Update 11: Weekly Progress Update
7 months ago – Mon, Apr 01, 2024 at 05:54:29 AM

Dungeoneers,

Hello and welcome to your weekly update. Short updates this week - all good news!

Pledge Manager & Survey: 99% Complete

• After meeting with both BackerKit and GamesQuest, I've determined shipping will be determined in a few months as I work with GamesQuest, coordinate with printers, and get everything all situated on the back end. 
• That being said, BackerKit is just reviewing my survey to you all and once they've given approval (1-2 days in my experience) I'm sending the surveys out! 
• Once you've completed the surveys, I'll go in and soft-lock addresses so folks can get their digital rewards (including the Core Rules, Wanderers, Catalysts, and the Nine Tombs of Athal-Kar) as early as Wednesday of this week. Starlit Spire will arriving shortly behind, in April / May.
• NOTE: It is important you fill out your survey when the email comes to you. I will make an update here when surveys have been sent out. If you don't fill out your survey, you cannot receive your rewards.

Dungeoneering: Catalysts Book Progress: 100% Complete

• The book is finished! PDF is uploaded to BackerKit and once surveys go out they'll be a part of your digital downloads.

The Great Spellcheck Survey: 99% Complete

• Next week the Catalysts Spellcheck Survey will accompany the weekly update. Filling out the survey is not required and is volunteer work! The survey(s) will close two weeks after PDF delivery to allow for folks to read through the books and see if they find anything that seems off.
• Once the surveys are complete, final production PDFs will head to the printers in both the UK and US and physical fulfillment will slowly start to come alive.

The Starlit Spire: 60% Complete (no change from last week)

• With all the miscellaneous logistics of getting Catalysts finished and the holiday, work slowed on Starlit Spire (which I anticipated). I still think the book can be done in April, but if it requires me to rush I'll gladly push it into May. My goal is to give you a complete and well-written book, not meet a somewhat-arbitrary deadline.
• That being said, I don't want the PDF to be delayed any more than it needs to be. So, for now, things are tentatively on track with a slight chance for a minor delay of a few weeks.

Physical Fulfillment: 25% Complete (+5% from last week)

• Stickers are here! Perfect for your various stickerless objects:

Elsewhere on the internet ...

Some friends and I took the opportunity of an exciting game jam over on itch.io to make a new game called Habitation. It's a rules-lite, sci-fi, sort-of-narrative game where you're exploring dangerous exoplanets in order to make discoveries, complete missions, and ultimately get out from under the tyranny of corporate debt.



We built the game in literally less than a week and are playtesting it tonight in person to see if it actually functions as a game (lol). If so, we'll be submitting it to the jam and make it available for you to download for free!

Since we don't technically have the link yet, I can't share to it but I will update this post tomorrow with the correct link out:

[LINK]

Update 10: Weekly Progress Update
7 months ago – Mon, Mar 25, 2024 at 03:59:58 AM

Dungeoneers,

Hello and welcome to your weekly update. Got a few updates worth talking about today so let's get right into it!

Pledge Manager & Survey: 99% Complete (+9% from last week)

• Essentially, everything is done except for shipping prices - which I have a meeting with a GamesQuest CRM this week to determine. HOWEVER, I've also communicated with BackerKit I'd like to use their beta feature of determining shipping prices after sending out surveys so folks can start getting their digital content. My expectation is to get confirmation on that today, meaning PDFs for the following should be sent this week:
  1. Dungeoneering: Catalysts
  2. Dungeoneering: Wanderers
  3. Dungeoneering
  4. The Nine Tombs of Athal-Kar: Complete
• Obviously I can't account for any random obstacles to appear, but seeing as I have most everything to get surveys to you this week, I can't see why it won't happen.
• NOTE: It is important you fill out your survey when the email comes to you. I will make an update here when surveys have been sent out. If you don't fill out your survey, you cannot receive your rewards.

Dungeoneering: Catalysts Book Progress: 99% Complete (+9% from last week)

• DC Stow sent me all the final pieces, including some minor improvements to pieces I didn't even think we necessarily needed (this is why you hire a human artist, folks!). With that, the art is complete for the book - one of which has won the prize for being my absolute favorite piece of art from him:

• The tables are finished, but I'm reviewing them one more time to try to figure out if there are any duplicates or near-duplicates from a content and, as best as I can describe, a "vibes" perspective. All said and done, there are over 1,300 entries across 13d100 tables so I want to make absolutely sure these are nailed. You don't want to have a situation where the God of Destiny is over here on one page and the Goddess of Destiny is doing the exact opposite on another.
• All that should be completed today / tomorrow and will constitute the last changes to the book. PDF will then be sent to you!

