Effekt

Recorded at Spelkongress, Stockholm, Sweden! (The audio is of varying quality)

00.00.30: Introductions
00.03.48: World of Gaming: news from Spelkongress presnantions that we did not go to, that were mostly in Swedish - our Swedish patrons did attend though and thoughtful told us what was going on, on Discord.
00.12.01: On the plane David and Matthew discuss their hopes for the event
00.38.25: Eric Granstrom, on Svavlewinter (The Brimstone Sleep) for DoD/Dragonbane; and Alderland for Forbidden Lands
00.47.43: Anders Gilbring, on Western
01.04.20: Magnus Seter, on Trudvang
01.49.40: Anders Blick, on on being an elder statesman of Swedish gaming (and Ereb Altor)
01.26.08: Next time and Goodbye 
01:27:14: Music by Tjaut

Effekt is brought to you by Effekt Publishing.
Music by kind permission of Tjaut info@tjaut.se www.tjaut.se

Like what we do?
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Creators and Guests

DS
Host
Dave Semark
Dave is co-host and writer on the podcast, and part of the writing team at Free League - he created the Xenos for Alien RPG and as been editor and writer on a number of further Alien and Vaesen books, as well as writing the majority the upcoming Better Worlds book. He has also been the Year Zero Engine consultant on War Stories and wrote the War Stories campaign, Rendezvous with Destiny.
MT
Host
Matthew Tyler-Jones
Matthew is co host of the podcast, as well as writer, producer, senior editor, designer and all round top dog. He was also been involved a couple of project for Free League - writing credits include Alien RPG, Vaesen: Mythic Britain and Ireland, and Vaesen: Seasons of Mystery as well as a number of Free League Workshop products.

What is Effekt?

A fan podcast celebrating (mostly Swedish) RPGs including, but not limited to: Coriolis; Forbidden Lands; Symbaroum; Tales from the Loop; and, Alien.

Matthew:

Hello and welcome to episode two sixty nine of Effect. Nice. I'm Matthew.

Dave:

And I'm Dave. And that was a very what's his name?

Matthew:

From Jazz Club.

Dave:

No, no, we could be but from oh, bloody hell. From the Carry On films. He goes, hella. Kind of hello from Matthew.

Dave:

Anyway, hello, welcome to the show. I've already said I'm Dave, haven't I? So here we are, very unusually and possibly explaining

Matthew:

Why it's a bit shit.

Dave:

It's all going a bit wrong. It's that we're actually together in the same room, which is very, very unnerving, in our hotel room in Gamla Stan in Stockholm, having had lovely weekend with, all our friends with Free League and all other friends. And many patrons. Many patrons.

Matthew:

And and the listeners from Sweden.

Dave:

At Spell Congress twenty twenty five. So what have we got in the show today? Well, the show is talking about that quite a bit. We do have a Pretty much. We've got a little bit of World of Gaming.

Matthew:

But that's all from Spell Congress.

Dave:

But most of that is going to be from or all of that is going be from Spell Congress. So this is the Spell Congress special. What do we want to start with then? Well,

Matthew:

let's start with the world of gaming. Now the world of gaming is from our cub reporters who, while we were by the Free League stand touting our wares. Effect. Sorry. We've been by the Free League stand.

Dave:

Matthew's brain has been left back in The UK. Yeah. Because he's been calling Legend of the Five Rings, Legend of the Four Rings always. It's a great game! He keeps saying the free league stand instead of effect.

Dave:

And then worst of all, and I'm going to say it now, whilst we were doing our panel discussion, he kept saying, buy Weston. Buy Weston.

Matthew:

And we're

Dave:

like, no. Hang on. No.

Matthew:

Don't buy Weston. Buy Tales of the Old West. I was just so excited about meeting Anders Gilbring, but that later on. Later. Yeah.

Matthew:

So we so all World of Gaming

Dave:

news is Before we move on, I'm just going to say that lovely new opening that we played for you was by a fabulous band. It was the band who played throughout the banquet, as they called Spell Congress banquet. They are called here we go. I don't really know how to pronounce this.

Matthew:

You're like Donald Trump confronted by By a word with three syllables

Dave:

in it. Tjaut or short something like that. T J A U T. Huge apologies to every Swedish person on the planet for my absolute bastardisation of that pronunciation. But they're an Irish, Swedish and Breton music band who play up in Gothenburg I think and they were brilliant.

Matthew:

They were great.

Dave:

We will play the whole song later in the show or at the end of the show but it was absolutely superb. They were really really good and a lot of fun. So, yeah, just wanted to make sure we got that in before we forgot all about it.

Matthew:

So, yes, but as I was saying, World of Gaming news all comes from our striggers, our Swedish listeners and Patreons. Well, specifically Patreons because they're on the Discord. And we're actually gonna read out the Discord for you. Pretty much.

Dave:

This is gonna be an exciting episode, guys. We're just gonna read from what we've already put on the Discord.

Matthew:

Well, we haven't been on the Discord and not all our listeners are on our Discord. Talking of which, there are no new patrons. So if you'd like to see what's on the Discord, join us at just a basic level or higher and and get an invitation to the nicest place on the internet. And we're going to start off with Nils reporting from the city of my nightmares competition, not competition, what's the presentation I'm looking for, we saw a

Dave:

bit

Matthew:

of a look at the campaign itself and there's no news there actually. We know that's about to land on everybody's doorsteps if it hasn't landed already.

Dave:

I love the fact that this section is about, you know, world of gaming news and the first thing you do is say something goes well there's no news there.

Matthew:

There's no news there actually.

Dave:

The news is there's no news.

Matthew:

But I just want to name check all the fabulous people who went to all the presentations there.

Dave:

And made all that effort. And then

Matthew:

John went to the Invincible presentation. We've probably talked enough about Invincible, but, you know, the kickstarter's finished so they're going on. John said the game seems fun although I'm not a superhero person. Lots of young people ask questions to Thomas about the game and it's interesting that when we did interview Thomas but then neglected to press the record button that's one of the things that Thomas said to me is I asked whether he felt this was reaching to a younger demographic and he said it was so John yes you're right.

Dave:

That was one thing that was very noticeable about Spell Congress. There were a lot of young folk there. They'd worked obviously Dragonbane, Invincible, all these things are great for younger players. But they also had the author of a lot of Dragonbane books, novels, which are targeted at 10 to 12 readership.

Matthew:

Right.

Dave:

And there was a queue for signings of those kind of around the block Nice! So that was really cool. So lots of younger fans hopefully getting into not only the books which is great but also getting into the games as well.

Matthew:

Yes and let's just shout out to those younger fans and younger I feel as two fat old men

Dave:

we have to say You're referring to yourself and whom?

Matthew:

Well I was referring to the two fat old men that live inside your t shirt. But what particularly impressed me, the Dragon Bank competition was massive.

Dave:

Yes.

Matthew:

Like three rounds of a dozen tables at least.

Dave:

At least More than a dozen.

Matthew:

And a lot of those GMs were much younger than you and I. Yes. Actually, much younger. So that was all really good to see.

Dave:

Yeah, the vast majority were actually weren't they?

Matthew:

A shout out to all the young players and it feels to me really good doing something right if they've got an aim to encourage more young people into the game and not leaving it to old grogdarts like us. They're doing something right about that so well done them. Yeah a good question and answer session on Invincible. What was next? Was next?

Matthew:

Dracca Okemena! Oh yes, There so

Dave:

was a conversation. Francesco Nepetello of One Ring fame was at the convention and I had the pleasure of sitting across from him and his lovely girlfriend Isabella at the dinner. I had a really good chat. Is great. I've met him before but never really had the chance to chat with him.

Dave:

We had a really good chat about a load of stuff. So he did a talk neither of us got to unfortunately. John went along and again I'm not sure what news was coming out of that but it's great that Francesco was invited along and was a big part of the convention.

Matthew:

Yeah. Then there was a kind of a round up from the Free League where they talked about development of the upcoming Draka Okdumana books. Trudvang. The delivery of the Coriolis campaign and we have a little bit of side news there. Niels was explaining that they'd worked very hard to meet a particular deadline that would get delivered in the same print run as something else but they failed to meet that deadline.

Dave:

By a day. So

Matthew:

Kickstarter backers should be getting that before Christmas still but to everybody else I think we're waiting until spring next year to get that. John reports as well that Alien Earth Alien Evolved. Alien Evolved, I get confused with the two new aliens' brands that are AZ.

Dave:

Both AZ, yeah.

Matthew:

Is on its way to backers. So I did see some discussion on the Discord that oh I've got a mailing notice from, a shipping notice from, Games Quest. I think that's probably Alien. Cool. John also says that the Replicant Rebellion is almost done.

