Yelled Kin Krakenhund, sitting at the Figurehead, while His Beloved Ship departed the port!
Okay, so we finally got funded! What a ride! Thanks to everyone. I REALLY appreciate it!
And we still have one more week to sail! And raid some ports! And capture merchant ships! And explore the Caribbean!
So, let's look at what there is still to conquer.
🦜 Stretch Goals & Engagement
We beat another two stretch goals!
Engagement achievement thanks to our active and frankly awesome crew!
I've added one last community engagement goal. At 7.000 engagements, we will unlock the last five Ship Relic artworks. I have no doubt we will conquer this one!
Then, as Ship Pets showed that there's great interest in them among the pirates, let's propose another Ship Pet!
In the comments below this update, give me your SHIP PET suggestions. After four days I will make a Poll form suggestions and we will vote on one last Pet to add to the zine.
This will also bring our card deck to 44 cards. And as the printing price for 44 or 50 cards is the same... well, as proper pirates, we'll use it to the brim!
🃏 What to Do With Those Extra Cards?
I was thinking of adding some reference cards for the trio of pamphlet adventures.
Maybe we could add six demonic variants of the Ship Pets from the Voyages for the Devil pamphlets, to use as references during play.
Or does anyone have a better idea?
I'm even open to creating six extra pets or something else that won't make it into the zine (as there's no room for it), but that we could print as an addition to the deck!
So, what would you prefer? Reference cards for the adventures? Or extra, unique content?
What are your thoughts on this? Gimme some brainstorming ideas! We have six cards to fill!
We also voted for an extra NPC for the book... and the vote ended in a tie!
An Amputee by XXX and a Beast Tamer by XXX!
So, to respect the crew and its vote... let's have both... as ONE!
It kinda makes sense that the Beast Tamer would be missing a few limbs, am I right? ;-)
🦤 The Last Two Days: Reverse Early Bird?
Also, be ready for the last two days!
I kinda wanna try something like a reverse Early Bird. I need to recalculate the coffers and see how our voyage expenses are looking. BUT what I had in mind was this:
If we reach a certain number of backers in the last 48 hours, I'll add a Ship Pets sticker by our beloved Piskomil as a reward to every physical tier.
And if we go even further beyond that, we could actually expand the sticker pool!
BUT I still have five days to think about this, so give me some time. No promises! But I wanna hear your opinions on this.
We'll vote after the campaign ends on which pets to use as stickers, but here's another one by our talented Piskomil! And one by me!
📖 One Last Idea... And I Need Your Opinion!
(I'm running this like a cheap whorehouse, right? )
As I would damn LOVE to have the Golem Production spread in the zine (they told me it would be the best-looking spread in the whole book as a bet between us, and I wanna challenge them on that! ), I'm thinking of adding an adventure as an extra add-on.
The problem is that it's commissioned writing and art, and that costs money. I cannot include it for free, as I don't have the funds for that.
But it would be a shame not to have it.
So, here's an idea: what if I offered another adventure as a paid add-on, with the money raised going towards unlocking the Golem Production spread?
I already have an adventure for Pirate Borg that I created some time ago: Silent Cove.
Hexeter, over on the [Pirate Borg Ex Libris], gave it a great review and even expressed some regret that it was in black and white.
So, I started working on an expanded version, with a cleaner layout, a couple more pages of text, and, most importantly, extra artwork. And all in colour!
The adventure is already written, so getting it ready for print wouldn't be a big hurdle.
Here's what I'm thinking: instead of tying the Golem Production spread to a backer-count milestone, I'd make it a funding goal. If enough of you are interested in getting the expanded Silent Cove as a paid add-on, the money raised could help cover the cost of the Golem Production spread.
That way, you get another adventure for your Pirate Borg collection, set on an island that invites recurring visits, and we get closer to unlocking what could be one of the best-looking spreads in My Beloved Ship!
BUT before I go ahead with this, I wanna hear what YOU think!
Would you be interested in getting Silent Cove as a paid add-on to help unlock the Golem Production spread? Or do you think I should leave it out and keep the campaign as it is?
Give me your criticism! Give me your encouragement! Give me your insults!
