Intro
Ananam of Triglav Games is back, as my first returning guest. The team at Triglav is about to finish up work on the Vampire class they crowdfunded earlier this year, and they're at this moment running their second crowdfunder called Boggits of Kingsmire. They're bringing the frogs and the swamp to Draw Steel in full force.
I'm Jon de Nor and this is Goblin Points.
Interview
Jon de Nor: Welcome back to Goblin Points, Ananam!
Ananam: Hello, everyone. I am so happy to be here again.
Jon de Nor: (laugh) Introduce yourself. Do like a short introduction, at least.
Ananam: Okay. Hello, everyone, once again. My name is Mateusz. My accent will be weird because I am Polish. I am part of a team called Triglav Games, and we do third party products for Draw Steel, which you all probably love. We love it too! We did one crowdfunder like half a year ago. It was a vampire class for Draw Steel. It was a successful crowdfunder, and we are in the last stage of producing the class. And when you are listening to this podcast, probably, there's our second crowdfunder going on, and our second product is Boggits of Kingsmire, a swampy supplement for Draw Steel. Yeah. That's pretty much it.
Jon de Nor: (laugh) That is a lot, though!
Ananam: (laugh) It kinda is, yeah.
Jon de Nor: Also, since last time we spoke, you're the first returning guest I have on Goblin Points, actually.
Ananam: Oh, yeah. It's so cool to be the first, you know.
Jon de Nor: (laugh) Since last time we spoke. You actually, you've added another person to your team, because Gub's joined you since then.
Ananam: Ah, yes. Gavin, GubDM, great guy, great designer. He brings a lot of great ideas and enthusiasm to our team, and I'm super hyped to be able to work with GubDM.
Jon de Nor: And speaking of the last crowdfunder, let's start there. Start from where we left off, basically, because back when we talked last, that was before the crowdfunder was done. It was in the middle of running. And we were cautious...
Ananam: Yes. (laugh)
Jon de Nor: ...about how it would end, and I was more pessimistic than I should have been because it went better than I thought. Which, that's on me. That's on me.
Ananam: Well, I'm going to be honest. I was pessimistic, too. I was like, you know, I was trying to act all confident. But I was like, you know, because the standard procedure for crowdfunders is, there's a lot of backers at the very beginning and at the very end. And we were right in the middle of the crowdfunder. So there were, like, there's days with zero backers. So for the middle two weeks of the crowdfunder, there was nothing, like, no new backers. And I was a little bit depressed. But yeah, you know, in the end, it turned out okay. We funded, and we even reached our first stretch goal, which was amazing, come on! I was not expecting that.
Jon de Nor: (laugh) It was an incredible pickup at the end. I imagine the graph suddenly just skyrockets into the air at the end.
Ananam: Yeah, because it was basically one person who did that. I mean, no, there was a lot of backers in the end, like, people even — we saw some backers increasing their pledges just so we fund, you know, to the next pledge level.
Jon de Nor: Wow.
Ananam: Yeah, it was super cool. I'm super grateful to these people. But there was one guy who, I guess, he really wanted an ancestry, because he pledged, like, €500 himself just to reach that first stretch goal. So it was like one person providing one sixth of all of the funds, you know.
Jon de Nor: Wow. That is...that's wild. (laugh)
Ananam: Yeah. It's crazy. I reached out to this person and I'm like, hi! Is this a mistake or....but yeah, you know, we we spoke and in the end, he was like, no, I just, I'm paraphrasing right now. I don't remember quotes, you know, but he just wanted to support us, you know, which was also extremely cool. And to this day, I feel humbled. Yeah.
Jon de Nor: Wow. Thank you, anonymous contributor. (laugh)
Ananam: Well. If they are listening to this podcast, then maybe they will comment below. I don't want to like, say the nicknames, in case they are, like —
Jon de Nor: (laugh) No, no, no.
Ananam: Yeah, yeah yeah. But it's super cool.
Jon de Nor: Yeah. I was really happy seeing you make the funding goal, because you let me see some of the design for the class before you published the crowdfunder. And I was really impressed with what I saw so far. And since then, I feel like my first impression was correct, that this looks really, really good. But the art, though! Oh, my God, the art you get for this class, it's so amazing! And now recently, the Crimson Director, holy crap! How do you get art that's that good?
Ananam: Well, I was lucky enough to find a great artist for doing the dark fantasy stuff. So our artist for most of the stuff for the vampire is Eryk Szczygieł, and he goes by, Typhon Games — no, Typhon Art, sorry. Also, you can find him on ArtStation. And he does a lot of dark fantasy stuff. For example, he was one of the artists for the book for 5e called, Eravan's Guide to Death and Beyond, which is an afterlife-focused supplement for 5e. I believe he did some items for Diablo Immortal. He did some art for Raid: Shadow Legends. So basically, well, I was lucky that I was able to get Eryk's attention, that we collected funds to be able to pay him, and that he had time, basically, for us. Because, as you say, his art is amazing. So he has a lot of customers, I guess. So after the crowdfunder, he was actually busy for like three or four months. He started doing more art for us, let's say, like, last month, right? Because he was just preoccupied with his other projects. So basically now he's working hard doing character art for all our subclasses, called bloodlines. He is working on the cover for the product. And there's, he already did some page-fillers for items and stuff. I previewed a lot of the stuff on our Discord server, so you can join and see them. It's amazing. Great stuff.
Jon de Nor: Yeah, the art looks fantastic. If art sells, then the vampire's going to sell like crazy.
