Quick December Update!
over 2 years ago – Tue, Dec 07, 2021 at 12:08:06 AM

We've got some more downloads ready and we're a little behind on a couple of fronts, largely because of the holidays, but also because one of my editors is on paternity leave. Here's the long and short of it:

• The Christmas adventure stretch goal, Hollynock Hijinks, is done and is available for download on BackerKit to anyone who has the Starter Kit. However, the art for it isn't quite done. It's perfectly playable now for your Christmas one shot needs, but I'll upload a new version when the art is wrapped up. (Mind the typos -- the editors haven't gotten to it yet!)
• I have downloads ready for Spell Cards and Tokens. We went a bit overboard with the tokens and made 142 of them, some of which feature Dark Matter characters. Enjoy!
• The stretch goal NPC supplement, Valda's Illustrious Guestbook, is very nearly finished, but isn't going out just yet. I'll try to have it done at the end of December, but the holidays have a way of getting in the way of things.
• I'm working on a 1.1 version of Valda's which should also be out at the end of the month, which fixes a few lingering typos and improves a few subclasses (including the Mechanaut craftsman and Sharpshooter gunslinger.) It's nearly done, but again, holidays have slowed us down a bit.
• In all, the editing on the softcovers is going much more slowly than I'd like. I'd like to catch up in January, but we're a month behind where I wanted to be for editing right now, which might impact when we go to manufacturing.

PAX Unplugged

We'll be at PAX Unplugged (properly masked and such.) If you'll be in Philadelphia from the 10th to 12th, come visit us at Booth 3639 and say hello!

November Update! Valda's polished
over 2 years ago – Tue, Nov 02, 2021 at 02:15:20 AM

I hope everyone had a spooky and safe Halloween!

Valda's Updates!

I’ve been hard at work (read: I vanished into a hole to work nonstop for a few weeks) on all the edits and little changes for Valda’s Spire of Secrets (new download available on BackerKit!) Some of the changes are big, many are small, but I regret to say that I didn’t keep a watertight changelog. I gave up after the first 500 or so changes, and I believe there were around 4,000 in total. We haven’t overhauled any of the classes or anything, but a lot of common questions and concerns have been addressed. (The alchemist, for example, should be easier to understand, thanks to a slightly restructured Bombs feature.)

I fell behind on the rest of my work this month due to being quite sick, but a lot of the writers who work with me also missed their deadlines. As a result, we haven’t yet finished Valda’s Illustrious Guestbook or the Christmas adventure, so the only new file this month is the updated Valda’s Spire of Secrets. If everything goes well, those other PDFs will be done by next month!

(Side note: I’m catching up on the comments and direct messages right now! I apologize for the delay if you’ve been waiting for a response.)

Also, I improved the character sheet I presented in the last update! Linky link right here.

Feedback Form

We have a shiny new feedback form!

If you notice any typos, want to offer playtest feedback, have any balance concerns, or would like to submit any other type of feedback, feel free to make a submission. I can't stress enough that all feedback is good feedback: we even included an option for you to express if a mechanic is confusing to you, because even knowing that is super useful as we polish the heck out of this book.

Of course, it's worth mentioning that the best place to answer your questions is on Discord, where I spend most of my time when I'm not in a work hole. 

Extremely Cool Battlemaps: ATLAS

The promos keep coming, because I have too many talented friends who are making awesome projects! This one has about a week left so get in on it!

My good friend, Moonlight Maps, has just launched their first amazing Kickstarter, ATLAS. A huge tome packed full of physical maps, encounter cards, & reusable stickers, for your game table!

They’ve been kind enough to give me 2 FREE encounter cards and accompanying battle maps for you to play with,playable at levels 1-16! (Links are in that sentence -- give them a download!)

What’s inside ATLAS:

•  100+ physical maps - huge, fold-out, dry erase, detachable, & re-organisable!
•  80+ Encounter cards - 2 decks of random encounters playable at any level!
• Reusable terrain stickers - customise your maps again and again!
• A beautiful GM screen!
• Unique Midnight dice!
• Moon Boy enamel pins!
• & more!

Can't-Miss Campaign Setting: Fool's Gold

If you don't know the amazing work of Hit Point Press through projects like Humblewood and Heckna, then you probably know the talented YouTube animator DingoDoodles, who has been creating stunning content for years. These two powerhouses have teamed up to make the Fool's Gold campaign setting, which I can't recommend highly enough.

Fool’s Gold: Into the Bellowing Wilds is an exciting new 5e setting for levels 10-20 that takes place in the world’s deadliest jungle where everything wants to kill you! 

