Worlds and Wednesdays: Whatever Happened to The Dark Fantasy of Sundrah?

People still ask me, every so often, whatever happened to The Dark Fantasy of Sundrah. It’s a fair question, and I’ve decided it deserves a fair answer. So pour yourself something warm, pull up a chair, and let me share a story about lessons learned, failure, and the simple, stubborn act of standing back up.

Where It All Began

My very first game product was The Dark Fantasy of Sundrah, or DFoS, as it came to be known around my desk. It was a fantasy world built on cinematic choices, and I was proud of every inch of it. It also came with rules. Lots of rules. So many rules.

How many? On your fastest day, with the wind at your back and the dice behaving, creating a single character took over an hour.

Now, let’s do a little game master math together. Say you wanted to run a campaign with:

• 3 or 4 NPCs
• One major villain
• A couple of loyal lieutenants
• Four pregenerated characters for your players

That’s a minimum of ten hours just to cook the characters. And that doesn’t count the two to three full days of work setting up the adventure, the treasure, and the story itself.

Does that seem like a lot? It was.

Was it fun? Sure, while it lasted. But picture this: your players scream a mighty battle cry, pull together their best spells, and tear all of that careful work to shreds almost immediately. Or worse, they simply aren’t interested in following that story arc at all. Hours of prep, gone in a single session.

Well, you can see the problem.

I had proudly built a game with everything I could conceivably pour into it. And, I’ll be honest with you, it took me a long time to admit to myself where it all went wrong.

The Accidental Discovery

Here’s where the story turns.

One day, I was working on an idea for a new Sundrah supplement. To save time, I grabbed a couple of d6s, gave every character involved a single number, and ran the story through its paces using a kind of simplified shorthand method.

It worked great.

So I drew up a work schedule, came back for a second session, and used the same shorthand method again to keep things moving. And somewhere in that second day of work, it dawned on me.

The shorthand method I was using to test the rules was more fun than the actual DFoS rules themselves.

Let that sink in for a moment. The quick-and-dirty tool I’d scribbled together to save time was outplaying the system I’d spent years building.

The Hardest Decision I Ever Made

What came next was the hardest decision I’ve ever made as a game designer. I chose to develop that shorthand method into its own game and close the cover on the DFoS rules.

It wasn’t hard because it was wrong. It wasn’t even hard because it was sad. It was hard because I had to look myself in the mirror and admit two things: I could do better, and DFoS was not my best effort.

That’s a tough pill for any creator to swallow. But here’s the lesson I want you to take with you, whether you design games, write stories, or build anything at all: sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let go of something you love so something better can grow in its place.

What Grew From That Decision

And grow it did. Here’s how it unfolded, one step at a time:

1. Bare Bones Multiverse came first, taking that lean d6 shorthand and shaping it into a real system.
2. Bare Bones Beyond followed, pushing the design further and testing how far simplicity could stretch.
3. The Worlds of Pulp™ arrived as the culmination, the fullest expression of everything I’d learned.

So that’s the journey that started it all.

Since moving to a faster, simpler, more elementally pure system of imagination, I’ve had the joy of developing many games under its banner. Compare that to the old days: instead of ten hours of character prep, you’re rolling and playing. Instead of watching your work get shredded, you’re improvising right alongside your players. Every one of those games pays homage to pulp sensibilities, and every one comes from the same place: a deep desire to lay something at your feet that I’d love to play with my own friends.

Where Is It All Going?

If you’ve been reading The Cosmic Skull newsletter on the front page of Scaldcrow.com, you’ve already caught a glimpse. Everything is expanding toward a single, thrilling possibility: the many modular Pocket Worlds coexisting inside one grand fictional multiverse.

That’s right. I never forgot my original vision for Bare Bones Multiverse. It’s been waiting patiently all this time, and now it’s finally stretching its legs.

So where is it all going, really? The honest answer is that I don’t entirely know. And I find that wildly exciting. But I can promise you this: whatever it becomes, it will be bigger. As big as I can possibly make it.

Come Along for the Ride

If this story struck a chord, I’d love for you to be part of what comes next. Head over to Scaldcrow.com, subscribe, read The Cosmic Skull newsletter, and grab a Pocket World to try with your table. Then come tell me what you think.

Sundrah taught me what not to do. You, my friends, are helping me discover everything we can do. See you next Wednesday.

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