mcdm

Introducing CROWS

Poll! Future Draw Steel Products!

Hey folks, Matt Colville at your service.

A while ago we polled y'all about future adventure content, and Crack the Sun won! Well, we know what happened next. A whole crowdfunder happened!

Well we're not about to put any new products into production in the next few months. We got enough to do already! But I thought it would be fun to poll y'all and the Crack the Sun backers about potential future products. Mostly just by category, but in the case of setting material, we ...

Four More Draw Steel Encounters

Twas the night before Christmas,

Not a mouse made a squeal,

Until the goblins appeared and it was time to DRAW STEEL!

Hi all ye faithful! Willy's back with FOUR more Draw Steel encounters for you to enjoy, three created by some talented designers and a little something extra from yours truly. Like the last set, you can insert these encounters into your ongoing adventures or spin them up on their own to kick off new stories...

The Necromancer and the Acolyte

For the moment, the town belonged only to the dead. 

And the dead belonged to him.

Lord Uldric walked through the abandoned town as his servants scoured it for signs of life. He was in no hurry. He looked at the walls of the wooden buildings, the open windows with shutters. No glass, he noticed. Wooden buildings and no glass.

Wooden buildings were not unc...

A Method of Homebrewing Ancestries

Every Montage, Negotiation, and Heroic Test from Draw Steel: Encounters

It's almost quittin' time for the holidays here at MCDM, and my wish for all you this holiday season is good health, peace, and to gather those you love around the table and Draw Steel! To make my holiday dream come true, I need to play the part of Santa and bring you a batch of stuff from the upcoming Draw Steel: Encounters book to playtest. It's every montage test, negotiation, and heroic test from the book coming down your chimney. They're attached to this post below!

Encounters Book Preview

Hey folks! James here! As many of you know, we're getting ready for a big crowdfunding campaign here at MCDM on December 9th! The crown jewel of this crowdfunding crown is a campaign-length adventure called Crack the Sun, but there's also going to be other Draw Steel goodies as part of the Backerkit campaign, inclu...

Three Draw Steel Encounters... But, Like, Codex

⬆️A little video to show off the new material based footsteps in the Codex.

Hello humans! Djordi here. Willy gave you some Draw Steel encounters for Halloween that you could use to insert into your ongoing adventures or spin up new stories. Even though Halloween is over, it's BACK BABY, just like Jack Skellington.

Three new Draw Steel encounters are av...

The Summoner and The Fall of Blackbottom

Hey folks! James here to let you know that we have two new PDF releases today for Draw Steel. There's The Summoner class and a new adventure for 1st-level heroes called The Fall of Blackbottom.

The Summoner is an incredibly ambitious new class from lead designer Willy Abeel. You may know it from our...

Codex Delian Tomb Playtest

You are going to play the Delian Tomb tonight, with up to five of your friends, in our custom VTT called The Codex! Here are your TL;DR steps to get started:

1. Make sure you are a paid subscriber to the MCDM Patreon

2. Link your Patreon account to your Discord account

3. Use the MCDM Codex Keybot bot command in our Discord to request playtest keys for the Codex Playtest

4. Redee...

   2025-11-28 18:01:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Dark Heart of the Wood Patreon Playtest

The feedback period for this playtest has now ended. You can still use the adventure below.

Hey folks! We are pleased to bring you a playtest for the first official adventure made for 2nd-level heroes in Draw Steel. Behold Dark Heart of the Wood. Here's a quick description from the adventure's interior, written by the designer, Sam Mannell!

Dark Heart of the Wood is an adventure for Draw Steel for 2nd-level heroes. T...

2025-11-18 21:41:37 +0000 UTC View Post

Draw Steel VTT Q&A

Hey folks! Willy & Djordi l are going live to talk about The Codex: The Ofiicial Draw Steel VTT . The VOD will live in this post, so you can check it out if you couldn't make it live. We're excited to jam with you!

Patreon Codex Playtest Q&A

Draw Steel Codex - November Q&A

Hey, everyone! It’s Djordi giving you a heads up that Dael (¡lǝɐp ollǝH) will be live this Thursday November 13th at 4PM Pacific time here on the Patreon asking Djordi (hey that’s me!) and Denivarius (the lead at DMHub) questions about our upcoming Draw Steel Codex Playtest. If you are unfamiliar with the Codex, it’s the VTT (V...

Public Playtest: Beastheart for Draw Steel

ROAR! The beastheart class is in PUBLIC playtesting now for Draw Steel! That's right, ANYONE can see this post!

Many folks remember when we released Beastheart and Monstrous Companions for fifth edition. Now that class is coming to Draw Steel, and it's better than ever!

The great Paul Hughes has created a more cinematic and heroic version of the class,...

Three Draw Steel Encounters

When hinges creak in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls. Whenever candlelights flicker where the air is deathly still — that is the time when we must Draw Steel!

Hey foolish mortals! Willy here. I hope your Halloween candy bags are bursting at the seams by the end of the night 🌚

Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, we're giving you three Draw Steel encounters that you might ...

Iconic Hero Minis by Trenchworx

This month we have three Draw Steel minis for you to enjoy: Adashir, Jackson Bootblack, and Sir John of Tor. If you are looking to have these printed for you, take a look at the Trenchworx SNAP TRAY campaign over on backerkit.

