Expanded Encounters Unlocked! Two Days Left!
over 4 years ago – Fri, Nov 05, 2021 at 08:01:05 PM

You did it! Thank you so much!

Because you’ve pushed us past $9,000, the Encounters in the Adventure Kit will be expanded to include two Climax Encounters, expanded encounter generators, and even more of our all-new Flash Encounters!

Here are two examples of Flash Encounters, which you’ll receive in the Prequel Edition to be released soon after the Kickstarter is finished:

NOTE: The following Flash Encounters include a potentially brutal battlefield amputation. In the final version of Adventure Kit: The Battle for Arctor’s Vault, it will not only be made clear that these Flash Encounters are optional, but alternatives will be offered for those whose groups prefer a more lighthearted tone in their games.

Flash Encounters

Use the following Flash Encounters to immerse the characters into immediate, drag-and-drop situations that require instant action, yet are narratively flexible enough to allow for an array of results. Most Flash Encounters require at least two players to make separate rolls using different skill checks. If both rolls are successful, the characters experience the plus result (+). If they both fail, they experience the minus result (-). If one fails and one succeeds, the neutral result (•) comes into play.

Use the Example Checks in each Flash Encounter to inspire your mechanical choices, but keep in mind that they were designed with the narrative – not mechanics – in mind. Reward players for creative ideas, and reskin the outcomes as needed to tailor them to your session or campaign.

Battlefield Amputation

A character has suffered a grievous wound. Perhaps the players stumbled onto them in the nick of time, or perhaps they were present when the injury itself happened.

Example Checks: Medicine to perform the amputation, Perception to notice vital arteries, Survival for rugged medical skill, Nature for anatomical knowledge; Athletics to hold them still

+  You save the victim without amputation. They soon reach out via a letter of gratitude.

•  The amputation is successful. The victim never forgets what you did to them.

– The procedure fails, and the victim succumbs to their injuries after extreme pain.

Exhumation

Characters are breaking open an ancestral tomb to recover the weapons, armor, and other useful items interred inside with the corpse, to the chagrin of those upset by these methods.

Example Checks: Athletics to open the tomb, Perception to locate secret compartments, Persuasion or Intimidation to keep passersby from interfering or convince the tomb robbers to stop

+  Your objectives regarding the exhumation are achieved. Some factions are pleased, while others are angered.

•  No one appreciates your half-finished approach.

–  You fail your objectives regarding the exhumation, and new enemies are made.

Orchard Harvest

The orchards are kept cultivated by the Variophages in the region, but it’s up to the people to harvest the fruit whenever needed – and now, whether by your own choice or someone else’s request, that task falls to you.

Example Checks: Athletics to climb tall trees, Acrobatics to balance on branches or leap from tree to tree, Nature to know if a fruit is ripened or poisonous, Stealth to avoid angering nearby wildlife

+  The ripe fruit is harvested successfully, and you get more than you tried for.

•  You successfully retrieve the fruit, but you’re not sure if they’re poisonous.

–  The fruit is under-ripe or completely unretrievable.

Just Two Days to Hit the Final Stretch Goals

$2,000 in 48 hours seems like a long shot, but we know how incredible our supporters are at boosting the signal, and we have faith we’ll hit the following FINAL stretch goals!

$10,000: War Letters

Thematic letters written from the perspective of those caught in the crossfire of Adrienne Pass, both fun to read and useful as character trinkets. We want to lay these out in an artistic format with specialized handwriting, information about the occurrences in Adrienne Pass, and other in-game clues so Game Masters can easily hand them to players as character inventory.

$11,000: Enchea Gazetteer

Setting lore infusion, including a world overview, map of Enchea, and additional art throughout the book. This addition became a potential Adventure Kit staple with Shadows Over Driftchapel, and it’s been extremely humbling to see all the public and private requests for the same treatment in this book. Thank you all so much for giving Enchea a chance at your gaming table – let’s make this happen!

It’s the final stretch, everyone! This is it! As my Dad used to say, let’s “run through the tape.” We believe we can hit these final stretch goals and give you the book we dream of making.

– Barker, Matt, James, and Tim

Cinematic Mass Combat Expansion Unlocked!
over 4 years ago – Tue, Nov 02, 2021 at 11:02:42 AM

It’s on – you’ve unlocked the stretch goal that puts the BATTLEin The Battle for Arctor’s Vault.