Ananam: I gotta tell you, it's funny because, two of our first artists, I found both of them on Facebook. I think there were even people asking me in the Reddit thread, where do I find my artists? And basically I just joined some Polish art groups and there are people there posting to, like, commissions and stuff. And I basically reached out to the people whose art was — looked the best for me. Yeah, because one of the art pieces for the vampire was actually not done by Eryk, but by Wiktoria. We found Wiktoria Skalska. I also found her on Facebook, reached out, and she did a full-page illustration for us for the Sporebearer bloodline. Basically, Sporebearer is a kind of vampire that is infected with spores, you know? So the Sporebearers basically spread the spores, and they've got these growths on their skin, and they can, produce growths on their enemies, they can poison their enemies, they can rejuvenate their allies, who are also infected with their spores. So it was important for me to showcase how different Sporebearers can look like. So what Wiktoria did is a more colorful piece with an elven Sporebearer, which is like covered in vines, and the flowers are roses, you know? And she produces these thorny vines from the War Dogs, because in the picture, in the illustration, the vampire is fighting some War Dogs. So it was, like, first take, the flowery Sporebearer, and Eryk did another piece for us — I think I also showcased it on, in the Discord server — and Eryk's Sporebearer just looks like, it's like, infected, sick. He's got these bloody postures on their body, on the character's body, and he manipulates some, you know, goop, some miasma, you know, this kind of stuff. Pretty disgusting, pretty dark fantasy. So you can see these different takes on the Sporebearer. You can imagine it's just like kind of goop, you know. You can imagine it's like flower pollen and the flowery sprouts. You can also imagine it's like fungal growths, you know. So there are many different ways to visualize a Sporebearer vampire.
Jon de Nor: Yeah. I've been really impressed with the art drops that you've done in the Discord server. It blows me away every time. I'm such a big fan of the art you've gotten.
Ananam: And I am so happy to hear it, Jon! You know, the biggest compliment I've heard was some person on Reddit actually outraged when I posted a "Preorders Opened" post on Reddit, because I provided the art from Wiktoria, this flowery Sporebearer there, and someone was like, you should put "Powered by Draw Steel" there because it looks official, like official stuff!
Jon de Nor: (laugh)
Ananam: And I was, okay, so if our art looks like official MCDM art, then we are doing a lot of things good, I think.
Jon de Nor: Yeah, that's a compliment. (laugh)
Ananam: Oh yeah, it's a compliment. So, you know, from the very beginning, my goal was to have like art second only to MCDM, basically.
Jon de Nor: I honestly think you've succeeded. Yeah, I can't stop — I'm just going to have to stop myself gushing about the art because...(laugh) I think it looks fantastic.
Ananam: Yeah. So today, the day we are actually recording, I am awaiting another piece from Eryk. I am waiting to get the Noxious Stalker kind of vampire, which was inspired by the xenomorph from the Alien franchise. You know?
Jon de Nor: Oh, yes.
Ananam: So this is the vampire that's like, you know, walking on walls, jumping huge distances, spewing acid all around. Basically a xenomorph in the humanoid vampire form, you know. So I'm waiting for a piece on the Noxious Stalker. I hope to get it today, but even if I get it in two days, the art will probably already be previewed by the time this podcast drops, right? So if you're interested in the xenomorph vampire, then come by our Discord server and there it will be, probably.
Jon de Nor: Hot tip! (laugh)
Ananam: Yeah!
Jon de Nor: And speaking about art, we've gotten to see the, I guess the cover of the, your next project, next crowdfunder, Boggits of Kingsmire. Yes. And I have to say, the art for that, once again, really, really good. (laugh)
Ananam: I'm also happy to hear that. Yeah, so we went for the crazy variant of the art. The artist behind the cover for the boggits is Wiktoria. So, Eryk did a lot of stuff for the vampires, and now Wiktoria does a lot of stuff for the boggits, because it's not the last piece that we will get from her. And you will actually see another piece from her in the crowdfunder page.
Jon de Nor: Oh, nice.
Ananam: Because like, also as we speak, like, literally in this moment, she's finalizing the region map we'll be getting for the region of Kingsmire, or Kingsmere — we can talk about the difference in a minute. But yeah, Wiktoria did the cover. She prototyped a lot of different poses for the frogs, a lot of different, like, you know, architecture, I don't know, template for the illustration. And basically, this time we did not play it like, super safe. We just chose some more interesting poses for the boggits. And that's probably why one of the boggits, the warrior one, is like, you know, he's not standing on the ground. He's sitting on his spear that's in the water, and the boggit is attacking with a tongue, you know.
Jon de Nor: Yeah, yeah. That's probably my favorite part of the whole thing. (laugh)
Ananam: So sometimes, you know, you gotta risk it, you know.
Jon de Nor: I, I love it, I think it's, it just looks really good. And it really, I think it really sets the tone and it's...and I kind of want to touch on that, too, because the tone from the vampire, and then through the boggits, is so different. Both in the art style that you've gone for and the art direction, but also it seems the boggits are much more, I don't know, happy, lively, I don't know. The colors really give a more upbeat kind of feel, especially contrasted to a lot of the vampire stuff, which is so dark and really grim fantasy.
