Two colour stretch goal met! A new challenger approaches...
about 4 years ago – Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 04:48:48 AM

£15k!!! We did it!

Thank you all so much. I'm running out of ways to say 'thanks for all of your support' - but, y'know, I really am full of gratitude. And we're only just over halfway through the campaign!

Your incredible support means a better product, and I'm really excited that we've now unlocked two-colour Riso printing for the book. I've been getting more updates from CROM and I can't wait to share the final cover - the detail that's coming in now looks so cool.

So, with £15k already shrinking in the distance, it's time to announce the final final final stretch goal for this campaign - and it's a big one.

My original pitch to CROM was for the cover and five smaller pieces to go throughout the book. These would've been small items or heaps of junk taking up less than a quarter of a page - the sort of thing that I had in the original layout (you can see some on the campaign page). They would look really cool, but it's possible now that we could do better...
 

So, for the final stretch goal, £20,000, I want to instead commission full-page illustrations from CROM for each of the four chapters in the book.
 

These would be of a comparable complexity to the cover, essentially meaning we're looking at 4-5 TIMES as much art in the book as originally planned. That's why I've set the stretch goal quite high relative to others in this campaign. The four chapters, and a brief pitch for the look of each, are:

•  1. HOW TO PLAY: This one would have a bunch of little illustrations of things mentioned in this chapter, surrounding the lettering; things like journals, writing implements, sketches, time, music, chairs & tables, sunshine, forge/anvils and workshop tools. Inspired by CROM's 'Safety at Last!' illustration. 
•  2. PLAYBOOKS: This one would have eight small illustrations of each of the item 'archetypes' contained in the playbooks. 
•  3. KEEPERS & TIME: For this one, I like the idea of a rogues' gallery of ghostly Keeper silhouettes. 
•  4. TABLES: This one would again be a bunch of little illustrations, this time of things contained in the tables; mythical beasts, strongholds, towers, poisoned daggers, corrupting magic, broken swords, smashed runes & gems, trees & roots, etc. 

 £20,000 is a lot of money, but I'm confident that with almost a week left we can hit it. We're already almost at £16k!

Final note: add-ons

Just a quick one at the end as I haven't mentioned it in an update, only in the comments. I've added information to the campaign page on how to add extra print copies to a print pledge or extra boxes to a boxed edition pledge. It's simple - just add £10 (book) or £30 (box) to your pledge and you'll be able to choose the rewards in Backerkit after the campaign.

Thanks everyone!

Cover update & a NEW ART STRETCH GOAL!
about 4 years ago – Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 04:46:51 AM

Hey everyone!

So I've had a chat with CROM, and we've explored a couple of ways that we can make this zine EVEN COOLER with the extra funds you've been pledging. So, the big news here is that we have a new stretch goal. 

I know I said I was done with stretch goals, but the amount you're all pledging just keeps going up and I want to make sure you're getting the best value for money possible (without jeopardising the delivery of the core product). Extra art is a great way to do this, as my time commitment doesn't really change as we improve the spec of the printing or art.

So. If we can hit £15,000, I'll be able to upgrade the zine to two-colour risograph printing. Riso is a super cool technique that gives a finish similar to screen printing but on a large scale - it's going to be perfect for evoking the aesthetic of Zinequest! It also means that CROM can add a spot colour to the cover illustration to provide cool lighting effects, similar to those seen in this magazine cover he did a while back.

This obviously comes with an extra cost, both for the artwork and for each zine (for the extra colour), hence the stretch goal, but according to my master spreadsheet (!) it all works out.

While we're talking about the cover, I thought I'd share the latest update I got from CROM on the design. It's honestly so cool to see it all come together, and very very exciting to think about the finished product!

Thanks for reading everyone.

J

Artefact Replay II - The Ruination of Thanedge!
about 4 years ago – Sun, Feb 16, 2020 at 07:46:05 PM

Hey everyone!

I'm really glad that so many of you enjoyed reading the little replay I posted last week. It seems to have done a good job of conveying how the game works, plus I got to do a little creative writing which is always fun.

Writing out an entire playthrough like that is a little too much work for me at the moment, but I thought I'd jump to the final Act of the game, The Ruination, to show how your item might have changed by the time you enter the late stage of the game.

A Time Of Glory

The middle act of the game is called A Time Of Glory, and it contains Keepers that lean towards the heroic and legendary. This is the time in your items history that the great deeds and diabolical misdeeds usually take place, and it's usually a good place to stop playing if you wanted to hand the item off to a character in your regular D&D game. We're skipping this section, even though it's probably my favourite, because I want to show you something darker.

