Backer participation - vote for the Stone Scout art direction
over 1 year ago – Mon, Jan 23, 2023 at 03:19:19 AM

Hi folks!

A very brief but important update today. I'm very excited to share the first sketches that have come in for our remaining 6 Occupations (the reverses of the 4 Occupations for Deepsorrow and the 2 Occupations for Potions & Preps).

I'm delighted to confirm that these are being done by the amazing Steve Hong who has an incredible talent for character illustration. Steve is a very busy guy, among several of the concept pieces I have shared before for the Apprentice Rank content he has illustrated all of the Occupation cards in the game to date as well as producing the box covers for the Sewers set and the Deepsorrow set. 

 Backer participation vote

This is a game we are making with you, where time permits we like to get you involved!

Steve has produced two sketched below for the reverse (masculine form) of the completed image on the left (feminine form) of our Gnimshka Stone Scout.

For those new to the lore, the Gnimshka are a dominant culture on Mor Nadar. They are feared by many because of their highly organised standing army comprising regiments of sarissa armed phalangites supported by behemoth sized War-Badgers or Waradgers. It is a brave soul that picks a fight with an angry Gnimshka warrior. Indeed the much loathed and feared Newcomers found this to be the case when they were defeated at the Siege of Dun Mordhain prior to the Treaty of the Peoples (about 2 years prior to the current 'game time').

The Gnimshka have a fascination with gems, they use them for light, heat, weapons, recreation and many other purposes. Via the art of Glyptography they inscribe the minerals they find and place them into trinkets and other curiosities to power Preparations. 

Of course to have a ready supply of minerals to inscribe the Gnimshka have a constant desire to find new sources to exploit and harvest. This is why many of the Gnim devote their careers to the acquisition of new minerals, taking on commissions to act as a Stone Scout for their employer.

We want to let Steve finish off the piece so we can move onto the next Occupation. We will make any adjustments we deem necessary to make the finished card but for now we'd like your thoughts please folks. Do you prefer?

#1 The Geode carrying bespectacled Gnim of slighter build.

#2 The goggle wearing bulkier character.

Let us know your voted in the comments over the next few days please so we can let Steve get cracking.

All the best to you!

IG

Happy New Year! Licensing deals, New Promo card, WIP update,
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 03:39:37 AM

Happy New Year to you all!

The dust has thoroughly settled, we are back after our post KS torpor and raring to go with our delivery plan for 2023!

Licensing deal - very important for our francophone backers

To our francophone backers - you did it! You made so much noise, worked together, and got so much support that we are hugely excited to begin the year with an update about our first ever licensing deal for Legends Untold. Indeed this update has been a bit delayed because we needed the ink to dry on this exciting proposition.

We are excited to say that we have appointed Boom Boom Games and Bad Taste Games as joint Licensee of the French language version of Legends untold. Together they have published over 20 games  and are very experienced at making French language licensed versions of boardgames.

Nous tenons à remercier chacun d’entre vous d’avoir contribué à rendre cela possible!

Bad Boom Games est l'union des forces de deux éditeurs normands : Boom Boom Games et Bad Taste Games. Spécialisés dans le dénichage de jeux d'éditeurs indés, ils ont à leur actif une vingtaine de jeux localisés (ensemble ou séparément). Links : 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/36411/bad-taste-games  and  https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/40390/boom-boom-games 

Déjà tombés sous le charme des premières boîtes de Legends Untold, ils ont cette fois-ci franchi le pas pour vous proposer la Version Française de Deepsorrow.

In practical terms:

Bad Boom Games will begin the relationship by publishing Deepsorrow only. This makes complete sense it is the newest Core Set and a good way for them to establish the game in the francophone market.

Bad Boom Games will share more details in due course. However the French language version will be printed in Europe via a different printer and then fulfilled directly from Europe.  We are working with Bad Boom Games to make this as seamless as possible. For any of our backers who would prefer the French Language version of Deepsorrow instead of the English version we will arrange for this to happen. There will be an additional cost involved because of the double fulfilment however Inspiring Games will incur the additional cost on your behalf and not pass it on. This is our way of trying to give you the choice to receive either version and to say thanks so much for making this happen.

