RPG Crowdfunding News – Floral Dragons, Lairs & Legends, Secret Dragons, and more

This week’s TTRPG crowdfunding review covers projects that end between May 1 to 8. As always, this is a sampling of what’s on offer with looks at campaigns for 5e material as well as Pathfinder Second Edition, Swords & Sorcery, and more worth checking out.

The Field Guide to Floral Dragons from Hit Point Press

• END DATE: Thu, May 2 2024 3:05 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $39 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the book
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Dragons based upon flowers, what could go wrong with plant wyrms?! The Field Guide to Floral Dragons features over 25 floral dragons, pests, pollinators, and fungi across 200 pages. Each entry features stat blocks, abilities, lore, plot hooks, and everything else you’d want when bringing flower (dragon) power to your gaming table. The idea of dragons based on environments has been around since the earliest days of D&D. This book drills down from the environment to consider specific items within that world as influences on these dragon designs. The team at Hit Point Press brought artist Kin Wald in to create the right visuals for their flora creatures. Without art to elevate these ideas, the creatures won’t capture the gamer’s imagination. Because of Kin Wald’s illustrations, which are gorgeous, this book is one part 5e sourcebook and one part artbook. The Field Guide to Floral Dragons was written for fans that need a tabletop sourcebook inspired by the worlds of How to Train Your Dragon, Dragonology, and Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book. This sourcebook is ideal for a campaign featuring wilderness, druids, and rangers. (Is it wrong that I’m hoping for allergy powers? Roll to Save versus runny nose!)

Secret Dragons: Epic New Playable Dragons for 5E and PF2 from Roll For Combat

• END DATE: Wed, May 1 2024 11:59 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and Pathfinder Second Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebooks
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $139 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of all four books in the system of your choice
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Let’s keep looking at dragon sourcebooks. Roll For Combat is creating four books for 5e and Pathfinder Second Edition, each one focused on the greatest of fantasy beasts. The four books – Leshy Dragons, Fairy Dragons, Misfit Dragons, and Battle Dragons – focus on different types of dragons. Each book takes a specific aspect – the fey, fighting, the island of misfit toys, plants – and applies the attributes to the dragons in a bit of fantasy kitbash. For example, Leshy Dragons looks at dragons derived from leshies, plants, and fungi, each drawing their powers from the natural world. While this isn’t the only book from this campaign, it is comparable with The Field Guide to Floral Dragons from Hit Point Press above providing a baseline for comparison. From this campaign, Battlezoo Dragons: Leshy Dragons is 100 pages of dragon ancestries, stat blocks for a variety of dragons, detailed great wyrms, and general leshy dragon lore. Its strength is its interconnectivity to the other three Battlezoo Dragon books and, for PF2e fans, offering the content in that ruleset. If you’re interested, the campaign offers VTT tokens and a free PDF download to preview what you’ll get.

Lairs & Legends 2 - The Definitive 5e Resource Anthology from The DM Lair

• END DATE: Thu, May 2 2024 8:00 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebooks
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $120 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of both books
• AI STATEMENT: “To put it bluntly, there will be no AI-generated content in either Lairs & Legends 2 or Loot & Lore 2.”
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? Two books (over 600 pages) featuring 30 5e adventures with 30 encounters, 30 traps, and 30 puzzles against over 100 monsters. This crowdfunding campaign takes the content from the 2022 issues of Lair Magazine, revises it and puts it into two hardcovers. The adventures include six three-part arcs to keep this from being a collection of one-shots (though there are one-shots in the book as well). These books augment the 5e ruleset with some new, optional rules for multi-skill challenges, naval engagements, diseases, sanity, and more. If these adventures and options speak to you, check out the campaign page for a link to a free PDF preview.

Swords & Wizardry: Expansions, Monsters, and More! from Mythmere Games

• END DATE: Tue, May 7 2024 12:25 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Swords & Wizardry
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $115 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the four books (Book of Options, Fiends and Foes, Tomb of the Iron God, and Domain of Heryngard) plus the GM screen
• ADDITIONAL REPORTING: I interviewed Matt Finch of Mythmere Games about this project
• AI STATEMENT: “We don't use any AI-generated art.”
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? It’s the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons so I’m eager to spotlight the main retro-clone of the original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons. This campaign provides two sourcebooks – The Book of Options and Fiends & Foes – and two adventures – Domain of Heryngard and Tomb of the Iron God. These books provide a major expansion to the Swords & Wizardry ruleset. The Book of Options offers up new classes, spells, and magic items such as the demon-hunter, bard, troubadour, illusionist, gnomes, and stygians. Fiends and Foes includes 300 monsters, all unique to this book, none of which are from the Complete Revised Rulebook. If you’re a fan of OD&D, these books expand the play options you have and they’re worth exploring.

Nightfell - A Grimdark Fantasy setting for PF2 from Grim Moon Studio

• END DATE: Wed, May 8 2024 11:00 AM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Pathfinder Second Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Sourcebook
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: €22 for the PDFs of both books
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This campaign brings the Nightfell campaign setting to the Pathfinder Second Edition ruleset. In Nightfell, the world is reduced to pockets of civilization, isolated bastions that need to connect with one another during the long night. Your job in this grimdark fantasy world is to keep connections and hope alive. It’s exciting to see third-party PF2e products and this one, with two books – Nightfell - Core Manual and Nightfell - Bestiary – provides a detailed setting to place your Pathfinder adventures in. Check out the campaign page for a free quickstart to see if this campaign setting is right for your gaming table.

