Episode 2026.29 Published on 15 October 2026

Jenny [REDACTED]: Arcanist, the Draw Steel Wizard | Interview

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Intro

Jenny [REDACTED] is back! And we're talking wizards in Draw Steel! Specifically the Arcanist. The most wizard that ever wizarded — and they're doing it in Draw Steel. And then we talk classic fantasy monsters, also coming soon!

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

Interview

Jon de Nor: Welcome, Jenny [REDACTED], to Goblin Points!

Jenny: Hi! Thanks for having me back.

Jon de Nor: Of course! It's a well known fact that I'm, fanboy of your designs. (laughter) But first...

Jenny: That's very kind.

Jon de Nor: Give us a introduction of who you are and how you ended up in the Draw Steel community.

Jenny: Hello, I'm Jenny [REDACTED]. You probably know who I am, but if you don't, you might know me from my projects, my timescape supplements Space Battles, and Across the Solar Expanse, all sorts of fun sci-fi/fantasy content there. I took 5th place in Jams of the Timescape #2 with my qua'ri ancestry, and I have been a pretty prevalent member of the Draw Steel community, I like to think, for the better part of the last year. I originally found Draw Steel because I was a big fan of Matt Colville's stuff and all of his 5e things. And I picked up Draw Steel just from being a patron. I didn't actually back the initial crowdfunder, because I wasn't really looking for a replacement for 5e until Draw Steel had come out. And then I was very much looking for a replacement for 5e, and it fell right into my lap. I fell in love with it. And I've been making content, like I said, for the past year. But, yeah, I'm here today to talk about some more stuff that I've made! (laughter)

Jon de Nor: Yeah! Let's just jump straight into the Arcanist. Is that how you pronounce it? (laughter)

Jenny: Yes. The Arcanist. You can say "Arcane-ist", but, you know, because arcane is the word. But "Arc-anist", I think, is...it sounds a bit better.

Jon de Nor: Fair! So the Arcanist — Arcanist? Yes, Jesus — is basically a wizard for Draw Steel?

Jenny: 100%. That is the fantasy I am going for. I think I can speak for a lot of people when they say that was something that took a little getting used to when the Draw Steel lineup was introduced, is that the Elementalist is really not a wizard-y kind of type. They're obviously a mage, like, I don't think I can argue that. But they're not the usual wizard fantasy that we've been used to in, obviously, things like Dungeons & Dragons, but also things like Pathfinder, and other similar games, like for fantasy roleplaying games. I think the Elementalist is a really big departure from that concept. It is its own thing.

Especially with the druidic kind of vibe to the Green Elementalist. I always feel like the Elementalist is more like a druid, having access to the four elements. I think of Keyleth of the Ashari from Critical Role, who in that campaign was a druid, but she had like the elemental forms that the druid gets in 5e, where you can become like a fire elemental, water elemental, like...Elementalist in my head is just so druid-coded that it just does not register as being like a wizard character. So that is one of my favorite fantasy concepts for like, I don't know, ever. So I really wanted to translate it into Draw Steel.

Jon de Nor: So you I'm, I'm just going to jump immediately onto page three of the preview, where there's an info box that says, this is a Draw Steel master class, which has been claimed by the Summoner and the Beastheart before. But what makes the Ar-cah-nist — Arcanist? Goddamn it! — the Arcanist a master class?

Jenny: I really put the master class tag on here, not because I think the Arcanist is doing anything mechanically unique and complicated, but what it is presenting is more complicated than what Draw Steel puts on you. I think if you've played Pathfinder at all, or if you've played a 5e wizard to a decent high level, the Arcanist will not feel like a master class to you. But, it is purely because, unlike other classes, the Arcanist gets access to more abilities than normal. But they have to manage which of the abilities they can use at a time by swapping out their prepared spells, as it were, in the middle of combat.

Jon de Nor: Lovely.

Jenny: So you kind of have to keep track of nearly twice as many abilities that other players do. And while obviously you can't use them all the time, so, you know, you can kind of tune out if that ability is just not important right now, you don't have to worry about it. But you always have to be thinking, should I swap right now? Is this other ability going to be more useful in this situation? It's a master class on paperwork alone. (laughter)

Jon de Nor: (laughter)

Jenny: And like bookkeeping. Because in order to truly play...like, if you play an Arcanist and you take your options and never swap anything in your entire gameplay, you will perform like under what the rest of your teammates are doing. The Arcanist is intentionally designed to have some power budget allocated to the fact that they can and should be swapping abilities to make sure they have something that is very appropriate for the situation.

Jenny: How many times have you walked into a solo boss fight and been like, well, my 5-cost Conflagration is useless because this is a solo fight? You know? My AoE ability is not very useful in the game where solos are a unique monster type, and very fun to fight, the AoE abilities just become immediately less useful. You can be like, well, guess what, I will use my resources, I will swap that ability out, and swap it for a strike. And now my 5-cost is much more useful. And you could say that is about as powerful as slapping a Judgement or a Mark on that same solo creature and giving it a permanent debuff for the rest of the fight. And getting all these free triggers and everything like that. So in the same way that other classes are strong by what they apply to the battlefield, the Arcanist is strong in what they can bring to the battlefield.

Jon de Nor: I was looking through the preview, and I got to the first section where it mentioned, so, here's the different schools of a wizard you can be, and depending on which schools you pick — because you pick two of the ten, is it?

Jenny: Yeah. There's ten.

Jon de Nor: Yeah. You pick two of them, and that kind of determines some of the features you get. And I thought, "Ah, that's a nice way...that's like how the Conduit makes subclasses." But then I get through the Arcane Path and, "Oh, no, actually, this is the subclass!" So I feel like you're doing both! (laughter)

Jenny: Yes, I'm doing a little bit of both. And there is a particular reason for this. If you'll notice, the Arcanist does not get the usual like enchantments or wards that a caster gets.

Jon de Nor: Yes, I noticed, yeah.

Jenny: Very similar to the way the Summoner works in that they don't get them either, because they're the Summoner and they do whatever they want. But instead, the Arcanist really — and I wanted to keep it this way because I think this is exactly how the 5e wizard feels, and literally is if you look at it — they barely get any core class features. All they get is just more spells. And that's like the driving force of what utility — like you think of a sorcerer, and you get all these like subclass features and then you get like new unique ways to use sorcery points or whatever. But a wizard, they have like their subclass features and then like nothing else. They get like Arcane Recovery or whatever, and a couple other things. But like their actual class is very thin.

And the Arcanist is the same way, where the class features that don't come from your Arcane Path or from your spell schools are very limited and few and far between. And where other classes just get Tactician features at certain levels, the Arcanist just gets a subclass feature instead. So like power-wise, they're not any stronger for having essentially three subclasses. But rather the build variety in a Arcanist is way higher, because where you would normally get basic class features, you get one of a myriad of options depending on the path you chose.

