It has been written!
almost 2 years ago – Mon, May 01, 2023 at 02:54:28 PM

Hey everyone! We are back with another quick update to check in with everyone.

We are very excited to be on track with the adventure book and have completed writing it!  This is on track with our schedule that was shared in the last post and will have us publishing the PDF of the book later this summer (July).  The print version will follow shortly after (August).

There is a still a good amount of work to complete the book.   While we have it written,  it still needs to be laid out in a beautiful book format.  As we kick that off we are doing final review and QA of the book.  Look for an update in June with progress and updates on the book!

Book update!
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Mar 04, 2023 at 05:19:04 PM

Greetings adventurers!

Book Update

We are back again this month with an update on the adventure book/pdf.  We have shifted our focus towards writing the book and have been moving full steam ahead.  There are three main phases left to complete the book.  This includes actually writing the book and transferring the notes from our notebooks to the beautiful prose that you all are expecting from the book.  Much of this is done, but there are a few sections left as well as review and editing of what has already been written. Once we feel like we have this in a good place, we will move on to laying out the book for print to put it in the nice shiny format with pretty pictures that you all are expecting.  This is a good chunk of work and gives us time to commission more art where we feel like it is needed as we layout the book.  After that we will be ready to ship the PDF, but we will want to do some test print runs before we release the physical book so it will take a bit longer.

Overall, here is what we are thinking in terms of timeline:

• Complete book writing - April
• Complete book layout, PDF ready - July
• Print Book Ready - August

This is a conservative timeline that we feel really good about hitting.

OGL Follow Up

Thanks to everyone for your feedback and support on our OGL post last month.  We have a clear path forward now and are going to continue to write the adventure book as a 5E adventure like we originally planned.  Instead of publishing under the OGL, we plan to publish the book using the Creative Commons license on the SRD as it is more permissive and offers more protections.  This change in licensing won't really mean much to anyone using the adventure and is more of a behind the scenes change, but we wanted to be transparent and share. 

Until next time!

Update on the OGL Situation
about 2 years ago – Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 04:08:24 PM

Greeting Adventurers,

Like many of you, we have been closely following the OGL situation as it has been developing.  For the TLDR version, Wizards put out a draconian version of the OGL that would have made it incredibly difficult, if not impossible for creators like us to publish 3rd party 5E content by changing the Open Gaming License (OGL) that we were planning to publish under.  This sent us and many others scrambling to figure out what we were going to do.  We have drafted this update several times as things were constantly changing over the last few weeks. We wanted to come to backers for feedback about a path forward, but we kept waiting for the dust to settle and see where things landed.  In the end Wizards has decided to keep the OGL as is, as well as license the entirety of the SRD under Creative Commons licensing.  This is a huge win for the TTRPG community and long term health of the game.

Now that the dust has finally settled, we are here with an update.  We have a couple of options we are considering and have a few very clear paths forward we want to share.

•  Option 1: We continue forward publishing a 5E adventure book by using the Creative Commons (CC) license of the SRD.  Wizards has lost a lot of trust with us and with the community, but the CC license is irrevocable and a good thing for the long term health of the game.  We also promised a 5E book and want to deliver on what we promised during the campaign.  While this wasn't an option we were excited to pursue when this situation started to go down, we feel much better about it as a path forward given where things landed.
•  Option 2: We could publish the adventure book under Pathfinder 2E or another RPG.  We have been scrambling over the last few weeks to learn Pathfinder and have been researching other systems we might be able to publish under.  This isn't what we promised during the campaign and we don't feel great about this.  It was something we felt more strongly about before the CC licensing was announced.  We are open to accepting the olive branch of the CC licensing, but we understand our backers may not be ready and might prefer an option like this.
•  Option 3: Create a system neutral story and art book.  This is a lot more work for DMs to run and isn't what we promised during the campaign so we don't feel great about it either.

