DOOMSPIRAL

30k Stretch Goal Hit + Interviews and Actual Play
6 months ago – Wed, Sep 24, 2025 at 09:36:15 AM

Harken my word oh Forsaken!

Thanks to all of your support we’ve managed to hit our next stretch goal which means Zach will be writing an extra NPC to wander the lands of Wheftenhaal along with a quest of “greate ymport” for him to send you on. 

Next up is another writing goal from Zach. Doomspiral comes with a thick and weighty campaign, one of the longest SoulMuppet has ever made, perhaps on par with Inevitable’s massive world. While Weftanhaal is everything we think you’ll need, we wanted to offer some advice on writing your own Doomspiral campaign, in case (somehow) ours isn’t big or expansive enough, or doesn't cover certain areas, themes or content you want to explore in your Doomspiral campaign. 

I’ve been writing my own Doomspiral project, Curse-Rotten Corvast, set in an enormous castle above the marshes of the Mirrormire and ruled by the three Curselords. We originally wanted to add it as part of the campaign, but it's been cut (for now) and is now planned as a (very high tier) stretch goal for the future. That said, I learnt a lot while writing Corvast, and am planning to put together a dedicated section on monster, ability and dungeon design, teaching you how to remix the principles of Doomspiral into your own content, however big or small. 

Doomspiral will continue SoulMuppet’s time honoured and well beloved community license, allowing 3rd party creators to make their own Doomspiral campaigns (or monsters, dungeons, abilities, equipment or character backgrounds) without SoulMuppet taking a penny. Paint The Town Red has community content written for it before the full game even came out, and we want to continue that tradition here! 

We’ll be announcing further stretch goals soon (probably once we hit the 40k one), so stay following to know what’s coming next! 

Interviews

We've been doing press! So much press:

Zach spoke with Dan from the Fandomentals at GenCon earlier in the year about the creation, inspiration and dodge-rolling of Doomspiral. 

“The first real step for us was thinking about the joys of playing Souls games. The really tight and interconnected world, the sense of mystery that unravels and reveals itself not through dialogue, but more through bits of environmental storytelling on items and the way that monsters exist, mechanically interesting tactical puzzle combat.”

https://www.thefandomentals.com/zachary-cox-doomspiral-interview/

The Weekly Scroll will be interviewing Zach and Nick Thursday 24th September LIVE on twitch, with a Vod available later on YouTube. Be sure to jump in chat if you have any questions or want first watch.

Also check out articles from Timothy Linward of Wargamer and Andrew Girdwood of GeekNative.

Actual Play

Want to see how Doomspiral could run at your table? Doomspiral's co-creator Zach will be running a game of Doomspiral on EUphoriaAP on Monday 29th September at 7pm BST. Join Aida, Fondue, Emily Greymoore and Jess Jewell as Zach takes them on an adventure through the depths of Saltcrag, the adventure from our lovely quickstart.

Do you want to run Doomspiral on your channel? Or write a review? Get in touch with [email protected]!

Thanks again folks, 

Zach, Mol and the rest of the Doomspiral team

Quickstart Updates, Next Stretch Goal and a Region Rundown
6 months ago – Mon, Sep 22, 2025 at 06:18:40 AM

Greetings Forsaken,

We creep ever closer to the next stretch goal. Zach has recklessly promised to dress Aegnmere in root vegetable themed armour if we hit the goal today. What a noble and foolhardy oath they have sworn! Let’s hope we land it today. 

On Friday, we had an amazing Launch Party on Friday at the Arcanist’s Tavern in London. Thanks to our hosts, all our guests, and the team from the Moonshine Adventure Company for helping us put on a great event. Be sure to follow us, and Moonshine Adventure Co, over on socials to see some more great photos of the event (Including Zach dressed as The Archivist of the Threaded Archive, one of the Saints in Weftenhaal). 

Quickstart Updates

Following some feedback on the quickstart adventure, we’ve made a few adjustments and added some new content.

