Jamison Stone's Blog

We have received many questions about what will happen with this project in light of recent changes at Apotheosis Studios. It is currently our intent to finish the book and fulfill the pledges that we received. We will be working over the next few weeks to assess our options and establish new timelines. We will update everyone as we have more information.

To address some of the concerns and claims about writers not being paid we would like to share with you a breakdown of what has happened. First and foremost ALL writers who have submitted their invoices as instructed to our accountant have been paid. Payments started in March, 2022 and as new invoices are received we process them promptly.

We had the following number of contractors working on this project:

Writers - 22 writers. Paid 10cents per word

Artists - 2. Paid monthly

Graphic Designer - 1. Paid monthly

Layout artist - Paid monthly, even when not working on a project

Musicians - 2. Paid promptly per song

Sculptor - 1. Paid promptly per sculpt

The Sirens writing Deadline was Oct 31. Approval passes started in November. Unfortunately the approval passes took longer than expected which pushed out approval for the contractors to bill by 3-4 months. Billing authorization was issued in March of 2022 and we promptly paid all invoices properly submitted to our accountant. We have recently learned that some writers had sent invoices to the wrong email address, this has been addressed and they have been paid. Additionally there were also some writers who, for reasons unknown, never invoiced us at all. Any writer who reaches out to us will be paid once we receive an invoice per the billing procedures sent to them at the time of approval.

For this project we provided templates for Adventure Chapters with a 8,450 words max budget.

9 of 22 chapters were over word count

4 over by 1000 words

1 over by 3700 words

2 over by 4750 words

1 over by 7000 words

Despite the fact that many chapters were over the word counts outlined the writers were paid for the overages after appropriate approval. Writers whose writing was not used were still authorized to bill us and were paid 10 cents per word.  The majority of the book was written by: Rick Heinz, Pat Edwards, Rob Weiland, Megan Mackie, along with writing and editing by Satine Phoenix, and Jamison Stone.

We will continue to update you as we have more information on what the future of this project will look like. Thank you. 

As a company, our goal is and always has been to create unique content and storylines for role playing and tabletop games that allow for a safe and respectful gaming environment. We will not, and cannot, allow such actions within our company, or with the contractors and consultants we work with.

Jamison Stone has resigned as CEO effective immediately. The executive team at Apotheosis Studios are discussing the matter internally and will update you with an official statement and decision of company matters as soon as we can.

Magic the Gathering is one of our favourite games here at Apotheosis Studios. Other than Dungeons and Dragons of course. The fantasy card hame is a long favourite for many players, and has inspired some of our plays, as well as being self contained, Turing Complete Computer.

We've talked a lot about Magic in the past, and you can find some of our comments on card releases right here. One of those early talks was about the upcoming expansion: Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate.

We've seen the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms expansion come through and bring classic D&D flavour into Magic the Gathering, but we're not done with Toril yet.

The Commander format for playing Magic the Gathering is arguably one of the most popular, fun, and fair ways to play Magic. It's simple, you pick a Legendary Creature you really love, then assemble 99 other cards around them that are the same colours and work to that Legendary's theme. That's it, you have a deck.

The Commander Legends style of expansion brings powerful cards probably too strong for Standard or even Modern Horizons style sets. Cards only for the Commander and Legacy formats. These cards introduce many new Legends to create decks around and new cards with powerful effects for multi player games. This second Commander Legends is deep in the DnD flavour.

We've covered some cards when the set was first announced, and you can find them right here. Now, more cards!

Shuffle Up and Play

The Metallic Dragons have always been a welcome source of benevolence, wisdom, and guidance for adventurers in Dungeons and Dragons. We've seen Ancient Brass Dragon bring creatures back from the dead. As is tradition for Magic, they've made all the Ancient Metallic Dragons a full cycle, bringing very powerful effects on rolling dice. Gold floods the board with Faerie allies, Silver fills your hand with wisdom, Copper brings treasure and mana, while Bronze takes your team to the gym...?

Gold, Silver, Copper, and Bronze dragons - image by Scryfall

It's not remiss for the fine creators at Wizards to create new Commander decks for each card release. A set centred on Commander truly needs a new Commander release. Adventures in the Forgotten Realms gave us new Commanders who could have been in an adventuring party. This time around, we see face Commanders that bring a level of insidious terror that make for a good antagonist force in your games set in Baldur's Gate.

Captain N'ghathrod, or Davy Jones as the player base is affectionately nick naming him, is a strong look at Horror tribal, with the mill that Blue and Black together brings, as well as the thievery you'd expect from a Legendary Pirate. There's lots of ways to play this card. Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald is an insidious look at a warrior druid, tearing down civilisation to restore nature – one of the clearest ways to characterise a druid in a (justified but) villainous way. As a card design, you're rewarded for using cards similar to Escape to the Wilds by filling the board with puppers.

Commander deck commanders - image by Scryfall

Firkraag, Cunning Instigator is both Blue and Red, and is a Dragon. This makes them my favourite as a design by default. The design is a hybrid of Dragon Tribal and Goad tribal. Goad was a mechanic that was designed in Conspiracy: Take the Crown, and has been used repeatedly in multiple multiplayer releases. The ability to choose a problematic enemy Creature, make it attack but at someone else is very powerful and keeps you safe. This commander is one of the first pay offs for Goading, making this commander a very unique card, but also one that synergises with older cards such as Bident of Thassa. Nalia de'Arnise has the vibe of a Thieves Guild master recruiting whole parties of adventurers for their own nefarious ends – hence why they play into the Party mechanic, of having a Cleric, Rogue, Warrior, and Wizard on board. As a well connected Thieves Guild runner, they can see into the deck to know and summon party members exactly when they're needed. The interesting deck building tension is that in the Black and White colour pair, you'll get a decent number of Rogues and Clerics, and maybe some Warriors, but the number of Wizards is low. That kind of deck building tension is very interesting, and the reward for a midrange deck such as this.

Even more Commander Deck commanders - image by Scryfall

In the original release in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, we got a new take on the Saga card in the card. Twelve Enchantments showing the twelve Classes from 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. I proudly own all twelve as their effects really resonate in Magic, the effect that the classes have in D&D. But the thirteenth class was added to D&D in Eberron Rising from the Last War and now the thirteenth class is coming to Magic. The Artificer Class, naturally is Blue and cares about Artifacts. I can see a lot of Artifact centric decks, including one I own lead by Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice using this card to full effect.

