Progress update: digital print sample approved + livestreams May 18 & June 4
Hello Lore Master's Deck backers!
We wanted to give you a quick update on our progress as we continue to complete project milestones.
Since our last update, we received, revie...
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Miroki
about 1 month ago
🌳 Let's Write Dystopias Rather Than Make Dystopias + ⚙️ Progress Update (Who doesn't like colour swatches?)
Happy Earth Day Backers!
Most of us are no strangers to fiction that speaks of a planet run dry, drained by the avarice of its inhabitants. The story either follows the survivo...
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Miroki
about 1 month ago
Let us feature your work on World Book Day!
World Book Day is on April 23, and we're looking for books written by Story Engine users. If you used one of our decks at any point in the writing process, let us know by replying here so we can share it on April 23! Send us a link where people can find your project and don't ...
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The Story Engine
about 2 months ago
Outtakes expansion released + tell us about your book + final week of Pintopia
Hello backers!
Here's a quick summary of what we cover in this update, with a fuller breakdown below.
• The PDF of Master of Lost Lore: Outtakes Expansion has been released, an...
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The Story Engine
2 months ago
The Big Pintopia Mega-Post
Hello! This is Eric, the community manager for The Story Engine, here with another update!
Up first: we're moving full steam ahead with Lore Master's Deck production!
• The dig...
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Peter Chiykowski
3 months ago
IMPORTANT: Locking pledges now + charging cards in 48 hours + grand finale livestream!
Hi backers!
We've got a few exciting updates to share this week! Here's what we'll cover in this update:
• Locking pledges now + charging cards in 48 hours (a little later than...
We wanted to give you a quick update on our progress as we continue to complete project milestones.
Since our last update, we received, reviewed, and approved the digital print samples from our printer.
Our notes from the review are summarized below, but in case you want to get a look at the samples yourselves (including extras like the journal and Leviathan Boxes), we'll be hosting an unboxing livestream at 3pm ET on June 4. Subscribe and click the "Notify Me" button on YouTube to make sure you don't miss it!
We're also doing a 6-hour worldbuilding livestream this weekend to celebrate the 3-year anniversary of launching Deck of Worlds, our record-setting deck of worldbuilding prompts. We hope you'll join us for live demos, prize giveaways, and 10-25% Deck of Worlds and accessories in our store.
Okay, let's get into the print sample details!
Print Sample Review
If you're not familiar with print production, the digital print sample is a close estimation of what the final product will look like, but hand-made as a one-off using print-on-demand quality methods before we commit to the full quality mass production.
The digital sample helps us and our printer get aligned on the fine details before we commit to mass production methods. Once mass production starts using full-quality offset printers, it gets expensive (if not impossible) to fix mistakes or make adjustments. We like to make sure everything is just so before we get started, and that we're all on the same page about every detail from box dimensions down to print finish and paper weight.
The good news is that the digital samples looked fantastic! We had some minor notes, most of which were due to imperfections caused by using digital print methods that won't be relevant to final production (e.g., imperfections from hand-gluing a single demo box, using a different paper stock due to limitations of the digital printer).
We did make some minor changes that the print sample helped us catch:
Upscaling the resolution of the textures we apply to our images, logos, and box borders
Organization of components inside the box
Upgrading the vegan leather cover material of the Lore Master's Journal and switching to a brighter, more-like-real-polished-leather color and finish
Fine-tuning the color matching on the bridge expansion cards
Fine-tuning the standardization of the drop shadow effect on our box logos
Our notes were so minor because otherwise, everything looked fantastic!
Here are a few photos of details we were checking during our review to tide you over until the June 4 livestream.
Leviathan Box: testing how adding small crenellations can improve tray strength.
Lore Master's Deck tray insert: double-checking arrangement of components and thickness of tray material.
Most of us are no strangers to fiction that speaks of a planet run dry, drained by the avarice of its inhabitants. The story either follows the survivors learning to respect and rehabilitate the land, or a journey to find a new home with the lesson to not repeat their mistakes.
I often think about these stories, and how they apply more than ever to our own world. But more than me being a self professed tree-hugger, reducing our environmental footprint is also a core value at The Story Engine. This is why as part of our campaign stretch goals, we vowed to plant 3,000 trees!
Planting the next 1,000 trees
Thanks to you, today we plant another 1,000 trees with Eden Reforestation as part of our stretch goals, bringing our total to 2,000 🌳 of the 3,000 we've committed to planting!
Eden Reforestation is our charity of choice because of the specificity of their work, clear and transparent objectives, dedication to damage prevention, scientific research and commitment to community.
Read more about why we picked Eden Reforestation here.
Of course, we all can also do our part to reduce our footprint. For one, I keep all my scrap paper (like when I print my eco-friendly PDF decks incorrectly 😝) and use them for doodling notes and ideating.
Have cool ways of being more sustainable at your writing desk or tabletop gaming session? Drop them in the comments!
The perfect shade of purple
I am infamously known for being the kind of visual designer that will change a graphic by a micron of a shade, and screech "IT'S SO DIFFERENT" when asking for opinions.
Thankfully, our project manager on the production side shares the same eagle eyes to detail, helping us pick a higher quality, richer royal purple vegan leather for the Lore Master's Journal after creating the first hard sample.
First copy of Lore Master's Journal (left) | New leather swatch (right)
We also discovered that the magnet tab overlapped with the logo. Our PM came up with a solution by switching our closure to a snap, which does not require as much coverage while still keeping your pages nice and secure.
We're thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to holding the first samples in our hands! Once we have them, we will thoroughly review, send back notes, implement last changes and then it's off to the races!
As always, if there is something you'd like to us to cover in our updates, if you have a question, or if you just want to share your creations, you can leave a comment on our posts or shoot us an email at [email protected]. We always look forward to hearing from you!
Here's a quick summary of what we cover in this update, with a fuller breakdown below.
