Dagger in the Heart: Pledge management, Heart review, and a new Quickstart, oh my!
Hey all. Dropping in for a quick update today to let you know how things are progressing across the project.
Dagger In The Heart
We're at the point of wrestling all the text a...
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Elaine Lithgow
about 1 month ago
Dagger in the Heart, Campaign End and Next Steps
The team have had a long weekend of pagan-adjacent chocolate consumption to convalesce and return to our vaguely humanoid forms, so now we can start the next stage of developmen...
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Elaine Lithgow
about 1 month ago
Dagger in the Heart, End of the Line Approaching!
There's only three days remaining before the Dagger in the Heart campaign comes screaming to a halt at its final destination. We still have a couple of hidden stretch goals to a...
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Elaine Lithgow
about 2 months ago
Dagger In the Heart: Echo Edition Unlocked and Next Stretch Goal Revealed!
It's been another great week on the Backerkit campaign for Dagger in the Heart. Here's the summary!
Heart Reprint and Echo Edition Stretch Goal Unlocked!
We passed our £125,000...
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Elaine Lithgow
about 2 months ago
Dagger In The Heart, Pledge Updates and Ending Stream!
Greetings backers. We wanted to send out a quick update to cover a couple of changes to certain pledge levels on the Backerkit campaign, and announce our plans for a livestream ...
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Elaine Lithgow
2 months ago
Dagger in the Heart Week 1 Roundup
It’s been 1 week since the Dagger in the Heart crowdfunding campaign went live, and what a week it’s been. An incredible amount of support and excitement has been poured into ...
If you know a Delver who perished in a memorable way, post a short obituary to honour them here! If we reach the Echo edition stretch goal, their obituary might even show up in print.
Note: Ideal these obituaries should be short, punchy, and tragic. (Aim for for a couple of sentences and ~10-20 words at most).
Some example obituaries:
Fingers-Grace-The-Blade, decapitated by the angel he tried to worship.
Lynd Vassail, finally shed her skin and became one with the Heart.
Dafwyn Pek, crushed by the Vermissian to save their beloved Mayid.
Now that we've hit our £40,000 stretch goal, we will be adding a 24 page booklet to the Heart GM screen! We are very excited to cram this booklet to bursting with useful tables, references, and handouts that will let GMs take their Heart games to new heights (or depths?).
The idea being that you crazy GMs can cut out parts of the booklet and stick them all over your screen, to create your very own 'red-string-murder-board' GM screen custom made for your game.
With that in mind, what sorts of tables or references would you like to see in the GM booklet? Comment below and we might be able to add them in!
Here are some ideas provided by the RRD team and the Rowan Rook and Decard Discord to get your creative juices flowing.
Tables: - Trinkets, rubbish, and pocket-lint. - Random NPCs and Delvers. - Havens and what makes them unique. - Environmental descriptions by Tier. - Strange sights.
References: - Skills, Domains, and their associated uses. - Equipment tags. - Fallouts. - A flowchart of how Delves work. - An index of the rulebook. - A simple rules summary. - Class Beat Sheets.
Handouts: - A ratty return ticket for the Vermissian, never used. - Strange sketches of creatures, landmarks, and other disquieting sights.
Hey all. Dropping in for a quick update today to let you know how things are progressing across the project.
Dagger In The Heart
We're at the point of wrestling all the text and illustrations into layout, and identifying which additional pieces of art we're adding from the More Art stretch goal. From there we'll be bringing on editors and proofreaders to polish the text to a mirror shine. (If you see any reflections in the book, don't listen to them.)
Pledge Management Now Open
Okay technically this happened last week, but we wanted to gently open the floodgates first, just in case anything fell over. The initial tests look good though, so behold! You should now be able to manage your pledge on Backerkit! Now's the time to double check what goodies you're signed up for, and plug in all that very useful information like your delivery address so we know where we're sending them to.
