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HOLLOWS - TTRPG Boss Fights Done Right

Created by Rowan, Rook and Decard

Plunge into the nightmare realms of Hollows and slay other people's personal demons. Hollows' unique tactical combat system allows for dynamic positioning and tactical gambits, and makes combat spectacular.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Intermission: File Updates & Circulation, Wretched Domains
5 months ago – Thu, Sep 11, 2025 at 04:45:48 AM

Hello Hunters.

BACKER PREVIEWS AND FEEDBACK


Most of you, I believe, got your preview PDF on Friday. Others received a link on Monday morning, and over the last 72 hours we've been quietly ironing out some bugs to make sure everyone who pre-ordered or purchased as an add-on all got theirs too. Retailers received their preview yesterday. So now you should definitely have the preview PDF. 

If you don't, this is most certainly unintentional and please do let us know.

It hasn't been the cleanest and tidiest preview release, but this does mean we've established all possible problems before we release the real, final files, so there's that.

If you'd like to leave us feedback, in the form linked in the last update, we'll be collecting responses until 28th September.

We're also collecting questions in the public Discord (also linked in the last update!), and we'll be compiling a full list of errata after the feedback period's complete.

WRETCHED DOMAINS: FINAL SCENARIO NAMES

You may also notice, if you look at your pledge, that the names of some rewards have changed. The Hollows scenarios written by our exemplary team of freelancers have now been updated from their working titles to their confirmed publication titles. For example, Jay Dragon's Rotgut Academy has become Bleake Hill Academy; Kieron Gillen's The War To Start All Wars has become The Laboratory of Erasmus Ward. The authors' names are still clearly identified so you can track which is which, and the content is as described when you bought them, except for one:

Cassandra Khaw's Hollow is replaced by Jinn Hermiston's frankly disturbing work of eco-horror. We've publicised this in previous updates, but since we're now getting close to release, I want to make absolutely sure everyone knows! 

That is, I believe, all for the moment.

TWO DOCTORS


Yesterday, our designer Mina pointed out one of our recurring motifs in Wretched Domains: scientists on power trips. The Good Doctor, from Jay Dragon's scenario, experiments on helpless juvenile subjects; Erasmus Ward, from Kieron Gillen's, is tormented by the forces he's unleashed in his bid to make a weapon so terrible it averts the possibility of war. Two men whose arrogance and grand ideas have made them monstrous, presented in two different ways. God, our writers and artists are good.

We proceed.

- Chant

Intermission: Backer Preview PDF Ready NOW!
6 months ago – Fri, Sep 05, 2025 at 03:34:36 PM

Good evening, Hunters.

A simple missive tonight:

The backer preview PDF of the core book is ready.



THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE PREVIEW

Text is 100% complete. This is it. Final version, pending your feedback - and we would really like feedback. A lot of it will happen as conversations in our Discord (link at the bottom of the email), but we also really appreciate feedback in an easy-to-collate feedback form, especially if you've got a nice, straightforward typo to report. You can find it here:
 
https://forms.gle/NEDpqEM44a5fcBns9

We are, as we are wont to do, still fiddling with bits of the layout. For the most part, what you see is what you get, but don't be surprised if some pieces of spot art appear or move between this and the final release, or some colours change slightly. We've got a sidebar to add.


HOW TO GET YOUR PREVIEW 

Depending on the precise order of events on our end, it may already be in your inbox - look out for an email from Backerkit about new digital downloads for Hollows. 

To download your files, either follow the link in the email, or: 
  • Go to backerkit.com
  • Click your profile icon in the top right corner of the homepage
  • Go to Your Pledges and Surveys
  • Find Hollows and click on it
  • Then go to View Order, under Surveys on the right hand side of the page
  • Click on Get Your Digital Downloads, near the top of the order page
  • Download your files

WHAT TO DO AFTERWARDS

This is really up to you. Get excited? Run some Hollows? Come and join us in the RRD Discord and ask us, and the rest of the player community, questions?

https://discord.gg/HQfnyMms

The world is, or in this case The Isles are, your oyster.

Post-Campaign Update 12: A Ghastly Flowering
6 months ago – Thu, Aug 28, 2025 at 10:19:08 AM

In which the Entity that is Hollows mutates a little further, but we corral it and herd it towards its ultimate fate: the printer.

MANUSCRIPT

Firstly: I promised you a manuscript preview in mid-August. Several astute backers have observed that it’s nearly the end of August and there has been no preview. Allow me to explain.

We laid out the book. The book was too large, by about 10%. In reviewing it, with an eye to cutting some material and reflowing some pages to use space more efficiently, we have proposed a number of additional changes. (“I have now finished writing Hollows for the tenth time.” - Grant Howitt, August 2025)

I still thought we might get the preview out this week, thereby allowing me to at least do so while it was still August.

Then people got ill. Probably not because of Hollows, more likely from a convention. And, while we are passionate about our work, we also firmly believe that sick leave is sick leave, and have politely insisted that those affected take time off to recover. 

Anyway, long story short, the preview will now arrive at the end of next week. I know this is disappointing, and I know you’ve waited (remarkably patiently) for a really long time. I can only apologise and ask you to be patient for just a little while longer. 

