The first expansion to The Wildsea, a weird fantasy tabletop roleplaying game set in a rampant ocean of verdant green. Please note, we are waiting to charge for shipping closer to fulfilment. After shipping fees are added, you will be notified via email before your payment is charged.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
THE WILDSEA STORM & ROOT PLAYTEST + ENNIE VOTING!
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Jul 14, 2023 at 04:23:28 PM
Big news on three fronts, so I'll hit each topic fast and hard!
If you were an original Wildsea backer as well as a Storm & Root backer, this'll be the second time you see this message today!
1) ENNIE NOMINATION & VOTING
We were nominated for Best Writing for the core Wildsea book, which is pretty damn amazing as far as I'm concerned. I'm over the moon about it, and if you feel like voting to possibly help use secure a lovely industry accolade you can follow THIS LINK!
And while you're there, Slugblaster's been nominated too, for Best Game! They're lovely folks, and if you want to recognise the inherent beauty of kickflipping over quantum centipedes, I'm sure they'd appreciate a vote too!
AND Mythopoeia is there too, under the Best Publisher category - they may be called Mythworks now, but I'm pretty sure a vote for Mythopoeia will find its way to them somehow!
2) THE STORM & ROOT PLAYTEST
It's finally here! The document is rough, as you'd expect from a playtest, but it clocks in at just over a hundred pages and still covers less than half of the content from the final book (I do want to leave some surprises, after all).
You can grab the playtest from patreon HERE (it's open to anybody, you don't have to be a patron to access it).
In celebration of both the playtest going live and the ENnie nomination, we're doing our third burst of community copies! So if you have friends of family that want to share in the wildsea, tell them about it and push them in the direction of the itch page! Free community copies are available HERE!
And that's it from me - lots of news in a tiny space!
Sail safe, people. And thank you, for everything.
- Felix
June (Bonus!) Update
over 1 year ago
– Sat, Jun 24, 2023 at 07:27:54 AM
Ahoy there!
Ray here with a couple of announcements / appearances that we're jazzed about, then I'll hand it over to Felix for some book-related news:
Upcoming Conventions
We have a pair of conventions on the docket this summer:
The first is San Diego Comic-Confrom July 20th - 23rd. We'll be exhibiting at Booth 5532 so come say hello if you're in town! It'll probably just be me (Ray) at the booth, but it should be a good time nonetheless.
The second is Gen Con from August 3rd to August 6th. The whole Wildsea crew will be there including Felix, and we'll be camped out at 2668 - we also have a number of games we're running, so check out the events schedule for the full list!
Transplanar RPG is an all-transgender, people of color-led dark fantasy TTRPG show set in an original noncolonial, antiorientalist multiverse.
Season 2 kicks off with a month of Wildsea, followed by other great systems. If you haven't checked them out, Transplanar features a great cast of players and an amazing GM, Connie Chung, whose been featured on awesome platforms like Dimension 20 and the official Dungeons & Dragons feed. We'll be tuning in - hope to see you there!
If you haven't already, check out The Last Caravan! An RPG about a midwinter road trip in the wake of an alien invasion. "Little Miss Sunshine" meets "The Last of Us."
Afternoon, wildsailors! It feels like an age since I've done one of these updates, but it's actually less than a month since the last one. I suppose I got used to the mid-campaign kickstarter update schedule, OR so much has happened behind the scenes over here that time has buckled under the weight of activity.
One of the two.
So without any more pre-amble, let's dive in to what's new this month and where the book (and add-ons) stand!
Storm & Root Core Book
Ooh, this chart has a lot of green in it!
Though tastefully blurred so it remains unreadable (because there are a lot of secrets in that little chart), treat the colours here as a good visual representation of the work that's been happening on the Storm & Root core book. Each entry represents a section of text or piece of art, some as small as a column, some covering a page.
