The standard edition is a 360-page hardcover book, lavishly illustrated throughout.
The world of Hollows is rotten and more putrid by the day, infested with awful realities that swell like boils around the worst people in the Isles: Hollows. If there’s to be any hope at all, Hollows need lancing. Armed with your Weapons – no mere blades and shot, but manifestations of humanity’s worst instincts – you and others like you are the only things powerful enough to do it and human enough to still care.
Players are Hunters: people infected with the same rot as the monsters they fight. Somewhere in their painful history they did something, or suffered something, that planted a permanent Seed of rot in their soul. They turn that corruption to a grim purpose: exterminating those whose Seeds have blossomed and who have become Lords of a Hollow. The only difference between Hunters and their prey is time and Weapons.
The Weapons a Hunter chooses to wield and the abilities they select for them open up hundreds of possible character builds. Players select new abilities with every kill and choose which ones to make permanent when they baptise themselves in the blood of a Hollow’s Lord.
Gameplay moves between exploring a Hollow’s poisoned world – rules-light and roleplay-heavy – and many-versus-1 tactical boss fights on a unique combat grid where the boss is always at the centre of the action.
Fights are fast but easy to follow, and players quickly get into the swing of planning their tactics and adjusting them as the battle intensifies and the battlefield changes and develops with every action. It encourages players to work together, paying close attention to each other’s moves and devising clever, cooperative strategies to take down Entities far bigger and stronger than they are.
And if they don’t take them down? Death isn’t the end for a Hunter; they’ll blossom into a Hollow all of their own once they meet their end, and it’s up to their allies to put them down.
Hollows uses a simple D20 mechanic where actions can fail, succeed, or succeed brilliantly – and failure is always interesting.
Weighing in at 360 pages, this glorious tome contains everything you need to play Hollows:
- Full rules for exploration and combat
- Character creation and advancement
- Create, maintain and expand the Hunters’ Refuge, their safe space amid the darkness
- Information on the Grand Malignancies – Dominion, Fear, Hunger and more – that have sunk their claws into this world
- The Victorian-era inspired setting of The Isles, in the last days of a crumbling empire, and a run-down of the world beyond its borders
- Guidance on designing and running Hollows scenarios
- Twelve horrible Entities to murder Hunters with, and rules for upgrading them
- Two ready-to-play Hollows to get your campaigns started
Hollows contains mature themes and is recommended for adult players.