Episode 2026.22 Published on 5 August 2026

News: Draw Steel is 1 Year, Crowdfunder for Djordice, new Jams of the Timescape | July Roundup

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Intro

Happy Birthday Draw Steel! It's been a whole year already. Also, I'm crowdfunding Djordice, there's a new Jams of the Timescape, Crows is soon going to crowdfunding and two big adventures released.

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

Lunar Umbra

This is exciting for me. I'm going to launch a crowdfunder in August. And I know you'll like this one, becaue it features physical products.

While 2d10 is nice dice math, it's an inferior rolling experience to d20s. That's why you need Djordice: 20-sided d10s! D20s but numbered one through 10 twice.

The dice set I'm crowdfunding is for people playing games using the power roll. It features two Djordice, and two d6s. The d6s are numbered one through six as usual, but also markings for d3 results. Making them combined d3s and d6s! You also get a cotton dice bag to keep the dice in.

I'm calling the set Lunar Umbra. It's my name for the design. These are custom ordered and won't be available after the crowdfunder has completed. Assuming it funds in the first place.

Use the link in the episode description to visit the pre-launch page, where you can sign up to get notified when the campaign goes live. And, as an extra treat if you're a paying patron, you're eligible for one set of the dice at a discounted price.

Check out the Lunar Umbra campaign on BackerKit.

Jams of the Timescape

The Dice Society and I – we're so back! We've got another Jams of the Timescape going! And for volume three the theme is one year of Draw Steel.

Unless you've been living under a rock, it's already been one year since Draw Steel released and we're celebrating by running a jam on it's birthday.

For the next two weeks anyone, including you dear listener, is able to join and submit your idea for a Draw Steel supplement. It doesn't have to be perfect, and it doesn't have to be polished, it just have to be created with joy.

In this jam we're not setting any restriction on what kind of supplement it should be. It could be a kit, an ancestry, a combat scenario or a group of NPCs. Just make it fit the theme in some way, and you're golden.

Join the jam on Itch to be able to submit, and swing by the Discord server to have fun creating with other creative people in the community. We encourage collaboration, and people in the Discord are very open to help and provide feedback.

Join us, have fun, and celebrate a year of drawing steel!

Crows

Crows has been getting some major changes since the last playtest. In addition to the changes in the to the travel rules I covered in last month's news episode, there have also been major changes to how characters work.

Characters now start with their characteristics at plus two, plus one and zero. Or they can choose an alternate set of plus two, plus two and minus one. This makes it easier to roll above tier one. A lot of the issues people had with the previous playtest basically boiled down to rolling too low too often. Having crows rolling higher will hopefully alleviate some of those issues.

Skills are also gone from the game now. They've been replaced by expertises. The expertises are all named the same as the skills were, but the function differently. Instead of providing a bonus to the roll, they now increase the outcome of a power roll by a tier. When a crow starts out, each expertise only has one use, but as they gain XP they can upgrade them to have multiple uses. A crow regains all their expertise uses after taking a rest, while not resting in the miasma.

The boned condition has also been removed. Instead, Crows now uses edges and banes, the same way Draw Steel does. Single edges and banes grant plus two and minus two to the roll, respectively. While double edges and banes increase or decrease the tier, respectively.

Crows' belts can now hold four items instead of two. This is mainly to make archer builds more fair, as the quiver consumes one of the slots. It's also less likelyhood of hitting allies while shooting into a melee. When rolling a tier 1 for a ranged attack, instead of automatically hitting an adjecent creature, there's a roll to determine whether anyone else is hit.

And speaking of bad outcomes. Instead of the ref keeping track of a chaos count, it's been replaced with a die roll. Whenever a spell is cast and a player rolls a tier one result, the ref rolls a die to determine whether a backlash happens.

James also talked about a new institution you can build in your town: the beacon. It clears adjacent hexes of the miasma, making it easier to travel near your town. The beacon's a tower with a flame on top. By paying the keeper, you can walk into the flame and be instantly transported to a hex cleared of miasma by the beacon.