We’ve been workshopping Barker’s “mass combat rules” for years at this point, developing iteration after iteration (one of which will be released at a later date alongside creative partner Lloyd Collins of the Jarl DM), until we finally landed on a system that would immerse the players into the fray of battle like none other: Ceres.

At its core, Ceres is an “immersive scene generator” that combines character aspects (such as prized weapons, cherished allies, squads of soldiers, and formative story arcs) with interpretive battlefield encounters (like variophage swarm, reinforcements!, the wall has fallen, and death from above!).

We want this system to be exactly what you’d love to use at your table, and now that we’ve hit the $8,000 stretch goal, that’s definitely going to happen! Here’s what you can expect:

• Fully system-agnostic Ceres System, containing an immersive, in-game tutorial that not only teaches you the system, but also sets up the battle.
• More “crunchy” options for those who want to infuse more 5e into their Ceres
• Playtesting of any iterations between now and fulfillment alongside our community and others.
• Ceres expansion into climactic situation outside the battlefield – heists, negotiations, chases, and more!
• Development of more Ceres games, including our 90s sports film tribute, and the fate of an asteroid mining colony. We expect to release these games through the Absolute Tabletop site after fulfillment.

The Story Wheel: Foundations of Cinematic Mass Combat

The Ceres System is loosely derived from Barker’s own brainstorming tool: The Story Wheel. For more information about the base design of Ceres, check out these “Story Wheel” videos from his YouTube channel!

 Download Your Story Wheel Here!

Stay tuned to these backer updates, because before the end of this Kickstarter, we’ll do another backer-only stream using the Story Wheel to show you exactly what we have in mind for Ceres. We’d love to have you in the chat, because your feedback will surely help us develop this in-progress system!

For now, let’s take a look at what you can expect if we hit our next stretch goal!

Expanded Encounters!

If we hit $9,000, we’ll expand our Toolbox encounter generators with more Flash Encounters, and even create a second climax encounter to really drive home the flexibility of this Adventure Kit.

More Flash Encounters: Drop these instant situations into your game whenever you want to infuse the session with a new mission or urgent problem in need of solving. We already plan on including four of these, which you’ll receive in the Prequel Edition, but now you’ll get even more of them!

A Second Climax Encounter: So far, our Adventure Kits culminate in a singular climax encounter to close out the story. We’ve already written the first – The Battle for Adrienne Pass. The second will be a discreet mission into the belly of the beast to discover the culprit behind the goings-on in the region, to face them down, and bring an end to the chaos.

Interwoven Climaxes: Both climax encounters will interact with each other in various ways, depending on which is accomplished first, or whether they’re completed simultaneously.

Thanks so much for your help so far! We’re just a week out from finishing this campaign, so continue boosting the signal like you have been, and hopefully we’ll hit as many of these final stretch goals as possible!

– Barker, Matt, James, and Tim

The Battle for Arctor's Vault, using The Mecha Hack!
over 4 years ago – Sat, Oct 30, 2021 at 07:55:44 AM

Hey all!

Thanks again to all the backers who have supported us up to this point. We're almost to our next stretch goal, so please continue boosting the signal! 

In the meantime, check out this actual play stream on Barker's Twitch channel, in which he combines the narrative and story elements from Adventure Kit: The Battle for Arctor's Vault, with the rules and sci-fi tone found in Absolute Tabletop's super-robot RPG, The Mecha Hack!

Stretch Goal Unlocked! More and Expanded Environs!
over 4 years ago – Sat, Oct 23, 2021 at 04:28:26 AM

Wow! Not two days after funding, you’ve helped us knock down the first of five stretch goals! Thank you for helping us turn this book into its best possible version!

Now, key locations in Adventure Kit: The Battle for Arctor’s Vault will be fleshed out in greater detail, allowing the party characters to use them as hubs for their adventure. More hooks, encounters, and secrets will now be available via immersive environments in both the Town of Armistice and the Amelian Orchards.

