Osiyo, Indigipunks!
Today we’ve launched our community content tools on DriveThruRPG, called Coyote & Crow Fireside. It’s an important step for us and one I wanted to talk a little bit about beyond just the announcement. This is a tool that’s been a long time coming and one that I’ve sorely wanted to get to you all for quite a while. So indulge me for a minute and let me explain why Fireside is at the crux of what Coyote & Crow is about for me.
When I started really diving into the world building of Coyote & Crow back in 2018, it hit me pretty quickly that I could either create a very close up view of one place and get into hyper detail and specificity or I could paint a larger world with a broader brush. I chose the latter because I didn’t want this game to be about Cherokees but about Indigenous people across North America. I just couldn’t see how I could build out a single tribe or nation or city, without giving context to the larger world around it.
But even bringing on other writers to help flesh out those spaces didn’t really do all of that world building justice. And as proud as I am of the almost 500 pages in the core book, it barely scratched the surface of the possibilities.
Really early in testing, we began to get questions like, “What about the Inuit?” or “What about the Métis?” And the answer to both, and to that type of question in general is, “Firstly, we can’t tell the alternate history of every tribe in North America and even if we could, it’s not my place.” And as we built out this fantastical world, it became clear that what we needed to ensure was that there was space in this world to tell a huge amount of stories. Rather than making it a bug, I decided to make it a feature.
While I still envision there being expansion books for the Ti’Swaq Alliance, the Keetoowagi Federation and all of the other nations, along with books for Mesoamerica and South America, I don’t want folks to have to wait for those at the pace that modern RPG publishing dictates.
Which brings us to Fireside. Giving folks the tools to put together their own content, and being able to sell it in the DTRPG marketplace is a real gift. We’re going as fast as we can over here at C&CG, but laying out these tools will let everyone who wants to participate jump in with their own ideas and at their own pace. And maybe even make some money!
What I want to be really clear about is that these tools are for everyone. Not just Indigenous folks. Sure, you can create stuff that is specific to real world tribes if you claim that identity. But you don’t have to make content that is focused on those things. Come up with your own cool monsters or spirits, your own pieces of tech or just write a story.
Let me say that again. Non-natives, dive in and make stuff. It’s okay. Just don’t add real world tribes to your stuff and you’re fine. Let me know if you need me to say it again.
Now, go make stuff!
Wado,
Connor