The Ruination

The final act of the game, The Ruination, is where things start to fall apart for your item. By now, their personality is probably fracturing, and they've suffered great physical calamities to their form (breakages, dents, missing or cracked parts). Let's pick one of the Keepers from the final act and check in with our item.

The Final Keeper

When we rejoin the story, Arla's political uprising is a forgotten piece of distant history. Centuries have passed since those events, but something remains - the name of the item. It is no longer known as Thane's Edge - over time the name has shifted to Thanedge. The item is also sometimes known as the GODKILLER, but that's a story for another day...

So, for the past few centuries Thanedge has laid in a tomb - the final resting place of their last Keeper. We now need to choose their next Keeper.

I look at the options, and one is completely perfect for the situation; A PAIR OF WANDERING BANDITS. As with Arla, this choice gives us a number of things to do.

• (1) Describe them, showing why they have no choice but to work as a team. Which one of them ends up with your item, and why? How do they fundamentally misunderstand its purpose?
   

Ah, a loveable pair of down & out thieves doing a little tomb raiding to pass the time. Bandit names are fun; let's go with Hurk Halfhand (he/him) and Darv Shim (she/her). I think Hurk is slight, hunched and has bunched up robes with a hood that leaves his face in shadow. Darv, conversely, is large and muscular with a leather jerkin and bare arms. They work as a team because they have compatible skillsets - Hurk is intellectual, with steady hands for forgery or lock-picking, and Darv is strong and knows how to survive in the wilderness. I think that, during the looting of the tomb, the two have to do battle with fearsome tomb guardians and even the disturbed spirit of the previous Keeper. In that fighting, I think Hurk is mortally wounded and only Darv makes it back to the surface. Unfortunately, Thanedge has become rather bitter and uncooperative with time, and doesn't make it easy for Darv to wield them. Darv is used to heavy, brute-force weapons, where the glaive is balanced for swift, agile movements. She wields it like a hammer, smashing the blade of the weapon down on her foes. She even uses it as a tool to drive stakes into the ground, lever stone doors open and clear rubble. Needless to say, Thanedge is not amused.

• (2) Choose once on either the Fates & Follies or Neglect & Misuse table.

One of the options from the Fates & Follies table stands out immediately:

Powerful magic has a toll. The item corrupts the Keeper, causing malaise, sickness and eventually death. Is this corruption intentional?

It's definitely intentional! I think that Thanedge has a growing contempt for Darv, as they measure this brutish bandit up against the heroes and champions of their past. This loathing becomes amplified by the innate magics contained within the weapon, and with each SLAM! of the blade you can see the dark sickness spreading further through Darv's body.

As part of choosing on the Fates & Follies table, I also have to change something about the item as it becomes cold or vindictive. I'm going to add some detail to the drawing to show how the blade has been cracked, repaired and reinforced as misuse has put a strain on the ancient metal. I'm also going to add the trait 'cursed', as I think that the corrupting nature of the weapon has become a permanent change.

• (3) You may answer one or two questions from your playbook, if you wish.

At this point, there's only one question left on my playbook. I'd like to answer it, though, so let's go ahead.

Of all the places you’ve seen on your travels, one stands out and you always wish to return there. What is it, and why?

I think that Thanedge longs to return to the place where they were made, when they were new and the future was full of possibilities - Thornhedge Woods, and Ghilanna's workshop above the trees. I think this is a bittersweet longing as they lie amongst the muck and detritus in Darv's rickety shack, three continents & an ocean away from Thornhedge, listening to Darv wheeze and strain for breath as she rests in a cot nearby.

• (4) The last thing to do is to decide how Darv dies, or otherwise loses the item.

I think Darv eventually succumbs to the corruption, dying weak and alone. After a while, her body is cleared away and a poor family moves into the shack. The wizened matriarch of the family, Estalia, senses the maligned aura around Thanedge and shoos the curious children away from it. With great care, she wraps the weapon in oilcloth and has her son bury it six feet beneath the ground in a nearby field. 

Ending the Game

When we've resolved our final Keeper, the game instructs us to take a final moment to sit in silence in the dark. Think about how the item is remembered, if at all, through stories, art or archaeological remains in a museum.

I think that the following year, a sapling sprouts from the ground where the glaive was buried. Not dark or sickly, but slim, green and straight. As the wood of Thanedge returns to the earth, some of their magical essence is transferred to this new growth - along with a hopeful spark of redemption.

As the years pass, this sapling becomes a mighty, gnarled tree that is central to local folklore. Every spring, the tree blossoms with incredible orange flowers - all at once, in a single day. A dance is held to celebrate this event, and it is said that couples who touch the bark of the tree together will be blessed with strong, healthy children...

