Director's Briefing - May 2026

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Welcome

To the one hundred-and-seventy-eighth Briefing and fifth scheduled Briefing of 2026.

Conventions

I have received confirmation of our booking for Dragonmeet. As a reminder, the convention will be in ExCeL London again and the date for your diaries is Saturday 28th November 2026.

Aaron Smalley ran an ICE booth at the 2026 "Cadillac Pop Culture Con" in Cadillac, Michigan last month. This was a modest success and Aaron hopes to attend next year and run a demo game or two.

In terms of Gen Con news, we are in vendor booth #2465 (Hall G). Game sessions are all located in the JW Marriott, and our sessions have been placed on the third floor (room 304).

Software

As you may know, our set of Foundry modules were originally released for Foundry version 13. Last month, version 14 of Foundry has been released and Bob has been busy updating our RMU modules to be compatible. Bob has now completed this. Bob reports that version 14 it is now possible to detach your character sheets from the main window.  If you have a wide screen or multi-monitor setups, you should find this new feature useful. The other big change has been to upgrade Character and Creature Sheets to the Foundry AppV2 architecture - these look and behave the same as existing sheets but use the new Foundry sheet architecture which provides better performance.  The word from Foundry is that the existing AppV1 sheets will not work on next year's version of Foundry v15. Thanks to Bob, we are prepared for that change now.

Max has made some updates to the ERA software packages, notably to the gaming table elements, so please feel free to download the updates at your convenience.

Shadow World

On the RMU stat appendices for existing Shadow World modules, we now have volunteers for Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn and Eidolon. If anyone wants to put their hat in the ring for Emer III, Cloudlords of Tanara, Haalkitaine, Jaiman, or Xa-ar, please let either myself or Colin know.

HARP

The softcover proof copy for HARP Banecroft: The Mage's Tale arrived and passed its inspection. It is now available on DriveThru.

HARP Steampunk will be heading into the print process very shortly so fingers crossed for no issues as I would like to get hardcover and softcover print copies to Aaron in good time for Gen Con.

I have been wrestling for a little while on how to make progress with the remaining spells required for HARP Something Wicked Something Wondrous. I have more than twenty spell concepts to still work up, in terms of writing the textual elements and doing the spreadsheet work to cost them. I have realised that the best way of getting this done is to split the work into two parts (yes, I know obvious solution to everyone but me) – writing the text for all of these (which I can do in the comfort of an armchair, on the train, etc), and then using one of my imminent days off where I can do the PP costing work in a single sitting at a desk. This has proven effective – six concepts successfully translated to textual format (which concludes all the spells I expect to provide for the Mentalist Circle) and two concepts were cut as not working out.

RMU

Editing continues on the vastness that is Arcane Companion.

Artwork is steadily arriving for RMU Character Companion. Nick has been pouring the edited text into layout as a first shakedown.

Until next time

Please stay safe and keep gaming.
Best wishes,
Nicholas

[assur]

Glad to know Character Companion is going forward.

[eaglesky]

Welcome

To the one hundred-and-seventy-eighth Briefing and fifth scheduled Briefing of 2026.

Conventions

I have received confirmation of our booking for Dragonmeet. As a reminder, the convention will be in ExCeL London again and the date for your diaries is Saturday 28th November 2026.

Aaron Smalley ran an ICE booth at the 2026 "Cadillac Pop Culture Con" in Cadillac, Michigan last month. This was a modest success and Aaron hopes to attend next year and run a demo game or two.

In terms of Gen Con news, we are in vendor booth #2465 (Hall G). Game sessions are all located in the JW Marriott, and our sessions have been placed on the third floor (room 304).

Software

As you may know, our set of Foundry modules were originally released for Foundry version 13. Last month, version 14 of Foundry has been released and Bob has been busy updating our RMU modules to be compatible. Bob has now completed this. Bob reports that version 14 it is now possible to detach your character sheets from the main window.  If you have a wide screen or multi-monitor setups, you should find this new feature useful. The other big change has been to upgrade Character and Creature Sheets to the Foundry AppV2 architecture - these look and behave the same as existing sheets but use the new Foundry sheet architecture which provides better performance.  The word from Foundry is that the existing AppV1 sheets will not work on next year's version of Foundry v15. Thanks to Bob, we are prepared for that change now.

Max has made some updates to the ERA software packages, notably to the gaming table elements, so please feel free to download the updates at your convenience.

Shadow World

On the RMU stat appendices for existing Shadow World modules, we now have volunteers for Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn and Eidolon. If anyone wants to put their hat in the ring for Emer III, Cloudlords of Tanara, Haalkitaine, Jaiman, or Xa-ar, please let either myself or Colin know.

HARP

The softcover proof copy for HARP Banecroft: The Mage's Tale arrived and passed its inspection. It is now available on DriveThru.

HARP Steampunk will be heading into the print process very shortly so fingers crossed for no issues as I would like to get hardcover and softcover print copies to Aaron in good time for Gen Con.

I have been wrestling for a little while on how to make progress with the remaining spells required for HARP Something Wicked Something Wondrous. I have more than twenty spell concepts to still work up, in terms of writing the textual elements and doing the spreadsheet work to cost them. I have realised that the best way of getting this done is to split the work into two parts (yes, I know obvious solution to everyone but me) – writing the text for all of these (which I can do in the comfort of an armchair, on the train, etc), and then using one of my imminent days off where I can do the PP costing work in a single sitting at a desk. This has proven effective – six concepts successfully translated to textual format (which concludes all the spells I expect to provide for the Mentalist Circle) and two concepts were cut as not working out.

RMU

Editing continues on the vastness that is Arcane Companion.
Block Blast
Artwork is steadily arriving for RMU Character Companion. Nick has been pouring the edited text into layout as a first shakedown.

Until next time

Please stay safe and keep gaming.
Best wishes,
Nicholas

This briefing really shows how vibrant the tabletop RPG community is! It's exciting to see the confirmation for Dragonmeet in London and the updates from Gen Con. I love how the team keeps a global perspective, from Cadillac to London. On the software side, the Foundry v14 updates are a game-changer—being able to detach character sheets and having AppV2 support will make long sessions much smoother. Shadow World and HARP updates show the dedication to content creation and quality. I particularly like the strategy Nicholas shared for tackling spell creation—it's a smart way to manage complex tasks efficiently. Overall, it's inspiring to see such steady progress across multiple projects while keeping the community engaged.