Matthew:

But I think the biggest news was that Trudvang is coming to Dragonbane.

Dave:

Yeah and Free League are going to be producing that aren't they?

Matthew:

Yeah. So Riot Mines were the company who owned Draka Oktyumina for, I don't know, about a decade. The first ten years of this century, until they sold the license to Free League. And their game world was Trudvang. We've got a bit of a chat, let's not talk too much about that because we've got a very short interview with Magnus

Dave:

Magnus Seeter, absolutely.

Matthew:

So I'll leave it to him to explain more about what TubeVang's like and how it all fits in with everything else but it strikes me again they're reaching out to every generation of Drucker Octomona player with their different stories. Different approaches, yeah. Because of what we're talking about with Eric and stuff like that. Cool. Somebody asks, according to Nils, will there be ducks in Chudhvang?

Matthew:

And the reply was no. Well, possibly as a recipe.

Dave:

So all you folks out there playing a dragon vein duck character, watch your backs, I would say.

Matthew:

Oh actually I'm just reading a bit later on. John clarifies on Alien Involved that it's not necessarily being delivered to players but it's printed and on the ship.

Dave:

So

Matthew:

I think that might be all the news that's fit to print. To start our recording segment let's start off with an element that we recorded on the plane on the way over here. Indeed. With what expected and what we hoped for.

Dave:

Our hopes and aspirations for So the

Dave:

here we are on the plane 30,000 feet above probably Denmark, it looks like, now

Matthew:

we've got islands.

Dave:

We've islands, yeah. So we're no longer over Essex.

Matthew:

We are definitely not over Essex. We think we might be over at Denmark.

Dave:

But on our way we're not in the Mile High Club, but

Matthew:

I'd like to think not. We haven't even need to share a toilet.

Dave:

We have a Mile High. On our way to Stockholm for Spell Congress twenty twenty five. Yeah. What are our

Matthew:

So what are our hopes and ambitions? Our hopes and dreams. What do we want to do at Spell Congress? I'll tell you what I want to do. Shall I start off?

Matthew:

Go on then. So my obviously, there's there's a bunch of patrons and listeners who are known to us, who it will be lovely to meet with in Spell Congress, around Spell Congress at the pub and stuff like that. Absolutely. Yeah. But that's not that's gonna happen.

Dave:

That is still one of my hopes, though, because hope to meet as many as possible.

Matthew:

Oh, well, hoping you will. But I have business hopes.

Dave:

Business. Yeah,

Matthew:

yeah. So, I want to talk to people at Free League about when they've licensed foreign language versions. Yes. Because we've had two approaches so far. One from Brazil, one to do a Portuguese version, and one from Germany wants to do

Dave:

a Yeah. German That's why I

Dave:

thought that was did we go and want them to Spain? Am I am I mixing up the Portuguese one? But I thought there was one from Spain. But anyway, there's more than one Yes. Expression of interest.

Dave:

We don't really know what to do.

Matthew:

And we said, hold on. I just want to find out Like, how we should be negotiating.

Dave:

Like, yes. But give us a chance to work out what we do.

Matthew:

Mean, I'd like you know, we could just say, oh, send us a license agreement. But, you know, don't know not expecting that it's gonna be a massively lucrative licensing deal.

Dave:

No. But

Matthew:

But I don't want to be shafted.

Dave:

Yeah. And it's nice to know the pitfalls.

Dave:

Yeah. And the things to look out for. I mean, that's a really good point. So, licensing is something which I am also interested in, but more in the The other way around. Of licensing particular IPs that we might want to, in the future, put together for.

Dave:

I had a really good chat with our friend Chris from Modiphius some time ago. He gave me a

Matthew:

bunch of They do a

Dave:

lot of licensing. That was really helpful. But, actually, it'd be great to get the view from Free League and and others who might have done licensing. Again, to to to not only push us in the right direction, but make sure we don't fall into any obvious traps that Yeah. Novices might fall into.

Dave:

So, yeah, absolutely. That's that's really good. I mean, I've mentioned a couple of things I'd quite like

Dave:

to license on before, but I think I'm gonna

Dave:

keep my powder dry for the moment.

Matthew:

Yeah. We're not gonna mention them live now. No. Otherwise, you listeners, you'll go out there You'll run off. And you'll run off with the license.

Dave:

Take take our steal our thunder.

Matthew:

This is this is the low opinion we have with all our listeners.

Dave:

Yeah. Exactly. Well, not

Dave:

all our listeners. There might be an evil Yeah. Dick dartedly listener somewhere, not one of our lovely patrons.

Matthew:

And there might be somebody who just picks up on this episode who isn't really a dedicated listener and just goes,

Matthew:

I can make some money here. Out of doing

Matthew:

that, yeah. But, yeah.

Dave:

So because, as everybody knows, game licensing is incredibly lucrative. It can be, I think, if the you right one.

Matthew:

If you get alien and make a good version of it.

Dave:

Exactly, yeah. I guess that's the exception rather than the rule. But we need to know how to do that. So, we're with that.

Matthew:

That brings us on to actually one of the other things that I'm above looking forward to,

Matthew:

which is that they are

Matthew:

playing officially Alien Evolved Hoops last day They are. At the convention.

Dave:

And It would be quite nice to get a seat at the table.

Matthew:

Well, you

Matthew:

should have bought a ticket for a £100.

Dave:

But I'm an invited guest.

Matthew:

Well, we're invited guests. I think it

Dave:

would be I just want to be

Matthew:

there for the plaudits of the fact that this, and I quote, fan favorite scenario is our creation.

Dave:

The original is our creation.

Matthew:

And this version is

Dave:

So, this version is someone else's

Matthew:

They've done a little bit of tweaking. Taked on our And it's not someone else's. It's Thomas'.

Dave:

Yeah.

Matthew:

It's not like he handed it

Matthew:

over to some no name.

Dave:

No. That is true. No. But that's that's cool. Yeah.

Dave:

It'll be good to see that. See how that plays out. It'd be also quite nice to see how it all looks on the table when you've got

Matthew:

That's what I mean. Yeah.

Dave:

You've got the big maps. You've got the minis. You've got all of that. I suspect it's gonna look pretty good. Yeah.

Dave:

So, absolutely. I'm I'm also looking looking forward to just having a couple of days back in Stockholm, actually, because Stockholm Yeah. Is such lovely And, you know, we are unlikely to leave Gamlastan with the exception of arriving and departing. So it's it's a lovely part of the town. Yeah.

Matthew:

Really looking forward

Matthew:

to that as well. So did I tell you about I took my wife to Stockholm recently.

Dave:

You did, ? Did we mention this on the show, actually?

Matthew:

Oh, sure we did. I think so.

Matthew:

So a few weeks ago well, a couple of months ago, something like that. We went to Stockholm, and we went by train From? From London. Through the Channel Tunnel to That goes

Dave:

through Malmo then up to Then across to Hamburg.

Matthew:

And then we brought train at Hamburg. Germany, yeah, okay. And that did indeed go through Denmark to Malmo. Malmo. Malmo.

Matthew:

Is that how you say it?

Dave:

The O As In Er.

Matthew:

Oh, I see. Right? And and all the way to Stockholm. And then we got another train to go to Uppsala, which is obviously the home of Wes. We must have spoken about this.

Matthew:

We did an episode.

Dave:

Well, we did an episode called Let Me Take You By The Hands and Lead You through The Streets of Uppsala But of that was when you saw Nicholas. Yes.

Matthew:

Yes.

Dave:

Rather than your friend Jane, isn't it?

Matthew:

Well, and Jane. So, Jane and

Dave:

the Was

Dave:

that the same?

Dave:

Yeah. Oh, okay. So, we have talked about that and we are now obviously boring our listeners.

Matthew:

But, thing I wanted to say is we then spent a couple of days in Stockholm. It's the first time my wife had been, and she really liked it.

Dave:

Yeah. It's a nice it's a nice town. Yeah.

Matthew:

So, it's just a nice place to be. So, I'm looking forward to that. Other thing Well,

Dave:

the other thing I'm really looking forward to is is meeting up again with the likes of Thomas, Costa, Nils, Ricard, Matteus, Matteus, Martin, Martin Martin Martin.

Matthew:

Are there two oh, there are two Martin.

Dave:

Yeah. Martin Tekichi and Martin Grip. Yeah.

Matthew:

Yeah. No. You're great. Yes.

Dave:

So that'll be great. And and, obviously, all the other people who will be there that

Matthew:

Anna as well.

Dave:

Anna, of course. And the other people who will be there who who aren't free league, like, Andreas from Nordic Skals.

Matthew:

Yes. Anna.

