Hello out there to all the critters, adventurers, and everyone else who is taking this trip into Willowmere with us!
We have a very quick update for you since it's been a little over a month since the last one. Without further ado, here we go!
Blackwater Actual Play
Thank you to everyone who checked out the very first actual play of Willowmere and the Quill TTRPG system! It was truly wonderful to see our little game played live for the first time (outside of playtesting) and we couldn't be happier with the adventure our little heroes got up to. For anyone who missed it, you can see all three episodes HERE! This is a wonderful opportunity to check out the game and how it runs, as well as how easy it is to pick up during play.
Writing
We're almost through the Wilds of Willowmere, and we're into final revisions for 2 of the 4 adventures in our companion expansion, Seasons. We don't want to spoil any of the writing, so we won't be posting any of that here. We're very excited by everyone coming back though, and we know you're going to love it.
Art
These are going to be VERY art heavy books xD At our latest estimate, we've got around 160 individual art pieces across the 3 books that are on our runway to produce. This is going to take some time, but we want to ensure we're producing exactly the books that we would want to own, so we're going to take our time and do it right. Generally speaking, each art piece is being produced in oil pastels or gouache paints to begin with, and then enhanced with digital flair. We're extremely proud to say none of this work is being done with generative AI, it's all done by hand by our amazingly talented Morgan Tyrrell-Fornataro!
That's All Folks!
It's not terribly exciting to say "we're still working" but we feel like you should know! This project was ambitious and we unlocked more than we expected so there's a lot to create, but its coming together nicely and we're very excited to get it to you as soon as everything is complete!
Thank you so much for your support, be kind to each other out there, and remember to be heroes everywhere you can!
Hello to all the folks and critters! We hope you had an excellent end to your year, and we wish you nothing but the best during 2026 :D
2025 was an incredibly busy year for us, with multiple releases and a bunch of new things lined up to write, draw, and otherwise create. You'll be hearing about some new stuff soon, but in the meantime let's talk Willowmere!
The BIG Exciting Announcement
We're extremely excited to announce that you're going to get the chance to see Willowmere played by our very good friends over at Blackwater DnD! This upcoming Monday the 5th of January at 8pm Pacific, head over to their Twitch Channel (https://www.twitch.tv/blackwaterdnd) for the beginning of a 3 part mini-series exploring the world of Willowmere as the season turns.
This is going to be played in our brand new TTRPG filming studio through a partnership with Blackwater DnD and Cascadia Tabletop Collective. Not to be missed!
Missed the Campaign, But Want to Explore Willowmere?
We're not a huge company, pretty much just 2 people making fun stuff, which means sometimes we get missed! If you are excited about Willowmere, or you watch the Blackwater game and want to get in on the fun but didn't back during the campaign period, you're in luck! You can still get the discounted price by heading over to our pre-order page HERE! Your support means the world to us :D
Project Update
All good news on the production front! We're still motoring through writing and editing, and we now have 3/4 of the Wilds of Willowmere submitted for first revisions, and the prime book going through some additional rules playtesting. Art and music continue apace, and we're working on finalizing the beautiful custom characters sheets that we know you're going to love <3 All we're going to say on that front is pastoral stained glass!
Not much more to say other than we're excited to get this into your hands! As the new year breaks, please remember to be kind to each other, protect each other, and try to make the lives of others just a little easier, rather than a little harder.
Hello folks, and happy Fall! Autumn is genuinely my favourite time of year, and it's doubly great this year because Sept is hand-in time for the Wilds of Willowmere writers and the submissions coming in are truly delightful.
Since we're just working away there isn't a ton of *new* update to do, but we wanted to check in and let you know how things are progressing :)
Wilds of Willowmere!
2 of our 4 WoW chapters have been submitted, and they're wonderful <3 Whimsy and danger, scenes familiar and brand new, honestly I couldn't be any more excited about what our writers have crafted. From original pitches (what about a dark-souls hedgehog? James Dean hares? A full feast WITH included recipes?) to final submissions, these stories are engaging, fantastical, and tons of fun. Next step after we have the final 2 chapters in-hand is to send them to art. After art comes layout, and then we move to print!
Quill!
We've tested Quill in Willowmere. We've tested Quill in Wayfinder. Now? Now we're testing it in ---REDACTED---, ---REDACTED---, and ---REDACTED--- to make sure that it works well across as many worlds and with as many custom rulesets and modules as possible! Stay tuned.....
Writing!
Wilds of Willowmere is 50% submitted! The expansion modules are being written and are 25% submitted! The prime book is waiting for those to be finished so that it can incorporate everything possible to make the world and the individual regions as robust as possible! Especially with such a small team this is going to be an endurance race rather than a sprint, but wow this still feels like it's going by so quickly for us. We'll be bringing a couple more writers on-board in the next months as this project keeps expanding and expanding (more content, yay!) and we can already tell you our writers are over their wordcount, so expect lots of things to explore and do in Willowmere :D
Art!
Once art starts coming back for WoW we'll be posting our favourites! Custom character sheets are also coming up pretty soon, so stay tuned!
Music!
In honour of Autumn, we want to take you to the Briarwarren with this update. Cozy autumnal vibes, orange and gold leaves drifting lazily from the treetops to crunch deliciously underfoot. Mulled wine, flaky vegetable pastries and spiced stew in comfy underground burrows We have a Backer Exclusive preview of the Briarwarren track in this update! Please check it out below :D
Thank You!
As always folks, your support is legendary! We're going to keep writing, art-ing and working hard to create the best Willowmere possible for you to play in.
Hello to everyone! It's been a very busy kickoff to summer, and we have some update stuff for you :D Let's kick right in!
Renaming!
Familiar Tales has gone though some changes since it was first envisioned, and to align better with the BackerKit campaign and the books that are in process, we'll be renaming the game Willowmere! This new title encompasses the land and the stories to be told in it better, and will allow us to continue producing module and books for many years to come in a way that immediately lets you know what world you're playing in. The Quill system we've built is going to house many MANY games, so we want Willowmere to stand out as it's own entity. Speaking of which...
Quill!
Quill was designed and tested internally before we ran our campaign; now that we're into the thick of the writing, we've been doing some external alpha-testing and are making some adjustments to the system. It's wonderful having a slightly larger group of battletests to draw information from, and we're really happy with the results. The big swings for how the system works are remaining the same, we're just tweaking numbers here and there to ensure the most fun experience possible!
Writing!
Our writers are typing away, and we're very excited to be starting to get some things back! We have a staggered timeline for writing completion to make sure that our artists aren't overwhelmed by the work coming in all at once.
The main book with systems, rules, mechanics, and a fully playable campaign in the land of Willowmere is well on its way. We've connected with folks who are designing their own NPCs to inhabit the world, and we're working on integrating those amazing new characters into the story! The characters are awesome, and we can't wait for you to meet them :)
The expanded modules are out of planning and into writing phases, with updates coming every couple of weeks. They are SUPER fun, spanning some really cool locations and with unique stories you're unlilely to find anywhere except in Willowmere.
The Wilds of Willowmere writers will be submitting first drafts in early September, after which they'll be heading to artwork and layout for completion.
Art!
We should have some preliminary art pieces to show soon, but for the moment we're keeping our book cover under wraps. We've got designs for both the regular and deluxe editions that we're very proud of, and we think you're going to love them!
Music!
Genuinely one of my (Michael) favourite parts of this process has been working with our wonderful composer, Tyler Eddington, on the album, We have a Backer Exclusive preview of one of the tracks in this update! Please check it out below :D
Thank You!
As always folks, your support is legendary! We're going to keep writing, art-ing and working hard to create the best Willowmere possible for you to play in. Stay tuned!
A quick update today, but packed with information. Please read all the way to the bottom so that you get all the info you need!
The Weird and Unpleasant First
The whole game industry (and a lot of others) are talking about it, so we wanted to address the elephant sized T word in the room - Tariffs.
As of right now a 145% tariff has been levied on the entire board game industry. Obviously this is crippling, not just to us but to all of our fellow creators and friends working in a career which is already never guaranteed and very expensive. Most of us who work in games tend to do so out of love and passion, and so it's absolutely heartbreaking to see and hear so many of our friends and colleagues doing the math and coming to the sobering realization that their businesses may not survive the coming years due to a pointless, counter-productive, and fully self inflicted set of poorly though out policy decisions.
What this means in real terms is that if a game normally costs $10 to make, it now costs fully $24.50 to produce and get to the USA. It's also worth noting that nowhere in North America is capable of producing board games or ttrpgs in any sort of cost effective way, and many of the resources required to do so simply can't be found here.
Here's the good news for everyone who backed our campaign: We're going to figure this out. When you supported us, and when we launched this campaign, none of us could have possibly seen this catastrophe coming. That's not our fault, but it's REALLY not your fault either. We're going to work out how to make this work for everyone, ideally without delaying too far, or bankrupting ourselves.
Smoke Tests!
Ok, the bad stuff is out of the way, now the fun stuff!
In order to get surveys out to everyone so that you can select your rewards, and we can start working with the folks who are designing their own NPCs to appear in the Familiar Tales module, we need to do something called a Smoke Test. During a smoke test, around 5 percent of backers will receive their survey first. Assuming we don't find any problems with the survey, we'll be releasing the survey to everyone else shortly after that!
The survey is a great place to add-on anything extra you'd like! The most exciting thing, we think, is the Wilds of Willowmere module! We didn't quite reach it as a stretch goal during the campaign, so it won't be bundled BUT we're offering it as an add on at HALF the price it'll be retail. This is the only time it'll ever be offered at this price, so grab it while you can! Speaking of the Wilds...
SUPER AWESOME WRITING UPDATE
So we said that the Wilds of Willowmere module, taking place off the edges of the known map, would be written by some awesome guest writers, and we're very excited to say we've gotten all four of them on board, and we have our first meeting next week! Over the course of the next updates we'll be announcing who they are with appropriate fanfare and celebration, but for now we just want to build some anticipation xD
Lastly - Pre-Order store!
If you happened to miss the Familiar Tales campaign, NOT TO WORRY! We have our pre-order store open HERE where you can get anything you'd like! Please check it out, signed limited edition copies of the book are still available :D
Thank You
As always, thank you so much for your support. We can't create and build worlds without you, and we appreciate you so so much.
