Backerkit Surveys coming next week! For real this time!
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 11:15:51 PM

Hey everyone!

Backerkit Surveys

I'm gonna keep this update short and sweet! I will be sending the Backerkit surveys this coming week no later than Wednesday (hopefully sooner)

Long story short, I have to pay the Backerkit campaign fee first, and all of my other money is tied up with rent and bills, so I have to wait for the Kickstarter deposit to finish processing. That should be ready by Tuesday hopefully, and once it is in my account I am paying that Backerkit invoice and mashing the send button!

Playtesters

All of that said I finished writing (draft, not necessarily the final version) the first dungeon, Deathmist Vault, and I am starting the writing on the 2nd dungeon (Shattered Chapel) this weekend! Anyone signing up for playtesting will get an email shortly after with a PDF version of Deathmist Vault (and maaaaaybe Shattered Chapel) shortly after. Again both of these are not proofed (so they may contain spelling and grammar errors), and may need balance adjustments maaaaaybe. 

There will also be a link to a survey in the email so if anyone finds anything (mainly looking at balance but if you do find spelling or grammar errors feel free to leave a note about those too, but my proof and edit team will hopefully find all of those, but there is nothing wrong with more eyes am I right). 

That's it for today! I'll post another update next week once I send out those Backerkit Surveys (sorry about the delay on those, that's on me), and as always if you have any questions or anything feel free to comment, message or hop on my Discord (fastest way to get in touch with me is definitely Discord)! 

Love you all like a Gelatinous Cube loves a blood-soaked corridor! 

Backerkit Surveys Coming soon!
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Jun 07, 2022 at 08:46:42 PM

Hey everyone! Just wanted to pop in to give you all a short update today! I am finishing up with setting everything up on Backerkit now, including all of the Add-Ons for Poster Maps, 3d Printing on Demand, and all of the Zines I am getting a print run for! I have submitted the page to Backerkit to review so hopefully I will get the approval from them in the next day or so, and then I will be sending out surveys to everyone!

Poster Maps

I made each Dungeon available as a Poster Map - including both the Entrance Map I am making (because I am a completionist) and the actual Dungeon! Each one has an option to either get "Just the Dungeon", "Just the Entrance", "Both Maps as a Double Sided Map" and "Both Maps as Individual Separate Maps"

This should be pretty self-explanatory, if you just want the Dungeon Maps printed, you can get just the Dungeon Maps. If you want both the Dungeon and the entrance, you can choose to get them as a Double-Sided poster, with the Dungeon on one side, and the Entrance on the other side, OR you can get them both as separate maps.  The choice is yours!

I also made an option for the Grid, though I assume most people will want the Grid on the map, just in case, I left that as an option anyway! 

Last but not least, you can get them individually, or get all of the posters as a bundle! I will have promo codes for these posters for all backers so you can get them on my Website later if you can't get them now! 

3d Printing On Demand

We had a bunch of people ask about this once we started adding STL files! So we are taking orders now for anyone who wants us to 3d print your miniatures! We split them into Dungeons and a bundle for all of the BBEGs. Just select which Dungeon(s) you want, and then choose if you want us to hand paint them or not.  Simple as that! 

We are also going to extend the Stretch Goal concept into our Backerkit Post campaign as well, and we will be unlocking additional Minis in Backerkit. This will include all other creatures (not just BBEGs) and we will be unlocking them by the Dungeon at every $5k we raise in Backerkit.  

We will create a new category for pre-orders for all of the extra minis as they are unlocked. Additionally, anyone getting the STL Files will automatically get any additional Mini's unlocked in this way.

Zines

Each Dungeon in the book is available as a Zine, and I am also making a print run on the Seventh Moon Adventures one-shot adventures as Zines as well! You can grab all of those in Backerkit as either individual Zines, or Bundles!

