Dragonbane general thread [+]

Oh, definitely. And as a reader of 1970/1980s genre mash up fiction, I get the "Well, Middle Age folks would call an alien a demon," vibe. It's just in my head, either commit to the bit or don't. DB pretty much writes up their demons as just demons. Even in Forbidden Lands, the obviously psychic goo is more science fantasy but overall the demons are just treated as demons.

I will admit as a long time genre fiction fan, I have like over a dozen subgenres in my head so I get pedantic and nitpicky when overall it doesn't matter to most gamers. I got to let it go. :ROFLMAO:

Btw, if you think the Hot Spring map is small, there are three events per hex. Seeing as most sandboxes keep i to one event per hex, that sort of implied the Hot Springs map is functionally three times bigger.
 

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Mike did a follow-up segment about Dragonbane. It’s mostly him reading comments. And most of them mirror the same arguments and comments we’ve had on this thread. It’s almost like people are jumping in the comments to carry over the arguments.

 
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Mike did a follow-up segment about Dragonbane. It’s mostly him reading comments. And most of them mirror the same arguments and comments we’ve had on this thread. It’s almost like people are jumping in the comments to carry over the arguments.
I wrote one of those comments highlighted, and I don't think it takes a divination wizard to figure out which one.
 

Just announced today. Another Kickstarter for Dragonbane. I'm not familiar with this setting, but judging from the reaction from long-time fans of Drakar och Demoner, this is a big deal. It appears to be a line of dark Nordic myth and fantasy setting books.


From the Dragonbane discord:

The setting is owned by CMON but licensed to Free League.

Trudvang Development Update (reported by @GreekGeek )​

Work has officially begun on the new Trudvang project

Planned Books​

Four main books are currently in development:

World Book – a full setting guide to the lands, myths, and peoples of Trudvang.

Heroes’ Book – focused on character creation and new rules, including an expanded and rebalanced magic system. (The team has noted several times that balancing magic will be one of the hardest parts.)

Jorgi’s Bestiary – a new version of the classic monster compendium.

The Black Sun – a campaign book combining Wildheart through Snowsaga into a single epic arc.

Campaign & Design Changes​

The campaign will merge the classic adventures Wildheart → Snowsaga into one unified volume.

Several “problematic” or outdated sections will be removed or rewritten - including the Vitnetavla.

The Snowsaga portion in particular will be shortened and refined to improve pacing.

Three magical traditions will define the system: Light, Dark, and Balance.

Production Details​

A new map of Trudvang is being created by Francesca.

Much of the original artwork will be reused, but a new piece by Paul Bonner was unveiled today.

The timeline is still unclear, but a Kickstarter is tentatively planned for next year.

The game will be translated into English from the start.

Duck news​

And for the record - ducks will not appear in Trudvang… except maybe as food.

#

More info from the discord.

Trudvang Confirmed as New Dragonbane Campaign World​

Fria Ligan has revealed that the secret project for Dragonbane is none other than Trudvang, the acclaimed Norse-inspired fantasy setting originally developed by RiotMinds.

The project is led by Magnus Seter, and while described as more of a sidetrack, it will serve as potential campaign world for the game.

The new release will use the Dragonbane rules system with some tailored adjustments, including new Heroic Abilities, magic systems, and setting-specific tweaks.

The Trudvang project is licensed from CMON, which owns the rights to the setting.

Trudvang is a world of fairy tales, heroic deeds, trolls, and dragons, where much of the land is covered in primordial forests full of darkness and mystery. It is a world of sagas, legends and myths. A place where nature rules over all with greater power than men, elves, dwarves, and Wildfolk combined. A world of magnificent mountains, roaring rapids, and deep, enchanted forests.