That prospect is really one of my core philosophies when designing the Arcanist is the idea of like, you can be like, you can be any kind of wizard. Just in that, with the two subclasses kind of creating where, like, you know, HR gain triggers and some of your features that you pick one up and get the other one later, just like the Conduit — the Conduit being the exact kind of thing I was trying to replicate with that, is they have so many different things that your Conduit and your God can represent, and I feel like the Arcanist went hand in hand with that idea and that phrasing.

Jon de Nor: As you mentioned, you both get the ability to swap out the spells — because you gain access to basically all of the spells or abilities for your school — but you've only access to a few of them at a time because of the prepared spell system, basically.

Jenny: Yes. So at level 1, the Arcanist gets the following options to choose from a list, basically. So you get to choose three signature abilities, of which, just like any other character, you can only use two at a time. But you can swap out which ones you have at the moment by using your main maneuver, I'll get to that in a second. You get one of two triggers, which are determined by your arcane — your magical schools, is what they're called. So Evocation, Abjuration, the classics, right? But with some also fun ones, like Chronomancy and Graviturgy. Those are very much inspired by Critical Role and their homebrew content for 5e.

You get access to...I think it's three grimoires. I wanna say three, and then you can only use two at a time. Grimoires are a pretty unique thing about the Arcanist, I really like them a lot. This preview doc I showed you doesn't have the most updated versions of them; mainly all the maneuvers have been changed, but the philosophy is still the same, where it is one out-of-combat ribbon ability feature that kind of plays on a classic wizard spell, and then a really simple maneuver — this is the chang that's most recently happened, this should be the version that everyone else is seeing — is that the first effect of the maneuver is essentially the exact same kind of power as the Elementalist's Practical Magic, one of the options.

It's like how the Elementalist has basically like three options on their one maneuver, the Arcanist has one of those options on a bunch of different maneuvers, and can kind of mix and match to create their own Practical Magic, like cool maneuvers they can use. Each of them will then have a spend to make them a bit more like impactful. But that baseline kind of idea is that they're about as strong as the Elementalist's Practical Magic.

The spell-like maneuver is like, I'll just read one off that I think is like a super big classic, which is Speak with Dead from the Grimoire of Death, right? The Necromancy grimoire. It is basically, it's just the, 1st-level Death domain feature where you can talk to someone that's dead. That feels like it's something that obviously a necromancer kind of character would do, someone who is attuned with dead people. But you also have some fun stuff, like Guidance from the Grimoire of Empowerment from the Enchantment school.

Enchantment, by the way, is something that I have actually pretty changed, flavor-wise, a lot. In 5e and other systems, Enchantment is usually seen as like the "mind control" magic, the like charm person, dominate person. And I think that's always been, like, kind of an icky spell school. It never feels good to be an Enchantment wizard. That feels like a really fucked-up thing to be. And so, in my mind, those types of effects that make you attack an ally, or see something else, or behave differently is filed under illusion. As I feel like, being like trickery rather than mind control is a lot more...it's easier to swallow.

And enchantment instead is taking on like the literal, one of the other root iterations of the word, which is enchanting as in, like, enchanting a weapon or a sword, but you are enchanting your allies and buffing them, so it's like a buff magical school. So the Enchantment school gets Guidance, which I know is not a wizard spell, but who cares? (laughter) It's fun. Guidance says you have a double edge on tests made to assist another hero's test. And when you're assisting a hero's test during a montage test, you can assist two heroes at once. So similar to, I think, like, Teamwork, where you can do your own check and then assist someone. But rather, if you dedicate your turn to assisting someone, you can assist two people.

And then with the double edge on the assist a test means that you'll never fuck it up, and you can't apply a bane. So you're more likely to help someone out. So, you know, you're casting a little Guidance. Let me help you out. Let me put some magic on there. And so all of the grimoires have a feature like that along with the maneuver. And you get access to three of them, two from your magical schools, and then you get to pick one of any. But you can only have two active at a time. Then you also get to pick two 3-costs and two 5-costs. Just like everyone else, you only get one 3-cost at a time, or one 5-cost at a time.

The main gimmick, and this is like the first thing I designed for the Arcanist. I knew this was going to be the gimmick and the premise, is the maneuver called Flash Recall. It allows you to swap a feature you have with one of the same type or base cost. So with it, you could swap a signature with a different signature, a grimoire with another grimoire, a 3-cost with another 3-cost, a 5-cost with another 5-cost, your trigger with your other trigger. It also lets you swap your supernatural perks. You can swap out one of yours with another one else, because those are also very spell-like features.

I think that kind of vibe — that might get some iteration and more limiters, I'm not entirely sure. That one hasn't been playtested too much, because it's such an adventure-focused thing, and a lot of the playtests we run are very combat-focused and like making sure things are balance wise. So when we get later-stage in Arcanist, that one's probably going to shift or change a little bit. As well as, I imagine this product will also contain many more supernatural perks for anyone to pick up.

But the idea is, like, you can swap a thing and then you can't swap that kind of thing until you gain at least 1 Victory. So if you swap a 3-cost, any 3-cost, with a 3-cost, you cannot swap your 3-cost again until you gain a Victory. So even as you level up and get like access to two different 5-costs at once, if you swap any 5-cost, you still can't swap another 5-cost. So, you know, there is a limit to this. This is also a maneuver to do this, but you can pay 1 of your focus, which is the Arcanist's Heroic Resource, to make it a free maneuver. So you can, if, like, the ability you're trying to swap to is a maneuver and you really need it right now, you can spend a little bit of focus, free maneuver, then use the maneuver as you want.

I've found so far in playtesting that this is very solid, because if you have an ability that is not useful when you walk into a fight, you can get rid of it, and you change to something that is useful. And what I find is that, realistically, there is no difference in you changing to a useful ability than is, if you just had that useful ability the whole time. With Draw Steel's like math and the way it's structured, it doesn't really matter if like...I guess, Draw Steel's math doesn't account for the fact that you could walk into a fight where one of your abilities just doesn't do anything. Like there are AoEs and stuff like that, and they do damage or whatever, but that doesn't mean that the game is drastically different if you fight a solo with that area ability. You're going to be probably as effective as you were before, because you have other things to lean on.

But if you are a single-targeting person, if you're playing a Censor, or playing Tactician, right, and you are very useful in that situation or useful in most situations, there's really no difference between those two people, I feel like, most of the time. Other than like, maybe you're going to shine a little bit more. It really doesn't matter that much. It's not like a game-breaking effect or thing to be like, "Well, I have just the thing!" Because that is the point of the class, is to say, I have just the thing. Whereas other classes can just be like, I have this thing and it just works and it does the thing it has to.

Right, the Troubadour gets to choose which of their routines they activate at the start of each combat. But that doesn't mean that, you know, they're incredibly powerful because they can just use any of these. Like, you know, the Virtuoso's not incredibly broken because they have 12, 16, whatever, however many when you get at 10th level, routines you can activate at the same time and already know which ones you need, right?