We are hoping to clarify the language preference for the impacted backers via the Pledge Manager soon. You don't need to anything else just now, but feel free to spread the word among your fellow francophone backers and help Bad Boom Games get off to a roaring start. The bigger the success story the more likely other titles will follow in French!

New promo card

We want everyone to share in the joy of this news, and LU being what it is we wanted to have something cool we could link to Mor Nadar. In terms of the lore of Mor Nadar many historic cultures are represented to a greater or lesset extent, for France we actually have a number of homages going on in Mor Nadar. 

Please note this map excerpt is illustrative and shows rough labelling. It helps describe what is happening but in no way represents the finished map. The cartographer will complete the project with accurate icons and appropriate labelling.

For reference on this map Dun Mordhain is the gold cricle to the east of the Druid Stones and north east of the Belgae lands.

To the west of Dun Mordhain in the vast realms of the Celti peoples we have a large number of lush valleys ruled from Iron Age Hill top forts. These are the Gaulish tribes inhabiting the realm of Galli. They will become more prominent at a later date we hope. For now you should envisage huge settlements full of fierce warriors creating beautiful metalwork, thriving in the cities of Uxellodervas, Dorogros and Rituveco to name but a few.

North of that we have the lands of the Bretoned, settled on the beaches and romantic cliffs of Oer Wisu (the Whispering Sea).

To the south of Dun Mordhain lies the Kingdoms of the Merovae, these are the subject of a different project we are working on. They are a place of questing and adventure, full of rivalry between the princes that rule the lands.

I'll do so more world building at a later date but for now this should give you an idea of who these people are. 

We will be adding the following promo card to every Deepsorrow set to celebrate our licensing deal. One copy of the French language version will go into the French Deepsorrow set, one copy of the English language version will go into the English language version of Deepsorrow.

Note unlike the other shields we have shown you which are Loot Items, this Shield is used as a Weapon card in terms of equipment selection for a number of reasons:

• It can be retained and used between Adventures without using up your Loot 'carry slot'.
• It can be upgraded.

Note we have added the '1H' symbol to show that this shield takes up a hand slot. This is is primarily to confirm that you can use it with another 1H weapon but not with a 2H weapon.

We are finalising plans on this codification at the moment. It is likely to involve all weapons being badged 1H (one handed), 2H (two handed), or OH (Off Hand). This will enable some off hand carrying and potential options at Apprentice Rank but prevent dual wielding combinations which are not in line with the historic historic feel we are trying to achieve with LU. More to follow when we work through this point. Before everyone gets excited about building a character with two swords please remember that LU is ultimately your game, if you want to go in that direction then house rules are actively encouraged. Right now what we are saying is that we are giving you a shield which you can elect to use and have one character now using an axe, spear, sword (etc) and shield combo for the first time. 

Note I am sending this now before travelling as I don't want to delay any more, I can see a small typo on the French version basic shield (Arem not Arme) please forgive this, it will of course be rectified.

Stretch Goal Art

I will cover off this in more detail but we have continued to close this out while working on the French License deal.  I am delighted to say that all of the art is now assembled for the following products:

• The Cryptic Collection (Novice Booster 3) 

This leaves the following pieces outstanding:

• 12 cards for A Trove of Treasure (Novice Booster 2)
•  5x Locations, 5 other cards for the Weeping Caves Enhanced Edition
• 5x Locations, 7 other cards for the Great Sewers Enhanced Edition
• 2x Occupation cards for Potions & Preparations (the reverses of those shown)
• 4x Occupation cards for Deepsorrow (the reverses of those shown)

All of the above is on order and WIP drafts are being received every week, which I will share in future updates.

Here is an example of a WIP piece for one of the new Locations in the Weeping Caves Enhanced Edition (WC-LO27 Old Cesspit). Please note this has been modelled only and still requires the overpaint which will make it harmonious with the rest of the Location cards, however it should give you an idea of the level of detail we want to deliver for you in these Location cards:

Pledge Manager

• We are drawing the Pledge Manager together now. It will take a little bit of time as we want to make sure we cover off all the possibilities and variations.

