An offset print version of the tabletop RPG of dungeon building and adventurer slaying, plus its full-game expansion full of undead conquest. We have made the decision to only print enough books to fulfill the Kickstarter. This will be the final printing of Wicked Ones/Undead Awakening - no retailer distribution or webstore is planned, so this is your only chance to get these books. In the future, only the PDF version and a softcover, standard color version via DTRPG print-on-demand will be available. All shipping fees will be collected later, closer to the shipping date.
Hey everyone, I wrote up a previous update but it appears that it didnt land in people's email inboxes. Click below:
I didn't want anyone to miss the chance to take a look!
Hey everyone, this is a pretty short update, but I wanted to make a few notes on transparency, plus some additions to the guest artists.
First, one of our guest artists has come to me and expressed that for personal reasons, they may or may not be able to meet the final deadline before print. They have already turned in their concept and initial sketch and would like to see it through, but it's unclear if it can happen. I told them to prioritize the personal reasons and if they can't meet the deadline, we'll either finish the piece up post-campaign and distribute it digitally (because it's an awesome concept!) or allow them to drop the commission if it doesn't work with their schedule. Life happens and when working with so many people on such short notice, something was bound to come up somewhere.
Second, Wouter Goedkoop (Website, Patreon) is joining the list of guest artists! I initially wished to bring them on but some miscommunication (tech issue) led to a very late agreement between us. But now, it's kind of nice as it could serve as a fill-in for the above artist or just be extra bonus content.
Third, speaking of bonus content, Jose Calvo (Artstation) is also providing two additional maps for the Cartography Kit! These are from an abandoned project I worked on a long time ago, which had two maps commissioned for it and were floating around in our resource folder. I reached out to Jose and they agreed to let us include them! They're city maps, so I think they would work best for UA campaigns but you could get creative with WO campaigns with them as well. They are stunningly detailed and, honestly, meant to be printed at a much larger size so make sure to check out the digital versions, too. I'll post one of them below!
Super high-res digital version here: https://bit.ly/3dsa97X
Fourth, we will be printing the War for the Overworld map in the Cartography Kit as well. With the WO:WFTO book going to an offset print run and many people grabbing that book, it only seems right to have a nicely printed map for it. It's a mostly underground map, built around the concept of fighting against other dungeons and factions trying to keep you imprisoned within the mountain. Should be awesome - and could creatively be used for an interesting UA campaign!
So overall, some upgrades to the kit there. Oh, and Victor and Cass are finishing up the suburban town/mall map for UA now as well. Just wanted to keep everyone in the loop!
- Ben
We have a lot of people wandering in with attention on the Cartography Kit for use in games outside of Wicked Ones, so I wanted to post up a selection of maps from it. These are the rendered mockup forms, just go give a simple overview of what they're like. These don't include any of the maps from guest artists yet - those will be coming soon!
Hey everyone, I've got tons of news incoming on stretch goals. I talked before about how are approach wasn't tied to monetary goals, but instead tied to logistics and value - can we do it in time to deliver the project smoothly, can we do it without adding a lot of complication, and does this make the project better. Well, I've been a busy little imp the last few days and locked in some seriously awesome stuff. Honestly, each of these below deserve their own post, but I don't want to spam you all to death with updates! Anyway, it's really had to know where to start, but let's dive in.
We have added a second dice set, this time inspired heavily by Undead Awakening. While the Dark Omens set are a take on what a monster runic numbering system might look like, the Awakening dice are a sorcerous ritual of resurrection - the one through five faces show a clearly laid out, finely drawn spell that culminates in the awakening of the eye on the 6.
We also tinkered with the color combo to give them a more necrotic flavor! Check these out!
We've now locked in all 7 of our guest artists. This doubles the number of maps in the Cartography Kit! And of course, all maps will be provided for free digitally to every backer at any tier. Each concept and style is really unique - and crazy useful as a sandbox to drop into almost any campaign you run! Spotlight and map concept posts coming later, but here's the list of artists and some links!