Playtesters

We want to get playtesters on board for this book! There will be a section on the Backerkit Survey for anyone interested in Playtesting each individual dungeon! If you are interested, simply check the box for "Yes" and we will send you the PDFs for each dungeon as they are created for your own play testing purposes, and we will also send you another survey for your feedback, and anything else you find, so we can spot any typos, errors, or balance issues before the Book gets printed

This is opt-in only! You don't have to sign up unless you want to!

Thanks Again Everyone

I'll keep the updates coming! I'll be posting updates every time I finish various sections of this, so you can all know where the progress is and preview the maps, minis, and whatnot! 

Thank You! We funded a staggering 1850%
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 03, 2022 at 03:37:24 AM

Thank You all so much! 

From the bottom of my heart, I can not thank you all enough! None of this would be possible without the tremendous support from all of you!

Also Thank you to all the extremely long list of fellow creators, who gave me signal boosts, advise and moral support before during and after this campaign! I can't thank you all enough either! I want to leave a list of creators who helped out tremendously and I encourage everyone who supported this campaign to check all of these folks out if you have not already! 

Content Creators Who Helped Me Out Along The Way:

Dragonshorn Studios - Rughalt has been here for me every single day of this entire campaign! He has given me so much encouragement it is unfounded. He also is going to be helping out with the FoundryVTT adaption of this book!

Adventures Awaits - Ben is just plain and simply awesome. He sat in voice chat with me SEVERAL times before the campaign was launched, giving me invaluable feedback and advice that I am conviced truly elevated this campaign to everything it became. He also gave me a solid signal boost about a week in that really kicked helped take this campaign into the next gear!

Moonlight Maps - Ollie helped me out tremendously with a plethora of advice and support,  and a huge signal boost (seriously, thank you for that - 5% of backers discovered me through you!) They also make stunning maps that you need in your life!!!

Landon Jamieson - Chances are if you have backed other Kickstarters you have seen Landon in the comments! He is a super backer and he brings in all the stats for you every day! Nobody asks, he just does it, and that is awesome! He also posts video highlights of active Kickstarters all the time, so check his channel out, like and subscribe to him and help his algorithm out the same way he helps all of these other creators out! LOVE YOU LANDON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tom Cartos - We all know Father Tom! He has been so encouraging, not only to me, but to so many other creators with signal boosts, advice, and he is just a solid role model everyone should strive to be like. I can't state how appreciative I am to have gotten to know Tom over the years, and if you aren't already supporting him, you should consider it!

Arcanum Worlds - Jesse, James, and Brent is are incredible! They gave me solid advice and encouragement and sent a signal boost our way as well! You should be on the look out for everything they ever create! You can learn more about their epic books on their website!

Mammoth Factory - Dav provided me with so much critical feedback right before I launched, and really helped inspire me to make some incredible last minute changes to my wording, layout, and overall look of the Kickstarter page, and also, they have some of the best (if not the best) 3d Models around! They also have a Kickstarter coming up soon! Sign up to be notified when they launch here!

Token Vault - Ryan & Jess are the definitions of incredible human beings. Ryan has been helping me out with my Foundry content since I started producing it, and has also offered so much encouragement, feedback, ideas, and just all-around moral support. I am honored to have met this man!

McRo Music - Sean is another person who has been there for me every step along the way in this Kickstarter, and he has helped out so much with advice, social media, and he's also making music for this! You should definitely support him if you like top quality thematic music for your campaign!

Domille - Domille is such an amaizing human being! She makes beautiful phased battlemaps, has a subreddit channel dedicated to phased battlemaps, and she even has phased battlemap mods for Foundry! She also introduced me to a TTRPG Creators Guild and opened so many doors for me and so many other creators! She devotes as much time to helping others out as she does for herself! Support Domille! She is freaking awesome sauce!!!

MZ4250 - Miguel makes some truly amazing 3d models! If there's ever a mini you need, chances are he has it! Miguel has given me a ton of support throughout the past couple of years, and is just an amazing beho... HUMAN and I can't thank him enough for the signal boosts from his community over on Discord! 

