Se7en Sagas

This has been a long ride.

Durandal, my epic diceless role playing game of mythic chivalry inspired by The Song of Roland and the Matter of France, is finally in the last stretch. Layout is done, the table of contents is in place, and if everything behaves it should be available on DriveThruRPG this week or next.

I am also looking into print on demand options through DriveThruRPG. First I want the digital version solid and live. After that I will run some tests and see what makes sense for a physical edition that does justice to the book without asking absurd prices.

To make this happen I even hit pause on American Dread, my vigilante game about resisting the dystopian America of today. I love that project and I will come back to it, but Durandal has been sitting on my shoulder for too long, whispering oaths and battle prayers, and it deserved to cross the finish line first.

If you do not want to wait for the full book, there is still the free Durandal quickstart on DriveThruRPG. It has the core rules, pre generated knights, and a starter scenario that shows exactly what kind of tragedy and glory the game is aiming for.

Folk horror in the world of Durandal

This past Halloween I ran a Durandal session for the girls, leaning hard into folk horror within the Carolingian setting. Think haunted woods, grim portents, strange signs, and knights trying very hard not to break their oaths while everything around them screams at them to do it.

The session went so well that I sat down afterwards and wrote the whole thing up properly. That adventure is now being developed into a publishable scenario for DriveThruRPG. With a bit of luck it will not stand alone, but become the first in a small chain of linked adventures that explore the stranger, more haunted corners of Durandal’s world.

On top of that I am also outlining Song of the Last Oath, the big epic campaign that will follow on from the introductory adventure in the core book. The idea is to let groups start with the scenario in the main rulebook then carry the same characters into a sweeping campaign about loyalty, faith, betrayal, and the final cost of keeping an impossible promise.

Holoverse in Almada, experiments in emotional sci fi

While Durandal marches toward release, the monthly playtests in Almada for Holoverse are going strong.

Holoverse is the game I am building together with Pedro and Telmo. It is their universe and my rules, a strange mix of anime emotional simulation, surreal science fiction, and personal drama. We have been using our regular meetings to poke at the edges of the system, see how the Passions feel in play, and stress test the scenarios.

The good news is that it works. Sessions are coming out intense, weird in the right ways, and surprisingly grounded in character emotion. Every month we come away with a list of tweaks and a feeling that this thing wants to live.

A nod to a friend on his own quest

I also want to give a special shout to my friend Christian John Prokop, aka Mildra the Monk, who has just finished his own Final Fantasy inspired fan role playing game . Watching friends push their projects across the finish line is incredibly motivating. It makes the whole scene feel alive, like a scattered fellowship of creators each dragging their own strange banner up the mountain.

How you can help

If you have picked up any of my games on DriveThruRPG, free or paid, one of the best ways you can support me right now is very simple.

Leave a rating or a short review.

Even a couple of lines help a lot. They make the games more visible in searches, they give other readers a sense of what to expect, and they show the platform that there is genuine interest in this kind of design.

Durandal is almost here. American Dread is waiting in the wings. Holoverse is humming along in the lab. Your comments, your tables, and your reviews are the wind in the sails for all of this.

Thank you for reading, and for riding along.

-Rui