I’m excited to announce that we’ve released the second issue of the DAGGERzine (finally).

I know it’s taken us a long time to get here, we go over that a little bit in the intro of the Zine.

Suffice to say, life as it often does, finds a way…. to derail TTRPG projects.

But we’re back, hopefully. We’re trying to do it. In little bits. Bear with us.

Today, on the blog.

So, because of this release, I thought it makes sense to talk about what’s inside it just a little bit.

The second issue of the DAGGERzine is much bigger than the first issue, but it follows the same format.

We’re going to look at the five different sections that make up the issue and give a little synopsis.

The first section covers exploration and new modes of play. The next section looks at the adversaries included in this issue.

The third section is on Environments and the  fourth is what we call the Adventure Frame, a short outline for using the included Adversaries and Environments to support the theme.

And section five includes some magic items, and other interesting loot that GMs can include in their games.

The theme of Issue 02 is desert adventuring, exploration, and survival; a pretty big contrast to Issue 01’s nautical and sub-nautical play.

But let’s get into it.

Section One

Exploring the desert has a lot of things in common with exploring any other adventure environment, but there are also some things that are very unique to the desert.

First off, deserts themselves can be pretty dynamic.

You can think of endless, sprawling sand dunes, like the Sahara Desert, all the way to rocky deserts full of spiky cacti that bloom for a month in a sea of colors and are actually full of life, like the American Southwest.

While a case can be made that arctic deserts also exist, we’re saving those frosty locales for another issue.

So when navigating these desert environments, one of the common themes, however, though, is the intense heat and absence of water, especially surface water.

Also, sometimes these environments can be exceptionally difficult to navigate.

Section One focuses on these two components, employing existing game mechanics to create a system that requires management of one’s personal water supply to mitigate the deleterious effects of the extreme heat.

The other part Section One, as mentioned, covers exploration, getting lost in the desert, finding your way across the sands, and how attaching an adventuring party to a caravan can lead to the greatest chance of success and survival across the wastes.

Section Two

Section Two contains a big list of adveresaries that can be found throughout the desert.

While the available list of adversaries in the Daggerheart Core Rulebook and the Daggerheart SRD are formidable, and many interesting and compelling options exist, there are also a number of standard fantasy tropes that have not been included in the game yet.

Thanks to the flexibility of the 5.1 SRD and the 5.2 SRD released by Wizards of the Coast we have access to some of the monsters that might be missing from the Daggerheart Core Rules at this time.

So those that are befitting of a desert environment have been included. 15 new adversaries are available for your Daggerheart game in this issue of the Zine.

Examples include the Lamia, Mummies, the Mummy Lord, and creatures feared throughout all desert environments: sandworms.

Section Three

The Environments section, like the previous Issue of the DAGGERzine, includes several themed environments that can be coupled with the standard environments presented in the Daggerheart Core Rulebook and SRD to build out your adventures.

The eight environments included in Issue 02 are the Caravansarai, Oasis, Wadi, Mirage, Shifting Sands, Worm Corpse, Cataracts and Trapped Tomb. These environments are strongly themed for desert exploration and adventuring and even contain some suggested story beats or concepts.

Of course you are free to change these or modify them to suit the needs of your campaign. They’re really just meant to spur your imagination.

Section Four

Now that we’ve laid out some enemies and locations, our Adventure Frame, Section Four, puts them together to create a small story.

Smaller than a Campaign Frame, the Adventure Frame is not meant to detail an entire setting that you might play in for an extended period of time. It could certainly be extrapolated out into such, but instead provides an example of how to tie the disparate components of this Issue together to create something playable and fun.

In this instance, the PCs have to stop the return of an ancient emperor, now an undead tyrant bent on reclaiming all of his lost empire The PCs will start at the Caravansarai, a sort of safehaven under assault from the dead. Then they will have to trek across the desert in search of the source of this evil and put an end to it, discovering interesting locations and NPCs along the way.

Section Five

Section Five contains a short list of fourteen (14) items of note or renown that can be added to your campaign.

There are five weapons, two pieces of armor, six pieces of loot and one consumable that can be provided as rewards, treasure or fortuitous finds for the adventurers as they roam about the desert.

Many of these items have desert themes or significant use in the hot, dusty environments where they may be found.

In the end, this latest Issue of the DAGGERzine took me a little while longer to make due to some external pressures in my life, but it ended up bigger than the first issue, and I’m okay with that.

I’m really happy with the volume of content and how it creates a more cohesive and useful package to anyone who purchases it.

A free preview is available on DriveThruRPG and if you like what you see or you liked the last issue, I would absolutely love it if you would check this one out.

I’ve already begun work on Issue 03. This time we’re going to move from dry arid deserts to lush forests, full of fey creatures and more powerful adversaries for PCs to overcome.

Can’t wait for you to check that one out.

So stay tuned to the CritFail.Press blog and make sure you’re subscribed to the CritFail Post, our newsletter, so you never miss out on what’s happening.

See you next week.

– Mike.