Episode 2026.7 Published on 5 March 2026

News: New MCDM Hire, More Crows Details, and Winners of Jams of the Timescape | February Roundup

Or listen here:

... and many other places!
Jump to links ↓

Intro

February was packed! We got the winners of Ancestries of the Timescape, a magical Crows update, MCDM makes a new hire, updated Crack the Sun release schedule, the vampire class from Triglav is finally out, and It's Complicated and Look Out! has funded.

We also learned how easy it is to hack someone's YouTube account and take over their podcast!

I'm Cameron Baker, and this is Goblin Points!

Jams of the Timescape

Let's start off with something close to my heart: Jams of the Timescape. After weeks of deliberation, the judges have managed to cover all 100+ entries and given everyone one a score.

I've already announced the winners in a video on Goblin Points' YouTube channel, but I'm of course going to cover them here too.

I first want to thank those hardworking judges. When I asked them if they'd up to spend their spare time judging the entries in the jam, I had no idea how big the jam would turn out. I can't express how happy I am that we had some many people participate, and I'm eternally grateful to the judges who spent so much time judging.

It's also fantastic to see how many people have been encouraged to publish their creations for the first time. So many have said that the jam was the first time they've put something out for others to see, and that makes me incredibly happy. In the end, that's one of the fundamental goals of the jam. To get people not only creating, but also the feeling of accomplishment that comes with finishing something.

Now; onto the winners. We're awarding the top three entrants with the highest overall score.

In third place: Harmony by Adventure Fourth. With this ancestry you play as something called a root. You seek out a host to share body with, becoming harmony. As an interesting effect, when you die, you separate from your host, being able to seek out a new one.

In second place: The Salt Elves by Second Rodeo Games. They used to be sea elves, but when the seas of their homeland, Maris, dried out in The Great Catastrophe, they had to adapt to survive. The salt elves have a cool purchasable trait that grants them temporary stamina when they respite, given they have recoveries left over when they start their respite.

The two runner-ups each received a copy of The Scions of Blood and Shadows - the vampire class product from Triglav Games, the sponsors of this jam. In addition to the vampire class and it's five subclasses, there's also a vampire ancestry, treasures, titles, perks and more.

And in first place: This ancestry lets you play as a sentient gas cloud, utilizing a pressure suit for whenever you leave to travel beyond your planet. Through your purchasable traits you can improve your strong exosuit, or manipulate mechanical contraptions by temporarily leaving the suit. The winner of the Jams of the Timecape - Volume 2: Ancestries is The Astounding Asomaths by Dima Jeydar.

In addition to receiving Scions of Blood and Shadows, the winner will also receive The Boggits of Kingsmire when it releases later this year. The Boggits of Kingsmire takes you to the region of Kingsmere where you meet the frog people of the boggits. The product also includes new domains for conduits and censors, new treasures, perks, titles, quests and more.

I'm so proud of everyone that participated in the jam, and incredibly happy that we had so many publishing for the first time. And the amount of fantastic ancestries that have come out this has been unbelievable.

Thank you so much everyone for making the jam a success!

Crows

James was back streaming this month. We only got the one stream, but it's not the last we'll see of James going forward. He revealed that he'd been recording multiple videos while at MCDM HQ for Crows and related to Crows.

One series of video which is the beginning of an ongoing series of videos on the design process behind Crows. Sounds very much like the Designing the Game videos Matt did for a little while, while developing Draw Steel.

And another series which talks more about the the style of play Crows aims for. These videos aren't specific to Crows per se, but are meant to be general advice and information. But they will also overlap with themes present in Crows.

The plan is to drop these pre-recorded videos on a regular basis, such that James can record a new batch next time he's visiting MCDM HQ.

For Crows specifically, James has been working on backgrounds. Specifically 36 of them. That maps nice into the 36 possible results of rolling 2d6, and it allows him to break down the backgrounds into three categories:

  1. Explorers, which includes people with skills or knowledge that'll help them explore, like farmers, sages, entertainers, cartographers.
  2. Mages, which includes people trained in spell casting, like wizards, priests, cultists.
  3. Warriors, which includes people trained in martial arts and weapons, like soldiers, guards, watchmen.

These background will give you a head start when it comes to certain aspects of the game, but they are not determiners of your future. Any crow can cast spells, given they have the equipment for it, but some will be better at it. That might be because of their background, or because they decided to specialize in it later.

