Episode 2026.1 Published on 5 January 2026

News: MCDM Cracked the Sun, New "Jams of the Timescape", "Hooked on Crafting" Success | December Roundup

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Intro

Happy new year! December saw MCDM Crack the Sun with a very successful crowdfunder; a new issue of Ratcatcher Magazine was funded; The Dice Society funded their Hooked on Crafting supplement; and so much more...

I'm Jon de Nor and this is Goblin Points.

Crack the Sun

The big thing of December is of course the Crack the Sun crowdfunder. While it does use what I would call a bit overdramatic language, it is the indicator of whether Draw Steel is worth investing in for MCDM.

And the community has answered with a resounding: YES! This crowdfunder had the highest goal of any of MCDM's crowdfunders: 1.2 million US freedom dollars. And they reached that goal in less than 24 hours!

At the time of writing, it has surpassed two million dollars and still has a few days left to go.

In addition to the titular adventure, Crack the Sun, the crowdfunder also includes the opportunity to pre-order

  • Encounters, the third core rule book for Draw Steel featuring pre-made three-room-dungeons, negotiations, montage tests, skill tests and adversaries called dastards,
  • the upcoming ancestries book called Between Sun and Shadow, featuring eight new playable ancestries: radenwights, the sophisticated rat folk; goblins, you know... goblins; fairies, tiny elf like folk with wings like butterflies and moths; gnomes, tiny magical, lorewise, and crafty people, native to Equinox; shadow elves, the native folk of equinox, whom are always half in shadow; the skarjj, human-sized dragonfly folk that are the masters of the skies; the gol, human-like folk, but a distinct species from humans; and the heliox, the native denizens of the sun,
  • the beastheart class, which is the pet companion class being developed,
  • and three new adventures:
    • Dark Heart of the Woods, where the heroes needs to fix a shrine to the green elemental power,
    • The Red Road, where the heroes have to hunt down a horde of gnolls, who's obliterated a town,
    • The Condemned, where the heroes are not in continuity of your regular campaign, but anti-heroes condemned to death, given the opportunity to be absolved of all their crimes, in exchange for a suicide mission,

For more details on everything, I recommend listening to The Dice Society's recent episode where he covers everything in more detail.

The T-Shirt

I'll also mention that there's a Crack the Sun t-shirt you can buy. It's not part of the crowdfunder, but available for purchase directly in the MCDM shop. They don't start shipping until February, though.

Jams of the Timescape

The Dice Society and I are doing another game jam. We're announcing the jam on the same day this episode drops, but we're not announcing the theme just yet. Swing by the Goblin Points YouTube channel or check out the Discord server on the twelfth. That's when the jam starts, and the theme is revealed.

This time we've been luck enough to have Triglav Games sponsor prizes for the winners. The three most highly voted entries will each receive a copy of Scions of Blood and Shadow. It features the both a vampire ancestry, but more importantly: a vampire class. Additionally, the top entry will receive a copy of The Boggits of Kingsmire, when it releases later this year.

There's a link to the official Jams of the Timescape Discord server in the links section. Join us and other creators there and get ready to have fun creating for Draw Steel!

Art Packs by Inge

Inge has been publishing art packs for Draw Steel for a year already, and recently dropped her third art pack, this time featuring dwarf pieces.

The Dwarves Art Pack includes five illustrations of different dwarf heroes, including one dwarf fury with the vulken kit, which includes different tokens for full animal form and hybrid form.

I'll also mention the two previous packs published early last year: the Wode Elves Art Pack featuring four illustrations of wode elf heroes, and the Orcs and Goblins art-pack featuring four goblin pieces and three orc pieces.

If you pick up any of the packs, you also purchase the license to use the illustrations in free and commercials projects, with the proper credit given. Check the document included in the pack for details.

You can pick up any of the packs for €6 on Itch.

The Kiln

Gub of Look Out Behind You Studios has announced his crowdfunder for the Kiln class, "a fiery class for Draw Steel".

