A zine containing two funnels for zero level character creation, compatible with both Dungeon Crawl Classics and Shadowdark.

In Sisterhood of the Splintered Bone, you play as a lowly leek farmer on a desolate ice planet run by the bone-obsessed nuns of the Sisterhood. Your chance at glory has arrived when heretics steal the sainted knuckles of your patron Garwynne. Armed with your wits and whatever rusty weapons you can find, you must set forth into the haunted mushroom forests and contend with something far older than even the dusty bones your masters venerate.

In This Rose Will Never Die, you play as clone meat for the royal family on a planet in the recesses of the empire. Earn passage off-world competing in a tournament in honor of Queen Wunda, and escape a society where death is often not the end and the most important act one can commit is to leave a good-looking corpse.

The two funnels will be available in two formats

The actual interior will depend on a) whether or not this project is funded and b) how much funding is accrued. The greater the sum raised, the more effort is put into the book: more art commissioned, layout, and editing. These will all have an effect on final page count.

Rewards are kept as simple as possible to make sure that production and fulfillment go as smoothly as they can.

I'm Matt! I've been producing fun little self-published RPGs for a couple of years. You can see more examples of my work at TwilitGrotto.com. If any of my books sound interesting to you, I will be offering them as add-on purchases with this campaign. 

Estimated fufillment summer 2026

The book is nearly text complete. When the campaign concludes (if successful), backers will receive a full text preview within two months as the book goes through editing and layout. In the meantime, art will have been commissioned. 

I expect final production to take no more than 2 months from the end of the campaign, depending on the success (more money equals more art).

When the product is finalized, backers will receive final copies of the PDF, and I will sent the book off to print with Mixam, who produce high quality prints. Generally, I receive prints from Mixam within 4-6 weeks.

I will be providing PDFs through Backerkit, DriveThruRPG and Itch, as well as my own Shopify site.

When I receive the books, I will pack and ship them, a project that I estimate will take a weekend. I have budgeted for some amount of beer and pizza, which I will use to bribe some friends to help slap labels on envelopes.

Printing & shipping costs: I will print a minimum of 50 copies. At that quantity, it will cost about $160 for printing, shipping to me, and packaging materials. Luckily, this number scales well should I oversell: more copies are cheaper to print, and packaging materials are more affordable the more you buy.

Art: I've already paid for and commissioned the covers. I will commission at least one more full page illustration. I expect this to cost about $125-150 minimum.

Transaction fees, etc: Backerkit takes about 5%, as does the credit card processor. I will need to pay sales tax as well.

Any extra money raised will go to more art, or more copies, or improved printing quality.

The book nearly text-complete. I'm printing this through Mixam, a very reliable, quick, and high-quality service I've used several times to good result. I've been shipping to paying customers online for twenty years! This is my second crowdfunding and I learned quite a bit the first time.

Therefore, I don't expect too many challenges with printing and fulfillment.

We are also, frankly, not talking about a huge amount of money here. I am not so rich that I can shovel hundreds of dollars into producing these every month but if there is some terrible production cost overage, I am confident that I am both cushioned and liquid enough to absorb it.

The biggest risks come in getting it exactly right. There is always the possibility of the art or editing process taking longer than expected or other last minutes challenges, and I can imagine a world where it might take an extra month or two to deliver if that is the case.

Sorry, shipping is to the US only. I'm not equipped to ship internationally.

Shipping prices have increased over the last year so I can't provide precise estimates but I would expect it to cost between $5 and $7 for a box of books. Adding on a few additional zines is unlikely to increase this very much.

Generally, boxes will be shipped out via USPS Media Mail. This is another good reason to only offer books as add ons!

Shipping is planned for July 2026