M3DM - Mia is such an amazing person! I am actually taking 3d Sculpting classes from her right now! Between the folks I have brought on to help make these STLs and Mia's knowledge in Zbrush, we will be producing fantastic 3d Prints for everyone! Whether you are looking for 3d models to print or learn how to 3d model yourself, you should check her out!

Loresmyth - Chris from Loresmyth is just... amazing! Not only do they make amazing books, but they also have an amazing community, and are actively helping to shape creators coming up, giving incedible advice, and have a great Discord community to help signal boost with!

Loot Tavern - Aggi from Loot Tavern is another creator that sat in voice chat with me for countless hours, offering advice, Instagram signal boosts, and just all around moral support all along the way for me! If you haven't checked them out yet, you are missing out, so head on over to their site now!

Midgardia - Garm did a real fun interview for me (which I probably sounded like crazy clueless munky on, hahaha) and he has an awesome YouTube channel where he interviews so many other creators all the time on! Check him out! Also Karu from Migardia maks amazing Maps and you should support them on Patreon if you can as well! 

dScryb - Ben gave me a lot of great advice, helped me network with a few other publishers and was the first person to reach out to say congratulations when my Kickstarter was over!

Czepeku - Has amazing maps, and an amazing community! They post weekly creator tweets on Twitter, helping everyone far and wide signal boost, and lets be honest, anyone who is a map maker looks at their maps with googly eyes! Their attention to detail and lighting has inspired me for so long to continue to make my own maps better!

Gabriel Pickard - When I first started creating maps years ago, Gabe gave me so much advice. I actually started out following his tutorials on an old Cartographers Guild yeeeeeeeeeears ago, and he has sent so much inspiration and advice (and assassins) my way it is unbelievable!

Russ Hapke - Russ has such a warm heart! His moral support and encouragement in my early years of creating maps really helped lift me up and inspire me to never give up! Russ was one of the first people to ever reach out to me and help me network with other creators! You should check him and his partner out on Gaming Geeks!

David Hemenway - Before I started making maps, I found David's maps over on Deviant Art and started using them! I started making my own, and he offered advice and encouragement all along the way, and he helped encourage me to actually start putting my maps out on Roll20 so many years ago!

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

There are so many more I want to list, and I have already created a wall of text highlighting so many of them, but there really are so many more who have helped me out, given me advice, feedback, moral support, signal boosts, taught me things and so much more! Everyone above has done so much for me, and I want everyone to know about them all! 

Oh!

One last one! 

The Cover Art Illustrator Deserves Her Own Section!!!!

Taurie! Everyone who sees this cover art on this book, that is her! She is an amazing artist and she worked with me to bring my vision to the cover of this book for all of you to enjoy! She is such an amazing artist, and so much fun to work with! She has helped out on other books such as The Crucible and helps out with so many other content creators! You need to check out her portfolio! 

All Done!

Alright! That's it for now! 

I have a book to write, maps to draw and 3d Models to get ready for you all! I'll be keeping regular update posts along the way so you all know where everything is along the way!

Backerkit

Now that the campaign is over, I can set up the Backerkit Add-Ons and get all of that ready! I will be sending out surveys through them in the next few days to get info from everyone, including your current shipping address (for physical backers) and there will be a link there for my Newsletter, and you will be able to grab some extra add-ons like the Poster Maps and 3d Printed and Painted Minis through them! 

If anyone is interested in Playtesting the Dungeons, there will be an option in the Survey to be able to! This will also let you get some of the early access on these dungeons sooner, and provide me with invaluable feedback on their final versions - You don't need to sing up if you don't want to however! Some of you may want to hold out until everything is nice and polished and ready to go, and that is 100% ok! 

The PDF version of the book will be the first thing everyone gets, and that will give us one final pass over before the print production and VTT conversions are finalized! More on that later though!

Thank you all so much! I am so happy to provide so many of you with these dungeons you are about to have fun with for years to come!