Artificer Class - image by Scryfall

We saw the first appearance of dice rolling in Magic the Gathering. Effects like Treasure Chest and Contact Other Plane let you roll a d20 to boost the card's effects. Thunderwave is the newest in this line of cards with a dice effect. As a level one spell in Dungeons and Dragons, Thunderwave is a classic that many low level Mages rely on. In Magic, Thunderwave is a fun sweeper that may not be the strongest, but is certainly the most flavourful way to sweep the board.

thunderwave - image by Scryfall

The expansion Throne of Eldraine gave the Magic player base one of the most powerful and polarising mechanics in the history of the game. The Adventure mechanic is an alternate casting cost on certain cards; you play the Adventure Instant or Sorcery, then exile it, then bring the creature back from their Adventure. This expansion is putting Adventure on other kinds of permanents, and it reads as powerful as the original adventure cards did. Ghost Lantern, aside from reminding me of Thresh from League of Legends, has strong utility of picking up a dead creature into buffing something in a deck that cares about dying allies, such as Meren or Henzie.

Ghost Lantern (Bind Spirit) - image by Scryfall

The DM style modal cards are back! Modal spells are always generally powerful, but framing their name in the second person, the same way a Game Master speaks to you, is such a fun design choice. The more powerful effect seen on You Look Upon the Tarrasque is best served in a Commander set such as this.

A new remix on the Partner mechanic has appeared in this set, and in a very unique design space. Previously, you could have two Commanders that both have Partner, a pair of . In this expansion, there are 32 Legendaries that all go through the same trouble we Dungeons and Dragons players have when we roll a new character: we have to Choose a Background. There are 30 Legendary Enchantments called Backgrounds which can all begin in the Command Zone with these new Legends as their . They all provide some benefit to Commanders and affect Commander Creatures you control (including other players' if you steal them) or copies of them if you do some Mirror Gallery and copy shenanigans.

Commanders and their Possible Backgrounds - image by Scryfall

It's only right that Baldur's Gate itself actually have the Gate Subtype. This has wide implications for the Gates deck. Maze's End has been a meme win condition for Golos and many other five colour Commander decks, but now with access to other Gates, and the massive mana advantage that Baldur's Gate brings, decks can go from a Maze's End meme, to a truly gated community.

Baldur’s gate the card - image by Scryfall

Elminster is a legendary wizard in the confines of Dungeons and Dragons. In the Forgotten Realms setting, he has overseen many moments of civilisation's history, and his mastery of magic has made him both timeless and godlike in power. In Magic, Elminster appears as a powerful Instant and Sorcery matters commander as a Commanding Planeswalker. His static effect let's your Scry have a knock on effect on your next Instant and Sorcery, fixing your draws to turn them into chump blockers with his minus effect. Let the grand old wizard help you see the future. I can foresee Narset loving this wise old master, but that may be Mystic Speculation.

Elminster the Planeswalker Card - image by Scryfall

Tasha the planeswalker card - image by Scryfall

Tasha, creator of the Hideous Laughter spell, shows her powerful ability to walk between worlds (originally coming from Greyhawk, not Toril, the world of the Forgotten Realms setting). Known for profane magic and nefarious deeds, this card encapsulates her very well indeed. This card perfectly pays off and enables the Blue and Black steal your stuff strategy. Cards like Gonti, Thief of Sanity, and Ashiok have all played into this design space of playing another player's cards, but now we have a true signpost commander for it. Remember to add cards that generate Treasure or Mana of any Type, to activate effects of the cards you steal.

Now we want to hear from you. Which cards are you looking to pick up and put in your decks? Which Dungeons and Dragons Elements do you hope will make it onto a Magic card? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com , they write all kinds of gaming press, while they write news about the League of Legends Card Game on RuneterraCCG . On Youtube, they can be found playing PC games on The Hostile Atmosphere , or streaming card games at twitch.tv/IzzetTinkerer . Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree .

Dungeons and Dragons is truly one of the most important games I've ever played. It's brought my dearest friends, best stories, and funniest moments. It's a way for me to express my beliefs about the world whilst making jokes about derpy horses and Goblins choosing to play marbles instead of fighting.

With all these stories to tell, and yet to be told, it's important to think of inspiration. Where have these stories come from?

When I'm not here writing about D&D, or playing uncountable card games, or writing about even more card games; I am in one of the coolest spots in all of my native, jolly old England. It's a place full of comics, and manga, and CCGs, and action figures. It's not my house, it's bigger.

That day job of mine has surrounded me with some of my favourite things in the world. As such, I'm equally surrounded by fun ideas, bold stories, and wacky concepts to feed back into my fiction, both written, and tabletop.

I put to you, dear internet traveller, the list of recent comics that have tickled my imagination in very different ways. A series of micro reviews if you will.

A little disclaimer before going in, these will be reviews for ongoing titles for single issue comics. I sincerely hope these will all be collected into graphic novels one day, but it's hard to say what happens in the world of comic production.

A second disclaimer, I am not referencing any titles by the big two companies. Sure, Marvel and DC have set the tone for what western style comic book story telling can be, but when you start to wander off their beaten path, you find some real gems hidden away in the back issue boxes of your local comic book store.

One last little note, I say western style comics deliberately here. There are many excellent, high fantasy Japanese Manga and Korean Manhwa titles that have greatly impacted my own writing. Titles like Ragna Crimson and Demon Slayer come to mind. I even describe healing magic in my own games with blood trickling upwards into the wound, and the wound slowly closing as seen in the anime for Baccano. I think I'll spotlight some of those titles in another article, because the gods have cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished.

Image Comics have come a long way from shamelessly poaching away DC and Marvel's best talents to make their own, half-baked ideas. Nowadays, Image are the bringers of unique and wacky titles about all kinds of media, telling ambitious stories with almost no capes in sight.

Slumber is written by Tyler Burton Smith, illustrated by Vanessa Cardinali, colourised by Simon Robins, and lettered by Steve Wands. The wacky art style makes things feel very dream like and out there, on theme with the subject of dreams.

In Slumber, you the reader follow a small team of investigators tracking a living nightmare that jump between people's dreams causing them to commit horrible acts while they're sleeping.

There's a delicious disparity between the dream like colours and strange scenery alongside the gruesome violence against fantasy creatures and the bad language of the main human characters. The second issue finds what was once a regular, ordinary man brought into the wildness and mystery across the subconscious and is bringing a welcome new thread of conflict to our main character, who's been given a great shred of context.

The visuals of the dreams make for great fuel for somewhere truly bizarre in your games of Dungeons and Dragons. On top of that, I deeply love the contrast of the dream worlds with the mundane browns of our familiar earth. If a Game Master can put into words the contrast they see on the pages of this comic then they have a real shot to articulate it when they narrate their games.

Twig Cover A by Image Comics

You can find issues 1 and 2 of Slumber in the back issues section of your local comic book store.

Also by Image, we go from the gritty cops of New York to the strange and peaceable natural world of a fantastical dream land.

Twig is written by Skottie Young (the creator known for everything cute and chibi in the world of Marvel). Art by Kyle Strahm, coloured b Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and letters by Nate Piekos.

Twig follows the eponymous blue friend named Twig, and his yellow blob snail friend named Splat. Their first day as an adventurer, more specifically the Placeling, takes him deep inside a living mountain, talking with miners about a grand red rock, trekking across the realm, and deep into a conspiracy.