The update: 

• Clarifies the initiative system, making it clear you roll each round. 
• Clarifies the room numbers and doors on the ground floor, to make it clear which rooms go where. 
• For a small quality of life change, we added a new NPC, Vycrum the Nomad, an imprisoned warrior from the Unconquered Lands. We felt Saltcrag was a bit fight/exploration heavy and didn’t have enough roleplaying. 

We’ve got further updates planned… We've had some feedback that the starter dungeon is too easy. We were aiming for an Undead Asylum-ish level of difficulty, but it's clear you want something harder! We're working on a new version that makes it more challenging, upping the ferocity of the monsters, and hitting a few of the more powerful player abilities that remove monster’s Move dice and deal lots of damage.

Expect this update in the next week or so!

Region Rundown: The Floodplains

Nick here! In the heart of Weftenthaal is the Divine City of Tar Valarn, where the gods once dwelt - but now they are missing, where might they be? One answer lies west in the City of Tar Anau, the centre of the domain of Gwyddain. There is little doubt the Rain-Tamer is anywhere but atop his steeple-tower at the heart of the city, for there the thunderheads gather and the rain falls unending… enough to sink the entire region even as the lightning rings the great bell atop Gwyddain’s tower.

This is how you find the Floodplains, knee deep in the deluge, blurring the gap between the western sea and the central mountains. Perhaps you’ll seek the higher ground where diseased miners scour the poisoned earth for sky-fallen stone? Or perhaps you’ll follow the waters, because they’re flowing into the mountains, and they have to be going somewhere. Wherever you go, keep your weapons close; danger lurks among the driftwood, and in the bellies of beached leviathans…

We don’t want to spoil too many of the surprises that await you, so let’s talk instead about what goes into one of the Regions of Doomspiral. After an introduction to the vibes of a region, you get the Wandering Table detailing various groups or events that could befall the Forsaken, of both agreeable and disagreeable varieties. As examples, in the Floodplains you might meet Pelle and his boat-bound salvage-shop, roving soldiers from the flooded city looking for trouble, or you might see a star drop from the very heavens before you…

After that, the Region itself is keyed. Each of the campaign’s regions is split into several sub-regions, which themselves each contain a number of locations for the Forsaken to find and explore. Let’s quickly run down the Drowned Coast sub-region, the very western-most edge of Weftenthaal. Its three locations are a lighthouse which still burns with a blood-red flame, the craggy cliffs holding back the sea and the view of something strange beneath the waves, and finally a beached leviathan from fathomless deeps - like we said, beware the squirming beneath its skin…

This doesn’t even get to the Flooded city in the Region’s centre and Storm Tower in its depths, itself a substantial dungeon to explore full of threat and danger. Hopefully it has whet your appetites for the dangers and mysteries you might find in the lands of Weftenthaal - all we can promise is that this is only the surface of the Floodplains, itself one of the half-dozen regions of Weftenthaal, let alone the greater dungeons therein.

Zach again! I’ll be writing an update later this week on the two new types of abilities available to the Forsaken. Let us know if you want to hear more about about the Forbidden Names of Flame or the Decoctions! 

Please continue to share Doomspiral on all of the socials, tell your friends and speedrunning communities, and if you have any photos of the launch party email them to [email protected]. 

Thanks 

Zach, Nick, Mol and the rest of the Doomspiral Team

100% Funded and 1st Stretch Goal Hit. Miniboss Preview: The Ash Seeking-Rook
7 months ago – Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 07:06:42 AM

Greetings Forsaken,

Celebrations are in order, we’ve successfully funded on day one! 

But this world is far from over, we’ve got a full month to go so keep learning those boss patterns, supporting each other and sharing this game with your friends. We’ve also completely sold out of Dwyn’s banners, so a massive thank you to those who have backed at this level from both us and from Dwyn. You’ll get an email at the end of the campaign asking which God you’d like illustrated, please keep eyes out for that!