Dave:

It'll be great to see

Matthew:

all of We were just wondering about whether Christoph Sundalin would be there.

Dave:

Yes. Helmgast are there.

Dave:

Helmgast are there. Yep.

Matthew:

So that'd cool. Meet up with them and

Dave:

be there. So I'm looking forward to that as well.

Dave:

That'd be really nice.

Matthew:

And there was another thing. There was another thing that I was about to say. It's just totally turning out of my mind.

Dave:

With your memory span of

Dave:

the fish.

Matthew:

Oh, the other thing, given that we've got a reprint, which you will probably in this episode

Matthew:

hear more

Matthew:

about when we talk about our old West news. But we're reprinting the Corebook,

Dave:

which Which is is very exciting.

Matthew:

And I thought, now that we've got a name for ourselves, and you know, Corebook is out there, and reasonably well received, More on that later. We should maybe spend a bit of time talking to hopefully somebody from at least SF bokhandlen.

Dave:

Bokhandlen, yeah. Will be there.

Matthew:

And maybe we can say, Look, can we sell a couple of boxes that tells on the Old West straight from Lithuania to you guys?

Dave:

At a at a wholesale price,

Matthew:

of course. At a

Matthew:

wholesale price. Yeah. I'm not gonna get them free.

Dave:

Yeah. Definitely. Yes. Definitely a good idea.

Matthew:

And I'm hoping that there might be quite few people like that. I'm gonna be interested

Dave:

in that chain.

Matthew:

To see,

Dave:

there's gonna be a lot of a lot as in there's gonna be tens or dozens of friendly local gaming stores that

Matthew:

Well, are there? I don't know.

Matthew:

I think

Dave:

I think there are. Right. Not necessarily gonna be there, but in Sweden. Yes. Oh, yes, in Sweden.

Dave:

So thinking, what's how does how does Friedrich distribute within Sweden? So if we could speak to somebody there, we could you have a GMS for Sweden

Dave:

perhaps?

Matthew:

Yeah.

Dave:

If we're A be able to

Matthew:

dozen boxes or something.

Dave:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cool. So, lots to look forward to. We are about an hour from landing.

Dave:

It's cloudy down below, but I think the weather's supposed to be pretty nice in in Stockholm this weekend. And, yeah, I think unless you've got anything else to say right now.

Matthew:

Sorry, sir. Do you want to talk about your passport issues?

Dave:

No.

Matthew:

No. Okay. So we shall

Dave:

But I got on the flight anyway.

Matthew:

Yeah, you're here.

Dave:

Actually, it wasn't my passport that was the problem. It was the booking that was the problem. But we managed it thanks to Norwegian Air being understanding.

Matthew:

Yeah, let's do a shout out to Norwegian Air. Exactly. Next time you're flying to spell Kassen. Spell Spell Congress. Congress.

Dave:

You, Norwegian This not a paced endorsement. This is not But it's

Matthew:

been very good so far. Been good so far.

Dave:

Yeah. Right. More anon.

Matthew:

So Dave, how do we think we did on our hopes and aspirations?

Dave:

Pretty well actually. I think in terms of, you know, it was I mean just to step back slightly, location, the old archive here in Gamlestan, right on the edge of Gamlestan, is a fabulous place to hold a convention. It's so gothic in its feel, perfect for a Vaersen setting in particular. And in fact, apparently last year, Vaersen game that they ran was written and took place in that very building, which is a really cool idea. So yeah, it's an absolutely great place.

Dave:

It's quite small, obviously the numbers were limited. It's a slightly unusual convention in that quite low in numbers was definite there's like a heartbeat to it. There were definitely times where more people were being pumped through the room where we were when they weren't playing a game or listening to one of the presentations. And then there was a definite time where you were in the middle of the heartbeat when they weren't there when they were playing a game. So it

Dave:

had an unusual or a different rhythm to

Dave:

it than you get in ordinary conventions because those kind of things don't tend to reduce the footfall very because you've got so many more people. But that was quite cool because that then gave us lots of time to talk to the likes of Anders Gilberyn.

Matthew:

Interesting thing there. When I took Eric away to interview him it was one of those busy periods. We went You will recognise you've just heard a bit of the noise of the aeroplane on that previous recording. Will be a bit of background noise on all these recordings which I'll reduce in post as they say. I'm sure it'll still be

Dave:

there too. Reduce in post.

Matthew:

But that was quite a noisy time actually with Eric and we kind of went up there. A lot of these rooms have got these lovely overlooking balconies so we went up and walked through into another slightly quieter room in ours and sat on the balcony up there to have that chat. Now Anders Gilbring has been very ill. One of the consequences of that is he hasn't got great balance and no way was I gonna take him up a spiral staircase to a rortime He did immediately say

Dave:

I'm not going

Matthew:

up there. We were not gonna take you up there. So we thought maybe we were gonna have to fix a date with him to talk with him on line but then suddenly it was one of those moments where everybody disappeared. Not everybody literally but it got suddenly a lot quieter and I said oh quickly let's get this interview done.

Dave:

But in terms of aspirations meeting people absolutely it was fabulous to meet Niels, John, Ricard, Niklas was there. I mistakenly thought he wasn't coming at all and he just wasn't coming to the Friday evening, which again was also a lovely evening to meet lots of people in the cellar of the Monkburn Brewery in Gamlestan. That was a fabulous evening. But then, yes, I just saw through the crowd Nicholas's face coming. I thought, Nicholas has made it!

Dave:

That was lovely to see him as well. And then obviously the likes of Eric Granstrom and Anders Gilbring for the first time. He basically sat down next to us and we chatted for a good couple of hours which was really nice and he was basically next to us for the rest of the day. Then Anders Blixt who he's got to talk to later on, which is brilliant. I didn't even realise it was him because I was like hero blind for a moment.

Dave:

And then he came over and was like, oh, okay, let's do an interview'. That was super. So from that point of view, absolutely great. And it was lovely, obviously, to see all the pre league folks and all the rest of their team who were running the show. They were actually they were superb.

Matthew:

Let's just say that to everybody. All the volunteers,

Dave:

all the volunteers, Matthijs, the I don't know his surname but one

Matthew:

of Strandberg. The team I sat next to him at dinner. Strandberg. I think Strandberg. He was

Dave:

superb. I mean what a lovely lovely guy. Made us feel so well. I've never met him before I gave him

Matthew:

a copy of Tales of Your Worst.

Dave:

Fully deserved. He was a delight. I got to meet Rasmus who you met before.

Matthew:

That is to say, in the same way that we

Dave:

as people I'm not jealous.

Matthew:

Two And

Dave:

he was an absolute delight as well. I mean, they all were. Such a lovely, lovely group of people. So it was fabulous to see all them and great to see all the Free League folks again as well. Well.

Matthew:

And you met an interesting guy from White Wolf as well? Yes, Marco Berman.

Dave:

So that was cool. I've been aware of Marco for a long time. He's been in the gaming scene for forty odd years, done loads and of stuff. Now works at Paradox and it's really interesting. So I was introduced to him just before dinner and we weren't sitting together but he then came over to congratulate and thank Francesco for the One Ring and then we fell into a really long conversation about the One Ring and about game design and

Matthew:

about

Dave:

Vampire. So Paradox have got the licenses for all the White Wolf stuff and they are I'm sure I'm not giving away anything secret they are looking to revitalise Vampire The Masquerade and all the rest of the White Wolf Let's just

Matthew:

make sure we've got the history correct. Paradox have had the licenses for some time so Vampire Fifth is paradox invention but I think it's been through a rocky time

Dave:

and

Matthew:

I think there's a bit of a relaunch happening.

Dave:

Yeah so they're definitely working towards that and it's a big project and they've got a lot of things planned. Not just role playing games but beyond that. Yeah, Paradox having another really big push to get The Masquerade back where they want it. So that was a great chat. So he was lovely.

Dave:

I've been a Facebook friend of his for a long time. He's one of those contacts that something comes up and you then just go okay well I'll see if they'll be a friend just to spread my contact list effectively. But it was lovely to actually meet him. He was really cool as well. That was great.

Dave:

So from that point of view, brilliant. On the licensing side, you'll talk a little bit about the third party licensing because you were talking to people about that. As is so often the case with these things, you go thinking this is what a great opportunity to talk about this bit of business' but actually Free League there were kind of relaxing. This wasn't really a business thing for them, it was more of a happy, celebratory, relaxing kind of thing. So it never felt right to sit any of them down and say right tell me about licensing will you?