The PDF of Master of Lost Lore: Outtakes Expansion has been released, and our Community Manager Eric walks you through the development process.
Production update: more photos of production samples!
We want to hear about your book! Tell us about a book you've written with one of our decks and we'd love to share it in our list of books on World Book Day.
Eric, our Community Manager, took point on editing the Master of Lost Lore: Outtakes Expansion. It's his birthday today, and in the hobbit tradition of birthdays, he decided to give everyone else a gift: the print-and-play PDF! You can access them via your Digital Downloads page.
Eric also wrote a development blog sharing the process!
I thought I’d take some time to explain the thought process and the design philosophy that I used to put this deck together!
Our first outtakes deck was released following the release of Deck of Worlds, and was known as the Oddballs & Outtakes expansion. We adapted the concept to suit Lore Master's Deck, but I still wanted the outtakes expansion to be a little, well, odd. Most of the material in it was written for Lore Master’s Deck or one of its expansions, and it didn’t get left out because it was bad. (If anything, these are some of our favorite prompts.) It got left out because it didn’t serve the design of the deck as a whole.
As Peter explained in previous updates, balance was paramount in the core deck. Every card has at least two link cues because we wanted to make sure people would have options when choosing the path to their next cluster. There needed to be a certain volume of Event cards that could lead to Creatures (and vice versa), and we had to make sure users would find enough Materials while exploring new Locations.
We relaxed those rules for the outtakes expansion. We still followed some self-imposed guidelines – for instance, cards have the same breakdown of Agendas, Backgrounds, Traits, etc. – but we weren’t as meticulous about the direction of the connections, and we prioritized impact over utility when selecting the cues themselves. We wanted cues that made us react. If a card only ends up with a single link cue (or if there are more cues leading to Figures than Events), then so be it. It’s worth it to have “be the very best” as a Figure’s Agenda or “the floor is literally or metaphorically lava” as a Trait for a Location.
Of course, we wanted evocative cards in the core deck, too. The problem is that the thing that makes a cue memorable is often the same thing that prevents us from including it. An Agenda like “collects teeth, skin, or hair” stands out because it describes something very specific. However, Lore Master’s Deck is supposed to encourage your creativity, and a cue with too much detail is more likely to limit your options. Cues that can be interpreted in more than one way usually get priority because they allow for different perspectives to come to the fore.
The outtakes expansion gives us more room for cues that are just for us. That makes it one of the most fun decks to work on, since we can do things we want to do instead of things we have to do. This deck has Deities because our writers gave us so much good material and it would have been a shame to leave it out. We cut down on the number of Modifiers because the Deities were more fun, and we hope that philosophy resonates throughout the deck!
We hope the Master of Lost Lore: Outtakes Expansion puts a smile on your face. This is the blooper reel at the end of our movie – takes that weren’t quite polished enough for the final cut that still have something compelling in them (or undeniable entertainment value). We had a blast putting Lore Master’s Deck together, and we’re excited to share some of our creative process with this last expansion!
The expansion PDF is free for every backer who pledged during the campaign – it’s our way of saying thanks for the support.
Production update
Our manufacturer has been sending us photos of the production samples as they are finished. We'll be receiving a shipment of physical samples to pore over, but for now, we thought we'd share a first look at some of the components and accessories.
Final sizing and colors for the link tokens that come with every physical copy of Lore Master's Deck.
Digital print sample of the Weave Your Lore playmat add-on with goldenrod edge stitching.
We'll continue to share production updates as they happen!
We want to hear about your book!
This year's World Book Day happens on April 23. To celebrate, we're putting together a list of books that were written with one of our decks!
Did The Story Engine help you unlock a key side-character? Did you use Deck of Worlds to set the backdrop for an important scene? Have you created anything with the early PDFs of Lore Master's Deck?
We'd love to hear about it! Let us know in the comments or reach out via the contact form!
To celebrate, we've dropped the price of our collector enamel pins to their original campaign pricing.
Until April 18, you can get all of our pins for the same price that you could during our original campaign. Our Tell Your Story, Build Your World, and Weave Your Lore pins are back to $12 each (or $32 for the set), while The Story Engine Mini Logo Pin is back down to $8.
Get in touch with us through the contact form if you would like help adding a pin to your pledge as pledges are now locked. You can also preorder pins through the preorder store at any time.
There's a special freebie mimic pin that all returning backers receive for free, including all backers from this campaign! You can see some of his designs below.
That's all for now!
As always, let us know if you have any questions in the comments!
Hello! This is Eric, the community manager for The Story Engine, here with another update!
Up first: we're moving full steam ahead with Lore Master's Deck production!
The digital proofs of the cards, boxes, and accessories are done and approved.
All deck and expansion PDFs have been released.
The next step is reviewing physical proofs from our manufacturer—we'll share that when it arrives!
We're still on pace to deliver physical decks on schedule!
Since everything is going so well, we hope you'll indulge us if we put a pin in it for just a moment - or several pins, in this particular case.
25 Pins for 25 Years of D&D
When he's not leading development for The Story Engine, our founder Peter Chiykowski still moonlights as his superhero alter ego Rock, Paper, Cynic - a creator of nerdy webcomics and hilarious tabletop RPG-themed apparel. He's also participating in Pintopia 2, a neat BackerKit pin project that features enamel pins from more than 125 BackerKit creators! Peter has put together a collection of 25 original pins to celebrate his 25th Anniversary of playing D&D (yes, he did the math), all of which are now available for pre-order because, oh yeah... Pintopia starts TODAY!
Head on over to rockpapercynic.com/pins to peruse the collection and pick up your favorite pins. The pins are based on the many half-baked plans, unlikely dice rolls, and ridiculous situations that happened around the gaming table - including those that improbably went well and those that ended in disaster.
