Stormsunder: Heirs of Ruin

Revised Twins and a Closer Look at Havens (and more)!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Oct 05, 2020 at 08:50:34 AM

Hello, folks!

After a crazy month of pledge manager / late pledge shenanigans, we’re back with some updated sculpts and a deep look at another part of Stormsunder’s gameplay: Havens. Let’s get to it!

Pledge Manager and Communication

It looks like the pledge manager is working well enough for folks (most/all of the issues we’ve had have been with late pledgers). Over half of you have already completed your pledges, so carry on and let us know if you need any help. After being buried with correspondence, we are once again caught up on emails, Kickstarter messages, etc, so if you dropped us a line and haven’t heard back, please feel free to badger us. The best place to contact us is within Kickstarter’s private message system, as it gives us access to your pledge directly (so we don’t need your email address, etc to help you with the PM, for example).

Updated Sculpts

Aleksander was one of the first sculpts ever made for Stormsunder, and he matched his original card art, which has since changed. We’ve updated his head to closer resemble that current art:

With siblings (especially twins), it’s important that it doesn’t appear you are playing favorites, so we gave Aleksandra’s sculpt an update as well! Aleksandra is sporting a more dynamic pose showing off her mad leaping skills:

Gameplay Highlight: Havens

Continuing what we started last month with a deeper look into Stormsunder’s gameplay, today we will be talking about Havens. Before we get started, please know that one of our priorities in these features is to make sure we are not spoiling anything with Stormsunder’s story (or at least, not very much). I am not above altering images, removing or adding text, etc, so feel free to peruse without wondering if even looking will spoil the story for you.

Anyway, Havens! Havens are special hubs the heroes use to go on their various adventures. Players can save their game at a haven, heal their heroes and change out their party. Below is the first haven players will encounter, the Cabin:

As we can see, there are four locations players can choose from while resting at the Cabin: City of Tarpitt, Mokatta, The Southern Burrows and Roam the Desert. Notice that these locations can have certain requirements, either that specific heroes need to (or can’t be) in the party or the party must have (or can’t have) a specific title.

Hero requirements allow us to ensure the story of Stormsunder remains engaging. The required characters will interact with one another, (and possibly others who you bring along), lowering the amount of the word “you” in the text and providing their unique perspectives during that part of the adventure. Unsurprisingly, a trip to Tarpitt, city of vampires, requires the vampire twins Aleksander and Aleksandra, while finding Mokatta in the middle of the Storm would necessitate the aid of the party’s resident Nyere, Vanessa. If you don’t have Vanessa (or the twins), these pathways are closed, but others may open to take their place.

Titles work just like flags do in programming, which are especially useful in roleplaying games. Complete a quest in World of Warcraft and the quest-giver knows you are due the rewards. Make a drastic decision in Mass Effect, and the story will unfold accordingly. Players cannot travel to Mokatta (at least from the Cabin) if they have the “Eye Spy” title. The title may be earned by the players choosing the location earlier and finishing that part of the story, or it could be they did something that prevents entry (if you blow up Mokatta, there’s no reason to go back there, for example).

The last location, Roam the Desert, is a bit of a standard for most havens. This allows players to roll on a specific event table in the hopes of finding loot or, at least, something to kill to gain loot (and experience). Actions you take in the story might change the events and encounters available in the event tables, as your dice rolls are modified to compensate for your consequential decisions.

Small Production Update

We’re in the boring-est stage of pre-production (at least for me) as we and our manufacturer send .STL files back and forth to make sure all details are enhanced for mold-creation and any needed changes to the sculpts maintain how awesome they all currently look. We’ll start posting pictures once we get more of that plastic goodness. In the meantime, King of Average received the Capac and Lady Renata samples (and he always has that fancy HD turntable, which really shows off the details our manufacturer was able to retain):

 Stormsunder Box: 1, King of Average: 0

Discord and Gameplay Streams

Want to talk about random Stormsunder stuff (or random random stuff?), stop by the Stormsunder Discord:   https://discord.gg/RFp7V57 . One lucky member, GIBray, got a hold of one of the Stormsunder demos and has been streaming Discord-member gameplay sessions on the Youtubes.

That's it for now! Until next time, we'll see you in the Storm (the next haven has to be around here somewhere).

- LSG

Pledge Manager Launch, Languages and More!
over 3 years ago – Sat, Aug 29, 2020 at 02:55:25 AM

Hello, folks!

