Episode 2026.28 Published on 5 October 2026

News: Draw Steel Book 3 is Out, Big Codex Updates, Hooked on Crafting Releases | September Roundup

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Intro

Codex prep just became much easier, Draw Steel Book 3 is out, Crows funded, Hooked on Crafting has hooks for crafting, more dragons are coming to Draw Steel, and Rats Attack!

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

Crows

Crows funded! Over eight thousand people thought it an interesting idea and chipped in. That means that Crows is happening. The planned release for the game is next year. So we might be playing the final version in a year, already.

Well, actually. According to James, he hopes to have the rules more or less done quite soon. The second playtest period has just closed and James is now busy reading through all the feedback that was submitted. Once he's done that and revised to rules, there'll be a new playtest. He's hoping to have a new playtest ready this month!

We'll see. Seems awfully quick. He also mentioned that the playtest period will be a lot shorter next time. Probably a couple of weeks. James also said that the next playtest version will probably have all the rules in place. There'll probably be some tweaks and fixes to apply, still. And there's going to be a few more dungeons and points of interest, but the gameplay rules will be more or less done.

One last thing that needs to be mentioned is that the crowdfunder also hit it's stretch goal! That means MCDM will spend real money on having a proper implementation of Crows in the Codex. The Crowdex! Currently there's only a community system for Crows available. It implements some of the rules already, but needs polish to be properly usable.

To refresh people. Crows is a dungeon crawling RPG by MCDM set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting. You play as humans, called crows, who scour old ruins for treasure while avoiding death as best you can.

Encounters

The fun thing about the Crack the Sun crowdfunder is that it keeps giving: September marked the drop of the third core rule book for Draw Steel, called Encounters. A 300 page book is all about tools to make the game easier to run for directors.

The book is divided into five main sections, and it starts off with Delves. A delve is a short adventure location that grants a few victories an typically takes a few hours to play through. The director can run them with little to no prep, and they're perfect to drop in front of the heroes if the director needs to distract them for a little while.

The book features 20 delves, two for each level of play. Each of the delves come with maps, monsters, NPCs and everything else needed to run them.

Next are Montages. 23 to be exact. A wide variety of different montages with challenges and outcomes of the tests listed. Also easy to drop into the middle of a session when the director need to spice up some narration. There's everything from consecrating an area, escaping a prison or summoning a devil.

The Negotiations chapter has 20 NPCs, each with individual character portraits and social stat blocks listing their motivations and pitfalls. There's also topics which make them instantly more interested in hearing the heroes' arguments, suggestions on how to uncover the NPCs motivations and pitfalls, and suggested outcomes of the negotiation. The NPCs can be as generic as bartender or guard captain, easy to reflavor for many situations, or more specific like the canary. Who's a canary. Like. A bird.

Heroic Tests is the name of the fourth chapter. A chapter filled with example tests. At least three, sometimes four, example tests with suggested outcomes for all three tiers for every skill in the core game. We're talking 170 example tests. For each skill there's one example of an easy, a medium and a hard test, while some of the skills get an extra example. So if you need an example of a test to use Magic, they have four to get you started.

And last are the Dastards. Named monsters to bring out when you want to spice things up a bit. A bunch of new monsters from existing monster bands, but with names and unique abilities. Like Eat Eat Eat, the gnoll, who has the ability Gobbler, which makes them swallow the creature they're currently grappling.

If you didn't get Encounters in the crowdfunder, you can get it for $34.99 in MCDM's shop.

Director's Screen and Dice

As a quick addendum to this. MCDM has also started shipping phsyical rewards to some backers of Crack the Sun. Whether you're one of the lucky depends on what you backed in the crowdfunder. If your pledge did not include the Encounters book, you might've received a shipping confirmation already.

But if you didn't back the crowdfunder, you're now able to pick up an official Director's Screen in the MCDM shop. You're also able to order sets of Power Roll dice, a set of two 20-sided d10s and one d3.

The director screen is $20 a piece, and the dice is $20 for a set. Both is available in the MCDM Shop.

Dragon Crowdfunder

MCDM is gearing up for another crowdfunder in December. This is not going to be a big one like Crack the Sun, but something smaller, but I think just as interesting from the sounds of it.

They're planning to run a crowdfunder for a book on dragons. While the dragons found in Monsters are manifestations, the dragons in this new book are going to be gemstone dragons. The gemstone dragons are much more like the dragons people know from D&D.

In addition to the gemstone dragons the book will also likely feature draconians, not the dragon knights which are specific to King Omund's Dragon Phalanx, and lore about dragons in Orden.

Details are still sparse, but it sounds like this will be PDF only. Colville mentioned the possibility of a softcover book, but nothing for certain.

Power Roll Magazine

That kinda leads me into the next top which is Power Roll Magazine. The previous idea was to fund articles about Draw Steel through a crowdfunder, but that's now scrapped in favor of the dragon book.

Instead the articles are now going to be released as part of Power Roll Magazine, a new Patreon exclusive quarterly magazine. Each issue will feature three articles with some player options, director features and a bit of lore.

Colville said this would be a place to release more subclasses, such as the "missing" ones from elementalist. They also want to experiment with a new take on treasures. Both of which are easier to do in something smaller and less demanding format such as a magazine.

We'll probably see the first release of Power Roll magazine in the first half of next year.

Hooked on Crafting

The Dice Society dropped Hooked on Crafting this month. If you need something to inspire you when your players suddenly ask you where they can find the required components to craft something — Hooked on Crafting is for you.

