Sea Monsters: 60+ savage creatures of the deep for DnD 5E

Battlemasters & Berserkers preview page is up! Launching on 4/26!
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 04:51:30 AM

Our next Quickstarter is almost here, this time stepping away from monsters and the GM side with a book just for players! Battlemasters & Berserkersis a 72-page 5th Edition supplement that resents a wide variety of character options for fighters and barbarians, including new archetypes, backgrounds, primal paths, class-specific magic items, alternate class features, and more. Playing a lord of the battlefield isn’t all about rules, though, so you’ll also find essays on different ways to role-play your characters for each class, as well as explorations of how these classes might play or feel differently in different genres. 5E is at its heart a fantasy RPG, but its system is amply flexible enough to allow for adventures and even entire campaigns in a variety of milieus, and you’ll find a ton of terrific options here for both classes. Whether you want to focus on savagery or skill, careful martial training or the power of sheer unbridled rage, you’ll find a ton of terrific options for the two fightin’-est classes in all of 5th Edition!

Layout is complete and this book is ready to go out to backers as soon as the Kickstarter project ends. Not almost done. ALL DONE! This project will last just two short weeks, so follow our project at the link below and share with friends and fellow 5E fans. Let’s all GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/legendarygames/battlemasters-and-berserkers-a-dnd-5e-class-expansion

News and Notes!
almost 5 years ago – Fri, Apr 09, 2021 at 10:05:29 PM

Hi all, 

Thanks for your awesome support of this project! Time for a quick rundown on everything that's new in Sea Monsters! 

1.  Sea Monsters goes live to everyone! Now that everyone has their PDFs (I have a couple of emails to respond to, so I'll get to you soon!), the PDF and VTT pack have gone live at all the usual sales sites like the LG webstore, DrivethruRPG, Paizo, Open Gaming Store, and the Backerkit preorder store. We're sending out the love via our social media and would appreciate any boosting of the signal that you can do! 

From our website: 5E FREE-Day and SEA-Day, plus a new Quick Starter coming soon! – Legendary Games (makeyourgamelegendary.com)

Facebook: 

Twitter: 

2.  Time to start Locking Orders in Backerkit: We are at nearly 80% response rate, so I'll be locking the orders in Backerkit and then charging cards. Once your card payment is received, Backerkit will directly release all downloads through their system and log any new print pledges, bonus items, etc. Any new pledges for VTT assets on Fantasy Grounds or Shard I'll have to process directly with them, so if you've added those we'll get them out ASAP.

If you haven't completed your survey yet, not to worry! The beauty of Backerkit is that it enables us to keep receiving surveys and process them as they come in easily without things getting lost in the shuffle.

3.  Shipping Charges: A few backers had questions about the shipping charges in Backerkit. Those charges are for your entire pledge, determined by destination and total package weight. As noted in Kickstarter, your pledge on Kickstarter, for Sea Monsters, Pirate Campaign Compendium, and any add-on physical books, did not include shipping. All shipping is being processed as a single lot through Backerkit. 

4.  Speaking of Shard: The Shard VTT module for Sea Monsters is just about done and should be ready to go out this weekend. If you've pledged for that item, you should be hearing from us soon about how to get access.

5.  Print Update: We've completed the initial review with our print files at the printer and adjusting some bleed, framing, and placement issues to make sure everything conforms to their process so the books will come back us looking dynamite. We'll update you when we get page previews to review and approve for the full run. 

6.  Next Quickstarter! After some deliberation and juggling which projects were next up in line, we've decided that Battlemasters & Berserkers will be our next project. This one is definitely player-focused, a killer compendium of class options, fighter archetypes, barbarian paths, feats, magic items, roleplaying advice, and even new rules for severing limbs, battle brands, and more! Plus a couple of fun add-ons to expand your mastery of the battlefield. I'm sending the book to layout this weekend and the final cover art is in process now, but other than that the book is done and ready to rock. 

Battlemasters & Berserkers is planned as a 15-day Quickstarter like Mythos Monsters, and then later in May we'll be launching another bigger project, a combination campaign setting, player's guide, and bestiary project called Boricubos: The Lost Isles! More to come soon! 

