Curse of the Usurper- RPG 5e

Shard VTT is being released!
5 months ago – Thu, May 02, 2024 at 01:53:30 PM

Good afternoon all,

We have great news to share in regards to our launch on Shard Tabletop.  Book 1 "Trouble in Havdhir" is finish and through all edits and checks for VTT release.  We are ready to release the first book on Shard VTT!  Today or tomorrow you will be receiving an email from Shard Tabletop.  There will be a URL weblink for all backers.  All you have to do is click the link.   If you have an account already the book will be put in your account.  If not you will need to set up a new account.  This is free.   If anyone has any issues please let us know and will send you the link again.  We do appreciate your patience's as we get all the kinks worked out.  

We will be releasing another update next week, in regards to the process of the other books and items.  Please remember this is the largest campaign ever written and edits, formatting, and writing take time.  The entire campaign is over 1200 pages!  

Have fun playing our adventure!

Tomb Guardians Team

Its Finished!
5 months ago – Wed, Apr 17, 2024 at 08:04:57 AM

Good Morning Everyone!

We have a great update for you today but first wanted to apologize on the delay of this update.  We have been waiting for several updates from our writer(Dillon), editor(Caitlyn) and our Art Director(Chris) which we will discuss later in this update.  So lets proceed and get right into it.

First, we want to give a huge "Thank you" to everyone that bought girl scout cookies from the owners daughter.  You guys were amazing and truly made her day with all the orders!  Thank you so much and we hope you love the girl scout cookies.   Now lets get into what everyone is waiting for and wanting.

1.  Ok first, lets talk about Shard Tabletop VTT.  We are waiting on them to finish the last edits to the maps so we can get the first book "Trouble in Havdhir" activated.  I know they are swamped but the release is coming I promise.  I know many of you are patiently waiting, as we are!  We look forward to play with our friends online.  
2. Next is the STL files.  There is good news here.  All the files are now completed and printed.  A few tiles are being updated and changed but we will release these soon.  The last room, The Usurpers throne room is currently being worked on and when that room is finished we will distribute all the files to those that get them.  
3. The PDF files for the first book is also completed and waiting for sign off before we can distribute.  I know in the last update we stated it would be released in early April but the owner is making sure everything is completed and goes well before the distribution and there is no problems.  
4. Lastly, thank you to everyone in filling out your surveys.  Even though, the vast majority have filled out the surveys we have many that are not.  We need to get these done as soon as you can. 
5. We are still accepting Late Pledges, so if you know anyone that wants to get these books its still not too late.

Next we wanted to share with you the words from our staff.  These are the incredible people and deserve all the credit in the world to make our vision and story come to life. 

• Dillon(Writer) (that's me) has been working away on the last book of the series! I have finished my initial pass on all but the last section of the book and should be finished with an initial draft by the end of the week. I plan on then going back through the entire book for another initial writing pass on my side before handing it over for approval by Cass and moving to the official editing stage. Once the bulk of the book has moved to the editing process I will be moving to finish the additional stat blocks for the last book as well as making some storyline additions based on the requests of backers with the "Be in the Book" tier. My favorite section of the book, I have been working on this month was our Haunted Lake, coming up with fun encounters like climbing cave fish falling from the sky, a sunken throne and water that solidifies above those that dive into it, and vicious undead dragon were a real challenge and a treat!

• Caitlin(Editor) (that’s me!) has been checking the PDFs (a.k.a. reading the proofs, a.k.a proofreading) for Innocent in Still-Echo, our story set in the dark prison beneath the city of Havdhir. Before Chris formats something into a PDF, all the editing has been done, but sometimes being laid out on the page makes it clearer that Sarah (other editor) and I have missed something minor in the editing stage, like accidentally saying “Wisdom-related skill checks” when our standard is “Wisdom-based ability checks.” Other examples of things I’m looking for are small mismatches with art (such as someone having gold teeth instead of silver) or a picture overlapping part of the text. The most time-consuming thing, though, is checking the formatting for stat blocks! Players are used to stat blocks being laid out in a certain way—this bit bold, that bit italicized, some things capitalized but not others—and to make your games go as smoothly as possible, we need to make sure those types of details are consistent in our work. Happily, Chris and I are now almost done with this finding-and-amending step. What’s next is that Cass will check all of Innocent in Still-Echo again himself, and after he’s satisfied, the PDF will be declared finished. I’m looking forward to you getting to meet the creepy denizens of this sprawling prison.
• Hello I’m Chris the Art Director, Graphic design and illustrator for these books. My job is really all about the look of the book. My first job is to design the layout, choise fonts, page textures, margin designs and create a style guide that will work with all the elements of the book and in this case even a runic font you’ll use to decode messages. 

Once this process is completed we can then move onto the next stage of taking all the text than Dillon and Cass have written, and Caitlin and Sarah have edited and flowing that into the book. The art for the book would have also been completed before hand and this can be inserted into the relevant quests. With this book being something exceptional I’ll also receive a long list of all the locations of the voice acting and music. Every single piece will have it’s own unique QR code generated that will also be inserted into the book.