NEW: The Great Spellcheck Survey (+50% from last week)

• Stephanie is a fantastic editor and I have never once doubted her abilities to shoot bugs and eradicate grammatical errors, she's also just one person. Once the PDFs for Catalysts and Starlit Spire go out, respectively, a spellcheck survey will accompany them as a part of the weekly update AFTER delivery. Filling out the survey is not required and is volunteer work! 
• The survey(s) will close two weeks after PDF delivery to allow for folks to read through the books and see if they find anything that seems off.
• Once the surveys are complete, final production PDFs will head to the printers in both the UK and US and physical fulfillment will slowly start to come alive.

The Starlit Spire: 60% Complete (+5% from last week)

• Plugging away at areas of the Starlit Spire, it's a bit surprising how well this is going. I had accounted for it being easier than NToAK to work on, but even with that being said the book is coming together much more smoothly than I anticipated. Nothing necessarily to share other than that!
• I expect once the Catalysts PDF and all that business is handled this week and I can fully devote time to TSS, things will start moving at a faster clip - remember, my goal is to have the TSS PDF to you in April! I think we're still on track for that barring any major obstacles with Catalysts or if I hit some writing block with Spire. In either case, you all will know what's going on via the weekly updates.

Physical Fulfillment: 20% Complete (+5% from last week)

• Stickers are coming this week! Since a third of you are getting the stickers, I'll include some pictures in the next weekly update.
• The art proof for the patches was approved last week and production has begun on them with an estimated shipping date (to me from them) of 4/29. I ordered these from the same company that did the enamel pins, and I remember those went way faster than they estimated - so if they do show up early I'll send some pics! Either way, they'll be here with ample time to spare for fulfillment this summer.

One last (free!) thing...

If you follow me on itch.io or at my newsletter, you may have noticed I've been working on some other small projects - namely The Shattered Isles, a dark fantasy setting guide inspired by the games of FromSoftware and Bethesda, Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné, Kian Ardalan’s Eleventh Cycle, Luke Gearing's Wolves Upon the Coast, and many others.



On itch.io, I'm updated the setting guide which you can think of as the useful "at-the-table" book you'd refer to in play. On my newsletter, I'm writing lore and providing history for the world that may / may not make it into the final setting guide.

This content is entirely free, so I encourage you to take a look below:

• Setting Guide: https://grinningrat.itch.io/shattered-isles
• Newsletter (consider subscribing!): https://grinningrat.substack.com/p/009

Update 9: Weekly Progress Update
7 months ago – Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 03:10:15 AM

Dungeoneers,

Hello and welcome to another weekly update! This one is going to be pretty lean as we made a little progress last week, but not as much as I had been planning on happening (turns out, when you take a week-and-a-half vacation, you actually fall behind on work!).

So, getting into it:

Pledge Manager & Survey: 90% Complete (+5% from last week)

• BackerKit final funding summary was sent to me on March 14, which accounts for issues with backers' credit cards. There's a number of cards that need correcting and because of that the backer information hasn't been imported into the pledge manager. Those cards have 14 days to be corrected until they are automatically dismissed, so if you're one of those unlucky few, please fix as soon as you can to not miss out!
• Once all cards are corrected, I can set up the email list for the survey and will send it out ASAP.
• NOTE: It is important you fill out your survey when the email comes to you. I will make an update here when surveys have been sent out. If you don't fill out your survey, you cannot receive your rewards.

Dungeoneering: Catalysts Book Progress: 90% Complete (+5% from last week)

• DC Stow has shared a bit of art with me and I've gotten it placed in the book! We only need 1 or 2 more pieces and then, art-wise, the book will be completed. See below for a sample of some of the magic items you can find in Catalysts:

• As mentioned last week, the tables are nearing completion. There's a few that I think could use a little extra "oomph" so I'm doing another quick pass over them this week (who would have thought reviewing 600 individual items for duplicates or just boring entries would be kind of difficult?).
• Once that content is finished and laid out, the book is complete. PDFs will be shared via the pledge manager and you'll all have access shortly thereafter as long as you've filled out your survey.

The Starlit Spire: 55% Complete (no change)

• Not much to say on Starlit Spire as I didn't get a chance to work on it last week. But I did take quite a few notes on potential ideas for encounters and read a lot of various other RPG materials, so suffice to say that I have a lot of inspiration rattling around in my head.

Physical Fulfillment: 15% Complete (no change)

• Stickers and patches have been ordered, with an estimated delivery date of next week for the stickers and 2-3 weeks for the patches.
• Books need to be fully written before they can get printed! So no progress here.

