Salthaven released for Dragonbane and a taste of what is to come
Newsletter #2
Hi everyone! Hope you’ve had a good start to the year. Over here in Sweden, the spring is starting to show its first signs, with flowers sprouting, birds returning from the south, and nightkin crawling out of their burrows in the dark forest. Oh, who am I kidding, those are not nightkin, they’re roleplayers like you and me!
I’ve had a slow start to the year when it comes to my creative endeavors, but I have a couple of things to announce.
Salthaven released for Dragonbane
Salthaven, my island adventure setting and toolbox is now available for Dragonbane. I originally published it a few years ago as a small zine for Cairn, the adventure game by Yochai Gal. It was a relative success and fairly popular in the Cairn community, so I decided to remaster it and expand it for Dragonbane. It contains a small fishing town, a sinister cult, a ton of random tables and adventure seeds, a barebones procedure for sea travel along with a list of ships, and two new professions (Smuggler and Cultist). You can see the result on DrivethruRPG, where it’s available digitally and as a soft cover book.
Get Salthaven (Dragonbane) on DrivethruRPG here!
What I’m currently working on
This box set is what started my journey into the roleplaying game hobby. It was the mid 80s version of what is now called Dragonbane in English. As you can see above, it used a licensed picture of Elric and Stormbringer as the box art. How fitting then, that my next book is based on just those themes!
I’m currently writing a campaign module for Dragonbane set in the Realm of Chaos. It’s heavily inspired by Michael Moorcock’s Elric and all of its derivative work and focuses on the struggle between Law and Chaos. I’m also planning on including as much as possible from my trove of ideas collected over the past decade or so. It’s finally time to let all that awesome stuff come to life other than in my dusty old notebooks!
The plan is to try and turn this into a full-length hardcover campaign book, where the main part is made up of a detailed hexcrawl. The writing is slow going since I have limited time after my day job, but I’ve written about 50 pages so far and playtesting has begun. I’m hoping to finish it sometime this year.
The first area, a dungeon called “Darktwist Mountain” is more or less done. Here’s an excerpt from the entrance to the mountain:
An irregularly shaped jagged hole opening into the labyrinthine caves of basalt beneath. Stinking sulfurous smoke billows from inside, and it's hot, humid, and hard to breathe. The wall near the entrance is covered in faded graffiti with words such as "Turn back!", "Evil within", and "The treasure is a lie". A slippery and uneven tunnel bores deeper inside the mountain, and several frayed ropes (1 in 6 chance to break if used) hang from hooks in the walls. Traversing the tunnel to the beginning of area 2 requires a successful ACROBATICS roll unless equipped with climbing gear or using a rope. Failure results in the character losing their footing and rolling down the slope, taking D6 damage. Luckily, there's a makeshift barrier of moist wood covered in mold at the bottom to prevent falling down into the abyss. Clearly, this has happened to other adventurers before.
Once the party has made their way through Darktwist Mountain they will enter the Realm of Chaos. Here, the world behaves differently than they are used to, even erratically. There are twisted plants, mutated creatures, and it’s impossible to judge distance to landmarks. The deeper they venture into the lands of entropy, the more entangled they will get in the struggle between Law and Chaos.
Prepare for an epic campaign where your players might face the biggest threat of their adventuring careers!
Gloomshire actual play
I recently saw this actual play of Shadow over Gloomshire, my dark gothic fantasy adventure for Dragonbane. If you’re curious about Gloomshire or Dragonbane in general, I recommend you take a look by clicking at the link below. It was incredibly entertaining!
Shadow over Gloomshire Actual Play by Dungeon Musings
Recommendations
Note: I receive no compensation for these recommendations. It’s simply good stuff by people I happen to be acquainted with.
The Godwolf from the Crooked Mountains by
launches soon on Kickstarter!Daniel Lehto funded Secret of Luvaatan for Dragonbane on Kickstarter. Congratulations and well done!
You currently get access to the full core rules of Machine Gods of the Noxian Expanse if you sign up to the Blackoath Entertainment Patreon. A full game for as low as $5! Blackoath also released Karum Station Blues for Across A Thousand Dead Worlds, which I’m really excited about!
The Cairn 2e Kickstarter has begun shipping. I received my books today!