Severe flooding endangers Brazil’s largest TTRPG publisher

Jambô Editora, Brazil’s largest TTRPG publisher—known for titles like Tormenta and Ordem Paranormal—suffered immense losses due to climate catastrophe earlier this month. “Right now while I respond to this interview, a big part of our book stock is underwater,” said Karen Soarele, the editor in chief of Jambô.

In late April, historic levels of rainfall inundated Rio Grande do Sul, the country’s southernmost state, and the resulting floods swept through a number of Brazilian cities—including the state’s capital, Porto Alegre, where Jambô’s headquarters are located. Occurring just three months after Wizards of the Coast announced it would no longer be publishing Dungeons and Dragons in Portuguese, this loss could have far reaching consequences for the tabletop industry in Brazil as the people behind Jambô struggle to adapt and rebuild. 

Founded in 2002, Jambô Editora publishes some of the largest IPs in the Brazilian TTRPG industry including Tormenta (the largest non-D&D tabletop system in the nation), 3DeT Victory, A Lenda de Ghanor RPG, and Coleção Cthulhu. They also produce and distribute a number of popular international titles including Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, Dungeons & Dragons novels, Dragon Age novels and RPG, The Expanse RPG, Game of Thrones RPG, Mutants & Masterminds, and Iron Kingdoms. My initial phone interview with Soarele had to be converted to a text-based interview, as she “got carried away with [her] search for drinking water.” Via Discord DM she described her situation as “extreme” and she felt as though she was “back to the Middle Ages.”

“My family and I are safe,” Soarele said to Rascal over email. “This is the sentence I have been starting every single post I publish on social media from the last fortnight, since I don't want to alarm my relatives. We are not at risk of death. We are, however, very disturbed and distressed.” With good reason. According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, more than 300 millimeters (12 inches) of rain fell in under a week—with nearly 25 inches falling over the last month—as a result of “unusually warm water in the South Atlantic Ocean.” The organization indicated that this infrastructure-destroying event is part of a “a broader pattern of change that climate scientists expect to see in this region.”