I freelance blog for High Level Games (HLG), so I keep up with the leadership’s announcements. When HLG COO and ENnie award-winning author, Josh Heath, announced his Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition adventure, Dealing With Your Demons, the combination of subject matter and its journey from writing to print compelled me to reach out to Josh to discuss the project.
EGG EMBRY (EGG): Thanks for taking the time to talk with me about your latest Kickstarter. What is Dealing With Your Demons: An Adventure in Two Parts?
JOSH HEATH (JOSH): Dealing With Your Demons is an adventure using the 5e OGL to make it accessible to most people who play D&D. What makes it different from a classic adventure is that in the first half you make a mistake and likely destroy a powerful being who isn’t what you think it is. That being has glowing fire coming off its head, it has cloven hoofs, and it would be understandable that you might think it’s a demon with how it looks. However, we have to ask ourselves what another fantasy culture might think of as a demon… or an angel? Kobolds view themselves in this adventure as the descendants of dragons, they served them and also view themselves as a part of an ancient culture of power. Their religious icons would be similar to them, they would look draconic and have elements that remind them of their role in the cosmos.
EGG: A Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition adventure in two parts, why two parts? What’s the dividing mark?
JOSH: The first part of the adventure is a straight-forward dungeon. You investigate, you fight a few monsters, you meet a big bad guy and you leave (or run like mad when a horde of kobolds arrive…). The second part of the adventure is a lot more open ended and requires you to think about more than simply killing and attacking everything you see. You’ve got to explore Pardon City, known to the Kobolds as Par-Lar-Dur, and you need to find a way to make amends for the actions you took in Act One.
That said, the way I’ve designed this adventure you can take it in multiple directions. While I wrote it with a specific goal in mind… DMs are going to do what works best at their table and I hope I’ve given them enough fodder to be able to run the game that makes sense to them.
EGG: This adventure runs from 1st to 8th level and involves kobolds as a focus? Why kobolds? How do you keep them from becoming fodder in the upper levels?
JOSH: We include more antagonists than simply kobolds. They have allies who offer their own challenges. Plus, in Pardon City’s part of the adventure you aren’t just fighting these kobolds, you are trying to make them your friends and appease them. That offers a drastically different style of challenge then simply fighting them to the last.
EGG: In your Kickstarter pitch, this is the line that really piqued my interest, “At its heart, Dealing With Your Demons is a story about cultural misunderstanding and colonialism, but told through a classic dungeon crawling lens.” Can you unpack that sentence because it implies so much more than a standard dungeon crawl?
JOSH: Yeah, this is a good question. The adventure was written using elements of the RORPG method, that’s the Reach-Out Roleplaying Games method which I’ve written about [here] and am developing more as a way to perform inter-cultural dialogue using roleplaying games. Misunderstanding and misattribution of intent is an element of colonialism. The Romans viewed everything in the world through their lens, the Interpetatio Romana. Christian Rome, Medieval Europe, and eventually the European colonial powers had a similar attitude. Everything in the world was viewed through their cultural lens. In this adventure, you are going to assume that the creature you meet in the starting temple is a demon, because it looks like one to our cultural eyes and ears. The rest of the adventure is about taking a solid look at that assumption and asking yourself… was my assumption right? If it wasn’t… what does that mean and how do I apologize for what I’ve done?
EGG: That’s a good basis for a roleplaying adventure!
Who is working on this project? For those that don’t know you or High Level Games, what projects have you worked on?
JOSH: I wrote this adventure on my own, with some editing and suggestions from the folks who I originally sold the rights to. I’ll cover that in more depth later on. High Level Games is likely best known for Justin Weaver’s Snowhaven, which was our snowpunk 5e setting that we ran on Kickstarter last year and recently fulfilled. We also do a lot of community content and blog writing about games. We’ve been involved in the publication of around 100 different products for various community content sites, including Storytellers Vault, Storypath Nexus, and the DM’s Guild. We do a lot to support new creators and writers who don’t know how to get their products complete and out to market. I’m the Chief Operations Officer and marketing head over at HLG.
I’m also a freelance writer. I’ve done work for Northumbrian Tin Soldier, Onyx Path Publishing, White Wolf, Happy Gnome Publishing, and Hit Point Press. I co-won a Silver ENnie this year for my work with Hit Point Press on their Big Bad Booklets 1-6. I wrote two of the six big bads who won the award.
EGG: Here at d20 Radio, I wrote about the rise of single-artist RPGs. This project features art by Dan Oropallo. What makes Dan the right artist for this? In your experience, what’s the upside to working with a single artist?
JOSH: Dan’s art is dynamic. It has a ton of energy and it is really exciting to me. I’ve known Dan for over a decade now and I’ve always loved his work. When I had the chance to contract him for this project I leaped at the chance. The largest upside to working with a single artist is you can have a consolidated look that you carry throughout the entire piece. From the cover at to the individual pieces, the art has a style that might change a little, but it has a cohesion you just don’t get from working with a group of artists or from using stock art.
EGG: Let’s talk about the $2 backer tier, “In Darkness Delve Backer”. This project has a history, can you discuss how it came about?
JOSH: Yeah, this is a good question. So, this adventure was originally written to go out as a part of In Darkness Delve, which was never fulfilled by that publisher. I had a clause in my contract that allowed me to regain ownership of my adventure if it was not published within three years. So, I actually wrote this adventure back when I started freelancing in 2017. Now I own it again and I can release it to the world. After reviewing it recently I realized I’d infused a lot of the ideas I have for RORPG into the adventure and it really fits as a product that should be put out there for that purpose of intercultural dialogue.
EGG: And you’re using this campaign to fulfill all of that prior project?
JOSH: I’m not fulfilling the entire project for In Darkness Delve because I don’t have the rights to the rest of the adventures that were supposed to go out with that project. However, I do own the rights to my own, and I want to give folks a chance to get at least one of the projects that they were promised from that campaign. I own this adventure now and wanted to not have it sit in the dustbin and be forgotten. It is a good adventure and it deserves to be seen, run, and enjoyed.
EGG: I’m glad you’re able to get some part of that project out into the world.
Beyond this project, what new games are you working on?
JOSH: I’m finishing up a project for Onyx Path as we speak and recently handed in my drafts for another Scarred Lands project for them. I’m helping a new creator get his products ready for the ST Vault, and then I’m taking a break for a few months at the very least from actively writing anything. I’ll still be producing Werewolf: The Podcast and another forthcoming Actual Play series inspired by Birthright, the old AD&D setting, using the 5th edition rules. But, in the end, I need a bit of headspace to get back the writing bug back.
EGG: Josh, rest is essential. On that note, thanks for talking with me. Where can fans learn more about you and your project?
JOSH: Folks can find out more about me and High Level Games at [High Level Games’ website] or [the Keep on the Heathlands website] or [the Reach-out Role Playing Games (RORPG) webpage]. You can also follow us on Twitter or Facebook by looking up High Level Games.
Dealing With Your Demons: An Adventure in Two Parts from High Level Games
“An awesome OGL adventure in two parts. Dealing With Your Demons allows an adventuring party to make a grave mistake…”
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