Burrow Tales: Interview with Lonnie T. Brandt

We talked to Lonnie T. Brandt, the creator of Burrow Tales, about her OSR game of bunnies, burrows, and dangers in the deep. Burrow Tales is a complete roleplaying game for one Storyteller and one or more players, and includes full rules, setting, character sheet, and the intro adventure, "The Shrine Thief" designed to be picked up and played.

Hi, thanks for chatting with us! Tell us a little about yourself and what you do. 

Hello, and thank you too! I’m Lonnie T. Brandt (she/her), and I’m an illustrator and writer who likes to do a bit too many things, like digital games, comics, illustration work and, as here, TTRPGs as well. 

What is Burrow Tales? 

Burrow Tales is a very simple RPG, meant to be picked up and played in a very short time, where the players take the roles of adventurous bunnies going into the deeps below their burrow to fight the dangers within. 

Depending on the DM, it has the potential to both stay cute and light, but also have a darker edge to it, as encounters can become very lethal, and I always imagined the creatures from below to be anything but ordinary. 

Why bunnies? 

That’s a good question! I’ve always loved the idea of animal characters in fantasy settings, and earlier got into drawing a series of illustrations of bunnies doing magic. It’s also no secret that Watership Down has been a love of mine ever since childhood, with its deep folklore and the journey to build their new burrow in that big hill. Not to speak of the fight within the burrow itself, to defend their home. 

The idea of the magic bunnies stuck in my head, and I wanted to do more with it. Then it struck me - what if, like the dwarves of Lord of the Rings, the bunnies dug too deep? Then they’d have to pick up weapons and explore the unearthed depths to defend their burrow against the darkness below. 

In the end, magic has not become a part of Burrow Tales, at least not as a power that the bunnies themselves wield (yet). But the rest remained, with our furry friends being a folk with a deep love for history and tales, and a strong instinct that will have to save them in times of danger.

Why OSR? 

When I originally started looking at making my own TTRPG adventures, I got into a rabbithole (heh) of researching outside of what I knew. This is when I first came across some OSR products, such as Black Hack. Until then, I had the impression that OSR was somehow more complicated and impenetrable than the usual D&D 5E that I had otherwise played. Reading Black Hack almost blew my mind, realising how much closer it in reality was to how I truly wanted rpgs to be when running them as a DM, so much simpler and free-flowing. So I went further into what else I could find in that sphere. Never really looked back.

Eventually I also came across JP Coovert on youtube, which introduced me to Tunnel Goons. Seeing his work on RPG zines, and how he had used Tunnel Goons for one of his own systems, inspired me to finally take the leap and make a whole game myself. Something I had otherwise been too intimidated to do. 

What’s the response been like from players? 

It has generally been good! I’ve been very happy to see people react positively to the concept of Burrow Tales, and its lightweight rules. Watership Down but with swords and monsters seems to resonate well! 

There have been stories of unfortunate bunnies eaten by giant earthworms, and others convincing rat people to be their meatshields, and I hope to hear more of what people can think up for their little short-lived adventurers. 

What do you like to do when you’re not sending bunny knights into the deep? 

I’ve been getting into Shadowdark lately, which is quickly becoming my other favourite system to run games in, so I hope to explore that some more. Other than that, I always have too many other creative projects on my plate to try and finish. I just finished releasing a short comic, The Eye Over Aftbren, and outside of itching to make another computer RPG, I am also sketching and taking notes for another addition to Burrow Tales. It will be a supplement with locations and creatures that players can explore, to keep the tunnels from getting too samey! 

Burrow Tales is available now, and you can see more from Lonnie T. Brandt at The White Cat.