Pledge management should stay open up until the books ship. This should serve as a vague enough date to encourage you to plug in their details now so you don’t miss out (I see you there thinking “oh I’ll do it next week”. Did you know that procrastination is the leading cause of unfulfilled pledges? Don’t let this happen to you!)
Quinns Quest Heart Review
A rather cool dude in a very nice blazer gave a glowing review of Heart: The City Beneath which we just had to share for those who haven’t seen it (It might come in handy for anyone trying to convince their friends to join their game). Technically it seems like this review was recorded in the 80s? Which is all manner of confusing, but is just the sort of temporal shenanigans we endorse.
You can check out the review here:
Updated Heart Quickstart
An interesting side effect of the Quinns Quest review and the success of the Dagger campaign, is that an enormous amount of the existing stock for Heart-and-Heart-related books has vaporised overnight. It’s not the worst problem in the world to have, but it’s been quite eye-popping to see the numbers in real time.
This has opened up an interesting opportunity for us. Since we’re going to need to reprint a bunch of our books now, we want to take a little bit of time to add errata and minor tweaks to improve them where we can. Most of these changes will barely be noticeable, but we’re pulling out the stops to upgrade one book in particular: the Heart Quickstart.
The Quickstart booklet was one of the first Heart releases back in 2020, and since then we’ve learned a whole heap of new tips and tricks about presenting a cracking quickstart booklet to really hook a group on the game. With such a huge influx of new players, and a reprint on the way, we wanted to take a bit of time to give the Heart Quickstart the glowup it deserves.
The updated Heart Quickstart should feature:
New layout, with more art and clearer presentation of the rules.
New tear-out bespoke character sheets for each premade character.
A tear-out rules reference to toss in the middle of the table for players to fight over.
A spine! (The book kind, not the skeletal kind… although.)
We might even be able to splash out on a little spot UV on the cover, as a treat. (Big ‘IF’ on this one based on costs.)
We’re still working with our printers to lock in the exact costs involved in the upgrade, which means that the price of these new Quickstarts might increase slightly once they land in the wild. However! Everyone who picks up a physical copy of the Heart Quickstart through this campaign will get one of the updated quickstarts at no extra cost. Just our way of saying thanks for supporting us. And of course, as always, if you have a PDF copy you can download the updated version for free once it’s live.
Here’s a couple examples of the kinds of upgrades you can look forward to. Take a look, and hopefully you agree it’s worth the extra effort!
Until next time, DON’T FORGET TO MANAGE YOUR PLEDGE! We’ll know if you procrastinate.
Hey there!
I had a hardback copy of Heart in my cart already as an add-on from my original pledge and I’m interested in upgrading it to the Echo Edition as described in the stretch goal text, but I don’t see an option to do that.
Is there any way to make that work? If not, no worries!
Dear Team!
Would it be possible to buy the Spire core book and source books with this pledge? It would be great to have them all in one shipping.
Bests
Dade
The team have had a long weekend of pagan-adjacent chocolate consumption to convalesce and return to our vaguely humanoid forms, so now we can start the next stage of development — finishing the various rewards and delivering them into your waiting arms.
Before we get into that, we just wanted to take a moment to share our heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported the campaign. As our first hardback supplement for Heart, and our first Backerkit campaign, we honestly didn’t know how well Dagger would do in the wild. We’re happy to say that, thanks to all of you lovely backers, we blew our expectations out of the water. This proves to us that the hunger for more Heart is alive and well in the community, and validates our desire to create more Heart in the future.
So once more a huge thanks from everyone at Rowan Rook & Decard!
Pledge management & pre-orders
We've been hard at work over the long weekend getting the pledge manager set up, so that you will be able to confirm your orders and add or upgrade anything you'd like. We should be ready to send out smoke tests in a couple of days - those will go to a small percentage of you first, so that we can make sure everything is set up right, before we send out the survey to all 2500+ of you. Plus, our pre-order store is now open for late pledges, and it'll stay open till we lock down orders for physical distribution. As a reminder, we won't be charging shipping until later on, so that we can make sure we have the best possible deal for all of you. We'll update you to confirm in plenty of time before those charges are added.