 Once all these elements or ingredients of the book have been collected together my favorite part can begin, the layout. This process for the first draft can take many months, often books are 300 pages + and my work process can be thought of as Tetris for graphic designers. The text, images, QR codes and tables all have to fit in such a way on each page that not only is it pleasing to look at, but all the relevant information is grouped on a page, I’ll want to avoid tables being split on pages and try and keep things people will reference frequently on the same page. It also has to be easy to navigate, but most importantly look awesome. Cass has collected many incredible artists to work on this book so we frequently have the art large taking up a double page or single page to really wow the reader. The biggest challenge to the job is changes that can make the words reflow which is a term to describe large chunks of text moving into other columns or pages. This happens with changes to the text for reasons that make the book better and this can be tricky to handle as it can have a domino effect throughout the layout of the book. This is all part of the course with any multipage layout and after doing this for 30+ years I’m pretty used to it.

 When everything has been laid out the book will go back to Caitlin and Sarah for proof reading, looking for text changes, mistakes I may of made in laying out. Caitlin has the sharpest eye for editing and will pick out most changes that need to be made. Caitlin and I will then go through a process of back and forth, making amends, spotting new ones and so forth. By proof 5 we normally have it buttoned up pretty tight. I’ll then go back to Cass and we’ll look over the book together to see we’re happy with it. We may have some unexpected gaps in the book at this point so Cass will have me create some illustrations to fill those gaps, you can spot most of my illustration as they are a black and sepia watercolor tone illustration most of the time. Sometimes they’ll be just a small 2-3 inch gap at the bottom of a column other times it’s a whole page. Normally a book with have about 5-10 illustrations that I’ll do to fill these gaps.

That pretty much wraps it up for a book this process can take about 8 months to years from start to finish. Game books are the marathon of graphic design and make for the best journeys, you get to work closely with a wonder team and grown some lovely friendships in the process, work doesn’t get much better than that.

So as you can see a lot of work goes on behind the scenes to put together an amazing book but in this case an amazing set of 4 books!  However, since Dillon wrote his statement, we do have additional news.  All the books are now completely written!  With the exception of some changes and additions, all the books are written.  Now the long process of art, editing, voice over and formatting...  But the books are fully written!  Saying that, we will send out further updates this month when we release the PDF of Book 1, STL files and Shard Tabletop VTT version.  We are going to leave you with some additional art that has been created within the last month.

Well that is it for now.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures.  As always, if you have any questions please reach out to us at [email protected].  Have a great day.

Tomb Guardians Team

Who Wants Cookies?
6 months ago – Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 04:34:50 AM

Morning everyone!

A quick update for you this morning with a larger more detailed update coming next week.  

This is the last call for anyone wanting Girl Scout cookies!  

1. The owner's daughter, Scarlett, is a Girl Scout Brownie, and it's COOKIE TIME!!!!   GS cookies are the perfect snack to pair with our game!  If you are interested in purchasing some awesome cookies, you can order them with the link below and have them delivered directly to you.  

https://digitalcookie.girlscouts.org/scout/scarlett524934

When you purchase cookies, please make sure to have them shipped to you.  Do not select “delivered by the Girl Scout” because she can’t deliver cookies to everyone like Santa Clause.

• Lastly, Shard VTT release has been delayed till next week.  There are some changes and corrections that need to be made before we can deliver you the final product.  We appologize for the delay but we want to make sure it is correct before sending it out in the world.

Again, we will have a much bigger update next week.  Thanks for your support and as always if anyone has any question please reach out to us at [email protected].

Here is a new piece of art for book 2, "The Swinging Zombies".

Tomb Guardians Team  

Shard Tabletop VTT Coming!
6 months ago – Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 06:22:08 PM

Good Evening Everyone,

We just wanted to send out a quick update today on a few items.  So lets get right into the items.  

1.  1.  Surveys are well on there way and we wanted to thank everyone for your promptness in filling out the survey and submitting it.  We are now over 70% completed.  If you have not received a survey please let us know and send us an email to [email protected].
2. 2.  Book 1 release on Shard Tabletop is coming soon.  We are anticipating the launch on Monday the 18th.  You will receive a direct email from Shard Tabletop with a coupon code for the access to "Trouble in Havdhir".  Again if you don't get an email please let us know by emailing us.
3. 3.  STL files are also being released at the end of the month as long as everything continues on time.  But as of right now, we will be sending out those files by email.  We will send out an email when we get ready to send them.
4. 4.  Book 1 will be released on PDF beginning of April.  The actual date has not been set but Cass the owner, has said it will be early April.

Lastly, this one is a special announcement.  The owner's daughter, Scarlett, is a Girl Scout Brownie, and it's COOKIE TIME!!!!   GS cookies are the perfect snack to pair with our game!  If you are interested in purchasing some awesome cookies, you can order them with the link below and have them delivered directly to you.  

https://digitalcookie.girlscouts.org/scout/scarlett524934

When you purchase cookies, please make sure to have them shipped to you.  Do not select “delivered by the Girl Scout” because she can’t deliver cookies to everyone like Santa Clause.

Ok that's it for now.  Thanks again for all your support!

We leave you with our new friend for our book!  An Undead Wyvern

Tomb Guardians Team

Surveys Are Out
6 months ago – Wed, Mar 06, 2024 at 09:59:40 AM

Hello all,

This is just a quick update, letting everyone know that the surveys have been sent.  Please check your emails.  If you didn't get a survey please let us know at [email protected] or contact Backer Kit directly.  Either one of us can help you.  Please get your surveys filled out and returned as soon as you can.  Thanks again for your support and have a great day!

Tomb Guardians Team