Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Tie-In Publications From Sundara (Novels, Table Games, and More!)

My fantasy TTRPG setting Sundara: Dawn of a New Age had its first release going on three years ago, and I've been steadily expanding the map a little bit at a time. The original splat books for Cities of Sundara were pretty popular, as were the Species of Sundara books where I talked about the fantastical creatures you could play as, and for the past year or so I've been working my way through what is (more or less) the Factions of Sundara series, with installments like Sellswords of Sundara (for Pathfinder and DND 5E) as well as Cults of Sundara (for Pathfinder and DND 5E).

However, it was with the recently released Merchants of Sundara that I had an idea for a new project for the setting... making some tie-in projects for this setting!



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Building on The Foundation We've Already Laid


For folks who've been keeping an eye on Sundara as a setting, you know we've already had our share of tie-in media. The above video, for instance, is a dramatization of the introductory story from the supplement 100 Effects of a Primquake, which came out a little while ago. In addition to all of the audio dramas you can find on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, there's also projects like the story Legacy of Flames by Isaiah Burt.

However, Merchants of Sundara presents interesting opportunities for something we haven't tried yet... meta tie-in projects.

You ever play a game of Regicide before?

In particular, this supplement discusses two merchants of note; Black Feather Books, and Alabast Games. The former is a publisher of unique treatises on history, ghost stories, and tales of adventure, while the latter is a little niche store run by a clever halfling who enjoys making unique card games, board games, and even dice games using little toy soldiers deployed on sand tables to fight their tiny wars.

Most of the time when creators make tie-in projects for their settings, these projects are meant to tell stories that take place in the setting itself. For example, Tales From The Moot is a collection of short stories of the deeds of werewolves in the World of Darkness, and The Irregulars is a story of an Andoran strike force set in the world of Golarion. These stories happen in the setting, and they could even cross paths with the campaign you're running. You could have characters influenced by the events of these stories, or who have some relationship to the characters or events in them, working them into your game as it unfolds.

This is a little different, though. For this project I'd be writing short stories or books that one could find in the setting itself, allowing players to read the same stories their characters would be reading if they picked up a book at a trading post to keep them entertained on their upcoming journey. This is not too dissimilar from what I proposed a while back in Would You Like To See Books From Golarion? In addition to books that might appear in the setting, though, I've considered the idea of putting together games that people might play in Sundara which are produced by Alabast Games. Games like Regicide or Gravedigger, which are played using a set of Crown Dice, for example, along with a chart explaining what die type Crown Dice are, and how to translate the dice from your personal dice bag so you can play the game with your fellows around the table... either just for fun, or to add to the immersion of your RP.

The question, of course, is whether this is something you would like to see as one of my readers? So if you're a fan of the setting (whether or not you picked up a copy of Merchants of Sundara for yourself yet), tell me the sort of thing you'd like to see in the comments below! The more folks who speak out, and let both myself and the publisher know what they'd like to see, the greater the chance that it's something I can make room for in the near future!

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