Everything in green is finished, completely. Character options, ship options, the majority of hazards, most of the reaches... We've come a long way in a short time. There will still be a spelling mistake here or there, a sentence I read over and think 'hmm, I could definitely make that a little smoother', but that's what the final editing pass is for.
Here's an example of some thematic green, the fictive element of the kickstarter-unlocked Stowaway origin (art by the grand OC)
Everything in orange is written, but not quite perfect yet (or in the case of art, sketches and lined but not coloured). I've been running through sections live on discord recently; picking up minor errors, doing clarification checks for rules, and generally bug-fixing when it comes to numbers and sentence structure. Two or three of these orange sections become green each day, sometimes more if one of the artists gets a dash of inspiration.
Here's a dash of orange - the page layout is good but the background may need some tweaking, and there are text sections highlighred in blue that I'm not entirely happy with yet. Submersible art by Omercan Cirit and Heru, one for colour and one for lines.
Everything in red is written in terms of ideas and rough content, but not in a way that's palatable to anybody that isn't me and usually containing large amounts of lorem ipsum for blocking and layout purposes. :P
An example of red. Well, sort of. The text on the left-hand page is at the orange stage - the rules work but I'm not entirely happy with them yet, and they'll likely have at least a slight rewrite. The right-hand page is mid-completion, with lots of empty space and dummy text... And, as you can see, a whole lot of redacted stickers over it so you can't read too much before it's ready! :P
And if it's in purple it's something that character artist Omercan and I are working on in seeeeecreeeeet.
OWLS! MUSHROOMS! HANDS!
So what does this mean for our timeline? Nothing but good news, which is a relief to say. Ell, our incredible editor, is passed sections that are fully green in terms of content to do a check for the finer details of formatting, analysis, and error correction. Community members pitch in on the discord with suggestions on things I might have misses, bits that could do with clearer examples or additional guidance, and Ray pokes me with a stick from time to time to make sure I'm still on course. I am - I estimate a couple of weeks until everything in the book is at orange stage or above, maybe another month or so for that orange to be fully green (and by that time, most of the existing green will have gone through Ell for checking and alteration).
In a nutshell, things are looking good. :)
And, Speaking of Nutshells...
Both the updated and expanded version of One-Armed Scissor and Ship-Gardens are simply awaiting the final seal of approval in terms of the edit pass. Digital distribution for these add-ons will start as soon as that's done, I'm not going to keep you waiting for the opportunity to try them out any longer than I have to!
Content-wise I added new plant options and hazards to ship-gardens (which is actually quite a chunky little document now, proof of how much fun I had making it), and got a few more bits of art for it too. It's looking beautiful, if I say so myself. Not always sensible, mind you, but beautiful.
... I also added a column of stones. For your gardens. Because it was one of those weird afternoons where every idea seems like a good one, but very few are...
As for our third add-on, Red Right Hand, watch this space in the near future. I told you, I've been unexpectedly busy!
And On a Final, Fungal Note...
I'm really happy with the Myconica. I suppose this doesn't technically need an announcement, but I wanted to do one anyway - thank you, bakcers, for putting up the funds for an extra place that I've wanted to represent for so long. It means a lot to see one of the earliest wildsea ideas finally given pride of place in a book, with accompanying art. In fact, it's the Myconica splash-page that Mon is working on as I type this very sentence!
Work in progress from splash-artist Mon of the Myconica, a place of uncomfortable darkness and spore-based glory.
So there you go! I think that's just about everything I have to say on my end. Ray, anything left to add?
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No, other than stay tuned for those upcoming digital releases! As always, let us know if you have any questions / comments / concerns: [email protected]. Otherwise, hope to see you tune in to the Transplanar stream today!
Stay frosty this summer!
- Ray
June Update: New Stuff, Digital Distribution, Preorders + +
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Jun 02, 2023 at 03:35:22 PM
Morning wildsailors (or whatever greeting is more appropriate for your timezone), Felix here! And now the campaign is closed and the backer funds have cleared, it's time to get the roughly-monthly-ish updates rolling for Storm & Root!
Let's Dig Right In To Some New Stuff!
The latter part of this update is going to be given over to Ray, the publisher, to talk about digital distribution, physical copies, and a couple of other important logistical bits. But for the first half you've got me, and hopefully some exciting reveals.
Most of the last few weeks has been spent working on getting the first two extra bits ready to go, the updated and expanded version of the One-Armed Scissor adventure and the Ship-Gardens supplement. It seemed the quickest way to get new content out there and into hands, even if it'll only be digitally at first, and it gives me a good chance to clear a few plates before plunging back into Storm & Root full time. Red Right Hand, the third bit of extra material, will come last in line, worked on while the last few chapters of S&R go through editing and last-minute playtesting.
So rather than drone on about what I've been working on in I'll throw some pictures at you instead, with a brief explanation of each.
A mysterious slice of tentacled ship, courtesy of Heru
If you've been catching the discord creation-streams or idly watching for one of my extremely oddly-timed patreon updates, you might well have seen a sketches and line-art pieces for some of the new ship options available for this round of Wildsea content. Most are for Storm and Root, a couple for Ship Gardens and Red Right Hand, and some for... something else that looms in the future. But what they all are is odd, something I very much enjoy. Because once you've established what a 'normal' wildsailing ship is, you can start to bend a few of those rules and try out new concepts. Players do it all the time, after all - why shouldn't the artists have a go?
You'll see them in colour and on the page soon enough!
A gau mesmer (complete with mycokinetic ability, apparently) thanks to Omercan Cirit
One of the things we've been experimenting with in the supplements are non-standard presentations of established wildsea bloodlines and posts, especially when it comes to the art in the Ship Gardens add-on. Omercan and I have been working together for about five years now, so more often than not the process of taking a character from sketch to completion is a wonderfully smooth one, freeing me up to write as much based on the art as to fuel it. Hooray for artistic symbiosis!
The jackalbone marauders, reborn! Art, again, by Omercan Cirit
For the upgraded version of One-Armed Scissor, we've replaced almost all assets that were re-used from the core book with original pieces (except the pinwolf - I've said it before and I'll say it again, I use that bit of Shmeck's art wherever I can! :D ). But it's not just new art you have to look forward to, but an entirely new post based on the Hanging Manor's bounty, and a set of additional options for where the story might go after the written part of the adventure wraps up.
A darker style of page than normal - work in progress to an extent, but it still feels good!
But it hasn't all been supplementary work for me since the kickstarter campaign's close. A huge amount of Storm & Root is lacking nothing more than an editing pass and a bit of polish, which is a great position to be in. It's allowed for a bit of internal testing and, hopefully soon, a more public for of playtest material (no promises on that one as of yet though, as we're working to a much tighter timeframe... Which I suppose is a good thing, really!).
The Smuggler, one of the new Post options for Storm & Root. Art by, you guessed it, Omercan Cirit!
With the book nearing completion I've also now got the chance to show off a few of the new things waiting for Storm & Root backers, including some of the character options you'll have to play with. The smuggler is one of my personal favourites, one that relies more on trickery and cunning and a dash of the theatrical than all-out force, with a range of aspects focused partially on resource consumption and re-use. The art's been around since the very end of the original book's creation period, so it feels great to be able to use it for something exciting.
I will never define the Under-Eaves... But that doesn't mean you don't have to.
And for our fifth, and for now last, glimpse into what's new for the Wildsea this month, an exploration of the Under-Eaves.
Wait, put down those flaming torches!
I've always said that the Darkness-Under-Eaves is a place I refuse to detail. it's too important a creative space, and would add a layer of lore to the world that I just don't want becoming canon. But not adding concrete details isn't the same as not making suggestions, giving options, or writing guidance, and with the submersibes portion of Storm & Root looking pretty robust it's almost a given that some crews will make it down there eventually. Part of the S&R Firefly's Guide chapter concerns potential presentations of the Eaves, what the world might have been in the past, and what remnants and opportunities that could have left behind for those exploring the lower waves.
They're not meant to be used wholesale, and the one pictured above is only a single example - one that I would never use for my own games, oddly enough - from a set of several. The Eaves remain, and always will remain, a hell for your table to define as they like.
And on that extremely cheery note, I'll throw it over to Ray!
The Wildsea: Core Rules PDF - Distributed!
Earlier this week we distributed The Wildsea: Core Rules PDF via Kickstarter Messages! Those of you receiving that particular reward should have seen a message from me on Kickstarter you to a download link where you can pick up all of the various digital files we have released thus far.
Please let us know if you haven't received a message or are having trouble accessing your files via our customer support line: [email protected]
We're happy to announce that the Wildsea: Storm & Root Preorder Page is now live via BackerKit! If you or your friends missed the campaign, you can still pick up your copy via the link here. We haven't set up the actual survey portion of BackerKit yet, so I would recommend just sharing it with people who missed the campaign at the moment rather than trying to add on something you want but missed. And don't worry - once the full survey goes out, you'll be able to switch pledge tiers as well!
Split Shipment Update
So, last update we mentioned the possibility of split shipping the core books, and the additional logistical hurdles that may create. We wanted to get your feedback before making a final decision, and the majority of you who responded (about ~75%) said you were happy to wait for your books once Storm & Root is completed. Since that was the majority sentiment, and given the time and logistical hurdles that would save, we've decided that that is the direction we are going to go in for this campaign.
Our friends over The World Anvil Publishing launched their Broken Tales: Lost Stories Kickstarter! Broken Tales is a horror tabletop RPG about upside-down fairytales in which the villains become positive forces for change in an 18th-century broken version of Europe. Lost Stories expands on the core game with with new playable Hunters, Nemeses, Scenarios, and more! If that sounds like your cup of tea, check it out here!
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Okay, that covers it for now! Felix is nose to the grindstone on Storm & Root while we have a Gen Con to plan! Let us know if you need anything via our support email: [email protected] and otherwise we'll see you in July!
... And Now The Real Work Begins
over 1 year ago
– Thu, May 11, 2023 at 09:17:24 AM
So... That Went Well!
Hello wildsailors, old and new - Felix here!
First off, I think a thank you is in order. Not just to all of you backers reading this (though the majority of this thank you does go to you), but to everybody else that helped us along the way as well. Streamers, reviewers, playtesters, discord members, people on twitter happily retweeting all of my spontaneous announcements, everyone that donloaded the free basic rules and ran games for their friends...
Thank you.
But the biggest thank you of all goes to the 1,859 of you that made this campaign even more successful than the first!
But you're not here to have kind words thrown your way - you want the hard facts, the timelines, the juicy stuff! So for that I'm going to throw you over to Ray (who does all of the difficult stuff behind the scenes, like keeping me in check), who can get all post-campaign serious with you all.
I'm going to grab a coffee and a nap, and then get back to writing - I'll save a big colourful Felix-update for when my post-KS nerves have settled somewhat, where I'll delve into some of the new art and mechanics and weirdnesses. :)
... Because now the mechanics are done, I get to write the fun fictive and setting-based stuff to round it all out!
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Hey all - Ray here! I want to echo what Felix wrote above - thank you all for the tremendous support and enthusiasm for The Wildsea! This campaign really shows we have something special and growing. I love this game, community, and none of it would be possible without you <3
So, below I'm going to detail the boring but important bits of post-campaign logistics. Now that the campaign has closed we're going to update roughly once a month - maybe more, if there's good news - and keep the below information as up to date as we can. Let's get into it.
Timeline
So the team recently pow-wowed and came up with our timeline for what remains of the project. Here's where we landed:
BackerKitPreorder Store - May 2023
One-Armed Scissor & Ship Gardens - May 2023
Storm & Root - June & July 2023
Gen Con - August 3rd, 2023
Red Right Hand - August 2023
Book & Merch Printing - August to September 2023
BackerKit Surveys - September 2023
Ocean Freight - September - October 2023
Kickstarter Fulfilment - November 2023 to January 2024
A couple of notes with our timeline:
The added physical stretch goals have added a little bit of turnaround to our projected timeline. All told, we think they should take about two additional months to draft, art, edit, and print.
The order in which we're working on things is determined largely by what we have in progress at the moment. One-Armed Scissor is basically done and Ship Gardens is 80-90% complete.
Storm & Root currently is around 80% written and art-ed. The allotted times also take into account back and forth with editorial and an open access period where we'll ask you, backers, to help us proof read.
The Kickstarter Fulfilment dates are highly variable because of the winter holiday season and the surge pricing in shipping that may result. It may be cheaper / more prudent to roll over to the next year if we get too close to the holidays.
We'll keep you updated with the timeline if/when things change.
BackerKit Surveys / Preorder
Many of you have spoken up in previous campaigns about the uneasiness you feel when asked to put down a payment method on file without knowing the total charge of something (re: shipping). We're taking on board that feedback from our recent campaigns and don't plan on sending out BackerKit Surveys until we are close to fulfilment. That way, we can send the surveys along with the shipping rates of the campaign.
That said, we do plan on opening up the Preorder Store on BackerKit before the Surveys go out. That way people who missed out on the campaign have a place where they can still order Storm & Root while we continue grinding away on its completion.
The Wildsea - Core Rules Digital
Many of you have asked about sending out the PDFs of the Core Rules once the campaign closes. Yes, we're planning on doing this as soon as the funds clear, which takes about 3 weeks from the close of the campaign. We'll keep you updated on the method once we know how we're sending out these PDFs.
The Wildsea - Core Rules Physical Split Shipments?
Similarly, many of you have been asking whether or not we plan on shipping out the Core Rules before Storm & Root, given that we already have those in stock. The truth is we're not sure exactly how to handle this, and can foresee a number of complications:
For sure if we were to facilitate this it would mean an additional shipping cost for those backers who wish to receive their Core Books early.
Our current concern is we're not sure whether or not we can do this without sending BackerKit Surveys out to all backers as a result. Then, we run into the issue of the surveys being sent out before shipping rates that we detailed above.
New fans / physical backers of The Wildsea + Storm & Root - please let us know if you would like to have your book shipped ahead of time, or if you want to wait until Storm & Root is complete! We're currently weighing whether or not we should do this and there are compelling reasons why for both sides. That said, we'd like your input into helping us make a final determination.
And if you backed a previous campaign that also facilitated something similar - say, like City of Mists - please let us know how your experience was in those campaigns / how the Creators of those campaigns set things up. We're curious and eager to learn as well!
Questions, Comments, or Concerns?
Best way to contact us is: [email protected]. Please, please try to use that email instead of messaging or commenting on this page or even Discord. I promise you we see it and this is the best way we can keep everything customer support related in one place.
FAQ
Also! I added a couple of FAQ questions to the page before the close of the campaign. Please give it a read before sending us an email. Thank you! :)
And Back to Felix!
So there you have it, our first post-funding update. I hope it was both information-filled and helpful, and if you have any suggestions of what you'd like to see / know about in the future, throw them in the comments below.
Oh, and Wild WordsEngine news next time - just got to wait for Ray to get back from the desert (really, that's a real thing).
Thank you again, people - sail safe, and we'll be in touch!
Felix
Now That's A Lot Of Scratch: 100k Achieved!
over 1 year ago
– Sat, May 06, 2023 at 05:08:07 AM
Well, I hoped I'd be writing this update before the end of the campaign, but I didn't think we'd still have four days left! First off, I really have to say...
