Vocurro is shaping up to be an incredible journey for your players, whether they’re a group of mages, knights, and rogues, or a crew of pilots, space rangers, and medics. We’d like to take an opportunity to share some design snippets from Monte Cook himself, and a testimonial from one of the players in his fantasy playtest.
Monte says…
So recently, I learned about remipedes. These are eyeless crustaceans that look like colorless, segmented centipedes. Each segment has a pair of legs, like a centipede, but they're like little flippers because these things live underwater. In caves. Not only do they have sophisticated mandibles, but their head has six strong, arm-like appendages for holding prey while the mandibles bite, over and over. To top it all off, they can also inject a powerful neurotoxin. Of course, in the real world they are only a few centimeters long. But in a fantasy world, a giant remipede might be more like 5 feet long.
Moral of the story? If you're exploring the natural limestone caves that are a part of the megadungeon, stay out of the water. Or maybe don't, because there's something really important in the submerged cave below them for all the adventurer/cave-divers out there.
—Monte
(Nothing to worry about, right? Right?!?)
Playtesting continues!
Kate, one of the internal players in Monte’s playtest, had a few tidbits to share as well.
“Our Jewel in the Sky playtest as a fantasy party really does playtest the megadungeon itself—from noting that we needed an idea of how much it costs to stay in the definitely-not-haunted-tavern, to whether we use Effort on each or just one roll to make the undead run away before we had to. (Even if we are incapable of rolling above a 10, and are essentially clown shoes when it comes to in-character decisions)!"
—Kate, aka Sparks, an Intuitive Dragonfolk Cleric who Blazes with Fire
We can’t wait to share more details about the dungeons as they come to life!
Hang in there, our update is a bit all over the place.
The cover
First, Rick and I have been batting around ideas for the cover. I feel the rough sketch gives you the vibe for the action-filled cover, so I thought I would share.
Cover concept
I feel for whoever Wyatt is aiming at.
Memes
I've also had fans sending me truffalo memes, thus I wanted to share.
Truffling
TWW?
Some have also asked how the new Cypher can impact the Underflow setting and I had some thoughts.
Which Mega Dungeon is yours?
The second edition of Cypher has arrived! It has plenty of surprises for old and new fans. The biggest change is how Types are now deeply tied to the genre of a campaign. For example, we now have three favors of fantasy to play with.
There is dungeon fantasy for those who want grand stories with powerful characters who hail from anywhere in the cosmos. There is Epic Fantasy which lets PCs go from humble to heroic like a classic novel while Sword and Sorcery brings back the picaresque hero who lives as much on their wits as they do their prowess.
Each of these genres, though, can help make your Hobgoblin Market and the Underflow different and uniquely your own!
Dungeon Fantasy
This genre has Cypher and Fantasy both turned up to 11. All the rules are in play, types, focuses, manifest cyphers, and artifacts. But perhaps the biggest meta rule to consider is the “rule of cool.”
For the Underflow and Hobgoblin Market, this rule of cool turns the weird western more into an anime western with ponchos as capes and duster coats as robes. GM intrusions provide both hob bows malfunctions and ammo depletion.
For NPCs in both dungeon fantasy and Epic Fantasy, Sheriff Wyatt tries to keep the peace. If there’s corruption, he’s probably unaware of it.
Epic Fantasy
This is a world where the eventual stakes are high and you fought hard to get here. Deciding between trying to heal or use a non-rest 10 hour recovery to be rid of a curse is a really tough choice at the lower tiers - especially if your GM allows you online one chance to restore a major wound.
Just as artifacts are more rare in epic fantasy, hob bows should be as well. Perhaps there's no special custom ammo and they now have a 1 in d10 depletion roll. Those PCs wanting to embrace the gunslinger life, the Carries a Gun focus should be available.
In these more dangerous worlds, The hob bow already has a challenger as the Ironhold dwarves have developed a more fearsome weapon. The maticore crank crossbow fires multiple bolts at ridiculous speeds. A devastating weapon despite being so cumbersome it needs a wheeled tripod for transport. For PCs, it Gatling gun Heavy weapon, rapid‑fire, long range, mounted on large‑wheeled carriage; enough ammunition to fire the crossbow for 1 minute is a very expensive cost a
The GM can decide to ignore the Weird West aspects but they can add more flavor and uniqueness to their setting. It also gives a GM a chance to show off their funny voices.
Sword and Sorcery
The rough and tumble nature of a classic Western boom town fits right in with the Sword and sorcery genre. It’s no surprise that stories for both genres both appeared in the same old pulp magazines.
Much like Epic Fantasy, hob bows are different. They should be even more unreliable with a 1 in d6 depletion roll to represent both malfunctions and running out of ammo.They are also one category more expensive.
This sort of mashup embraces all the dangers of both worlds. Truffalo are walking money and food the PCs will have to protect from claim jumpers, handits, and hungry monsters.
For NPCs, life is made harder thanks to shifty merchants and lackadaisical law enforcement. In such a campaign, Sheriff Wyatt can be either corrupt, overwhelmed, or habitually turns a blind eye to Vigilante justice.
Seasoning your campaign
The beauty of the new edition is not only can you signpost to your players your expectations for the game, the genre you pick adds a whole new flavor to the campaign. A GM could use the same content and run two very different games, something that seems pretty tempting right now.
