Day 1 Wrap-Up
almost 6 years ago – Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 01:27:10 PM

Thanks to your amazing support, we had a killer first day. Here's a list of some of the milestones we crossed in our first 24 hours:

• We were fully funded in just 4 hours
• We raised more than the entire previous Kickstarter in under 7 hours
• 268% funded in the first day
• We unlocked four stretch goals and three social stretch goals

And let’s talk about those social stretch goals while we’re here.

Social Stretch Goals

In addition to regular stretch goals, we have a whole system of social stretch goals you can unlock by telling people about Dark Matter, doing streams, showing off your character art, etc. When you use the hashtag #DarkMatter5e, you’ll earn player points to unlock new rewards for everyone. All of the rewards unlock new content in a FREE standalone supplement called the “Encyclopedia Multiplanaria”, which is a none too subtle reference to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Everyone, regardless of whether or not they’ve pledged, will be able to download and enjoy the Encyclopedia throughout the campaign.

We’ve already flown past three social stretch goals, earning a total of 1427 player points on day one. So far, you’ve unlocked Wizmo, Wizmo, Havoc! a full one-page RPG, starring Dark Matter’s very own scrap bots, the Nuclear Chicken, a new monster with a thermonuclear temperament, and Doogie Two-Heads, a funny NPC who happens to be an ettin.

All of these rewards are available for FREE on the campaign page. Don’t forget to use #DarkMatter5e to earn player points!

DD&D Showroom Tier
almost 6 years ago – Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 12:07:20 AM

50K!! Release the balloons, for we’ve unlocked the reference cards! Now, let’s talk about what’s next on the queue.

One Hundred to Oni

One Hundred to Oni is easily the campaign I’m most excited to get started on. It’s an epic mecha adventure through the Warzone, in which you battle mechademon-enhanced foes in a pitched battle for the fate of the galaxy.

Each of you are newly graduated mecha pilots, given a dire first assignment: hunt down a legendary Lakshay pilot, Rak Volam'Da. Rak is an Oni, a Lakshay frame pilot who counts over a hundred kills under his belt. He has stolen a custom prototype frame of unsurpassed power and fled AWOL into the Warzone. In turn, the Lakshay higher-ups have branded him a traitor: you are to track him down and put a stop to whatever he is planning. However, as you journey into the depths of the warzone, you learn that something terrible is afoot; something infernal.

Be sure to keep track of your kills, and scratch tally marks into your frame as you go. If you can count up one hundred kills throughout the adventure, you too can call yourself Oni, one of the most deadly pilots in the ‘verse!

This campaign has a sprawling cast of phenomenal writers: Gabe Hicks, Donathin Frye, Makenzie De Armas, Mike Holik, Jack Quaid (of Amazon's The Boys) and Hero Club Podcast. In addition to its story arc, it’ll come with a comprehensive set of mecha rules, designed to be heavily customizable and easy to pick up, evoking the best parts of mecha movies and anime, from Pacific Rim to Evangelion. We have the bare bones of this in Dark Matter, but this book will greatly expand the mecha side of ship combat.

Like Grax’s Club, it’ll also start out achievable: print-and-play, with sparse art and abstract maps. However, as we reach higher and higher stretch goals, we’ll expand this with more art, until it’s something we can genuinely do a print run for. Stay tuned and get hyped for One Hundred to Oni!

New Pledge Tier

Announcing the DD&D Showroom pledge tier! Named after our favorite artifact-hunting faction in Dark Matter, this new tier at $260 includes every non-stretch goal add-on, which means you get:

• The handmade Wyrmwood dice vault
• The Rook and Raven Captain’s Log
• The Level Up hematite dice
• A Conspiracy in the Stars! poster
• A Dark Matter Hardcover
• The Starter Kit
• And the Premium Slipcase
   

All in one package!

Upgrade to this tier right away if you want everything this Kickstarter has to offer!

40K Update!
almost 6 years ago – Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 12:06:51 AM

For context, I want you to know that our last Kickstarter, after 40 long days of trying to tell everyone about Dark Matter, made it to $40,000, which I thought was a staggering number. This time, we've done it in seven hours. I'm completely blown away.

We've unlocked the Alien Worlds Bundle, which you should add to your pledge as an add-on right away! Only a little further now, and we'll unlock the Reference Cards (which are seriously cool in person, might I add). Stay tuned for a more in-depth update in a bit, in which I tell you about the grand plans we have for One Hundred to Oni!

