#10 - IMPORTANT - What happens after the campaign's end
6 months ago
– Thu, May 23, 2024 at 09:01:16 AM
Hi mercenaries,
The campaign is about to enter its last 24 hours. Please READ WHAT FOLLOWS CAREFULLY.
To avoid surprises
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Make sure you are pledging for what you want: if all looks good, great. If you want to change your pledge or add an Add-On (for example a copy of the Tarots, or an extra Dice Set), click on “Manage your pledge” on the front page of the campaign, then “Edit your pledge” and follow the instructions.
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If you’re using a debit card, make sure it’s funded. If your payment fails, Backerkit will ask you for a new card or try again for a few days before marking the pledge as failed. We can try to recover it in the Pledge Manager, but this adds a lot of extra work for us.
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Some credit cards and banks need you to confirm the pledge payment before it can be processed. This is usually between you and your bank. We noticed that German banks are particularly keen to block transactions by default, for reasons that don't seem entirely logical.
- If all else fails, we'll enable PayPal on the Pledge Manager and we can work it out there. But PayPal has some drawbacks: we get charged more to use it, and you have to pay the shipping fees as soon as you confirm your survey (which isn't the case with credit cards, where payment is deferred).
Please keep in mind that we unlock Stretch Goals based on the nominal amount we collect for the campaign: if a payment does not go through, we still have to meet the Stretch Goals, just with less resources. We don't want that, you don't want that, and ultimately it benefits no one.
I know this all sounds a little condescending, but it happens to about 5% of backers on average, and we've had spikes of 10% in the past. Since it puts unnecessary stress on the team, I'd like to avoid it as much as possible.
Coming soon: the Pledge Manager
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The campaign ends Friday May 24 at 10:00 AM PT / 19:00 CET. Once the deadline passes, you won't be able to make any more pledges. But wait a minute! Backerkit has a new feature called Overtime Mode. If pledges come in after the campaign ends, as long as there’s another one within the next 10 minutes, the campaign will remain active, extending in theory forever. This is the first time we're trying it, so we'll be keeping an eye on it while we're streaming. Let’s see what happens.
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Backerkit will transfer the funds to us within a couple of weeks. With that, we will have the funds to pay for development, your pledge will be confirmed and you can sit back and relax.
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It will take us some weeks to configure the Pledge Manager, importing campaign data, and setting up the surveys. These surveys are something like “Hey Jane Doe, you have pledged for A, B, and C, correct? Do you want to add X or Y to your pledge? Do you want to switch pledge? Where should we send your reward once it’s done? Here’s the shipping estimate for that destination.”
We anticipate the Pledge Manager to be live sometime in June. We’ll send an update about it.
- Once you’ve done that, you just have to wait until we’re done with the game. We’ll send regular updates, once a month or so. You can always reach us and talk with the rest of the community on Discord.
The work ahead
- First of all, we’ll take a few days off from Valraven: The Chronicles of Blood and Iron. As you can imagine it’s been quite intense and we’d like to think about something else for a week or so.
- We aim to have the Pledge Manager open in June.
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In mid July we’ll gather the whole The World Anvil Publishing team to discuss: 1) The overall campaign outcome 2) How to get everything done in the timeframe we set and 3) What the milestones are.
We now have 24 hours to unlock more Stretch Goals, so let’s spread the word and have fun!
Reminders
#09 - Solo Mode Group Expansion Unlocked, next Stretch Goal
6 months ago
– Wed, May 22, 2024 at 10:42:56 PM
Hi mercenaries,
We've unlocked a new Solo Mode Group Expansion that lets you play with the full mercenary Company. This was something that was suggested during the campaign, so we'll need to brainstorm a bit before we can give you the lowdown on how it might work. If you want to hear our thoughts on the matter, follow the Campaign Finale stream (details below).
The next Stretch Goal,
at 39 000€ is
Sancta Sanctorum, a new
one-shot Scenario: one of the contacts of the mercenary Company has gone missing, and the group is worried that this might mean someone is on their trail. They head to Espodia in the Republic of Dormas to investigate, and find a city under the control of the Holy Church of Light and a mysterious, revered, priest.
Sancta Sanctorum is written by Claudio Serena from
Fumble GdR (
Not the End,
Twice Upon a Time,
Five Days, and more).