The bright colours feel very child friendly, with a lot of room for grown ups to unpack the mystery within. It's rare to see such a story rich enough to enchant all kinds of readers.

It's easy to see where the TTRPG community could be inspired by this comic. The whimsical worlds, colourful characters, and fantastical premises could be filtered into a kids friendly game as well as bringing more nuanced possibilities for all kinds of games.

Find issue #1 out now in the back issues of your store.

Now we go from the wholesome to the gruesome.

Buzzard Bone is a gritty fantasy story written by Nick Philpot, illustrated by Ryan Gutierrez, and Lettered by Lettersquids. It's from Source Point Press, which is a company slowly becoming one of my favourite comic book publishers simply because they only seem to put out alternative science fiction and fantasy comics like these.

Set in the old west, two families of prestigious mages have had an endless blood feud for decades. Very Romeo and Juliet. Out of this turf war, one baby was born, of both families. Buzzard Bone is the story Berkeley Bezoar, and his slow process to become a mage bringing together both sides of his heritage.

Urban Fantasy At Its Finest - Cities of MAgic Cover A by Scout Comics

Throughout, Buzzard Bone treats us to a consistent voice of someone born and raised in our world's Texas. It treats the magic of its setting with uncompromising mastery and understanding. We get a compliment of strange and bizarre visuals as Berk gets his magic through issue two. This one is neither for kids, nor the weak of heart.

For those looking to get setting cues and looks into what gritty fantasy can truly look like, Buzzard Bone is an amazing pick up.

Many fantasy writers ask themselves where the rules for their settings come from. Often their worlds are the products of the works of ancient gods that breathed life and conflict into their world.

Sometimes a fantastical story takes place in our own world, which has been irreversibly changed as magic has replaced technology.

This story is a master class in world building. The details they throw into the issue about renaming the familiar into Old York, name dropping key figures and locations, and even the cover art showing a magically refurbished Statue of Liberty is essential flavouring for writers when building a new world. When fleshing out your own setting and stories, it is essential to do the same. An old adage I learned a long time ago: “when telling a story, it's better to leave your reader curious than bored”. The right balance of vague yet showing in your writing is essential to striking this balance.

Now you can really tell that Quests Aside was written by Dungeons and Dragons fans, for Dungeons and Dragons fans.

Quests Aside (get it, side quest) was written by Brian Chirmer, with art by Elena Gogou and colour by Rebecca Nalty, finally with letters by Andworld Design. Quests Aside features a colourful cast of characters all paying patronage to the Quests Aside, a legendary road house out in the wilderness. The bards outside are musically sparring with each other, and adventurers come and go from their welcoming halls after filling up on mead and food. Just like a familiar D&D road house in our games.

Battle of the Bards? - Quest Aside Page by Vault Comics

The more the reader takes in, the more we see that the proprietors are well versed in the world of adventure and not all is quite as it seems. It makes me very eager to read a later issue.

It's clear to see where this has inspired me. The look at classic fantasy table top role playing games. The look at the reluctant hero trope is fun to unpack in gaming, as well as the look into how to build an authentic setting, whilst being pulled into something unique, like the cast themselves.

Now we want to hear from you. Will you be reading these comics for yourself? What other sources of inspiration have fuelled your table top role playing games? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com , they write all kinds of gaming press, while they write news about the League of Legends Card Game on RuneterraCCG . On Youtube, they can be found playing PC games on The Hostile Atmosphere , or streaming card games at twitch.tv/IzzetTinkerer . Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree .

The life of adventurers are perilous and uncertain. We support our wandering and uncertain protagonists looking across the world to find conflict that help our players grow their characters.

We here at Apotheosis Studios have talked about the ways a character can grow in other posts, but now we have to go back to our roots. It's all good to look deep into the mechanics of our favourite, and the world's best, role playing game; but now we go back.

In the deepest places, on the fringes of our world, our players find themselves up against a creature truly terrifying. It's not that this being breathes fear or shock into their soul, nor does it frighten with the doom of it's claws and jaws, or threaten with malice and ill intent. The Fell Consumer works on the thing many fundamentally fear.

Content warning for those ahead: this is a short story to preface a monster for your upcoming Dungeons and Dragons games. It features some light horror elements as I was free writing this and did not imagine it to get this creepy.

On the fringes of a small human settlement, a boy was playing in the field. With the family dog by his side he was content to simply wander. The bright red ball arced up across the pale blue sky above and thumped into the grass a few short feet away. The mid spring sun was warm and comforting while the eager hound galloped back up to him. He smiled down at the mottled brown fur holding the ball in slobbering jaws.

He took the ball from the beast and gave it another stern throw. The boy bared his teeth in a wince as he saw it arc incredibly high. The loyal dog leapt off in a fast run after it. The deep black paws rushed ahead and the dog vanished well into the line of trees at the edge of the family home. The ball bashed in against the tops of trees and rustled leaves.

The forest at the edge of his home was vast and dark. He's only seen this edge of it in his short life. Trees far taller than anything or anyone he's known. “It's too dark, you must never go in there, son,” his father would always warn. “Don't be a little wimp. Just go!” the mean children on the other side of the village would mock. “Strange things live in there my child, things that might find you tasty,” says the old woman who wanders the village, her skin leathery and her eyes glassy.

Anything can linger past fell trees - Grim Backwoods by Vincent Proce

It's impossible to see through those trees, or anything past ten or so feet, but the forest, for all he knew, was endless. And still, his dog had rushed in and vanished. The boy wandered up to the edge of the tree line. This did not make the way into the wood clearer. The light beyond filtered into a deep dark green, as trees twisted in and around each other making a lattice of gnarled wood. The loose, leaf littered earth had many small dents, impressions in the earth showing the way the pup had sprinted.

The boy drew cold air in through his nose and took his first step into the forest. The earth beneath his feet shifted heavily and squelched with mud and wet leaves. The boy winced and lifted his other foot. It stuck to an out sticking root. The thick black mud dripped from his once clean brown boot as he stepped deeper into the wood.

Loose earth sighed under each footstep. The boy tromped through the mud and heavy earth, following the smallest dips and impressions in the earth. The paw prints of his dog were clear in some patches of earth, but harder to follow in others.

Wandering for a few moments, he looked up. His neck ached with the sudden strain of looking up and standing straight. The wood twisted around itself and projected a deep green darkness in all directions. The gnarled bark of each tree matched in all directions. The boy spun on his heels, his foot slipping from the smooth roots. He stood up and wiped the mud from the front of his pants then stood straight. The wall of trees loomed in all directions. The boy whined to the open, still air of the forest.

A similar whimpering noise loomed out in the distance.

“Munty?” the boy called, smearing the tears away with a sleeve. He wandered up that direction. He began to lift his knees, breaking into a run across the woodland. The boy scrabbled up the side of some loose roots and looked into a clearing. A beam of white light arced down from a tiny gap in the tree canopy. The rough leaf litter was scattered around a pool of murky black water. At the edge of the pool stood a scruffy dog, all mottled brown fur and slobbering jaws, covered in uneven patches of mud. The dog bent down and pushed a red ball forwards.