Jon de Nor: Yeah. It feels very wizard-y to be able to basically pull out the right spellbook at any time and go like, "Hey, I got just the thing for this!"

Jenny: Like the flipping frantically through a spellbook looking for just the right spell is my peak wizard fantasy. That is what being a wizard means to me, is like...because like, there's so many words for a spellcaster like that. There's mage, you know, arcanist, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, and all these random terms that we've come up with over the years for different fantasy bullshit. It's like, what do these terms actually mean? And if you're coming from d20 fantasy, you know that, oh, a warlock is specifically someone that's made a pact, or a sorcerer is someone who, you know, has magic from their own self or whatever. But those are d20 fantasy kind of things. Like, those words were interchangeable in the 80s or 70s, you know. Like that's why in OD&D, it's called the "magic user". (laughter) Like, that's just what the class is called. You're just the guy that uses magic.

All those words were interchangeable and didn't really mean anything. Because, like, Harry Potter is a sorcerer. And, like, sorry to bring up Harry Potter, I'm not that big of a fan, but like, he's like in the zeitgeist of like, "You're a wizard, Harry." That's the whole thing, right, is that he's a wizard, canonically. He's said that many times. But in what we see, he doesn't have a spellbook, he's not like learning — like he's learning words and stuff, but the way that works in that world is that he can just do magic, and he's one of the few people in the world, because other people just can't do magic. But these all these kids, these British children, they can all do magic.

And we would classify that with our d20 brains as being a sorcerer. So like, obviously these words don't mean anything because they're just, we made up and decided. So to me, when I'm making a class like this in Draw Steel, when we think about things like the Fury or the Censor, we're not — and there's also the reason this class just isn't called the "Wizard" — is because I get to decide what that means to me. Like, MCDM decided that being a "paladin" is being a Censor and being someone who casts their Judgement and wrath on their enemies, and constricts them, which is a very like — it's very sick, but it's very different from the noble knightly paladin who shall, you know, be truth and justice, like Superman-esque. Like, Superman is not a Censor.

So when making this class, I got to decide, okay, well, it's my class. I get to decide what the word wizard — or what I landed on, Arcanist — means. And I landed on Arcanist because one, I didn't want to just be the wizard, because I think Draw Steels got that track record of not being the generic, you know, store-brand name. And I landed on Arcanist because there's a couple of characters in fiction that use that term, Arcanist Allura Vysoren, also from Critical Role, big inspiration. I think that word is just really cool, but it also devotes the same kind of, I think etymology — not ent, ent is ant, it's bugs — etymology of Arcanist is it's like the words scientist or geologist, like someone who studies a thing. So Arcanist would be someone who studies magic, and study implies books and learning, and so I think that title is very fitting for someone who is all about the spellbooks and like that kind of.

Jon de Nor: Speaking of the d20 legacy, let's call it, of nomenclature; you didn't want to call it a wizard, but you still went with magical schools and a lot of like, the traditional schools of magic, like Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Transmutation. Were you ever considering doing just using other words for this, just for the sake of not being kind of associated with what they mean in d20 fantasy?

Jenny: So yes and no. No for the magical schools, because I think — one, I think a lot of the words that like 5e and stuff uses, they didn't invent, and like that word for that type of magic has been around for a really long time. Like illusion. That's just a word, you know? But also things like necromancy, right? And I have a friend, and I'm really blanking on who they are, but I know that a close friend of mine has a very learned opinion on the word necromancy and the word "mancy" being attached to everything. Because "mancy" means to like divine and see things, like see the future, through a specific act. So necromancy would be seeing the future through bones and dead things, like reading the bones. And that's what necromancy means. It does not mean you have control over undead people and stuff.

So some fantasy right around, like the 70s or whatever, just slapped that word onto the end of something, and then everyone did it with everything else. So I personally don't think those specific things attribute too hard to 5e that I'm fine keeping them. Because like Chronomancy is not something that 5e came up, that's just the word time and the word mancy, which is just magic gobbledygook. So like, I'm much more lenient with those.

In my original pass of this class that I started working on like a year ago, I was fruitful in not giving a shit. All of the signatures and abilities were just straight up 5e spell names, like all of them were. I didn't even try to think of something else. But in a recent pass I did last month, I went through all of the abilities and changed their names away from like, "This is a fucking 5e spell." Even if it's like, in like the SRD, everyone can use it, it's not copyrighted, you know, it's not using Mordenkainen or any specific wizard names, but even spells something like...one that I changed...well, I didn't end up using scorching ray, I came up with a different name for it in general. That's one of the earlier ones I did. The scorching ray-type ability in the Arcanist is called Splinter Flame. Which is just a really cool name that I came up with.

Jon de Nor: Ooh, I like that.

Jenny: I went through and I just did that with a bunch of other stuff. like I had thunderwave in there, but I changed it to Sound Quake. But you know, it's the same sort of thing.

Jon de Nor: (laughter) Oh, I love that. That's really good.

Jenny: But I kept some of them, because one, I think that 5e doesn't have a license on this fucking word. And two, they're just too iconic. Fireball, I think being the very clear one, they did not invent the fireball spell. That has been a thing for a long time. And Lightning Bolt is another one. And then Counterspell. Counterspell is like deliberately taken from 5e. It does appear in Daggerheart. There's a Counterspell card in Daggerheart, too. But I think for the same reasons, it is just so iconic of a thing to say that it is hard to let that one go. Magic Missile's another one, that's their free strike. Just because it's so like, that is also a classic wizardy thing.

But yeah, I separated the ability names because I think they could afford to be more Draw Steel. It just becomes more evocative, it's something cool. I also think that having the names be kind of simple and descriptive, like Fireball, what does it do? It's a giant ball of fire. Lightning Bolt, what does it do? Shoot a lightning bolt. Very descriptive, makes sense. It actually, in a lore perspective, makes sense for something like the Arcanist, who has presumably a book on these things, and scientists are famously bad at naming things.

Jon de Nor: (laughter)

Jenny: They'll pick some Latin bullshit like, you know, they'll see like a lizard that has a spiky tail or whatever, and it'll be like the, you know, spiky-a tail-io, whatever. Just incredibly not creative names and stuff. Whereas the Elementalist, who's again, I've said personally I think has more of like a druidic, primal, primordial sort of feel, has like, you know, Your Flesh, the Crucible, or Your Flesh, a Crucible, and you know, Behold the Mystery, all these like crazy, evocative, crazy words, I think it makes sense for something like the Elementalist. Where straightforward, to-the-point, abilities make sense for the Arcanist?

Jon de Nor: Yeah, totally. (laughter) I really enjoy some of these, translated names. I have the sense that you like the same kind of wordplay that I do. (laughter)

Jenny: Oh, for sure. I mean, I think, ironically, I think actually coming up with these ability names has been really hard. I'm actually really bad at coming up with, like, player things. I think we'll get into it in like a later section, but I'm much more of a monster creator person. One of the like the main things that inspired me to really like follow Matt Colville's stuff is like action-oriented monsters. But in 5e and those types of games, they'll be like "Claw Attack" or like whatever, you know, it'll be like, yeah, Claws or Rend that they've used now. But you get to Draw Steel and they've got like movie references and punchy titles, and you just get to be fun and wacky with it. And I think I took that in stride when it comes to my monster abilities, I'm always coming up with like, fun, evocative names.