Hi there, I had a few questions.
1. The Everything Bundle obviously includes everything physical and pdf. If I were to get the Physical Bundle, Dagger in the Heart, GM screen, and Map+Stickers addons, it adds up to the same price as the Everything pledge tier. Do all these Addons together include everything from the Everything tier, or is there anything missing?
2. I also noticed that on your website, the Photo for the Map+Stickers used appears to be a special slipcase. Does this slipcase come with the Everything tier or the addons?
3. I noticed a price discrepancy between the Heartsblood edition on your website being £275 online, but here the price is £345. Is this accurate? If so, why such a big price difference?
4. Is there any way to put in a color request for the heartsblood? I absolutely love the red and black versions, but I'm really not a fan of the green at all. I get that it's hard to take preferences into consideration, but If I'm gonna drop $500 on a book with multiple versions, it would be nice to at least NOT receive the one I like the least.
Thanks!
There's only three days remaining before the Dagger in the Heart campaign comes screaming to a halt at its final destination. We still have a couple of hidden stretch goals to aim for, so if you were holding off on backing until the end, or have friends you think would like to get onboard before the end, now's your chance!
End of Campaign Actual Play
As a reminder, Grant Howitt is running an end of campaign actual play livestream starting this Friday at 3pm GMT (one hour before the campaign officially ends). The game will run as long as Backerkit's Overtime mode does, so the life expectancy of our doomed Delvers is in your hands. You can watch it on the campaign page, or over on our Twitch channel.
Interview With Sar Cousins
We have also uploaded a text interview with Sar Cousins, the phenomenal illustrator for Dagger in the Heart, to snatch a covetous peek into their creative process. You can read it over on the Rowan Rook & Decard blog.
The support has been overwhelming and we can't wait to see what happens in the last few days.
As in the title. Is there a possibility for a physical add on for the GM book with all the tables. I know I can get it in the kindle but I don’t really want the gm screen
It's been another great week on the Backerkit campaign for Dagger in the Heart. Here's the summary!
Heart Reprint and Echo Edition Stretch Goal Unlocked!
We passed our £125,000 stretch goal, which unlocks two different but connected bits of excellence for Heart lovers: An updated reprint of Heart: The City beneath, and a new collectors edition known as the Echo Edition.
Heart Reprint
Unlocking this means that all copies of Heart: The City Beneath from this campaign will be updated editions from our second printing of Heart. The updated edition will feature:
4 new pages of advice for the GM on creating Delves.
A bunch of minor tweaks to the layout and text to incorporate errata or clarifications.
Some new graphic elements and tweaks that sprinkle hidden (and not so hidden) messages throughout the book from doomed Delvers who have gone before.
Some extra subtle changes and additions to the 'lore' of Heart, for the eagle-eyed reader to uncover, ponder, or disregard as they see fit...
It's important to remember that this second printing of Heart does not contain any new mechanics, equipment, or classes etc. So don't worry! This new edition will not invalidate anything from the original printing.
You don't need to do anything to get this new edition, all copies of Heart: The City Beneath purchased in this campaign will contain it. Additionally, if you have previously bought a PDF copy of Heart: The City Beneath (purchased through the Rowan Rook & Decard webstore, DriveThru RPG, or Itch.io) you will be able to download an updated version of the PDF once it's complete.
Echo Edition
The Echo Edition of Heart: The City Beneath is a new collectors edition which contains all of the above, wrapped in a fancy new cover! (It's pretty much a replacement for the long out-of-print collector's edition pictured below). This will feature the same cover design and materials as the previous collector's edition, but with a different colour scheme to distinguish it: changing the red linen and gold foil, to a light blue linen and red foil instead.