Reference Cards and Alien Worlds
almost 6 years ago – Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 12:06:12 AM

Stretch goals are falling like dominos today!

We’ve just unlocked Grax’s Club and the Space Battle Bundle! Let’s talk about the next two stretch goals on the queue. Add these add-ons to your order today!

Alien Worlds Bundle

At 40K, we unlock the Alien Worlds Bbundle. If you got the Space Battle Bundle to engage your entire table in space combat, you need the alien worlds bundle for every other battle. Just like last time, this comes with a gorgeous two-sided battle map, this time depicting the strange landscapes of alien worlds which you can crash land or beam down onto. And this time we’re doing even more tokens! 40 tokens, representing as many monsters as we possibly can from the Dark Matter bestiary: psi-worms, sporezerkers, var-zuul and more! This is the very best way to swarm your players on all sides with alien horrors, while laughing maniacally from your GM’s chair. Once this is unlocked, it'll be available as an add-on for $25.

Reference Cards

You know you love some spell cards. When you play a wizard, you shuffle through your hand of prepared spells like you’re in a high-stakes poker game. So you need some for Dark Matter too!

This deck of beautiful, tarot-sized reference cards contains every spell in Dark Matter, along with reference cards for familiars, hazards, and ship combat. If you’re a player, you can keep a secret arsenal of new hardlight spells at hand, and if you’re a GM, you can make sure you have easy reference for the hard-to-remember bits. Once this is unlocked, it'll be available as an add-on for $25.

Funded in 4 Hours!
almost 6 years ago – Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 12:02:18 AM

Funded in 4 Hours!

Release the confetti! Blow the horns! We were fully funded in a matter of four hours!

But we’re not anywhere near done yet. We haven’t been quiet about our ambitious stretch goals, and now we get to announce a few more!

Catching Up On Changes

Before we go too far into talking about stretch goals, we want to highlight a big recent change to Dark Matter, which is going to be present in all versions of the book going forward. Spurred by the ongoing dialogue about orcs in tabletop gaming, we’ve gone back and re-examined our earlier, genuinely flawed approach. We’re releasing this errata publicly, and will be updating digital copies of Dark Matter on all major platforms. Furthermore, we wrote a playable orc race, so you can engage with them as actual characters. We hope you enjoy both of these, especially as it sets our roots more firmly going forward.

Stretch Goals

We’ll be delving into more details about our campaign’s stretch goals as we unlock them, but two of the most exciting are Grax’s Guys and One Hundred to Oni, two massive adventures we’re ready to get out into the world. We’re going to start these cheap and achievable -- inexpensive art, print-and-play production, delivered in chunks over the course of a year -- and we’ll improve them as we reach higher stretch goals. These are some of the best, most thrilling ideas we’ve had in this setting, and we’re stoked to get them launched.

We’re also going to be getting our new adventure “Conspiracy in the Stars!” on Roll20 (or a similar VTT, if something goes catastrophically wrong in the process of converting it to Roll20). This is really important for us, and once we reach this goal, it’ll be a lot easier for us to convert the rest of Dark Matter, as well as our other adventures, into Roll20.

Stay tuned for when we hit new stretch goals, because that’s when we’ll start revealing our other stretch goals, new add-ons, and pledge levels.

Space Battle Bundle

Our first stretch goal, at $30K, is called the Space Battle Bundle. We’re making a bunch of new ship battlemaps, made by the best sci-fi battle-mapper on the internet, Scribbles in Space (@scribbes.in.space). They’re incredible, their work is incredible, and they have phenomenal things in store for this fold-out map.

On the back side, we’ve got a stellar (no pun intended) space map. Did we just throw a repeating star texture at a sheet of paper? No! We put one of our most talented artists on the project, creating an asteroid field peppered with hazards, with beautiful planets looming in the background.

And just for fun, we’re tossing in a ton of ship tokens, so you don’t have to search around forever to find cool ship miniatures. The plan is to make at least 30, but you should know that the number could be a bit higher or a bit lower. We haven’t settled on how many big, multiple-inch diameter ships we’ll be including, and those shift the number of tokens dramatically.

If you even think about running space combat, this bundle is a must-have. It’s got killer value, and tons of beautiful art, and it should fit in your Starter Kit box to boot. Add it to your pledge as an add-on for $25 today!