Vote on Draw Steel Adventure Pitches
🕑 Added 2025-01-09 23:52:51 +0000 UTCDo you want to go on an adventure?
Hey folks! It's James here. The design, production, and operations teams are here in the office this week. Since we're getting close to finishing the core design of Draw Steel and moving the game into edit and layout, we've been talking a lot about future products for the RPG. The biggest topic of all our meetings this week is ADVENTURES. We want to create lots of stories for you to run, play, scrap for parts, read, or otherwise use however you like to make your Draw Steel games great. We've had loads of ideas for adventures.
We wanted to share our top 20 adventure ideas with you all and then give you a voice. We want to know your favorites. So once you read all the quick pitches below, go ahead and let us know your five favorite pitches at this survey:
https://forms.gle/WMdbKGmw4TkwFXRc9
A Dark Dream
Level of Play: 6th
Captued by the voiceless talkers! Five heroes find themselves prisoners on a synliroi dreadnought, there must be a way home .... the Somnium Tenebrous adventure converted to Draw Steel.
Crack The Sun
Levels of Play: 1st through 4th
The Bloodskull Hobgoblins work some sorcery on the air over the Black Forest, turning the sun blood-red. This power was given to them by the shadow elves of Equinox. If all goes according to plan, the hobgoblins will free their god imprisoned in the sun, and the shadow elves gain control over Orden. Journey to Equinox! Fight the Time Ender on the surface of the Sun!
Ill-met In Blackbottom
Levels of Play: 0 through 1st
Five people learn to be heroes in the City of Thieves. Start at level 0 and build your hero a la carte as you navigate the many factions of Blackbottom.
Raiders of the Sword Lord's Grave
Levels of Play: 2nd
The heroes race against Ajax's elite War Dogs who seek to free the Ninth Sword Lord from her prison-grave. A tour of Vasloria where sometimes the heroes are ahead, sometimes the War Dogs are ahead, but either way there's a confrontation at the Barrow of the Ninth Sword Lord.
The Condemned
Levels of Play: 3rd
Knight-commander Ottavio de Caserta is Castellan for the Stays, the port of entry into Capital. You are a criminal condemned to death. Commander de Caserta offers you a chance for freedom, your record expunged if you'll just do this one job for him. The catch? It's suicide!
The Dark Heart of the Wood
Levels of Play: 2nd
A great evil roosts in the ruined keep in the center of the forest. It's a thorn dragon! A sandbox adventure with a Big Bad at the end.
The Delian Tomb
Levels of Play: 1st
Queen Bargnot controls an ancient Caelian temple. The Ritual of Opening requires the blood of an innocent. Goblins kidnapped the blacksmith's daughter!
Expanded and upgraded Delian Tomb and Queen Bargnot's lair. The Canonical Goblin Adventure.
The Fall of Blackbottom
Levels of Play: 1st
Ajax sacks the Free City of Blackbottom, and YOU ARE THERE! Escape the imperiled city by any means necessary!
The Hand of Zyll
Levels of Play: 7th through 9th
Thousands live in what was one the Duchy of Gant, now the Protectorate of Zyll the Archlich. Zyll prefers to stay neutral in the war against Ajax. By hook or by crook, the heroes must change his mind ... or overthrow him! The Canonical Undead Adventure.
The Lord of Rend
Levels of Play: 1st through 2nd
Lord Saxton, agent of Ajax, usurped the old baron of Bedegar. Now he's building a church to Saint Ajax. Five heroes must stop him and place someone ... less evil ... on the throne.
Combining, updating, and expanding the adventures from Strongholds & Followers and Kingdoms & Warfare.
The Order of Desolation
Levels of Play: 6th
Thanks to the heroes' efforts, the elite death commandos of Hell, the Order of Desolation, also known as the Illriggers issue their first edict, ever. "The Order of Desolation speaks now with one voice: Death To Ajax!"
The heroes journey to the Seven Cities of Hell, play the various factions off against each other intending to convince, or manipulate, the Order of Desolation into joining the fight against Ajax.
The Ruins of Castle Omund
Levels of Play: 1st through 4th
Good King Omund built his castle atop an ancient keep containing lore and monsters from many ages of the world. There may be no bottom to it ....
An epic megadungeon for low-level heroes.