Crows is dungeon crawler TTRPG with some overland travel, and the crowdfunder is planned for the latter half of August. Oh, and the biggest pledge, the complete edition with all the stuff in the crowdfunder, is called the Goat Edition.

The Condemned

The Condemned adventure released in July. This is the third adventure from the crowdfunder to release. The adventure is a bit different from your normal affair. Instead of being an adventure in your current campaign, The Condemned is meant to be played as a seperate, isolated adventure.

You play as people sentenced to death, but at the last moment you get the opportunity to save your life. By going on an extremely dangerous mission to the Crysopolis, Ajax' flying city. The danger of dying is high, and you're considered exposable.

You are encouraged to use one of the many pregens included in the adventure, and while they do include instruction to create your own condemned to match the others, I really like the ones included in the adventure. They're built with interesting options, and they have a bit of backstory making them interesting to play.

You can pick up The Condemned for $24.99 on the MCDM Shop.

Codex

The Codex team launched the in-game shop in July. Currently, there are five dice cosmetics up for sale: sunmetal dice, sea between stars dice, soulkiller dice, terran steel dice, and blood metal dice.

In addition to each having their own visual style, they also come with visual effects and their own sound when rolling the dice. They do actually look quite nice.

These cosmetics are intended to be a way to supplement development costs. Instead of locking game content behind paywall, as it were, the hope is that sales of the Codex, combined with sales of cosmetics is enough to support most of the development of the codex.

Along the dice shop, the Codex developers also announced you're now able to mark modules as premium. That means that they're not available to everyone, and module authors can lock the module behind a key they then distribute to buyers of the module.

Finally; it looks like they're working on a web interface for the Codex. The site doesn't have many features at the moment, and looks to be mostly a shell, but the menu options already added hints at a complete web solution that integrates with the Codex directly.

Reinforcements: Humans

Spencer Hibnik, aka pesto_enthusiast, has released the second volume in their Reinforcements series. These volumes aims to bring first echelon monster bands to higher echelons of play. And this time, it's the humans getting a level... I guess, an echelon up.

Reinforcement: Humans brings 14 new human statblocks for second echelon. All themed around watch positions. In addition to the statblocks, there are also new malice features that go along with the echeloned up humans.

And as, maybe a first?, it also comes with instruction on how to add the monster band to your Stawl account.

You can pick up Reinforcements: Humans on Itch.io for $5.

Twofold Class

speep released the twofold class. This is a class where to players at the table decide not only to play the same class, but their abilities constantly ping off each other, making them work more closely together.

I recently released an interview with speep where he talks about the class and how it functions at the table. And he's very open about the fact that it might not be for everyone. It does require the two players to actively strategize togehter and almost constantly work together to be effective in combat. But if you are one of those players - this class will be awesome.

You can pick up the twofold class for $20 on Itch.

Cave of Amber Tears

Paul Ligorski, also known as Heart of Arcana, just released Cave of Amber Tears. Paul crowdfunded the adventure last fall and it's finally released for anyone to pick up.

Cave of Amber Tears takes place in a norse-inspired setting and features elves, undead and larger beasties. It's designed for first-level heroes and grants ten to 13 victories. There are more than 20 new monsters, new complications and new treasure.

The adventure also features beautfily unique layout and really wonderful artwork that's both distinct and feels very fitting to a norse setting.

If you're quick, you can pick up Cave of Amber Tears for a 40% discount at $9.59 on Itch.

Keep on the Road to War

Aah! Books has released Keep on the Road to War, and adventure by Leo Hojnowski. The adventure is inspired by The Red Hand of Doom and tasks the heroes with protecting the town of Omund's Ferry.

The adventure is designed for third level heroes and award enough victories for them to level up. The adventure is set in Orden and brings details to Western Vasloria.

You can pick up Keep on the Road to War for $16 on Itch.

The Violet Heart

Chris Rendon has published The Violet Heart, a quest for first-level heroes, granting 9 victories in total.

The adventure have the heroes come in the town of Tern's defense as a group of psionic kobolds try to raze it. In the aftermath, it's noticed that someone has disappeared during the attack, and the heroes now need to figure out what's going on.

