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Grinning Rat Publications (Nate)

10 months ago

Follow my newest module, Certain Fathoms, right here on BackerKit!

First, to current and past backers, thank you so much for your support!

We've come a long way since 2021! Three successful crowdfunding campaigns, thousands of backers, and now... a NEW module for the sci-fi survival horror RPG, Mothership, is almost here!

Inspired by Altered Carbon (2002), Ex Machina (2015), Destiny (2014), The Stygian Library (2018), and Gradient Descent (2020), Certain Fathoms offers a massive location that changes upon each visit, a patron NPC that can provide credits and O2 in exchange for enigmatic gear and knowledge, and several factions presented throughout the megacomplex that complicate matters.

If you're familiar with Mothership and happen to own the module "A Pound of Flesh", this adds directly onto that!

Followers will be notified when the project goes live and will have first dibs on some pretty sweet 48-hour goodies—not just from me but also from the other amazing creators participating in Mothership Month 2025!

You won't want to miss it. In fact, by following my project, I'll even give you a freebie today!

Grinning Rat Publications (Nate)

over 1 year ago

Update 24: Final Progress Report

Dungeoneers,

At the time of writing (March 13), everyone should have their physical rewards! We did it!

Apologies for the delays and lack of communication over the past few months - we had some fulfillment snafus that caused significant issues in the final stage of getting stuff out the door which took the 21st century equivalent of hitting it with a wrench to get it working again.

Because there's nothing that really remains on the docket for the project, I'm considering the project finished! That means you won't hear from me via updates, aside from a few project announcements here and there.

Speaking of...

Some of you may be familiar with a project I've been working on called Pocket Encounters. Well, later in 2025, I'm launching it on Kickstarter! If you're interested in following along, go check it out at the following link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grinningratpub/pocket-encounters

The current plan is for a late summer, early fall launch - but I'll keep you posted on exact timings soon.

Thank you all again for your patience and support with getting Dungeoneering: Catalysts up and running! It's been a wild ride with the Dungeoneering line, and I have you all to thank for its continued cult popularity. I couldn't have done it without you!

Anyways, as always, get out there and play some games!

- Nate

Grinning Rat Publications (Nate)

over 1 year ago

Update 23: Monthly Progress Report

Dungeoneers,

It's been a little longer than intended to keep everyone in the loop, and I apologize for that! Thankfully, this update has only good news.

We're officially ready to send everything out with everything in stock and just about everyone charged for their shipping/add-ons. There were a few squirrelly things on my end regarding some reprints of some of the zines and some charges that needed to be corrected, but we're smooth sailing from here on out.

Here's our adjusted timeline for shipping, accounting for some of the delays:

Shipping and delivering all physical goods to backers will be arriving no later than January 15.

Again: If you live somewhere difficult to reach or have a very robust customs process, your order could be delayed slightly. However, due to the relatively small size of the packages, I'm hoping we can avoid all that. We've avoided it in the past, so I'm confident it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

We're in the home stretch now! Get out there and play some games in the meantime!
- Nate

Grinning Rat Publications (Nate)

over 1 year ago

Update 22: Monthly Progress Report

Dungeoneers,

Hello! I hope your summer has transitioned into fall with minimal issues and that you've been active in as many games as you can muster.

As I mentioned last time, I said I'd update everyone once I had the Starlit Spire zines. So, they're here!

With these, everything physical is officially printed, received, and ready to ship.

You should receive a charge to your card for shipping and any additional add-ons you've added to your order in the next few days. If not, please double-check your payment method on BackerKit to verify things are working.

As a reminder, here's the timeline for shipping:

Shipping and delivering all physical goods to backers will be no later than December 20.

Note that if you live somewhere that's difficult to reach or has a very robust customs process, your order could be delayed slightly. However, due to the relatively small size of the packages, I'm hoping we can avoid all that. We've been able to avoid it in the past, so I'm confident it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

That's it for me this month. Expect November to be a relatively quiet month as things should be jetting across the globe to your mailboxes and doorsteps. I'll still shoot over an update regardless, if not to tell everyone preemptive happy holidays.

Get out there and play some games in the meantime!
- Nate

Grinning Rat Publications (Nate)

almost 2 years ago

Update 21: Monthly Progress Report

Dungeoneers,

Hello! I'm very excited to let you know that the Starlit Spire PDF was sent to backers last night (this morning?) for download! That's the last piece of content needed to make for the campaign and now physical fulfillment can begin in earnest.

As a reminder, here's the general schedule:

Printing and arrival of Starlit Spire physical zines (to me) will be around October 18.
Shipping and delivery of all physical goods to backers will be no later than December 20.

NOTE: October 18 is when the Starlit Spire physical zines will be coming to me from the printer, NOT when they're headed to your mailboxes.

I hope to get everything out the door before then, but anyone who's done any sort of shipping lately knows it is a beast and to complicate things we're headed into the holiday season over here in the U.S. Thankfully I've done it before, so it shouldn't be too big of a hassle (and this is a much smaller project than others before, so I'm not too worried).

Either way, I'm excited to (finally) move forward with the project. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your patience and understanding as I rewrote (and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote...) Starlit Spire. I sincerely believe it ended up being a better product because I was able to go back and had the time to do so.

Oh! And because everyone know has access to the digital versions of files, I'll be adding product pages for the digital versions of Catalysts and Starlit Spire on itch.io and DriveThruRPG. If you've got friends who were excited about the campaign but missed out on the crowdfunding round, they have multiple options now:

Head to the pre-order store (which will be closing in November!)
Head over to itch.io
Check out DriveThruRPG

That's it for me this month. I'll be back in a few weeks (likely around October 18) to show off the zines when they arrive and talk a little about how production and fulfillment is going.

In the meantime, get out there and play some games!

- Nate

Grinning Rat Publications (Nate)

almost 2 years ago

Update 20: Brief Extension to PDF Fulfillment

Dungeoneers,

Hello! Due to a very busy past couple of weeks and some InDesign issues on my part, the Starlit Spire PDF will experience a brief delay and will instead be sent to backers on September 13 -- one week from today. That will give me enough time to make sure everything looks good from an editing standpoint, as well as tie up a few loose threads.

So, again, here's the timetable:

The Starlit Spire PDF will be sent to backers on September 6 13.
Printing and arrival of Starlit Spire physical zines (to fulfillment) will be around October 18.
Shipping and delivery of physical goods to backers will be no later than December 20.

Thanks for all the support and patience as we get this across the finish line. Here are a few spreads for you to take a look at to tide you over the next week.

- Nate