Backerkit Surveys Sent, and Quickstarter Coming Attractions!
almost 5 years ago – Fri, Apr 09, 2021 at 12:28:07 AM

Hi all,

We ran the smoke test this morning and didn't run into any trouble so I've sent out the Backerkit survey to everyone. If for some reason you don't receive it, check your spam filter and/or check your payment status with Kickstarter, because if for some reason your pledge didn't process you might not receive the survey until that is resolved with Kickstarter.

So far, so good with the responses coming back. A few oddball corner cases are always to be expected. Shipping charges are regrettably higher than we'd wish for international orders. All shipping is calculated based on package weight to one of three location categories: (1) USA, (2) Europe/Canada/Mexico, and (3) everywhere else. I wish we had more control over shipping costs but unfortunately we don't. We had been working on setting up something with a sub-distributor in the UK but with Brexit that became much less viable than it would have been even just a year or two ago. We've also shipped international orders through Amazon, which used to work well, but the last one we shipped through them had literally dozens of damaged packages, returned shipments, misdirected shipments, and flat-out lost shipments (plus a much less helpful publisher/seller back end for trying to resolve problems). 

We'll continue to look for ways to reduce shipping costs as we are able. If you've got an unusual situation (like a backer in the US Virgin Islands, which *should* be charged as domestic mail but for which Backerkit put them in the "everywhere else" category instead), let me know and I can help resolve those kinds of special cases.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

Meanwhile, we are hard at work on our next set of Quickstarter projects. The largest piece of work is probably on our next project *after* the next one, which will be Boricubos: The Lost Isles, a combination campaign setting and robust player's guide with a companion monster book, which we'll be offering not just for D&D 5E but also for Pathfinder 1st and 2nd Edition. That should be ready to launch in May. 

For April, it looks most likely that we'll be launching up a player-focused class book titled Battlemasters and Berserkers, with tons of great new character options, magic items, and more specifically designed for 5E fighters and barbarians! We'll have more coming soon. I just need to get some things cleared in the layout pipe so we can get ready to move ahead! 

Downloadables after Backerkit
almost 5 years ago – Fri, Apr 09, 2021 at 12:18:49 AM

Hi all,

For those who haven't used Backerkit before, how it works is like this:

1.  Surveys sent: Everyone gets the survey and replies with their address info, confirming anything with their pledge, adding on any extras, etc. After a certain amount of time (generally about a week, we move on to step 2).

2.  Lock orders: All surveys that have been submitted so far are locked, so no further changes can be made. If you haven't sent in your survey yet, there's nothing to lock 

3.  Charge cards: Credit cards are charged for all locked orders. 

4.  Downloads activate: For all charges that are successfully processed, you are automatically assigned download codes within Backerkit (not on Drivethru or Dropbox or elsewhere; they're available directly inside Backerkit) and can download your files there.

5.  Lock addresses: When books arrive and we get ready to ship, we'll send out a last reminder to update your addresses and after that we'll lock those as well. Sometimes people move or decide to use a different address (shipping to a friend or relative, etc.); wherever you're going to get your stuff, make sure your address is up to date. 

6.  Ship items: Once addresses are locked, we'll export them from Backerkit and start shipping. 

Right now we're still on step 1, so next weekend we'll lock orders for those that are received and charge cards, so you'll be able to get your stuff. If you aren't able to do your survey by then, we'll send out a reminder, and probably one or two more for anyone who has not yet replied. Hopefully everyone will get theirs in by the end of the month at the latest. 

TD;DR - Downloads should be available by next Monday, to give everyone a week to do their add-ons and make any changes or address any issues that come up. If everyone gets their stuff in more quickly than expected, we might be able to do it sooner! 

Fantasy Grounds keys sent!
almost 5 years ago – Thu, Apr 01, 2021 at 04:44:00 PM

Hi all,

I've created and downloaded the Fantasy Grounds product keys for all 7 products and sent them out to the 69 backers who pledged for them as add-ons within the Kickstarter. They've been sent out through Kickstarter messenger to each person (except for two who had failed pledges) to make sure they didn't hit any of the email weirdness we had last week. Even if you don't get an email notification about it, check your Kickstarter messages and you should see it there. 

The Fantasy Grounds modules still will be available to get as add-ons in Backerkit once it's ready; I'll just need to generate more keys. 

PS - A few of you emailed saying you had not received your Drivethru links for the Pirate Campaign Compendium. Give it a few hours in case it is just taking time to churn through their system and check again. If you still don't have it by tomorrow let me know.