This adventure includes lots of new races, subclasses, character backgrounds and spells, and even a new sub-school of magic: Oneiromancy, the magic of dreams! Not to mention the extremely powerful Soul Magic usually reserved for the gods. The setting also features over 35 unique monsters, an advanced alchemy and harvesting system, hundreds of curses and unreasonably wild magic.

They just passed ONE MILLION dollars on Kickstarter! Go support this today -- don't miss out!

Late Pledges, BackerKit, and PDFs!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 08, 2021 at 07:56:34 PM

Good news: we’re a day and a half late, but BackerKit surveys and PDFs are headed to an inbox near you!

We sincerely thank you for your patience. I’m going to quickly go over a bunch of details, including how BackerKit works and what you have to do next.

What’s a BackerKit?

BackerKit is the site that’s going to handle your pledge management, including downloading PDFs, entering and changing your shipping address, and downloading PDFs. We’ll even use it to send out VTT codes when they go out next year.

You should have an email at your Kickstarter-associated email address with a survey from BackerKit (check your spam folder if you don’t see it.) You don’t have to make a BackerKit account to fill out your survey -- just click on the link, fill it out, and you’re good to go!

If you can’t see your email, go to https://spireofsecrets.backerkit.com/

(NOTE: It might take BackerKit like an hour or two to send that many emails! There's a lot of you and email goes only so fast.)

Late Pledges

Missed the Kickstarter? Want to wander the Spire of Secrets?Click here!(This link is also at the top of the Kickstarter page, in case you want to find it later.)

PDFs

Yes, indeed, the PDFs of Valda’s Spire of Secrets are heading toward you just as soon as you respond to the BackerKit survey. You’ll be able to download the PDFs via BackerKit -- a large button that says “Get Your Digital Downloads.” Can’t miss it.

All the PDFs are complete, but none have gone through copy editing yet. This means they might have typos, some grammatical errors, and so forth. Furthermore, we have yet to finish the Christmas adventure one-shot, the NPC supplement “Valda’s Illustrious Guestbook”, or the Basic Rules that are included in the Starter Kit (if you have the SRD, you’re not missing anything on this latter point). We’ll also give out a PDF for spell cards (for those of you who would like to do an arts-and-crafts project and use them right away), but are waiting to do so until copy editing is done so we don’t have to track changes across multiple files.

Lastly, I wanted to give you all a form-fillable version of our character sheet, so I’ll just leave that here. Cheers!

Thanks again for your patience. I can’t wait to see the character builds you make and hear about the games you run!

Short Delay on BackerKit
over 2 years ago – Tue, Oct 05, 2021 at 03:27:50 AM

Super quick update letting you know that we hit a couple of road bumps with BackerKit and that it will be live in 1-2 days. Basically, we had to implement a new shipping system to make sure nobody was being overcharged or charged twice for any reward tier, while allowing people to get add-ons at a fair rate. (My bank also thought our middle-of-the-night transaction to BackerKit for an inordinate sum was fraudulent, which in retrospect seems completely reasonable.)

We've sorted all this out, but it pushed us back like 24 hours and now we're waiting on BackerKit's review step (which they quote as taking two days, but sometimes resolves very quickly).

I will let you know the literal instant it's up!

Thank you!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 01, 2021 at 03:53:58 AM

This amazing campaign is finally at an end, and I need to pull you aside for a second and say thank you. Thank you for pledging, for telling people about our book, for being good to each other and being civil in the comments and elsewhere, and for trusting us to deliver a quality product. I won’t betray that trust, and I hope you’ll love the things we’ve made for you.

Can we talk about the total for a second? It’s incredible! $704,467! We’re a small team of writers and artists—such a sum is humbling beyond measure. Your generosity will enable us to provide you the very best product possible and will certainly open the doors to cool new products in the future. I can’t wait to show you what we’re working on next.

As a reminder, PDFs will start being sent out via BackerKit on October 4th. You'll also be able to late pledge at that time. Until then, hang tight! 

Quick Promo: Skinny Minis

This is the very last quick promo, so I’d like to highlight an incredible product that’s a natural fit for our own: Skinny Minis is a must-have for DMs in the same way that Valda’s is a must-have for players. Here’s the pitch:

Looking for an easier way to mini?

Skinny Minis have returned to Kickstarter with hordes of monsters, minions and terrain - at a fraction of the cost of traditional minis. With over 500 new Skinny Minis, tons of freebies (more unlocked every day!), 3D siege terrain, flying stands, and digital tokens, there's something for every adventurer in Skinny Minis 2!

Easy to use, simple to store, and beautifully illustrated - Skinny Minis are the perfect way to bring more minis to your table.

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Cheers, and good night!