Free League Announces Dragonbane: Trudvang

Free League Publishing has announced its next Dragonbane content - a four volume set featuring the Celtic and Norse inspired world of Trudvang. This week, Free League Publishing announced Dragonbane: Trudvang, which is based on the board game Trudvang originally published by CMON. The set will include the following books:

• World Book: A deep dive into Trudvang's history, peoples, and regions – from Stormlands to Westmark, from Soj to the Great Ice Plains, richly illustrated.
• Book of Heroes: New Trudvang professions, skills, heroic abilities, and magic – wielded by vitner weavers and dimwalkers.
• Jorgi's Bestiary: The classic monster manual for Trudvang returns, featuring beasts from braskelwurm and draugr to hrimtursir and yggdras, all adapted for Dragonbane.
• The Black Sun: A legendary four-part epic campaign in Trudvang, revised and published in English for the first time.

Trudvang has an interesting history. The IP was originally developed as a campaign setting for Drakar Och Demoner, the Swedish version of Dragonbane. RiotMinds sold the Trudvang IP to CMON shortly before selling the Drakar Och Demoner rights to Free League Publishing, and CMON developed Trudvang into a board game before its more recent financial troubles started. In some ways, this Kickstarter will bring Trudvang full circle.

A Kickstarter for the new campaign setting book will launch in 2026.

 

[Cergorach]

I suspect not. I know it includes Trudvang's own kin ("playable races"), so I'd be surprised if it also included default Dragonbane kin.

Wouldn't that be in the core rulebook?

@jerryrice4949 As you can't pledge for that separately (only the core rulebook), better wait until it's out and people have it in their hands.

 

[PoketheBear]

tempting......anyone want to sell me on Dragonbane? (note, I'm likely not in, but curious)....just the art! wow.

It's OSR adjacent but really depends what you like as to what will sell you. As a GM I love how easy it is to run. You roll on (or choose from) a chart to determine monster actions and they always hit. NPCs you have to make a check to hit, though. It has BRP roots so roll under but with a d20. (I like not having to determine difficulty.) It's combat as war not combat as sport, if that floats your boat. I also prefer classless games that don't have steep power curves. This scratches most of my itches.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Wouldn't that be in the core rulebook?

@jerryrice4949 As you can't pledge for that separately (only the core rulebook), better wait until it's out and people have it in their hands.

Maybe this is what you mean, but Dragonbane/Trudvang has its own core rulebook; you don't need the regular Dragonbane game. My guess is that this new core rulebook won't include Kin (or Professions?) from the regular book.

 

[Bill Zebub]

tempting......anyone want to sell me on Dragonbane? (note, I'm likely not in, but curious)....just the art! wow.

I played some Dragonbane again last night, and remembered a few more differences from D&D that I liked and wanted to share:

• There are no dump stats other than Charisma (which is only important for social skills and followers); they all have uses that everybody needs. And the way they are used is both more complicated than "+/-1 per 2 points" and more forgiving, meaning that while higher is better than lower, the delta isn't as impactful. It makes character creation tricky and interesting, but you don't have to sweat bad rolls, either.
  • Also, the recommended creation method is interesting: it's 4D6-1, but you assign them as you roll them, and are allowed to swap one pair at the end. Think about that. It's actually a pretty clever way to allow choice but also end up with interesting attribute allocations.
• Your attributes only determine your initial skill level across the skills, but then they do not affect the roll, so even with a low attribute you can still (eventually) max out the skills you care about.
  • That point about skills is part of a broader pattern: initial character choices are really only initial character choices. Even your "profession" only determines starting skills, starting gear, and your first Heroic Ability (basically a feat). As you progress it's a la carte, although some combinations (e.g. metal armor and spellcasting) don't mix well, and some attributes will limit the kinds of (non-skill) things can be good at (for example, with low strength you can still max out swords skill, but you won't be able to wield the better swords, and you will never get a strength-based damage bonus).
• Your hit points basically never increase (some narrow exceptions). Instead, your ability to dodge ("evade") and parry improve. Which means a giant's club or a dragon's bite is always dangerous, at any level, but you get better at avoiding it.
• Character progression is only through improving skills (including weapon skills) and earning more Heroic Abilities.
  • If you use a skill and roll a natural 1 or 20 you mark that skill. At the end of the session, for every skill that is marked (plus a couple of extra of your choice) you roll a d20: if you roll above the current skill level, it goes up 1.
  • Heroic Abilities are treated differently: basically you pick one at points that would correlate to "Milestone Leveling" in D&D.
• Initiative is "rolled" at the start of every round, but it's done by drawing cards numbered 1-10 (groups of adversaries share a card).
  • Monsters have a "ferocity" score, which is the number of initiative cards they draw. On their turn, the GM doesn't decide what monsters do: every monster has a random table of actions, many of which affect multiple PCs.

 

[Zaukrie]

I played some Dragonbane again last night, and remembered a few more differences from D&D that I liked and wanted to share:

• There are no dump stats other than Charisma (which is only important for social skills and followers); they all have uses that everybody needs. And the way they are used is both more complicated than "+/-1 per 2 points" and more forgiving, meaning that while higher is better than lower, the delta isn't as impactful. It makes character creation tricky and interesting, but you don't have to sweat bad rolls, either.
  • Also, the recommended creation method is interesting: it's 4D6-1, but you assign them as you roll them, and are allowed to swap one pair at the end. Think about that. It's actually a pretty clever way to allow choice but also end up with interesting attribute allocations.
• Your attributes only determine your initial skill level across the skills, but then they do not affect the roll, so even with a low attribute you can still (eventually) max out the skills you care about.
  • That point about skills is part of a broader pattern: initial character choices are really only initial character choices. Even your "profession" only determines starting skills, starting gear, and your first Heroic Ability (basically a feat). As you progress it's a la carte, although some combinations (e.g. metal armor and spellcasting) don't mix well, and some attributes will limit the kinds of (non-skill) things can be good at (for example, with low strength you can still max out swords skill, but you won't be able to wield the better swords, and you will never get a strength-based damage bonus).
• Your hit points basically never increase (some narrow exceptions). Instead, your ability to dodge ("evade") and parry improve. Which means a giant's club or a dragon's bite is always dangerous, at any level, but you get better at avoiding it.
• Character progression is only through improving skills (including weapon skills) and earning more Heroic Abilities.
  • If you use a skill and roll a natural 1 or 20 you mark that skill. At the end of the session, for every skill that is marked (plus a couple of extra of your choice) you roll a d20: if you roll above the current skill level, it goes up 1.
  • Heroic Abilities are treated differently: basically you pick one at points that would correlate to "Milestone Leveling" in D&D.
• Initiative is "rolled" at the start of every round, but it's done by drawing cards numbered 1-10 (groups of adversaries share a card).
  • Monsters have a "ferocity" score, which is the number of initiative cards they draw. On their turn, the GM doesn't decide what monsters do: every monster has a random table of actions, many of which affect multiple PCs.

I love the random tables.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I love the random tables.

I do, too! Not only for evocative and unpredictable it is, but when I'm GMing it saves me from having to figure out what the monster "would do".

I do wish there was an entry in some of the tables for "attacks an adversary at 0 HP if there is one".

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Does Trudvang have Ducks?

Cause if it does im less likely to get it. Boo Ducks. ( I have Dragons Bane).

I seem to recall the Trudvang creators are actually anti-duck at their tables.

 

[Aldarc]

I seem to recall the Trudvang creators are actually anti-duck at their tables.

Which is why I am not backing Trudvang.