Project Update: June 2025 Update
As always, I want to kick off by inviting you to join us on The Gauntlet Discord server.
Sprigs & Kindling Volume 3 PLUS Writing Retreat!
Also, Sprigs & Kindling is going to be holding an online writing retreat in August! Here are the details:
This free online writing retreat will take place August 11 to August 17, and is currently in planning stages. It will take place on Discord, and is open to people interested in Carved from Brindlewood game writing and design. Current sessions/workshops planned include:
- Writing workshop by Jason Cordova (https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/)
- Writing workshop by Jesse Ross (https://trophyrpg.com/)
- TTRPG Layout presentation by Mike Martens (https://clearkeep.us/)
- Horror writing presentation by Premee Mohamed (https://premeemohamed.com/)
- Pitching Your Writing presentation by Michael Van Vleet (https://www.signalstation.com/)
- Making your own TTRPG Art by Brian Sago (https://www.butterprincess.com/)
- Producing Podcasts by Rev Deschain (https://www.thecritshowpodcast.com/)
- Movie Night
- Playtests
Update on the Trade War
The problem with the trade war isn't just the increased cost of goods, which would be bad enough on its own, but also the effect it has on available shipping containers. We are a small publisher, and we depend on being able to have our products tucked into the corner of a shipping container that is already coming over to the United States. High tariffs mean even higher shipping costs, because trade is reduced and there are fewer shipping containers.
And I know this from personal experience! We had to ship Trophy RPG when the pandemic had massively disrupted supply chains. Because of those disruptions, our shipping costs tripled from what we originally estimated. It nearly ended us, but thankfully Brindlewood Bay was a big hit and gave us some breathing room.
There's also just a lot of confusion and uncertainty about what's going to happen. Some people think books aren't affected by the tariffs, but that has not been my experience. We recently shipped the Brindlewood Bay Cookbook and had to pay a bunch of extra import duties, despite the fact it was labeled as a book and not a game. Based on what I know right now, I estimate that a 55% tariff means our total costs to print and get space on a shipping container will be doubled from what you would expect in a normal environment.
All of this is even further complicated by the fact that our business was counting on being able to do certain things not related to The Between, such as doing a new print run of Trophy RPG with cash on-hand. That's completely out the window now, and so there's a whole big revenue stream I can't count on anymore. Anticipating that, I've had to cut back on a lot of things in the community, meaning I've had to take on a lot more work than I had at the beginning of the year.
Like I said, dog shit.
Revised Timeline for Preorders and BackerKit Surveys
That said, we're moving forward. Allegedly, we'll be getting more precise guidance on tariffs in early July. I'm not holding out much hope that this situation is going to go back to anything like it was in 2024, but who knows? In any case, we're sending surveys and launching the preorder store in late July. Assuming the tariffs don't go any higher, we should at least be able to break even on the project, and so we have some risk tolerance there.
Revised timeline for The Between PDFs
As for the things I can control, well, that's making sure we get the PDFs back on track and released. My revised estimate for the PDFs is late August for the core book and maaaaaybe Shadow Society. Suns of Another World is a bit tougher to predict. Three of the settings are done, but we're still waiting on Blood & Coal. Assuming I can get Blood & Coal on track, a September release for Suns feels do-able.
I do want to share some fun stuff with you, though. Below is a folder of all the ready-for-layout drafts of the core book handouts. This includes playbooks, Threats, Mastermind Conspiracy, Mastermind Confrontation, Hargrave House Rooms, Residents, and Reference Sheet. I know some folks would like to start playing with the new rules, and these docs—combined with the old edition of the game—will allow you to do that. There's also a big homebrew community for The Between, and I know those folks want to know what the new rules and format are like so they can make their homebrews match up. This will also help with that.
A few things about these drafts:
- There are about 15 Hargrave House Rooms in the core book—I've held a few back (you have to grant me some surprises for the final release).
- The playbooks include Player and Keeper notes; those are for the actual rule book and will not be part of the handouts.
- I've included a book chapter on Play Structure—you'll need that to make sense of the rule changes.
- This is not a final edit. We do one more pass post-layout to catch things.
Revised Timeline for Physical Books
I'd like to end the update by sharing some more of the fabulous art we've commissioned for the game...
As ever, thanks so much for your support!
-Jason
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I was trying to find a copy of Trophy Dark, and while there are copies of Gold & Loom, Dark it seems to be sold out here (UK). Is there any chance there would be another print run? Or could it be made available as POD via DTRPG?
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As the tittle says, last update was 3 months ago and was quite dramatic to be fair, i can understand the problems with the tariffs and the stress that they cause to the developing team, but several months without a direct update is a bit depresing too to the backers, we dont have info about the digital content that was supposed to release in April (as the FAQ stated), no info about the status of the game and just several replies lost in other people discussions that most of the people will miss for sure. We love the game and we want it to see it in the future, but we also want to know how is progresing since we placed our trust (and money) in the team.
I haven't seen or heard an update for a bit. Does anyone have any news on what the status is? Maybe something has popped up in the discord?