Rules Comments

Thanks for all of these so far - very helpful! One important clarification as there appears to have been an unintended error in the revised rules.  Health for Heroes works in the same way as before. You take Damage by Draining Talents, you then have one final Health remaining as your Occupation card, it is only when you take further Damage that you become Unconscious and place an Unconscious token on the Occupation card.

Our apologies for the confusion caused there folks!

Lore

I will assemble the story in one place completing how the Heroes got from Firesorrow to Deepsorrow. We are just focussing on the real world stuff (licensing deals and pledge manager) first so that we can get this game made for you.

That's it for now.  There will not be as big a gap until the next update folks. 

Best wishes to you all.

IG

Campaign over - what a last 48 hours and a big thank you to you all!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Dec 09, 2022 at 02:37:43 AM

Hi folks

wow - what an amazing ride for the past 48 hours.

I've got the stats on my scribble pad of doom. A couple of days ago we were stubbornly not moving from c. £73k and had 899 backers.

We ended up at £91.4k and 1,194 backers (I had guessed 1,200 backers so clearly I'm losing my touch...).

You've been amazing, we know that the campaign has had its challenges and we are adding that into the learning category. We're also working really hard with Helena on our marketing for the pledge manager as she has taught us so much in the past 10 days!

Hugh and I have discussed it and we want to give you all closure now and end the project on a high. The effort you put in in the past 3 days means so much to us and we want to do what we can to return that. With that in mind we have agreed we are going to put the order amounts that the retailers have indicated  as their likely orders towards the funding goal.

This gets us through the £100k mark, we will unlock the £95k and £100k goals for you all and add the benefits accordingly.

So that's a total of 8 more adventures in Deepsorrow (for 8-12 extra gameplay hours) and most importantly you have helped create the Sewers Enhanced Edition - our final 'Designers Cut' of that set, you can see it in the portfolio set above and here on its own. I can even hear that Fomori trying to crawl out and say hi - let's not encourage that for now!

What does that mean?

All copies of the Great Sewers purchased via the Add On / pledge manager will be the Enhanced Edition with the tweaked box and the extra cards.

The All In pledge will include this new box.

The Quest and New Content pledges will include the extra cards with their sets.

The Upgrade Kit Add On will also include these new cards.

---

OK we are going to head off and catch up on some sleep. 

A massive thank you from

Kev and Hugh at IG

and Scott and Morgan at Jovial

Let the story unfold, let your legend be told!

£85k Unlocked, £90k unlocked, Weeping Caved Enhanced Edition Location just in
over 1 year ago – Thu, Dec 08, 2022 at 09:41:49 PM

Please forgive the brevity of this update, it's the final sprint!

£85k stretch goal unlocked

We can confirm that another two standalone scenarios have been added to Deepsorrow. This takes the total to 6 extra adventures which is another 6-9 hours of gameplay that you have helped unlock!

 £90k stretch goal unlocked

Thanks to everyone for their support - 1,171 backers and £90k at the time of writing. Meeting this stretch goal is a huge deal because it adds more cards for all into Novice Booster 2 and (when we get the time to share it) moves the lore forward to the Wrathlands.

Final Push

We have messaged everybody we know via all the channels we have and are definitely seeing a response - it is massively appreciated.

For now there is too much going on in the time left to do any lore however I want to share this with you (which I received within the last hour).

Please ignore the red (cut line) and yellow (safety line) which are added to give you an idea of how the card would work.

This is one of the new Locations from the Weeping Caves Enhanced Edition - hot off the press from our artists in Germany. It is entirely subject to change but I wanted to share the coolness with you now as we go into the last couple of hours. As you can see the Enhanced Edition card will add some more variety and interest to your games - more places to explore is always good we think!

Let's see where we get to in the next 71 minutes folks!

Onwards with the quest - what an adventure in the past 2 days!

Cheers

IG

£80k Meeting the Rasni, All In flex option, More Stretch Goals
over 1 year ago – Thu, Dec 08, 2022 at 02:21:17 PM

Hello Adventurers!

You did it again! £80k and at the time of writing over 1,000 backers.  This is a huge boost for the project and helps us continue building Mor Nadar with you - thank you so much to everyone for your support! 

I will attend fully to the Lore post Campaign folks. We are doing everything we can to fully stretch to the new Stretch Goals revealed below for you as it will give you the final vision we have for the Novice Rank content. For now please forgive me for the succinct version -I will come back to this.

