It starts in a crater. As it turns out, everything starts in a crater; an end that inevitably becomes a beginning.
Now imagine the crater but bigger, bigger than you’ve ever thought one could be. A ring of craggy peaks surrounding deep forests, grassy plains, an inland sea. An entire continent stretching out, with cities of crystalline towers, towns, and hamlets dotting the landscape. Zoom in further, and you’ll find creatures,characters living their lives. And in one particular graveyard, a curious band of warriors, mages, and rogues, banded together through a mysterious organization known only as The Web.
If you listen closely, you may hear voices you recognize: a hint of Final Fantasy XVI’s Clive, a whisper of Geralt of Rivia, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3’s Noah narrating, slipping in and out of characters as easily as the dusk breeze sweeps between the mausoleums.
As good of a hook for a game with an all-star cast that may be, it’s not. This is the world and characters of Natural Six, a new actual play Dungeons & Dragons series based in the U.K. featuring an array of voice actors and personalities from the gaming world. That description might sound familiar, given the success of Critical Role and other TTRPG series and content houses breaching into mainstream entertainment. But game master Harry McEntire (Xenoblade Chronicles 3, The Last Kingdom, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, among other properties) isn’t worried about other shows and series that might sound similar on the surface.
“The amazing thing about homebrew D&D is that it’s always a reflection of the sensibilities of the people who are playing it,” McEntire told Dot Esports, noting how other shows like the Not Another D&D Podcast, Worlds Beyond Number, Dimension 20, and the aforementioned Critical Role maintain distinct voices and cast chemistry despite liberally sharing party members and game masters.
“Rather than going, ‘Oh my god, how can we reinvent the wheel,’ I think our focus is on telling a story that’s a reflection of all of our interests and personalities… and gives us as storytellers an opportunity to tell stories we care about. The more invested we are in those, hopefully the more powerful they are for an audience.”
Image via Natural Six
McEntire is joined by several famous voices and faces in Natural Six in this endeavor for earnest storytelling: Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI), Hollie Bennett (Destructoid, PlayStation Access), Alex Jordan (Cyberpunk 2077), Aoife Wilson (Eurogamer, D&D in a Castle), and Geralt of Rivia himself, Doug Cockle.
“I suppose we have taken a little bit more of a business tack early on,” Cockle mused, but ultimately agreed with McEntire’s assessment that the stories Natural Six wants to tell are special because they’re special to the players themselves. “At the core of it, it’s still just six people playing Dungeons & Dragons.”
That matter-of-fact confidence in the story and storytellers plays out in Reliquiae, McEntire’s homebrewed world where Natural Six takes place. The idea for an entire world in a crater came about thanks to a Neil deGrasse Tyson video about the Hellas impact basin on Mars, a crater large enough to house a small continent. In the world of Natural Six, this crater comes about after a conflict between good, evil, and chaotic gods. Long story short, The Virtuous gods eventually win and mark their victory by giving life to Reliquiae.
The idea for Reliquiae is still a relatively new one for McEntire, who was turning it over for about a year and, at one point, even thought it might be a setting for a campaign of mountaineers.
That idea eventually gave way to an older one for McEntire: The Web.
“The Web has been in my head for like six years,” McEntire said. In Natural Six, The Web functions as both plot and character device. It’s an organization desperate people with nowhere else to turn call upon for help, but that help comes at a price, normally in service to The Web. “I just thought it was a really cool framing device to bring characters together to create stakes straight away. And also to give people an obstacle.”
Natural Six’s characters are some of the newest agents of The Web, meaning their characters are banded together despite being strangers, and all come with their own hidden reasons for operating within The Web’s embrace.
The world and its functions were particularly exciting to Cockle, who noted he’d never played in a homebrewed D&D world or game before despite being an enthusiast and playing different modules and campaigns since the early editions of the game.
“I grew up playing D&D in the ‘70s, early ‘80s, when it was modules. That’s pretty much all I experienced, like The Keep on the Borderlands,” Cockle said. “I’m just really excited to be part of this whole world. I mean, how many adventures can we have? There’s unending possibilities.”
That excitement is palpable from both Cockle and McEntire as they talk about the game, their castmates, and the world of Reliquiae. Cockle notes his character—a Dragonborn Druid named Kel—was created in close consultation with McEntire, which was an experience he’s never had with a DM. It built a feeling of investment in the stories and characters that naturally flowed into the game.
Similarly, the different levels of TTRPG experience are an exciting opportunity at the Natural Six table and not just a hindrance to overcome. The cast ranges from experts to complete novices, and McEntire wouldn’t have it any other way.
McEntire specifically mentioned listening to Jake Hurwitz of Not Another D&D Podcast learn the ropes in real-time as formative for his TTRPG journey: “I think there something wonderful about the fact that they left in, and you’ll see in our show, the point at which someone says ‘which die do I roll?’ If you sit down and try to explain how D&D works, you can see people’s eyes glaze over… I have immense, immense affection for Jake Hurwitz as a player because, more than anyone, he taught me how to play D&D because I heard him make mistakes. I heard him not know which die to roll, so I learned how to roll.”
The real-time education and learning curve helps keep Natural Six approachable for those who might not know all the ins and outs of D&D. Of course, the cast also has more incentive for listeners to immerse themselves in their Kickstarter, with top billing given to the Deck of Many Friends, a mechanic created by McEntire and Starr in which top tier donors can see their characters enter the Natural Six story through McEntire at crucial moments.
Appropriate given his company, McEntire likened the sense of ownership and agency the Deck of Many Friends offers viewers to his playthrough of The Witcher 3 and how connected he felt to his version of Geralt of Rivia. “My connection to that character is so intense because he’s a reflection of me—brilliant in all the ways I made him brilliant and flawed in all the ways I made him flawed,” McEntire said.
That same ethos runs through The Deck of Many Friends characters, which donors will meet with McEntire to create and fully realize in the world of Reliquiae. These characters will be fallen heroes and villains shuffled into a deck of cards. When party members of Natural Six are in need, they have the option to replace a dice roll by drawing from the deck. The card drawn will result in that character’s spirit being raised to either help or harm the party. It’s a chance for fans to not only watch the story unfold but to influence the outcome in a way that stays true to the vision of Natural Six.
Regardless of your level of D&D experience or fandom, McEntire, Cockle, and the rest of the Natural Six cast think there’s something in the show for you. The numbers also support that, as their Kickstarter campaign has already been fully funded on the back of a couple of short sessions.
At the time of writing, Natural Six is still trying to hit a few stretch goals to bring miniature set pieces and extra episodes to the production, but the show is already poised to launch in full in 2024. Beyond that, the series is only limited to the adventures the cast wants to go on and the new stories they want to tell.
