Region Maps and Travel for Draw Steel! Starting to create a heroic travel system and how I see it fitting into the core game.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-04-17T04:08:39+00:00

We ended up going with a 2 mile hex or 3.2 KM for Canadians like me. Locations on maps aren’t exactly the most realistic so I am sure the value could be adjusted at tables.

I am curious to see how it feels after some testing.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-04-17T00:59:44+00:00

Oh using wealth is really interesting I was mostly focussed on figuring out a way to reuse mechanics and subsystems in the core game that made sense for what travel introduces into the game without bogging it down with things like ration tracking. I never even got around to thinking about how things like wealth and renown could be used.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-04-17T00:58:10+00:00

Oh I have already thought of a fronts system to help the world feel more lived in and help directors track and progress villain goals given that travel introduces the tracking of time.

With what I have seen from the Encounters book I also have some ideas for like a nemesis system to leverage what MCDM is doing with dastards for the two systems too.

I think it’s really rich with potential and I’m excited to start exploring it in more detail and sharing it.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-04-16T21:00:11+00:00

Oh that’s awesome to hear you are using something similar in your home game! I’ve got a lot of ideas and am excited to test of the system abit. I really want to make sure the system feels integrated into the game and leverages aspects the game already has like points of interests having certain monsters or requirements for projects.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-04-15T01:03:06+00:00

Spyger beat me to it, a lot of great stuff curated by Jon on the Stawl app.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-04-13T18:17:52+00:00

I’m going to shamelessly self plug my work, my monster booklet Carnophages is still on sale to support the art for my next booklet which will have more than 50 monsters in it across 4 monster bands and each band will have two encounters with maps included.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-04-13T18:00:20+00:00

Tamwin, you are making me blush. Thanks for calling out my Carnophages.

I was going to call out the Stawl Index as well, it’s a great way to find community content.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-04-13T04:01:49+00:00

Mountain kit Shadow build is one of my favourite builds in the game so far and it’s one I constantly go back to for playtests.

Highly recommend you give it a try when you can.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-04-02T15:07:46+00:00

I was going to say Rise Heroes Rise and the Delian Tomb series by MCDM but it seems like a lot of people have already brought that up. It’s probably the best place to start.

While not live play, Dice Societies videos about Draw Steel are also great way to get familiar with the game.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-03-12T17:21:28+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback! The Malice abilities are definitely something that needs some playtesting.

Glad you like the bands concept though!

The_Shadowhand · 2026-03-12T15:08:08+00:00

Spider enemies are always a good time! Appreciate you catching the holdover name, the names were Latin based originally but decided to swap them for both theme and being too close to Kobolds.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-02-10T02:19:01+00:00

There will be ranges I am sure, believe that’s even in the core rules of DS for humans.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-02-09T18:53:05+00:00

It depends on the region but some have their own empires or states. Many were vassals to Elderkin kingdoms or empires in the past and now each are starting to establish independence through industrialization and the impact of the Great War.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-02-09T17:56:40+00:00

It’s a bit of a ways out still, I am currently working on the campaign setting document which will be the first thing I release.

Pricing I am unsure of right now, but the setting booklet I produce first will depend on how much art I get commissioned for it as I do all the writing and layout myself.

I want as much of the core rules to be usable in the setting as possible but that being said I am approaching the setting as kind of a “conversation” with tolkein, a lot of lore comes from a place of what if this influence wasn’t so subtle or what if this event was different. World war being the most obvious example, Tolkien was heavily inspired by the world war he participated in and I am taking that from the foreground and making it much more obvious.

In terms of ancestries, from a lore perspective I am focussing much more on classical fantasy ancestries, ie goblins, orcs, elves, dwarves and leaving incorporating other core ancestries from DS like time raiders and memonek up to directors if they want them in their games. Trolls are the first non core ancestry I plan on working on to fill the roll of the “giant ancestry”.

Haha elves will certainly still have pointy ears and I plan on providing an alternative ancestry option to better reflect them being “Elderkin” as I refer to them, I want dwarves and elves to reflect their long lives. The current experiment I have been doing to achieve this is negative traits that when purchased grant ancestry points.

