Episode 2026.13 Published on 5 May 2026

News: Draw Steel VTT in Early Access, Crows Character Creation, and a year of Blacksmith's Guild | April Roundup

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Intro

Codex is in Early Access go get it, we basically got a fourth of the Crows core rules, the beastheart is out, the magewright class was released, one year of The Blacksmith's Guild and seven announced crowdfunders.

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

Crows

James continues to work hard on Crows. This month we got two videos and two Patreon posts on Crows.

Well, I say two video, but one of the videos were strictly speaking a video about dungeons. Not related to Crows specifically, but generally to any game about dungeon crawling. But it's very relevant to Crows.

We then got a video on Crows' inventory management and how that's important to the game. In Crows you have ten backpack slots, two belt slots, two hands, and some extra slots for magic items you wear. The items you keep in your belt is always readily available to and can be swapped to during combat.

The stuff in your backpack though, is less accessible. To grab something from the backpack you roll a d10 and you can grab something from the backpack in the numbered slot equal to the roll or lower. Where you place stuff in your backpack is going to determine what's easy to grab in a pinch.

But, the downside is. If you take damage and run out of stamina, of which you have very little. You'll start taking wounds instead. The wounds occupy slots in your backpack, making you drop whatever item's in there.

The first Crows post is short, but includes a bunch of the core rules for Crows. The contain some details about the setting of Cornath, the gods in the world, how to play, how to make tests, inventory rules, conditions, how dungeons work, resting, light and combat.

James currently imagines there will be four small core books to Crows: the general rules, ref rules, character options, and dungeons. These are planned to be smaller soft cover books, not big tomes like the ones for Draw Steel.

And speaking of character options. James also posted some of the rules for character creation on Patreon: the steps to create a character, the 36 character backgrounds, advancement rules, and how to buy traits.

Traits is the way you customize and advance your crow. By spending the XP you earn by bringing home riches, you can advance down advancement trees. Each trait in the game is part of tree, where each has a theme. The one tree included in the post is the Alchemy tree. To purchase a trait, it either needs to be a starter trait at the top of the tree, or connected to a trait you already have.

If I want the Last Brew trait, which makes my crafted potions and poisons last longer, I need to take one of two traits that links to it. Either It Burns which make my crafted acid, poisons and bombs better, or Potent Potion which makes my crafted healing potions better. You've seen this in video games. Surely

Each of the backgrounds grants you a trait when you create your crow, which gets you started on one of the trees. But you're not limited to traits on the tree you started on. You can purchase traits from any tree if you wish.

James mentioned he wanted to have a public playtest ready before the end of summer. I'm making a guess that the playtest is going to be very close to the launch of the Crows crowdfunder. Actually, I think the public playtest will be released as part of the crowdfunder. I guess will see in about three months' time.

The Codex

The Codex has been released into Early Access on Steam! It was supposed to happen on April 6, but because of some hiccups with the approval process, it didn't actually go live until April 8. But then, it was available for anyone to buy. Directly on Steam.

There's still a lot of work to do on the Codex before it supports all of Draw Steel. All the classes have been implemented up to level ten, and all monsters in echelons one and two are ready, I think. But complications and titles are not done, and there are improvements to be made to some of the user interface.

We are seeing steady progress, and part of the goal of launching in Early Access was to raise more funds for development. And so far that seems to be a success. Matt mentioned on stream that it's practically doubled MCDM's income for a little while, as people have rushed to buy the Codex. That peak will probably die down after a little while, though.

The end of April also marks the end of the playtest version of the Codex. If you had a version of the Codex with "playtest" in it's name, it should've stopped working May 1. From now on, it's on the version named simply "Draw Steel" that will work. If you don't already have it, you can either buy it on Steam, or in MCDM's shop. Remeber that people who purchased the core rules before the beginning of April should've gotten a discount voucher per email.

Because the Codex requires all players to purchase a copy to play togehter, it's not going to fit all groups, but I must say. For me, it's the best way to play Draw Steel online. I've not tried all the alternatives, but it's he best experience I've had playing any TTRPG online.

Paul Hughes

April marked the first day as an employee at MCDM for Paul Hughes. They announced the hiring of Paul in March. Paul is the new line developer for Draw Steel and will be the person in charge of what happens with everything Draw Steel going forwards.

Paul has worked with MCDM before, both on Draw Steel and Flee Mortals, and Where Evil Lives. You might know him from his blog called Blog of Holding, or his work on Monstrous Menagerie, Dungeon Delver's Guide or Battlezoo Bestiary.

