Andy Lever is the owner, artist and game designer at Lost Haven Art.
Andy has had work displayed in Japan, worked as an RPG freelancer and even taught art. His latest project is Abbadon The Thirteen Seal.
Geek Native and Lost Haven Art will be going to Tabletop Scotland at the end of the month, and I took this chance to talk to Andy about Abbadon.
Abbadon The Thirteen Seals is a tabletop RPG which uses cards rather than dice at the core of its system. Abbadon will be demoed at the convention in Perth. Andy’s kindly provided some art from the RPG to accompany this interview.
Can you please give us an introduction to yourself and will you be introducing a new name, a new company, in RPG publishers for Abbadon (which we’ll talk about very soon)?
My name is Andy I’m the Owner, Artist and Game Designer at Lost Haven Art. This will be my first time at Tabletop Scotland as a Vendor and I’ll be demoing my upcoming game Abbadon. Which is a card based TTRPG.
Okay, and what about Abaddon: The Thirteen Seals? That sounds faintly occulty as an RPG title. What’s the game about?
The game is a dark fantasy game that takes a lot of inspirations from games like Diablo and Darkest Dungeon. As a result, it’s a game of exploring dungeons, fighting demons, and trying to prevent the destruction of the world by the Demon Lord Abbadon.
We’re seeing cards and Tarot cards as RPG mechanics more often these days. Why do you think that is? What’s the attraction of cards over dice?
For playing cards they offer some similar variation to dice but with some added risks in that the cards available in the deck dwindle which can amp up the tension a bit more than the complete randomness of Dice. As for Tarot cards the symbolism behind them ads a whole new dimension to a game’s resolution mechanics, which I think is why they’re a lot more popular for Solo games.
Abaddon is on trend! Another area Geek Native has observed growing in interest is in horror and grimdark. Is Abaddon a scary game? A deadly game? Are characters doomed?
Abbadon is definitely a deadly game from the play testing so far, especially early into your characters journey. GM’s are definitely encouraged to challenge their players to maintain the challenge and threatening atmosphere. As for horror, it has elements of horror, I think when you’re using demons and undead as primary enemy types, you’re always going to have horror elements and I try and maintain that atmosphere during our test campaign. I’ve been playing Grimdark and horror games a long time and enjoy them, so it made sense for those themes to bleed into my game design choices.
Do you have working titles for Abaddon’s four main character archetypes? Which card suits do they match with?
I do. The four archetypes are the Elementalist, spell casters that use the 4 traditional elements to their advantage. They’re represented by Diamonds. The Faithful, your zealous religious warrior types who worship the gods of Light. They’re represented by Hearts. The Hexxing who are spell casters that use necromancy, blood magic, curses and can manipulate fate. They’re represented by Spades. Finally, the Stalkers ranged combatants that wield bows and crossbows, lay traps, move through shadows and some even posses a more bestial side. They’re represented by Clubs.
Impressively, you’re doing both the art and the design for the RPG! How tough has that been?
It’s been a lot. Luckily, I work freelance and juggling paid work for work on my own project has been more manageable than if I was still teaching or working a 9 to 5. It’s still a huge workload though and as I’ve got closer to completing my first draft I’ve started bringing in other artists and writers to do little bits and pieces here and there to take some of the weight of me, but a huge amount of the game was a solo effort.
If you’re also going to Tabletop Scotland, you can look for a game of Abbadon on Friday, but most have been booked. On the weekend, Andy will don his artist hat in the vendor section of the convention.
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