I’ve not been shy about stating that the Shudder Mountains are my favorite DCC setting. That seems to strike true with Jeffrey Regner too because he’s back with his third adventure for the Shudder Mountains: Whistlepig Breakdown. Jeff has been trying to get this one out for awhile and life finally let him get a little time to make that happen. Stay a little while down in the holler and check out my interview with Jeff.

What’s the original inspiration for the Whistlepig Breakdown? Something from a home game, a cool piece of folklore, a bit of both, or something else?

First of all, thanks for inviting me to talk about Whistlepig Breakdown. I’m a fan of your work in the DCC and other spaces. Also, congratulations also on publishing The Conquest of Chaos. It really fills a need for a DCC campaign path, and I look forward to getting it to the table.

The main inspiration for Whistlepig Breakdown was, not surprisingly, Manly Wade Wellman’s “Silver John” stories. Because this adventure was going to be tuned for first level characters, I wanted it to be an authentic introduction to the fantasy Appalachian world described by Wellman and as translated into the Shudder Mountains. For me, that meant going back to the source and picking up the theme of the helpful wanderer. Silver John is the archetype wandering musician or bard, so music had to be a big part it. Music shows up in the town of Hootin Holler, the structure of the dungeon crawl, and in the magic items, creatures, and folk magic.

I must also credit Harley Stroh’s The Music of the Spheres is Chaos. I was running it for a home game around the time I was working on Whistlepig Breakdown. Whistlepig Breakdown is far less ambitious, but I really liked the idea of a dungeon that is, itself, a larger version of a mechanical contraption. I wanted to recreate a little bit of that with the giant and consequential musical instrument that forms the heart of Fiddler’s Knob. Oops, that might be spoiler, so forget I said anything about that.

You’ve got a big love for the Shudder Mountains. What’s your pitch to new players who aren’t familiar with the setting?

Roleplaying in a Tolkeinesque fantasy world always starts with a degree of emotional distance. In the Americas, we never had plate-clad knights or castles or unicorns here. Those are someone else’s fantasies and nightmares. The Shudder Mountains, which is a fantasy Appalachia, delivers all of the magic, danger, and adventure, but in a tangible, even visceral way. When you encounter a ghost in the Shudder Mountains it’s not a long dead king, it’s an auntie or cousin whose real-life tragedy bound them to an Earth you can bend down and touch. Because the Shudder Mountains deals in the familiar, the experiences at the table feel more real and stick with you longer. This goes not just for danger and horror, but humor and everything else that makes us smile as well as shudder.

Also, it’s more fun to roleplay with a hillbilly accent than whatever people sounded like in medieval Europe. Do you want to be a stuffy old cleric, or a wild-eyed preacher from the holler?

I really like how Michael Curtis developed the Shudder Mountains. It’s a great implementation of Appalachian fantasy because it’s built on the DCC system which leans into player characters being common folk rather than heroes. Also, his design choices lend the game not just to horror, like many Appalachian fantasy games, but to the full range of roleplaying experiences. I think that’s probably in part because the starting point was Wellman’s work rather than the Mothman or Blair Witch or something like that.

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This seems to be something of a “town has a problem” adventure, which are some of my favorites. Are there any old adventures that were an inspiration? Or is the “flow” of the adventure one that came more intuitively?

As I mentioned, this is deliberately a Silver John style adventure and, of course, his typical story involves strolling into a small mountain town and alleviating whatever danger the town the town is dealing with. Sort of a Lone Ranger type, but cooler because John carries a silver-strung guitar. I like that type of adventure, particularly early on in a campaign, because it establishes the party as the “good guys.” It’s also the kind of adventure that lends itself to being dropped along whatever road the Judge has the players following at the time, which gives it a pretty good chance of hitting the table.

Silver John was the framework, but everything else grew more-or-less organically. I got to test out a lot of ideas and take a lot back from the table. If something worked, it stayed in, if not, well, I guess killed a lot of darlings, as they say.

You’ve got a sizeable list of playtesters on this adventure. What’s a favorite moment from running the adventure?

Wow, I had a lot of fun playtesting this one. It was one great table after the next.

I think my favorite memory happened at GenCon on the floor of Lucas Oil Stadium in 2024. I’ll be a little vague because I don’t want to give away the ending of the adventure. Anyway, in the final scene, there’s a big bad varmint, and he’s getting in the way of the party who are trying to accomplish a particular goal—essentially the varmint has the party working against a clock. Our wizard, who was pretty chill the whole game comes up in the initiative order, and he’s got this sly look on his face. He casts the most boring and mundane first level spell that rarely sees combat action. (Sorry readers, but you’ll have to play it for yourself to find out what spell it might have been.) But, he gets the roll he needs and it brings together the main themes of the scenario--the music, the whistlepigs, the heart of the mountain--and hits the big bad varmint right in its weak spot. The table loved it, and it was glorious!

Thanks for sharing! Anything else that you’d like folks to hear about?

In addition to Whistlepig Breakdown, the book includes an encounter called Smiling Other. I’m proud of it because it won the 2024 Goodman Games writing contest for a DCC encounter. It’s never been published before, so I’m looking forward to getting it out there.

And I guess I should also make sure folks have the link to the Backerkit campaign, so here it is!

Have you spent much time in the Shudder Mountains? Or is another DCC setting your favorite?

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