I was initially envisioning this as a replayable arena. It expanded substantially and is a fitting wrap to the content at a whopping 53 pages of amazingness!
4 new spells
2 magic items
28 new creature stat-blocks
6 maps
6 tokens
1 Infinitely replayable Kickass adventure
4 tiers of play accommodating players from level 1 to level 20
Using only the materials in this adventure, a 4-player party has 23,328+ permutations they could encounter running through the arena, yet it is simple to select an opposing party, map, challenge and dive in within seconds. It is designed in such a way to easily allow you to swap in your favorite monsters too, so the numbers would go up dramatically if you added additional options. If you enjoy it, I'd love a review. It took me over 100 hours to design, test, and write this one!
🤩Tokens
The 12 Digital Summoner Tokens reward is ready for your summers! I had a hard time deciding which angle to choose, so I ended up including 45 variations for the tokens!
The 18 Digital Token Add-On ballooned a bit to include a total of 54 tokens with 110 variations. Can't wait to hear what you all think!
🖼️Wallpapers
There were tons of excellent wallpaper options as well. The final count of wallpapers:
25 Landscape in 4K/1080p
31 Portrait in 4K/1080p
🎨Digital Art Pack
The digital art pack shows the evolution of a drawing from concept to completion. Several of these you all voted on and made a reality! There are 32 Illustrations with 109 progress pictures.
BackerKit's file limit is 250 MB and the wallpapers and digital art pack are so jampacked I had to split them into multiple packages!
❄️Shard Tabletop Version
The migration to Shard Tabletop is in progress. The individual's home who is converting it was hit by a storm which took down his computer with a power surge unfortunately. He will be back up and running shortly! I'll keep you posted when this launches.
We're getting close to starting the alpha playtesting for the psionic class. If you're interested in participating, I'll be setting up some one-shots through Discord: https://discord.gg/yUAAQdRsCU.
If you'd like to be reminded when we launch, ask to get notified on the Kickstarter page!
As always, if you run into any issues, have a sweet idea you want to share, or want to drop me a message, feel free to email me: [email protected] or start up a conversation in Discord.
-Brendan
Prison break released. Choose your opponents in the Coldforge Gauntlet.
almost 2 years ago
– Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 01:46:41 PM
Hey Everyone!
Physical copies are available for ordering. I'm continuing to work through the remaining add-ons. Speaking of which...
Prison break went out this week to those who added it during the campaign! The add-on blew up a bit to include the following:
An adventure for 3rd, 7th, or 11th-level characters with instructions to modify to other levels
18 stat-blocks
3 spells
1 magic item - the Tome of Demonology
1 battlemap formatted for Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, Grid, and Gridless
6 creature tokens
Lore for each creature
Tactical descriptions for each creature providing inspiration for how they approach this adventure
40+ plot hooks to introduce npcs, provide side quest ideas, or general assistance in populating the world
Read-aloud text and sidebars with variations
Detailed descriptions of the npcs
If you had a chance to take a look, I'd love a review! It should take you only 1 minute. It took me over 100 hours to build, test, and refine this one! I love how it turned out!
Thank you to all of you that helped me playtest this last summer and provided feedback on the stat-blocks over the last few weeks! I had a blast and made specific changes to the layout based on your feedback. I also provided sidebar suggestions to help mitigate issues we ran into. The corridor around the prison is 10 feet wide now to get past some of the struggles with moving people about! It's a bit more of an open floorplan prison...
In the Coldforge Gauntlet, players will be matched against a competing party in the arena. The creatures are generated to allow for random matching, specific creature selection, or a combination of the two.
So far, I've built out a set of dire wolves and golems. I've got room for three more types of characters/creatures. What do you want me to build?!
Here are the top options I've currently got in mind:
Brute Squad - High hit points, low defenses, hits hard
Archer Brothers - focused on death from afar
Holy Crusaders - kicking ass in their deity's name
Cultists - they are up to no good, first step is getting rid of you
Martial Artists - this group of monks is ready to ascend
If you've always wanted some creatures built, now's your time to make it happen! Let me know in the survey what you'd like to see! Less than 1 minute to complete unless you have that bestiary you've been waiting for an opportunity to unload...
