January Update: Undead Cats Burning?
over 6 years ago – Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 01:43:55 PM

What's funny is that I was just writing about undead cats yesterday. 

Text

The text is still in development. It's slower going than I'd like, for reasons that are no one's fault but mine, but it's progressing. 

The burning cat is here: I had a couple of authors come in really late with their first drafts due to some medical issues. I'm don't think that, overall, the delay is going to affect the production of Undead (I pad my schedules for precisely this reason), but it does make it more likely because it squeezes the margins a bit. If the timeline officially changes, I will of course let everyone know. 

Art

I'm continuing to get art pieces in from Jenna, Lissanne, Gennifer, and Geneviève. Here's a sketch from Geneviève, in fact: the slaughterhouse brood.

 Comic

Len continues work on the comic; I should be seeing drafts soon. 

Cases

I've gotten pitches in from Chris and Steve, and I should be seeing drafts at the end of the month. 

BackerKit

Look for the BackerKit survey in early February! You'll get a message through Kickstarter and through BackerKit.

And I think that's it for now! Happy New Year!

December Update - Shamblin' Right Along (new art!)
over 6 years ago – Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 08:58:11 PM

Greetings, envoys! I just realized I didn't update in November; my usual practice is to try and update once a month. As such, here's your December update. 

Text

I have final drafts in from most of the authors, and so the text of the game is entering the "development" phase. In this case, that means I'm putting it all together, writing the bits of it that I'm writing (which is mostly connective tissue), making sure the new Edges & Drawbacks make sense, and coordinating with backers who are contributing elements to the book. From here the book goes to Michelle for editing, but that'll probably happen in February. 

Art

I have contracted all of the artwork for Undead. I'm happy to report that we've added Lissanne Lake to the project as a contributing artist, and below you can see a sketch of one of her pieces (it ties into the excerpt I posted a few updates back, in fact). 

 Artwork for monsters (by Gennifer Bone and Geneviève Dion) and character portraits (by Jenna Fowler and Geneviève Dion again) are also underway, as is our cover illustration by Stephanie Brown. 

Comic

The script is done and off to Len O'Grady. This story sees us back in Chicago, and stars Jennifer Joyce, Thomas Simpson, Rory Calhoun, Christopher Monroe, and a couple of envoys that we haven't seen in comics yet. 

Cases

Two of the free cases have been contracted and writing is underway; I'm waiting to hear back from a third author. A fourth (J. Dymphna Coy) has unfortunately had to leave the project, but as it turns out, we lost a few backers after the KS closed. That isn't uncommon; it happens every Kickstarter. However, that does take us below 400 backers. I don't like going back on my word, though, so I'm going to write a fourth free case myself - that way you still get four, but it doesn't put my costs up. 

BackerKit

I'll be sending out the survey in February, probably, and I'll give folks as much warning as I can before I do. As usual, it'll be important to fill out the survey quickly so that I have everyone's name right for backer credits. More instructions when that becomes relevant!

Merry Holidays!

If you celebrate, happy whatever-holidays-you-celebrate. I hope you and yours and warm, safe, and well-fed, and that no creatures of the Unknown come down your chimneys!

We're Funded!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Nov 03, 2017 at 09:08:11 AM

We've got a few more hours left -- maybe enough to unlock that last free case! -- but in the meantime, we'll celebrate with the traditional picture of the costumed McFarland children! 

Funded by the skin of our teeth!
over 6 years ago – Wed, Nov 01, 2017 at 12:48:10 PM

Whew, I like it better when we overshoot by $5000. :)

But! Close or not, we made it, and that means you get an awesome Chill supplement about the undead. You also get four free cases, since we made it to 400 backers, so that's very exciting. 

Next step, I'll be redlining the drafts for Undead, contracting artists, and contacting backers to get things like characters, monsters, and so forth rolling. If you're getting PDFs of already-existing products (Chill, SAVE, Monsters, the screen), I'll be in touch about getting you those this week.

For now, though, I'm gonna have a bowl of ice cream and watch cartoons a bit, and ignore the weird noises coming from the graveyard next to my house...

Undead Excerpt: The Unhallowed
over 6 years ago – Mon, Oct 30, 2017 at 01:00:07 AM

As promised, we hit $14,000, you get an excerpt from the book! You're actually getting two (which makes this update kinda long, so I'm going to put the business stuff up front). 

