Auroboros Development Update - September
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 02:15:34 AM

As we put the finishing touches on the sourcebook, we’d like to share a large development update that had been delayed by some paperwork being finalized as well as some samples coming in. Now that we have that finalized, we’d like to update you on some key items and their current progress, as well as some wider company details. In addition, you can expect to hear from us on a monthly basis going forward - as we move close to wrapping on the book and starting production, we’ll have a lot to share!

Production & Shipping Update

We’ve recently received new samples of many items, such as our enamel pins, collector’s coins, and dice. We’ll have some more information on specific items below, and we’re expecting other samples in the coming weeks including our paper goods (maps, GM screen, etc). We're also knee-deep in determining the best way to distribute Auroboros to game and book stores around the world after the Kickstarter is delivered. More on that in the coming months.

In addition, we are closely monitoring the international shipping situation so that we can better estimate our delivery date. As you probably know, many games are being delayed across the industry - from massive miniature companies to small ones like ours. Because of these issues, our original shipping estimates are looking more and more difficult to hit as days go by.  What’s important to us is sticking to our promise - when our current projected shipping date of March rolls around, we will be sending out all of the digital files so you can enjoy Lawbrand regardless of when your physical copies arrive.

Sourcebook Update

Development for Worldbook: Lawbrand continues as we enter the final stages of writing and rules development. Most of the book’s rules are completed and with our playtesters or in final revisions - it has been a tremendous effort by everybody involved and we’d like to thank them for all of their hard work. We’re entering the home stretch (and the book is a lot longer than we anticipated)!

We’d also like to show off one of our work in progress layouts for the Adventure Guides.  These are comprehensive guides for every faction and locations that give GMs everything you need to create campaigns and exciting sessions for your players. Below is a work in progress Adventure Guide for the Bohen Dur faction. Formatting and editing are still a work in progress, but we wanted to give you a look at the first two pages of this faction to get an idea of the density of Worldbook: Lawbrand!

We’ve also been working with a new group of artists to fill out various sections of the book - these come as a result of the “Additional Art” stretch goal that we hit during the campaign. Below is a new portrait piece by Éva Kárpáti portraying a female Atsaad. We have many more new pieces to show off - some of which we’ll show in the coming months (and some we’ll wait to reveal when the book is in your hands).

Auroboros Dice

We’ve finalized a deal with Panda Gaming Manufacturing to make our dice sets! Panda’s work is very impressive - and they’ve delivered some proof of concepts that match our vision, along with samples from some of their other games to show off their quality. You may know their work from Wingspan, Scythe, Mechs vs Minions, Twilight Imperium, and many other iconic games! We can’t wait to see the final product from the custom molds they’re making for us - once we have fully printed samples of our Auroboros dice, we'll post them here!

Miniature STLs

We’ve been receiving new renders of the STLs for the miniature packs. Here’s a peek at four new miniatures! As a reminder, these will be pre-supported for easy printing.

Company Update

Life at Warchief has been productive since our Kickstarter campaign for Auroboros: Coils of the Serpent closed at over 2000% of our goal (which still blows our minds). As mentioned, we're discussing plans for publishing the book once post-fulfillment, as well as what’s next for Warchief Gaming. Our team is changing and growing, and to that end we’d like to let our customers and partners know that Mike Gilmartin has left the company. We are excited to welcome Lisa Pearce to our team, who will join us as our new Director of Business Operations.  She’ll be helping Warchief continue to grow as we move forward on finishing Worldbook: Lawbrand and beyond.

Survey Due Date

Now that we’ve shared our big update, it’s time to finalize the BackerKit surveys! Surveys will be due on September 24th at 11:59 PM PDT, or two weeks from today. Once they lock, we will process your payments made in BackerKit (shipping and add-ons) so be prepared and get those surveys finished! There are as of this time, 559 backers who have not yet completed their surveys.

