Spellsword RPG Development Update #8 — June 16th, 2026

Hello Reader, here are the latest Spellsword updates!

Snapshot / TL;DR

Rune Packages overhauled—Spellshapes now default knowledge for all characters, packages filled with new runes.
Starting spells complete for Paladin and Priest; Ranger underway—full set held for simultaneous release.
Foundry VTT selected for Spellsword's virtual tabletop integration.
Companion App UI redesigned and revision underway.
Marketing pivot: the application process is removed, and TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram content is in production.
Quickstart Challenge characters are approaching halfway with Alpha Tester support.

Major Work Completed

Rune Package Overhaul

Spellshape runes have been removed from all Rune Packages. Every character now receives knowledge of all Spell Shape runes by default. The freed slots were filled with new runes, and we built new spells for Martial Artist, Paladin, and Priest to use them.

This is a buff. Rune Package slots now contain options that differentiate a build rather than covering core knowledge every caster needs. We also corrected a number of incorrect MP calculations in existing spells during this pass.

Starting Spells: In Progress, Not Yet Live

Paladin and Priest starting spells are drafted and complete. Ranger is underway. The Spell Record Sheet has been updated and is now form-fillable.

Let me stress that none of these spells have been uploaded yet. We're holding the full set for simultaneous release after a complete review, so every pre-made character will have a working spell loadout ready to play.

Companion App, Foundry VTT, and UI Revision

After researching Foundry VTT and RPtools Maptool, we're going with Foundry as the foundation for Spellsword's virtual tabletop integration. The goal is a purpose-built Spellsword VTT experience, not a fully built-out replacement for the Companion. Eventually, our Companion App will serve the same purpose as Foundry, but our immediate needs demand a faster solution in the interim as we work.

The Companion App UI has been heavily redesigned from the initial placeholder UI, and we are hoping to crush the scaling bugs we currently struggle with. We look forward to everyone getting their hands on it, but some teaser images are attached below.

The initial landing page after login:

The Spellbook page:

The Dice Roller:

Marketing: Pivot and Production

We're removing the application process for new members and testers. We adopted it to qualify interest and generate desire at the suggestion of a marketing expert, but this precocious approach added unnecessary friction that didn't fit our slim budget or our market.

Content production is already underway on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, with most of the effort currently focused on TikTok and Instagram. We've also built out the structure for a series of Explore Spellsword pages that let visitors go deeper into what makes Spellsword different. Keep an eye out for that.

Quickstart Challenge

Alpha Testers are helping build the 14 Quickstart Challenge pre-made characters, and we're around halfway done. The rough plan for the scenario itself is complete, and we will begin work on the map if everything goes well.

Tool Development

We also completed a spell writing tool—built alongside the existing monster creation assistant—to handle spell text and calculations at the volume this work requires. It is greatly accelerating progress.

Systems Under Active Refinement

What We're Iterating On

Starting spells are the primary content priority. Paladin and Priest are complete. Ranger is next, followed by the remaining classes. The target is a complete set (every starting character with a full, playable spell loadout) before release.

The Companion App UI revision is running in parallel and has made significant progress, as seen above.

Problems We're Solving

Producing spell text at scale is a quality-control problem. Each spell has to be clear, correctly formatted, and accurate to the mechanics, but without becoming a wall of text. The spell-checking tool is helpful, but every draft still goes through review.

What's Still Uncertain

We haven't locked the scope or build order for the Foundry VTT integration yet. What we build out first is still being mapped out.

Design Insight

As we were building the Quickstart Challenge characters, I realized we had created an interesting problem for ourselves—a lore issue, not a design one.

One of Spellsword’s core goals is to let homebrew worlds and local clubs participate in global, canon world events without being locked into a rigid setting. That means the world structure has to flex. Your city, kingdom, club setting, or homebrew world needs room to stand on its own while still being able to connect to the larger Spellsword universe when the table wants it to.

That is why we changed the world’s foundational mechanics.

The default state of the Spellsword world is a network of Wild Zones. A previous cataclysm—think a Babel event—shattered the world and the magic running through it. Now the terrain shifts periodically and without warning. A desert becomes a swamp. Mountains become an ocean. Distances change. What was close is now far.

This makes geography unstable by design.

That instability gives players and clubs a useful in-universe tool. Your group can create its own setting and, so long as everyone agrees, connect it to the main world for canon play, world events, crossovers, or club adventures. Portals can open between Metro Zones if they are “close enough,” and that closeness can be decided by the table or club. Worlds can drift apart or reconnect as gameplay demands.

Your setting stays independent, but the door to the larger Spellsword community stays open.

This structure also opens up creative space inside the core game. For example, the Martial Artist class has three wildly different subclasses: one inspired by elemental benders, one by high-energy battle anime fighters, and one by Xianxia sword cultivators. In-universe, those traditions can all exist because their cities were once connected, even if they are now separated by Wild Zones.

But this change also breaks a lot of the old lore.

The old version of Spellsword had empires, invasions, ancient grudges, and fixed political histories. That no longer makes sense when the mechanics of the world are taken seriously.

Navigation through most Wild Zones is close to impossible. You are not traveling toward a fixed point. You are chasing something that moves, with no reliable way to know where it is or where it was last. Imagine trying to find a raft adrift at sea, except the only information you have is that someone saw it 200 miles “that way.”

You cannot pack supplies for an unknown-length journey. You cannot march an army toward a city that might not be there when you arrive. You cannot maintain a reliable trade route, much less a military logistics chain.

That makes the concept of a Great Elven Empire, as was envisioned in earlier lore, absurd.

Empires need supply lines, transit routes, messengers, and the ability to project force. None of those work across the open Wild Zone. A city cannot reasonably fear invasion from a culture with no reliable, navigable path to its walls.

So the old lore has to go.

What replaces it will be simpler, better grounded, and easier to use in homebrew, which is the whole point. Cultures will be defined by broad types instead of specific histories. During character creation, a character will receive a station in life, a fairly flexible background for inspiration, and starting resources that can fit almost any setting.

A group running a homebrew world should not have to retrofit Spellsword’s specific lore just to make a character make sense.

The three Metro Zones that anchor the default setting show what civilization actually looks like in this world.

The Ironhold Mountain Home runs on Dwarf and Stoneborn clan governance. The NorthHaven Kingdoms answer to a High King. Blackpool Arcane City is ruled by the Blackpool ArchMagus Council, with Blackpool Arcane University serving as its instrument.

Three power structures. Three cultures. Three different ways of surviving in a shattered world.

They can trade. Lesser factions can skirmish. But full war between the major powers would risk destabilizing the Metro Zone connections, and a collapsed connection could unleash the Crucible Wilderness. I will explain that later.

That changes the math behind every major conflict. You could call it something like a nuclear deterrent.

This is what makes sense when the mechanics are taken seriously.

The revision is still in its early stages. The first pass will focus on broad culture types and the required starting money. The goal is to have that live before the next update.

—Christian

What Members Should Test

Download the updated Spell Record Sheet and use it—it's now form-fillable (for that matter, so is the Character Record Sheet, but I forgot to mention it)
Share feedback in our Discord.