The Beastheart

Recently, Paul developed the beastheart, which finally released. It's been in development for the better part of a year, had one closed playtest and one public playtest. And now it's emerged in it's final form.

The beastheart is the pet class for Draw Steel by MCDM. You fight alongside your companion and you act together on the battlefield. In practice it means one of you take a main action, while the other make a maneuver, but you have a full move action each. And while you have individual stamina, you share recoveries. The class is all about synergies with your companion.

They did make some changes that I noted in the final version of the beastheart. The dropped the beastheart specific kits, and instead opted to encourage use of standard kits. But the biggest let down for me personally, is the neutering of the Heart of the Beast ability. That was my favorite ability in the game! There's no more pulling out of hearts, or crawling out of unhinged jaws, just magical jump out of the chest. Playtest Heart of the Beast, I mourn thee.

The class did end up releasing with 14 companions! All with custom art for them.

The beastheart was released under the Creator License and is already available to use on Forge Steel already. MCDM's plan is to release new classes under the Creator License once they've made back the cost it took to develop them. For the beastheart, that cost was already covered by the sales through the Crack the Sun crowdfunder. The summoner has not yet made it's cost back, however, and as such not licensed under the Creator License.

MCDM Token Artist

MCDM is currently looking for an artist to make bespoke token art for use in the Codex. They've put out a call for applicants on Work with Indie.

They need to fill some of the gaps in their token art. Not every hero and monster have dedicated art. They want someone who can align closely to their existing style, but the token art will not be as complex as the full art.

The contract is for "about a dozen" tokens, and they expect to pay between $100-$200 per token.

Link is in the link section.

Sabotage!

Arkive Gaming successfully funded Sabotage! back in December, and released the finished product at the beginning of April.

The main feature of Sabotage! is the saboteur class. A class that specializes in sabotaging the enemy. It is basically a non-magical class using grenades, bombs, and other equipment to do damage.

The whole supplement has a 1930's americana, comic book design, and while that "shouldn't work" in a fantasy setting. I think it does. While the class references modern concepts like flash bang, I think it still works with Draw Steel's high fantasy world where I could easily see it as a magical throwable bomb.

In addition to the class, there's new kits, careers, a retainer, complications, sabotage projects, treasure, titles, and statblocks for a rival saboteur.

You can pick up Sabotage! for $15 on Arkive Games' web shop.

The Blacksmith's Guild Issue #6

Tabletop Nonsenseverse released issue six of The Blacksmith's Guild at the beginning of the month. This marks a big occasion for the magazine, as this marks a full year of issues of The Blacksmith's Guild.

This new issue includes:

  • Strategist Sorcerer by Anna Lee: A magical subclass for the tactician, aimed to bring a taste of spell sword to the tactician.
  • I Know a Guy by Alex Cline: A new set of rules to let players create new NPCs on the fly, with some limitations. And it includes 31 sample NPCs!
  • Conduit Domain: Journey by Ben 'Zetesofox' Cornforth: A domain for conduits that represent travel, in all it's forms. And it has a 5-cost ability that let's you teleport you and adjacent creatures.
  • Organized Adversaries by MaxFalcon: A collection of thematic monster bands, organized into Raiding Party and Dark Cult, an each group comes with bespoke malice features and monsters from across monster bands.
  • Respite Adventures by DMClark: A collection of tiny adventures designed to take 15-30 minutes to play. Something to run for the player that's not interested in doing respite activities.

The Blacksmith's Guild is taking pitches from anyone who wants to contribute. See inside the issue for details.

You can pick up The Blacksmith's Guild for $11 on Tabletop Nonsenseverse's web shop.

Oh. They've also launched a crowdfunder for issue seven. This will both fund the issue, but also the new adventure path they're starting. Each issue from seven through twelve will have a new chapter in an adventure covering the whole of echelon two.

Guns Blazing!

Tamwin has launched a crowdfunder for a gunslinger class. And at the time of recording, it's already blown past it's goal of $2000.

The gunslinger balances their heroic resource nerve with their use of bullets. You track the number of bullets in your gun. The different gunslinger kits come with different guns with different ammo capacities. And there's an art to balancing the number of bullets you have in your gun with using your abilities.

The preview that's been put up looks amazing, and it looks like there's going to be a ton of art too.

You can back the gunslinger on BackerKit. Pledges start at $20.

The Magewright

The Meddling Radenwight has released The Magewright a gadgeteering class.

The magewright uses gadgets and gizmos combined with magic. On the battlefield they're a solid support class with healing capabilities. It comes with four subclasses:

  • Automancer, specializing in servitor constructs.
  • Catalyst, specializing in consumable creations.
  • Glider, specializing in buffing their allies.
  • Magitecht, specializing in building gadgets.