Ananam: Yeah. We wanted to show the playfulness of the boggits. Yeah, they are just eager to be fighting, you know? Yeah, commenting on the tone...we didn't do it just to like, contrast. But there are some things we are interested in doing, you know. So for the vampire, you might be remembering that basically one of my Triglav teammates inspired this whole product, like, he really wanted to do the vampires, right? So he's the vampire guy. He wrote some fiction, we prototyped for the first version of the vampire together, you know? So basically, Kamil inspired me to start work as a lead designer on this project. As for the frogs, the boggits are the frog people in...I hope, maybe Jon will put the illustration in the YouTube video or something. At least a link. So the boggits basically are a result of a campaign we played like five years ago. So we played...it was, we started a new campaign. We played that, I think it was 4e for a time, and we played through Reavers of Harkenwold, which is one of the adventures that Matt Colville recommends, and it's a great adventure. And in Reavers of Harkenwold, there is a part where heroes fight some bullywugs, which is also like frog people, right? But from that game, which name we will not say out loud. (laugh) But the company that did the game sounds a lot like Lizards of the Worst, or something like this. (laugh)
Jon de Nor: (laugh)
Ananam: Yeah. So there was a big segment with — no, it was not the big segment. It was a segment with some frog people. And basically I expanded the segment. It turns out that the maps that ended up in the final product for the Reavers of Harkenwold were not the maps that were done by Mike Schley initially. So I found like Mike Schley's website with his cartography. And I saw that he created this big sprawling dungeon, you know, for the frogs, frog people. And I bought that map, and I expanded, like, I designed this dungeon from scratch, myself. The whole dungeon full of frog people was one of the most memorable things my players experienced playing RPGs. I found a great, funny soundtrack for the frogs. I did a lot of voices, and the leader of the frogs was, you know, making fun of Daenerys Targaryen, because it was like, Queen of the Frogs and First Toads, the Unwashed, all the titles, you know, Mother of Frogs, or of Amphibians. And we did not call her Khaleesi, but we did call her like, Frogeesi, you know, something like this. So to this very day, my players still talk to me about this frog adventure. And, you know, I've got such warm feelings when I think about frog people in RPGs. We just basically decided, yeah, let's do something wild. Let's go for frog people, because we all love frog people. We've got fond memories of frog people. Let us, you know, pour the fond memories and the love to frogs from our hearts straight to this product, you know.
Jon de Nor: (laugh) It sounds like you've followed Matt's advice of taking the stuff you love and put it in your game.
Ananam: Yeah, basically. There are so many things we want to do, you know, because there are so many different themes and creatures we want to make, be working on, you know. With time, probably we will — I hope we will fulfill all our fantasies when it comes to designing products. But, you know, you got to make it slowly.
Jon de Nor: Mm. Yeah.
Ananam: Doing the frog product was a pretty spontaneous idea. And it went really fast, because I was like, yeah, we should probably wait until we are done with the vampire before our next crowdfunder. But then again, most of the work is done, we are waiting for the art, we must wait for the art before we can do layout, and we really have a lot of time now to design some new stuff, so how about we do this, like, frog people? Yeah. I also remember the initial idea was to do a monthly thing where we would release, you know, four or maybe six pages of content every month. But it turns out we were not able to reliably produce content every month. Like, one month, we would do 20 pages of content, and the other month we would do zero, you know. So we could not squeeze out being regular with stuff. So the boggits were in my folder for months. And then when we decided we actually have time to do another project, I was like, yeah, let's go for the frogs. And everybody was enthusiastic.
Jon de Nor: Yeah, I remember you and me talking, in chat, just the two of us, about you doing monthly stuff. At some point.
Ananam: Yeah, it was supposed to be called The Omens. And the idea was like, we'd get out regular content, even for free. I think we were pondering if it should be Patreon stuff or not. But in the end, I think the final idea was to make it free. And we would call it The Omens because it would be kind of like, playtest, and see what people like. So, the stuff that we would release, we will get feedback on, and we will see, are people liking this? Because if so, then you can take it, put it in a bigger project and expand it if people like it and if people hate it, we might rework it or like scrap it altogether. It's like, I don't know, Unearthed Arcana kind of stuff.
Jon de Nor: Right, right. As a person who produces a podcast episode twice a month and develops software on the side, putting something out every month is a lot of work, and it really relies on you being able to, you know, set aside time to do all that stuff. (laugh) So I can imagine doing that with like a product where you have to do a lot of design work is...it's difficult. I can only imagine.
Ananam: Well, you know, I have a backlog of ancestries I did. So the boggits were the first one, so, frog people. I did, also, eel people, I called them "alassas". So I have eelfolk in my back pocket. I did start a design on the...let's call them lobsterfolk, also. A lot of animal-folk, sorry. Yeah, so I got a lot of design done on the lobsterfolk. And also I made a skeleton ancestry and I posted it even in the MCDM Discord. And I feel like people really liked the skeleton ancestry.
Jon de Nor: What's you're saying is that you've got a future ancestries book brewing, basically. Maybe your next crowdfunder.
Ananam: Eh, I don't think this will be an ancestry book. Like, you know, I cannot say anything, for certain because I was, like — two months ago, I was still not certain we will be doing boggits, you know? So...what I can say is, I think we're...like, the vampire should be done this year, and if not, it will definitely be out in January. Unless the layout process screws us, I don't know, I hope not. I hope everything will be on track, and people will be happy with their vampires on Christmas, you know. That's my plan. Or before Christmas, even. And the boggits, because boggits are not a class, so they will require less testing. Also the boggits, the boggit ancestry is already tested, because while we were testing the vampire, like sending it to Pesto, and to Sam McGurran, I was like, you know, test the class, but make another player also play this ancestry of frog people, and get us feedback on the frog people. So while we were testing the vampire, we also already tested the boggit.
Jon de Nor: Nice.
Ananam: So the boggit we will be posting rules for is you know, third version of the boggit, the one that actually stuck, you know.
Jon de Nor: Wow.