But I find it really hard for some reason to just do player ones. I think that's why I just defaulted to the 5e spells when I first did it. I couldn't be bothered. But there are some fun ones. And also just like, coming up with new spells, I think like, not specifically trying to rip the entirety of the wizard's spell list into what you can do, has been a fun challenge, but also taking inspiration from maybe other games and stuff, or just thinking of, like, what would work here. I think one of those would be, the 3-focus Sharpen Steel, which is a maneuver. You target somebody, they gain temp Stamina and a surge. And I think it used to literally just be called, like, Empower or something really basic.

And Jonas, shout-out Jonas Tintenseher, worked with on a lot of stuff. I trust them very much. And they're a very good friend of mine, so, like, I had them, like, not proofread-proofread, but, like, read with me to go through things, and, like, one of their biggest comments was like, "All these names gotta go." (laughter)

Jon de Nor: (laughter)

Jenny: I'm also bad at writing flavor text for these abilities. Some of them I've come up with and like, have changed since then, but a lot of them were just like, describing what is very clearly what the spell does. Like it wasn't as bad, but it would be like, Thunder Wave: You create a thundering wave in front of you. (laughter) That's like what most of them were. And some of them still are. But there is a couple of them that I have kind of moved away from and tried to be a little bit more unique about.

Obviously, one of the classics and most best flavor texts in here is Fireball's, which is "You didn't ask how big the room was." Which is one of my favorite bits, because there is — Fireball was originally a lot different in my first iteration. It was a 7-cost, and all the budget for it was just being, a 5 cube that dealt damage. And it didn't do anything else, because that's what fireball is. But I got some feedback on it, just like from that prospect of, what does a fireball mean? And what should it be? And I looked at my design for Lightning Bolt, which is another challenging thing, especially when you're translating from a stinky poopoo game like 5e, where all of the attacks are just damage, save for half, and they don't do anything else. That just really doesn't slide in Draw Steel, they have to do something cool — is that Lightning Bolt, being a line that does lightning damage, I came up with the fact that if any of your allies are in the line, they gain a surge.

So now it becomes not only like, an AoE damage-dealing spell, but a buff, like, support, enchantment spell. And it's very strong if you especially if you get a lot of your allies in it. But if you get a lot of your allies in it, that means your allies are standing in a line, which is probably not a good idea. But it's always fun when there is, like, you get to just the right position where you can hit a good chunk of your allies and a good chunk of the enemies that they're fighting, and so it becomes a very Draw Steel ability, very tactical, very fun. Versus Fireball's original design, which is just "big".

And so I moved it back down to being a 5-cost. And the amount of feedback I got on Fireball, it kind of became like, what a wizard means, which is like, what is a fireball to you? Is it just a big area that does a bunch of damage, or does it set things on fire? Is it an explosion that, like, pushes things away? And so I said all of the above. So Fireball, it is budgeted as like just a 3-cost 3 cube within 10 that is a bit of damage, and then you choose one of, I think, four effects that make up the other budget to get it to a being a 5-cost. And so these effects kind of like make Fireball — ironically, as being the equivalent of "I swing my sword" for a wizard — a very tactical and useful spell. It's like a mini Arcanist in like the options it provides.

So the first option is that it does create the area to become a 5 cube. So very powerful, very big at level 5. However, it then targets all creatures and objects in the area, which means it also hits you and your allies. So it becomes a lot harder to place unless you just say fuck it, and then just hit your teammates. Or you can choose to have it deal just an extra 4 damage, and have it be like a really solid damage-dealing ability in that 3 cube. You can also instead choose to push each target 2 squares away from the center of the area. Classic explosion, right? Everyone goes flying. Or you can, with a potency, set enemies on fire. and they take, you know, fire over time damage.

Which, like mathematically, is technically less damage than had you just dealt the extra 4. But in situations where damage over time is more useful, like against fire-weak enemies, or enemies that just have damage weakness, it becomes then the better option. So again, it's got its place, like on paper, like it's just not as good as the other one, but in situations where it's good to set things on fire, like if you need to burn something down, that is something that actively sets things on fire, because it also hits objects, which is very Fireball. And then of course, the last thing is that if you crit when casting Fireball, all four of the modes get chosen, whether you want them to or not. So that means that it becomes a 5 cube and does all that other cool stuff, but then it also hits you and your teammates, even if you weren't trying to. I don't know if this is going to see the final version, I just think it's really funny. (laughter)

Jon de Nor: It has to stay in.

Jenny: It's like it's the equivalent of like a wild magic sorcerer casting fireball on themselves, as one of the options. Of just like, "Well, if I cast this, I gotta be really careful, because it could, you know, it's so wild and crazy." And I think it's just a very fun, wacky thing. And like, it would be a purely buff if the 5 cube hitting all of your allies wasn't one of the options. Because then it becomes like, well, if I crit, then I'm going to hit like all my teammates. And that also kind of hearkens back to like, "You didn't ask how big the room was. You just cast fireball." And unfortunately, I crit, and now it is as big as the room. So I'm very happy with that one.

There has been...like, the higher-level stuff, there's been the same — obviously the previous PDF is just the 1st level, but I have up to the 10th level, like, feature-complete, like everything's been written out. Now it just needs like, revision, design, testing, you know, trying to see, like, this is like, I just wrote some stuff down, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. We need to test it out to find out. But I think, like, this 1st level, to me, is, like, nearly close to, like, done. It is a very solid amount. And the 1st echelon, as with most things, has gotten the most testing out of the entire Arcanist. So it's definitely been revised the most. There's been a lot of iterations on it.

Jon de Nor: One of the features of the Fireball, as you mentioned, is the recurring fire damage. And that kind of leads me into the beginning of the arc Arcanist, where you mentioned, expanded conditions and effects, where you introduce disoriented, safely, recurring damage, and cleanse. Could you give like a...what's the reason — well, first of all, what are they, and why include them?

Jenny: Yeah. So the expanded conditions, that are presented here are taken from the Brewery Expanded Glossary, which is like a community project of additional conditions, right? Draw Steel's a very condition-light game. And I think that is good for it, because a lot of the abilities that, if you wanted to include a new condition, you just put the description of the effect in the effect of the ability and you're good. Like the lightbenders, right? Dazzled isn't in the condition section, but like, lightbenders apply dazzled to you, and then it says what dazzled does. So you just do that.