We've started reviewing the options in Discord, and I will continue to build out suggestions from the poll and post them there! Here are a few samples:
I'm looking forward to getting Coldforge wrapped up! As always, feel free to drop a message in Discord or check out the latest creations I'm posting weekly.
Talk soon,
Brendan
Magic Items Add-On Now Out!
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Feb 14, 2023 at 10:32:37 AM
I thought the summoners could use a few additional items specifically for them. I underestimated its popularity, though, and there were some truly amazing suggestions thrown out in the surveys. I increased it by 50% from 10 to 15 items while the campaign was live to squeeze more sweet magical gear into it. I couldn't stick to that, though, and ended up packing this thing with:
29 magic items
24 rarity variants
2 new feats
If you added this one during the campaign, you should have received your link on Feb 3rd. Yesterday it was finally approved by DriveThruRPG and is available now if you want to pick it up! To make this available to as many people as possible, I included the exotic equipment details so people who didn't pick up Creed's Codex could still use the magic versions of the exotic equipment. If you already had a chance to take a look, I'd love a review! Let me know what content you'd like to see more of!
If you have any questions or want to stay up to date with the latest daily content, feel free to come join us in Discord. I'll be dropping some new content in there shortly for community feedback!
If you're looking to scratch a sci-fi itch, check out the Vault Kickstarter. Their idea of choosing two classes for character creation seems like it would open a tone of cool combos. They are close to funding their goal if you want to get in on the ground floor of the action.
Anyone who picked up a copy of the Summoner NPCs/Villains add-on during the Kickstarter should have gotten a code last week to download it. I was planning to send out an update when it went live last week, but evidently, the OGL mess has really slowed DTRPG to a crawl and it didn't go live until today. The original plan was to create ~15 stat-blocks, ensuring each of the subclasses had an option. This was before the Master Summoners joined in and conjured forth three additional awesome subclasses from their brains, you all unlocked an extra one, and everyone threw out amazing ideas in the surveys for monsters! So instead, I put together:
27 stat-blocks ranging from CR 1/2 to CR 25
10 summoner stat-blocks, including one named villain Sazor the Decayer
3 new skeletons
Lore for each creature with suggested ability checks
Tactical descriptions for each creature providing inspiration for how they approach an encounter
40+ plot hooks for the creatures to provide side quest ideas, descriptive flavor, or general assistance in populating the world
15+ detailed skill and roleplaying encounters providing ability checks, recommended DCs, failure options, and successful conclusions
60+ combat encounters providing suggested party level, difficulty, monster breakdown, and loot
Sidebar suggestions for variations, modifying the rules, and quickly adjusting the CR of creatures
If you already picked up a copy, if you can spare 30 seconds to leave a review and let others know what you thought, it would make a huge difference to me! I worked extremely hard through the holidays putting this all together for you all. I love how it turned out and hope you do too! I really want to build more encounters like the "Dangerous Journey" ironclad caravan charging through the hordes of undead!
✨Magic Items Add-On
The magic items add-on is just about complete as well! I have one more proofreading round to do, a page to build, and then we slug it out in the DTRPG queue for it to go live. I'm hopeful this one will make it through faster than the NPCs, but if not, it should be available in the next three weeks at the latest (assuming no more crazy scandals in the TTRPG space). I'll drop an update when you can get your hands on it.
Talorien decided to build us all custom icons in discord! They are freaking amazing. I never knew I needed them, but they are so awesome and now I can't live without them! If you want to see them all, head on over to discord: https://discord.gg/yUAAQdRsCU
So WOTC decided to post OGL 1.0a in Creative Commons. This effectively locks this version under a license we can all use forever. This couldn't have happened without you all stepping up and showcasing how you've been preparing for this encounter every week around your tables. Adventurers canceling their DNDBeyond subscriptions, publicly pushing back against the licensing terms, and buying competitors' products while boycotting WOTC books, games, and the upcoming movie made this happen. Some of you may have even written them a strongly worded letter!
It looks like we can safely stay in the 5E space as WOTC moves off to their OneDND walled environment. With the surging interest in a variety of systems, though, it would mean a lot to me if you took a few seconds to tell me what kind of content you're interested in. Our content rocks because we all chart the path together! If you can spare a few moments to let me know your thoughts in this survey, I would really appreciate it as I plan our next steps.