COMPONENT KIT

Still no changes! But remember I said we’d updated some components after seeing the samples? Well, we got new samples, and they’re gorgeous.


We have:
  • Enlarged the design on the tactical grid so the Entity token fits perfectly, instead of merely pretty well
  • Changed the Empty design for the Shotgun token to be closer to the other Broken/Empty/etc. designs
  • Changed the colours of the Capacity holder and tokens so they’re a little darker and grimier. We thought this would be a really fussy, minor change, but it actually makes a huge impact (we think)
  • Most visibly, we have replaced the dice. They were basic and plastic and we didn’t like them. They’re still plastic, but they’re now this rather nice carved bone effect
  • (Oh, and one of the numbers was mirrored on the Curse dice, which is a weird thing to happen, but that’s fixed now, too)

WRETCHED DOMAINS

Maz is now editing these (and, as I type this, they are waiting on me to review a set of edits so they can continue working, so I shall wrap this up swiftly). There’s little else to say here - these are proceeding according to plan.

I can, however, show you this charming art for Jinn Hermiston's Hollow. Jinn is the writer we brought in to replace a Wretched Domains author who unfortunately had to withdraw. The Hollow they created is a rotten, verdant place of vengeful forests and uncanny game birds. The illustrations here are the map of the Hollow in its entirety and two of the Entities: The Gamekeeper (shotgun in hand) and The Royal Fern (also pictured: one of its luckless victims). The borders you can see are by Arborwin McJanda, and are a crucial piece of this Hollow's graphic design.


IN CONCLUSION

May the Old Gods become aware of my existence if I’m wrong, but it looks like we’ll send everything to print in October. I continue to be uncomfortable with providing hard deadlines for things like locking orders and sending out books, because this is a big and complicated fulfilment situation and, as you’ve already seen, Hollows has a way of expanding through time and space.

As a parting gift, please enjoy these nasty little symbols our graphic designer, Mina, made for the Malignancies. Pleasingly unpleasant.


Until next month! 
- Chant

Post-Campaign Update 11: Through Parting Shadows We Approach
7 months ago – Thu, Jul 24, 2025 at 07:50:44 AM

In which the time of our Hollowing impends, and we feel our own Malignant majesty bloom within. (We’re most of the way through layout.)

MANUSCRIPT

The tech edit is complete! Maz is typesetting the last section even now, as I write these words to you. The rest of the book is in layout, and the to-and-fro of “that spacing’s a bit funny”, “move that box up a bit? No down a bit?”, and “can we ram another bit of art in there?” is well underway. (Dear Mina, I am sorry for everything.)

It may not come as a tremendous surprise, given all the extra writing, revising, testing, and refining that we’ve done that the book is very big now. We were expecting a svelte 320-page artifact. We’re… not there. A lot of the to-and-fro with our graphic designer, Minaerva McJanda, is over ways to conserve space while still making the text clear and easy to read – and still leaving room for all the special treatments we want to do for, say, Weapons, Entities, and rules sets like The Refuge. 



Overall, we’re pleased.

Once that last section is laid out, we’ll share the complete PDF with you for your review and interrogation – and I really do mean interrogation. This will be the last chance to correct typos, clarify wording, and tell us if something’s just weird before we go to print. Expect a PDF sometime in mid-August.

COMPONENT KIT

No changes to report here. We made a couple of small changes to designs based on the production samples (remember those? Beautiful things.), and our manufacturing partner’s ready to go.

I’m not pushing the big red button until the core book’s ready too. See above for how close that is.

WRETCHED DOMAINS

We have not been idle on this. Chris Taylor and I have been giving the Entities in these Hollows a final pass, ensuring they still work with the updates to the core rules (broadly: Entities have become nastier and more punishing since the first drafts of these scenarios were written!). Maz will then edit them to a high shine, Mina will lay them out, and they’ll go off to print. This should all happen while you’re enjoying the core PDF, so everything’s falling into place nicely.

SUNDRIES, AND A PODCAST
The other pieces of the Hollows puzzle are small: we have some enamel pin badges to order, and a metal Entity token. These designs are ready, and mainly in need of some packaging design. We also committed to a “Making Of…” podcast. Now we’ve made the game, we can make the Making Of. 

Is there anything you’d like to know about Hollows or the process of conjuring it from the depthless void of Grant and Chris’s nightmares? Come and ask it in the comments, and I’ll make sure Maz, Grant, and Chris see it before the podcast. I can’t promise they’ll answer it, or that they’ll answer it seriously, but Grant once asked an interviewee what the sexiest polyhedral die was, so I think it’s only fair that you throw him some tough questions here.  

- Chant


Intermission: Updated Quickstart Available
8 months ago – Fri, Jun 20, 2025 at 09:05:23 AM

No updates for nearly 6 weeks, then two in one day?

When I sent this morning's update, it was supposed to include the promise of an updated quickstart PDF. It has new graphics, reflected the final designs of our token set, and updated rules, Entities, and pregenerated characters in line with the tech edit.

It's overall cleaner, clearer, and most importantly it reflects the current state of the game.

You should have received an email from Backerkit with a download link. If for any reason that email doesn't arrive or the link doesn't work, you can download directly from our website:
 
https://rowanrookanddecard.com/product/hollows-quickstart-the-sins-of-grisham-priory

Until next time! 
- Chant