Calendar of Many Adventures 2025 from Loke Battle Mats

• END DATE: May 2, 2024 at 5:00pm EDT.
• CROWDFUNDING ON: Backerkit
• SYSTEM(S): System neutral
• PROJECT TYPE: RPG battlemaps and calendar
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: $14 + S/H for the PDF and print versions of the calendar
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This is a neat idea for 2025, a monthly wall calendar that provides one battlemap per month plus a related adventure. The maps are 12”x12” and lay down flat, no need to remove the single map from the collective before play. With each you’ll find encounters involving ruins, rooms, fields, forest, and a ship. It’s convenient, but the secret is hanging this on the wall and contemplating game night as you take a much deserved mental break from the day job. With tie-in adventures, you get the location, options, and VTT so this can be used digitally. If you like the idea of wall calendars as RPG accessories, this is worth a look.

A Night in the Library: A Bookish Adventure for D&D 5E from EN Publishing

• END DATE: Thu, May 2 2024 5:00 PM EDT.
• SYSTEM(S): Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PROJECT TYPE: Adventure
• MOST POPULAR PLEDGE: £10 for the PDF of the adventure
• DISCLAIMER: EN World is a subsidiary of EN Publishing
• WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This project brings a library to your 5e game. Sooner or later, any long-term campaign needs to visit a library. In this 27-page book, you’ll get the tools to make that location-trope a fun reality. There’s a library adventure for levels 5 and 6 complete with maps, magic items, library-centric monsters, mundane books, and spellbooks. Among the monsters, the Living Spellbook is both a great monster and an item that every wizard is going to want to ingratiate themselves to. If you’re running a 5e campaign and you don’t have a library ready to drop into an adventure, A Night in the Library: A Bookish Adventure for D&D 5E is worth picking up and having on-hand just in case.

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[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hit Point Press has rolled the floral dragons out on their Patreon for the last year or so and the dragons look gorgeous. They seem like a great addition to any campaign dealing with the fey as well, which is nice, since a lot of fey bestiaries are pretty repetitive in my experience.

 

[Superchunk77]

Nightfell looks pretty dope. Nice to see more PF2e third party stuff.

 

[Lalato]

Here are the 5e Campaign Setting and Adventure Path crowdfunding campaigns I'm keeping an eye on right now.

Closed and Funded:

• Labyrinth & Lyre

Closed:

Open and Funded:

• Myrwoods (ending next week)
• Shadows of the Vale (ending next week)
• Amberlight (ending in 1 week)
• The Wandering Tavern (ending in 2 weeks)
• Book of Spirits (ending in 2 weeks)
• Eternal Judgement (ending in 2 weeks)
• Adventure Time (ending in 3 weeks)
• Inkandescence (ending in 3 weeks)
• The Goblin Hunters (ending in 4 weeks)
• Skies of Ralabourne (ending in 5 weeks)

Open:

• Furthest Night: Beyond the Outer Darkness (6%)
• ARMTGE (24%)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm surprised that Furthest Night couldn't break on through. There are a ton of grimdark settings on Kickstarter, but Furthest Night, with its planar hook, seemed to be offering something different than most of them.

 

[Lalato]

I'm surprised that Furthest Night couldn't break on through. There are a ton of grimdark settings on Kickstarter, but Furthest Night, with its planar hook, seemed to be offering something different than most of them.

I agree, but I think it has more to do with the $60K goal than anything else. Also a small publisher without a large following... and it seems like a recipe for underperformance. If the goal had been $15K, it might have gotten more traction.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I agree, but I think it has more to do with the $60K goal than anything else. Also a small publisher without a large following... and it seems like a recipe for underperformance. If the goal had been $15K, it might have gotten more traction.

Yeah, I get wanting to make a premium book, but that should probably have been saved for a second edition. Get some modest art and decent-but-not-amazing print quality this go around.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I'm surprised that Furthest Night couldn't break on through. There are a ton of grimdark settings on Kickstarter, but Furthest Night, with its planar hook, seemed to be offering something different than most of them.

All that AI art is a turn off for me personally, but no doubt plenty like it

And agree with above, probably a $5000 book might have funded

Edit to add: Looking at their other created projects this is the 4th of 8 that have canceled due to low funding. I guess that's one way to do kickstarter...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Edit to add: Looking at their other created projects this is the 4th of 8 that have canceled due to low funding. I guess that's one way to do kickstarter...

Ouch. Four certainly suggests a failure to learn from the past.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The plane of the flowers was canon in 2nd. Those "floral dragons" could be useful to sell merchandising articles.

Nightfell should be in the list of possible candidates to be joined to D&D Beyond as 3PP setting.

Hasbro and WotC should be very generous, kind and polite with "Roll for Combat" because I see a great potential value as 3PP content within D&DB. They should reach some partnership deal before some other rival. If D&D needs some right videogame, Roll for Combat has got too good ideas.