I hope you are ready for a massive update, because we have all sorts of things to talk about, including the Pledge Manager, all four language partners, character art galore and an inside look at the nuts and bolts of character creation for Stormsunder. Let’s do it!

Pledge Manager Launching Soon

The Stormsunder pledge manager will be launching “soon.” I can’t guarantee you’ll get your email today (and if you’re overseas, you might already be in bed), but soon! We’ve got two issues outstanding that I’m trying to sort out with BackerKit: shipping costs for Kickstarter backers (which BackerKit should be doing an upload for in the next few hours) and confirmation that the language options for pledges are set up correctly. Once that is sorted out, we’ll be doing a stress test to a small number of backers, so don’t worry if some folks get their emails and you haven’t received yours yet (BackerKit sends out 5%, makes sure we didn’t blow anything up, then sends the rest).

When you do get your email, just a helpful tip if you want to upgrade your pledge as it’s easy to miss: Click the link below the giant green button when you start as seen below.

Stuff Old & New

So, what’s available during the pledge manager? Everything you could get during the campaign, as well as the three mini boss boxes we talked about last update (now called Villains & Civilians I, II & III), additional dice, bunches of lots of sleeves and a two-tone painting option we are calling “Stormbrush”

Stormbrush

We’re offering Wave 1 ($129) & Wave 2 ($149) Stormbrush, which covers all the minis we’re currently offering in those waves. We tried to keep this as simple as possible, so if you don’t have all the minis for a particular wave (say, you don’t get The Faceless expansion in Wave 2), you are paying for paint that won’t be used. Here are the first samples our manufacturer has given us:

Villains & Civilians I

Mini bosses and collateral damage from Heirs of Ruin, the box costs $49 and includes 26 miniatures across 18 sculpts. We have all the renders now; you can see them at the bottom of this update.

Villains & Civilians II

Mini bosses and unintended victims from Bones of the Conquered, the box costs $49 and includes 26 miniatures across 15 sculpts. We have all the renders now; you can see them at the bottom of this update.

Villains & Civilians III

Mini bosses and Aleksandra playthings from A Pharaoh’s Wrath, the box costs $49 and includes 26 miniatures across 15 sculpts. We have all the renders now; you can see them at the bottom of this update.

Sleeves

Like Stormbrush, we have two sleeve packs: Wave 1 ($59) and Wave 2 ($109). We increased the total number of cards (since we never really talked about how many cards Stretch Goal heroes, etc were adding), so Wave 1 will have 1881 sleeves and Wave 2 will have 2803. The sleeves are 100 micron, for folks who know what that means.

Additional Dice

For $15 you can get 20 more dice (six of each of the three attack dice and two more fate dice).

Boxes!

Here are all the boxes for the things we had during the campaign, but didn’t have boxes for:

The Nyere Pledge

We’ve added a new pledge level. I won’t call it an all-in because its missing a couple of things (which I will explain), but it does include a nice discount and lets people skip what we assume some won’t want. For $623, you get these items:

• Stormsunder: Heirs of Ruin (Wave 1)
• Heirs of Ruin 3D Terrain Pack (Wave 1)
• Stormsunder: Bones of the Conquered (Wave 2)
• Stormsunder: A Pharaoh's Wrath (Wave 2)
• Stretch Goal Box (Wave 1)
• Wayward Squire Expansion (Wave 2)
• The Faceless Expansion (Wave 2)
• Villains and Civilians I (Wave 1)
• Villains and Civilians II (Wave 2)
• Villains and Civilians III (Wave 2)
• Stormsunder Artbook (Wave 2)
• Additional Dice Set (Wave 1)

The same items will cost you $684 if you add them separately. Here’s what’s not in the pledge:

• Elise, the Lost Princess (Wave 1)
• Faeyra, the Last Titan (Wave 1)
• Stormsunder Graphic Novel (Wave 2)
• Wave 1 Stormbrush (Wave 1)
• Wave 2 Stormbrush (Wave 2)
• Wave 1 Sleeves (Wave 1)
• Wave 2 Sleeves (Wave 2)

The first three are because they were available during the Kickstarter campaign at some point for free, and we’re looking to not step on any toes. We also didn’t offer the Stormbrush or Sleeves in the pledge as some will want one or both of those or none at all.