The full lineup features more than a dozen original designs from Peter, as well as some returning favorites and guest designs from a slew of awesome artists, including:
There's something for every member of the party, whether you're rolling a Bard, a Cleric, or a Wizard - but especially if you're a Necromancer. (Note from Eric: It's hard to go wrong with R2D20. Also, I am definitely not a Mimic.)
Pintopia 2 runs from March 28-April 18. You can also get up to 5 FREE BONUS PINS depending on how you pledge. All returning backers from Lore Master's Deck, Deck of Worlds, or Story Engine Deck get a free bonus pin, as do all early bird backers who pledge in the first 48 hours. There's also a pin for pledging $75 or more, and another two pins for anyone who backs the Pintopia campaign of David "Wondermark" Malki, Peter's collaboration partner for the event.
Pledge today to lock in your freebies and set yourself up for more freebies on future campaigns, and join Peter as he livestreams the launch from 12:45pm ET onward!
Legacy Pricing for Story Engine Pins
Of course, we can't let Peter have all the fun. That's why we're bringing back legacy pricing for our pins to celebrate Pintopia.
Until April 18, you can get all of our pins for the same price that you could during our original campaign. Our Tell Your Story, Build Your World, and Weave Your Lore pins are back to $12 each (or $32 for the set), while The Story Engine Mini Logo Pin is back down to $8.
Get in touch with us though the contact form if you would like help adding a pin to your pledge as pledges are now locked. You can also preorder pins through the preorder store at any time.
Did we mention the pins are finished?
Because they are!
These collector's pins were developed exclusively for the BackerKit campaign, and we couldn't be happier with the way they've turned out!
Our manufacturer just sent us a first look at the sample pins, and we think they look absolutely incredible (we love the way the gold catches the light in this video). We're ready to put these pins into production - but we're only doing a limited run and the pins won't be coming back once supply runs out.
Order yours before April 18 to get yours at the best price - and to make sure you get them before they disappear forever!
We've got a few exciting updates to share this week! Here's what we'll cover in this update:
Locking pledges now + charging cards in 48 hours (a little later than announced) + answering your questions about preorder early bird pricing
Launching the complete Lore Master's Deck PDFs during the grand finale stream this Thursday
Recap of Deities livestream
Quick poll on pin designs for an independent BackerKit project!
Let's get into it!
Locking pledges and charging cards
Originally we'd planned to lock pledges over the weekend and charge credit cards for any outstanding balances today. We realized that locking pledges over the weekend might be tricky, both with backers missing their chance to update their pledge and with support teams being less available should any issues arise.
Instead, we've initiated locking pledges today. This means you have 48 hours to make any changes to your pledge via your reward survey. On Wednesday, we'll process card payments for any outstanding charges (such as shipping, taxes, post-campaign add-ons, and pledge upgrades).
I also wanted to clarify how our early bird pricing works after getting some questions on our previous update. The early bird pricing being discussed was primarily for preorders through our BackerKit preorder store (sometimes called "late pledges"). We ended up extending early bird pricing for preorders by a week to March 15. Sorry for not making that clearer!
Lastly, please note that we've temporarily removed the print and play PDFs from the Digital Downloads on BackerKit as we prepare to launch the final PDFs during Thursday's livestream.
Grand Finale Livestream
This Thursday we'll be hosting our FINAL LIVESTREAM in the open beta series! Lore Master's Deck has achieved its final form, and we're ready to put the entire final PDF set in your hands (minus stretch goal PDFs)!
We'll be recapping the progression of our deck systems through the years and then cracking open all of our expansions at the same time to weave some lore, with votes and interpretations steered by the chat!
If you have any questions you'd like answered about Lore Master's Deck, The Story Engine Deck, Deck of Worlds, or their expansions, please let us know!
And please click "Notify Me" on the livestream page to make sure you get a notification when we go live.
In case you missed the Deities livestream
Thanks to everyone who tuned into the Deities Expansion launch livestream last week! We had an absolute blast creating what turned out to be a twisted love triangle pantheon of avian deities:
the reclusive Heron, god of stories, words, and history
the one-eyed Eagle, god of blood and might
the corvid Trickster, the god who has been pulling strings behind the scenes
Miroki also debuted her new opera metal single "Until The Last Planet Dies," which is out now across music platforms! Here's how you can find the Spotify version! You can catch the replay of the stream here!
Quick poll on pin designs for a personal BackerKit project
Outside of my work on The Story Engine, I'm the cartoonist behind the webcomic Rock Paper Cynic and a designer of nerdy tabletop RPG apparel! On March 28, I'm launching a non-Story Engine pin project!
If you're a TTRPG player, I'd love for you to vote on this poll to help me figure out which pin designs to prioritize. For larger images or to vote for "Another option," please see the launch page. Also, I'll be doing a returning backer bonus and an early bird bonus, so follow the page to make sure you get the notification!
Thanks so much, and don't hesitate to follow up in the comments with any questions you have!
Thanks everyone who came out to join us for the Bridge Expansion livestream! It was so much fun to bring all 3 of our deck systems into play and build some inspired stories, worlds, and lore! You can catch the replay here.
I'm looking forward to another livestream with you this week to launch the open beta of what is definitely the fan-favourite expansion of this deck: the Master of Gods: Deities Expansion!
Join us 3pm ET on Thursday as we live-release the PDFs on our most-anticipated expansion and walk you through the creative direction behind it—and how we solved the biggest design challenge that the expansion presented! And of course, we'll be building a lore web full of deities and demigods with the chat voting on every cue and sharing their interpretations.
You can RSVP by clicking "Notify Me" in the link.
These livestreams have been so much fun, and they've actually helped us pass 100,000 views on YouTube last week! Subscribe for more demo videos and deck tips coming later this year!
Remember that you can still add-on or preorder the Deities Expansion PDF and get full access to the open beta. You can also upgrade your pledge or preorder one of the Lore Master's Deck bundles, all of which come with open beta PDF and final PDF access to complement all the physical decks in the bundle.