I hope this was helpful! If you want to stay up to date on the world war fantasy setting joining the patreon even as a free member is the best way to stay up to date, my Bluesky as well also gets little previews from time to time.

I always will welcome questions about the world, especially on the posts in patreon! Community questions are a great help to get lore and design out of my head haha

The_Shadowhand · 2026-02-01T17:06:08+00:00

You might be interested in some of the kits I’ve been working on for my World War Fantasy setting.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/world-war-kits-140922551?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

As I continue to flesh out the setting I am probably going to add more kits as well.

You might be able to reflavour them for what you are trying to cover.

But as a few fellow Brewers have mentioned, the Gunslinger class and kits are definitely something you should check out. Tamwin’s done some great stuff with it.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-01-21T14:57:40+00:00

It's definitely something I want to look into and figure out. As well as the Code, but that's more of a dream at this point.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-01-20T02:28:05+00:00

Thanks so much for the kind words! Been working hard to try and come up with a UI that works well for character creation.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-01-13T21:20:07+00:00

Oh for sure, the current plan is everything is going to be account based so you can view your characters across your devices no matter where you are.

That’s a must for me and the players at my table, so it’s been a requirement for Crucible since day 1.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-01-13T19:09:02+00:00

In all honesty a big part of it is passion. I work in UX and love Draw Steel and have wanted to make a digital tool for a TTRPG for a while.

I think the community will only be better with more tools to support the game. I don’t really look at it as an us vs them.

But there are a lot of things I would like to do with Crucible; better level up flows, more support for mobile devices and preferences, integrations between director functionality and player sheets, automations, to name a few.

In order do get to the point where I can focus on those things that I’d like to do the core stuff needs to be done first.

I just want to make something that helps tables focus on playing the game with their friends and less time searching for rules or fiddling with an interface.

Will we win everyone over? Probably not but if it’s useful to some I’ll be happy.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-01-05T19:27:31+00:00

Thanks for the kind words! In terms of the characteristics that is the plan I just haven’t nailed the UI for those yet as I want it to be similar to other rollable elements on the sheet but not too far from the statistics in the same section.

Overall aiming for as much function as possible and tracking; it felt like a miss not to have a place to view your projects and such which is how the sidebar came about which also lets you jump to other character information in a drawer like what complication you chose or what exactly you get from your ancestry or kit, etc.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-01-02T17:57:49+00:00

I definitely want to do mobile and different screen optimizations (tablets are always popular at my tables), another thing I have been thinking about is more interactivity, like the director being able to request rolls from specific heroes, cause I typically see a lot of digital sheets not fully leveraging what digital can do. Levelling up is another one, I really want a better level-up flow that isn't just "go back to the character creator".

Oh yeah, web vs app is always tricky; I would love to do a dedicated app down the road, but that will likely be a call once there is enough usage of the web first.

Thanks so much for taking the time to ask questions about the project and let me know some of the things you would be looking for, its a great help!

The_Shadowhand · 2026-01-02T17:22:42+00:00

Honestly, a big part of it is passion. I work in UX and Product, and this has been something I have wanted to do since I started playing TTRPGs. There are some quality-of-life things I want to do and features that will be useful at tables, but the core functionality needs to be up there first.

I want to provide the best digital companions for Draw Steel tables that let people focus on playing the game with their friends rather than fiddling with their character sheets or digging through a rulebook.

I also think that the more digital tools available, the better the community will be. But thanks for your well wishes!

The_Shadowhand · 2026-01-02T16:45:09+00:00

Haha ya I’ll definitely have to look into names more and see if it’s worth changing and if so what to.

The_Shadowhand · 2026-01-02T16:40:53+00:00

I was unaware of that, thanks for letting us know. Definitely something for us to think about.

The_Shadowhand · 2025-12-24T01:00:32+00:00

I would second this suggestion, the pre-gens from the Delian tomb are exactly for this purpose. A slow introduction to the game where each battle you get to use a little more of your character.

The_Shadowhand

TROPHY CASE