Shipping Cost and Wave Changes

Now that we have a manufacturer (and said manufacturer has given us box dimensions and weight estimates), we can talk about accurate shipping prices. First things first, however, we’re going to change how Stormsunder will be fulfilled. During the campaign we said folks could choose to split their pledge (if applicable) into one or two waves, with the idea being that folks could save on shipping. Well, it turns out there isn’t a discount at all (our boxes are too big for that), and logistically its going to be a nightmare to hang on to folks’ Wave 1 stuff for a year while we work on Wave 2. Boxes could get damaged or misplaced and it just seems altogether like a bad idea in retrospective. We polled the Discord and no one seemed interested in 1-wave shipping anyway, so I think we’re safe in making this decision, but I apologize if anyone was set on waiting.

Anyway, here are the shipping costs for Wave 1, in all their glory. We won’t be charging shipping for Wave 2 until we re-open the pledge manager in 2021 (after Wave 1 ships) as we don’t want to hang on to (or be taxed on) money we can’t spend. The safest hands are your own, after all. Please note that these shipping costs are for Heirs of Ruin; any add-ons will increase the cost (Faeyra and Elise are free, however, regardless of whether you paid for them or not):

• USA / EU / UK / Australia / New Zealand / China / Hong Kong - $49
• Canada – $57
• Norway / Switzerland - $77
• Rest of Asia (Japan / South Korea / Malaysia / Philippines / Singapore / Taiwan / Thailand / Vietnam) - $83
• Everywhere Else – $149

Languages

We are happy to announce the translators for all four languages. We’ll let them introduce themselves in their own words:

• French - Funforge

Funforge is a well-known international publisher, producing high-quality games since 2008. We have published dozens of games worldwide, and our titles have received many awards. We are working with numerous suppliers and partners in the USA, in Europe, and in Asia for many years, and the quality of our games is internationally recognized. Also, after 5 successfully fulfilled Kickstarter campaigns from which we learned a lot, and hundreds of thousands of games delivered to distributors and retailers, manufacturing and shipping are a well-known story for us.

• German – TL Games

We are passionate boardgamers and support foreign publishers in bringing their games to the table and to the player in German-speaking countries. In doing so, we attach great importance to our partners growing together with us and working together in a sustainable manner.

We are a small family business, supported by dear friends to realize our ideas and visions. The focus lies on the players and the games themselves.

• Italian – Raven Distribution

Active in Italy for more than 10 years, Raven Distribution has managed to create an editorial and distribution reality never equaled by any other company in the sector.

Born from the desire to work well, spread the game and expand the playful landscape, it is still at the top of the sales charts with successes of the caliber of Munchkin, C'Era Una Volta, Zombi !!!, Dead of Winter, Mice and Mystics, Kult, Vampires La Masquerade, Werewolves the Apocalypse and Call of Cthulhu .

Always specialized in the professional and effective localization of card, table and role-playing games, Raven Distribution is, at the present time, the only one in Italy to operate with all large and small companies in the sector, allowing retailers and end users to satisfy any of their wishes with a simple "click".

• Spanish – Last Level Games

Last Level Games is a Spanish publisher from Sevilla. With 10 years of experience in the distribution of Games and Merchandising, Last Level jumped into the publishing of games under its label in 2016.

With the intention of creating a varied catalog for all players, Last Level Games has collaborated with major publishers to bring cutting-edge games such as Chronicles of Crime, Outlive, Vikings Gone Wild, Cthulhu Wars, Gugong, Hostage Negotiator, Black Rose Wars, Village Attacks and many more.

In addition, Last Level Games is committed to games created in Spain, featuring titles with great public acceptance such as Boom Party, Sencha, Kai-Zen or the most recent Trick or Boo.

Stormsunder Preview (including in-hand plastic minis)

We sent Crabbok the plastic Lady Renata and Capac we've shown and he made a preview video out of it. He also shows off the fancy cards we put in the box, which have a bit of story on them. Check it out:

Hero and Adversary Art

Our artist has been hard at work fleshing out all the colorful characters in the world of Stormsunder. If you watched some of the gameplay videos we did during the campaign, you’ll certainly recognize some of these, but there are ones I hadn’t even seen, so I’m sure they will be new to you.

