DURF Expanded

Adventure Zine update
29 days ago – Tue, Sep 15, 2026 at 01:58:49 AM

Hey!

Quick update about the state of things. Ava has started law school this past week and has some school-related admin things that take up all her time for now so not a lot of progress on the rest of the bestiary. Hopefully she'll be able to get back to it soon.

As far as what I've been able to get done, I've wrapped up a first version of the solo tools! It is 5 pages in total in the book and won't completely turn DURF into a full solo game, but it should provide enough bits to get some solo or GM-less sessions started. I've sent this version to some solo players to gather some feedback before I put it up on the Backerkit.

I've also spent a bunch of time going over the guest adventures written by my friends to help edit and refine them! They are turning out really fun and I'm excited to illustrate some of the weird NPCs in them. Tim's adventure has a corpse that is being used as a skin suit by a swarm of intelligent rats… Good stuff :)

That's all for now, talk soon!

-Emiel

New Preview PDF
about 2 months ago – Mon, Aug 24, 2026 at 12:17:56 AM

Preview time! I just sent out the new preview PDF of DURF Expanded, as promised in the last update :) You should have an email from BackerKit in your inbox containing a download link to the new PDF. If not, shoot me a message so I can make sure you get it!

This new preview contains most of what will be in the final book. It is only missing some art, 80% of the bestiary (will update the PDF once Ava wraps up the remaining monsters), the solo rules I'm still working on (see the last update), and some finishing touches like the preface and indexes. Even so, it is a whole lot bigger than the original preview, so I'm excited for you to get your hands on all the new content!

New Book Structure

I've also reworked how the book is structured. Originally I planned to have the book divided into Core Rules, Adventuring, Spells, Bestiary, and Appendices (in that order). But since the bestiary is pretty substantial, I decided to move it to the back of the book. This made "Appendices" kind of a misnomer, so I reworked the structure and moved the content around to make it make more sense. Now the book is divided into the following sections:

• Core Rules (now includes most of what was previously in the Adventuring section)
• Spells
• Optional Rules (all the appendices that introduce new player-relevant rules)
• GM Toolbox (all the appendices that cover tools and theory useful for GMs)
• Bestiary (now also includes the appendix that contained a bunch of themed encounter tables)

These will hopefully make it easier to find the content you are searching for :)

Feedback

If you find any typos, inconsistencies, or glaring wording issues and want to help me fix them, you can report them through the form linked on the first page of the PDF! Thanks :D

Enjoy!

-Emiel

Summer heat and solo tools
2 months ago – Thu, Aug 06, 2026 at 04:52:05 AM

Hey y'all! Quick update about where we are at. Things are slow.

Ava is still editing but has wrapped up around 70% of the text by now. The biggest obstacle for editing is the numerous magic items, spells, and monsters. Besides me taking the "Expanded" part of DURF Expanded a little too serious and writing a lot of them, the way these are formatted has also changed a lot throughout the various drafts I wrote over the past few years. So they require a lot of meticulous line-by-line editing and cross-referencing with the latest version of the rules to make sure these are all formatted the same way. This takes a lot of time.

The other reason things are slow is the heat and a lack of proper AC infrastructure here in the Netherlands. The summer heat is making me stick to my drawing paper and overheating my laptop while laying out the parts Ava has edited. So I bounce between different tasks a lot depending on the temperature.

Progress is slow, but I will publish an updated PDF version including all spells and appendices before the end of August. Preferably with everything edited, but there is a big chance I'll omit the bestiary at first since it is likely the last leg of Ava's editing journey. If that's the case, I'll just update the PDF to include it once she's done.

Solo tools

Anyway, the book will probably be a little bit delayed from the original timeline. So since we'll probably be missing the planned print window anyway and the weather prevented me from drawing or using my layout software, I've started writing a short appendix with some basic solo tools, something a lot of you hoped we'd unlock it as a stretch goal. It is pretty bare bones, but slots into the existing tables I already wrote for the other appendices. It is not a full system but will provide some guidance to the folks who want to use DURF Expanded for solo or GM-less play :) 

Cheers,

-Emiel

Progress Update!
3 months ago – Thu, Jul 02, 2026 at 01:58:10 AM

Hey! Quick update to keep y'all informed on our progress. The past month has been incredibly slow due to a mix of heat waves, some personal problems, and Ava needing to divert her attention away from editing DURF to take care of another job that took priority. So you will have to wait a little longer for the full PDF preview.

Luckily this doesn't mean things have stopped completely. I've spent a few days at the start of last month getting the adventures ready for rewrites and reformatting in the new DURF Expanded styling. And despite the slowdown, Ava has managed to sign off on some chunks of the book, and I got to work laying those out to see what art needs to be done for them. Below is a sneak peek at the overworld appendix, including some early sketches for its illustrations.

I'm really proud of the advice in this appendix (and the dungeon appendix) since I feel like it condenses down a lot of the wisdom I picked up from various blogs and books over the years. For those looking to dive deeper, these sources will all be noted in a "Further Reading" appendix later in the book.

These two overworld spreads are followed by six pages of tables and generators to help you come up with landmarks and settlements. 

As you can see, the project is chugging along, only a little slower than I had hoped. Just know that I'm just as excited to see the final book as you all are :)

Talk soon!

-Emiel

Bestiary done!
5 months ago – Tue, May 26, 2026 at 02:06:10 AM

Hey, friends! Time for another update!

Over the course of the last month I've wrapped up the remaining bestiary illustrations and took some time to rework some of the ones I did in the weeks before. So I'm happy to tell you that I wrapped up all the bestiary illustrations a little over a week ago!

Here is a better look at some of my favorites:

Most of the time I had in between drawings was spent doing small rewrites and discussing mechanical changes that came up in feedback during Ava's editing work. I'd say the editing is around 80% done now, and we're aiming to finish the remaining bits by the end of June. When that is done, I'll spend some time fitting it all into a proper PDF to share with you (probably some time in mid-to-late July)!

I expect that this next month I'll be switching between going over Ava's remaining edits as they come in, and wrangling the old DURF adventures into shape for the Adventure Zine!

Cheers,

-Emiel