The crowdfunding campaign's over, and I'm nearly two weeks late in saying so. Why? I don't really have a good reason, I just wanted to be dramatic, and also I received thirty different emails from Backerkit at the end of Zinetopia and didn't feel like adding one more. With that out the way, I've actually been preparing to move cities for a job, collaborating on the shared adventure reward with Moon Beast Games, and generally chipping away at the hit points of the beast known as Layout Design.
Vralkast Progress
Michael is currently in the process of sketching truly the world's most difficult city map - a three-dimensional view of Vralkast, with cutaways to the caverns that riddle its stone bones. The plan is for it to have all kinds of references to the content of the book, and I'm rubbing my squamous hands with glee at seeing the full thing. I also need to apologise to him (again) for making a city going forwards, back, up, down, left, and widdershins.
I am currently in the process of inputting the text, tweaking the text, having a good idea for layout, then tweaking that idea for hours until my dopamine-deficient brain realises I haven't eaten yet - which is all to say, things are going well. This will be interrupted over the next few days as I move, but I'm still feeling confident about my timeline estimates. Here's a rough spread from the underwater district of Cartilay:
Collab Adventure: Siren Song
For those who backed both Vralkast and Scuttle!, I've been furiously working on completing my half of the reward - the adventure Siren Song! This will be a 30-page standalone adventure for both D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e suitable for use with both settings. Intended to last 2 sessions, Siren Song crashes the characters into the rocky island of Melody's Break, awash with armed reavers. They've taken a wyrmling hostage, and are using the leverage to command its ancient mother to wreck ships with hypnotic hymnals. To escape, the party will have to stage a daring heist, then descend into the deep with the wyrmling in tow. Check out the current cover: More updates to come with the sea winds.
Thank you again for believing in my weird little city, Jamie
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...and just like that, Vralkast has hit all Stretch Goals!
I cannot thank everyone enough for contributing to this project; I had never expected to reach this point so soon (let alone at all), and I'm blown away by the support you've all shown. I've been musing about adding a final stretch goal that should last until the end of the campaign, but I also don't have anything firm in mind. If anyone has any thoughts on something that isn't 'physical knick-knacks' or a risk of delaying printing, I'm all ears.
In the meantime, production continues:
Art
Character references for the six Ward NPCs are in production, a terrible Paint map of the city has been sent along with a mood board, and grand under-dragons are being sketched. In a couple of weeks I hope to share some more concrete stuff, but right now everything's in a hive of motion. In the meantime, have a snippet of Great Olm:
The great serpentine form of a Great Olm, typhlotic and squamous, emerges from the Sea of Sorrow - Ia! Ia!
Giant Tier Characters
I've sent out emails and messages to all Giant Tier Backers to ask about NPC ideas and provide a document synopsis of the city and other relevant info. If you haven't seen this yet, please check your Junk folder, as I've had reports of Backerkit stuff ending up there. If there's nothing, I'll send another email in a few days and go from there.
Layout
The way I work on layout design is by iterating endlessly, tweaking components until they feel just right. I'm still doing this as I work my way through the sections page by page, so I'm somewhat reticent to share anything right now (as it'll be different tomorrow and the day after anyway). That said, keeping everything under wraps is no fun, so here's a pixel-compressed sneak peek straight from the first chapter in Affinity - More art and production updates to come next tide -
It's been 48 hours and I'm still reeling like an angler with a catch. Having passed £2250 earlier today, three Stretch Goals have now been annihilated, requiring me to sheepishly ask Michael Fiore if it's fine for me to dump a whole-ass map and 6 character reference sheets in his inbox (but not to do all at once, dear god). I also have to seriously consider if I should prepare additional stretch goals (bizarre! absurd!), but that'll come later; for now, time to buckle down!
I'm currently in the process of preparing references for the Ward NPCs, and have already sent reference sheets for the city map (a full spread, what luxury). I've reached out for help with the NPC reference sheets from the wonderful Rebecca Gray, a fashion guru who I worked with on Textiles of Eberron (a full fantasy fashion magazine!).
The writing for my Siren Song adventure is majority complete, which I'm aiming to finish tomorrow on the train. This is half of the freebies you can get from my collaboration with Moon Beast Games.
The writing for Vralkast is 90% complete; I'm just missing some Ward Encounters and Rumors to dredge from my brain, and some extra stuff on the cursed E𝔦𝔤𝔥t𝔥 of Vralkast's seven Wards.
What is done is the cover, and it blows me away every time I see it. I've attached the front half below - oh, and don't forget to vote on the Community Poll to decide which NPCs get art!
I have no words to explain how I felt watching Vralkast reach its funding goal in 3 hours yesterday, or how I felt waking up to see we'd already passed the first Stretch Goal. It's the mixture of awe, fear, and manic flailing around I imagine a fish feels when it sees a scuba diver.
Aquatic analogies aside, I'm astonished, and have nothing but thanks for everyone who has bought into my mad vision of a city built on harpy song and squidmeat. With my gobs suitably smacked, check out the Art Poll below to have your say for our first Stretch Goal!
1. Stretch Goal - ART POLL!
The first Stretch Goal for Vralkast is to ask the wonderful Michael Fiore to produce 3 pieces of spot art for the featured district NPCs. To decide which, I've created a poll - attached to this update - for y'all to choose whoever strikes your fancy. On Sunday (or Startide for the Vralkasters here), I'll be taking the three most popular choices and creating reference sheets for Michael. This poll is ongoing - even if your first choice doesn't get chosen, should we meet the other NPC Art Stretch Goal, they can still get chosen then!
2. Early Bird Free Reward
As a reminder, anyone backing for the rest of today will still receive the Early Bird reward - an additional 'Ecology Guide' to the Sea of Sorrow and its many weird and wonderful creatures, including the draconic Great Olms. If you know anyone who might be interested in Vralkast, letting them know now will get them the reward and help the project get off to the strongest possible start!
3. Projects To Watch!
There are some awesome projects this Zinetopia, and I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of them.
Blightfallby Matthew Ayers is a dark fantasy TTRPG for a GM and 3-5 players. Doomed villagers infected with darkness sacrifice shreds of their humanity for the power to protect their home. The unique system is part collaborative worldbuilding to create your shared civilization and threats, part narrative and combat engine to play inside your creation. But no matter what you do, your characters will eventually become abominations. Without Matthew's help, this project would never have existed, and I both owe him massively and REALLY want to play Blightfall.
Scuttle! by Moon Beast Games is an occult swashbuckling adventure for Pathfinder and D&D; we're cross-collaborating over a shared love of occult seas and leviathans of the deep, and backing both will get you additional rewards - and if you back both at physical, you get an entire free custom-sculpted miniature of a Great Olm!
Von Hynd Manor is a delightfully decadent adventure of bloodshed and diablerie by Stella Condrey. With stats for a variety of systems, the Von Hynd Manor is a dark tale of predatory nobility that I'm looking forward to holding in my soft aristocratic fingers over a glass of 'house red'.
A massive thanks again, and more updates to follow!