The kiln conjures fire to burn wooden talismans to boost their abilities and become "enkindled". While you are enkindled you get additional bonuses to the abilities granted to you by your talisman kit. These effects look a bit like the strained effects from the talent, where extra features are added to the ability when you are enkindled.

The campaign is launching the same day this episode drops. You can find the link to the campaign in the link section.

The Snow Queen's Fury

Emi Miura released The Snow Queen's Fury. It's a small quest, designed to be done in a single session and awards the heroes three victories. It's balanced for three to six level one heroes, but it can be adjusted all the way up to eighth level. The quest includes a table indicating which monsters to use for which echelon. And it includes the stat block for the tenth level Snow Queen herself.

I also have to credit the preparation tools included in this short adventure. It includes not only content warnings (nice), but also which topics are inherent to the adventure and would fundamentally change the adventure if left out, and which topics can be skipped or adjusted to better fit your table.

It also suggests an appropriate playlist to use when running the adventure and a playlist that is "more Christmassy action". There's also guidance on how to shorten the adventure if you don't have the full 3-4 hours to spend on the adventure. And it includes an adventure synopsis for the director to get a quick overview what the quest entails.

I'm really impressed by the lengths that have been gone to make this adventure easy to run and adapt for your table. Feels really in spirit of the Draw Steel mantra to boost directors and give them tools to make the game easier to run.

You can pick up The Snow Queen's Fury on Itch for $5.

Ratcatcher Magazine Issue 02 for DRAW STEEL

Tidal Wave Games is back with their second issue of Ratcatcher Magazine. It's just closed it's crowdfunding campaign and it beat its goal easily.

This new issue features:

  • Necromancer Tyrant by Anna/Nathan Lee: An epic Level 10 Necromancer boss, featuring unique Malice, Villain Actions, and Minions.
  • Ghost Ancestry by Thomas "TDAWS" Dawson: A new ancestry that allows you to play as a ghost, including the ability to posses creatures and manipulate the environment.
  • Wraith Elves by Mateusz 'Ananam' Malarski: Unique and mysterious elves who manipulate the powers of mist to escape and surprise foes.
  • Saints & Heroes of Orden by Josh Browne (+1 to fun): Two new Saints & Heroes for the world of Orden, with complete lore.
  • Untying Health from Stamina by Doug Robinson: A new article featuring ways to mentally square the circle of thinking of Stamina as "health" or "meat points."

You can soon pick up the PDF for purchase, and if you want a physical copy of the magazine, it will be included as an option in crowdfunders for future issues.

The Scion

Surfingbird has released The Scion class. The class aims to be a combination of a spell caster and a blade master. This is especially apparent when it comes to it's heroic resource.

The resource is called balance. And the triggered resource generation occurs when you or an ally uses an ability with the weapon keyword and when an ability with the magic keyword is used.

The class features three subclasses:

  • Blinkblade: that uses teleportation to blink around the battlefield.
  • Runewright: that uses runes and writs to damage enemies and control the battlefield.
  • Soulforged: that fragments your soul and imbue it to a weapon. You form your weapon to the greatest benefit on the battlefield.

In addition to the class, it comes with four new kits, one new title, and two new leveled weapons. The product also includes a sourcebook for Forge Steel, allowing you to import the entire class to use when you build characters on Forge Steel.

You can get the scion class on Itch.io for $10.

How To Draw Steel, Hooked on Crafting & TDS Podcast

The Dice Society graced us with both an episode of his podcast, and a new video in his How To Draw Steel series.

The podcast episode of course features some great creations from the community, while the main feature is Crack the Sun. As I mentioned previously, if you want a great dive into the details of the crowdfunder, give the episode a listen.

The new video in How To Draw Steel covers how to create a hero. The Dice Society starts with a piece of art of a man wielding a sword and wearing metal armor. He then goes through the ten steps of the core rules to create a character that fits the art. All the while he explains each step in more detail and explains his choices.

Also, the Hooked on Crafting funding succeeded by ending at over twice the goal of $1000. All of this funding is in pre-orders. While the product would get made irregardless of whether the goal was met, meeting the goal means more money can be spent on making the product look and feel better.