Thanks for reading, everyone! I can't wait to read the stories you write when the game is released :)

An update on the deluxe boxed edition! More available!
about 4 years ago – Sun, Feb 16, 2020 at 11:40:09 AM

Hey everyone, as promised, here's some more details & an update about the deluxe boxed edition.

When I started putting this project together, I thought it would be cool to have a boxed tier that contained everything needed to play the game. I'm a stationery nerd, and I wanted to share my love of beautiful pens & pencils with you all. I also thought it would be a nice thing to give as a gift.

I also thought I'd get about 20 backers at this tier! 

It was a big surprise when they started selling so quickly, and honestly I panicked a little at the concept of sourcing and assembling so many extra items. I stuck a 100-backer limit on the reward and got a lot of messages from people who were disappointed to have missed the opportunity. But since then I've done a comprehensive review of the spec & delivery, and I have some announcements!

1. More boxed editions available!

So the first bit of news today is that I've looked at the numbers and done some practice runs at assembling the boxes, and I'm happy to announce that there will be an additional 200 boxed editions available to pledge at or upgrade to. However, I made my margins quite a bit tighter for the boxed edition than the other pledge levels to squeeze in as much cool stuff as possible. So to make sure that these extra 200 copies don't put the rest of the project at risk, they will be £30 rather than the original £25. (I'm still going to honour backers at the original £25 tier, and the contents of both will be identical).

2. Hot foiling upgrade for the box!

I had initially planned on hand-stamping each of the boxed editions with a custom stamp, which would've been cool and a cost-effective option for 20 or so boxes. However, since we've now got so many more boxes to make, it has become viable to get each box pressed with a hot foil printing method. The exact design is still TBC, but it'll feature some of CROM's artwork as well as the title of the game.

The box won't be kraft coloured like the one in the foiling picture - my current plan is to use the two-piece black box shown above. These boxes are rigid with a really nice finish - we've used them for other projects in the past and have nothing but good things to say about them! The boxes will be packaged into custom-fitted postal boxes, to make sure they get to you safely.

3. Custom Notebooks

Similar to the boxes, my initial specification for the deluxe edition had a Moleskine journal in each one. These little notebooks are great, but they're also totally generic. Again, I had planned originally to get a custom stamp made for the front cover. Instead, now, it's viable to get a run of custom notebooks printed with CROM's original art on the cover! I think this will be much more special than the Moleskine, which you can get anywhere, and I'm making sure the paper inside remains high-quality for sketching & writing. I'm planning to get the zine and notebook printed in complementary styles by the same printer, so they'll make a really nice pair. I'll share images of the design as soon as they're ready.

If you had your heart set on a little Moleskine journal, drop me a message and I'll make sure you get one instead of the custom notebook. But I think it'll be way cooler!

4. Delivery

Something that is great about both the foiling and the notebooks is that they offer a better product in a way that means less work-per-box for me! That's a big reason why I felt comfortable increasing the number available. So rest assured that these upgrades won't put the delivery at risk.

Thank you all for your continued support!

An Artefact Replay! A look at how the game plays.
about 4 years ago – Sun, Feb 16, 2020 at 11:34:24 AM

Good morning folks!

Thanks again to all of you for your continued support, it has been overwhelming and we've still got a long way to go. I've been working away in the background on some cool stuff that I can hopefully reveal soon...

Anyway, I mentioned in my first update that I’d do a ‘replay’. Replays are RPG session logs arranged for reading. This one will be a little different, as it's just me (rather than a few players and a GM). Hopefully, though, it’ll make it clearer how you play The Artefact!

I’ll describe playing through the setup and first Keeper of the game, writing down my thoughts & actions as I play.

Setup

Before we start, I need to get ready to play. I’ll grab a notebook, some pens and pencils, and a little speaker to play the soundtrack through. I’ll also make sure to find somewhere quiet to play for an hour or so (truly this is the most made-up part of this playthrough, as a parent of a toddler!).

Next, I’ll choose a playbook. I’m really keen to design a new weapon for a Monk character that one of my characters is playing in our D&D game. They’ve been using the same boring wooden staff for five levels now, and it’s time they got something cooler! With that in mind, I choose THE WEAPON playbook. The description is ‘a tool of war; a blade, axe or something stranger.’

Once I’ve chosen my playbook, I need to think about what my item looks like, and draw it. I decide that I want my weapon to be a kind of glaive, because the Monk character is already used to fighting with a similar weapon (and glaives are coooool!). Because I’m not a concept artist, I do a little googling and find a few glaives that I like the look of. I do a quick sketch that combines some of my favourite aspects, making sure to add little details that I can explore further in play.