If that tempts you, let me know. You can also tell me what your plans are for the Cypher ttrpg.
First, I want to sincerely apologize for the radio silence over the past several months. You all placed your trust in me by backing The Vault of the Seven, and you deserved more frequent communication from me.
Unfortunately, life had other plans.
Over the past several months I've been dealing with a number of health issues, along with some significant family matters that required my time and attention. While neither stopped work on the project entirely, they did slow my progress considerably and made it difficult to provide the kind of updates I wanted to share.
The good news is that The Vault of the Seven is still moving forward. Work has continued, and I'm now in a position where I can see the finish line. My current expectation is that the completed project will be ready within the next three months.
Rather than rushing to meet an arbitrary deadline, I want to make sure I deliver the book that I envisioned when I first launched this campaign—and the book that you backed. Your patience has given me the opportunity to do that, and I'm incredibly grateful.
Going forward, I'll do a better job of keeping everyone informed as I work toward completion. Even if progress is incremental, you deserve to know where things stand.
Thank you for your patience, your understanding, and most of all, your belief in this project. It truly means a great deal to me, and I can't wait to finally put The Vault of the Seven into your hands. I'm getting the pledge manager set up, and the surveys should be out to everyone within the next 10 days. No later than August 15, 2026.
Will the VTT include the material to utilize stretch goal material, like tokens for the creatures in the included bestiary stretch goal or handouts and maps needed for the side quests?
It would be difficult for VTT campaigns to use those stretch goal materials without the BTY module support if they are excluded, but when people have asked if the stretch goal materials are included in the VTT module, there hasn't been an answer one way or the other.
We hope your summer is full of adventures, whether you’re outdoors or hiding from the weather in your preferred gaming habitat.
A Dynamic Dungeon.
We checked in with Monte, who has been designing and running playtests for Jewel in the Sky and this is what they shared with us:
Playtesting and design continue at a rapid pace for Jewel in the Sky. In the games I'm running, I've found that the Event Tracker (the new name for the "clocks" discussed in the campaign) really makes the dungeon dynamic. Triggered when players roll 1s or 20s (or both) in the session, the tracker may result in interesting changes. The dungeon’s inhabitants move around, new inhabitants move in—often introducing some new potential story element—conflicts among inhabitants resolve or flare up, or some aspect of the dungeon changes. Even relatively minor events, such as an inhabitant moving through a dungeon area, can have big repercussions to the PC's adventures, because the inhabitant might leave a formerly locked door open, reveal a secret door, or something similar.
—Monte Cook, June 2026
I don’t know about you lovelies, but we definitely have a waaay higher percentage of folks who consistently roll 1s; hard stares go to Bruce and Kate for this! Who in your group is going to have the dials of the Event Tracker spinning, or have you found the ways to sacrifice to the dice gods for leniency?
Keep in touch for more updates. Thanks for your support.
Let me introduce you to Sir Lucius Atilius spying for the Sunless Kingdom as Drake Havermore. Mr. Havermore has many connections within the Hobgoblin Market and sometimes needs his “gentleman” troll, Brackrip, to facilitate communication - especially physical communication. You just know these two are cunning and bad news for anyone who crosses them.
Next update we’ll introduce Bash Wyatt, the orc sheriff.
Otherwise, we are commissioning more art, squaring up our word count, and doing some early-stage layouts.
The post-campaign lull has allowed everyone to take a bit of time in the tavern or holodeck, depending on your preference! Behind the scenes (or deeper in the dungeon), a great deal is happening. Monte was able to surface from the Jewel long enough to tease this report:
I'm working steadily on Jewel in the Sky, and running two playtests (one for fantasy characters and one for sci-fi characters). As I go along, I'm finding a lot of great opportunities for handouts to use at the table. I've created briefing summaries and data readouts for science fiction explorers as well as tavern menus and hand-drawn area maps fantasy characters can obtain in the nearby town, Murton. Of course, a fun thing about Jewel in the Sky is that the science fiction characters can go to Murton (probably disguised as locals) and encounter those handouts, and the fantasy characters can trigger (by accident or on purpose) scanners they find and get the data readouts. In either case, language can be a barrier, but that's what translator devices and magic spells are for!
In the dungeon itself, I'm currently working on the mysterious region that can be discovered by stepping through doorways seen only in the reflections of magic mirrors. There are multiple such mirrors throughout the dungeon and they all... well, that would be a major spoiler. Suffice to say, this Megadungeon rewards those characters really interested in exploration and satisfying their own curiosity!
– Monte Cook, May 2026
As one of the players in Monte’s Jewel in the Sky fantasy campaign, and having experienced these weird mirror rooms, I too would LOVE to know more. If only to prevent…well, ok, yes, that’s probably a spoiler too!
for both the Creatures of Vocurro Bestiary and the Vocurro Side Quests the item discriptions say that you will get a free pdf copy with your physical purchase. However we don't get the option to add on the items just as pdfs, Is that intentional or just an oversight?
I've pledged the Deluxe Boxed Set (print + pdf) level, but I cannot find out whether the Cloth Map and the Vucorro Side Quest is included or not. Please reply so I can complete my pledge.
Can the Cypher rulebooks pdfs be given ahead of the adventure files, for people who pledged the Dungeon+Cypher tiers? It would be nice to begin to read through starting now to be ready for the Jewel when it releases in several months.
