Ragnarok

Episode Transcript
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Matthew (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to episode 255 of Effect Ragnarok.
My name is Matthew.

Dave (00:51):
That was a very, very dramatic pause before the title
there, Matthew, because I Ithought for a moment that you'd
completely forgotten what thehell you were doing, which
possibly wouldn't have been thefirst time. Anyway, I'm Dave,
and welcome to the show. Wehave, as usual, a packed program
for you today. We've got a fewthings in the world of gaming to
talk about, including some newKickstarters coming up, really

(01:15):
more news on bloody tariffs, andsome convention stuff. We then
also have a an exciting veryexciting for us and hopefully
exciting for you, update on theold news West.
And then The old news West. Theold news West.

Matthew (01:37):
Well, I was thinking about doing old West news,

Dave (01:39):
but go ahead. Do the old news West. Sorry. So it's Sunday
morning. I've only had one and ahalf cups of tea.
I had a very tiring dayyesterday at Salute, so excuse
me for being completely braindead this morning. So yeah, in
the old West news. I was evenreading it off the screen. How
the hell did I get that one?Anyway, and then yes, so we have

(02:04):
and the main part of the show isa fabulous interview that we had
with Andreas Lindstrom of NordicSchools talking all about his
current Kickstarter, YggdrasilBurns, which is great.
It's always great to haveAndreas on the show. He's a
lovely guy, And that was areally good conversation. So
stay around for that a bit lateron.

Matthew (02:27):
Yeah. Let's say before we move on to The World of
Gaming, we have no new patronsthis month, but thank you to all
our patrons.

Dave (02:35):
As always, yes. Thank you very much. We

Matthew (02:38):
couldn't do what we do without you. And, you know, we
have had, you know, an amazingamount of support, but mainly
directed towards the KickStarter and the pledge manager.
And we'll talk about that againwhen we get to Old West

Dave (02:54):
News, Dave. Old News West. I think that sounds better,
frankly.

Matthew (02:58):
It reminds me of do you remember the old sort of local
local news programmes that usedto appear after the news? Yes.
Yeah. The BBC. One of which

Dave (03:09):
The regional news.

Matthew (03:10):
Occasionally, we'd be tuned into would be Look East.
Yes. For Anglia.

Dave (03:15):
Yeah. Yeah. Not not old news east.

Matthew (03:20):
So well, next week, maybe we'll do old news east.
But no. So we're into the worldof gaming and actual real news.
Not so much of it, I feel, thisparticular episode. But the
first item, I think, isinteresting that we Moggoose,

(03:41):
who got the rights to the thewhole, not just the rights to,
but actually took over, ownentirely the rights to,
Traveler, have now done the samething with another GDW game,
which is Dark Conspiracy.

Dave (04:00):
Interesting. So Dark Conspiracy is one of those games
that I don't ever rememberplaying. But when I when I see
the books, when I saw the bookson online, I thought, I've
played that, but I don'tremember playing it.

Matthew (04:14):
If we played it, I don't think we played it for
very long. Yeah. I'm pretty surethat our friend and patron, Andy
Brick, would have bought it. Butit was in that period where As
far as I remember this, I may bewrong, and I'm sure Andy will
correct me. But there was a

Dave (04:32):
bit But that is his favorite thing in life,
correcting us.

Matthew (04:35):
Well, it is.

Dave (04:36):
Hope He
does try and do that at every opportunity. So, yeah.

Matthew (04:40):
Anyway GTW had a great system in in Traveller, which
has stood the test of times,roll a couple of d six, you
know, add a bonus, get you know,basically roll, get over eight
or something to succeed. Andthey started bucking about with
all sorts of other systems, verykeen on the d 10 based systems

(05:00):
and stuff like that. And it itmade Traveler less good. Those
versions of Traveler had thesenew systems in. It, frankly,
made made things like two threehundred.
Although we loved 2,300, thesystem was a bit clunky. And I

(05:20):
fear that this was one of thosenew system type things

Dave (05:26):
That didn't really

Matthew (05:27):
take That we didn't particularly enjoy the system if
we played it at all. It wasmeant to be kind of X Files y,
wasn't it? I think, in a way.But, no, I don't it didn't sit
well in our memory. But also itwas again around that time that,
if you like the first dark ageof our group where people were

(05:47):
off to university and stuff likethat, we weren't playing

Dave (05:49):
very much.
Yeah.
Yeah. So are they going to be doing a new edition then? Do
we do we expect now they've gotthe rights to it?

Matthew (05:59):
I imagine so. So February, they, you know,
they've made that effectively atraveler expansion. And I'd like
to think they'll do the samething with Dark Conspiracy
because that,

Dave (06:10):
Yeah.

Matthew (06:11):
The, you know, that filtered and distilled and
iterated and actually reallyplayable version of Traveller, I
think, is a very solid rule set,and they'd be foolish to try
anything else. Yeah. I think.But, you know, it's not like I'm
a, you know, games publisher oranything. Oh, I am.

Dave (06:31):
We know everything about games publishing now. We never
make any mistakes. Yes. Anythingwe say is now correct because we
are the authority.

Matthew (06:38):
Absolute gold dust. Exactly.

Dave (06:39):
We have almost finished one product that that qualifies
us to to spout off andpontificate about everybody
else's decisions, no matter howexperienced they may be.

Matthew (06:50):
Yeah. Exactly it.

Dave (06:53):
Or maybe
or maybe not.

Matthew (06:54):
Or maybe not. Talking of another product that you've
had some involvement in, wetalked about this in the last
episode, but we actually have adate now for the War Stories
Kickstarter.

Dave (07:04):
Yeah. So April 15 is the date I think the Kickstarter's
gonna go live. So that is nextoh, next Tuesday after after
this goes out. Yeah. So that'sthe Pacific, as we said before.
But not only the Pacificexpansion for War Stories, it's

(07:26):
also the part two of theRendezvous with Destiny
campaign, the moving on toOperation Market Garden, where
the 100 support what was Monty'sgreat plan to try and get across
the Rhine and into Germany in inthe late summer of nineteen
forty four. So, yeah, go there.

Matthew (07:47):
That massively successful campaign, you mean?

Dave (07:49):
Well, I mean, they were close. I mean, it's

Matthew (07:52):
In the long run, massively successful. It's At
the time.

Dave (07:55):
Oh, it's a really interesting thing, because
obviously, I knew a bit aboutMarket Garden anyway, just out
of general interest. But I did Idid a lot of re I did a lot more
research into it for the game.And, you you know, you could
argue that it was it was doomedto fail from the very start. But
actually, it it got prettyclose. I mean, made some some
really, frankly, foolish errorsthat I think one of the main

(08:20):
ones or two two main ones.
One being, the coup de mainoperations that paratroopers are
are brilliant for, which is, youknow, surprise, landing on the
target you're going to take andbeing there to take it straight
away. They didn't do thatproperly. They landed the troops
too far away from all their alltheir objectives. So they had to

(08:41):
travel several miles. So by thetime they got there, the alarm
had been raised, and the Germanswere in a much better position
to resist.
The other one was, you know,having a 10 kilometers of single
point of failure supply chain onland that is very difficult for
armor to operate on because it'swet and marshy mostly, was

(09:02):
always going to be a challenge,because the Germans could attack
it anywhere and then break thesupply chain. But, I mean, there
was a lot of success inoperation Market Garden, but
ultimately the whole operationwas a failure, as we all know.
But and a very costly failurethat. But it was a gamble that
obviously, you know, Eisenhowerthought was worth taking. It was

(09:26):
really interesting.
Just one of the things I learnedin reading this was Monty was so
determined and kind of soblindly focused on this plan.
One of his faults was he couldbe very far too self confident
in his own judgment. So he wasbasically steamrolling everyone

(09:47):
into following the the MarketGarden plan, even Eisenhower. To
one point where Eisenhower saidto him, calm down Monty. You
can't talk to me like that.
I'm your boss. So it was reallyinteresting thing to look at.
But hopefully it should be a lotof fun to play, and yeah, I'm
looking forward to seeing thatone out in, you know, out in out

(10:08):
in the world.

Matthew (10:09):
Excellent. And this date you've got, is this
something that Al has told you,or is it actually public
knowledge?

Dave (10:16):
I think I saw it on Facebook somewhere. So I think
it's public knowledge.

Matthew (10:20):
Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Okay.

Dave (10:23):
I hope I'm I hope I'm right now. But but if not, I
mean, there there is a landingpage on on on Kickstarter. So if
you're interested, go on thereand and click the notify me on
launch button. And so if I'vemade

Matthew (10:35):
get notified on launch. And we will put a link to that
in the show notes.

