Hey everyone!
Back with a regular progress update today. Nothing super special to share other than that progress proceeds apace.
Writing Progress
The freelance writers I've...
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Lone Colossus Games
about 1 month ago
Poll Results, Another Question, Progress Update, and Origins
Hey everyone!
I've got kind of a long update today, with results from the 2014 vs 2024 poll, writing and art progress updates, and another question for you at the end ...
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Lone Colossus Games
about 2 months ago
Surveys sent, PDFs for released books sent, and Important Poll!
Hey everyone!
It's a long weekend for a lot of us in the US, so I'm taking some extra time to work on stat blocks. More on that with the poll at the bottom of the update!
Su...
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Lone Colossus Games
2 months ago
Smoke Test Sent, Initial Progress Update
Hi everyone,
I've just sent out the smoke test for surveys! This means about 5% of backers in each tier will get their survey to fill out today.
Assuming that goes smoo...
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Lone Colossus Games
3 months ago
And that's a wrap!
The campaign is over and it somehow feels like it only launched a couple weeks ago. We didn't make it to the final stretch goal, but as I mentioned in the last update anno...
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Lone Colossus Games
3 months ago
60k Stretch Goal Unlocked, Final Stretch Goal Added!
We did it! We unlocked the Ritual Enhancement System, allowing players to enhance their boons and charms with additional power in exchange for added costs during the ritual a...
Back with a regular progress update today. Nothing super special to share other than that progress proceeds apace.
Writing Progress
The freelance writers I've been working with have been hard at work making some really fantastic creatures that I've been very excited to design. 98% of monsters have now been named, with probably 95% of those being lore-complete (or very close. I still have some a final edit pass to make on a number of them). 66% of all monsters also have at least 1 stat block done, and 139 total stat blocks have been written so far (the final number will be slightly over 300). Here's what the current spread of CRs in the book is looking like:
I'll be aiming to even out the lower end a bit more as it seems I've subconsciously preferred certain CRs as I've worked through the first half of these creatures, although there's some small amount of skew from certain groups like Mephit Swarms (which are going to have multiple sets of stat blocks - 3 stat blocks for 3 types of swarms this case), so you'll likely see counts for <1, 1, 4, 5, 8, 11 increasing to better fill out the curve.
Astral Briar Wolf, by Marco Morales
Art Progress
23% of illustrations are complete (meaning I've sent final payment), but another 12% are very close to done and another 12 should be going out for commission this week. Overall progress has been a little slower than I'd hoped, but the quality is fantastic and I'm willing to let the process take a little longer to make sure the book looks as good as it can in the end!
Corpulent Collector, by Marco Morales. Background likely to be changed to something more celestial in nature
Overall Timeline
Overall, I think we're still on track for a December PDF release, depending on how long editing and layout end up taking. My expectation is that balance checks on monsters can begin in the near future, somewhat in parallel with me finishing up the remaining 50-ish stat blocks, but since I'm at the heart of every process anything that requires my feedback does slow down the rate at which I can work through the stat blocks.
VTT conversions and physical production can only really get started after the PDF is fully complete, so getting everything to the point where I no longer have design work to do will be my top focus for the next month or two.
Miniature Voting
Once I have a bit more art to share, I'll be putting together a list of my favorite creatures that I think would be a good fit for turning into miniatures, and then we'll put it to a vote to pick out our extra unlocked minis (probably sometime around next month's update, maybe a little after).
I've got kind of a long update today, with results from the 2014 vs 2024 poll, writing and art progress updates, and another question for you at the end of the update.
Origins Game Fair
I'll be at Origins Game Fair this week! If you're there, come visit me at Booth 104. I'll have copies of all my products, plus some free bookmarks with art from Tome of Intangible Treasures II!
2014 vs 2024 Poll Results
The vote was very close, but ended in favor of including 2014 stat blocks in the book. I think this will be the right decision to follow for a few reasons:
Many people running the 2024 rules likely already use 2014 content in their game due to the vast amount of existing 2014 content.
This is the edition I am most familiar with writing and balancing for.
This is the edition my balance editor will be most familiar with.