The fell consumer can take any alluring shape to lead the foolish to their doom - Consuming Volition by Sherbakov Stanislav

The boy ran to his dog and dropped to his knees. He held the dog close to his chest. His own tears were warm and slick on his face, but something was wrong. The dog felt equally wet. The boy opened his eyes and looked at his hand. He stared at the milky white green goo that has covered his arm. His eyes followed the trail going from the back of what should have been his dog. Its lower back melted from brown fur into a long tendril of milky white flesh that disappeared under the surface of the pond.

Bones snapped. The boy tried to flinch back but was unable to move. Immense bony arms were holding the boy close to the thing looking like a dog. He pulled back and saw the shape of the animal slowly morph. Great white arms had protruded from the sides of the beast as the jaw began to widen. The mouth extended past the dog's jaw and opened into a gaping maw filled with hundreds of yellow uneven teeth. The shape of the dog became a jaw, with strange bones holding the boy tight.

The pond in the forest began to bubble. A shapeless white blob of flesh began to lift from the water. The tendril shortened as hundreds of legs, of uneven sizes, skittered up along the shore as the neck retracted all the way inside. A deep, earthy smell of hot alien breath closed in around the boy as he shut his eyes.

GYAAAAAAAAAAAAA

His eyes shot open. The boy watched last shapes of the dog melt into the white flesh as hundreds of red eyes blinked repeatedly. He looked down at the creature's feet, looking at the real pile of mottled brown fur and snarling. His dog had some of the monster's legs in its jaws, gnashing and pulling away.

“Munty!” the boy called.

“Muhhn- Teeeee-” a raspy voice copied.

The dog continued to chew. Pulling at the tiny legs. Some of the legs popped from the creature. Black, oozing blood flowed from the joints as it began to hobble around. Munty the dog lurched back and let the legs he pulled off drop to the mud.

With a heavy shove, the boy broke out of the creature's grip. He dropped to the ground as Munty looked up at him. The creature wobbled and in place as black blood trickled from its fresh wounds.

“Come on boy, let's go!”

Child and dog began to run from the monster. They hopped over roots and ducked under low trees. The mottled brown fur lead the charge, ducking around trees and taking a single path straight ahead. The boy panted, looking left and right at one identical black tree after another.

“Good boy,” he sighed, “you know the way home.” The boy lifted his feet and ran close to his dog.

Glancing back, trees knocked and swayed. A great, heaving mass of white uneven flesh writhed its way toward the two. The boy yelped, feeling his dash turn into a sprint.

The ground ahead of him changed from uneven woodland to flat field. He stumbled and fell, turning to the edge of the treeline and the writhing white thing loping ahead. A long tendril reached out from the woods.

Sunlight touched the tip of the tendril and a ringing screech filled the hillside. The boy lay panting in the woods as the dog rested his head on the boy's lap. Scared of the sunlight, the shape vanished back into the woods, leaving child and pet safe. For a while.

I know some creators will write a flavour paragraph here and there to describe the new features they make for their TTRPG tables. I've always been a little extra, and I love to tell a story. Thanks for coming on this ride, and rest assured, you'll find stats and a detailed description of The Fell Consumer coming to the Apotheosis Studios blog very soon.

Now we want to hear from you. Where would the Fell Consumer appear in the sessions you Game Master? What other horrific monstrosities can you imagine bringing into your games? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com , they write all kinds of gaming press, while they write news about the League of Legends Card Game on RuneterraCCG . On Youtube, they can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes , or streaming card games at twitch.tv/IzzetTinkerer . Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree .

There are many awesome and fascinating creators in the world of table top role playing games. We here at Apotheosis Studios try our utmost to be friendly and chatty with as many of these cool people as possible.

Us here at Apotheosis pride ourselves in making new content and better ways to play your TTRPG play, but there’s much more content to be made. Making games is fun, but keeping your eye on the world of gameplay and the news about what happens with this grand community we’re all a part of.

Gallant Goblin has been providing in depth reviews for many years now, but who are the charming people behind the collective? We had a delightful chat and here’s what they said.

Gallant Goblin Banner Art by Kayleigh Fine

Not all Goblins are scary and mischievous. Gallant Goblin has been bringing close and fair reviews in the world of TTRPG goodness for many years. All historic quests have a beginning. Where did the Gallant Goblin get going?

The Gallant Goblin began as a couple of threads came together for us in 2017. Grady has always had a passion for filmmaking and had collected some really nice hardware and pieces of software, but rarely had an opportunity to use them. Theo had recently gotten into D&D and collecting minis after watching HarmonQuest and Acquisitions Inc., but struggled to find out which random booster boxes of minis were worth investing in because there weren’t many quality reviews online aside from some very long unboxing videos that didn’t always focus on the mini correctly and spent a lot of time on dealing with the packaging. We decided to create the Gallant Goblin to help people make informed decisions on what booster boxes to buy based on what’s inside and what they’re likely to get. The channel also gave Grady an opportunity to exercise his movie making skills. We hoped that we could help people make the best use of their money when trying to collect minis and accessories for their TTRPGs.

You've been known to have the inside track with a lot of products, to have access to products right in time for release. Is it always that exciting to see those kinds of products come in early? How did the partnership with Wizards and Wizkids come to be (aside from the obvious non disclosure and contracts, as important and boring as they may be)?

Originally it was the kind and experienced folks over at MinisGallery.com who brought us to WizKids’ attention. They were apparently fans of what we were doing at the Gallant Goblin and have been very generous supporters of us since then. WizKids has been exceedingly easy to work with, never putting any limitations on what we could say in regards to their products. And we rarely even have any embargoes on what we review. It’s just a matter of how quickly we can get the videos produced as we aim to provide quality videos which take a decent amount of time to put together. Eventually other companies like Steamforged Games, Paizo, Archon Studios, and others reached out as well, and now we’re bopping along trying to keep up with this rapidly growing industry and all the exciting and innovative new products and games that are coming to market.

As a reviewer, you bring well rounded opinions and takes about all manner of products by every TTRPG developer. Has there been a product that stands out in your mind as bringing something a little extra? Have you had a product which your take has proven different to what happened when it was released?

When it comes to minis in particular, I try not to be too opinionated because, like a piece of art, if I give the viewer a good enough view of it, they should decide for themselves if it’s a good fit for their games and budget. As for other products, the Epic Encounters series from our sponsor Steamforged Games was a big hit with our audience. For a pretty solid price they gave us this perfectly modular gaming experience with great minis, maps, and an adventure module that could be slotted into an ongoing campaign or used as a one-shot. It was just the perfect little 5e package. I was also a big fan of the Pathfinder 2e Beginner Box from Paizo. It was a very well designed entry point for people curious about Pathfinder, and with follow-up books like Troubles in Otari and Abomination Vaults, there was just a clear path for how to become proficient with Pathfinder 2e. Similarly, the D&D Starter Set was such a great introduction to 5th edition and it led elegantly to a number of different 5e adventures while being a fun little campaign in and of itself.

I don’t think I’ve had a different opinion than our viewers too often, but what often does happen is long-time D&D players leaving comments talking about really interesting old-school lore, history, or allusions that I didn’t know about. Their experience allows them to share context that I just didn’t have, and that’s always really fascinating. I’m so grateful that they watch and share those tidbits with us.

Your focus is on Dungeons and Dragons, but there are many tabletop role playing games out there. What features in some of the games that you've reviewed has interested you in your reviews? What consistent features keep popping up in one place that may be needed somewhere else? What over or under performs? What lacking in other places?

Who’s this adorable friend? Check out the kickstarter April 12th.

I absolutely adore the character creation options that Pathfinder 2e provides, especially through their various feat trees. It’s just so much fun creating Pathfinder characters. I’m still shocked that D&D hasn’t gone further in incorporating feats, especially racial or ancestry feats to provide more horizontal progression for PCs. In my eyes, D&D has a problem where mechanically many characters don’t play all that differently from other characters. There’s not much difference mechanically from playing a human, elf, goblin, or gnome. I would love to see some new focus given to that.

Another innovation in Pathfinder 2e that I’d love to see brought over to other games is their trait system. Everything in that game from spells, to characters, to items, to actions has certain traits that play off of each other and other game mechanics. And they’re all easily seen and color-coded so when you’re trying to figure out if this one particular feat affects this one esoteric magic item, all you really have to do is see if that item has that one needed trait. It takes something that could get really complicated and makes it fairly simple for the players. Though I will say, as someone trying to write Pathfinder 2e content, keeping up with all those traits is not easy!

I love the focus on improvised story-telling that you get from Blades in the Dark, though I have to admit that it does intimidate me a bit. I think that is one trend that we’re going to see more and more: less of a focus on GM prep and more on creating stories on the fly. Less work, more play.

I also like the relatively simple and accessible rules of Mörk Borg and Vast Grimm, which allow you to easily introduce new players to the game, and the brutal nature of those games really heightens the tension and keeps everyone on the edge of their seat. It does feel like the trend is towards simpler rulesets to give new players an easier entry into the games.

And games like Fiasco have mechanisms for character and relationship building that I now use in all my games. And I will say that I’ve been lucky enough to playtest some games that I’m not currently at liberty to talk about, but I can share that there are still plenty of innovations out there to be explored, and folks are doing some really fascinating things with standard TTRPGs mechanics that should surprise and delight you.

Artwork from Ravnica Pride - reviewed by the gallant goblin pals here - art by Stickyhunter - Ravnica Pride Frederic Walker on dms guild

Your banner artwork on Youtube features a wonderful spread of representations for LGBT pride flags. This appreciation and attention is very dear to me, and it's great to see it dear to you. What's your relations with the wider queer community? How does that inform your place in the TTRPG community?

Well, Grady and I are both gay, in case that wasn’t abundantly clear, so our life experiences have us firmly in the LGBTQ+ community. A lot of my volunteer and professional work has been LGBTQ+ focused from working on the LGBT Help Line in Houston through the Montrose Center to being the chair of GLSEN (The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) Houston for a number of years, working on making K-12 education safe for all kids. We know that queer folks often have added struggles, so we want to, first and foremost, let them know that they’re seen and welcomed at our table and in our community. Through our Queerfinder project, we’re also trying to showcase queer writers, developers, and artists in the larger TTRPG community while also providing new queer content, stories, locations, and characters for folks to add to their games. Ultimately, I’ve found that one key component to happiness is feeling like you belong and that you’re valued. We try to impart that sentiment in everything we do.

You've given the works we've made here on Apotheosis Studios a fair and loving set of reviews. How did our works come to your attention? How has our partnership been going?

Well, I’ve been working with Satine for a number of years now through her Patreon mentoring system. She helped me craft my very first 5e adventure through Ashley Warren’s RPG Writer’s Workshop which somehow ended up becoming a bestseller on DMs Guild. She’s provided us with guidance on just about every major project we’ve worked on, so when she met Jamison I was introduced to both him and his work at Apotheosis. Satine was kind enough to bring both Grady and I in to work on her collaboration with Apotheosis, Sirens: Battle of the Bards, which also brought The Red Opera to our attention. That was such a fun, evocative, and innovative work that we wanted to share with our audience. Our work with Battle of the Bards is complete, so now we’re just eagerly waiting to see what the final product will look like! And we’re looking forward to the new Paladin project and hoping that we’ll be able to contribute to that story as well!

We're well into 2022 at this point, but the Goblin remains Gallant. What's on the horizon? What offerings from the world of Dungeons and Dragons, and other TTRPGs are you looking forward to, or hoping to unveil this year?

If there’s one thing Grady and I should probably work on, it’s learning how to slow down! We have a ton of projects in the works! We’re just now launching our new line of Hero Plushes starting with our adorable kobold adventurers! If the Kickstarter goes well, the sky’s the limit there! We’re also gearing up for our first major actual player series: Pathfinder: Outlaws of Alkenstar featuring a diverse cast of Houston improv performers. That show will launch this summer! We also have issue 2 of Queerfinder focusing on the city of Absalom with a clothing shop designed by Satine herself that we hope to be able to finish in time for PaizoCon! And then issue 3 focuses on Alkenstar, the city of smog, this summer! We’re also hoping to bring Queerfinder to 5e and other systems later this year. We’re also looking at providing some monthly content in the Queerfinder vein later this year; stay tuned for details on that! And who knows, maybe there will be some Paladin work to be done as well! And then it’s a full time job just trying to keep up with all the releases from D&D, Pathfinder, Starfinder, WizKids, Steamforged, Hit Point Press, and others! At this point we need a fleet of goblin interns to help us stay on track! It’s such an exciting time in the TTRPG realm, and we’re so fortunate and happy to be a part of it! And thank you so much for having us!

Inspiring stuff told to us by pillars of the TTRPG news community. I’ve been aware of them for many years, but hearing their fine words right here has made me even bigger fans of Gallant Goblin. You can learn about them for yourself on their website here and their video reviews on YouTube here.

Now we want to hear from you. Do you follow the news and reviews Gallant Goblin brings to the wild? Will you be pledging to their Kickstarter for adorable Kobold plushies? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com , they write all kinds of gaming press, while they write news about the League of Legends Card Game on RuneterraCCG . On Youtube, they can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes , or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere . Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree .

Dungeons and Dragons is easily our favourite game here at Apotheosis Studios, but it's not the only game we “main”. With the exception of D&D and Genshin Impact, I almost exclusively play card games. Titans of the genre like Yu-Gi-Oh and Flesh and Blood as well as under appreciated digital gems like Legends of Runeterra, Skyweaver, Mythgard, and Kards. I've shuffled them up and dealt myself hands of all of them!