Dave (10:38):
If I've made a mistake, then that will that will
mitigate the mistake for you.

Matthew (10:46):
Right. We've relegated it to the third item, but our
headline grabber here was thebig news is tariffs. What do we
wanna say about tariffs, Dave?

Dave (11:02):
I'm not really sure. So, I mean No.

Matthew (11:05):
No. And thus speaks the the entire gaming community.

Dave (11:10):
Well, exactly. Yeah. Now this is one time where I do
feel, with some authority, Ithat comment was relevant to the
to the whole community. So ifYeah. Trump makes no more
changes, and if he sticks to hisninety day pause from where we
are now, we are good.
We are good to go, and we'reabout to stray into old west

(11:33):
news. Sorry, old news west, in amoment. But we are very close
to, being able to ship The USpackage. So if Trump doesn't do
anything else with tariffs inthe meantime, we're good to go,
and that can that can go nextweek. Yeah.
The the the risk is then thatTrump gets out of bed one

(11:55):
morning with a bee buzzingaround in his head and goes,
alright. 300% tariffs on China,Fifty Percent tariffs on the EU.
Don't care. But I'm pooping allthe shenanigans of last week
when it all got blown up so bigand then, you know, he was
forced to back down by,basically, you know, a lot of
his billionaire buddies in TheUS probably going to him saying,

(12:17):
hey, Don. This is a reallyfucking stupid idea, mate.
You're making us all poor.Except for those who are
involved in the insider dealing,of course.

Matthew (12:26):
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave (12:26):
Okay. I want to be a bit careful. And let my my suspicion
that there might be some
How do I how do I how
do I invalidate myself againstbeing sued for saying that?
Well,

Matthew (12:36):
you you can quote, I think, a number of elected
representatives in The US whosuspect there may have been
some. All we're doing isreporting that.

Dave (12:48):
Not actually Exactly.

Matthew (12:49):
Have no evidence of it.

Dave (12:50):
No. Absolutely. I am simply reporting what others
have said, especially those inthe US Congress. So so anyway,
if now he's got this bee in hisbonnet, you know, he's fed that
little beast in him and he'sokay to leave Harris alone for a
while, we, as in EffectPublishing, will be good. It

(13:11):
doesn't fix the problemobviously for the industry and
particularly for those poorcompanies, particularly I guess
board game, but also roleplaying game companies that rely
upon China for producing alltheir widgets and all their
minis and everything, but alsorely upon their US customer base
for their sales.
Now those companies I have suchsympathy for, because they're in
a really difficult position.And, you know, let's just hope

(13:35):
common sense prevails and Trumpfinds a way to back down whilst
looking like he's won, ofcourse, and reduce the tariffs
on China. Yeah. So Yeah. But atthe moment, seems relatively
calm in the political worldabout tariffs.
I haven't heard anything thelast couple of days. I think the

(13:56):
tariffs on China did go up againto a 40

Matthew (13:59):
They did. I think they're up at

Dave (14:00):
40 five Which again is not great for us, but it's probably
bearable.

Matthew (14:07):
Yeah. Well, it's gonna have to be bearable because we
said we'd bear it. So

Dave (14:12):
Yeah. I mean, the thing is though, that was we said I mean,
what what I would say is, at thepoint we said that, we we were
we were basing that on thecircumstances at the time. If
the Chinese tariffs or the EUtariffs as well, you know, go up
again, or go up to beyond wherethey were before, we might have
to rethink that. That's why wemight you know, options would

(14:33):
include pausing The US shipmentpossibly for weeks or couple of
months even whilst the wholetariff thing settles down. Don't
wanna do that for for manyreasons, including we want the
game to be out there in, youknow, in your hands so you can
play it.
Another one, depending on howhow ridiculous it got, was we
could in theory say, alright,with with the whole thing with

(14:57):
China, we're we're going to notsend the dice. So we'll we'll
reimburse you for the dice andkeep them ourselves and not send
them, because the price gets tootoo silly. Or we come back to to
to US backers say, really sorryguys, we're gonna need a fiver
off each of you to cover theseextra costs. Which will then
delay fulfilment again. So noneof those are good options.

(15:18):
The best option is we get thepackage out the door next week,
and it's in The US the weekafter, and then it's flying out
to everyone's homes shortlyafter that.

Matthew (15:28):
Yep.

Dave (15:29):
But it is a very unpredictable landscape at the
moment, unfortunately.

Matthew (15:33):
Fingers crossed, everybody. And if you are in The
US, write to your congressmanand stress the importance of
keeping the tariffs as low aspossible for the next couple of
weeks. Yes. Yeah. Right.
Now next item is oh, yeah.Yesterday, you went and did a

(15:55):
gaming convention without me,Dave.

Dave (15:57):
I did. It was great. It was really it was really nice
doing it on my own without youbadgering me the whole time and
pretending you're in charge. Itwas really nice. It was a
pleasure.

Matthew (16:08):
Oh, so my text pointing out what the sales were at
various parts of the day didn'tgo down well. Is that what
you're saying?

Dave (16:14):
Well, exactly. Because you were stalking me from your home
when you should have been doingsomething more interesting than
stalking me at the at the at theconvention. So, yeah, it was one
that I I had a little bit oftrepidation about. I,

Matthew (16:29):
you know So we should say it was salute?

Dave (16:32):
It was salute down the the the Excel Centre. Traditionally,
a wargame heavy convention.Still obviously very wargame
heavy, but having spoken to someof the other role player
retailers and that who werethere, they've all said they've
had good good returns the lastcouple of years. So we went with

(16:55):
a very small team. It was justme and then Lily and George who
were who were George was runningthe demos of Zone Malls.
Lily was helping out both me andGeorge depending on on where the
the need was. And and we didn'ttake very much stock. So we took
quite a small level of stock.And it was good. I mean, we it
was really busy.

(17:15):
A bit like, Comic Con, it wasreally busy with a lot of people
who were interested, but we'regonna go and buy something else
first and then come back to us.I mean, that said, it wasn't it
was nowhere near as dry as asComic Con for us. We did we did
pretty good sales, overall,possibly a bit less than I'd
hoped, but still, you know,enough to make the I think to

(17:39):
make to make the event aprofitable one. And we didn't
say we didn't take that muchstock with this, so we didn't
have to return there wasn't muchstock left at the end. So we
probably sold most of what wecould.
And people were interested. Itwas cool. It was good. So
whether Free League want to goagain next year, it will be up
to them and, you know, the boardof Free League to decide if it

(18:02):
was worth it. But I think, youknow, definitely made a profit
on the on the event.
So hopefully, you know, theywill want to go again next year.
And they were very keen to go.So I think when we'd first
talked about it, I'd I'd I'm notsure what you said, but I'd
certainly said, well, it's ait's a wargaming thing, so it
might not be the best place forus to go.

Matthew (18:20):
Yeah. I think I'd said we could sell Zone Wars and
Twilight 2,000. And I noticedTwilight 2,000 wasn't a bad
seller actually, so I'm not onthat score.

Dave (18:31):
Twilight did well, actually. Yeah. So, yeah, the
things we thought would sellwell did sell well. And I guess
that the the more traditionalrole playing things that we
would sell very well elsewhere,like Verson and Dragonbane
didn't sell as well.

Matthew (18:46):
No. But interestingly, I noticed the One Ring sold
quite well.

Dave (18:51):
Yeah. Yeah. I think we sold out of the One Ring core
book. We only had a couple ofstarter sets left, I think. We
sold out of Alien starter sets.
They all went. And a fair fewcore books went as well. So, I
mean, it was a good event, andit was fun, and it was a it was
a I mean, not having been toSalute before, having a little

(19:12):
walk around and seeing some ofthese, you know you know you
know those sort of games ofWarhammer we used to play back
in the day where you've gotyour, 25 Green

Matthew (19:19):
felt bays over some books to make sure.

Dave (19:21):
Exactly. Your 25 millimetre or whatever, you
know, size minis on your table.Imagine that, but your minis are
scaled up to about two and ahalf foot. And there was one of
these, which was a floor spaceabout 30 foot square, which
basically had these Huge minis.Battle mech minis, which are
basically the size basicallybasically the size of about a

(19:43):
seven year old child.
You know, they're enormous. No.It's great. It was with some
fabulous stuff there. Somefabulous you know, the
landscapes have moved on a lotsince our days of, as you said,
that green beige, which I'vestill got somewhere, you know,
resting over some books.
I think some of those, like, thelandscapes are absolutely
fabulous, what they've whatthey've done with them.

Matthew (20:05):
One one photo which I saw, which made me laugh, is
somebody had done a minisversion of the Atari tank game.
Yes. That was Yeah. With, youknow, it was just key lines. And
the it was all black with, everyevery edge painted green.
It was very effective.

