Hello Lightbringers,
We finished up the Crowdfunding portion of our campaign just about four weeks ago with a successful run, adding many backers and a few fun stretch goals...
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James Bell
about 1 month ago
We have unearthed the Buried Treasures!
Hello Lightbringers,
As the Kaos Storm subsides and we prepare for our next Kalm Season, it's time to take stock of our recent endeavor and see what we've found.
That is to...
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James Bell
about 1 month ago
FINAL HOURS: CHECKLIST & WHAT COMES NEXT
Hello Lightbringers,
Welcome to the final hours of this campaign! We've had a fun run - funding the books, reading the manuscripts for The Delver's Guide and Secrets of Kalm...
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James Bell
about 1 month ago
Final Day Review - Stretch Goals
Hello Lightbringers,
We're closing in on the final 24 hours of the campaign as I prepare this post. Within this final day, I wanted to review some important topics, most es...
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James Bell
about 1 month ago
The Obscure Labyrinth [Secrets of Kalm and Kaos Manuscript Preview 6]
Hello Lightbringers,
We're in our final days, and it's time for our final section of the draft manuscript for Secrets of Kalm and Kaos! As of this update, backers have acces...
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James Bell
about 1 month ago
Final Days Review: Pledge Tiers and Add On Options
Hello Lightbringers,
I've got a lot to go over today, so let's settle and prepare for review.
Before we get into it, one more quick note about our current Stretch Goal targ...
Tomorrow, we kick off our final week countdown. This campaign finishes up next Thursday, March 19th at 2:00 PM EDT. We'll have one final manuscript preview section out for backers next Tuesday, the chapter with our adventure scenario for Secrets of Kalm and Kaos. But we're gonna jump to the end of the book today and I'll share the three Appendicies from the book.
As mentioned when we had our Appendix section from the World Below Delver's Guide, these aren't just mere lists but contain a ton of ideas, plot seeds, challenges, and jumping off points for your stories in the World Below. There's great stuff here, so dig in!
Draft Manuscript Previews
Over the course of this campaign, backers will receive the entire current draft manuscript for The World Below: Delver's Guide and The World Below: Secrets of Kalm and Kaos, but it's not going to come to you all in one go. The previews will come out in mangeable sections throughout the campaign. This helps me seem interesting over these 30 days, but it's more about guiding the conversation and helping steer feedback for the developers.
Because they want your feedback! These manuscript previews are of the current draft manuscript – the document in its latest, approved form. This may not be the final form after editing and any additional development, but you can consider it about 95% finished, so keep that in mind.
In fact, you can help guide the team through the next stages of development by providing feedback on these manuscript previews! The Onyx Path team has set up a special Feedback Form just for campaign backers for this very purpose: <TWB Buried Treasures Feedback Form>
You can use this Feedback Form to shrea your thoughts directly with the World Below developers and help guide them through the next rounds of development and editing.
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PREVIEWS - BACKERS ONLY
Remember, thanks to BackerKit sorcery, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Reply to this Update" or "Learn More" button on the bottom and I'll see you below this title treatment.
Ready to get into our second chapter from the Secrets of Kalm and Kaos today? Some treasures get unearthed today!
THE WORLD BELOW REDDIT AMA COMING ON FRIDAY
I'll mention this again in our next manuscript preview drop (which comes on Firday, coincidentally), but if you've got Questions, the crew have some answers and will be running an Ask Me Anything session this Friday starting at NOON Eastern Time in the Onyx Path subreddit.
If you've got questions and won't be around to throw them into Reddit, feel free to leave them below and I'll pass them along!
Draft Manuscript Previews
Over the course of this campaign, backers will receive the entire current draft manuscript for The World Below: Delver's Guide and The World Below: Secrets of Kalm and Kaos, but it's not going to come to you all in one go. The previews will come out in mangeable sections throughout the campaign. This helps me seem interesting over these 30 days, but it's more about guiding the conversation and helping steer feedback for the developers.