There is however, one game I know better, have a bigger collection for, and love with the biggest taste of nostalgia: Magic the Gathering. Magic, has been a part of my life for almost as long as Dungeons and Dragons. Ever since the very sweaty head of the University Gaming Society sat me down with his Mono-Black Vampires deck, I've been gathering cards and brewing decks ever since.

A little while ago, D&D and Magic had their first cross over. Adventures in the Forgotten Realms replaced the 2021 Core Set, and gave us entry level mechanics, the Dungeon mechanic, and a lot of amazing call backs to The Forgotten Realms. Now we're going back!

We're expecting to see the second Commander Legends set with a grand Dungeons and Dragons feel coming to friendly local game stores on June 10th.

Last November we got a set full of value reprints and highly anticipated new Legendary creatures for the most popular format in Magic. Cards featuring the Encore mechanic became a lot of fun as a bigger, meaner cousin to cards with Unearth. An immense plethora of Legendaries were printed, including a vast number of potential Partner commanders. On top of that, we also got The Prismatic Piper which still counts as one of the weirdest cards I've ever seen.

Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate is looking to bring that same level of Legends support and commander multi player dynamics, with a strong Dungeons and Dragons flavour. Perhaps this is the place for the designers to bring out some powerful concepts intended for Adventures in the Forgotten Realms that may have been a little too strong for Standard.

Though June is a long long way from now, we have started to see the first few cards. So let's take a look!

Bring the burn - images by Scryfall

Lightning Bolt and Fireball are both classic spells in Magic, but also in Dungeons and Dragons. Every 5th Level Wizard has to at least consider adding these to their spell books through the power of meme alone. Having these cards meet both the D&D and Magic feel is a real master stroke in card reprint choice. Getting them both in the alternate art work will make them hotly collected for Modern and Legacy players alike. It's worth noting that Fireball and Lightning Bolt are the first spell cards we've seen given the classic Monster Manual alternate card style. We've only had creatures given this treatment, but truly iconic spells deserve this rework and I'm happy to see them.

Wand of Wonder - Images by Scryfall

Everyone's favourite Legendary arcane focus is back as an Artifact card. Wand of Wonder has lead to some particularly funny moments for the few player characters that ever wielded one. In this Magic the Gathering iteration, Wand becomes a fun chaos style card. The odds of hitting relevant Instants and Sorceries on it is pretty low, but playing extra cards for 4 mana, outside your turn is a fun and powerful effect. I know that past Forgotten Realms Commander Prosper, Tome Bound, would benefit from more cards played from exile style effects. It's also nice to see this card given another artwork treatment for the Bundle Box. It's the only place you'd ever open a unique Wand of Wonder like that.

We now go live to the sound of two big scary seven mana Black creatures.

Elder Brain - Images by Scryfall

The figure of strange dread that leads the Mind Flayers through their scheming is that of the Elder Brain. It's been a figure in Dungeons and Dragons flair that has always fascinated and frightened me. In its new Magic card form, it fits the flavour and function perfectly. A late game threat that strips away the mind of whoever beholds it, granting you all that knowledge. I mentioned Prosper, Tome Bound earlier, who is a Fiend Warlock in the flavour text described in the card, but possibly he's a Great Old One Warlock now, swearing to draw power from the Elder Brain as it allows him to generate Treasure from the stolen secrets of other, feeble minds. We haven't seen the Monster Manual style artwork for Elder Brain yet, but I'd be very surprised if there isn't one coming soon. That said, the extended art on Elder Brain looks so good. All those floating bodies of the minds the Brain has feasted on is so terrifying; it reminds me of screen shots from Control; one of my all time favourite video games in which a similar otherworldly force feasts on the will of mortals.

Ancient Brass Dragon - Images by Scryfall

Ancient Brass Dragon is a very, very fun design. For big reanimator style decks, resurrecting an average of ten creatures from any players' graves just feels like a very strong effect that players will have to put creatures in front of. I have a Teneb, the Harvester Reanimator Dragons tribal deck that would absolutely adore an this big brassy friend. The only thing I take exception to is the flavour. The Brass Dragon is known for being a friendly conversationalist and seeker of Magical Items. This immense power of resurrecting many fallen friends may seem a little out of character. However, now that I think about it, maybe this particular Brass Dragon has access to levels of Necromancer or some other power from the Swamps it lives in to help revive more friends that it can have a nice chat with. The alternate artwork on it makes it seem truly fearsome, but the Monster Manual style art is too good to ignore.

What would an adventure into Baldur's Gate be without heroes? Minsc and Boo have had a real rags to riches growth in the wider Dungeons and Dragons canon. They've now become welcome heroes on two different cards in Magic. Their original Legendary in Adventures made real strides in Standard and now they're a Planeswalker: the Timeless Heroes! I like my Planeswalker commanders to bring consistent value, rather than represent an uber powerful win condition, and the card designers at Wizards appear to agree. Fewer Teferi, Temporal Archmages, more Daretti, Scrap Savants please.

Minsc and Boo - Images by Scryfall

As for the man and his hamster, he appears to be a value driven Planeswalker, and that's something I can definitely get behind. The passive ability to consistently summon Boo to his side is very on flavour for a powerful Ranger and a loyal animal companion. The plus ability strengthens Boo, but also any creature with Red and Green's favourite keywords. Some of the cards which care about Modified from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, or Proliferate effects will love effects like this. The minus can spell out a sudden win to a player beaten low by your beasts or efficient burn removal to a troublesome permanent. Don't feel bad about sacrificing Boo (Magic's only Hamster without effects that change creature types), he'll be back on your next Upkeep. The contrast in his two artworks is a nice touch, with the main set printing leaving the two looking pensive while the extended art shows them in action.

Reflecting Pool - Images by Scryfall

The biggest part of Magic gameplay is drawing your power from the land itself. Reflecting Pool is getting a worthwhile reprint. The Lorwyn rainbow land was once the pinnacle of a four colour control deck that abused the power the Vivid Lands. Most three plus colour decks have to at least consider using Reflecting Pool, so the regular and extended artworks are both very welcome for many players.

An even more worthwhile reprint is the ally colour cycle of Battlebond Lands. Battlebond of course being the Two-Headed Giant set which was made of many many value cards for Commander, it released a cycle of lands like this which enter Untapped if you're in a multi player game. Their value to commander players was felt immediately, and prompted Wizards to complete the cycle in the first Commander Legends. I truly hope these lands will always be in ongoing Commander Legends sets, like the Fetch Lands in Modern Horizons. Not only that, these reprints sport new artwork fitting the Dungeons and Dragons setting. An opulent Zhentarim Luxury Suite and endless cloudscape in Sea of Clouds. Snap these up. There will always be a Commander that could use a land like this.

Battlebond Lands - Images by Scryfall

Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate is coming to game stores June 10th. So long from now! As more cards are revealed, expect us to report about them right here on Apotheosis Studios.