ALL STRETCH GOALS ARE UNLOCKED!!!
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Jun 01, 2022 at 11:08:14 PM

ALL STRETCH GOALS ARE UNLOCKED!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALL STRETCH GOALS ARE UNLOCKED!!!!

wait wait wait... Did I say that loud enough? ALL STRETCH GOALS ARE UNLOCKED!!!! It feels so good to say that! I can't even begin to explain how excited I am! Thank you all for the amazing support, and every single contribution along the way! You all have made my first Kickstarter a success and have made it to where I can now begin creating content for everyone! From the Digital realm of every popular VTT to the Physical table tops across the globe! 

Let's Take a Look at what has been unlocked!

So this journey began with me initially only planning to create a Book of Dungeons. I set the initial Stretch Goals to be just the Dungeons, some Ambient Music, and some additional Illustrations for Traps and Puzzles... But all of those were umlocked so fast... All of those goals were unlocked in literally the well before first week was finished!

So then I put my thinking darkmantle cap on and really started looking at some other options I could add to this thing. None of the Stretch Goals after those initial ones were a part of the original plan. We added Card Decks, Button Pins, Bookmarks, and Stickers. Fun, right! I think so, and the Cards were very popular. Between folks upgrading their pledges to the Book + Cards, to people grabbing the decks as Add-ons, the Decks of Many Cards were definitely a good idea, and something a lot of people wanted! 

But those card decks were all unlocked before the halfway point. I could have coasted I suppose, and just let the rest of the campaign just do it's thing, and have no more rewards.... But that's not who I am. I decided to start looking for some sculptors (and I am also going to start sculpting some myself) and we got 20 STL Files added to the menu! Those all were unlocked this morning! 

But that wasn't all that was unlocked. My main goal, as I have been stating this entire campaign, was to be able to afford to purchase a Large Format Poster Printer so that I can start printing my maps ON DEMAND without the need for a 3rd party printer to do these for me! I am anxiously awaiting my printer to be shipped and delivered, it has already been ordered, and I am in the process of setting up all of those Add-Ons on Backerkit Now!

Thank you all once again, I am beyond the moon how excited I am to create this book and bring you all top quality dungeons, with maps, minis, cards, traps, puzzles, creatures, magic items, bookmarks, and everything else under the moon! 

Three Days Left to Lock in your Pledge!
almost 2 years ago – Mon, May 30, 2022 at 11:41:59 PM

It's the Final Stretch Goal!

Just three days left, and we are looking to unlock the Final Stretch Goal! I want to get all of the BBEGs sculpted in STL form for everyone, and we are so close I can taste it! 

Maybe I should stop putting resin in my coffee... 

Thank you all so much for the amazing support!

None of this would be possible without each and every single one of you!

I have been busy making maps, writing dungeon crawls, and getting everything set up to really kick off the production of this book! I have a lot of fun things planned, and now it is time to execute it all! 

Once the campaign is finished, I am going to get the Backerkit page finished up and send out some surveys. I'll also be looking for people interested in playtesting, so if you are a backer and want to get some sneak peeks, and playtest some of the Dungeons, let me know in the survey and I'll send some Dungeon Crawls to you as they are made so that when everything is all said and done, this book can be everything it is meant to be! 

Look! That's one of the minis! Right there in the bottom right corner! It's not even one of the BBEGs, but it is an extra I knew I had to have so I made sure it was made! The Gelatinous Horror! I just got it in last night and am test printing it today! 

Speaking of test prints!

Backerkit will have all of the add-ons, from Zines to Minis - in every form, STL, Printed, and Painted! We will also have all of the Poster Maps as Individual Addons! Everything will be available as individual A La Cart, and available as the whole package! So if you can't print your mini or your map on your end, we will do it for you! 

There are even Zines available for each Dungeon Crawl in the book as individual mini zines (in case you don't want to lug around the book) and there will also be Zines of all of my Seventh Moon Adventure one-shots!

Let me know which Dungeon you are most excited about!