27 Oct The Dark Eye Designer Diary – October 2017

Greetings to the Twelve! As shepherd of the ever-growing setting of The Dark Eye RPG, it is my privilege to see all the great material heading your way. This month I would like to give you a preview of NPC Card Set 1: Travel & Trade, an upcoming release in our popular series of reference card sets.

Like its name implies, the Travel & Trade deck focuses on NPCs who might offer to buy or sell information, goods, or services, or arrange for transportation. Note that this set provides notable stats relating only to these endeavors, not to combat, so you won’t see long lists of combat skills and stats for weapons and armor. We did this intentionally, partly due to space limitations on the cards but mainly due to theme. Aventuria is a living campaign filled with three-dimensional characters, and these sets provide realistic NPCs that you can easily place in a wide variety of encounters.

While much of the art is new, I especially like that these cards finally give names and backgrounds to some of the faces that have appeared in our products. For example, you may be familiar with the picture of a certain performer from page 138 of the Core Rules, but do you know anything else about her? Thanks to Card #35, you now know that she is Concabella, a spirited Almadan entertainer who is perhaps a little too fond of using pyrotechnics in her stage shows…

In brief, each of this deck’s 53 double-sided NPC cards provides the following information.

• Name
• Descriptive highlights
• Full-color illustration taken from a TDE product
• Function in the campaign, plus notable skill(s), if any
• Description, history, and tips for incorporating the NPC into your adventures
• Personality: Roleplaying cues, for breathing life into the NPC
• Services: Ways in which the NPC can help the heroes
• Plot Hook: Suggested encounters, to spark creativity and inspire new adventures
• Summary: Race, culture, occupation, and function, all on one convenient line

Watch for NPC Card Set 1: Travel & Trade, coming soon. May the Twelve guide your steps!

-Kevin MacGregor, Managing Editor for The Dark Eye