Because they want your feedback! These manuscript previews are of the current draft manuscript – the document in its latest, approved form. This may not be the final form after editing and any additional development, but you can consider it about 95% finished, so keep that in mind.
In fact, you can help guide the team through the next stages of development by providing feedback on these manuscript previews! The Onyx Path team has set up a special Feedback Form just for campaign backers for this very purpose: <TWB Buried Treasures Feedback Form>
You can use this Feedback Form to shrea your thoughts directly with the World Below developers and help guide them through the next rounds of development and editing.
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PREVIEWS - BACKERS ONLY
Remember, thanks to BackerKit sorcery, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Reply to this Update" or "Learn More" button on the bottom and I'll see you below this title treatment.
A brief reprieve between storms in my area means it's time to dig deeper into the World Below with the next section from the Delver's Guide draft manuscript. We're going to get more options for our characters, as well as some new tools to add to help our chances for survival in the great test that is The World Below.
First up, though, let's celebrate!
STRETCH GOAL UNLOCKED
ACHIEVED! - At $10,000 in Funding - THE ADVENT OF THE SILT
THE ADVENT OF THE SILT - The team will create a West Marches-style adventure for The World Below, focused on exploration and cave delving. A PDF version of The Advent of Silt will be added as a bonus reward to all backers receiving either the Delver's Guide PDF or the Secrets of Kalm and Kaos PDF as part of their pledge rewards.
We'll get back to the Advent of the Silt adventure and hopefully expand it before the end, but let's set up our next two Stretch Goals. These may be pretty familiar to frequent Onyx Path supporters. A couple of milestone markers to help us keep our pace and celebrate as we move forward with the project.
At $13,000 in Funding - WORLD BELOW SHIRT ON REDBUBBLE
WORLD BELOW SHIRT DESIGN - A new World Below shirt design will be made available on Onyx Path's Redbubble sore for a limited time only. Backers will be notified when this design becomes available.
At $14,000 in Funding - WORLD BELOW DIGITAL WALLPAPER
WORLD BELOW DIGITAL WALLPAPER - All backers supporting this project will receive a digital wallpaper for their computer desktop featuring artwork from the Delver's Guide or Secrets of Kalm and Kaos books.
Draft Manuscript Previews
Over the course of this campaign, backers will receive the entire current draft manuscript for The World Below: Delver's Guide and The World Below: Secrets of Kalm and Kaos, but it's not going to come to you all in one go. The previews will come out in mangeable sections throughout the campaign. This helps me seem interesting over these 30 days, but it's more about guiding the conversation and helping steer feedback for the developers.
Because they want your feedback! These manuscript previews are of the current draft manuscript – the document in its latest, approved form. This may not be the final form after editing and any additional development, but you can consider it about 95% finished, so keep that in mind.
In fact, you can help guide the team through the next stages of development by providing feedback on these manuscript previews! The Onyx Path team has set up a special Feedback Form just for campaign backers for this very purpose: <TWB Buried Treasures Feedback Form>
You can use this Feedback Form to shrea your thoughts directly with the World Below developers and help guide them through the next rounds of development and editing.
Digital and Print-on-Demand Rewards
We know times are hard these days, particularly with rising costs and economic uncertainty, so we’ve designed this crowdfunder to be as painless as possible. We offer a wide variety of digital options for backing, as well as leveraging print-on-demand technology to have physical products printed as close to you as possible to cut down shipping and reduce tariff concerns - and avoid some of the manufacturing delays that have delayed other campaigns.
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PREVIEWS - BACKERS ONLY
Remember, thanks to BackerKit sorcery, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Reply to this Update" or "Learn More" button on the bottom and I'll see you below this title treatment.
We finished up the Crowdfunding portion of our campaign just about four weeks ago with a successful run, adding many backers and a few fun stretch goals. Now it's time to start the next phase of the project - the Post-Campaign, where we track the progress of the various projects we helped fund and send out rewards as they become available.
To help with all of that we use BackerKit's Pledge Manager.