But the community has found that a lot of these, there's a lot of effects and stuff that you do that are like so common that it might as well be good to just keyword them, and so that you save the space of describing what they are. And then just put a little blurb at the beginning, like I've done, a link to the greater PDF to look at everything, community notes on why certain things are the way they are, what the cost of like the budget of the ability is like how strong this condition is comparing it to others. Ben, right, SurfingBird, and I think Jacons is the other mind on it. Yes. They've done some great work. Triglav, as we'll get to, also uses quite a lot of these.

And it's pick-and-choose, like you don't have to use every single one. But that's what the blurb is pointing out, here are the ones that I'm using in this product. And then obviously you add the little asterisks in the effect text so that the person reading it can go, oh, that's one of the keyworded ones. That's why it doesn't explain what it is. And then the very good thing about putting it at the top is that if you command-F and look up the condition, it's the first thing that comes up.

Jon de Nor: Haha, nice.

Jenny: 'Cause it's at the top. So yeah. So the ones I have used so far, and I might use more, because I think this one is just talking about what's in this first section here, but, disoriented — the number here is outdated. It might get updated right now. This one's kind of going back and forth in the community. And that's always the thing is, like, as the community uses them, we get more playtesting of them and we get more opinions and things and things can change. But so disoriented is the dazzled effect. It limits your line of effect. We also see it in the lizardfolk, the bloodeye, has an effect that also limits your line of effect.

And so what it is basically, is it is the ranged version of slowed. Where slowed sets your speed to two, and so there's only so far you can move as a melee character, whereas disoriented sets your line of effect to — this one is 2, I think community has decided 3 is a bit more fair. And what that basically means is that as a ranged character, if you get slowed, if you're a ranged character, it does nothing to you, because you have a range of 10 on all your abilities or whatever, right? So it doesn't matter if you can only move 2 squares because you don't need to move at all. But if you're a melee character, it's debilitating. If enemies are not within those 2 squares, like you'll have to do a charge and then now you're just free striking, or you'll have to use some resources or effect to get rid of that slowed. Or someone will have to take a turn before you to heal you. It's a big deal when a melee character gets slowed. Even bigger deal if it's an enemy like a solo or something that gets slowed. It is very debilitating condition.

And so what disoriented is, is it's just the ranged version of that. It's just the same kind of like debilitating penalty as slowed but on more ranged options. It is very much strong on heroes. Like if a hero is disoriented, it is a bit more punishing than slowed, is what the community has found. Like you're limiting line of effect for like, healing and support abilities, and for like, Judgement and Mark. So there's a lot more things that it affects than just being slowed. But obviously when listed here in the Arcanist, it's referring to a player ability, putting it on the monsters, in which, you know, a ranged monster getting a little bit of a debuff, they don't have as many things going on that penalty is going to matter as much. So that's disoriented.

Recurring damage is very simple. It's just damage over time. Just all it is, is when it says recurring damage, a number, and then maybe a damage type — recurring fire 5 — that means the target takes the listed damage of the type at the start of each of their turns. While it, you know, save ends. It's a very straightforward, like, that's how that probably should work. And it's one of those effects that is just such a common thing to do that rather than explaining it every time, just putting it at the top makes it a lot easier. And it's versatile, so you could have like recurring cold, or whatever number, recurring poison. So rather than having a poisoned condition or a burning condition, you know, you just say recurring poison 3, and then now you're just taking poison damage like you're in Pokémon, slowly ticking.

Safely is a fun one. This one has come up a lot, and it actually technically exists in the core rules, with the Tactician's Out of Position. At the start of combat, the Tactician can choose a character and slide them a couple squares, and then that slide specifies that it can't be into damaging terrain or, like, used to slam them. It is purely a repositioning tool. So what the safely keyword means is you just append it to any forced movement, like safely slide or safely push, and all it means is that you can't damage them with that forced movement. So it is strictly a forced movement for repositioning, which is very fun.

I think forced movement in Draw Steel has been something that's like a really big, a really strong dynamic thing that the game does that a lot of other RPGs don't, but it sucks that the most rewarding thing you can do is to slam someone point blank into a wall without actually moving them any squares, and they just take a buttload of damage. And that's the best thing you can do, instead of actually repositioning them. So safely allows that. And then it means that abilities that use safe forced movement can be budgeted much lower because the damage of, forced movement is a big part of the budget. So I think the Arcanist is one ability that uses that one, very similar.

And then cleanse is a wording that is just honestly, it's literally just to save text, because there's so many effects in the game that say the target can end one effect on themselves that is ended by a saving throw or that ends at the end of their turn, which is like, we already got rid of the save. We created "save ends" to fix this giant problem, and then just decided not to do that for the describing of save-ends/end-of-turn. So cleanse — so you could say, "the target can cleanse an effect they are suffering" means that they can remove an effect that is ended by a saving throw or that ends at the end of their turn. So similarly, like the original, that doesn't mean they can end grabbed or prone. So it would specify like the target can cleanse an effect they're suffering, or stand up if they are prone. Again, just saves like ten words of text. Much cleaner.

It's stuff like that I think the community is really solid on coming up with and like agreeing on and then everyone kind of using it becoming the standard. It just benefits everybody. It's one of the things that I think the community really thrives on, and I'm really proud to be a part of such a blossoming homebrew community that this sort of like, these resources and these stuffs, these budget sheets and everything are just so accessible that it makes...I can focus on designing rather than the balance, or like, the nitty gritty things. It just helps to have such a big community, like, there's no other word to say than like a community, a group of people, friends who you can talk to and ask and iterate on stuff. It's just, it's really, it's unlike any community I've ever been a part of.

Jon de Nor: I also want to point out, you mentioned cleanse being about saving words. You also mentioned at the bottom of the box text that you also just say you deal R damage instead of the longer "You deal damage equal to your Reason score."

Jenny: Yeah. It's exactly the same thing, of like, we already have symbols that denote what that number is. Why don't we just use them? Like the conditions glossary and effects like, easily one of the best things, like if are a homebrew creator, you obviously don't need to use the conditions and stuff, but things like cleanse and things like using just the symbol, just helpful. It's just nice. It's just clean. It's efficient. I know, I think Triglav is doing it, and, MrMattDollar, who's doing the layout for the Arcanist, is doing it as well, but also just making save ends be "SE" because, we know what that stands for. It also just saves characters in the power roll. This is already a very complicated, rules-heavy game. It's not going to be Shadowdark where everything, again, fits on like two lines, like an index card. But the closest we get to that, I think, is a benefit for everybody.

Jon de Nor: Yeah. I also wanted to touch on something else you've been working on, to jump completely over to a different subject, because you've been working on a monster supplement?

Jenny: Yes. Monster Manifest is a supplement of classic fantasy monsters that don't appear in official materials too much, that I feel like are too iconic not to include. This actually started as a project I did in the MCDM server. I'm sure you can go dig up and find it, but it was basically a post, I called it Monster of the Day. And I would go to my miniature collection, pick out a mini of something I had that wasn't in Draw Steel, and make a statblock for it. And then I did that every day for, like, I think four weeks. And it was really fun. Because there's a lot of stuff that you think about and you're like, wow, it is weird that that isn't in Draw Steel. One of the ones from that original spread is a doppelganger, right? Or like a twig blight or a vine blight. I know we got some of those in, like, Dark Heart of the Wood, but, you know, like the classic stuff, there's things that weren't open yet.

