Welcome home. This is Audio EXP, the weekly podcast from Geek Native. I am your host, Girdy, and today is the 12th of September, 2026. It has been two weeks since our last episode because we were live on the ground at the Royal Highland Centre for Tabletop Scotland. I originally planned to sit down and record last Saturday, but between breaking exclusives and a mountain of reporting from the show floor, prioritising breaking news over the mic felt like the right call. Today, we catch up on two packed weeks across the tabletop landscape, from convention milestones to high-stakes crowdfunding paperwork.
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #347]
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Before diving into the news, we have a major community update. Voting has closed, and Red Ruin Publishing is our celebrated honouree for the September RPG Publisher Spotlight! We are organising our deep dive with the studio now. In the meantime, voting is officially live for October on our monthly nomination page. The five independent candidates looking for your backing are:
Our top local story belongs to the event that kept us away from the studio. Tabletop Scotland officially broke its attendance record, drawing over 5,000 unique visitors to the Royal Highland Centre. The milestone cements its place as one of the country’s premier gaming expos and the UK’s largest organised D&D play convention. That role is rooted in a strong partnership: Tabletop Scotland and the UK Games Expo work closely together, with UKGE hosting a booth in Edinburgh and the Tabletop Scotland crew actively running the massive organised D&D sessions down in Birmingham.
That cross-convention collaboration makes a fresh development for 2027 particularly compelling. Gamehole Publishing is bringing its D&D organised play campaign, Wardens of the Eastern Marches, across the Atlantic to UK Games Expo 2027. As a publishing spin-off from the US convention Gamehole Con, the studio plans to deploy its low-magic frontier setting at the NEC. The system uses strict physical item certificates and fixed ability arrays, offering British attendees an old-school, certificate-tracked alternative to the standard Adventurers League framework.
While on the trade hall floor, we also caught up on labour advocacy. The IWGB Game Workers union made its convention debut at Tabletop Scotland, bringing physical gaming workers into active industry representation. Setting up an official stand in the exhibition hall, union organisers explained that while video game workers face corporate hierarchies, tabletop freelancers face unique vulnerabilities: isolated remote work, irregular payment schedules, and scope creep on indie projects. The union’s public presence marks an important step toward providing legal reviews and collective support for independent designers.
In an exclusive interview from the show floor, Handiwork Games revealed that Cold City and Hot War have arrived at retail, with an open gaming licence on the way for third parties. Founder Jon Hodgson confirmed that physical hardbacks of the revised espionage-horror titles are now available, while early partner creators are already drafting supplements under the new open licence. The underlying mechanics, designed by Malcolm Craig, focus on ideological hidden agendas and social tension rather than traditional combat resolution, creating a versatile framework for indie writers.
We also secured an exclusive on an unexpected indie hit. Venger’s Decks confirmed that their atmospheric GM supplement The Chaos has sold out three print runs, teasing a sci-fi follow-up under the working title The Grid. The rapid sell-out of the dark fantasy deck demonstrates the strong appetite for physical table aids, and the team is already engineering a neon-soaked, futuristic counterpart.
Moving into corporate business news, an administrative delay triggered widespread backer panic across social media. Routine Companies House paperwork sparked insolvency fears for Steamforged Games, highlighting the fragile trust in modern crowdfunding. An automated First Gazette strike-off notice was triggered after the studio missed a statutory filing deadline for overdue accounts following an internal restructuring. While Steamforged confirmed operations continue as normal and the issue simply requires filing the accounts, the public reaction proves how sensitive backers have become. With millions of pounds tied up in multi-year production queues for video game adaptations, even minor paperwork hiccups now trigger immediate panic.
In licensed adaptations, Monte Cook Games is taking on a critically acclaimed literary setting. Rebecca Roanhorse’s bestselling Black Sun fantasy series is receiving an official tabletop RPG adaptation using the Cypher System. The pre-Columbian-inspired world of the Between of Earth and Sky trilogy brings rich political intrigue, sun-worshipping priesthoods, and celestial magic to the narrative rules engine.
Independent design is also pushing physical mediums in unexpected directions. We took an early look at Death to the Technomancer, an indie RPG where players physically fold their character sheets to sacrifice their humanity. The tactical game uses physical paper origami as an irreversible decay mechanic: every time a characters swap chrome enhancements for monster upgrades, parts of their character sheet are permanently creased and obscured, visualising their technological corruption.
For comic book fans, mark the 3rd of October on your calendar. Rebellion has unveiled the signing lineup for Day of Dredd 2026 as the iconic lawman approaches his 50th anniversary. Comic shops across the globe will host celebrations, exclusive variant covers, and artist appearances as Mega-City One gears up for half a century of dystopian justice.
In retail oddities, luxury brand marketing recently reached the stratosphere. Le Creuset launched its official Star Trek cookware collection by sending a cast-iron Dutch oven into space on a high-altitude weather balloon. The promotional stunt sent the themed cookware 100,000 feet up to promote a limited line of high-end kitchenware.
Finally, classic tabletop satire is coming to modern rulesets. Munchkin is returning as a standalone tabletop roleplaying game with the Munchkin 5.5e RPG. The system translates Steve Jackson’s classic dungeon-card backstabbing and rules lawyering directly into a 5e-compatible format, complete with mechanics designed to encourage looting the bodies of your party members.
It’s rare that we don’t find time for a bundle deal, but we didn’t this week, and that is it for this catch-up. Thanks for listening to Audio EXP. For all the links, show reports, and full stories, head over to Geek Native. Until next week, stay geeky.
