Year End Review 2023 - Raiders of the Serpent Sea
So the end of 2023 is upon us. It has been such an eventful year for me, with fulfillment of my 2021 Kickstarter, Raiders of the Serpent Sea mostly complete. I’ve learned so much about printing, moving pallets of books around the world, marketing, and shipping product directly to backers. This has been a very different experience from much of my previous work in the videogame industry and with my earlier writing efforts—I’ve largely been on the creative or project management side of things previously. This has been an interesting and educational experience!
In addition, in 2023, I had the privilege to work with the fine folks at Archetype Entertainment on Chains of Asmodeus (proceeds going to charity!) That was a fun project and exposed me to the ever absorbing writing of Adrian Tchaikovsky, who wrote many of the adventure areas for Chains. I’m now a devoted fan of Adrian’s work and have begun consuming his novels (not literally).
Next Up: The Raiding Seas
The last Kickstarter deliverable remaining is the Raiding Seas. This is going to be a grab-bag of rules, setting information, and clarifications. Some of the content is material I wanted to include but didn’t have time or page count to accommodate. Others are details I’ve seen the community ask for and thought I could help fill in some missing information for them.
What should you expect to find in the new Raiding Seas book?
Discovery Mode
A new “Discovery Mode” for Game Masters who aren’t as interested in the core campaign presented in Raiders of the Serpent Sea has been added. This mode allows players to sail the Serpent Sea (effectively, a hex crawl), and discover new lands, raid, and establish small settlements throughout.
A preliminary (alpha) version of the hex map of Grimnir is now available.
Let me know what you think of it!
Expanded Ship Rules
Consolidates and revises ship and crew rules and expands upon them. Additional ships have been added as have new rules to cover more sailing situations.
Also includes over 50 ship tokens representing all of the longship and raiding clan symbol variations sailing the Serpent Sea.
More Content
New foes, new monsters, and new variants for the incredible creatures already to be found along the Serpent Sea
Additional sea exploration and combat maps for VTT or printing.
Several new magic items and player options have also been added, along with two new villages (one belonging to the grims and one to the hidden wicker folk).
Other Additions & Improvements
- A calendar for Grimnir
- New stories & myths
- Digital version of the printed card deck
- Additional tips and guidelines for customizing the campaign, including a overview of the entire campaign in a more episodic format
- Island of the Silent Oars — new adventure area, for chapter 11, has also been added.
What’s on the Horizon for 2024?
While creatively I feel Raiders has been an amazing success, financially it funded just enough for me to get it done. I had hoped to build financial runway to fund another project, but that didn’t happen. Most of my effort in 2024 will be expended resuming contract work in the videogame industry.
I do have a couple TTRPG adventures, set in the universe of Raiders of the Serpent Sea, I’d like to release. I’m going to make it a goal to publish at least one of them in 2024.
Thank you!
I want to end with a hearty thank you to all of the Kickstarter supporters who backed us from the very beginning of this journey, to those of you who joined during the preorder phase, and finally to all the new Raiders coming to us by way of the retail release, Roll20, and Fantasy Grounds. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
All the best,
-Brent
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