To be better at certain things, you gain traits. Each background grants you a trait to start of with, but it's not exclusive to the background. Anyone can take that trait if they choose. When you have XP to spend, you can purchase traits from the list of traits.

Currently the idea is that traits are organized in trees, where you have to buy the previous trait to be able to purchase the next one. Each of the backgrounds get you started on a different tree, but you're free to spend XP to go down any tree you want. But, the further you go down one tree, the more expensive it gets. That means you spend a bunch of XP buying one trait far down a tree, or spend the same XP on many traits at the beginning of other trees.

James also revealed more details about spell casting. In Crows, magic is sentient and unpredictable. It strikes back with a backlash when it's gotten enough of being bossed around. While a backlash does happen when you roll a doom, a natural two or three on 2d10, it also happens at other random moments when you roll poorly.

Whenever a tier 1 result is rolled for a spell casting, the ref roll 1d6 adds the rank of the spell (the more powerful the spell, the higher rank) and adds the result to a chaos count. When the chaos count reaches 13 a backlash occurs.

The backlash is determined by rolling on a d100 table. A table that includes results like "The Ref randomly chooses a coin, gem, or other treasure that you carry. It melts", or "Fire erupts from your body. You and each creature within 2 squares of you takes fire damage equal to 1d6 + your highest skill bonus", or "Your head transforms into a donkey’s head. You can’t speak, only bray at a loud volume. You can make a save at the end of each Dungeon Turn. On a success, your head transforms back to normal."

Should your crow end up dying, the intention is for you to roll up a new crow and get back into playing quickly. The equipment of your previous crow might still be available to loot, and when you get back to town, you establish a grave for the fallen crow. By praying at the grave you can receive a blessing that'll help your crow in their coming dungeon delve.

There's some interesting stuff in here, but remember that all of this is subject to change. Crows is not near being finished. I'm looking forward to see what the future brings.

Paul Hughes

Matt has been talking about hiring some to run Draw Steel now that James has moved on to Crows. And late in February, Paul Hughes introduced himself on the MCDM Patreon as the new hire.

Paul talked a bit about the stuff he wants to bring to Draw Steel and the ideas he has for the game. And he shared some of the future plans and schedule for Draw Steel now that were two months out from the crowdfunder and production on all the products have begun in earnest.

Paul has worked a lot with MCDM already. He's credited in both of the core books and is previously credited as a designer in Flee, Mortals! Outside of MCDM he has a well known blog called Blog of Holding and he's behind the Monsters Menagerie books.

One of the things that Paul mentions in the introductory blog post is actually the idea of a second monster book. Now that they've got all the regular monsters out of the way, they can really go wild.

Crack the Sun Schedule

One of the future plans that Paul talked about in his post was the updated schedule for the products in the Crack the Sun crowdfunder. They did include a proposed schedule in the crowdfunder, and if you thought like me that sounded optimistic, MCDM thought so too, apparently.

The post presents a new schedule, much more reasonable, and which pushes all the releases back a bit. Spreading them out. Not only do they feel more realistic, but they'll also prevent the team at MCDM to overwork themselves and burn out because of insane deadlines.

The updated schedule is as follows:

  • April: Beastheart
  • June: Red Road
  • July: The Condemned
  • September: Draw Steel: Encounters
  • November: Crack the Sun Part 1 (Black Friday)
  • Jan 2027: Ancestries and Crack the Sun Part 2
  • March 2027: Crack the Sun Part 3
  • May 2027: Crack the Sun Part 4
  • July 2027: Crack the Sun Part 5

This means the fifth and last part of Crack the Sun has been pushed back by a little over half a year, and the other products spread out more or less evenly in the intervening months between now and then.

This whole schedule feels much more reasonable and realistic. And while they mention in the blog post that they might be able to publish some of this before the planned month, I'd rather they take the time it needs to make every one of these as good as they deserve to be.

One interesting move is the ancestries book being pushed back by half a year. I think this is in response to the community not being as hungry for new ancestries and the fact that the jam just produced 100+ ancestries for the community. While the MCDM ancestries will have higher production cost, I urge you to look at the winners from the jam and tell me those don't look fantastic. Especially considering they were made in two weeks.

I'm also glad to see Encounters not being moved out of Q3. I think that's perhaps the most important product in the crowdfunder and will be of incredible help to every Draw Steel director.

Dark Heart of the Wood

Just in time for valentine's day, MCDM released Dark Heart of the Wood. This is of course very fitting, with the adventure featuring a massive heart on the cover. And a little birdie told me this was in no way a coincidence.

