Dragon Town and the Darkness Below: Fantasy TTRPG Adventure

THANK YOU!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Oct 23, 2024 at 08:31:41 PM

The Kickstarter campaign for Dragon Town and the Darkness Below has come to a close. In total 1,639 of us raised $116,279 to fund the printing of an awesome hardcover book and box set. We ended up unlocking the Shadowdark adaptation PDF, five one-shot postcards, and some serious upgrades to the box set. 

A huge thanks to all of you. This has been an awesome experience and I appreciate the amazing outpouring of support. Now it's time to get all this rad stuff made! 

Next steps:

• Over the next few days, I will be building out the backerkit pledge manager. This is where you'll be able to adjust your pledge and all of the digital goodies will be housed. 
• Kickstarter says it takes 2-3 weeks for funds to clear. Once that happens I'll receive a list of everyone's emails and can send out the PDF of Dragon Town and the Darkness Below. 
• Over November/December I'll be finalizing details with the manufacturer and getting production files ready. Once that is complete another round of digital files will go out, including an updated PDF of Dragon Town, the stretch goal one-shots, maps, and magic item cards. 
• Michael (Night Noon Games) will begin work on the Shadowdark adaptation next month too. The PDF will be finished sometime in the late spring of next year. 

My plan is to send these Kickstarter updates once a month (probably a little more often as the pledge manager gets moving and again when it's closer time to shipping the books and box sets). And I'll definitely be making lots of YouTube videos documenting the entire production process too! 

And if you are interested in continuing the adventure in the meantime, I'll be releasing monthly TTRPG zine (this month's is Flik Silverpen's Guide to the Ravenwood) over on my Patreon! 

I just want to say another huge thank you! This campaign has been so amazing and with your help, we're getting to make a really awesome adventure! 

Final Hours to Back Dragon Town!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Oct 21, 2024 at 05:09:28 PM

The Dragon Town and the Darkness Below Kickstarter campaign ends on Wednesday, October 23rd at 8pm Eastern. I'm really pleased with how this campaign has gone and can't wait to get this book and box set made for everyone!

To celebrate I'll be doing a finale live stream on Youtube from 6 to 8pm on Wednesday. Come hang out with me while the campaign comes to a close! 

We've unlocked the $90k stretch goal, The Secret of Surewood Farm one-shot postcard. This is gonna be a fun way to unlock a home base for your players near Dragon Town! 

Next up is the big Shadowdark adaptation by Michael Putlack (Night Noon Games) at $100k. I'm feeling confident we can make this one happen, especially if a few of you share why you think Dragon Town is cool on social media or in your favorite discords ;)

As an additional free bonus for all the backers, my pal Evan (creator of Nimble) has written up two postcards that help convert the system-neutral monsters in the Dragon Town book to Nimble and 5e stat blocks SUPER easily. The digital versions will be available for everyone and both postcards will ship with the hardcover and box set rewards. Just another fun "thank you" for all the amazing support for Dragon Town! 

Hope to see you for the live stream on Wednesday!

Dragon Town Box Set Preview!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Oct 14, 2024 at 05:33:36 PM

Wow! 1,000 backers and $80,000 raised! Thank you so much!! This means everyone will get the Barromere postcard (I just wrote the adventure, it's a fun little mystery!) and a tuck box for the magic item cards in the box set!

Speaking of the box set, I made a video "unboxing" the blank production samples. I'm REALLY psyched on how everything is coming together. Check it out: 

We still have two more announced stretch goals to hit (maybe more surprises after): another one-shot postcard and the Shadowdark adaptation. There's just over a week left of the campaign, so I'm optimistic we can get there!

In other news, I recently went on the Between Two Cairns podcast to chat with Brad and Yochai. We had a super fun conversation talking Dragon Town and reviewing the first Shadowdark Cursed Scroll zine, The Gloaming. 

If you're new to this project and Flik Silverpen guides, each month I release a new zine on my Patreon. This month, the region around Dragon Town is getting expanded with a mini-setting called the Ravenwood! It's a dark and twisted forest north of the Shadespear Mountains (Chapter 4 of the book) filled with strange talking birds, parading ghosts, haughty elven knights, and a coven of pine cone witches. If you like spooky forests and weird elves, definitely one to check out! 

Thank you so much for all the support. This campaign has been a wild experience and I'm just so incredibly grateful. More news soon with some extra details about the box set and future Youtube livestreams! 

Week One! More Stretch Goals!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Oct 01, 2024 at 10:19:41 PM

Q&A LIVESTREAM: Thursday 10/3 from 7 to 8pm Eastern on my YouTube channel! Come hang out, I'll be answering questions about the Kickstarter campaign and the adventure. 

What an absolutely crazy first week! Thank you all so so so much. Dragon Town is already 3x its funding goal and has blown through 4 stretch goals! 

Let's talk about future stretch goals. I would love to do two more one-shot postcards. One about the town of Barromere, the next village down the road from Dragon Town on the way to the Troll Bogs ($70k). And the Surewood Farm, a location that the players can use as a home base after discovering its secrets ($90k).

In an effort to keep making the Box Set even better, when we hit $80k that will unlock an illustrated box for the magic item cards! 

And for the $100,000 stretch goal, I want to do something really big. It might not be immediately obvious with all the fun cartoony artwork, but I think Dragon Town would make an excellent Shadowdark campaign. It's a wonderful system that is all about exploring dark underground caves and that's exactly what you'll be doing while trying to track down the Darkness Below! 

So I've asked my pal Michael Putlack of Night Noon Games to write a complete Shadowdark adaptation. This isn't just a few added monster stats, it's a complete Shadowdark-ification of the adventure. Check out the PDF preview to see what I mean. It's gonna be awesome!!!

And check out Michael playing through some of the City of Eternal Night chapter using the Solodark rules:

If we can get to $100k, that will mean every backer gets an additional PDF of the Shadowdark version of Dragon Town and the Darkness Below!

Keep an eye on my YouTube channel for more updates and behind-the-scenes looks at Dragon Town. This whole Kickstarter process has been nuts and I want to share as much of the journey with you as I can! 

Funded! And 3 Stretch Goals Unlocked!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Sep 26, 2024 at 01:50:31 PM

Wow! I can't believe it. What a crazy first 48 hours! 

Firstly, thanks so much for the overwhelming support. I'm honestly blown away. The project funded in just under 2 hours and it's already reached $50k in two days. 

It's time to make the Dragon Town and the Darkness Below book and box set! Thank you so much!!!

The campaign will continue for another 27 days, so that means stretch goals. 3 have already been unlocked. An upgrade to the box set GM screen and two additional postcard dungeons. 

The GM Screen will now be super sturdy paper-wrapped board. It's kinda like a board game board thickness. Actually, it will be the exact paper and thickness as the cover of the hardcover book! 

The two postcard dungeons are super fun additions as well. Digital backers will get the digital version of the postcards, and book and box set backers will get the physical postcards as well. 

The Lunar Tower appears in the Malumir Valley during a full moon. It's a fun trap and puzzle-filled tower dungeon with a cool reward at the top. 

The Netherhold Vault will expand the Netherhold section in Chapter 6 (part of the preview PDF). It'll include some more ancient dwarven treasure, ghosts, and some fun lurking monsters. 

The next stretch goal to unlock is a dice bag for the magic apple dice. It will look like a little burlap sack with a screen-printed dragon logo, just like if you were to get a bag of apples from one of the farms near Dragon Town! 

I've got lots more fun things planned as the campaign continues to grow. I really can't thank you all enough. This is all sooo so cool!