For the next episode of the Privateer Primecast, I chatted with Jason Soles, lead developer of both WARMACHINE and the Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy Roleplaying Game, about our latest RPG release, Kings, Nations, and Gods. Part of our conversation, which you’ll be able to hear later this month, focused on what this book has to offer to dedicated WARMACHINE players. I didn’t want to distract too much from Jason with my own thoughts on the subject, but it’s a topic of interest to me.

One of the things that first brought me to WARMACHINE as a player back in 2006 was the strength of the setting itself. The Iron Kingdoms is a deeply compelling setting, and I’m a sucker for world building. As I started playing my first games, it was easy for me to envision the world in which my battles took place. I could readily imagine Sorscha leading her (my) battlegroup across the table, her icy sorcery drawing upon the cold winds of the Motherland to scour the weak southerners. At least until my buddy Terry figured out how to “pop ‘n’ drop” with Kreoss…but I digress.

Getting to work on Kings, Nations, and Gods was a huge privilege and an exciting opportunity for me. Because much of my contribution came by writing city entries, I knew I’d help define how our audience imagines those places. It was a huge pleasure to explore these locations in fine detail and hopefully bring them to life for the readers. That said, I think my favorite part of the book actually comes from the efforts of Mike Vaillancourt, our art director, who worked very hard to fill the book with gorgeous illustrations.

Dozens of cities that have never before been illustrated now grace the pages of Kings, Nations, and Gods, breathing life into the world of the Iron Kingdoms in a way never accomplished before. With all this art and the painstaking research and revision we undertook on the text entries, the nations of the Corvis Treaties have been detailed and explored to an amazing extent. With the book in hand, my appreciation of WARMACHINE has increased tenfold. It’s even easier now for me to imagine how my tabletop battles fit into the Iron Kingdoms!