Dave (20:25):
Yeah. And I love I love that game back in the day on the
on the in the arcades. That thatlooked really cool. There was
also a really good Tron one thatthey had as well, which is very
similar in out in look to them.But that was really there was a
Tron, light they're light bikes?
Is that what you call them?
Yeah. There was
a light bike racing game. Yeah. That looked really cool.
And so it was great.

(20:46):
It was really good. Lots ofgreat stuff. And we did quite
well in terms of selling the thethe stock we took with us. So,
you know, if Free League areare, well, as they seem to be,
getting more into that sort ofskirmish stroke mini market with
Zone Wars, and now obviouslywith Alien Evolved, with all the
minis that they're gonna producefor that, then maybe they're

(21:08):
thinking this is this is amarket they want to get into,
and this is a place where theycan get into that market. So
maybe next year, we'll be goingwith Alien Evolved and lots and
lots of packs of of Xenomorphminis.
So Let's

Matthew (21:21):
wait and see.

Dave (21:22):
Yeah.

Matthew (21:22):
Yeah. And then we might do Alien demos as well, which
might make me more interested ingoing.

Dave (21:27):
That would be that would be quite fun, actually. Yeah.

Matthew (21:30):
Particularly with a starter set. That Edian starter
set. I've heard there's a verygood story hidden in that.

Dave (21:39):
Yeah. It's it's it's been watered down a bit by being
expanded, but the original, thecore story was just fucking
brilliant, wasn't it? Anyway,yes.

Matthew (21:50):
And there's other convention news as well, which
is that we are going to be intwo places at UK Games Expo.

Dave (21:59):
Yeah. We are gonna be cutting ourselves down the Are

Matthew (22:03):
going to be at the at the Fiendig Stand with the help
of a marvelous team, includingLily and George and Tom and
Neil. But we are also, or atleast one of us at all times,
will also be at the EffectPublishing Stand.

Dave (22:22):
Woo. Yes. That that's gonna be cool. So yeah. Let's
let's let's sell lots of stuff.
Yeah. Hopefully.

Matthew (22:33):
And the Effect Publishing stand is going to be
in Hall 3, which is an honor fora new publisher like you and I,
Dave.

Dave (22:42):
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.

Matthew (22:43):
We're in we're in with the big boys there. We're we're
next to Leyland Leyland Pressand stuff

Dave (22:49):
like I noticed that. That that was cool. Yeah.

Matthew (22:52):
And we are gonna be Stand 601. It's a corner stand,
Dave, on a main thoroughfare.

Dave (23:00):
We're in a really good spot. Think we've been very
lucky to get that. That's beensuper.

Matthew (23:06):
Yeah. And there's a bit of a story around that. We
didn't pay for that, exhortedposition. We paid for a far more
inferior position. But due to aslight cock up, at the UK Games
Expo end, we didn't get thestand we paid for because they'd
already sold it to somebodyelse.
And so now we've got a slightlybetter stand where somebody

(23:27):
couldn't make it. So that'sgreat news.

Dave (23:30):
So that's worked out really well for us. Yeah. So
Yeah. Can't wait. That you know,that's gonna be exciting.

Matthew (23:36):
Yes.

Dave (23:37):
It's gonna be good. Obviously, we're gonna be we're
gonna be fully focused on makingsure the Free League stand is
doing everything as it alwaysshould do. But as as you say,
Matthew, one of us will be onthe effect publishing stand.
Yeah. To bang the drum for talesof the Old West and stuff

Matthew (23:54):
that we

Dave (23:54):
have coming in

Matthew (23:55):
for you. Sign copies as well?

Dave (23:57):
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I did If you

Matthew (24:00):
buy Sorry?

Dave (24:01):
I bought some
I bought some new Sharpies the other day.

Matthew (24:03):
Some new some new silver and gold Sharpies?

Dave (24:06):
Yeah.

Matthew (24:07):
Excellent. Yeah. We'll we'll be there. I will be
selling excess stock of booksand of dice and of GM screens.
You wanted a GM screen, now isthe time

Dave (24:24):
to Yes. And come and get them. Come and get them quickly
before they run out.

Matthew (24:31):
We A once in a lifetime opportunity. We have many left.

Dave (24:36):
Anyway, so okay. Okay. Listeners, there's the joke
here, or is it a joke, was thatwe we we made an assessment of
the number of GM screens weneeded, and we were short by
about 15. So we've had to go andgive another run. So the minimum
run isn't 15, as you can guess.
So we've gotta have quite a lotof GM screens to for for our

(25:01):
fabulous supporters and backersand people who want to play
Tales of the Old West to comeand come and purchase.

Matthew (25:07):
I think

Dave (25:07):
They are very they are very good screens. They are they

Matthew (25:10):
are good screens. I've got to say, this isn't bad
estimating on our part. Rule ofthumb is you sell roughly 10%
more of whatever people backedon the Kickstarter in the pledge
manager, and we almost doubledour GM screen sales. So I think
what that shows is that in thepledge manager where we had

(25:31):
pictures of the finished thing,people liked what they saw.
Yeah, man.
And people actually wanted a GMscreen who weren't sure about it
at the Kickstarter level, whichis, I think, a great success.

Dave (25:46):
That's true. That is true. So

Matthew (25:49):
it's good good news for us even though it has cost us
another thousand pounds to get200 made. But but there we
Anyway,

Dave (25:58):
that Yeah. There we go.

Matthew (25:58):
That is the world of things.

Dave (26:00):
Yeah. But that's that
but that's fine. And they're they're gonna arrive
next week, hopefully. So that'sthat's not too bad.

Matthew (26:08):
Cool. Yes. So that's and I guess the other bit of

Dave (26:12):
That segued us into old news west, doesn't it? So

Matthew (26:15):
Yeah. That that segues us nicely into old news west. So
old news west, Dave.

Dave (26:24):
Yes. Fulfillment has started. People have got the
book in their hands now.Certainly those in The UK and
Europe who in the in The UK,who've ordered just a book and a
GM screens in Europe who justgot the books. So we we've
started a staggered fulfillment.

(26:46):
So those who whose packagescould be sent have been sent
whilst we're still getting therest of the stock together. So
we'll be going up to, thedistributors next week,
hopefully on Tuesday, where allthe stock will come together.
There's a little bit of admin weneed
to do, which will take
us an hour or two whilst we're there. But then once all
that's done, everything is readyto be sent. So, yeah, if you're

(27:10):
a UK backer and you've ordereddice and dice trays, your
package can go out later thisweek. If you're EU backer in the
same boat, that can go out laterthis week as well. And as we
mentioned earlier, The USshipment will go out as soon as
we as soon as we can, andhopefully that'll be next week,

(27:31):
Trump willing, basically.

Matthew (27:33):
Yes.

Dave (27:33):
Yeah. No. It's great. So one of the things I didn't
mention about Salute was it wasgreat, as always, to to meet and
have a quick chat with withfriends and patrons who I don't
otherwise get to see. So Ibumped into Sol, which is great
to see him.
And he was saying, they weresaying that they got their book
and and and it takes me back toUK Games Expo last year when

(27:54):
when Sol and I were chattingabout it, and the Kickstarters
was just coming. And, know, hewas really, you know, really
excited about it all. And thiskind of squared off that circle,
cause then here we were nowtalking after Saul had the book.
That was really Saw Jerry.Lovely to see Jerry as always.

(28:14):
A real pleasure. Sadly, wedidn't get to chat for very long
because because I was busy andthen Jerry wandered off and
didn't catch up with him againlater. And then obviously bumped
into Pete and Paul, which isreally good. And I'm sure
there's others that I spoke to,but I can't remember right now.
But it's always a great pleasurein in doing that.

(28:34):
But a few people, Sol included,came up to say thanks. I've got
the book. And they were allwaxing lyrical about how much
they liked it, which wasfabulous. So thank you all so
much for supporting us. I'mreally delighted that you like
it.
I think, you know, we're youknow, I was I was saying to them
all that, you know, I'm not I'mnot I'm not frightened. You

(28:55):
know? Yeah. I don't mindadmitting that, you know, when I
got the book in my hands firsttime, I had a little tear of,
oh, we've actually got therekind of thing. So it's all
brilliant.
It's all lovely, and I'mdelighted that people are loving
what they are receiving in thepost. So if you haven't got it
yet, watch out. It's coming verysoon.

