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After seven years of exploring the eldritch horror and weighty political intrigue of Drakkenheim, TTRPG liveplayers and YouTubers The Dungeon Dudes are going cozy for their next campaign. Speaking to the Dudes at PAX Unplugged, I got to hear about the Seasons of Silence, which begins in a "Shire-like" village secluded from the dangerous, mystical world around it. And not only did Monty Martin and Kelly McLaughlin give me that description, the latter actually told me how he previously prepared - namely, by running a cozy campaign of his own.

Unfortunately, though, that one's never going to air for the channel's 518K subscribers. 

"I did run a little adventure for my home table," McLaughlin told me, "That was just about characters acquiring a deed to an abandoned old bar in Waterdeep. The goal of the campaign was that they went on adventures to find, like, the greatest apples to make apple cider. Or ingredients to make the best meat pies."

In case you're not familiar with the Forgotten Realms, Waterdeep is a city in the sprawling, official canon of Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons & Dragons franchise. It is the site of one of the game's popular recent campaign books, appropriately titled Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. But anyway, let's get back to this cozy adventure...

"Their goal was that by the end of the campaign," continued McLaughlin, "There would be an annual contest between all the taverns in Waterdeep, and they had to try to beat the Yawning Portal."

(You guessed it, the Yawning Portal is a tavern also canon to the Forgotten Realms.)

McLaughlin admits that the game wasn't exactly Stardew Valley cozy, saying he was "Doing classic D&D stuff; the characters had to fight the undead and dragons and whatnot, but the core thesis of that was a very cozy adventure. [...] It was just a really fun little whimsical journey and there's a lot of space for that, I think. And people can even tell those stories already using D&D and other systems."

If that sounds like exactly the kind of game that you'd ant to see on the Dungeon Dudes channel - I know it does to me - then I'm even more sorry to report that not only did it sound like a lot of fun, but it had a pretty kickass name, too.

"I called it Waterdeep Tavern Tycoon," McLaughlin said.

What's next for Dungeons and Dragons actual play? The Dungeon Dudes told us their thoughts.