Ananam: Yeah. So the boggit is already tested. We will be requiring less testing for the product because it's not a class. And there will be, in general...I don't want to say less mechanics because there will be, you know, titles, downtime projects, there will be a lot of items, there will be monsters. So there will be a lot of mechanical stuff, but none of the mechanical stuff will be as complicated and intense as a whole class, you know? So I feel like — I don't want to promise, right here, right now, any date, but I feel like, at the beginning of the second quarter of next year, we will already have the written stuff done and all we will be waiting for will be, you know, art, and we'll be doing layout and stuff. I hope this product will be out in the second quarter of next year. Or if not, then definitely maybe around the beginning of the third quarter. So with this timeline, with us, I hope, being finished with this stuff around, I don't know, March or April, I think we can say we will be able to start work on our next project or like around March or April, somewhere in spring, you know? So, you know, if everything goes right and we'll be able to do stuff, then I hope, on spring next year, we'll be having our third crowdfunder. But we, right now, we have no idea what it will be. Yeah, but like, we want to do a lot of stuff. Monster book would be a good idea or, Gub suggested a book called "Oops, All Solos", which will be just solo creatures.
Jon de Nor: I really like that idea!
Ananam: (laugh) Yeah! Because there's not that many solo creatures, and many Directors would probably use a lot of solo creatures. Because I feel, for a group of heroes, they should not face the same solo creature twice, basically. So I think there should be like, you know, ten different first-level solos. I'm not saying we will be doing ten different first-level solos, but I feel like there should be more than two. And I think there's, in the core book, there's like two or three? Probably two. The ankheg and the werewolf, right?
Jon de Nor: Yeah — isn't the ankheg a level two? No?
Ananam: No, it's level one.
Jon de Nor: It's level one. Yeah. Then it's two. Then it should be two. Yeah.
Ananam: Yeah. And for the second level, there's also like two, the thorn dragon, and...the hag is level three. I don't know what's second level also. For level three, there is a green hag and the bone collector, or whatever it's called. The bone mech, basically, I think.
Jon de Nor: Yeah. Is it the ashen hoarder? Is it still called that?
Ananam: Yeah, yeah. Something like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bone collector. Close enough. (laugh)
Jon de Nor: Oh, we should also say, the arixx, not the ankheg. (laugh)
Ananam: Ah, yeah, I'm sorry. Old habits die hard, you know?
Jon de Nor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I wanted to mention, to bring you back to the boggits, because...I was surprised when I saw the landing page for the crowdfunder — you had already mentioned the boggits, I knew that the ancestry was coming, but then I look at the landing page, and, as you mentioned, you're doing at least two new kits, you're doing new class options, a new swamp domain for censors and conduits, there's kits for the stormwight fury, perks and titles, treasures, downtime activities, there's so much in here in addition to just the boggits — and even the quests, I mean, there's so much! (laugh)
Ananam: Yeah, I'm going to be honest with you. I think I have trouble with like, scope bloat. I'm addicted to adding more scope to projects. But for the vampire, it's a good thing, you know, because for the vampire, we promised to make the class, and then the stretch goal was for an ancestry, right? Right now there are, like, 28 items in the product.
Jon de Nor: Wow. Okay.
Ananam: Yeah, 28 items, five titles, I think four complications, there are two vampire careers...I think our playtesters got this already in the most recent packet. So there's a lot of really cool stuff in the vampire product, and a lot of it is basically me, bloating the scope of the project. Yeah, even...I commissioned more art from Eryk because, you know, a lot of these pages will be empty, I need some more page fillers. (laugh) Yeah, and also worth mentioning, you know, art is expensive. So, we believe in this product, so basically, we like, crossed the budget for the product, so we are paying for a lot of this stuff right now from our own pockets. But I think it's worth it. Also worth mentioning is that we opened preorders and we got a lot of preorders. So we are happy people are believing in the vampire. We encourage more people to believe. (laugh) But, you know, I am really happy that preorders are actually pretty popular.
Jon de Nor: I get the feeling that once the vampire is out and people get to see the art and everything, and apparently also see how much extra stuff there is in there, and not just the class, I'm optimistic now that you're gonna sell a lot of it, because it just looks so good. And I think — this might just be a me thing, but with it just being the vampire class, it might feel a bit, like, sparse, but when you kind of fill it out with all this extra stuff, all the titles and complications and items, I think it feels even more like a bargain, almost.
Ananam: Yeah. To give you an example, how like we expanded the scope to give more options to the vampire players, you know? One of the complications, I think it's called Soul Drinker, and it's explicitly for the vampire. And basically, there is this thing in...I don't want to make a mistake here, but I believe Japanese folklore, or Korean maybe, there are creatures called jiangshi — or yangshi — jiangshi, I think, which is kind of a vampire, but they do not drink blood. They drink, like, qi, or spirit, or soul, or whatever. So the complication basically modifies how the class and ancestry works, because class and ancestry are pretty correlated in the product. So it modifies so that you don't drink blood, but you can actually drink soul from a distance and you get more temporary stamina. But in exchange for that, because this is a complication, so you exchange something, you've got less base Stamina, so you've got less health, and you have to rely heavier on the like, self sustain on the temporary stamina for your survival. But you can do it also from range, you know.
Jon de Nor: Wow, okay, that's cool. Okay, that's really cool, actually. It both kind of changes the class mechanically and reflavors it. Ah!
Ananam: Yeah. Yeah.
Jon de Nor: That's really cool.
Ananam: You can be a dhampir, you know, so you can play Blade. (laugh) There's a lot of cool stuff. There's also one complication called, I think it's, like, Crimson Blight. And basically, you are afflicted with a, you know, Crimson Blight, and it makes you, it gives you damage weakness, you know, so you take more damage, but also you can spread the disease to your enemies. So if you bite someone, that other person also gets that damage weakness.
