MCDM Launches “Draw Steel: Crack the Sun” on Backerkit

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It’s only been a few months since the Draw Steel RPG was officially released to the public after achieving a record breaking crowdfunding campaign in early 2024. Now, publisher MCDM is already looking to the future with a brand new BackerKit campaign that represents the game’s first major expansion.

Entitled, Draw Steel: Crack the Sun, the new crowdfunder consists of seven individual products that are designed to provide over a year’s worth of content, with new rules, ancestries, character options, one-shot adventures and a multiverse-spanning campaign. Below, we take a closer look all the details.

What’s included in Draw Steel: Crack the Sun?

Unlike a typical TTRPG crowdfunding campaign which has one or two products, the new Draw Steel Backerkit consists of seven specific products.

Draw Steel: Encounters

Billed as the third core rulebook for Draw Steel (following the Heroes and Monsters sourcebook), Draw Steel Encounters is a 350-page hardcover focused on reducing prep and giving directors plug-and-play content. It includes 20 three-room “delves” for levels 1–10, detailed social “Negotiations” built around fully realized NPCs, cinematic “Montage Tests” for travel and challenges, a large suite of “Heroic Tests” that spell out different skill difficulties and outcomes, and “Dastards,” which are named variants of existing monsters that add variety without overcomplicating encounter balance.

The Beastheart

Originally conceived as a 5E class, The Beastheart is now being fully adapted for Draw Steel as a digital-only class book. It introduces a pet-focused hunter archetype with four subclasses (Guardian, Prowler, Punisher, and the elemental Spark) and fourteen different companions, ranging from bears, wolves, panthers, and dinosaurs to stranger allies like sporlings, hellhounds, drakes, basilisks and even a gelatinous “pet” ooze. Notably, companions use simplified stat blocks that scale with echelon, keeping the emphasis on tactical play without excessive bookkeeping.

Between Sun & Shadow

This 96-page ancestry book expands the roster of playable species with eight new ancestries drawn from MCDM campaign settings including Orden and Equinox. This includes familiar fantasy species, such as ratfolk, goblins, fairies, gnomes and shadow elves, as well as more unusual options, such as the dragonfly-like Skarjj, the Neanderthal-inspired Gol and the glass-skinned solar Heliox. Each ancestry includes detailed write ups on their culture, religion, politics, along with new complications, retainers, treasures and kits.

Dark Heart of the Wood

This 2nd-level quest (which features 5–6 victories) is a compact adventure that sees the heroes confronting a named thorn dragon nesting above a shrine to the Green. It’s a straightforward “dragon threatening the town” setup designed to show off Draw Steel’s elemental cosmology and shrine-based lore, while still being easy to slot into most fantasy campaigns that feature small settlements, nearby forests and the occasional monstrous menace.

The Red Road

Another 2nd-level quest, The Red Road opens with a destroyed town and a bloody trail leading toward an elf forest. The culprits are a rampaging horde of gnolls who are now on course for a much larger population, and the heroes must race to stop them. The local elves can help, but their leader has little patience for outsiders, creating a mix of hard choices, tense diplomacy and time-sensitive pursuit that can be fit into a single short standalone arc or dropped into an existing Draw Steel campaign.

The Condemned

Designed as a 3rd-level, 16-victory adventure, The Condemned asks players to create new characters specifically to portray death-row inmates in a high-security prison for the supernaturally dangerous. Offered a suicidal mission in exchange for freedom and a wiped identity, these anti-heroes are leashed by explosive collars and forced to go to work against a powerful faction in Orden.

Crack the Sun

The namesake of the campaign, Crack the Sun is a five-act mega-adventure that takes heroes from the start of 3rd level through the beginning of 8th. Set primarily in Vasloria and the wider Timescape, it follows an army of hobgoblins allied with Equinox’s shadow elves as they attempt to terraform Orden into a world hostile to humans. Each act is structured as a complete adventure with its own beginning, middle and end, while the overarching narrative pulls the party across multiple worlds, including Equinox and the Sun itself, sprinkling in elements of science fiction inspired by the Heavy Metal comic magazine.

What are the BackerKit options?

• Crack the Sun & Draw Steel: Encounters (Digital) – $65 USD: A digital-only bundle including the PDFs for Crack the Sun and Encounters.
• Crack the Sun (Print & Digital) – $70 USD: Includes the hardcover Crack the Sun campaign book and its PDF.
• Draw Steel: Encounters (Print & Digital) – $70 USD: Includes the hardcover Encounters rulebook and its PDF.
• Everything Digital – $135 USD: Contains all seven PDFs, including Encounters, Crack the Sun, Between Sun & Shadow, The Beastheart, and the three new adventures.
• Crack the Sun & Draw Steel: Encounters (Print & Digital) – $140 USD: Provides both hardcovers and both PDFs, plus a bonus Director’s Screen.
• Everything Print & Digital – $199 USD: Includes all new hardcovers, softcovers and PDFs.
• Limited Edition Box Set – $299 USD: A premium multi-portfolio print edition of Crack the Sun with maps, tokens, and handouts, plus the campaign PDF.
• Cthrion Edition – $599 USD: A deluxe campaign-exclusive set featuring acrylic standees, custom dice, a Director’s Screen, and all five act portfolios, plus the campaign PDF.
• Everything Under the Sundle Bundle – $999 USD: The complete all-in package: Cthrion Edition, Limited Edition Box Set, multiple hardcovers and softcovers, all PDFs, a Director’s Screen and a dice bag.

Why is Draw Steel: Crack the Sun worth backing?

• Draw Steel’s first major expansion: This represents a major step for the system and shows that MCDM will continue to be supporting the game in a big way both in 2026 and beyond.
• More character options: The new BackerKit campaign offers a ton of new material for players, including ancestries and a complete new class, all of which expand on what’s included in the initial Draw Steel Heroes core book.
• A showcase of Draw Steel adventures: From bite-sized quests and an experimental anti-hero adventure to a multiverse-spanning epic campaign, the BackerKit shows just what makes Draw Steel different from other fantasy TTRPGs.
• Impressive production value: In 2024, Draw Steel generated over $4.6 million USD in backer fundings, and it’s likely this new campaign will also be a major hit, which means incredible production values and a high level of support.

Final thoughts

For a game that’s only just made its debut, Draw Steel has already established itself as one of 2025’s best TTRPGs, and a serious contender to major titles like D&D and Daggerheart. With Crack the Sun, MCDM looks to be further expanding the game into 2026. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available.

In the meantime, you can learn more and back the campaign now on BackerKit. Below is also a YouTube video from the official MCDM channel featuring Matt Colville with more information on what to expect.