Witch Pleas Publishing is back to finish off their goblin adventure path series with new two modules and a whole lot of support content. In their Goblin Holiday Bundle crowdfunding campaign, they’re promising a whole lot:

• two new adventures

• mass-combat rules

• random encounter tables for different areas of the region

• rules for 13 games of chance

• and some holiday recipes!

Matt Funk was kind enough to share even more with me. So learn about his process and peek some awesome art!

Hunters of the Goblin Grove is a level 3 adventure that involves navigating an ever-changing forest. I'm sure that the players can take this in multiple directions, but does this end up being a fight on the bad guy's turf?

Yes! When the PCs enter the Hinterwoods by the village of Thorpe on Samhain Eve, they’re in for many surprises, and the changeable nature of the path is at the heart of that. There are seven Locations in the Hinterwoods, and each has three “incarnations” or versions that depend on what path the PCs took to reach it. I don’t want to reveal the secrets to determining that path, save to say it has something to do with the landscape that the players can figure out. One incarnation is a very fantastical version that’s close to “Elfland,” one is more realistic and haunted by a variety of spirits both malicious and helpful, and the third is a dark version, rotten by Chaos and foul magic. Each route has clues and keys to reach the last destination where the Boss Fight is, “the sacred grove.” And there in, as playtests have shown, is a rough fight indeed!

You describe Feast of the Goblin Winter as a module with five epic-level challenges where the town of Thorpe is once again at stake. Can you give us a couple hints as to what that might entail or how that adventure is structured?

Glad you asked! One of the elements of all TTRPGs, but especially DCC, that often plays on my mind is how to structure a “boss fight.” So I went about it a variety of ways: Foremost, I have five of the Boss Fights converging on the town center, getting stronger as they go in many instances. The PCs decide who to engage first, and where and how, so there’s an element of strategy involved. 

As for the “how,” I worked in a few elements. I made sure the battles had more than one opponent, so that PCs had to balance their attacks accordingly and that spellcasters and other rear ranks were threatened. I also made some bosses resistant or impervious to some damage types, like magic or criticals; so that Spellburning or Backstabs weren’t a sure victory. Lastly, I worked in a few surprises, so that the fight won’t necessarily be over when the PCs assume it is!

A tight timeline, opponents that grow in power, and tactical factors that challenge the PCs in fresh ways, is the short answer, and we hope it proves exciting in a distinctive way!

You also have lots of bonus content, like wandering monster tables for day and night, holiday roleplay activities, and table of 240 encounter ideas! I don't have a d240 but I suppose I could simulate it with a d3 and a set of percentile dice. Anyway, how do you keep things fresh when you're creating a list that huge? Sometimes I have a difficult time making a d20 table of good ideas on a single subject.

I took a page, or pages I should say, from the old DMG of first edition, and have eight categories of things PCs can find, each with 30 things within those categories. PCs can even deliberately seek a different category, and their success in finding it is dependent on an Ability check, rewarding veteran scouts. 

As for what is found and how we keep it fresh, many ideas were drawn directly from old folk tales. In true OSR fashion, we leave the details up to the Judge, but I like to think we provided a neat idea for every single result, enough to inspire a cool encounter. 

That’s in Hunters of the Goblin Grove alone, and includes, as you mentioned, several entries for Wandering Monsters, each with a local backstory that’s a few sentences long. In Feast of the Goblin Winter, there are numerous other tables that cover regional adventure hooks, Thief Guild adventure hooks, Power Elite adventure hooks, and Holiday adventure hooks based on Dark Ages holiday traditions. We want to deliver a whole world of lore-inspired adventure and information, including a lot that’s right there in the village, for campaigns to take shape or for a “West Marches” style experience where there’s a new event at the roll of a die!

Subscribe now

With this and your previous publications, you seem to have developed a well fleshed-out region for a group to adventure in. Was doing that a goal from the outset, or something that more naturally developed as you went along the way?

Yes, that’s always been the plan, and I’m so glad you asked about this! When Goodman Games showed us so much support, we decided to create a purpose and a plan for our publishing company, Witch Pleas. That purpose was to bring educational elements to all we do, and thereby further gaming’s role in education. Our initial series, Legends of Lohre, is all inspired by folklore, classic literature and works that risk fading with time. 

The plan was to create two series of modules, “adventure paths,” each for a distinct audience within the fantasy TTRPG community. One series, A Tale of Two Sisters, was to focus on encouraging roleplay and character development, tied to a meaningful narrative. That’s the series we started with and the one that our Goblin Holiday Bundle concludes. The other series, coming out next year, is Descent of the Ancient Fane, and it best serves the interests of the hardcore “dungeon crawlers” among us. It’s a mega dungeon series, with challenges designed to bedevil veteran players who are focused primarily on overcoming opponents, puzzles, and deadly locations. 

Both produce elements that will come together in a campaign setting, “Northern Lohre,” to be released, ideally, around GenCon in 2025. The setting will provide the whole culture, history, and setting-specific game elements for the region of the world that our current adventures have taken place in. It’s “Northern” in that much of conventional concepts of fantasy genre TTRPGs derive from Northern European cultures. But once we’ve established our brand and made connections with the community, we want to take this same formula of “module series for two audiences, then a campaign setting about the region” to other regional cultures. And we’d like to have other authors and creators, with genuine and deep connections to those regions, create those settings. They’ll be, for example, “Southern Lohre,” covering the many cultures, legends and folklore of the African continent, and “Central Lohre,” covering Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Indian Subcontinent. We hope this leads to a greater affinity and true appreciation for the history of those cultures, and gets some of their creative voices heard. 

Thanks for sharing with us! Anything else that you want folks to know about?

So much! For one, we are creating a network and site with helpful articles designed to empower educators who want to involve gaming in their classes and after school programs. It’s found at rpgsforteachers.com and has been discussed on the podcast, Teachers in the Dungeon. Anyone interested can sign up their game club in the Index, making it easier for local game stores, game publishers, and libraries to find them and send them cool stuff. 

We’re also creating an all-ages, all-stories game system called Campfire that’s going to hit crowdfunding soon, likely in December. Campfire is created by award-winning game designer Wojtek Borowicz, and we intend it to be a great first step for audiences as young as middle school to enter the world of collaborative storytelling and RPGs. And its flexible, simple nature means that it can be used for almost any kind of story, from teaching about Tudor England or Shogunate-era Japan, to creating narratives like soap operas, murder mysteries, or sci-fi. It’ll come in a waterproof, washable form, ideal for classrooms or pub nights. 

It’s all part of telling meaningful stories together in a fun way! Thanks for joining us on this exciting journey!

Have you traveled the Goblin Road? Tell me how your adventures have been going!

Leave a comment

What Else Is Going On?

The Conquest of Chaos

A levels 0-5 campaign path for Dungeon Crawl Classics! Six adventures inspired by the classic GDQ series take the PCs from humble beginning to fighting the primal forces of chaos and saving their world from certain doom!

Planet of the Cyclops Con - This weekend!

There’s still tons of games that are open for more players! Go check out what’s on tap!