Business Stuff

The Kickstarter runs through Tuesday night, 10/31, 10PM EDT, which means it's running for slightly less than 60 more hours at the time of this writing. We're not quite at our goal, but we're less than $2000 from it. The last few days of a Kickstarter are always fraught - people realize that they don't have the money to spare that they thought they did, or decide the project isn't for them, and so we get cancellations. With that said, Monsters and SAVE (the last two Chill projects) both hit $16,000 within the last 48 hours, so I'm pretty confident we can do it. Please spread the word, though, get folks who might not have seen Chill to take a look, a remember that we have a free quickstart here in case they'd like to have a look at the game and its system, and that they're welcome to ask questions here or over at the official Chill RPG Facebook page. 

Excerpt(s)

And now the excerpts! "Unhallowed" narrowly won the vote, so you get to see a section of the book (written by Joyce Chng) about a SAVE team in Singapore requesting help with a creature called a pocong. The second excerpt, written by Meghan Fitzgerald, is the pocong's game write-up. Remember that these are first drafts; they haven't been through development or editing (that happens after the Kickstarter so I can be sure I can pay everyone), so if you see mistakes or typos, they'll get cleaned up anon. 

Enjoy! And as always, thank you for your support.

THIS IS AN EMAIL TRANSCRIPT BEWEEN ABDULLAH BIN HALIM AND TAN YI LING

From: Halim88@REDACTED

To: Tan_Yi_Ling@REDACTED

I am not going to waste any pleasantries for this sit-rep, because 1) it is urgent and 2) SAVE has to know. Look, you know me, I am just an envoy with a rag-tag team with school-kids and housewives with zero resources. We are just pretend ghost hunters on a shit budget. I received an urgent phone-call from a Mr Lee about a pocong in Changi Village. You might call it a "mummy," but it's from my culture, damn it, and you all should bloody well listen to me. This thing was murdered, never blessed by an imam, never given all the proper holy rites and left dumped in a hole in the forst with the burial cloth still wrapped around it. Dumped into a hole in the forest! 

I don't know exactly what happened, but I checked with my contact in the police force and rumor has it the deceased dabbled heavily with the Evil Way before he was murdered one or two years ago. Was a bomoh dealing with black magic and other unholy things. The name of the deceased is REDACTED.

Changi Village isn't the best place, with all the bad shit and Japanese Occupation baggage. Too many deaths there - and the pocong just had to appear right close to the little temple where a few devotees of Kwan Yin would go to offer their prayers. What Mr Lee described me to me over the phone was this: The pocong is about 5 feet 2 inches (157cm, if you want to follow the British metric system). Wrapped in old kain kafan that smelled like rotten garbage and dead rats. Hopped around. 

Don't know why a pocong would hang around a Chinese temple. I wanted to ask Mr Lee more questions, but the phone disconnected. Couldn't call him back for some strange reason. I kept getting rejected. Please advise.

Pocong

Paragraph of testimony from an envoy or a SAVE debrief about the creature — Name, source of paragraph (You can provide this if you pledge for the Witness to the Unknown level!)

EWS: 85-100 (Potent - Deadly)

REF: 15-25

STA: 90-120

Injury: Superficial, Minor –10, Serious –20, Major –30, Critical –50, Lethal

Disciplines: (Choose 3-5) Animate Dead, Exploit (in Lair only), Halt, Infest, Pestilence, Shriek, Swarm, Teleport, Wound

Aspects: Bane (Quranic verses), Bloodless, Deadly Attack (Minor), Lair (Swarm, Terrorize), Special Weakness (fire), Telltale (maggots, flies, rotten stench), Unfeeling, Unkillable, Unliving, Vigor

In Southeast Asia, the traditional Muslim way to bury a corpse is to wrap it in a shroud, or kain kafan. The shroud knots in several places, including beneath the feet, but the knots must be released after 40 days to free the spirit within. If the knots are tied poorly or left tied for too long, or an imam doesn’t bless the dead with the proper holy rites, the body may rise as a pocong, filled with murderous rage for the living.

A pocong can’t walk or even shuffle, thanks to the shroud restricting its movements, but it can leap remarkable distances and roll rapidly along the ground. It dwells in the place where it was improperly buried (or left unburied), or somewhere nearby; many pocongs choose holy places to desecrate with their presence, especially those left abandoned. When they rise each night, they leave their lairs to find victims upon which to slake their thirst for killing.

A pocong’s Evil Way Score and the number of disciplines it possesses are based on its age. Newly risen pocongs are weaker, but the longer they persist, the more enraged and powerful they become.