Dan De Fazio’s Deathbringer has lunched its crowdfunding campaign on Backerkit!
Deathbringer is a brutal new tabletop RPG from Professor DM and Roll For Combat, crowned EN World’s Most Anticipated TTRPG of 2026. Fully compatible with Shadowdark and built to drop into any OSR system, Deathbringer delivers fast, savage combat where death isn’t the end — it’s part of the journey.
I’ve been looking forward to Deathbringer for a long time now, and so I was absolutely thrilled when Dan invited me to join the party! I’ll be writing an adventure for Deathbringer!
In fact, Professor Dungeon Master has summoned a dark conclave of amazing adventure writers:
- Kelsey Dionne, creator of Shadowdark and winner of the 2024 ENNIE Awards, including Product of the Year, Best Game, Best Layout & Design, and Best Rules
- Justin Alexander, author of the USA TODAY Bestseller So You Want to Be a Game Master? and 2024 ENnie Gold Award Winner
- Luke Stratton, creator of Pirate Borg
- Brandon Gillam, founder of RPG publishing imprint RUNEHAMMER
- Daniel Fox, creator of ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG
- Ben Milton, from Questing Beast, creator of Knave and Maze Rats
- Baron DeRopp, Dungeon Masterpiece
- Luke Hart, The DM Lair
- Discourse Minis, Dungeons & Discourse
- David McFarland, DM Scotty
- William Tanner Schroeder, Paladin Prose
- Grace “World Destroyer” Mason (the title is earned)
- Bob World Builder
It’s an incredible honor to be invited to join these creators!
Combat is fast. Victories are earned. Death is real.
I feel like from what little I’ve heard about the gameplay, it sounds neat, but the art is just incredibly off-putting, like why is it it only sexy ladies in chainmail bikinis? Just seems to be edgy for edginess sake.
Well, look, I didn’t want to say anything about that, but what michael says it’s exactly what I’m thinking.
The illustrations make me feel—at best—that this is a joke game, the kind you play mindlessly, just rolling dice after declaring you’re attempting something impossible or stupid.
Even the art in HackMaster, DCC or Conan has a better “look” (and I’m not talking about technical drawing quality) than this.
I don’t know how to put this neutrally; I just can’t get on board with the vibe that art is putting out. Are we talking about an Evil Dead-style game or something? Is it a parody of the genre, or an unintentional parody of itself?
i guess its only the art, but, wow, what a failed work.
Same opinion as Michael. What I’m seeing here is just weird. If you want sexy grim art, Gerald Brom is a good example. But the art for this game makes me really unconfortable. The Professor might be a good guy, but this game is a pass for me.
I think scolding a writer for an unrelated artist’s design choices is both uncalled for and needlessly puritanical. I will never understand the need to vilify basic sexuality, especially in a space where the accompanying game is about horrific, blood-soaked violence.
I also think commenting on an advert about someone’s work just to say “this isn’t for me because I’ve quite literally judged a book by its cover and declared it a failed work a priori” is maddening.
Unrelated? Someone made the decision for those illustrations to represent that work, and the work must be evaluated as a whole.
In fact, this site is dedicated to reviews, and the artwork is assessed in every one of them; when Alexandrian considers it poor, he says so clearly.
The comments on the art on this blog’s reviews are on it’s quality, not condescending potshots at the work’s moral character.
I’m sure that arguing, especially over whether it is appropriate to insult and dismiss his work for the actions of a colleague, is not something that would be wanted in the Alexandrian’s comments. So since it is clear that neither of us have anything constructive to say on this topic I believe it would be best to call that here.
The criticism isn’t about morality; it’s about the use of absurd tropes. Did you see the illustration of the nun? Who is going to identify with such a grotesque caricature? In a world of death and violence—and so on—are you really going to walk around in a getup like that?
It’s like in *Diablo 3*, where they gave the female playable character high heels. High heels! It’s impossible to take warriors who dress like that seriously. I don’t care if you draw them naked—like on the covers of classic *RuneQuest*—but do it right; make it raw, authentic, and brutal. Not a perfume ad.
Alright, I suppose that it was too much to hope for to resolve this without issue. If that depiction of a woman wearing clothes less revealing than what you can see walking down any sidewalk in the suburbs is a “grotesque caricature,” then I shall simply take that as confirmation my original assessment was correct in its assertion of closemindedness bordering on misogyny.