I also need to answer the first question on the playbook:

•  You were hammered out in the heat of a great forge by a legendary smith - describe them & their workshop. Add three Traits to your item. 

I think the smith of this glaive is Ghilanna, a divine master of Elvish weaponcraft. She’s a reclusive sort, keeping to herself in her treetop workshop deep within the Thornhedge Woods (an area I've already defined in my D&D campaign). She makes things for the joy of creation, and when she is finished with a project she wraps it in oilcloth and bulrushes and drops it into one of the many fast-flowing rivers that flow through the Woods.

All of the items you’ll create in The Artefact are imbued with magic, which gives them sentience and a nascent ability to communicate. They can also attune themselves to their Keeper, changing shape to suit each wielder. As well as those fantastical properties, you choose three 'Traits' for your unique item. These could describe physical properties of the item, like ‘flaming’, or personality quirks, like ‘loyal’.

For my glaive, I’m going to write down ‘perfectly balanced’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘curious’.  I write them down next to my drawing.

The First Keeper

From now on, everything we experience in this game will be from the perspective of the item. We choose the first person who will find and use the item, the first Keeper.

For my glaive, I’m going to choose a FOLK HERO, one of the options available in the first Act. This gives me a number of things to do:

• (1) Describe this person. Are they reserved or gregarious? Stylish or utilitarian? 

I think the first Keeper is Arla Thane, who is a house servant in one of the grand estates that litter the great plains downriver from the Thornhedge Woods. They come across the glaive while washing sheets in the brook, and hide it away in their modest quarters. In secret they begin practicing with it, watching from a window as the young lords and ladies of the house are drilled in combat in the courtyard and copying their moves.

• (2) Choose or roll once on either the *Deeds & Victories* or *Fates & Follies* table.

I can see how this situation could go good or bad for Arla, so instead of choosing an option I’m going to leave it to chance. I flip a coin to see which table I’m rolling on, and get Deeds & Victories - generally positive & impressive things. I then roll a d6 to see which specific thing happens. I get:

The ruling class are oppressive and cruel. The Keeper leads an uprising and the despots are overthrown. What replaces them?

Blimey! Looks like Arla is starting a violent revolution. They decide that they are sick of the severe class imbalance at play in the land, and begin organising a worker’s movement to depose the elites. Over the years they become a inspiring and strategic leader of the movement, and when the time comes for violence their people are well-trained and well-armed. A bloody six-week war sees Arla’s group overthrow the ruling class, and the glaive becomes a unifying symbol of the revolution.

Unfortunately, I think that the movement gets fractious once they have achieved victory, and the land is divided into warring factions with different ideologies about how to govern.

As part of choosing on the Deeds & Victories table, I also have to change something about the item as it becomes more powerful or renowned. A change means that I add, remove or replace something from my item as I see fit; a Trait, an answer to a question, a note, or something on my drawing. I think I’m going to give it a new trait, ‘divine’, as Ghilanna’s blessings come to fruition. I add some detail to the drawing to show this change.

• (3) You may answer one question from your playbook, if you wish. 

I take a look at the six remaining questions on my playbook. I think it’s clear that this weapon is getting a reputation, so I choose the option:

Over time, you gain a name or honorific. What is it, and why

I think that people begin calling the glaive 'Thane’s Edge', because of its central role as Arla's weapon in this political uprising. I write this name down.

• (4) The last thing to do is to decide how Arla dies, or otherwise loses the item.

I think Arla is deeply disappointed at the state of the land and the opportunists who thwarted this chance at a better life for all people. Arla draws further and further within themselves, shunning social engagements, until one day they decide to walk off into the moorland and never return. They die old and bitter in those vast wilds, their body resting upon a tor with Thane’s Edge lying beside them.

The First Wait

So, with one Keeper resolved we now move over to the Time section of the first Act. In this, we choose or roll for a period of time that the item waits for a new Keeper to arrive. I want to see how the land changes over a longer period of time, so I choose A DECADE. I turn off the lights in the room and play the audio track, which lasts one minute of real time. While I wait, sitting in darkness, I think about the silence and solitude of abandonment as the wind and rain whip around the moorland tor. Then I look at the sheets again and choose my second Keeper, continuing my story.

So, there's my replay of the first Keeper & wait in the game.  In a full playthrough, you’d usually encounter six or seven Keepers over the course of the game, so you can imagine how intricate and interesting the story could get.

Please let me know in the comments what you think about this post! Does it make the concept clearer for you? Would you like me to continue the story in a future update? Thanks for reading :)