What’s next?!

We’ve got some exciting stretch goals on the horizon. Both Nick and Zach want to write some additional horrible characters to meet along your journey plus Zach wants to share their knowledge on writing your own Doomspiral material! 

Nick's character, Motley the Crow, is already funded! Motley was an early addition to the manuscript who we cut about a year ago to squeeze in more NPCs, but now he's BACK baybee. Nick's Elden Ring: Nightreign character is actually Motley, so he's one of our favourites and I'm happy we could add him again. 

Next up is Zach writing Aengmere of Basseyngad. What is there to be known about Basseyngad though? There's two Character Background's in the book: the Waterfall Guard and the Tundra Wanderer, as well as this quote from the Traversing the World heading, in the voice of Aegnmere himself: 

“Oh ho! You know it too? 

In this land of gods and fate and damnation, 

It is easy to forget the simple pleasures

Of an unexpected copse of trees

Or a pleasingly shaped rock!”

Aengmere of Basseyngad

I'll spill more beans on this cheerful fellow in the next update. 

Teasers: The Ash-Seeking Rook

Zach/Jelly here, I thought I’d share some bits of writing we’ve done recently. The Ash-Seeking Rook is a mini-boss from one of the areas of the campaign, the Seared Lands. The Seared Lands and their ruined city of Gilcaras are a blasted, grey ruin, endless dunes of ash, and flame-sculpted rock. The Rook, however, is one of the servants of Gentle Ahm, the God of Death, sent to collect the bones of the dead and bring them to rest. What might this mighty creature be doing so far from Ahm’s great underground Necropolis? (another area you visit during the game… more on this later!) 

Ahm must have sent the Ash-Seeking Rook to the Seared Lands for a reason, and it is driving the Rook mad. You can perhaps appease it by fulfilling its mysterious quest, by solving the mystery of who or what has been killed, or meet it in violence to venture further into the Seared Lands. Something truly powerful must have died to justify this mission. The real manuscript will tell you who, but we’re going to keep it a secret!

The Rook is a classic example of a good Monster from this game, built around a particularly flavourful gimmick. If you roll Rook’s 3 Move Dice and the total is less than 10, you can’t attack it. This forces players to either focus on ranged attacks, or wait for the bird to roll its higher, damage dealing Moves (like Claw or the nasty unblockable Beak attack). It also penalising using lots of weapons, armour and shields, on one move (the grab and drop) and rewards it elsewhere (the Wing Buffet), which penalises lightly armoured ranged attackers. 

It also drops a fantastic piece of treasure: The Rook Spiritstone. Characters can equip Embellishments like this one to gain unique benefits to customise their build. The various Spiritstones are all themed after potent creatures, and this one is a Rook, one of the birds that serve the Death God. As a result, the Rook, hoping to carry ashes home to the Necropolis, gets extra Stamina Dice when an ally dies. This is obviously incredibly situational, only really having an effect with tough battles and not in ones where characters are likely to go down, but useful on any character hungry for Stamina Dice. 

Dwyn also did a piece of art for the Rook, and we have a sketch to share with you. I thought I’d share the prompt too: Ash-Seeking Rook - Magnificent, feral, shadow-casting. A fuckoff huge gravebird, the size and temperament of a dragon. A servant of Gentle Ahm, tasked to collect a corpse, but driven mad by its failure. The landscape is volcanic: ragged, raw, blades of stone erupting from the ash which builds pyramids of grey around their bases. 

We can talk this much about one monster, and Doomspiral literally has scores upon scores of creatures with this much care and detail lathered over them. 

If you enjoyed this and want to hear more, share the post, let us know in the comments and continue to support the project. I might start a thread soon about my plans for my stretch goal, and we could do dozens of this kind of update, covering regions, dungeons and monsters galore! 

Thanks,

Zach, Mol and the rest of the Doomspiral Team