For those that don’t know, Narrative Declaration is a comedy actual play troupe that deals deals primarily in Pathfinder 2e. Fronted by Zoran the Bear, a VTuber who formerly worked as Paizo’s social media manager, and Thursdon Hillman, the creative director of Starfinder 2e, they’ve produced several actual play series in recent years, most notably Rotgrind.
A couple of years ago, they expanded, and started a couple of other shows: Rotgoons, which is set in the same world as Rotgrind (a homebrew setting called Tyne), which recently went on hiatus, and Abomination Vaults, which attempted to do the Beginner’s Box -> Abomination Vaults arc.
Abomination Vaults only lasted 16 or 17 episodes, but it was my personal entry point into the NarDec world. I came across it while preparing to run the Beginner’s Box for my family back in 2023, and got hooked on the series juuuuuust as it was coming to an end. As disappointing as that was, at least there was the finale to look forward to, right?
Well, part 1 of that finale finally dropped this week, and I’m super excited about it. It only took, like, a year and a half, but it’s up, and the series will finally be publicly available in full. And since Friday is the day where I, apparently, just publicly shill for things I find interesting, like a the good consumer that I am, I thought I’d share it here.
The episode starts with an explanation from Zoran as to why the series ended – financial pressures around the cost to produce the series, and it’s lagging performance, as well as Zoran feeling like he wasn’t GMing well enough – and a question: Now that Narrative Declaration is on more financially stable footing, would people want to see the series rebooted, or the original cast come back.
Check it out, and see if you’d like to see them try again. Also, check out their more recent Kingmaker campaign to see how the show quality has evolved over time, and to get an idea of what a new AP-based campaign might look like. They’ve paywalled Kingmaker behind Patreon, but the first episode is currently available for free on YouTube, and they’re supposed to be releasing episodes 2 - 5 there over the month of December.
Or check out their Warhammer 40k Wrath and Glory mini-campaign, where they’re playing the Grim Harvest scenario from Litanies of the Lost, which is what they’re currently doing between Rotgrind seasons.