I've gotten early concepts from each of these artists and they all look great - a varied collection of maps and styles. It's going to be very fun to see them develop. As I gather up some more info, I'll do some artist spotlights, pulling in 2 or 3 of the artists into one post and more directly showing off their work and talking about why we approached them to work with us.
First, let's talk about the Cartography Kit a bit. This is a really specialty product that I think is going to be absolutely wonderful to have on your shelf, not only for WO+UA, but also for other games where you can drop the sandbox maps into the campaign. However, realistically, I doubt we will overprint these much at all. They probably don't have much appeal for retailers and while we'll likely sell any overprint stock on our online store (launching post-campaign), my intention is to only print what we need. So if you want the Cartography Kit, now is likely the only time you'll ever be able to get it.
That said, we've made some firm decisions on upgrades for it:
We're going to do an offset print run of the WO: WFTO campaign setting, bringing it up to the new side binding style and print specs as all the other books to complete the entire set in a very satisfying way. It won't be included in the slipcase, but it'll look real nice on the shelf next to it and the Cartography Kit. And of course, all profits from this go to support Child's Play charity! This print run is also a Kickstarter exclusive as we will not sell any extra copies post-campaign.
NOT FAMILIAR WITH WAR FOR THE OVERWORLD?
Even if you're not familiar or a fan of the game, the supplement still has a lot to offer! The Dungeon Core mechanics get rid the sanctum and put you in the role of 2nd-in-charge, a level above the minions but just under a Player/GM co-controlled omnipresent Underlord. The dungeon core function is replaced by the ability to cast spells as the Underlord, more powerful within your dungeon than outside of it. There are new Titan creatures that have unique abilities but require a ritual to summon, rules for bringing creatures along on raids, and a ton of examples of primal abilities built to represent the WFTO units, but can also be used to give players more options! It also comes with a unique sandbox map and an interesting scenario around it, being imprisoned within the enormous Mt. Desmos and surrounded by other dungeons and hostile factions - you have to fight your way out towards the surface.
It's a valuable addition that provides a very different game experience than the base Wicked Ones dungeons.
BONUS VIDEO GAME!
In addition, Brightrock Games has been generous enough to provide a free Steam key for War for the Overworld video game (Standard price - $29.99) to everyone that grabs the WO:WFTO add-on. This is especially exciting as they recently gave the game a graphical update, introducing real-time shadows and a change in visual tone making the dungeons more, um...dungeonier.
Three big announcements for the Toolkit deck add-on.
Alright, that's it for now. Thanks again for all the support! There's some more updates in the pipeline - I'm especially excited to get a chance to show off the early Wicked Ones concept art that Victor Costa and I hammered out over our first month working together before we ever started making the final pieces for the game. I'll talk about that process in depth and post up a ton of interesting early pics.
I also want to take a look at some of the dungeons from our playtests - I've saved screenshots of all the dungeons we created along the way and it'll be fun to go back and revisit them. These and a few more posts should be interesting to write up while I hammer away in the background on what may culminate in a few more stretch goals.
- Ben
A longtime friend of mine who's given me a lot of advice about Kickstarter and is advising us on our dice manufacturing for the WO+UA campaign is launching another of their own Kickstarters right now and it's pretty wild - glow-in-the-dark dice!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flamingflamingo/wild-earth-dice-the-cyberpunk-collection
Check this out:
There's a bunch of sets and first 72 hour pledges get a free pin, so you might want to get in there early. They've been through this process before and always fulfilled them, so a rather low risk venture if you need some glow in the dark dice in your life!
Anyway, sorry for the bit of promo outside of our own project but pulling more eyes to a friend's project is the least I could do for the help they've given me setting up our own dice rewards. Speaking of dice, hoping to have our own Undead Dice mockup ready to go in the next day or so so keep your eyes peeled for that.