Okay, You Asked For It... Announcing the All-In Tier!
12 months ago – Mon, Oct 02, 2023 at 09:35:56 AM

Introducing the Ultimate Tier!

So many of you asked for the VTT and Ascendant Dragon Mini to be available in a physical tier, so here it is. The All-In Tier features both the Dragon, the VTT and EVERYTHING else! 

It also includes twelve stunning posters showcasing the gorgeous art of Ryoko's Guide, a spectacular canvas wall hanging measuring 450x1270mm (that's almost as big as a human!), and an exquisite slip case to protect and store all three books.All in, this tier represents more than $400 of savings over buying the addons separately! Here's the slip case up close!

What's more, the All-In tier will automatically include all future stretch goals! Everything unlocked as a part of this Kickstarter (like the upcoming Player-Facing Book Stetch Goal) will be auto-added to this tier at no additional cost!

The All-in tier also includes the Yokai Dawn resin dice set (alongside the sharp-edge resin and jade dice sets), which means even if you missed the Yokai Dawn dice in the first 72 hours, you can pick them up here. If you did get Yokai Dawn set as an early bird backer, you'll get a second set! 

A New Stretch Goal Unlocked!

In the meantime, we crushed another stretch goal, unlocking the beautiful top-down, punch out cardboard tokens for the yokai and familiars in Ryoko's Guide! With the kaiju tokens already unlocked, we're now making every creature that appears across all the books as a token both physical and digital! Everything you need to play, the way you choose to play!

Next Stretch Goal! $2m: Advanced Weapon Mastery!

We're very close to $2,000,000 now, at which point we're unlocking the expanded, advanced Weapon Mechanics to enhance martial characters with incredible options and flexibility! Skill trees and awesome new abilities for both in and out of combat, added to the core book Ryoko's Guide to the Yokai Realms and available to everyone getting the book or PDF. We'll be sure to update you all if we crack that stretch goal before the end of the campaign!

If you've any questions, you can submit them in the comments to this update, the project updates, or, even better, on the #ryokos-guide-questions channel of the Loot Tavern Discord Server.

You guys are amazing,

Will (and the team)

A Secret Stretch Goal Unlocked!
12 months ago – Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 10:35:26 AM

A Secret Stretch Goal Unlocked (You Are Amazing)!

We never believed we’d have the support to do this! With almost 2,000 of you getting the Deluxe Box, we are able to make a deluxe cover for Wrath of the Kaiju, the adventure book that accompanies Ryoko’s Guide to that box at no extra cost. Check out this mockup by the incredible Sinlaire!

Grab this luxurious dark faux leather cover embossed with gorgeous red and gold foil fit for a dragon’s hoard, and take your players to the edge in the five epic adventures within.

The deluxe tier gets this upgrade for free and other tiers can choose to upgrade their standard adventure book cover once we move to Backerkit.

Deluxe Box vs. Digital Deluxe

A few people have been asking about what's included in the Deluxe Box vs. the Digital Deluxe tiers. The Deluxe Box includes a ton of physical products (like the card packs, the art book, and, of course, the new Deluxe Adventure Book!) and also includes the digital versions of those products. If you're backing a physical bundle, you'll get the digital versions of the products in that bundle as well.

As such, there is some overlap with the Digital Deluxe pack, which is the tier for EVERYTHING digital. That means it includes digital copies of the card packs, Ryoko's Guide and Wrath of the Kaiju PDFs, Digital Handouts, etc. However, the Digital Deluxe tier also includes the Ascendant Dragon STL, the VTT Bundle, and the Digital Assets Bundle, which don't appear in the Deluxe Box (but you can also pick any of these things up as add-ons if you'd like!)

Digital Asset Bundle. This is all the art in both books—Ryoko's Guide and Wrath of the Kaiju—in multiple file formats: both hi-res and std-res indexed JPG/PNG and WebP. Want a wall paper? That's the hi-res export. Want to make your own VTT? That's what the standard-res indexed JPGs and PNGs are for. This wasn't supposed to contain the digital handouts and cards but, due to a clerical error, it now does! That means that, if your purchase the DAB during the Kickstarter, you get the digital handouts and cards as a bonus!

VTT Bundle. This let's you run games online with minimal prep. That's means all the new races, subclasses, items, spells, creatures, maps, and adventures set up, organised, and ready to play in your VTT of choice from Roll20, Foundry, or Alchemy Enhanced! 

If you ever want to double check exactly what is offered in a tier, you can check out the Detailed Pledge Breakdown table above or on the campaign page.

