Game Design News – Death on the Styx and 20 Years of Kobold Press

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any game design news but I’ve got a few new things to share today. 

Firstly, the exciting project I worked on for Kobold Press last summer was announced last weekend at Kobold Con. 

Death on the Styx is a series of nine connected adventures spanning 3rd to 11th level (tiers 1–3) that take place in the many worlds of the Labyrinth that connect to the River Styx. 

The PCs are invited to attend an auction on board a mysterious ship called theSilver Sphinx, before setting sail along the River Styx, visiting Willow Shore in the Old Ring, the Shadow Realm, the Friendly Hell of Tyver-Sarok, Midgard, the Smithy, the Summerlands, the Plane of Air, and finally a dead world in the Near Void. 

Death on the Styx serves as a perfect introduction to the worlds of the Labyrinth for players new to the setting, similar to the way in which Empire of the Ghouls offers a tour of Midgard. The book’s structure is inspired by the classic Cthulhu campaign, Horror on the Orient Express, providing an overarching plot with recurring villains and NPCs, and a unique adventure in each world the Silver Sphinx visits. Long-time Kobold fans will enjoy seeing some familiar characters make cameo appearances in the adventures.

Although some events are tied to the actions of the villains on board, the adventures can also be run separately, and there is flexibility for GMs to skip episodes or add extra ports of call and adventures of their own creation or in other published settings.

I wrote the overall outline for the adventure path, and also the final climactic episode in which the PCs face the campaign’s arch-villain. The other chapters are written by Phillip Larwood, Basheer Ghouse, Jeff Lee, John Joseph Adams, Bryan Camp, and Wolfgang Baur. It’s been great fun to read what they came up with and I’m sure you will really enjoy the adventures!

Death on the Styx is available for preorder from the Kobold Press store, and you can watch me and Wolfgang discuss the adventure on YouTube here.

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Kobold Con marked 20 years of Kobold Press – an amazing achievement! It’s been 19 years since I first joined Livejournal to take part in the original Empire of the Ghouls Open Design patron project:

Participating in the Ghouls project led to me contributing a location in Siwal to the next project, Six Arabian Nights, and to my first paid gig writing part of the Iron Gazetteer for 4e in 2009. Since then, Kobold Press has gone from strength to strength and I have loved writing so many books, monsters, and adventures for the company.

Happy belated 20th birthday, kobolds!

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After I got involved in Open Design, I did some work for the legendary Creighton Broadhurst at Raging Swan Press, writing a series of short products on treasure in the So What… line for Pathfinder 1e back in 2012.

Recently, Creighton has revised these products, creating 5e, OSR, Pathfinder and System Neutral versions under the name Treasure Dressing. These products were a lot of fun to write and are perfect for GMs who want to flesh out a treasure hoard or give an NPC some cool gear.

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