Thank You!
12 months ago – Wed, Oct 04, 2023 at 04:11:04 PM

Kazoos are ringing throughout the warrens! A tremendous thank you to each and every one of you 3,743 backers! The book will be larger and richer because of you.

The kobolds will take a few days to recover from the overwhelming excitement of this Kickstarter, and then we’ll be back at it, getting Backer Kit set up, putting together all of the stretch goals, and polishing the book until it shines.

Again, thank you all for your support! We’d like to extend an extra-special thank you to all of our designers and to all of you who shared, liked, and retweeted our project.

Final 24 Hours!
12 months ago – Tue, Oct 03, 2023 at 12:27:33 PM

Just one day left to back Campaign Builder: Castles & Crowns! This is your last chance to show your friends, neighbors, GMs, and even total strangers our most regal and majestic title yet, a crowning achievement, to be sure! Let’s see if we can hit another stretch goal or two before the Kickstarter ends.

Thank you all for your continued support!

Evil Kingdom Ad-Lib
12 months ago – Fri, Sep 29, 2023 at 11:20:49 AM

Calling all Evil Eminences and Blessed Baddies as Kobold Press presents our honorary Evil Kingdom Ad-Lib. Building on the resources and tools from the preview PDF, this Ad-Lib is designed to help you quickly develop an antagonistic kingdom that fits perfectly on our complimentary kingdom sheet.

You can build a kingdom for your 5th Edition or Tales of the Valiant games with a few simple words, and even use it with the other Kingdom Ad-Lib we put out a few weeks ago! Simply visit our blog to complete the prompt and receive your customized kingdom description.

And don’t forget to share your final Kingdom Ad-Lib with our community in the Discord and on social media! We can’t wait to see what Kingdoms you create. 

VISIT THE BLOG TO START YOUR KINGDOM AD-LIB!

Preview of Chapter 4
12 months ago – Thu, Sep 28, 2023 at 12:17:24 PM

Chapter 4 of Campaign Builder: Castles & Crowns brings you new spells and magic items to help bring your campaigns to life. And along with that is the creation of a new type of ritual: the curse...

Curses

Curses are powerful rituals, taking at least 10 minutes to cast—an act called invoking—and often requiring specific components. They function like other rituals in many ways: they don’t use spell slots and spellcasters invoking them must be able to cast spells from a particular circle.

Notably though, most curses are invoked by multiple spellcasters working in unison. Three participants are traditional, but the inclusion of additional individuals can increase its potency. The ability to cast spells is not a specific requirement for all participants, but at least one of the participants must be able to cast spells of the appropriate circle to invoke a curse.

Curses do have several unique properties as described below.

Target Connection

Those who wish to invoke a curse on an unsuspecting creature must have a connection to the target for it to be effective. This connection can take several forms:

• Connectivity. You have an object once physically connected to the target, such as hair, blood, or nails.
• Familiarity. You are familiar with the target, having met, observed, or studied them.

During the invocation of the curse, the ritual centers around this connection. In the case of connectivity, the physical object is used as another component.

Learning a Curse

You don’t learn a curse simply by gaining a new class level. Rather, they are dark secrets held by ancient powers and inscribed in dusty tomes buried in the hearts of forgotten dungeons. If you are fortunate enough to discover a curse, you can study it for a number of hours equal to its circle, replacing one of your existing known rituals with it.

Removing a Curse

Unlike minor magical curses, such as from the bestow curse spell, a ritualized curse requires more specific conditions to be met prior to being targeted by a remove curse spell. For example, a PC might have to first return a cursed relic to a special vault. Only after the removal condition has been met can a remove curse spell break such a curse.

Aspects of a Curse

Though similar to rituals, curses have a few additional aspects:

• Components. Curses have components just like spells, but some also require the participation of specific numbers of people or types of individuals. When this occurs, an entry will read “specific participants,” and the description of those requirements will be indicated in the affliction description.
• Saving Throw. Curses are often invoked by groups of spellcasters working together, so each curse entry lists a base saving throw DC and indicates how that DC changes for each additional caster.
• Affliction. The effect of the curse is permanent unless indicated otherwise in its description.
• Special. Some curses have special features that activate on particular days, under certain moon phases, or because of another specific condition.
• Removal. The curse requires a specific condition that must be met before a remove curse spell or similar magic can remove it...

(All text should not be considered final and may be altered during development.)

Behind the Scenes with the Art Director
12 months ago – Wed, Sep 27, 2023 at 11:40:28 AM

Kobold Press Art Director Marc Radle had a few words to share about Campaign Builder: Castles & Crowns . . .

For Castles & Crowns, the next installment in our Campaign Builder series, we brought back cover artist Lie Setiawan, who did the awesome Cities & Towns cover. As you can see, he delivered another doozie of a cover: a king receiving a mysterious emissary while an advisor whispers in the king’s ear.

I love this piece because there is such a rich visual story being told. As you study it, you can see different thoughts and emotions on the faces and in the body language of each person.

Lie took our cover brief and ran with it, sending back a trio of rough concepts to choose from:

All three would've made great covers, so it wasn’t easy to choose. But from there, it was full steam ahead to various color roughs, each one more refined, until we eventually ended up with the wonderful final art that graces the cover:

And speaking of awesome art . . . head over to our TeePublic store to get this awesome cover on a shirt (or mug, tote, sticker, pillow, and so on) of your very own!