Anatomy of a Hero

We thought we’d pull the curtain back a bit and talk about how we design the heroes for Stormsunder. Keep in mind that we’re going to be dissecting numbers that may change by the time the game is produced, but at least you can see where we started (and no doubt spot some influence). For this feature, we’re going to take a look at Vanessa, a Human Survivalist.

• Statistics

Each hero has six statistics: Strength, Perception, Agility, Spirit, Vitality and Charisma. We won’t go much into them right now (most folks are likely pretty familiar with what they represent anyway). The important thing to note is that a hero without shape or form has 3 for each of these statistics, as well 10 points to assign as they wish. Statistic increases cost 1 point until 10, which costs 2 points, and then 3 points starting with 15. Fledgling heroes also have 5 Hit Points and 2 Speed.

All heroes also have 7 Standard ability cards to form the basis for their ability deck: Punch, First Aid, Teamwork, Take a Breather, Throw Rock, Self-Preservation, and Dash.

• Race

Vanessa is Human, or at least human enough. This grants her +5 Hit Points and +1 Speed, as well as +1 for each statistic. Humans also get to choose from one of three Human race cards: Sympathetic, Determined or Resolute (Vanessa is Determined).

• Faction

Vanessa is one of the last surviving members of the Nyere, an ancient guild of men and women gifted with an unerring sense of direction. The Nyere are explorers, adventurers and heroes, using their power to map uncharted realms and to find relics thought to be lost forever. From a gameplay perspective, Nyere is Vanessa’s faction, which grants her +2 Perception at level 1 as well as granting her access to the Luck of the Nyere ability card.

• Class

Vanessa a is Survivalist, a class focusing on ranged damage. Each class has statistic requirements; a Survivalist must have 5 Strength, 7 Perception, 7 Agility and 6 Vitality. Choosing this class grants heroes +6 Hit Points and +2 Speed. Survivalists start the game with five class ability cards: Explosive Shot, Heavy Shot, Volley, Support Fire and Premeditation.

Survivalists also get the Marked for Death default Skill:

• Math

We’ve shown all the pieces to create a character, so let’s see how we get to Vanessa at level 1:

Pretty easy, huh? Leveling a hero adds more stat points, new and upgraded abilities as well as some other stuff we didn’t cover here (like Signature Skills, Equipment Slots, etc). We do all of this behind the scenes for you (leveling Vanessa to level 2 is as easy as flipping over her card and grabbing her new Ability cards), but because the system is there… We can look at expanding its scope and maybe even offering character creation and/or customization for folks in the future.

That’s it for now. Below are all the Villain & Civilian sculpts, if you are interested. Until next time, we’ll see you in the Storm (it’s in the campaign book; I checked).

Villains & Civilians I

Villains & Civilians II

Villains & Civilians III

Pledge Manager Launch and Mini Boss Boxes
almost 4 years ago – Sat, Aug 01, 2020 at 02:36:00 AM

Hello, folks!

We've got some exciting news today, so let's get right to it:

Manufacturer for Stormsunder

After what feels like an eternity, we've finally chosen our manufacturer! It's manufacturer 3, for those that were keeping track. Manufacturer 3 gave us by far the best plastic samples, showing an incredible amount of detail while staying true to our sculpts. Their printed components are top notch as well, and considering how much of Stormsunder will be paper/cards/punchboard, that's also an important factor. We plan to send out some samples to folks (YouTube-like people, etc) so you can get some 3rd-party feedback about the quality. Keep in mind that what we're sending out includes none of our changes (they're not optimized, etc). What does that mean? Well, it means that what you get will be at least that quality, but probably better. 

Now that we've picked a manufacturer, the data is rolling in (size and weight of boxes, discussions about sleeves and dice, etc), which means we're just about ready to launch that PM thing all the cool kids are talking about.

Pledge Manager Launch 

The pledge manager for Stormsunder will launch on August 27th, 2020. It's a little later than we predicted, but that's related to the time we took to pick our manufacturer. Anyway, that's pretty much it for this section, though don't sleep on the rest of the update as it's all more or less related to the PM.

Wave 1 Changes

As part of our efforts to get all the requirements, sculpts, etc. to the manufacturers for quotes, we discovered an issue with our plans for Wave 1. The short version is that the Lazy Squire and Faceless expansions are moving to Wave 2. Both expansions will be part of the entire campaign and, unlike the stretch goals (where we can cheat), they are self-contained. We don't want to be in a situation where we are trying to balance A Pharaoh's Wrath (for example) based on the endgame portion of the Faceless expansion, which we wouldn't be able to change if we already printed/delivered it. 