In addition to the class, product also includes new retainers and rivals, complications, perks, titles, treasure, and downtime projects.

You can pick up The Magewright for $15 on The Meddling Radenwight's Patreon.

The College of Infinite Reflections

Jonas Tintenseher released The College of Infinite Reflections, a subclass for the shadow. This subclass let you manifest reflections of yourself from alternate timelines.

As an infinite reflections shadow you manifest a reflection of yourself while in combat. It has max stamina equal to your recovery value, and can be targeted by enemies. You can then use a maneuver to swap places with the reflection to avoid taking damage.

These reflections you manifest are yourself from different timelines, and in a sidebar Jonas encourages you to imagine who those alternate selves are. Are they a different ancestry or gender, maybe? What makes them different from yourself?

In addition to the subclass, you also get new treasure, titles, complications, downtime project, and a retainer.

You can pick up The College of Infinite Reflections for $8 on Itch.

The Tekar

Sabre Runner published The Tekar, a dog?-like ancestry. It's mentioned in the product description that this is only the beginning of this products, and that the price will increase in the future as more material is added. If you purchase the supplement, you get all future updates for free.

The tekar includes a full ancestry with nine purchasable traits, information about tekar culture, extra tekar-themed inciting incidents for the careers in the core rules, extra tekar-themed features for every class in the core rules and the summoner, and new complications and perks.

You can pick up the tekar for $7 on Itch, and get future updates for free.

Apotheosis

RJ Ford has released Apotheosis, and adventure for three to six first level heroes. It's set in world of Orm, and features a conflict between two regions in the land of Kvysia.

The adventure opens with a melee between the heroes' party and a rival party. Dependent on the outcome of that melee, the story splits into to different story arcs.

You can pick up Apotheosis for pay-what-you-want on Itch.

Belladina's Lightly Cursed Goods

Archifex has published Belladina's Lightly Cursed Goods. And I think the tag line describes this supplement excellently: "17 somewhat sketchy magic items. And 24 colorful merchants to sell them".

Belladina has a list items she's willing to sell, but only for a certain price. She's not interested in you wealth score, she says. She'll only take payment in treasure or titles. Or, as a special offer, a bit of max stamina.

There are also tables to help you generate a different merchant from Belladina. A table of descriptions, a table for special offers they can offer, and locations of their store.

You can pick up Belladina's Lightly Cursed Goods for pay-what-you-want on Itch.

Xeric Badlands

Royal Highness Games launched their crowdfunder for Xeric Badlands, containing new monsters and ancestries.

There are two new ancestries: Ko'Shun Centaur and the Razak, a porcupine-like ancestry. You get four new monster bands: Ko'Shun Centaurs; razaks; thudhorns, massive horned beasts; thornfeet, an ostrich-like creature; and a level five and a level six solo. That's a total of 22 new monsters.

You can back Xeric Badlands on BackerKit, with pledges starting at $15.

Until the Last Villain Dies

Triglav Games announced the crowdfunder for their next big product: Until the Last Villain Dies. They call it a second echelon modular adventure, where you hunt down the dragon knights that betrayed Good King Omund.

Also included in the campaign is Rocks Fall!, a collection of dynamic arenas; Upper Worlds, Beware!, a timescape starter pack with new ancestries, kits, monsters and a starter adventure; Murder of Corvenwights, a new crow ancestry, also featuring a new shadow subclass, complications, treasure, a quest and the corvenwight monster band; and Grave Matter, a skeleton focused player options supplement, and a first level quest.

It looks like they're taking the MCDM approach of funding multiple future products in one go.

You can sign up for updates now, and the campaign launches in the middle of May.

The Knight

Jacons has announced their crowdfunder for the Knight class. It's not meant encapsulate any kind of knight, but a very specific one that excels above the rest.

The knight features a lot of options to tailor your knight. From the Fighting Stance maneuver which lets you adjust the way you fight in combat, to the personal heraldry you decide on which grants different mechanical effects.

You get three subclasses to choose between:

  • Arcanist, excelling in combing sword and sorcery.
  • Bannerlord, excelling in leading the charge.
  • Knave, excelling in manipulation and subterfuge.

The crowdfunding campaign for The Knight will be live when this epsiode releases.

Treasures from the Cauldron

Cauldron of Tales has announced a crowdfunder for their Treasures from the Cauldron. This is a collection of 33 leveled treasures.