And so it kind of started there of like, yeah, it would be really cool if these types of things were more prevalent. So I started working on Monster Manifest. It is a smaller collection because it's just easier to make these ways, but I plan to have more issues, more themes and stuff. So the first issue has three monster groups, that is the nightmare, the owlbear, and rust monsters.

Jon de Nor: You almost made them rhyme. (laughter)

Jenny: Almost. Yeah, yeah. So the nightmare obviously being the flaming devil horse, classic. I have a really cool mini from WizKids where the flames are semi-transparent and it's a really cool paint job. It looks super cool. I have a really — it's not extensive, as much as other people's, I think — but I have a really big miniature collection that I don't use. I don't play in person, ever. But if I ever did, you know, I would like to have, more statblocks for the minis I have. So I kind of kept with it.

There are two nightmares, the nightmare trailblazer and the nightmare phantasm. The trailblazer is like the classic flaming horse. It can fly. It's got some cool fiery abilities. It can stomp over people. And the phantasm is like a necrotic, like, undead horse, that's like the kind of thing you'd imagine a death knight or something riding. But nightmares, like, the whole vibe is like it is a mount, right? It is meant to be, some other cool bad guy is riding one. Like, maybe a vampire lord is riding the phantasm, or a hobgoblin is riding the trailblazer. Like that type of stuff, just like the visuals, that kind of mount, very cool.

The owlbears. There are two owlbears. First one is the owlbear solo, which is a level 1 solo monster. I felt that the owlbear should be a solo monster, because, answer honestly, when have you ever seen more than one owlbear that wasn't a baby?

Jon de Nor: (laughter) Touché.

Jenny: Like, it's always an owlbear mom and her baby cub. You're not running into a pack of owlbears. It's like, that's just like, you know, a flock, that's just not a thing. And there's a lot of monsters like that in classic fantasy, where it'd be weird to find more than one. I think the Monsters book does a really good job of separating, like, what are hordes, platoons, elites, and solos? Because if you think about hordes, it'd be like, yeah, there's a lot of them. Like, there's two per person usually, by the balance-wise, it makes sense. All the monsters that are hordes, it makes sense that they're hordes. Angulotls, bunch of frog guys. They're everywhere. Goblins, of course, goblins and kobolds. There's so many of them. That's like the point, is that there's so many. Undead, they're literal undead hordes. That makes so much sense. You're all like walking dead, there's a bunch of them clambering on to each other — running into a pack of twenty zombies is like, it's a lot, and it's kind of scary, but it is like a normal thing for that type of monster.

If you ran into a group of twenty orcs, you'd be like, oh my God, we are getting invaded. (laughter) Like, this is like a platoon in an army that is happening right now. Holy crap. Because like, take that and then be like, you ran into a room and there are twenty humans in here. You're like, oh my God, this is like a high school class of people that are here. Like, that is a weird amount of people to just run into. So I think it makes sense that those types of monsters are platoons.

And then same thing with elites. I think elites kind of get like, there's like a mixed bag. Animals, I think, is a good one, because like, I think elites cap out at like two or three, is like the most you'll ever see with an elite. Like maybe one, and it's like scary. Like ogres. That makes a lot of sense if there's one ogre, right? You know, they have a cave troll. Lord of the Rings, right? And Moria. Like, having one big scary guy. That makes a lot of sense.

And so I felt that, like, obviously animals statblocks are elites, but an owlbear, the logistics of it is like, there is no other place you are fighting an owlbear if it isn't the only thing you are fighting. Because no pack of goblins is just going to have an owlbear with them. That's a little weird. Like maybe if it was like a like a group of druids or something, they just have an owlbear companion, sure, that makes sense. Why not? But like, how often does like happen? And again, like I said, you're not running into a flock of owlbears. So two or three is just really weird. So I felt like there was nowhere better fitting than a solo monster.

Especially because, I think it fills the exact same role as, like, the ankheg, which turned into the arixx, which is one of those things, like you literally, you created — and I know it's because the ankheg appeared in action-oriented monsters — but you went with the ankheg over an owlbear, like, you know, serial numbers filed off for your, like, classic monster book? The owlbear's great. So level 1 solo monster. It is one of the most, like, clean playtests I've run of that monster. I ran the playtests and literally none of the players had any feedback. It was all just like, yeah, that was great. That was like, yeah, it felt awesome. Like, no notes, which was like weird. It was like the first time I run it and I had gotten there, I was like, "Sick." I playtested it one or two more times after that. And all it was just like, the rest of the design was just kind of cleaning up wording and stuff. It wasn't even any like, changing of too many things. So very proud with how that guy came out.

And then along with the owlbear solo monster, we also have the owlbear companion for the Beastheart, which is, I think, in my head, the one of two things that you do with an owlbear is you got mama, but you also got the baby, the owlbear companion. I think it's a classic. I definitely took a approach of like owlbears being jumpers and being really good at jumping, because it'd be weird if they could fly, but I think jumping is like a thing, like, yeah, that makes sense. You got the wingspan, kind of get a big takeoff. Leaping and pouncing on things I think makes a lot of sense. So that's sort of the idea with it there.

Additionally we also have the rust monsters, which were a challenge. Getting the design for these guys was pretty tough in a game where equipment doesn't matter.

Jon de Nor: Ah, yeah.

Jenny: The whole point of a rust monster is to wither away your armor and your weapons and make you have to go back to town and buy new stuff. It is such an OSR monster where like it attacks not your stats, you know, it attacks your inventory. Which is a very fun, just a fun concept for a monster, but not one that really translates well to Draw Steel. My inspiration for the rust monsters is that they are, like obviously very much insectoid, but they are also like ferrous metal eaters. So like the design concept for them, I took some swings in what it means to be a rust monster.

So you'll see in the art that I'm sending, there's three rust monsters, and the one in the middle is the rust monster hatchling, and it is the most, like, rust monster-looking thing. It's just a bug. Just a little guy. In the stat blocks, it's just a platoon, and the rest of them are elites as they're full adults. The one on the left here is the rust monster corroder, and basically, it's a much scarier-looking bug whose skin is covered in, like, a metallic, sort of rusty look. It's got the, like, coppery green of oxidizing copper, like the Statue of Liberty. So it's that rust-colored, kind of copper-covered, but with the greenish hues and tints over it. And the other one is the rust monster magnetist, and it's more of a gray, steel-covered rust monster that's kind of got like a stainless steel kind of look to it. And it has, and many of them do, have, like, psionic abilities, and its psionic abilities allow it to control metals like Magneto, and like lift with magnetism, but also like, fuck with magnetic poles and that type of stuff.