Thank you, everyone, for your support during this turbulent month! I really appreciate all the kind words and help so many of you provided. I love our community and can't wait to see what we build next!
-Brendan
OGL Disaster and Creed's Codex Updates
almost 2 years ago
– Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 01:54:41 PM
Hi Everyone!
Happy New Year! It was been a whirlwind of a new year with bombshell announcements, updates in progress, and a deluge of rain!
🩳TLDR: WOTC is destroying DnD with their license updates, Creed's Codex PDF is updated and the physical books will be available soon with the update, add-ons and the rest of the rewards are in progress and will be coming out over the next few months.
🔥OGL Dumpster Fire
If you haven't heard yet, a leak of the updated OGL (Open Gaming License) from Wizards of the Coast came out last week.
Short version: it's a shitstorm where 3rd party content creators, like Knight Vision Creative, will stop making content for the roleplaying game we all love if it comes to pass.
Longer version (8 minute read) from a games IP attorney reviewing the changes and how this screws us all over.
What can we do? We need to tell Wizards of the Coast, and their parent Hasbro, how terrible these decisions are for the community. They are playing the victim here, but this license was by design and has been more successful than they could possibly imagine. By making the core mechanics/ruleset free, they reduced the cost to zero for developing on their design to drive support to their platform and encourage the growth of their ruleset and their book sales while eliminating competitors. Now that they have this success, rather than hiring more content creators, artists, designers, etc. and putting out awesome products for this community they've fostered, they've decided instead to tax the community that supports their platform. I'm floundering as well, but here's what I suggest we do:
Boycott Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro products
Sign the open letter in protest: https://www.opendnd.games/ (there's additional information here of interest as well)
Recommend other TTRPG systems you enjoy and are worth looking into (keep in mind, Pathfinder, and any other game using the SRD/OGL in any fashion is in jeopardy, not to mention all VTTs, such as Foundry, that don't have an agreement with WOTC)
Tell Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro that you do not support these changes through social media and whatever other methods you have at your disposal. #OpenDnD seems to be the main rallying cry. I am a level 1 wizard when it comes to social media, so if you have a better idea on how to use these tools let me know!
Next steps
Until the official OGL is released, we won't know exactly what we can do, but the damage may already be done. Wizards may have already cut open their golden goose. They've shown what they want, and that inhospitable, treacherous environment is extremely risky to continue building content in. They also burned all goodwill with their creator community, influencers, and players who care about the game, people, and livelihoods at stake.
Knight Vision Creative will continue to produce the rewards, add-ons, and content that was part of this Kickstarter as long as we are legally allowed to. Once that is complete, I'm not sure what the next steps will be. I have never taken on such an ambitious project or enjoyed interacting with a community as much as I have with you all! The passion, kindness, and bombass ideas just keep coming! I want to fight to keep the dream alive and continue making content with you all. We may need to pivot to something else, and our survival will depend on our community pivoting with us.
As we get more clarity, we'll provide another update. We'd love to hear what you all are thinking!
🔄Creed's Codex Updates
I've put together an errata of the changes here: https://www.knightvisioncreative.com/errata/ DriveThruRPG already sent out a notification that the file has been updated. I didn't understand their process, and evidently, they take down the previous version when you publish an update. I don't know that this is necessarily bad as it ensures anyone planning to pick up a copy now will get the latest version when it's available, but you won't be able to get physical copies until the update is approved. The reward links should still work once the updates are approved. I'll send out another update when they are back online. The digital version should be available immediately with the updates.
We have a bunch of projects in the works, though we've had to change direction rapidly in light of the OGL changes to ensure we can get the products out before the license update limits our ability to create content. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me in Discord and join the discussion!
⚔️15+ NPC/Villain Summon Stat-blocks
This add-on should be floating out to everyone's email in the next few weeks to those who picked it up. We'll make it available if you didn't back it and are interested in buying a copy. I went a little crazy on this one and ended up putting together 27 stat-blocks, lore for each creature, tactical descriptions, 40+ plot hooks, 15+ detailed skill and roleplaying encounters, 60+ combat encounter suggestions with loot, and more!
We've received 50% of the artwork for the magic items, and have about 75% of the content written. I'm starting on the layout this week and will be shooting for wrapping this up by the end of February.
