# Red Sand Blue Sky tags: #game/wargame/red-sand-blue-sky ![[Red Sand Blue Sky (cover).jpg|600]] Two Hour Wargames takes the gladiator route to the blood-drenched sand. **Red Sand Blue Sky** — *Heroes of the Arena* — is a man-to-man arena-combat game built on the THW Reaction System, where fantasy gladiators fight beasts and each other before a crowd that votes with its wagers and its laurels. It's a niche corner of the THW family: no campaign of world-saving, just the arena, the sand, and the crowd that wants blood. ## Setting The arena is the world. You play gladiators and the beasts they face, going at each other in the blood-red sand under the blue sky. The game is thick with the trappings of the trade: **Gladiator and Beast Rosters**, entering the arena fight by fight, and the social economy around it — **Fame**, **Laurels**, **Wagering** — plus the **Gladiator Schools** that train you and the career you build fight to fight. It's the THW engine pointed at the most theatrical form of martial combat the hobby can name. ## Mechanics It runs on the standard **Chain Reaction / THW Reaction System**: **Reputation** and **2d6 taken-versus-Rep**, the man-to-man skirmish core, **Stars** and **Grunts**, and the **In Sight** reaction test. What it adds is the arena layer — "To the Death" fights where you can win Fame and Laurels, and where losing can be as quick and final as the crowd hopes it will be. There's no campaign-with-world to manage; your career and reputation in the arena are the progress. ## Editions - **Red Sand Blue Sky** (2010/2011) — the current "Heroes of the Arena" edition, by Patrick Lewis & Ed Teixeira. *In the library.* - **Red Sand Blue Sky** (v1) — the earlier *Gladiatorial Combat in the Arena* edition. *In the library.* - **Red Sand Blue Sky Addenda** and the **Red Sand Brown Sky** variant. *In the library.* **Red Sand Blue Sky** is a **[[Two-Hour Wargames]]** game from the same [[Chain Reaction|Reaction System]] family as the rest of the line. ## References - [Two Hour Wargames — Two Hour Wargames site](https://twohourwargames.com/)