So the direction I took with the rust monsters is that rather than using their antennae to turn away non-magical metals and make them rust, is that they project psionic powers onto equipment that makes them more malleable and easier to digest and eat. So their stomachs have corrosive acids that can break down basically anything. But their teeth and jaws are meant for killing smaller things and defending themselves. They're not really meant for actually biting through the metals. So they use their psionics to make the metal softer and malleable, so it's easier to chew and eat them.

So rather than permanently rusting your equipment and making it bad, the rust monsters all just apply the rusted condition to you, which gives you a bane on weapon abilities. You have damage weakness as it's also affecting your armor. But for those that don't have armor, or don't like...it is covered by the fact that the psionic power is sort of my gimme for like, well, it's psionically affecting you, so you have damage weakness, you, wizard that's not wearing any armor. But also like the bane on the weapon abilities that don't have the magic or psionic ability keyword, to kind of specify that it's that.

But it also, a lot of the rust monsters' effects refer to having weapons and armor, which is purely a narrative choice. So, like if you're playing, let's say, I don't know, like a Shadow or something, you're Black Ash or even Caustic Alchemy, and you're, maybe flavor-wise, you're like a druidic character who's using nothing but, like, leaf blades or wooden staves or something. Maybe you're playing a Tactician who's got,Stick and Robe and you've got like, a bo staff, and you're not really wearing armor in the fiction of your character. Then the Director would be like, "Okay, well, I know what your character looks like. I know that you're not wearing metal weapons and armor, so these effects don't affect you. But the, Censor, who's wearing plate mail in their, like, Shining Armor kit is definitely metal weapons and armor, and they will be affected." So it's like it's a it's a case-by-case basis rather than any mechanical thing, because the mechanics aren't there.

These ones had, a couple revisions of getting rusted to feel like, landing on what rust should be, and the rusted condition is where it's at. Having the psionic feel also means that some of the abilities are easier to kind of flavor and go with, like messing with magnetism and repelling fluxes and stuff. It's been really fun. I'm very happy with where the rust monsters are. They're exactly the kind of elite band that the basilisks kind of fit in, where it's like, oh, yeah, this is going to be a really cool encounter using these guys.

I'm very happy with Monster Manifest Volume 1. And what I've managed to fit into it. I've got a lot of big plans for other volumes and stuff, but I'll have to see how much this one makes/how well it does if people like it. Along with Monster Manifest, I've said, the art is done by Rengeld, who I've worked with previously on projects like Across the Solar Expanse, and it's also worked on other DS projects like Hooked on Crafting. They're amazing. They're did all the art for the monsters in the book, they're also doing the art for the cover. And I haven't decided if I'm going to work with them for the second volume — if they will have me, I would definitely love to do that. But I also think that, like, doing the same thing, I was talking about with you previously, that I enjoy when projects have a specific art direction. I might choose to have another artist do the entire thing as well. And so every volume has its own little feel to it. But I also like working with them, so I might just do them again until I find someone who can do that sort of thing.

Yeah. Along with Volume 1, which hopefully should be out by the time this episode releases, along with that, there are also going to be — it comes included with tokens, for your use of your virtual tabletop choice, as well as a completely implemented Codex modules that are made by me, so you can drop them right in, perfect use at the table. They've been a lot of fun to implement and design. Obviously, I have done a lot of work in the Codex, a recent time making videos and all sorts of stuff and making things, working on the Arcanist's Codex module, alongside Vex, one of the Codex devs as well, helping me out with certain Lua scripts and things like that.

Providing more stuff for people to use in the Codex is also a goal of mine, because I just really love the product. I think it's an amazing software and I can't wait to see it grow and having more things to use on it. I think it's classic. It's really useful branching out how much is on there. So I'm really happy for Volume 1 to have that. I think it's...I'm really proud of it, and I hope all of you guys who have it or are going to go check it out, very much also enjoy it.

My plans for the second volume are going to be to focus on, like, lower-echelon solo monsters, because I think that's in the same philosophy of like, figuring out like, well, the owlbear is like one that you would only encounter alone. There are lots of other fantasy monsters that you would also only encounter alone. I ran some polls as well in the Draw Steel Brewery server for which ones I plan to include. So it's public knowledge, but we have things like the doppelganger recently made the cut, but also something like a red dragon. Just a classic red dragon, you know, on a pile of gold, hoard type thing, like the classic fantasy stuff. The red box. Like that type of enemy. Not a thorn dragon, not a crucible dragon, but just like a classic fantasy European dragon. Like, what does that kind of look like? And can something as, in quotation marks, as "simple" as that be super cool in Draw Steel? The answer is yes.

Jon de Nor: (laughter)

Jenny: But additionally, something like a gelatinous cube, is up on the design. That one's design is pretty much done. I'm a big fan of the gelatinous cube because I just think it's really funny. Just having a cube monster. I know there is, like, a lot of slimes in The Delian Tomb, we got a lot in Encounters as well as reprints. And there's, like, the gummy brick that the kobolds have, but I think, like, the classic gelatinous cube is an enemy that you really only fight one of. And so it fits the bill of like, yes, this could be a solo. And just the idea of like, we're fighting a giant cube, it's not like what kind of thing it is. The main gimmick of that monster is that it can only move in straight lines and can't move diagonally, so it has to move on like the grid. And the way I picture it moving is not snail-trailing around, it is like tipping itself over moving its square at a time.

Jon de Nor: (laughter)

Jenny: It's just going like plop, plop, plop, plop and then picking people up like a fucking boulder rolling down a hill. I'm very excited, to do that one and do that one further. One of the bigger ones, I think that it's kind of going to be like the showstopper for Volume 2 is the beholder. I'm calling it the eye tyrant, which is a term that it's very much used a lot with, but it's not one that, Wizards owns the copyrights to. And I think it's close enough. My fun bit of it, is like, MCDM already did the overmind. And I think the overmind is awesome. I've run with it, it's super cool, it's an awesome monster. But with the separate eyebeams and everything, it doesn't really have the exact same feeling as getting zapped by the singular beholder monster. So I'm going to try to tackle that specific design, but with the flavor and context of an overmind.

So the lure of the eye tyrant is that it's what happens when a singular one of an overmind's floating eyes drifts off on its own and, like, gains its own sentience and like mutates. And so that's why it has the eyestalks and not separate eyes, is because it was itself one of the separate eyes that has now become its own thing.

And I love introducing the lore bits and stuff like that. Like in the lore write-up for the owlbear, I mentioned that the wizards that created the Dragon Knights started with an owlbear.

Jon de Nor: Ahh, yeah.

Jenny: To like, oh yeah, like, you know, animal-y, kind of creating creatures thing. Because, you know, the classic lore of an owlbear is like, oh yeah, some wizard did it. So I just threw that in there. I love being able to tie these, you know, what you would consider, like, branded fucking Hasbro-ass WotC creatures, but slide them smoothly into the world of Orden and the timescape. I think it's fun.

