Absolutely in love with this game. It’s completely stolen my afternoon from me.

You’re the third person I know who’s started Anna Karenina in the past week. There must be something in the air! Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the few books that makes me feel actively stupid. I’ve tried to read it multiple times and I’ve never had the faintest idea what’s going on or why anything is significant.

How Are The Mighty Fallen sounds great and is definitely going on my reading list for next year.

I think I’ve only known you do this end of year zine since last year but it already feels like something that I always look forward to. Last year’s also inspired me to start keeping a physical reading journal and to start book blogging, too, so thanks for that. I’ve had one of my most fulfilling years of reading in a very long time this year and I think that’s in large part because of this zine.

Glad you found it! There are details about how to get it in the Day 7 devlog as well but I’m realising now that people who buy in later probably won’t see that, so I’ll add some clarification to the main page when it’s not 1am. Thanks for pointing this out.

I have no plans to release community copies of this game.

Oh I see the confusion, and it’s probably caused by the way the column has been squashed. Those rows are for results between 9-13 and results between 14-16. They don’t have individual rows for each number; those ranges use the same encounter as a way to modify the encounter frequencies. It’s the same for 17-18; there’s not a blank row after 18, you use the same encounter as if you’d rolled 17.

Hey Tomas,

Just had a quick look at it and it seems to be fine to me. Which rows are missing in your copy? It should look like this:

The numbering has been squashed on the left column (you can see that 1d20 has been cut off and reads 1d2) but all the rows are there.

I’m so excited to see where this goes, thanks for sharing it!

By request, I’ve uploaded a printer friendly version of the map. This was something I completely overlooked so thanks for asking for it! If anybody spots anything else that they think should be here but isn’t please let me know and I’ll see what I can do about it.

Absolutely! I’ll sort that out this week.

Thanks for getting in early!

Day 1

Welcome to December, and this year’s advent calendar adventure!

I ran my first advent calendar adventure back in 2021, after having a stray thought that it might be fun to release an adventure in pieces every day throughout December. It was so much fun to work on, and the reception was so positive, that I decided to do it again the next year. It’s now become a bit of a tradition for me (if you can call it a tradition when you’re only in the fourth year of doing something) and I look forward to it all year long.

If you’ve been here before, hello! I really do appreciate you coming back for more, and for trusting me enough to buy something incomplete on day 1, sight unseen. I hope you enjoy the journey we’re about to go on.

If this is your first time doing this with me, it’s a pleasure to have you on board. After three years of doing this I’ve (hopefully) figured out how to run it smoothly, and I also have a pretty good idea what sort of things people ask as we get rolling on the month. I’ve compiled something of an FAQ for this thing below, so keep reading and I’ll explain how this is going to work and what to expect over the next three-and-a-bit weeks.

Thanks again for picking this up on day 1. I hope you enjoy The Witch of Drithwyn Weald.

-Chris

FAQ

What is this?

The Witch of Drithwyn Weald is a hex crawl for the fantasy adventure game of your choice. It’s written with A Dungeon Game in mind, but converting from ADG to other systems is trivially easy. The adventure text will have very little emphasis on mechanisms and statistics and much more focus on cool stuff to put into your game.

Can you explain the release structure a little more?

I’m releasing this in pieces, one a day every day up until Christmas. Every morning I’ll post an update with a new piece of the adventure for you to read. At a minimum, you’ll receive the text for one hex every day. Because of the nature of hex keys and the way I write, some are longer than others. Where the hex keys are smaller you’re also likely to receive extra stuff with them - whether that’s tables of adventure hooks and rumours, encounter tables, pieces of flash fiction, or music to listen to while you read (or play, or whatever). Every day will be a new treat for you.

What’s the deal with the pricing?

The price structure is something I did in the first year running this advent calendar and it’s become a feature of the project. The price starts low and rises as more content is added. Whenever you buy in, you always get all of the content and won’t ever have to pay more than the price on the day you purchased the adventure. When you purchase it you get immediate access to all extant sections, and you’ll start receiving the daily updates.

How are updates added/distributed?

I upload new files every morning, which will appear in the downloads section of the product page. I also release a devlog every day, which will land in your inbox along with a download link for the new files.

Won’t I end up with a lot of files?

Yes, you will. And that can be a little unmanageable. It’s fun to read the individual pieces every day but it doesn’t make for a very usable book at the end of things. When we’re all done - probably towards the end of December, when I’ve had a little break and had a chance to look over the book again - I’ll release a consolidated version that contains everything in one file.

What file formats do you release these in?

PDF and epub.

Will there be cool art?

Very unlikely. The focus here is on the words. I’m a writer, not an illustrator, and this is produced with a budget of exactly £0. Last year I tried my hand at illustrating the book and it turned out okay. At the time of writing this FAQ I’ve written all of The Witch of Drithwyn Weald but haven’t been able to produce any art. If I get the chance to make some during the course of the month and I think it’s good then I’ll release it, but currently there are no plans for artwork.

Will there be a print version?

I always had plans to print Reivdene and never managed to make it happen. Now that there are going to be four of these things I may look at anthologising them together, but I have no firm timeline for when that will happen. If and when it does, I’ll make sure that everyone who bought the digital versions receives some sort of discount on the physical book as a thank you for supporting them early on.