Especially since credibility of fictional women’s martial capability in a 15 year old video game is your major concern here. Not the horrific abuse that company actually inflicted upon its actual woman employees.
I should also note, since it’s clear this is important to you, the nun bears a staff and is gesturing towards the viewer. The hulking man in the back is the warrior, who has cleaved the zombie in half. The nun is clearly some manner of spellcaster, and thus not in need of being taken seriously as a warrior. Not that I imagine that’s important to your considerations, since if it were actually about the impracticality of the outfit as you suggest, it would have been trivial to bring up the bare skin in such a snowy environ, and yet high heels on a video game sorceress is far more pressing a complaint, apparently.
In the interest of not aggravating the rest of the patrons of this blog, I promise that whether or not this sentiment is mutual this will be my last comment on this page.
Like no problem with sexy ladies, but it feels a bit regressive that it’s only the ladies that are drawn sexy, even if they look like the fighting types. Give me some chainmail bikini dudes too. Equal opportunity silliness!
I don’t know why there’s such an insistence on “resolving” this. We can have different, well-reasoned opinions about the illustrations.
And you haven’t even said that you like the artist’s style; it seems you just came here to say that anyone who doesn’t like it should keep quiet.
I was a bit let down by your interpretation of my *Diablo 3* example; I thought my point would be clear.
So, I’ll look for another example. I remember a hideous cover that Alexandrian reviewed here—the one for *Return of the Eight*.
Here is what he said about it:
“The art in Return of the Eight is atrocious. The cover is not only downright ugly it is flat-out stupid – depicting the short, blue midget we will learn is actually Tenser inside grabbing onto the skirt of a buxom woman fighter (at least she isn’t wearing a chainmail bikini) and a male fighter with his shield and sword raised against this tiny, pathetic, blue midget.”
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to criticize an outfit like that—or the ones worn by the nun or the thief in *Deathbringer*.
It was a bad idea on someone’s part, and that can be discussed or debated without insulting anyone or threatening to leave the community.
There’s no need to overanalyze what three or four other people here have already mentioned, each in their own way.
The nun isn’t just some random NPC in the background wearing a filler outfit; she represents a player character, and every detail tells a story about how you’d look living in that world. A blood-stained axe tells a story. A scar tells a story. A notched shield, pristine armor, or a martial stance—they all tell a story.
The nun’s outfit is ridiculous, and it tells a ridiculous story that no one in their right mind would want to be a part of.
The art sucks but there are far more problematic stuff. This guy is just another shitty YouTuber who built their channel off complaining about WotC yet this is still going to have death saves. What a joke. Worse is that this include Daniel Fox but also not a single person of color is included in the design but yet they have that stupid fungus cannibal that is, of course, a person of color. Fuck this guy
There’s a level of “sexualised women” that I’ve decided is tolerable for the purpose of enjoying art (otherwise there’s not a lot of art left to enjoy), but frankly, this is far beyond that. To decide to put images like these onto a Kickstarter page in 2026 to me read as practically a political statement, not just some oopsie by a ignoramus.
To me, the issue is less that sexualized art of women exists at all, and more that it’s bad sexualized art. Boob gear drawn with no concept of how bras or breasts work, a woman swinging a giant axe with noodle arms that don’t even bother with the kind of lithe muscularity common in drawings of “pretty” strong women, that sort of thing. It’s like the artist doesn’t consider women real living organisms.
I don’t really have an issue with the whether the art is sexualized or not, I just find it very bland.
It’s technically very well done but really does nothing for me. The poses and compostion is very underwhelming which I see a lot from artists these days for some reason.
I don’t care much about the art. But I bounce hard off of the juxtaposition of “Deathbringer delivers fast, savage combat where death isn’t the end — it’s part of the journey” and “Combat is fast. Victories are earned. Death is real.” What does this even mean? That you have to make new characters constantly? That you somehow continue playing a character after they die? Or–what?
This is not an “I’m intrigued” kind of “what?” It’s a “this is empty talk, isn’t it?” kind of “what?”
From what I read, the first time you die, you stay alive with a scar; the second time, you end up mutilated; and the third time is the final one.
What I don’t know is just how “easy” it is to die. It reminds me a bit of the Fate Points in the Warhammer RPG, though I’ve rarely seen them used even in that game.