Layout First Draft Is Complete!
10 months ago
– Sun, May 11, 2025 at 03:08:11 PM
Hi all,
Our layout guy on African Monsters has put together the manuscript and looks like it's clocking in at current count of 118 pages and 105 stat blocks! I'm going through a proofing pass on the PDF now to check formats, headings, and any typos that might have snuck through and have found a few so far. I just wanted to share a spread from the book so you can see how beautifully it's coming together!
We have two pieces of our late-ordered art still being worked on (we have the black and white draft versions of both but are finalizing details and should have color finals done soon), and once those are in, we should be ready to get the PDF buttoned up and hopefully start sending it out by the end of the week!
Editing and development finally complete!
10 months ago
– Fri, May 09, 2025 at 02:59:26 PM
Hi all,
It's been a longer process than expected getting the final manuscript together, but I'm happy to report that editing and development of all 101 monsters in this beautiful bestiary is now complete! I had a mini heart-attack when I thought we were missing another piece of art and put out the call to our artists... only to find the piece I thought was missing was stuck in my email inbox on January 3rd and I had just forgotten to download it!
This book has really come together beautifully and you're going to be very happy when you see the final result! I'm pulling together the tables by type, CR, and cultural origin now and will be cross-checking the rest of the introduction, making sure the credits page and table of contents are all correct, but then it's off to layout-land at last! Hopefully within a week or two we'll be uploading the PDFs to Backerkit and sending them off to the printer!
Thanks once again for making this project a reality. For our fans of other game systems, we are definitely planning on bringing African Monsters to Pathfinder First & Second Edition and Tales of the Valiant later this summer and we hope you'll love getting your hands on them!
P.S. We are about to hit the final 2 hours of our Wardens of the Wild QUICK-Starterfor 5E 2024, Pathfinder 1E, and Pathfinder 2E, and we hope you'll check it out for a metric ton of killer class content for rangers, druids, hunters, shifters, shamans, and every wilderness adventurer!
First print books shipped!
11 months ago
– Thu, Apr 24, 2025 at 04:22:39 PM
Hi all,
I've gotten back several of our missing monsters this week, plus some of the missing artwork, so we're still trucking along to completion on African Monsters, but I've already started sending out partial fulfillment on print orders! For about two dozen backers, I've packaged up all of the existing books you're getting for your order and put them in the mail to start heading your way! Backers Pickup, Whiteford, Tavares, Anderson, Enke, Miller, Vogt, Badeaux, Shiel, Shroeder, Baker, Reed, Sangar, Spiesz, Linnell, Rojas, Holcombe, Lanham, Tan, Oldhouser, Wilkerson, and Trusiano, your first batch of books are on their way!
For most print backers, they are either getting only books direct from the printer (African Monsters, Hoard Monsters, Egyptian Adventure Bundle) or else they're getting a bunch of our existing bestiary books plus just the African Monsters book. For backers whose entire order is coming from the printer, we'll ship those all at once when African Monsters is ready. For those in the latter group (like our World of Monsters backers), we'll be ordering a big pile of African Monsters to send to our home base and then packing and shipping them out with your other books.
Thanks once again for your support of this amazing project, and we invite all of you to check out our Wardens of the Wild QUICKstarter for D&D 5E 2024, Pathfinder 1E, and Pathfinder 2E! It's over 10x funded in less than a week, with tons of terrific class content for druids, rangers, hunters, shifters, and so much more, with immediate fulfillment starting May 9th! Check it out!
All PDFs are available for download EXCEPT African Monsters
11 months ago
– Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 01:41:53 PM
Hi all,
I've gotten a number of questions about downloadable files from Backerkit. In the prior update, we said all of the completed files were available for download, and then two paragraphs later stated that the African Monsters bestiary itself was not yet complete but was scheduled to be finished around the end of April.
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Missing African Monsters PDFs: For backers who are only getting African Monsters, that means your PDF is not available for download, because that's the one book that's not yet completed. If you got a bundle of multiple products, you'll find all your PDFs except African Monsters in your Backerkit account.
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Other Missing PDFs: We did also figure out that the Egyptian Adventure Bundle and Hoard Monsters PDFs were not syncing, so I created new download rules for them and it looks like they're downloading fine now, so if you saw those missing when you first checked your Backerkit, check again and they'll be there!
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VTT Modules: As a side note, I've also sent out the activation codes for all VTTs (except, again, for African Monsters), and since we didn't have large numbers of them I sent them by individual email rather than through a Backerkit code bank.
Looking forward to getting the final piece of the puzzle headed your way!
Orders locked and downloads available on Backerkit!
11 months ago
– Mon, Apr 14, 2025 at 04:34:58 PM
Hi all,
Quick message today to let you know that with over 70% of our backers having responded to their Backerkit surveys, we've locked orders in thus far and charged credit cards, and all backers who have completed their surveys can download all of your PDFs from Backerkit!
Now that we have a pretty good count of VTT orders, we'll also be uploading VTT code banks so that you can download those and activate the VTT modules you have ordered. Those should be ready for you this week!
The main African Monsters bestiary itself is close to finished. I had to pause work for some time to deal with quarterly payroll and US tax filing season for the family and our two businesses, but I'm back on the job getting everything assembled and hopefully will have it off to layout by next week!
Thanks once again for your amazing support of this project and we hope you love your monsters when they arrive!
P.S. As we've noted before, the Wardens of the Wild QUICK-starter will be launching this week, with tons of terrific class options for rangers, druids, and wilderness characters of every kind! The PF1 and 5E books have finished layout and are ready for immediate fulfillment as soon as the project ends, and the PF2 book is in final editing and should start layout in the next day or two. We've also just started the Roll20 module for Wardens of the Wild 5E, so that will be ready for the project too! Sign up and get ready for the Wednesday launch!