It is a land of extreme wilderness and ancient tradition. Trolls lurk behind moss-covered rocks and pierce the cover of night with their yellow eyes in search of unwary travelers on the muddy Darkwood roads. Great horsemasters thunder across the plains of Mittland with swords and shields upon their mighty steeds, in search of conquest that will allow them to take their place among the heroic kings of old. To the east, in the Stormlands, a hard and grizzled folk shed blood in the name of the gods of storm and chaos. Bound by ancient customs, they seek to honor their forebears and clan in defying the untamed wilderness that they call home. To the west the Viranns sit in lofty towers of stone, seeking ancient knowledge that mankind thought lost forever, while in the south the elves seek to understand why their gods once left them in their time of greatest need. Under mountain, rock, and stone, the sons of soot hammer away at their anvils by the roaring logi furnaces in the underbelly of the world. And to the farthest north there is only the great ice plains, a place so cold and dark that it is said that none can remain alive there longer than they can remain awake.

As a campaign setting, the world of Trudvang is imbued with great mystery and adventure but also sadness and weariness to a certain extent. In contrast to many other fantasy worlds, Trudvang is highly influenced and colored by Norse and Celtic mythology and history in all forms. In creating the world, great inspiration has been drawn from many places, but none are more apparent than the art of John Bauer, the Finnish national epic Kalevala, and the story of Beowulf.

Trudvang is made up of the Stormlands to the east, Westmark to the west, and Mittland between the two. There is also the archipelago of Soj in the south where the elves make their home, and the wild Nhoordland to the north where trolls, Wildfolk, and all sorts of unsavory characters dwell in the shadow of the great mountain range called Jarngand and the deepest forest of them all: Darkwood. To the farthest north, where only hrimtursirs roam, there is the Great White, where few dare venture. To travel across such a vast continent is no light matter. Merely traveling from city to city or from forest to forest can be the focus of an entire campaign. The wanderers and heroes who undertake such a magnificent trek will soon find that nature itself can prove to be the mightiest adversary of all.

From Trudvang
 
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Just announced today. Another Kickstarter for Dragonbane. I'm not familiar with this setting, but judging from the reaction from long-time fans of Drakar och Demoner, this is a big deal. It appears to be a line of dark Nordic myth and fantasy setting books.
This is gonna take some history.

As many people know, Dragonbane is the English translation of the most recent edition of the Swedish RPG Drakar och Demoner, which originated as a translation of Basic Roleplaying + Magic World* back in 1982. The game was rewritten in 1984 into the version most Swedish oldtimers consider the "classic" version, with an Expert set released in 1985 that introduced d20-based rolls instead of d100, differentiated skill costs, hit locations, magic schools splitting spells up in several distinct disciplines, and so on. This was then integrated in a new version in 1991 along with some changes, and with yet another new edition in 1994 came the first big shakeup: for the first time the game came with a built-in setting called Chronopia, which was basically a big city that took a lot of inspiration from Warhammer. This was... let's say controversial, and at the same time toy stores had stopped selling Drakar och Demoner because of our own version of satanic panic (though more psychology-based) caused by the release of KULT (a horror game strongly inspired by Clive Barker and Gnostic theology). So fairly quickly after DoD Chronopia was released, the game was cancelled and Äventyrsspel/Target Games went bankrupt and with some financial rejiggering turned into Paradox Entertainment.

Some time later, in 2000, a new company called Riotminds licensed Drakar och Demoner from Paradox and released a new version, rebuilt from scratch. It had basically nothing in common with previous editions other than the names of most of the stats, and was more heavily class- and notably level-based as opposed to the previous more skill-based versions. This was also somewhat controversial among fans of the old game, but they did get a lot of praise for the new built-in campaign world: Trudvang, which was very nordic-feeling with lots of vast deep forests and not-quite-vikings, and stuff like that. Paul Bonner's art in particular received a lot of praise. There was also one point at which they kickstarted what was originally billed as a remake of one of the older versions at which time they decided to call this version just "Drakar och Demoner" and the new version dropped the DoD moniker and was just called Trudvang. Riotminds kept juggling the license around for a while, and at one point after they had lost the game license sold the rights to the setting Trudvang to CMON who made a board game based on it. This was, I believe, around the same time Free League bought the rights from Paradox and made the version that was translated as Dragonbane. And now, with a Trudvang setting on the way for Dragonbane, at least that part of the game's history is coming full circle.

* I think there's some nuance there, but basically.
 

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