Blackwood: Only a couple of days left to back the Kickstarter!

There are only a couple of days left on the Blackwood Kickstarter, so if you've not backed it yet, what are you waiting for? If you're on the fence, you can download the free Year in the Blackwood bundle, which contains a setting primer, 6 pregenerated characters, and 4 One Sheet adventures - easily enough to get a feel for the setting, and run a few adventures for your group. Backers also get immediate access to the working draft of the setting.

The Blackwood is a fantasy setting that might best be described as the Brothers Grimm meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I had the pleasure of designing a few of their Edges and Hindrances, and also did the layout work for a couple of their One Sheets, so I'm pleased to see the Kickstarter has reached its funding goal. However if the appropriate stretch goals are reached, I'll also be writing a Blackwood adventure, and designing their Campaign Deck!

So make sure you check it out if you think it might be your sort of setting; if you wait until it hits DTRPG, the stretch goals may never get reached.

Buccaneer: Through Hell & High Water for Savage Worlds

Fans of "Pirates of the Caribbean" should keep an eye out for the new Kickstarter from Fabled Environments and Yellow Piece Games, which is due to launch tomorrow. Fabled Environments have produced some interesting settings in the past, but they're also known for publishing detailed maps, which hopefully means the setting will include some great custom maps.

They've also hired Rick Hershey of Fat Goblin Games to do the artwork! Rick is one of my favorite RPG artists (he also created most of the artwork for Saga of the Goblin Horde).

The team includes Savage Worlds veterans Christopher "Savage Bull" Landauer and Chris "Savage Mommy" Fuchs from the SavageCast podcast, so the mechanics should be solid - I know they've discussed in the past that they plan to treat ships as characters (Savage Space did the same thing, and it worked exceptionally well, so I definitely think they're on to something). Apparently they also have some interesting new rules for ship battles.

The 50 Fathoms setting never really did it for me (although the Plot Point Campaign itself was well designed, I didn't like the thematic blend of Earth nationalities in a fantasy world), while Pirates of the Spanish Main feels a bit dated (probably because it's ten years old, and was designed as a standalone product, so it still uses a much older version of the rules). I think a good pirate setting is well overdue, so I'm interested to see what comes of the project.

Hopefully we'll get to see more teasers as the Kickstarter progresses!

EDIT: The Kickstarter has now launched, check it out here!

Savage Drakonheim Kickstarter

I first discussed Drakonheim on my blog at the end of August last year. Shortly after that I spoke to Matthew Hanson about adding Savage Worlds mechanics for it, and by the end of November I'd completed the first draft of a Savage Worlds companion. We then proceeded to fine-tune the companion in a series of back-and-forth emails, while I got to work on converting the adventures. Other than a final round of proofreading, the only thing needed now is artwork, which will be funded through Kickstarter.

The launch of the Savage Drakonheim Kickstarter was somewhat delayed (to avoid being overshadowed by Pinnacle's Savage Rifts Kickstarter), but last night it went live, and it's already hit its funding goal!

If you like my other work, I think you'll like this. If you're on the fence, why not take a look at the free previews for necromancy and sewer goblins, or download my free One Sheet adventure? 

Brief Overview of the Setting

While most settings give you information about the overall world, Drakonheim details a single city and the surrounding area. This means you can slot it into other game worlds if you wish - or you can play it as its own medieval urban fantasy setting, with the entire campaign taking place in and around the city.

I've run urban fantasy campaigns before (they're a good way of dealing with players who keep dropping in and out each session, because you can just say their characters are busy elsewhere in the city) - and Drakonheim is a really good fit for that style of campaign, as there's a lot of political machinations going on between the various factions described in the book, so there's always plenty of potential plot hooks.

It's also worth mentioning that most of the characters aren't really "good" or "evil", they just have conflicting motives and a lot of personal ambition. An obvious example would be the Gray Society - the necromancers who used their undead to save the city from an invading army (although their motives were far from altruistic, and their means less than savoury).

Overall I really like the setting, which is why I offered to write the companion for it :)