The Temple of Primordial Chaos
Levels of Play: 4th through 7th
An ancient cult awakes, seeking to free their elemental masters deep within a ruined temple.
An epic megadungeon for mid-level heroes.
The Titan of Ix
Levels of Play: 10th
Journey to the big island of IX! Evade the terror-lizards, and prevent a cult of Goxomoc from destroying the world! Or FIGHT Goxomoc if you fail to stop the cult!
The Wreck of the UHOV Inquisitor
Levels of Play: 4th
There's a crashed UNISOL starship somewhere in Vasloria, and Ajax (among other people!) want the tech it holds. The players race against other groups each vying to control the space fantasy artifacts onboard. It may not even be obvious to the players they're in a spaceship at first!
Thieves of the Dead City
Levels of Play: 2nd
Somewhere inside Castle Valetta is the Key to Ringwell. Five thieves must get in, find it, and get out. Only problem is; Castle Valetta is a Castle of the Dead inside a City of the Dead, ruled by the Queen of Vampires!
To Kill A King: Against the Thane of Kas Kalavar
Levels of Play: 3rd
Five heroes try to change the course of history, deposing the Thane of the Dwarves, replacing him with one of their own, restoring justice to the dwarves of Kas Kalavar.
Unfairy Tale
Levels of Play: 3rd
Five faeries must brave the human lands to rescue a headless giant!
The canonical fae adventure where the players are the heroes of the Wode trying to fight back against the cruel and scheming humans.
Unusual Approach
Levels of Play: 5th
Five highly trained operatives dropped behind enemy lines must rescue a priest. But she won't leave without taking the refugees she's been hiding with her.
The Shadow on the Surface of the Sun are the Pharoah of Khemarah's elite special operations team. They are supremely well-trained and outfitted, ready for any mission. But what happens when, deep in hostile territory hunted by enemies ... the mission changes.
Vengeance Keeps
Levels of Play: 1st
Defend the small town of Staneford from a strangely organized and determined kobold legion.
The players organize the town against repeated assaults from the kobolds, find that the villain behind everything is a revenant from the Caelian Empire who was betrayed by the townsfolk's ancestors, and ultimately defend the town from an assault from a flying keep that can become a stronghold.
Comments
Darth yub nub
All please
Wilzard
Really hoping we get Vengeance Keeps! I found Djordi's ideation board inspiring, and loved how all the pieces of the adventure fit together. The NPCs had a nice web of relationships. I'd find that sort of thing super useful in an actual module - more so than a wall of text describing the town in essay form.
Quest Bruv
All of them sound so good. I hope five is just to start, and we get all of these eventually.
Ryan
I want that Goxomoc stat block so bad
Argonautica
I want to chime in that the name Vengeance Keeps with that plot is A+
Rowan
So many great ideas! Special shoutout to Ill-met in Blackbottom. I would love to see what y'all do with a level 0 character building adventure. I'm also a big fan of the presence of politics and hard choices.
Roman Penna
These are cool, very much keen on an Unusual Approach. Sounds perfect to adapt to my world
Connor Hopkins
For the most part I avoided familiar prompts. I can update fall of blackbottom myself or reverse engineer the mind flayer ship arc from The Chain if I want to. But I still voted for Delian Tomb. It feels like it needs to be the babies first dungeon for DS.
Holly
I would have thought that megadungeons were outside the parameters of the DS design goals? Regardless of subject matter, I hope there are some short higher level adventures, like the WEL lairs or the Slayer's Take arc from CR. Quick but challenging scenarios to let the group blow off steam between averting apocalypses, stuff that doesn't need a whole campaign worth of lore to support it (stuff that gives the director a break from juggling a whole campaign of lore...). I think this is an important and very neglected part of support for higher levels. I at least don't need help coming up with a BBEG, I would much rather make my own final arc, but I would really like a week or two off from planning combats that are challenging for powerful characters.
Steven James Esmay
Love the chase adventures. It sounds so fun to be chasing after the same prize neck and neck with a good group of foes.
Celeborn
all of them sound so good it was really hard to pick
Jonathan Rowan
Wow, that was a tough choice. Funny enough, if I was picking only one, it would have been Unfairy Tale. But of my top 6, it was the odd-one out, so I went with the others.
