Let me start with a slight bummer. As much as it pains me and the whole team, the layout process is taking a lot of time and the product is not yet ready for release. We REALLY wanted it to be done this year, but unfortunately the combination of us taking a lot of time to perfect the new layout and our layout artist being swamped with their day-job projects resulted in the Vampire Class taking a lot time getting laid out. Our update next month will probably be one announcing we unleashed the vampire curse upon the world!
Wait, "new layout"? Well, yes! You might remember that we launched our crowdfunder before Draw Steel was even out, so we didn't really know what the layout for the core game was going to look like. And when Draw Steel released, our layout for this product was... well, it was cool, but also felt out of place! Moreover, since then we've also had a campaign for Boggits of Kingsmire and people ADORED the DS-inspired layout we had for our frog dudes. It was a no-brainer to go back to layout-design and rework the vampire layout so that it's more in line with core Draw Steel books! Below you can see the new stuff (and the Vampire ancestry that's laid out and ready). Hope you like it!
New layout - part 1
New layout - part 2
You can see the laid out ancestry in full resolution here.
Wait, why is the ability blue? I am glad you asked! Some time ago, there was a survey in the Brewery, a Discord server for Draw Steel homebrew (hello!), asking about preferred color-coding for different ability types in the game, as part of a broader accessibility push among homebrew and third-party products. We've decided to join that movement to improve the accessibility of our product, so you'll see our main actions in red, our maneuvers in blue, and our triggers in green, among other small features like additional iconography!
Behold the cover!
We've already shown the cover for this book on our Discord server, but, naturally, we want you to see it too! It was done by the excellent Eryk Szczygieł (TyphonArt) that did most of art for this project. It depicts a group of slavic-themed heroes (including our iconic vampire hero) fighting a vampire lord, Viktor DImitrovich Rogov! We love the piece and hope you love it too!
Cover by Eryk Szczygieł
Vampire product preview
Thanks to the amazing Andy Aiken, you can now build a vampire hero in Forge Steel! In the Triglav Games sourcebook (where you can also find our Boggit ancestry), you will find levels 1-3 of the class with two out of five subclasses (bloodlines), some (not all) vampire perks, kits, and the vampire ancestry you saw earlier in this post. Hope you will have a lot of fun with it! We are thinking about releasing a free preview PDF with the same content later on.
Vampires in the Codex?
We've already talked with a really cool person that's working on the Codex, and they are willing to implement the Vampire stuff for us! We will most likely get to it once the Codex is officialy out! We don't yet know how we will tackle the associated costs of getting our bloodsuckers into the Codex, but we will definitely figure something out later on!
Thank you for your support, patience and understanding! We wish you happy holidays! See you next year! Join our Discord server for early previews and spoilers! Cheers!