Now we want to hear from you. Which legends of the Forgotten Realms are you hoping to see translated into Magic? Which cards are you hoping to pick up? Would you like more Magic the Gathering or TCG news from us? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com , they write all kinds of gaming press, while they write news about the League of Legends Card Game on RuneterraCCG . On Youtube, they can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes , or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere . Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree .

Adventure! It's what calls our characters in Dungeons and Dragons, and every table top role playing game, for that matter, out into the wilderness. We charge the hidden temples, negotiate political disputes, and hold our ground in a siege, all to progress our story. At the end of a session, or an encounter, or whenever a generous Game Master feels like it, we may share around the greatest treasure of them all: Experience Points.

Experience is great. It's a numerical way to keep track of how lived our characters are. The more fights they prevail from, against lowly goblins and mighty dragons, the XP will always help our characters grow in the ranks. It's been a staple for progression in this game and countless others. Even a game I play all the time, Genshin Impact, has multiple different kinds of XP (specifically Character XP, Adventure XP, and Reputation XP).

We all love grinding our levels for XP. There's just one problem with Experience Points: they don't make sense. Let's unpack why and what the alternatives are.

Let’s look closer at the numbers on these things - careful study by Scott M. Fischer

Experience Points have been used since the beginning of tabletop gaming. In fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons, it sums up the difficulty of certain opponents. Once they're defeated, a number of Experience Points based on how much that monster had is divided up between each character that fought it. Or each player gets that amount at the end of the encounter, like how I used to run things for a very high power game.

The crunching of numbers and striving for a new total is always something gamers want to do. The many friends of mine who grind achievements on Play Station or Xbox certainly know this. The need to fill in a progress bar or hit a completion threshold is incredibly satisfying.

This kind of progression makes total sense for a much simpler kind of game. A classic hack and slash style RPG we may get in an arcade, or a retro style Roguelite.

Here's our problem when it comes to table top role playing games. Experiences like Dungeons and Dragons can very easily be a theatre of the mind Roguelite. One thinks of the Meat-Grinder styles of dungeons that the fine wizards at Nerdarchy are known for. This is but one of many ways to play a TTRPG, and a way few people actually do. The vast majority of players who enjoy a TTRPG play it as a collaborative narrative experience.

As such a collaborative narrative, we can easily go multiple sessions without a character picking a fight with anything. That's normal and to be expected. In the real world, we're taught to avoid starting physical confrontations, and that's true for the fantastical worlds we role play in; even if we cover our characters in armour, weapons, and destructive magical powers.

So in sessions where our characters don't pick a fight with a rival faction or wandering monster, but instead debate, deliberate, and discuss the fate of the realm with a bloodthirsty dragon or solve a myriad of puzzles, they don't grow as people? Of course they do. The problem is that the way the game is currently constructed, they don't mechanically grow from that.

Then again, we get the exact opposite extreme. Sometimes the only way to grow in this system is to be as violent and murderous as possible. This reminds me of the conversation our very own Satine Phoenix had with hilarious and character driven DM Brennan Lee Mulligan. Watch the video below, but the general message was that Wizard schools would resemble a barrack more than Hogwarts. Time to slay some goblins to practice your evocation magic. Why study? Get XP by blowing things up! To take this metaphor further, would the other schools of magic have even been explored if there was no incentive for Wizards to grow as individuals outside of wanton magical murder?

Clearly the mechanics of our high fantasy dice game require a lot of thought. But this disparity of flavour and function is immense. So how do we remedy that?

Make the pen and the sword mighty gro! - enthusiastic Study by Jesper Ejsing

When we wonder how best to progress our characters in this brave new world of Dungeons and Dragons, we have to ask ourselves is it with Experience Points or without. There's real merit to both. It all depends if you want to make your games more grindy and number crunchy, like a videogame RPG, then there may be more flavourful ways to inject Experience Points into through other means.

In an honourable mention, I want to mention something I'm going to shorthand as the Matt Mercer Method. He once described a method for handing out XP for social interaction and role play. Whenever a player does something interesting or true to their character, make a tally somewhere in your mass amounts of notes that you took about the session. At the end, take that number of tally marks and multiply it by ten. That's how much extra Experience they get for doing a good job staying in character.

That's what I used to do when I used XP while Game Mastering.

Another fun way to apply some character growth while keeping the Experience Points flowing is to build your NPCs like monsters. A lot of NPCs have an associated challenge rating. When your Player Characters approach this individual with the need for something; to get information, to intimidate them out of a course of action, or gain favours; there may be more weight on those other rolls.

With this method, we can make the assumption that social encounters happen alongside combat ones to ensure that the sessions feel balanced and the difficulty can be there. As the party progresses through the campaign and gains further levels and skills, the combat experiences they go through mount up in difficulty, as should their social encounters. In the early days, a particularly corrupt Lord or unintelligent Guard may make for an easy mark and free XP to everyone involved in the encounter, but when it gets to higher levels, gaining the tens of thousands of Experience Points for negotiating with a Dragon or appealing to the immense greed and blood lust of Demon Lords will bring great rewards to everyone.

Who knew talking things through brings forward progress?

The other primary way to gain Experience is a way that's explained very clearly in the Dungeon Master's Guide. It's also the version I use to progress the characters I GM for. Milestones.

For those who don't know, Milestones are key moments in the story of the game where the characters level up. Defeating a great enemy, overcoming grand odds, uncovering a great secret my be a great point to embed a Milestone.

As an alternative to Experience Points, it's worth asking why are Milestones good as an alternative. I recommend using Milestones in any game that's heavily story driven. Long ongoing campaigns are a good example of this. There may be strange cases where your players swarm a cavern of little bad guys or pick their arguments against a slew of non player characters to build up mass amounts of XP, shifting the power well outside of what you had initially planned. The old school video game farming route.

Milestones takes this option away as it allows you, the GM, to control the trickle of progression. Much like with Magic Items or other boons you wish to bestow on your characters, whole levels or even whole class powers are yours to share when the characters are ready to receive them.

A Grand discovery can make a great milestone - You Find the Villains' Lair by Gabor Szikszai

A few provisos on when a Milestone should be used is key. This kind of progression gives the GM a lot of power, and should not be taken lightly. The growth should be equal among all characters. If all the characters participated in the story beats that were heavy enough that they could learn from in story terms, then they should assuredly gain some Experience from it.

There should also be a fairly regular trickle based on how long your expect your campaign to last. Your few week turbo game, make them level up every session or even a few times a session. Your magnum opus set to take the characters on a narrative lasting years, should take a reasonably long time between levels.

If you're a player and your GM uses Milestones, question them on their method so they don't forget or gatekeep your progress; if your characters deserve a growth after their hardships then they should get it.

Now we want to hear from you. Do you use Experience Points to progress the characters you Game Master? Which system do you prefer, XP for interactions or just Milestones? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com , they write all kinds of gaming press, while they write news about the League of Legends Card Game on RuneterraCCG . On Youtube, they can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes , or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere . Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree .

Apotheosis Studios is a very lucky place to be. In the world of promoting our extensive work in the world of tabletop role playing games, we meet some truly remarkable friends and creators doing some very exciting work.

We have been in contact with Benny McLennan, the founder and CEO of Arcane Minis. The bringers of highly detailed, 3D printed minis have been next levelling themselves with their offerings to the wild world of tabletop gaming. We've already become big fans of their latest 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons adventure, [ADD], but they've wowed us all again. You can learn more about Arcane Minis in our world exclusive interview with Benny McLennan himself, but we're taking a long look at the company's latest project in this post.

Now on their Kickstarter is the rich, complex, and compelling board game Aldarra. Their ongoing theme of steampunk airships is on full show in this game. So, what is Aldarra? How is it played? How do we win? How many kinds of airship will we take speeding across the infinitely customisable board? Let's take a deep look.

We're taking all of our information presented in this article about Aldarra's rules and gameplay from this video by RTFM. We're also taking an opportunity in this post to offer our own thoughts about gameplay, its unique points, and how it strikes similarities among the many many other board games I have played in my time ignoring the boring world and rolling dice and flipping cards.

Core set contents, anyone up for a game? - Image by Arcane Minis

Aldarra is a heavily themed, area control game designed by Arcane Minis, which has features of set collecting, unit deployment, and secret objectives. At the start of the game, each of the two to four players chooses one of the four different factions represented in the world of Aldarra: the Cin'dar Navy, the Mining Corps Coalition, the Odarian Empire, and the Arrodan Syndicate. Each faction has access to similar classes of airship and tower, but each faction has certain powers and abilities that modify how they play.

Also at the start of the game, the board is set up out of hexagonal terrain tiles. It's generally better to set the tiles up in a more regular shape, but having fun and making a strange shaped map adds a level of uniqueness and challenge to gameplay. The starting player is chosen randomly, and that first player replaces one of the map tiles (that is not a crystal deposit) and places their stronghold there, as well as a number of ships – which must be at least two spaces away. The second player does the same, then the third, and so on. Then in reverse order, the last player may then play down an outpost tower and more ships, but they can be placed anywhere (except near crystal deposits). This snake draft style of deployment very much reminds me of Settlers of Catan, however that award winning classic doesn't have airships.

Each round has three parts: Preparation, Expansion, and Management phases. During Preparation, you decide the turn order based on who has the fewest points into the most. Then crystals spawn in the crystal deposits and a random number of crystals are distributed across the board. Crystals are very valuable and should be snapped up quickly.

Now that we're all set up, what can we do on our turn? In turn order, players use their three Order Tokens to move their ships around the map. Each player puts an order token somewhere and either moves ships towards it or away from it. Each ship has a movement speed that determines how far they can go in one turn. There are certain powers which stop your movement early and some which increase your movement speed. When you move, you can pick a fight with enemy ships in the same space (which I'll cover next) or you can Explore it, by placing an Explored token and drawing a card, which has a beneficial effect for you.

So you're passing through a section of air space with no good interlopers in there. Time to teach them who's boss. Since you earn a victory point for winning points you start, picking fights is a big part of gameplay in Aldarra. Light ships attack first, because they're nimble and quick to the draw like Han Solo. After that there's some damage calculation, then buildings and heavy ships attack. After that second round of damage, either player may retreat; if neither does, we repeat this cycle again. Each ship and building has a combat die, represented by different colour, special d8s. Rolling them and applying cards or faction abilities that modify your dice rolls is taken into effect to see how much damage you assign. If you tie or exceed the armour rating of your attack target, it's blown out of the sky and destroyed. Don't feel too bad if your ships are destroyed in combat, you make back a coin if your ship is destroyed; yay war profits!

Mining corps minis - Core set contents

After exploring the map and blasting at your opponents with your battleships, we have to wonder how we can build replacement ships or upgrade our outposts. After Exploration comes the management phase. Much like with worker placement games like Lords of Waterdeep, Stone Age, or Champions of Midgard, we all cash in certain rewards for having our ships and outposts in certain spots on the board. This is called Mining. Then, once you've collected your cash and crystals, players in turn order can buy one or three Victory Points; once everyone's bought points, we check to see if anyone has got 20 or more points, thus crowning them the winner (with turn order breaking ties). If no one wins, you can draw secondary objective cards, to bring unexpected new ways to score points at any time you meet the card's requirements (though remember, you can only win if you get 20 on the step before it, so you'll need to wait another round before victory). The discovery step is a way to bring even more unique upgrades to your remaining units, then finally there's the build step. During the build step, you turn your hard earned coins and crystals into more ships or upgrades for your current ships and outposts.

Once Management is done, we go back to the Preparation Phase to pick a new turn order, then play goes around again! We keep going until one person is at twenty points and victory is seized.

One thing I will preface about the game, as we saw from the fine gameplay efforts of our very own Satine Phoenix and Jamison Stone when they played: this game has a very high complexity level. The phase like structure of rounds, the many steps and actions that can be done in each phase. On top of that, there are multiple kinds of resources, but they're accumulated and handled at different points in each round. The different kinds of ships all have different statistics, and managing when they're upgraded requires another understanding of timing and when it's beneficial to you.

That said, complexity is not a downside. Intricate is not an indication of difficulty. I have spent afternoons staring at the rulebooks for Eldritch Horror and Betrayal at House on the Hill wondering what to do, when one picks up clues, and if it's okay to put this kind of house tile there. Overly complex is not a thing to put people off playing. For serious tabletop gamers, a system this byzantine, at least for me personally, is a hugely encouraging and something that makes me want to play more.

Aldarra has a lot to offer for any kind of gamer. For those who want to escape into the entrenched science fantasy storyline of the four factions, and seeing who will reign supreme after game after game, we can be swept up in it easily.

For the players who enjoy deep strategy, who wants to leverage the unique powers of each airship units, to execute an intense strategy, and who want to feel the rush on rolling multiple explosive hits on powerful dice, you get that intense rush.

I have given the fine game smiths at Arcane Minis a huge endorsement on their Kickstarter. I believe in this project, as does everyone else here at Apotheosis Studios.

Aldarra appeals to every kind of gamer.

You can see Jamison Stone, Satine Phoenix, and special guest Ian Kellet playing Aldarra on Twitch here. For even more backstory on the fine minds behind the game, read our exclusive interview with the CEO of Arcane Minis right here on Apotheosis Studios. To put your own pledges to back Aldarra, find their Kickstarter right here.

Now we want to hear from you. Will you be making your pledges to back Aldarra? Has your interest in the other sky ship flavoured projects of Arcane Minis excited your gaming sensibilities? Let us know in our discord server or in the comments below.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com , they write all kinds of gaming press, while they write news about the League of Legends Card Game on RuneterraCCG . On Youtube, they can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes , or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere . Find where they dwell by climbing their Linktree .