Jon de Nor: Oh, interesting.
Ananam: Yeah.
Jon de Nor: Oh, I'm loving a lot of this.
Ananam: I bet you do!
Jon de Nor: I wanted to ask you about the...with the extra stuff in the vampire product, it's more than just a class on its own without any context. It sounds like there's — you've got extra stuff that fits with the vampire and makes it feel more fleshed out, and, I would think, makes it easier to integrate into a campaign, with the fact that, well, here are some treasures that are actually fitting for a vampire to wield. Or here are some complications, as you mentioned, that actually makes it feel more integrated into the character creation part of the game.
Ananam: Well, yes, the vampire package is almost like full, and I say almost because one piece missing is, more vampire monsters. So this is something I did not want to do because I would need more testing, a lot of testing for monsters, a lot of art for monsters. And it kind of limited some of our design, because initially when I designed the items, and also some titles, I was, like, you know, item prerequisite, one pound of acid from the Noxious Stalker vampire, you know, this kind of stuff. And actually it was Gub who was somewhat like, well, do we have a Noxious Stalker monster statblock? And I was like, nope. And he was like, no, we should not put this because people will have to like homebrew their own monster just to meet prerequisites for our items, so we should not be doing this. I also designed this high-level meta-progression system for the vampire. They had a title called Master of Bloodlines, and it was basically, if you defeat a leader or solo vampire or different bloodline, you can steal their bloodline and get class features of the other bloodlines, too. Which was like a meta-progression, because, let's say you, for some reason, fought five different Crimson Conductor vampires, you know, so you would get the first-level passive, and like, one signature ability. After the second one, you would get, triggered action and maneuver of the bloodline. After a third one, you would get access to the three-resource and five-resource abilities. This kind of meta-progression, you know. So if you like, spent whole campaign fighting vampires of one bloodline, the leaders and solos, you will unlock the whole other bloodline, you know? Which is pretty powerful, but requires a certain kind of campaign, you know. And also, it would require us actually making all of the different vampire types, you know, so it was unfortunately a no-no. But I think, if we keep making stuff and if our stuff keeps getting popular, like for the five-year anniversary of the vampire class, we might do like a crowdfunder called "Vampires Revamped".
Jon de Nor: (laugh)
Ananam: Pun is intended. And in the Vampires Revamped, we might actually do like a bestiary full of vampires. And then we will add the Master of Bloodlines title, probably.
Jon de Nor: Right, nice.
Ananam: Yeah. Well, but also, no, if we make a setting product, dark fantasy setting product, or if we make, like, a monster book, we might actually squeeze the vampire statblocks there. If there's an opportunity, then we will do it, because we are excited to bring more vampire statblocks to the game.
Jon de Nor: It sounds like that's a lesson learned from the vampire, then, that you've brought onto the Boggits of Kingsmire, where you're kind of fleshing out a lot of — you've added monsters, and you've also added the gazetteer for the surrounding region. It sounds like you're making sure that the ancestry is not like — appears in, like, a void, where you're also adding all this extra stuff around it to make it more applicable or make it easier to use.
Ananam: Well, basically, we want this to be like a bigger, more fleshed out product. I admit that it was part of me that wants to feature-bloat, but also, yeah, as you say, we did not want to put an ancestry in a vacuum because, for me, just ancestry alone is not really a product. It's like, I don't know, I don't want to like, I don't want to say bad things about anyone who just wants to sell an ancestry. Like, consider Pesto, who did a kobold ancestry crowdfunder. It was super popular, and the kobolds are great, and I am super happy with the product I received, because he sent the PDFs, the version of the PDF, already. So like, his kobold crowdfunder was great, right? But I didn't want our product to just be like an ancestry, basically. I wanted to do more, and with frogs and with swamps in general, because the theme is both frogs and swamps. With the swamps, we really could do a lot of really cool stuff. And yeah, because we did not want to make it in a vacuum. We decided to, like, let's bring part of the setting to life, basically.
Jon de Nor: Yeah. You're not doing a class in this one, but one of the questions that was asked by by patrons was, what have you learned about class design since starting working on the vampire?
Ananam: Well, the best advice for creating your own class was actually given by Matt Colville very recently. Because he said just prototype the first level and see if it works. Which is kind of cool because my vampire prototype was like up to level three, like, four subclasses.
Jon de Nor: Wow. Yeah.
Ananam: But I am happy to report that most of the design I basically previewed, like, over half a year ago survived to this day. So the initial design was pretty good, it turns out. It was a big confidence boost for, like, my design, basically. One big piece of the vampire that changed was the build-your-own-subclass, basically. It got scrapped, it got scrapped. And, well, part of me is still sad, but I feel like it was a correct choice to be made. So how the vampire worked initially was like, there were four bloodlines, and you were able to pick and match all of them. You pick two, basically, when you created your character. The testing showed that even though people were really enthusiastic about the idea, it simply was not how players were building and playing the vampire. Almost literally, the feedback was, this should be preserved no matter the cost, you know? Like there was feedback from players, this is so cool, it's got to stay. But the very same player who did that feedback, who said these things, built his vampire only from parts from like one bloodline. So the testing showed that it was still the best idea to basically build the vampire only from one bloodline, because then you got these nice combos, you know? And even if we did, like, pick from this, pick from that, then some bloodlines, like, there were two melee ones and two ranged ones. So if you picked the two ranged ones, you probably got better, like, flow of combat than if you picked ranged and melee one, you know? So basically the synergy was better for some combinations than others. And we could no longer pretend, like, yeah, you can pick whatever, it's gonna be fine. It would be fine, but it would not be the optimal way to build and play the class, you know? Yeah. And also, we learned why theconduit works the way it works. Basically with the conduit, you're picking two domains, but the domains are very narrow in scope, like, free abilities, free features, and that's it. And we wanted the vampire to be really customizable. So we provided a lot of options for like, both bloodlines. And we wanted you to choose from this, from that, a lot of abilities. Right now, each subclass has, like, 14 abilities, which is a lot, because normally they get six, you know. Normal MCDM subclass has six abilities, we've got 14, I think. So we wanted the bloodlines to be really broad, and for this design to work, they really needed to be narrow. And I said, I don't want to have narrow bloodlines. I made them so that they're broad! So I think the idea of pick-your-own subclass should be scrapped for the reasons I mentioned. But yeah, like going back to the question, I think you should just pick a cool fantasy, a niche that you want to fill, some flavor niche. I am a fan of building the classes, like, top-down, so from the flavor to the mechanics, not the other way around.