This update is not mostly about my project (but definitely check it out! It's fun, it's cool, and we have a great crew on board in the Community tab! 😁 More Info at the end of this update), but about a project I care about a lot:
It's an awesome high-fantasy setting, full of a diverse cast of NPCs, factions, flavor, and 16 adventures!
It's an ultimate city sandbox, setting, and campaign all in one!
You can find something there for everyone:
- Dozens NPCs with a lot of character, drives, and fears and quirks. - Several city districts, each distinct, with their own problems and opportunities. - Adventures ranging from dungeon crawls in magically trapped houses, through heist in a fishman factory, all the way to masquerade balls — and even adventure on a pirate ship and in the port. (Yeah, I needed to mention that... Arrr! Pirates for life!)
Your group can study at a magical university, join factions of revolutionaries with a rat curse put on them, rob the rich, get a house and upgrade it, and a whole lot more.
But mostly, it's a love letter to different cultures, fandoms, and the hobby itself.
A group of my friends poured a lot of heart, sweat, and time into this project. It's been tested by several groups, published in Czech with two books already out, and has several extra adventures.
I also helped out with it! I have a couple of adventures and maps in there — including a pretty damn rad galleon map. 😀⚓
And I would really appreciate it if this campaign worked out, both for them and for you, because the product is genuinely great! ❤️
🦜 And now, back to our campaign...
To celebrate a bit and tie this back to My Beloved Ship, let's take a look at how our ship is getting ready to sail!
🪙 First: our Achievements!
We're almost there! We've already unlocked yet more Achievements, even before we're ready to sail! Again 😀
So, we unlocked some extra art for the Cursed Relics. Here's one of them — and I think it's pretty fitting to share this one first:
Piskomil again! Hooray to her!
We also unlocked a poll to add another Henchman to our roster. There are already seven of them in the zine, but we need one more!
You can vote here — even if you didn't back the campaign... which you should! 😏
If Kalusa, the Enchanted City gets funded, I will unlock one of the Achievemenst for FREE!
As the group behind Kaluse helped me with some of them, I will unlock one of theirs - PRINTED INSIDE COVER of the zine. Each cover will have an extra table. ;-) So spread the word or back them, if its up your alley!
And one last art to end its with:
Here is the Spirit Cat Pet art by Pískomil, which will be used in our Reference Card deck.
Of course its a cat, so we tie it nicely to the Kaluse at the end. 🐱
Safe sailing, everybody, and thanks for all the support and attention!
⚓ OK, one week flew by and we're almost ready to set sail! ⚓
We're still missing a few crew members to make this zine a reality, so if you're on the verge of backing, what can I do to make you sign the ship's articles?! :D Ask and don´t be surprised if I deliver! :D
But let's look at whats changed, where we are, and what we've achieved so far:
🎯 We Already Unlocked Stretch Goals Before Funding!
Seriously.
These are Community Stretch Goals, and you lot have been absolutely goddamn awesome. We smashed through them before the campaign was even funded!
✅ Community Engagement Goal Unlocked
Comments, likes, pledges, votes... it all counts.
And you blasted through this goal like a cannonball through a merchant hull!
In fact, you smashed it so hard that I didn't even have time to update the page before it was gone. I have four of these engagement goals planned, and today I'll already be unlocking the second one in the series.
That means:
2×5 original illustrations for Ship Relic cards unlocked!
And honestly? I'm not worried about the remaining two goals for that missing Relic art. At the rate you're going, they'll be sunk soon enough as well and all 20 of Relics will have original art. :)
✅ New Ship Pet Unlocked
I asked for ship pet suggestions and hoped for maybe 8 entries.
You gave me 13.
After a week of voting, The Stealing Seagull (suggested by Piskomil) won the crew vote! (damn, my favorite was "Beaver, the Bane of Peglegs" :D )
So expect this little bastard to land on your ship and immediately start looking for unattended food, shiny objects, and a lot of trouble.
And don't worry if your favorite didn't win. I hope we'll unlock another community-voted pet, so you'll get another chance to unleash your own pest upon the Dark Caribbean.
Funny enough, Piskomil is also illustrating the Ship Pet cards, so she is going to bring the winning critter to life as well. :)
And here's some of the artwork she created:
Pretty damn impressive, right?
💰 Why should you back now?
I will be reworking, by the end of week, a bit the campaign page to make it a little clearer what you're actually getting.
Why? Because I think it was not clear immediately.
For just 7 EUR / 8 USD, you're not only getting the PDF version of the module.
You're also getting these digital rewards:
Three pamphlet adventures
A map
40+ reference cards
Access to all artwork
That's a whole pile of pirate loot for the price of a couple of beers.
Not a bad deal, right?
So loosen up that coin purse a little and help us get this thing printed. ⚓☠️🏴☠️
You can also get it in print, so check out our Pledge Levels!
🧭 What's Next?
I will be adding more Community Achievements and adjusting some of the funding Achievements.
If we reach 200 backers, we'll unlock a naval encounter spread by the fantastic creator behind Ravaged by Storms, Way of the Worm, and many other great projects.
But that's not all!
Since Alexander is only one half of Golem Productions, it only feels right to bring the other half aboard as well.
If this Stretch Goal is unlocked, Sabrina_Nina will create original artwork for Alexander's spread.
So this has become a double upgrade. Great writing deserves great art, right? ;-)
⚔️ Share the Page / Follow me: The sharing Achievements (discord, bluesky, facebook) will be seriously lowered. I have been told by my friend, thats its not the best UI when you click it, so I will set the values at 10 for each, instead of the 40.
🏝️ New Achievements
A couple of these won't cost me much to produce, so let's move them closer to the funding goal and give us more things to unlock along the way. Its fun and I wanna make the best possible product I can.
⚓ Naval Travel Minigame
3200 EUR
A spread written by myself.
These rules add a small sailing minigame with activities the crew can perform during long voyages for various benefits.
It's loosely inspired by the historical watch system used aboard 17th-century ships.
⚓ Dockside NPCs
3400 EUR
One spreads filled with NPCs you can meet in port or recruit into your crew, complete with art, stats, goals, and mannerisms.
⚓ Community Engagement Goal
As I mentioned, I've already unlocked the second engagement goal.
But let's aim higher and take out the third!
If we reach Engagement 3500 (we are at 2500 right now), we'll unlock another 5 more original illustrations for Ship Relic cards.
⚓ Ship Henchman Suggestions
I want your ideas!
Give me your Ship Henchman suggestions in the comments below or wait for me until I start the achievement and comment there. I will check both places and combine the comments, so don´t worry if you comment somewhere else, that it will not be counted. ;-)
If we get at least 6 suggestions, we will then host a vote, just like we did with Ship Pets. And the winner of the vote will join the zine.
Need inspiration?
Check out the Specialty Crew in the Pirate Borg rulebook on page 76 or the six examples already included in the preview of my zine. Here it is just for good measure:
Let's see what kind of weird, dangerous, and barely employable sailors you can come up with. :)
I´ll upgrade the graphics and post the achievements in couple days.
🦜Trivia!
We've got an ongoing pirate trivia event running on BackerKit, and we have already learned some cool stuff.
Did you know:
What is woolding?
How did Captain Morgan escaped Maracaibo?
What Blackbeard demanded for releasing Charlestown?
Which pirate captain stole the most?
No? So go check it out there!
And there is much more coming. ;-)
Rewards for trivia
The most active, funniest, and most knowledgeable pirates will also receive a personalized reward from me as a Thank You for being part of it. And as a nice reminder to them about this campaign. :)
Originally, I wanted to award custom engraved challenge coins. Unfortunately, they're expensive and the campaign isn't performing quite well enough for me to justify spending money on them without going into red numbers.
So for now, I'm downgrading the reward to a personalized fridge magnet using the same design.
But hey... if we catch enough wind later in the campaign, I still dream of upgrading them back to challenge coins. So keep our fingers crossed.
Each magnet will feature the patch design along with a custom title such as:
Smartest Pirate in the Caribbean
Legendary Bard
Known in every tavern
And I'll also include a personalized message in a bottle, that you can use as an in-game prop. :)
It will look like this, but with personalized text:
Need to test print it to see how it looks like. :) First on my old Prusa, then I will put it somewhere more profesional.
📣 Special Mentions
I want to give a quick shoutout to two pirates in particular:
🏴☠️ Picaroon Lagoon
This pirate has been writing an original shanty under every single trivia question.
How cool is that?
Definitely check them out. They're creative as hell and they managed to sneak real historical tidbits into each song.
🏴☠️ FeBommel
For paying attention and knowing their history.
They pointed out that I had accidentally marked a wrong answer as correct. (how many pirates there were in Caribbean)
Thanks for catching that, and sorry for the mistake!
I talk a lot, right? Like a goddamn parrot... but it's worth it, I promise! :D
So, a couple of things. We reached two stretch goals before we were even funded! :D
One is Suggestions for Ship Pets. There were a ton of great and funny ideas, but we can keep only one (at least for now... ;-) ), and which one will be up to you, my beloved crew!
So, there is a poll for you to vote, which pet to include in the module, flesh it out, and create an illustration for it. You can find the Poll here:
Also, we are running the Trivia. Did you check that out? So far, there are two teams competing: the French and the Brethren of the Coast... and the French are winning! Merde!
So, go there and either sink their hopes or make them even stronger! Arrrr!
Talking about the Trivia, there will be a question every day (sometime per two dyas - weekends, too much work, ...), and each question will run for two days, so you have time to come here and vote. Remember, the most active, correct and funniest pirates will get a real world prize from me! (keep an eye on upcoming updates to find out what that is... ;-) )
Tied to this, Vault Crawler sent me a WIP of the cover, featuring two ships and, as I promised, the ship on the front cover, the winning one, will fly the flag of the most competent team in the Trivia (so far it's the French), while the losing team will be immortalized on the ship on the back cover.
Here, look at that beauty! I'm in love!
Also, this picture will be made into a poster for the map-accompanying pamphlets, so you can pimp up your captain's cabin with it, after you finish the three adventures.
Speaking of them, the three adventures and a map will be free in digital form for every backer. Same goes for the digital reference cards.
So, for a measly €7, you will get: - a full module - three adventures - map prop/poster - reference cards
(you can also get that in print of course, and its heavily appreciated if you choose that option :) )
What a steal, right?! So spread the word and help us fund this voyage! We still have a way to go before we are fit for the waters of the Dark Caribbean. :)
Also, this is the last 24 Hours to secure the Early Bird patch for free! It will be available as a paid add-on for a fair price if you miss it, as I don't believe too much in campaign-exclusive content. I want everyone to be able to get what they want, only the early pirates will get it as a free gift.
Ok, thanks everyone so far, hope you are having some fun with this campaign! :) (tell me in the comments ;-) )
I want to try a different approach to crowdfunding, hopefully to make it more fun for all of us (and, damn, more work for me ), and we’ll do a lot of different Achievements/Stretch Goals, challenges, and some more shenanigans.
So, to be transparent about how it will work, let’s take a look at what we have on our Voyage Ledger so far and how it works.
I want YOU guys to comment underneath the Achievement update/post and give me eight ideas for another Ship Pet. And when we get to that amount of suggestions, we’ll vote on which one will get fleshed out and included in the module and on the cards, fully stated and illustrated. :)
4) WAVE! Hold the rails! When we reach 200 backers, we will unlock a full spread by Der_AJZ from Golem Productions!
This spread will give you 20 extra Naval Encounters for your voyages across the Dark Caribbean. ;-)
Click the "Share on Discord" button below the Achievement and share it on any Discord server you’re part of where you think people might be interested in this module. :)
Remember, use the button, or it won’t count towards the unlock!
This button: 6) Darn! Turn around! Same as with the discord, but this time Facebook. Also, remember the BUTTON! :D
7) They did THIS?! Almost the same as the two Achievements before this.
Follow my Bluesky account, and unlock another two Henchmen artworks.
Use the button. ;-)
Factions and Trivia:
This feature will influence how the cover will look in the end, so let’s try this, right mates?!
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