Watch Well Games: Issue #39
Audio interview with Andreas Lundström of Sweden Rolls.
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🗺️Attending: Schlau’s First-Ever Con as a Vendor
At the time of writing this, my cartography partner
is attending his first-ever gaming con as a vendor rather than a participant. He’s already reported back that he’s learning so much and making great connections - so he’s excited about how this will help him make even better maps than ever before and be better prepared for future gaming cons.Attending this smaller convention is also the official launch of his Patreon. You can join for free, buy individual maps without joining, or select a paid-tier that fits your needs.
✅Did: Proofread
I proofread (pro bono) Dragonburn Zine: Horror! the first volume of the zine organized by Mattias Svendsen - admin of the ever-growing Dragonbane Community Discord server and publisher of his own RPG materials.
Halloween may be over but you can always add some spooky vibes to your RPG adventures! 42 pages filled with scary content, this zine features creepy creations by fans of Dragonbane who entered the tenth Dragonburn challenge.
What’s the Dragonburn challenge, you ask? In the Dragonbane Community Discord server, Mattias and lead moderator Tobias issue an open challenge for anyone* who wants to create content for Dragonbane. Each challenge has a theme and usually lasts for about two weeks before the voting period begins to determine the top three winners.
My own little creation Moments of Mirth: Vol. 1 - Elora’s Emporium was a winner in the second ever Dragonburn challenge in February 2024. It’s free on both DTRPG and itch.io.
*Admin and moderators excluded. (I’m now a mod and can no longer take part.)
🎙️Also Did: An Interview
I chatted with Andreas Lundström - GM of the popular Sweden Rolls podcast, one-third of Nordic Skalds (three Swedish creative minds who've joined forces to create cool stuff for roleplaying games), and accomplished musician who composed soundtracks for Forbidden Lands, Dragonbane, and more.
Listen here:
If you prefer YouTube, you can listen along here (our YT is still very much under construction!):
Transcript if you want to read along:
In this interview, you’ll hear Andreas talk about his newest RPG project My Father’s Sword - which is live on Kickstarter right now. It’s already funded, so backers are scheduled to get the products in their hands as soon as December (that’s next month, folks!). The KS campaign ends Friday, November 15, 2024 at 3:00 PM CST.
Andreas describes this as "a game with rules so easy, you'll learn them in 15 minutes, but still with a complete game engine to cover what you'll need" and "a game with a very humorous tone, with lots of references to the fantasy/adventure genre of the 1980s, while still being a modern game."
I got my hands on the beta version, and from reading it, I’m excited to play this with my friends. It feels like a good time will be had between us as we cinematically play out tropes from the movies we grew up watching - while also adding our own flavor to them.
➕Bonus Interview:
I also chatted with Robin Fjärem, who brought Dragonbane fans Shadow Over Gloomshire with a successful Kickstarter in February 2024.
K.J.: You're the creator of Shadow Over Gloomshire. It's a bit different from standard Dragonbane, which is known for its "mirth and mayhem" tagline. What was your inspiration, and why did you decide to go with a somewhat darker theme?
Robin: I really enjoy writing highly atmospheric adventures, and I had collected material for a similar adventure for a long time. I was planning to write it for another game to begin with, but then I got to try out the new Drakar och Demoner (Dragonbane) at Spelkongress 2023 and really liked it. Since the core set campaign and the few third-party supplements that were published at the time were fairly in line with the tagline of the game, I figured I'd go in a different direction with a dark gothic vibe. Some inspirations were Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (heavily influenced by this), the Van Helsing movie with Hugh Jackman, Bram Stoker's Dracula, the graveyard and crypts in Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and “Rune Graveyard” in a MUD called Materia Magica.
K.J.: For fun: Describe Shadow Over Gloomshire in 10 words or less.
Robin: Deathly fun in the graveyard with the crow demon lady
K.J.: Let's look forward now. Do you have a future creation you can share with us?
Yes! I am doing the finishing touches on an adventure called The Caravan's Secret (Karavanens Hemlighet in Swedish). It's a short one-shot where I'm aiming for 4-5 hours of playtime. Perfect for a one-shot or a convention. For obvious reasons, it's going to be more linear than anything I've written before, but I'm trying to make up for that by packing it full of atmospheric content. It will feature a new type of dragon and mysterious sand elves among other things. This is a small release, so it will be published directly on DrivethruRPG in mid-to-late November. You will be able to order print-on-demand copies.
K.J.: For this future project, how can fans receive updates/notifications and get the product in their hands when it's released?
Robin: I have just started a newsletter on Substack where I will post whenever I have new content to share: https://robinfj.substack.com/subscribe.
NOTE: The full interview will be available on the Dragonbane Community Discord server late November when Robin’s newest project - The Caravan’s Secret - releases. Here’s a sneak peek at the front cover:
That’s a wrap. Remember:
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Our next newsletter will feature the Outside the Box book review and CJ Weigel returns with Record of Lodoss War: Episode 3.
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