New personal goal - even out that text so it's quicker and easier to use, that took ages!
Wildsailors really are a stellar bunch, and with the amount of new people in the discord and the huge upsurge in mentions online, I'm really pleased with how this campaign has turned out. We learned a lot from the first one, and it's good to be able to put this into practice early on. By doing things like...
Working On The Myconica!
The newly-unlocked reach is less empty than some might think, with almost a third of the reach content written already. I'll keep a lot of it under wraps at the moment, but I'll share a little snippet below. If that's not enough for you, I'm doing more and more design work on the Wildsea live on stream for those following along on Discord, a process that I'm still fine-tuning but which has been really enjoyable.
The Myconica, like the Icterine and Interregnum before it, offers a completely different sort of environment to explore from the usual leafy trees of the wilds.
Fleshing Out The Hazards Chapter!
The last bit of the book that needs proper work is the hazards section, but I've made good headway there too. What were empty pages last week are now full of walking root systems, starlit sharks, body-hopping scorpion assassins... The list goes on, and gets significantly stranger.
But that's where I had a question for the community - that's you lot!
For One-Armed Scissor, I added something to the little hazards section that the adventure contained - example tracks, based on situations that a creature might be encountered in. They weren't in the core book, and they haven't been added to the Storm & Root hazard system yet, but... They could be? I have the space, I think, maybe not for every entry but definitely for some.
Hazard Track Examples, taken from One-Armed Scissor
So if you think it's a good idea to add these example encounter tracks to Storm & Root, let me know in the comments down below.
And, speaking of One-Armed Scissor...
The Scissor, Updated!
I've added to One Armed Scissor in anticipation of it being an improved physical/digital reward, with some post-campaign advice on recurring themes, new art (for every repeated thing in the free version save for the pinwolf, because I'll include that pinwolf art wherever I can...), and an entirely new post based around the literary themes of the Hanging Manor.
There's a theme emerging...
The digital version will be winging its way out to you all as soon as possible, so you won't have long to wait to see it for yourselves.
And with all that, I'll hand you over to Ray for the OTHER news - about stone, and blood, and futures!
Thank you again, lovely people. Felix out.
Last Stretch Goals
Ray here! We've added two final stretch goals for the campaign!
At $110,000, we're dispersing another round of bonuses to our Creative Team! Well deserved compensation for our growing success!
At $120,000, we'll produce Red-Right Hand, another adventure scenario, this time in the shape of a murder mystery / monster hunt!
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There was talk of maybe adding one final $130k stretch goal, but to be honest we discussed internally what that would take, and the consensus was that would begin to seriously jeopardize our timeline. So, we're leaving it at $120k - any additional success we receive beyond that will be well appreciated!
Stone Dice Update
Behold! We have renders for the Stone Dice!
Okay, at this point if you added on these dice you might be asking: wait a minute, where is the other Obsidian design, and why is there an Ivory one instead? This is a bit of a mix up on our part - I thought (mistakenly) that there was a difference between Obsidian Chip and Obsidian Snowflake - turns out, that difference is just in the marking of the dice, which doesn't matter anyway because we have custom pips!
So, turns out that's not the case.
I'm going to leave both the Obsidian Dice Add-ons, but they're for the same dice.
New ivory flavor!
That said, I did create a new Ivory Dice Add-On with the design you see above.
Feel free to swap out your sets (or add on more) as you see fit!
Our friend Tommas over at Broken Anvil Studios is about to launch Lost Stories, the first expansion for the Broken Tales system. Broken Tales is a TTRPG in which you play as papal investigators sent the uncover the mysteries behind the supernatural. The things you'll investigate learn into dark fantasy (fairy tale, to be specific) territory,
The book is beautiful, with a layout that is halfway between Mork Borg and more traditional two columns, with a heavy emphasis on white space:
Example of an interior page.
And with that, we're done! Until next time, people!
