Trollwizard Productions
It’s been a while since I did a Sunday Musings, and with things lining up at the moments, it felt like a good time to both restart this blog, and to outline a few things.
Where better to start than with a project that I’ve both loved working on, and fear it’s release this weekend.
The Fall of Erimus is a skirmish game set within a Hive setting that is part gothic mystery and part sci-fi gangland warfare. This is built and planned out to be a celebration of what the Fluffenhammer Community is, a thank you to everyone who takes the time to listen, to comment and to Fluff with the best of them. A long time ago, one of the first to join us said a sentence that rings with me to this day.
“Fluffing isn’t concrete, it’s a state of mind”*.
I agree with the sentiment. The Fluffenhammer has been, and continues to be a positive, supportive community. I’ve watched over the years, and only twice in the last seven years had to step in to deal with a situation. That, to me, is an incredible thing.
The Fall of Erimus is built to be a community expereince. I hope to see people talk about the games they play, and the gangs they make. I hope it fires up the imagination and gives people the tools to run campaigns they talk about on the groups and discord. I want to see how it shapes when out in the wild.
But lets go back a bit.
Since I came to the Tabletop hobby many years back, I adore creating. I’ve written RPG settings and simple system games since the mid-90s, worked on worlds, played with concepts. Days of Entropy, a game set in a world where the different frequencies of reality resonated and came together, has had multiple runs. In case you wonder how far deep I go into these games, I spent weeks watching quantum physics talks** to mine for ideas about how a world made of multiple laws of physics would work. Edenfall, a cyberpunk setting where an artificial island cut off from the rest of the world set up as a feeding ground for supernatural beings, ran multiple games and campaigns from ‘96 to 2012.
I never did anything else with them though. The little beast at the back of the brain always roared away that they where never good enough to try and make anything of. Way back in 2004 to 2006, I did some silly little comics*** under the dumbest name I thought up. Trollwizard Productions**** was born to a short life. But the name stuck in my brain.
Flashforward to 2020. With the world in lockdown, and the ability to leave the house shut off (and with a newborn), my brain went into freefall. I began writing again. I managed to throw together elements that played in my brain for a while, such as if WHFB continued after The End Times as a post apocalyptic fantasy, my love of Nausicaa’s toxic jungle and a heap of tropes (and Hedgehog Barbarians riding prehistoric chickens). I was proud of the setting, and that it got me writing and drawing again. Around the same time, I did some art for Krakon Games to sharpen the skills and to remove bad drawing habits I’d picked up over the years. Wildgrowth ended up a massive creation, and one I am absolutely proud of in every sense. The fear kicked in again and it was shelved.
I started work on Erimus in November 2022 to learn how to do everything. How to write a setting, how to learn to flatten a page, how to get across the feel of the setting with the page itself. I am proud of Erimus, and this time, I’m getting it out there.
With that explanation out of the way, allow me to present the map going forward.
The Fall of Erimus Book One comes out digitally for free this week. I hope the Fluff enjoys it, and the games you guys play, the gangs you make and the stories you tell are going to fuel books Two and Three. This is your sandbox to play in, and you guys shape it as you share it. Book One lays the groundwork, Book Two opens the world and Book Three will end the tale. I know how it ends, and between the books I’ll be writing like a deamon to make it worth your while. The plan I have is once all three books are out, I will combine and rework some elements (naming mostly) to attempt to crowdfund a hardback book at the end of 2023. On top of that, Fall of Erimus will be getting an audio drama series that I’m currently putting the final touches on for an October release.
But that’s not all. I recently discovered a old horror one-shot RPG named “Tattered” I wrote back in the late 90s. Whilst the author was obviously a snot nosed little brat, the bones of it are something I can work with, and I’m going to be working on making that something feasible for a Halloween release. I’ve dug through the Big Box O Stuff, and I think Edenfall being reworked as a skirmish game could be a lot of fun, as could a 20 page Dungeon Crawler with a mutable monsters mechanic with a 1940’s sci-fi feel under the name Grimdiggers Inc. Not to mention a Cyberpunk RPG game in a alternate 1990s thats all Sega Megadrive era pixelart. That’s all down the line, but I wanted to share the shape of things to come with you all.
For now though, We are about to enter The Hive Desolate, and I hope you enjoy the stay as much as I do. I cannot wait to see what you do.
Until next time, I remain
Adam
*Cheers for that Predrag!
**and understood less than half
***I miss you Task Force 20X6. Long lost even to the Wayback Machine
****A long silly chat with Wildbill, a man I should speak to more often