Today's Topics
BackerKit Pledge Manager SurveysComing Soon
CompiledDraft Manuscript (available in BackerKit Digital Rewards)
ComingNext
BACKER SURVEYS
Over the next handfulof days (April 14 - April 17), you’ll receive an email from Onyx Path (via [email protected]) with a special link to your Pledge Manager survey. It’s important to respond to your survey as quickly as you can since we need this information to fulfill your rewards.
You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey (although you probably already have one from pledging to this campaign). When you receive the email with the survey, click the survey invitation link to respond. Answer the questions about your reward preferences and purchase add-on items if you like. You don’t have access to this survey link yet, but it will be available laterthis week via email!
The e-mail will have a button that looks something like this:
After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts, and that won't happen until the books are being prepped for backer distribution.
If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://buried-treasures.backerkit.com/
If you have any other questions or concerns, you can post them to the comments for this update, the comment section, or message me via one of these methods:
TO CONTACT JAMES
Via E-Mail: Onyx.Kickstarter [at] gmail.com
Via BackerKit: Click "Need Help?" from your page, and then fill in the Contact Us form. BackerKit will pass your message along to me.
If there are any issues you find with the Pledge Manager, please contact me as soon as possible to let me know. It rolls out in waves so that I can correct issues on the fly and make it work as best possible as people come on board.
I've been mostly in a zombie state over the pst few weeks, and the chances of a few errors in the Pledge Manager set up are ... greater than zero ... so let me know if you see something off and I'll fix it as quickly as possible.
Within the BackerKit Survey and Pledge Manager, you can:
Review your Pledge Tier Selection and Rewards
Upgrade your Reward Tier pledge selection
Confirm Add On selections
Set up payment information for any failed payments from the Crowdfunding campaign or to pay for any new Add On options selected.
Whenyou click on your BackerKit invitation link,you should see something like this...
From the Pledge Manager welcome page you can choose to
Review Your Pledge Level and Rewards by clicking your Pledge Level title
Start Your Survey, confirming pledge rewards, confirming or selecting new Add On options, and confirming any shipping and payment info that may be needed
Switch Your Pledge Level
If you click on your Pledge Level, you will see a list of all items included in your Pledge Rewards (including Stretch Goals and the Draft Manuscript), and also have the option to switch your Pledge Level, in case you've decided to get the double book pledge instead of a single title PDF-only pledge tier for example.
Once you've confirmed that your Pledge Level is correct and where you want it to be, you can GETSTARTED with your BackerKit Pledge Manager Survey.
Once we've got a fair response to our survey and collected a reasonable amount of info, I'll be working on fulfilling rewards that are available now - like the PDFs of the titles included in our Add On section (for example, The World Below corebook PDF, the Storypath Ultra Core Manual PDF, the Curseborne corebook PDF, and They Came From the RPG Anthology PDF, as well as the draft manuscripts for the still-in-progress At The Gates and Monster Kingdoms). Those will likely be coming to you by the start of next week, and I'll send another update with more info when that time comes.
So, in summary:
Look for an e-mail invitation to BackerKit's Pledge Manager sometime over the next 1-3 days
Get Started on your survey
Confirm your Pledge Level (or SWITCH your Pledge Level if you want to change it)
Confirm and Select Any Add On options
Confirm Your Payment Information (if needed)
I will post an update at next week as I begin outlining the delivery of our first Add On rewards (the existing title PDFs, as noted above) and beginning distribution of those PDF rewards.
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT
Now that the crowdfunding campaign is finished, I've taken all of the Draft Manuscript previews for each book and smashed them together into one compiled version (per book). In your BackerKit digital rewards page, you will have access to the compiled draft manuscript. It won't be different from the info shared during the campaign, just transformed into a more convenient form. The Draft Manuscript link may not be active when you first login to your BackerKit survey, but I'll throw the switch and it'll send you a notice next week after all of the invitations have gone out.
For now, there's a link for those compiled versions at the bottom of this update post (when viewed on the BackerKit site), but the plan is to have the download links sit alongside your other rewards on the Pledge Manager's Digital Reward Page.
I will talk about how to access your BackerKit digital rewards links in an update coming next week, when I send out the first wave of available rewards.