Example of the first printing of the Heart collectors edition. Note the Echo Edition will feature the same cover illustration, but a different colour scheme as mentioned above!
You can grab a copy of the Echo Edition in two ways:
If your pledge already contains a physical copy of Heart: The City Beneath (such as from one of the Heart bundles), you will be given the option to upgrade it to an Echo Edition for +£25 during pledge management after the campaign closes.
If your pledge does not have a physical copy of Heart: The City Beneath, or you simply want an extra copy, you can add an Echo Edition to your pledge for £60 using the Add-ons page.
Next Stretch Goal Revealed: £150,000 An Official Heart Actual Play!
If we reach this stretch goal, we will set aside funds to commission a professional actual play of Heart: The City Beneath. A high quality actual play is one of the most common requests we receive from the community, as it's one of the best ways to learn a new system, or share with your game group to get them excited to play. This money will let us do just that!
There are only 11 days left in the campaign, and two hidden Stretch Goals remaining, so let's see how much further we can delve!
Greetings backers. We wanted to send out a quick update to cover a couple of changes to certain pledge levels on the Backerkit campaign, and announce our plans for a livestream at the end of the campaign.
The ‘I Want Everything’ Pledge Is Now Cheaper!
An eagle-eyed backer pointed out that our maths was a bit off on the ‘I Want Everything’ pledge tier, which meant that you could use some clever pledge/add-on combinations to get the same rewards as the ‘I Want Everything’ pledge for slightly cheaper. (We’d forgotten to add the Heart Sourcebook Bundle discount to the combined ‘I Want Everything’ Pledge, which resulted in the pledge being £12.50 more expensive than its component parts!)
Good news is, we’ve sorted this now by reducing the cost of the ‘I Want Everything’ pledge from £160, down to £147.50. If you’ve already backed at that pledge level, no need to worry as this should automatically reduce your pledge cost to match. Bad news is this will slightly set back our funding level by ~£1,500. Still we’d rather take a small step back than accidentally overcharge folk!
Sorry for any confusion! (Maths is hard.)
Somehow, Heartsblood Has Returned
Turns out that, while digging around in the darkest corners of the storage room, Grant discovered a handful of extra Heartsblood copies. We’re as surprised as you are! The jury is still out on whether these extra copies are the result of simple misplacement, or a foreboding sign that they have been cursed with some kind of pulp-based mitosis. Regardless, rather than look a gift horse in the lipskin, we’ve decided to add the extra copies to the campaign instead.
As a result, there are now 5 additional Heartsblood pledges available for those who want a chance to snap up these one-of-a-kind versions of Heart: The City Beneath. (Remember to spay and neuter your books to prevent unwanted reproduction.)
The End Of The Campaign As We Know It
We’ve been informed that Backerkit have added a funky new end of campaign ceremony known as Overtime. Essentially, once the end of the campaign is triggered at 4pm GMT on Friday the 29th of March it will only officially shut down after a full 10 minutes have passed without any new pledges.
At first we were horrified at the idea of extending the already stressful campaign ending into a fuzzy ever-expanding horizon, but like the masochists we are, we decided to channel this terror into entertainment for your twisted enjoyment.
To that end, we will be running a special Overtime stream at the end of the campaign! During which, Grant will host a game of Heart featuring the exploits of a doomed party of delvers desperately attempting to survive as reality itself crumbles around them. The stream will last as long as Overtime mode does (or we collapse from exhaustion, whichever comes first).
The stream might last for all of 10 minutes, or hours! Who knows! Not us, that’s for sure.
Congrats on the Echo Edition stretch goal!
If one chooses the fundamentals pledge level how is the echo upgrade added?
The upgrade is a separate from the add on correct?
Very excited. Can you tell? 😁
So just backed for I want Evwrything tier and added a fancy CE, but I'm not sure if the map pack add-on is the one that's already included in the pledge or if it's something else?