Dave:

So I mentioned it to Nils over dinner which is great, sat next to Nils at dinner and we'll have a chat at some point in future. So that was fine and that's absolutely fine. I didn't want to kind of spoil the mood by going 'Right, business!' So that was fine. In that respect I kind of got I think as much as I should have

Matthew:

hoped to

Dave:

get actually. So that was good. I laid the marker down and they've always been brilliant and they've been very very helpful. I had some lovely conversations with Nils about Coriolis, most of which, if not all of which, I'm probably not at liberty to discuss. Yeah

Matthew:

some interesting conversations actually that was pretty good. And the other thing that Nils said to me he'd do, although I will remind him during working hours, is he'd send some boilerplate text to answer my question about when a third party wants to translate a game into a local language. So we've already had an approach in Brazil and I think Germany.

Dave:

I don't know why I've got Spain in my mind as well. It might have been just talking about Spanish rather than

Matthew:

But Brazil of course or Brazilian Portuguese.

Dave:

I certainly want to look into that.

Matthew:

They've been around for some time and I you know I didn't know where to start with that and so Neil said he could definitely send some boilerplate text although he also said 'Be

Dave:

careful

Dave:

for shysters'

Matthew:

don't expect necessarily to get the royalty checks' I thought it was very interesting but anyway if we can just do it to spread the love I'm now maybe I'm not going to I'm going edit this bit out on podcast the because I don't want somebody in Brazil going oh they won't get paid!'

Dave:

Yeah exactly because that is the thing and that's the thing as well with Firelock where I get a percentage of the royalties from rendezvous with Destiny Part two. But I know how that happens so I'd probably just have a conversation with them about the practicalities of 'okay how I get my fee?'

Matthew:

How do I get my money? Yeah. Interesting.

Dave:

How about you then in terms of your aspirations?

Matthew:

Another aspiration I'd wanted to do was meet as many owners of shops as possible and sell them Sell them our game. And indeed I met one owner of the shop.

Dave:

Dennis from Alpha And

Matthew:

that was great. So he's going to take a couple of boxes of our game as soon as we get the reprint done straight from Lithuania so that will save everybody a few bob. And that was a very easy negotiation debate so that's good. And the other interesting thing is I wanted to find out about where their distribution networks and he was able to say no there wasn't There was a distributor but he died and the company didn't survive the death of its founder. There were a couple of book distributors he said but they don't treat games very well so he wasn't recommending going through that.

Matthew:

Interestingly he's saying he's thinking about whether Alpha Spell could see a gap in the market. Move

Dave:

into that vacuum.

Matthew:

So that will be interesting, was a good chat with him.

Dave:

Because it would be quite good to get a similar deal over here as we do with GMS about getting more into the Swedish market because there was a lot of interest in the game. So that's one thing we should probably talk about. We brought only a few books over, those we could put into our baggage.

Matthew:

All deluxe because we haven't got very many.

Dave:

No, so we got rid of all of them. Some of them we gave away, we sold a fair few which is fine but there was a lot of interest. We had a lot of people come around, a lot of people take cards thinking they'll go to the website because they wanted the standard book and so that was really encouraging again. In terms of putting a finger in the waters of the Swedish market for Tales of the Old West, I think that was quite encouraging. And a lot of people came and said, why didn't I hear about this before?'

Matthew:

Yeah, so that really interesting because obviously lots of patrons and friends and other listeners came to talk to us and you know were very nice to us and knew

Dave:

us well it

Matthew:

was lovely to see but loads of people there had never heard of us before and said oh who are you what do you do why are you here so the fuck are you and what are you doing at the Swedish convention? They didn't quite have that attitude. They had a very pleasant attitude and a curious one.

Dave:

When they came up and said hello to us in Swedish and we went hello how are you? They went oh English okay' and then they talked English in perfect English to us.

Matthew:

Yeah, embarrassingly good English everybody. And yeah so it's really interesting to see that the vast majority I think of attendees haven't heard of us and so just being there we've introduced the effect name to a bunch more people in Sweden. When we sit at home in England and we get all sorts of lovely feedback from everybody, all our Swedish patients and stuff, I remember Magnus telling us a couple of years ago that we were the second most popular talk RPG podcast in Sweden. It kind of makes you think everybody in Sweden has heard of us and it was refreshing to find out that so many people hadn't heard of us and that we still had a potential.

Dave:

There's still a lot more So going out

Matthew:

the other one person that wasn't there is I was hoping there might be somebody from SF Bochandlen there and there's nobody there but they're open at twelve.

Dave:

And they are about a minute's walk from where we are. This lovely lovely little hotel, the Scandik Hotel in Gamla Stan in Stockholm. Lovely cozy little hotel. We have a sort of an attic room which is very comfy, very cozy, looking out upon a little rooftop veranda which we haven't actually we should have gone out and recorded this out there but I guess maybe

Matthew:

Yeah I think people would have heard the bells through the window though of the church.

Dave:

But no it's a lovely lovely little spot. Actually we

Matthew:

should just go and sit out there for bit before we check out. Got to really sunny. We

Dave:

have time.

Dave:

What were we talking about there?

Matthew:

So we're going to go to SF Bockhammer.

Dave:

When

Matthew:

we've checked out the hotel we'll take a saunter up there before going to the airport and see if we can sell them any games. Or at the very least if there's nobody there in a decision making capacity which on a Sunday afternoon may well be the case we've got one last copy of the standard edition which I believe in the care of someone who will pass it to the decision maker there.

Dave:

That sounds cool.

Matthew:

So yeah that's cool I think in many respects our hopes and aspirations were more than adequately

Dave:

Yeah absolutely and again you know you probably said this a bit ad nauseam over the weekend, but just a great big thank you to Anna and the Free League team for inviting us in the first place. We were the only non Swedes there, which felt both weird and very honoured at the same time. So that was fabulous, was a delight to be there and it was lovely to have been invited so thank you all. The banquet was very nice as well.

Matthew:

The banquet was lovely actually. We won't talk about that again afterwards but let's crack on with the interview.

Dave:

Yes so Eric was the first.

Matthew:

Well I think it's worth saying that we spoke to all of the great elder gods of Swedish gaming and madness.

Dave:

He's a younger god.

Matthew:

He's a younger god. Yes. It was a real thrill to see Anders there, Anders Gilbring there who of course we've never met, has his own Western game. You can be sure I gave him a copy of our Western game as well and then Anders Pict as well which I don't think any of us kind of expected but there he was, Sunday there and he's been on the podcast before so he knew us.

Dave:

He was lovely, really

Matthew:

really nice. That was kind of the shortest interview because we didn't really have

Dave:

much to talk Well it was less than that. It was more because at that point we were going off to do our presentation.

Matthew:

Oh yeah, were just about to do

Dave:

it.

Matthew:

So we only had

Dave:

five minutes to squeeze it in so we could easily have spoken for longer if we'd been able to have the time. But anyway, let's go on and listen to those interviews.

Matthew:

So I'm with Eric Vanstrom. I don't know how to introduce you. I want to say a leading figure in role playing games who's been on

Matthew:

the show before as part of our

Matthew:

panel discussion ages ago. But, Eric, can you tell us just a little bit about your life as as I say, a leading figure in role playing games in Sweden?

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah. Well, I was one of the first at least, I think, because when we we started playing Dungeons and Dragons first edition sometime in the seventies. And then when Dragarok Demone, which is now Dragonbane in English, came to Sweden in the 80s, then I had already played a couple of years, so I asked them, Do you want this? I have some material, I can write an adventure for you. Sure.

Eric Granstrom:

So I did, and that turned out pretty well, and it was four parts in that campaign. Strangely enough, this was in 1987 it was published, the first one, called Swavel Winter, we will probably call it in English, The Brimstone Sleep. And I never got rid of it, I never got any further actually, so that has been published in different variations for five or six times during the years, and now we're redoing it again for the dragon lane, and it will also come out in English. Excellent. Excellent.

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And, of course, you also created a set of Sverdrup novels Yeah. Which have been really popular in Swedish.

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah. Well, they sell fairly. I I I mean, I wrote them on the setting, but I obviously, I did them a little differently. And then Frijaliga, which we we are here now at their convention, their first game was Svalve Winter based on the novels. Yeah.

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah. So that's one of the iterations.

Matthew:

And there is somewhere on the Internet, just for our English speaking listeners, there is a sort of English language kickstarter quick start, I should say.

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah. That's Svalwinter. Yeah. Yes. There is.

Eric Granstrom:

Yes.

Matthew:

But you're back here well, that's reintroducing Svalwinter to TrackArk. Demona, Dragonbane is not your sole interaction with, really. You, of course, created the background for Yes. I've Forbidden Land.

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah. I've been working with a game called Forbidden Land, so I wrote the setting there and also three campaigns, and two of those have been published so far. The third is on its way, which is called Raven's Purge, and the Blood March, and then Alderland, which I don't know the title.