Jon de Nor: Right.
Ananam: So pick a flavor you want, pick a niche you want, and basically try to model, try to abstract out the cool things about it. And like mechanics based on the cool stuff. One of the controversial parts of design for the vampire is the thirst accumulation. There is this table, like the fury's table or null table, with resource, you know. So your class resource is thirst. And if you accumulate thirst, you get both the benefits and drawbacks. Because when you are thirsty, you gain the bloodlust, and you lose control of yourself because you want to drink blood, you know? So you can't control yourself that well. So you've got some drawbacks. And some players really did not like the drawbacks. Once we got a really extreme piece of feedback from a player, which was like, "It doesn't make any sense because other classes do not gain any drawbacks. There's so much to track already, and you're like, you know, throwing logs under my legs." And I was like, okay. Other players did enjoy it thematically, though, and the benefits are really strong. So we needed the drawbacks to offset the benefits.
Jon de Nor: Right, right. There was another question of, what are some tips you want to give someone that's looking to build their first Draw Steel class? But it sounds like it's much the same of start with a fantasy and try to build the first level.
Ananam: Yes. Basically yes. If you've got an idea for a really cool mechanic, you can do it bottom-up. So start from mechanics and then try to find the flavor which fits the mechanics. I believe a lot of Pathfinder Second Edition classes work this way, or were built this way. There's nothing wrong with that. But I believe, in Draw Steel, the cinematic part, the flavor part, should be the main ingredient. Like, the vampire vibe is really strong. People know what to expect when they hear vampire.
Jon de Nor: (laugh) How do you know that you've got enough stuff for ten levels? Because I imagine designing something for first level, okay, that's fine. I can maybe make some up from my fantasy. But then I have to design nine extra levels, and kinda make sure that I reach the right power level, I think. Do you have any tips on how to know that you've got enough, like, stuff to fill all the levels?
Ananam: Well, for the vampire, it was actually — I had the opposite problem because there's so many different things, different features I wanted to fit in. I basically have to take some of them out for the class not to be, like, too big. So some of the ideas, some of the abilities for the vampire, I put in the vampire perks, like turning into mist, turning into a bat or a rat, or this kind of stuff. I put it as optional stuff, as a vampire perk. So there are, like, ten vampire perks, also, for the class. And whenever you take a normal perk, you can take a vampire park instead. And it's usually stuff that's used not in combat. But you can totally turn into a bat or a mist during combat as well. But most of them do not work during combat. So some of the stuff I had to, like, put out of the class, literally, because, I got too much material to work for, and something had to be cut from the class itself.
Jon de Nor: Wow. Okay.
Ananam: Yeah. Also, another another design that sprouted from this was the vampire evolution. So there were also a lot of, like, combat features I wanted to add to the class, but the number of features I can give a class is limited. So basically, I made, like, 12 of them, spread it around four levels, and made them choose. So at level four, you choose one of three; at level six, you choose one of three; at level seven, you choose one of three; and at level nine, you choose one of three. So yeah, these are called vampire evolutions. They are pretty cool. Pretty strong for combat. Oh, yeah, they are pretty strong. To talk about, like, power level. Basically what I usually do, I go to the extreme, I put out the strongest or almost the strongest version of the ability I can think of, and then I put it to testing. And if I receive feedback, "Yo, this is too strong," then I'm good, okay, dial it back a bit.
Jon de Nor: You find it's easier to dial stuff back then dial stuff, I don't know, up?
Ananam: Yeah, because, you know, it's cool to feel strong, players like feeling strong. So we do the cool thing first. And if it's cool but too strong, we dial it a little bit back, you know? I don't want to provide half-baked versions of abilities for players, basically.
Jon de Nor: (laugh) That's fair. That's fair.
Ananam: So yeah, that's another good advice, I think. Just go to the extreme and see if it's not actually that extreme.
Jon de Nor: I also got a — received a question: if there was one question you wanted to be asked, what question would that be? So this is basically an invitation for you to kind of talk about whatever you want. (laugh)
Ananam: You know, I actually did not prepare for this question because I thought that you are not going to ask it, but, okay. I have a good topic to mention. Because people will already — by the time this airs, people will already know, so it is a good moment to mention that we will be having a lot — not a lot. At least four, and I think five, quests in the product, right?
Jon de Nor: Wow. Yeah. Nice.
Ananam: And this will be, this will be quests — like, one quest is already prototyped, and the quest was written by GubDM. Hi, Gavin. It's pretty cool, it's like, music-themed, which is interesting. I reached out to some people and some people agreed to, like, write quests for the product as well. And I want to say that one of the people who agreed to write a quest for this product is actually Jon.
