My home table decided to move our game from D&D5.5e to Draw Steel for its latest "season". I asked over on Bluesky if folks would be interested in hearing more, and well, y'all said yes.
I'm gonna try to put up a post after every session talking about the story itself and getting into the mechanics that Draw Steel brings and what landed or didn't land.
I don't think any of my players read my blog but if they do - this will be a spoiler free space =D
Why we switched to Draw Steel
Honestly, I was tired of running D&D. So, as we were getting ready to start season 3 of Siqram, I asked my players if they would be willing to try something new. I put forward Daggerheart and Draw Steel. Folks had tried both and chose Draw Steel.
We're in a bit of a golden age of TTRPG right now, and it seemed like continuing to invest in D&D was missing an opportunity to see how different games with different mechanics would shape storytelling. I absolutely love Daggerheart and its focus on narrative, fluid gameplay. The hope/fear system is brilliant. And I love Draw Steel and its focus on heroic narrative. I love that players can't miss, that classes synergize with each other, that heroes get more powerful the longer they go between rests.
The world of Siqram
Siqram is a high fantasy world full of all ancestries. Magic is powered by ley-lines that criss cross the globe. In Siqram we reject the notion that some ancestries are inherently evil. There's three major nations (four previously, but one fell apart): Siqram, Malios and Vestonar. Kaidoro fell to civil war and is now a series of city-states.
Season 1: The Bubble Breaks
Season 1 focused on the city-state of Siqram. Thousands of years ago Siqram had erected a magical barrier around itself. It kept Siqram isolated from the outside world, and kept it safe. The boundary system required a massive amount of ley energy to maintain. Unbeknownst to the mages of Siqram, it robbed the rest of the world of most of its magic power.
In Season 1 a devil named Zakaroth plotted to destroy the boundary and burn the city to collect its souls. It was thwarted by our four heroes: Azuriel "Ash", Isolde "Izzy", Kayson and Arranis.
Season 2: Dragon's Wake
In Season 2, the barrier was gone. Magic flooded back into the world. The ancient dragons that once ruled the place, but had to go into hibernation to survive, awoke. The most powerful of them, Kavazhul, an ancient red dragon, vowed her revenge on Siqram. She set in motion a plan to conquer the nation and put it under her subjugation.
Our heroes this season were Arranis, Saoirse, Halgrym, Izzy and Kayson. As they opposed Kavazhul, they learned quite a bit. Our pantheon of gods were not the original creators of this world; they were created by beings known as Titans. The gods turned on the Titans, for some unknown reason, killing them all, and fashioning weapons from their essence. Some unknown person, referred to only as "the Fool", found one of those weapons and used it to slay Bahamut, the god of justice.
Of course, our daring heroes (level 17 by the end of this season) prevailed and stopped Kavazhul in a desperate final stand. During the battle Arranis, Halgrym and Saoirse were pulled into the fey - a plane that hadn't been visited from the material realm in thousands of years. They haven't been seen since!
The timeskip: 150 years later
150 years have passed since Kavazhul was defeated. In that time magic has returned to Malios and Vestonar and the world's economy and power has shifted.
Izzy is now the commander of the Dragon Riders and wields a Titan-weapon. The Dragon Riders are a multinational group of warriors that hunt chromatic dragons while riding crystalline dragons.
Ash is the Marshal of the Unified Guard of Siqram, which was rebuilt after the war and is now the academic center of the world.
Kayson, the only human of the group, has passed away. Her legacy has been memorialized throughout the world.
Arranis and Halgrym are still missing. Most of the world believes they are dead. A very select few know they stepped into the fey and haven't returned.
The new party
In Season 3 our players return with all new level 1 Draw Steel characters!
Kuro is a dwarven Chronokinetic Null. She works in the Tholgrim Monastery archives under the watchful but old eyes of Beldrin. She aspires to be the head archivist one day.
Margaret is a human Paragon Censor. She's a janitor at Tholgrim Monastery and, honestly, is pretty happy with that. She's best friends with the goddess Sehanine, but no one takes her seriously. She's out to prove that her god is providing divine messages in the stars.
M'lek is a orc Shadow. He's a Malian sky-shipwright that just can't seem to do anything right other than fix ships. He's got a debt to some shady thugs in Vestonar and is trying to figure out how he's gonna pay it off.
Piotyr McAnally is a human Tactician. He's retired military and a chronic bad-decision maker. Down on his luck, he hopes to win back his ex-wife and the life he had.
You're all caught up
Our previous heroes are mostly memorials now, or off cleaning up messes on a cosmic scale. This season we follow four nobodies who took on a simple job that is turning complicated...
The next post covers session 1 where our heroes meet each other and take on their first real quest. Watch for it to be posted in a couple of days.