And you might want to do that today!
We'll be ending early bird preorder pricing TONIGHT (March 4), locking pledges on March 9, and charging chards on March 11.
Our multi-talented CEO Miroki Tong just released her first opera metal single! Until the Last Planet Dies by Mahjong Witch is now streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or wherever else you get your music. Go ahead and give it a listen!
I'm getting excited for our triple-feature Bridge Expansion launch livestream this Thursday! Here's the YouTube livestream link to RSVP (click "Notify Me"). This is going to be our biggest stream to date, and I'll get into the details further down in the update.
First I wanted to walk you through some important project milestones coming up!
Ending Early Bird Pricing + Locking Pledges + Charging Cards
🚨🚨 March 4 we will be ending early bird pricing for late pledges. 🚨🚨 If you haven't already added on items to your pledge, now is a good time to do so as this is your last chance to access the current pricing tier. You can still adjust your pledge or add-on items via your original survey link, or place new pledges via the preorder store.
March 9 we will begin locking pledges. When we initiate the locking process, BackerKit will send you a notification and you will have 48 hours to make any final changes to your pledge and add-ons. This is a good deadline for completing your reward survey. It is still possible to update your survey/pledge after this date, but you may have to contact us through customer service to do so.
Note that we will NOT be locking your address yet.
March 11 we will be charging cards for any outstanding balances on pledges. Please read this section carefully.
So far, we have only collected payment for the original base pledge and add-ons you committed to during the crowdfunding campaign in June-July last year.
This payment did not include:
shipping charges
taxes (where applicable)
post-campaign add-ons
post-campaign pledge upgrades
Last year, most of you completed your reward survey, which would have showed you the additional charges to expect and taken your credit card information. We did not actually charge cards at that point in time, except on request.
On March 11, we will be charging cards for all completed surveys for the amount you were shown when you completed that survey. If you did not complete your survey, you will not be charged.
If your payment fails, BackerKit will automatically notify you by email and provide instructions for updating your payment information. BackerKit will also periodically re-attempt to charge the provided card that failed.
If you run into any issues with payment, reach out via our contact form and please provide your BackerKit name and email so we can identify you in the system and work on solutions with you.
Please let us know in the comments if you have any questions about these next steps.
The Bridges: Our Biggest Expansion Release!
So far we've been releasing one expansion (60 cards) at a time.
This Thursday we're distributing all 3 Bridge Expansions live on air, explaining the updates we made between the alpha and beta copies, and then doing a live triple-demo as we combine cards from all 3 of our deck systems to create new kinds of prompts that would otherwise be impossible.
I'll also revealing the one "joke" card I snuck into Lore Master's Deck. When I'm editing new decks and expansions, I include some cards that are funny, as long as they also provide utility or inspiration to other deck users.
But there's one cue on one card in one of the Bridge Expansions that amused me so much I kept it in, even though I wasn't sure anyone else would "get" it. We'll find out what the reaction is during the livestream!
Also, in case you missed the live launch of the Emblems Expansion, I wanted to do a quick recap. More than any other expansion, I think this demo helped deck users discover how much utility, depth, and inspiration the Emblems Expansion has that isn't obvious on first glance. Not every lore-weaver or worldbuilder thinks about the symbols in their world, but the way different groups compete to shape or control the meaning of symbols can be rich ground to grow compelling stories.
We'll be talking about the development process and reviewing design updates from the alpha, distributing PDFs live on YouTube, and then creating prompts in collaboration with the chat.
Me sharing my biggest regret from Deck of Worlds (hint: I still get emails about it).
A behind-the-scenes look at the challenges and opportunities of adapting Namesakes from Deck of Worlds.
A walkthrough of the changes to the deck since the alpha demo during the BackerKit campaign.
A live prompting session where the chat helped us create the reckoning raven, also known as the woolly raven, a bird that grows thick plumage in response to sudden environmental changes.
You can watch the replay below!
How the Emblems Expansion changed during development
The Emblems Expansion began as an experiment for us, and grew into one of my favorite lore-weaving tools.
Our original plan was to release 60 Emblem cards that could be shuffled in with Modifiers. As with the Namesake cards, we realized that would flood the Modifiers draw pile with too many expansion cards. We also had a similar challenge to the one we faced with the Namesakes Expansion, where some cues worked well for particular card types, but not for others.
There was also the added challenge of showing new users the different ways they can use and interpret the emblems and icons we'd curated for the deck. Purely visual cues are new tools for us, and for many worldbuilders, and we wanted to balance:
giving people guidance about how to think divergently about symbols and images in their worlds.
giving people the freedom to interpret those symbols in a manner of their choosing.
Our solution involved a few changes:
We cut down from 60 to 32 Emblem cards, and we made them their own dedicated card type so we could be deliberate about how and when to use them.
We added 28 special variant lore cards of the 7 primary card types.
We used symbols in place of text cues on the the primary side of the expansion's lore cards.
To the secondary side of the lore cards, we added short cues that require players to draw Emblem cards to complete them. These offer a variety of ways to think about how symbols can connect to different elements of lore.
Here are a couple of examples!
You can also draw an Emblem instead of a Modifier card any time you expand a lore cluster.
The mistake we ALMOST made with the Emblems Expansion
I've talked before about why I think sensitivity readers are a crucial part of the development process. We worked with three sensitivity reviewers and an educational reviewer on this project, all of whom offered a bounty of insight and editorial recommendations on the main deck and expansions. Their notes and perspective helped flag potentially sensitive material and provided guidance about how writers and worldbuilders can approach that material in thoughtful and respectful ways.
The review of the Emblems Expansion was particularly revealing. We sourced a wide variety of icons, symbols, glyphs, and images for this expansion, and were careful about our selection. This included a small number of runes, including some dwarven-style runes based on Elder Futhark.
