Today sees the pre-order launch of The Serpent and The Sands, a combined guide to North Africa and 10-part TTRPG campaign for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20. It’s been nearly 18 months in the making and I did the narrative design and direction and led the creative side of the book, as well as writing the first and last missions, Dying to Meet You and The Hidden City .
It really does take a long time to bring these things to fruition and I can still remember sitting down at my desk and sketching out the first outline of the overall plot and characters. As usual, I had the beginning and the ending figured out, it was just that annoying middle 95% that was the issue!
Making one of these RPG books is a lot more work than writing a novel, but one great bonus is that you get to share the load and the journey with a whole bunch of talented people who helped bring the vision to life.
Massive thanks to all the writers including Richard August, Brad Bell, Jason Brick, Nathan Dowdell, Bill Heron, Patrick McNally, Meric Moir, and Mari Tokuda. There’s also a ton of artists like Andre Meister who did the excellent cover, Glynn Seal’s fantastic cartography, Ricardo Amato’s art direction and all the hugely talented interior artists who illustrated the book so beautifully. And that’s not even counting all the backroom staff at Modiphius, who did a ton of work behind the scenes to support the book from inception to birth.
So, here it is. I hope you like it and that it might even inspire a few people to check out the RPG itself. It really is a great fun and rip- roaring pulp rollercoaster ride through world war 2. It brings me immense pleasure to still be working on it.
So, get out there, sign up some fellow adventures and get cracking. The rise of a new serpent empire is imminent and only you can prevent it!