Matthew (29:16):
I just wanted to say, David Chapman, he he the brains
behind UK RPG a day and thedoctor who role playing games,
and I think still works forModiphius. No. Cubicle seven in
in another respect. He said, tokick start a delivery today of

(29:41):
the epic and huge tales of theOld West from the lovely folk
over at Effect podcast. I knowthis has been a labor of love
for years, and to finally seethis in rather glorious print is
fantastic.
Well done, guys.

Dave (29:57):
No. That's a lovely comment. That was really nice.
Yeah. I mean,

Matthew (30:00):
we So, of course

Dave (30:02):
Yeah. Go. Sorry. Go.

Matthew (30:03):
I want to say we never get bored of seeing your
pictures on social media of thebook cover that we have been
staring at for the last year orso. Please bomb social media
with your pictures if you sodesire, because it's great to
see them in other people'shands. Lorimer. I don't know who

(30:23):
Lorimer is, but they may work ata pub. I only say that because
the books are sitting on acouple of drip trays.
One for Jack Daniels and Okay.One for something else. Or not a
couple of books. He he got thethe deluxe edition and the GM

(30:44):
screen.

Dave (30:44):
Nice.

Matthew (30:45):
And they look gorgeous sitting there on those drip
trays. Yeah. We'll we'll seethem any old way. And, also, I
wanna give a shout out while inthe social media side to Neil
Hopkins, who has been diligentlyrunning Adventures since he got
the PDF. Since he got the QuickStart, I think.
And there's a lovely shot of thegroup that he ran for at Seven

(31:07):
Hills, which is a smaller gamesconvention in Sheffield, of his
group who all look to bethoroughly enjoying themselves
playing in Patience Is A Virtue.And he says, the players all
lent into the brutality of theWild West with shootouts, a

(31:30):
hanging, and a showdown at highnoon. So, yeah. All good stuff.

Dave (31:37):
Yeah. No. That's great. Yeah. And so so for those of you
who haven't got got it yet, theywill be on their way very soon,
and we will update The USbackers as soon as we know
exactly what's happening withthat shipping.
Yeah.

Matthew (31:54):
So yeah. And the other thing, actually, we ought to say
is the dice have finallyarrived. I sit here absolutely
surrounded by dice, some ofwhich are in little packets,
some of which are in great bigpackets of a hundred. You're not
getting a packet of a hundred.I'm splitting those packets of a
hundred into packets of five andlabeling them.

(32:15):
And that is my job for the day,basically, around editing this
very podcast. Mhmm. And thenwe'll be taking those dice to to
the distributors on Tuesday anddoing a little bit of work there
on the screens, which forEurope, particularly, have got
to be labeled for GPSR reasons.And then the bulk of the mailing

(32:40):
can happen.

Dave (32:41):
Yeah. Absolutely. So I I saw the dice for the first time
last week. I popped down toMatthews. I say popped.
It's about hour and a bit driveand took me two and a half hours
to get home, thanks to somebloody crash on the M 25. But
anyway, so I got to see the dicefor the first time then, even
though I didn't get a whole setfor myself because there was

(33:01):
only, you know, Matthew Matthewonly had seven dice, so I only
got two. But I'm gonna I'm

Matthew (33:06):
gonna get mine.

Dave (33:07):
I'm gonna get three more. I have them here. But they they
do look lovely. I'm reallypleased with them. And seeing
for the first time seeing themin the flesh as it were.
Yeah. They've come out reallywell despite all the shenanigans
and the

Matthew (33:22):
Yes.

Dave (33:22):
Yeah. And the irritations we've had around getting them in
our hands, they do actually lookvery good. I'm very pleased.

Matthew (33:29):
These are the first thing we ordered when the
Kickstarter closed, and they'rethe last things to arrive.

Dave (33:36):
Yeah. It's taken four and a half months. I mean, it's

Matthew (33:39):
like Yeah.

Dave (33:40):
Yeah. It shouldn't have taken that long. Lessons
learned. Lessons from a firsttime Kickstarter. But yeah.
But they're there now. And, youknow, on on time is good enough,
isn't it? So even though wedidn't get them a long time ago,
you know, May was

Matthew (33:56):
our target was all happening, Dave, a month before
we said it would happen.Actually, they came perfectly on
time for

Dave (34:03):
our May
was our target delivery date.

Matthew (34:05):
Yeah.

Dave (34:06):
You know, even with The US situation and having to ship
stuff out, which will obviouslyslow things down a little bit
for our US backers, everyoneshould still get their their
rewards long before the May.Yeah. So, yeah. I'm I'm very
pleased with that. That was kindof one of our top things that we
needed to do was was prove thatwe could do this and prove that

(34:28):
we were reliable when we said,you know, this is the day we're
gonna go keep

Matthew (34:32):
our promises.

Dave (34:33):
Yes. And we can we can keep those promises. Yeah. So
I'm very pleased. At this stage,you know, US Trump crap
withstanding.
We're pretty much there. Butyeah. Yeah. Cool. Right.
Well, that's enough of us twoblathering on, I think. So we
had a fabulous interview withAndreas Lundstrom, as I said, of

(34:54):
Nordic Skalds, talking about hisnew game, which is currently on
Kickstarter, Yggdrasil Burns.Let's let's hand over to
Andreas, shall we?
Okay. So here we are in theHammam again. And once again,
I'm delighted to say we have thewonderful Andreas Lundstrom with
us from Nordic Skalds. Welcome,Andreas.

(35:14):
Thank you. Thank you, Gary. Thank you for having me
back.
It's always a pleasure. It is always a pleasure.

Andreas (35:19):
It's a delight. And we've got you here today to talk
to us a

Dave (35:23):
little bit about your current and ongoing kickstart
campaign of a game calledYggdrasil Burns.
Indeed. Yes.

Andreas (35:31):
A a mirkbog inspired. Is that right? A compatible
game?

Dave (35:37):
Yeah. It's we we we've dabbled with different, you
know, ways of calling it. Ithink a merc boy hack would be
the best one because it's like,you could call it a setting for
merc boy, but you could alsocall it, it is also a standalone
game. You don't need merc boy toplay you just advance.

Andreas (35:56):
Right. Okay. So well, let's get straight into that and
tell us a little bit aboutYggdrasil obviously comes from
Norse mythology.

Dave (36:04):
Is that the world tree that holds all the other realms
together? But yeah, tell us alittle bit about about the game.
Yeah, let me start with the setting because I think the
setting is what has excited themost people about it. It's, you
know, Lidnisfarnere, the thegreat raid on the Christian
monastery in in Britain, inNorthumbria. So we're

Matthew (36:29):
still mad at you. I

Dave (36:31):
know. So the Christian God is equally rough with the
Vikings. So the Christian Godactually took vengeance upon the
Scandinavians and burnt andraised all of Scandinavia, you
know, twelve hundred years ago.And so all the He

Andreas (36:50):
is a vengeful God after all.

Dave (36:52):
Is a vengeful God. He is, he is. So all these pagan
Scandinavians, they have noland, there's no food. There's
no, like the water's poisonous.It's a world that is dead.
It's a post apocalyptic Vikinggame basically.

Matthew (37:07):
Right. So of course, Morkpog is always about, well,
should always be aboutapocalyptic worlds. It is the
very nature of the spirit ofMork Borg. Now, just take me
back a little bit. Obviously theraid on Lindisfarne did happen.
God's vengeance, is that a

Dave (37:29):
thing you've made up? Or is that a bit of a

Matthew (37:34):
retelling of history? Or was there an historical
incident that felt a bit likeGod's vengeance?

Dave (37:40):
No, no. Like in our setting, the Aesir and Vanir,
like the Norse gods andgoddesses, they're real, as is
the Christian God. But theChristian God was stronger. So
he fettered the Norse deities inhell with, you know, unbreakable
chains and all that. And he justrazed the entire Scandinavia.

(38:06):
It's just burning or in ashes.Nice. So, are moving somewhere
like between history andmythology.

Matthew (38:13):
Yeah. That's good.

Dave (38:15):
Basically, kind of like the show Vikings. It's also
like, yeah, history ish, butit's also a lot of mythology
mixed in. Yeah. We also thoughtthat do we want to do a, oh,
you're supposed to find Mjolnirand use it against the Fenrir
wolf or, you know, Jormungandr,the Midgard snake. But we felt

(38:39):
that there is another game thatkind of does that.
And also, that doesn't feel mercborg for me. You know?

Andreas (38:45):
That's how much

Dave (38:47):
Merc borg isn't epic. It's about, you know, you're a worm
and you're trying to survive.That's the game.

Matthew (38:53):
Until the rock wheel crashes you. Sorry, Dave.

Andreas (38:59):
Three times I've tried to say this

Dave (39:00):
question, but, you know, it's not that interesting I

Matthew (39:03):
see. I feel you look a bit like you're burning to ask a
question of Andreas. Go ahead.

Dave (39:09):
Let's just say, so the game isn't getting heavily into
the rest of the Nordicmythology.
What the game is, is that the player characters are all
Skalds. First of all, becauseour publishing company is called
Nordic Skalds. Skald is like aScandinavian Viking bard,

(39:30):
basically. Yeah. That tells allthese stories.
And so we wanted to weave thatinto the game somehow. So all
the characters are, that's whatthey make their living doing.
They travel from place to place,telling these old myths, these
sagas and stories in exchangefor scraps of food to survive.

(39:51):
And what they are doing is thatthey are traversing the land in
search of these rumors aboutthese old sagas, about the old
myths. So it's not a Call ofCthulhu investigation game, but
the scenarios are supposed tobe, you hear about a rumor, you
go to that place to check outthe rumor.

(40:13):
Is it true? What's the truthbehind it? So that you get
another story to tell the nexttime you go to a homestead that
is actually, you know, managedsomehow to survive.
Right. So you're not borrowing them with the same old
story and getting nothing,getting crumbs to eat. You're
actually, you're looking for thenew stories to turn into

(40:33):
your performances. And if you want to put in like a meta
plot, if you want to put in alittle bit more epicness, if you
want to have the possibility ofsomething a little cooler
happening, we have kind of anoptional meta plot where each
time you investigate a rumor andlearn more about the truths of

(40:57):
the old sagas and myths, thechains that hold that fetters
the Norse gods weakens.
Right. Okay. So you're working to release the gods to
put the Christian god back inhis box, basically.
If you want to take Yggdrasilbern's in a slightly
more epic way. Yeah. But that'san optional thing because I

(41:21):
think it would be nice to leadthat up to the game master and
to the players like what kind ofgame would you want to be?
Because all the other rules andeverything else with the setting
lends itself well to both theseways of play, except the super
epic one. And of course, themain antagonist is Ansgar, the

(41:45):
German Bishop who is thehistorical figure who Christians
is responsible for ChristianingSweden, basically.
So him and his priests, they'realso traversing the land because
they're looking for pagans whohaven't yet abandoned the Norse
gods. Missionaries. They'remissionaries. So they're the

(42:05):
antagonists. If you meet them,there's going to be trouble.

Matthew (42:10):
Right. Okay. Let's just focus on that trouble for a
moment. Is it story versusstory? Are we talking about the
good book versus the saga?

Dave (42:19):
Yeah, exactly. You are pagans. And actually there's a,
you know, this, what's itcalled, calendar of Nehrubel in
Murkwar, you know, the doomsdaycountdown clock or whatever you
want to call it.

Matthew (42:32):
Seven prophecies and then you have to burn the book.

Dave (42:34):
Yeah, exactly. So we wanted to do something similar
to that. So in this game, youroll similar dice to see when
this is gonna happen. Whathappens in this game is that
Scandinavia is finally like,Christian and an arch angel

(42:56):
comes down from the heavens tothe player characters and you
get a choice. Do you want to bebaptized or do you want to burn
forever in hell?
And it's implied that you'resupposed to choose the latter.

Matthew (43:08):
Right, and so then you're

Dave (43:09):
meant to throw the book you're the
first one, lose the
game. Yeah.

Matthew (43:15):
And throw the book in the river.

Dave (43:17):
Yeah, exactly.

Matthew (43:19):
Because every more poor would have a distraction of the
book at some point. Yeah. Thismay be right. This may be an
opportunity because I can seeDave looking at me somewhat
skeptically here. Is not aconvert to the true religion of
the dark tower.
He has not yet fallen for anymore Borgian goodness. Convince

(43:44):
him, if you can, that thissetting, as you say, standalone
game, is the way to bring thegoodness of Mork Borg in, what,
the darkness of Mork Borg intohis heart?

Dave (44:02):
I think Mork Borg does a lot of things very well. What it
does that I'm not a super fan ofis that it's a very dungeon
heavy game. For me, I prefermore story to my games. And so
that's, I would say like, that'sa big difference apart from the

(44:23):
setting is completely different,but it's still some kind of post
apocalyptic, you're a worm game.So that's similar, but it's
another type of setting.
But the big difference I wouldsay is that this game is more
story focused, whilst Murkborgis much more focused on go to
this dungeon, try to survive, goto that dungeon, try to survive,
go to this dungeon, try tosurvive.

(44:45):
Right. That's interesting. Because again, I think I prefer
the the the story drivenelement. Know, don't get me
wrong. I enjoy a good dungeondelve and beating up and
everything in it and stealingall their stuff.
But Yeah. We all do, of course.Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't.

Andreas (45:01):
That's that's how that's how most of us well,
that's how most of us got into,

Dave (45:04):
into role playing in the first place, guess,

Andreas (45:06):
with D and D. Yeah. And, you know,

Dave (45:07):
and that's what the Vikings actually did for real.
Okay. Yeah. Many dungeons, butthere are

Andreas (45:12):
a lot of, you

Dave (45:12):
know, places that went and beat up and sold everyone's
stuff. Yeah. Yeah,

Andreas (45:16):
I like that idea very much. I said, I mean, I've I've
I've read more book.

Dave (45:20):
I've never played it. I love the idea

Andreas (45:22):
of it, but I don't know. Think me, I like a game
that has a bit more longevity, a

Dave (45:28):
bit more campaigniness to it.
Yeah. Yeah.

Andreas (45:31):
And it feels that maybe

Dave (45:32):
Nordic School, Yggdrasil Burning, has got, from what
you're saying there, Andreas,has got a bit more of that
longer playability to it,perhaps,

Andreas (45:41):
where your characters are supposed to go through this
story rather than die in thefirst chapter.

Dave (45:48):
Another thing we added is talents aren't in the original
game. In the original game, justhave your abilities, which are
four. We've added two. Sothere's six of them, we've
changed them somewhat. Sothere's six abilities that you
roll for, but there are alsotalents.
So I said, all the playercharacters are skulls. That's

(46:14):
just a narrative thing, becauseinstead of an archetype or a
profession or class or whateveryou want to call it, this game
has backgrounds. Who were youbefore the world ended? So you
could have been a berserker, youcould have been an explorer, you
could have been a Jarl, an Earl,you could have been a vulva,

(46:34):
which is a, like a seeress,basically, or a thief or a
thrall. So that's who you werebefore you met these other
Skalds and decided we're gonnatry and survive in this world
together by telling storiestogether.
So, and another one thing youget from your background is you

(46:57):
get an iconic item. There's nobig list of equipment because
everything's gone, you know.There aren't a bunch of shovels
left around. They've all beenburnt. So you basically own one
thing.
You own a weapon. You'll have aniconic item, which are
different. You get that fromyour background. Right. And

(47:18):
that's also, you know, veryheavily inspired by games like
Vassen.
And, you know, where you havethese kind of things. And
talents, of course, are alsovery inspired by by Free League
games, except that you don't,you don't spend anything to use
them, you can use them as muchas you want.
Yeah. And I was going to ask what what drove you? What

(47:41):
was it about Nagoya that thatyou felt needed to change that
made you go down the line ofextra abilities? And then
obviously the talents?
Well, those basically came actually from choosing not to
have classes or archetypes doingbackground, because that meant

(48:01):
that you still had todifferentiate them somewhat. You
also get a top ability from yourbackground.
Right. So
I'm a big fan of allocating abilities, especially
in a game like this, whereyou're so vulnerable. So in the
original game, you roll for yourabilities. Here you allocate

(48:26):
minus three, minus two, minusone, plus one, plus two, and
then you start with a plus fourin your top ability.
Right. Okay.

Matthew (48:36):
This sounds like woke DI in the world of Mortal Borg
this does. Is

Andreas (48:45):
there anything wrong with that, Matthew?

Matthew (48:47):
Well, feels to get the spirit of Mortal Bull, but I'm
gonna let it pass. That's thisone.

Dave (48:53):
We've kept the omens, and they basically work the same as
they do in the original game,which is a resource that you
have to, you know, cancel a critor cancel Yeah, you can use them
on a lot of things like do areroll and stuff like that.

Matthew (49:13):
Excellent. Excellent. And is it so we've seen what
would you call it an early beta?

Dave (49:25):
Yeah, alpha. An Yeah.

Matthew (49:27):
An early alpha. That's the right way. Actually, was
just trying to get my letters inthe right order.

Dave (49:32):
Because there's a bit too much missing to call it a beta.

Matthew (49:35):
But one of the things that this is a little bit sparse
on is illustration. Who'sillustrating what your
illustration is going to belike, given the Ward of Morgborg
and the various illustratorsthat have worked on that?

Dave (49:57):
Yeah. I mean, have Johan Orr along, who is the original.
So we have Johan Orr, he hasdone the cover cover art, both
for the standard book, and wealso have a limited book, which
will only be printed for thisKickstarter. We'll do us a
couple of extra copies to bringto conventions. But basically

(50:19):
that's going to be the only wayto get the limited Yeah.
He has done a few inlayillustrations as well, but he's
also an art director. So he'sworked closely with Christian
Lindquist, who is our residentgraphic designer. So they work
together to create like thegraphic design and art direction

(50:41):
for this game.
It does look very good, have to say, looking at the
Kickstarter. There's aparticular picture there with a
skeleton looking like he's likesort of, you know, almost kind
of like praying to the
Oh, yeah. That's Sigurd, Fafner's bane. Odin used his
ribs to write magical spells forthe Fudarkrunes. So in the

(51:08):
original game, have scrolls,which are the way you do magic.
Here you have runic spells.
They're all carved into the ribsof Sigurd's skeleton.

Andreas (51:22):
Okay, cool.

Dave (51:23):
Yeah. So that's you, Anor. That's going to be the cover for
the limited edition book.
Nice. That looks
really And then we have a bunch of public domain art, just
like they had in the originalgame. Some public domain that's
very old. And some, there's aNorwegian illustrator called Kim
Dias Holm, who's very, verygenerous with his art. And so

(51:48):
we've like, we've used a lot ofhis illustrations as well. And
then Christian Linklisz has donesome, yeah, yeah, wherever
something's missing, he's donesomething and try and fix it up.
Yeah, basically. So that's,that's the art and graphic
design. Speaking of Johan Nour,we also have Pelin Ilison, the,

(52:09):
yeah, the writer of Mirk Bore.He is writing the introduction
scenario.

Andreas (52:14):
Yeah, I was just looking at that, that the first

Dave (52:17):
stretch goal that you unlocked.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Nice.
Yeah. So we are very happy to have both the original
creators of the original gamewith us in this project. It's
very, very nice.
We've been
friends for a few years now, me, both me and Pella and
me and Johan. So I, as soon aswe started thinking about this
project, I was like, I reallywant them in on it in some way.

(52:40):
Because for one, it will keep uson track. Like if we start
deviating too much, if we startdoing something that doesn't
feel more boring, they will, youknow, pull the reins and get us
to Yeah, Yeah. And also, ofcourse, I can't deny the fact
that them being so recognizablein the community is a huge plus

(53:01):
as well.
Yeah, absolutely. Great to workwith. They're amazing people,
both as people, but also as likecreators. They're so amazing to
work with. And how's the gamestarts?

Matthew (53:13):
I'm sorry.

Andreas (53:14):
I was

Dave (53:14):
just gonna a little dubbed at UK Games Expo last year, year
before when Johan was over andit was

Andreas (53:23):
about 10:00, and we were

Dave (53:24):
all coming back for having had dinner. And he

Andreas (53:26):
was like, anyone up for one more drink? And nobody

Dave (53:29):
was up for one more drink. And I thought, oh, go on, man.
I'll have one. And, like, fourhours later Yeah.
Oh my god. Yeah.
Matthew. Yeah, go on.

Matthew (53:45):
No, I going say how is the Kickstarter doing? How's the
campaign going?

Dave (53:50):
Well, I mean, we fulfilled our funded goal in two days, I
think.
Nice.
So we're funded and we reached the first stretch goal,
which was the important one. ButI can't lie, I had expectations
and hopes for a bit more. Sowe're at 112,000 Swedish now,

(54:13):
that's a little under 10 ks UKpounds. Right. So it's yeah, we
were hoping for more at thisstage.
Things will happen, but I mean,you guys know that there are
curves to kickstarters, how theyusually like after two, three
days, you can usually calculateapproximately where you're gonna

(54:34):
end up. And we had hoped formore, but we're very happy with
the ones who are backing us andshowing us support. And we are
very confident that once thisgame is printed, because we'll
obviously do a quite a hugeprint run. So all the money will
go into like, doing as big of aprint run as we can. And then

(54:58):
we're gonna get the games out instores and, in conventions and
stuff like that.
And hopefully, it'll catch on.
And you've still got about three weeks to go at the point
of where of the recording this,haven't you? So you've still got
you've got the got the doldrums

Andreas (55:15):
to go through, but then

Dave (55:16):
you hopefully got the, you know, the nice bump at the end
of the
yeah. I mean, have

Matthew (55:22):
the I've been on this podcast.

Dave (55:24):
Loads, thousands,

Andreas (55:25):
millions of people.

Dave (55:27):
Because the listeners of this podcast, they know quality.

Matthew (55:31):
They do. They do.

Dave (55:33):
They do.

Andreas (55:34):
They look past the hosts of the podcast and see
quality somewhere. Yeah.

Dave (55:40):
We have very exciting stretch goals coming along as
well, because at 150, that'sabout 12,000, I think. We have a
custom die set that will be madefor us by Lindor Dice, the ones
who made the Windham die sets,which was nice,
nice,
hugely popular. We've already run out of them those

(56:01):
and hopefully we will also reachthe GM screen, which will be you
have a picture of it on it onthe Kickstarter site there, it's
going to look beautiful.
It looks very good actually. I was just looking at

Andreas (56:13):
it just now. Looks I was thinking, have you so have
you done it? Because the picturelooks like the two side panels
are angled. Is that or is itjust the perception of the
picture?

Dave (56:25):
Oh, I will have to get back to you on that.

Andreas (56:28):
It's actually, if they're angled, it looks really
cool.

Dave (56:32):
Oh, you mean that? No, I just think that they're supposed
to be, you know, standing likein a
It's the perception of the image.
I think so. Yeah, I think they're going to be like the
standard free league ones.
Right. Exactly.
It does look very good. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you guys
will agree with me on this one,I'm sure. But a lot of GM
screen, the information you geton the GM side is not always the

(56:56):
best priorities.
Are you with me on this one?

Matthew (56:59):
Well, having just made a GM screen, I've got to say
it's really hard working outwhat people are going to want.
We did pack

Dave (57:11):
as much information as we

Andreas (57:13):
possibly could on the Tales of

Dave (57:14):
the Midwest GM screen. It is

Matthew (57:16):
We've gone a bit old school with our GM screen.

Dave (57:18):
We've got

Matthew (57:18):
lots of tables on there. No faffing about with any
design or any shit like that.

Dave (57:23):
Because what you want in a GM screen is stuff you're gonna
need at the table without

Andreas (57:27):
getting through the Like

Dave (57:29):
GM tables who have information on character
creation, that just pisses meoff so much because you'll use
that once and never more. It'sjust it's idiotic.
Yeah. We didn't we didn't do that with Toto, did we? No,
we didn't.

Matthew (57:45):
No, we didn't. But the interesting, I mean, here's the
interesting little thing. We'vesold almost twice. Well, we've
sold as many GM screens in thepledge manager as we sold in the
original Kickstarter campaign.Yeah.
So many more we've had to askfor a reprint. Obviously our GM

(58:10):
screens people like. Yeah,screens, you want them to be
useful. Get back to your

Andreas (58:14):
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely.

Dave (58:16):
You want the side facing the player to be, players to be,
you know, it's supposed to showsomething, either excite the
players, or in our case, we wantlike, this is the landscape you
see before you, as you areplaying this game. The sky is
red. There's never any sun. Theground is dark and burning or

(58:37):
just ash.

Andreas (58:40):
Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew (58:43):
This is what the Christian God has done. It looks
great, I must say.

Andreas (58:49):
If I'm a bit distracted because

Dave (58:51):
I am actually backing it as we speak. Oh, well done.

Matthew (58:54):
Well done, Dave.

Andreas (58:56):
Yeah, you've given it to me. Love I love the
storytelling idea and the lookand the feeling. Yeah. And also,

Dave (59:01):
I mean, I love the whole Nordic, Norse mythology stuff. I
just worked on, a game calledMythic Battles,

Andreas (59:09):
which was the Ragnarok setting. So I knew a

Dave (59:12):
little bit I knew a little bit about Norse mythology
anyway, but it gave me the realopportunity to learn loads.
Yeah, I'm loving the idea. So,yeah, sorry. That's why I was a
bit distracted.
Thank you. Distract away, dear friend. There's a

Matthew (59:31):
nice bit of a segue there. You're saying, okay,
we're going to get as many booksas we can printed and we're
going to distribute them aroundthe world. Actually, one of the
things I thought you've come tous, you've spoken to us now
about three projects, whichyou've kickstarted in the time
it's taken us to do one. Dave islooking to make a living out of
this game, you know, I pointedout to him that if we take six

(59:53):
years between Kickstarters

Dave (59:55):
Well, we're working on the next two already. I'm working on
the next two already.