Jon de Nor: Oh — yes. (laugh)
Ananam: So you can already see, probably, in the crowdfunder page that we will be getting a quest from Paul Ligorski from Heart of Arcana.
Jon de Nor: Nice.
Ananam: We'll be getting a quest from Jon, and we'll be getting quest, from, at least one, from Cameron from Rise Heroes Rise! He, Cameron is really excited about the all the frogs. He loves frogs. He loves — he tells me this: "I don't like frogs as animals, but I love frogs as a concept." (laugh) He loves the abstract frogs. Oh, yeah. So there will be a lot of cool stuff from different people for Boggits of Kingsmire. And actually, yeah, I wanted to talk about the setting as well. So as I said, we did not want to put this in the vacuum. So we created a, like, mini-setting. It's not closed, it's part of our, like, in-house Triglav Games setting, you know. It's like one region in a bigger country. It's a swampy region. So the region's official name is Kingsmere, like a lake. There's a huge lake in the middle, it's called Kingsmere. And around the lake, half of the region is covered in swamps that are inhabited by the boggits, and the swamps are called Kingsmire, not mere, but mire. And if somebody wants to insult the region or the people of Kingsmere, he calls the region Kingsmire. And that's the, like, differentiations, because people do not like the swamps, you know, people do not like the swamps. So officially, it's Kingsmere. If somebody wants to insult the region, it's Kingsmire, and boggits live in the Kingsmire. So that's it. There will be a lot of cool stuff there. Basically, we wanted to, on one hand, provide a pretty generic setting, like, you know, it's like, medieval stuff, standard medieval setting. But give it a twist. And basically the twist is we focused on like the swampy, the swampy stuff. There are some, you know, hills full of psionic crystals, with some dwarven ruins there. We've got a wode in the south, we call it the Mistwode, which are home to a new species of elves called, well, mist elves, for now. But, for now, they don't have statblocks, and there will not be another ancestry in the product. But if we gather enough money or interest, we might do them as a stretch goal, or we might do them in the future, you know? There's a place you can put a lot of popular low level adventures, you know. For example, I have a spot for Lost Mines of Phandelver. I will probably find or create a place you will be able to put a Delian Tomb in. So this would be like, you know, a starting setting for a new Draw Steel campaign, if anyone wants to use it. There will be quests, that will — you will be able to play in the setting with premade material, but it will be a lot of like, cool stuff in the gazetteer that you will be able to come up with your own, basically. We've got some really crazy monsters. For example, this is like, GubDM's idea, and he already did the, like, two passes on the monster family for this. So in the swamp, there's this region called Honeymarsh, and it's inhabited by wasps that make honey. It's a — in Asia, there are already wasps that make honey. So, we've got these wasps, and they create this hallucinogenic honey. And it's one of the, like, stuff that people fight over, so, like, people want the honey for being high, basically. The ratfolk in the region, there's this, like, crime organization called Crooktails, and they are trafficking the honey, selling it all around the globe. And the boggits use the honey for their rituals. So the boggits cultivate the wasps, and the best honey comes out when the wasps are actually building their nests, or the hives, in corpses.
Jon de Nor: O-kay!
Ananam: So there is this group of monsters called hive husks, and hive husks are basically like undead bodies in which the honey wasps builds their nests. So these are like zombies full of honey and wasps, you know? So they've got all of the funny honeycomb hammers, and they can make the swarm of honey wasps, like, basically converge on a target, you know, and, like, this big, we call it "shambling hive", like, size two creature that's just, like one huge wasp nest, you know? It's an elite creature, I believe, right now, it's a level two elite controller. Yeah, so we've got a lot of cool stuff. Yeah, and, for now, we'll be testing this out — you've got the minion statblock for the wasp swarm, and they've got this ability that they can provide temporary Stamina because they're building, building their hive on top of you, on top of the other creatures, right? So if the smaller hive husks have enough temporary Stamina, and are adjacent to each other, they can actually meld into the higher forms, like, they can meld into shambling hive. It's crazy stuff. I previewed it to Cameron from Rise Heroes Rise! and I hope he'll be running this for his Halloween one-shot or whatnot.
Jon de Nor: Wow.
Ananam: Yeah. So there will be the hive husk monstery family. There will be, like, boggits monster family. There will be also like, "swamp denizens" monster family. There'll be a lot of giant insects, you know? I got this idea — well, it's not really that original, but I've got this idea for a bug stalker, which is a bug on a very long legs because he's you know, the swamps can be deep. So he's basically traversing the swamp on the very long legs. If the bug stands on the ground, he's like, you know, two or three squares above you, and you gain a bane on attacks against it because it's so high up above. Yeah, and there's a bog strider architect, I believe, and the architect can basically throw up with concrete on you, so you will be, like, making you stuck in place. Like cementing you on the — it's called architect because it like, you know, spills out cement on you, this kind of stuff.
Jon de Nor: Wow.
Ananam: Yeah. I think — there is another cool thing. There is a title which I named, basically, at the very beginning, Small but Deadly. And it's like, title: if you, as a smaller creature, defeat a leader or solo at least two sizes bigger than you, then you've got, you know, a title with choices for bonuses against, you know, bigger creatures, basically. I think, like, right now, it's called Mighty Mite. Yeah, you know, it's a lot of fun working on this stuff. It's a lot of fun designing this stuff. It's a lot of fun talking about this stuff. It's very cool. Yeah. Even when I talk right now about this, I'm super excited to be doing this.