Additionally, all-new Location Conditions will be included in the Kit, allowing any site to be instantly transformed into exactly what you’re looking for. These overlays snap perfectly onto any environment to give it the thematic changes you’re looking for, adding to the reusability and modularity of any Adventure Kit (and to be honest, any adventure module already on your shelf). Some examples in the works are:

• Arcane Storm
• Volatile Grove
• Dispel (Magical Dead Zone)
• Army Encampment
• Variophage Den (Barker wants to you use this one on the entire Town of Armistice)
• On Fire
• Artillery Bombardment

We’ll share more of these inclusions as they get proofed by our mechanics and sensitivity readers! In the meantime, let’s take a look at the next stretch goal on the horizon – the Ceres System!

Cinematic Mass Combat Expansion: The Ceres System

Adventure Kit: The Battle for Arctor’s Vault is centered around the impending catastrophe of mass combat in the region of Adrienne Pass, and we wanted to do it justice with our own system – Ceres. This narrative storytelling framework is the perfect tool for generating cinematic mass combat scenes while remaining loyal to the important aspects of any character sheet, no matter the system.

The Ceres System is developed around a circular “wheel” diagram, on which players write pertinent narrative elements over the course of the session. These elements interact with important aspects of the characters (such as their signature weapons, vital story arcs, and hit points – each of which is linked to a particular die in the polyhedral set) as the dice revolve around the Ceres Wheel. When combined with a streamlined success/failure mechanic, intense scenes of triumph and loss are generated. These mechanics are built to never detract from the immersive experience of cinematic mass combat.

If we hit $8,000, we’ll expand the system as it exists in The Battle for Arctor’s Vault, and develop it to further encompass any thrilling and climactic scene.

We designed the Ceres System to work flawlessly for the battle-centric tone of The Battle for Arctor’s Vault, but if we hit this next stretch goal, we’ll take it into the realm of intense negotiations, climactic car chases, 90s sports movies, and beyond! Here are some of our ideas so far:

• More Mass Combat: Our first objective will be to add more unifying content to perfect the Ceres System – options, roll tables, and alternate rules for those who desire more “crunch” in their game.
• Climactic Catch-All: Crucial negotiations, pulse-pounding heists, foot chases through obstacle-ridden terrain, and more await the Ceres treatment. We know this system can do more than cinematic mass combat.
• The Loser’s Bracket: We want the Ceres System to write our love letter to 90s sports movies such as The Mighty Ducks and Brink. Rival coaches and their 23-year-old puck-slapping prodigies be damned!

Thanks so much for giving us the ability to make this book. We hope to make it better and better as the Kickstarter progresses!

– Barker, Matt, James, and Tim

FUNDED! Onwards to Stretch Goals!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 07:50:56 PM

Commanders, Interlopers, and Citizens – YOU DID IT!

ADVENTURE KIT: THE BATTLE FOR ARCTOR’S VAULT is officially FUNDED!

Thanks to your support, the precarious world of Enchea will be brought to vivid life for the first time with an unforgettable adventure through the magical orchards of Adrienne Pass. As we promised on the campaign page, this third Adventure Kit will be the first giant leap into system and setting agnosticism – so while we’ll include plenty of 5e reference language, mechanics, and the OGL for those who want it, we’re also adding wholly new mechanically narrative abilities and frequent sidebars containing advice on running the encounters in any RPG system.

Now that we’ve surpassed our initial goal, let’s examine the first of many additions you can hope for, should we secure the necessary funding!

To kick things off, a stretch goal that will bring any location – no matter the setting – to vivid life:

Region Expansion: More Locations and All New Location Conditions

Adventure Kit: The Battle for Arctor’s Vault is centered around some pinnacle epicenters of conflict, including the burgeoning Amelian Orchards and the bustling Town of Armistice. If we hit $7,000, both will be expanded to include more spontaneous encounters, campaign-altering run-ins, investigative clues, and narrative elements for your game.

Additionally, use our gamut of all new Location Conditions to turn the Amelian Orchards into a den of spreading Variophages, or the Town of Armistice into an arcane “dead zone” recently plagued (bombarded) by a magic-dispelling curse (artillery barrage). These overlays give new depth to any Location inside (and outside) the book, while remaining perfectly setting agnostic and re-skinnable.

Thank you so much for the support so far – we’re elated that we’ll finally be bringing this book to life. Please continue spreading the world far and wide so that we can hit this first of five stretch goals!

– Barker, Matt, James, and Tim