How it all began
Toby Lancaster is the creative director. Having studied a degree and masters in fine art and spent many years teaching art, he stumbled in to drawing maps one day when he was randomly sketching out a crypt. Pleased with the way it looked he set up a Twitter account, posted it and was surprised by the many positive responses. And thus Dark Realm Maps was created. His maps and drawings have appeared in many books and products. After a while, and through his own experiences, he expanded out into writing supplements and self-published these through DrivethruRPG and DMsguild. Toby’s background is in gaming. So having run many role play systems over the years, sunk thousands of hours into strategy games and having been and always will be an avid board gamer he found this progression to game design a natural step forward.
Of course, now it was more than just Maps so Dark Realm Role play was created and soon to follow that was Dark Realm Games or DR Games as it is known. Toby wanted three distinct areas that could be easily recognised, giving a clear message of what could be expected from the three areas, i.e. Maps, Supplements and Games.
Meet the Team
At the moment the team comprises just the two of us, but as we continue to expand that could all change.
Toby Lancaster – Designer and Illustrator . Deeply rooted in RPG, tabletop games, popular culture and art and design, Toby has been involved in gaming in some shape or form for over 35 years. He studied Fine Art at university and then went on to do a masters degree, specializing in illustration and painting. Toby is also the ENnie nominated and published cartographer from Dark Realm Maps.
Jo – Logistics Manager and wife of Toby who is largely responsible for keeping him in order, managing the technical side of distribution, quotes and play testing. She also manages order fulfilment and the website. Her input into the creative process is invaluable for Toby..