COMING NEXT
On Monday or Tuesday, I'll send an update with details about the distribution for that first wave of existing digital rewards. I'll also get the compiled draft manuscript up and ready for you to download from your Pledge Manager page (though you can download it now from this page, as noted above).
At the end of May we'll begin our regular monthly check-ins, tracking the progress of this project as it moves through this phase. It'll take some time, but we'll have regular updates all through the process. I'll also have notes on how to check the weekly and monthly All Project Progress updates on Onyx Path's website.
TO CONTACT JAMES
Via E-Mail: Onyx.Kickstarter [at] gmail.com
Via BackerKit: Click "Need Help?" from your page, and then fill in the Contact Us form. BackerKit will pass your message along to me.
As the Kaos Storm subsides and we prepare for our next Kalm Season, it's time to take stock of our recent endeavor and see what we've found.
That is to say... thanks to the support of nearly 300 World Below backers, Onyx Path will be able to develop the PDF and Print-on-Demand hardcover versions of The World Below: Delver's Guide and The World Below: Secrets of Kalm and Kaos!
There's more to celebrate! Not only did we fund the project on the first day, we unlocked FIVE Stretch Goals over the campaign. That's right - we unlocked our final stretch goal target today, in the final hours of this campaign!
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At $10,000 in Funding - THE ADVENT OF THE SILT
THE ADVENT OF THE SILT - The team will create a West Marches-style adventure for The World Below, focused on exploration and cave delving. A PDF version of The Advent of Silt will be added as a bonus reward to all backers receiving either the Delver's Guide PDF or the Secrets of Kalm and Kaos PDF as part of their pledge rewards.
At $13,000 in Funding - WORLD BELOW SHIRT ON REDBUBBLE
WORLD BELOW SHIRT DESIGN - A new World Below shirt design will be made available on Onyx Path's Redbubble sore for a limited time only. Backers will be notified when this design becomes available.
At $14,000 in Funding - WORLD BELOW DIGITAL WALLPAPER
WORLD BELOW DIGITAL WALLPAPER - All backers supporting this project will receive a digital wallpaper for their computer desktop featuring artwork from the Delver's Guide or Secrets of Kalm and Kaos books.
At $15,000 in Funding - THE ADVENT OFTHE SILT EXPANDED
THE ADVENT OF THE SILT - The adventure scenario will be expanded to include opportunities for base building and resource hunting. A PDF version of The Advent of Silt will be added as a bonus reward to all backers receiving either the Delver's Guide PDF or the Secrets of Kalm and Kaos PDF as part of their pledge rewards.
At $16,000 in Funding - STREAMING OVERLAY
WORLD BELOW STREAMING OVERLAY - A set of overlays for your online game will be created, for your use when streaming your World Below session. This reward will be added to the rewards list for all backers.
So a huge congratulations to Matthew and the team on this project, and to all of the backers who've joined in to make this possible. I'm happy about the goals we hit and rewards we introduced, but I'm also always excited and delighted about having nearly 300 backers join in to support this quirky, odd, and amazing game. The World Below has such a personality, such a vibe, and I really dig it, if you'll parden the pun.
COMMUNICATION
So, as noted in today's earlier update, starting in April I'll be sending out updates once a month and whenever we've got a new goal, survey, or other item to cover. If you have any questions or need clarification on something related to the campaign, feel free to get in touch. I may take a bit to answer as I recover from these past four weeks and take some time to unwind and clean up my desk!
I'll also see if I can sneak a compiled draft manuscripts out to you maybe by the first weekend in April. Nothing changed, just smashed together in order.
TO CONTACT ME
Via E-Mail: Onyx.Kickstarter [at] gmail.com
Via BackerKit: Click "Need Help?" from your forthcoming survey page, and then fill in the Contact Us form. BackerKit will pass your message along to me.
ONYX PATH DISCUSSION CHANNELS
If you've got questions about the rules or setting, or just want to discuss this game with other fans (as well as the Onyx Path writers and developers!), you can check out these Onyx Path discussion zones:
