We will be sending out our Smoke Test via Pledge Manager very soon. We're working towards going to print for this alongside Starships & Soldiers. We are giving a shipping discount to anyone who backed both of these projects since we now have a way of combining orders on the backend through Shopify. This means that both surveys will be going out shortly at the same time. Once surveys are out, we hope to have a pre-print pdf for you during March; you will get that via BackerKit, only final distribution will happen via Shopify, DTRPG, and Itch.
As part of putting together the smoke test, we are adjusting how we charge for international shipping. We will be charging the actual tax rates for UK, EU, and AUS rather than adding a flat fee for international orders. These VAT rates do have to be charged at the appropriate rate for digital items in addition to physical items. This all due to moving some stock into international warehouse locations, requiring stricter compliance on our end. The vast majority of people will save money, and we will through in some free digital gifts for anyone who ends up paying VAT for a digital item that they weren't expecting to pay a year ago.
We will share a spreadsheet in our next update with the rates for each pledge level and add-ons. This update will also serve as a reminder of when surveys are getting sent out.
Welcome to 2026, we first would like to apologize for our recent delays in updates. My professional and personal life has been pretty crazy (growing pains moving into multiple fulfillment centers for distribution and a divorce). However, we haven't been still on this project, we're just been bad at providing updates. For the zine, there are three very distinct styles of layout and design for each section of the adventure, and we've narrowed each of the styles down to three possibilities, so we almost have our style guide complete, which means layout will move swiftly moving forward. We're working with Ben on finalizing our maps as well, so we are making good progress and should deliver near the end of February.
Since we are looking to fulfill during February, we will be sending out surveys in the next week or two, so you can pay for shipping, tax, and any add-ons you may choose. We'll send out more detailed updates as we send things out and as waves of orders are going to be shipped out.
This is a fun update. We're in the midst of iterating on our prototype layout for section 1 of the book, and we have received all of our spot art from Amanda. Greenspore has worked through leaving notes for copy an line edits for the entire book, and Jordan is working on implementing the edits for the final section of the book. We're sharing one more piece of as part of this update.
Oratrix and Kinski
Late pledges are still open and will remain open all the way until we complete fulfillment.
Hello everyone! We have been hard at work. We've hit a lot of milestones and have some updates since the last update:
Manuscript has been finalized for layout after revisions identified during our editorial meeting.
Amanda has completed her full spread artwork and is working on our spot art for layout.
Curious Friend will now be completing the layout for A Secret Chord. D.N. Wilkie will continue to be involved in an advisory capacity on the editorial team.
Bride of STAR Station is complete! It will be available for free on Itch.io for month since we have submitted it to the Sci-Fi One-Shot Jam 2025. Please download the module and give us some love in the comments for the game jam! Curious Friend's art and layout made this goofy, horny module pop! We consider modules like this in the same way that movies used to start with a cartoon.
Here is some of the fabulous art that Amanda has completed so far! We've worked with her with black and white line art in the past, and we are just blown away by these color illustrations!
David's Harp
Chapel of St. Tropos
Layout for the main book is going to start in earnest later this month once we receive spot art from Amanda. We're on track and excited for the continued development of the book as we enter into layout.
I can’t believe it’s already the end of April. This will be a short update. Jordan has been playtesting and revising the middle section of the module. Our editorial meeting had all of us agreeing that some big revisions needed to happen to this section to make it work as well as the rest of the book. Greenspore is concurrently working on copy and line editing of the more finalized sections, they’re working on honing the language to make it a little tighter and a little more terse. Amanda is working on some full spread illustrations for us, and then we’ll start to work with her on spot art. We are totally on track to start layout this summer. I’m going to leave you with one more illustration from Bride of STAR Station.