It turns out that specific Elder Futhark runes have been co-opted by white nationalist groups as either coded or overt hate iconography. While these runes are authentic pieces of culture predating these groups by thousands of years, some are currently being weaponized by white supremacists to further a deeply damaging cause.
On the advice of one of our sensitivity reviewers who flagged the algiz rune during their review (along with a couple of other symbols), we did a careful cross-examination of our symbols with the Anti-Defamation League's database of hate symbols.
Philosophically, this process raised some interesting questions: who decides what a symbol means? What happens when the meaning of a symbol changes over time? These are the questions that made the Emblems Expansion so fascinating to work on in the first place.
Practically, we knew that philosophy takes a back seat to making sure people from targeted communities feel safe and ensuring we don't inadvertently empower hate groups by deploying symbols they also use.
We cut the small number of symbols that resembled anything in the ADL's database and overall reduced the number of Elder Futhark-inspired runes, introducing instead a wider variety of runic styles. This ended up bringing more variety to the deck and improved it as a resource!
Symbols are powerful. For good and for ill, they evoke an immediate response and become containers for so many different kinds of meaning. I'm grateful we had such diligent sensitivity reviewers to help us shape the final lineup of symbols and think about how to provide guidance on using symbols in lore-weaving.
I'm excited for you all to dig into the Emblems Expansion with us today, and I hope you'll join us for the livestream!
The Lore Master’s Deck is now in the wild, and we had a blast coming up with some lore with the open beta during our launch party livestream.
If you tuned in, you already know exactly how we ended up with the lore web below. (In fact, you probably influenced some of our decisions.) For the rest of you, we thought we’d give you a quick recap to run you through some of the highlights.
The lore web from our launch day livestream
Keep in mind that this is only a loose summary – and as with any worldbuilding exercise, the facts are mutable and open to interpretation. Reply in the comments to let us know what you’d do with this prompt, or check out the replay of the livestream if you want to get the full story!
Without further ado, let’s take a journey to the Archive of Endlings!
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Our story begins with a conclave of cryptozoologists – which is closer to regular zoology in this particular world. This Conclave has an affinity for extinct and endangered creatures, many of which have mythic properties in this setting. Members are expected to be comfortable with dangerous monsters, which is why initiates need to pluck a feather from a griffin in order to become a member.
The Conclave itself was created to find the fabled Archive of Endlings (yes, “archive” won the great “archive” vs “museum” debate).
There have long been rumors about the Archive of Endlings – a mythical zoo that only houses creatures that no longer exist. According to the legend, the magical Owl that built the Archive is itself the last member of its species. Whenever another creature is about to go extinct, the Owl calls the endling – the last of its kind – to the Archive for protection. The endlings cannot leave (the Owl is a prisoner of its own design), but they are safe from further harm. The Archive only exists in the space between worlds, and is further guarded by an array of powerful enchantments.
Those enchantments can only be broken with the help of a Rod. No one knows where that Rod is today. The stories suggest that it was originally found buried beneath the Archive (though no one can explain how it got out if that was indeed the case). However, everyone agrees that the Rod provides a direct line to the Archive. Those one of a kind properties also make the Rod extremely valuable, which is why the market is flooded with knockoffs from people trying to make a quick buck off the gullible. The Conclave’s decision to use the Rod as its symbol could be viewed as an attempt to manifest the goal of their search.
Of course, ambiguous legends have been known to cause intense disagreement. The Conclave first learned of the Archive through ancient, rudimentary carvings. Most members of the Conclave saw a griffin. Others saw a dragon – and insisted on it so aggressively that they were eventually expelled. The fan club eventually came to worship the dragon, though its loyalty is in doubt. Everyone knows that the club’s leaders can be bought, and their constantly shifting allegiance has created considerable mistrust with the public.
However, the fan club is still bitter about its exile, and its most devout members are still bent on revenge. One day, they just might unleash the Armadillo god upon the world.
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We hope you enjoyed this journey to the Archive of Endlings! Catch the rest of our livestreams for more exercises in lore!
Thanks to everyone who came out to join us on last week's livestream as we officially sent the Lore Master's Deck open beta PDF out into the world!
The livestream was an absolute blast, and luckily coincided with the whole Story Engine team being together in one room! You can watch the replay on YouTube and catch the highlights, including:
I also wanted to share a little behind-the-scenes info on the Namesakes Expansion, which has changed a little bit since we unveiled the alpha during the campaign.
How I revamped the Namesakes Expansion (with math!)
The Namesakes Expansion is inspired by the Namesake card type from Deck of Worlds, which we released at the end of 2022. Namesakes are actually my favourite card type in Deck of Worlds. They provide some short text-based cues that you can combine with a Region or Landmark card to create an instantly-evocative nickname that feels like it originates within the lore of your world.
Screenshot from the Deck of Worlds Guidebook.
I find those cards achieve an almost alchemical reaction when people use them. Like magic, suddenly you're not just creating a boring "tower" or "swamp." You're creating "The First Tower" or the "The Swamp Where No Bird Sings." Your creative brain is waking up to ask questions about where these names come from and imagine interesting answers!
Namesakes as a dedicated card type didn't fit in the main Lore Master's Deck (although a few secondary cues do introduce nicknames and epithets). However, I saw some amazing opportunities to adapt Namesakes into an expansion. My original plan was to create 60 Namesake cards that would work much like Modifier cards, except they'd provide fragments of nicknames that could be paired with primary lore cards as in Deck of Worlds. Here are some examples of these cards from the Namesakes Expansion booklet:
Screenshot from the Namesakes Expansion Guidebook.
Screenshot from the Namesakes Expansion Guidebook.