Brian Bremer
Love Against The Thane of Kas Kalavar, Ill-Met in Blackbottom, and one of the megadungeons, either Primordial Chaos or Good King Omund's castle
Wasps Nests
Delian Tomb and other intro adventures are highest on the list with a more "prelude" like Blackbottom being a close second
Lagrange0
I thought the Delian tomb and the lvl0 adventure would make the cut for me (the former to see what would come out of fleshing out the archetypal rtg starter adventure and the latter as a useful tool to introduce inexperienced players to the game) but there turned out to be too many cooler options!
Michael Hughes
These were hard to choose from! I went for the Delian tomb cause it's a classic, and to someone else's comment brings things full circle. Chose others to guide players through lower levels of play, the building characters a la carte as you play seems like a fun way to approach it. Others were for variety, but I do wish I could pick all of them lol. Gotta have a good megadungeon or two mixed in, I've always wanted to run one and can't wait to see the MCDM approach to one!
Justin Liller
It's hard not to vote for The Delian Tomb. Just seems full circle
Forgotten
So many good options. Ultimately I voted for the ones I think give the best spread of possible player interests: 1 classic, 1 political, 1 gritty, 1 bizarre, and 1 game-y
Dudimus
King Omund seems to be the lynchpin for Draw Steel's lore, so the Ruins of Castle Omund feel pretty much required to me. And one of the most important things I think the rules as a whole need is level 0 rules, so Ill-Met at Blackbottom is also pretty important to me. Crack the sun just sounds like a crazy thing you would only see in Draw Steel, so I would give that one a high priority as well.
Ole Ingvar Stene
So many good ones, really hard to narrow it down. But, I did it! :D
Robert Lawson
Fighting Cthrion Uroniziir? At 4th level? The dragon that Matt said could maybe take on all seven Titans at once? ( ⚆ _ ⚆ )
Anthony Lee Phillips
RUINS of CASTLE OMUND!! Since Matt's lore is so important to this game, that's my #1. It puts the shadow of Omund on the map.
Christian Lange
Those are some great pitches. Would be exited to play or run any of them. Voted mostly for low level adventures, since that is where I'll need to start to sell DS to my group.
Dogsarethebestpeople
I love all of these! But I would prefer adventures I haven't run yet for my group, so Delian Tomb and Fall of Blackbottom are not on my list.
Wade
Maybe VTT related?
GriffinMuffin
I'd love to see some adventure hooks in the rulebook!
Maximilian Tagher
This was so hard, so excited about these!!
Antonio Padilha
They're probably considering releasing the VTT on steam
Roosevelt Cooper
I voted for 5 but I WANT THEM ALL!!!!!!
Patrick Joel Hansen
Oh man this is so hard..... only 5???? Dang I wanna see them all lol
Cromm
What is the Steam question about?
Jesse Babs
Seriously, if Delian Tomb doesn't make the cut then what was this all for???
Chris Comstock
What I voted for: - Unusual Approach - Vengeance Keeps - The Order of Desolation - The Fall of Blackbottom - Raiders of the Sword Lord's Grave Honorable mention: - Ill-met In Blackbottom - The Ruins of Castle Omund I'd have picked the Delian Tomb, but I imagine tons of folks already know that one from the RTG videos!
Legendlore
The Lord of Rend, A Dark Dream, The Delian Tomb, the Hand of Zyll, and Ill-Met in Blackbottom
Eli Feliciano
For a fan of Dusk, Crack the Sun is a must.
Eli Feliciano
You mean pick the Delian Tomb and four more?
Hive_Indicator
I really hope the question about steam doesn't lead to the Codex being only on there. I don't want anything I buy to be contingent on Valve letting me access it. By that, I mean I won't get it
Ormus Erebus
I need to use my Cth mini! Crack the Sun all the waaaaaay
Marcel Theilig
It's very telling that picking 5 out of the 20 adventure wasn't easy at all. They all sound really cool. I hope you can make all of them in time.
alexander kinne
Ordeniana Jones and The Raiders of the Sword Lord's Grave,
ChatN
Unfairy Tale sounds super fun and whimsical. Also excited about the Delian Tomb.
Eugene Cheney
I fell in love with hobgoblins in DUSK and then again in Flee, Mortals! Crack the Sun for me!
That black guy
....You ...You're considering giving us an OFFICAL verison of the Delian tomb ?!
Joshua Heisler
The 1st echelon adventures sound particularly inspired. The Condemned particularly sounds super sweet!