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).