Right now we are planning to move forward with option 1 and publish a 5E compatible adventure book as planned.   This allows us to deliver on what we promised during the campaign and publish it under a better license (Creative Commons vs. OGL).  Before we do that we wanted to check in with backers and make sure you all are comfortable with this path forward still.  Unlike Wizards, we actually care what you all want!  If you have strong feelings or opinions on a path forward, feel free to leave a comment.  If you are happy with option 1 and don't have much to say feel free to hit the like button.

Book Timelines

We had originally promised to get back to you with more clear timelines on the book this month, but unfortunately the OGL situation has occupied most of our time this month.   We are still planning to have the book out by the summer and will plan to come back next month with more detailed timelines.

Battle maps have arrived!
about 2 years ago – Sun, Dec 11, 2022 at 08:34:51 PM

Greetings adventurers,

We are back with another exciting update and milestone.  We have completed all of the battle maps and have distributed them to backers.  We also have some updates on the adventure book and what comes next.

Battle maps have been delivered and all 30+ of them are available for download via BackerKit!  We have bundled the battle maps into 2 different packages.

•  VTT/Digital battle maps.  This is a 177MB zip file that contains high quality JPG versions of the maps without grids. We expect this is the format most people will be interested in for use on virtual tabletops and in other digital formats.
•  Printable battle maps. This is a 11.9GB zip that contains all of the battle maps in a lossless printable format if you would like to print the maps. This file contains both the grid and no grid versions.  This is a huge file, you have been warned.

Similar to our previous large file releases we have included 2 mirror download links to download these files. If you are having trouble with one of them you can use the other.  It is the same file on both mirrors, there is no need to download both.

We have included both the grid and no grid versions of the maps in the print quality zip file.  All battle maps in the download are watermark free, high quality, and will look great in your game. We really hope you enjoy these battle maps!

Adventure Book Update

We are now shifting our focus to the adventure book with the models and battle maps completed.  Over the last year we have been running 2 different play test groups through the campaign and just finished the final session last week of the campaign we still had running.  We are going to spend the coming weeks taking our learnings from these campaigns and incorporating them into the adventure book.  

We are going to spend some time over the next month assessing our progress on the book and will be back in January with a more detailed update with schedule estimates.  At this point the book looks like it will be ready sometime in the first half of 2023.  We know that this is behind when we originally hoped to deliver the book, but we have opted to take our time to make sure everything is of the highest quality.

Also, a huge shout out to all of the play testers who have spent countless hours over the last year helping us play test the campaign.  Thank you!

Moment of Zen

We will leave you with a few of our favorite battle maps that haven't been shared before!  You can find the full set in the BackerKit downloads.

Until next time!

October Update
over 2 years ago – Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 02:54:45 AM

Hey everyone,

We are back with an October update and our final STL drop.  You read that right, all STL files are complete!  This is a really big milestone for us and we are really excited to shift our focus to the next phases of the project.

STL Drop

We are excited to share the Buuhnasia city terrain set.  This is a modular set that allows you to combine the pieces in lots of different combinations to create a sprawling desert city.  As always, this terrain is designed to print support free with FDM printers in mind.

This STL set should be available on BackerKit now and will be available through MyMiniFactory within the next 24 hours.  We have pulled down all of the individual terrain model files on BackerKit and replaced them with a "All Terrain Files" zip file that should have all of the terrain in it.  Download this zip file if you want to make sure you have all of the terrain files.

Battle Maps

We are going to tackle the printable battle maps next and are hoping to deliver them all next month.  We already have most of the battle maps completed, but want to put a few finishing touches on them and finish off a few missing maps to complete the set.  We will then shift our focus to the book as we move into the new year.

Book & Schedule

We are going to shift 100% of our focus to the book once we finish the battle maps and we are really looking forward to this.  Unfortunately the book is going to come in way behind our planned schedule.  It has been a rough year for the team health wise, with one of us barely able to work for the last 6 months due to illness and surgery.  Things are looking up and we are looking to have the team back at 100% in the next week or two.   We are committed to delivering this book and can't wait for you all to get your hands on it.

Fresh Art

Some fresh art from Eamonn McCormick

See you all next month!