About Netherbook

Hi, I'm Frank

Netherbook is my shop. I'm in Leeuwarden, in the north of the Netherlands, and I choose every game you'll find here, write about it and pack it for you. When you mail info@netherbook.com, I'm the one who writes back.

Stories have always been my thing. I write short fiction, but the best stories I know weren't written by one person at all. They happened around a table.

My very first character was Hrothgar, a halfling thief. On my first evening of roleplaying, he came across a treasure chest with a magically reinforced lock that he just couldn't pick. So he grabbed the tools that were lying around and sawed open the bottom of the chest instead. The treasure was his, and the DM gave me my first ever Inspiration.

That small reward for creativity sparked something in me. In a roleplaying game there's always another way in, if you're willing to look for it. That spark is why this shop exists.

It started in a casino

Morrovion is my Dungeons & Dragons character: a tiefling warlock-sorcerer with a dark and troubled past, and every intention of turning it into a bright future. He overcame more than his share of adversity, found two friends for life in Pineclimber and Allowin, and ruled the yuan-ti city of Ss'thar'this'ssun for a while to pay off a debt. Then he did what any sensible tiefling would do after all that: he settled down and took a job managing a casino.

That casino became a book. Together with my friend Wybe, who jumped in before I could even ask and stayed until the last page, I made Morrovion's Guide to Gambling: a collection of forty dice games for fantasy tables, in which Morrovion shows you around the Velvet Flame Gambling House on your first day on the job. At the end of 2021, 771 backers on Kickstarter helped bring it into the world, and the last copy went out the door in early 2023. That book was Netherbook's first publication, and the reason the name exists at all.

Making it taught me something else. Finding the good stuff in this hobby, the indie games, the beautiful boxed sets, the strange little journaling games, was surprisingly hard from here. It usually meant ordering from the US, paying for shipping twice and getting a customs bill on top. So in August 2025, Netherbook became a shop.

Slow and steady

I'm not trying to sell as much as possible. I'd rather build something that lasts.

That's why every title here is hand-picked, and the question is always the same: would I put this on my own table? Fantasy is where most of us started, so there's plenty of it, but you'll also find horror, folklore, science fiction, solo games and games about falling in love.

It's why I only sell what's actually on the shelf. If you can add it to your cart, it's here in Leeuwarden and it ships fast. No pre-orders that quietly slip a season.

And it's why I'll give you honest advice, even if that means pointing you to a cheaper book or telling you a game won't work for your group. I'd rather you come back than buy the wrong thing once.

Made by people

I'm not against technology. I use AI tools myself, for search engine optimisation, product codes, inventory and working out the numbers. But the games on these shelves are written and illustrated by people, and that's a choice.

Everything an AI "knows" it learned from work that people once imagined, wrote, playtested and drew. This hobby runs on that human spark, so that's what I want to support. Tools for the work, people for the art.

A shop in an old prison

Netherbook now has a physical home too: cell 22 in the Blokhuispoort, a former prison in the heart of Leeuwarden that's now full of makers, artists and small businesses. It's about twelve square metres. Just enough for eleven bookcases full of games, adventures and everything that goes with them, and a very old book that asks every visitor a single question.

Come and see. Netherbook, Blokhuisplein 40, H0.22, 8911 LJ Leeuwarden. You'll find the opening hours here, and more about the shop on the page about cell 22.

Still writing

Netherbook is also a small publisher, and there's more on the way. Analogue, a roleplaying line set twenty-five years after the world stopped, is in development. You'll hear about it here first.

Netherbook is an official Darrington Press Guild Store.

More stories ahead.

Frank