We’re still in recovery mode over here at Renegade and this Zev will be out next Friday so I wanted to drop a link to our Gen Con recap blog and put up today’s poll before I log off.
Gen Con was AWESOME and we’re working on getting all of the videos/panels/photos edited and posted ASAP. Once we have them posted we'll include it in an update and also make an announcement in our Discord.
We did get the big group photo from the meet-up back and look at all those joyous crawlers!
tag yourself I'm the one dressed as Zev
We also have an update on Customer Service response times that I’ll drop here as well.
Now that the team is back home from Gen Con, we wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who stopped by our booth, attended our events, and helped make this our best Gen Con yet. We couldn't have done it without you!
Over the past few months, it's been all hands on deck. Between the record-breaking Dungeon Crawler Carl campaign, our warehouse close-out sale, and preparations for Gen Con, we've received a much higher volume of customer service inquiries than normal. While we always aim to respond within three business days, the complexity of many requests – including order updates, pledge changes, and other account issues – has unfortunately led to longer response times.
The good news is that we're expanding our Customer Service team! Over the next few weeks, we'll be onboarding and training new team members to help us work through our current backlog and get response times back to where they should be.
If you're currently waiting to hear from us, thank you for your patience and understanding. We know waiting isn't ideal, and we're working as quickly as we can to respond to every inquiry.
As a reminder, we're unable to resolve customer service issues through social media. If you need assistance, please email [email protected]. If you've already reached out, there's no need to send another email – we have your message in our queue and will be in touch as soon as possible.
I’m going to spend most of next week heads down on getting as many emails answered as I can so watch out for a response if you’ve reached out previously.
PDFs I don't currently have a specific timeline on dropping the digital files but the second I'm given a date you'll all be the first to know! There's more than a little bit of reformatting, editing, etc. that needs to be done before they can be released so we appreciate your patience, especially because we know how excited you all are!
It's finally time for...
A New Poll!
Murder on the Orange Express won our last round and today’s the beginning of Sidequest Second Chances!
All the losing previous sidequests are in this poll and the top 4 will make it to the next round, final 2 will be our final showdown.
Wanted one of these sidequests last time? Better start campaigning in the comments, it’s their last shot!
Banquet Time Hein, the dwarven chef, wants to cook a grand meal for everyone to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Beerfest. However, he needs quite a few ingredients that are dangerous for a lone dwarf to go collect. Gather up some goopy truffles from ooze-infested hallways, Mob meat (Hein’s not picky about what kind of Mob), and three packets of mystery spice (dropped by your choice of Mob) to help make the meal of your dreams.
The Missing Boa
A prized possession, a neon green feather boa, has gone missing from Desperado club stripper Candybeak’s locker. Someone stole it from right under her nose, and she wants it back. After all, that’s her lucky charm for her scandalous Chicken Dance routine. A crawler with sticky fingers, a fellow dancer named Ohlala, and a drunken NPC named Error were all seen with the boa, but only one could have stolen it. Get it back to earn some free drinks.
Railed
The train on the Phlox rail line is out of control and will crash unless someone (you) can slow it down and bring it under control. The conductor, Zha, is an old dwarf struggling towards the engine car to talk with the engineer. He needs help making it through the mobs and the dangerous, unstable rail cars. If he can be safely guided to the engineering car, maybe the juiced-up mantaur can be reasoned with before the train derails and kills you all.
Missing Items
Local item shop, Shit I’m Selling, is out of supplies because their delivery caravan hasn’t arrived as expected. Without those items, the owner, the Hobgoblin Drainage, is one step closer to financial ruin. The caravan surely couldn’t have gotten into trouble in the hallways and paths of the dungeon filled with mobs. Drainage knows the route his caravan took and begs for help, offering a decent discount on any items recovered and a chance to buy from his secret stash.
Cupcake Delivery
Aline, a fairy baker, has her biggest order ever: a dozen Hummingbird cupcakes to Skyton, a nearby medium settlement of Skyfowl! The problem? She’s far too small to transport them herself, and the path between towns is dangerous and filled with feral lemurs. It’s up to you to get these cupcakes safely to their destination without destroying the delicate desserts and ruining Aline’s Thick Cakes business before it even gets started.
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
For some unknown reason, this lazy fuck NPC healer, Doc Ought, can’t get across town on his own to deliver a package of urgently needed medicine to The Green Cross, the local clinic for tragically dying orphans.
Meanwhile, Annice, the woman running The Green Cross, can’t distribute this vital medicine until someone helps her get a package of time-sensitive registration papers to Mayor Blindel for her signature. And well, if Mayor Blindel needs a hand redoing the rose garden before she could possibly sign the clinic’s papers…
Gosh… It’s hard work being the only functional person around, isn’t it?
