential, and fun.'
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'I love the seriously playful tone and world that is created in Avatar Legends,' said Lillard. 'It really evokes the elements of the show that I love the most - the playfulness that doesn't take away from the seriousness of the action. That sense of stakes and consequences is always what made the show feel like more than a kid's cartoon, but the playfulness that runs throughout the series and the RPG keeps it fun for everyone. I've always played RPGs for the storytelling and the interaction between players and characters, and Avatar Legends provides a great sandbox for players and GMs to play together to tell fun stories that matter.'
Avatar Legends offers multiple points in the history of the setting for Game Masters to set their games. The Voyage of the Unity is a five part adventure set during the Roku era. It's a fascinating time that gives games plenty of room to explore the history and themes of Avatar stories.
'When we first met Mike and Bryan (Avatar Studios) back in 2021,' said Truman, "we had big questions about the Roku Era in particular. Between the books and comics and shows, there's a lot on the other eras, but the Roku Era was largely unexplored before the RPG. We were stunned when they told us that they wanted us to pitch ideas to them for the Roku Era, and even more blown away by all the things they let us add to the Avatarverse. Truly, one of the most special moments I've had working in RPGs has been developing a part of the Avatar Legends setting. Now… we're doing it at a whole new level, bringing even more new canon content to the world through this really unique medium!"
'The Roku Era felt like the perfect time to set these adventures because they were close enough to the more familiar time period of Aang that fans would recognize characters and places,' said Lillard, 'but still far enough away from the events of the shows to allow players to create their own fiction and their own canon. We wanted a world that felt familiar but still had lots of open space to tell stories and discover things, and the Roku Era felt like the perfect time in which to do that.'
"It's an intriguing time," said Rehor. 'The calm before the storm. In the series we never get to see what the war took away from the world, so this is a chance to adventure in a world closer to the balance as it had been for thousands of years. But of course, war is coming, and all the tensions, rivalries, and conflicts that will eventually lead Sozin to take that terrible step are always near the surface. And let's face it, tension makes for good stories! And the Unity, the greatest ship in the world, packed full of representatives of the four nations, seemed like a wonderful stage to play out those rivalries.'
Avatar Legends: Voyage of the Unity features several versions on the Kickstarter, including an all-digital version, a slipcase hardcover collection of the campaign, a box that includes the campaign plus several add-ons and the Dragon Edition full of the top notch props and enhanced experiences that Beadle & Grimm's is known to produce.
The Kickstarter runs through Thursday, June19th, 2025. Rewards are slated to deliver to backers in Q3 of 2026
