The World of Drashar: A vision in the making since 2003

Aug 22

I have loved playing in other people’s worlds for as long as I have rolled dice. My TTRPG journey started around 1991, and since then, many worlds have inspired me. Greyhawk taught me how a living setting breathes. Dark Sun showed me how a premise can reshape everything at the table. Earthdawn showed how legendary heroes are made, and Shadowrun proved that magic and tech can sit side by side while still feeling coherent. Elric and Stormbringer pulled me toward tragic heroes and costly choices. Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage sharpened my taste for moral dilemmas and power with a price. While I played and loved those games, I kept churning ideas for a world of my own.

“Where the f*#k are the dragons?”

As a kid, I was fascinated by all things fantasy, especially dragons. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, we had many amazing fantasy movies; with Beastmaster (1982), Conan the Barbarian(1982), and Willow(1988) being some of my favorites. While these movies have forever captivated my imagination, a limited number of them showcased dragons. However, two notable exceptions forever changed my perceptions of dragons; the terrifying Vermithrax from Dragonslayer (1981), who made me see dragons as a force of nature, and the adorable Falkor from The Neverending Story (1984), who demonstrated that dragons can take on many forms, including that of a fuzzy and lovable creature.

And thus, as I began to pick up Dungeons and Dragons at around 1991, I devoured everything I could find about the worlds and creatures created by TSR, especially about those enigmatic draconic beasts. What I found is that, despite being very intelligent, powerful, ancient, and feared, they were often simply relegated to a statblock, random encounter, arbitrary boss monster, or NPC. On top of that, in many settings, their presence just seemed to be lacking and not a prominent element of the world*. In a game where dragons are literally in the name: Dungeons and Dragons, this seemed strange to me.

As such intelligent and commanding beings, why weren’t they the true powers that would shape the history, politics, and culture of worlds at every level? I thought that if dragons truly existed in the world, they would have a significant influence. They would be the movers and shakers who cast long shadows across ages.

*Special Note: I am very pleased to see that the D&D team recently started moving back towards dragons being a central feature with the release of the “Dragon Delves” (2025) book. I just started playing in a campaign based on it. I am enjoying it so far and looking forward to seeing more!

A world is born

That thinking led to two main questions. What if dragons ruled the world? What if dragons and gods were one and the same? Those questions generated the spark that pushed me to write The Saga of Creation, the origin myth that speaks of the creation of the world and its foremost inhabitants: the Noble Dragons and the people of Drashar – The Drahari. This story, told by the Church Draconis to all its followers, became the backbone text for our flagship setting Drashar: Age of Steel and Spells.

Seeded by the desire to make dragons a prominent part of the world and watered by the games and settings I loved, Drashar was born. Dark Sun’s sorcerer kings influenced my take on the Noble Dragons. Earthdawn’s Adepts inspired what would become the Supernals. Many other works fed the mix, from Elric, the ultimate anti-hero, to the moral choices of The Witcher(books and games), to the intrigue of Game of Thrones. The goal was to develop a world where power, belief, and consequence are always in conversation, built on top of a backdrop of those most iconic of all fantasy creatures: Dragons.

The engine under the hood

As Drashar took shape, I kept building and rebuilding the rules that would power it. Over the last twenty years, I tried a long list of approaches that distilled into the 2dX Engine. Every iteration evolved how I thought about character creation, core mechanics, magic, combat, and player agency. I kept asking questions:

What choices feel meaningful?
How can things be simplified at the table?
What keeps the story moving?
What feels believable?
How can we integrate the feelings of destiny and doom?

I used those answers and thousands of hours of analysis to refine what would eventually become the 2dX Engine.

A long road

For 22 years, the dream of Drashar and the 2dX Engine never stopped humming in the back of my mind. Since its inception in 2003, I have always kept coming back to it. Time after time, I subjected my regular groups to numerous playtests, hacks, and new approaches. I can’t thank my players enough for everything they have put up with over all these years!

While in the past, this was all a vague dream, a “someday” kind of ambition that was put to the side whenever and continuously bumped down on the priority list. However, over the last two years, I have had the rare chance to push for a real launch. With the support of my wife, family, and friends, I have the wonderful opportunity to bring my style of TTRPG play to like-minded folks. I can’t wait to share more with you in the coming months!

The Vision for Drashar is more than just Fantasy

While my heart will always belong to fantasy, my mind loves to explore and experience many other genres. Victorian era horror, grungy cyberpunk, modern espionage, mythical Bronze Age, the list goes on.

From this love or exploration comes a vision for a line of TTRPG games, each of a different genre that uses the 2dX Engine and the world of Drashar as its foundation. The genre we work on after fantasy would be determined by the Point 1 Games community. However, the kicker is that, regardless of the genre, each additional book would still be set in the world of Drashar, following this world across the ages. Fast-forwarding or rewinding the timeline would allow us to ask questions like:

What does Drashar look like in a wild west era?
What does magic look like in Drashar’s cyberpunk age?
What lives in a primordial Drashar long before the familiar ancestries rise to prominence?

Not only would these books allow for new and genre-specific approaches, but they would also allow players and GMs to mix and match mechanics and draw from a wealth of ancestries, backgrounds, spells, equipment, and monsters.

Like a character, the world of Drashar would evolve. Each setting book will tell part of that story. Earthdawn inspired this approach, as it was the precursor to Shadowrun. Similarly, the broad toolkits seen in games like GURPS and Rifts, where cyborg knights on bionic horses can ride alongside primeval shamans on pterodactyls, demonstrate a ruleset where anything is possible.

What comes next

There is so much to share about Drashar and the 2dX Engine, and as a proud parent, I could go on and on. Thank you for making it this far, and I can’t wait to share this world with you.

Our next post will delve into some of the design pillars guiding the 2dX Engine and explain why they are essential to Drashar’s themes. If this vision speaks to you, follow our newsletter, share it with a friend, and help me shape a world that rewards bold choices and tells stories worth remembering.