Hello everyone, I know we just sent an update about two weeks ago, but we just wanted to give you a quick update about a change, and ask for your feedback on something we are working on with our editor!
We really wanted to avoid any delays, but unfortunately with this being our first project we are still learning how long some processes take. With the last two weeks of working with our editor on the bulk of the book’s content we came to the decision that we need another month of time to work on the Editing phase. We want to ensure that we give you the best quality product we can make, without rushing things and leaving mistakes in the book. This will push the PDF completion to July 1st, 2026.
Now on future projects we will make sure we have enough time allotted in our schedule for editing, without having any delays to the initial timeline.
Power Presentation Style
One of the things we are working on is determining the best style for how we present Powers in the SIC, and all other content moving forward.
Natural Language Style
So far what we have used in the Primer and Playtest Packets is what we call a “natural language” style for presenting Powers. This style is where the Power name, action type, and Power Tags were presented first, followed by the flavor and mechanics all presented in a single paragraph. Here are some examples of what this looks like for reference:
Juice Up–Minor Action– Ranged, Targeted, Buff, Offense
Send an empowering jolt of electricity through yourself or an Ally in Range causing their next Attack, to deal 1d4 + [½ Damage Modifier] bonus Damage. If the Attack misses the effect is lost. Lasts 1 Turn.
Hammer Fist–Main Action– Melee, Targeted, Offense, Control
Make a Melee Attack, covering your fist in stone to bring it down on an Enemy’s head dealing 2d4 + [Damage Modifier] Damage. The Target must also make a Durability Check with a Difficulty of 9 + [Control Modifier] or be Stunned for 1 turn.
Fire Breath– Main Action–Ranged, Cone, Offense
Breathe fire like a dragon in a Cone. Targets in the Cone must make a Durability Check with a Difficulty of 13 + Control Modifier, taking 2d8 + [Damage Modifier] Damage if they Fail, or on a Success they take half damage and are not affected by your Burning Flames Inherent Effect.
Nova– Main Action – Self, Area, Offense, Support
Blast light energy out of your body dealing damage to Enemies and healing Allies for 1d6 + the number of targets affected. Area of 5x5 Units centered on you.
Formulaic Style
We have been mulling over an alternative that makes quick assessment of Powers’ mechanics and effects easier, but does make them read less naturally. We are calling this a “formulaic” style. With this style we no longer need Power Tags, since this style makes finding what a Power does much easier. Here are the examples from above after being converted what this stylet would look like as a comparison to the natural language style (keep in mind this text is not final):
JUICE UP – Minor Action
Targeting: Self or Ally in Range
Resolution: Automatic effects
Effects: Buff adding 1d4 + [½ Damage Modifier] Damage to next Attack within 1 Turn. Buff removed if the Attack Misses.
HAMMER FIST – Main Action
Targeting: Enemy in Melee Range
Resolution: Melee Attack; On Hit, Durability Check vs 9 + [Control Modifier]
Resolution: Durability Check vs 13 + [Control Modifier]
Effects: On Failed Check, deals 2d8 + [Damage Modifier] Damage; on Successful Check, deals half Damage.
NOVA – Main Action
Targeting: All Targets in 5x5 Area centered on Self
Resolution: Automatic effects
Effects: Allies gain 1d6 + [number of Targets affected] Healing, Enemies take 1d6 + [number of Targets affected] Damage.
We have attached a Poll below to this update where we would love to hear your feedback! Please feel free to comment and discuss as well as vote on which style you prefer.
Hello everyone, this is a very exciting update as we close in on finalizing the SIC and getting ready to go to production!
Before we get into the details, we just wanted to let you know that we operate with transparency with our audience as one of our most important qualities. We do this so that you know where things are at and when you can expect your rewards for backing our campaign, or for those of you that didn’t back us, so you know when the books will be available for purchase.
SIC Final Steps
Today marks the end of our Playtesting phases! That means we are beginning the editing process for most of the content. We’ve actually already gotten started with editing on Issue #1 with our Editor, and it has already been completed. Issue #1 contains the introductory chapters that overview how to play the game, as well as the core rules and combat rules.
We are very happy with the improvements to clarity that our editor brought to the game rules. We think it really elevates the game to meet the professional quality we want to have for our players and community!
As we mentioned in our previous update just a week and a half ago, the editing process is scheduled to complete at the end of the month. Following this the layout will begin at the start of April. Then two weeks before we have a final draft of the PDF complete, on May 18th we will lock all orders, and charge cards the following week on May 25th. Lastly on June 1st we will send a draft of the PDF to all backers as we prepare to place the physical copy orders. We plan to give ourselves one month for backers to provide feedback on any possible errors in the draft PDF and get them updated before sending out the final PDFs (including to those of you that pre-ordered on our website!) and placing the order for physical copies.
More Art Teasers
As with before, we love to share the pencils stage of this art, so you can be excited to see the final colors in the SIC book!
First we have EVO, a Super who tinkers and creates items using his excellent crafting abilities.
Next, we have some example Genniki civilians.
Lastly we have Milton's rendition of Indominus in a solo piece!
We know it’s short notice, but Q&A #7 is scheduled for tonight at 5:00 PM Pacific Time! We’ve decided that we are going to have at least one Q&A stream each month, and we will have these on the first Monday of each month moving forward!
We also may do some additional streams for fun in between!
Character Concept Challenge Winner - Old Man Entropy
Milton has completed the art for the Character Concept Challenge winner, Old Man Entropy made by Donnelly Homily! This one is probably one of the most unique and special characters we have art for! Thank you to everyone who voted!