Matthew:

But yes, have you chased Thomas on when all

Eric Granstrom:

the lands can come out? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I I you can do that, and everybody that hears it, do that as well. I'm asking them every now and then, but it's I submitted it almost a year ago, and they'll get around to it any day.

Matthew:

Because we like we

Eric Granstrom:

In a year.

Matthew:

We like Dragon Bane well enough on this podcast, but Forbidden Lands is our

Eric Granstrom:

is our Yeah. It has a specific tone to it, I think, that is somewhat unique.

Matthew:

Partly because of your writing.

Anders Blick:

Hope so. Hopefully.

Matthew:

Without any spoilers, get from hidden lands and read about goblins and halflings.

Eric Granstrom:

Right. Yeah. It's it's much more grittier than Dragonbane, I think. And it's also this concept of the unreliable narrative that you don't really know what's true in it. And people ask me, how should I know?

Eric Granstrom:

I say,

Matthew:

what's true is what you at the table make true.

Eric Granstrom:

Exactly. And this is what you know, you make whatever you like of it.

Matthew:

I love it. I really love that unbelievable nature that

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah. It's it's mostly like it is in our world, actually. You can this things happen that you try to interpret it and then put it in some kind of pattern. That's basically what The Forbidden Lance is about

Matthew:

as well. That's that's brilliant. I could go on and on about that. But we don't have much time. It's a crowded time today.

Matthew:

So tell me, swivel winter, brimstone sleep.

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah.

Matthew:

The brimstone sleep in English. What is how Has it developed in any way since that first version that you did for the first version of Deco Octavona?

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah, well it started out as a fairly enclosed area adventure in an Arctic island, where you come to with a it's kind of a slave camp where they get sulfur. Alright, yes. And you come from the South with these ships, and then bad things happen there, you have certain things you need to do. And adventure takes place on that island, but then after that, they wanted me to continue, and then I thought, okay, so we have to develop Trachoria, which is of Where you came from. Where you came from, but you didn't know much about actually.

Eric Granstrom:

So that turned into kind of a renaissance trading community, which has been pretty popular too. It's it's kind of a world of its own based on fifteenth century Italy, basically. Wow. Yeah. So this

Matthew:

remember when we spoke before about

Magnus Seter:

this,

Matthew:

you said one of the reasons why the novels haven't been translated because of your terrible Swedish puns that only work in Swedish.

Eric Granstrom:

Well, okay. That's one way to put it. Yeah. But I I like to play a lot with the language, and it's kind of hard to translate. I suppose you could if you're good at it, but we'll see.

Eric Granstrom:

It's a it's a I think it's a total of 2,300 pages, four books, four novels. So, I mean, one of my dreams, of course, is that once these adventures come out in English, perhaps there will be some kind of demand for Yeah. The Yeah. Because you can obviously get a lot more information in the novels about this world, especially about Trachoria. So, yeah.

Matthew:

So this introduces a whole new world to this edition of Dragonbane, does it? Or is it some part of the world that we haven't seen?

Eric Granstrom:

No, I don't think so. I don't don't think there is a world, is there, in Dragonbane yet, but

Matthew:

The Misty Veil or something. Yeah,

Eric Granstrom:

would probably be part of the same world, but it's not, you know, it's not defined. But there's also another project at this convention called Erebaltor, which is an old continent of basically Europe in that old Drakker de Monne forty years ago.

Matthew:

And that's from Helmgaster as well.

Anders Blick:

Yeah. Drakkeria was part of that.

Eric Granstrom:

And Drakkeria is in the new airboat as well. Right. So we tried to sync it, you know, so it will work together. So we had a meeting just in a couple of minutes, I suppose, so to sort of sync this, who does what and how do we picture this in that It's really different project, which is also made for Ragamaid.

Matthew:

Yeah. That's great. And Alderland, you mentioned. Yeah. What might we expect?

Matthew:

What can you tell us?

Eric Granstrom:

Anything. Anything. The thing is I wanted to surprise people. Like, I think in the blood march, there came some reveals about the world that surprised hopefully people. And I think that the same will go for all the land.

Eric Granstrom:

When you go to the most civilized country of all the land, so it will be more it's a war going on there. So you will, you know, move around like it. I had I I sort of called it the thirty year war here in in Germany with alien invasion.

Matthew:

Oh, right.

Eric Granstrom:

So you make what do you like of that? It's more you will move around in that war ridden countryside, medieval type. And then there's also a backstory of these primordial elves that we sort itself out there that you encountered in Raven's Purge. Yeah. So that's about as much

Matthew:

as that is. You've got me hooked. We'll be definitely I'll be backing that as soon as that comes in. Just need to persuade Thomas to to put it in the production.

Eric Granstrom:

To the bathroom. Yeah.

Matthew:

Now, we've only got limited amount of time. Okay. So I'm gonna officially finish the interview here.

Eric Granstrom:

Okay. But I

Matthew:

have one more question to ask you, which I've left to the end in case we have to edit it

Magnus Seter:

out. Okay.

Matthew:

But you mentioned to me when we were talking before coming here on on Facebook. You mentioned that there was a bit of a drama around travel winter Yeah. And the name, and I said, must ask you about that.

Eric Granstrom:

No, no, it's several years ago, but I another company bought the rights to the old Drakker de Monen. Yes. And they made this world to it, another world, and then I wrote the novel, Svaal Winter, and I contacted them because I thought perhaps we can do something together, you know. And they said, well, okay, we know you wrote this, but that's actually our trademark, so you have to ask us the next time you do a print of it. And I said, I think you're mistaken.

Eric Granstrom:

And then we first were pretty polite, and then we weren't so polite, and then we slugged it out And

Matthew:

you won that case.

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah. So I had to make a trademark of it. That's history now of course.

Matthew:

Brilliant. Well, that's great. That that's great. Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us, Oleg. Thank you.

Matthew:

We will have you on the show again when they finally announce

Eric Granstrom:

I'll be honored to be back.

Matthew:

And we'd we'd love to talk to you again. Okay. Thanks. We're very honored to have met So Anders am I. So Anders, you are yet to know.

Matthew:

We've been speaking with Erik Gramscildom just a little while ago, and I said to him he's one of the figureheads of Swedish gaming. But surely, if anybody deserves that title more than Erik, it must be you because you you run you produce Fenics magazine, which has been going how long now?

Anders Gilbring:

02/2004.

Matthew:

02/2004?

Anders Gilbring:

So four twenty years.

Matthew:

Excellent. And, of course, you very famously made a game that's only just coming out in English now, but has been a a game in Sweden for some time, and that's Western, which obviously we have an interest in.

Anders Gilbring:

Western was my first game, and the the version that's coming out in English is based on the first Swedish edition of the game. That's been made in 02/2016, I think. So it's been around a while. And and

Matthew:

when did the first version of Western come out?

Anders Gilbring:

1989, I believe.

Matthew:

1989, so that is one of the early, early games.

Anders Gilbring:

It was very early. Actually, to be able to make Dragonbane was first in Sweden, and I think we were second ones producing games.

Matthew:

And

Anders Gilbring:

were three friends, and started wanting to make games because we were playing Dungeons and Dragons games, we were very interested and inspired to do our own games. And two others wanted to do a sci fi game, Mhmm. But they had just started with that. And I have worked with a Western game for many years.

Matthew:

Right.

Anders Gilbring:

So that was more close to be finished. So we decided to go with that.

Matthew:

Right.

Anders Gilbring:

That then so we all three worked with the first version of Western. And so it's sold very well. Now

Matthew:

I'm going to declare my innocence here. We batched the English version of Weston. We have got the PDF. I haven't read all the PDFs. There's a lot there.

Matthew:

We did for a previous episode, I looked at character generation at that at that book. It feels a lot like it uses the same sort of dice as Dungeons and Dragons, the polyhedral dice?

Anders Gilbring:

The first version of Western it was the Western game with Dungeons and Dragons rules.

Matthew:

Right. I see. Yeah. It was not compatible. So Right.

Anders Gilbring:

We started to do our own rules, and that's how it yes. It's developed

Matthew:

Got more and more distant from dungeons and drag racing. Yeah. Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

There's nothing

Matthew:

left. I say. Cool. And so you are obviously a bit of a Western Yeah, a nerd. Yes.

Matthew:

And one of the things I noticed in there, partly I guess because of the huge amount of time you've had developing it. Yeah. There's a lot of detail in Western. Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

It's very much what it is. And it hasn't developed over years. Like, the English version is the fourth Swedish version, and then add some. We are adding, 50 pages to the English version.

Matthew:

You can't stop everything. You can't stop.

Anders Gilbring:

It's just been more and more. And there's some new illustrations.