Thanks for your patience and support,

Warchief Gaming Team

BackerKit Survey Due Date Change
about 3 years ago – Fri, Aug 27, 2021 at 11:21:05 PM

Hey all,

Quick update today. As you know, we promised a large production and company update to come before the Backerkit surveys were due. As such, we have been unable to finalize those updates due to some critical information and documentation not being finalized.  The bright side of this is that we have even more production updates to share when the time comes (which is as soon as possible) including information about our dice manufacturer and more.

In the interest of as much transparency for our backers as possible, we are delaying the survey due date until we have that update out. Once we are able to post our update, the survey will be due 2 weeks after that time.

Thank you for your patience. We are looking forward to getting our update out as soon as possible.

The Warchief Team

Survey Due Date Change - Aug 30th
about 3 years ago – Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 03:05:31 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Development Update: July 16th
about 3 years ago – Sun, Jul 18, 2021 at 01:42:30 PM

Hey all! It's been a bit! Ryan here from the Warchief team. After getting our shipping costs and taxes sorted, we dove right back into finishing the book and accompanying materials. We have some news on how production is going and some cool images to show off as well!

What We're Working On!

Over the last month, Chris has been working hard on finishing the GM section of the book - creating adventure hooks, ventures (kind of 1-3 session hooks), and conversation topics for every faction and location in Lawbrand. Once we have that in a page template, we'll share one with you as an example! There is a TON of content here for GMs to read through - you can use these examples as written or as inspiration to jumpstart your own! 

I just finished a first full pass on the benefits of character backgrounds - Chris wrote all of the flavor and I wrote the profiencies, equipment, and features for each. We have two backgrounds for each faction, and one for each relevant location. Each faction background is based on a different angle for that faction- so you could be either in good standing with a particular evil cult, or on the run from them - and then furthermore multiple flavor examples of what your story could be. This is just an example - each faction has its own spin on them. It's a LOT of content and is also incredibly useful for GMs looking to spin up NPCs quickly.

One of our designers just turned in a big drop of bestiary designs for the creatures unlocked during the Kickstarter campaign. Our total monster count (with multiple statblocks for varying level of CR for most monsters) has gone from 12 to 20 - we also have been getting in some AWESOME Alex Horley art for the new monsters. Our last sections to finish design on is the player spells and building your own racing chariot (which is nearly finished). The rest of the book is currently with our playtesting team (in many cases for the 2nd or 3rd iteration). We're in the home stretch!

Production Updates!

We've got some cool stuff in lately - first up are the Premium Race Character Sheets by Francesca Baerald. These turned out GORGEOUS...

Additionally, we just received some samples of the metal Serpent-Marked coins, Marksworn coins, and enamel pins. 

See you next time! We'll have some new pages from the book to share in a few weeks that we can't wait to show you. 

-The Warchief Team

Shipping Update - US Backers & Missing Surveys
about 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 07:25:27 PM

Hey all,

If you backed the Collector's Edition (or higher) as a US customer, we recalculated our shipping values again to help lower the costs.

In the initial surveys, the Collector's Edition weight and size was being grossly miscalculated to be far too low (our mistake) but the new amounts should bring it back down to what you might expect. To give some insight, the Collector's Edition on its own is 10 lbs and would require a box that is 12"x9"x4". If you take that calculation to FedEx to send that package, it costs $27. We're working with our distributor to lower that for us, and in addition, we're willing to eat some of that cost.

A Collector's Edition should cost about $22 shipping in the US, an Epic Adventurer's Bundle should be around $24, and the All-In should be about $27. Additional add-ons will add weight of course. Please let us know if you see any issues.

Missing Survey?

If you never received a survey, you can reach out to BackerKit Help for some assistance. If you used an Apple Relay account, it's likely that the handshake between Kickstarter and BackerKit failed so you'll have to give BackerKit the email you want to use. 

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Thanks again for all of the feedback regarding shipping - this has been a long process with a lot of mistakes and learned a lot for the future. We really appreciate our community helping us figure this all out - as it turns out, logistics is not our strong suit, but we're doing our best. :)

Let us know if you see any additional issues,

-Warchief Gaming