The Next Community Event! Player Versus Player?!
Yes, you read that right! We are starting to plan the next Indominant Community Event! We don’t have a schedule yet for when it will take place, but we are beginning to plan the Player Versus Player Tournament! We will share the details once we lock those in!
One Shots with Devs Update
Ricky and I (Zarek) are scheduling out our times for the Dev One Shots that Backers got as part of their Pledge Level, or chose as Add-Ons! We are taking this time to also create a system on the Odin's Key Gaming Website for folks to purchase One Shots through there! All of the Backers that got this reward will be given a coupon code to select a One Shot event for free!
Hello everyone! It’s Zarek again, the Lead Designer of Indominant! It’s been a few weeks since our last update, so we just wanted to let you know how things have been going!
Playtest Packet #1 Update
There were a few errors that were caught and have been corrected in Playtest Packet 1. Normally for any updates on Playtest documents we’d wait for the next Playtest packet, but some of these cause some confusion and we don’t want folks to have to join the discord or search online to find the correct information. So Playtest Packet #1 will have a Version 2 sent out next week!
Primer Physical Copy
There are some folks who ordered a physical copy of the Primer! To them, we say thank you! We also wanted to give you an update on when you can expect your copy!
We have a few changes to the Primer that we want captured and updated on the physical version before we get your print on demand copy from Drive Thru RPG sent out. So we are working on making those changes and getting them ready for print there. The timeline we are looking at to get these physical copies sent out is roughly by the end of July 2025. We have to get the document updated, then order a proof copy before we can get copies sent to Backers. The updates to the book will be made over the next few weeks, and the proof copy process can take a few weeks as well.
New Ways to Get Playtest Access!
For those of you, or your friends, that missed the Backerkit campaign and that want to get Playtest access or support the project immediately, we will soon have 2 new ways to get access to the Indominant SIC Playtesting Packets!
1- Pre-Order a Super’s Information Codex PDF from our webstore at odinskey.com
This PDF will come with SIC Playtest access, unlike pre-ordering on our Backerkit pre-order store. Due to the nature of the Backerkit pre-order store and cards not being charged until we lock orders at the end of the campaign, we cannot give Playtest access to folks who pre-order on the Backerkit pre-order store.
In addition, we will give a credit to anyone who pre-orders a PDF from the Odin’s Key webstore towards an SIC physical copy on the Backerkit pre-order store equal to the cost of the PDF ($25 USD)!
This tier is for you to help support the development of Indominant, and gets you the Supporter role in the Indominant Discord server to represent that you help support the team at Odin’s Key Gaming!
SIC Playtester Tier - $10 USD per month
The Super's Information Codex Playtest Packets. Online Access only via Google Drive.
The Comic Editor's Playtest Packet. Online Access only via Google Drive.
Indominant Discord server Playtester Role. This grants access to the SIC Playtest Channels.
Registered Super Tier - $15 per month
Exclusive early sneak peaks of new, upcoming content.
Priority for questions during Indominant Q&A Livestreams.
The Super's Information Codex Playtest Packets. Online Access only via Google Drive.
The Comic Editor's Playtest Packet. Online Access only via Google Drive.
Indominant Discord server "Registered Super" Role. This grants access to the SIC Playtest Channels.
Before we talk about the Playtest Packet, we had one thing we wanted to update you on: Indominant Discord Playtest Channel Access.
In order to give Backers access to the playtest areas in Discord we will need you to email [email protected] your Discord Username, or you can DM Zarek in Discord with the email on your Backerkit account to verify that you were a Backer that received playtest access.
Discord is by no means required to get your Playtest Packets and other playtest documents, but it is another area to give feedback directly to us and get quick responses. We apologize for any inconvenience here. We should have had a survey question that requested this information so that we could make the process easier. We now learned the correct way to do this, and we are looking into some other ways to make this process easier for this Backerkit campaign's rewards.
SIC Playtest Packet #1 Released!
We just sent out the first SIC Playtest Packet! We can't wait for you to see all of the new content included in this Packet!
As a note, the Playtest Packet mentions that you need the Game System Primer V2.2, which you will notice has not been included with the other Playtest documents. That is because there are quite a bit of formatting changes that must be done on that document. We didn’t want to delay the Playtest Packets any further than we already did. You can use Primer V2.1 to Playtest Indominant, because the changes made between 2.1 and 2.2 are mostly formatting and error corrections, except for one Core Rules change.
Cones, Too Many Cones
The one major rules change that was implemented was the removal of Half and Wide Cones. Having multiple sizes of Cones felt like an interesting concept to us, but with more and more people playing the game we got consistent feedback that they were too confusing and tedious to sort out. So we simplified Cones down to only one type. All Cones now work just like Standard Cones; they expand their width outwards by 1 Unit (on each side) for each 1 Unit of Range they extend. This means they are effectively all 90 degree angles.
One other change to Cones is that, instead of having a max Range equal to your Range, they now have a Range of 4 Units, which is the max Range for Melee Archetypes (Bruisers and Guardians), and half of max Range for Ranged Archetypes (Arbiters: 5 Units, Blasters: 6 Units, and Hunters: 4 Units). This change was made because Cones covered far too much of an Area.
With those rules changes and the other error corrections, we provided a Primer V2.2 ChangeLog that you can use to guide you on any other changes from V2.1!
That’s it for this update! We hope you enjoy the Playtest Packet, and we are excited to get your feedback!