Jon de Nor: I really enjoy these monsters, and the art, which looks — especially the magnetist which has, like this, Damascus...

Jenny: Yeah. The Damascus kind of steel pattern.

Jon de Nor: ...pattern going on in the scales. Yeah, yeah. So cool.

Jenny: Yeah. I think, Rengeld did an amazing job on the rust monsters, especially because, like, that was the biggest departure from the norm. Like, you look at the owlbear and it's really sick art, but like, that's an owlbear. It looks solid, it's pristine, and like, that's what you picture. That's what you picture when you look at a nightmare. But the rust monsters are one of those things where I had to take the leap of making these things interesting. Because in a game like 5e and others like it, they don't have the same tactical sort of intrigue that Draw Steel encounters do. And so they're like, here's a rust monster, and it's the one statblock. And it's also like, not very cool or like interesting. And it does like one neat thing and has an attack that it makes. But in Draw Steel, everything's got to have a gimmick, you know, everything needs to have a fun bit. And so I needed to come up with what that was for. The rust monsters. I'm very happy with the art.

There's like one more of this little group here that's not ready yet. But I love these types of monsters and putting more out there. I love supporting artists and getting art to do cool stuff. So hopefully this funds pretty well, and we get to do another one. I'm not crowdfunding it, so I'm paying for it out of pocket with some funds that I've gotten from just like my other projects and stuff like that. And I know everything always funnels back into just making more cool stuff for the community. So hopefully this does the same.

Jon de Nor: Hopefully. I hope so! We are closing in on the end; there's so much stuff, and I think we can reveal already that we've already decided that you're coming back soon because you've got so much on your plate.

Jenny: Very much so, very much so.

Jon de Nor: But I always end the interviews with a recommendation for my guests. So what have you brought for our listeners?

Jenny: So I have a couple, just some small things to rattle off. The first one is I didn't mention it in my previous interview, but, another entry in the Octopath series, which is Octopath Traveler 0. A bit of a different take, on, like the usual eight travelers. This time you make your own traveler, and have your own story, like you build up your town and, like, do stuff, but it's got the classic vibes. Music is back. Ugh, the soundtrack is baller. There's some tracks that are reused from the other games and stuff, but the new ones that are in it are just so good. It continues to just be the most epic source of JRPG music ever. So again, if you don't play Octopath Traveler 0, cool, go listen to the soundtrack, yyou will not be disappointed.

But my other main recommendation is a game that's really inspired me recently. I've been delving into it quite a lot, I'm near the end. I hadn't really heard of it too much. I think I heard of it when it came out, but I didn't really pick it up because I wasn't playing too many games then. But that is Avowed, by Obsidian Entertainment. Avowed is a third-person action RPG, fantasy RPG that takes place in their Pillars of Eternity setting. So, you know, Woedica, the gods, and, like, Deadfire, that's the archipelago. I literally actually, I didn't even know that before I started playing the game. I just saw like some good reviews on it, and I wanted something similar to Skyrim to delve into. And then I literally open up some note on the ground, like a few minutes in, and it's like "Pillars of Eternity". I'm like, oh, I know that game. And it describes what the actual Pillars of Eternity are, like the crystals that are around everywhere. I'm like, oh, that's what those are. And then I go a little bit further and I see, a note that's like, ah, Deadfire. I'm like, oh yeah, like Pillars of Eternity 2. And then I realize like, oh yeah, of course they're like actively talking about stuff.

So it's been super fun. The combat and the mechanics are really interesting. It really feels like a modern take on the Elder Scrolls format. Where you're like going around, doing quests, beating enemies, picking up loot, and getting new items and upgrading them. It's got fun skill trees. It's just really fun. And a lot of my design bits and things have been inspired by it. The story is cool. We've got some really familiar voice actors. Anjali Bhimani is the one I recognize the most, she's one of the companions in that game. She's super fun. The world is really interesting. The story's pretty up there. And it's just a fun one. It's just been a fun romp. I think anyone who's into fantasy RPGs would get a pretty good kick out of it.

And there's a lot of, like, build versatility, too. You can really do whatever you want. I've been going with like a mage build, but a DPS mage build. You can get a magic staff that while you hold it, you get bonuses to your mana and your spellcasting stuff, but it's also just like a physical weapon that you swing around. So like, I'm over here casting frost spells and raining down ice things. And then while all of my spells are on cooldown, I'm just like, beating face with the staff.

It's also a setting that has guns in it too. So for a while before I got to that, like I found a cool ice magic staff like what I'm using now, I just had a spellbook in one hand and a gun in the other. (laughter) Which is just like, I know Crows is out and stuff like that, and that's a game that has your hand slots are sort of like what's important. And like, that is a game that really much feels like that, where like, I can just be holding one thing but also have another thing on my other hand. And so just having like, yes, spellbook and gun, or like two guns, you know. It's really fun.

There's a lot of fun...like exploring has been super fun. Like, I don't know, I'm just having a good kick of it. I haven't played too many games in a while that aren't, like, live service, competitive FPS games that I'm usually playing. So it's been fun to just have like a story-based experience where I can just kind of like, turn my brain off a little bit and just, you know, kill goblins or whatever and get XP and get loot and stuff. It's been super duper fun.

Jon de Nor: Great recommendations. I've wanted to look into Avowed for so long, but I've never gotten around to it.

Jenny: Yeah, yeah. Like I said, I remember hearing about it when it came out, but I didn't really think about too much cause I wasn't playing games like that then.

Jon de Nor: I've just seen like a video of a bit of gameplay and I'm like, this is the game for me. (laughter)

Jenny: Yeah, it is really, really fun. Super addicting.

Jon de Nor: Well, thank you so much for coming on, Jenny. It's been a pleasure. It's so cool looking at the Arcanist, and I...I don't direct Draw Steel that much nowadays, but I do play a bit, and I'm gonna push Cameron to run some of these monsters because they look fun to fight.

Jenny: Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Jon de Nor: Thank you so much for coming on.

Jenny: Yeah. Thank you for having me. It's always great to be back, and I can't wait to be back again soon.

Outro

Such a blast to have Jenny back on. And soon again! We can't get through everything she's up to in a single interview!

I'm not usually one that looks for a wizard, but the Arcanist looks like so much fun. Fun spells, the way to juggle between them and the oppertunities to expand your repertoire of available spells. Sign me up!

Just as I record this outro, Jenny messaged me to say that the Arcanist is confirmed to be launching November 3rd on BackerKit.

I want to thank Tabletop Nonsenseverse, and tootallferne for submitting questions for Jenny. We didn't have time to get to them, but Jenny was kind enough to jump into the comments on Patreon and answer them directly.

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 25th. That's going to be an interview with Jeff Stevens of Jeff Stevens Games. Publisher of two treasure focused supplements for Draw Steel, soon to be crowdfunding a timescape themed supplement, and a many-time creator of supplements for D&D 5e and Shadowdark.

See you next time. Snakkes.

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