Yes, We're Making This Book
almost 5 years ago – Tue, May 28, 2019 at 01:01:27 AM

Greetings, long-suffering backers! You are owed information that is long overdue and while I could make excuses, I will not, because you deserve better.

First: yes, we are still making these books.

We are behind schedule. This is obvious, but I want you to understand we are aware of it.

We have also failed you in communication. Again, this is also obvious, but it needs to be stated.

Although we tried to manage the stretch goals with this Kickstarter, using lessons learned from previous ones, we still bit off more than we could chew and then life situations exacerbated things.

Here is the plan:

I have taken this week off from work and I will be focusing on getting another major update out. This will include both content from the books, as well as project information. Whatever is ready will be released to you so you can see progress is being made.

At this point, I realize it is my job not only to get this project done and shipped but to win back your trust and goodwill and that this is not an easy task or one that will be accomplished quickly. I can only apologize and endeavor to work toward that.

The Psion!
about 5 years ago – Wed, Mar 06, 2019 at 07:40:32 PM

My apologies (again) for keeping you waiting on this update. You'll see in a moment part of the reason why it took so long.

This update has two playtest documents - the first is the long-awaited Psion class for Starfinder. This psion has gone through several major revisions from internal playtesting and we're excited to get it to you and let you take a look! One of the stretch goals was Athanatism - the psion's part of that will be added to the playtest document once it is ready. Same with powers, which brings me to my next item:

The second playtest document is the massive Powers document. This document is part of what took so long. Due to some network issues, I had been working on a local copy of the document in Microsoft Word. When I tried to upload it to Google Documents, it not only stripped out ALL formatting (bold, italics, indents, spacing, fonts), but it made the document extremely slow to respond. We ended up having to rebuild it and clean it up.

Finally, we have more artwork to check out. I had hoped to have more than the sketches, but part of the challenge with artwork is trying to get things to look the way you envisioned when the creator and the artist aren't the same people.

On a personal note, in the interest of transparency and accountability, I have been dealing with a lower back injury that had been previously treated but that has flared back up. I am hoping to have it resolved soon (I go to see a specialist today), as it has made life quite difficult, as those of you who have had to deal with lower back injuries understand.

More is definitely coming - I'm working on getting a layout set for the Aegis, to show what the finished product will look like with all the different graphic and design elements put together. The first draft is a little bit rough - if you're interested, I can share it, but understand it is most definitely a rough draft.

Mea Culpa
over 5 years ago – Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 09:49:31 PM

Hello for a drastically overdue update! My sincere apologies on keeping you waiting - you have every right to be upset, concerned, and frustrated. I have no good excuses, I can only say that a variety of health issues took me out of commission for an extended period of time. I am mostly back to full speed and working to get things caught up. Obviously, we are behind schedule, but work has not stopped and is continuing.

On that note - the psion playtest packet, Contents Verified, a massive 80+ page document, we be available as soon as I can get the document properly uploaded! This packet contains the psion, psionic feats, skills, and all the psionic powers, as well as the rules for manifesting. You have likely seen some of this material in the Specialist playtest packet (Encryption Decoded), but we also took the a ton of the feedback from that packet and incorporated it into this packet!

There is a lot of material in this packet. In layout, I'd expect just this packet to be over 60 pages of content all by itself! Please check it out and let us know your thoughts! The psion has already gone through several rounds of testing and revisions, but we're always looking for more feedback. 

I am going to go through all comments and messages as quickly as I can and respond as appropriate - for any comments about updates, please consider this update to be the official response.

In addition, here are finished pieces of artwork from Joe Shawcross for the forgeborn races.

My next update will have more artwork and ideally the Integrator packet.

Adventure, Bestiary, Playtest, and More
over 5 years ago – Thu, Sep 06, 2018 at 08:08:37 PM

Happy September! 

This update was meant for August, but due to some delays, it's getting out a bit late. My apologies for the lateness. I'm working to get updates set on a more scheduled basis, ideally every two weeks. I will likely go for smaller, faster updates just to keep things flowing.  

In this update, we have updates on: the adventure discussed in the last update, the playtest and primary book, the Bestiary, BackerKit, and artwork!   

Adventure

We are officially back in the swing of things post-GenCon. We were also fortunate enough to have one of our backers at one of our gaming sessions! And the adventures went great! We were very lucky to have Keith from Tales of a Middle-Aged Gamer to GM the sessions for us and he gave us some great feedback, but also said everyone seemed to have a great time!  

As mentioned in the previous update, this is the final stretch goal - an introductory adventure for psionics in Starfinder! We'll be taking the session feedback and updating the adventure accordingly. All backers at $10 and up will be getting the PDF of the adventure at no additional charge. Once we sort out the final page count, we'll see about print options. An initial estimate would have a page count around 24-36 pages, similar to our introductory adventure for psionics in Pathfinder, The Opened Mind.  