The adventure is part of MCDM's line of quests for Draw Steel. Quests are designed to be smaller and shorter adventures that'll grant the heroes a third to a half level of victories. They're not epic, expansive adventures, but smaller outings to sprinkle into your campaign.

Dark Heart of the Wood brings the heroes to a town being overrun by aggressive plants, attacking the villagers. The heroes need to travel to the source of the scourge and find a way to stop it.

You can pick up Dark Heart of the Wood for $19.99 in the MCDM Shop.

Codex

I want to mention the Codex for a little bit in here. It's been in semi-public alpha for a year, in patron testing since November and because of the progress being made in it's development, MCDM is considering putting it into early release soon.

Soon in this case being the ned of March or beginning April. We don't know all the details about what this means yet, but it sounds like they'll want to put it into the early access program on Steam. That means that anyone can purchase and download the Codex. That'll also mark the end of the patron program to get free steam keys to download the Codex, and the beginning of people having to buy access to the Codex.

In that case it's important to remember: Every player who wants to use the Codex, needs to buy access. Not just the director, every player. But! If you've bought the core rules, Heroes, you've already bought access to the Codex. It does not matter how you bought the book, through Patreon membership, crowdfunder, MCDM Shop, phsyical or somewhere else. As long as you've bought the book new, digital or physical, you've bought access to Codex.

They've also said they want to provide a "party pack", that lets you buy (probably) five steam keys to the Codex with a discount. The amount they've been floating is $100 for 5 keys. I suspect we will know more about this at the end of March.

Scions of Blood and Shadows

It's been 10 months since it funded, but now it's finally here! The Scions of Blood and Shadows is out! If you backed or pre-ordered the vampire class, you should've received an email by now with the materials. And if you didn't get in early, you can pick it up from Triglav Games' newly launched shop.

The original pitch was a vampire class, and because one of the stretch goals were met, they also made a vampire ancestry. But that's not all that's included in the 52 page PDF document.

It starts off with a bit of background on vampires, before moving on to the vampire ancestry. It comes complete with a piece of fiction, in the style of the core rules, signature traits and ten purchasable traits. There are two vampire inspired careers, four new vampire inspired kits, ten new perks, four new complications, 29 new treasures, and six new titles.

Then there's the vampire class itself. It comes with five subclasses, Charming Tormentor, Crimson Conductor, Noxious Stalker, Shrouded Lurker, and Spore Bearer. The heroic resource is called Thirst and it has a benefit table granting extra effects when your thirst is high. But there's a dark side, a drawback table, which gives you side effects of your growing thirst.

The whole PDF is laid out in a way that reminds me of the Draw Steel core rules, but it features more colors, iconography and clearer section titles. The adornments alongs the top and bottom of the pages features nice little details like tiny bats and vampire fangs.

And I can't talk about this without mentioning the art. Holy shit, the art! The cover of the PDF should give you an idea, but that's just the beginning. There are two more full-page pieces that are nothing short of fantastic. And the individual pieces of different vampires are also incredible. The art is on level with the stuff MCDM puts in their books.

You can pick up Scions of Blood and Shadows for €21.

Keep on the Road to War

Leo Hojnowski has announced his crowdfunder for the adventure Keep on the Road to War. This is an adventure that takes inspiration from The Red Hand of Doom, but makes it Draw Steel.

Leo Hojnowski is actually the next guest here on Goblin Points where he talks about where this project started, what he's done to adapt it to Draw Steel, and where he got the brilliant art.

The crowdfunder launches on March 11.

College of the Ardent Skull

Dima Serbin is at it again and has released College of the Ardent Skull, a new subclass for the Shadow. This is subclass is themed around hellfire, a special kind of fire that sticky instead of explosive.

As a shadow of the college of the ardent skull, you're constantly setting things on hellfire, which gives you surges and edges when attacking.

In addition to the subclass, the PDF also includes some new treasure, the Flameshade retainer, and a rival, the Infernal Assassin.

You can pick up College of the Ardent Skull on Itch for $5.

It's Complicated

Rise Heroes Rise! launched they're new project on BackerKit and promptly funded the whole thing in a couple of days. The product, It's Complicated, is a collection one hundred complications.

The crowdfunder includes a preview of three of the complications, which include:

  • Profile of the Chimera: where you've got three extra heads competing for control of the body.
  • Substantial Composition: Where you've turned into a gooey blob.
  • Tentacled Arm: Where one of your arms have been turned into tentacles.

