It's October, so it's time for the monthly progress update. The minis poll results are also in and I have enough finished art that we can vote on the final selection of minis! That poll is at the bottom of this update, and will close on Saturday.
Writing Progress
Writing and game design drafts for all the core book text (everything but the appendixes) are 100% complete, and are moving on to editing!
Cavernous Constructor, the Unholy category's full-page piece, by Kaion Luong
All told, I wrote 317 stat blocks, with a pretty solid distribution across the tiers of the game that people are most likely to use while still supporting higher tiers of play as well. You can see that distribution in the image below. The reason we have more than 300 stat blocks despite there being 100 monster groups and an originally intended 3 stat blocks per group is that with some groups I ended up creating distinct subgroups that I thought warranted having a stat block at each tier, while a couple of other groups seemed like they would benefit from an additional block or two for completeness.
I've also finally tallied up the "total" boons and charms when you include all the variant options available if they're enchanted using more or less powerful monsters from their group, and it comes out to a whopping 541 boons and charms. 386 boons (200 base/unique), and 155 charms (100 base/unique). The vast majority are rare and very rare, but there's a solid presence of uncommon rarities as well, plus a handful of commons and legendaries. These counts could change if something comes up during balance edits, but it probably won't change by much.
Vowkeeper, a celestial foe by Eduardo da Silva Pires
Editing Progress
Editing is in full swing now. With writing done, my time is freed up to start responding to edits, and Chapter 1 (the Ritual and Harvesting systems) is just about done. I just received the balance feedback for the Celestials chapter over the weekend, which I'm working through in order to pass off to final edits early this week, and the Fey chapter is entering balance editing. With the current estimated rate for balance checks, those should all wrap up by the end of November. That's about 1 month behind what I'd hoped for (I'm always trying to finish things early), but still within the original schedule I think. This means that final edits are likely to finish up in December.
Art Progress
A lot of the art is finished at this point, with just about everything on track to be finished by the end of the month; there are just two monster groups left to commission, and I'm confident those will be done by the time all the editing is complete.
Yabyab, a primal capybara spirit capable of rapidly rewilding any area it enters, by Camila Rossoni
Minis Poll Results
The favorites for the three unlocked minis resulted in a number of clear leaders for us to choose from. Going with the top six, we have the Sea Chimera, Effluvial Wolf, Black Helldrake, Orthodoxic Guardian, Equinox Knight, and the Faceless One.
Unfortunately, Black Helldrake doesn't have a sketch yet. However, I do think it's one of the easiest to picture based on its description, so I'm hoping that won't bias people too much in the final vote. The short description from the first poll is included below, as well as in the poll's body text (if you view the poll as its own post by clicking on the title):
Black Helldrake. A fiendish drake. Extremely bold and aggressive, they act like scaly, fire-breathing, warhorse-sized honey badgers. They've never been tamed, despite multiple attempts by Dukes of Hell over the centuries.
Important Note: One of the original 5 minis, the False Knight, is a Medium creature. The more I've thought about the set, the more I'm thinking it's best if all of them are Large instead. If there's a clear runner-up in this vote, I will hold another poll to see if you all would like to swap out that mini for another Large mini using the runner-up as the competitor.
Thanks as always for your support, and I'm looking forward to seeing which creatures you all choose!