However, translating Namesake cards from Deck of Worlds to Lore Master's Deck introduced some challenges and opportunities that had me rethinking how to construct the set:
Compared to creating Namesakes for just geographical features as in Deck of Worlds, it's hard to find name fragments that work universally with the 7 primary lore card types: Factions, Figures, Events, Locations, Objects, Materials, and Creatures.
Lore Master's Deck offers a unique opportunity to construct nicknames that combine two card types, but this would be hard to achieve using just the Namesake card format.
A full expansion of 60 Namesake cards would outnumber the 48 Modifier cards in Lore Master's Deck. Too many Namesake draws might lead to the card type being less special and featuring too prominently in lore webs.
So during the alpha playtesting, we made some adjustments:
We went from 60 to 32 Namesake cards to better balance the draw ratios and focus on the very best universal cues.
We also converted the Namesake cards into specialized Modifier cards instead of treating them as a separate card type with its own set of rules. You can just shuffle them in with your other Modifiers and you don't need to learn any new mechanics.
We added 28 specially formatted lore cards to the expansion (4 each of Factions, Figures, Events, Locations, Objects, Materials, and Creatures).
This third change was the biggest one, and it's where the math comes in. This one change let us do so much more with the expansion than the alpha version was achieving. The 28 new lore cards in the Namesakes Expansion feature a primary side with cues that combine with other primary lore cards to create a new named lore element in your world.
This format essentially turns every other lore card in the entire deck system into a potential namesake for another lore element. In other words, those 28 lore cards enable 252 additional cards to act like a Namesake card would, adding tens of thousands of interesting combinations and exponentially increasing the reusability of the expansion.
Here's an example from the booklet featuring a Figure named after a cue chosen from a Location card in the main deck. In the lore of this setting, this character is known by the epithet "The Voice of the Mountain."
Screenshot from the Namesakes Expansion Guidebook.
The primary cues in the Namesakes Expansion feature words we curated to work well with a wide variety of random card draws from specific card types. The cues we ended up with include a mix of new words and some primary cues from the main deck that take on interesting new meanings and resonances when paired with other cards.
The secondary side of the lore cards from this expansion feature a variety of cues, including additional nicknames that are specific to that card type. In the same way the original Namesake cards from Deck of Worlds work well because they're focused on geography, these cues work well because they delve into the specific quirks of each card type.
I'm excited to put the revamped Namesakes Expansion into action and show you all the improvements we've made! I hope you'll join us for the Namesakes beta release livestream at 3pm ET this Thursday! Don't forget to click "Notify Me" on the livestream link so you don't miss it!
Thanks so much to everyone who tuned in for our Creator Convo + Q&A livestream last week! We had so much fun answering your questions and sharing some of our behind-the-scenes highlights, including:
Me finding the hand-written index card prototype of the original Story Engine Deck
The secret project we put away to focus on Lore Master's Deck
The process we use to decide which cues go on which cards, and how it's different for Lore Master's Deck than for any deck we've created so far
The 2 words we spent the longest time arguing over during the editorial process (more on this in a moment)!
Tomorrow at 3pm we're hosting the Lore Master's Deck RELOADED Open Beta Launch livestream, during which we'll be distributing the beta files live and then creating prompts with our copy of the deck. As we were reviewing the replay of the last livestream, we realized we need you to settle a bet for us!
At one point, we recalled the 2 hour friendly debate I had with our community manager/contributing writer Eric Weiss about whether "archive" or "museum" was a better primary cue to include in the Location cards and solicited some votes in the chat.
Eric was leading Team Archive, arguing that it was a broader term that could be interpreted in wider variety of contexts and offer more creative options.
I was leading Team Museum, arguing that museums as public spaces offer more opportunities to tell stories involving a wider range of characters.
The chat weighed in, too, and we agreed to reveal the decision we came to on the beta launch livestream tomorrow! We're hoping you'll weigh in through the community poll attached to this update!
We also hope you'll join us tomorrow and share the excitement of opening your PDFs live on the air and creating some lore prompts with us! Click "Notify Me" on the YouTube event page to make sure you don't miss it.
You can also visit our YouTube Live page to get notified for our full run of upcoming streams!
We're excited to be kicking off 2 months of weekly Lore Master's Deck livestreams starting this coming Thursday with a pre-launch Q&A about the updated Lore Master's Deck at 3pm ET. The day after, at 2pm ET, we'll also be doing a live webinar with BackerKit to talk about the nuts bolts of crowdfunding and how you backers were our biggest champions on this project!
For the Thursday stream, we want to hear your questions so we can answer them live! We want to know what YOU want to know about:
The deck
The design/development/review process
The beta process and our collaboration with backers
How we iterated on our prototypes to take us from a page of haphazard brainstorming notes in 2022 to a polished deck system in 2024
Anything else about the Lore Master's Deck and its expansions
Also, if you missed the campaign and would like to get in on the open beta, you can still make a late pledge via our preorder store and receive the open beta when it launches on Feb 8.
Leave your questions in the comments below or put them in the comments on the YouTube live link. You can also click Notify Me on the YouTube page so you don't miss when we go live.
A little teaser for what's to come!
I was pawing through my old journals looking for a specific set of a notes when I stumbled over the oldest record of my work on Lore Master's Deck.
A categorized brainstorm of species traits.
An unstructured brainstorm of species traits.
Back then, I wasn't trying to design a lore-weaving deck. I really just wanted to design a deck for creating interesting creatures for fantasy or science fiction worldbuilding. The page on the right was actually scribbled down hastily in the middle of a game of Oceans (the board game by North Star Game Studio). The game does a great job of representing evolutionary adaptions through mechanics, and my friend Aaron and I stopped to brainstorm some more creature traits that could be mixed into a species-prompting deck.
