Ahoy Spacefarers!

What a month it’s been, from start to finish perhaps the greatest we’ve yet to experience here at the Dragons Vault, and that is all thanks to you. So thank you, to all who followed and backed, who commented and voted in the polls, who shared our project far and wide, who cheered us on as we charted these seas together, we say thank you!

We have the best job in the world, truly, and because of your support for us and for Lodestar we get to keep doing it for another incredible year (and Aston can finally come aboard full-time!!). We can’t wait to begin work, and take you along with us as we discover the seas of the Beyond together. Speaking of, I wanted to point those who might’ve missed it towards the finale of our Choose Your Own Adventure posts, in which the final fate of the Dawnstar is revealed, as is the contents of the final treasure!

Now the campaign has wrapped up you can expect updates from us every other Monday. These updates will keep you in the loop with the books production, show off new art and mechanics, and even invite you to playtest early access rules and mechanics from the book and then discuss them via our community discord (more on that below).

We will have more information for you next Monday, including a breakdown of our production timeline and pledge manager info etc., but until then Aston and myself will be taking a week off work. We’ve been working incredibly hard over the past few months as you can imagine, so we are going to take some time with our loved ones and to get our heads ready for the epic voyage ahead of us as we bring this book to life!

This is your official post-campaign invitation to come hang out in the Dragons Vault Discord! We’ve got a nearly 1000 strong community there already, full of people talking everything from community made Lodestar soundtracks to our own Vault Gauntlet monster creation competition! We also post our playtest materials in there, as well as workshop mechanics and ideas with the community long before they ever make it to print. If that sounds like your bag, then come join us there now via this LINK.

Until we return we trust you’ll keep an eye on this here vessel, we’ll need it in good nick when we get back if it’s going to take us all the way to the end of this exciting voyage we’ve all embarked on! So till then, thank you all, and have a wonderful week!

- Conor, Very Grateful Captain of the HMS Dragons Vault

Ahoy all!

We had a big update before the weekend, with the release of the first testable version of our ship system! A few backers struggled to access the downloads in the backer only section, so we’ve included them here too:

⚓ Playtest PDF

🔱 Pre-made Encounter PDF

⛵ Full Playtest PDF and Encounter Pack Zip File (With printable maps & digital token pack)

Go check out that release update for all the additional info on the system, and come chat about it in the Vault Community Discord if you’ve got questions or feedback!

🚨 Also an important note for those joining the discord, please make sure you select the 💫SPACER💫 role when joining to guarantee access to the ship system and discussions🚨

As a heads up, we will begin charging cards in the pledge manager for any shipping and add-ons, as well as preorders, starting Monday next week. Ahead of that, please make sure your shipping address and card information is correct!

If you want to make changes after that (such as adding more add-ons or changing address) you'll still be able to by reaching out to Aston via [email protected]

We also want to hear about any and all thoughts you might have on last months playtest, the Superstition Bard & Path of the Comet Barbarian!

So head here to fill in the survey! 

Additionally, myself and Aston will be returning for another stream in a couple of weeks, on Sunday the 5th of April! We are going to be discussing the ship system, and designing a few new weird and wonderful siltsails. So come along, say hi, and throw any and all ideas you might have at us there!


That’s all for this week, I hope wherever you are it’s smooth sailing ahead till we next speak 💫

- Conor

It’s been a little while since we last posted an update, but by thunder do we have something special for you spacers this week! In fact, I reckon we should unfurl those silt-sails, because finally it’s time to leave this world behind… The very first playtest-able version of the Lodestar Ship System is here! 

Firstly, it’s important to keep in mind that this is a very early-access version, of purely ship-combat mechanics, limited to only the essentials. We’ve got plenty more already made and in the works, from long distance travel and trade, to upgrades and more, but we wanted to get this version out to you all for testing as soon as we could to make sure the core gameplay is fun and balanced. We’ve even built you a couple of pre-made ships, and two sample combat encounters, for you to give the system a go with without needing to worry about lots of prep!

Secondly, the more we can test this thing out, the better it will be for release. So please, share it with your groups, try it out when you’ve got the time, and let us know your thoughts along the way! We are looking for any and all feedback as always, but primarily we are interested in hearing from people who will have actually played using the rules presented in the playtest and really given the mechanics what-for at the table. Of course we also ask that you don’t share these rules publicly online, especially in ways that mean we can’t gather feedback, they are after all only draft rules meant purely for early testing.

Thirdly, whilst we will put out a survey for this playtest in a month as normal, there will also be (from now until the book’s release) a new channel in the Vault discord server, just for ship system feedback and tinkering, and exclusive to Lodestar backers. So if you want to dig in and maybe have some impact on how we hone the design of the system, or ask us more about the system and what we have in store for later playtests, that is the place to be! 

I truly can’t wait to hear what you all think of the system once you’ve given those silt thrusters a spin! It might not be perfect for everyone just yet, but hopefully there’s something fun here that we can continue build off of. If there’s things you want or feel are missing, please come over to the discord and get involved in discussions. As I said, it’s very early days for the design of this system and we’ve got so much left to show you all, so please have a crack at it when you can!

We will be back Monday with the feedback survey for playtest #2, so until then I hope you have a wonderful weekend and a lovely Spring equinox! I’ll be spending mine sailing the silt and  seeing what these new siltsails are really made of!

- Conor 

Me and Conor are just hopping on for our first ever State of the Vault stream, we'll be chatting through some of the feedback for Battlewrought fighter, answering any design questions you might have about the Superstition Bard or Comet Barbarian and just answering any general questions you might have!

We'd love for you to hop on over and have a chat! If you don't catch the stream live it'll be available as a VOD afterwards!

Hopefully see you there, and if we don't have a wonderful week all the same!
Aston