Matthew:

Talking about Westerns, obviously, I it feels to me, looking at what I've seen of Western, that it can do just about anything. Yeah. But what do you think that is at the heart of the Western game? When when you when you're selling it to somebody who's never heard of it before, what what do you say the game is about?

Anders Gilbring:

The game is well, it's about the first three versions of the game was about the Wild West, the real Wild West.

Eric Granstrom:

Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

There was almost every adventure we wrote was about gunfights and, you know, searching for the hidden pressure Right. And other things. Like that, later on. And then we developed the fourth version we developed because we got a lot of feedback, we say, what can

Eric Granstrom:

we do in

Matthew:

a Western game? Alright. Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

You can rob the bank, you can rob the stagecoach, but that's it. And then we thought, no, that's not it. And then we started other things just to show people you can do a lot more.

Matthew:

And

Anders Gilbring:

that's why the English version have all these different roles

Matthew:

where you

Anders Gilbring:

can you can play Right. All you can play an engineer, you can play an you can play scouts, you can you play classics and gunfighter, bounty hunter, and things like that. But you can also play Indian Brave or Driver or yeah. You know.

Matthew:

So there aren't many games like ours and like yours that just look at the Western. Most of them have got supernatural creatures Yeah. Or whatever. And I think writing ours, I thought a lot of that actually was because the West the history of the West is kind of problematic, you know? Yeah, it is.

Matthew:

We're the bad guys in a way. How have you approached that in developing Western over the years? Because, well, for a start, surely attitudes have changed. A lot. Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

I published a book last year, was three three adventure for conventions with one big story. And we put them

Matthew:

in one

Anders Gilbring:

book, and we had to write segues between them because they wasn't there. Right. And then we find out things like, there's 40 people in these adventures and one woman.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

So the first read we did was to covert a lot of people, two women to get a better

Matthew:

mix, more

Anders Gilbring:

up to date. Later on, we have with the adventures and things, we always included more women characters. That's

Matthew:

why

Anders Gilbring:

it's old adventures we had to come that far. Yeah. So but that's the one thing that sticks out with Western and your game as well, that it's really a Western game. It's based on the Wild West, not as it was exactly. But in the Wild West, there's no supernatural, there are no Zombies?

Anders Gilbring:

No zombies, no dinosaurs, whatever. You're Well,

Matthew:

the dinosaurs are in the ground. They are in the background.

Anders Gilbring:

Yeah. Sure. Almost every game that come out was like Deadlands. Yeah. It's about a popular game.

Anders Gilbring:

Mhmm. And their popularity has been a lot of other games. The ones that build on that popularity of making zombies in the West, vampires in the West, whatever they're some. Yeah. Something supernatural, ghosts, We actually have a small part in Western with one chapter with supernatural things that is more based in is more things like ghosts because people believed in ghosts Yes.

Anders Gilbring:

In in the nineteenth century. They were and you have all the movements with psychics and you had civil war. Lots of people have died. Yeah. People had a big need to talk to their relatives, and they build up a big industry.

Anders Gilbring:

Yeah. So the spiritualist industry. The spiritualist.

Matthew:

Yeah. Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

Thank you. I've got a name. And that was a big deal.

Matthew:

Yeah. So

Anders Gilbring:

we included that, and we included some Indian legends as well, Wendigos, even spirits that is part of some tribal traditions. Add a little part about zombies because of the voodoo. That was actually very real, especially in New Orleans and that area. So we made a small chapter about that. But otherwise, it's not a supernatural game at all.

Anders Gilbring:

It's historical western. I used to say, we have made a lot of research for the game, so there's a lot of historic content in the game. But when you play, we always say that you are doing your version of the Wild West. Yeah. This is your Wild West.

Anders Gilbring:

You can do whatever you want. You can go to Okay Corral and shoot all the herbs if you want. Yeah. But because in your version, they will be dead.

Matthew:

Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

But that will not affect things on a grandish scale.

Matthew:

No.

Anders Gilbring:

So because we noticed with the earlier versions of Western, that people were very worried that they were, oh, it's a historical game. It must be right. I must I must have to research this. I must account the wrong thing. And that was a problem, I felt.

Anders Gilbring:

So

Matthew:

That is a good point, actually. I noticed that there are a lot of people that bought our game. I said, oh, now I've gotta go off and find a historical source for this adventure idea I've got.

Anders Blick:

And maybe they don't need to

Matthew:

bother, you're saying. Maybe just make it up. Yeah. Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

And then that none of my people playing Western are doing their own research because they want to, and

Anders Blick:

that's okay. Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

That's a completely different thing.

Matthew:

So, obviously, we know, and I want to say how sorry we were to hear of Tova's illness and death, and that has delayed the physical production of the book sometimes. So that's coming out. You're saying we're nearly finished or we're finished now and we're going to binge. Is that the case?

Anders Gilbring:

When we do the Kickstarter for the game, one month after that, Tuba got cancer again, She had had cancer many years before. So that that was the big problem in the beginning. And she spent we discussed it that we should just call it quits with the game in English, or we should do it. And she wanted to do it. And she made the in the five last years of her life.

Anders Gilbring:

And she wasn't completely finished, so I have finished up the last bits, all texts are done, all illustrations are done, PDFs are sent out to vectors, and the piece left is pre printing. And that is because, not because of me, but I have done my part, it's because the international publisher got a bit of cold feet because what we wrote about Native Americans, slavery and things like that. So they have hired

Matthew:

A sensitivity reader.

Anders Gilbring:

Yeah. They're going to look through Western and see if they find something that needs to be changed. Don't think they will, because and Thurman and I did that work

Anders Blick:

when we wrote the game.

Anders Gilbring:

We put in a lot of effort just to make that right, at use of Native Americans, which is to name the tribes before themselves. And this was especially for the American market.

Matthew:

Yeah. Yes, can imagine that. We again, we went through, worked closely with the sensitivity reader when we were doing ours as And, you know, we did get some really constructive feedback, which is really useful for us. So I'll be interested to see. So so who are the international publishers gonna be?

Matthew:

Well, assuming that they go ahead with it.

Anders Gilbring:

It's Medicious. Modipious.

Matthew:

Yeah. I I almost guessed because they were, you know, they were very helpful for Free League when Free League were first Yeah. Starting to

Anders Gilbring:

For Free League publishing. So they felt quite a natural choice.

Matthew:

That's really good. So we're just waiting on them. I can't remember so long ago with the Kick starter. I can't remember what you said about adventures. Are going to translate some of it?

Matthew:

Because you've got almost thirty years of adventures. Yeah. That could be for the faint.

Anders Gilbring:

I I have written 45 adventures in total or even more. We won't publish all those, but we have in the Kickstarter we had the first five adventures and then a couple of more. And two adventures are already done. They are we can't help ourselves but to redo them. So when we did the adventures, we did Lucas made new illustrations for the English version.

Anders Gilbring:

We new maps

Matthew:

for the English version.

Eric Granstrom:

Oh, right. Yeah.

Anders Gilbring:

So and we wrote new parts for the English version. So the English adventures are much better than the Swedish versions were than when they were published. So but, you know, we always liked to write about West, and it was we always come up with new ideas. We should do this, and we should add this. We just never stopped.

Anders Gilbring:

So and that was a question we kind of probably never stopped because the game itself is a lot of information.

Matthew:

Yeah. And the other thing, actually, Dave and I discussed this earlier, we'd like to give you a copy of our game as well. I mean, you've probably got enough Western games, but we could add one to your collection.

Anders Gilbring:

I don't have yours. So

Eric Granstrom:

I mean, that's

Anders Gilbring:

I would love to have one.

Matthew:

Well, there you go. Deluxe edition.

Anders Gilbring:

Unfortunately, I don't have a Swedish Western game.

Matthew:

So we're at our now, and we're talking with friends of the show, Magnus. Magnus, you've just made a really exciting announcement or with with with with your Free League chums. Free League have just made a really exciting announcement. And can you tell us what that was?

Magnus Seter:

Yes. It's the news is that Free League is releasing Trudvang for Dragonbane.

Matthew:

Excellent. And Trudvang, for those that don't know, was the Draka Okdemona setting when Draka Okdemona was owned by the company Riot Minds. Right?

Magnus Seter:

Exactly. So we are working from the Trudvang Chronicles books and adapting them to Drakkadomorner, Dragonbane. It will be available in Swedish and in English. Wow. Yeah.

Magnus Seter:

Probably at the same time. I'm working with the English texts at the moment. I see. So I'm I'm sort of like the editor, putting everything together so that Thomas can can look at it and say that change this and change this and change this. So we we have we have done two books in the first draft version.

Magnus Seter:

I'm now working on the bestiary. Mhmm. And after that, I'll be adapting the campaign, the dark sun or black sun. It's called in English. So there will be a word book, a player's options book, a bestiary, and an adventure campaign book.

Anders Gilbring:

Four books.

Matthew:

Loads of stuff.

Anders Gilbring:

Oh, that's

Matthew:

it's a big thing. Now, for those people who aren't familiar with Chudhvang, and a lot of them I think aren't, because I think Workmind has sold it in a very unusual way, first of all Uh-huh. Initially, in in the English market. So not everybody knows about it. Can you describe the world of Trudhvang and what what's inspired it?

Matthew:

What does it feel like?

Magnus Seter:

Yeah. Rightminds, one of their biggest assets is their imagination and their vision for what makes a cool world. Right. So they invented Trudhwang, which is a pseudo Nordic Viking inspired campaign world. It's supposed to be inspired by John Bauer, a Swedish art painter, basically, who's painted trolls and very atmospheric fair folktale pictures.

Magnus Seter:

So John Bauer, if you search for that on the Internet, your listeners do that, they will find tons of atmospheric things that they will realize, okay. This is what it's like. But it's basically dark, brooding, forests, vikings,

Matthew:

stuff like that. Trolls. Trolls.

Magnus Seter:

Lots of trolls. Lots of trolls. Sort of like a pseudo viking setting. Cool. Very cool.

Matthew:

Now, we're just next to the Erem outdoor stand here. And I'm I'm coming at this, you know, us English anglophones are relative newbies in the world of Dragonbane. So Arab Altor was a Dragonbane world. Yeah. And well, sorry.

Matthew:

It was a jack up

Anders Gilbring:

runner world.

Matthew:

Yeah. It is now being published for Dragonbane. Yep. Troudvang was the one that sort of replaced Arab Altor when that changed publishers.

Anders Blick:

Not really,

Magnus Seter:

but Arab Altor was was the was the campaign setting during the late eighties and the middle nineties. Right. Then it was replaced by Cronopia, which was also a setting

Eric Granstrom:

for Draka of the

Magnus Seter:

Monarch Dragonbane. That really didn't hit off, and that was also when Draka of the Monarch Dragonbane veined in popularity. Mhmm. So it was canceled '99 or something. And then Right Minds picked it up in 2000 and 02/2001, and really did their own version of that.

Magnus Seter:

So Erevaltor, which is is the guys over there. Yeah. Really beautiful box, really beautiful books. That's the the old classic Drakker and Moner that old old old geezer like me, who played during the eighties and nineties, think of as this is the That's the right campaign world. Yeah.

Magnus Seter:

And then Rightminds created Two Banks, which has sort of become the the signature campaign setting for those that started in the February.

Matthew:

So this is brilliant. We're getting almost now a Draca, Oktymona, or a Dragon Vein for all generations. If you're an old Grognaard Yeah.

Dave:

Exactly.

Matthew:

You can adventure in Arevalt or Yep. And if you're a young whippersnapper and you're you know, Trudvang, you'll soon be able to adventure in Trudvang Yeah. Using the Dragon Vein stroke Exactly. Dragons of the Rule.

Magnus Seter:

So basically, it's not a it's not a it's not a separate game. You do need the the box or the basic rules, the rule book or the basic.

Matthew:

But then let's face it. The box is the best value.

Magnus Seter:

Oh, it is. It is. It's so good. Yeah. I don't I don't I don't know how anyone could top that.

Magnus Seter:

Yeah. The the content is really

Matthew:

good. And

Magnus Seter:

there will be a Kickstarter sometime next year.

Matthew:

So just looking at this, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine books on the GM screen you've got to read. We better let you go. Yeah. Exactly.

Matthew:

I've done a lot of reading and a lot of editing to do, but it's been a real pleasure Oh, the same. Talking to you, Magnus. Okay. Thanks. So this is very much a day of meeting meeting all the elder statesmen of Swedish role playing.

Matthew:

Yes. And if we're gonna complete the set, we have to talk to Anders Blick. Thank you. Anders, welcome.

Anders Blick:

Thank you. Thank you very much. It was like four or five years since the last recording, I think.

Matthew:

We made a recording online. So it's nice to meet you in person.

Anders Blick:

Yeah.

Matthew:

So, really, Anders, why are you here at Spell Congress?

Anders Blick:

That's because I got a personal invitation from Priyaligaan.

Dave:

Good reason, was that it?

Anders Blick:

Yes, exactly. Sent me an email, asked whether I was interested in coming and participating, being around and participating in the banquet afterwards.

Matthew:

Oh, yes.

Anders Blick:

And a free meal.

Matthew:

Yeah. That's exactly what we said.

Anders Blick:

Actually, I think it's fun to walk around here and see those things that I introduced forty years ago. They're still alive and kicking in new guises.

Matthew:

Absolutely. So, what are the highlights of that experience for you? What have you The

Anders Blick:

Arab Altar arrangement. We developed Arab Outdoor at Target Yames in 1985, 'eighty six, 'eighty seven. Now, years past, new edition, much nicer, much better looking. So, that's simply wonderful. Isn't it?

Anders Blick:

Yeah. What a I mean, we were just we were young in those days, we were all of us were around 20 year 25 years old, creating the Swedish gaming industry. So that's what something yeah. I'm conducting something and and then it just turned out that it worked.

Matthew:

It worked? Yeah. And it feels to me is since taking over the whole world.

Anders Blick:

Yeah. Isn't it? I mean, Ligand is is doing a fantastic job in in in producing Dragonbane, Druckerdemona, whatever, global. I mean, I'm I didn't think it was possible to achieve this when you have to compete with wizards. Exactly.

Anders Blick:

Exactly. So, can you just congratulate Lee Gown for a fantastic accomplishment? No. It does seem to

Matthew:

be going from strength to strength. And earlier on, we had the news that Aphria Legan are gonna be publishing Kudvang, which is a setting that came after your time,

Anders Blick:

I think. I'm not familiar with it, but I've heard of it. So that's impressive. Definitely impressive. Yeah.

Matthew:

And that's pretty good. And we ought to say, and maybe we ought to, before we finish, speak to the guys from Helmgas because we haven't spoken to them. Yeah. And it's Helmgas that are producing Aeropalta. Yeah.

Matthew:

But earlier on, I was talking to Eric.

Anders Blick:

Yeah.

Matthew:

And he, of course, is working with Friedig again

Anders Blick:

Yeah.

Matthew:

On Svaval Winter, which in expansion, of course, not originally, but as it grew, was connected with Erebaltur and became part of Erebaltur. He said he just met with the guys from Helmgast to make sure that what he's doing Swarovil Winter will be entirely fitting with their aboutors.

Anders Blick:

That's wonderful news.

Matthew:

Isn't it great? Yeah.

Anders Blick:

And Eric was he was incredible. I remember when I got Swarovil Winter to the office, in those days, it was a typewritten manuscript that arrived in the mail in a binder, and I was sitting there, and I started reading, impressed: This is out of this world. I've never seen any this is 1985, '86,

Matthew:

something.

Anders Blick:

I've never seen anything like this before. So I went to Fredrik, the the boss of Target Yenk, said, we have to do this. We certainly have to do this. And, yeah, it turned out to be a fantastic accomplishment. And Eric has this kind of spectacular imagination.

Anders Blick:

I mean, the world that is created with the four islands, Dracoria. I know of no other one with that kind of colorful imagination. The only similar experience I've had was when I read West End Star Wars d six in nineteen eighty six, eighty seven. That was like yeah. Greg Kostickian, he's a master.

Anders Blick:

So those two were in the pinnacles for me in the nineteen eighties.

Matthew:

And so much of that game actually became real Star Wars lore Yeah. Now in the in

Anders Blick:

so It's pretty fantastic. Yeah.

Matthew:

So that's that's really good news. Yeah. So are there any other highlights or people that you've been so pleased to meet here?

Anders Gilbring:

Yeah. Who is it here?

Anders Blick:

Christopher from from From Helmgast. Yeah. He's doing troubleshoot. He's Yeah. And we are I'm I'm about to write troubleshooters book for you.

Anders Blick:

A bunch of book. Mhmm. It was with dinosaurs.

Matthew:

Oh, that's been great last night, actually.

Anders Blick:

Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, troubleshooters and dinosaurs, what could go wrong? Yeah.

Matthew:

Absolutely. That's perfect.

Anders Blick:

Yeah. I I plan to start on it this winter.

Matthew:

Nice. Right. That's brilliant. Yeah. So it's really good to know that you're still producing stuff.

Anders Blick:

Yeah. I'm retired. I I have to do something with my spare time. All my my I'm divorced. My girls are adults.