You'll notice in the picture on the left that I wrote down some brainstorming categories to help shape the brainstorm. In particular, the categories focused on "Utility" (is the species useful in some way to humans or sentient species) and "Connection" (which explored social behaviors and bonds within the species, as well as larger connections to the ecosystem and setting). These categories made me realize how much more interesting creature creation gets when you looked at the lore links between the species and the world they live in. This eventually grew into the link cues mechanic and the broader deck concept: a set of card types that explore the interconnectedness of creatures, material resources, locations, events, factions, figures, and objects.
It was a long road connecting an impromptu mid-game brainstorm to the final format of the deck, and I'm excited to bust out my journals and prototypes on livestream and share the process.
In particular, there are three creative lessons I want to highlight:
Pay attention to what excites you. There's a reason certain topics, projects, and ideas get your neurons firing, your heartrate spiking, and your imagination bubbling with new ideas. If I hadn't acknowledged the excitement and asked a friend to indulge me in a brainstorm while the lightning was flashing, Lore Master's Deck wouldn't exist.
Write down your ideas and revisit them. You'll record 100 "bad" ideas for every "good" one, but you don't find gold without digging through some dirt first. Collect all your raw ideas and pan through them later looking for the bits that glimmer. Scrub away at those. Interesting "bad" ideas are often just first drafts of "good" ideas.
Talk through your ideas with different people. From the first brainstorm for this project with Aaron, to explaining the concept to our project director Miroki, to co-creating prompts with backers, to working through revisions with the sensitivity readers and our community manager Eric, the biggest breakthroughs always came from presenting my ideas and getting an outside perspective on what was wonky or working well.
I'm thrilled to announce that we just delivered our files to the printer to kick off the open beta period, and we're bringing back our popular livestream series once again!
We'll be hosting an open beta pre-release livestream on February 1, where we'll be taking your questions about the deck and giving a rare behind-the-scenes look at the development process. I'll be cracking open my personal journals to show you how we grew from the first inklings of this project (an impromptu notebook brainstorm in the middle of a board gaming session) into a 3,750-backer project on the frontpage of BackerKit.
Let us know what questions you want answered in the livestream in the comments below!
The open beta will be delivered via BackerKit digital download to every backer or preorder customer who pledged for a PDF or physical copy of the main deck.
Backers can still update or upgrade their pledges to gain access to the open beta of the main deck. Just check your final pledge contents to see if they include the PDF of Lore Master's Deck.
Or if you didn't back the campaign, now's your chance to place a preorder via our preorder store!
Visit our preorder store for Lore Master's Deck and more!
We'll also be clicking "Distribute" to send out the beta live on February 8, followed by some live lore-weaving powered by your choices in chat.
One minor change I didn't talk about during our previous BTS update: we renamed the Trait cards.
This wasn't an easy decision. It turns out that it's a bit of a funny one, though.
We got some helpful beta feedback from a few people that it was confusing to have some secondary cues labeled as traits while also having a dedicated card type called Traits. A good point! So I did some brainstorming on alternative names.
Trait cards featured one-word descriptors that provide an initial detail for a primary cue of another card type. For example, the Object cue "sword" might suddenly become a "PARASITIC sword." In some cases, the card was providing a trait, but in other cases, it felt more like it was putting a spin on a card.
We spent almost five days going back and forth on the question of whether the new name should be Modifier, Descriptor, or Wildcard. I could tell I was in that deep-in-the-weeds stage of overthinking, but I'm glad we put as much care into the decision as we did.
In the end, we went with Modifier. The new name avoids confusing references to other cues labeled as traits, and also highlights how these cards modify or put a new spin on other cards. Even now, Modifier continues to feel like the right decision, and the new name has helped me think about the utility of this card type in new ways.
But get this: a week after we decided on the name Modifier, I rediscovered my old development journals for Lore Master's Deck (from before it was even called Lore Master's Deck).
I found my earliest card-type brainstorming notes.
It turns out that I wrote down "Modifier" right at the beginning of this project and forgot.
One of my Lore Master's Deck brainstorming notebooks.
An early concepting brainstorm that included Modifier. I cross my notes out when I transcribe them so I don't accidentally double-transcribe them later. Strongholds later turned into Locations. Resources turned into Materials. Species turned into Creatures. Artifacts turned into Objects. Modifiers turned into Traits, which turned back into Modifiers.
I also found a different notebook with the first brainstorm that turned into the prototype for the Creatures deck that turned into the seed for the entire Lore Master's project, but that's a story I'll save for the Feb 1 livestream!
It's funny how things come full circle.
Thanks so much, and hope to see you on the livestream!
As the deck designer, I thought it might be interesting to share a behind-the-scenes look at how the closed beta feedback helped shape the version of the deck we'll be sending to print shortly! One of the things I love about crowdfunding is being able to receive feedback from the people who are most invested in the project, and getting to share the nuts and bolts of the development process with them.
I also thought I'd share the news that we'll be releasing the open beta to all backers on February 8!
Okay, let's dive in to the feedback and revisions.
Closed beta feedback was incorporated into Lore Master's Deck in early December.
We made a lot of small changes to specific cards and bits of the guidebook that I won't get into, but I wanted to share some of the broader categories of changes we made and how they've improved the deck!
We overhauled primary cues to avoid repeated words
In the alpha and beta we'd selected a limited number of words to repeat within the primary cues for Factions, Locations, and Materials because we wanted certain essential cues (e.g., "guild," "school," and "stone") to appear more often than more niche words (e.g., "coterie," "farmhouse," and "foam").
There are two reasons I did this in the alpha and beta:
I wanted the probability of a given cue being drawn to reflect the prevalence with which certain structures and concepts recur in life and fiction. Often the words I repeated were broad words that make for good blank canvases to fill in with secondary prompts, so they take on new meaning every time they appear.
Repeating essential cues had been helpful for Regions and Landmark cards in Deck of Worlds, where one world map might need multiple towns, forests, and seas.
The guidebook includes this example lore cluster. Here, "school" features as a fighting school, but in a different context, you could have a primary school, a philosophical group, a culinary school, a college, a magical tradition, or a school of thought within a discipline.
