Dungeoneers Galore and More in the Land of Eem

This feature is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #182. 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.

A skeletal bard trying to discover the secrets of his past. An academy for explorers, with courses on mazes, dungeons and sorcery. Both of these and so much more can be found in Land of Eem, the enchanted setting of the Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo graphic novel series and the Dungeoneer Adventures middle-grade book series by writer-artist team James Parks and Ben Costa.

The duo had always planned to adapt the world of their graphic novels and books into their upcoming tabletop roleplaying game, straightforwardly called Land of Eem. “We grew up playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition and were inspired from a young age to create characters and worlds,” Parks and Costa shared. “[Creating a TTRPG] was both a natural progression as fantasy authors and a labor of love at the same time. Little did we know, however, that Land of Eem would become as big as it is.”

That’s definitely true, as Land of Eem is set to launch with a core rulebook, a bestiary and a sandbox campaign setting, along with additional accessories like a colorful GM screen and a wooden meeple set. There’s enough to even build two box sets, a standard one and a deluxe edition. Thousands of words and several gorgeous illustrations invite you to sit down and peruse all the possible paths for characters and exploration in the Land of Eem.

This can also include players essentially building their own supporting cast, finding them among their party or creating them as NPCs. During Session Zero, the game encourages a group to establish connections between their characters before the campaign starts, with a GM helping them flesh things out. For backstory, the game offers guidelines on making Rivals and Allies from their characters’ past.

“We’re always looking for helpful tools for developing personal quests and conflicts for players. Allies and Rivals are straightforward but significant factors because both the players and the GMs can use them to pursue a character’s Personal Quests or create new storytelling threads that add to the dynamic of a game,” Parks and Costa shared. “Since Land of Eem is a creative-focused game, relationships like these can go in interesting directions, and they can cross-pollinate with the whole party to develop exciting challenges.”

Despite Land of Eem’s influences, Bard is the only class with a name that’s familiar at a first glance. The other classes in the core rulebook include the likes of the Loyal Chum and the Dungeoneer, who can get his own non-player character crew.

“The Dungeoneer actually started as a class based on one of the characters in Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo, by the name of Taskmaster Lloyd Ghoulihan. Originally, it was called the Taskmaster class, and was more focused on being kind of a dungeon boss. The NPC crew first came from that iteration,” Parks and Costa shared. “However, around the time we wrote our series Dungeoneer Adventures, we decided to broaden the class and make it more of an Indiana Jones-type dungeon crawler.”

There’s even a Knight-Errant class that comes ready with different choices for a loyal steed, though the standard horse remains viable for those with visions of experiencing the game like Link and his horse Epona. Parks and Costa say that in the Mucklands realm of the Land of Eem – which the core rulebook centers on – there is a faction of bogrils, or frog folk, who ride giant tortoises. The duo said that these giant reptiles were “a no-brainer for the tanky mount option,” and that the zozo bird was chosen for a light and agile option to round things out when it came to steed selection. Bogrils, zozo, even jackalrabbits – each one is included among several new creations Costa and Parks have made and named for their game.

“We came up with many unique creatures and critters. Some were already featured in our book series, and helping them come to life with more background was a fun exercise,” they said. “Of course, we’ve also included our favorite creatures from folklore, but we always try to give it a new spin or reimagine it entirely to make it fit nicely into the Land of Eem.”

Similar to most of the class names, the character options for ancestry in the game go by a different moniker. That type of character choice is called Folk.

“Initially, we used the term ‘species,’ but it always felt a little sterile and clinical. It lacked the cultural element that provides distinction between peoples of different backgrounds,” the team explained. “After working with our cultural consultant on the book, James Mendez Hodes, we stumbled upon ‘folk’, which refers to cultures and character ancestry in the Rickety Stitch series. There was a funny moment where we realized we had decided on ‘folk’ years before.”

Parks and Costa are still developing new options for character creation. Outside of the debut launch, they have made new class and Folk options like Tycoon and Unicorn available over Patreon for people to playtest. The duo has found it particularly fun to convert some of the creatures that originally appeared only in the bestiary into playable Folk types.

“We think it will be really interesting for people to play sarpathi, for instance, the snake folk who are the major enemy in the Mucklands Sandbox book. It wasn’t always the plan to make sarpathi playable Folk. But we were careful to make sure that they aren’t inherently evil,” they shared. “What the players will encounter in the sandbox are sarpathi who are aligned with an evil cult, which has taken over most of their culture. The playable sarpathi are specifically not cultists. Similarly, we didn’t set out from the beginning to convert so many creatures into playable Folk. But we know from experience as RPG players that it’s always so interesting and enticing to have expanded character options, especially new and unexpected species.”

Along with more character options set for the future of Land of Eem, Parks and Costa have already been previewing the next sandbox on Patreon. It’ll focus on the Underlands, a realm mentioned throughout the Mucklands sandbox and featured in the Dungeoneer Adventures book series. The creative duo has also been working on Land of Eem: Dungeoneer Adventures, a beginner-friendly version of their TTRPG for kids. It’ll be compatible with other Land of Eem resources, like the sandboxes for the Mucklands and Underlands.

“We have received so much attention from parents looking to introduce tabletop roleplaying games to their kids with Land of Eem,” Parks and Costa said. “It was a natural next step to simplify a rule set and specifically design a game for younger kids and their families.”

Such a vast and fantastical territory like the Land of Eem draws inspiration from several places. Parks and Costa said they looked to games like Dungeon World, the Doctor Who RPG, The Black Hack and the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG, especially when it comes to its partial success and creative-focused dice mechanic. They were also influenced by comics like Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo, Jeff Smith’s Bone and many others. The two also sought inspiration from their favorite movies and books.

“Stories with unlikely heroes like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were big influences, as well as movies like Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal,” the duo explained. “You can see where our unofficial tagline ‘The Muppets meets The Lord of the Rings’ comes in.”

With that large roster of influences comes an array of different emotional tones, and the Land of Eem TTRPG runs the gamut from whimsical to gloomy. To help facilitate this mixing of tones in the game, Parks and Costa have made different guidelines called Adventure Tones. They’re listed under quest types in the Mucklands Sandbox Campaign Setting, each with a different example from pop culture to further clarify the concept for players. The quest type labeled “Hijinks” offers lighthearted fun (think again of The Muppets), whereas “Derring-Do” ramps up the danger a bit, crafting a more heroic and adventurous quest (as in The Princess Bride). For higher stakes in a grim conflict, players can journey through “Doom & Gloom” (think Mad Max).

“It makes for a fun, flexible experience that can amp up the epicness of an encounter and create rewarding moments for players and GMs,” Costa and Parks shared. “The mix of tones is something we’ve always loved. You see it when the hobbits face off against the Nazgûl in The Fellowship of the Ring. The idea that anyone, including a muppety frog guy or blob of goo, can be a hero and muster the courage to challenge the most fiendish and perilous enemies is a theme that we love.”

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Preorder Land of Eem at Exalted Funeral now!

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Alyssa Wejebe is a writer and editor specializing in the wide world of arts and entertainment. Her work has included proofreading manga, editing light novels, and writing pop culture journalism. You can find her on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Twitter under @alyssawejebe.