So, Wave 1 will be:

• Heirs of Ruin
• Heirs of Ruin Terrain Pack
• Elise, the Lost Princess
• Faeyra, the Last Titan
• Stretch Goal Miniature Box
• The Heirs of Ruin Mini Boss Box 

What's that last one? I'm glad you asked...

Mini Boss Box Add-Ons

Stormsunder has a lot of characters throughout the story, many that have cards but don't have miniatures. You may not even fight with some of these one-off villains and allies, so it was hard to justify putting a mini for them in the box. Some of them made it in as strech goals (like Davor and Lord Gregor), but there were plenty more. Currently, they use their character card (with a unique illustration and skills) and a substitute miniature. It works great but we *really* wanted these characters to be available (especially the rest of the vampire high council, since folks were asking for them).

Our solution is the three mini boss boxes, one for each game/expansion. They will be in the pledge manager for $49 each. We don't have the sculpts finished for all of them, but a little bit below is a taste of what each box will contain (we'll have more to show by the time the PM launches as well as exact sculpt/miniature numbers). Since these boxes will only contain miniatures, they will be "language-neutral." They are also 100% not required to play/enjoy Stormsunder. The characters are already in the game boxes; this just makes them fancier.

The mini boss boxes will also replace the cardboard tokens we have for civilians. Civilians are bystanders and (in some cases) combatants with simple AI for the heroes to protect (or slaughter) depending on the scenario and your party's temperament. I don't think we've talked much about civilians, as they are a spoilerific part of Stormsunder and there for some very important story events.

Anyway, that's it for us for now. We're going to start having more frequent updates as we start locking things down and showing off what we've been working on as we lead up to production and fulfillment. I'll be around in the comments if you have any questions or concerns; until then, we'll see you in the Storm (don't ask the Desert Lioness for directions)!

- LSG

Heirs of Ruin Mini Bosses

Bones of the Conquered Mini Bosses

A Pharaoh's Wrath Mini Bosses

A Lazy Squire Approaches...
almost 4 years ago – Sun, Jul 05, 2020 at 01:02:52 AM

Hello, folks!

We just wanted to stop by and let you know we haven't forgotten about you. There's not a lot to report at the moment; we should have the 4th manufacturer samples this week (the box made it to Tennessee, so that's some progress) so we're agonizingly close to finally picking a manufacturer. We've been working on getting the Pledge Manager ready in the meantime, but there's not much to say about that at the moment.

What we *do* have are some fancy new sculpts to show, from the Wayward Squire expansion. The expansion includes two wayward heroes: Lady Aylwen the knight and Phelt the squire, as well as Phelt's immovable summon, Frank. Lady Aylwen and Phelt have had a bit of a hard time of late; they were teleported to another world, and no sooner did they escape only to find themselves on yet another, in the middle of a harsh desert during an endless Storm... Lady Aylwen and Phelt will have their own separate side story you can embark upon during your travels, as you do your part to finally (maybe) get the two back home. 

That's all for now! Until next time, we'll see you in the Storm (Frank will keep an eye out for you). 

- LSG

More Production-Quality Miniatures and the Design-A-Hero Contest Winner
almost 4 years ago – Sat, Jun 06, 2020 at 12:42:12 AM

Hello, folks!

We're back with more pretty pictures, so let's get right into it:

Design-A-Hero

The Design-A-Hero contest was ridiculously close. I'd tell you how close, but I figured out who won last month and there is no way I am counting again. Anyway, after the dust settled, the Myrmidite Outcast was the winner!

The so-called "Spellblade" was an incredibly close second and the Retann Alchemist was a not-so-distant third.

Plastic Production Samples

We've received plastic production-quality miniatures from three out of five of the manufacturers. Manufacturer 3 made both copper and steel molds for the same miniatures; see if you can spot the difference:

We should have the other two samples soon, as well as new quotes based on the total content of Stormsunder (all stretch goals, etc). Once we have that, we'll weigh our options and pick a pretty one. 

That's all we have for now. Our illustrator has pumped out an unearthly amount of character illustrations of late; we'll see how we can share some in a non-spoiler way. Until then, we'll see you in the Storm. I hear the Unsated have curbside pickup.

- LSG