Smelting RPGs Down to Simple Bliss with Outcast Silver Raiders
This feature is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #177. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.
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This series of articles is made possible through the generous sponsorship of Exalted Funeral. While Exalted Funeral puts us in touch with our subjects, they have no input or approval in the final story.
Tabletop role-playing games have long been a conduit for imagination, storytelling and communal creativity, particularly in our current old school renaissance era. Standing among the many titles that have emerged in this tradition, Outcast Silver Raiders offers a particularly innovative, evocative and immersive experience to potential players. A deluxe slipcase is coming soon from Exalted Funeral, but the Kickstarter edition has attracted plenty of attention from the TTRPG and Old School Renaissance communities, not to mention accolades.
The designer behind Outcast Silver Raiders, Isaac VanDuyn, began his journey by developing a profound appreciation for graphic design and user experience testing. When it comes to TTRPGs, his passion for the practice dates all the way back to his time in high school, when he started experimenting with building his own games. Outcast Silver Raiders will be his first published TTRPG, a culmination of countless years of tinkering and refining his craft.
VanDuyn’s design philosophy is centered on clarity and purpose. He strives to create games that provide a specific experience, with mechanics that support and ideally enhance the narrative. “I’ve played dozens of RPGs, from really rules-light story games to crunchy games with complex mechanics,” they note. “I appreciate it when rules are focused on providing a specific experience and are efficient and effective at doing so. I get frustrated with RPGs when it’s not clear what player characters are supposed to actually be doing in the game or when the mechanics do not support the narrative goals.”
This focus is evident in Outcast Silver Raiders, which melds classic RPG elements with a gritty, dark and terrifying atmosphere. The system encourages player brainstorming and exploration, hallmarks of the genre, while incorporating modern design sensibilities. “Mechanically, I wanted to create an old school game that captures the magic of exploration and encourages player ingenuity which is what I think old school rules do particularly well. I also wanted there to be an undercurrent of horror to add tension and excitement. The rules and settings aim to draw out these specific facets,” VanDuyn remarks. “Intellectually or philosophically, I prefer people to draw their own conclusions from the setting. I feel like I explore lots of different questions, but feel that explaining it would take away from the creative act of interpretation.”
As key influences for the game, VanDuyn cites Lamentations of the Flame Princess, The Black Hack and Swordfish Islands. “But I loved the idea of hacking up your own system,” he adds. “This was something I never would have thought to do when I was younger, when I felt like the books were holy tablets. Seeing that other creators were doing it really inspired me.”
The game world in Outcast Silver Raiders blends elements of medieval history with a rich tapestry of folklore and fantasy. VanDuyn’s love for medieval history, especially the atmospheric landscapes of Scotland, permeates the setting. The game holds the medieval catholic church as a central element, reflecting its profound influence on life in Europe during the Middle Ages. This helps to anchor the fantastical elements of the game in a recognizable historical context, enhancing the overall experience.
“I wanted to veer away from the glossy, approachable, cheerful aesthetic of modern Dungeons & Dragons,” VanDuyn explains. “Instead, I wanted to make something that would fulfill every fear that my devout orthodox Christian parents had when I first borrowed the Rules Cyclopedia from my local library, when I was 12 years old. I don’t even know where they got these ideas, because we didn’t have television in my house at all growing up, but my parents were so worried about D&D being some kind of occult tool of the devil.”
“RPGs aren’t occult tools for anything,” he notes. “These games are actually just great tools for building social skills, critical thinking and creativity. So, perhaps out of a sense of satire or perhaps just because I really like horror movies, metal and the occult, I wanted to create something that would have been absolutely forbidden in my house.” VanDuyn however says his parents are proud backers of the project.
When it comes to the setting, medieval history was an inspiration, but not an unbreakable framework. “There are very few points of specific connection,” VanDuyn points out. “I was quickly stymied by the real-world geography of Scotland not matching up to where I wanted dungeons and other locations to be, so I threw that out early on.” He otherwise “kept the medieval catholic church,” explaining how “every aspect of life in medieval Europe was informed and shaped by the church.” VanDuyn says that “keeping the church tied into my goal of making a game that felt occult and, just like medieval society, it ended up shaping many aspects of the setting. The remaining connection to Scotland is the feeling, the folklore, the landscape.”
The striking visual style is a defining feature of Outcast Silver Raiders. VanDuyn envisioned a dark, extreme metal aesthetic for the game, utilizing a limited color palette of red, black and white. This vision came to life through a collaboration with illustrator Kim Diaz Holm whose heavy metal style perfectly matched the overall thematic direction. Diaz Holm’s artwork is integral to the identity of the game, contributing to the gloomy, foreboding atmosphere which VanDuyn sought to create. The visual consistency across all of the game’s materials from the Player’s Guide to the Referee’s Compendium contributes to the creation of a truly creative and immersive experience. The cartographer and calligrapher Lex Rocket, another key contributor, also brought the maps to life through detailed and evocative illustrations.
