Interview: Bob Brinkman's Cult of the Dictionnaire Infernal

Translating a demonic army from French into DCC

If you're reading this newsletter, you most likely know who Bob Brinkman is. Even if you don't, you're still likely familiar with his work. I won't attempt to list them all, but I'll attempt to be brief by saying he's a very prolific author who has done an immense amount of work for Goodman Games and other publishing outfits, a podcast/streamer who has even interviews the likes of Michael Moorcock, and is a former professional fire breather. He's led an eclectic and interesting life, to be sure. One of his recent passion projects is translating the Dictionnaire Infernal and DCC-ifying it. He's been doing this over on his Patreon and making it so everyone, even non-paying members of his Patreon, get new cool gaming material each month. Give the interview a read and find out what awesomeness is in store for you if you join the Cult of the Dictionnaire Infernal.

What inspired that project? And what keeps you around for what seems like a huge undertaking?

It was the illustrations that drew me in first. That is likely the case for a lot of people. Louis Le Breton's demon illustrations from the 1863 edition are simply iconic. Once I started looking through it, I was frustrated by the fact that it was only available in French, and I kept circling back to the idea of translating it to English and making its content playable. In fact, I circled around the project for well over a decade, so long that there is now an English translation out there, although I cannot speak to its accuracy, as I'm focused on my own.

It is a huge undertaking. Massive. To put it into perspective, I've translated about 20k words from the book, and have added over 110k words of DCC content. In fact, roughly 85% of what I've released has been new content for DCC. I'm loving it. Having a Patreon community keeps me working on it, and is actually how I managed to get off the bench and start working on it to begin with.

What's your favorite piece that your published so far? And what's the the piece that your most looking forward to?

I think my favorite piece so far would be the "Adeptes" class and all of the associated alchemical expansions that have gone with it. But there have been a number of entries that I've been particularly pleased with (including a second character class, 17 curses, and so much more). As to what I'm looking forward to? I have a standing offer of an additional piece of content for every 25 paying members we accumulate. For the first, I decided that I wanted to write up one of Hell's legions. It has been subject to a little bit of...scope creep as it now has three chapters. Chapter I details the workings of Hell's legions in general and includes the order of precedence for Hell's nobles. Chapter II details a single legion, outlining the various subgroups within it, and providing stats for the individual named commanders within it. Chapter III is all of the OTHER new demons found in that legion, somewhere around 50 new demons types. It has surpassed the 33k word count mark and I'm not quite done yet. Once complete though, all of the paying members will get a PDF of the book... and then I'll likely hire a layout person (I already have an artist lined up) and do a commercial release via crowdfunding.

You've a lot of experience in freelancing work. How does that differentiate with running a Patreon?

The biggest difference between freelancing and writing something on my own is who I'm writing it for. When I'm writing for an RPG publisher, that company is *my* audience. They know what they are looking for, and it is simply my task to give it to them. You really need to separate yourself from the work in cases like that. With the Patreon, I still have an audience in mind, but they are *my* audience, as opposed to someone else's. I get to stretch my brain and deliver the things that I'm most passionate about in the way I visualize them.

Tell us about your "zealot" membership level. Sound like folks get some amazing rewards.

The "Zealot" tier of my Patreon is the top level, and is limited to five members who pay $20 a month. They receive all of the lower level rewards, a monthly monster, the monthly releases, voting for an additional piece of content for the Dark Devotional (limited to the Zealot and Dark Priest levels), monthly cult Sabbats (via Zoom), but they also get to choose an extra piece of content to be written up in the monthly e-zine Infernal Apocrypha. Each month those five items, made up of secondary ideas I had while working on the regular releases, are written up and the zine is distributed to ALL members of the Patreon (including free members). The zealots literally sponsor the zine for everyone. They also receive their very own zine, The Cult Bulletin, which is a hard copy zine that is mailed out to them which alternates between providing a Patron write-up or information for a new god for PCs to worship. Past issues have covered Krampus, Baal, Abraxis, and even Baphomet - who actually made a surprise appearance during that month's cult Sabbat.

Thanks for taking the time to share! Anything else that you'd like folks to know about?

My pleasure. You know how it goes, ask a writer about their projects and you may never hear the end of it. As for other things for folks to know about... My next adventure for Explore Dungeons and their Heroic Adventures line will be going to crowdfunding in a couple of months. Caverns of Thracia will be arriving soon - and I'm really excited about that, more than I can express in text. Other than that, I'm living the dream as a lucky gamer. I'm writing things and other people are reading them.... what could be better?

Thanks for reading! What other awesome TTRPG Patreons should folks know about?

What Else Is Going On?

Dungeon Dwelling Creatures

Step into the shadows and embrace your monstrous side! In this DCC-compatible game, YOU are the nightmare lurking in the depths, the terror whispered about in frightened villages. Choose your monstrous form and carve your legend in the darkness!