Wondrous Update - Color Illustrations Previews
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jun 04, 2021 at 12:34:30 AM

Hello, dear Wondrous backers! 

Hope everyone is doing great, over here in the Netherlands covid is on a slow decline and vaccinations are on the rise. It seems that towards the end of the summer we will be in a better place with fewer restrictions. 

Color Illustrations

In the meantime, development on Wondrous Expeditions - Forests continues at full speed. We've recently started the monumental task of coloring the 60+ illustrations the book features, and below you can find a very nice preview of this. The line art is done by Daniel Comerci. To color all images in our short timeframe, we have a range of artists collaborating at once, including Jason Vickers, Brent Blyseth, myself, and even my wife Jetske is doing a few. 

Initially, we had planned to only color the monsters in the book as part of the unlocked stretch goal. But we liked the look so much, we are now digging deep to push on and color all illustrations in the book. No time to relax just yet! 

Isle of the Dreaded Accursed

Our longtime writer JVC Parry (who is a prolific creator in his own right) has teamed up with Mr. Tarrasque (who you may know from his YouTube reviews) and they are launching a new Kickstarter soon. The 5e adventure module is based on Nord Games' best-selling Dreaded Accursed book, so it promises to be great. Check it out if you have a moment! 

 That's it for today. If you are not on the Loresmyth Discord channel yet, join now! 

Talk soon! 

Chris van der Linden

Unique Forests - PDF Previews
over 3 years ago – Tue, May 25, 2021 at 04:48:03 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

One Shot Adventures Finished? PDF Review!
over 3 years ago – Sun, May 23, 2021 at 04:07:54 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Development Update - Card deck almost done & more
over 3 years ago – Thu, May 13, 2021 at 10:33:25 PM

Hello, dear wondrous backers! 

I hope everyone is staying safe and doing well. We are back with another development update, and we will have much more to share in the next weeks as well. 

Card Deck 99% Finished

The new card deck that accompanies the Wondrous Expeditions - Forests book is virtually done. We are making some final tweaks before it is passed on to our editor. We will then share it with you here, for the last look to see if we spot any mistakes left behind before it is ready for manufacturing. It turned out really cool and we hope you like it as well. 

Book Progress

In the time since we last spoke, a lot has happened, and we've been able to make huge progress. We decided to bring a permanent writer on board the Loresmyth company, instead of working with freelance writers who change with every project. This has allowed us to go quite a bit quicker, and less communication overhead has further sped things up considerably. This will mean good news for all our ongoing and future developments as well, as we can now permanently rely on having writer power available at any given moment. 

It seems like a no-brainer now, but most RPG companies use different writers per project, to match style, availability, and so on, or smaller companies simply can't afford to hire someone permanently. Since Loresmyth is now grown so much that we have 2 projects in development at any moment, we enjoy the expanded team and the writers and artists are never short of work. 

What's Next?

The current focus is to finish the remaining big chapter of the core book: Running Forest Expeditions. After that, we have the entirety of the book completed, and once the contents are edited we can quickly start making the Pocket Guide, which re-uses contents from the main book. We still keep some time open to do a final polish pass on the entire book, to make sure we squeeze as much out of it as we can before manufacturing. The writing percentage in the screenshot looks a little low perhaps, but this is a bit skewed because some tasks are not marked complete, but they are very small tasks. With just a few more weeks this percentage will shoot up. 

Artwork Progress

The majority of the artwork for the book is now also completed. With only a handful of illustrations to be created, this should finish within the next couple of weeks. With the final artworks available and the majority of the writing, we can start to create the Layout/Typesetting process for the book. Large areas have already received a first draft layout, but they will receive another pass to really get every page to look fantastic. The percentage may look like there's still a lot to be done, but the map artist and other illustrators turn over multiple pieces per week, so things are going really quick now. 

Backer Previews Soon

In the next coming weeks, we will be able to start sharing bigger parts of the book with you as a preview. This will be a cool moment we all worked hard to get to, and it's also a great way to get feedback for potential changes (within reason/the time left) before we lock things down for manufacturing. 

24-Hour Backer?

Did you back within the first 24 hours of the campaign? Please check your email/spam box. We sent all 800 backers an invitation to check their names for the credits. We like to get this finished as soon as possible.
 

Eldritch Sands Kickstarter

A good friend of mine from Germany who I inspired several years ago to not give up on roleplaying writing has now launched a very nice Kickstarter that you may like. Eldritch Sands has 18 days left to run, so have a look! 

 That's all for today. Will be back again in the coming weeks with more development updates! 

Chris VDL 

Development Update & More Previews
over 3 years ago – Sat, May 01, 2021 at 01:18:09 AM

Hello, dear Wondrous backers! 

Work on the Wondrous Expeditions: Forests book, card deck, and pocket guide is in overdrive mode, and lots of progress is being made. We are excited about how it is shaping up, and pretty soon we will be able to share more PDF previews for you to give feedback on and enjoy the process. 

Today I want to share some preview screenshots, to give you all an impression of what parts of the book are starting to look like. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but things are definitely speeding up and looking nice. 

Please note that all of this has not been edited yet, we are working around the clock on this project. 

A team of talented artists has been working for many months to create renditions of a wide range of fantasy forest locations, creatures, terrain features, and hazards. The book will have no shortage of imaginative content. We are excited to share more PDF previews with you in the next coming weeks.  

The card deck is shaping up very nicely and will help bring lots of interesting encounters, landmarks and story ideas to your forest explorations. They feature an exciting landmark or point of interest on the front with a suggested effect or magical property. The flipside of the cards will provide additional roleplaying prompts in 5 categories to further inspire your imagination. At 50 cards in a single deck, that's 250 creative prompts for your roleplaying sessions. 

There we go. I hope you like seeing more progress. Let us know what you think in the comments or in our Discord channel. I posted higher-res versions of the screenshots there. 

Black Heaven - Necromantic Dating Sim

Normally we don't share Kickstarter projects that are not related to D&D roleplaying, but this one is special. Our very own development manager Christopher Mahon has been working with a passionate team for over a year to launch their very first Kickstarter, and a very peculiar (in a good way) one at that! Check out Black Heaven - a Necromantic Dating Sim. I gotta say I love the look of this! Show your support if you dig this kind of thing, they will thank you for it!