Stretch Goals clarifications
For the sake of clarity, I want to make sure everyone knows which unlocked Stretch Goals apply to their pledge.
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All backers get the Alchemy RPG access, but there are a couple of catches: 1) You'll get access to the Alchemy module that corresponds to what you backed in the campaign (so, to get access to both the Core Book and the Book of Eclipse, they both need to be in your pledge). 2) There might be some technical limitations we don't know about yet. Alchemy is pretty flexible, even with things like Solo Mode. However, if something can't be done on their platform, you won't be able to access it. Just to give you an example, at the moment I believe the platform doesn't supports cards, but it’s in their plans for later implementation. We'll see when the time comes.
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The Twilight Spears mercenary Company will be added to the Core Book, because all other mercenary Companies are there.
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Everything else we unlocked is going to be included in the Book of Eclipse.
Stay tuned, I’ll have another important update for backers later today.
Reminders
#08 - Opponents & Allies unlocked, the Season of Destiny
7 months ago
– Tue, May 21, 2024 at 11:53:16 AM
Hello again mercenaries,
Things are heating up as we enter the final 72 hours of the campaign.
Opponents & Allies
In the illustration you can see one of them, Antoin d'Eon, Knight of Erenwald's Scarlet Fortress. Can you guess what's in their soul?
We're also
well on track for the Solo Mode expansion to play with the full Company, which unlocks at 36 000€.
The Twilight Spears - Season of Destiny
[Note: The Season of Destiny is when we zoom in onto a character, and let them pursue their personal projects and dreams.]
Five months have passed since the Battle of Widmar, and the Twilight Spears have returned to Dormas amid the honor and glory of those who sacrificed so much for the Republic. The Company's coffers are full, and a few survivors are enjoying a well-deserved rest.
The sun has recently risen over the great monumental cemetery of Ledes. Two figures gathered in prayer are shrouded in the morning mist as they silently pray before a grave. The man in the grave effigy is Baldric Dyer, father of Kyra and Jared.
The two siblings end their prayer with a greeting and turn to face each other. They have both tried to lead the Twilight Spears for more than a year, but their personality differences have only brought great loss to the men and women loyal to the Company. Now the time has come to settle the confrontation once and for all, and only they can do it. A duel to the death between two siblings unwilling to back down, united only by their desire to honor the figure of their father.
The reflection of the sun on the unsheathed blades is the signal for the duel to begin.
Voting will end on Friday the 24th at 10:00 AM / 19:00 CET, at the campaign's official end, so even the latecomers will have a chance to vote! We'll post an epilogue after that.
Reminders
#07 - Solo Mode Unlocked, New Stretch Goals announced
7 months ago
– Sun, May 19, 2024 at 08:18:21 AM
All right mercenaries,
The
Valraven multi-table event at PLAY Modena was a success, and as promised, here are some pictures from the room. It's the first time we've had so many people playing the game at once, and the scenario focused on repelling a Darokar invasion. Each mercenary Company was able to help other mercenary Companies (with players physically able to move between tables), protect or sabotage machinery and structures, and make sure the Darokar Titans couldn't crash into the city walls. A huge thanks to the organizers for running the event, and to the 10+ Master of Chronicles who made it possible. I was only able to attend for a few moments, but it was definitely a cool thing to see. I don't have the final scenario in my hands yet, but this is probably something that will be shared in some form
on our Discord server at some point.
Lone Blade: Solo Mode
It's unlocked! We knew this was a fan favorite, we just didn't realize that people might want more of it. I'm happy to report that after consulting with the game's author, Alberto Tronchi,
we have decided to accept the community's request to work on an expansion that will allow you to play not only as a lone hero, but also as the entire mercenary company solo. This is all new, never-before-published work, so we'll tie it to reaching the
36 000€ stretch goal, which is within reach as we’re entering the final days of the campaign.
The next stretch goal,
at 33 000€, is instead
a collection of incredible NPCs to be added to the Book of Eclipse, developed by our friends at fellow publishers like
Tin Hat Games (
Urban Heroes, Xenoscape, Weird World, True OSR)
Fumble GdR (
Not the End), and prominent content creators from the Italian TTRPG/literary scene like Morgengabe, Andrea Lucca, Dr. Manhattan, and Gabriele Campagnano.