And lastly; if you've bought You Meet in an Ambush, The Dice Society's great introductory adventure to Draw Steel, you can now download an updated version of the adventure which includes a code to unlock the whole adventure ready-prepped in the Codex. Super easy to get going in no time.

Codex Tutorials

The creators of the Codex, DMHub, has released multiple videos on YouTube which shows how to use some of the new features that have been added to the Codex recently.

Among them how to set up encounters to be quick and easy to deploy once the heroes show up. With a bit of preparation you'll be able to deploy enemy tokens onto the map with a single click. There's also a video on how to give monsters loot to drop when they die. When the monsters are killed, a chest icon appears in place of the monster token, and the players can move the characters over and check out what loot the monster had on it.

The Blacksmith's Guild #4

All the way back at the beginning of December, the fourth issue of The Blacksmith's Guild dropped. This is a special issue for me, as I'm actually featured in it. I interviewed Cameron of Rise Heroes Rise! about monsters and monster design in Draw Steel.

Apart from my contribution, the issue features:

  • College of Deduction by Harmoic Hewell: a new shadow subclass focusing on using reason and inference.
  • Class Specific Downtime Projects by Felix Kurzok: a collection of downtime projects each designed for a specific class. The article includes projects for five of the classes in the core rules.
  • Additional Adversaries by Anna/Nathan Lee: a collection of monsters that fill in some of the cracks in the Monsters book of the core rules.
  • The Enchanted Chessboard by Daniel “Gwendolyn” Miller: a combat encounter where you battle chess pieces on the titular enchanted chessboard.

I also want to mention two great updates for this issue of The Blacksmith's Guild: This is the first issue to feature a commissioned art piece for the cover: the enchanted chessboard. Second is that the magazine has gotten an updated layout and design. Personally I'm a really big fan of the update, and I think it elevates the whole magazine.

You can grab the issue as a PDF for $11, and in print + PDF for $24.

The Matter of an Overmind

Dima Serbin, whom is the next guest on Goblin Points, released The Matter of an Overmind. This is a short adventure that's designed for five fourth level heroes. But include balancing notes for three to six heroes.

The adventure takes place in the timescape. The heroes crashes into a planetoid because of a sudden gravitational pull. They have to find a way to escape the planetoid and come into contact with some rebels. But escaping the planetoid is not as easy as just taking off, when the planetoid itself has something to say about it.

You can pick up The Matter of an Overmind for pay-what-you-want on Itch.io.

Community Highlights

At the end here, I want to throw in some quick mentions:

  • Apparel of the brawler a draw steel leveled treasure set by Biscuitwolf Games
  • Which Draw Steel Class Should I Play? | The Summoner by Don't Shout Mimic
  • Draw Steel Ajax Edition Unboxing | Rise Heroes Rise! by Rise Heroes Rise!

Outro

A strong start to the year for Draw Steel I think. With both Crack the Sun being incredibly successful, showing that people are eager for more Draw Steel. Also very good to see community and third-party supplements flourishing. Bodes well for the coming year.

Oh, also - don't forget to join the new volume of Jams of the Timescape. It's going to be a fun one!

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 member. 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 15th. That'll be an interview with DimaJeydar. He first turned up on my radar when he made a Ukrainian translation of the starter rules. We're going deep on how to make Draw Steel work in a different language, and a different culture.

See you next time. Snakkes.

Links

From MCDM

Jams of the Timescape

Art Packs by Inge

The Kiln - A Fiery Class for Draw Steel

The Snow Queen's Fury: A Midwinter Draw Steel Adventure by Midnight Kelpie Press

Ratcatcher Magazine Issue 02 for DRAW STEEL

The Scion - A Spellsword Class for Draw Steel by surfingbird

How To Draw Steel, Hooked on Crafting & TDS Podcast

Codex

The Blacksmith's Guild #4

The MATTER of an OVERMIND — 4th Level Timescape adventure for Draw Steel by Dima Serbin

Community Highlights

Draw Steel Homebrew

Draw Steel Media

Draw Steel Tools