Matthew (01:00:03):
But yeah, what, what has been your, so, you know,
there's all the fire and gloryover the Kickstarter itself and
then the pledge manager andstuff like that. Then you get
the books out. What have youdone to keep the pace up for
each of those games that havegone out now into the
distribution network? How haveyou worked to try and maximize

(01:00:23):
the publicity when the thrill ofthe Kickstarter has disappeared?

Dave (01:00:27):
Yeah, yeah, obviously, you know, being a guest on other
podcasts is a great, great wayto get the word out and get a
few more curious peopleinterested in it. But also, you
know, having a network of gamestores and we're actually in

(01:00:48):
these upcoming weeks talking todistributors, both for The US
and for The EU. So possibly UKas well. I'm not sure about the
EU distributor, if they do UK aswell, But I think, you know,
getting a good distributor iskey, because in Sweden, we know
all the game stores we have, wedon't need a distributor here.

(01:01:10):
Can, we have contact, directcontact with them.
And a good relationship. Andalso we've chosen not to have a
website. We've chosen not tohave a web store of our own
because we want to support thegame stores. So every time
someone says, oh, these Wyndhambooks, miss a Kickstarter, where

(01:01:30):
could I get them? And we justsend them a list of game stores
that sell them to support thelocal game stores, because
they're important for thebusiness.
They're important for thecommunity. And we want to
support that. So we would ratherdo the only direct sales we do
is through Kickstarters. As soonas that is over, we want to

(01:01:54):
support the game stores. Thinkthat's

Andreas (01:01:56):
a

Dave (01:01:56):
good thing because also if a game store like Alfas Beer,
one of the two big ones inSweden, or one of the three,
four big ones, They've asked,like they needed to restock the
Windham book three times now.
Oh, wow.
Because there's so many people buying it from them
because, of course, partiallybecause their ordinary customers

(01:02:20):
have gotten them, but alsobecause we recommended people to
them. Yeah.
Nice. So
that's what think those are conventions are important.
We haven't done that. We need tobe better at that. All the
Swedish publishers, big andsmall, always go for, you know,
like GovCon, LinkCon, a bunch ofother conventions. Get GMs who

(01:02:46):
will get paid in products to GMtheir game for them to spread
the word.
I think that's very important.That's one area where we are
lacking where we are not doingthat well.

Matthew (01:03:01):
Yeah, that's an interesting thing. Mean, we're
going to have a stand at two orthree conventions. Why say two
or three? Three conventions.We're to go to UK Games Expo.
We're going to go to Dragonmeat,which is our local London One,
and we're going go to tabletopScotland. So we're coming from

(01:03:22):
the whole country. The

Dave (01:03:27):
first ones are pretty big though, aren't they? UK, Gain,
Mexico and Dragonmeat, they'requite huge, right?

Matthew (01:03:32):
Yeah. Dragonmeat's got a bigger reputation than Well,
actually this may change, ofcourse, this year because it's
going to be an XL. A biggerreputation than the amount of
space or footfall up until now,but we'll see how that goes. But
yeah, UK Games Expo is, is thebiggest in the country. And

(01:03:54):
we're lucky to get a tablethere.
Thank you, Paul. I'll just saythat now in case you're
listening, Thank you, Paul. Sowe're doing that and obviously
we'll be selling direct,particularly the deluxe versions
of our book, which like you, youknow, we've had an overprint

(01:04:15):
over what we've got. Oncethey're gone, they're gone. Do
you then go to conventions moreas Sweden rolls rather than as
the Nordic Skalds?

Dave (01:04:29):
I think Gothcon is quite equal. Previous years, obviously
Nordic Skalds haven't had anybooks to sell. So I've gone as a
Sweden rolls person to Gothcon.This year, I'm splitting my time
sixtyforty, 40% Nordic Skull,60% Sweden rolls. But we are
playing Nordic Skull games andadventures.

(01:04:51):
So it's, you can count thatwhichever way you like.
A bit of self promotion as it were.
Yeah. But when it comes to other conventions, because in
GovCon there's like everypodcast is there. So there
there's so many podcasts,cooperations. Yeah. Going on at
GovCon.

(01:05:11):
So I'm gonna be, be a player foronce
for the first time in a long
time, last GovCon actually. And so that's gonna be
fun. And, but the otherconventions we will basically go
as Nordic skulls, but it, youknow, GovCon, they do you know
how much they charge £11 for atable

(01:05:35):
at GovCon. Just for a gaming table?
No, for a table to sell you
a Oh, I see. Okay.
Don't think

Matthew (01:05:41):
that's Why would doing GovCon?

Dave (01:05:44):
Think
that's quite I think next year you need to come guys
because people know about youover here and I think it's well
worth it.

Andreas (01:05:53):
Good idea. Yeah. Cause it's,

Matthew (01:05:55):
it's Easter, isn't it? Dave, what are you doing? It's
Easter.

Dave (01:05:58):
Yeah. It's any time now, isn't it? Yeah. It's Easter.
It's always Easter.
So that might be one might be difficult for you to get
away.

Matthew (01:06:06):
You got a week or two to organize

Dave (01:06:07):
it this year. Then you

Matthew (01:06:08):
live there, isn't it cheap? Yeah.

Dave (01:06:12):
But you know, event depends on how much they are
charging for a table, because, Imean, if we are, because we've
only been to the Spiel Congress,where they have the national
championship of Dragonbane.We've been to that last year and
we sold for almost a thousand UKpounds almost, which is of

(01:06:36):
course great for us. But I mean,if we, because I was talking to
a guy who was going to help usget into Essen Spiel. And he was
like, yeah, the table isbasically 2,000 British pounds.
And I'm like, we're not going tosell that much, are

Matthew (01:06:53):
we? I

Dave (01:06:55):
don't think so. And like, okay, is that really worth it
just for networking? If I'mthere for networking, then I
don't need a table. But if Idon't have a table, it's hard
for people to find me. It's Idon't know what the prices are
at Dragon Meat and UK Game Expo,but it's
Not that bad.

Matthew (01:07:16):
UK game expo do a lovely thing where they have a
starter pack, which is arelatively small source space,
two by two meters in arelatively out of the way place.
But you know, at a good sort ofstarter price that I don't know
that we'll qualify for nextyear, Dave, might have to pay
more next year than, than we,I've got to say, We're worried

(01:07:40):
about

Dave (01:07:40):
that next year.

Matthew (01:07:41):
Yeah, we're worried about that next year. But yeah,
that's a lot of money to spendat Essen. And I'm not sure that
Essen is the right place forrole playing games either.

Dave (01:07:50):
Exactly. So many board games. So I'm not sure either of
us if it's the place to be. ButI think if you want to meet
distributors, they're all there.So that could be an investment,
you know, if really want to getthe best distributors interested
in your games, it might be worthit going there for that reason.

(01:08:10):
Yeah.

Matthew (01:08:11):
Yeah. Pretty one feels, I don't know. Maybe next year,
Andreas, we should think about,could we all come together? And
there could be something likethe indie games exhibition or
something where we get lots ofsmaller companies, almost just

Andreas (01:08:31):
so many Yeah.

Matthew (01:08:33):
Because one of the issues is, Anna from Feeling
Gust, if we were going to go toWestern this year, And of
course, what with bloomingBrexit, we'd have to pay import
duties or whatever we broughtacross, we'd have to get work
permits and all sorts of craplike that. And I don't think
that on top of the cost of atable, which I didn't even know
was that expensive.

Andreas (01:08:52):
And accommodation and transport.

Dave (01:08:56):
Yeah, all of that sort

Matthew (01:08:57):
of stuff. It's quite difficult, but maybe if we sent
representatives, know, peopleclubbed together, smaller
companies clubbed together anddid a little exhibition stand or
something. Anyway, that'ssomething to think about next
year, which our podcast

Dave (01:09:10):
is just a situation where you send us a box of your stuff
and we send you a box of ourstuff.

Matthew (01:09:16):
Oh, I'm sure we could do that.

Dave (01:09:18):
Yeah.

Matthew (01:09:19):
I'm sure we could do that.

Dave (01:09:21):
Because I think it's just good if each stand has like, if
you have two books there, it'sgoing to be hard to attract
interest. But if you have six,seven books, that attracts more
interests. And make people stayby your table better, you know?
Yeah. We can talk about thatlater, maybe if you're
interested.

Matthew (01:09:40):
Yeah, let's have a bit of a discussion.

Andreas (01:09:42):
Do it

Dave (01:09:43):
a chat. Yeah, sure.

