There's a fair chance that you have heard of the web show Critical Role in recent years. It's a series where professional voice-actors and longtime friends get together and play out a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The campaigns are set in an original world created by the GM Matt Mercer and have become so influential in the TTRPG community that Wizards of the Coast have worked with the creative team to create official material. These include official supplements, a line of miniatures based on characters and creatures from the campaign, and even the official pre-written adventure Call of the Netherdeep. Now, we're getting our first brief look the modern magic TTRPG known as Syndicult from the mind of Mercer.
The sneap peek of Syndicult comes from an official blog post at Darrington Press. For those not aware, Darrington Press is the official tabletop publishing company of Critical Role. It is where you can purchase tabletop projects produced by the team such as the Tal'Dorei Reborn campaign setting or the board game Uk'otoa. The post starts by celebrating the 7th anniversary of the start of the Critical Role web show as well as showcasing a themed board game called Guardians of Matrimonia. In short, it's a co-op game where two to four players take on the roles of an elite fantasy wedding planner team coordinating with an adventuring party to ensure no dastardly evil forces interrupt a special pair's special day.
Not much is known about this Syndicul,t only that it is, "from the mind of Matthew Mercer, where underground syndicates vie for magical powers in a world of artifacts, mysteries, and crime." We'll have to wait to learn more, as the post just teased a comic panel from the book itself, meant to tease what the book will entail. The panel itself is innocuous, showing what appears to be an elaborately decorated briefcase. But the speech bubbles do highlight Syndicult's urban fantasy nature. Not only does it show spoken word balloons, but symbols to each one. While this can be used to determine who is speaking, the symbols themselves include a pair of sneakers with a dragon pattern on them, a smart phone, a pair of closed fists, and the face of a statue. What's in the briefcase? How will smart phones and social media play into a world of magic and the supernatural?