The collection includes four armor treasure, eight implements, seven weapons, three fractured treasure, in which the hero must find all pieces of the treasure to utilize it's full potential, eight other treasures that are apparently impossible to categorize, adn The Revenant King's Regalia, a set of three treasures that grants an extra bonus when worn together.

The crowdfunder launches on May 10.

Community Highlights

And now some rapid fire highlights from the community.

  • The deep and comprehensive guides to both the fury and the elementalist by Aestus_RPG.
  • A collection of victorian era items, and the plane-kin elemental ancestry by Andy Aiken.
  • Hideout - a FoundryVTT module to manage downtime projects, followers and more by Cora.
  • From the Ashes by Dima Serbin is now implemented in the Codex.
  • The many videos by DMHub showing how to run minions in the Codex, showing off the new ability editor, the workshop implementing the summoner and more.
  • Don’t Shout Mimic's guide to whether you should play the beastheart when picking your Draw Steel class.
  • Draw Steel Against Strahd is a Draw Steel version of Curse of Strahd, with the first part out for free by Emi
  • Frederica Teather's videos on how to design good towns, even if you dislike designing towns; how to write good hooks; a complete guide to running Draw Steel online; a video where she shows and explains her decisions as a director; and her experience after running over 100 session of Draw Steel.
  • Jeff Stevens Games is launching the Weapons of Legend crowdfunder, a collection of leveled weapons.
  • Jenny [REDACTED] has made some brilliant videos on how to get started implementing homebrew in the Codex, and how to set up a map with elevation and lighting in less than ten minutes.
  • Oh, The Humanity! is the first collection in a planned series of human monsters by lebiro.
  • The Reliquaries of Orvab the Handless by Paul Ligorski (Heart of Arcana) is a collection of treasures and the ritual instructions on how to summon Orvab, inspired by Paul's Cave of Amber Tears.
  • Peter LaCara has announced an upcoming crowdfunder for Withering War, an adventure inspired by Red Hand of Doom.
  • Power Word Spill did a short video showing off the Codex
  • Rise Heroes Rise! streamed a one-shot on the day of the Codex launch; they've done a video with the lead developer on the Codex to show off how to make a monster; they did a Draw Steel solo play, using the monster AI module to automate the monsters; and they launched their actual play series of Dark Heart of the Wood.
  • The first draft of booklet two, the weaver band by Shadowhand Gaming
  • Tabletop Ghoul's exelent and in-depth videos on how to run good encounters using the arixx and the werewolf
  • The full snakefolk monster band is done and available to their paying patrons by Triglav Games
  • Warriors for Draw Steel a collection of figthers by Valued Dragon Design
  • YourGMJay guide to get started with the Codex.
  • And last, but not least, Zee Bashew's animated Draw Steel video, featuring the Colville himself, where Zee animates and narrates an encounter in the Codex

Blast From the Past

And now for a new segment I'm starting: Blast from the Past. I recently went diving in some of my old notes and found some neat fun facts about the development of Draw Steel. So let me take you back to April 2024.

One of the subjects I covered in April 2024 was the introduction of the 2d10 power roll. MCDM had determined after the first backer playtest in December 2023 and January 2024 that the previous damage mechanic wasn't working. They came up with the power roll: 2d6 + characteristic with a three tiered outcome.

It then become clear that 2d6 did not allow enough room for bonuses, and James suggested that they move to 2d8. Matt said they should just go to 2d10 immediately, because they'd end up there anyway. By April they'd been testing the new 2d10 power roll, and it was working.

They were wondering how to do crits, though. Rolling two tens, a probability of 1 percent, is too low. James said they were considering natural 19 and 20. People seemed to remember that those two results yielded a crit, better than they remembered that a natural eleven or twelve was a crit on 2d6, which was a crit at a point in development.

So. One of the big news in April 2024 was that the MCDM RPG (because we didn't have a name yet) was now a 2d10 system.

Outro

Lots of stuff happening. Crows is in full development, the Codex is finally available to all, there's so much being published by third parties for Draw Steel, and there are even more crowdfunders coming up.

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. That's an interview with Jenny [REDACTED]. She recently published Space Battles, and will soon drop her Across the Solar Expanse with more space themed goodies.

See you next time. Snakkes.

Links

From MCDM

Sabotage!

The Blacksmith's Guild Issue #6

Guns Blazing!

The Magewright

The College of Infinite Reflections

The Tekar

Apotheosis

Belladina's Lightly Cursed Goods

Xeric Badlands

Until the Last Villain Dies

The Knight

Treasures from the Cauldron

Community Highlights

Draw Steel Homebrew

Draw Steel Media

Draw Steel Tools