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.

 

[Aldarc]

I can't play Cypher with a friend because his neurodivergent brain also screams BigNumbersGoodyGood and he can't stand to subtract something to make it better.

Just raise the TN they have to beat and gently remind them that bigger is clearly better. Then see what their reaction is.

 

[JohnSnow]

Then feel free to try the "blackjack" house rule. A demon/crit fail is a natural one and the dragon/crit success is naturally rolling the skill number. So if you skill is a 13, rolling a 13 is a dragon.

You could do opposed rolls this way with the higher number, that doesn't go over, being the winner. This is how BRP does it.

I can't play Cypher with a friend because his neurodivergent brain also screams BigNumbersGoodyGood and he can't stand to subtract something to make it better.

The blackjack thing is weird to me, and it's actually trivially easy to fix, doing what Vagabond does once: Subtraction!!!

Everyone: Ooooooo!!

Subtract the skill level from 21, and "meet or beat" that. An 18 means you need to roll a 3 or higher. The percentage chance is exactly the same, except now it's "Big Number GOOD!"

 

[Bill Zebub]

My preference is also for roll-high rules, but it's way, way down on the prioritized list of things I care about in RPGs. So far down that if an RPG checks more important boxes I don't mind rolling low.

 

[JohnSnow]

My preference is also for roll-high rules, but it's way, way down on the prioritized list of things I care about in RPGs. So far down that if an RPG checks more important boxes I don't mind rolling low.

I get it, and I am one of those people who could adjust. But I GM for a group of other neurodivergent people, including my wife, whose response to "So in this system, rolling low is good" was succinct.

"Do not like. Not one bit."

 

[Aldarc]

I get it, and I am one of those people who could adjust. But I GM for a group of other neurodivergent people, including my wife, whose response to "So in this system, rolling low is good" was succinct.

"Do not like. Not one bit."

Neurodivergence isn't the same for everyone. My partner is diagnosed autistic, and they told me that Dragonbane is actually one of the TTRPGs that they enjoy most because roll under was just easier for them to process. They didn't have to guess or look to me as the GM about what they needed to roll to succeed. They didn't mind "rolling low is good" one bit.

 

[JohnSnow]

Neurodivergence isn't the same for everyone. My partner is diagnosed autistic, and they told me that Dragonbane is actually one of the TTRPGs that they enjoy most because roll under was just easier for them to process. They didn't have to guess or look to me as the GM about what they needed to roll to succeed. They didn't mind "rolling low is good" one bit.

I wasn't meaning to imply that it is, but after polling my gaming group, the level of attachment to "big number makes dopamine" is not something I can fight against, especially when it's not something I particularly have the energy to campaign for.

I should also note that I have always been a strong advocate for open and transparent DCs for exactly the reason your partner didn't want to guess or ask.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I wasn't meaning to imply that it is, but after polling my gaming group, the level of attachment to "big number makes dopamine" is not something I can fight against, especially when it's not something I particularly have the energy to campaign for.

You could try modifying a d20 to reverse all the numbers. Turn the 1 into a 20, a 2 into a 19, etc.

 

[Von Ether]

The blackjack thing is weird to me, and it's actually trivially easy to fix, doing what Vagabond does once: Subtraction!!!

Everyone: Ooooooo!!

Subtract the skill level from 21, and "meet or beat" that. An 18 means you need to roll a 3 or higher. The percentage chance is exactly the same, except now it's "Big Number GOOD!"

So more math to make the the potential success gap even wider. That is indeed trying to ensure BigNumbersGood goes all the way around.

Everyone is different, as for me, while subtraction would not be a big thing, I'd not say it was "trivial" when the other two options (RAW and Blackjack) is to "simply" compare the skill level to the dice roll with zero math or conversion needed.

Of course at that point, Advancement Marks are simply the opposite, roll under your low number skill level to make it go down by one.

Going back the games roots as a d100 game, you are tracking the percentage of how much you might fail instead of succeed.

Skill Level 3 = 15%

 

[Aldarc]

I wasn't meaning to imply that it is, but after polling my gaming group, the level of attachment to "big number makes dopamine" is not something I can fight against, especially when it's not something I particularly have the energy to campaign for.

I should also note that I have always been a strong advocate for open and transparent DCs for exactly the reason your partner didn't want to guess or ask.

The bottom line is doing right for your partner. I don't generally buy games anymore if I don't think that my partner wouldn't enjoy them. So you have your partner whose gaming needs you have to meet, and I respect that one-hundred percent.