Most of this update is being prepped ahead of time but don’t worry we’ve also got a few photos and updates from the first two and a half days of Gen Con!
Thursday started off with an amazing Crawl Con game featuring four of you, Matt, and Jeff. This crew called themselves:
Funky Crawlers and The Beef
After that Matt and Jeff did a signing and a Q&A panel- don’t worry you’ll get to see the whole thing! We have a professional AV team with us this weekend to help document all of Gen Con and afterwards we’ll be posting the videos to our Youtube channel.
Then we wrapped up the day with a giant B-B-B-BOSS BATTLE! Seven tables and one neighborhood boss, it was awesome.
We had a pretty packed schedule yesterday too, another Crawl Con game. This crew was: Vengeance For Diamond Dust
and everyone ended up doing meth.
Then another panel, Crawler Chaos Creation, AND the live show! We got to stream it live and we plan on uploading a VOD later but if you want to watch the full video the image below links to the timestamp in the Gen Con Day 2 stream.Thanks Crawler Sensei for grabbing that and sharing with the Discord!
This morning’s Crawl was:
New Management
and it looks like they had a blast too.
We also have a huge photo op (assuming we’re not stormed out), the “What’s Next in Hobby?” Panel, and then wrapping up tonight with another massive B-B-B-BOSS BATTLE!
What’s Next?
After The Best Four Days in Gaming we’re ALL gonna need a breather.
We’ve got a new poll up today and then when we get back we kick it into overdrive to make sure that your PDFs are ready for you ASAP.
We’ve got at least another three or four rounds of polls left and we’re building up to the last set of Sidequest Showdown polls on the last Friday of the month (the 28th). We’ll be playing catch up for at least a couple of weeks after Gen Con but the polls should still be going out on time.
We’ve also heard your calls for the Dungeon Crawler Carl Unstoppable core game rule book so we’re looking into if that’s possible and will keep you updated if we can get that posted for your reference.
New Poll!
Yes! Congrats to Nightly Maintainence.We’ve got another new Sidequest poll today:
Murder on the Orange Express
A murder has happened on the Orange line of the Iron Tangle. Not that death is rare, but this one needs an answer. The dead conductor, Penelope, started to write the name of her murderer in her blood but accidentally created a summoning circle that will deliver a rage elemental if it’s not completed with the name of her killer. Several other crawlers (Beatrix Lau 2, Brodie P, Yi Zhao 3, and Adrien McCo) on the train claim to have not seen anything, but one of these little murder hobos sure has a lot of blood on their hands. Literally.
Banquet Time
Hein, the dwarven chef, wants to cook a grand meal for everyone to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Beerfest. However, he needs quite a few ingredients that are dangerous for a lone dwarf to go collect. Gather up some goopy truffles from ooze-infested hallways, Mob meat (Hein’s not picky about what kind of Mob), and three packets of mystery spice (dropped by your choice of Mob) to help make the meal of your dreams.
We wanted to get a quick production and timeline update out before we all get sucked into the Gen Con vortex. Or rather, Gen Con gets sucked into our Dungeon Crawler Carl vortex if all goes according to plan. 😈
First order of business, an update on the size of the core rulebook.
If you saw the sample we had at LitRPG Con, then you probably heard us saying that the actual rulebook would be bigger. And boy is it…
How much bigger?
Approximately….twice as big. Maybe a little more. The final page count comes in at a whopping 648 pages!
We had so many ideas for quests, neighborhoods, monsters, and more – and thanks to your incredible support, we didn’t have to leave any of them behind.
However, that’s not to say future books aren’t coming. We are already cooking on our next expansion for the RPG line. Fans attending our What’s Next in Hobby? Gen Con just might get a first look at what’s coming next…
What will the core rulebook contain?
When we said infinite possibilities, we actually meant it!
The core rulebook contains intuitive toolsets for creating your custom races, classes, and skills. It also has guidance for creating your own mobs and bosses, your own tweaks to the existing game floors, and advice for making your own entirely! Plus, it has lots of neighborhoods, quests, and even– you know what, maybe it would be better if we just showed you the whole table of contents.
Screenshot from an early cultural consulting pass AKA almost totally unedited
When can I get my copy?
We’re still on track for campaign fulfillment to begin in October! With the crazy amount of pledges this campaign collected, fulfillment will likely take 4-8 weeks to finish. One way or another, you’ll all still be the first to get your hands on everything! General release in retail stores and for pre-orders won’t be until late November.
What about PDFs?
Our early PDF release for backers is also still on track for August! We’ll likely have them all ready to go the third or fourth week of the month. Or maybe a little earlier, if the Dungeon A.I. allows. Keep your eyes peeled!