Upcoming Live Stream
In the vote for
the Season of Venom,
Jared justified Kyra's actions... the final Season will be released before the end of the campaign, and the vote will close at the same time as the campaign to allow last minute backers to vote.
In this regard,
we're planning a new live stream starting half an hour before the end of the campaign, on Friday, the 24th, at 9:30 AM - PT / 18:30 CET. Stay tuned for the link and more.
Reminders
#06 - Add-ons and the Season of Venom
7 months ago
– Fri, May 17, 2024 at 02:05:01 PM
All right mercenaries,
I have survived the first day of PLAY: Modena, one of the biggest gaming events in Italy. While I'm here mainly to run demos for our latest game, Dead Air: Seasons, I came prepared with a brand new Valraven t-shirt and I'm looking forward to the biggest ever multi-table event dedicated to Valraven, which will take place tomorrow thanks to the nice people of Questing Role. It's nice to see that the game still has legs three years after its original Italian release.
Add-Ons
We're now past the midpoint of the campaign, so I think this is a good time to highlight our
other games that you can add to your pledge
from HERE to save on shipping. None of them are easy to find in retail stores outside of Italy, and that's mostly because distribution is very
very hard - but without boring you too much with logistics, the short version is that this is the best way for you to get them. The other way is to
order them directly from our web shop – we have recently improved shipping prices for some destinations, so you might be one of the lucky ones.
Broken Tales, The Broken Ones and Lost Stories
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Also known as the Broken Tales Triptych (this is a joke, no one calls it that).
Broken Tales is our horror game set in an eighteenth-century Europe where fairy tales have been broken, rebuilt, and, in short, are all over the place. The bad guys are now good - they're actually what the players play, Hunters - the good guys are... well, they're not what they used to be, and the real villains are now someone you can't see coming. The core book was nominated for
Best Aventure and
Product of the Year at the 2023 Ennies. The two expansions, The Broken Ones and Lost Stories, add a ton of scenarios, new Hunters to play with, redeemed villains that are now playable, a solo mode, a way to play villagers and make the game extra deadly, uber-bosses called Nemesis, fairy tale artifacts called Treasures of the Order, and much more. It's really hard to summarize over 600 pages of game content in a few lines.
Add the books now or
watch this unboxing from the original campaign.
Dead Air: Seasons
Look, I'm not going to hide it: I love The Last of Us and related works (The Road, Children of Men, Annihilation, The Girl with All the Gifts, Station 11) where "the apocalypse" is just an excuse to talk about the lengths people will go to protect what they care about.
Dead Air: Seasons is our take on the survival genre, set in a verdant post-Blight world where nature is reclaiming its space and humanity is left without a social structure and with the concrete need to make its way in communities of varying sizes, each with its own rules, goals, and problems.
It's an absolutely non-generic take on the post-apocalypse, and I'm particularly proud of how it allows the Monad Echo system to shine with amazing mechanics that work on both the character and community levels. I think you'll be hearing more about Dead Air: Seasons in the future - that's how confident I am in this game. As a result of the campaign we ran here on Backerkit Crowdfunding, we offer the Core Book, an expansion, a campaign, and a number of beautiful accessories.
Add them from here or
watch the unboxing here.
There are more Add-Ons, of course, but this is enough for today. Let’s move on to…
The Twilight Spears - Season of Venom
[Note: The Season of Venom is when the focus shifts from the battlefield to court intrigue, political agendas advance, and many NPCs make their moves on the Valraven chessboard.]
The Twilight Spears stop to rescue the wounded, but are soon surprised by the Iron Giants' vanguard reentering the battlefield. What was supposed to be a rescue mission turns into another battle for the already exhausted mercenary Company. Back in the city, Kyra reports to Regent Farden. Meanwhile, Jared is summoned by the Spears survivors to discuss their concerns. The decision to launch a suicide attack has sapped the soldiers' spirits, and seeing so many of their comrades die has eroded their confidence in Kyra as a leader. Perhaps this is Jared's chance to dismiss Kyra with the Company's blessing. What will he do?
Voting will be open for the next 24 hours!
Reminders