From Memf the Initiate and Envoy travel up the mighty Iteru to Gnimshkenka first home of the Gnimshka which exists deep between the mountain range that separates the Cold Lands in the north from the Warm Lands to the south. The Gnimshka are the most feared martial species on Mor Nadar. This reputations is justifiably deserved, their use of Petromagika (Gem Magic) and their retention of a permanent standing army comprising battalions of sarissa armed soldiers supported by mammoth sized Waradgers (War-Badgers), strikes fear into most nations. It was after all the Gnimshka who helped raise the siege of Dun Mordhain and enforce the Treaty of the Peoples which stopped the Newcomer conquest  two years ago.

At Gnimshkenka the Master Glyptographers shed light on a place far to the south of them. An old Brethren mining city long abandoned which the miners joking called Deepsorrow. They believe this mining settlement may hold the clue to the whereabouts of Dip'Sa'Ra.

The Glyptographers recently sent two expeditions to Gnimshkenka, the first comprising an Engineer and a junior Glyptographer. Nothing has been heard from this expedition since. The second expedition left fairly recently and comprised a Gnimshka Stonescout and an Apothecary from the Persi culture who seek to know more and perhaps aid the first expedition if possible.

Designers note - much of this will become clearer when you play Deepsorrow, I am trying to avoid spoilers!  Note the second expedition comprises the two heroes from the Potions & Preparations pack.

You exit the great city of Gnimshkenka via the eastern gate and travel down the river through the lush fertile lands farmed by the Gnimshka and their human neighbours to the east, the Rasni.

I'll cover off more about the Rasni in due course. For now let me share the Deathdancer's Helm card with you. We're giving you more ways to grab some armour and help yourself in combat! Remember one of the key changes to the new rules is the ability to inflict Conditions on Creatures too, you asked for that after the first campaign, now you can strike fear into the heart of your enemies.

Weeping Caves Enhanced Edition

We're so delighted that you will all benefit from the cards in the new edition. I said I would share the box image when it was ready - here you go!

Booster pack nomenclature.

I appreciate that Novice Booster pack 1,2, and 3 are in now in use. We will be adding a suitable change to each of their titles going forward to help people. From now on we will refer to them as:

• Novice Booster 1 'The Alchemy, Druid & Treasure Booster'
• Novice Booster 2 ' A Trove of Treasures Booster'
• Novice Booster 3 'The Cryptic Collection'

All In pledge flex option

Note we were asked yesterday by backers on the non All In pledges if they could select the new Novice Booster 3 Set Add On (The Cryptic Collection) as their free choice from:

• Novice Booster 1 'The Alchemy, Druid & Treasure Booster'
• Novice Booster 3 'The Cryptic Collection'
• Radiant Stones Dragon Dice
• Umbral Stones Dragon Dice
• Card Dividers 

This seems like a reasonable request, we are therefore extending the principle to those of you on the All In Quest. If you want to drop your Radiant Stones benefit that you get for free as part of the pledge then you may select the new Novice Booster 3 'The Cryptic Collection' instead. We will attend to this in the pledge manager.

More Stretch Goals - the last part of the vision (for now)

We are pleased to announce another two stretch goals for the campaign:

£95k 2 more standalone adventures will be added to the Deepsorrow set, taking the total number of added Scenarios to 8 giving an additional 8-12 hours of gameplay.

100k Sewers Enhanced Edition (Additional benefit: MSRP £10)

 If we can get raise £100k we will unlock the following  Stretch Goal:

We will launch The Great Sewers Novice Set Enhanced Edition. It will be the sister product of the Weeping Caves Enhanced Edition. We will add a further 20% of cards to the Great Sewers set and tweak the box to create the Enhanced Edition.

We will also make all of the newly created cards available to everyone who has backed:

The Quest and New Content pledges (you will receive a card bundle just like the Weeping Caves Enhanced Edition).

The All In pledge, these cards will form part of the Great Sewers Enhanced Edition box you will receive.

Note we will also add these cards to Add On #1 the Upgrade Kit.

Please let me know if you have questions. We thank you for your support as we head towards the final hours.

Cheers

IG