Matthew (01:09:46):
So where are we going? Well, we've kind of run out of
time actually. But Dave, do youhave any final questions?

Andreas (01:09:55):
I think not a question. I just want to congratulate you
Andreas on the Fenics Awardsnominations that Windheim has
got.

Dave (01:10:05):
Thank you.
Thank you.

Andreas (01:10:06):
To all our listeners

Dave (01:10:08):
there's a lot of them

Andreas (01:10:10):
so I don't know what all the categories are but there
is there are many brilliantlywell done. Congratulations on
that. And fingers crossed thatyou win your fair share of those
awards.

Matthew (01:10:20):
So, Andreas, what are the categories that you most
want to win? If our Swedishlistening public are listening
now,

Dave (01:10:28):
which are

Matthew (01:10:28):
the ones that we say, okay, don't waste your votes on
all the categories, focus onthese ones. Which are the ones
they should focus on?

Dave (01:10:36):
Well, I mean, if you go, if you just follow the link that
I could send you and you can putin a show.

Andreas (01:10:40):
By all means, it's

Dave (01:10:44):
just a Google doc. It's just you just scroll down and
the categories, it's not veryhard. And we've named everything
Windham. So it's easy for peopleto, even if it's Traces of
Darkness, Sport of Murkir inSwedish, it's still called
Windheim First, so it's easierfor people to find. But I would
say there's one called Best RPGProduct of the Year, which is of

(01:11:07):
course prestigious.
Also best RPG game. That's MyFather's Sword. That we released
very recently. That would be ahuge win for me as well. And
yeah, can I be a bit selfish?
Because there's also one forbest writer in Phoenix Magazine,

(01:11:30):
where I'm personally nominated.

Andreas (01:11:33):
Congratulations on that. That would be

Dave (01:11:36):
nice as well, of course.

Matthew (01:11:39):
But you get the pay raise if you're voted best
writer.

Dave (01:11:42):
I'll have to do that, right?

Matthew (01:11:44):
Yeah, you got to ask.

Dave (01:11:46):
I mean, you know, your per word rate or whatever has got

Matthew (01:11:48):
to go up. Your best writer by popular demand. Yeah,
exactly.

Dave (01:11:53):
Yeah, exactly. Excellent.

Andreas (01:11:56):
So, yeah, congratulations. I had a
question for

Dave (01:11:58):
you guys that I think might interest you two
especially because as of today,I actually finished the
soundtrack for Coriolis, TheGreat Dark.

Matthew (01:12:09):
That's a nice segue into our next episode because
after the episode in which thisinterview is, we're going to be

discussing Coriolis (01:12:19):
Great Dark. We've just been playing the
start well, an expanded versionof the starter adventure.

Dave (01:12:29):
Cool. Maybe you'd like a small sample to play your
listeners.

Matthew (01:12:35):
Drop us a line. We're very happy to get a bit of that
in. Always looking for content.You know us.

Dave (01:12:43):
Yep. Yep.
That would be cool. Yeah, please.
Just make sure to remind me because I am the most
forgetful person in this world.

Matthew (01:12:49):
Yeah. Like this interview.

Dave (01:12:52):
Yeah, for example.
Yeah. Oh,

Matthew (01:12:57):
cool. It's brilliant talking to you again, Andreas.

Dave (01:13:00):
Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew (01:13:01):
It's been a real pleasure having you. Everybody
should go and get look, if Dave,who doesn't even like Wort Borg,

Dave (01:13:24):
I'm sure you'll put a link on it to it.

Matthew (01:13:27):
We will of course link in the show notes.

Dave (01:13:29):
Search for Skalds, Nordic Skalds.

Matthew (01:13:32):
But we wish you every success with them.

Dave (01:13:35):
Indeed. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Matthew (01:13:36):
Well, you so Pleasure. So you were very impressed by
that, Dave. What was it, do youthink, that makes Yggdrasil
burns more popular thanespadrille burns? No, than Mork
Mork. What do you think makes itmore enticing to you than Mork
Borg itself?

Dave (01:13:57):
Oh, Esperdrill Burns could be like a Miami Vice version of
Mork Borg, isn't it?

Matthew (01:14:01):
Yeah. Right. We've done it.

Andreas (01:14:04):
Get in there, Craig.

Matthew (01:14:07):
Think the How nice Kickstarter, boys and girls.

Dave (01:14:09):
I think the idea that there's a bit more to it. As I
said in the interview, I I, youknow, I I do enjoy one shots for
sure, but I very much, I I get alot of my satisfaction from role
playing from from longer storiesand and campaigns. So I think,
know, this this

Andreas (01:14:25):
kind

Dave (01:14:25):
of scratches that itch a little bit. I say I've never
played Mobborg. And I don't knowwhy really, actually. But, but I
think if if it is just that,like, one shot, it's all a bit
manic and and the experience iskind of frantic, and then it's

(01:14:45):
finished, I think that kind ofexperience appeals appeals to me
in role playing terms a bit lessthan something that will tell a
bit more of a story. So I thinkthat's the thing for Yggdrasil
Bones that sort of, you know,attracted me to it.
And, yeah, as I said in in thethe interview, I I backed it as

(01:15:06):
we were talking. Now in the coldlight of day, knowing how much
money I don't have, it'spossibly one that I might
cancel. And knowing obviouslythat that that Andreas has got
well past his goal, so so thatwon't won't hamper his
objectives. But but yeah, Imean, I genuinely backed it

(01:15:27):
because it does look lovely, andthe, you know, the idea of that
more campaigning style, youknow, of on the back of a Merc
Buyer style actually reallyappeals to me.

Matthew (01:15:42):
Excellent.

Dave (01:15:42):
You never know. I mean, I I didn't back that much, so I
might just leave it. It'll befine. But it's it's always a
pleasure talking to Andreas, andwe should definitely take his
take his offer of of snippets ofthe the the score from Alien
Evolved that he's been workingon.

Matthew (01:16:01):
We should remind no. It's not Alien Evolved. It's The
Great Dark. He was offering usthe score.

Dave (01:16:06):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Matthew (01:16:07):
Yeah. Sorry It's a lovely segue into what's
happening next next time. Yes.So this is our now long promised
discussion of The Great Dark,Coriolis The Great Dark

Dave (01:16:21):
Yep.

Matthew (01:16:21):
Which I recorded, in fact, last night. So it's all
ready to go, but you're gonnahave to wait

Dave (01:16:25):
two weeks for it. Okay. So did did you did you get everyone
involved there? Was it a niceround table discussion?

Matthew (01:16:31):
Yeah. Everybody everybody who played was there,
which was And we've got avariety of viewpoints. And we
have we have conclusions, whichI won't reveal. I won't spoil
for you.

Dave (01:16:47):
No. No. Don't. Don't.

Matthew (01:16:50):
But there's some interesting things, and I think
it's worth possibly talkingabout them in our next episode
as well. But I'll say this inrelation to Tales of the Old
West is we put front and centerin the faith mechanic and also
in experience. We have rewardedwhat we expect your characters

(01:17:15):
to do in Tales of the Old West.And something similar has
happened in The Great Dark, butinterestingly, is it in the
right place?

Dave (01:17:28):
Here we go.

Matthew (01:17:29):
That is the question that you're gonna have to wait
two weeks to wait for.

Dave (01:17:33):
Okay. Well, that sounds that sounds really interesting.
So, yeah, I'm looking forward tohearing that. That sounds cool.
And just before we sign off, Ihave just confirmed that, the
date for the War StoriesKickstarter that I gave you was
wrong, but only just.

(01:17:53):
So if you're still listening atthis point, it's Wednesday,
April, not Tuesday, April. Sosorry, Al. I didn't mean to get
that wrong earlier, but there wego. I've got it right now at
least. So

Matthew (01:18:06):
Wednesday We can change it in the show notes too. Nobody
will notice. I mean, it'll it'llgo past like that time that you
said old news west and nobodynoticed.

Dave (01:18:18):
Exactly. Nobody would notice unless someone would go,
oh, what did you just say? Soright. I think that's probably
enough for now, didn't you?

Matthew (01:18:28):
Yeah. I just want to say, though, that I have new
glasses

Dave (01:18:33):
Well done.

Matthew (01:18:33):
Which is pertinent to what we're about to say. I have
new glasses that some people saymakes me look a bit like Ronnie
Barker. So

Dave (01:18:45):
I'll have to see.

Matthew (01:18:46):
It's goodbye from me.

Dave (01:18:48):
And it's goodbye from him.
May the icons bless your adventures.
You have been listening to the effect podcast presented by
Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods.Music stars on a black sea used

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