It's sporting a fresh layout and a bunch of fantastic art.

There's a few days left to back when this episode drops, if you're interested. They aim to release It's Complicated in June this year.

"Look Out!"

Tabletop Nonsenseverse has launched their crowdfunder "Look Out!". "Look Out!" features more than 20 classic D&D monsters adapted to Draw Steel.

In the collection there are animated armors, flying swords, and stirges. For higher level monsters there are a few frightful solos like the hydra, remorhaz and the gibbering mouther.

It also has these nice black and white line drawings of the monsters. Reminiscent of the style used in early D&D.

There's still time to back on BackerKit, with pledges starting at CHF 7, and options to get access to a print-on-demand code.

Rogues for Draw Steel

Valued Dragon Design has dropped Rogues for Draw Steel in their Ko-fi shop. 20 statblocks of different kinds of people living a bit outside the law, to use in your campaign. Each band is designed to capture a specific kind of rogues the heroes might encounter:

  • Criminals: seven statblocks of criminals you might encounter in a sufficiently large city, complete with monsters like Alley Rat and Gutter Snipe.
  • Bandits: seven statblocks of bandits that are to be found on the outskirts of civilized living, featuring classics such as Ruffian, Brigand, and Highwayman.
  • Pirates: six statblocks of seafaring pirates ready to board the ship of those crossing open water, featuring Deckhands and a Pirate Captain.

All the bands comes with a nice selection of roles, across levels one through three, and they each feature a level 3 solo to lead the unlawful bunch of characters.

You can pick up Rogues for Draw Steel for pay-what-you-want on Ko-fi.

50* Timescape Complications

Cross Breeze Games has released 50 Timescape Complications*. This is a collection of 50 timescape and sci-fi themed complications.

The PDF comes with a nice rollable table, of course, and some great complications. A great one from the preview is Fault Jetpack:

You've inherited, stolen, found, or otherwise acquired a fabulous machine that lets you fly. It has some crossed wires, though. Benefit: You can fly. Drawback: The first time in a turn you fly using this jetpack, roll 1d10 before moving. On a 1, your jetpack malfunctions. You are pushed 5 x spaces, ignoring stability, in a direction chosen by rolling on the Malfunction table.

You can pick up 50* Timescape Complications on Itch for $5.

Community Highlights

And now some rapid fire creations from the community:

  • Alphastream a.k.a. Teos Abadia a.k.a. Lead on Crack the Sun has released a video to help you learn Draw Steel in 5 rooms.
  • The new update to the Draw Steel system for Foundry VTT, featuring updated styles for the journal, by Metamorphic Studios.
  • The new actual play series from Rise Heroes Rise! featuring a pirate crew of captains hunting an old menace.
  • The fourth entry in How to Draw Steel by The Dice Society, where he covers how to do combat in Draw Steel.
  • And the patron exclusive content for February from Triglav Games, featuring the serpentfolk and a bunch of design notes.

Outro

It always surprises me how much is happening every month. I sit down to write this script and I always think "hmm. Much hasn't happened this month." Then I end up writing 3,000 plus words. Makes me wonder when I'm no longer able to fit everything I want into one of these episodes...

For the third month in a row, I will once again do a livestream within a week of this episode dropping. I'll have a look at the creations from the community. Browse through them, and talk a bit about all the brilliant ideas to find in them. Subscribe to Goblin Points on YouTube to get notified when it's happening.

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.

You can support my work by becoming a Patreon member. Paying members get to submit questions to my upcoming guests here on Goblin Points. You also get access to premium features on Stawl. Stawl is a digital toolset for playing and running Draw Steel: digital hero sheets, encounter builder, monster look up, the complete rules text, and more. Such as the Stawl Supplement Index, a comprehensive list of supplements being published for Draw Steel, in one convenient place! Visit Stawl.app. S-T-A-W-L-dot-app.

Next episode is on the 15th. I'm interviewing PatrollinTheMojave a.k.a Leo Hojnowski, the writer of Keep on the Road to War, and adaption of the first section of The Red hand of Doom for Draw Steel.

See you next time. Snakkes.

Links

Jams of the Timescape

From MCDM

Scions of Blood and Shadows

Keep On the Road to War

College of the Ardent Skull

It's Complicated

"LOOK OUT!"

Rogues for Draw Steel

50* Timescape Complications

Community Highlights

Draw Steel Homebrew

Draw Steel Media

Draw Steel Tools