Silk Road Guide to Seafaring

Surveys and Showcases
3 months ago – Mon, Aug 19, 2024 at 08:12:21 AM

Surveys Are Live

All surveys have been sent! If you did not receive a survey link by email, or if you have misplaced the link, you can access your survey by clicking here and entering your email address to recover the survey. As of this writing, 51% of you have already completed your survey, which is awesome! If you have not yet had a chance to do so, please complete your survey in the next month, since we will be moving to the final phase of fulfillment at that time. Since there was a slight delay getting the surveys released, we have extended the deadline to complete surveys to September 23.

If you are receiving the PDF of the book as a reward, an early access version of the book is available for download now. Please note, this version of the module is still in the revision process, and may have incomplete artwork, typos, or other errors. This is an early access version of the module for GMs who wish to get a jump start on campaign prep, it is not the final product.

Over the next month, the book will complete its revision process and be prepped for the printer, including final art and text editing, color conversion to CMYK, and layout and bleeds for printing.

If you are interested in joining ongoing conversations about Silk Road Guide to Seafaring or other Red Panda Publishing products, you should consider joining our Discord server! Our Discord server is a place to share stories from your games, talk about ideas and homebrew, and generally have conversations with people who are playing the same campaign.

We also occasionally host events where you can chat live with our project artists and get insights into the design process for these books. Speaking of which...

Our next Art Showcase is this Friday, August 23 at 2:00 pm UTC (click here to see your local time). This event will feature concept design and illustration processes for some of the most important NPCs from Silk Road. Hosted in our #art-showcase channel, anyone who attends the event live can ask questions and chat with our artists during and after the event. Can't make it live? Don't worry, the entire transcript and art of the showcase is saved in our #art-showcase channel for you to check out and read on your own time!

Click here to view the event in Discord.

Surveys Coming Soon
3 months ago – Sun, Aug 18, 2024 at 01:28:11 PM

Backerkit Surveys

Starting tomorrow morning, our pledge manager, Backerkit, will beginning sending out surveys for Silk Road Guide to Seafaring. This survey will be sent from Backerkit directly (not from Kickstarter or from Red Panda Publishing), so don't forget to check your spam folder. The email from Backerkit will look like this, and will include a link to to access and complete the survey.

Once you click on the link, you will be asked to verify your pledge level and location. NOTE: If you are receiving only digital rewards, you are not required to enter your location. However, if you then choose to purchase a physical add-on before checking out, the shipping will default to the most expensive option until you enter your shipping address. Don't panic! Once you enter your shipping information, the shipping cost should correct itself. 

This survey will allow you to enter your shipping information and pay for shipping (if you are receiving physical rewards). Rewards from the Kickstarter campaign will appear in your cart as soon as you log in to your survey. The survey also offers a selection of add-ons, as discussed in our previous update. Locked add-ons are highlighted in yellow, and will be unlocked if they reach their goal during the run of the survey.

If you are receiving the PDF of the module, you will also be able to download an early copy of the PDF directly from the survey, via Backerkit's "Digital Downloads" feature on the last page of the survey.

Surveys go out in waves.

Surveys will begin going out as soon as tomorrow morning; however, since Backerkit sends the emails out in "waves," some backers will receive their emails sooner than others. There is no rhyme or reason to which backers receive their surveys first, it's chosen randomly with each wave. All backers should have received their surveys by the end of the day tomorrow.

Also, check this out!

We just wanted to shout out a Kickstarter that launched recently. It's from the creator of the Word for Word Bible Comic series, and as luck would have it, their current project is a card game set in the same time period as Silk Road Guide to Seafaring! We have no direct connection to the game, but the project creator shared an advance copy of the rules and art with us, and the game seems really fun. It's not a TTRPG, but there is a lot of crossover content and characters that this game shares with Silk Road, and it's a total coincidence that we both decided to launch projects based in the mid-first century!

Anyway, that's all. Check it out here if it sounds interesting!
 

Let's Talk Add-Ons!
3 months ago – Thu, Aug 08, 2024 at 09:18:45 AM

Fulfillment Update

Kickstarter is processing payments, and we're waiting on an email from them to confirm that everything is ready to move ahead. On the Backerkit side, we've been approved to send surveys once the backer report is imported from Kickstarter. This process is always scheduled to take 2 weeks, but at present it seems like things are moving faster than normal. 