If you've any questions, you can submit them in the comments to this update, the project updates, or, even better, on the #ryokos-guide-questions channel of the Loot Tavern Discord Server.

You guys are amazing,

Will (and the team)

Everyone Gets Bonus Tokens and a New Way To Play Ryoko's Appears!
12 months ago – Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 11:01:34 AM

We're close to one week deep into Ryoko's Guide and there's more juicy stuff being unlocked!

Tokens for Everyone!

YOU get a token, and YOU get a token, everybody (who gets the Ryoko PDF) gets access to the full, top-down digital tokens for 40+ creatures, unlocked at the 1.5 million dollar stretch goal. If you've backed at any tier, you'll be recieving the Ryoko's Guide PDF and these digital tokens come along with it!

And, if we can break the 1.75 million dollar stretch goal, we'll unlock punch-out, physical cardboard tokens that will be available as an add-on and added automatically to the Deluxe Box tier for free for the magical, in-person moments to shower your players with lethal threats!

A New Way to Play Ryoko's!

We've teamed up with Alchemy to release a full, ready to play adventure on the Alchemy VTT, and you can explore it right now! They even put together this snazzy trailer showing off some of the features, including the dynamic ambience and music controls! Start playing here! 

(Note: for the purpose of this trailer, Alchemy used placeholder art)

Physical + Digital Clarification

Kickstarter doesn't let us update our tiers as the campaign runs on, which means we can't adapt them to include unlocked stretch goals! This is a little confusing, especially when some things are physical and others are digital, each going into different tiers. What we've started doing is adding every stretch goal to each tier breakdown on our page! If you're ever confused about what thing is in which tier, you can refer to our Detailed Pledge Breakdown graphic on the main Ryoko's Campaign page. If a stretch goal is included there in the tier you are backing, it'll be added to your order at no extra cost!

Projects We Love

Our ENNIE award winning friends over at Tome of Summoning have put together an awesome kickstarter too, which is just wrapping up. Elevate your DnD 5e gameplay with loot and encounter tables! Enjoy randomized challenges and rewards to make your games more thrilling! 

Double up on the finest of Fifth Edition tools with The Deck of Loot and The Deck of Encounters! Enhance your loot with rollable tables of delightful and deadly trinkets, treasures, and trappings from the most commonly encountered creatures in Fifth Edition.

You can check that out here if you're itching for more epic D&D action! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomeofsummoning/deck-of-encounters-and-loot-rollable-tables-for-dnd-5e?ref=856x0z

If you've any questions, you can submit them in the comments to this update, the project updates, or, even better, on the #ryokos-guide-questions channel of the Loot Tavern Discord Server.

You guys are amazing,

Will (and the team)

A New Race and Subclass Unlocked and Ryoko's Prototypes Revealed!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 09:41:38 AM

72 hours into Ryoko's Guide and, like Smash Mouth predicted, the Stretch Goals start coming and they don't stop coming! We've unlocked some amazing things, but first...

Unboxing Ryoko's Guide!

We did an unboxing of all of Ryoko's pre-production samples so you can see how beautiful everything is in real life, and how far along we are with it all! These are pre-production samples, so some small things might change, like the Core and Deluxe boxes being made bigger to fit all the awesome stuff inside it! Also keep your eyes peeled for a cameo from my dog! 

A New Race Emerges: The Ryōkido 

Early this morning we passed $1,250,000 which means there's a whole new race added to the book: The Ryōkido, inspired by the lion turtle. These telepathic humanoids come packing an enormous shell which boosts your AC and can provide protection if you fall (useful insurance when scaling kaiju!), along with abilities that make them excellent grapplers and unarmed warriors. If you were looking for a new character race to pair beautifully with the new Element Bender class, this could make for a synergistic combination!

A New Subclass: The Sensei Tamer (And the Tamer in Ryoko's Guide)

We also unlocked a new subclass: The Sensei for the Monster Tamer class, first introduced in Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting. A lot of people have asked if they'll be able to play this without owning Heliana's, and you 100% can! The core Tamer class, along with this subclass, will appear in full in Ryoko's Guide, giving you everything you need in one place to train your adorable companions in the art of kicking butt!

We've got more dope stretch goals incoming, adding tons of value across the board! The next SG to unlock is digital tokens for all the creatures in Ryoko's Guide, that will be added to everyone who pledged at the $30 PDF tier and above, completely for free! We'll put up an announcement when we hit the next big milestone, most likely early next week.

If you've any questions, you can submit them in the comments to this update, the project updates, or, even better, on the #ryokos-guide-questions channel of the Loot Tavern Discord Server.

You guys are amazing,

Will (and the team)