Anders Blick:

Yeah. I'm living by myself.

Matthew:

Yeah. Excellent.

Anders Blick:

Yeah. You can divert your attention to

Anders Blick:

To game writing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also doing some academic research in international politics. So I pursued two tracks now when I retire.

Anders Blick:

Lovely. Yeah. It is. It is. Excellent.

Matthew:

Yeah. Thank you very much. It's an interesting conversation, but it's a real pleasure to

Anders Blick:

Thank talk you, Edward. Very nice.

Matthew:

Well what great set of interviews, what a lovely bunch of people, What are all so can we pull out of that? I think one of the interesting things to us to pull out and reiterate is if you're waiting for the English version of Western then

Dave:

you might have a bit more of a wait.

Matthew:

It's still a bit of a wait to go. Well I guess

Dave:

if you've waited this long then another six months, year, however long it might be.

Matthew:

I'm entirely relaxed about Western. It's not like I haven't got a cowboy game to play.

Dave:

No exactly. And I gave up on the prospect of getting anything of it actually several years ago. So the fact that it is, you know, we've got the PDF now and the fact that it is sort of rolling through the process is fine. And totally get it, I mean Anders Gillbring has been through a lot in recent years so he's had a really, really tough time. So it's good that he felt well enough and strong enough to come to the convention at all.

Matthew:

Anders at the same time churning out Fenix magazine for the Swedish audience there so it's not like he hasn't been delivering.

Dave:

No, exactly. Despite all his troubles. But yeah our best wishes obviously go to him for a swift and speedy recovery.

Matthew:

And I liked Eric's little story that he told me which you've only just heard Dave obviously having listened to the podcast that we've just done about almost losing the rights to Svalwinter to a company who shall remain nameless and winning them back in court. Cool. That was an interesting one. And speaking of companies that shall remain nameless, Magnus having a great big stack of Trudvan Chronicles to read in English. Cool.

Matthew:

And I think the English version of Two Dane Chronicles is going to be pretty much an edited version of those nine odd books that Mark Main has published.

Dave:

And

Matthew:

just Angus Blix being granddaddy of Sweden. Yeah, exactly.

Dave:

And just being lovely.

Matthew:

And yeah, so there is this interesting thing, think, now. So, it's Travel Winter obviously is a campaign setting that when Ereb Aotur was created they worked out where some of the Svaval Winter countries, because there's about four different islands in Winter how they fit into Arab Altor and Arab Altor was making there was a big presence of Arab Altor which we haven't spoken much about on the show partly because it's not yet in English but they're definitely planning to do an English translation of it Eric talked about how he's met with them to work out how the two revised version campaigns again once more fit into each other in a seamless way. So now if you're an old Draca Ochdemona hand Draca Ochdemona. Thank you very much. You've basically got all whatever generation of Draca Ochdemona player you are, you've got the campaign you grew up with coming back into production.

Matthew:

So that's lovely and again it's another example I think of Free League really trying to be cross generational with that game.

Dave:

And it was great to see. I was chatting to somebody about the 90s and the fact that you had all the energy and momentum in the game scene and suddenly it all kind of dissipated very quickly. Probably because all the people putting energy into it were in their teens or twenties then and then maybe many of them moved off families and got other jobs and didn't have the time to do it. So now seeing a place like this where you've got kids as young as sort of you know eight and 10 playing Dragonbane and other games and then you go through all the generations up to fat old lags like us and older, it's brilliant because that kind of bodes well for the future health of the industry and the gaming community.

Matthew:

Yeah, I think so.

Dave:

Which is great. And we did meet on the Friday. We met a couple of people, a father and his son who just turned 18 was really I can't remember

Matthew:

the dusk name but the

Dave:

son was Ewen. Ewen's English was second to none for starters but also he had a lot of insight and a lot of great opinions and things to offer about the gaming industry and about gaming. It's great to see that kind of enthusiasm in people who are now forty odd years younger than me. It bodes well for the future of the gaming community, which is the important thing.

Matthew:

Maybe you should finish off just discussing the dinner. You've already talked about it. I haven't yet had the chance to mention who I was sat opposite and had a long chat with and that was Eleanor Di Lorenzo, the creator of the Lost Mountain saga and the really exciting news about that was she was really, really excited about Tales of the Old West. So we had a great old chat, covered all sorts of things. American politics came up not once but twice and that was lovely and who else did I have sitting with me?

Matthew:

I had Matthias who we've already spoken about, I had Martin Takichi there. Martin, I said what are you working on at Free League? Martin is pretty much coordinating all the virtual tabletop stuff at the moment.

Dave:

That's So his

Matthew:

that was interesting. That's quite a big job guess, isn't it? Well, Given the fact that our lovely Paul has done a lot of work for us but it's been a bit of work just getting it online as well I think that's interesting from Martin so that seems to be occupying all his time at the moment. Who else does it sit there? Well of course and then Nils.

Dave:

And you were sat next to Isabella

Matthew:

and Fantas Fantas. I did remember talking to Nils about Italian gamers and then saying to Isabella of course I'm talking about Italian gamers while I'm sitting next to her and she goes I'm not a gamer!

Dave:

She had obviously accompanied Francesca and then departed after the meal so I think she's had enough of gaming talk and I guess you can't blame her. But she was lovely, we were talking about she and Francesca come from Venice so we were chatting quite a bit about Venutian life and sort of the issues and problems that they have, particularly sort of the Tourist? The island part, which is a population of 40,000 has been tacked on to the archipelago mainland ish,

Eric Granstrom:

which

Dave:

about 300,000 people and they all kind of vote in one block. So the people actually on the islands never get what they want because they always get outvoted 10 to one by those on the archipelago. So yeah, that was really interesting. Never having been to Venice before. Was a great insight.

Dave:

I think you can

Matthew:

go to Venice, it's lovely. I mean I'm sure Francesco and Isabella probably don't want you to go to Venice. No,

Dave:

not as

Anders Gilbring:

a tourist

Dave:

unless I'm invited. No, she was lovely and got stuck in but I can completely understand she might want to go and do something else for a while after the meal. But the meal was lovely and the band playing pretty much throughout but they weren't too intrusive.

Matthew:

No.

Dave:

No, they were good. But yeah, was great, it was lovely. Next time, what are we going to talk about?

Matthew:

I have no idea. We potentially have a couple of interviews lined up, whether we'll organise one

Dave:

or I had a really good chat with Christa Sunderland of Troubleshooters fame, Helmgast, and hadn't met him in the flesh before.

Matthew:

He was very different from both our I'd got

Dave:

the impression from when we spoke to him online that he was quite small.

Matthew:

Obviously we'd seen his head and shoulders so we knew what he looked like. Remember he came

Dave:

over at the four

Anders Blick:

or something.

Dave:

He's enormous.

Matthew:

I was talking to you. I literally said to myself, Oh, that bloke looks a bit like Christa, but huge. Obviously not Christa. Because Christa's a short man. We know that.

Matthew:

I have no idea how I knew Because it's not. He's a big man.

Dave:

Yeah but he was lovely. We met on the Friday at Brewery and had a chat there and was chatting about Troubleshooters and he very kindly said that I told him about my Agatha Christie style idea for a Troubleshooters one shot of a murder mystery based on a zeppelin flying across the Atlantic and he said oh that sounds great if you write it I'll publish it!' So I thought okay I might as well write it now.

Matthew:

I warned the bloke from Helmgast that we'd had that conversation. Always making new adventures! He was very complimentary about it. Thought it was a good idea.

Dave:

He said just wanted to shout out. That was lovely to see him. Yeah,

Dave:

he's

Dave:

a lovely guy. Comes across as I think a lot of Swedes can do, reserved, very stern is the wrong word but very withheld within themselves. But when you got talking to him, absolutely delightful guy. You know, really just opened up. You know, really nice.

Dave:

Anyway, the point was that we'd said we'd try and get an interview with him. Yeah. But at the same time Possibly in the New Year because that's when the next troubleshooters

Matthew:

A good number of our listeners said oh we've been listening to you since the old days, you should do some more game content and not just so maybe we'll try and think of some game content.

Dave:

Yeah, get back to our roots a little So bit I

Matthew:

wait and see, that's what I'm going say. Wait and see what the next episode is all about but otherwise it's goodbye from Stockholm. The

Dave:

one thing we didn't do

Matthew:

get one

Dave:

of our luminaries say our sign off. But we will say the sign off and we will play you out with the full song from Swedish band? Shalt. Something like that. Their music is obviously a lot better than my Swedish pronunciation.

Dave:

But yeah so back

Matthew:

to you Matt. Well it's goodbye from me.

Dave:

And it's goodbye from Stockholm. And may the icons rest your