Update 8: Weekly Progress Update
7 months ago – Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 12:32:39 PM

Dungeoneers,

Hello! As of last Friday, I've returned from a much-needed family vacation at a certain House of Mouse. Now that I'm back in the swing of things, I figured I'd give a brief update as to where we were with All The Things™. Let's get right into it:

Pledge Manager & Survey: 85% Complete

• BackerKit final funding summary will be sent to me on March 14, which accounts for issues with backers' credit cards. Once that's finished, I can import information into the pledge manager and send out surveys to everyone. Expect to see this on Friday or over the weekend.
• NOTE: It is important you fill out your survey when the email comes to you. I will make an update here when surveys have been sent out. If you don't fill out your survey, you cannot receive your rewards.

Dungeoneering: Catalysts Book Progress: 80% Complete

• DC Stow has the sketched key art finished for the pages that need a little extra splash and those should be inserted in the next few days.
• Content for the extra six d100 tables is being added as we speak, most of which was already written. The confirmed final list of bonus tables is as follows:
  
  
  • Books & Tomes: Hidden knowledge awaits in dusty pages. Ideal for those who dare to delve into ancient secrets and conjure forgotten magic.
  • Deities & Powers: The gods play their games, and mortals are their pawns. Perfect for weaving tales of faith, fate, and divine wrath for those who contend with such things.
  • Omens & Visions: Decipher signs and prophecies that foretell destiny or doom. A tool for GMs to add suspense and direction to the adventure, regardless of whether they're true!
  • Wildlife & Flora: Nature’s bounty is vast and varied, from venomous vines to majestic beasts. Discover their uses, dangers, and beauty with the table below.
  • Lost Civilizations: Reveal the stories of forgotten societies through ruins and relics, adding depth and mysteries to the dungeon. Try combining with Monuments & Statues on page 40! 
  • Afflictions & Curses: Introduce peril with curses and maladies, demanding ingenuity or quests for cures. Such trials test resolve and may offer paths to redemption... or further ruin!

• Once that content is finished and laid out, the book is complete. PDFs will be shared via the pledge manager and you'll all have access shortly thereafter as long as you've filled out your survey.

The Starlit Spire: 55% Complete

• Overall concept and factions have been fully written.
• Layout has been roughed-in, page count is currently 44. I anticipate that changing based on the number of keyed areas I already have. I'm going to really try to keep it under 60 pages, as that starts to become pretty cumbersome for me to bind as well as for you to use at the table.
• The first area of the adventure, the Surface, has been fully written. Two more have been roughed-in and should be all set towards the end of the month. The two remaining areas are the smallest of the adventure and should be finished shortly after that. 

Physical Fulfillment: 15% Complete

• Stickers and patches have been ordered, with an estimated delivery date of next week for the stickers and 2-3 weeks for the patches.
• Books need to be fully written before they can get printed! So no progress here.

Update 7: Campaign Complete!
8 months ago – Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 12:22:06 PM

Dungeoneers,

We did it! Dungeoneering: Catalysts is funded, managing to unlock even a stretch goal in the process.

As mentioned previously, winners of previous Winner Wednesdays would be announced at campaign's conclusion. Seeing as we didn't do a Winner Wednesday last week, I thought of an alternative:

Everyone who participated in Winner Wednesdays is a winner and will receive a fun bonus along with their shipments / files!

• RT Kimz
• Brandon Butler
• Jareth McBrehon

So, what's next? Well, if you haven't already, go check out my newly posted... post... over on Substack, I go over lessons I learned this go around in the crowdfunding world. It's been a pretty illuminating time, all things considered.

As for the timeline:


Our next big milestone is sending out the Catalysts PDFs and I can happily say that all the content is there barring our newly acquired stretch goal of an extra six d100 tables in the book. There are a couple pieces of art DC is working on for some places that could use his fantastic work and I'm still hard at work on the Starlit Spire, which will be sent in April to backers.

But speaking of tables, I mentioned the stretch goal of six additional d100 tables to add to the book. In the nick of time, literally down to the last hour, we managed to hit the goal. That means you all get to vote on which tables you want to see in the book! Down below you'll find a poll -- vote for the one that you like the best and the top six performers will get added to the final layout.

By this time next week, we'll finalize the table selections and get them added to the book! I've already written content for almost all of them, but each requires some finishing touches before we call them complete.

Finally, I want to sincerely thank all the backers for supporting the project and believing in me once again. I've seen a ton of repeat backers coming back and have gotten wonderful messages of support as well. I can't tell you how much it means to me that you believe in me and my work, so I'm going to focus on getting you the best I can. It's the least I can do.

Fill out the poll below and we'll talk again soon!
- Nate