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.

 

[JohnSnow]

Small post to mention this is def. getting a lot of word-of-mouth elsewhere now, more so than with other recent releases by Free League.

The two comments I've come across most as to why there's much chatter is : a) the art, b) it's a dedicated setting that harps strongly on particular feels, whereas Misty Vale is intended to be more open ended (and modular).

I think part of the buzz is definitely the setting. Irish and Norse myths and legends are very popular with gamers, and feels like a fertile genre for a setting.

I still remember reading John Coyne's novel Hobgoblin, which included the premise that the main character was an avid player of a TTRPG of the same name (a thinly-veiled stand-in for Dungeons & Dragons) that was set in a world inspired by Irish myths and legends.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Irish and Norse myths and legends are very popular with gamers, and feels like a fertile genre for a setting.

Worth noting that Tolkien was motivated in party by envy of those cultures & mythologies; he wanted Mother England to have something similar.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'm actually intrigued by a LOT about Dragonbane, although I'd have to rework its roll under mechanic to make my table happy, as I'm not the only "big number good" person in my gaming group.

Thinking about this more, I think turning it into high-roll-wins is really easy. Skills just start at 21 - (normal starting skill), and when you improve a skill it goes down by 1. 1 becomes a Demon and 20 becomes a Dragon, of course. I can't think of anything else that changes.

The only thing is that skill advancement, currently roll-over, would then turn into roll-under.

 

[JohnSnow]

Worth noting that Tolkien was motivated in party by envy of those cultures & mythologies; he wanted Mother England to have something similar.

Also by the Kalevala, which is Finnish, and was compiled in and written down in the 19th-century.

 

[Von Ether]

Small post to mention this is def. getting a lot of word-of-mouth elsewhere now, more so than with other recent releases by Free League.

The two comments I've come across most as to why there's much chatter is : a) the art, b) it's a dedicated setting that harps strongly on particular feels, whereas Misty Vale is intended to be more open ended (and modular).

Perhaps the second most common misconception reviewers had about DB was that the Misty Vale setting was “incomplete” by accident vs being bare bones by design.

The first was reviewers calling the stuffed boxed core set a starter set instead.

 

[timbannock]

Perhaps the second most common misconception reviewers had about DB was that the Misty Vale setting was “incomplete” by accident vs being bare bones by design.

The first was reviewers calling the stuffed boxed core set a starter set instead.

Yeah, it should've been called an "Ender Set" as in "this will last you until the end of your time with this game." I have zero need or interest in spending money on yet-another-fantasy-TTRPG yet this boxed set calls out to me every few weeks...

 

[JohnSnow]

Yeah, it should've been called an "Ender Set" as in "this will last you until the end of your time with this game." I have zero need or interest in spending money on yet-another-fantasy-TTRPG yet this boxed set calls out to me every few weeks...

I'm in the same boat.

At this point, I'm seeing the kernels of my ideal d20-based fantasy-TTRPG in about 5 games that have come out in the last few years, although none have quite put it all together - something I might do myself. I even backed Legends in the Mist, primarily for its setting, even though I'll probably never play it. I really like the Hearts of Ravensdale setting, though.

 

[Bill Zebub]

My frustration is that I thought I was going the deluxe route by buying the three hardcovers. But then there was no (legal) way to get Misty Vale by itself; I would have had to buy the boxed set and duplicate a lot stuff I already have.