And don’t worry – when they release, we’ll give you detailed instructions on how to access and redeem your PDFs.
What should I do now?
I recommend coming up with a catchphrase for your crawler. Remember, survival counts on just how well you entertain, Crawlers… “Goddamnit, Donut” may or may not be taken in your game.
Hello crawlers! Apologies for how late and short today's update is, Gen Con prep is HEAVY! Don't worry we plan on dropping an extra update next week to make up for it.
I'm super busy but I still had time to grab the best silly image I've ever made:
REND NOOOOOOOOOO
Congrats to Water You Doing? for winning our last Sidequest poll! That one was REALLY close and I had absolutely no idea who was going win until the last minute.
This week's Slamming Sidequests are...
The Missing Boa
A prized possession, a neon green feather boa, has gone missing from Desperado club stripper Candybeak’s locker. Someone stole it from right under her nose, and she wants it back. After all, that’s her lucky charm for her scandalous Chicken Dance routine. A crawler with sticky fingers, a fellow dancer named Ohlala, and a drunken NPC named Error were all seen with the boa, but only one could have stolen it. Get it back to earn some free drinks.
Nightly Maintenance
Every night, undead swarm the Whoopsie Daisy funeral home, and the funeral director, Q.R., is tired of spending his nights defending his embalming fluid. He’s certain that his newly acquired good luck charm of a skull that sometimes oozes blood and is called the ‘Wakey Wakey Bones’ has absolutely nothing to do with this constant torrent of undead he’s been dealing with. That’s just a random coincidence.
It’s been a pretty wild whirlwind for this fish! I got to see and take photos with so many of you at LitRPG Con, which was so exciting! I’m back in the office now and still working through the emails in our inbox so I wanted to give a quick rundown of what’s going on, what to expect for the next couple of weeks, and answer some of the questions we’ve gotten in comments and in-person at LitRPG Con!
Gen Con is Coming!
Everyone here at Renegade is in high gear prepping for Gen Con- which included organizing our pallets and greeting our newest coworker (still in box).
Ft. Renegade PR Liasons Sophia and Jordan
Nextly, check it ooouuutttt! I got to join in on Session 0 for the Gen Con Dungeon Crawler Carl Actual Play.
Some of the cast couldn’t make it so it’s an incomplete picture but in case you’ve forgotten all the details:
No spoilers but I will say that you should be prepared to cheer, laugh, cry, and….sing?
With all of the Gen Con hubub and my timezone changes you'll have to forgive me if the next few updates are oddly timed😅
S-S-S-SURVEYS AND PLEDGES!
Surveys have officially been closed for a week! Cards haven’t been charged yet because we are (still) working our way through the backlog of order edits. Once those emails are done we’ll send out a notice that cards will be charged so it doesn’t take anyone by surprise.
In that same vein we haven’t given out Discord badges to our Celestial Backers and our Top 50 Butcher’s Masquerade because we’re making sure everyone who upgraded their pledge to Celestial is counted and it’s easier to just distribute those all at once.
What if I forgot to fill out my survey?
You still have time! While I’m making the backer edits the surveys will stay open so Floor Collapse delayed…for now.
What if I’m paying in installments and haven’t finished my payments?
2-3 business days after you complete your final payment Backerkit will send your survey to you. You’ll be able to change your pledge level, get add-ons, and make changes before shipping so no don’t worry!
This fish appreciates your patience while I do all this! We want to make sure you all get exactly what you want in your pledge and nothing less!
We Want Polls!
I bet you do!
Congrats to the Elf Dungeon Designer for being our FINAL mob, and congrats to Cut it Out for winning our latest sidequest poll. You guys love that freaky stuff, don’t you?
On to our next poll! We’re on to our Sidequest Skirmish (can you tell I love alliteration?), with two Sidequests competing head to head.
Today’s contenders?
Water You Doing?
Several NPCs (RIP Teddy, Freddy, and Bep) have died after visiting a wishing fountain far off the beaten path. The fountain features beautiful carved angels that cry crystal-clear water into a blue-and-gold-tiled bowl. The bowl is filled with gold coins, thrown in by petitioners every time they make a wish. The thrown gold is a little irritating to the water ooze, which has taken up residence in this tranquil place, and it is more than happy to kill anyone who disturbs its sanctuary.
Railed
The train on the Phlox rail line is out of control and will crash unless someone (you) can slow it down and bring it under control. The conductor, Zha, is an old dwarf struggling towards the engine car to talk with the engineer. He needs help making it through the mobs and the dangerous, unstable rail cars. If he can be safely guided to the engineering car, maybe the juiced-up mantaur can be reasoned with before the train derails and kills you all.