Crack! The! Sun!

Hey folks! Matt Colville comin’ at ya like a beam, like a ray, like a laser!

We had our quarterly in-person week a little while ago, bringing everyone out to Orange County to work on the future of Draw Steel. The first wave of post-launch products! There’s a lot, they fall into two broad categories; player options and director options, and I think you already know about all of them?

Inarguably the most ambitious of these, as in a couple hundred pages ambitious, is our first Ca...

Playtest: The Beastheart for Draw Steel

Unleash your primal ferocity! The beastheart class is playtesting now for Draw Steel!

You might remember a few years ago when we released Beastheart and Monstrous Companions for fifth edition. A lot of what is in that class actually helped us develop the idea for heroic resources in Draw Steel.

Well hold onto your butts, because the great Paul Hughes h...

Ancestries and Operators

The MCDM team is all together at our HQ, which means we’re here planning future Draw Steel goodness. Matt said, “Hey! Someone should update the Patrons about what we talked about today because it’s really cool.” Something (probably my childhood) compelled me to volunteer, so I, your James Introcaso, get the honor of sharing with you what we talked about during our first meeting this week.

A Couple New Ancestries

If you’ve been following along for a bit, you kn...

Fiction: The Beastheart & The Faeries

Part One, The Beastheart

Lives lay in moments wasted. But they both knew the value of reading the situation. The lay of the land. Plunging in on perilous impulse, however noble, could mean their own lives added to the tally. They would not have used words like ‘tactics’ or ‘strategy;’ to the two of them, it was simply prudent to watch and think and plan before acting. 

They watched as the hobgoblins made sport of their prey. They had tested themselves against the de...

September 2025 Patreon Q&A is Live!

Hey folks! Matt & Dael are going live to talk Draw Steel Lore. We took your questions in a previous post! The VOD will live in this post, so you can check it out if you couldn't make it live. We're excited to jam with you!

Draw Steel Lore Q&A

Hey folks! Matt Colville at your service. It's time for our monthly Patron Q&A with Dael Kingsmill!

This one is going to be a little different. It's just me and Dael answering your LORE questions about Orden & The Timescape. We've done one of these before, you can check out the stream here.

It's also different because this is going to be a public post! So anyone can ask a question! The...

Draw Steel Minis by TitanCraft

Now that the core rules for Draw Steel are out in the wild and people are getting together in-person and online to play, it's a good time for more minis. This month it's something a bit different, this month we have guest minis.

A LOT of players want to create their own miniatures, but lack the 3D modeling skills or don't have a 3D printer at home, enter 2025-08-28 19:08:39 +0000 UTC View Post

Summoner Lore & Fiction

Hey Folks! MC here! Since you folks got the Summoner yesterday, I figured today was a good day for the lore!

This isn't final, it'll get an editing pass, and will eventually be integrated into the main doc. You can see our thinking is changing over time regarding what different summoners are called and what their organizations are. But until that future revision, this is the straight dope!

Enjoy!

Intro

The process by which essence, the ambient energy of creation, can...

The Summoner Open Playtest Starts Here

My power is yours, and yours, mine. I summon thee!

High Summoner Willy here. Now that Draw Steel's been out for a few weeks now, we're ready to spin up an open playtest for the 10th heroic class—The Summoner.

We've been tinkering and polishing this class for a hhhhot minute and it's nearly ready to c...

Heroic Tests

It's time ... to climb!

Hey folks, James here! In December we'll be launching our next crowdfunding campaign for a few different products, one of which is Draw Steel: Encounters. This is a book of drop-in pieces of game play you can use with minimal prep for your Draw Steel games. It's broken up into four sections:

• Dungeon Delves: Three-room dungeons with three encounters, including a battle against the dungeon's boss monster!

2025-08-21 16:27:16 +0000 UTC View Post

August 2025 Patreon Q&A is Live!

Hey folks! It's James! Matt, Djordi, Willy, Dael, and me are going live to talk Draw Steel. We took your questions in a previous post! The VOD will live in this post, so you can check it out if you couldn't make it live. We're excited to jam with you!

Patreon Q&A with the Draw Steel Design Team

Draw Steel is OUT! And you got Qs, and we got As. Dael is going to be live this Thursday August 14th at 4PM Pacific time here on Patreon asking Djordi, James, Matt, and Willy your questions about Draw Steel, The Delian Tomb, and Road to Broadhurst.

The stream will be hosted here on Patreon. We'll send out a post with the video right before we go live. And don't worry! If you miss the stream, you'll still be able to access the video later.

In the meantime...

Quick Updates

Hey folks! James here with some quick Draw Steel updates for you!

Updated Products

First, I wanted to let you know that The Delian Tomb and Road to Broadhurst have been updated. If you got a copy of The Delian Tomb, look for an email from us with the update sent out this afternoon. It includes a changelog.

Road to Broadhurst is available free online ...

Draw Steel...is out!!

Here we go folks. After years of work and thousands of hours of testing and polish and dozens of people; writers, designers, illustrators, testers, editors, graphic designers working their butts off…Draw Steel is real! We cannot wait to see everything you do with this game. The characters, villains, adventures, worlds you will create. 

Hey everybody, Matt Colville at your servi...