Hey folks, gonna keep it short because the simple summary is–things are progressing!
Art sketches are coming in--it looks my by count like we've got about half of them in. After I provide some feedback (mostly "yes, please!"), Mac will begin work on inking the sketches! As that wraps up, Sean will add them to the layout.
Meanwhile, Sean is working on the Fifth Edition conversion of the adventure, currently playtesting!
As art and the 5e conversion are getting done, I'll be doing a walk-through of the copy to look for any missed typos, places that should be bolded or italicized, that sort of thing. Once that's done, we'll duplicate the book and swap DCC references and stats for 5e equivalents.
So things are moving along! I hope everybody's summer is kicking off well and I'll make sure to get some art previews in future updates as complete work comes in.
Hey everybody! As you all know, the campaign is officially over and it performed beyond my expectations! Thanks to everybody for jumping in!
I'm very happy to say that Mac has officially been given art prompts and is beginning their work! This makes me extra happy because my wife and I are going on a much-needed vacation to England (leaving in about...28 hours...) and I won't be doing TTRPG work while I'm gone for a little over 2 weeks. While I'm gone, Mac will be doing art and Sean will be working on his 5e conversion of Metronax, so work will be continuing in my absence. I look forward to sharing art samples in the coming weeks! In the meantime, for anybody curious, you can check out a couple of screenshots of our in-progress layout work. The pink boxes indicate places Mac's art is going to go–black boxes are where chamber maps I'm drawing will go:
Sample layout 1
Sample layout 2
We typically handle layout in this fashion--we get things to a Good Enough phase so that we know what the artist will need to do, and then we (Sean and I) refine from there while the artist can work. So we may tweak fonts, bold or italicize things, play with spacing (and placing little ants through the book for funsies) but they're working in parallel so we can save a bit of time and get you fine folks your product a little faster. Which is all to say, things may or may not look exactly like this when you get your books, but I think it's fun to sneak a peek into the kitchen sometimes!
As summer begins, I hope you're all looking forward to a good season full of dice and fun!
Well, it looks like the campaign is only kind of over! As I write this, we've climbed up to $7,363 because Backerkit's Overtime Mode has been going for nearly four days and we keep getting backers! I'm not sure how long this will go (it could end in 7 minutes as I write this, but it resets every time somebody backs a Mega Dungeon Month project). It is immensely humbling to have so many folks backing the project 508 people as of right now) and I'm just going to keep saying Thank You every chance I get.
On a side note--because of Overtime, Castle Whiterock has unlocked Mike's Big Ass GM's Screen as an add-on for their campaign and this thing looks insane--I had to update my pledge to get one. I've always said to folks that I think DCC has one of the best screens I've ever seen--the information is always the stuff I want on hand--so I'm SUPER excited to see what they do with this much real estate.
Michael Curtis holding a giant GM screen
I got to attend Dungeon Con this past weekend in Fort Wayne as a vendor, representing the Chicago Zine Coalition alongside some other fantastic Chicago folks (including Andy Edmonds of Toadmother fame!) and it was an AMAZING time! I got to run the funnel from Silam 1 (an add-on for this campaign) and it went super well! And running our booth was so fun, it was insanely cool to have folks come up and say "I'd buy something but I already own all of this!". DCC is truly the best, most supportive community and I'm honored to be a part of it.
Running The Spike of Dosku (Silam 1) with an awesome crew
Our booth with most of the crew
My first (but not my last!) Dungeon Con badge
With less than 48 hours till the end, I want to say thanks to everybody who has backed and/or spread word about the campaign! We're moving into the final 2 days and it's been amazing to see this campaign do so well and I'm honored that you're all jumping in.
If you haven't, make sure to check out what Andy is doing with Mutant Spawn of the Toadmother--it's going to be fantastic.
Andy and I will both be at Dungeon Con this weekend, representing the Chicago Zine Coalition with a booth selling ours and other Chicago-based creator's materials! Come say hi!
On a semi-related note, here's another thing you can check out–the weekly podcast I make with some friends! It's called Episodic Adventures and I'm really proud of it! It's a TTRPG module review show and we cover a super wide variety of stuff! We do our best to offer insight, advice, and general thoughts so that you can find your next favorite adventure to run at your table. We just started this year so there's a very reasonable backlog of episodes (19 eps as I type this) for you to load up and listen through.
Hey everybody, a quick update just to say that there are some very cool things you should be checking out if you haven't yet!
First: The fantastic Andy Edmonds' Mutant Spawn of the Toadmother is doing amazing and you'd be a fool (a dang fool!) not to get in on it! I was privileged enough to be one of the very first playtesters and I think about it every night before I go to sleep. And again when I wake up with (very cool) nightmares. PLUS, if you back Andy's campaign (since you're already backing mine) you can get a sticker sheet with art from both of our modules! Monstrous toads and magical giant ants to decorate your water bottles and laptops and car bumpers with–what more could anybody ask for? According to BackerKit, we've got a 70% cross-over going here so I implore the 30% left to go check out this very fun/creepy/cool adventure!
Second: There's a huge DriveThruRPG DCC sale going on that includes all the third-party creators you love! So go there and load up a digital cartload! There's so much stuff–it's a fantastic time to be a DCC fan! Sale ends May 1st.
Third: Finally, Goodman Games is giving us third-party folks the wonderful opportunity to speak to their YouTube audience! I think all of the Castle Whiterock projects are super cool and you can see a selection of them in this video! My project will be featured in an upcoming video alongside others–I'm not going to spam y'all with updates, but it's worth your time to subscribe to Goodman Games' YouTube channel where you can get all kinds of updates on what they're up to with Castle Whiterock and beyond!