You can pick up The Violet Heart for $12 on Itch.

Nightmare Scenario

Font of Victory released Nightmare Scenario, a dream-themed supplement for Draw Steel. Nightmare Scenario was successfully funded back in January.

The supplement includes 10 new monsters, a new ancestry, a new domain, treasure, titles, dynamic terrain and dynamic arenas. In addition to the PDF, it also comes with tokens to use in a VTT, and a Forge Steel sourcebook.

You can pick up Nightmare Scenario for $15 on Itch.

Speak Carefully

Fernando Miguel "Ritehunter" Lofranco has released Speak Carefully, a toolkit for making negotiations and social encounters more interesting.

It includes curveballs that create unexpected twists, diplomatic styles to create varied negotiations, negotiation tactics for NPCs, pregen negotiators and new treasures, titles, perks and downtime projects.

You can pick up Speak Carefully for $15 on RPG Trader.

Community Highlights

And now some rapid fire updates from the community:

  • Adam (AdamantAce) released a preview of their upcoming Magus class.
  • DMHub released a new wall feature in the Codex, making it easier to create thick wall with abilities and for creatures to climb on.
  • Frederica Teather have been releasing a lot of good "becoming a better director" videos this month.
  • Joshua A. Brooks launched their campaign for the bravo class.
  • Kerpow published a video about Drawn Armory a tool they've made for Draw Steel encoutners
  • Kormael has announced the launch of their crowdfunder for Whispers of Darkness & Power, a supplement to bring corruption to your campaign.
  • The 1.1 release of the Draw Steel Foundry system is out
  • Minhajul Hoq published a video showing off a prototype for their video game using Draw Steel rules
  • NamelessYoungy has released updated ability cards, which are a nice way to organize your abilities if you play in person.
  • Power Word Spill published a video showing off features from the Codex that he likes, as a sponsored video for MCDM
  • Rise Heroes Rise! is releasing their playthrough of the Condemned.
  • RogueSigyn released a map pack with accompanying encounters designed by Richard Fisher.
  • Sciguymjm announced that they're bringing their video game Ironwrought to Steam Early Access, another game using Draw Steel rules for combat.
  • Seamus released Rings Initiative, a add-on for Owlbear Rodeo to make it easier to run combats with combatant groups.
  • Shadowhand Gaming released their Scorched supplement of fire loving hell worshippers.
  • Tabletop Nonsenseverse announced pre-orders for their upcoming Director's Guide to Nomas and Riam's Tears setting guide.

Blast From the Past

And now, a blast from the past as I dive back into old notes and scripts to see what was covered on Goblin Points in years past.

Way back in 2024, July brought a highly anticipated update and announcement: the name of the game! The MCDM RPG officially got the name Draw Steel. Another big update was that movement became it's own thing you could do on your turn. Up until then you had to spend your maneuver to move, like you do in Crows now.

Also , because the rules were in flux, the Codex team worked on supporting featuers. July 2024 is the first time they showed of the elevation tools, featuring 2.5D effects.

Outro

So happy birthday to Draw Steel. And join Jams of the Timescape: Volume 3 - One Year of Draw Steel. The Dice Society even made a cake!

I'm also really looking forward to the new Crows playtest and the crowdfunder. It's going to be fun!

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.

You can see me and some friends on the 11th on Goblin Panel, the monthly stream where we talk about Draw Steel and Crows, and have a look at what's been published for the games in the past month. Next episode of Goblin Points is on the 15th. That's going to be the interview with Paul Hughes, the person in charge of Draw Steel at MCDM.

Don't forget to use the link in the episode descritpion to sign up for the Lunar Umbra crowdfunder launch.

See you next time. Snakkes.

Links

From MCDM

Lunar Umbra

Jams of the Timescape

Reinforcements: Humans

The Twofold Class

The Cave of Amber Tears

Keep on the Road to War

The Violet Heart

Nightmare Scenario

Speak Carefully

Community Highlights

Draw Steel Homebrew

Draw Steel Media