The book has adventure hooks for all the treasure featured in Heroes. Negotiations, combats, montage tests and where to find them. Small bits of lore to get you going. It's the seed you need to create a little outing for the heroes in your game.

You can pick up Hooked on Crafting for $15 on Itch.

Rocks Fall!

Triglav Games has already started dropping products from their Until the Last Villain Dies crowdfunder a few months ago. They released Rocks Fall!

Rocks Fall! is a supplement featuring 32 arenas that change and develop during combat. They are in a way dynamic terrains, but for the whole battle map. To put it in Triglav's words: dynamic terrain objects, as found in the core rules are props, while dynamic arenas are the whole theater.

You can pick up Rocks Fall! for €17 on Triglav Games' shop.

Bone Fairies

Shadowhand Gaming released their Monsters of the Month. This time it's the Bone Fairies. So called for their calcium based diet consisting of bones, nails and teeth.

The supplement contains seven new second echelon monsters, including a solo, two new dynamic terrain objects and an encounter.

You can pick up the Bone Fairies as a paying member of Shadowhand Gaming's Patreon.

Codex

Big updates to the Codex in September. First they show off the Body Banks. This is a way to build monsters using a web interface that look like the official thing. But it also supports automatically adding those monsters to the Codex. And if the text in the statblock is recognized by the Codex, it'll automatically automate that part of the statblock: stuff like damage, potencies, conditions and a bunch more.

Then they introduced the new map library. They've partnered with Tehox maps, making their maps available directly inside the Codex. They provide some free maps, but if you're a patron of Tehox you can connect the Codex to your Patreon account and have all the maps from Tehox available.

While the maps are currently just flat images, the community can share enhancements they make to the maps. After adding elevation, walls, and terrain to the maps, people can share those enhancements with the rest of the community. When downloading a map, you can select one of the contributed enhancements to have them automatically applied to the map.

The Codex also handles elevation better now. With the improved jump implementation it's easier to understand how far and where you can jump. It also takes elevation and ledges into account when calculating line of sight, making it possible to stay out of sight on top higher ground.

They've also started implementing adventures in the Codex. They've made Dark Heart of the Wood and Red Road available to purchase for $9.99 directly inside the Codex. And unlike the other PDFs made available in the Codex, you can also download the adventures from the Codex to you machine.

The adventures also come implemented in the Codex, with map notes, encounters ready to go and, in some cases, extra tools for running combat.

Eight Iconic Items

Psiocratic Press has released a neat little supplement nominatively called Eight Iconic items.

Within you'll find, not surprisingly, eight treasure items: two leveled treasures and six trinkets across three echelons of play. These are staples of fantasy role playing games, like Broom of Flying and Vorpal Sword.

You can pick up Eight Iconic Items for $5 on Itch.

Rats Attack!

Brainy Rat Games has released Rats Attack! They crowdfunded the rodent themed supplement back in May and it's now out, in all it's ratty glory.

They call it a monster and adventure pack. It includes 15 unique rat monsters, with tokens for all of them, and 2 delves, short adventures worth a few victories for the heroes. Rats Attack! also includes a few treasures and titles.

If you didn't get in on the crowdfunder, you can pick up Rats Attack! for $15 on Itch.

The Knight

Jacons has released the Knight, a chivalric class insipred by romance and samurai films of the 1950's.

The knight includes three subclasses:

  • Arcanist, using elemental offensive magic,
  • Bannerlord, flying a battle banner and leading the charge,
  • and Knave, who uses deceoption and manipulation on the battle field.

You can pick up the Knight on Itch for $15.

Community Highlights

And now some rapid fire updates from the community:

  • Paul Ligorski announced the Codex implementation of The Cave of Amber Tears.
  • Jeff Stevens Games announced the crowdfunder Threats of the Timescape, a timescape themed supplement.
  • Jenny [REDACTED] has been publishing videos showing how to implement monsters and more in the Codex.
  • Minhajul Hoq published a video update showing progress on the Draw Steel video game they're workin on.
  • Rise Heroes Rise! have been streaming and publishing videos from their Crows actual play.
  • Tabletop Nonsenseverse published the first version of their rules for Astrovoyage, a powered by Draw Steel space TTRPG.
  • Triglav Games has announced the crowdfunder Sagas of Steel, the Collective Class & more.

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.

As we zoom back to September 2024, we're in the final nine months of Draw Steel releasing, and Colville announces a big change: they're dropping caster kits. Up until then, casters had access to kits, much the martials, but while the martial kits capture the fantasies of fighting styles, the caster kits didn't. And instead of forcing the issue, they decided to roll the kit bonuses into class features instead.

T'was also the month of the War Dogs. In a huge post on Patreon, the designers introduced the War Dogs, the new original monster band for Draw Steel. They explain some of the lore behind them, what inspired their design and what role they fill in the game: being the enemy the players know it's always morally good to kill.

Outro

Big month, September. Between Crows funding, Encounters releasing, and the big updates to Codex. Maybe especially for The Dice Society: he wrote two of the delves in Encounters and he finally finished Hooked on Crafting, the latter which lists among it's contributors, your's truly.

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's as prolific as always, now even working on her own TTRPG, because of course she is.

See you next time. Snakkes.

Links

From MCDM

Hooked on Crafting

Rocks Fall!

Bone Fairies

Codex

Eight Iconic Items

Rats Attack!

The Knight

Community Highlights

Draw Steel Homebrew

Draw Steel Media

Draw Steel Tools