There was helpful and consistent feedback in the beta that this repetition of words felt limiting and deck users wanted access to a wider variety of cues. It also helped me realize that Deck of Worlds was a very different kind of project; the Region and Landmark cards include artwork to differentiate repeated words and make each instance feel unique.
Two different "Mountain(s)" cards from Deck of Worlds.
Desert mountains conjure different imagery than snow-capped ones.
The feedback helped me realize that Lore Master's Deck is a new format that would require new design solutions.
So we did some additional writing sessions to replace all repeated entries within a given card category with new material that felt equally strong. We also really worked our thesauruses to look for ways of representing some of these prompts through additional synonyms.
I'm so, so happy with the new material and I can see how much value this variety adds to the deck! Thanks to everyone who sent in notes about this.
We overhauled primary cues to reduce the number of words that also appear in The Story Engine Deck and Deck of Worlds
A few noted that a small number of essential primary cues in Lore Master's Deck also appear on cards in previous deck systems we've published.
There's a delicate balance when you're developing a new standalone deck system that builds on existing decks: you want to present as much new material as possible, but also need to cover some of the same core concepts as the previous material. Because Figure cards are an intentional analogue to Agent cards from The Story Engine Deck, we needed to include essential character types and social roles, like "healer," "researcher," and "soldier." The same went for Locations (which parallel Landmarks/Regions from Deck of Worlds and Anchors from The Story Engine) and Objects (which also parallel Anchors from The Story Engine).
A new section from the guidebook showcasing possible card substitutions and parallel card types.
To make sure Lore Master's Deck offered as much new material as possible, we crosschecked every primary cue with every parallel card type we've released to date and replaced as many repeated cues as we could. We also tagged cues depending on whether or not they appeared in The Story Engine main deck, story expansions, Deck of Worlds, and worldbuilding expansions so we could ensure that no single card featured more than one repeated cue from a specific deck system.
Screenshot of some Figure cards from our card database. You'll notice "artisan" is tagged with [tse], indicating the word appears in The Story Engine main deck. "Adventurer" appears in a Story Engine expansion.
When we launched the Lore Master's Deck campaign and alpha, I estimated the deck had roughly 10% repeated cues.
After our closed beta revisions, doing some quick back-of-the-envelope math on the 2,400 cues in Lore Master's Deck, it looked like ~2% of cues appear in another main deck, and another ~2% appear somewhere in another deck system's suite of expansions. We managed to cut that number to less than half of what it was before.
Again, we replaced these cues through additional writing and brainstorming sessions, followed by more crosschecking sessions, followed by more writing and brainstorming sessions, until we were satisfied.
Cutting down overrepresented primary cue categories
Another behind-the-scenes development nugget: When I design cards, I usually develop conceptual categories to help structure my brainstorms and ensure that every card features a variety of cue types.
For example, during the alpha, the Factions deck was designed so that every card features a military faction, spiritual faction, political faction, and secular faction.
Screenshot of Factions from our card database, including the concept categories.
Object cards featured one weapon, one tool or piece of equipment, one wearable item, and one wildcard (which might include vehicles, oddballs, or overflow ideas from other categories).
Screenshot of Objects from our card database, including the concept categories.
The boundaries between these categories are permeable, but it's a helpful starting point for ensuring card balance and ensuring some structure for brainstorming. And for the finished deck, it ensures that every card draw covers a variety of creative needs.
There were two card types where we heard consistently that there were too many cues on a given category.
For Factions, we heard that there were too many military-focused cues.
For Creatures, there were too many plant/fungus-focused cues.
My philosophy is that when a tool or structure stops being useful, you should either adapt it or set it aside, so I adjusted how I was prioritizing categories for these card types. We kept the best material in each of these categories and cut the weakest material, then wrote new material to replace it that covered new conceptual ground.
I want to give a special shout-out to our community manager Eric Weiss, who really fleshed out some new community-focused categories for the Factions deck. His additions, like "neighborhood," "diaspora," and "borough," really touched on new ways of recognizing groups of people with a common interest or experience.
Faction card featuring the new cue "neighborhood."
Creature card featuring the new cue "mosquito."
We're really excited for you to explore the new material we developed!
That's all for now! I hope you enjoyed this peek behind the curtain! Let me know if you have any questions in the meantime!
As we kick off the new year, we wanted to share an update on the pre-production process, which has been moving along smoothly!
Beta feedback was incorporated in Lore Master's Deck in early December. We made a lot of small changes to specific cards and bits of the guidebook based on your feedback, as well as a few broader changes to the deck, mostly focused on eliminating repeated words and adding more specialization to differentiate Lore Master's Deck from our existing deck systems. The deck feels even richer and more varied, and we're excited to share a coming update with a more detailed look at all the ways your feedback helped shape the deck! We also wanted to say thank you for all the notes of appreciation and support you included to your feedback forms. As we work through the long slog of small changes and fine-tuning, it means a lot to hear about your excitement for the deck!
Sensitivity readers have reviewed all decks, expansions, and guidebooks! They are currently doing a review of our box art, add-ons, and revised materials. Their notes have been extremely helpful for understanding how the deck's and expansions' cues touch on the more sensitive aspects of worldbuilding and story-crafting, and guiding how to reframe, rephrase, edit, or contextualize our cues to make sure the deck both represents and respects a variety of lived experiences.
Proofreaders have finished reviewing all decks and guidebooks! We're just about to compile all of our add-ons, boxes, and packaging for them to review. When that's all done, we'll likely do another round of spot checks on everything before packaging files for the printer to review in mid-January.
That's all for now! We'll follow up soon with a more detailed breakdown of changes to the deck, along with timelines for the open beta, PDF delivery of expansions, and charging cards for add-ons, shipping, and taxes. In the meantime, don't hesitate to send us a message or comment below with your questions!