That said, it was a very close vote! While there's no way there's space in the book to include both stat blocks (I'm looking at a page count that might easily push past 320 pages with the 3 CR variants for each creature that we unlocked - more on that below), I will for sure be including some guidelines on converting the stat blocks to the 2024 design. If I have time, and the time cost for the conversion isn't too high, I will also look into providing a text-only conversion of all the stat blocks in the 2024 format. It won't look nearly as pretty, but it would be usable.
Tonguetacle, by Marco Morales (Based on lore by Spencer Hibnick)
Monster Writing Progress
I have some fun details to share about the direction I've been taking with the CR variant stat blocks, but before that: this wouldn't be much of a progress update if I didn't share what kind of progress I've been making! With the help of a team of about 10 freelance writers, almost every monster that will be in the book has been named, and more than 50% of them have lore written. At least 45% of monsters also have a stat block (though some have a stat block and no lore, and vice versa), and probably around 10% of monsters have more than one stat block drafted. In most cases, a monster that has at least one stat block it also has the associated boons and charms written as well, although it's not fully 1:1 at this stage.
Ok, progress update out of the way, let's talk about where these CR variant stat blocks are going. As I've been them, and as I've been getting writing commissions in for lore for new monsters, I've found that I've been tending to not just create CR variants of the monsters by simply changing numbers, but also by changing features or even turning them into an entire creature group.
A celestial ox (final name TBD), by Gibbs Santos
As one of the more extreme examples, Duriel's Divine Devices (lore written by Andie of MargoMods) ended up with each CR variant being an entirely different device. These devices are ancient constructs made long ago, and reclaimed by a somewhat lazy archangel. One device sifts souls and sorts them into their afterlife (or reincarnation) pathway, another strips souls of their impurities (and sometimes much more than that), and a third seeds these recovered souls back into new vessels.
Each variant, for the most part, should feel at least a bit like a new creature. So if you plan a longer adventure, or even a campaign, around some of these creatures, you should have good opportunities to introduce the party to their weaker versions as you build toward a higher level encounter with a stronger variant. This probably won't be the case for 100% of the creatures, but it's definitely a change that I think adds a lot of quality to the book's content (even if it's a bit more work).
Art Progress
Illustrations are well underway as well! Out of the 100 total monster illustrations that will be in the book, 33 have been commissioned, and more than 20 are complete.
A Memory Thief gloats over its prey, by Marco Morales
Monster Organization Question (Poll)
Finally, I wanted to ask you all about how you'd prefer monster groups to be organized as there are probably two or three ways that make sense given that each group will have at least 3 stat blocks.
The first option would be to present the "original" first, then its CR variants from low to high.
By "original" I mean the CR that the creature's stat block most closely matched to the lore is at. For example, if the lore presents a tier 3 creature description, but I've also made tier 2 and tier 4 variants of the creature, this organizational method would place the tiers in order of Tier 3, Tier 2, Tier 4.
This comes with the advantage of having the intended stat block presented first, but the disadvantage of the organization potentially making slightly less sense up front.
The other option that makes a lot of sense is to simply sort all groups by or CR lowest to highest.
The advantage of this is that the creatures are organized in a uniform way.
The disadvantage of this is that, especially for creatures whose "original" stat block was of a high CR, you might see related creatures rather than the creature the lore talks about first. For example, one of the powerful celestial creatures is the Origami Lord. This is a legendary, high CR creature. Its CR variants will be similar in theme, but won't necessarily be direct mechanical variants of the Origami Lord itself (for example, the low CR version will be a Paper Archon, as opposed to something like a "Lesser Origami Lord")
And of course we could also sort highest to lowest.
The advantages here are uniform organization, and creatures like the Origami Lord will show up first.
The disadvantage is that creatures that are originally low CR like the Cyclops Beetle Swarm will have their high CR variant (e.g., Apocalyptic Cyclops Beetle Swarm) show up first.
I'm leaning toward one of options 2 or 3, but I wanted to hear your thoughts on what would be most useful to you when pulling creatures from the book during your game or during session prep, so answer the poll below and let me know!