Available Add-Ons!

Once you receive your Backerkit Survey, you will be given a chance to add extra items to your order, if you wish. Most of these items were unlocked through stretch goals during the campaign, and some may still have a chance to be unlocked in the month ahead (for more on this scroll down to "Locked Add-Ons" below).

VTT Art Pack ($9) The VTT Art Pack includes all artwork from the book, modified to be compatible with Virtual Tabletop Platforms. All monsters, ships, and NPCs have been converted into tokens, and (because we hit the stretch goal!) We have commissioned an extra set of nautical battle maps, which do not appear in the book, and are only available in this Art Pack. The maps are currently being produced by our artists; the estimated fulfillment for this Add-On is October, 2024.

The Tarasque Bundle ($4) The Tarasque Bundle is a digital expansion to Silk Road Guide to Seafaring. A one-shot adventure for characters of any level, called "Terror of the Tarasque" expands the lore of the port city of Massalia, and includes instructions for how to dovetail the adventure into a larger Silk Road campaign. This bundle also includes a VTT pack with tokens and battle maps, lore and stat blocks for the tarasque (the historical one, not the D&D version), and STL files for printing a tarasque mini at home. This item has been created, and is ready for immediate fulfillment.

11" x 18" World Map ($4) This is a larger version of the map that appears in the book. With over 80 port cities spanning the entire eastern hemisphere, there is a lot of ground to cover; this physical add-on allows for quick reference at the table, so that the GM (or players) don't need to repeatedly flip back to the map page in the book. This item is scheduled to fulfill around November, 2024.

The Adventurer's Guide to the Bible ($39) This book is from a previous Kickstarter, set 20 years before the events in Silk Road Guide to Seafaring. There are numerous NPCs and crossover events between these two books, and The Adventurer's Guide to the Bible may serve as a helpful resource. This book is already for sale on DrivethruRPG, but if you're already getting a physical copy of Silk Road Guide to Seafaring, getting the two books through this Kickstarter will save money on shipping! This item is already created, but will be shipped along with Silk Road to save on shipping. Book fulfillment is currently scheduled to for October, 2024.

Locked Add-Ons

But that's not all! Several Add-Ons failed to reach their funding goal during the Kickstarter campaign, but they're being given a second chance this month, through the Backerkit survey! These items are not guaranteed until enough backers pledge to purchase them. Thus, each Add-On has the ability to be unlocked separately, depending on how much interest there is in the item. Running Add-Ons this way is helpful for us, because it allows us to make sure there are enough people interested in a product before we start spending the money to produce it. Note: if you pledge to purchase a locked add-on and its goal is not reached, you are not charged for the item. You are only charged for items if they are successfully unlocked. The Locked Add-Ons are described below.

Nautica Obscura ($12)

Nautica Obscura is huge digital expansion to Silk Road Guide to Seafaring. Largely inspired by some of the wild ideas Archimedes came up with, Nautica Obscura explores the forbidden, arcane, or experimental elements of seafaring, including a dozen new ships and a collection of strange or cursed upgrades. This content is ideal for a table that wants to continue sailing into higher levels. 

Player Options Deck ($16)

The player options deck is a poker-sized (2.5" x 3.5") deck of cards, featuring the magic items, spells, feats, and patron boons from this module. For players who like to stay organized at the table, reference cards like these are a great asset for spell and item management. 

Ships and Upgrades Play Aid ($19)

This play aid features all ships from the module on 6" x 6" tiles, which include quick reference stats for the ship, and three visualized upgrade slots along the bottom. A separate deck of mini-cards featuring ship upgrades can be slotted in and out of ship upgrade slots. This play aid is intended to make life easier for that one player who is usually in charge of taking notes and keeping track of things. Plus, this item can help GMs track the stats of multiple ships at once, making "Fleet" combats much easier to visualize at the table.

Conclusion

Hopefully this update helps break down what is available (and what... might... be available) once you gain access to the Backerkit Survey. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the Add-Ons or their descriptions, feel free to post here or join the conversion on our Discord Server!

The Kickstarter is Over! (Late Pledges Now Open)
4 months ago – Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 10:03:05 AM

"Land on the horizon!"
The lookout calls down to you from the rigging overhead. You've sacrificed more than you care to think about to get here, and your ship is battered and broken from the perils of the voyage behind you. But the wind is at your back and (for now) your enemies are nowhere in sight. You have crossed the Erythraean Sea, and a whole new world awaits... The helm is in your hands, what do you do next?