For the game sessions, we hired a graphic designer to put together some character sheets, which we'll be using in the adventure with a goal that a group can take the book and get started playing right away. Of course, if a group already has characters created, those can be used, too! You can see one of the sample handouts below - keep in mind, this may get tweaked and we'll be double-checking all our math, especially if any rules changes occur from playtesting feedback.   for example, the sample below was created before we fixed the math on the Resolve Points.

Psionics Guide

For the Psionics Guide, all the powers have officially been written! The 6th level powers took a bit longer than expected, but they're all done now. They'll be in the next playtest packet as we move on to wrapping up all the stretch goal content (motifs, athanatism, etc.). The psion will also be in that packet. After the internal alpha of the psion, we rebuilt some of the class's abilities, removed others, and added some new ones. The revision is being packaged in with the powers, since powers are a critical component for playtesting the psion class, and a manifesting class is critical to judge the usage of powers.

This giant playtest packet will be available next weekend! While the playtest is underway, we will be working on any additional content needed - motifs, organizations, etc. You can see the iconic psion, Kyva, in the image below.

Artwork

As mentioned, we have more artwork to show off! More is also on the way! These pieces are all by Joe Shawcross.

Bestiary

For the Bestiary, we have been working on detailing out all of the monsters which will be in it, so that we can get artwork orders in place. The Phrenic Hegemony will be a part of the Bestiary, although don't expect it to look like the Hegemony from Pathfinder! There have been years of evolution and genetic manipulation by the phrenic scourge to adapt the hegemony to interstellar life. 

Although the Hegemony will be a big part of the Bestiary, there will be plenty of non-Hegemony creatures to round out your psionic campaign! While we are looking at Pathfinder monsters to update, you can expect most to be net-new monsters.  

Backer Kit & Addresses

If you have chosen updates or add-ons in Backer Kit, you may have noticed that cards have not been charged yet. That is intentional. We are delaying the collection of BackerKit funds to avoid locking address updates. If you need to update your shipping address, you can do that through BackerKit. If you have issues with accessing BackerKit, please let me know! While this is our first time using it, they have been great to work with and handle questions quickly.

That's it for now! Thank you so much for your support in this project - we're working hard to make sure it's the best book possible!

July Update!
almost 6 years ago – Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 11:15:54 PM

Greetings, everyone! Although it's been quiet here, it's been very busy behind the scenes! I'd hoped to have this update out last week, but a sickness took me out of commission for about a week. However, we have more artwork sketches to show off for the racial art, news on the development, and more!  

First, development: the psion initial playtesting resulted in some significant revisions. We are wrapping those up so we can have the psion posted for further review! Along with the psion, over 60 pages of psionic powers have gone through review and editing - there are a few final ones that need to be written - we started at 0th level and went up from there. The 6th level powers understandably took longer to write than the 0th level! When the revised psion gets posted, those powers will also be posted. The integrator has also been getting it's abilities finalized after review with the goal to have it in the same playtest packet.  

The development team is also actively working on the material for all the extra stretch goals and motifs. This includes the powers and other material for the Athanatism discipline, which will be quite bit! Doug Haworth, who did much of the writing for Psionics Augmented: Seventh Path, which introduced Athanatism, is on-board again to help with that for Starfinder. Once all of that has passed internal review, we'll be posting it for public review.  

Final Stretch Goal Announcement  

There's been the question of the final stretch goal, since our BackerKit funds went well above what we expected. We've decided that our final stretch goal will be the publication of the introductory adventure that we'll be premiering next month at GenCon 2018 (our last time going to GenCon for the foreseeable future due to changes in situations). This adventure is specifically designed to introduce players to how psionics works in Starfinder and is designed to be playable in a single session. We're planning to have sample characters for use that provide a well-rounded group, although groups that want to use their own characters can certainly do that - as long as they keep in mind the adventure is specifically designed around introducing psionic concepts - non-psionic characters might feel a little out of place. I'm sure the adventure as it stands for GenCon will be going through pretty heavy revisions before we publish it, but we're working to make sure it's fun!  

Artwork  

As mentioned, we've got artwork going - here's more art for the psionic races. We're getting all the races nailed down before we move on to the rest of the iconic artwork to make sure that all the art for the different races is consistent. All of these pieces are by the same artist, so that our entire races chapter will have a consistent theme and all subsequent pieces by other artists can use these as a basis to work from.

Please keep in mind that these are initial sketches - the final pieces may have alterations. For example, the dromites we've requested to be more insectoid and less lizard in the face / head.  

These sketches are being finalized, and we have five more races to go to finish out the chapter!

Elans Art Sketch  

Duergar Art Sketch  

Dromite Art Sketch  

Other Graphics

Finally, we hired a graphic designer to help with getting the layout and cover templates for the supplemental books sorted out. Below, you can see the results of that work - the mock-up cover for Stranger's Armada, as well as a mock-up internal page from the Bestiary. Please keep in mind - these are mock-ups. The Bestiary sample is using a monster from the Pathfinder Psionic Bestiary.  

My goal for the August update is to have more news on development material, even more artwork - now that we have several races sorted out, the goal is to expand the number of art orders out to fill out the rest of the book, and to make sure any questions are answered quickly.