Jon de Nor: We're closing in on the hour, so we're going to have to end it here. But before we go, I have asked you to bring some kind of recommendation again. So what have you brought this time?
Ananam: Okay, so I'm gonna be making one recommendation and I'm going to be making one request, if you don't mind.
Jon de Nor: Oh, okay.
Ananam: So my recommendation for now is, last time I had, like, ten, you know, but this time I just have one. And this one recommendation of mine is Hollow Knight: Silksong, which is a Metroidvania game that came out recently. It's amazing. It's everything I dreamt of and more.
Jon de Nor: Nice!
Ananam: I don't recommend it to, like, newcomers to the genre of Metroidvanias, because it's extremely difficult to the point of some parts of the game being masochistic on my part to be playing this. Like, parts of it are so hard, but at the same time, it's so worth it. If you want to start with Metroidvanias, I recommend just playing the original Hollow Knight. Or if you like hardcore, dark fantasy vibes, just go for Blasphemous. But if you play through the first Hollow Knight, then be my guest and go buy Silksong. It's an amazing game. It's really cheap, it's an indie game, but it's just — the world is beautiful. The music is amazing, the storytelling, the mechanics of combat. Like, for me, it's, like, best game of the year, or maybe, like, of the last five years, because it's just so perfect. Oh, my God, Team Cherry did such an amazing job. Like, it's a colorful game about bugs, bugs in underground, you know? But it's so beautiful. There were times I had literal tears in my eyes because the storytelling with the music is just so breathtaking. But I'm also an emotional guy, so. Okay, Jon, I am making a formal request. Okay? You cannot cut this part out of the recording.
Jon de Nor: (laugh)
Ananam: Because very often you ask, who should I invite to the Goblin Points? You ask that publicly. And I am making a formal request because there are some people which I think you should be inviting. And soon! (laugh) So, the no-brainer is inviting Cameron from Rise Heroes Rise! because he's such a big icon in the community of Draw Steel, and I really think this would be a really interesting chat. Oh, my God, I really want you to talk with Cameron. That's the first one. The second one is for you to invite Paul Ligorski from Heart of Arcana, because he's doing such an amazing job creating, like, adventures for Draw Steel. He will be making, doing a crowdfunder really soon in November, and he also shared some news with me that there is — he will be doing, like, a not with us, he will be doing a quest for us, of course, but he will also be working on a bigger product next year with some of the creators. I'm not gonna spill the beans here, but I believe it would be really interesting for you to talk with Paul, basically.
Jon de Nor: Mm. Yeah.
Ananam: And the last person I urge you to invite is to invite GubDM, Gavin, basically. Not only because he's now my teammate and my ally in game design, but also he's a very enthusiastic dude, full of really inspiring and wild ideas. He does the wild ideas, like, the hive husk was his idea, basically, because I do the standard boring stuff. Well, maybe not boring. Boggits are cool. But all the wild stuff you will find in Boggits of Kingsmire, that's probably Gavin, you know.
Jon de Nor: Okay!
Ananam: For example, one of the downtime projects we want to be doing is actually beekeeping. You will be able to produce different kinds of honey.
Jon de Nor: Oh, of course! Yes!
Ananam: And that was Gavin's idea.
Jon de Nor: I'm just going to call it now. Beekeeping is going to be the next fishing.
Ananam: Oh yeah. Yeah, we want to provide alternative results for fishing, because fishing in a swamp should have different results.
Jon de Nor: Of course, yes! (laugh)
Ananam: All the cool stuff you will find there, I'm telling you.
Jon de Nor: Oh, man. I'm really looking forward to, well, both to getting the final version of the vampire, but also seeing everything that's going to be in the Boggits of Kingsmire.
Ananam: Yeah. So basically, yeah. Cameron, Paul, and Gavin — GubDM — please invite them. I want to hear you talk with them so much.
Jon de Nor: I have to admit, they are on my list. And me and Cameron have even talked about having him on here, but — I just need to make it happen. (laugh)
Ananam: Okay. Jon, right now, you have to sign this. (laugh)
Jon de Nor: (laugh) I solemnly swear I will invite them all.
Ananam: Yeah. I like to hear that.
Jon de Nor: Thank you so much, Ananam, for coming on — again, for the first time, a repeat guest.
Ananam: I'm telling you, if we launch our third crowdfunder, I'm going to be there.
Jon de Nor: You're very welcome back.
Ananam: Thank you.
Jon de Nor: Thank you so much for coming on.
Ananam: Thank you so much. It was a delight, as was the last time. Oh, my God, it was such a delight to be able to talk with you about all the cool stuff!
Outro
Thanks again Ananam for coming on. And you'll notice I did not cut the part you asked to be left in. Ananam did contact me after recording, remembering that I've already have had Paul on once. But I'd love to have Paul on again. He's been busy since last we spoke.
The Boggits of Kingsmire crowdfunder is still running as this drops, and I highly encourage you go give it a look. There's a link in the show notes.
I want to thank Seth Lang and Antan Karmola for submitting questions for Ananam.
If you want to be featured on Goblin Points, or know of someone else who should be, leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify, or send me an e-mail on tips@goblinpoints.com.
Links to everything, including this script can be found in the show notes, and on goblinpoints.com.
If you want to support my work, you can become a Patreon supporter. As a paying member you can submit questions for upcoming guests. You also get access to premium features on Stawl. Stawl is digital tool set for playing and running Draw Steel: digital hero sheets, looking up monsters, or read the core rules. Go to Stawl.app. S-T-A-W-L-dot-app.
Next episode is on the 5th. That'll be the news roundup for October.
See you next time. Snakkes.