Explore Orn, a world where adventurers delve into ancient alien shipwrecks in search of magical ink which is used as both currency and spellcasting fuel.
Due to fluctuating global shipping rates, we will be charging shipping fees at a later date.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
May Update
over 1 year ago
– Wed, May 31, 2023 at 01:10:46 AM
Hey!
It's almost June, so here is a quick update on how the project is going!
Dungeons
I spent most of my time this month working on the two smaller adventure locations. Both of them are now in a playable state (meaning a rough map, NPC stats, and a solid draft of all room keys) and I have been play testing them with two different groups for over the last two weeks. They still need to be made more presentable and condensed to fit the available pages before they're ready for publication, but I'm very pleased with how they play! They both highlight some different aspects of the setting and it has been fun to see how players interact with them. I plan on playing these a few more times with different groups in the next months while I'm working on the third location, an eldership buried in the dunes outside of Titan Port.
Here's a little sneak peek at both of them in the form of my terrible early notebook sketches:
The Grafter's Catacombs
The Tower of Tursar Velm
BackerKit & TEA 02 Rules Beta
Over the last two weeks I've also been setting up the BackerKit for this project. There are still some things left to do, but I'm aiming to do a smoke test sometime in the first two weeks of June. For those who don't know what a smoke test is: BackerKit allows you to "smoke test" your project by sending the surveys to a randomly selected 5% of backers, so you can work out any errors that might occur before sending the surveys to all backers. I'll write an update about this closer to when I'm ready to do the smoke test.
If the smoke test goes right, I'll send out the survey to everyone, and once that is all done, I can share a beta PDF of the new rules of TEA 02 (which I talked about in more detail in last update) with you all through BackerKit!
Here are some of the illustrations I commissioned to go along with these new rules:
Downtime Action "Crafting" - by stonedrunkwizard
Warpgas Mutants - by Aleksandar Kostic aka "Art of Caustic"
Downtime Action "Martial Training" - by Charles Ferguson-Avery
That's all for this month. For now, enjoy these illustrations and we'll talk again soon :)
Thanks!
- Emiel
PS: If you would like to know more about what I'm doing besides working on this project, check out my monthly newsletter, Lizard Mail. It has been neglected a bit because I had my hands full with this Kickstarter, but I plan on writing a new post soon, which will recap the last few months! :)
April Update
over 1 year ago
– Mon, May 01, 2023 at 12:21:41 AM
Hey!
April was very busy, but I'm incredibly satisfied with the work I did. I finished what I set out to do this month, finishing the draft of the rules section of the second issue of TEA. I hope to share this section with you all in a beta PDF in June. I'll be sending it on its way to Ava for a first editing pas later today, but would love to give you a run down of what it contains at the moment. It is currently a little over 8000 words and contains the following things:
A procedure for random events during Downtime Turns (which have been renamed to "Interludes" to prevent confusion with Exploration Turns)
10+ Downtime actions players can take during an Interlude. Things like learning new Talents, martial training, creating their own faction or enterprise, crafting, trapping spirits in voidglass, spending their ink drops on partying, etc.
Rules for hiring different types of hirelings.
Rules for foraging additional rations while traveling.
More guidelines for the Seer on how to deal with dangers, such as: fire, falling, drowning and panic.
A better look at warpgas and a table of mutations for players who manage to survive breathing it in.
A few new skills for the Fixer, new maneuvers for the Vagabond and an alternative Level 5 feature for the Warlock.
There are a few more little bits and bobs in the doc I'm sending to Ava, but I'm cautious about mentioning them here in more detail, since I'm not sure whether they will make it to the final zine yet.
While Ava is taking a look at my writings, I'll be spending the next two months working on the three adventure locations that will be featured in the zine and sending out some early art briefs for illustrations to accompany the rules I talked about above.
Thanks again for your continued patience and support for the project!
Talk soon!
- Emiel
March Update
over 1 year ago
– Mon, Apr 03, 2023 at 01:19:52 AM
Hey!
As promised, here is the first monthly update to let you know how the project is going :)
Most of March was spent reorganizing the project. I've taken some time to organize my notes and drafts so I don't have to dig through hundreds of small files to get them when I need to reference something in the next few months of production.
I planned to start work on the rules section of the zine last week, but my partner had a medical emergency which caused me to spent a day at the hospital and left me pretty stressed and tired for the last few days. Things have stabilized over the weekend, so I'm aiming to finish writing the rules section of the zine this month. That way I can send it to Ava for a first editing pass in May and share a beta version of that part of the zine with you in June :)
So yeah, a bit of a slow month, but I feel like the prep I did this month will pay off over the coming months.
I'm going to continue writing the various downtime actions today. I'm incredibly excited about them and can't wait to share some previews with you in next month's update!
Talk soon!
- Emiel
Itch.io Keys
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 01:34:50 AM
Hey!
Quick update: I've sent out download keys for the first issue to all "Legacy"-tier backers. If you somehow haven't received it, please let me know!
Enjoy!
- Emiel
Thank You!
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 10:38:00 AM
Wow...
Thank you!
I did not expect to be able to reach such a big number to be perfectly honest. I'm incredibly humbled by the positive response to this campaign and will do everything I can to make this second issue an absolute banger :)
The plan going forward is that I'll update you each month with a short post about my progress. I'm still aiming for December for the zine to be released and delivered, but some of the unlocked digital stretch goals might take a little longer since the primary focus will be getting the zine finished.
As for the first thing I'll be working on, I'll be focusing my attention on the rules and procedures section of the zine. I want to get a beta version of that in your electronic mailboxes before the end of June, so you can start using it in your games.
Also, I'll be sending out the PDFs of the first issue to all Legacy backers somewhere next week once Kickstarter has processed all the payments :)
Again, thank you so much! You made this project happen!
Talk soon!
- Emiel
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