We probably all know by now that I really enjoy making teaser trailers for projects, so of course I’ve made one for this as well! Check it out below, and if you’re on Bluesky and feel like helping me spread the word I’ve posted it hereand would appreciate a signal boost!

I realise I’m a year late replying to this and I’m sorry about that! Unfortunately I suffered a massive HDD failure at the start of this year and lost everything so I wasn’t able to collate these into one file. This year’s calendar will definitely get that treatment when it’s done, though.

I’m really happy to hear that! Thanks for coming back for more, I appreciate it a lot.

They have been in the past but unfortunately I’m not in a financial position to be able to provide community copies at this moment.

Really glad you’re enjoying it! I can definitely sort out an epub version of this. I’ll try and get it up by the end of the week.

Unfortunately I had a massive HDD failure last year and lost a ton of work, including BLACKOUT. I no longer have access to the files for that adventure.

I’ve begun writing an Appendix N for this game. The first entry is here.

Chase Carter wrote a really great piece about this game over at Rascal News.

Really glad you like it!

I’m not going to be including this in the printed version of the game - or at least not the printed version that I give out for free - purely because it would make the book too big for saddle stitching. I’d need to move to a perfect bound book and that becomes too expensive for me to print with the intention of handing them out.

My plan, and something I’m currently working on, is to put out a book of these procedures alongside a worked example demonstrating how to use them and a handful of ready-to-run dungeons generated using them. That will be out in print in the same format as the base game, but it won’t be something that I give out for free. At the same time I’ll be reprinting the base game and as with The Moss Mother’s Maze, people who pick up the dungeon supplement (and the treasure one, when that’s ready) will also get a copy of the game with it. Hopefully this makes sense!

This automatically gives access to the file

That was just a couple of typos. Roll a d6 for it and pretend it’s numbered properly!

They’re just interested in bear fighting as a violent pastime and a way to make some money. There’s nothing deeper to it than that, though you could of course make something up if you have a better idea.

Thanks for checking it out, I’m glad you liked it! I’ll take these in order.

• Since there’s only one portcullis in room 2 I’m also not sure how this could be clearer, but I’ll definitely keep an eye out for other people getting tripped up by it and see if it needs attention.
• I have! Well spotted, thanks. I’ll fix that soon.
• This is basically a proof of concept for my dungeon generation tools. The numbers come before the adjoining passages in that process. For most releases you’re right that this is something I would change before publication, but I wanted to present this as it came out of the generator. It’s a valid criticism, though.
• This is entirely an oversight on my part. I missed the northern portcullis when I was keying the room. The locked door is in the east wall as indicated on the map and the text is incorrect, and you’re correct that the lock should be functional. Will fix.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it! *

You’re welcome!

No, that one is print only. It’s available in the US via Kartellian Vaults.

Sorry, I fully intended to reply to this and then didn’t. I keep forgetting to do this but I’ll upload it in the next week.

Yes! Sorry, my memory is terrible. I’ll upload it this week.

The web version is the latest, there have obviously just been some mistakes/omissions when I was updating it. I’ll fix it when I’m back at work in January.

Yeah, it should be roll 2d6. The PDF version is correct as far as I know.

I’m not in a financial position to be able to give books away for free at the moment, sorry.

In that case that means there’s plenty of material out there for you to use in your game already and you probably don’t need this.

RPGs are my full time work. I unfortunately can’t afford to give everything away for free (though there are free versions of many of my other books available). This is also in a bundle with 8 other games right now, and giving it away for free would devalue that bundle which impacts more people than just me. There’s also an extensive preview PDF available for free that contains a large chunk of the adventure.

If you don’t think £5 is worth it for a fully-illustrated 48 page adventure that’s fine. Thanks for your interest anyway.

Are you asking if you can have a copy for free?

Very unlikely at the moment unfortunately.

Hey! Thanks for your interest. I took the bestiary down a month or two ago to fix some issues with it. I’ll get it reuploaded in the next few weeks.

Seems to be working fine for me. It’s hosted by Adobe’s Publish Online service so maybe something went wrong for them

Hi June,

This is an error in the table itself, thanks for pointing it out! I’ve updated the advancement table here to reflect the correct numbers and I’ll push an update to the downloadable files as soon as possible.

New characters should only get one safe Ritual each day - two Rituals as listed in the text is a hangover from a previous draft.

Sorry for any confusion with this!

Enemies have different wants and needs to hirelings. You’re invading their home, killing their compatriots, and looting their stuff. Their drive to push you back and out of their territory - or to defend themselves - is what makes them Enemies. Conversely, hirelings are driven by the desire to a) earn silver and b) survive so that they can earn more silver. They’re not the same (and none of the dungeon denizens in the game is human, either), and so they work differently.

But, as I said, feel free to run it however you please. The rules text represents the way I run the game, and you’re welcome to change it as you see fit.

That’s exactly what it means, yeah. In my mind the more experienced hirelings only survive as long as they have because they know they shouldn’t stick around and end up dead. It’s part of the “violence is bad and scary” philosophy of the game.

You’re of course welcome to change it if it doesn’t work for your table.

Try before you buy! Check out the free web version here.