It is impossible to overstate how important your support is! Projects like these are weird and niche, and - to be frank - no major publisher would EVER make anything like this. Third party content like Silk Road Guide to Seafaring can only exist because of crowdfunding, so thank you for your support!

The campaign is over and Late Pledges are now open! In the next few weeks, there is a brief transition period during which Kickstarter will charge your credit cards and process all pledges. Once that information is approved and handed over to our fulfillment team, you will receive an Email from our pledge manager, Backerkit. 

Backerkit will email you directly, inviting you to complete a survey. This survey will collect your shipping address and any shipping fees (if you are receiving physical rewards), and will also offer a selection of add-ons for this campaign, which must be purchased separately.

The PDF will be shared immediately once your payment is processed through Kickstarter and you are invited to the Backerkit Survey. If you are receiving the PDF version of the module, once you have completed the survey, the final page will include a button for "Digital Downloads," which will allow you to download the module immediately. Please note that the PDF is in the final draft stages, which means that it may contain typos and incomplete artwork; but for the overachieving GM, it is more than ready to begin campaign prep.

What about physical rewards?Physical rewards will begin processing about 1 month after the surveys go out. We are promising fulfillment by December because we always under-promise on our fulfillment timeline, but it will likely be much sooner than this. All physical rewards are fulfilled through through the DrivethruRPG printing service for this campaign.

Add-ons are items that are purchased separately from the book itself. Some add-ons for this project were unlocked by stretch goals, and can be purchased in the Backerkit survey. Some add-ons were not unlocked by stretch goals during the run of the Kickstarter campaign, but there still may be hope to see them again before the end of the month. More information about how this will work will be released in the next update, but for now, suffice to say that if you were looking forward to a stretch goal that was not met, there may still be time to unlock it through Backerkit.

Just Over a Week to Go!
4 months ago – Sun, Jul 28, 2024 at 04:23:39 AM

New Stretch Goal Unlocked

As we approach the final week of the campaign, pledges are starting to pick up again, and we've reached a new stretch goal!

The VTT Art Pack is a new add-on for Silk Road Guide to Seafaring, which will be available to purchase through the pledge manager. This Art Pack is platform-agnostic, and assets can be uploaded to the VTT platform of your choice. This Art pack includes tokens for all monsters and NPCs, as well as a selection of nautical encounter maps that are exclusively available through this add-on.

Fulfillment Information

As we near the end of the campaign, it's probably a good time to start reviewing the fulfillment process. When the Kickstarter ends, there will be a period of about 2 weeks during which Kickstarter will charge credit cards to collect funds from the original campaign. Once this transition period is over, fulfillment will be handled through our pledge manager, Backerkit, and the PDF version of Silk Road Guide to Seafaring will be delivered immediately!

To be clear, we are still waiting on a handful of illustrations, and the table of contents and appendices are still under construction. Thus, the first draft of the PDF we deliver may be somewhat "imperfect," but for those of you waiting to get your hands on the content, it is certainly play-ready. 

We are using Backerkit to handle backer surveys and shipping information. For those of you who may not be familiar with this process, it is very simple. In the two weeks following the end of the Kickstarter campaign, you will receive an email from Backerkit, asking you to complete a survey. This survey will collect shipping addresses and the cost of shipping (from those of you receiving the physical book), and will also offer the ability to purchase additional add-ons for this project. Which add-ons will be offered will depend on how many stretch goals we unlock in the next week, but once an add-on is unlocked through the campaign, it immediately goes on sale through the Backerkit survey. Last, backerkit will offer the ability to immediately download the early-access PDF of the module, once your survey has been completed.

What About Physical Rewards?

After the Backerkit survey is distributed, there will be a period of roughly 1 month to allow time for all backers to complete their surveys, purchase additional Add-Ons, and pay for shipping. This time will also be used to catch any typos and complete last-minute illustrations. After this, the physical module will be fulfilled using DrivethruRPG's printing service.

Since DrivethruRPG prints books at a separate facility than it prints other items (such as cards), the module will fulfill first, with additional unlocked add-ons fulfilling at a later date. The amount of extra time needed to fulfill add-on items will depend on the items themselves, and how much production time is needed after they are unlocked. An estimate of production times for add-ons will be posted in the Backerkit survey.