According to the designer, Diaz Holm’s artwork “speaks very much for itself. He had many pieces finished before I was done with the writing and it was a continuous and positive feedback loop. He’s listed as a co-author because of that feedback loop and the vast influence that we both had on each other.” In much the same way, Rocket’s artwork “tells its own little stories about the places he’s illustrating and it made my job so much easier. I didn’t have to describe every little pot or tool in a room or a dungeon because he illustrated it and the referee can see it right there.” VanDuyn adds that Rocket “also does a lot of cool things with the feel of the maps.” The area known as the Lair of the Spider Kings for example is “gross and organic.” The map for the “big megadungeon” is described as “alien and strange with shapes that aren’t used elsewhere.” Similar to Diaz Holm, Rocket was listed as a co-author “because his illustrations are such a huge part of the setting.”
The development of Outcast Silver Raiders was a labor of love spanning several years. VanDuyn’s initial vision for the game evolved significantly over time, expanding from a modest collection of pamphlets to a comprehensive opus that runs well over 500 pages in total. The project saw numerous iterations and refinements with VanDuyn drawing heavily on their experiences running linked campaigns and playtesting various rulesets.
The Kickstarter campaign for Outcast Silver Raiders was meticulously planned from the very beginning to avoid the delays which often plague such crowdfunding projects. The successful campaign not only funded the initial print run but also attracted the attention of publishers, leading to a partnership with Exalted Funeral for wider distribution. “I was adamant that we complete most of the work before launching the Kickstarter,” the designer says. “I’m glad that I stuck to this, as I think that if we had launched the Kickstarter when I planned to at first in fall of 2020, we would have probably delivered two-to-four years late. Instead, we got something like 95 percent of it done before launching the Kickstarter and we were able to deliver everything to backers actually ahead of schedule. I got a booth at GenCon last year, sold out of everything I brought into the Exhibitor Hall and was approached by three publishers about getting the game back into print after the initial Kickstarter print run. I decided to go with Exalted Funeral because I like many of the products they put out and I felt like their aesthetic is a good match for mine.”
Creating the game world of Outcast Silver Raiders was an intricate process, blending historical inspiration with original content. VanDuyn started with thematic names and concepts, gradually fleshing them out into a cohesive and richly detailed setting. The setting in question, a place known as The Mythic North, is both rich and foreboding, a reflection of its primary inspiration, Scotland, which VanDuyn evocatively describes as being filled with “sweeping moors, blasted heaths, craggy cliffs, reflecting lochs and dramatic skies with medieval ruins providing the punctuation.”
The Mythic North is on the other hand a fairly accessible place, representing a “truly no preparation campaign setting that you can run right out of the gate with fully described factions, encounters and locations.” VanDuyn goes on to explain how the campaign is moreover also “replayable even for the referee because the dice determine how everything ties together each time you run it. The encounters are focused on quests and tasks, not combat. The quests tie back around to the factions, encounters and locations. The locations are focused on exploration and player agency.”
This interplay between mechanics, aesthetics and setting is a standout feature of Outcast Silver Raiders, distinguishing the game from any other creations. The design encourages emergent storytelling with characters and factions dynamically interacting based on dice rolls and player actions. The approach ensures that each playthrough is unique, offering endless replayability and depth. Outcast Silver Raiders also emphasizes survival and exploration, but shies away from overemphasizing the use of magic. The dark themes are woven into every aspect of the game from the occult rituals and blood magic to the atmospheric illustrations and maps, although a lighter touch is a key aspect of the design. “There are twenty fully described occult rituals,” VanDuyn explains. “There’s blood magic. The warrior class is actually really fun to play without resorting to a bunch of wild special abilities that might as well just be magic.”
The response to Outcast Silver Raiders has already been overwhelmingly positive. Players and backers have praised the game for its originality, depth and playability. VanDuyn recounts a particularly memorable encounter at GenCon: “I sold a copy to a group of people much younger than myself and told them they could play it right out of the box, no problem. The next day, the group came back, said they had played it for six hours during the previous night, adding that it was amazing and really just as playable as I had promised, four of them then bought copies of the Player’s Guide right then. That experience stood out the most to me and it makes me feel so good.”
When it’s all said and done, Outcast Silver Raiders is a testament to the power of creativity, passion and meticulous design. VanDuyn’s journey from a high school tinkerer to a published game designer is moreover an inspiring tale of dedication and innovation. The game’s blend of old school mechanics, dark thematic elements and stunning artwork all come together to create a unique experience that stands out in the sometimes crowded landscape of TTRPGs. Anyone looking for a game that challenges the mind, stirs the imagination and delivers a richly atmospheric experience should look no further than Outcast Silver Raiders. The game invites players into a world of medieval horror and exploration where every decision matters and every encounter is an opportunity for storytelling and adventure.
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Find Outcast Silver Raiders on Exalted Funeral here.
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Justin Reeve is an archaeologist specializing in architecture, urbanism and spatial theory, but he can frequently be found writing about videogames, too. You can follow him on Twitter @JustinAndyReeve.
